Planning meals often helps someone achieve their healthy eating goals. Planning meals helps people eat more of the food groups like fruit and vegies, lean meat and grains. It saves time and money by directing grocery shopping. It is a help to avoid impulse purchases which are usually high energy and low in nutrition.
Here's the meal planning sheet I give to clients to help them achieve this. I hope it helps you too! Smart Eating Week is here! This is a week run by Accredited Practising Dietitans. What does smart eating mean to you?
My first thought on eating smarter means eating more vegies. Vegies help us avoid diabetes, heart disease and cancer. And the best part is that most vegies don't contain calories, sugar or fat. Vegies can be in form of cooked vegies with our main meal, salad in sandwiches, wraps or rolls or cut up into sticks for snacks. They can be added to soups and stews, in stir fries or in risotto. Side salads are always important with a pasta meal to reduce pasta and meat portions. Rarely do I find that my clients are eating enough vegies. Here's my latest favourite way to include vegies at a barbeque- a roast veg salad. Delicious with that Persian feta! Portion plates have been used for some time to help people lose weight. They remind people to increase their serves of low carb vegies and reduce the meat and carb portions when serving dinner. Research has now been done to document how people found using them. A UK study used crockery and serving spoon sets for people in a weight loss program. People in the study were happy to use both but the plates were used more often. The research showed that the plates reduced self- servings of chips and potato and increased serves of low carb vegies and salad. By reminding people to reduce their carb serves, these portion plates have "the potential to induce modest loss" and are simple and inexpensive. These are the plates used in the study from the USA (Precise Portions) and include a drinking glass. The Australian plates I stock are below. They look quite different but the principle is the same. It would be good to have feedback from people who have used any of these before and if they have helped them. I certainly find they help all my clients who use them! Here's the link to the research-
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/acceptability-and-potential-effectiveness-of-commercial-portion-control-tools-amongst-people-with-obesity/1EE7393072C13C96CB8B66B90D61AEC4/core-reader Many of my clients tell me that they eat good food, but that they eat too much of it. This is why I bought my plastic food models. Love them or hate them, they do show clearly how much to eat. Many people are eating too much meat and carbs (potato, sweet potato, corn, pasta, rice or bread) with their meals and not enough low carb vegies. Adults need 5 serves of vegetables or salad a day. Low carb vegies give us next to no carbs or calories but plenty of vitamins, minerals and fibre. One serve of vegetables= 1/2 cup of cooked vegies. The pictures below show 1 serve of each vegetable, with the carbs at the top of the picture (corn and mashed potato) and the low carb vegies below. Here are some examples of meat portions. One meat serve= 65 g red meat or 80g of chicken as pictured here. Below are three meals. They include 3 serves of low carb vegies, 1 serve of carbohydrate (pasta, mash or corn) and 1 serve of meat or chicken using a Portion Perfection plate. I will keep using my plastic food to inspire my clients to eat more low carb vegies and I trust it has helped you, too!
It's Christmas party season and people might believe that low carb beer is a healthier choice than regular beer. The truth is that most beer is low carb anyway- a stubby has around 2 tsp sugar. However 75% of the calories in beer come from alcohol so choose low alcohol beer, not low carb beer, for a better choice.
I've done a couple of webinars lately to refresh my knowledge of the gluten free diet. I tried some gluten free foods and found bread and wraps which are great to eat. They are small in size and expensive, but they are good options for those who can't eat wheat.
I found two active and helpful Facebook pages which were new to me to support people with coeliac disease: Coeliac Disease in Australia and Be Well Gluten Free. I learnt that a lifelong gluten free diet helps people with coeliac disease avoid complications like osteoporosis and anaemia. However accidental exposure to gluten does not cause long term bowel damage. I learnt more about the oat controversy. 20% of people with CD react to the avenin in oats, and Australian oats may be contaminated with wheat. So oats remain off the diet for people with CD. Food and symptom diaries also really help people with CD to work out what they react to. Please comment if you have found other great gluten free foods! My new logo represents a dinner plate. Did you know half of your dinner plate should be made up of colourful vegies? One quarter is meant to be lean meat, chicken or fish and the other quarter is for carbs like pasta, rice, potato, sweet potato or corn.
This is why I choose to sell Portion Perfection products. Their portion plate has these printed on the plate as a reminder of what food to serve up each night. Contact me to buy some! In the middle of footy final season, it’s a good time to remind players to eat well so they can perform at their best on game day. They need to take a water bottle, lunch and fruit to school. A good afternoon tea will help them to train well- try a milkshake, yoghurt, nuts, raisin toast or cheese and crackers.
Eating carbs the night before a grand final provide energy but don’t forget the colourful vegies and lean meat! And finally, eating breakfast on grand final day will give them energy for the big game! Blue Zones are five areas of the world which live the longest. These areas are Sardinia in Italy, Loma Linda in California, the Nicoya Penisula in Costa Rica, Ikaria in Greece and Okiwana in Japan. These people eat real food, mostly plants and not too much! They have very low rates of obesity, diabetes and cancer. They also:
Tips for you
There is no one magic diet for all of these people- the people in California are vegans and the people in Italy and Greece eat a Mediterranean style diet. Try to capture some of these eating tips and aim to live a long, healthy life! The low FODMAP diet is one of the most satisfying diets I talk to clients about. It helps them understand what foods worsen their gut problems. I had a lady recently say that she hasn’t been feeling this well for years, with low FODMAP foods reducing her ‘gastric’.
The symptoms of IBS (or irritable bowel syndrome) include diarrhoea, constipation and bloating. It is an embarrassing and difficult problem to live with. Cutting down on fried foods, pastries and alcohol helps, as does stress management, exercise and drinking plenty of water. The low FODMAP diet can offer people even more help to reduce gut problems. FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides Disaccharides Monosaccharides and Polyols. FODMAPs are simply short-chain sugars which are fermented in the large bowel. (Saccharide = sugar). If a lot of these sugars are eaten at once, the problems begin! Fermentation of these sugars can create gas build-up in the large bowel, leading to problems like bloating and constipation. At other times these sugars attract water causing diarrhoea. A low FODMAP diet temporarily excludes foods high in these small sugars. High FODMAP foods include onion, garlic, pears, apples, legumes (like baked beans, lentils and chick peas), and lactose in milk and yoghurt. Keeping a food diary helps people remember how food affects them over time. Wheat can also cause problems for some people but I never suggest someone stops eating wheat until they have had a blood test for coeliac disease. Low FODMAP foods include bananas, mandarins, oranges, raspberries, strawberries, the green part of spring onion, garlic-infused oil and lactose free milk and yoghurt. There is a helpful app by Monash Uni available and a great book by Dr Sue Shepherd which explains FODMAPs well, with plenty of recipes- check them out! And of course, see me or another Accredited Practising Dietitian for more information! |
AuthorLeanne is an experienced dietitian who is passionate about helping people eat well. Archives
July 2021
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