People can get caught up on what foods they should or shouldn’t eat to maintain a healthy diet, and sometimes end up eating food they don’t enjoy. One of my top rules for nutrition is ‘if you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it’!  There is no food out there so healthy that you need to choke it down. A lot of my clients don’t need to make huge changes to the foods they eat to meet their health goals, simply making small changes to how they cook their food goes a long way! Also, a lot of people, when making changes to eat healthier, end up eating bland foods (steamed broccoli anyone?) all day every day. When they reach their breaking point, they fall right off the wagon and end up back where they started. Healthy eating can still taste great, and what a great way to maintain a healthy lifestyle over months and years! Let’s go through each food group and look at how we can cook these foods in a healthier way, while still including flavour! Meat Vegetables Starch Healthy cooking - meat There are a few quick things that can be done to make meat a healthy option. Fat – cut off the visible fat prior to cooking. Take the time to trim your meat, cut off the large strip of fat on your pork chop, and trim the chicken breast. Chicken skin – cooking a chicken breast with the skin on can keep lots of moisture and flavour in the meat.  The skin is where a lot of the cholesterol is, so if you cook with it on, remove the skin before serving. Cooking methods – I encourage people to cook their meat in a way that doesn’t add fat.  For example, grilling is great because the fat drips off the meat as it cooks.  Roasting meat in the oven is also great, use a rack to lift it off the bottom, or use vegetables (carrots, onions and celery) to make a rack that will add lots of flavour to the gravy.  If you’re cooking meat in a pan, you’ll likely need to add some oil so it doesn’t stick.  Pay attention to how much you’re putting in, just enough to prevent sticking is best.  Don’t deep fry your meat (unless that’s the plan and it’s only once and awhile as a treat!). Healthy cooking - vegetables My rules for vegetables are easy – cook them how you like, or don’t cook them at all. We can get into the weeds about boiling vs steaming, but I just can’t get myself worked up about it.  Vegetables are so good for you that you need to eat them frequently and in large amounts, so you need to get creative. However you choose to cook your vegetables (or not), it’s okay to jazz them up a bit, but things can get out of hand pretty quickly if you’re not careful. For salad, add dressing, but don’t drown your salad in it.  Add enough that it covers everything, but there shouldn’t be a pool of dressing left over. For those really thick creamy dressing (so yummy!), it can take a lot to coat everything.  Consider watering it down a little.  To do this, spoon some dressing into a bowl, then use milk or water to thin it down a bit so it’ll coat your salad better, then dress the salad.  Same taste, less used! For cooked vegetables, feel free to add flavour!  Some butter or olive oil is nice, but the same principle as salad dressing applies – don’t overdo it.  Experiment with flavours, sesame seeds are great on green beans, and sliced almonds go great with broccoli.  Love a cheese sauce with your cauliflower?  Consider grating a little cheddar or parmesan over top – same flavour with fewer calories!  Salad dressings are also tasty on hot, cooked veg, and using herbs or herb blends can jazz up frozen veg mixes. Healthy cooking - starch Starch seems to go in two extremes, it’s either plain or deep-fried.  Deep fried foods should be an occasional treat (i.e. French fries), but that doesn’t mean we’re stuck with a diet of plain quinoa.  If you’re cooking a grain in water, consider adding flavour to the pot!  Stock cubes, herbs or citrus can easily add a bunch of flavour. You can also reach for those herbs once the starch is cooked – adding a bit of oil and some fresh or dried herbs can add a nice flavour to complement your protein choice. Think about sauces as well – having a nice herby dressing on roasted root vegetables can add a lot of flavour with very little calories.  Get creative! Healthy cooking doesn't need to be boring!  When working towards consistency with healthy eating, you need to want to eat those foods, so adding flavour here and there will go a long way. Contact me to talk more about how you can add flavour into your healthy eating plan.

I had a conversation the other day with someone about how much we spend on groceries weekly. My number was 30% of hers. She has 2 small kids, I have none, but still, there's a discrepancy there. We talked about what we bought and there didn't seem to be much difference. It got me thinking, what am I doing that she isn't? I have a few ideas, and we'll explore these in coming blog posts, but today we'll talk about the easy wins. No matter where you live, groceries are more expensive now than they have been in working memory. It's hard to know when and where to save money without increasing the inconvenience too much. Sure, we could all grow our own food and raise a cow to milk, etc. but that's not necessarily feasible - we all have lives to live that don't involve cows! How do you want to pay? One of the big concepts is how you want to pay, in money or time? There's no right answer, and it can change depending on the circumstance. Someone is doing the work to chop up the veggies on the veggie tray, or marinade the meat, so you need to decide if you want to pay the increased cost when someone else does it, or take the time to do it yourself? There, of course, will be times when you need or want to pay someone to do the work for you. But think of when those might be and when you can pay in your time. Do it yourself as much as you can, which will save money, then in those instances where you choose to pay in money for convenience it's not such a big deal. Week to week your grocery bill will get smaller the more you do yourself. An added benefit of doing things yourself is that you'll start building cooking skills, and these things can be great activities to get children involved in the kitchen, building their skills too! When thinking of nutrition, convenience isn't always better either. Is almost all instances, you making the food at home will be healthier than buying it pre-made. A good example is yogurt. Let's consider yogurt with honey. If you bought (or made) plain yogurt at home and added honey to it yourself, without trying to limit the amount, it's most likely going to be less than what they add in the premade stuff. How to start saving money I said at the start this blog would take care of the easy wins. The items below have a big difference in cost between the convenience and doing it yourself and should be avoided as much as possible! If you can prepare these things yourself (or at least some of them), you'll be saving lots of money without too much inconvenience. •Fruit or veg trays •Sweetened oatmeal or cereal •Store-baked muffins •Instant rice or noodles •Flavoured yogurt •Shredded cheese •Pre-seasoned/marinated meat •Canned/dried Soup •Salad dressings •Prepared entrees •Bottled water Think of how you can change your buying habits to be a bit more frugal, and see how it goes! If you're interested in learning how you and your family can save money on food, let me know! I'd be happy to help you come up with budgeting ideas that work for you and your family.

Aspartame has a very bad reputation as an artificial sweetener that’s going to kill us all.  But is the hype real?  To save you some time, the short answer is no. The long answer is obviously a bit more complicated, so if you’re interested, read on to learn what aspartame is, why it’s safe, and how much is a reasonable amount. Heading #1: What is aspartame? Heading #2: How much is safe for me to consume? Heading #3: What about those rats that died? Heading #4: Why should I consider aspartame? Heading #1: What is aspartame? Aspartame is an artificial sweetener that is said to be 200 times sweeter than table sugar (sucrose).  It was created in the early 1970s and has been used as an additive in many food products since as a calorie-free way to sweeten foods.  It has been approved for use in Canada (by Health Canada) since 1981. The chemical composition is aspartic acid and phenylalanine dipeptide.  Unless you have a strong post-secondary school chemistry background (which I don’t), what that really means is that it’s artificial, or, made in a lab.  That can feel scary if you pay attention to what goes in your body, but aspartame is one of the most studied food additives out there for reasons unknown to me. Health Canada has very strong standards for what is safe for Canadians (or anyone who is in Canada) to consume, so the very fact it is approved, and has been approved for consumption for over 40 years can give you confidence that it is safe. Heading #2: How much is safe for me to consume? Since aspartame has been so extensively studied, there are very clear guidelines on consumption.  Also, whenever Health Canada is approving something for consumption, they have a variety of parameters they recommend. They have these for vitamins and minerals as well.  For aspartame, there is an acceptable daily intake (ADI). This is the amount of substance (i.e., aspartame) that can be consumed daily over a lifetime without presenting an appreciable risk to health. This measure is also recognized internationally (including by the World Health Organization), so is a good guideline for individuals to follow. Most nutrition guidelines involve math, so for aspartame, the ADI is 40mg/kg body weight/day.  For the 70kg (157lb) person, this would be 2800 mg of aspartame a day. To figure out what your ADI for aspartame is, take your weight in pounds, and multiply it by 0.45 to get your weight in kilograms. So, how much is 2800 mg of aspartame? Individual packets of sugar twin or Equal = 80 packets daily Diet pop (355 ml cans) = 14 cans daily This is a LOT of either sweetener or diet pop.  It is not healthy to be consuming this much of either of those for other reasons; you’ll be replacing healthy foods with these options, which has nothing to do with aspartame. Heading #3: What about those rats that died? In the 2000’s a study came out (Soffritti et al., 2007) that showed that rats who were given aspartame died.  This created panic in society and gave aspartame a bad reputation that it has yet to shake.  However, there were massive methodological weaknesses in that study, which questions the danger of aspartame in rats, if they choose to consume it. For humans, it can be hard to extrapolate the effects on our bodies (since we’re not rats). However, even if we assume that human bodies work the same as rat bodies, the math doesn’t work out. The rats used in this study were approx. 400g in weight and were given doses of 20 g aspartame daily.  That’s 500 mg/kg body weight/day!!  Humans might also die if they have that much.  But, based on Health Canada’s recommendations and the amount of aspartame in our food and fluids, we’re fine. This is a great example of studies being presented in the media; they’re rarely presented fully, and often result in misleading people.  In my opinion, it causes unnecessary worry and food restrictions.  It generally takes multiple studies showing the same or similar results before recommendations change for the general public. If we also think about the fact that aspartame has been widely used in the average Canadian’s diet for the past 40 years, we would have already started seeing adverse health effects if there were any to be seen.  This is all evidence that can be used to feel more confident in the safety of aspartame. Heading #4: So, is aspartame going to kill us all? No! If you’re now feeling more comfortable with the fact that aspartame isn’t going to be the death of us all, let’s talk about how it can fit into a healthy diet. The best fit for aspartame is to reduce the number of calories consumed daily.  This can be helpful for weight loss, or for weight maintenance.  It can also help us enjoy certain foods/fluids in a healthy way. While aspartame can be used in recipes, it can be difficult to substitute it.  Because it is so much sweeter than sugar, the volumes used as significantly less, it isn’t substituted 1:1 – your recipe would be 200 times sweeter than normal!! My recommendation is to consider aspartame with fluids.  Calories that are drank can add up extremely fast, often without knowing it.  Swapping calorie-containing drinks with calorie-free drinks can result in significant decreases in daily caloric intake, leading to weight loss/maintenance over time. For example, one can of Coke contains 139 calories, while a can of Diet Coke (or Coke Zero) contains 0 calories.  A double double contains 96 calories from sugar alone. These are easy ways to reduce sugar intake bit by bit, that over time can make a difference over time. As I said above, the goal isn’t to replace healthy foods with sweetener, so it’s always best to have a solid foundation of balanced meals and snacks.  But, if you’re a big coffee drinker, or enjoy pop daily, consider swapping sugar for aspartame to reduce your caloric intake. As Canadians (or people eating food or drinking fluids in Canada), we can rest assured that our food and drinks are safe.  But, if you have any concerns about our food supply, or want to know what would work for your body and lifestyle, a registered dietitian can help! Reach out and we can discuss your concerns anytime!

One of the most contentious topics in nutrition is snacking.  Some people think you should eat 6 times a day, some think you should only eat 3 times.  Some think eating after dinner will ruin you, others think you’ll sleep better with a snack before bed. Is there a right answer?  The quick answer is no, but of course it’s not that simple! Since everyone’s schedule is different, snacking is very individual.  In this blog, we’ll discuss the principles around snacking, so you can figure out how snacks can work for you. What is the purpose of a snack? Meals continue to be the main opportunity for healthy eating in a day. Snacks are meant to help moderate mealtimes.  Everyone’s had the experience where you’re feeling starved while cooking, and you reach for any and everything you can find to shove in. There is a feeling of loss of control during these times too, which is generally a crappy feeling.  In these situations, you end up eating way too many calories, due to that loss of control.  The point of snacking is to avoid putting yourself into those positions. A snack is meant to bridge the gap between meals so you arrive at your meal feeling hungry and in control of your intake. The general rule is to go no more than 4 hours without eating something, so the need for snacks may change day to day. Most people need an afternoon snack, since they eat lunch around noon and supper around 6-7pm.  A snack at 3pm does wonders to tide you over and makes afternoons (especially work days) more manageable. For those of you with irregular work schedules, or who work night shifts it can be very difficult to know when to eat.  Use the guidelines of not going more than 4 hours without eating and using snacks to tide yourself over between meals to know when to eat. If you keep the purpose of a snack in mind, you can decide each day if it’s needed or not. What makes a healthy snack? Keeping in mind the purpose of a snack – to tide you over until your next meal, we can structure the food we eat to achieve the purpose.  A healthy snack contains both a carbohydrate-containing food and a protein-containing food. Carbohydrate-containing foods are foods in the following food groups: starches, fruit and vegetables. Protein-containing foods are meat (chicken, beef, fish), all dairy (cheese, yogurt, milk), eggs, nuts, seeds, tofu, beans, chickpeas, lentils, etc. The purpose for structuring a snack like this is provide your body with what it needs between meals.  Carbohydrate is a fancy word for sugar, so eating a carbohydrate-containing food will provide your body with sugar to maintain a steady blood sugar level.  This will provide energy, will moderate your mood (avoiding that hangry feeling) and will feel satisfying.  Protein is a complicated molecule, so it takes awhile to digest.  This will keep you fuller for longer, which will also help tide you over until your next meal. How much should I eat? Again, to know how much to eat is to remember the purpose of a snack.  This is not a meal, it’s not meant to fill you up, it’s just meant to tide you over so you don’t arrive at your next meal feeling so hungry you can’t control your intake. That’s a long way of saying there is no right answer!  But it’s probably not as much as you think. In the next section I’ve listed some examples of amounts, but you’ll need to practice some mindful eating principles to listen to your body and adjust amounts over time.  Start with the amounts listed below, then adjust – were you fuller than you expected, or was it not enough?  Keep adjusting the amount you eat until you get a better sense of what is right for you. Examples Remembering that a healthy snack contains a carbohydrate food and protein food, review the following lists and mix and match to fit your preferences! Carbohydrate-containing foods: -       Fruit – 1 serving is ½ cup berries or cut up fruit, piece of fruit that fits in the palm of your hand (apple, orange, peach, etc.) -       Rice cakes – 1-2 -       Vegetables – 1 cup -       Crackers – check box for serving size -       Bread – 1 slice -       Popcorn – 3 cups popped Protein-containing foods: -       Nuts and seeds – ¼ cup -       Nut butter – 2 Tablespoons -       Cheese – 30g, piece the size of your pointer and ring fingers together -       Yogurt – ½ cup -       Hummus – 2 Tablespoons -       Egg (i.e. hardboiled) – 1 Putting it together: -       Apple and peanut butter -       Cheese and crackers -       Vegetables and hummus -       Trail mix (nuts, seeds and dried fruit) -       Yogurt parfait (yogurt, granola and berries) How to be successful You’re the one eating the snack, so do whatever you want!  The key is to have these foods on hand and ready to eat, so you can grab and go.  Make a list of snack foods that you enjoy, buy these foods and prep if needed, then healthy snacking can be easy! As always, get in touch if you want help figuring out how to fit healthy snacking into your lifestyle!

This is the time of year when people in cold climates start taking vacations to warmer places.  Spending a week at an all-inclusive resort is a great way to unwind and get some sun, but it can be a stressful time for those trying to make healthy food choices.  The good news is, it doesn’t have to be!  There are strategies that can be put in place to balance both healthy eating and enjoying your vacation, including the food and drinks that come along with beach life. #1: Prepare yourself #2: Scan the buffet and other tips #3: Let go, then get back on track! Eating well tip #1: Prepare yourself Vacation is meant to be a break from real life.  That includes everything, including eating.  When thinking of long term health goals, consistency is key!  One way to maintain consistency is to take breaks, to allow yourself to ease off the gas from time to time.  Vacation is a great way to do this. You’re already not going to be at home with your familiar foods, so it’s easy to allow yourself a break from your normal eating routine; this may make it easier to stick with it when you’re home. That said, it can be scary to let go of your plan and routine entirely, but you don’t have to do that (more on that in the next steps).  Thinking about what your vacation will look like can be helpful. So, as you’re booking your trip and packing your bags, start thinking about what’s going to happen from an eating perspective.  You know there will be unlimited food and drink, so how do you want to handle it? Regardless of what you decide to do on vacation, make sure part of your plan includes getting back on track as soon as you walk through the door of your house. Eating well tip #2: Scan the buffet and other tips When you are finally on vacation and have decided to have some strategies to keep your healthy eating practices going, consider using the following. Scan the buffet – when you arrive at the buffet, do a pass to see what’s on offer.  There’s nothing worse than loading up your plate early on, then having no room for the good stuff later on!  So, do a lap to see what you really want and what can wait.  You might want to stick to the basics, such as French fries, chicken wings, whatever, or maybe you want to load up on the stuff you don’t have regularly.  There is no right answer, just make sure you’re eating the foods you really want, no filler. Manage alcohol – The calories from alcohol can add up fast, and when you’re on vacation, wanting to relax and have unlimited access to alcohol, it can be hard to regulate.  Consider alternating one alcoholic drink with one calorie-free drink (preferably water).  This will slow your alcohol intake down a little bit without feeling like you’re restricting yourself. Do some exercise – You don’t need to hit the gym or swim laps if you don’t want to but moving your body a little every day can help you feel good. Consider walking the beach, doing a lap of the resort, or join a fitness class on the beach, whatever!  Moving your body helps your digestion, which will make you feel better. Eating well tip #3: Let go, then get back on track Make sure you don’t pack any guilt on vacation!  It’s important to enjoy these times off when you get them and make it all worth it.  You can plan ahead, keeping vacation part of the bigger, healthy eating plan. If you bring guilt with you on vacation, you won’t enjoy yourself, you might annoy the people you went on vacation with, and it’ll be harder to stay on track when you’re back at home, since you never really got a break.  So, make sure you differentiate between home life and vacation life. Similar to the 80/20 I’ve talked about (here), healthy eating is all about what you do most of the time.  So, if you’re on vacation for a week once or twice a year, but you eat well the other 50 weeks of the year, nothing you do on vacation will make a long-term difference. Sure, you might weight a few more pounds when you first get home, but your weight will correct itself very soon thereafter if you get back on track. If you’re going on vacation soon and are wondering how you’re going to fit your healthy eating plan into your vacation, reach out!

One of the most common issues my clients come to me with is how to stay consistent.  Everyone can make changes for days or weeks but making these changes over months to years is difficult.  If this sounds familiar to you, you’re not alone! The good news is that there are some strategies you can implement to help build consistency with healthy eating that we’re going to talk about - read on! Tip #1 - Make small changes, one at a time Humans are complex creatures. We have lots going on all the time, and yet, we are driven to improve ourselves.  Eating healthy or making big changes to your health can often mean wanting to change everything all at the same time.  However, we have limited capacity to change, and if we take on too much and can’t cope, we will stop doing everything. In healthy eating, this might look like cutting out junk food, caffeine, sugar, starting to eat more vegetables and exercise 30 min a day, every day – all starting Monday.  But, by Thursday, you’re tired, sore, hungry and end up bingeing on junk food and skipping your workout for the day.  You then think you’re a failure (you’re not!), and quit the entire plan.  When that happens, it generally means you took on too much at once. To avoid this, pick one thing at a time to change. Give yourself at least 3 weeks to work on that one thing, then reassess. If you need more time to get consistent with that change, that’s fine!  Take as long as you need on that one thing to feel comfortable with it. When you get there, pick the next thing on the list and repeat. This method of change isn’t flashy and it takes a long time. But it’s sustainable; meaning that once you get comfortable with a change, it becomes habit and you don’t have to try as hard to keep it going. The success also gives you a little boost, making you want to move onto the next thing. The other good thing about making one change at a time is that if you’re not successful, you know why! You can then think about breaking that change down even more until it’s small enough that you can be consistent with it. There is no shame in having to make small changes one at a time!  Success is the key here, and setting yourself up for success is what matters, so do what you have to do to get the work done! Tip #2 - Avoid all or nothing thinking - AKA the 80/20 rule Often when we’re making healthy eating changes, we think we have to eat all healthy, all the time.  We think that if we eat something ‘bad’, that we’re bad and failures at healthy eating.  This is all or nothing thinking and couldn’t be further from the truth. Food is delicious and should be enjoyed. This includes junk foods or foods that contain butter, cream or other high calorie ingredients.  We all also deserve to have joy in our lives, and sometimes that joy is derived from eating delicious foods and enjoying them with others. Enter the 80/20 rule! This rule states that, if you eat healthy 80% of the time, you can eat WHATEVER you want 20% of the time, and it won’t make a difference to your overall health.  But, it will allow you to enjoy less healthy foods, which may make you happier. In meal terms, if there are 21 meals in a week (3 meals a day x 7 days a week), the closest math is 18 health meals (80%) and 3 whatever meals (20%). For example, if there is someone who eats junk all week, then decides to have a salad and diet Coke, that salad doesn’t stand a chance!  So, the converse is the same. If you’re eating well most of the time, one meal at the all-you-can-eat-buffet (or whatever), isn’t going to undo all the good you did the rest of the week, so enjoy it! The rules are these – you get 3 meals a week to eat whatever you want – GUILT FREE!  There is no right kind of food or right amount of food you eat, just enjoy it! Your 3 meals resets every week – you don’t get to save them up! But you also don’t need to use all 3 each week. So, some people like to plan these meals out, some like to wing it.  Either strategy is fine, just be careful you don’t use them up early in the week, you might regret this later! But you do you, use your 3 meals to your advantage. Using the 80/20 rule helps you stay on track when healthy eating gets hard – you can either use one of your 3 meals or know that it’s coming up in the near future, which makes eating healthier in the moment easier. Tip #3 - Get back on the train Life happens. No one is perfect.  Nutrition shouldn’t always be the most important thing in your life. But when you fall off the train, get back on.  Mistakes don’t mean that you’re a failure, they just mean that you’re human. So, if you have a bad day, start again tomorrow. If you have a bad week, start again tomorrow. If you end up blowing through your 3 unhealthy meals by Tuesday and end the week with 7 unhealthy meals, start again tomorrow. Part of healthy eating is learning how to rebound from unhealthy periods.  These will happen, but the quicker you can bounce back, the less effect they will have on your overall health in the long term. Staying consistent Making sustainable change takes time and can be difficult if not approached the right way.  But, when you figure it out, your changes become habit. Reach out if you want help coming up with a healthy eating plan that you can stick with! I’m here for you.

We’ve all heard that people should eat more fibre.  But why?  What does it do and why do I need it?  They say that Canadians only get half of the fibre they need, read on to find out how to make sure you’re above the curve when it comes to fibre intake. There are two kinds of fibre out there, both are important for our health, but for different reasons (but some are the same).  Adults need approx. 30g fibre daily, so if you want to meet your goal, you have to be intentional about it. Disclaimer – there will be a fair bit of poop-talk, so consider yourself warned! Insoluble fibre Soluble fibre A massive caveat Insoluble fibre This is what we think of a bulk, or roughage.  This fibre helps move waste through your body, which keeps you regular.  The intestines mobility is stimulated by a few things (movement, i.e. exercise is one), including stretch, so if there is a lot in there, it will be stimulated to move, thereby expelling waste (i.e. poop). Insoluble fibre doesn’t get digested well, so it provides that bulk that is beneficial for intestinal mobility. They also absorb water when in the intestine, further expanding and providing bulk.  This also keeps stools soft, which makes them easier to pass.  Eating enough fibre can also help you feel fuller at meals, which may help you eat less. Food sources of insoluble fibre are vegetables, fruit (if eaten with skin on where appropriate), whole grains (the insoluble fibre is in the coating), nuts, and legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils). Soluble fibre This type of fibre works much more throughout the body, as it gets absorbed into the blood, but not entirely (more on that later). When you eat soluble fibre, as it is getting digested in your stomach, it slows digestion down a little, which in turn, helps moderate blood sugar levels. This is great for those with diabetes, but for those that don’t have diabetes, it can help balance your energy.  When digested and absorbed into the blood, it binds with cholesterol that is floating around in your blood (just waiting to cause blockages!), which helps your body get rid of it. Yay for lowering cholesterol! The part of the soluble fibre that does not get absorbed into the blood stays in the intestine in a sort of gel form.  As this gel moves through the large intestine, it kind of cleans it up, by picking up any little bits and pieces left behind.  This is great for those with diverticulosis, as it reduces the risk of infection, and provides bulk that is needed to move stool through, keeping you regular.  This gel can also help form stools, if there is a propensity towards loose stools, and can soften hard stools by providing the fluid they need to soften.  Food sources of soluble fibre is where it gets complicated.  The best sources of soluble fibre are vegetables, fruit, whole grains and legumes – basically the same sources as insoluble fibre.  On one hand, this is great, you can eat one food and get both kinds of fibre. On the other, it’s confusing, because how can a food have both a roughage-type component and a gel-type? It comes down to this: for the food sources of fibre, the insoluble part is (generally) the outside, where the soluble part is the inside.  Vegetables are different, they have TONS of insoluble fibre, but less soluble, while fruit depends on eating the skin (i.e. apple, pear, etc.) for the insoluble fibre. Oats are a great source of soluble fibre, so if you’re into oatmeal, that’s great!  Beans (black, navy, etc) are great sources of soluble fibre, so cook with these as much as you can (and you’ll get a little insoluble through their skins too!). Psyllium fibre is a great source of soluble fibre, the brand name for this is Metamucil (but no name brands are just as good!). If you’re struggling to eat the foods that have soluble fibre in them, but want the benefit, this might be a way to go.  Follow the directions for the powder or capsules and see how you go. A massive caveat No matter which kind of fibre you’re eating, if you start increasing your fibre intake, you MUST increase your fluid intake along side.  Since both kinds of fibre absorb water in your gut, you must have that water available for it to absorb. If there isn’t enough water available, your stool will turn hard, leading to constipation (NOT the point of this). Also, you need to ease your way in to increased fibre intake, don’t go from nothing to everything.  Your body needs time to learn how to digest or pass it, so ramp it up bit by bit over days to weeks. Reach out if you’re interested in increasing your fibre intake for all the health benefits it can have, as I can help you come up with a plan to get you to your goal.

How much protein do you need? Spoiler alert - it's probably not as much as you think! Protein is the cornerstone to a healthy diet, but how much you need depends on who you ask.  The only thing people seem to agree on is that it’s important.  Figuring out how much you need isn’t that hard, but you will need to do a bit of math, but nothing you can’t handle on your phone!   Read on to learn why you need it and why getting enough, but not too much, is important! What is protein? What are my protein needs? How can I get what I need? What is protein? Protein is a molecule made up of amino acids.  There are 20 amino acids out there, these are broken down into essential and non-essential.  Essential amino acids are ones that our bodies cannot make on their own. These are ones we must get from the foods we eat; there are 9 of them.  Amino acids are used by our bodies to repair and build up tissues such as muscle, so it’s important that our bodies have a good supply of amino acids on board at all times. Protein-containing foods include meat (fish, chicken, beef, pork, eggs – anything from an animal), dairy products and some plant-based sources. Plant-based protein sources include legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils), soy, tempeh, nuts, and seeds. Since each protein-containing food is made of up different combinations and amounts of amino acids, it’s imperative to eat a variety of proteins to make sure you’re getting enough different amino acids. What are my protein needs? The amount of protein you need depends on a variety of factors. To do the calculations, you need to know your weight in kilograms (here comes the math): Weight in pounds x 0.45 = weight in kilos Most people who are moderately active will need between 0.8-1.0 g protein/kilo body weight per day. This is: Weight in kilos x 0.8 = grams of protein per day OR Weight in kilos x 1.0 = grams of protein per day If you are very active (i.e. weight lifting or cardiovascular activity multiple times a week), and trying to build muscle, you can consider up to 1.2 g protein per day. Weight in kilos x 1.2 = grams of protein per day There seems to be a trend on social media recently that this math should be done based on pounds of body weight.  This results in protein needs over 2 times more! Too much protein puts a lot of stress on the kidneys, which can result in long term kidney damage.  It’s also difficult to eat that much food, and protein can replace carbohydrates in the diet, reducing the amount of energy and fibre you can eat in the day.  More is not necessarily better!  When doing the math to find out how much you need, take into consideration how much you actually need, it’s probably not as much as you think. How do I get what I need? Now that you’ve done your math, you have the number of grams to aim for in a day, you’re probably wondering, how to get it in? There is a slight complication to the math.  Our bodies can only absorb so much protein at once. This amount varies, but it’s approx. 30g at at time. That means you’ll need to spread your protein intake out over the day to make sure you’re absorbing all the protein you’re eating.  For example, if you are eating a large steak (100g/4oz), you’ll only be absorbing less than half of it, so you’re not getting what you think. The easiest way to start figuring out how to eat protein is to have a source of protein at each meal and snack, as part of your balanced meal.  Including a protein food each time you eat will get you close to your needs. If you have 30g protein at lunch and supper and 10g at breakfast and 2 snacks a day, you’ll be getting 90g.  This would meet your needs if you weight 200 lbs (using 1.0 g/kg/d), or 168 lbs (using 1.2 g/kg/d/d).  30g protein is a piece of meat approx. the size of a deck of cards, or 1.5 cups of tofu. See, not that much! Go through the exercise to see how much protein you actually need, then, pay attention to how much you're eating and let me know how close you are. Have any questions on the math, or what your particular protein needs are?  Feel free to reach out for help.

You've probably heard your whole life that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but is it? The answer, like most of nutritional science, is........sort of. Reason #1 - Breakfast breaks the fast In recent years, there has been more research into fasting and situations where it might be effective, but let's leave that aside for now. Let's pretend you ate supper yesterday at 6pm. Then, you didn't eat afterwards and then went to sleep. So, when you get up at 7pm, it's already been 13 hours since you've eaten last. The longer our bodies go without food, the slower our metabolism gets. Our metabolism is our body's furnace, it burns calories, which can reduce our fat stores, or prevents calories being stored as fat. So, ideally, our metabolism is running as high as possible. Having breakfast kick starts the metabolism into burning again after along period without food. Tip #2 - It sets up your energy for the day If you have a job, or a family, or things to do, you need energy to live your life. Putting some calories into your body first thing in the morning gives you the energy to start your day. Feeling good in the morning sets yourself up for as good a day as you can have. It also prevents you from running yourself into a caloric deficit throughout the day. If you don't provide your body with calories, then start burning them by living your life, you will create a caloric deficit. This can lead to feelings of fatigue, moodiness, confusion throughout the day. Okay, breakfast is important, but what do I eat? We've already talked about Canada's Food Guide, and how it's a great template for lunch and supper. It's not great for breakfast, simply because it focuses on half a plate of vegetables, and not everyone likes to eat vegetables at breakfast. If you're one of those people who likes to eat savoury, dinner type foods in the morning, great! Eat your breakfast as per Canada's Food Guide for breakfast too. If you're not, and it's okay if you aren't. Then, we don't worry about the proportions set out in Canada's Food Guide, but focus on eating one food from each category - a starch, a protein, and a fruit. When we used the old food guide (the rainbow you might remember), we talked about servings. They were confusing and hard to calculate, but for fruit, using a serving size can be helpful. One serving of fruit is a piece of fruit that fits in your hand (apple, orange, peach, etc.), or a ½ cup of cut up fruit/berries. It can also be a 'medium sized' banana - you can try to figure out what that is. But really, it's a guideline at best. Meaning, that eating half of a cantaloupe for breakfast is likely too much fruit, and if you're having a clementine, you can probably have two. But I'm not a breakfast person, what should I do? There are people who can't stand the thought of food in the morning, or those who just don't feel hungry until hours after they've woken up. If you are one of those people, my advice is - do what you can. If half of a granola bar, one bite at a time, is all you can manage, great! Putting anything in your body will get your metabolism going, so anything helps. If sitting down to a plate full of food isn't your thing, think of what you can handle, and do that. Maybe you need to take a bite of a banana here and there while you're getting the kids out the door - fine! If it takes you half and hour to eat your yogurt - also fine! Do what you can, and don't worry about it. Something is better than nothing. As always, work towards where you want to be. Going from 0 to 100 is difficult and unnecessary. Set yourself small goals and work on making progress. Click here to contact me if you want to talk more!

You often hear about how healthy eating is based around eating a balanced diet.  Sounds easy, but what does it mean? What constitutes balance and how can you get it at each meal? Thankfully, the principles of meal balance is easy, there’s even a diagram! Canada’s Food Guide got a major upgrade in 2019, and it’s now very easy to follow. This is best applied to lunch and dinner only, breakfast is a bit different (and we’ll cover that in a different blog post – stay tuned!). The key to following this diagram is proportion.  Aim for ½ vegetables, ¼ protein, ¼ starch.  Easy, right? Let’s break it down even more. Vegetables These should take up ½ of your plate.  The picture has a lot of options, but the rules are: -       Choose what you like -       Cook it how you want (or don’t cook it at all) -       Mix it up as much as you can So, if you have a fridge full of vegetables, feel free to make a huge salad.  If you only have broccoli, just cook it all and have half a plate of broccoli. A note about fruit - There is fruit on this diagram, but I recommend taking fruit off of the plate.  Fruit is a healthy choice, but it contains more sugar than vegetables, so if you end up having half a plate of fruit at a meal, that’s likely too much sugar.  So, use it as a garnish or as part of a salad, or as dessert or snack, but not as the main part of the meal. Starch These are an important part of a balanced meal.  Starches offer energy, fibre and vitamins that you don’t get from other foods. However, they are generally soft, easy to chew options so it’s really easy to eat more than you need.  Keep it to a quarter of your plate helps you balance getting the nutrition you need with reining in the calories. There are a few things to note. The starchy vegetables – potato, sweet potato, corn and squash – should be in the starch group. While they are healthy choices (if you like them, you should eat them!), but they’re starchier, so fit better in this quarter. White vs whole grain – In the olden days we used to recommend 50% of the starch you eat should be whole grain.  Using this principle is a good guideline, so figure out how this works for you.  Look for areas where you can introduce whole grain (aka fibre).  If you enjoy white rice, fine, but have whole wheat pasta or bread.  The more whole grain options you can introduce the better! Protein These foods are essential to a healthy diet and should be eaten at each meal.  The rules for protein are the same as for vegetables: -       Eat the foods you like -       Cook them how you want -       Mix it up as much as you can Because protein is made up of amino acids, and each protein food has a different combo and amount of amino acids, variety is essential!  But, people generally don’t need as much protein as social media tells us we do, keep it to a ¼ of your plate. Meal balance - easy as pie (chart)! The reason this diagram works so well is because it ensures you have a food from each of the food groups, so each meal will give you the nutrition you need.  It also focuses on vegetables, ensuring you get a lot of fibre and fill up on low calorie foods. If you make your plate look as close to the diagram as possible as much as you can, you will be making the foods you eat as healthy as possible, and feel full in the process.  Give it a try and let me how it goes!

Are you looking to get healthy or improve your health in some way? No matter what kind of change you want to make to your lifestyle, the way to do it is pretty much the same. If you'd like to eat healthier, lose weight, build muscle, whatever, read on to learn how to make the kind of change that sticks and isn't overwhelming. Implementing change is hard, no matter what change is needed. If you change too many things at once, you're more likely to fail. So set yourself up for success by following the steps below. Step 1: Make a list of what this looks like. From where you are now, what are the changes that need to be made to reach your goal? This might be increasing intake of vegetables, having an afternoon snack, etc. Step 2: Rank the changes in the order that you want to make them. This might depend on the time of year (cutting out sweets right before a holiday might not be the best timing!), which ones you're most excited about, or which ones you think are easiest. Step 3: Start on the first change. Give yourself at least 2 weeks to focus on this one change. It might take more time than that, and that's okay! For change to be sustainable and longterm, you need to give yourself time to adjust. Once you're comfortable with the first change, when you get to the point where it feels easy or you have consistency with it, you're ready to move onto the next one! Step 4: Choose the next change on your list and repeat step 3. Sometimes the timeline needed for each change to feel comfortable is different each time. It can get easier to make changes, but some changes are also easier than others, so be kind to yourself and don't rush it! If you move on before you're ready, it will make it harder to sustain all changes. Step 5: Celebrate! Take the time to look back on your progress. It'll feel slow at times, but you'll soon find yourself doing things that once were hard, without a second thought! Consider giving yourself a little reward at certain intervals to keep motivation strong. That said, avoid using food-based rewards, this can get tricky! Choosing rewards like doing something with friends/family, buying yourself new clothes, or something you want will reward all your hard work! If you need help with goal setting, or knowing what a reasonable goal is, get in touch and we can talk about what this would look like for you!

When looking for someone to help you improve your nutrition, how do you know who to talk to? There are a lot of titles out there, and it can be confusing to choose someone to trust. To make things more confusing, the use of titles differs between provinces and countries. Since I live in Ontario, Canada, I will outline the rules for my province, but if you live elsewhere, these rules may not apply! You can check with your province’s (or country or state) regulatory college (college of dietitians of Ontario, for example) to see what the rules are where you live. The term ‘Dietitian’ is protected in Ontario, which means that only someone with a Registered Dietitian’s licence can call themselves a dietitian, or use the designation RD. RDs must maintain a licence in good standing with their regulatory college, which means meeting rigorous practice standards. They hold a 4-year university degree from an accredited university that includes courses in science (biology, chemistry, physiology), nutritional science, and the humanities. They then must complete an accredited internship that lasts approx. 1 year and pass the registration exam. In contrast, the term ‘Nutritionist’ is not protected in Ontario (some provinces do protect this title), so anyone can legally call themselves a nutritionist. There is therefore no minimum education requirements or minimum practice standard needed to work as a nutritionist. There are ‘holistic nutritionists’ who have completed a program (usually online) and have therefore earned this unregulated designation. When looking for nutrition advice, who should you choose? The saying ‘you get what you pay for’ is true with nutrition, as services from a Registered Dietitian usually cost more than from a nutritionist. That said, when seeing an RD, you know you’re getting expert, science-based and individualized advice. When seeing a nutritionist, you may or may not get nutrition advice that is safe for you. Just because everyone eats, doesn’t mean that everyone knows how to advise others on what or how to eat. The bottom line is that Registered Dietitians are the experts in providing safe and effective nutrition advice. RDs would be happy to discuss their training with you, and their licence information is publicly available online, so do your research before receiving nutrition counselling!