Hi friends!
Here is your weekly Tri-Tip Tuesday, sharing our current thoughts on food, fitness, & travel. Please forward this to others if you think they may be inspired.
Food: reading ingredients
Ultra-processed foods are the number one killer in America, causing more chronic diseases and killing more people than smoking and drinking combined. Still, not enough people are talking about it or challenging our food industry.
โMy approach to eating healthy isn't a diet with a label on it. I don't get into "keto, gluten-free, carnivore, carb-cycling, low fat, paleo, tracking calories," or on and on... I simply encourage people to prioritize eating real food: animal proteins that graze the earth, and plants that grow from the earth, while minimizing processed foods as much as possible.
There are so many processed foods that you may think are health foods, but they are really just highly marketed ultra-processed foods, created in a lab, and shortening your life span. Foods such as salad dressings, granola, protein bars, low-fat yogurts, breakfast cereals, ready-to-eat meals, and other "health foods".
Switching to whole foods can take some time to learn about, and trial and error adjusting portion sizes of each component at each meal, but overall it's a simple approach that gets results.
In today's age, I find it extreme and not sustainable to cut out ALL processed foods forever. But there are some shopping tricks to choosing minimally processed foods, versus ultra-processed foods.
Here are some tips for reading a food package:
- When reading the ingredients on a package, avoid foods with more than 3-5 ingredients.
- Choose minimally processed foods where you know what each ingredient is. For example, crushed tomatoes, garlic, onion, and salt.
- Avoid foods with corn syrup, cane sugar, malt syrup, or molasses on the label. While these sweeteners are recognizable and may sound like real food, they aren't healthy. If you want extra sweetness, add your own sugar or honey. Choose plain yogurt and sweeten it with honey rather than buying overly sweet-flavored yogurt. You control the ingredients and the sweetness level.
- Avoid labels that contain sucrose, maltose, dextrose, fructose, or glucose. These are other names for added sugars.
- Continuing on the sugar and sweetener trend (it appears we have a problem with the sugar!), look for aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame-k, saccharin, or stevia. Sweeteners and artificial flavors are another hallmark of ultra-processed foods. Sugar and sweeteners often are added to mask the off-putting taste from the preservatives and other ingredients that are added in.
- Once you can't recognize ingredients, you've crossed the line into ultra-processed. Thickeners, emulsifiers, and stabilizers aren't real food. Soy lecithin, guar gum, xanthan gum, carrageenan, mono- and diglycerides, and carboxymethylcellulose are good examples.
- If the ingredient can't be found in your kitchen, consider it ultra-processed. Ingredients in your kitchen are simple, coming from plants or animals with minimal alteration: whole grains, vegetables, eggs, milk, meat, butter, spices, salt, and olive oil are examples of real ingredients.
- Learn more about toxic additives in processed foods by using an app such as Yuka. Yuka allows you to scan common food and cosmetic products and will give you a report on the ingredients used. It's a very visual way to learn about our broken food industry.
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Fitness: don't strength train distracted
Today's modern world has a problem with "being busy". So much to do, so little time. One of the first tasks that people love to chop off the block due to being too busy is strength training.
Last week, I talked about the importance of taking a full rest between sets. When you are resting, just rest in silence. Track how many reps you were able to complete. Track your weight used. Take a sip of water. Reflect on how much intensity you brought to the set. Reflect on how good the burn feels. Focus on mind-muscle connection. These things will promote an effective workout.
Avoid all temptations to check your email, send a text, talk on the phone, or scroll Instagram. Working out at home makes it even more difficult as the ambitious multi-taskers may try to fold laundry, sweep the floor, or do other household tasks between sets. Not only is this killing your strength gains, but it's also stressful!!
We all know that driving distracted makes you a worse driver. Strength training distracted makes your workout session less effective. Give yourself the full 30-60 minutes to train, be present, and have an effective workout.
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Travel: Traveling with dogs update
On a previous Tri-Tip on May 14, I shared the new rules about traveling with dogs internationally. Specifically, the rules come into play if you travel outside of the US with your dog, and plan to bring your dog back home to the US with you (which you likely are). Each traveler will have to check the DogBot to see how the rules affect them.
As we were planning to cross into Canada, the new requirements were a stressful wrench to have thrown into our "to-do" list. One of the items that we needed to obtain was a "USDA-endorsed health certificate" for each dog. This certificate involves an application along with a fee, an examination, verification of good health, verification of an ISO-compatible microchip, and verification of valid rabies vaccinations.
Being an RVer, our two dogs have seen about 20 veterinarians sprinkled across the entire country. From Arizona, Tennessee, Florida, Minnesota, California, Texas, I mean all over.
When we called around to obtain this health certificate, most vets had zero interest in helping. I contacted about 25 USDA-approved veterinarians within a driving radius, who rejected me for a wide variety of reasons: they're too busy, they don't understand the requirements, we don't live locally, they don't want to deal with it, etc. I was ecstatic when I finally got ONE location in Massachusetts that said, "Yes, we can do that!".
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We were able to bring the dogs in for the exam a few weeks before leaving the US. The paperwork is currently submitted and under review by the USDA. If all goes well, we will receive a digital copy of the certificate that will allow us to bring our dogs back to the US when we cross the border. Apparently, the USDA is experiencing heavy volume with the new rule going into effect on August 1 and is a bit backed up...
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Make it a great week!
Christine Irene
NASM-CPT, Senior Fitness Specialist, Precision Nutrition Pn1 + Pn2 Certified, & Avid Traveler
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