Category

Nutrition

Jun 21
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Do You Get Up In The Night To Eat?

By Mindset, Nutrition, Weight Loss No Comments
Do you get up during the night to eat? Apparently, for those who do, the average overnight caloric intake is 700 calories. That's a lot of calories, especially if you're looking to lose weight. You could easily be eating back your calorie deficit overnight, or even pushing the balance into weight gain. But, if you do get up in the night to eat, I suspect you might already know that! So, the question becomes: why do you get up in the night to eat? Well, while the answer to this will vary person to person, I have some ideas for things you could consider as a starting point. Perhaps something here will resonate with you. First, let's consider the obvious. Are you actually hungry? If you're restricting your intake during the day, perhaps to 'make up' for the calories you ate overnight, you might be creating a bit of a vicious circle. So, if this could be you, strike off what happened overnight and eat three good quality meals today. Next, consider whether you might be being woken up by a blood sugar drop which then makes you feel super hungry. If this could be the case for you, it's time to think about what you're eating at dinner. Choose a meal with plenty of protein to promote satiety, and lots of fibre too. The fibre could come from veggies but including some starchy, fibre rich carbs might help to promote sleep. How about your sleep quality in general? If your sleep quality doesn't seem great, perhaps it's time to work on that. This could be a bit of a 'chicken or egg' situation, as obviously if you're getting up in the night to eat, you're probably feeling that your sleep quality isn't great. But, it's still worth thinking about your…
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May 07
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Something You Might Not Have Thought Of

By Health, Nutrition, Weight Loss No Comments
Do you drink while you’re eating in order to wash your food down? Perhaps it’s worth reconsidering this. If you can eat your meals without drinking, you’ll find it slows your eating down. Its great to eat more slowly for various reasons. Thinking about weight loss, one great reason is that it takes a while for your body to let you know that you’ve eaten enough. So, if you’ve eaten slowly, you’re less likely to have over eaten before you get the signal. Next, eating more slowly means better digestion. Your digestion works best when you’re properly chewing your food and not bolting it down as quickly as you can. If you feel like you really need water to wash your food down, it’s a good sign that you’re probably eating too quickly and not chewing enough. There’s some really good research demonstrating that eating more slowly is linked to weight loss. Also that people who eat quickly are significantly more likely to be overweight - three times more likely according to some research!
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Mar 22
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Tasty Food For Weight Loss

By Health, Nutrition No Comments
If you want to lose weight, you are allowed to eat tasty food! I LOVE good food. I enjoy choosing, shopping for and preparing a nice meal. As I've said before, a meal that looks good and tastes good is more satisfying than a meal made up with the same calories and nutrients but which looks a mess and isn't especially tasty. Likewise, herbs and spices add calorie free flavour - and a surprising amount of extra nutrition too. Remember that any real food is healthy food. You don't need to survive on plain chicken and broccoli if you're losing weight. I've mentioned on the Facebook group that my daughter gave me a Turkish cookbook for Christmas. There are so many delicious recipes in that book and it seems to me that this style of cooking masters the art of taking simple, healthy ingredients and turning them into delicious meals which tick all the boxes! One great example is this scrambled egg recipe. I've adapted it a little so you can make it for your lunch today with what you likely have in stock. We all know eggs are a great breakfast. But, they can get a bit boring after a while. I've been cooking this a lot lately. Ingredients, to serve one Half a green pepper A decent sized spring onion Spoonful of olive oil Spoonful of tomato puree Sprinkle of each cumin seeds, oregano and mild chilli flakes 3 eggs Small handful of chopped parsley Soften the pepper in some olive oil Add the spring onion along with the tomato puree, cumin, oregano, chilli and some salt and pepper Crack the eggs directly into the pan and stir through the tomato mixture to break them up Stir as you cook them until they're ready, pop onto a plate and top with…
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Jun 22
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About Plant Points

By Nutrition No Comments
I quite like the idea of plant points. It's something which the American Gut Project came up with a while ago and which seems to be gaining popularity lately. I like the concept of focussing on increasing your intake of certain foods, and allowing the less preferable foods to naturally reduce. This is an approach I've used with clients for years. Now, first up: plant points do NOT mean that eating plant based is the way to go. (In fact, I'll be posting something about this in the Facebook Group next week) Protein is really important and we still need to be making it a priority in our diets. Plant points DO mean: eat more plants! There are loads of reasons we'd want to do this; from increasing our fibre intake which can improve gut health and keep us feeling satisfied between meals, as well as to increase our nutrient intake in general. It's recommended that we eat about 30g fibre a day - and if you've ever tried to achieve this, you'll know it is quite a challenge; but a challenge associated with all sorts of positive health outcomes. Diversity in the types of fruit, veg and legumes we eat is associated with diversity in our gut microbiome. And a diverse, happy microbiome is associated with general good health - a strong immune system, good energy levels, improved blood sugars and cholesterol numbers. With Plant Points, the aim is to eat 30 different types of plants each week - each one you eat counts as one point. Plants included are the obvious ones like fruits and veggies, and also legumes i.e. beans and lentils, and nuts and seeds. Grains like oats, brown rice, wholegrain wheat, quinoa are all also included - although you want less portions of these across the week…
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