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Military muscle: A new nutrition plan for the New Year

It’s still early in the new year, so hopefully most people who started up or recommitted to an exercise program Jan. 1 are still on it.

But not taking the time to set up a good nutrition plan that works in concert with your exercise program will render the eating habits that you do maintain counterproductive to the physical effort that you’re putting into your program.

Everyone is different, so there is no “one-size-fits-all” nutrition plan. But for starters, here’s some … ahem … food for thought.

å Work back to the natural food state. Try to cut down on eating out and instead eat more meals at home, so you can control the ingredients and the portion sizes.

Buy more fresh foods, especially with fruit and vegetables. Buy in season and from locals — many produce sections feature “locally grown.” Take advantage of the LocalHarvest.org website. There is a lot available, even in snowbound areas of the country.

Replace processed white flour products with whole grain products, which contain both the inside and outside of the grain kernel.

å Read and understand food labels. The words on the front of the package are not always fact. “Natural,” for example, can cover a lot of ground, and in some cases may not mean much; the word has a specific connotation only when applied to beef or poultry, which means the meat has no artificial ingredients or added colors and has undergone minimal processing.

Also, check the amount of carbohydrate grams and sugar grams — the closer those numbers, the less nutrition you’ll derive from what’s inside.

å Sometimes eating more is beneficial. Eating “nutrient-dense” foods boosts the nutrient profile of your food while adding minimal calories. For example:

A plain, two-egg omelet is about 147 calories. Mixing in a cup of cooked, fresh spinach leaves adds more than 1,500 milligrams of beta-carotene, as well as potassium and iron, while adding only seven to 10 calories.

Drop in two tablespoons of low-fat shredded cheese and you get four more grams of protein and 10 percent of your daily calcium requirement, at a cost of only 45 more calories.

å Use alternatives to the “flavor” of fat and high caloric meals. Keep fat content down by using herbs and spices with some “zip.” Chris Halagarda, of Navy’s Fleet and Family Readiness, has some excellent suggestions. E-mail him at chris.halagarda@navy.mil.

The idea is to dial up the flavor while dialing down the fat content. It can be as easy as using reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese in place of a higher-fat mild cheddar, or whipping low-fat cottage cheese until it’s smooth as a stand-in for heavy cream.

Nutrition and exercise really do go hand in hand.

Bob Thomas is director of the Navy Wellness Center in Pensacola, Fla. E-mail him at jomof14@cox.net.