Articles #Dietician

Do you feel that December will ruin your hard work this year? Are there just too many parties, dinners and family gatherings that weight gain seems inevitable? It is possible to survive the Christmas season without gaining weight. Don’t fall for the myths of unavoidable holiday weight gain. You can enjoy you holiday favourites and still start the year looking slim and trim.

The festive season is upon us and with it comes the challenge of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It’s a time of lots of eating opportunities with delicious meals, desserts and drinks and a time of less exercise. So how can you continue the healthy habits you have established and not let the bad habits creep in? For me, the holidays are no different than any other time of the year! It can be this easy for you too.

As we all know, good nutrition is an important component of a balanced healthy life, but we sometimes get lost as to what good nutrition is! The basics are easy, eat lots of fruit and vegetables, choose mostly low fat dairy and lean meat, don’t eat junk food excessively, but is that getting you where you want to go with your weight goals?

‘Weight loss’ New Year’s resolutions are all too common, and unfortunately are often also broken by the first week of January! I think that it is great that people are trying to be healthier but I believe how many try to do it is what is causing the high ‘failure’ rate. When people go ‘on’ a (quick fix) diet they have often not made effective goals for their journey. Goals are the groundwork for the journey to health and often I find that when it is just based on a number it is easy for life to take over and old habits to creep back.

Do you love food, but also want to lose weight? You CAN eat delicious, satisfying food AND lose weight. Your meals do not need to be boring and you certainly can eat a decent amount of food. Most people will lose weight on a 1500kcal diet. Do you know how much food that is? Let’s take a look at a simple sample meal plan:

Humans have evolved to digest and utilize carbohydrates (or foods that convert into sugar in the body) as a form of energy. I believe that most people can eat carbohydrates, but the important point is which ones you eat as well as how much of them that you eat. Added sugar (or sucrose) is the form that you should take in the least. Although carbohydrates do convert into sugar, they bring a lot of other goodness to your diet such as vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, and fiber, and this is not the case with added sugar.