YOUR FITNESS COACH
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&
Our Kids Need Us
By Willie B. Ray, Personal Trainer,
Art of Strength Kettle Bell Gym
1301 Winchester Road #129
Lexington, KY 40505
Every parent wants good things for their
children: a positive outlook on life, a healthy
respect for authority, a strong sense of self,
a disease-free body…a healthy body weight.
Despite our best intentions, recent reports
suggest that for the first time in two centuries, the current generation of children may
have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. With all the advances in medicine, how
could this possibly be true? The blame falls
squarely on today’s toxic food environment.
In short, your kids are eating too much junk.
Who can blame them? Junk food does
taste great. The good news is that healthy
food also tastes great. Here are some simple
tips to transform your child’s diet into one
that is packed with good health.
1. Add Color
Adding bright and colorful fruits and veggies to your child’s plate will get their diet on
the fast track to health. Fresh fruits and veggies are filled with fiber, vitamins and minerals that are essential to good health. If your
kids are resistant, then make it fun. Serve
veggies with salad dressing as a dip. Cut fresh
fruit in the colors of the rainbow and place
them on a skewer. Serve a color themed
meal – all green, all red or all orange. Use
your imagination and you’ll come up with an
endless number of ways to make fruits and
veggies fun to eat.
2. Think Whole Foods
Processed foods are the biggest problem
with our modern diet. Packaged and refined
food products are devitalized and filled
with empty calories that quickly lead to
weight gain. Unfortunately, processed foods
make up a large portion of the diet of many
children. Train your kids to opt for whole
foods, rather than packaged ones. Whole
foods are foods that are in their natural state.
Some examples include: an apple, a piece of
sprouted grain bread spread with natural peanut butter, a piece of hormone-free chicken,
a bowl of beans. You get the idea.
3. Use Wholesome
Sweeteners
Refined sugar and corn syrup are packed
into many of the foods that your kids
love. But wait, there are more wholesome
sweeteners available – sweeteners that add
vitamins and minerals rather than empty
calories. Use the following rather than white
sugar or corn syrup:
Sucanat: This pure, dried sugar can juice
retains its molasses content. Use it to replace
white sugar in baking.
Pure Maple Syrup: Forget the “fake”
syrups containing corn syrup. Pure maple
syrup contains potassium, calcium and some
amino acids.
Brown Rice Syrup: Use this dark syrupy
sweetener instead of corn syrup. It takes
longer to digest and won’t spike your blood
sugar like refined sugar.
Dates: Throw a few seeded dates into your
blender to sweeten your smoothie rather
than adding white sugar.
4. Make Smart
Substitutions
natural fruit spread instead for a sandwich
that will provide real wholesome fuel for
your child’s day.
5. Ban Sugary Drinks
One of the best things that you can do for
your child’s good health is to instill in them a
love for water rather than sugary drinks. Soda
pop and juices are filled with empty calories
that encourage weight gain. The easiest way
to do this is to stock your house with lots of
pure, filtered water. Don’t have fruit drinks or
soda pop readily available so that they grow
accustom to drinking only water.
While I presented these tips as improvements to be made to your child’s diets, these
tips will also do wonders for your diet. Try
these five tips out for 30 days and I guarantee
you’ll look and feel better. Parents all want
good things for their children. Now how
about doing something good for yourself as
well? You are your child’s biggest role model
on how to live, for better or worse.
As always, please feel free to call (859221-4479) or email (supernat_us@yahoo.
com) today to get started on an exercise
program that will change your life for the
best. Please do not sacrifice your health any
longer. You are worth the sacrifices it takes
to change your life and the lives of your
children.
Kids love pizza and pasta and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and that’s not going
to change any time soon. Rather than fight
your kids on their favorites, try making smart
substitutions to make their favorites more
nutritious.
Pizza: Up the nutritional content of your
pizza by opting for wheat crust over white,
adding veggies to the toppings and sticking
with lean meat toppings.
Yours in Health,
Pasta: Use sprouted grain or whole grain
pasta rather than traditional white pasta. Add
Willie B. Ray
veggies to your pasta sauce. Stick with red
sauce, since white sauce is so high in fat. You
can also try spaghetti squash as a
substitute for any
pasta meal.
PB&J: A
PB&J, made with
white bread using
sugar-filled peanut butter and
corn syrup-filled
jelly, is fairly
void of any real
nutritional value.
Try the PB&J
Makeover with
sprouted grain
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