Tag: healthy foods

Nutrition and Calorie Tips

Healthy Christmas brekkie….

Dr Nancy P

Healthy Christmas brekkie…. 🍫

Short and sweet (literally) today as it’s nearly Christmas! And I thought it might be good to offer a little reminder that it doesn’t always have to be about the nutritional value of the food you’re eating. Food serves a purpose beyond pure fuel – it’s also an emotional activity. We enjoy eating and we enjoy food, and we enjoy the associations we make with food.

So you could wake up on Christmas morning and have a nutrition breakfast of greek yoghurt, fruit and a little muesli, with a small cappuccino. It will undoubtedly taste delicious and set you up for your day. Or, because it’s Christmas, you could decide you’d rather enjoy the perfectly acceptable breakfast of a bag of chocolate coins! It’s only a day, and unless you’re eating chocolate coins for breakfast everyday you’ll be fine. And as you can see from the comparison – if calories are what’s important to you – the coins are lower anyway! lol!

Enjoy! Merry Christmas 🎄🍫xx

Tuesday Tip

Tuesday Tip: Coping with Xmas Stress

Dr Nancy P

Tuesday Tip: Coping with Xmas Stress 🎄

Stress levels can soar at Xmas, with the pressure of expectations, exchange and excess. Here are some tips to help!

#1 Limit spending

Gift buying and entertainment costs can spiral quickly, so make a budget and limit spending by only taking cash on shopping trips. Make 1 financial decision at a time to avoid losing willpower and overspending. Remember your relationships with friends and family are more important than material objects!

#2 Manage expectations

Wanting things to be perfect can lead to more stress. Dinner being late or a less than perfect xmas tree won’t ruin your day – it may even give you fond memories to laugh about in future! Be realistic with children: they don’t need everything on their list! Xmas is about being together, so plan lots of fun family activities to do.

#3 Take time out

Factor in some time out for yourself – a bath, watching a movie, reading or a walk. You will feel better and be less likely to take your stress out on the rest of the family too.

#4 Don’t fall totally off the wagon

Plan, eat well outside events, stay active – check out my article (here) for more. If you do find yourself overindulging just remember 1 day of indulgence won’t make you fat, just get back on track the next day and don’t make it a month!

#5 Go for a walk

Studies show physical activity reduces the brain’s response to stress, even more so with other people (by 26%). So try to fit a walk in to your day even if it means walking to work, or school pick up, or just around the block.

#6 Have fun

Laughter is a fab stress reliever. It releases endorphins, boosts circulation, helps muscles relax and reduces physical symptoms of stress. Make sure you have some fun; whether it’s your favourite movie, jokes with relatives, or a fun activity with friends or family.

At the end of the day remember, its just one day, it doesn’t define you or your life. Your friends and family are there all year round and if things don’t go as planned you can always get together in January or Feb instead 🙂

Happy Tuesday 🤗

xx

Nutrition and Calorie Tips

Estimating amounts is hard…

Dr Nancy P

Estimating amounts is hard…. 🥪

I’m always telling my clients to try to be as accurate as possible when they’re tracking their food and calories. This means actually weighing things – particularly anything that is calorie dense.

Very often people tell me that they’re “pretty good” at estimating the amounts they’re having, that they have the same thing each day so they know what it looks like now, that they can estimate pretty well etc. I’m sure some can, but I know I can’t. I can at first but then often amounts creep up without you even realising it.

In this example on the left is 5g butter on an 80 cal slice of white toast, on the right is the same toast with 15g butter!

As you can see they look pretty similar to the naked eye, yet the calorie difference is significan. It would be very easy to assume you were using around 5g butter but actually be using closer to 15g or more! It may not matter now and then but these calories do add up. And if that’s just butter, what about other things? With less calorie dense foods it won’t matter as much but with calorie dense foods (e.g. nut butters, spreads, cheese, avocado etc) when you get it wrong you’re adding a large number of calories. This is also why measure like “a scape of butter are no good – what’s a scrape? my scrape may not be your scrape etc

So if you are trying to lose fat/watching your calories maybe it’s time to go back and get those scales out and double check those estimates and see if you really are as good as you think you are.

🤗

Xx

Tuesday Tip

Tuesday Tip: Calorie Budget

Dr Nancy P

Tuesday Tip: Calorie Budget 💰

As we head into the festive period it’s easy to overdo food and drink. If you want to stay in control it’s useful to think of your calories the same way you think about your Christmas spending budget.

With a budget you have a set amount you can spend so you can’t spend ore, but If you are trying to save too much you may deprive yourself of things that make you healthy and happy. Budgetting your finances is never something to be ashamed of right? It’s a good thing and shows responsibility. As it’s YOUR budget you can also choose to spend extravagantly on certain things if you’ve saved up some extra money.

For calories, you know how much you can eat per day to lose fat and if you eat more you will gain fat. If you eat too little, it won’t prevent fat loss but you will probably be miserable. Budgeting your calories isn’t something to be self-conscious or embarrassed about; it shows you’re looking after yourself. And, as with a budget, you can always choose to spend more for certain things, as long as the overall calories stay in budget over the week/month.

There are a few ways to do this:

1. Track food and drink as you go along, then stop when you reach the calorie limit. This works as you won’t overeat and it shows where you’re spending your calories. BUT you have to stop when you hit your target which can be tricky if you use up the cals early in the day. Fat loss may take longer but you’ll be learning along the way so will naturally get better at hitting your calories.

2. Pre-set Budget – plan ahead to meet your calorie budget by tracking in advance. This is the best option as you’re likely to hit your target, but you might find it too restrictive depending on your personality and lifestyle

3. Wing it! This only works if you happen to have a small appetite naturally and rarely overeat (a naturally frugal person), so only works if you already have those habits. Of course it teaches you nothing about calories.

Happy budgeting and Tuesday 🤗

xx

Nutrition and Calorie Tips

A healthy snack of dried fruit…

Dr Nancy P

A healthy snack of dried fruit… 🍇

Fruit makes a great healthy snack and we’re encouraged to swap chocolate and biscuits for fruit instead… but be careful about the fruit you’re actually having.

Many people will happily snack on dried fruit thinking it’s a great way to lose weight. Now whilst there’s nothing wrong with dried fruit at all, as it’s full of fibre and vitamins, it’s also much higher in calories (mostly from sugar) than fresh fruit. And you’re far more likely to over eat it. It’s easy to eat a whole packet of raisins for example but you’re a lot less likely to eat an entire bunch of grapes (and in fact you could eat 4 bunches and still be consuming fewer calories.

The reason the raisins are so much higher in calories is because they’ve lost 95 percent of their water content leaving mostly sugar and fibre, in a much smaller package. This ramps up the sugar and calorie content, so 100g of dried fruit can be more than 4 times more calories than fresh fruit, and less filling.

So if fat loss is your goal consider the type of fruit you’re snacking on, and be mindful of how much dried fruit you’re consuming and don’t be afraid of fresh fruit.

🤗

Xx