Tag: healthy snacks

Nutrition and Calorie Tips

Seasonal snacks….

Dr Nancy P

Seasonal snacks…. 🐣

Easter is over – probably my favourite celebration – because I do love a chocolate egg! And there’s plenty of them still around! It’s also a symbol of new beginnings and spring. There’s loads of lovely seasonal foods around now, many of which make great snacks. A delicious seasonal snack could be some lovely fresh baby carrots (or other spring veg) with 70g humous. It’s full of nutrients – vitamin A and fibre from the carrots, good fats and protein from the humous etc and a reasonable number of cals for a snack. But you could also have an equally seasonal snack – of a creme egg (or your egg of choice!). Obviously this has a different nutritional profile – with more sugar, but fewer calories and less fat.

Both are perfectly good snacks. 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 choose to snack on veg and humous. It will undoubtedly taste delicious and keep you satisfied until your next meal. Or, you may decide you’d rather enjoy a creme egg to snack on instead! Both are fine, within the context of a balanced diet overall. And as you can see from the comparison – if calories are what’s important to you – the creme egg is marginally lower anyway! lol!

So if you fancy the odd chocolate egg over the post Easter period then go for it!

Enjoy! 🐣
Xx

Tuesday Tip

Tuesday tip: Get back on track

Dr Nancy P

Tuesday tip: Get back on track 🚂

One of the most important things about trying to lose weight/fat is to accept that you’re not always going to be perfect. There will always be days when you end up eating more, when you can’t control your choices easily, when you just crave a takeaway or chocolate or whatever it is. If you go over your calories it doesn’t mean your whole progress is lost, it doesn’t make you a bad person, it doesn’t ‘ruin your diet’. Just get back on track. Draw a line under it, and get back on it the next day. One day of over eating won’t ruin weeks or months of work.

However on the flip side, if you really want to make progress you can’t do it every week. If you find you’re in the habit of letting it all go out the window over the weekend, but thinking it’s ok because you’ll get back on track on Monday then it might be worth stepping back and thinking about what you’re doing. Yes it’s vital to get back on track but it’s also important to maintain some consistency. You can’t use every weekend, every social situation, every bad day as an excuse to over eat on the basis that you’ll get back on track on Monday. If you’re doing that 2 or 3 days a week you won’t make progress. At the end of the day there has to be some sacrifice. Yes you can enjoy whatever you want to eat or drink, but it does have to be in moderation, if you want to lose weight/fat. You’re going to have to make some changes somewhere.

So just be careful – yes, be kind to yourself and if you have a blip then you definitely can and should just get back on track. But if you’re doing it every weekend and using it as an excuse then you may need to rethink your approach to those days. You definitely don’t need to be perfect, but you do need to aim for some level of consistency. Or perhaps you need to accept that now isn’t the time to be trying to reduce your calories to lose weight and make peace with that. Which is also totally ok too!

Happy Tuesday 🤗
Xx

Nutrition and Calorie Tips

Enjoying a seasonal treat ….

Dr Nancy P

Enjoying a seasonal treat …. 🥚 🍫

I never tell clients to cut out any foods/drinks totally from their diet and as a big fan of Easter chocolate I certainly wouldn’t ever be ‘banning’ chocolate eggs, but if you are trying to lose weight/fat then you may just want to be aware of the calories involved.

There’s no reason you can’t have any Easter eggs you want as it ultimately comes down to whether you’re in a calorie deficit. However, with the size of some of the eggs out there now it’s very easy to rack up over a thousand calories or more, without even noticing!

For example – if you’re a Smarties fan and lucky enough to receive the Giant egg you’d be looking at nearly 2000 cals for the entire egg and accompanying bag of mini eggs (the egg alone is over 1500 cals!). That’s more than most people’s daily calorie goal 😬. Also they rather sneakily suggest a portion of the egg is only 106 cals… because they claim you can get 15 portions out of the egg 🤔.

In contrast you could enjoy a large Smarties egg and the tube of smarties for around 1000 cals. Now ok, the egg is just a milk choc egg (not full of bits like the giant one) but it’s still delicious and that’s still almost a whole day’s calories for many people.

So if Easter eggs are your thing (they are definitely mine!) then maybe just be aware of the cals in them if you’re trying to stick to your goals.

Enjoy! 🐣

Xx

Tuesday Tip

Tuesday Tip: Will that day of overeating make you fat?

Dr Nancy P

Tuesday Tip: Will that day of overeating make you fat? 🍔

With the Easter weekend on the horizon I’m sure there will be lots of chocolate eggs and family roasted etc. We can all relate to that feeling of eating way too much and worrying we will instantly gain fat. But is this really a cause for concern? Can one ‘binge’ really make you gain fat overnight? In the main – no!

It takes approximately 3500kcal extra calories to gain 1 lb of fat. That’s about 500kcal extra per day over the week. Even if you did that for a week that still wouldn’t guarantee that you’d gain 1lb of fat immediately because your energy expenditure is never the same each day.

But what about if you eat it in one day?When we overeat, we think that all that extra food is going to turn into fat, but that’s not necessarily true. But then why do the scales go up the next day? And why isn’t it stored as fat?

Some of the calories are used for digestion and absorption of food itself. When you’ve overeaten your body temperature also rises and you get more ‘fidgety’ as your non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) inceases (all the subconscious movements increase e.g. respiration, blinking, etc ). Some of the extra food will be used to replenish glycogen stores in the liver and muscles. For each 1g of glycogen 3g of water is retained. Even if the glycogen stores are full the body still doesn’t prioritise converting carbs into fat. This only happens if you’re consistently eating more cals than you burn. Storing carbs as fat is the body’s least preferred method of using excess carbs. Sodium also increases water retention so if part of what you overate was carb and salt heavy then there’ll be significant water retention – not fat! In addition you have the weight of the actual food in your digestive system.

So one single day/meal probably won’t lead to too much fat gain. The weight gain you see is mostly fluid and glycogen stores. It’s longer term overeating that leads to fat gain. If you get right back on track you’ll be ok! If however your average daily cals are consistently over your calorie requirement over the course of days/ weeks then that will lead to fat gain.

Happy Tuesday 🤗xx

Nutrition and Calorie Tips

‘I’ve had so many naughty snacks’…

Dr Nancy P

‘I’ve had so many naughty snacks’… 😈

With Easter just around the corner and hot cross buns and Easter treats everywhere I’m hearing a lot of people saying how ‘naughty’ they’ve been or how they’ve been having lots of ‘naughty’ snacks. When you’re trying to lose fat it’s natural to try to avoid ‘junk’ food or foods high in sugar and fat. One such ‘naughty’ snack is the hot cross bun. For some reason these are perceived as a bad thing to be eating and are therefore accompanied by feelings of guilt and shame. But eating the fruit and nut snack pot is viewed as healthy and something to feel virtuous about.

In reality in terms of calories, sugar and fat the ‘healthy’ snack is actually worse! Yes the snack pot has a little more protein (which can help you feel fuller for longer), and more micronutrients, so it is a slightly more balanced snack, but that doesn’t mean the hot cross bun (an apple and cinnamon one in this example) is necessarily a bad option.

Overall calories and overall nutrition are what count – and if you’re trying to lose fat you need to be in a calorie deficit – in that scenario the hot cross bun is a better option (even if you added on some butter/spread), especially if you’re eating a balanced diet and getting protein and the other nutrients in your other meals.

Emotional well being is also important and depriving yourself of foods you enjoy and instead choosing the nuts and fruit pot under the misguided impression that it’s a healthier option or isn’t good for long term sustainability or a healthy approach to food.

The fruit and nuts are brilliant and do make a great snack option (as long as you’re aware of the calories) but sometimes if you fancy a hot cross bun then just have it and enjoy it! 🤗