Wednesday 4th August, 2010

What's your eating personality & how do you manage it?

Knowing your natural eating style is important because you can then match the right management strategy. Which of the four categories below apply to you? If you are not yet applying the tips, take this as your jumpstart to start now... you'll have more days on Target.

Habitual Eater

You eat to a repeating pattern. The time of the day dictates your meals. You've become a captive to your own habits which causes you to eat a limited and nutrient-poor variety of foods. Your chocolate cravings may simply be a habit that can be easily broken.

Tips – Keep healthy food handy so it's your habitual first choice, Write reminders to take you off autopilot, Know that your taste buds do change

Social Eater

You eat what other people dictate. Your diet is often hijacked at parties and social get-togethers. You tend you think you can't control your eating because other people and situations do.

Tips – Go out to eat with a plan, Move away from the food after you've got your smaller potion, Practice saying 'No' to people who offer you food or to refill your drink.

Emotional Eater

You use food to improve your mood. When you are feeling a bit down or high, food is the answer. But this often backfires and a low follows leaving you feeling guilty.

Tips – Say STOP & question a craving when you feel it building, Build non-food emotional outlets into your life, Recruit support to question you when you turn to cookies, cake or chocolate.

Biological Eater

You respond to chemical cravings and may have some form of true biological addiction to specific foods. For example, you might crave carbohydrates in response to a serotonin imbalance. You get frustrated when you get cravings or feel really hungry when you can't identify an obvious trigger.

Tips – Eat nutrient-rich to nourish your body with the vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals that may biologically solve your cravings for you, monitor your appetite carefully, identify trigger foods and have a healthier substitute ready.

Yes, you can have characteristics of all four styles above. In fact, all of us need to manage each style to maximise success. When you put some effort in to do this, you will experience fantastic results.

Here's the Morning Show Segment to explain some more:

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Wednesday 25th August, 2010

My 24-Hour plane food experiment 

MJ Exchanges & total energy? 

Two weeks ago I flew Brittish Airways to the UK for a MJ Coach Certification Course and thought I'd check the food on offer for total energy and MJ Food Group Exchanges. Here's what I discovered I had eaten over a 24 hour period of only consuming inflight meals. Frequent travellers beware.

Meal 1 - 5.00pm Sydney time, Dinner 2 hours into flight to Singapore

Starts with Salad (1 Cup = 1 Veg Exchange) with 5g salad dressing = 1 Healthy Oil
200mL Apple juice = 1 Fruit Exchange
Beef Cassarole with 50g meat = 1/2 Protein, 1/2 Cup pasta = 1 Starch, 1/2 Cup cooked vegetables = 1 Veg and guess 5g added polyunsaturated fat = 1 Healthy Oil and 5g added saturated fat = 1 Extra. 
1 Small bread roll = 1 Starch with 10g butter = 2 Extras
1 Sticky date slice = 1200 kJ / 300 Cal = 4 Extras
200mL red wine = 2 Extras 

Total for meal = 4350 kJ / 1040 Cal
2 Veg, 1 Fruit, O Dairy, 1/2 Protein, 2 Healthy Oils, 2 Starch, 9 Extras

Meal 2 - 8 hours after Meal 1, Dinner, just after leaving Singapore for London

Starts with Coleslaw (1 Cup = 1 Veg Exchange) with 5g salad dressing = 1 Healthy Oil
Tomato Chicken with 50g meat = 1/2 Protein, 1 Small potato mached = 1 Starch, 1/2 Cup cooked vegetables = 1 Veg and guess 5g added polyunsaturated fat = 1 Healthy Oil and 5g added saturated fat = 1 Extra. 
1 Small bread roll = 1 Starch with 10g butter = 2 Extras
1 Jelly = 600 kJ / 150 Cal = 2 Extras
200mL red wine = 2 Extras

Total for meal = 2450 kJ / 590 Cal
2 Veg, 0 Fruit, O Dairy, 1/2 Protein, 2 Healthy Oils, 2 Starch, 7 Extras

Meal 3 - 3 Hours before London & 20 hours into flight, Breakfast

Starts with Fruit salad (1 Cup = 1 Fruit Exchange)
Tub yoghurt 150mL - 3/4 Dairy
Cup 150mL orange juice = 3/4 Fruit
English breakfast with 50g meat = 1/2 Protein, 1/2 Tomato + Miushrooms = 1/2 Veg, 1 Scrambled egg= 1/2 Protein guess 5g added saturated fat = 1 Extra. 
1 Small bread roll = 1 Starch with 10g butter = 2 Extras

Total for meal = 2550 kJ / 600 Cal
1/2 Veg, 2 Fruit, 3/4 Dairy, 1 Protein, 0 Healthy Oils, 1 Starch, 3 Extras.

24 Hour (1 Day total)

Total energy intake = 9350 kJ / 2230

Wow... and that's without snacks! Beware the Extras in the form a wine, desserts and added butter. These combined to provide 19 Extras = 5700kJ / 1300 Cal, which is over half of the energy I consumed. Frequent travellers should have a plane to modify their inflight meals, otherwise risk blowing your Calorie Cap.

Tips

Pre-order a low-fat, low-cholesterol or diabetic meal
Resist adding butter to bread rolls
Skip dessert
Order mineral water from the drinks cart

If you would like me to design you a metabolically matched diet plan that will show you how many Exchanges of each nutrient-rich food group you should eat, simply register for your Metabolic Jumpstart.

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Wednesday 4th August, 2010

What's your eating personality & how do you manage it?

Knowing your natural eating style is important because you can then match the right management strategy. Which of the four categories below apply to you? If you are not yet applying the tips, take this as your jumpstart to start now... you'll have more days on Target.

Habitual Eater
You eat to a repeating pattern. The time of the day dictates your meals. You've become a captive to your own habits which causes you to eat a limited and nutrient-poor variety of foods. Your chocolate cravings may simply be a habit that can be easily broken.

Tips – Keep healthy food handy so it's your habitual first choice, Write reminders to take you off autopilot, Know that your taste buds do change

Social Eater

You eat what other people dictate. Your diet is often hijacked at parties and social get-togethers. You tend you think you can't control your eating because other people and situations do.

Tips – Go out to eat with a plan, Move away from the food after you've got your smaller potion, Practice saying 'No' to people who offer you food or to refill your drink.

Emotional Eater

You use food to improve your mood. When you are feeling a bit down or high, food is the answer. But this often backfires and a low follows leaving you feeling guilty.

Tips – Say STOP & question a craving when you feel it building, Build non-food emotional outlets into your life, Recruit support to question you when you turn to cookies, cake or chocolate.

Biological Eater

You respond to chemical cravings and may have some form of true biological addiction to specific foods. For example, you might crave carbohydrates in response to a serotonin imbalance. You get frustrated when you get cravings or feel really hungry when you can't identify an obvious trigger.

Tips – Eat nutrient-rich to nourish your body with the vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals that may biologically solve your cravings for you, monitor your appetite carefully, identify trigger foods and have a healthier substitute ready.

Yes, you can have characteristics of all four styles above. In fact, all of us need to manage each style to maximise success. When you put some effort in to do this, you will experience fantastic results.

Here's the Morning Show Segment to explain some more:

Kids learn fast by mimicking their parents behaviour. That's why all the experts list positive food and fitness role modelling by parents as vital to encourage the development of healthy eating habits for children.

As a parent, I know this places a lot of pressure on us (adults) to eat well and be active ourselves, rather than make junk food a habit. There are all sorts of diets adults can try to help them eat better, but could some actually back-fire and present another bad model for your kids?

Here are three role modelling options to show what I'm thinking:

1. Eat junk food regularly – No brainer here that your kids will pick up the idea that eating rubbish is normal. Why would they want to eat healthy, nutrient-rich food if you don't. Other parents and kids might eat well, but they don't have as powerful an influence in crafting poor eating habits. The longer parents are not eating healthy, the harder it becomes for the whole family to make the change to healthy eating.

2. Repeat dodgy diets – Although intentions may be positive, demonstrating dieting behaviour may be just as damaging as demonstrating fast food behaviour. Restrictive eating, draconian diet rules and deprivation are easily picked up by young minds and risks undermining ideas of healthy eating.

3. Eating nutrient-rich – The third option is the recommended option. It is about working towards making nutrient-rich foods a normal part of family dinners and school lunch boxes. Food group based eating that includes Vegetables, Fruit, Dairy, Protein, Healthy Oils and Starches helps adults and children understand what is in food and how diets are balanced. It's not about restrictive dieting or calorie counting. It is simply setting daily targets for food groups (for example, 2 pieces of fruit) for mums, dads and the kids.

So, the point of this blog - to inspire adults to break the junk food habit and the dieting habit and embrace nutrient-rich eating.

Food eaten at night is NOT more likely to be stored as body fat as long as you stay at or under your energy budget (or "calorie cap") for the day. Even so, you still need to consider the reasons why you might eat too much at night and then implement some practical strategies to cut back on what you eat late in the day.

So, here are the three most common reasons why people overeat from dinner onwards.

Reason #1 > Lack of planning

If you don’t eat enough during the day you risk being hungry at night. If you skip breakfast, are too busy for lunch, or forget to snack, you leave yourself open to overeating in the evening. By planning your food for the day, and taking time out to eat regularly, you can satisfy your fuel needs and avoid overfilling late in the day.

Reason #2 > Social sabotage

Your diet may be healthy until you come home and sit down at the table with other people. It is in these situations where you may feel obliged to eat everything served by your caring partner, mother or friend. Or you might simply overeat during long social meals. To manage this feeding pressure, make your diet plans known to those at home. Recruiting their support will work in your favour. As for the belief that you should clean your plate, learn a new mantra, “It’s better to go in the waste than around my waist!”

Reason #3 > Emotional Reward

After a stressful day, food can sooth and relax. Chocolate, cookies, cake or chips work wonders at delivering instant relief. Eating is also an effective short-term strategy to beat night-time boredom. Identifying an evening stress or boredom-food link is the first step. You then need to establish alternative emotional rewards. This is not always easy, but is an important aspect of successful weight management. Ask the question, “What can you do in the evening that would reduce the need to eat?”

New rules for night-time eating

Rule #1 > Catch up on your nutrition

The evening meal is an opportunity to achieve an optimised, nutrient-rich diet for that day. For example, if you haven’t eaten your Target serves of fruit during the day, aim to have some fruit salad for dessert. Eat a little less of your main dish if needed. If you have missed out on vegetables during the day, make your evening meal veggie-based; a stir fry, vegetable lasagna or a salad. Being switched on to rounding out your nutrient-rich diet at dinner will help optimise your metabolism.

Rule #2 > Eat enough to get to bed

Unless you are an athlete or exercising strenuously in bed, you won't need to carb-load or eat big at night. Serve a smaller portion on a smaller plate, take the edge off hunger and then get to bed. If you are asleep, you won't feel hungry until morning. Then you can start another day of nutrient-rich eating with a healthy breakfast that you are hungry for.


Rule #3 > Close the kitchen

Restaurants do it, so you should to. Close the kitchen after dinner do you can't keep popping back to the pantry or fridge for nibbles. If this doesn't work mentally, put a sign up saying "Kitchen Closed" to remind you or get one of those fancy red barriers to put in the kitchen doorway. Simple and highly effective.

If overeating at night is your stumbling block, then address the reasons above and implement the rules. You'll see better results and have greater control. If you'd like a metabolically matched diet plan and program to help you reduce overeating at night, click here to learn more.