Author: Dr Nancy P

Tuesday Tip

Tuesday tip: healthy habit change

Dr Nancy P

Tuesday tip: healthy habit change 🤞🏻

Do you find yourself sat on the sofa after dinner halfway through a box of chocolates? You started off with great intentions, and then somewhere, something happened and you’ve mindlessly snacked your way to bed.

Behavioural habits are incredibly difficult to break, because they affect neural pathways in the brain, encouraging you to feed the habit and reinforce it. So how can we change these habits? A few simple interventions can help.

#1 Write it down

Make a note of the habit as it happens . Write down what the habit is, why you think you’re doing it and if you can then jot down an alternative. e.g. post dinner choc munching 8:30pm, craving something sweet, could get some better dessert options in to help e.g. strawberries and greek yoghurt

#2 Write it down EVERY single time

Don’t just write it down once – keep track of every time it happens. This ensures it’s at the front of your mind, making you more aware of it, and forced to take steps to deal with the habit and try to replace it with better thoughts and behaviour.

#3 Remove the trigger

Once you’ve identified the habit and when it’s happening you can start to remove the trigger e.g. don’t just sit down in front of the tv, try doing something else – a walk, adult colouring book, read etc

#4 improve the environment

A recent study showed that however good your intentions are they can be derailed by your surroundings. Keep the junk food out the house or out of sight, have healthy snacks on hand.

#5 set yourself up

Set yourself up for success – drink enough water, eat sensible sized balanced meals, pack good snacks, get plenty of sleep – follow a regular routine, schedule downtime, put devices away etc, remove junk food from the house. Finally get your friends and family on board – let them help you with the habits too by helping you recognise when you’re doing it, and help with alternatives.

Happy habit changing!

🤗 xx

Tuesday Tip

Tuesday tip: Turning fat in to muscle

Dr Nancy P

Tuesday tip: Turning fat in to muscle 💪🏼

How do you turn fat in to muscle?

Sadly you can’t! Fat is fat, muscle is muscle – totally different types of tissue. Both can be lost or gained – that’s it. So what’s happening when people say this? Well in reality people are losing some fat, and gaining some muscle, which is why it may seem like fat has “turned into” muscle. Fat is lost when you have a calorie deficit, muscle is gained by having a calorie surplus, working out (a muscle building stimulus) and having the raw materials to do it – protein. In most cases if you’re losing weight you are mostly losing fat, though if you are also upping your exercise then there will be some increase in muscle too – which is one reason why weight loss is often not a perfectly linear process. This will work best for those with a reasonable amount of fat to lose, on a moderate calorie deficit i.e. no starvation diets, who also increase their activity. This is what I design for many of my clients. It means you’ll be losing fat and also gaining a little muscle too. As muscle is denser than fat you’ll also shrink (they weigh the same… muscle just takes up less space than fat).

So what about when you stop working out? Does muscle magically turn in to fat?

Nope! it can’t! What happens though is if it’s short term your muscles are just less “pumped” so you “feel” fatter. Longer term you simply lose some muscle and probably gain some fat. This is because when you remove the stimulus which tells your body to build/maintain muscle (i.e. strenuous physical activity) you will lose the muscle mass. You’ll also end up burning fewer calories both through less activity, but also less muscle mass means a lower bmr (basal metabolic rate – i.e. calories burnt at rest), and so you are more likely to end up in a calorie surplus and put on fat.

The only way to prevent muscle being lost long term is to continue to workout! But you can prevent fat being gained – simply by ensuring you don’t eat more than your maintenance level of calories (easier said than done – though not impossible!)

So bottom line – fat can never be turned into muscle, and muscle is never turned into fat!

Happy Tuesday 🤗

xx

Recipes

Easy Tomato chutney

Dr Nancy P

I was fortunate to be given a load of homegrown cherry tomatoes from a friend, and we had a a small harvest of our own so wanted to make something that would use a load of them. As the weather is starting to feel more autumnal I thought I’d make up a batch of chutney!

This is very easy to make but does take a long time to cook through! Allow at least 3-5 hours of cooking time (you can turn off the heat, cover it and leave it to continue later if you run out of time). This needs to be left to ‘ripen’ so should be ready for Christmas!

You will need:

1kg tomatoes (can be any tomatoes you like – even green ones)

1kg Bramley apples

900g onions

6 cloves of garlic

600g brown sugar

2 tbsp ground ginger

1/2 tbsp cayenne

1 tbsp salt

25g pickling spice

1.5 litres Malt Vinegar

Small piece of muslin or gauze and some string

Jars

Peel and chop the onions into quarters. Core and chop the apples into quarters or eighths if large, leave the peel on. Chop the tomatoes.

Place each of these into a processor and pulse until chopped into small pieces.

Place into a very large saucepan. Crush the garlic cloves and add them too. Stir well.

Add the ginger, cayenne and salt and the sugar. Mix well.

Pop the pickling spices in a small square of muslin or gauze, tie it up and then tie it to the handle of the pan so it hangs down in to the pan. Add the vinegar and stir.

Bring the mixture to a simmer and then turn the heat down and allow to gently simmer uncovered for at least 3-4 hrs.

This will take a long time so just let it simmer away. Depending how much liquid the fruit and veg contained it may take even longer. Stir occasionally. The liquid will evaporate off and you will be left with a thicker consistency (chutney like!) – when you draw a spoon through it will leave a trail.

Pop some clean jars in the oven at 50 degrees just to heat through. Pour the hot chutney into the jars, add a wax seal and plastic film over the top and then label and store for 1-3 months before eating.

Enjoy on your sandwich or with some cheese! 🙂

Xx

Recipes

Chocolate peanut butter healthy pancakes

Dr Nancy P

Something for a rainy Sunday afternoon! These are based on my quick and easy healthy banana pancakes (recipe here) – just with a couple of Sunday additions! This makes two small pancakes, enough for one person, and comes in at approx 280 calories, plus the fruit.

You will need:

1 banana

1 egg

2 tbsp flour (any flour you like)

Cinnamon (optional)

1 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tbsp peanut butter

Fruit of your choice

Mash the banana with a fork in bowl, add the egg and mix well.

The mixture will vary in consistency depending on your banana size and ripeness, and egg size – it really doesn’t matter though. Add the flour, cocoa and cinnamon and mix well. Stir in the peanut butter.

The batter will be lumpy – that’s fine too! Heat a little oil in a pan and then add the batter. Leave to cook on one side, then flip.

Serve with fruit (if you need it you can also add some maple syrup or other liquid sweetener but I find the fruit is sweet enough)

Enjoy 🙂

xx

Recipes

Vanilla brekkie smoothie

Dr Nancy P

This is my brekkie almost every day – it’s easy to grab and go, and I make a batch of 4 or 5 so I don’t have to worry in the mornings. You can switch the protein powder for nut butter if you like, I use the powder because it helps to keep me full and gives a balanced brekkie for me. Don’t worry about the spinach – you can’t taste it at all, but it does give a load of extra vitamins and minerals and studies have shown it also helps to increase exercise performance so it’s worth including!

This makes a full large blender load (I use a vitamix which holds almost 2 litres) and I split that between 4 or 5 shakers, each is about 250 – 75 cals. I use frozen spinach for ease but you can use fresh too.

You will need:

2 bananas

1 litre of your milk of choice (I usually use light soya, but go for whatever you fancy)

2 very large scoops of protein powder (I use a vanilla one usually and the scoop is equivalent to about 2 heaped tbsp)

8 cubes of frozen spinach (or 2 large handfuls of fresh)

Large handful of ice

Pop it all in the blender, whiz until smooth and creamy. Pour into shakers and store in the fridge. I usually add a couple of cubes of ice in the morning just to keep it cool.

Enjoy! 🙂

Xx