by Ashley | Nov 25, 2015 | Nutrition
So you’re thinking to yourself… How the heck can stuffing my face on a holiday help me lose weight!? Lets take a look at whats going on with your body’s hormones when your dieting, and what happens when you overeat. Binge eating or more specifically refeeding, as most bodybuilders and fitness fanatics refer to it is a technique that is used to boost leptin levels in the body. When we’re constantly eating less than we need to maintain our weight (dieting), our body responds by producing ghrelin which makes us hungrier. Leptin is produced in our fat and travels to the brain to tell it that we’re not hungry. The more fat you have, the more leptin you produce generally. But you may be thinking, “how come I have a lot of fat and I’m still hungry, shouldn’t all my leptin make me not hungry?” To an extent, your thinking is right, but you can become “leptin resistant”. “In leptin resistance, your leptin is high, which means you’re fat, but your brain can’t see it. In other words, your brain is starved, while your body is obese. And that’s what obesity is: it’s brain starvation.” – WebMD So if you’re looking to lose weight, the more leptin you produce, the better. A typical refeed meal consists of eating copious amount of carbs! These carbs will boost leptin levels which will decrease your hunger, and help boost dopamine and testosterone. Dopamine is one of the hornomes responsible for feeling happy. Notice when your dieting or someone you know is dieting, you or they tend to be “hangry”. Hungry and anrgy!...
by Ashley | May 1, 2015 | Nutrition
Why Nutrition Is your SECRET weapon! Food along with water and sleep are essential to life. Food is a critical component for fueling activities, recovery, and all of the chemical processes that occur in our body. Simply put, if you didn’t eat and drink water, you would die! Now that doesn’t mean all you need to do is eat and drink water and you’ll live a long and healthy life. Proper nutrition can reduce the risk of chronic diseases and is just as important for someone who isn’t “overweight” as it is for someone who is “overweight”. You can find millions of articles, opinions, and studies on nutrition, but I’m about to give you the basics you need to understand nutrition. Nutrition and Your Health Poor nutrition leads to increased chronic disease risk factors for adults and children. Often children learn their eating habits from their parents and carry them into adulthood. Have you ever heard someone say, “I’ve always been this size, it runs in the family.” That’s because that person learned to eat from their parents/family. Mom and dad fed them certain foods in copious quantities or didn’t restrict their eating. Some parents truly don’t have a clue about nutrition so they instill these bad habits without thinking about it. Developing proper eating habits is a life long process that starts with the basics done consistently. It’s never too late to start and it doesn’t mean you have to eat chicken and broccoli for every meal. Nutrition is highly individualized, but one of the best ways to start is to start keeping a journal of everything you...
