By Anna Shlachter, MS, RD, LDN
April 13th, 2012
The recent American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Health & Fitness Summit offered a unique opportunity to engage with fitness professionals, a core target audience, and showcase ENC’s expertise and resources. This event had several touch points to the Personal Trainers including pre-conference marketing, which drove traffic to the booth. We also attended the workout sessions and sponsored an education session.
We highlighted the new Protein Trainer Toolkit with a continuing education credit opportunity at the booth and the workout sessions. ENC hosted an education session “Stronger, Healthier Boomers: The Role of Resistance Training and High Quality Protein” presented by Dr. Wayne Campbell, PhD and Nicole Nichols, Personal Trainer. This session was well received and participants were engaged. This was a great event to get to know this target audience better.
Tags: ACSM, eggs, Personal Trainers
By Anna Shlachter, MS, RD, LDN
March 30th, 2012
We hope you’ve enjoyed the posts this month on “Keep Your Plate In Shape”. It was a month of ideas, successes and opportunities as we discussed keeping dinner plates and life plates in shape. It is nearly impossible to be perfect, but the more you can keep your plate in shape the better quality of life you’ll have. I’ve noticed things seem to fall into place more easily when a balance is achieved. It is also important to remember your idea of balance is different than another person’s idea of balance. Do what you feel is best to keep your plate in shape.
Keep checking back for great nutrition and health topics as we highlight key research and trends throughout the rest of the year to keep ENC’s plate in balance too! The next couple months are pretty egg-citing. April is full of eggs and egg dishes and May in National Egg Month.
Here are a few more of my egg meals to keep you excited for the upcoming months.
Tags: eggs, MyPlate, National Nutrition Month
By Anna Shlachter, MS, RD, LDN
March 26th, 2012
Sleep is an important part of balancing your life plate. However, as we get busy our sleep patterns tend to be affected. When these patterns are affected, we see that diet and many other parts of the plate are compromised as well.
I saw a great blog post by fellow RD, Joan Salge Blake, about new research regarding sleep and nutrition that I wanted to share with you all.
Don’t forget to get your zzz’s and when assessing your clients don’t forget to ask about sleep patterns. Check out the National Sleep Foundation for more information.
Tags: eggs, MyPlate, Sleep
By Anna Shlachter, MS, RD, LDN
March 16th, 2012
Are you a creature of habit with your food choices? I have been working on having a variety on my plates. I’ve been tracking “my plates” for the blog this month and also posted several photos on my personal facebook page. Some people noted- oh you eat ___ a few times a week. Sometimes it is habit and sometimes that was the food on sale! That being said, I have mentioned how versatile eggs are in many of my posts, so I do tend to eat eggs a few times a week for different meals. You’ve seen photos of some of these throughout the month.
Today, I’ll show you some of my other plates. What do you think? I would like to point out that the cheesecake plate was eating in conjunction with a meal (but eggs are an ingredient). I felt compelled to share it so you can see overall balance means you enjoy treats (cheesecake) too! Keep track of how your plates look-not only for a day but a week. Remember it is the overall picture that matters! If you’ve never taken a pictures of your plate- it can be a great motivator and keeps you accountable.
Tags: eggs, MyPlate, National Nutrition Month
By Anna Shlachter, MS, RD, LDN
March 13th, 2012
Coach Nicole gave me inspiration for the next post because it really applies to me. About six months ago I made it a priority to get my health back. I had put it on the back burner for too long-between medication, life issues and overall feeling crummy. Even health professionals can go through this and many have-we are not exempt.
For me the thing that seemed to do the trick was upping the exercise. I have been consistently working out for about two hours most days of the week- a mix of cardio, strength and interval type exercises. I started to feel better right away and noticed results soon after. It is something I do not intend to give up again-I’ll remember how I feel during and after a workout, compared to how I felt previously. One thing that is great is that I have made new “gym friends” to help keep motivated and it is always nice to spark a new friendship.
That being said-two hours is a pretty big commitment and it has taken a lot of time. As I have approached my goals, I’ve modified my workout plan and this article gave me some great tips. This will be one more idea for balancing “my own plate”.
Tags: eggs, exercise, MyPlate, National Nutrition Month
By Anna Shlachter, MS, RD, LDN
March 12th, 2012
Today’s guest post is from Personal Trainer Travis Burkybile. Travis has a Bachelor’s Degree in Kinesiology and a NCFS certification. He works as a Strength Coach at Corefitnesschicago.
At this time of year, warmer weather is on everyone’s minds, the holidays are a distant memory, and tax season is in full swing. Your fitness routine is probably the last thing you are thinking about right now. So how do you keep your New Year’s commitment or get started if you are ready to take the plunge?
Working as a coach in the fitness industry for the last 6 years in a corporate gym setting and a smaller private training facility, I have gotten to know what works and what does not work so well for my clients. The biggest hurdles for most people, regardless of where and how they workout are making the time for exercise and wanting results too quickly. Today, I will share some ideas that have helped my clients overcome these barriers.
How can you make time for fitness and stay motivated to continue? If you are starting a new fitness plan, or looking to improve on your current one take a lesson from Leo Babuta in the book The Power of Less. He advises that when beginning an exercise program start slowly and always leave enough room to do a little bit more. This tactic keeps you engaged and motivated to return to your workout. It is much more beneficial to be consistent when building a habit than it is to try and get it all done in a day or even a week. This will also make it easier from a time perspective to fit exercise into your existing lifestyle. If you are already doing a program, change it! Shorten your rest breaks, change your reps, and the gains will come again.
The most important part of any exercise program is what you get out of it. Whether training to improve a pain or weakness, improve your body composition, or be stronger, it is important to see results. There are multiple ways to measure such as body fat percentage, circumferences, personal bests in races and training, and many more. If you are stuck with motivation, results, or both hire a qualified coach! The best motivation is success.
Remember this final tip. A project, a habit, or a lifestyle change is successful when you restart it every day. It is a willful and conscious decision to start again rather than simply continue. You aren’t in a pattern, good or bad, if you aren’t doing it. Restart your own fitness today!
Tags: eggs, personal trainer
By Marcia Greenblum, MS, RD
March 8th, 2012
As a representative of the Egg Nutrition Center for the Strategic Partnership for the ChooseMyPlate.gov program, I signed up to show everyone what I eat. It sounds so simple, right? On March 8 National What’s On Your Plate Day, just spread the word about how to eat using ChooseMyPlate.gov as a template. Yet, just thinking about how to show a healthy diet can be difficult when reality hits. Do I really eat all my meals on a plate? Do I really eat only at meal time? What about my beverages and that mouthful of nuts? What about when I go to meetings, dinner with friends or business associates? By the third picture of my meals, my husband had already asked me to stop taking pictures claiming it was disturbing his dinner! So, in an effort to come clean about what a 33 year veteran of the American Dietetics Association, now the Academy of Dietetics really eats, I am fessing up on national What’s On Your Plate Day, March 8, 2012.
Breakfast: My favorite breakfast: warm hard boiled eggs with orange slices and Greek yogurt. Add a cup of coffee and I’m good to go. This is my power breakfast because it gets me through the morning, including exercise at the gym and satisfied until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. It even looks bright and sunny.
Lunch: Melted open faced sliced turkey with aged provolone cheese sandwich with sugar snap peas. I love this lunch because it’s quick and I adore the melted cheese flavor along with the sweet crispness of the peas. Finished with multiple cups of rooibos tea and I’m set. Only one dish to clean up!
Dinner with my husband, I tried a new recipe: shrimp in lime and coconut sauce garnished with cilantro. In addition I served a spoonful of jasmine rice and lots of mushrooms and roasted asparagus on the side for color and a taste of spring. My husband suggested taking off the “green stuff” to improve the look of the meal but that’s why he’s not a 33 year veteran of ADA! Add in a glass of white wine and that’s my day’s meals. I have a new appreciation for food stylists, I doubt anyone would make this meal if it was in a cookbook! After dinner, I confess, I did sneak into the kitchen for handful of almonds and tea before bed but no one’s perfect!!
Tags: ADA, eggs, MyPlate, protein
By Marcia Greenblum, MS, RD
March 6th, 2012
I’ve been reading blogs and websites about working moms recently, like Workingmom.com and SimpleBites.net, trying to get inspiration about how to balance life that includes kids, husband, parents, finances, friends, environment, profession etc.
Today’s woman has so much access to knowledge, it can be overwhelming. In the old days women consulted their mothers or grandmothers for advice, now the web can be a great substitute for the experience those elders offered. However, the catch is not to expect perfection in everything you undertake.
As a registered dietitian, one would expect that I strived to teach my children to eat healthily. Well, I recognized immediately that actions speak louder than words and rather than verbal teaching I made sure our meals had balance and variety and organization. All our meals had variety of color, texture and nutrients long before the MyPlate program showed us all how to eat. Ellen Sater RD in her book, Feed Me I’m Yours, taught me that the size of one’s portions should be determined by the person eating with the requirement that one needs to sample new foods. I ate most meals with our children and snacking was rare.
To quote Aimee Wimbush-Bourque on SimpleBites.net: “If they see you reaching for a crisp apple instead of a Doritos bag at snack time, they’ll do the same.” Peer pressure does take hold when kids go to school and those packaged foods look so much better than the home made lunches I sent but, after sending kids with packaged lunches once or twice, they soon realized that simple homemade food was tastier.
In my professional life I find it easy to support the egg industry because I have always felt eggs are full of nutrients, inexpensive, serving sized and delicious. If this was a scientific experiment I would be able to write in the results section that I proved my hypothesis, my kids now all adults, are healthy, eat well and love to cook.
Tags: eggs, Kids, registered dietitans, School
By Anna Shlachter, MS, RD, LDN
March 5th, 2012
Did you know that this week is National School Breakfast Week? Schools will be doing fun activities to honor the “Go for the Gold” theme. Dayle Hayes MS, RD posted on Facebook: Really looking forward to my school visits this week … always the best part of my job … 
” It is great to see people passionate about the job they do. Drop a line of thanks to your school foodservice staff (and teachers) if breakfast is in the classroom. Let them know you appreciate the work they do-each day they help your children begin the day with a great start. Visit School Meals that Rock for some inspirational stories and fantastic photos of school meals.
Tags: eggs, National Breakfast Week
By Anna Shlachter, MS, RD, LDN
March 2nd, 2012
Today is about planning. We as health professionals tell clients to eat well and exercise. Sounds good right? There is so much information available that they should just be able to go do it on their own. I mean we do it all the time, right (mm huh?!?!). So here are some basic tips you can provide-oh and yes these work for you too!
Food:
Life is busy and when we get super busy we tend to “let our plates go”. I am guilty of this as much as anyone, but I’ve been working on planning ahead too and thought I’d share some of the things that work for me. Think of your own ideas that work for you and encourage your clients to find things that work for them.
Think ahead: Some people are great at cooking ahead and freezing items for later use. This is not really my strong suite-I have ideas of what I’d like to eat for the week and browse the ads for sales. Then I start thinking about what nights I’ll be home and what those evenings look like. I match my shopping list to this. Also, having staples like eggs, milk, greek yogurt, peanut butter, frozen veggies, fresh fruit, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, whole wheat bread, tuna and other pantry staples can be a lifesaver. These are great go-to items any time-especially when strapped for time. Keep some of these items at work too so that lunch is easy as well. At work bagged greens and cherry tomatoes are my “staples” along with eggs since we have them available here in the office.
Prep ahead: Cut up veggies ahead of time for easy meals and snacks. Another easy idea is to make hardboiled eggs to have for the week. Sometimes when I am running low on prep time, I’ll buy already cut up veggies (they cost more so I try not to do this too often). I might also buy these if I have a week where I won’t be eating at home much, so that I don’t waste (money and food).
Cook ahead: Some people are great at bulk cooking and freezing, but that isn’t something I do well. I will however make something on the weekend or a slower weeknight to eat throughout the week. Last week I made muffin frittatas and had them for breakfast, dinner and snacks all this week. Chili or other soups are also anther thing that work well for this. Even making an extra portion or two of a meal and packing it away for other days is an easy idea.
Physical Activity:
Plan it like any other part of your day. Make it a priority and even plan your days off from structured exercise. I have been doing this consistently for about 6 months now and it feels great. Until I made it part of my plan for the week, I would exercise sporadically. It is easy for something else to come up or to be forgotten if you don’t plan time for exercise. I even refer to some of my days related to my workout. Wednesday is Yoga Day! Here’s a photo after yoga class-don’t laugh at my pose I’m still learning and I had to break the pose to smile for the photo.
Final thought: Things can change very quickly so try to stick to your plan as much as you can. If one day isn’t so great, remember the next is a new day.
Tags: eggs, MyPlate, National Nutrition Month
