Football Season is here!

Every year when September rolls around, it only means one thing...Football Season! If you are an American then you love football and you also love the tailgating that comes along with it. Even though tailgating is the highlight of game day, it doesn’t mean that you should eat or drink whatever is in front of you. Many people experience weight gain during football season because of that very reason. This year instead of eating fried chicken wings, pizza, creamy dips and chips, chicken tenders, and drinking all the beer full of calories, try doing something healthy. Try a little variety of Eat This NOT That. Instead of getting fried chicken wings, try Boneless Buffalo Wings (eatingwell.com) that are baked and dredged in whole-wheat flour. You could also pan-fry these in a little extra virgin olive oil and receive the benefits from the oil as well. Same goes for the chicken tenders, try baking instead of frying. For pizzas, instead of going to the local pizza joint, try assembling them the night before and popping them in the oven the day of the game and use veggies and low fat meats as a healthier option. When it comes to dips, there is no better thing than fried Ruffle potato chips with French Onion dip, but both of these are full of fat and calories. Instead, for chips, try baked chips, when paired with dip you can’t even tell they aren’t fried. For the dips, try low-fat/fat-free sour cream or cream cheese when using creamy dips and for the cheese, try using the 2% cheese instead of the full fat cheese. Finally, when it comes to beer, try drinking low-carb beers like Michelob Ultra, Michelob Amber, Amstel Light, and Bud Light or Bud Light Lime. All of these beers contain 110 calories or less and have 4 carbs or fewer. So when preparing this years tailgate, consider making your options healthy by using these tips. If you have any questions on tailgating foods and how to make a dish healthier contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at http://www.tntgetfit.com/!

What you don't know about antioxidants!

Antioxidants are coming about to the public eye and people are talking. I bet most of you are wondering exactly what antioxidants are, where they are found, and what they do for your body and your mind. There are many fruits and vegetables that are full of antioxidants that people don’t know about. Some of the most common foods that people relate antioxidants to are blueberries (berries in general), pomegranates, and green tea. Aside those, people don’t know much about them. Antioxidants, on a chemistry level, are a substance that helps with the prevention of oxidation from occurring in the body and the destructive effects that oxidation can cause. On a health level, antioxidants help slow down oxidation and have an impact on our health in a good way that will benefit us in the long run.

Now, I bet you are wondering exactly where to find these antioxidants. First, most all the fruits and vegetables that you eat are full of antioxidants, but you just don’t know it. You’ll be amazed by all of the foods that contain antioxidants. Here is a list of just a few fruits and vegetables that you may not have thought of that contain antioxidants.
· berries
· broccoli
· tomatoes
· red grapes
· garlic
· spinach
· tea
· carrots
· soy
· whole grain
· pomegranates
· potatoes
· apples
· beans
· artichokes
· prunes
· plums
· cherries
· pecans

Now that you know of some fruits and vegetables try and incorporate these into your daily diet. You’ll know that you’re getting your daily dose of antioxidants. If you have any more questions about antioxidants please contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at http://www.tntgetfit.com/!

Do you know your risk for Diabetes?

Diabetes is one of the most prevalent diseases that is diagnosed in most Americans today. In 2007, 186,300 children under the age of 20 were diagnosed with diabetes and 23.5 million people over the age of 20 were diagnosed with diabetes. These numbers continue to rise in the year of 2010 and there is something we should all be able to do about it. One of the most common causes of diabetes is the lack of exercise, but many other factors matter too. Like what you eat, and how you live your everyday life. Some factors that we can’t control, like family history, are hard to deal with, but other factors such as what we put in our bodies we can control and that is a wonderful place to start. Below you will find a list of 20 foods that are wonderful for your body and will help you decrease your risk of diabetes in the future. You will also find a list of foods that aren’t good for your body and should be avoided. These foods have been proven to increase your risk of diabetes in the future.

Top 20 foods to lower your risk of diabetes and if diagnosed, how to control it
1. Asparagus
2. Blueberries
3. Red Grapefruit
4. Beans
5. Broccoli
6. Carrots
7. Fish
8. Flaxseed
9. Cranberries
10. Apples
11. Melons
12. Nuts
13. Oatmeal
14. Red Onions
15. Raspberries
16. Spinach
17. Soy
18. Tea
19. Tomatoes
20. Yogurt

Top 16 foods that will increase your risk of diabetes or if diagnosed, foods that will make your disease hard to control
1. Restaurant French Fries
2. Burgers
3. Fried Sandwiches
4. Fried Chicken
5. Store-bought cookies
6. Purchased Doughnuts and Baked goods
7. Cakes and Pies
8. Frozen Meals
9. Deli Meats
10. Regular Soft Drinks
11. Flavored Water
12. Purchased Smoothies
13. Purchased Fruit Drinks
14. Milkshakes
15. Frozen Pizza
16. Restaurant Pizza

If you have any more questions about how to reduce your risk of diabetes or how to control your diagnosed diabetes, please feel free to contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at http://www.tntgetfit.com/!

Statistic source: http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-statistics/

Is Your Health Food Overrated?

When you are walking through the grocery store do you ever wonder if you know all the facts about the particular food item you are buying? Whether it is healthy or not? It is so easy to mistakenly identify healthy foods because so many out there are overrated and not what they are cracked up to be. On the flip side there are those health foods that you might not think to highly of or don’t have the benefits you want, but in actuality they have all the benefits and are great for your health! TNT has developed a list of foods that we believe are Overrated and a list that we believe are Underrated!

Overrated!
Energy Bars
Protein Powder
Fruit Juice
Red Meat
Sports Drinks
Natural Sweeteners
Granola
Smoothies
Vegetable Juice
Pita Chips

Underrated!
Sunflower Seeds
Garbanzo Beans (Chick Peas)
Unsweetened Yogurts
Watermelon
Leafy Greens
Peppers
Oats
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Eggs

If you are interested in knowing more about these overrated and underrated foods and how you can use both to your benefit contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at http://www.tntgetfit.com/.

Portion Distortion, The final week of Girl Talk

We are now into the final week of “Girl Talk” Fitness camp. The final day of the camp was understanding portion distortion and peoples perception of a portion size as compared to what a true portion size looks like! Have you ever gone to a fast-food Japanese restaurant and eaten the whole box of food and then wondered, “wow, what kind of portion size was that?” Well, here is the breakdown, half of the box contained rice, and in the other half, 2/3 of the box contained protein, and the other 1/3 contained the carrots. The carrots are the healthiest things in the box, but yet are seen in the least amount. Here are some comparisons to use when you don’t have measuring cups, are eating out or at a social event!
- 1 cup = baseball or a female closed fist
- ½ cup = light bulb
- 1 tablespoon = poker chip or half a golf ball or your thumb top
- 1 oz = 1 dice
- 3 oz meat = deck of cards or palm of hand
- 1 oz lunch meat, 1 pancake = compact disc
- 1 medium size fruit = baseball

The TNT Health Educators had the girls pour a bowl of cereal that they would have consumed in the morning. We then compared what they were eating with that of a real serving size of cereal. This will often times shock most people! So next time you are eating cereal, measure it out because I bet you’ll be surprised by the actual serving size you are consuming. If you have any questions about portion distortion and for more comparisons for portion control contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at http://www.tntgetfit.com/!

How important is stretching?!?

If you’ve been following along these past couple of weeks, you know that today’s blog is the overview for the 4th day during the “Girl Talk” camp! This day was focused on the importance of stretching and exercising at home with simple, but effective exercises.

Just because you see people working out in the gym doesn’t always mean they know what they are doing? They might not know the importance of stretching or the correct way to do exercises. If you don’t stretch, then you can pull a muscle or a group of muscles, which can put you off your feet for one or more days. Stretching helps warm your muscles before you start lifting or engaging them in activities that would take more energy than everyday movements.

Once the importance of stretching was covered with the girls, we went over a few exercises you can do at home and emphasized which muscle groups they worked. Since, showing you these exercises is not really possible, here is a descriptive way to tell you what muscle groups they work. These are all simple exercises that help with toning up your body. Do each of these exercises 3 times each, with 12 reps each time.

Chair Dips – This works your triceps and shoulders.

Bicep Curls (with canned food or water bottles) – This will work your biceps and forearms.

Push-ups – This classic exercise works your chest, back, abs and triceps.

Lunges – These works your glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and hip flexors.

Wall-sits – This exercise works your glutes, abs, quadriceps, and hamstrings.

Crunches – These work your abdominals.

Now that you know the importance of stretching and some exercises you can do at home you can now try them out. To add some cardio to your toning workout you can do jumping jacks, jump rope, and jogging in place for a minute each repeating them 3 times. These are all simple exercises that are very effective and can do wonders for you if you can’t make it to the gym.

For more information on stretching and exercising, contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at http://www.tntgetfit.com/!

Mindless and Mindful Eating

Hello Bloggers! As promised, here is the overview of the information from day three of the “Girl Talk” camp. TNT taught the young ladies about mindful eating & mindless eating, along with some fun snack recipes to make.

For mindful eating, each person should be aware of two very important things: their hunger and their fullness. Mindful eating is being conscious of what you are consuming and putting into your body. It is important to eat when you are actually hungry and quit when you are full. Most people sit in front of a television and just eat from the bag or box and often times are not even paying attention to their body telling them, “Stop, I’m Full!!!” and in turn continue to eat, which obviously is considered to be Mindless Eating.

Next, the TNT Health Educators went over Mindful/Mindless eating with the girls, each girl had the opportunity to make healthy snacks from simple recipes. Two of the favorites were; trail mix and “Ants on a Log”.

Here are the recipes for you to make!
Trail Mix: Mix wheat chex mix, rice/corn chex mix, pretzels, raisins, cranberries, cheerios and animal crackers. You can also add almonds or peanuts to the mix if you desire.

Ants on a Log: Take a portion of celery and fill the center with peanut butter, cream cheese, or hummus and place raisins or cranberries on top (Like little ants) and Enjoy!

For more information on Mindful and Mindless eating and questions about these or any other recipes contact TNT at 1-704-549-9550 or visit us at www.tntgetfit.com