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We are the Home of Chicago's Best Certified Personal Fitness Trainers. Your Personal Trainer can give you many healthy suggestions about what you should eat. We all know that Personal Training isn't just leading people through workouts. Personal Training is educating people to live fitter, happier lives. |
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People always tell you what NOT to eat. In our opinion, any Personal Trainer who lectures you about what you can't have isn't helping you very much. Most of you know that eating ice cream and French fries every night is going to make you fat. You don't need to hire a Certified Fitness Professional to tell you that! What you need is a Personal Trainer who can help you to find healthy things that you actually enjoy, so you don't feel like you are giving anything up. If you think you can only eat raw turnip greens and steamed tofu, you won't stay on that diet for long. This page is here to tell you about all of the delicious things you CAN eat, and that are not only tasty, but very good for you too. |
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| Regular salad dressing has a lot of fat. So what do we do? One trick is to sprinkle water over your salad, then use only a little salad dressing, and mix it well. This spreads the dressing out very evenly over the whole salad. After all, flavor has everything to do with surface area. If your salad dressing is in a thick glob, it has only a small amount of surface contact with your tongue. If you mix it up like we describe above, the dressing coats a much larger area of your tongue, which means it touches more taste buds. That makes it taste better even with less total dressing. Yum! Another good trick is to keep the dressing on the side, and dip your fork tines in it before you take a bite. | We hate fat free salad dressings. They taste terrible! But we have found some reduced fat dressings that are excellent. Two of our favorites are Kraft's "Light done Right" series of dressings, and Wish Bone's "Just 2 Good" series. Here is what they look like, so you can find them easily the next time you go grocery shopping.
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We know, we know. You are not going to sit around eating salad all day, right? So here is a healthy snack you can carry with you wherever you go. Keep some in your desk or locker at work. Keep some in your car. That way, when you get hungry and need something quick, you won't have to stop for a Big Fat Mac. These Met-Rx chips are soy based, and have a whopping 36 grams of protein. The whole bag is 260 calories, which is reasonable for a quick, high protein meal. Drink a 20 oz bottle of water with this, and it will fill you up. ******************************************** Trust us. We know you won't believe it, but some artificial hotdogs taste good. We like Smart Dogs® by Lightlife. The hotdogs are OK, but the Brats are delicious! We recommend that you at least give them a try. If you don't like them, send in the package and we will give you your money back!
******************************************** Tired of normal salads? We like to mix things up by substituting La Choy's canned Chinese vegetables. There are two kinds, "Fancy Mixed Chinese Vegetables" and "Chop Suey Vegetables." Pour off the juice, put the vegetables on a plate, and top it with some tuna or salmon, and you have a delicious healthy meal in less than two minutes!
**************************************** We don't like non fat cottage cheese, but this 2% lowfat cottage Cheese from Breakstone's is very good. Stir in some herbs and it's even better.
****************************** Like eggs and omelets but don't want the fat and cholesterol? We love these Egg Beaters. They even come in flavors with the vegetables already in them - perfect for omelets or scrambled eggs. Our favorite varieties are Garden Vegetable, Southwestern, and Cheese and Chive. Try them. They're good!
***************************** These sugar snap peas are a delicious snack, and a great way to get in another healthy serving of vegetables. We like the stringless ones the best.
****************************** What about pasta? While we don't agree with Dr. Atkins about everything (see our Pyramids page), we'd like to thank him for coming up with his delicious high protein, low fat and carbohydrate pasta! Eat as much as you want!
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The biggest factor in eating right is to plan ahead. If you wait until you are hungry, and then look around for something to eat, you are going to find a lot of junk. OK, OK, so say you get stuck on the road, you haven't eaten, you're hungry, and you need something now! It is possible to eat healthy on the go. Here are some fast food recommendations: ---Note: some of these sandwiches have too much bread. Click here to see how to eat a sandwich like Dr. Atkins. Arby's - We especially like the Market Fresh sandwiches, and the turkey sub is also excellent. Any of the roast beef sandwiches without bacon or that molten Cheese Whiz are OK too. Burger King: The new Chicken Baguette sandwiches are very good. The salads are good, and so is the grilled chicken sandwich. Duncan Donuts: They have good soups. Get the clear broth type instead of the creamy soups. Don't even look at the donuts! Einstein Bros: They have some of the best salads around, ready with no waiting. Grab one to go. Kentucky Fried Chicken: Eat as much Chicken as you want. Just pull the skin off first. Try the baked beans and cole slaw too. McDonalds: Their salads are OK, but try the Grilled Chicken Sandwich or the Crispy Chicken Sandwich. Panera Bread: their salads are fancy, gourmet type. We like them, and they are healthy. But stay away from the Paninis! Subway: This is one of your best choices, and there are Subways on every other corner here is Chicago. They have their special menu of seven subs with under six grams of fat. A new addition to the menu is the wraps. Any six inch sandwich can be made into a lower carb wrap. We've tried them, and they are excellent! You can also have them custom make you a salad the way you like it. Wendy's: Awesome salads, with chicken too, which makes it a real meal. The grilled chicken sandwich is good, and the spicy chicken isn't TOO bad for you in a pinch (definitely better than a cheeseburger!). Be careful - that spicy chicken is hot! As far as other restaurants go, these are some things you are likely to find at most places:
****************************** Want a good burger without all of the saturated fat? We like these Boca Burgers. They come in many flavors. We put them in the toaster and they come out great. Try them with a little mustard.
******************************** We recommend that you don't eat too many real (or flake) potatoes. That's because your body has enzymes that break potato starch down into sugar very quickly. As far as your body is concerned, there isn't much difference between eating potatoes and eating spoonfuls of sugar! What's a potato lover to do? Try Ketatoes! They are quick, easy, and healthy. We like the sour cream and cheddar, and the garlic parmesan.
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Paul Newman's Light Balsamic Vinaigrette is another great one. This stuff is powerful! You only need to use a little bit.
******************************* Alright already. What about sweet stuff? Well, we hate Aspartame and Saccharine (Equal and Sweet and Low) even more than we hate fat free dressing. But there is a delicious alternative called Sucralose. It is made from real sugar, and tastes the same. It has no nasty aftertaste like the others. Try it and see. It is marketed under the trade name of Splenda®, and looks like this:
Another good thing about Splenda® is that you can bake with it just like normal sugar! ****************************** Tired of regular, boring salads? Here's a great alternative:
It's fresh Oriental Stir Fry vegetables. It has boy choy, napa, celery, etc. It's has more flavor than plain old lettuce. We like it a lot. Add a cut of lean meat, and you've got a complete meal. *************************************** What kind of lean meat are we talking about? There are many. We like the pre-sliced lunch meats (be sure to get the low fat kind). These do have a lot of salt, so don't eat too much of it, especially if you have high blood pressure.
Another alternative that doesn't have all the extra salt is vacuum packed fish. It's best to thaw them and soak them in a good marinade, then good them in the George Foreman grill.
************************ Like cereal in the morning? We do too. We recommend using either skim or low fat milk. Some cereals are still very sugary and starchy. Here's what we like to do: take half as much of your favorite cereal as you usually use, then mix it with an equal portion of All Bran or Fiber One. You still get the good taste of your favorite cereal, but you are eating more fiber, less sugar, more protein, and less starch.
Look at all of these eating recommendations. These diet suggestions should help you to eat things that are good for you and still enjoy it. If you need more help than this, be sure to visit out Nutrition Programs page. |
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Got a good recommendation for a healthy food? Call us at (773) 610-5507 and tell us. We'll put it here so everyone else will know. You can also email us at Personaltrainer@fitchicago.com Our Personal Trainers will always answer any fitness question for free.
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