Speaker 1: Do you spend a lot of time thinking about your
Speaker 1: food and meal timings? Do you have no issue tracking
Speaker 1: calories or macros yet could not say if you were
Speaker 1: ever really hungry when it came to a meal time.
Speaker 1: Do you eat the same meals and snacks most days,
Speaker 1: regardless of how you feel or what you're actually doing
Speaker 1: being a little out of touch with your hunger? And
Speaker 1: instead are you eating with your head? Today we discuss
Speaker 1: head versus hunger based eating and how to get a
Speaker 1: little more in touch with your true physical hunger and
Speaker 1: formless cues to help aid the self regulation of food
Speaker 1: intake and support weight control. Hi, I'm Leanne.
Speaker 2: Ward and I'm Sissy Burrow and as a credited practicing.
Speaker 1: Dieticians, we bring you the Nutrition Couch, a bio weekly
Speaker 1: chat on everything going on in the world of nutrition
Speaker 1: now as well as head versus hunger eating. Today we're
Speaker 1: discussed getting your fat balance right and our client case
Speaker 1: study looks at what to eat if you have an
Speaker 1: underactive thyroid. But to kickstart today is Sussy, I hear
Speaker 1: you've found a new how big congratulations is in order?
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's quite funny actually, because we both have
Speaker 2: been living in you're living in a nice family apartment.
Speaker 2: But I've been living in a rental for about six
Speaker 2: to seven months, looking for a house, really living like
Speaker 2: a UNI student, and finally the universe has come good
Speaker 2: and has found me at a beautiful home, but most
Speaker 2: importantly a house that I can do my food pictures in,
Speaker 2: because what I forgot when I came back to my
Speaker 2: rental was that I have no light in this kitchen.
Speaker 2: And now so much of our content is about shooting
Speaker 2: food all day, so I literally have not been able
Speaker 2: to shoot for months, which has been really challenging. So
Speaker 2: my new house has a walk in pantry that I'm
Speaker 2: going to deck out like one of those Instagram pantrees.
Speaker 2: I'm getting your appliances, I'm getting a good fridge, and
Speaker 2: I am just going to be in kitchen heaven as
Speaker 2: a dietician who can shoot food. So how many weeks
Speaker 2: have I got to go? Five weeks home? And it's
Speaker 2: also a very large home, which means that when you
Speaker 2: guys come up, there'll be plenty of room for you
Speaker 2: and David and me to stay so we can party
Speaker 2: on in Sydney. So it's very exciting time. I've been
Speaker 2: waiting a very long time for this.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited for you guys. And champagnees are absolutely
Speaker 1: in order. Right.
Speaker 2: We've got a champagne fridge, so absolutely, Chris, what's a
Speaker 2: cheese fridge? So I think champagne cheese fridge fantastic?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you gotta have both, right, you can't have
Speaker 1: one without the other.
Speaker 2: They go together one percent?
Speaker 1: All right, Well, Susie, if you get us started today.
Speaker 1: We talk a lot about hunger on the potties, So
Speaker 1: how do we learn to recognize and actually manage our hunger?
Speaker 1: For some people it's quite easy. But I'm sure you
Speaker 1: have as many clients as I do, Susie, who say,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever failed hunger? I couldn't remember
Speaker 1: the last time I failed hunger. I haven't felt hungry
Speaker 1: in ten years. Why does hunger come so easy to
Speaker 1: some people and not so easy to others?
Speaker 2: Susie, Well, I think that we program ourselves to eat
Speaker 2: according to many cues. You know, the biggest predictors of
Speaker 2: food consumption is availability and also eating with friends and family.
Speaker 2: And if you think about day to day life, you
Speaker 2: know you're going into an office, people go for coffee breaks,
Speaker 2: people bring in food. You know, you may not get
Speaker 2: lunch when you're actually hungry, so then you end up overeating.
Speaker 2: So the nature of busy life lends itself to eating
Speaker 2: at all random times. But also there's huge amounts of
Speaker 2: food available, like I compared, I think I've compared with
Speaker 2: this before, where if we think back to our grandparents
Speaker 2: or even great grandparents, now they started the day with
Speaker 2: a small bottle of cereal, a small sandwich at lunch,
Speaker 2: and a couple of chops and veggies for dinner. Like
Speaker 2: we literally eat up to double those calories just with
Speaker 2: the amount of food that's available. But the reason I
Speaker 2: wanted to talk about this so much was there's a
Speaker 2: couple of key cues that I get from clients that
Speaker 2: really reminded me this was a great topic to talk
Speaker 2: through it as soon as I mentioned them, I'm sure
Speaker 2: you will also have a couple of examples that spring
Speaker 2: to mind. So when I first set it cliently and
Speaker 2: I will get an idea of their lifestyle and the
Speaker 2: way they like to eat and their goals, and then
Speaker 2: I will design a meal plan specific for them with
Speaker 2: a range of different meal options and snack options that
Speaker 2: fit the macro and calorie profile that I am prescribing them,
Speaker 2: So it's not a diet per se. It's more ideas
Speaker 2: on structure and balance through the day to achieve the goal,
Speaker 2: which in many cases is weight loss. But what I
Speaker 2: find is I have clients who'll come to me and
Speaker 2: they'll say or they'll follow the meal plan as I've
Speaker 2: written it every single day. So I'll get their food
Speaker 2: diaries back and it will be every single day exactly
Speaker 2: as I've put it. And when I'll say to them
Speaker 2: something along the lines of oh are you hungry or
Speaker 2: did you feel like that, they were like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: it was on the plan, So they're eating certainly according
Speaker 2: to a sheet of paper or in the case of
Speaker 2: giving a macro prescription. So another example is that people
Speaker 2: will say how many calories do I need? How many
Speaker 2: grams of carbs and protein per meal, and then they'll
Speaker 2: track it in my fitness Pal and be eating according
Speaker 2: to that, regardless of what they feel like eating or volumes.
Speaker 2: Even if they don't feel like the full twelve hundred
Speaker 2: or sixteen hundred calories, delete them and then the other
Speaker 2: example I have is that my clients will send me
Speaker 2: a picture of a menu they're going out for dinner
Speaker 2: and they'll say what should I eat? And I'll say,
Speaker 2: I don't know, what do you feel like? I feel
Speaker 2: like yeah, because and it's a difficult concept when you've
Speaker 2: lost trust with your natural signals, physiological signals and are
Speaker 2: not confident in making those decisions. And this is this
Speaker 2: kind of area that's really difficult to define. But certainly
Speaker 2: there are targets in terms of rough calorie loads, rough
Speaker 2: protein and carbohydrate goals, but every single day is different hormonally,
Speaker 2: activity wise, age. You know, there'll be some days that
Speaker 2: you may only eat six hundred calories and there'll be
Speaker 2: other days you might eat sixteen hundred and still achieve
Speaker 2: weight loss if you listen to your body within reason.
Speaker 2: So there's an art to it, but the art is
Speaker 2: to always be checking in to say what do I
Speaker 2: feel like eating? Do I actually even feel like eating?
Speaker 2: My meal plan might say morning tea, but actually, if
Speaker 2: you don't need it, you don't have to shove it in.
Speaker 2: So you've got to always go back to what your
Speaker 2: body is telling you, and then when it's time for
Speaker 2: a meal or snack, just make sure that's balanced. Because
Speaker 2: it's not an exact science at all. Is it. You know,
Speaker 2: there's huge inaccuracy with calorie outputs with the numbers we
Speaker 2: put into my fitness power. So it's all just rough examples.
Speaker 2: And you know, one of the issues I guess and
Speaker 2: where the intuitive eating group fit into this is my
Speaker 2: observation is if you eat food or meals or snacks
Speaker 2: that you actually don't feel like. So, for example, you
Speaker 2: may have on a meal plan or a suggested snack
Speaker 2: is a nutbar or a cheese and crackers. Now if
Speaker 2: it gets to three or four o'clock in the afternoon
Speaker 2: and you actually don't feel like a cheese and crackers,
Speaker 2: but you eat it because that's what it's said on
Speaker 2: your plan, You'll keep eating until you actually satisfy what
Speaker 2: you're looking for. So, sure, you can use meal plans
Speaker 2: as ideas and guides, but it's also really important to
Speaker 2: always check in with self and say, actually, what do
Speaker 2: I feel like eating, because otherwise you won't be satisfied.
Speaker 2: And when you're not satisfied, that's what drives that seeking
Speaker 2: of food irrespective of hunger. And that's why when you
Speaker 2: are going to a special occasion a restaurant, my first
Speaker 2: feedback to my clients is actually what do you feel like,
Speaker 2: and then adjust it to fit. So if you really
Speaker 2: feel like a pastaf, well that's the time to have it.
Speaker 2: But if you fall after three mouthfuls because you're not
Speaker 2: used to having food, you can put it away and
Speaker 2: take it home and make sure you have vegetable sides,
Speaker 2: you know, and do it that way. But it's a
Speaker 2: real trust and it takes a lot of work with
Speaker 2: clients to work through that, and often anxiety almost because
Speaker 2: people are almost scared of skipping a meal. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's a good question to sort of reflect
Speaker 2: on after you've listened to this. Am I eating according
Speaker 2: to my head? What my head's telling me to have
Speaker 2: as opposed to what my body's feeling like and the
Speaker 2: times that it's actually really feeling like eating.
Speaker 1: And it's a wonderful question is what do I actually
Speaker 1: feel like or what is my body actually asking me for?
Speaker 1: Because a lot of the time our head is looking
Speaker 1: to seek something that is feeling an emotional void, like
Speaker 1: if we've had a busy, stressful, anxious day. If where
Speaker 1: it's Friday night and we're single and we're by ourselves
Speaker 1: watching TV while all of our friends are coupled up
Speaker 1: in romantic relationships and out to dinner, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: feeling a bit lonely and a bit sorrow for ourselves.
Speaker 1: So if we eat with our head, we're always likely
Speaker 1: to choose the more soul foody type option and overeat
Speaker 1: it because we're eating for an emotional response, versus if
Speaker 1: we eat with our tummy, or we say what does
Speaker 1: my body actually need? I always say to my clients, Susie,
Speaker 1: fill up on whole foods first, and then have the
Speaker 1: soul food after. So fill up on what your body needs,
Speaker 1: and then give your head or your soul what it
Speaker 1: feels like afterwards. And I think it's a really good
Speaker 1: question that you ask when you go to a cafe,
Speaker 1: because too often clients will send us some menu and say,
Speaker 1: what's the lowest calorie option here? And you're right, we
Speaker 1: can have anything on the menu as long as we're
Speaker 1: making other changes or swaps throughout the rest of our
Speaker 1: day or maybe even throughout the rest of the week,
Speaker 1: depending on how heavy that meal might be. As long
Speaker 1: as we can make small changes in other areas, we
Speaker 1: can kind of make anything fit. We don't always have
Speaker 1: to have the healthiers option on the menu. If the
Speaker 1: goal is weight loss, even if the goal is general health.
Speaker 1: It's okay to have some pizza, it's okay to have
Speaker 1: some pasta, but trying our best to balance those meals.
Speaker 1: And as you said, the serving sizes at restaurants are
Speaker 1: so enormous that often we leave feeling pretty unwell and
Speaker 1: just bloated and overfull. And even I just get a
Speaker 1: lot of that brain fog if I tend to over eat,
Speaker 1: particularly the next day, it's not a very nice feeling.
Speaker 1: So honoring that hunger and yes, my body feels like
Speaker 1: some pasta, that's exactly what I want right now. Great,
Speaker 1: but my body will feel better by adding some vegetables
Speaker 1: or salad on the side, which we absolutely know. And
Speaker 1: then you get halfway through or three quarters through that
Speaker 1: pastor and you go, you know what, I'm actually starting
Speaker 1: to fill up and feel a bit sluggish. I'm not
Speaker 1: actually sure if this pastor is serving me. Well, let
Speaker 1: me just take a pause and put down my foet
Speaker 1: can reassess how I'm actually feeling. So you're right, there's
Speaker 1: a whole element of trust to that, and for some
Speaker 1: of us, if we haven't really been in tune with
Speaker 1: our hunger, fullness cues for many years, you know, perhaps
Speaker 1: even ten plus years. We can't expect this to be
Speaker 1: something that happens overnight. We can't expect us to go
Speaker 1: to a restaurant to be able to honor our hunger,
Speaker 1: put our walk down after we've eaten seventy five percent
Speaker 1: of the meal and say that's right, I'm done, I
Speaker 1: feel satisfied. This is going to take some time, and
Speaker 1: for many of my clients, Susie, it's months, if not,
Speaker 1: you know, six to twelve months of hard work to
Speaker 1: really tune into our body and naturally get in tune
Speaker 1: with those hunger signals again. Particularly feel somebody that's been
Speaker 1: doing you know, it's something like into and fasting for
Speaker 1: a really long time, where you just may never feel
Speaker 1: hungry at breakfast. You might really not feel hungry at all,
Speaker 1: and then used to having a large calorie intake throughout
Speaker 1: the night. If you're trying to regulate more your hunger
Speaker 1: and space those meals out throughout the day, which you
Speaker 1: know is good for a lot of sort of hormonal women.
Speaker 1: That's sort of a good strategy to do. It might
Speaker 1: be really hard to wake up and go. We'll have
Speaker 1: to wait till I'm hungry to actually eat. For some
Speaker 1: of us, it might be better to eat on the
Speaker 1: clock to begin with, which then helps kind of, I
Speaker 1: don't know, reset a metabolism and just give our body
Speaker 1: a bit of that boost and energy in the morning,
Speaker 1: and then over time you'll actually start to wake up
Speaker 1: feeling hungry in the morning. So I think there's some
Speaker 1: good strategies if you're someone that I guess isn't in
Speaker 1: tune with their hunger, Yes, it's important to regularly to
Speaker 1: sometimes get those hunger signals back, but we also don't
Speaker 1: want to be eating too regularly or constantly snacking and
Speaker 1: grazing all morning or all day long, because that can
Speaker 1: really take us away from our goals and it just
Speaker 1: doesn't really ever give our gut or our digestion time
Speaker 1: to have a bit of a rest and properly digest
Speaker 1: the food that we've had. So time between meals is
Speaker 1: absolutely important, but too long between meals can lead us
Speaker 1: into a whole other kind of range of issues as well,
Speaker 1: can't it true?
Speaker 2: And I noticed it as well, And I really agree
Speaker 2: with you about the intimate and fasting because I have
Speaker 2: a lot of that experience, particularly with my females. And
Speaker 2: what I then try and do is just put a
Speaker 2: couple of hundred calories within an hour or so of
Speaker 2: waking to try and basically stoke the fire and get
Speaker 2: things moving. So that's a really good point. But the
Speaker 2: other time I noticed that leanne is morning tea. Now
Speaker 2: I have a couple of client groups who eat morning tea,
Speaker 2: and one are teachers. Because teachers, morning tea is usually
Speaker 2: about eleven, and that's actually a time for them to
Speaker 2: eat lunch because the days early and busy, and the
Speaker 2: second lunch is too late. So I give them lunch
Speaker 2: at morning tea, and then I give them a second,
Speaker 2: lighter lunch later. But I'm arguing that I don't know
Speaker 2: if many of us really need morning tea because I
Speaker 2: find if I put something delicious there, you know, yogurt
Speaker 2: and granola, cheese and crackers, well who doesn't want to
Speaker 2: eat those foods. So then you've had your breakfast and
Speaker 2: it's sort of ten thirty eleven, and you sort of think, oh, well,
Speaker 2: morning tea time. So I think another question, as you
Speaker 2: go away from this chat this today and really be
Speaker 2: thinking about am I eating on autoqu or I'm actually
Speaker 2: thinking about what I feel like and timing and prepared
Speaker 2: to skip a meal if I'm not hungry. If you're
Speaker 2: a morning tea eater, unless you're up at the cracker
Speaker 2: door nexus sizing, or a surgeon so you'd come out
Speaker 2: of a surgery regularly at ten thirty eleven and are hungry,
Speaker 2: Or a teacher, I'm questioning if you really need that
Speaker 2: morning tea, and you're actually better to go through to
Speaker 2: early lunch, because my observation is that people have their
Speaker 2: breakfast and then a couple of hours later morning tea,
Speaker 2: which is usually sweet kind of food, so often a
Speaker 2: milk based coffee that's sweet, some fruit, and then they
Speaker 2: don't have lunch till later, and then it drives appetitle afternoon.
Speaker 2: So I would prefer my clients in general to have
Speaker 2: an early lunch, even eleven twelve, and then afternoon tea
Speaker 2: and go to four meals per day rather than five,
Speaker 2: because I don't know, unless you're little or a teenager,
Speaker 2: or as I set a teacher with that very early
Speaker 2: sort of day, I don't know. If I'm a big
Speaker 2: fan of morning tea. I don't eat morning tea. You know,
Speaker 2: I have my coffee and breakfast and then I'm really
Speaker 2: good until eleven twelve, you know, so I'm questioning if
Speaker 2: we really need that one Lanne, Is that harsh? No,
Speaker 2: I think it's a fair point, And I think do
Speaker 2: you eat morning tea?
Speaker 1: Yes, but I'm tall and active and I'm breastfas she's
Speaker 1: six foot, I eat all day long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's very tall.
Speaker 1: So yeah, But a lot of my clients, I would say,
Speaker 1: if I had to have a fifty to fifty split,
Speaker 1: i'd actually say probably sixty seventy percent of my clients don't.
Speaker 1: Most of them will have a coffee. I tend to
Speaker 1: move the coffee away from breakfast for a lot of
Speaker 1: my clients. Some of them have low ies, some of
Speaker 1: them are vegan vegetarians. It's important that we pulled the
Speaker 1: coffee outside of meals and other reasons. It just kind
Speaker 1: of keeps them going, like just that, you know, one
Speaker 1: hundred hundred and fifty calories at morning tea is enough
Speaker 1: just in a coffee based form to get them through
Speaker 1: to lunch. So we're not actually eating, but we are
Speaker 1: taking in some calories at morning tea. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Actually, when I went to the hospital, I used to
Speaker 2: have a coffee and a pundit of blueberries and that's
Speaker 2: about one hundred hundred and fifty calories, Whereas I just
Speaker 2: calculated a morning tea of my client this morning. It
Speaker 2: was three hundred. I said to her, come on, this
Speaker 2: is like a meal, you know, Like I know it's young,
Speaker 2: but yeah, so it's worth having a little look and
Speaker 2: questioning a few things. Or even if you do eat,
Speaker 2: can you cut back a little bit? Would you be
Speaker 2: okay with a piccolo coffee and a punea of berries
Speaker 2: or a mandarin rather than a more substantial snack that
Speaker 2: might be better placed in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Oor, could you hold off breakfast a little more? If
Speaker 1: you're just someone that wakes up and eats breakfast first thing?
Speaker 1: Could you actually have it at your desk a minute
Speaker 1: you log in your computer. When I was at the hospital,
Speaker 1: this probably sounds terrible, but I used to eat my
Speaker 1: breakfast at my desk all the time. I'd log in,
Speaker 1: I'd check my emails, I'd go through the ward list,
Speaker 1: I'd look at my referrals, and I'd eat my overnight.
Speaker 1: Oh it's while I was doing that, because if I
Speaker 1: left for the hospital battle traffic. I used to live
Speaker 1: forty five minutes away in traffic was about an hour drive.
Speaker 1: When I lived on the North Side, had to come
Speaker 1: over to the South Side. At the hospital, I would
Speaker 1: have to eat breakfast at six am. I started work
Speaker 1: at seven seven thirty, and then basically by like nine am,
Speaker 1: I was like, crap, I'm hungry.
Speaker 2: What am I going to do?
Speaker 1: And so I would actually hold off my breakfast because
Speaker 1: I wasn't necessarily hungry when I woke up and I
Speaker 1: ate it. I was just doing it because it was convenient,
Speaker 1: and I sort of felt a bit bad eating at
Speaker 1: my desk, and I sort of said to my boss,
Speaker 1: I'm not really hungry, would you mind if you did that?
Speaker 1: And she didn't have a problem with it at all. She's like,
Speaker 1: as long as you're working while you're there, I don't
Speaker 1: really mind if you eat. So holding off your breakfast
Speaker 1: for some people can be a good strategy. For other people,
Speaker 1: it might fell disaster if it means that they're so
Speaker 1: hungry that they then overeat. But I had one last example.
Speaker 1: I really wanted people to think about Susie when it
Speaker 1: comes to hunger, particularly for our females, and it's period
Speaker 1: week or leading into period week, because we talk about
Speaker 1: hunger a lot. We talk about why can we cut down?
Speaker 1: Are we eating too much? But are we eating enough?
Speaker 1: When it comes to that period week, So most females
Speaker 1: who get their cycle will have one, two, three days
Speaker 1: of bottomless pit hunger. And most of my clients say
Speaker 1: this to me. They're like, oh my god, I could
Speaker 1: not eat enough right now. I could eat off my arm.
Speaker 1: I'm that hungry. It's important to honor that hunger because
Speaker 1: when you're mens reading, your body is actually burning more calories.
Speaker 1: For most of us, it could be one hundred, one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty extra calories. That's what the research actually shows,
Speaker 1: and so it's important to honor that hunger, to have
Speaker 1: an extra snack, maybe two, maybe three if that's what
Speaker 1: we need, but knowing that that bottomless pit tube of
Speaker 1: hunger doesn't last forever. Normally, once the cycle actually hits,
Speaker 1: it's day one, day two of the period, the hunger
Speaker 1: drops right off. But a lot of people use that
Speaker 1: three four five days of their period almost like an
Speaker 1: excuse to just eat more. But generally the hunger is
Speaker 1: actually the week before or a few days before for
Speaker 1: most people the period actually hits. So it's important to
Speaker 1: honor the hunger than when it's really there. It's okay
Speaker 1: if you're eating a lot more on those few days,
Speaker 1: and then you can back off once a cycle actually
Speaker 1: hits and you find that if you're really tuning in
Speaker 1: and listening to that proper hunger, you're probably not as
Speaker 1: hungry as what you thought you were or what you've
Speaker 1: previously eaten, because a lot of us, I think, are
Speaker 1: just eaten for the whole Poor me, I've got my period.
Speaker 1: I deserve a bit of a treat kind of thought
Speaker 1: process versus I'm actually physically hungry and physically need more
Speaker 1: food during this time. So I think it's important to
Speaker 1: honor the hunger when it's fair and to back off
Speaker 1: a little bit and recognize is this more of the
Speaker 1: head hunger or do I physically need more food right now?
Speaker 1: Or am I eating to make myself feel a little
Speaker 1: bit better. A little bit of a food for thought
Speaker 1: for our listeners at home.
Speaker 2: Plenty of things to think about. I agree, all right, Well,
Speaker 2: lean for our client case study today. This is a
Speaker 2: topic that we have had several requests for and I
Speaker 2: know a little bit, but it's certainly not my Arab expertise,
Speaker 2: but It was sent to us fight Instagram this time,
Speaker 2: and it was questioning what is the right diet for
Speaker 2: thyroid dysfunction or specifically hyper thyroidism, which is a surprisingly
Speaker 2: common issue in Australia, and one of the theories behind
Speaker 2: that is because our particularly low ID levels is in
Speaker 2: our soil, which is one of the reasons that we
Speaker 2: generally recommend iodie AsSalt for people, particularly to found the
Speaker 2: history of thiroidysfunction and still a really pertinent issue in
Speaker 2: pregnancy that can have profound effects on neurological development and children,
Speaker 2: So really worth keeping an eye and particularly if you're
Speaker 2: feeling tired and a little bit sluggish. So I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people will be very interested in this
Speaker 2: and how do you eat to protect and manage your thyroid,
Speaker 2: particularly if you are on medication.
Speaker 1: So I think it's important to note that for the
Speaker 1: large majority of people with thyroid conditions, it's the underactive
Speaker 1: theroid that seems to be the largest representation. So the
Speaker 1: underactive throid tends to be the main player when it
Speaker 1: comes to weight gain or difficulties losing weight, and the
Speaker 1: overactive thyroid seems to be the one that makes people
Speaker 1: drop a tremendous amount of weight sometimes in a short
Speaker 1: period of time. I've had clients who've said, God, I
Speaker 1: thought I had cancel and it turns out they just
Speaker 1: had an overactive thyroid. And if you have anyone who's
Speaker 1: sort of losing weight, you know without really meaning to,
Speaker 1: or you've got these like heart palpitations, sweating that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, I mean, those to me would signal, you know,
Speaker 1: cardiac issues that absolutely either go to the hospital at least,
Speaker 1: at the very least see your doctor. But if things
Speaker 1: don't feel right, it's absolutely a case just a quick
Speaker 1: reminder for oalysis at home to go and get some bloods,
Speaker 1: to go and chat to your doctor and figure out
Speaker 1: if there's something going on. But the thorad is one
Speaker 1: of those glands that actually plays a huge role in
Speaker 1: our metabolism. So alongside inchulin and cortisol, our thyroid hormones
Speaker 1: are the driving factor behind weight loss and also behind
Speaker 1: how our sort of metabolism works. So for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, if you have issues with your thioid, if
Speaker 1: it's under active, it's not working properly, it can in
Speaker 1: fact impact on weight loss and your metabolism. But I
Speaker 1: think it's important to note that food and diet alone
Speaker 1: cannot cure or independently treat a diagnosis of a poorly
Speaker 1: functioning thyroid. So if you have a diagnose from your
Speaker 1: doctor or your doctor says to you you've got an
Speaker 1: issue with your thiroid, you need to take some medication.
Speaker 1: Please do not go online read some natural health blogs
Speaker 1: and think that you can cure all with food. There
Speaker 1: is absolutely a place for modern medicine and absolutely a
Speaker 1: place for good nourishing nutrition. But guess what, guys, those
Speaker 1: things can work together. They do not have to work
Speaker 1: in isolation. So if we have an underactive thyroid or
Speaker 1: what is called hypertherroidism, I dine, as you mentioned, Zuzie,
Speaker 1: is something that I would be thinking about. So it's
Speaker 1: an essential trace element. Basically we all need it, but
Speaker 1: it's really important because our thyroid gland actually requires this
Speaker 1: id and to produce the thyroid hormones in order to
Speaker 1: work efficiently. So for that reason, basically, deficiency and IDNE
Speaker 1: can actually lead to an underactive thoroid. So we're not
Speaker 1: eating enough throughout diet. And as you said, Zuzie, there
Speaker 1: are I dine rich foods you can get it riched
Speaker 1: in salt, things like navy beans, potatoes, eggs, cow's milk,
Speaker 1: so you know, if you're vegan, obviously that counts out
Speaker 1: eggs and cows milk. So really just looking at the
Speaker 1: quality of your diet overall and actually if you're getting
Speaker 1: in enough iyodne. But it is important to note that
Speaker 1: there is a specific type of thyroid condition called Hashimoto's thyroiditis.
Speaker 1: If you have that condition, I wouldn't be automatically bumping
Speaker 1: up your IDNE intake. I definitely would be speaking to
Speaker 1: your doctor because in that particular type of condition, it
Speaker 1: may basically irritate your THIROI it might not be a
Speaker 1: great thing. So it's not a one size fits all
Speaker 1: when it comes to thyroid conditions today on the body,
Speaker 1: we're really talking about that hypotheridism or where the thyroid
Speaker 1: is just underactive and it's not working as much as possible. Now,
Speaker 1: the second nutrient I want you guys to be aware
Speaker 1: of is selenium. So there's a lot of I guess
Speaker 1: talk online within the thyroid community that supplementing with selenium
Speaker 1: is just basically going to be a great thing.
Speaker 2: So there's a.
Speaker 1: Theory that if you have low selenium levels, this can
Speaker 1: actually contribute or worsen your hypotheridism. But there was a
Speaker 1: large Cockin review, which is actually a very large quality research.
Speaker 1: You know, they're pulling together a few papers and it
Speaker 1: can census on what, you know, the medical opinion is
Speaker 1: at the time that actually this review concluded that there
Speaker 1: is no quality evidence to actually support the use of
Speaker 1: selenium supplements with hypertherroidism. So the easiest way to get
Speaker 1: selenium into the diet is with you know, to Brazil
Speaker 1: not a day, most of us will get pretty close
Speaker 1: to our requirements of selenium, but that's actually not something
Speaker 1: that has a whole lot of evidence based to it.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that brazil not's unhealthy. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that we need the lenium in the diet, but unfortunately,
Speaker 1: just supplementing with that is not going to reverse or
Speaker 1: automatically improve your thiroid issues. So those two nutrients I
Speaker 1: think are really important. And then I think, of course
Speaker 1: a lot of people have heard, well, your carsiferous vegetables,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't eat them when you have an
Speaker 1: undirected thirog You have to stay right away from them.
Speaker 1: This again is more it's not a myth as such,
Speaker 1: but I think it's been really kind of played up
Speaker 1: over time for whatever reason. So if you have an
Speaker 1: undirective thiroid, your carciferous vegetables may potentially inhibit your thiroid production.
Speaker 1: But and this is a big SUSI this is only
Speaker 1: the case if you have an IDIE deficiency or if
Speaker 1: you consume ridiculously large quantities of these vegetables in raw amounts.
Speaker 1: So our vegetables from those Christopher's family, I'm talking broccoli, cauliflower,
Speaker 1: Brussels sprouts, bock choy, cabbage, kale, those types of vegetables
Speaker 1: in those families, they're actually better tolerated by your thyroid
Speaker 1: when you cook them, So I would largely avoid eating
Speaker 1: too many of them raw. Cooking them really well, and
Speaker 1: it actually breaks down those compounds in there that can,
Speaker 1: you know, play with their thoroid. So it's not just
Speaker 1: say you need to avoid all of these wonderful you know,
Speaker 1: some people know them as a nutchet type vegetables. They're
Speaker 1: really healthy for you. They do wonderful things for our health.
Speaker 1: But I would actually just be not limiting the amount,
Speaker 1: but being cautious not having them. You know, just those
Speaker 1: vegetables in a meal every single day and absolutely cooking
Speaker 1: the large majority of them, So they're probably the three
Speaker 1: biggest nutrients or foods I would think about FRO an
Speaker 1: underactive thiroid Susie. And that probably brings us to the
Speaker 1: point of the question or the case that we were
Speaker 1: looking at, was is there a particular thyroid diet for
Speaker 1: weight loss? So basically the large answer is no. If
Speaker 1: you have an undirected thorroid, you're right, it can make
Speaker 1: losing weight extremely difficult.
Speaker 2: Put it that way.
Speaker 1: But what happens is we need medication in order to
Speaker 1: correct that undirected thioid. Unfortunately, we can't do it just
Speaker 1: through a diet. Sure diet can make an impact, but
Speaker 1: we absolutely need medication to correct the undirective thyroid. So
Speaker 1: the healthy habits that we want to develop as part
Speaker 1: of a weight loss goal are of course really crucial
Speaker 1: to just being healthy long term. But if your thyroid
Speaker 1: isn't performing like it should, you're really not going to
Speaker 1: make a dent in terms of weight loss. So we
Speaker 1: need to use medication to correct the thyroid first. Then
Speaker 1: once your th hormones are within the correct levels that
Speaker 1: they should be. Guess what, guys, you can lose weight
Speaker 1: just like anybody else. Let me say that one more time, Susie.
Speaker 1: If your thiroid levels are within range, you can lose
Speaker 1: weight just like anybody else. The amount of times both
Speaker 1: you and I, Susie, have heard I have a thioid condition,
Speaker 1: I can't lose weight, that is simply not true. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's true if your levels are not within range, if
Speaker 1: you've just been diagnosed and your doctor says to you
Speaker 1: or we need to play with your medications, you need
Speaker 1: to start you on this. We'll recheck your levels within
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. Yes, that may be true. But
Speaker 1: the first thing I say to client Susan when they
Speaker 1: say I can't lose weight I have a thyroid condition,
Speaker 1: I say, when was the last time the doctor changed
Speaker 1: or check your medication? They go, Oh, it doesn't need checking,
Speaker 1: it's been normal for years. You're just using that as
Speaker 1: an excuse. Once your thyroid hormone levels are within range,
Speaker 1: your theiroid is functioning just like anybody else's. You do
Speaker 1: not have anything wrong with it anymore. Sure, you might
Speaker 1: need medication to keep it within range, but if it's
Speaker 1: within range, it's functioning well. It's functioning healthy, just like
Speaker 1: anybody else's. So that's the take home message today, Susie.
Speaker 1: Work with your doctor to stabilize your thyroid levels, make
Speaker 1: sure that you're eating all the right nutrients in terms
Speaker 1: of a good quality dot you're doing all the right
Speaker 1: things for weight loss, and you will actually lose weight
Speaker 1: over time. If you're not losing weight, it is not
Speaker 1: because of your thyroid is because of something that you're
Speaker 1: doing nutrition, exercise, or lifestyle wise.
Speaker 2: And I think I'll just make a little point about
Speaker 2: gluten free eating and thyroid dysfunction, because that is, you know,
Speaker 2: commonly assumed to go together. Now, when we do take
Speaker 2: a closer look at the evidence, it is mixed. But
Speaker 2: what I would say is that it is an autoimmune
Speaker 2: disease thyroid dysfunction, and some people do feel better and
Speaker 2: it dootally on a gluten free diet. And if we
Speaker 2: look at it, land what a gluten free diet does.
Speaker 2: It eliminates a lot of processed snack food and refined carbohydrates.
Speaker 2: So whether it's the gluten or just the foods you
Speaker 2: eliminate on a gluten free diet, you know, there's no
Speaker 2: harm in swapping potentially to you know, some whole grain
Speaker 2: corn crackers for a while, or a gluten free cereal
Speaker 2: to see. The evidence is mixed. You know there's no
Speaker 2: result from a gluten free diet and benefiting the thyroid,
Speaker 2: but certainly if you anecdotically feel better, or if it's
Speaker 2: an easy way to clean up your diet away from
Speaker 2: processed food because it now actually improves the profile of
Speaker 2: carbohydrates in your baseline diet. But it's not something we
Speaker 2: routinely recommend unless you know someone is preferring that because
Speaker 2: the evidence is mixed at this stage. But in general,
Speaker 2: gluten free diets if they're followed well and can be
Speaker 2: pretty clean sort of anti inflammatory diets, but on the
Speaker 2: whole eliminating any type of refined carbohydrate and processed snack foods,
Speaker 2: so things like biscuits and process white bread and things,
Speaker 2: and so you still better to avoid the gluten free
Speaker 2: varieties of those, but in a purest form, if it
Speaker 2: does make you feel better and you're still ticking the
Speaker 2: box on the central nutrients like your B group vitamins,
Speaker 2: certainly can give it a go. Even though it's not
Speaker 2: our first port of call, I.
Speaker 1: Think it's a really good point and to be honest,
Speaker 1: I did look into the research, and because I sort
Speaker 1: of found it a bit inconclusive, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I won't mention it today. But you make a good
Speaker 1: point because if you look online, a lot of the
Speaker 1: what do I eat for my thiro dysfunction gluten free
Speaker 1: comes up again and again and again, so I think
Speaker 1: it's important to note that. Yet there is no quality
Speaker 1: research to support it. So it really is one of
Speaker 1: those how you feel individually. So that brings us to
Speaker 1: the listener question of the wick, which a listener would
Speaker 1: like to know. How do we know if we're getting
Speaker 1: enough good fat or bad fat? What is the right
Speaker 1: mix of this? So how do I actually how can
Speaker 1: I tell?
Speaker 2: Basically it's complicated, you know, And one of the things
Speaker 2: I spend many times a day, I want to say
Speaker 2: replying to my clients is when they make a salad
Speaker 2: and season the salad and they'll add feta, and then
Speaker 2: they'll add nuts, and they'll have add avocado, and they'll
Speaker 2: add olive oil. And I'll say, oh, sorry, way too
Speaker 2: much fat. And they'll say, oh, but nats are a protein.
Speaker 2: And I'll say and they'll say, but cheese is protein.
Speaker 2: I say, oh, it's more fat. So it's sometimes just
Speaker 2: a matter of counting. So as a very brief summary,
Speaker 2: we have our process fats, so things like our palm
Speaker 2: oil and our saturated fats in dairy and meat and
Speaker 2: processed food. Basically they drown out and the diet the
Speaker 2: good fats, and the good fats can be a mix
Speaker 2: of monofats which are mono and saturated in extra version,
Speaker 2: olive oil, almonds, peanuts, avocado, so the dominant foods in
Speaker 2: the diet that give us those, and then we have
Speaker 2: our poly unsaturated fats, which is processed vegetable oil, but
Speaker 2: also those long chain beautiful amiga threes that we find
Speaker 2: in foods like lin seeds, pumpkin seeds, and of course
Speaker 2: walnuts and oily fish like salmon and sardines. So, as
Speaker 2: a general rule of thumb, most people get too much
Speaker 2: processed fat because we eat add a lot and like
Speaker 2: our meat and dairy, and we get loads of monos
Speaker 2: from our avo and our almonds and our peanuts, and
Speaker 2: then they drown out these beautiful amiga threes. So what
Speaker 2: I get my clients to count. First of all, I
Speaker 2: try and get them to choose the leanus meat and
Speaker 2: dairy possible, and obviously avoid palm oil wherever possible. Next,
Speaker 2: I say they've got three or four good fats a
Speaker 2: day to play with, so that can be avocado, about
Speaker 2: a quarter tablespoon of extraversion olive oil. I don't usually
Speaker 2: count that for cooking. That's more the dressings. For example,
Speaker 2: a serve of cheese, but that's not really a good fat,
Speaker 2: and then ideally some oily fish, and then some nuts
Speaker 2: and seeds, a serve of which is about ten fifteen
Speaker 2: nuts or about a tablespoon of seeds. So a couple
Speaker 2: of easy ways to do it land, and you may
Speaker 2: have some different ways. I'll say to clients, add an
Speaker 2: extra fat per meal. So for example, at breakfast you
Speaker 2: might add avocado, you then wouldn't use it again through
Speaker 2: the day, Or you might use an extra version olive
Speaker 2: oil dressing. Well, I wouldn't then add nuts and avocado
Speaker 2: to a salad, so each meal you've roughly got one.
Speaker 2: And then I don't really use the extraversion olive oil
Speaker 2: in cooking, and I don't really count that because it's
Speaker 2: usually sort of sealing a pan, or it's not really
Speaker 2: oil that we consume the entire amount of and of
Speaker 2: course trying to look for ways that are a leaner. Anyway,
Speaker 2: you might cook your fish on baking paper, So I
Speaker 2: like my clients to have oily fish at least three
Speaker 2: four times a week if they can, and then sort
Speaker 2: of three four others a day, which might be nuts
Speaker 2: and seeds or avocado, and you can choose one per
Speaker 2: meal and that roughly gives you three or four is
Speaker 2: my sort of rough guide. But you're right, it is confusing,
Speaker 2: but it is also really easy to have way too
Speaker 2: much when it comes to of a weight loss perspective.
Speaker 2: But if you're aiming for weight gain, having more healthy
Speaker 2: fats is actually a really good thing. And sometimes what
Speaker 2: I would say, like if you're confused about if you're
Speaker 2: getting the right mix of good or bad fats, go
Speaker 2: get your cholesterol checked. You're gonna look at your overall triglycerides,
Speaker 2: which is really important. Plus you're going to see your
Speaker 2: levels of HDL and LDL as well, so you can
Speaker 2: know your ratio of the low density with low density
Speaker 2: lipoproteins and high density liperproteins. You'll like those more good
Speaker 2: fats and more bad fats. So I think that's a
Speaker 2: really easy way if you're going to get some blood
Speaker 2: tests anyway, and let's be honest, in the middle of winter,
Speaker 2: what's the recess. He's about thirty percent of us a
Speaker 2: deficient vitamin D, so many females are deficient in iron.
Speaker 1: While you're there, check those things and also get your
Speaker 1: cholesterol checked as well. I'm a big fan of heading
Speaker 1: to the doctor at least once, not more than that,
Speaker 1: but once a year of everything's going well and you're
Speaker 1: feeling healthy, just to make sure that we're checking some
Speaker 1: of those boxes on those nutrients and making sure they
Speaker 1: are in range. Because I can't tell you, Susie, the
Speaker 1: amount of quote unquote healthy twenty five year old thirty
Speaker 1: year olds that I've sent to the GP just to
Speaker 1: get some baseline blood and their cholesterols come back elevated.
Speaker 1: Shock them, like shocked them. Then we actually look at
Speaker 1: the quality of the diet. They think that they're not
Speaker 1: eating too badly, but as you said, we're not getting
Speaker 1: anywhere near the quality of good fats in. We're having
Speaker 1: far too many bad fats, not just from soul foods,
Speaker 1: but in those little things that slip in, like the
Speaker 1: biscuits in the office, the chocolates in the office, the
Speaker 1: meals out. The alcohol contributes to triglyceride levels as well,
Speaker 1: and so it's a lot an old person thing to have,
Speaker 1: Like cholesterol, we're seeing it more and more and more
Speaker 1: on our clinic in a lot of our younger people,
Speaker 1: particularly when you're eating out a lot, you've got high
Speaker 1: stress jobs. There's a lot of wining and dining clients
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And let's be honest, the serves that you get, so
Speaker 2: a small female probably needs just sixty to eighty grams
Speaker 2: of fat in total per day. Now you're probably going
Speaker 2: to get at least twenty to thirty from meat and dairy,
Speaker 2: and then you've got a nutbar that's maybe ten or
Speaker 2: some nuts bread, and then you've got your avo. So
Speaker 2: it's really easy to eat more of that. Like if
Speaker 2: you have smashed avo at a cafe, oh, how much
Speaker 2: would you be getting? At least thirty forty grams of
Speaker 2: fat in one go? Those serves are massive a.
Speaker 1: Whole avocado, if not fifty sixty.
Speaker 2: And they probably add olive oil into the smash to
Speaker 2: make it taste better, you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 2: the portions we get out, So yes, the smashed ivo
Speaker 2: might seem like the healthy choice, but keep in mind
Speaker 2: there's probably at least an entire avocado, which is four
Speaker 2: serves of fat in one sitting, So you know, paying
Speaker 2: attention to where the large amounts are slipping in, and
Speaker 2: it's really easy to go over your fat amounts so
Speaker 2: without having to be really you know, strict on yourself.
Speaker 2: You know, one added fat per meal, and nuts and
Speaker 2: are good fat, but they count as a fat, as
Speaker 2: do seeds, and cheese is more fat than protein. I'm
Speaker 2: sorry to say, very sad to end on that note.
Speaker 1: I said that to my client as well, and they
Speaker 1: go unless we're talk about coottig chees, cottag cheese goes
Speaker 1: in the protein box. Every other type of cheese, guys.
Speaker 1: Sorry to say, Susan and I both counted as a
Speaker 1: fat serve. Yes, it does have some protein in there,
Speaker 1: but we both counted as a fat serf. If you're
Speaker 1: working with us and the goal is fat loss, sorry
Speaker 1: to say. And to end on that happiness that brings
Speaker 1: us to the end of the Nutrition Couch for another Sunday,
Speaker 1: So if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to
Speaker 1: the podcast. We will be automatically delivered in your inbox
Speaker 1: every Sunday and Wednesday for our product with you, and
Speaker 1: don't forget to join us for our fabulous live events
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Speaker 1: is nutritioncouch dot com and there is an event tab
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Speaker 2: Have a great week.