Looking for some workout motivation, this post is for you. I love working out. I want everyone to love it too. Because working out is not just for body builders or super hot people. Exercise is for everyone. We all need it and deserve it. Our hearts need it. Our muscles need it. Exercise prolongs our life span. Exercise keeps our bodies Alive and younger and properly functioning a lot longer than what we imagine. Too many times we give into the false belief that the minute we start to age, it’s over and it’s time to accept it. That ’s not true. Social media is proof of how many older people can still touch their toes to their head, do the splits, a bridge, and heck even lift have super chiseled bodies. You are only getting older if you let your body shrivel up and die. But working out is awful you might say! It hurts! Well, how can we make it fun? How to get in some workout consistency?  Here are my 5 tips I have used to stay consistent and get myself to go to the gym and workout consistently for decades now. .

1. Go with a friend

There is nothing better than going to the gym with a friend. 

For years I was lucky that my husband  and I were able to be together to go to the gym. During the hardest times of our lives we actually went 5 days a week. Getting in the car with someone else was what helped me push through when I din’t have workout motivation. 

I remember that the times when we went the most, we did it because I needed it as a way to get out of the house and be around other human beings. It didn’t matter if I didn’t really talk to everyone. I just needed to be in a different environment. This occurred mostly when I had my fourth child. I was so busy being a mother I barely had time for friends. Or sleep. My mental health was trash. 

Starting my day leaving the house and going to the gym helped me to socialize first before i would hit a super hard day ahead of me. Between driving, nursing, changing kids, and cooking. Starting the day this was did not feel like a burden. It was the best way to start my day. 

I always say I would have never done it if it wasn’t for my best friend also helping me to get the kids ready so that we could take them to the day care. We also were able to take turns chaining kids diapers when accidents happened during a work out.

The longer I went to the gym the more I also made friends at the gym. So eventually I also was able to socialize with other moms while working out or after. Talking to other adults and like minded moms who valued exercise as much as I do also helped me to want to show up and know that someone was going to be there. It created another element of accountability. 

The days I didn’t want to get up, I knew my friends were going to be there. We all sometimes struggle. But we all were showing up anyways. 

Eventually I also was lucky enough to have some of my own best friends outside of the gym either drive with me or show up and workout with me. The gym was now my favorite place to socialize with my best fiends while doing something that made us get a hot body. It was a win win all around. With my friends at the gym I love that now we can stay after class and stretch and just talk about our life worries. 

2. Consider if you like going solo or go to a group class

Going to the gym can be stressful when it’s boring and when I have zero plans as to what I plan on doing for a workout. I change my strategy based on where I am at in life.

I have lived in places where I did not like my local gym and I have had a beautiful home gym. During those times I have loved working out from home. I also would access my fitness apple workouts for 9.99$ a month with classes that ranged from 10 minutes to 45. 

Offering anything from yoga, to weight lifting, to dancing classes, to treadmill workouts. For me for a while this was heaven. I was also able to work more on my form. I didn’t have anyone to compare against when pushing my self to my own limits. 

Other times instead I have needed to get out of the house and I was ok with planning my own workouts because I was training for a race or I wanted to strengthen a certain part of my body. For example for a while I needed to strengthen my hips and I needed to do some exercises recommended by my physical therapist. During those times I loved doing my own workout at the gym. I would put on my favorite music and just go and do my own thing in a quiet corner. 

Lately for example I am at a point where I don’t have a lot of time to plan ahead what workout I need. I want a fun workout and I just need to show up and get a killer workout. So I like to attend classes that are planned by a really good coach. 

I also have noticed that I push myself more when I am around other people. There is nothing more motivating to me, than when I am in the middle of doing some squats for example, and I look around the room and I see everyone pushing through even though I am thinking inside my head: “ Aargh, I just wanna go home and rest today!” 

Seeing others not quit makes want to keep going. It also reminds me that if others can do more reps, perhaps so can I. I can go through stages as I am getting older where I don’t realize that I am making excuses. I start telling myself that perhaps now that I am older it’s no longer time to do certain exercises or to push myself. When I see someone who is 30 years older than me, busting out their best moves, and lifting heavier weights than I… I totally believe that we need to listen to our bodies. But I also know that sometimes we underestimate what we are capable of. I thrive from being inspired by others. 

3. Plan ahead

This in really important to achieve workout consistency. When do you decide you will go to the gym no matter what? The day before. You make a resolution ahead that you will go. When those gnarly thoughts comes that say: “ Maybe I don’t wanna go tomorrow? Or “ Uugh! I don’t wanna go to the gym!” I replace them by saying I will go to the gym. I go to the gym. I go to the gym no matter what. When I train my brain to do what I tell him to do, my brain also responds. 

When I also decide which days and what time I will go, I make it happen. I say no to meetings, I schedule everything in my life around the gym. I don’t let things get in the way. People don’t need to know why I am rescheduling. They just need to know that during my gym time, I am unavailable. My calendar is booked! 

4. Find what is fun for you

I have spent many years helping my kids hone in which sport was the best for them. Yet as adults I have noticed that sometimes we think that exercising means to  just go to the gym and repetitive and boringly either walk on a treadmill, spin on a bike, do painful reps, and you either have the will power and patience do suffer through it, or just stay home and get fat. 

Well, there are plenty other alternatives to make exercise something fun. 

Exercising can be fun!  The trick is to find what is fun to you! I have loved trying all sorts of different classes over the years. Some I still love to this day. Others I have done in stages. 

Exercising doesn’t have to only happen at the gym. Lately for example I even signed up for a gymnastics class. In fact the more we exercise while moving and having fun, the less we will even notice that we are purely moving just to stay fit and get big muscles. Gymnastics for example, work out a lot of my back muscles and helps improve balance and proprioception,  which is the body’s awareness of where we are. Especially when being upside down or going backwards.

 I can work this element of my body while doing yoga, or I can do it in a fun setting while learning how to do a back flip. That to me is more fun. Less scientific and boring. It’s a challenge and just plain fun to learn. I still love yoga for so many other benefits. But gymnastics for me is a workout that doesn’t feel like one. It’s my sport. Just like dancing and soccer are to someone else. 

5. Switch things up

I have also noticed how important it is to switch things up everyone in a while. 

Doing the same things over and over again is not only ineffective, but also boring. 

When we don’t switch up our muscles plateau and stop growing

As adults there are also so many muscles we own’t realize we are no longer using, the more we channel into our inner child and are open to trying new things, the more we will work in different elements, environment. We will remain challenged and keep on growing. Put  simply, life will continue to be fun!

I plan in the future to start taking martial arts for example. I find kicking and punching a great way to engage the core, the hip muscles, develop leg strength I have probably lost years ago and I don’t even want to know about it! 

My goal which gymnastics is to learn how to do a back flip again. Doing something I haven’t done in ages is fun. Makes me feel young and alive. Doing something new is also exciting. 

I hit a point a couple of months ago where I was super bored and tired of doing the same few classes and workouts at the gym. For me, it took changing up my workouts to start seeing exercise as fun again. 

Most recently I also realized some days I wanted to hit it hard at the gym and I needed cardio. Other days I wanted a gentle and fun workout. Those days I usually like to do a dance class. Dancing is another great way for me to workout and not notice what I am doing. It also helps me work on my body coordination. Everyone has something they know they need to work on. Finding what works for each individual is the key. And being open to switch things up is also the key! 

Last but not least remember to take breaks. It’s super important to allow the muscles to rest. Rest days are a very important part for our bodies to recover. Also for everything to regenerate and come back ready to go hard. It’s like going on a vacation for our bodies.

Last but not least: Working out can be fun!

WORKOUT MOTIVATION QUOTES:

5 ways to always go to the gym

The post 5 ways to always hit the gym and get that workout!  appeared first on Life At Casa.

Throughout our lives we spend so much time trying to remain in shape and keeping a healthy body.

 

 

We are targeted by ads, diets, nutrition advice, and lots of feelings of guilt. We are somewhat being told that if we had some extreme will power or somewhat more restraint we could all look super buff. No one even asks the models on ads how they got their bodies before showing up on set to represent a brand.

Many societies have developed advanced cuisines with huge amount of calories on very small portions. From lattes, to little cocktails, snacks, and desserts. We often eat handful size portions that are way over 1000 calories just in one meal for the day! 

As the world is developing more and more and food is less scarce for some, and more of a luxury they can indulge in all the time, we are now facing a completely different challenge! 

Very few people talk about the one tiny little tweak that should be step number one when it comes to gaining weight. The majority of us eat way more per day than we should. 

 

 

1. We are at war with food

Food is something delicious that we crave and eat each and every day. Yet we spend so much time shaming ourselves for eating it. Thinking about what we ate. Honestly food can be on our minds constantly throughout the day! “ I got food on my mind!” Sing it please someone! 

But the food we should love, many times in reality we are hating! We hate it because it makes us fat. We hate it because we have to eat things we don’t like in order to be healthy. 

We crave it and then hate it right after.

We need to restore the balance and relearn to love food and be grateful because it’s our fuel like gasoline to a car. I meant carbon for those of you who drive an electric car. 

It’s like hating a person. Fueling hatred doesn’t make you forget a person. Only think about it more. We then will be triggered by any tiny thing that reminds us of it. It’s like that with food too if we are at war with our thoughts about food.

2. We have messed our natural eating clock

Kids are born with a natural internal clock. An ability to eat when hungry and stop when feeling full. 

They say you inherit your abs in the kitchen. But you also inherit your family’s kitchen. Yes a lot of eating habits and patterns are formed in our childhood. Many times they come with misconceptions. Flat out sometimes our parents taught us wrong. 

We may not always have had healthy foods in our home. We may not always have had parents that even knew what we needed to eat in order to be healthy. Yet we ate food everyday. And now that we are adults those meals become memories of happy times together often times. As a result we crave them. Our taste buds have adjusted to the foods we have eaten the most and crave them now! There is a reason why in some countries adults crave crickets. It’s their staple food. You can truly train your body to fall in love with anything if exposed to it over and over again. 

As kids we often were taught to finish all of our food and eat when food was served on the table to be polite.  As a result we slowly started eating when we weren’t hungry or when we were full. 

It’s that AHA moment where you realize you can finally tell your mom to stop telling you to finish your dinner plate because kids are starving in other countries. In reality by finishing your plate you won’t feed the starving kids, You will ruin your body’s internal clock. It’s a harsh reality that needs to be taken with the right balance. Don’t start throwing away all of your food now basically! But it’s something worth keeping in mind. 

3. Food is a science we aren’t respecting 

There is more math behind eating food than we think. We spend so much time cursing at our bodies and blaming them for not looking and functioning the way we would like to. 

We often blame skinny people for having a metabolism worth coveting for. Yet society has put very little effort in educating everyone on how much science there is behind food. 

Sure it’s because it is such an individual need. Yer we allow everyone on earth without a license or basic public knowledge to preach to everyone how to eat, but we don’t want to spend the time educating people in ways that could really help them on an individual and unique way. 

In case you get mad at me for writing this article, I want you to know that I am a licensed EXERCISE TRAINER, and I am currently in college studying nutrition. 

What we eat is most often a factor of how our bodies function,  our height, age, level of activity. All of these factors need to be taken in consideration when establishing how much we need and what. Certain nutritional deficiencies will affect us all at one point or the other and are to be taken in consideration when deciding what we need to eat more of or less of. There is also a huge difference between what we eat. 1000 calories worth of cookies are going to wear our bodies down a lot faster than 1000 calories in salads.

The basic principle of food still stands. Food is measured in calories. If we eat more than what we consume, the calories get stored. They become FAT! 

What is all of this called?

When we eat our emotions away we are emotionally eating. 

WE ARE TURNING TO FOOD TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS.

 But we aren’t solving them by stuffing cookies or steak in our moths. We are only giving ourselves more problems. 

To keep that weight off we now have to work out more, which leads to putting more wear and tear on our bodies. Then we need to diet and sacrifice food for a while in order to create a calorie deficiency in our bodies to lose weight.We don’t like our bodies. Which then also leads us to not feel romantic.  It’s the rat race of food! 

Ultimately we want to find  joy. When we are uncomfortable we often go at any lengths in order to fill that void and find happiness. As kids a child may throw a tantrum to solve its problems. A struggling teen might turn to drugs. A tired mom may swipe a credit card and shop for clothes (I have never done that! Wink wink). And many many people turn to food to cope. 

After all we are trying to avoid pain. And often times we don’t want to sit in the discomfort, so we turn to a momentary pleasure. 

What are some OVEREATING SYMPTOMS:

1. You eat until your stomach hurts
2. After you finishing a meal you start feeling super full and the feeling lasts for hours
3. You finish your meal and feel lethargic
4. You eat too fast. By the time it hits you that you are full you have already eaten more than you should 
5. You don’t take the time to chew your food properly. We are supposed to chew  at least 15-20 times before swallowing. 

6.  You snack late at night after already eating a satisfying meal. 

7.You binge of hundreds of unnecessary calories because it tastes good. 

8. You look at the calories you are supposed to eat based on your body composition, but can/t resist food and find yourself eating way more than needed.

9. You eat based out of an emotion you are feeling

10. You eat even when not hungry purely because food it’s at social gatherings

11. You are gaining weight! 

Remember I am not a doctor. So these symptoms may have other underlying causes too. 

Why moms are affected by OVEREATING the most?

-We spend too much time at home with very little fun outlets. Food becomes our outlet. The pantry is too close within reach. The snacks are too tempting. 

-We spend so much time telling the kids to eat their food, sometime we just shove their left overs in our mouths just so we don’t have to throw it away or keep pushing our kids to finish their plate. 

-When we overeat we also start not to feel good about the way we look. When we don’t like how we look it’s really hard to feel sexy and romantic. We start to turn our partner away and close off to the idea of anyone seeing us naked. Yet we need that aspect of our lives just as much as we need food. It’s a gift from God. More of this on another blog post coming later.

 

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS FOR MOMS:

Here is something I have learned. Kids are actually better at recognizing their needs than myself. I often need good nourishing food more than my kids. So some days,  when I make a meal, I eat it first. Since I am usually the one who is the hungriest. I enjoy it slowly. Nourish myself so I am not grumpy at the dinner table. I also focus on paying attention to when I am full. I take the time to enjoy how warm and comforting the eating process is. Then stop when I am about 90% full. 

This next tip has helped me with picky eaters at home. 

I call the kids after I am fed. I can then spend 45 minute making sure they eat at least some if possible of the food on their plate one small bite at a time. Because that is how long it can take with my little ones. I can tell when my kids haven’t been eating healthy or eating enough. So I need to make the time to help them make time and effort to eat health foods. 

If I am in the right mental space, at least I am not grumpy. Or  shoving my mouth with food in between bites. Or choking while trying to talk to the kids to remind them to stay focused on their dinner. 

How to stop emotional eating: 

1. LOVE YOUR BODY! 

The more you dislike food, the more you will struggle to love your body. We need love our body. It’s the instrument that drives us on this earth. And food makes it go! 

2. STOP eating your emotions away! 

Pay attention to your patterns. Why do you find yourself going to your favorite food spot? Why are you going to the pantry? If it’s not for hunger become aware of it. Find an alternative way that you enjoy to cope with sad emotions.

Detach memories with food. Recognize it was about the people and not just the food. For example I grew up eating a big home made cake made by my mom for every birthday. For many years I still wanted that for my birthday. I also became lactose intolerant. Cake meant stomach cramps all day. I had to learn to treasure those memories and find new way to enjoy my birthday. Now I ask my husband for a luxury designer purse instead! (JK! Or am I?)

3. Make peace with food! 

Accept that you love food. Embrace it. Enjoy it when you have it! Savory slowly. Be picky as to what you allow your palate to taste. Learn to stop when you are about 90% full. Eat good food! Find healthy recipes that you can crave as well custom to you! I publish many of my favorite recipes here with tweaks. I reduce the sugar contents. Substitute oils for better ones. Use less additives and more veggies. 

If you’d like to read more about. I am going to share a book that is also recommend at colleges for the  nutrition program. 

Very helpful BOOK I have read for EMOTIONAL EATING: 

 

Another very simple book that explains many good aspects of eating well and breaks down nutrition and how to take care of our body in the simple and funnest of ways is this one below. It was written by Cameron Diaz. It is very entertaining and an easy read too! 

 

4. SEEK THE HELP OF A THERAPIST

If learning to make peace with food, and overcoming emotional eating is too much to do alone. A therapist is the best way. There is no shame in seeking help. It’s a great way to have also someone to report to. They will help you to be accountable .They will also make sure one won’t get off track and forget about their journey to positive eating.

 

The post Top reason people struggle to lose or maintain weight. appeared first on Life At Casa.

This post is focusing on ways to maintain a healthy weight. by eating more intuitively we can avoid over eating, hence gaining weight.

So let’s go straight to them. Here they are:

1. Wait to eat until the meal is ready

It can be very easy at times to start grabbing some chips, cookies, snacks while cooking. Not to mention as the food is getting ready a lot of times it’s so tempting to pop a bite of meat in your mouth already, or savor a fried banana. Whatever it is that you like to cook, I have learned that you could save up to 200-300 calories by not eating while getting ready to eat. This is something that is really easy to do because you know you will be eating soon. By eating your meal all in one setting you will be able to gage better the portion that you will be eating, not spoil your appetite for the real meal, and your body will be able to tell you when you are full without prolonging that meal for a very long time.

2. Eat your food slowly

I am pretty sure that some of the skinniest people I know eat extremely slowly. Ok, some almost too slow. But, there is something to be learned from everyone. This one is something that has many benefits to it. One, you will help your body absorb nutrients better by breaking down your food more. Two, you will be able to slow down during your meal which will help you know when you are full before you have actually eaten too much already. Our brains take a second to send the signal to our stomach that we are full. If we eat too fast, by the time we find out, we may have already overeaten.

In my favorite country, ITALY!, people take the time to sit down and savor the food and every bite. Eating is supposed to be a joyful experience and by slowing down we can get to enjoy a meal without having to eat as much. This can make eating smaller portions not a pain, but something that becomes normal because we realize sooner that our body can’t take as much food in.

3. Chew your food well

This one goes in hand with the step above. And it will help you do the step above. I have found that in order to chew your food well, you want to not only chew it more, but also take smaller bites.

4. Always sit down to eat

I have noticed that whenever I eat standing up, I have a harder time keeping track of what I have eaten, and I tend to just become what I call, a food mess. What I mean by that is that I eat all these random foods, and scarf them down, and I can’t even tell if I am full half the time. So always sit down to eat your meal.

5. Keep only one of your favorite snacks at home at a time

Ever heard of the saying “Out of sight, out of mind.” I have found that there are times when I want a treat. And while we like to go out to go get them, like let’s say we want a Crumbl Cookie , when at home we keep the least amount of treats. And if you do pick your favorite. Pick your absolute favorite, and only keep that one at home. And make it that, a treat and treat only. I tell my kids that a treat means is something you eat occasionally. Not all day long.

6. Be a food snob

We live in world where there is enough bad food. So be picky about what you put in your body. Unfortunately I will not tell you that you are going to cut out fish and veggies. But, when it comes to junk food and desserts, fat foods, and high calorie junk, I want you to become a food snob. Eat only the ones you absolutely love and the ones you like so so, you can politely decline and easily pass on because you don’t even love them to begin with anyways. And if you ever find that you have already put it on your plate at a party, look at times you may need to be polite and eat, other times you can turn your plate inside out in the trash can and toss it. Just remember that you are not going to do any better to the world by actually eating it. You will most likely only shorten your life. And you are more important than that junky snack on your plate. If you are the type of person that thinks you will do the world a monetary favor in that moment by not wasting that food, remember that by putting it in your body and storing it as fat, you are not really investing in anything or making the world a better place.

7. Don’t multitask

You may be sitting down, but at times you may be also doing other things. So if you are eating and driving it doesn’t count. Or eating and being on your phone, or eating and working. Remember to take the time to focus on what is in front of you. You will not only feel more satisfied with what you ate and avoid cravings later, you will also eat less like we mentioned earlier.

8. Avoid eating and snacking late at night

For some this may be 7 p.m. or 9 p.m. The point is that often times by the end of the day we have already consumed all the calories that our body needs, so by eating late at night we will be only getting calories that are going to be stored in our bodies rather than being used. We say at our home that our kitchen is closed after we have eaten dinner. There are many benefits to this. Better sleep because we don’t go to bed with a super full stomach. Ever had those nightmares caused by poor digestion? I also find that this is the perfect way for me to get in some intermittent fasting. You can read more about this here. I don’t go extreme on it. For me if I don’t eat after 8 and then eat breakfast between 7 and 8, then I know I have given my body a full 12 hours to rest and regulate all my blood levels and bring things down to normal.

9. Drink more water

You can easily fight away lots of cravings and be satisfied sooner by drinking more water. I keep a jag of water in my car all the time, and an empty cup by my bathroom sink. I still manage to get dehydrated at times. But often times when we are hungry, in reality our bodies are craving more water.

10. Eat before you are too hungry

Unless you are fasting for religious purposes, I have learned that often times if I wait too much before I eat, then I want to reach for sugary treats, or I want to just eat super fast, eat while standing, and break all the food rules I have mentioned above. And being that we all like to eat, this one should be pretty easy to do. So if you can, don’t wait until you are shaking before you eat something. I know it’s not always easy to do. But something to keep in mind if you can.

11. Stop eating when you are full

You body sends you signals for a reason, and those signals are for us to know how to manage our bodies. So when our digestive system tells us we are full, we want to trust that and listen to our bodies. There are some rare cases where our hormones may be out of balance and may not be giving us this type of signal at the right time, if you think that is your case, have your doctor check you out. For the rest of us, remember to stop eating when your body is full. It’s that little bit of almost pain coming in, that sensation that is saying too much in here, please stop. Trust your body in that, and listen to it. It’s what will prevent you from over eating and taking in more than what your body can handle.

12. Portion Control

This is what I call it with our kids. Whenever we eat a snack we never eat it straight out of the bag. We place our desired portion in a bowl or a napkin. It’s easy to lose of what we are eating by eating straight out of the bag.

Last and foremost: Love food! 

My biggest thing has been to remember to love food for what it is. Because food is a daily part of our lives. And we need to accept it and make peace with it, while also learn to place it where it needs to be. If you find yourself reaching for food for emotional reasons, read up about, or reach out for help from a trusted and certified doctor, expert, or therapist. Food can be a joyful experience and it’s also a journey. No one is perfect at it, we are all working at it. But it’s also something that it’s ok to love and to enjoy and I am glad it’s a daily part of our lives!

If you’d like even more info about this, I highly recommend reading the book Slim for Life. You can find it here under my books section.

The post 12 Easiest Tips to be a Fit Mom without any Sacrifice appeared first on Life At Casa.

The fat I am about to talk about is not the one we eat, but more so the one we have in our own bodies.

I chose this picture because I love chubby little kids. They are full of fat! Essential fat. Fat that will help them grow. A well nourished healthy baby will grow with strong bones, eyes to see, teeth, and a body that will perform its proper function.

Something that subliminally has been ingrained in all of us is the idea that fat is bad and we need to remove it from all of our meals.

I remember my daughter coming back from kindergarten and telling me that we couldn’t have pizza anymore because she had learned that it has oil on top and that the oil is bad.

Weather we study it or not, just by watching our surroundings we are often told that we need to buy fat free cheese and fat free yogurt, etc. etc.

Here is the thing though, a lot of foods come naturally rich in those substances because our body in reality needs fat to survive.

Why our body needs fat? 

Fat protects our organs. Without fat our skin would be wrinkly and we would have hollow eyes and cheeks. Fat is also vital in order for our bodies to absorb certain vitamins.

Our body needs fat to transport Vitamin A,C,D,E, and K to where they need to go to perform their proper functions. And all of these vitamins are the ones responsible for our eyes, and our skin, and our bones, and in allowing our body to repair itself.

I think the misconception comes from the fact that because we often overeat, or the way meals are prepared, at times we may eat foods that have b  With a little bit of training we can learn to prepare those meals in a more efficient way and enjoy a fully rich yogurt in its natural state without having to feel guilty or being left feeling that we have broken the calorie piggy bank for that day.

If I only eat a super thick pizza with triple layer of cheese and a stuffed crust, I have not only eaten excess fat, I am also eating too many carbs and I will be so full that there won’t be any room left in my belly to eat some proper veggies with that right after.

I think of food as a math equation. We eat foods that have protein, carbs, fats, vitamins and water. All those are turned into their respective functions. All three macros, can turn into calories which equal energy. If I eat too much throughout the day my body will store what I didn’t use as fat. We may not enjoy when we have unwanted fat. But we still need to eat foods with fat in order to survive even while we are trying to lose excess weight.

Another way that fat can be considered less appropriate is when we eat calorie dense foods. Those are also high in fats. Ever made homemade brownies? Think of the oil, the chocolate, the butter, and the eggs and flour you mix into that bowl. They are dense and rich. They are packed with calories=energy. Cheese is also another example of a calorie dense food.

Whenever I think of eating calorie dense meals I like to compare it to the following analogies. When eating food I  like to think of our stomach as a bag. There is a big difference between filling a bag with rocks vs. filling a bag with feathers. You may need the same volume to fill that bag, but the weight and density will vary immensely.

So our stomach needs a variety of foods not just one. In life you may need some feathers and some rocks in order to eat healthy and stay healthy. But you still need both.

Now here is what you can do once you learn all your vitamins and how they are absorbed. Try and  figure out which foods have what and combine them with another food component that will help you retain the proper nutrition that you need. For example, try and combine a food high in vitamin C with some healthy fat. For example Tomatoes and olive oil, or tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Ever heard of a caprese salad?

The beauty of it is that a lot of foods in nature come with all the necessary components already to aid your body in absorbing them. Fruit is rich in fiber which slows down your digestion and allows your body to not only not get a sugar high when absorbing its sugar,(which is natural in this case) but also to absorb its nutrients. Eggs are high in Vitamin A but also have fat which in turn helps your body to absorb the vitamin A.

The last thing I will say about fat, is that the reason why we often shun it away is because there can be fats that are not good for us. Certain oils sold on the market are highly refined and chemically made. One example are Trans Fats. They are made in a lab and they are not good for our bodies.

I’d say to do your research on which fats are good or bad. On her book The Body Book, Cameron Diaz explains a lot about nutrition and gives a list of all the different oils and their functions together to their smoke point when in comes to using them in frying or sautéing.

The next step would be to learn to combine higher density foods with lighter foods. And also learning to combine foods in our main meals that have fat, carbs, protein, vitamins and minerals in a way that we can get all of the nutrition that we need and not over eat throughout our lives.

I have learned to think of food and meals as a process. Its’ something we constantly work at. Sometimes in my personal life I do great with water, other times I do better with fiber. At times I eat too much sugar, other times I do great and focus on eating vitamin rich foods. If you need help I’d recommend hiring a good nutritionist or a personal chef. There are lots of programs nowadays that prepare balanced meals for you.

Did you also know that fat is an essential part in carrying stem cells. Did you also know that our fat cells don’t grow, but rather shrink or enlargen. So when we gain weight they enlargen, when we lose weight they shrink.

Learn to love fat. Recognize that you need it and that is essential for your survival and long term health. Accept it in your life and focus instead on balancing what you eat better, exercising and moving around and expanding your energy, especially if you like to eat! Luckily eating is good. It’s not something that will ever go away and it’s supposed to be an integral part of our life together with being a joy and a pleasure for us.

My motto, all in moderation and with wisdom and order!

Fat-Soluble Vitamins: A, D, E, and K – 9.315

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320310.php

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods-high-in-vitamin-a#section3

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