Nutrition

This is the overview page on nutrition. However, the nutrition category is not confined solely to what we put into our bodies. Sometimes the category will cover the body itself, including various disorders and diseases. Food is medicine, but it is also fuel and flavor. And for most people, it is the hardest area of fitness to get right. These articles will simplify it for you, while also giving you a better understanding of the amazing body God has gifted you.

Nutrition

There are a few foundational concepts that need to be established before you can build a framework for your personal situation.

First off, you will never eat perfectly. The earth is broken, therefore food is broken. So understand that even if your resources were unlimited, you could not eat perfectly.

Secondly, you have a life and it exists outside the kitchen and the foods you eat. You are looking to make realistic changes and if that includes foods that have a few ingredients you cannot pronounce, that is okay.

Third, the science is always changing. You can only make informed decisions on what the current science suggests.

Lastly, there is so much bad information out there, as well as nutrition fearmongering, it can be disheartening to know where to begin. These articles will help make sense of it all.

Game Plan

As you balance the body stewardship opportunities the Lord has entrusted you with, ask for wisdom with your nutrition. You pray about other areas of your life, including safety. Nutrition is preventative medicine… a form of safety in its own right. Why would you not pray about it?

And since you cannot eat perfectly, you will learn to have grace with yourself. You will also learn not abuse the grace to make habitually unhealthy decisions. It is a balancing act. In time and with God’s help, you can put into place a lifestyle that works for your body.

Result

You will learn to approach your nutrition with confidence, as you arm yourself with knowledge, grace, self-control, and hope. Never forget your mission: to honor God with how you steward your body. If you are obsessed with your nutrition or if you ignore it, you lose sight of your mission.

Keep the Father at the center, trusting He will give you the wisdom you need and the strength to act on that wisdom. When that happens, freedom follows.

Great Books on Nutrition

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
Natural by Alan Levinovitz
How Not To Die by Michael Greger & Gene Stone
Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink
The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker

Here are a few of the books that have made it my library. This list is constantly growing.

All Nutrition Articles

Here is a growing list of articles I’ve written on nutrition. Hope they help!

Exercise is a Terrible Way to Lose Weight

Have I got your attention? I know it sounds contrary to what you’ve been told your whole life. After all, if it’s a bad way to lose weight, what’s with all the gyms, fitness studios, and video-based workout programs? Running clubs? Jazzercise? Pilates? Treadmills and...

How to Crush Cancer

Do this one thing to crush your chance of developing cancer by 20% to 30%! Did I get your attention? You can make a difference simply by increasing your fruit and vegetable intake. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated a connection between the two. Lifestyle factors...

In Light of Vitamin D

Vitamin D. You know you need it. But do you know why? Or how much? Or what it even is? If not, you’ve come to the right place. What Is Vitamin D? Vitamin D is a nutrient that we not only ingest from food, but our bodies synthesize it from sunlight. Once active in the...

The Nutrition Tithe

For you church-goers out there, you know that basket they pass around during service? Some call it offering. Others call it giving or donations. Still others refer to it as a tithe. It's when you give some money to the church to help the church fulfill it's mission....

14 Tips for Eating Healthy Mexican

If I was only allowed one ethnicity of food for the rest of my life, no question it would be Mexican. It’s bold, spicy, flavorful, and just downright delicious. I could eat it daily. Sometimes, in fact, I want Mexican so badly that it doesn't even feel like I'm...

Ignoring Your Fitness Is Selfish

Ignoring your fitness is selfish. There… I said it. I know it’s not easy to hear. I know I just lost some friends on social media. I know it doesn’t seem compassionate. I also know it’s the truth. Before I tell you why ignoring your fitness is selfish, let me throw...

Fats Are Your Friend

Healthy fats help us in so many ways. Yet often times, when people decide it’s time to get skinny, they want to to give up fats, even the good kind. In an effort to be healthy and lose some weight, they go on a “diet”. I hate the word “diet.” It has a negative...

The Truth About Gluten

The truth about gluten can be hard to discern. Gluten certainly has a bad rap these days as one of the latest health trends is to “go gluten-free.” One 2013 survey shows that a third of Americans are actively trying to eliminate gluten from their diets. It seems that...

12 Health Benefits of Cinnamon (and a danger!)

The health benefits of cinnamon weren’t on my radar when I first fell in love with it. It’s now one of my favorite, if not my all-time favorite, spices. That could be because cinnamon is a key ingredient in so many sweet treats that I love. Cinnamon rolls....

Being a Fitness Role Model for Kids

Being a fitness roll model for kids seems like it would be hard. Ever look at your kids' face when you give them quinoa kale salad? Ever considered trying to change your family’s food preferences? Or maybe you think what you feed your kids doesn’t matter that much....

Are Nitrates Safe?

"Are nitrates safe?" Questions like this pop up all the time and for good reason. It seems like everyday there is a new food or substance in the news that has been linked to cancer. It can be so overwhelming that I am often tempted to ignore it in hopes that it will...

Understanding Insulin Resistance

Heads up… understanding insulin resistance is not hard but it does make for a very technical post. Not my favorite type of topic to cover. But with the increase in obesity and consequentially type 2 diabetes, we need to have a little chat about it. Understanding...

Superfood Spotlight: Quinoa

First things first, the term “superfood” is not a scientific term. It is not regulated by the FDA or any other agency. It’s a buzz word created by the food industry to market certain food products. While I am not a fan of hyped up marketing ploys, I do certainly...

Caffeine FAQ

I have to admit, writing this caffeine FAQ makes me a little nervous as it hits very close to home for me. I start everyday with two cups of coffee. I love my coffee. Sometimes the only reason I get out of bed in the morning is because I know that at least I’ll get to...

Setting Fitness Goals – Part II

You will recall from “Setting Fitness Goals Part I”, that I was in quite the dilemma with my exercise lifestyle. Things felt like they were going well, and then they suddenly seemed to be going poorly. Truth be told, I had no tangible way to prove either outcome. It...

Setting Fitness Goals – Part 1

Without ever setting fitness goals, I had been working out for over a year and thought it was going well. I felt like I was getting stronger. I didn’t seem quite as winded at the end of Insanity’s Full Cardio workouts. Playing sports with friends was going a bit...

Employee Wellness: What Can Be Done?

Employee wellness is becoming a topic of focus as headlines and our insurance premiums are making it painfully obvious: healthcare costs are increasing, in part to our increasing waistlines. And while employee wellness is a difficult and delicate issue to handle, it...

Food is Medicine: Health Benefits of Ginger

Food meets several needs in our lives. It’s used to provide fuel for energy to help us move and carry out daily tasks. It’s used to provide pleasure and help us celebrate special occasions. It keeps us alive and gives us nutrients to remain healthy on the inside. But...

Metabolic Syndrome. Hype with Merit?

It seems to me that metabolic syndrome is the newest, “hottest”, diagnosis. But does metabolic syndrome deserve the attention it’s getting? I went on a mission to see if metabolic syndrome is just hype or if it’s a real public wellness issue. What is Metabolic...

Superfood Spotlight: Spinach

In order to spotlight a superfood, we have to know what a superfood is in the first place. And honestly, it's hard to say really because there are no set qualifications that will make a certain food item a “superfood” in the first place. In general, superfoods are low...

Prevent Diabetes in 5 Steps

The idea that one can prevent diabetes seems foreign to some people. I know this firsthand as I worked in nursing homes and rehabilitation centers for seven years as a clinical dietitian in the long-term care setting. As the staff dietitian, I spent much of my time...

Healthy weight… what should it be for me?

I don’t normally tell people when I first meet them that I am a registered dietitian. It makes me feel uncomfortable, especially if they catch me indulging in my beloved McDonald’s triple thick chocolate milkshake. However, if it does come up in conversation, the one...

Glycemic Index: What is it and does it matter?

In order to understand the glycemic index, you first must understand this very important fact: not all carbohydrates are created equally. Some carbs contain fiber and are digested very slowly, while others are straight up sugar and are digested very quickly. And not...

Dietary Fiber: 6 Easy Ways to Get More

Dietary fiber is one of those subjects that most everyone knows is important, but not everybody knows why or even what it is. And who wants to talk about boring old fiber when there are brand new fad diets to try? But from a dietitian’s perspective, and more...

Fitness at 40…

All my life I've been told to wait until ___________, then I'd understand. Wait until you can drive, wait until you are in college, wait until you're legal, wait until you're married, wait until you have kids, wait until you're past your prime, wait until you're 30,...

Forks over dumbbells

I've seen it over and over and over again...people spending countless hours on a treadmill or going to the latest, greatest aerobics class or halfheartedly knocking out reps on a universal machine trying to outwork a bad diet. It's just not going to happen... at least...

Fight PMS Naturally

Fight PMS naturally? When it's that lovely time of the month again and you feel like a total mess, that's not the first thing on your mind. You are physically and emotionally miserable and if you are like me, your first line of defense is several ibuprofen and...

Vacation fitness tips

"Vacation fitness" for some people sounds like an oxymoron. But I go on vacation to take a break from the real world, not to take a total vacation from my fitness. So over the years, I've fine-tuned my vacation fitness approach so as to perfectly balance my goals of...

Sugar might prevent your family from getting fit

Sugar sure tastes great and can provide some quick energy. But that's where the benefits end. When you feed your body sugar, you are giving it energy now and telling it to hold on to whatever energy it may have been planning on using... namely your fat. So cutting...

Carb Cycling: What is it and does it work?

In its most basic form, carb cycling (or carbohydrate cycling) is an approach to eating in which you greatly restrict your carbohydrate intake for a set period of days, followed by a brief period of medium to high carbohydrate intake. Then you repeat this cycling...

Healthy eating can be an illusion

Quick guess of where the photos were taken ... Subway? Wrong. Whole Foods? Wrong again. Last chance. Google Cafe? (Insert loud buzzer noise here) No my friend, that's the picture on the wall of the Thornton's Gas Station near...

Problems with dairy? Here’s one way to find out.

Do you have problems with dairy? Maybe you didn't think so until all the attention dairy started getting with the Vegan and Paleo diet movements. Or maybe you knew you had problems with dairy from the way it made you feel. Or better yet, the way it made you feel when...

Organize your kitchen pantry

As the first step to good kitchen organization, I want to encourage you to organize your kitchen pantry. It can be the difference between preparing healthy meals and unhealthy ones, between a happy cooking experience and a frustrating one, and between a high-speed...

Obstacle race course training

If you want to train for an obstacle race course (which are all the rage these days), but are unsure how to begin, you've come to the right place. Mud runs and obstacle race courses are popping up everywhere as people look for a fun new way of challenging themselves...

Should you workout when you’re sick?

Should you workout when you are sick? Today I was faced with this very question. You see, I got hit with the crud on Monday and decided to rest on Tuesday rather than workout. Today is Wednesday and I'm feeling better, but nowhere near back to full-health. I'm...

Are our children’s waistlines ballooning?

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of taking our family to a Great Wolf Lodge. If you've never been, I highly recommend them. They have arcades, scavenger hunts, kid's spas, toddler camps, and most importantly, fantastic indoor water parks. And they focus on being...

What is sugar alcohol?

If you’re on this site, you likely care (or are starting to care) about your health. And if you care about your health, you probably read a fair number of food labels. But do you fully understand them or do you go straight to the calorie line? If so, you’re only...

Is timing really everything when getting fit?

They say timing is everything. But can timing make a difference with your fitness and nutrition goals? The article How to Lose Weight All Day Long would sure have you believe so. The piece starts off by saying, "It's not just what you eat or how much you exercise that...

How much should you eat?

Yes, you read that correctly. Do not stop eating when you're full. Why? Because you should stop before then, that's why. In Tip #5 on Cheat on Your Diet, I wrote the following: When you’re eating, it takes the brain 20 minutes to send a signal to your stomach that...

Cheat on your diet with these 5 tips.

Yep, you read correctly, "How to cheat on your diet." If you're going to break some rules, there are some good better ways to go about it, and I'm going to tell you about them. First though, I want to clarify something: I don't really like the word "cheat" if the...

Getting fit? The media isn’t helping

Is it just me or does it seem like every year, we hear of some kind of food study that "proves" the opposite of what we thought to be true. Here are some examples of what I'm talking about: Fat is bad for you. Did I say fat? I mean carbohydrates are bad. Actually,...

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