i have never been the most healthiest person, and i have finally decided to change ways. i am just having trouble thinking of healthy food ideas. i understand a salad is healthy and a hamburger is not but what are some of your favorite healthy foods and variations of foods and pre and post workout foods too. also what are commonly mistaken foods that are actually not healthy?
ALSO i was wondering if anyone has a workout video or routine i could watch (HIIT) or just a good routine. thank you in advance.
healthy food ideas, and workout routines
Moderators: Boss Man, cassiegose
Re: healthy food ideas, and workout routines
Hi and welcome to the site!
Salad is healthy to a certain extent. If you have green salad, grilled chicken breast with olive oil and vinaigrette then yes… that’s pretty healthy. But if you have a salad with croutons, bacon, with a lot of ranch dressing and those other junk stuff.. then not so healthy! Not all hamburgers are bad if it’s lean ground beef with wheat bread…. So I’m just trying to say is… It really depends on what you eat and what’s in it.
People tend to think eating very little will help them lose weight. They don’t think about the healthy issue of that because they are starving themselves.
What I like to eat:
Breaky:
Plain oatmeal with egg whites (sometimes in it, sometimes alone)
Or wheat toast with almond butter and egg whites omelet
Snack 1: Grilled chicken breast with fat free cottage cheese, fruit
Or Turkey deli slices wrap around low fat string cheese
Lunch: Grilled chicken breast or grilled fish with steam veggie
(Sometimes with brown rice…sometimes not)
Or Grilled chicken breast salad with olive oil & vinaigrette dressing and a wheat toast, fruit
Snack 2: 4 hard boiled eggs (3 whites, 1 whole)
Dinner: Grilled lean ground beef with steam veggies
Or steam fish with steam veggies
After a workout… I like to have a protein shake.
I hope that helps...
Nokie
Salad is healthy to a certain extent. If you have green salad, grilled chicken breast with olive oil and vinaigrette then yes… that’s pretty healthy. But if you have a salad with croutons, bacon, with a lot of ranch dressing and those other junk stuff.. then not so healthy! Not all hamburgers are bad if it’s lean ground beef with wheat bread…. So I’m just trying to say is… It really depends on what you eat and what’s in it.
People tend to think eating very little will help them lose weight. They don’t think about the healthy issue of that because they are starving themselves.
What I like to eat:
Breaky:
Plain oatmeal with egg whites (sometimes in it, sometimes alone)
Or wheat toast with almond butter and egg whites omelet
Snack 1: Grilled chicken breast with fat free cottage cheese, fruit
Or Turkey deli slices wrap around low fat string cheese
Lunch: Grilled chicken breast or grilled fish with steam veggie
(Sometimes with brown rice…sometimes not)
Or Grilled chicken breast salad with olive oil & vinaigrette dressing and a wheat toast, fruit
Snack 2: 4 hard boiled eggs (3 whites, 1 whole)
Dinner: Grilled lean ground beef with steam veggies
Or steam fish with steam veggies
After a workout… I like to have a protein shake.
I hope that helps...
Nokie
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cassiegose
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- Posts: 2525
- Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 6:06 pm
- Location: Prineville Oregon
Re: healthy food ideas, and workout routines
Hi there,
Here is a list of healthy foods that I keep in house on a regular basis:
Complex Carbs:
Oatmeal (I LOVE OATMEAL)
Brown/Wild Rice
Barley
Whole grain pasta
Quinoa
Whole grain couscous
Sweet potatoes
Kamute
Millet
Whole grain cereals (shoot for those that have less than 5 grams of sugar per serving… cheerios, bran flakes… anything that tastes like cardboard)
Fruits (any fruit is great! Just remember that most are relatively high in sugar so you’ll want to be careful with going overboard on the fruit)
Veggies (you can eat as many of these as your heart desires!)
Legumes (split peas, lentils, black beans, chili beans, navy beans, garbanzo beans, pinto beans… these are loaded with fiber and protein!)
Protein:
Grilled boneless skinless chicken breast
Lean red meats (wild meat is great!)
Lean cuts of pork (buy the cuts with no visible fat or fat that can easily be trimmed off)
Lean turkey breast
Soy (ever tried edemame? SO GOOD!)
Low Fat dairy (low fat cheese sticks, low fat cottage cheese, low fat quark, greek yogurt)
Eggs/eggwhites (I love eggs!)
Fish (tilapia, salmon, orange roughy, steelhead, cod, polluck, whiting, tuna)
Protein powder (for post workout and those times when you are rushed and absolutely don’t have time to eat)
Healthy fats:
Nuts
Nut butter (always go for natural! Adams is great as it is 100% natural… no added sugar or hydrogenated oils. Keep in mind that natural peanut butter does need to be refrigerated as it doesn’t have any preservatives)
Flaxseeds
Fish (salmon)
Olives
Olive oil (this is best not heated so salad dressings made with olive oil and vinegar are always a great option)
Coconut oil
Avacado
Ok so healthy combinations of food that I enjoy include:
fat free cottage cheese with blue berries or other fruit
eggwhites with oatmeal (some don't care for this)
eggwhites with green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and salsa
grilled chicken salad with spinach, olives, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and olive oil dressing
quinoa with black beans, tilapia, and salsa
fish tacos made with whole wheat (I go for low carb) wraps, tilapia, olives, onions, spinach, and salsa
Commonly mistaken foods that are not healthy:
As Nokie said, salad is probably the most common. If you load up your salad with high fat dressing, cheese, croutons, and fried meat then you might as well have a burger.
Fruit.. this one is debatable so people please don't hang me for this. Fruit is healthy for you. It is loaded with vitamins, fiber, nurtients, and is relatively low in calories. HOWEVER back before I started really paying attention to diet I was going WAY overboard on fruit. For breakfast I would have oatmeal with a full banana chopped up in it, with meal 2 I would have an apple, with lunch i would have a couple of cups of grapes, for snack i would have a whole mango, then i would go home and have a HUGE bowl of grapes for desert. During this time i couldn't figure out why i wasn't losing weight. Turns out that I was doing a great job of getting in enough fruit, however I was loading system with extra calories and sugar (fructose) that i really didn't need. So, yes fruit is good for you however it should be balanced with protein, healthy fats, whole grains, and veggies.
Also as Nokie said, ANY food can be made healthy. A lot of people think when they start a diet they have to give up their favorite foods such as hamburgers, pizza, tacos.. ect. This is not the case. If you experiment and get creative you really can make anything healthy. I have even made healthy nacos before using baked low carb tortillas, fat free cheese, lean burger, fat free sour cream, black beans, onions, avacados, and salsa... as i said you just have to get creative!
Cereal: I think cereal is one food that is usually far more unhealthy than people realize. Cereals such as frosted flakes, lucky charms, cocopuffs... even some brands typically thought of as "healthy" are HORRIBLE for you. They are loaded with sugar and carbs and have very minimal protein. People load up on these for breakfast and wonder why their energy crashes in an hour and they are starving right after eating them. Its because these cereals are pure crap.
Protein bars: Just because you find protein bars in the "health food" or "diet" section of most stores DOES NOT mean that these are good for you. Many... possibly even most... protein bars are simply jacked up candy bars that have protein added to them. Many protein bars even have more calories than candy bars. If you are going to do the protein bar thing choose very wisely.
"Low Fat" or "Reduced Fat": We've all seen these... you're walking down the aisle in the grocery store and you see cookies labeled as "low fat"... or wheat thins, chips, dried fruit, candy, ice cream, soups, frozen dinners, I could go on all day...... Just because these foods are low fat doesn't mean they are low calorie! Calories are what makes people fat... NOT FAT! These low fat foods often have things like carbs and chemicals added to them to make them low fat. OR the company simply makes the cookies or crackers SMALLER so they have less fat per serving. A serving size is still, say 2 cookies or 15 crackers however the low fat ones are half the size as the regular ones. Sneaky!
Sugar free: This kind of related to the low fat however is different so i will mention it. Have you ever gone to the candy aisle and seen the "sugar free" chocolates, jelly beans, and hard candies? If you ever want to try a little experiment with sugar free candy go buy some of that sugar free chocolate, go home (I suggest being home alone!) and eat a few servings of it. Within 30 minutes of eating the sugar free candy your stomach will be making noises that you've never even heard before and before you know it you will have EXPLOSIVE diarrhea and one of the worst stomach aches you've ever had in your life. It is belief that anything that has that kind of effect on your body SHOULD NOT BE PUT IN YOUR BODY! So, I say away from sugar free stuff. Plus, many of the sugar alcohols and sugar alternatives haven't even been around long enough for us to fully know how they will affect us long term. For this reason, I avoid things like diet pop, sugar free candy, and really anything labeled as "sugar free". If you want sugar free, have a bowl of oatmeal. Its sugar free and will not give you explosive diarrhea.
Workouts: I'm a firm believer in compound exercises. I do things like squats, deadlifts, lunges, rows, step ups, pullups, pushups, pull downs, rows, military press, bench press... in every weight workout. I also add in single joint exercises to the end of workouts... however NEVER EVER choose things like curls over things like pullups. Compound exercises are going to give you the most bang for your buck so if youre planning on hitting the gym for 45 minutes spend your time there in the most efficiant way possible. I'm definitely a fan of HIIT and plyometrics as well. I include things like sprints, jumping jacks, jump rope, box hops, jumping lunges, and jumping squats in pretty much every weight workout and do HIIT twice a week. I'm not going to lie, I hate jumping lunges and intervals with an absolute passion. However these things give me results like nothing else so I make myself do them.
I'm sure i'm missing something here... however this has been a long post so i'll stop with that.
Cassie
Here is a list of healthy foods that I keep in house on a regular basis:
Complex Carbs:
Oatmeal (I LOVE OATMEAL)
Brown/Wild Rice
Barley
Whole grain pasta
Quinoa
Whole grain couscous
Sweet potatoes
Kamute
Millet
Whole grain cereals (shoot for those that have less than 5 grams of sugar per serving… cheerios, bran flakes… anything that tastes like cardboard)
Fruits (any fruit is great! Just remember that most are relatively high in sugar so you’ll want to be careful with going overboard on the fruit)
Veggies (you can eat as many of these as your heart desires!)
Legumes (split peas, lentils, black beans, chili beans, navy beans, garbanzo beans, pinto beans… these are loaded with fiber and protein!)
Protein:
Grilled boneless skinless chicken breast
Lean red meats (wild meat is great!)
Lean cuts of pork (buy the cuts with no visible fat or fat that can easily be trimmed off)
Lean turkey breast
Soy (ever tried edemame? SO GOOD!)
Low Fat dairy (low fat cheese sticks, low fat cottage cheese, low fat quark, greek yogurt)
Eggs/eggwhites (I love eggs!)
Fish (tilapia, salmon, orange roughy, steelhead, cod, polluck, whiting, tuna)
Protein powder (for post workout and those times when you are rushed and absolutely don’t have time to eat)
Healthy fats:
Nuts
Nut butter (always go for natural! Adams is great as it is 100% natural… no added sugar or hydrogenated oils. Keep in mind that natural peanut butter does need to be refrigerated as it doesn’t have any preservatives)
Flaxseeds
Fish (salmon)
Olives
Olive oil (this is best not heated so salad dressings made with olive oil and vinegar are always a great option)
Coconut oil
Avacado
Ok so healthy combinations of food that I enjoy include:
fat free cottage cheese with blue berries or other fruit
eggwhites with oatmeal (some don't care for this)
eggwhites with green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and salsa
grilled chicken salad with spinach, olives, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, and olive oil dressing
quinoa with black beans, tilapia, and salsa
fish tacos made with whole wheat (I go for low carb) wraps, tilapia, olives, onions, spinach, and salsa
Commonly mistaken foods that are not healthy:
As Nokie said, salad is probably the most common. If you load up your salad with high fat dressing, cheese, croutons, and fried meat then you might as well have a burger.
Fruit.. this one is debatable so people please don't hang me for this. Fruit is healthy for you. It is loaded with vitamins, fiber, nurtients, and is relatively low in calories. HOWEVER back before I started really paying attention to diet I was going WAY overboard on fruit. For breakfast I would have oatmeal with a full banana chopped up in it, with meal 2 I would have an apple, with lunch i would have a couple of cups of grapes, for snack i would have a whole mango, then i would go home and have a HUGE bowl of grapes for desert. During this time i couldn't figure out why i wasn't losing weight. Turns out that I was doing a great job of getting in enough fruit, however I was loading system with extra calories and sugar (fructose) that i really didn't need. So, yes fruit is good for you however it should be balanced with protein, healthy fats, whole grains, and veggies.
Also as Nokie said, ANY food can be made healthy. A lot of people think when they start a diet they have to give up their favorite foods such as hamburgers, pizza, tacos.. ect. This is not the case. If you experiment and get creative you really can make anything healthy. I have even made healthy nacos before using baked low carb tortillas, fat free cheese, lean burger, fat free sour cream, black beans, onions, avacados, and salsa... as i said you just have to get creative!
Cereal: I think cereal is one food that is usually far more unhealthy than people realize. Cereals such as frosted flakes, lucky charms, cocopuffs... even some brands typically thought of as "healthy" are HORRIBLE for you. They are loaded with sugar and carbs and have very minimal protein. People load up on these for breakfast and wonder why their energy crashes in an hour and they are starving right after eating them. Its because these cereals are pure crap.
Protein bars: Just because you find protein bars in the "health food" or "diet" section of most stores DOES NOT mean that these are good for you. Many... possibly even most... protein bars are simply jacked up candy bars that have protein added to them. Many protein bars even have more calories than candy bars. If you are going to do the protein bar thing choose very wisely.
"Low Fat" or "Reduced Fat": We've all seen these... you're walking down the aisle in the grocery store and you see cookies labeled as "low fat"... or wheat thins, chips, dried fruit, candy, ice cream, soups, frozen dinners, I could go on all day...... Just because these foods are low fat doesn't mean they are low calorie! Calories are what makes people fat... NOT FAT! These low fat foods often have things like carbs and chemicals added to them to make them low fat. OR the company simply makes the cookies or crackers SMALLER so they have less fat per serving. A serving size is still, say 2 cookies or 15 crackers however the low fat ones are half the size as the regular ones. Sneaky!
Sugar free: This kind of related to the low fat however is different so i will mention it. Have you ever gone to the candy aisle and seen the "sugar free" chocolates, jelly beans, and hard candies? If you ever want to try a little experiment with sugar free candy go buy some of that sugar free chocolate, go home (I suggest being home alone!) and eat a few servings of it. Within 30 minutes of eating the sugar free candy your stomach will be making noises that you've never even heard before and before you know it you will have EXPLOSIVE diarrhea and one of the worst stomach aches you've ever had in your life. It is belief that anything that has that kind of effect on your body SHOULD NOT BE PUT IN YOUR BODY! So, I say away from sugar free stuff. Plus, many of the sugar alcohols and sugar alternatives haven't even been around long enough for us to fully know how they will affect us long term. For this reason, I avoid things like diet pop, sugar free candy, and really anything labeled as "sugar free". If you want sugar free, have a bowl of oatmeal. Its sugar free and will not give you explosive diarrhea.
Workouts: I'm a firm believer in compound exercises. I do things like squats, deadlifts, lunges, rows, step ups, pullups, pushups, pull downs, rows, military press, bench press... in every weight workout. I also add in single joint exercises to the end of workouts... however NEVER EVER choose things like curls over things like pullups. Compound exercises are going to give you the most bang for your buck so if youre planning on hitting the gym for 45 minutes spend your time there in the most efficiant way possible. I'm definitely a fan of HIIT and plyometrics as well. I include things like sprints, jumping jacks, jump rope, box hops, jumping lunges, and jumping squats in pretty much every weight workout and do HIIT twice a week. I'm not going to lie, I hate jumping lunges and intervals with an absolute passion. However these things give me results like nothing else so I make myself do them.
I'm sure i'm missing something here... however this has been a long post so i'll stop with that.
Cassie
Re: healthy food ideas, and workout routines
ok yea thats a really good start. thank you both. but i question how in the heck do you make an eggwhite i have tried before and it didnt work maybe a certain technique? ok 2 questions; right now i am still real big, so i would rather be loosing weight so i can have a more effective workout would you still suggest those same foods?
i jog 1-2 miles every night or every other night (day 1,3,5,7) depending schedule that day, and work upper body for like 20 minutes on a total gym (the thing by chuck norris) days 2,4,6. although friend told me last night HIIT is was burns the fat and builds muscle. i did some sprints last night, but it is just really hard on knees i could try jumping rope tomorrow that wont be so hard on the knees. BUT any workouts that are real tough and HIIT that are not as hard on the knees, and is routine any good or should i tweak it?
i jog 1-2 miles every night or every other night (day 1,3,5,7) depending schedule that day, and work upper body for like 20 minutes on a total gym (the thing by chuck norris) days 2,4,6. although friend told me last night HIIT is was burns the fat and builds muscle. i did some sprints last night, but it is just really hard on knees i could try jumping rope tomorrow that wont be so hard on the knees. BUT any workouts that are real tough and HIIT that are not as hard on the knees, and is routine any good or should i tweak it?