- Eat meals and snacks at regular times every day (Possible
Strategies)
- Less tendency to over eat next meal
- Particularly if meal is higher fat
- Less probability to eat easily accessible calorie dense snacks
- Regular eating may keep metabolism high
- Particularly digestion of higher fiber foods
- Thermoneogenesis: calories converted to body heat
- Maintains energy level throughout day
- Potentially higher caloric expenditure during activity
- Eat higher carbohydrates meal (with protein) very soon after
exercise (Guidelines)
- Improves post workout recovery (Niles 2001)
- Faster rate of muscle glycogen
re-synthesis
- 50% more glycogen can be stored (Friedman 1991)
- Improved performance in subsequent exercise
- Less muscle damage
- Increased protein synthesis
- Nearly 3 fold increase (Levenhagen 2001)
- Decreases post exercise cortisol levels
- Increase lean muscle mass (Esmarck 2001, Holm 2004)
- Decreases risk of injury (Flakoll 2004)
- Eat fruits or vegetables
- Source of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytonutrients
- May spare calcium and glutamine
- Eat high fiber foods (Possible
Strategies)
- Less tendency to eat calorie dense foods
- By filling up on vegetables, fruits, beans, and whole grains
- Fiber can decrease the absorption of dietary
fat
- Fiber acts a barrier in the intestines
- May help stabilize blood sugar levels
- Helps prevent constipation by adding mass to stool
- Also see fiber's other
health benefits
- Decrease saturated and hydrogenated fat (Possible
Strategies)
- Too much saturated fat or hydrogenated fat may increase risk
of heart disease and certain cancers
- Lower fat food are less calorie dense
- Dietary fat is more likely to convert to body fat than carbohydrates or protein
- Less tendency to over eat
- Limit sugar consumption
- Eat a variety of foods from each food group every day
- Better insures ingestion of all essential nutrients
- Decreases risk of developing food intolerances
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