Wiser minds have noted that you never stop learning. Since I have gained a few pounds in 2008, I thought as part of my renewal to jump back into a healthy eating class.
I have noted that the supermarket near my office has a staff dietitian. When I found out she was holding a healthy eating class, I thought this was my chance to get a refresher. It was a brutally cold night in a bad winter, so sitting inside a warm store had some appeal.
Michelle's two major thoughts for the evening were timing of meals and combination of foods. She was teaching the idea of keeping up blood sugar levels to avoid crashes. Her focus was on eating a lean protein with a carbohydrate.
Too often, she noted, people eat too few calories in an effort to lose weight when you actually need a minimum of calories.
This seemed pretty simple. She kept mentioning the lean protein with the carb theme, and I was briefly confused until I realized that the skim milk I drank counted as a lean protein.
The timing of meals, besides being aimed at blood sugar levels, is a method geared toward women for losing weight, but not so much for men. Women are taught that several smaller meals is the way to go, but that advice hasn't seemed geared toward men. I confess I'm not sure about whether that strategy works for men, but it doesn't naturally come to men and isn't really marketed to them.
Michelle suggests eating something within 4 hours, a nice idea but not always practical. Still, it is a reminder that going too long is bad, regardless of gender. She also suggests eating breakfast within a hour of waking, and allowing 2 hours between the last meal and sleep (exceptions are made for lean protein). These are very smart strategies if you aren't already doing them.
I probably have let the late-night pattern slip at times, but I do eat breakfast soon after I get up. So this was a nice reminder.
One key point to remember is that there are usually product samples. Michelle was smart enough to point out that samples were products she has tried, but not to associate them at being the only way to go. Any instruction masked as a commercial is not helpful to the person trying to lose weight.
I did try one of the products she suggested, a thinner bun for sandwiches. I checked out the calorie notes, and there isn't much of a calorie savings. What I found in trying them is that I tasted the sandwich fillings much clearer without the interference of a large bun. I used them with organic meat from the farmers market (first time for a January market here at the home base), and it worked really well.
Michelle talked about omega-3s and lean protein. I am of the philosophy that you don't need huge amounts of protein (men included), but quality sources of lean protein are a good direction that sometimes I overlook. She also pushed fiber, which definitely makes a difference.
It could be argued that if you know a lot of this material that going to a session might be a waste of time. The gentleman who came in the middle of the session was a reminder of why this is important. He was a larger gentleman and he had a lot of questions.
This guy, while bigger than I ever was, reminded me a little bit when I was first on the mission to figure this out. Since I was renewing my journey, it was nice to see a reminder of where I have come. I'm struggling at the moment, but not nearly at the level that I was almost 5 years ago.
Eating well is a lifelong struggle, and sometimes when suffering a bad spell, it's good to get a refresher to remind us of where we've been and where we need to go.
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