Speaker 1: When it comes to your food. What are your weekends like?
Speaker 2: Do you find it tricky to keep things on track
Speaker 2: with eating out, parties, kids, sports, or maybe unexpected social
Speaker 2: events often derailing your fat loss goals.
Speaker 1: On today's episode.
Speaker 2: Of The Nutrition Couch, we chat all things weekend eating
Speaker 2: and how you can enjoy your weekends without totally going overboard.
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Leanne.
Speaker 3: Ward and I'm Cissy Burrow, and together.
Speaker 2: We bring you The Nutrition Couch, the weekly podcast that
Speaker 2: keeps you up to date on everything that you need
Speaker 2: to know in the world of nutrition.
Speaker 1: As well as weekend eating.
Speaker 2: We have some new research that links diet to cognitive
Speaker 2: function as we get older. We found another tasty protein
Speaker 2: snack in the supermarkets, and our listener question is all
Speaker 2: about musley. But to kick us off this week, Susie,
Speaker 2: we are talking about weekend eating and how to stay
Speaker 2: on track because absolutely, I think that most people, probably
Speaker 2: you'll not included, find the weekdays far easier to manage
Speaker 2: than the weekends. And I think my first tip has
Speaker 2: to be around planning, because I think our weekdays are
Speaker 2: very structure, particularly for you know, I assume most of
Speaker 2: us we work, we've got kids and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of routine packed into those weekdays. The kids go to daycare,
Speaker 2: they go to school. Us adult, you know, we go
Speaker 2: to work. We have certain hours that we start work,
Speaker 2: we finish work. A lot of us have a dedicated
Speaker 2: lunch break within their work times as well. So it's
Speaker 2: very routine focused during the week. And then what tends
Speaker 2: to happen on the weekend. For my clients that are
Speaker 2: lucky enough to have a sleep and if they don't
Speaker 2: have kids, they might sleep in, they might have a
Speaker 2: slow start in the morning, they might get up and
Speaker 2: do a bit of a gym session. Before they know it,
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, it's ten eleven o'clock.
Speaker 1: Do I have breakfast? Do I have lunch? Like? Should
Speaker 1: I've already eaten? What am I doing?
Speaker 2: So because we lack that routine and structure on the weekend,
Speaker 2: I do feel like for most people that's our biggest downfall.
Speaker 2: So with the weekend, we absolutely need to have a
Speaker 2: plan when it comes to our meals, when it comes
Speaker 2: to eating, but in particular when it comes to our
Speaker 2: social eating because so often zoos say to my clients,
Speaker 2: or you're going to go out for lunch, great, can
Speaker 2: you send me through a menu. So yeah, yeah, But
Speaker 2: then it gets to like Saturday lunch and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 2: where's the man. They're like, oh, sorry, we don't know
Speaker 2: where we're going yet. And then push comes to shop
Speaker 2: and they end up at some place and they're like, oh, sorry,
Speaker 2: I had to get the burger and fries because that's
Speaker 2: the only thing that was available. And that is honestly
Speaker 2: just due to poor planning, because they could have suggested somewhere,
Speaker 2: they could have booked somewhere, we could have looked up
Speaker 2: a menu in advance. If you want the burger and fries,
Speaker 2: absolutely go for it if that's what you want. But
Speaker 2: if that wasn't in line with your goals, and that's
Speaker 2: going to be the thing, because typically a burger and
Speaker 2: fries is well over a thousand calories at most places,
Speaker 2: If that's going to be the thing that kind of
Speaker 2: prevents you from losing body fat after you work so
Speaker 2: hard with the deficit or wig, you know, most people
Speaker 2: would be quite annoyed with themselves for doing something like that.
Speaker 2: So I think that planning and that routine and structure
Speaker 2: really is so critical on the weekends, and it's the
Speaker 2: biggest thing that I see as a big downfall when
Speaker 2: people tend to go a bit off track on the weekend.
Speaker 2: The other thing I wanted to mention is getting in
Speaker 2: our vegetables and salad, because again, a lot of us
Speaker 2: have a bit of a plan for the week. Most
Speaker 2: of our dinners are pretty good. There's lots of veggie there, lunches, particularly,
Speaker 2: a lot of my clients meal prep luck I do myself,
Speaker 2: and we've got some great plan things, or we've pre
Speaker 2: made some things, some beautiful salads, some pastas packed with veggies.
Speaker 2: We're getting those veggies in. But again, with the weekend,
Speaker 2: we're kind of sporadically eating. We snack a bit more
Speaker 2: than we need to, We skip a few meals, and
Speaker 2: then Saturday and Sunday goes bye. Sometimes I said in
Speaker 2: my clients, like when was the last time we had
Speaker 2: a really veggie focused meal, Because there might have slept
Speaker 2: in and skipped brecky on a Saturday and then gone
Speaker 2: out for a bigger brunch and it was like eggs bacon,
Speaker 2: halloomi on toast. There might have been a couple of
Speaker 2: cherry tomatoes, but let's be honest, two or three cherry
Speaker 2: tomatoes isn't really going to make that much of a
Speaker 2: dent in your veggie intake when you're supposed to be
Speaker 2: aiming for five serves a day, and then dinner rolls around,
Speaker 2: you might have burger fries, couple of glasses of wine,
Speaker 2: maybe get some Gewelashey for dessert, and pretty much an
Speaker 2: entire days gone by where you haven't really had any veggies.
Speaker 2: And then a lot of us will just rinse and
Speaker 2: repeat that on a Sunday as well. Some friends might
Speaker 2: come over, we'll make some morning tea snacks for the kids,
Speaker 2: the cheese board and the wine comes out around three
Speaker 2: or four o'clock, and again, nearly a whole day goes
Speaker 2: by and we haven't really got that veggie bulk in.
Speaker 2: So they're probably my biggest two tips for a weekend
Speaker 2: eating is the planning, keeping some form of structure, and
Speaker 2: really actively find some extra vegetable serves on the weekend.
Speaker 3: True, I think we have covered it before, but it
Speaker 3: just comes up all the time, and I find it's
Speaker 3: all of us. We have the best of intentions, but
Speaker 3: just it's all over the place. And I think cognitively
Speaker 3: what happens, Lanne is that if we're committed to healthy eating,
Speaker 3: or we're following a specific program to support weight loss,
Speaker 3: or whatever the goal is. We're really good, particularly as
Speaker 3: busy women, at getting Monday to Friday sorted, or even
Speaker 3: Sunday to Thursday. And I think we're so exhausted physically
Speaker 3: mentally by the time it gets to Friday, it's just
Speaker 3: like we've run out of energy. And so I think
Speaker 3: the first thing I would suggest is mapping out the
Speaker 3: weekend well before the weekend, because I know, once it
Speaker 3: gets to Friday night, all bets are off, I am tired,
Speaker 3: I don't want to think about it. Saturday is a
Speaker 3: whirlwind of kids, sport and parties, and the time it
Speaker 3: gets to Sunday, you know, if you don't have anything,
Speaker 3: you don't want to do anything anyway, and then you think,
Speaker 3: oh god, I should meal prep and I should meal plan,
Speaker 3: and there's just all this guilt that comes. So what
Speaker 3: I suggest doing is really mapping out earlier in the
Speaker 3: week what the weekend is going to look like, because
Speaker 3: I think the key strategy, particularly if you're trying to
Speaker 3: keep your weight control, because let's be honest, three days
Speaker 3: of intense over eating Friday night, Saturday Sunday will cause
Speaker 3: weight gain over time. We just can't eat whatever we like.
Speaker 3: It's more likely we can have a meal or two
Speaker 3: that's heavier, but we don't get to have the bacon
Speaker 3: and negro on Saturday morning, and then we don't get
Speaker 3: to have the lunch out or pick up something on
Speaker 3: the go, the snacks all afternoon, the bottom or two
Speaker 3: of wine, the take like, no one can really eat
Speaker 3: like that unless you're twenty with a great metabolism. So
Speaker 3: it does have to be a concerted effort to really
Speaker 3: map out and think when am I going to indulge
Speaker 3: and not waste calories. So I spend a lot of
Speaker 3: time with my clients talking about whether it's worth it,
Speaker 3: because no one's saying you can't have the wine or
Speaker 3: you can't have the cheese plate. But you can't have
Speaker 3: it all, So where do you want to spend it?
Speaker 3: And often I see clients wasting calories on things like
Speaker 3: the bunning sausage sizzle or the crappy bacon and negroll
Speaker 3: at the kid's sport because it got to ten o'clock
Speaker 3: and you were starving because you rushed out the door
Speaker 3: so early. So it's really about knowing where you want
Speaker 3: to spend them and thinking, right, well, I know I'm
Speaker 3: going for dinner Saturday night, or i know I've got
Speaker 3: a special celebration on Sunday. So they're my important things
Speaker 3: where I do want to sort of let go and
Speaker 3: not worry too much and enjoy what's on offer. But
Speaker 3: that means Friday night still has to be on track.
Speaker 3: That means that you know, if you do overdo things
Speaker 3: on Saturday night, don't get up Sunday morning at seven
Speaker 3: o'clock and eat breakfast. Wait until you're genuinely hungry again,
Speaker 3: and practice what I call the art of compensation. So
Speaker 3: the first step, as I said, is mapping it out
Speaker 3: slightly earlier, even Thursday, when you've got a bit of energy.
Speaker 3: If friday's your day off, do it Friday morning early,
Speaker 3: because otherwise you're in the whirlwind and you'll never get
Speaker 3: on top of it. So map it out really isolate
Speaker 3: the special occasions, which will lend itself to saying, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to sport, I need to take a rap
Speaker 3: with me, or I'm going out to dinner, I'm having
Speaker 3: takeaway with the kids Friday night. I won't need much
Speaker 3: until mid morning Saturday. So you've got a rough idea
Speaker 3: in your mind and then practice that art of comps.
Speaker 3: So if you have overdone things, if you have had
Speaker 3: a massive meal, you found yourself at your friend's house
Speaker 3: and it was a heavier meal that you didn't plan for.
Speaker 3: Or as I said to your client of mine the
Speaker 3: other week, she was going for drinks after work on
Speaker 3: a Friday, and she was a teacher, and she said,
Speaker 3: I'm going to have just two glasses. And I said,
Speaker 3: you know what, why don't you see how you go?
Speaker 3: Because that's a special weekend, that's a special event for you.
Speaker 3: It's the end of the school term. You're going to
Speaker 3: have a celebration with your friends. No one's saying you
Speaker 3: have to have two glasses. That's cognitive restriction. I'm saying that,
Speaker 3: see what the event's like. And if it's a really
Speaker 3: great event and you do end up having more drinks
Speaker 3: or more indulgent eating, that's okay. You know you want
Speaker 3: to enjoy those special times. But that then means on
Speaker 3: Saturday morning, compensate, get up and do a walk once
Speaker 3: you're feeling a bit better, make sure you have a
Speaker 3: light breakfast or you may not need breakfast, and then
Speaker 3: have a salad for lunch on Saturday. Compensate for that excess,
Speaker 3: but use it wisely. Now, I think that the area
Speaker 3: that we fall down in is when we don't have
Speaker 3: the healthy things on hand. So school sport's a classic example.
Speaker 3: You rock up there and you think, oh, there might
Speaker 3: be a canteen, like come on, but of course it's
Speaker 3: going to be fried food. It's going to be a sausage,
Speaker 3: it's going to be a barbecue. So take something before
Speaker 3: you go, and you might grab a tea or you
Speaker 3: might grab a coffee, but at least you've got your
Speaker 3: baseline so you don't end up starving and in the
Speaker 3: Macs drive through at eleven o'clock. You know, it's that preemptive.
Speaker 3: Or I'll give you an example that even happened to me.
Speaker 3: Friday night. We're at touch football and I thought, okay,
Speaker 3: I've got some salad at home for when we get home,
Speaker 3: some chicken pieces for the kids. And then because my
Speaker 3: house is close to touch football, families were like, oh,
Speaker 3: we'll come back to yours. And I was like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, I don't even hardly have any food. But
Speaker 3: I did have salad bags and I did have some
Speaker 3: frozen pizza. So even though we ate pizza, which wasn't
Speaker 3: what I was planning. At least I had salad to
Speaker 3: put out with it. So it's just having a few
Speaker 3: of those healthier backups, which might be dumplings in the freezer,
Speaker 3: it might be some salad bags. So if you do
Speaker 3: end up with people over entertaining or like you describe,
Speaker 3: cut up veggies or healthier dips, which will do a
Speaker 3: segment on coming up because it is coming into summer
Speaker 3: party season. So if you do end up in that situation,
Speaker 3: you've got stuff with you, Or if you're going to
Speaker 3: someone's house, take something healthy because you don't know what
Speaker 3: they're going to serve. They may just buy all the pizzas.
Speaker 3: They may be Domino, so they're not the best pizza,
Speaker 3: and there's no salad. Take a salad. Worst case you
Speaker 3: throw it out or you don't take it out, there's
Speaker 3: nothing lost. So there is a little bit of that
Speaker 3: preemptive work. But I think most importantly, if things do
Speaker 3: go off track and you end up having things you
Speaker 3: shouldn't or you don't want to, or you know you're
Speaker 3: not ideal, don't stress. Just get back on track the
Speaker 3: next meal, the next day, and where you can compensate.
Speaker 3: What I see constantly is people who have a lot
Speaker 3: of extras on the weekends, but there's no lightness to
Speaker 3: match it. They just keep eating the heavy stuff. If
Speaker 3: you had a big weekend, have a soup Sunday night
Speaker 3: fast through till Monday morning. That art of compensation as
Speaker 3: a strategy to help you balance your eating will serve
Speaker 3: you well for your life. And it means you can
Speaker 3: still indulge. We all overdo things at times, but it
Speaker 3: means that you're learning also to eat lightly, to buffer absolutely.
Speaker 2: And I just love I'll add a quick little case
Speaker 2: example that I had from one of my clients as well.
Speaker 2: She's doing so well and they have a lot of
Speaker 2: she's a teacher and they have a lot of, like
Speaker 2: you know, work morning teas, and particularly in the last
Speaker 2: few weeks with school holidays coming up, there are a
Speaker 2: lot more mourning teas. And she said, oh, I think
Speaker 2: i'll make I can't remember what she was going to make,
Speaker 2: but it was some sort of sweet maybe caramel slice
Speaker 2: or something. She's like, I don't really like that, so
Speaker 2: I won't be tempted. And I said, why don't you
Speaker 2: do like a veggie platter with some dips and some fruit,
Speaker 2: and it was like she'd never thought of that, and
Speaker 2: she was like, what everybody always bakes?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, do you.
Speaker 2: Think that you'd eat some Do you think that someone
Speaker 2: else would eat some veggies? So she's like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: think so why did I not ever think of that?
Speaker 2: And the funniest thing was she took all of these beautiful,
Speaker 2: colorful veggie sticks, she took some fresh berries, and she
Speaker 2: took some beautiful I think like a beech root, homus
Speaker 2: or something. She took it in and everybody demolished it.
Speaker 2: Of course, everybody ate it. And she's like, I just
Speaker 2: never thought not to bake like everybody always. We have
Speaker 2: morning tea nearly every week. Everybody bakes, and I either
Speaker 2: have to use all of my willpower to say no
Speaker 2: because I'm trying to be really good and you know,
Speaker 2: stick to my weight loss goals, or I'll make something
Speaker 2: which I don't like, so I'm not tempted. But I
Speaker 2: never thought that I could actually pastake and enjoy and
Speaker 2: have a little something but still actually stay on track
Speaker 2: with my goals as well. So, like you said, choose,
Speaker 2: we want to spend that budget and don't be afraid
Speaker 2: to take healthy options with you. Like I will often
Speaker 2: regularly take salad to a friend's house or a barbecue
Speaker 2: or a dinner if I don't know what's on offer.
Speaker 2: And I've never once gone to a friend's house taken
Speaker 2: a beautiful salad and they've said, oh, that's weird or oh,
Speaker 2: nobody's got to eat that. And guess what, every time
Speaker 2: you take it, everybody eats it.
Speaker 3: Everyone does eat it. When everyone with my friends and like,
Speaker 3: we make the salads flavors them. You know, they might
Speaker 3: have some feta through them, or but they all get eaten.
Speaker 3: I think to myself, like if I we could have
Speaker 3: easily had meat and potatoes at a barbecue, but bringing a
Speaker 3: couple of big salads, everyone ate it. So I agree
Speaker 3: hundred percent. And you know, another great thing to take
Speaker 3: are mini sandwiches or wraps. Everyone loves those. They're delicious.
Speaker 3: If you get the mini whole grain wraps or mountain
Speaker 3: bread and do them with a bit of light cream, cheese, smoke, salmon, cucumber,
Speaker 3: roll them, they come out so beautifully. Or even mini
Speaker 3: sandwiches with somesh bit of red salmon with a bit
Speaker 3: of light filly or you can do the egg curried
Speaker 3: kind of egg and cut them cut them into fingers.
Speaker 3: Everyone loves that, and it's healthier, it's relatively cost effective,
Speaker 3: and it means you're having something that's also filling, because
Speaker 3: of course, the issue with a lot of those kind
Speaker 3: of snacks is that you can have twenty of them,
Speaker 3: especially pastry, and it doesn't even touch the sides. So
Speaker 3: ye don't forget your mini sandwiches and mini wraps and
Speaker 3: cut up vegetigree, especially with some of the dips we've
Speaker 3: spoken about, which can be quite light. But moving on
Speaker 3: from healthier weekends, there was a really big research study
Speaker 3: that got a lot of media attention last week about
Speaker 3: cognitive decline. And I know for anyone who's seen or
Speaker 3: has a family member who suffered the effects of dementia
Speaker 3: or Alzheimer's, you'll know how distressing it is. It can
Speaker 3: impact people quite young. Certainly there's a genetic predisposition, but
Speaker 3: also heavily lifestyle influenced, and I think all of us
Speaker 3: would agree ly, and if we live these long lives
Speaker 3: that we're proposed to, we want our marbles intact, and
Speaker 3: certainly as we move into our sixties and beyond, it's
Speaker 3: something to be considering. So this was some big data
Speaker 3: coming out of the US published in a big scientific
Speaker 3: journal Neurology, and it tracked over fourteen thousand people over
Speaker 3: ten year period and the average age was sixty four,
Speaker 3: So it was really looking at older individuals and the
Speaker 3: effect of diet on cognitive performance and in specifically thinking
Speaker 3: speed and recall a memory. So some very clear markers
Speaker 3: and they says lots of different things cholesterol and health,
Speaker 3: but this is specifically in regards to neurological aging, and
Speaker 3: they were looking at weather. The Mind diet which is
Speaker 3: a diet pattern that came out several years ago. It's
Speaker 3: a mix of basically the DASH diet, which is a
Speaker 3: diet developed to lower blood pressure, and Mediterranean and this
Speaker 3: is it's called dietary approaches to stop hypertension intervention for
Speaker 3: neurodegenerative delay. So it's complicated and hence they call it
Speaker 3: the Mind diet. And I'll go through the specifics of
Speaker 3: it in a minute because it's actually quite interesting. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of people would profess to eating or
Speaker 3: claim to eat well, but actually when you look at
Speaker 3: the specifics of this for brain health, a lot of
Speaker 3: the boxes wouldn't be by be being ticked by many
Speaker 3: of us, because it was found that those who were rated,
Speaker 3: and they rated the participants according to how close their
Speaker 3: diet was to the dietary patterns suggested in Mind, and
Speaker 3: it was found that the group who were most similar
Speaker 3: had four percent were less likely to suffer from neurodegenerative
Speaker 3: delay over that ten year period, but more so for
Speaker 3: women six percent less likely, because twelve percent of all
Speaker 3: individuals in the studies suffered some form of dementia in
Speaker 3: that period. So I think there's some learnings here for
Speaker 3: all of us, given that we would all want to
Speaker 3: keep our brain as healthy as possible, and unlike I
Speaker 3: guess regimes for weight control and fat loss, it's about
Speaker 3: what you should be eating as opposed to what you shouldn't.
Speaker 3: And there's ten core components of the mind diet approach.
Speaker 3: The first is leafy greens separated out from other vegetables.
Speaker 3: Then there's vegetables as well, whole grains, legume, seafood, poultry,
Speaker 3: olive oil, nuts, berries, and wine, as well as five
Speaker 3: unhealthy foods which are rated so damaging to the brain
Speaker 3: that you lose points. If you're raiding your diet, and
Speaker 3: these include process fat like margarine and butter cheese, which
Speaker 3: is an interesting one, pastries and sweet food like biscuits
Speaker 3: and fried and fast food. So it's a balance of ratios,
Speaker 3: but it does give you specific recommendations about how many
Speaker 3: of those foods each day you should be having. So
Speaker 3: basically it suggested that leafy greens like spinach, kale, broccoli,
Speaker 3: Brussels sprouts because of their extremely high antioxidant properties, are
Speaker 3: consumed at least six times a week, so at least
Speaker 3: to serve a day, and in addition one other vegetable,
Speaker 3: so that might be an orange vegetable, a carrot, sweet potato, potato,
Speaker 3: but you have to separate out your greens as one
Speaker 3: serve minimum as well as a second server veggies.
Speaker 1: Berries.
Speaker 3: When it comes to fruit or fruits good, but specifically
Speaker 3: berries are identified as something that we all should be
Speaker 3: consuming twice each week as a minimum. In this study,
Speaker 3: they use blackberries because it was an American study. We
Speaker 3: don't have a lot of blackberries here in Australia, but
Speaker 3: blueberries are pretty high up there too, and that's a
Speaker 3: lot easier at the momently, and since the prices have
Speaker 3: come way down finally in supermarkets, definitely frozen or okay
Speaker 3: as well. We should be having four serves of legumes
Speaker 3: each week, so that is our chickpeas, lend tools, kidney beans,
Speaker 3: and I guarantee very few people listening would have lentils
Speaker 3: or chickpeas four times a week. Five serves of nuts
Speaker 3: each week, so nuts most days of thirty grams, which
Speaker 3: could be any nuts as long as it was on
Speaker 3: most days, which is where things like our nut bars
Speaker 3: and seeded snacks can come in quite handy. Fish. Definitely
Speaker 3: fish minimum once a week, but we would recommend at
Speaker 3: least three times oily fish is the ideal option. Poultry
Speaker 3: a couple of times a week, and then red meat
Speaker 3: consumes sparingly at most three times a week, and it's
Speaker 3: certainly not a low carb regime. Three serves of whole
Speaker 3: grains per day, which is really high, so that's your
Speaker 3: whole grain, cereal or breads. Olive oil is the primary
Speaker 3: oil for cooking, and wine is mentioned, but it is
Speaker 3: just a glass per day, not a large glass, just
Speaker 3: to standard poor and then looking to minimize intape basically
Speaker 3: of sweet foods because they basic sweet foods, red meat
Speaker 3: and fried and fast food because they increase inflammation compared
Speaker 3: to those super brain foods which reduce it. The only
Speaker 3: thing I disagree with Leanne is the cheese. Because they
Speaker 3: target cheese as a food to avoid and have it
Speaker 3: most once a week. They're saying it's pro inflammatory. I
Speaker 3: disagree nutritionally, I think there's benefits of cheese. I think
Speaker 3: with cheese it's about portion control. But obviously I think
Speaker 3: Marjorie fried food, sweetfoods, absolutely the less we consume the better.
Speaker 3: So I'll ask you about your thoughts on cheese in
Speaker 3: a second. But I guess the key point I wanted
Speaker 3: to make here was a lot of people listening will
Speaker 3: think that they eat well, but I guarantee they're not
Speaker 3: having a serve of leafy greens most days, they're not
Speaker 3: having a serve of nuts most days, and they are
Speaker 3: eating far more fried, fast food, processed food than they
Speaker 3: should be. Really, it's like once a week. I reckon
Speaker 3: people eat it multiple times a day, whether it's a snack, food,
Speaker 3: a treat, more wine than we should be having. So
Speaker 3: I think it's not just about the good, but it's
Speaker 3: making sure that the bad is minimized, and we all
Speaker 3: need to eat a lot more leafy greens, legumes, foods
Speaker 3: like that to get the benefit. And cheese I'd be
Speaker 3: much more liberal on. I think cheese, in my mind,
Speaker 3: is not the issue. There's plenty more foods causing more
Speaker 3: drama than a bit of cheese if you use it
Speaker 3: in control portions. What do you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, I think.
Speaker 2: It's odd to see cheese like that because we do
Speaker 2: know that it's great in terms if it gives you protein,
Speaker 2: it gives you healthy fats, like there's multiple benefits, and
Speaker 2: it's really yummy too. So I feel like you can
Speaker 2: make a really healthy, wholesome meal and just add a
Speaker 2: little bit of cheese on top and it sort of
Speaker 2: compliments that meal and really makes.
Speaker 1: It a lot more enjoyable.
Speaker 2: But I did like how they sort of were like,
Speaker 2: focus on these foods and reduce these foods. So it
Speaker 2: wasn't I mean, is it a diet is it not?
Speaker 2: Is it a style of eating?
Speaker 1: Who knows?
Speaker 2: But it is a patental style yes, So I think
Speaker 2: it's really important, particularly even myself. You know, I've got
Speaker 2: a family history of Alzheimer's and dementia, so it's something
Speaker 2: that I'm really aware of and we do know that
Speaker 2: there's quite a lot of lifestyle strategies that you know,
Speaker 2: we can do as well to help that.
Speaker 1: I don't both my parents.
Speaker 2: They take their fish oils, they do crosswed puzzles regularly,
Speaker 2: like they're really kind of all over it. But this
Speaker 2: is a good study that I'm definitely going to show
Speaker 2: my parents as well. But I really liked how they
Speaker 2: sort of were like, this is what we want you
Speaker 2: to focus on in terms of reducing because the typical
Speaker 2: Western style diet that we have in Australia, we have
Speaker 2: far too many of these things. So less than a
Speaker 2: tablespoon of butter or margarina a day, less than one
Speaker 2: serving of cheese a week. Interesting, but that's what they recommend.
Speaker 2: Fewer than four portions of red meat a week, I think,
Speaker 2: particularly for males. I learn a lot of families as
Speaker 2: well would probably have more portions of that. And that's
Speaker 2: just red meat, that's not the process red meats like
Speaker 2: the sausages and the salamis and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So I think a lot of families are probably having
Speaker 2: more than four portions of red meat a week. When
Speaker 2: we count the ham or salami that might go onto
Speaker 2: a sandwich, then we count the sausages or lamb chops
Speaker 2: that go into dinner. Then we back it up on
Speaker 2: the weekend we might have a bit of bacon or
Speaker 2: something as well. So I think that that's definitely a
Speaker 2: key area that a lot of people can target. Less
Speaker 2: than a serving of fried food a week is pretty crazy,
Speaker 2: because I agree with you. I think most people have
Speaker 2: more than one serving of fried food a week and
Speaker 2: fewer than five serves of pastries or candies. So if
Speaker 2: you're somebody that enjoys a bit of chocolate every day,
Speaker 2: that's a more than the recommended amounts. And I would
Speaker 2: argue that something like seventy percent plus dark chocolate maybe
Speaker 2: wouldn't fall into that category. But the other things like
Speaker 2: the pastries and just candy lollies, you know, baked goods,
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, fewer than five servings a week.
Speaker 2: All of that adds up really really quickly. So to
Speaker 2: give you a quick example of what a meal plan
Speaker 2: would be on a mind diet if you are really
Speaker 2: focusing on improving your cognitive function long term, an example
Speaker 2: of a mind diet breakfast might be a bowl of
Speaker 2: oatmeal or porridge. You might do some overnight oats it
Speaker 2: might be a hot bowl of porridge with some whole
Speaker 2: grains in it from the oats, and then of course
Speaker 2: topping that with your berries for the antioxidants, and some
Speaker 2: nuts and seeds, particularly something like walnuts as well. Lunch
Speaker 2: could be something like a cold pasta salad that you've
Speaker 2: made ahead of time. You want to use whole wheat
Speaker 2: pasta or high fiber pasta. You want to use lots
Speaker 2: of veggies and salad, spinach, kale, tomato, cucumber, add some
Speaker 2: chickpeas in there, and then for addressing your drizzle it
Speaker 2: with extra version olive oil and maybe a little bit
Speaker 2: about something, maybe a bit of lemon juice, some salt
Speaker 2: and pepper. If you're looking at snacks like Susie mentioned nuts,
Speaker 2: something like dried legumes, like you know, some dried chickpeas,
Speaker 2: or something serving of nuts, or even a piece of
Speaker 2: whole grain bread with a little bit of nut butter
Speaker 2: on it, such as peanut butter or almond butter. That
Speaker 2: could do you as well. And then for dinner you
Speaker 2: want some lean protein, you want some chicken breast, you
Speaker 2: want a bit of baked fish or some chicken you know,
Speaker 2: serve it with some fresh herbs, some lemon, bake it
Speaker 2: in the oven, and then to serve you might do
Speaker 2: some brown rice or some kinoa, and then you might
Speaker 2: have a bit of kale or broccolini, or you know,
Speaker 2: a good serving of leafy greens on the side, plus
Speaker 2: a little extra such as, you know, some more colors.
Speaker 2: You might have a bit of onions, some carrots, and
Speaker 2: a bit of beetroot as well. So that's sort of
Speaker 2: practically how a mind diet can look.
Speaker 1: For most people.
Speaker 2: And I can pretty much guarantee you that ninety five
Speaker 2: percent of Australians aren't eating that way because that basically
Speaker 2: is general healthy eating with a few other targeted nutrients
Speaker 2: in there, which sadly most Australians don't do. So if
Speaker 2: we can start to incorporate just a few of these
Speaker 2: general principles, not only will our overall health be better,
Speaker 2: but we might actually give ourselves, you know, a bit
Speaker 2: of a leg up when it comes to cognition long
Speaker 2: term as well.
Speaker 3: True, and I should say the reason that these foods
Speaker 3: work when it comes to brain health is basically a
Speaker 3: lot of cognitive functions based on cellular communication. So when
Speaker 3: the cell is clogged with fat, or inflamed, it basically
Speaker 3: halts the efficiency of communication. So that is why an
Speaker 3: anti inflammatory approach basically help keeps the cells healthier for
Speaker 3: longer and has a specific effect on cognition. So that's
Speaker 3: actually the link. The other thing I was going to
Speaker 3: say about cheese is an American study, and I wonder,
Speaker 3: because there's so many cheeseburgers and kind of cheese consumed
Speaker 3: is part of fast food if maybe that's one of
Speaker 3: the reasons, Like cheese in the US is often that
Speaker 3: real yellow block style monterey Jack, you know, the way
Speaker 3: they eat cheese, whereas I'd say, here, you know, we're
Speaker 3: using a lot more white cheeses, fetters, cottage cheese. So
Speaker 3: you know, we're not saying cheese is good. We're saying
Speaker 3: used in moderation. It's not going to be negative if
Speaker 3: it's consumed part of a healthy diet as opposed to
Speaker 3: being on a cheeseburger in deep fried. So that might
Speaker 3: be the link there.
Speaker 2: I want to also it might be related to the
Speaker 2: sodium or the salt content as well. And in America,
Speaker 2: I've had a lot of American clients that have a
Speaker 2: hard time getting low fat cheese as well, have you
Speaker 2: ever had that experience where most of the cheese and
Speaker 2: the dairy in America is the full fat variety. They
Speaker 2: don't have a lot of say, low fat cheddar. It's
Speaker 2: just a little bit harder to get. So potentially that
Speaker 2: could be a reason or the link between sodium.
Speaker 3: I think like if you go to Whole Foods and
Speaker 3: spend a fortune, you've got access to amazing options like
Speaker 3: we do. But I find in mainstream America the wal
Speaker 3: Mart and where they're shopping at those major supermarkets. Absolutely
Speaker 3: it's that real process cheese. You know, there's craft singles,
Speaker 3: you know. So perhaps that's why it's more targeted because
Speaker 3: that diet pattern came out of the States or had
Speaker 3: a heavily you know, us influence. All right, Lynne, I
Speaker 3: want to share a product that I found that I
Speaker 3: think is a great snack and it actually is a
Speaker 3: legga based snack, which is what we're talking about today.
Speaker 3: It's tricky to find though I did find it in holes,
Speaker 3: but it was like one of those modern coals is
Speaker 3: in the city, and I think sometimes they tend to
Speaker 3: stock newer products. The brand is the same brand that
Speaker 3: makes the cauliflower chips, the mushroom ships, the beechtreat chips.
Speaker 3: It's in the health food section. I haven't seen it
Speaker 3: in mainstream supermarkets, but you can find it online and
Speaker 3: I think that they're trialing it perhaps at one of
Speaker 3: these more boutique supermarkets. But it's really strong nutritionally and
Speaker 3: you can buy it online. So it's made by the
Speaker 3: DJ and A company and it comes under the brand
Speaker 3: Nature's Protein and it's called Protein Mix. So there's lots
Speaker 3: of these different packets. There's an edamamee, one green peas.
Speaker 3: We've seen a few of them before, but I particularly
Speaker 3: like this one because it had a mix of a
Speaker 3: range of different legumes including green peas, young soybeans, and
Speaker 3: chickpeas in sort of a snack sized packet. Now, I
Speaker 3: think I paid about five or six dollars for it.
Speaker 3: Like online now i'm looking, you can get twelve seventy
Speaker 3: grand packs for thirty dollars, which is actually really affordable.
Speaker 3: This is just on an online sort of health food store.
Speaker 3: But the reason I liked Leanne is that it was
Speaker 3: just so clean, like it only basically contains the dry nuts,
Speaker 3: so it's thirty two percent green pea, young soy bean,
Speaker 3: thirty two percent chickpeas, thirty one percent vegetable oil malto
Speaker 3: sea salt used to extract in a bit of natural flavor.
Speaker 3: It's gluten free, dairy free, no preservatives. Ticks the box
Speaker 3: of vegans, and I find those crunchy kind of bean
Speaker 3: snacks are quite palatable. People really like them. They're growing
Speaker 3: in popularity and per serve, so they're dividing the bag
Speaker 3: into three two point five serves of thirty grams and
Speaker 3: you get a massive eight point eight grams of I'm
Speaker 3: just going to lean in when I hang on.
Speaker 1: Eight grams of protein. Serve jump me to do the nutritionals?
Speaker 1: Can you have?
Speaker 2: You got that five Yeah, five hundred and twenty five
Speaker 2: pilodules per serve, So serving size being thirty grams, which
Speaker 2: is roughly about one hundred and twenty calories eight grams
Speaker 2: of protein, which is massive for a small serve. So
Speaker 2: thirty grams is essentially about the size of you know
Speaker 2: those lunchbox mini chip packs that you might put in
Speaker 2: the kids lunchboxes, those mini snack packs of chips. That's
Speaker 2: about a third grams that are served, so it's not huge.
Speaker 1: So eight grams of.
Speaker 2: Protein is pretty big four point one grams of fat
Speaker 2: per serving, with only a gram of that being saturated
Speaker 2: and zero being trans fat, which is what we want.
Speaker 2: Twelve point three grams of carbohydrate, which is which is
Speaker 2: really good. It's a well controlled amount of carbohydrate in
Speaker 2: the snack, one point four grams of sugar, three point
Speaker 2: six grams of dietary fiber, which is huge obviously because
Speaker 2: it's a legume based snack, and two hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: three milligrams of sodium a serve, which you know, honestly
Speaker 2: is fine. You have to add a bit of salt,
Speaker 2: a bit of flavor to these things to make them
Speaker 2: taste good as well. So ingredient wise, there's thirty percent chickpeas,
Speaker 2: twenty nine percent young soybeans, twenty five percent green.
Speaker 1: Peas, so thirty sixty.
Speaker 2: Nearly seventy five percent basically just legumes, and the rest
Speaker 2: of that is just some flavor in some seasonings.
Speaker 1: So we've got vegetable oil seasoning with salt.
Speaker 2: Maltodextri and yeast extract, natural flavors, spices, vegetable powders, onion
Speaker 2: and garlic, a little bit of some flour oil, a
Speaker 2: little bit of tumeric followed finished by some raising agent. So,
Speaker 2: as you said, a very very good ingredient list, but
Speaker 2: very strong nutritionally. It provides that beautiful like crunchy salty
Speaker 2: texture that a lot of people are looking for in
Speaker 2: a snack. Really high protein, really high fiber. I absolutely
Speaker 2: love them. I do have these in my coals. My
Speaker 2: Coals has been redone recently, so it's new issue in
Speaker 2: the last sort of year or so, so perhaps that's
Speaker 2: why I haven't seen this one that is the blend.
Speaker 2: But my Coals does have the straight at amamae ones
Speaker 2: and the straight chickpea ones as well, which is great.
Speaker 2: But I have to keep an eye out for this
Speaker 2: new protein mix because I love I love that it's
Speaker 2: a mix of the green peas, the soybeans, and the
Speaker 2: chickpeas because from a diversity perspective for your gut health,
Speaker 2: this is absolutely a positive Like we want as much
Speaker 2: diversity in our diet as possible because that then positively
Speaker 2: influences our gut microbiome as well.
Speaker 3: True. So yeah, I think they're more of these, and
Speaker 3: I think they'll continue to grow because people are looking
Speaker 3: for cleaner snacks that taste good and you know, I
Speaker 3: quite like those ideally, you know, in place of chips,
Speaker 3: but also leanne how expensive are potato chips? Like six dollars?
Speaker 3: Like it's so expensive on sale?
Speaker 2: They're like four fifty these days, and like that used
Speaker 2: to be the full price of them.
Speaker 3: Oh so yeah, they used to be like two dollars.
Speaker 3: So these, if you get them online, they're actually really
Speaker 3: cost effective as well, which is relevant to all of
Speaker 3: us at the moment. So thanks for reading that. Nutoution
Speaker 3: ableen eyes are still good?
Speaker 2: All right? Now, listen a question list the question of
Speaker 2: the week, just how do we choose a good musli
Speaker 2: or granola? So this is a good one, and I've
Speaker 2: had this discussion many times with clients because it's very confusing,
Speaker 2: and I think that a lot of people do understand that,
Speaker 2: you know, a musli or granola is probably a better
Speaker 2: option than a lot of the sugar filled cereals on
Speaker 2: the market. But in terms of choosing a good one,
Speaker 2: I would absolutely start with the ingredient list first. You know,
Speaker 2: we want to see some sort of whole grain something
Speaker 2: to start with on the ingredient list, whether that's whole
Speaker 2: grain oats, whether that's some brand flakes, or something like that,
Speaker 2: something high five or attle bit of carb to start with,
Speaker 2: and or some healthy fats being nuts or seeds. As
Speaker 2: the top priority for your ingredient list. There will be
Speaker 2: some form of sugar in there. It might be you know,
Speaker 2: cane sugar, it might be honey, it might be sulkros,
Speaker 2: it might be glucose, it might be some sort of syrup.
Speaker 2: There will be sugar in there, generally multiple types, as
Speaker 2: well as what brands tend to use, but it's not
Speaker 2: so much an issue as long as the sugar is
Speaker 2: a little bit further down the ingredient list and per serving.
Speaker 2: Look in an ideal world, we probably want less than
Speaker 2: five grams of sugar served, but I think for something
Speaker 2: like a muslei or granola under ten grams a serve,
Speaker 2: I'm generally pretty happy with for my clients. So there's
Speaker 2: sort of my top couple of criteria. Look at your
Speaker 2: ingredient lists. We don't want obviously too many additives. We
Speaker 2: want as many whole foods in that ingredient list as possible,
Speaker 2: and right up the top, I want to see some
Speaker 2: sort of whole grain, plus some sort of good fats
Speaker 2: like nuts and seas, and then I also look at
Speaker 2: the fiber for a good music or granola. Ideally I
Speaker 2: would like about three or four grams a serving.
Speaker 1: Much more than that.
Speaker 2: I find that companies are adding in a ton of
Speaker 2: prebodic fiber, which for clients with sens of tummies such
Speaker 2: as myself and a lot of clients that I work
Speaker 2: with might have a history of a bit of an
Speaker 2: irritable bow, might have a bit of diagnosed you know, ibs.
Speaker 2: And what I find is that when you're looking at
Speaker 2: cereals in there, you know, musles of granolas, and they're
Speaker 2: eight nine, ten plus grams of fiber per serving. It's
Speaker 2: not great and a lot of people are quite sensitive
Speaker 2: to that. A lot of people will got quite bloated,
Speaker 2: quite gassy, have you know, just have unpleasant sort of
Speaker 2: gi symptoms later on. So I don't necessarily think more
Speaker 2: fiber is better when it's coming from that additive type fiber,
Speaker 2: like it might be they're adding in, you know, a
Speaker 2: ton of inulin into the cereal and that's what's boosting
Speaker 2: the overall fiber versus the fiber coming from something like
Speaker 2: whole graine oats, cheer seeds or you know, some nuts
Speaker 2: and some forpitas, So we really want the fiber to
Speaker 2: come from the whole food ingredient as much as possible.
Speaker 2: A little bit of added fiber is fine, but I
Speaker 2: don't love seeing a ton of it in something like
Speaker 2: a museleer or granola, because I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people with a bit of a sensitive tummy do struggle
Speaker 2: to digest all of that.
Speaker 1: True.
Speaker 3: And it's funny because when we were writing our lineup
Speaker 3: for today, I sort of was going through our Instagram
Speaker 3: and someone had asked a question about musli, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: that's a great question because I've been having an issue
Speaker 3: where my clients are choosing what is a healthy granola,
Speaker 3: but it's got very little car that sends to be
Speaker 3: nut and seed based because it's targeting that desire for
Speaker 3: lower carb foods, but really lean.
Speaker 1: In the morning.
Speaker 3: We want our clients to have a good source of
Speaker 3: whole grains, particularly if they have exercise to fuel them.
Speaker 3: So I texted leanne and about what to cover, and
Speaker 3: she'd already messaged me Museley. So we're on the same
Speaker 3: vibrational Patentlyanne, even though we're whole states apart. So yeah,
Speaker 3: my biggest thing is my client's having muslei's and granolas
Speaker 3: that are low in car but if they're teeming that
Speaker 3: with a protein yoga and berries, their breakfast just doesn't
Speaker 3: have any carbohydrate. So, particularly if you're exercising an active
Speaker 3: you need to to twenty thirty grams and it's ideally
Speaker 3: a time to get some whole grains. So I'm looking
Speaker 3: on nutritionals for about twenty grams of car perserve. I'm
Speaker 3: with you three to five grams of dietary fiber. I
Speaker 3: would definitely want to clean ingredient list can recognize all
Speaker 3: the ingredients. The longer the ingredient list of the ranola,
Speaker 3: probably the more processed it is. And I look for
Speaker 3: about less than five grands of sugars perserve, and I
Speaker 3: say generally I try and avoid the dried fruit ones
Speaker 3: and go for ones that have got say an oat
Speaker 3: base with some perhaps nuts and seeds, but definitely have
Speaker 3: some carbohydrate in there unless they're eating low carb for
Speaker 3: a particular reason. So just keep that in mind when
Speaker 3: you're looking at your labels. But the good news is
Speaker 3: there's loads of different varieties out there. Sun Soul have
Speaker 3: got a great one. The Carmens range of original type
Speaker 3: musleys are really good with their macro nutrients, so there's
Speaker 3: plenty to choose from, And if you do prefer the
Speaker 3: low carb ones, they can be a great topper if
Speaker 3: you're doing, say a sweet yogurt in the afternoon, and
Speaker 3: you can use them in a different way. But in
Speaker 3: most cases, if you do prefer the low carb granolas,
Speaker 3: you like the taste, I'd say have it with a banana,
Speaker 3: for example, to get a bit of extra carb in
Speaker 3: there if you're teaming it with particularly a plant based milk,
Speaker 3: which won't have a lot of carbohydrate in there either.
Speaker 2: Exactly, And I have a lot of clients would choose
Speaker 2: more that Paleostar granola or Quto Star because, like, honestly,
Speaker 2: the nutritionals are really strong in them.
Speaker 1: The ingredient lists are very very good.
Speaker 2: They're basically just nut seeds with a bit of black
Speaker 2: cinnamon and maybe some cilium musk or something so ingredient
Speaker 2: whise they're perfect, but like you said, they're very high
Speaker 2: fat and that sort of contributes to a high calorie loads.
Speaker 2: A lot of the ladies that I'm working with are
Speaker 2: aiming for a calorie deficit, so it's not the best option.
Speaker 2: I actually prefer something with a bit of an oat
Speaker 2: base to a add in that carb like you say,
Speaker 2: particularly because a lot of my clients are exercising and
Speaker 2: b just adding in a bulk of you know, something
Speaker 2: like some oats or something will mean that it's a
Speaker 2: little bit more affordable for the budget and will also
Speaker 2: bring down that overall calorie load per serving as well.
Speaker 2: So just some good points to think about if you
Speaker 2: are looking to choose a music a granola, but don't
Speaker 2: focus too much on what the front up pack is
Speaker 2: telling you. Flip it over, have a look at the
Speaker 2: ingredient list and the nutritional panel and then make more
Speaker 2: of an informed decision from there that brings us to
Speaker 2: the end of the nutrition catch for another week. If
Speaker 2: you know that your diet.
Speaker 1: Needs a little bit more protein in it, or you
Speaker 1: want a.
Speaker 2: Little bit of a beautifully developed hot chocolate for a
Speaker 2: range of design by Dietitians, head to our website. We've
Speaker 2: got both of our proteins on there are Women's Blend
Speaker 2: and our pre and Probodic Blend, and also our Rest
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Speaker 2: dietitians dot com. We're so thankful for your support and
Speaker 2: thanks for listening. We will catch all of you in
Speaker 2: next week's episode.
Speaker 3: Have a great week.