Eat Your Greens!

Eat Five Portions of Fruit and Vegetables a Day

Eating fruit and vegetables is essential for a healthy diet as they contain vitamins, minerals and fibre as well as phytonutrients which act as antioxidants to protect the body from harmful free radicals.

All fruit and vegetables are beneficial but choose those that are bright or dark in colour (such as red peppers, beetroot, blueberries and tomatoes) as they contain higher quantities of nutrients. Another important group is the brassica family, which includes broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, curly kale and sprouts.

Try to eat fruit and vegetables at every mealtime and as a snack in between meals.

Also, try to eat them raw as the cooking process destroys many of the vitamins and minerals. When you do cook them, steam them rather than boil them

What is a Portion?

A portion of fresh fruit or vegetables is 80g.

 one piece of fruit you can hold in your hand (e.g.: an apple, pear, banana, orange)

 three apricots

 a handful of grapes

 a bowl of vegetable soup

 three sticks of celery

 a slice of melon or pineapple

 half a grapefruit

 a side salad

 three tablespoons of beans, peas or

sweetcorn

 two broccoli spears

A portion of dried fruit is 30g which is around one heaped tablespoon of raisins, currants and sultanas or three prunes.

A portion of fruit juice or vegetable juice is a 150 ml glass.

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Weight Loss Drinks You Can Make

A drink that satisfies your sweet tooth without any sugar!

The drink recipes below offer you an alternative to calorie heavy drinks that damage your teeth and spoil your diet. Give them a try they are simple to make and very cost effective. Include the drinks into your eating plan as a mid morning snack and see how you feel. The key to sticking to a sensible eating plan is to make it interesting and appealing.... these drinks might be what you have been looking for!  

7 Day Weight Loss Diet

This diet is unusual in it's style and choice of food types. We would only advise following this diet after you have taken medical advise and have researched what is involved for the seven days. Having not tried this diet I would imagine it cleanses your body in a similar way to detoxing.

If you decide to try more alternative diets, make sure you research before you start, both what is involved in the diet and what effects it may have on your body. Seven days is only a very short period of time so you have to be realistic on what results you can expect over the time period.

Variety is the spice of life, and during your weight loss journey any variations that you introduce will keep you motivated and interested. 

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The Ttruth About Quick Weight Loss

Conventional wisdom says that losing weight quickly is neither safe nor sustainable.

If you crash diet to drop pounds or try something like a juice cleanse you always gain the weight back!

Not so fast: A new study from the University of Melbourne tested the the widely held opinion that people who lose weight rapidly gain it back rapidly and found that it might be just that—an opinion.

The study went on for more than three years and took place in two phases. Two hundred volunteers were divided evenly into two groups: either a rapid or gradual weight-loss program. The participants were all obese but otherwise healthy and aged between 18 and 70 years. The rapid weight-loss group was given an extremely low-calorie diet (450 to 800 calories) over the course of 12 weeks, while the gradual group reduced calories by 400 to 500 calories a day over the course of 36 weeks.

Scientists aimed for both groups to reduce their body weight by 15 percent, just at different rates. They could tell their participants were actually following the rules if their weight did indeed drop. For phase two, over 144 weeks, all participants were instructed to follow an individualized diet for weight maintenance. Throughout the entire study, they also had to meet with a dietitian regularly and perform mild to moderate exercise every day, like a brisk walk.

By week 144 of the study, both groups had gained most of their weight back. The gradual weight-loss group gained, on average, 71.2 percent of their weight back, and the rapid-loss group gained, on average, 70.5 percent back.

In discussing these results, the researchers note that the similar rates of regain suggest that it’s a myth that you “should” lose weight slowly. In fact, they say that members of the rapid weight-loss group were more likely to hit their targeted weight and were more likely to start working out regularly on their own accord. They suggest that getting big results quickly may have been a source of motivation for those participants.

While the results are interesting, they are definitely not an excuse to crash diet. Researchers noted that the strict diets of the rapid group made it impossible to obtain normal (and necessary) nutrients—obviously a huge problem. What's more, this study was done on obese people so it's unclear if those who are only slightly overweight would see similar results.

If you are going to attempt quick weight loss, the researchers suggest you speak with a dietitian to work on a plan that ensures you get the vitamins and minerals that you need. And keep in mind that even if both groups saw similar results, the slow-and-steady method is still much less disruptive to your everyday life—and therefore a much less miserable approach if you’re trying to drop pounds.

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Meal Preperation

When you prepare and cook meals at home, you have better control over the nutritional content and the overall healthfulness of the foods you eat. 

Using Healthier Methods of Food Preparation

•  Stock up on heart-healthy cookbooks and recipes for cooking ideas.

•  Use “choice” or “select” grades of beef rather than “prime,” and be sure to trim the fat off the edges before cooking.

•  Use cuts of red meat and pork labelled “loin” and “round,” as they usually have the least fat. 

•  With poultry, use the leaner light meat (breasts) instead of the fattier dark meat (legs and thighs), and be sure to remove the skin.

•  Make recipes or egg dishes with egg whites, instead of egg yolks.  Substitute two egg whites for each egg yolk.

•  For recipes that require dairy products, try low-fat or fat-free versions of milk, yoghurt and cheese.

•  Use reduced-fat, low-fat, light or no-fat salad dressings (if you need to limit your calories) on salads, for dips or as marinades.

•  Use and prepare foods that contain little or no salt.

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Easy Ways to Lose Weight

Watch the video and listen to what is specific to you. Below are three main tips which we feel can work for everyone. It's not rocket science, just good old fashioned common sense, that anyone can adapt their life style to accommodate. The golden rule - if you want to see change you have got to make change!   

 Eat right post-workout

People are notorious for overestimating how many calories they burn during physical activity, which is often far less than actual calories burned. When you overestimate the calories you burn during exercise, you may eat more than you need, making weight loss and maintenance difficult. High-intensity exercise may drive women to eat more, and moderate exercise may be the key to easier weight control. A safe bet post workout is to drink a protein shake or combine protein with carbs and a little natural fat, (tuna sandwich made with whole wheat bread & mayonnaise).  

Use the Red, Orange and Green rule

At each meal include one food that is any of these colours. By focusing on these foods, you'll be sure to get some produce on your plate and won't have space on your plate for higher-calorie fare. Try to eat white meats and oily fish only, but go mad with the colour when it comes to vegetables! Use salads at lunch times as a quick and easy meal to prepare and something you can eat anywhere.

Be a Heavy Drinker

Water is essential for keeping the body hydrated and we're actually more likely to retain "water weight" by not drinking enough of it rather than by having too much. The needs of each person will be different, but the general recommended daily amount is 6 large drinking glasses. the best advise here is to invest in a quality drinking bottle and sip water constantly to avoid the "bloated feeling," which occurs when you drink too much too quickly. Water also takes up space in your stomach so you'll feel fuller while taking in less calories.

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Deep Poaching

The key here is keeping the cooking liquid (in this case, oil) at a low temperature. It should never rise above boiling (212°F).

Olive Oil-Poached Salmon

4 cups water

1/4 cup kosher salt

4 skinless, center-cut salmon fillets (6 oz each)

1 lemon

1 clove garlic, smashed

3 cups extra-virgin olive oil

1. Whisk water and salt in a large bowl. Add fillets and soak for 4 minutes. Remove and pat dry.

2. Peel lemon into 1-inch strips. Rub a shallow skillet with lemon peel (skin side) and garlic, and leave both in the pan.

3. Fill the skillet with enough oil to cover fillets. Heat on medium until a food thermometer reads about 125°F. Add fillets and cook until their internal temperature reaches 115°F to 145°F, about 10 to 12 minutes. (Adjust heat as needed to keep the oil temperature around 125°F.)

4. Remove fillets to a wire rack to drain. Serve with lemon wedges and greens.

Makes 4 Servings

Per serving: 340 cal, 21 g fat (3.5 sat), 0 g carbs, 490 mg sodium, 0 g fiber, 35 g protein

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7 Foods That Are Crucial for a Healthy Gut

There's more to a healthy stomach than a flat belly!

Your gut is like a forest, full of diverse life that, if kept in check, helps your whole natural system flourish. The problem is, food isn’t as simple as it used to be, and modern cuisine—even modern medicine like antibiotics—can do a real number on the biodiversity in your digestive tract and your beneficial bacteria. In fact, too many med's and eating too much sugar and processed foods can actually suppress this protective gastrointestinal army, so it’s important to bring balance and stability back to your gut for optimal health to avoid diarrhoea and diseases.

Kefir

Kind of like a drinkable yoghurt, kefir is a fermented dairy product that contains oligosaccharides—complex carbs that feed beneficial bacteria. Keeping those tiny microorganisms happy and will help supercharge your immune system.

Greek Yoghurt

Like kefir, Greek yoghurt also serves as a potent dairy-based pro-biotic, and also boasts 15 to 20 grams of protein per 6-ounce serving. It also has amino acids that will jump-start your metabolism.

For true Greek yoghurt, check the ingredient list. It should only read: milk and cultures.

Sauerkraut

The benefit: Sauerkraut is really fermented cabbage—a preservation technique that far precedes modern-day refrigeration.

For true probiotic muscle, avoid canned sauerkraut. That type is usually pasteurized, which means the healthy bacteria is mostly killed off. Instead, make your own in a crockpot. 

Kimchi

 A standby for centuries in Korean culture, this spicy fermented cabbage dish acts like a tonic for your gastrointestinal tract. A 2005 Seoul National University study found it’s so beneficial to the immune system that it helped speed recovery in chickens stricken with the virulent avian flu.

Add kimchi to organic mashed potatoes, rice, or salads if the distinctly sour fare isn’t appetizing to you on its own.

Artichokes

Artichokes are potent prebiotics, meaning they contain indigestible nutrients that help feed the beneficial bacteria growth within your digestive system. Think of them like a healthy meal for the helpful bacteria in your gut.

If artichokes don’t delight your taste buds, try other potent prebiotics like bananas, lentils, and asparagus.

Kombucha

With its naturally fizzy profile, this fermented tea serves as a healthy replacement for carbonated drinks like soda. Mildly tart and effervescent, kombucha is teeming with beneficial bacteria to coat your digestive tract. The fermentation process also creates healthy B vitamins that can activate energy.

This ancient, nourishing tonic has boosted immune systems for centuries; however, if you have certain digestive-tract diseases, kombucha may aggravate symptoms because it’s considered a wild ferment and could contain irritating yeasts for susceptible individuals.

Miso Soup

While there's debate surrounding the health benefits of soy, the truth is fermented soy beans contain an abundance of beneficial bacteria and isoflavones, which can protect against cancer and possibly halt the production of fat cells.

Look for organic miso soup to avoid harmful additives and genetically engineered soy, which has never been tested for long-term impact on human health.

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Your Healthy Eating Plan

Healthy eating is not about strict dietary limitations, staying unrealistically thin, or depriving yourself of the foods you love. 

Rather, it’s about feeling great, having more energy, and stabilizing your mood. If you feel overwhelmed by all the conflicting nutrition and diet advice out there, you’re not alone. It seems that for every expert who tells you a certain food is good for you, you’ll find another saying exactly the opposite. But by using these simple tips, you can cut through the confusion and learn how to create a tasty, varied, and healthy diet.

Set yourself up for success:

To set yourself up for success, think about planning a healthy diet as a number of small, manageable steps rather than one big drastic change. If you approach the changes gradually and with commitment, you will have a healthy diet sooner than you think.

Simplify:

Instead of being overly concerned with counting calories or measuring portion sizes, think of your diet in terms of colour, variety, and freshness. This way it should be easier to make healthy choices. Focus on finding foods you love and easy recipes that incorporate a few fresh ingredients. Gradually, your diet will become healthier and more delicious.

Start Slow: 

Make changes to your eating habits over time. Trying to make your diet healthy overnight isn’t realistic or smart. Changing everything at once usually leads to cheating or giving up on your new eating plan. Make small steps, like adding a salad (full of different colour vegetables) to your diet once a day or switching from butter to olive oil when cooking. As your small changes become habit, you can continue to add more healthy choices to your diet.

Every Change Matters: 

You don’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to completely eliminate foods you enjoy to have a healthy diet. The long term goal is to feel good, have more energy, and reduce the risk of cancer and disease. Don’t let your missteps derail you—every healthy food choice you make counts.

Think of Water & Exercise:

Water helps flush our systems of waste products and toxins, yet many people go through life dehydrated—causing tiredness, low energy, and headaches. It’s common to mistake thirst for hunger, so staying well hydrated will also help you make healthier food choices.

Find something active that you like to do and add it to your day, just like you would add healthy greens, blueberries, or salmon. The benefits of lifelong exercise are abundant and regular exercise may even motivate you to make healthy food choices a habit.

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What's Good & What's Not

You’d think a food called “refined” would be good for you, right?

But as anyone trying to eat healthy knows, that’s not the case with refined carbohydrates. These are the carbs derived from grains that have been stripped of their nutrients during processing (as opposed to whole grains, which have not been processed).

Sometimes vitamins and minerals are added back in, but generally, the grain becomes a nutritionally empty simple sugar and the basis of starchy carbs such as white bread, cookies, and crackers. What’s tricky is that refined carbs turn up in all sorts of healthy-looking items, and that can wreck your resolve to eat better. 

White Rice in Your Sushi Roll

Sushi is super healthy…except for the white rice, which, like white flour, has been refined of its nutrients, says Brittany Kohn, R.D., nutritionist at Middleberg Nutrition in New York City. When you can, order your salmon roll with brown rice, which is unprocessed and retains all the good stuff stripped out of the white kind, she says.  

                 

Wheat or Multigrain Bread

These terms are designed to trick consumers into thinking the bread is made from unprocessed whole grains when, in reality, "100 percent whole wheat" or "100 percent whole grain" is what you want to go for, says Kohn. Both of those options are made from unprocessed flour.

Instant Oatmeal

Oatmeal is often thought of as the ultimate healthy breakfast—but if you're buying the instant flavored kind, we have some bad news for you: Those added sugars count as refined carbs. “Choose rolled or steel-cut oats instead,” says Kohn. That will allow you to control how much of the sweet stuff you're adding (if any).

Hard Pretzels

Because good-for-you snack staples are often brown, it’s easy to assume pretzels are made with unprocessed whole grains. In fact, pretzels are derived from all-purpose flour or enriched wheat flour, both of which have been refined, says Kohn. A better option when you need a crunchy snack: crackers that are labelled “whole wheat” or “whole grain.”

Croutons

Unless you’re sure that the ones in your salad are made from 100 percent whole-wheat bread, these toasted add-ins are likely derived from nutrient-free, starchy white bread, says Kohn. If you can’t find the unrefined kind, get your good-carb crunch from a sprinkling of sunflower seeds or almonds instead.

Breakfast Cereals and Bars

You know to stay away from the sugar-coated kid-friendly types. “But many healthy-sounding cereals are also made from refined grains,” says Kohn. Look for “whole grain” cereals that keep it under five grams of sugar per serving and pack at least four grams of fibre. Make sure “whole grain” is listed as the first ingredient and that the label lists no more than five ingredients total.

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Low Carb V Low Fat

What to cut, what to cut?

Well, if you’re trying to lose weight, the answer's carbs. It turns out that reducing your carb intake is more effective at spurring weight loss than reining in the fat, according to new research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. 

For the study, researchers from Tulane University randomly assigned 148 obese men and women without heart disease or diabetes to follow a low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet. 

After one year, participants who had been eating low-carb had lost 7.7 pounds more than those who had been eating less fat. Plus, they had greater decreases in fat mass and other cardiovascular risk factors.

But before you start raiding your kitchen looking for carbs to trash, it's important to note that, as far as this study is concerned, low-carb really isn't all that low. In the study, researchers suggested dieters only limit their intake of digestible carbs to 40 grams per day (about as much as in four slices of whole wheat bread) and told them they could eat as many grams of indigestible carbohydrates, or fibre, as they wanted. And in the end, most of the low-carb-eating participants in the study still ate more: They put away 75 to 85 grams of digestible carbs and about 15 grams of indigestible carbs a day.

Not sure how many grams you're getting of each? Look on the nutrition label. Then just subtract the number of grams of fibre from the total carbohydrate count. That's how many grams of digestible carbs the food packs.

Easier than counting carbs, though, is just paying attention to where your carbs are coming from. "Carefully choosing your carbohydrate sources is key," says lead study author, Lydia A. Bazzano, M.D., Ph.D., a professor and nutrition researcher at Tulane University. "If most of your carbohydrates are coming from whole vegetables and whole fruits rather than white rice, potatoes, refined grains, and beverages, then improved cardiovascular health and even weight loss is likely to follow."

And while cutting your numbers of digestible carbs is helpful, this study also shows that fat can actually aid in weight loss, says Bazzano. Not only did the low-fat dieters lose less weight, but low-carb study participants were actually encouraged to replace digestible carbs with healthy fats—primarily from unsaturated sources—and protein, both of which are known to reduce heart disease risk factors like lipid profile and blood pressure.

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Powerhouse Foods You Should Eat!

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When it comes to eating healthy, you know to load up on the foods that are packed with nutrients—the ones that give you the most nutritious bang for their caloric buck.

Researchers from William Paterson University helped you out on this front. They looked into the nutrient content of 47 fruits and vegetables in an effort to find the foods that are true powerhouses… and which so-called superfoods aren’t quite so super. The "powerhouse" criteria: If the food had, on average, 10 percent or more daily value of 17 nutrients (iron, folate, vitamin C, etc.) per 100 calories.

Here’s what they found: Calorie per calorie, the MOST nutritious foods are watercress, Chinese cabbage, chard, and beet greens. And in a devastating blow, they found six foods that don’t actually meet "powerhouse" standards after all: raspberries, tangerines, cranberries, garlic, onions, and blueberries. We know, we’re slightly devastated also.

But look. That’s not to say that you should cut these fruits and veggies from your diet. Raspberries and blueberries, after all, are especially loaded with nutrients—but since they are also high in fructose, you can get a lot more nutrients for 100 calories if you stick with the greens.

In the end, a healthy diet is all about balance, and blueberries, raspberries, tangerines, cranberries, garlic, and onions are ALL better than gobbling up refined and processed foods or anything with added sugar. The biggest takeaway here? Toss some watercress, Chinese cabbage, chard, or beet greens into your shopping cart the next time you hit the grocery store. Your body will thank you.

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