Ashley Beaver Ashley Beaver

Sustainable Holiday Habits to Bring into the New Year

Stay on track this holiday season with our top tips for enjoying festive meals, keeping up with movement, and embracing balance. From mindful eating to setting small daily goals, these strategies will help you celebrate while supporting your wellness journey!

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Nutrition, Mindset Ashley Beaver Nutrition, Mindset Ashley Beaver

Tracking Macros & Transitioning to Macro-Free: When & How to Make the Shift

Tracking macros is a powerful tool for understanding nutrition and achieving specific performance and body composition goals. However, it isn’t something that needs to be done forever. In this post, we’ll explore the benefits of macro tracking, the skills it teaches, and how to smoothly transition to a macro-free approach when you’re ready.

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Nutrition, Mindset Ashley Beaver Nutrition, Mindset Ashley Beaver

Stop Saying “Cheat Meal”

Using the term ‘cheat meal’ can create an unhealthy relationship with food, leading to guilt and an all-or-nothing mindset. Learn how adopting a more flexible approach to eating can help you enjoy your favorite foods without the need for ‘cheating.’

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Nutrition, Mindset Ashley Beaver Nutrition, Mindset Ashley Beaver

A Relationship with Food Worth Building

Looking back on my journey, I can pinpoint several transformative shifts that allowed me to reclaim control over my relationship with food. Each change didn't happen overnight, but was a gradual process of learning, unlearning, and healing. Having a coach by my side was invaluable, providing the guidance, support, and perspective I needed to navigate these complexities.

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Nutrition Ashley Beaver Nutrition Ashley Beaver

The Power of Healthy Fats for Women's Well-being

In the world of nutrition, we often hear about the importance of maintaining a balanced diet. While all macronutrients play a crucial role in our overall health, healthy fats deserve special attention, especially when it comes to women's diets. It's time to debunk the myth that fats are the enemy. Let’s explore the reasons why women need to incorporate healthy fats into their diet and how these fats can promote overall well-being.

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Nutrition, Fitness Ashley Beaver Nutrition, Fitness Ashley Beaver

The Best Way to Measure Body Fat

Manipulation of body composition is a common goal in a variety of pursuits, but how do we accurately and objectively measure and track changes over time? Body composition devices and techniques offer a solution here. However, people often place undue confidence in both the accuracy and precision of body composition values that they get from techniques that are regarded as high-quality.

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Nutrition Ashley Beaver Nutrition Ashley Beaver

The Power of Committing to Weighing Your Food

Have you ever considered the benefits of committing to weighing your food? Whether you're looking to shed a few pounds, gain muscle, or simply develop healthier eating habits, precision in your nutrition can be a game-changer. While it may seem like a daunting task, weighing your food can yield remarkable advantages, especially when combined with regular exercise.

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Nutrition Ashley Beaver Nutrition Ashley Beaver

Weekly Food Prep: 3 Easy Tips To Get Started

Not sure where to start with your nutrition plan? Honestly, just having food cooked and in the house is the biggest barrier to success! Keeping your fridge stocked limits the potential of coming home from a long training session or work day and needing to order food out or skip a meal altogether.

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Nutrition Ashley Beaver Nutrition Ashley Beaver

Meal Planning: A Guide to Streamline Your Cooking Routine

Meal planning is a powerful tool that can transform your cooking routine and make your life so much easier. By taking a little time to plan ahead, you can save valuable time and energy throughout the week, reduce stress, and ensure that you're nourishing your body with balanced and delicious meals. In this guide, we'll dive into the art of meal planning and provide you with practical tips and strategies to help you become a meal planning pro.

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Nutrition Ashley Beaver Nutrition Ashley Beaver

Should you hire a nutrition coach? Here's how to decide

Navigating through the overwhelming amount of nutrition advice available can be a daunting task. If you have specific goals related to body composition, weight loss, or improving your food choices, it may be time to consider hiring a nutrition coach. Working with a professional who understands the intricacies of nutrition can provide you with the guidance, accountability, and support needed to achieve sustainable success. In this article, we'll explore the reasons why hiring a nutrition coach can benefit you and help you make an informed decision about taking that next step towards a healthier and happier you.

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Ashley Beaver Ashley Beaver

Cooking Made Easy: 9 Time-Saving Tips & Strategies

We recognize that cooking can sometimes feel overwhelming and exhausting. We are here to help you make cooking easier, quicker, and more enjoyable so that you can stay focused on reaching your goals without getting burnt out by the process. In this article, we will provide you with tips and strategies to streamline your meal planning and preparation, saving you time and energy.

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Nutrition, Fitness Ashley Beaver Nutrition, Fitness Ashley Beaver

How to do your own research (kinda)

There are probably two types of people who clicked on this article. The first is your average person who just wants to make sense out of the conflicting and confusing information that is presented to them in the mainstream media, social media, or other sources who seem to use research to present completely contradictory views on fitness and nutrition. If this is you, maybe you were hoping to read this and come away with a fool-proof strategy that enables you to enter the correct things into Google to come away with the right answer to your fitness or nutrition question. The second kind of person, might be a graduate student who is curious how I possibly hope to condense the 6-15 credits of courses that they took, or are about to take, dealing with conducting research into a single article.  

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Nutrition, Recipes Ashley Beaver Nutrition, Recipes Ashley Beaver

No Prep Food Prep

No prep meal prep foods can be a LIFESAVER during busy weeks, traveling and weeks when you just don’t have the mental capacity to cook everything fresh.

Black Iron Nutrition coach Ryann breaks down “No Prep” food options by macro, along with some additional no prep food options specifically for fruits and vegetables. Hopefully this makes you dread meal prep a little less and gives you some more time on the weekends for FUN!

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Nutrition Ashley Beaver Nutrition Ashley Beaver

Calories in vs Calories Out, It’s That Simple (or is it?)

If you have ever struggled to lose or gain weight, I guarantee you have at some point heard the advice: 

You just need to eat more/less than you burn”

The person that typically says this kind of thing most likely also holds the belief that being overweight or having obesity is a result of pure laziness or a lack of morals. At the surface level, this advice is correct. However, it is correct in the same way that going to a football game and telling the head coach of your team “Hey pal, you just gotta score more points than the other team and you’ll win” is correct. Correct, but very unhelpful and lacks any understanding on what contributes to the scoring of points. 

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Nutrition Ashley Beaver Nutrition Ashley Beaver

Your Simplified Grocery Guide

In this grocery guide, we have broken down everything you need to create a balanced and healthy meal plan. We suggest how many items to pick from each category, including your major macronutrients like proteins, carbohydrates, and healthy fats, as well as micronutrient-rich fruits and veggies, quick snacks, and seasonings to add flavor to your meals.

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Nutrition, Fitness Ashley Beaver Nutrition, Fitness Ashley Beaver

Sleep: The missing piece in your health & fitness puzzle

In the world of health and fitness, there's a lot of emphasis on exercise, nutrition, and supplements. But there's one crucial factor that often gets overlooked: sleep. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that more exercise, more supplements, or a new diet plan will be the solution to your health and fitness goals. But the truth is, without enough sleep, all those efforts may be in vain.

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Nutrition Ashley Beaver Nutrition Ashley Beaver

Are you eating enough?

Many people are quick to blame nagging health issues on their food habits and often rightfully so. But they’re more likely to pin it on over-eating when often the root of the issue is actually the opposite. Under-eating is VERY common. We’ve conditioned ourselves to believe that eating less  = better life. The truth is that’s not always true. I know, I KNOW, this is the opposite of what you’ve believed your whole life! Eating too little is just as unhealthy as eating too much.

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