According to my Kindle, we are 23% through this book so keep it up: almost a quarter of the way through the challenge! Woo-hoo! I hope you all are keeping up with the previous week's challenges. I can't say I'm still doing EVERYTHING, but I'm still doing quite a few of the things; enough that I feel like I'm actually making a positive change in my life.
How did everyone do with last week's challenge of stretching more? I added some more yoga stretches to my work-outs and also stretched first thing in the morning. I didn't really find it hard to add these exercises into my day, as it felt natural to stretch after getting out of bed (why didn't I think of it before?!) and adding a few more yoga poses to my routine actually felt like a more complete work-out when it was all said and done.
Anyways, onto week eleven. This week's challenge is "Read the Box." Learn to read the Ingredient List and the Nutrition Facts panel on packaged products so you can make healthier choices. I've always wanted to learn how to do this, so I'm actually excited about it (I know, I know--NERD!) I feel I know the basics of nutrition labels, but I'm interested to know more.
Here's some basic information to get you started. The ingredient list has all the ingredients of a product listed in order of their weight, with the heaviest ingredient first (what the food is mostly made of), going on until the lighted ingredient. Beware of foods containing high levels of things such as refined flour, processed (i.e. unnatural) ingredients, oils, fats, and sugars. A good rule of thumb is that if you can't pronounce it, you probably shouldn't be eating it. The book also gives you a list of all the aliases for sugars and fats, but the list would be way too long to type out here. But, it's yet another good reason to be following along in the book (or at least doing a google search for "sugar and fat aliases).
The nutrition panel gives a detailed break-down of nutrients in a particular food. Important things to note on the nutrition panel:
1. Serving size. Most people seem to ignore this. For example, you can look at a package of Pop-Tarts, see that it's listed as 200 calories, and chow down, not feeling too guilty. However, if you look at the serving size, you'll see a serving size is ONE pastry. That means, if you are eating a whole pack of Pop-Tarts (which, let's be honest, we all do), you're actually eating 400 calories, which is a good reason to feel guilty.
2. Calories from fat. Simply looking at the total calories in a product isn't enough. In general, 20-30% of your caloric intake should come from fat. That means you should consume a maximum of 30 fat calories per every 100 calories of food.
4. Fat break-down. "Total fat" explains how much fat total is in a certain food. It is further broken down into "saturated," "trans," and "polyunsaturated and monounsaturated" fat. Avoid saturated and trans fat at all costs. If the nutrition label doesn't specific the amount of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, then add up the numbers for saturated and trans fat; if the numbers come close to equaling the total number of at, you can be certain there is very little healthy fat in the product.
5. Cholesterol and sodium. Always opt for products that have low levels of cholesterol and sodium.
6. Carb break-down. Minimize carbs that come from sugars (i.e. the number next to the label "sugars" should be low) and eat more complex carbs and those that are high in fiber.
7. Percent daily values. These percentages are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, which is not recommended for all people. Therefore, these should only be used a guideline and not an end-all-be-all.
Wheew. That was a lot of information for the week. . . and I only skimmed the top of the information presented in the book. If you want more tips (and a cheat sheet with all of this information), I highly recommend checking out the book.
Good luck everyone. Happy Reading!
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