Tips for shopping healthy

(WOFL FOX 35) - FOX 35 Good Day talked to Personal Trainer Max Holt from Orlando Fit Camp.

Max Holt's tips for shopping healthy:

1. Always shop with a list and never shop hungry - Having your list and shopping when you aren't hungry are the two simplest things you can do to avoid impulse buys, make healthier choices and avoid buying more groceries than they need.

2. Read Nutrition Labels on everything you buy - You will be amazed at how many chemicals and ingredients are in the foods you buy. Read the label for every grocery item you buy, if you can't pronounce it, chances are it doesn't need to be in your shopping cart in the first place!

3. Look up and down when you shop - Food companies pay to have their products in your direct line of site. Make sure to look at the bottom and top of every shelf and isle. You will be amazed at the variety of healthy items you'll find!

4. Be wary of Fat Free Products: It's not the fats, it's the sugars! - If you're eating a fat free version of something. It’s still probably bad for you, maybe even worse. Food companies will take out the fat and in its place they'll add all sorts of man made chemicals to keep the flavor that fat imparted. But more importantly, if the fat is taken out, the sugar is added in. That's a bad trade off for you because even though too much fat can be dangerous, your body needs fat; it's an essential nutrient. Do you know how much added sugar your body needs? NONE, it makes it's own from the food you eat! Yet according to the USDA, the average American consumes 156lbs of sugar each year on a per capita basis. Let me put that in to perspective for your viewers: That's 31 five-pound bags for each of you, every year. Think about that for a second? With the huge rise in diabetes in our nation and especially our kids, isn't it time to recognize that sugar is one of the most dangerous things we put in to our bodies, especially considering how pervasive it is?

5. Don't buy that fruit juice, juices are sugar nightmares! - Even 100% fruit juices with "no sugar added" are sugar bombs: For example, a 12oz glass of soda has just about 40g of sugar.
How about common fruit juices?
Orange = 39g
Apple = 42g
Cherry = 49.5g
Grape = 60g
This data is from: www.hookedonjuice.com
Instead of fruit juice, drink water. Fruit juice doesn't need to be eliminated, but remember, fruit juice was a treat for most Americans to be had during breakfast (remember the small 4-6oz glass?) but that's drastically change in the past 20 years as now marketing as led us to believe we need to drink huge glasses of fruit juice for our health. Instead of the juice, let's eat the fruit instead.

www.orlandofitcamp.com