Mind Your Body TV Episode 21 with Ashley Koff, R.D.
Maybe you’ve noticed that you can’t do all the things you used to do. Example: You can’t go all day without eating. Ok, you can’t go four hours without eating. You surely can’t work out without eating. Our favorite dietician, Ashley Koff, R. D. dispenses more sound nutritional advice in this second episode, “Boomer Energy.” Who doesn’t want more of it? Want to know how to eat for energy?
Koff likens our boomer bodies to cars, and says we need to consider the quality of fuel and how frequently we “fuel up.” “When you have a new car, it’ll run great at first,” she says. “When a ten-year-old car breaks down, that’s a different story.” The idea here is to keep our mature engines running solidly, with smart nutrition, to avoid those pesky breakdowns that have “a (bad) cumulative effect.”
How you can eat for energy
Goal: Engage your body for optimal energy and to avoid creating fat storage. Eat too much of anything at one time, it’s stored as fat, Koff says. Sadly, the body doesn’t turn to fat for energy when it needs it, so fat accumulates and becomes one of the most significant risk factors for many age-related diseases. Of course, your medical history does play a role here.
The body is a series of “energy equations,” Koff says, and we need to do the math intelligently, utilizing four key components: Quantity (portion control), Quality (food vs. food products), Balance of macronutrients: (carbs + protein + fat + unlimited vegetables) and Frequency: Eat approximately every three hours. Yes, you can and not gain weight: Koff calls these “eating occasions.”
Back to that car analogy: “Think carbs for ‘gas,’ protein for ‘air in the tires’ and fats for ‘oil.’ Just as the pit team refuels, adds air and oil as needed at each pit stop, we need to do the same for our bodies,” says Koff. Eat for energy like your car burns fuel for energy.
Healthy weight-loss foods
She cooked up some terrific tips for Huffington Post last year, and here they are, repeated for you:
- Breakfast goodie: Choose whole grains topped with nuts and cinnamon.
- Want chips? Make sure they’re from real potatoes, ideally in a 100-calorie pack. Read that label (Yes, we said “label” again!) to verify 15 grams of total carbohydrates. Try baked, low-sodium versions.
- Organic Greek yogurt makes a dip naturally low in carbohydrate and high in protein: Add spices and organic chives.
- Speaking of “organic,” that’s what your produce must be. You know why by now.
- Recite this “sandwich” recipe: Remove seeds of a cucumber with a spoon and stuff with hummus. Eat.
- Taco recipe: Bake, grill or microwave a corn tortilla (palm-sized), top with salsa, guacamole, and organic chicken.
Enjoy! And don’t you feel so smug now that you can eat for energy?
Oh, and check out other super-informative video with Koff right here. Happy eating!
(Photo courtesy: © Alex Hinds | Dreamstime.com)