Each day, we are bombarded with various diets, health fads and misinformation regarding healthy eating habits.
ETSU is offering nutrition counseling in the Wayne G. Basler Center for Physical Activity from Feb. 10 to March 4.
The sessions are free of charge and cover water, fat, carbs and protein.
“Our topics over the four weeks are your macronutrients, water, fat, carbs and protein; a good portion of each session is allotted for people to ask questions and participate in things such as food journaling,” said Nani Wilemon, ETSU fitness coordinator.
“We wanted to have some organization and really focus on these hot button topics, and these four things are what people really need to know as far as nutrition.”
With all of the information circling through our media concerning how to eat healthy, it can often seem overwhelming to even know where to begin.
“If you assume people know the basics, you’ve already gotten yourself in trouble; I’ve been in the health and fitness industry for over 20 years and I still learn new things about this, almost on a weekly basis,” Wilemon said.
“I eat a lot of food, and that’s something we want to show people is that you can eat well and eat until you’re full and you can get all of your macro and other nutrients and still lose fat and gain muscle.”
While it’s easy to fall into the trap of exercising more to compensate for a bad diet, there needs to be a balance between both in order to achieve optimum health.
“People say that it’s 50 percent diet and 50 percent exercise but that’s not true, its closer to 60-70 percent diet; you can’t train yourself out of a bad diet,” Wilemon said. “If you focus on whole foods, things that don’t come out of a box and that have less than five ingredients on the label, then you really can’t go wrong.
“If you pick up a label and there’s 50 ingredients, then that’s not food, that’s something processed. People often mistakenly go for the wrong foods when trying to be healthy.”
In regards to the field of health and healthy eating, there is always new information to be learned and applied to one’s lifestyle.
“I have always been fairly nutritionally sound, but since I’ve really started researching more over the past year and a half it really has made a huge difference,” Wilemon said.
“With the nutrition seminars we wanted something geared towards those who need the basics, but we really all need the basics.”
Those interested can sign up at ETSU’s Campus Recreation webpage, which also has the full list of dates and events for the upcoming sessions.
