Tools for Healthy Eating

Mindless snacking can be a major contributor to weight gain. You may have a general view that your diet is pretty healthy. You may enjoy cooking and cook most of your meals from scratch, but if you take a closer look at your overall diet, you may also be including additional energy in the form of ‘snacks’. If you keep a food diary, be honest and record everything you eat and drink. 

Take a closer look at your eating habits and try to stop and think before you eat. Ask yourself the following questions.

On a scale of 1-10 how hungry are you?

1 – Not hungry at all. You’ve just eaten and feel satisfied

3 – Not hungry, just 'fancy' something to eat

5 – Feel slightly hungry, but not really ready to eat

7 – Hungry and starting to think about what to eat

8 – Really hungry. Your stomach may be rumbling and telling you its time to eat

10 – You’re starting to feel slightly irritable and extremely hunger.

Try to be more in tune with your appetite. You may notice patterns in your eating habits e.g. you may sit down with a cup of tea and a biscuit or two to watch your favourite TV programme. Try to break away from these habits. Use the hunger scale as an indicator of when you should eat and not just because you ‘fancy’ it. Try to break the cycle of ‘mindless eating’. 

Try to follow your natural appetite and eat when you are truly hungry: 7-8 on the hunger scale. 

Start to make small dietary changes

Reduce the amount of processed and refined foods in your diet. This applies to all the nutrients - proteins, fats and carbohydrates. There are good and bad sources of all these foods.      

Fats 

Try to limit the amount of refined fats and oils to your diet. This includes bottled vegetable oils. Become a smarter shopper. Start to read the labels. Limit the amount of 'trans fats', commonly referred to hydrogenated vegetable oils on food labels. If your diet is high in processed foods, fast foods and ready meals, you're probably consuming too much of these fats. You should be aiming to consume most of the fat in your diet from naturally occurring fats, intrinsic to the food you eat - fats in nuts, seeds, meat and fish. Good quality, unrefined vegetable oils, seed and nut oils, dairy products are also OK in moderation. Simply, limit the amount of added 'processed fats'. Foods naturally contain fats; these fats are essential for a healthy diet. It’s the processed fats we add to our diet that we can do without.

Carbohydrates 

Not all carbohydrate foods are bad. Just like fats, you should be limiting the amount of refined carbohydrates. Try to limit or avoid carbohydrate foods made from refined white flour and sugar. These types of carbohydrate foods provide us with little more than energy. 

Because of the hormone response to deal with these types of carbohydrates, your body goes into ‘storage’ mode as opposed to ‘burning’ mode and generally leave us wanting more of them. 

When choosing carbohydrate foods try to follow these simple rules

• Always opt for unrefined carbohydrates. This means that the carbohydrate should be as close to its natural form as possible e.g. whole grains including the fibrous coat and germ. The skins should be consumed on vegetables when possible.
• The main job of carbohydrate is to provide our muscles with energy to work, so consider when your body needs more energy. Try to avoid carbohydrate rich meals when your activity levels are low. Don’t totally exclude them from your diet, just try not to over consume them when you don’t actually need the energy.

Protein 

The theme continues, limit the amount of processed meats, fish and dairy foods in your diet. Choose better quality but less of them. Include a variety of non-animal proteins in the diet from nuts, seeds and pulses. Try to include different sources of protein such as sprouted beans and seeds. Protein foods should be an essential element in every meal, not only because they provide essential nutrients, but they are also very satisfying so, keep you feeling full fro longer.

Don’t over eat

Try to be more ‘mindful’ when you are eating. Be more in-tune with how much food you actually need. Do you regularly go for second helpings or continue to nibble after you have finished your meal. The food may be tempting and delicious, but do you actually need the extra energy. Try not to go straight for second helpings, stop and think if you have had enough. It takes a short while for your stomach to send signals to your brain telling you that you have had enough. After a meal do you sometimes feel uncomfortably overfull? Try not to allow this to happen by stopping and thinking before you go for second helping. Try to get into the habit of listening to your natural appetite.

7 Steps to get fit and feel great

It feels like spring is just around the corner.  Time to shake off the winter blues, get fit, be healthy, live better…and you don’t even need to go to the gym. 

Do you want to improve your health and fitness? You may already be doing it. No matter where you are or what you're doing. Spring is a great time for positive change. 

Follow these 7 simple steps. It's important to take 1 step each day. Read it; think about it, how can you make this happen? There is a lot to think about here, so you don't need to complete each step on consecutive days. Make sure you have a clear picture for each step before you move on. 

Step 1 - Think positively

Start with positive intentions. Whatever it is you want to achieve, know that you can do it. Try not to let words of doubt creep into your mind; and don’t let others put you off, just because you want to do something different. Have a positive personal mantra ‘I can do this’, ‘I am fit and strong’, ‘I feel great’. Repeat it to yourself. A positive mind results in a healthy body.

Step 2 - take small
steps

Try not to take on too much. Step 6 is all about planning and how you can plan activity into your (busy) life. If you were planning to run a marathon, you wouldn't start your training by running 26 miles. You would start slowly with short runs and gradually build up your training as your fitness improves. 

There may be a lot you want to achieve so take it slowly. Each small step takes you a little closer to where you want to be. A huge leap may just be too much. Start to think about what you want to achieve. 

What does it look like? 

What do you look like? 

What are the positive benefits of reaching your goal?  

Start to set some definitive goals. 

If you want to get fit, what does that mean to you?

If you want to lose weight, what do you look like?

 How much do you want to lose? 

If you want to improve your health, what does that mean to you? 

How would you know your health has improved? 

Write them out. Over the next week, keep going back to them. Picture yourself achieving these goals. 

Step 3. ‘Mindful’ eating

Think about what you eat and how you eat. Do you eat the same foods week-in, week-out? Is there a general eating pattern you follow? We are all creatures of habit. Lots of the eating habits we develop can be detrimental to our health. Identifying and breaking these habits is the first step to developing new 'healthier' habits. 

Do you snack when you are not hungry?

When and what do you snack on? 

Do you regularly go for second helpings?

How do you feel after a meal? Are you satisfied or over full?

Does your diet contain lots of processed or ready meals or do you prepare most of you meals from scratch?

Do you try out different foods? 

How many different coloured vegetables and fruit are in your fridge/fruit bowl at the moment? Is this what you normally have?

How often do you plan what you are going to eat?

For the week ahead, try to answer these questions. Keeping a simple food diary can help you identify your general eating habits. It’s better to record foods as you eat them. Be honest with yourself. Record what you ate, how much and at what time did you eat. On my next blog I’ll provide you with some simple guidelines to make effective dietary changes. 

Step 4. ‘Mindful’ activity

Get to know what your body can do and how it moves. Practicing Yoga and Pilates helps you be in control of how your body moves. The mind-muscle connection awakens muscles, which have become underused and weak. Being able to support your own bodyweight with strength and control is a very empowering experience. Through regular practice your body will feel strong, supple and energised. Even if you're out walking or running, perform your activities with positive intention and purpose as opposed to mindlessly running on a treadmill while zoning out to whatever’s on the screen in front of you.

Step 5. Improve your posture

Modern lifestyles and inactivity can seriously affect your posture resulting in a multitude of aches and pains. Good posture not only affects how your body moves and functions, it also affects how you body looks. Poor posture can cause some muscles to lengthen while the opposing muscles shorted. 

Siting for long periods of time shortens the hip flexors and hamstrings and lengthens the gluteal (buttocks). The abdominal muscles also become weak, as they are not being used to provide support. All this affects the position of your pelvis and can be a major cause of back pain.

If you spend a lot of time sitting at a desk ensure your workstation is set up correctly. Here’s a useful link to a workstation assessment: 

http://www.exeter.ac.uk/staff/wellbeing/oh/services/displayscreenequipmentdse/dseworkstationassessmentguidance/

Regular Pilates and Yoga practice will strengthen the important postural muscles. Click here for Yoga and Pilates classes

Step 6. Plan

Don’t leave exercise and activity to chance – plan ahead. Where can you fit activity into your day? The most frequently given reason for not exercising is ‘time’. I ‘don’t have time to exercise’. ‘I don’t have time to get fit’. You don’t need to spend 2 hours…even 1 hour a day, but try to do something every day. Use the green space you have around you. Get outside and do something active. Shake off the winter blues by raising your natural levels of serotonin and Vitamin D. Walk, run, cycle, do yoga…of course. Get your body moving and get a ‘spring’ in your step. Even a few short burst of activity are more then you were previously doing. 

Step 7. Stick to it

Make it a lifestyle change for you and your family. It’s not a fad; it’s what you do. Step 2 is about taking small steps. By doing this it’s easier to stick to. Remember every day is a new day. Don’t beat yourself up if things don’t go according to plan or if things get in the way. Stick to it. Keep your goal in mind. Pick your self up from where you left off. Practice making changes and they’ll be with you for life. 

Congratulate yourself for al the positive steps you take to improve your health. 

Go back to step 1. and start to put these steps into action. Now you have a clear picture of what you want to achieve, I will give you lots of tools and advice to help you achieve your goals. 

March Exercise of the Month

Plank with Hip Extension

This exercise will strengthen the core, upper body, gluteals and hamstrings. All great full body exercise. 

Step 1

Step 2

The exercise 

• Start in a plank position
• Ensure body stays in one long line
• Wrists in line with the shoulders
• Gently engage between shoulder blades to stabilise them and draw shoulders away from ears
• Stabilising core by gently lifting lower belly and pelvic floor
• Inhale to prepare. Exhale to extend leg. Inhale to stay. Exhale to lower leg to the floor
• Repeat 5-10 reps on each leg. 

Exercise focus

• Maintain one long line throughout the movement
• Avoid arching the lower back
• Focus on producing the movement from the glutes
• Maintain gentle contraction of the pelvic floor and lower belly throughout the movement. 

Alternative

If alignment and neutral spine cannot be maintained, perform the exercise from a kneeling position until core strength develops.