AlchemyFit.com

There is one thing that we all learned in high school biology that can be applied to fitness. I know there is more than one thing if you want to be technical, but I am referring to the scientific method. To help jog your memory, it was a 5-6 step process to solve a problem that looked something like this: 1. Ask a question 2. Do background research 3. Construct a hypothesis 4. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment 5. Analyze results and draw a conclusion

You really don’t have to fire your nutritionist but you may feel like it if they haven’t told you what I’m going to tell you. People spend billions of dollars each year on advice on what to eat. They try all these new “miracle” diets that promise to lower your waistline, give you energy, etc. If they only knew that it boils down to a few simple foods. Meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, and nuts. That’s it. Throw in some eggs and call it a day. It’s so easy a caveman could do it…wait they did.

Eating fruits and vegetables is an excellent way to stay lean and healthy. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to drop a few pounds or maintain your current weight, you should definitely eat your fruits and vegetables. Try to get between 6-10 servings daily from different sources. Studies have shown that different colors have different health benefits. The best way to reap the benefits is to try to eat at least one from each of the major colors daily. Eat them raw or steamed for optimum nutritional retention.

I covered the thermic effect of food very briefly in an earlier post about raising your metabolism. This post will be a little more in depth about one of the factors that can help raise your metabolism. The thermic effect of food is the amount of calories it takes to process (digest, transport, and store) the nutrients you intake. It is typically responsible for 10% of the calories your expend on a daily basis. So even though it can contribute to weight loss over time, your main focus should be on exercise and a clean diet.

Interval training has become one of the latest training methods to gain popularity in the fitness world. If your not familiar with interval training, it is a form of cardiovascular exercise that alternates periods of high intensity with periods of lower intensity. The most common method of interval training is sprinting. After a five minute warm-up you would sprint for a minute then jog lightly for a minute and repeat that cycle 5-8 times (don’t forget a five minute cool down). The sprint would be considered the high intensity and the light jog would be the low intensity.