What’s in season? Summertime brings good food and nutritious food, giving you more opportunities than ever to support your fitness goals. Not only are delicious, healthy fruits and vegetables in season, but the warm weather allows for lower-calories cooking methods like grilling.
Preparing Food: Grilling
Grilling allows you to enjoy flavor-packed meats, veggies, fruits, and starches without the added oils that often come with deep-frying, pan-frying, or sauteeing. A quick spritz of a high smoke point oil (avocado, grapeseed, peanut, sunflower) will help with your food from sticking to the grill but keeps you from tacking on the calories that come with other cooking methods. Also– read up on other hacks for keeping your food from sticking to the grill, such as pre-heating and rubbing the grill with half an onion or potato before laying down your meats or foods.
Grillable Foods
Meats of course are a classic for grilling, giving you lots of options depending on your goals. Chicken breast and fish are great options for people aiming to lose body fat, whereas choices like steak, pork, and chicken thighs can be flavorful options for people trying to switch-it-up and hit their protein goal or those who are trying to eat in a caloric surplus. On top of meats, grilling veggies is a great way to get additional flavor and avoid overcooking foods. Grilled asparagus, peppers, zucchini, and eggplant are classic choices. Grilled corn and potatoes also make a great whole-food addition for some carbs in your meal. Beyond grilling veggies, give grilled fruit a try. Grilled peaches, pineapple, watermelon, and mango can be delicious ways of preparing these seasonal foods.
In-Season Foods
Depending on where you live, there is a great variety of produce in-season during the summer. In Maryland, seasonal veggies include beets, bell peppers, carrots, celery, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, okra, and zucchini. Summer is known to have lots of ripe fruits, including different berries, melons, citruses, tomatoes, pineapples, plums, peaches, pears, mangoes, avocados, grapes, cherries, and bananas. Fresh herbs and garlic are also in season, too, so don’t skimp on the seasoning!
A whole-foods diet is almost always the best approach to reaching your fitness goals, and the summertime is a great time to kickstart a new, fresh diet. Give some fresh, in-season raw or grilled foods a try!
Shannon McGoey is a trainer Merritt Clubs Eldersburg.
