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Tag: Healthy Eating

What is Clean Eating?

Have you heard about Clean Eating?

If you have been reading the newspapers recently then you could be forgiven for thinking that there’s a whole new diet craze in town. It’s called Clean Eating.

Just this weekend the lovely Nigella Lawson told the papers that she was against clean eating as it could promote eating disorders. I’m not sure that Nigella gets what Clean Eating is really about. Clean Eating is not a diet, it’s a healthy lifestyle.

True there are a number of high profile trendy advocates of Clean Eating, some of whom add their own twist to Clean Eating, so you may have read that you should avoid wheat, dairy, red meat sugar etc etc.  No reason to if you don’t have an allergy or intolerance.

What is Clean Eating?

Clean Eating is a deceptively simple concept.

The heart of Clean Eating is consuming food in its most natural state, or as close to it as possible. It is not a diet; its not a craze and its not a dangerous fad….it’s a lifestyle approach to food and its preparation leading to improved health – one meal at a time.

The idea is to avoid processed foods and only eat ‘real’ and so therefore Clean foods.

Unprocessed foods to include in your daily diet:

  • Fresh fruits and vegetables
  • Dried legumes
  • Nuts and seeds
  • Organic Free Range eggs

Minimally processed foods include in moderation in your diet:

  • Unrefined grains, like whole wheat bread and pasta, oats, quinoa and brown rice
  • Frozen fruits and vegetables
  • Unprocessed Organic meat
  • Hormone-free Organic dairy
  • Sustainable Fish and Seafood
  • Oils
  • Raw Honey or Maple Syrup

Sticking to this golden rule of choosing real clean foods can involve a bit more cooking from scratch, but when you choose to eat clean then you can enjoy anything from steak to cake.

Why Eat Clean?

Going back to basics, by reducing the chemicals, preservatives or additives along with heavily processed foods tend to be higher in salt and calories, and may also be less nutritious places additional strain on your body, especially your liver, which means that your overall health can be compromised in the long term.

Clean Eating emphasises whole grains, lean cuts of meat, sustainable fish and seafood, healthy fats and lots of fruits and vegetables. No whole foods are completely banned, and the plan promotes an overall balanced diet of grains, fruits, vegetables, fats, and protein.  Nothing faddy here.

Six Simple Strategies to Eat Clean

 Only eat ‘real’ foods: Put simply, this means buying recognisable ingredients to prepare at home and avoiding processed and packaged foods.

Cook your own meals. Instead of buying meals in a box or packet, cook the majority of your meals from scratch. That’s not as hard as it sounds. Clean, whole foods need little preparation beyond a bit of chopping and light cooking to make satisfying, delicious meals your family will love.

Keep meals simple: Delicious, healthy food doesn’t have to mean hours in the kitchen. Keep your ingredients to a minimum. Just be sure to include a source of whole grains, lean protein and healthy fat at each meal.

Eat regular meals: Don’t let more than four hours go by between meals or snacks. This will help regulate blood sugar, which will keep you energised and help curb your appetite.

Eat Proteins and Fats. When you do snack or eat a meal, make sure that meal is balanced. For the most satisfaction from your diet, and so you’ll be less tempted to eat junk food, combine protein with carbs or carbs and fat. This simple act will fuel your body and quash hunger pangs, meaning you are less likely to be tempted by quick and convenient processed foods.

Listen to your body: Eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re satisfied, not full up or over-stuffed.

So there you have it , Clean Eating in a nutshell.  Eat what you like, just make a conscious choice to eat real whole foods where possible and then enjoy it in moderation.

Five Health Foods That Are Actually Sugar Traps

Making healthy food choices is a part of every day but with so many mixed messages on what is healthy its hard to make the right choice.  Often manufactures and marketing companies play up the health properties of their products to make them sexier and sell better.

Research shows that many of the food and drink products we consume every day use up our sugar allowance in one fell swoop while others, which on the face of it appear to be health foods actually exceed the amount of sugar you should have during the entire day.

The World Health Organisation has reported that we are now eating almost 4 times the amount of sugar than our grandparents , much of that sugar is hidden on processed foods.  When fat and is taken out of many foods it is replaced with sugar or artificial sweeteners.  So we find ourselves consuming more sugar than we intend.

Here are our Top Five Health Foods that are actually Sugar Traps.

Yoghurt

Low fat and flavoured yoghurt in particular. Yoghurt makes a great addition to our diets, it’s a good source of protein and calcium. But choose wisely as you can find that many yoghurts on the shelves would actually qualify as a pudding rather than healthy snack. Yoghurt has naturally occurring sugars in the form of lactose which gives its own slight sweetness but most have added sugar to really stimulate our taste buds and keep us coming back for more.

Yeo Valley Fat Free Vanilla Yoghurt – serving contains 21gms or 5 tsps of of sugar

By contrast

Rachel Organic Greek Style Yoghurt – serving contains 5gms or 1 tsp of sugar.

When choosing yoghurt always go for organic natural yoghurt and then you can add your own sweetness at home by adding a little raw honey, some fresh fruit or just enjoy plain.

 

Granola

Granola hit the shelves as the prefect healthy antidote to the boxes of sweet flakes that predominate the cereal aisles. Most granolas are based on whole grinas such as oats or rye combined with nuts and seeds they are a nutritionally packed option. But the problem is that on their own oats, seed and nuts taste bland.. they “need” a little sweetness. And so manufacturers add in dried fruits, honey, syrups etc   Most add in natural sugars, but still sugar and often in large amounts.

The Food Doctor Fig & Cranberry Granola – serving contains 9.4gms or 2 tsps sugar

By contrast

Dorset Cereal Simply Nut Granola – serving contains 5.6gms or 1.5 tsp sugar

The best granola you can eat is the one you make yourself at home, but if you are going to buy a branded product then use a half serving and sprinkle on top of some delicious natural organic greek yoghurt for a low sugar high protein start to your day.

 

Fat Free Foods

So often when trying to achieve a health goal we think that low fat means high health and that just isn’t the case. Natural fat in foods is good, beyond its nutritional benefits it adds flavour, texture and gives you a feeling of satiety. Remove this and you need to add in ingredients to replace these requirements and often that means adding in sugars, sweeteners, sodium, emulsifiers, thinking agents, bulking agents and gums..none of which sounds appetising but in the hands of a clever chemist they can create taste alchemy.

Hellmans Fat Free Salad Dressing – per 100 mls 11gms Sugar

By contrast

Hellmans French Dressing – per 100mls 6gms Sugar

 

Dried Fruit

From cereal bars to breakfast cereals, fruit winders and gums and of course bags of dried assorted fruits are promoted as being 100% natural. Just because a food is labelled 100% natural doesn’t mean it isn’t loaded with sugar. When fruit is dried the water is removed and so concentrating the natural sweetness making them very delicious perhaps dangerously so. The problem here is portion size, you may eat one or two whole apricots but be able to eat 5 or 6 dried apricots.

Fresh Apricot – Serving contains 3.5gms or just under 1 tsp sugar

By contrast

Dried Apricots – Serving contains 13gms or 3.5 tsp sugar

The key here is moderation, dried fruit is a great addition to a healthy diet but the first rule of fruit is to eat 1 – 2 portions of fresh seasonal fruit so that you are consuming the fibre along with the sugar and have dried fruit only 1 -2 times per week.

 

Health Bars

Often considered a better alternative to a chocolate bar when it comes to a snack choice. These bars seem to actively promote health, labesl whole grain, 100% natural,..even at times 25% less sugar all adding to the myth of being the optimum health. Similar to the granola the mix of whole grains, nuts and seeds is a great basis for a snack but it’s the sugars that make it taste good and that is what we want in a snack. Enjoy these snacks in moderation but don’t be fooled into thinking you are eating a low sugar snack

Eat Natural Brazil Bar – serving contains 20gms or 5 tsp sugar

By contrast

Snickers Chocolate Bar – serving contains 20 gms or 5 tsp sugar

What health foods have you found that wasn’t good for your waist line or health? Leave us a comment below.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

It really is quick and easy to make this sweet and sour chicken dish, honestly you will never pop open a jar of shop bought sauce again.

I love Sweet and Sour Chicken, it’s the first chinese dish I ever ate and the memory of that sticky sweet and sour sauce poured over  battered chicken balls is one I still treasure.  But as I’ve grown up and become more aware of the ingredients that most processed versions contain I was put right off this dish.

So Ive created a dish that is naturally sweet and sour, you can adjust the spices to suit your own palate but this dish is light, clean and still sweet, sour and sticky.  It’s a real winner.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Serves 4
  • 450 gms Organic chicken breast, sliced
  • 2 Peppers, Any colour, cubed
  • 1 large Onion, cubed
  • 2 cloves Garlic, crushed
  • 1 large Carrot, finely sliced
  • 1 can Water Chestnuts
  • 1 225gms Pineapple Chunks (keep the juice)
  • 12 Cherry Tomatoes
  • 1 Thumb size Fresh Ginger, grated
  • 80 gms Cashew Nuts
  • Large handful Coriander, chopped
  • 1 Tablesppon Rice Bran Oil
  • 1 Tablespoon Cornflour
  • 1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce
  • 1 Tablespoon Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1 Tablespoon Tomato Ketchup
  • 1 Whole Star Anise
  • ½ Teaspoon Dried Chilli Flakes
  • Salt & Fresh Ground Black Pepper

To make Sweet and Sour Chicken

Place the corn flour and salt and pepper into a large sandwich bag and add the chicken slices and give a good toss so that all the chicken is well coated.

Next make up the sauce, mix the soy sauce, vinegar, ketchup, dried chilli flakes and the juice from the pineapple can.

Heat the oil in a large sauté pan or wok, add the chicken strips and brown all over. Remove from the pan and leave to one side.

To the hot pan add the onion, peppers and carrot and cook for a few minutes, add a splash of water if the pan starts to stick. Next add the pineapple, chestnuts and cherry tomatoes and cook for a further 2 – 3 minutes.

Add the chicken back to the pan along with the cashews and the sauce mix and cook for about 5 minutes until all the ingredients are hot through and the sauce is sticky and thick.

Serve with 50 gms whole grain basmati rice per person and sprinkled with fresh coriander.

Get Label Savvy To Root Out Stealth Sugar

You Want To Reduce The Sugar In Your Diet?

If you are trying to reduce the amount of sugar you and your family are consuming then you need to become label savvy.

Wether your goal is to lose weight, balance your blood sugar and energy levels or you just want to choose when and in what form you eat sugar then you need to be aware of all the sugars and sugar substitutes that are turning up in every day products.

Sugar comes in many forms and manufacturers know that those pesky health conscious shoppers are becoming wise to the sugar content of foods.   Unfortunately many manufacturers have resorted to stealth tactics to reduce the appearance of the sugar load of their products and they add several types of sugar. Often your ingredients can read like a chemical experiment so long is the list of ingredients. So picking out the sugar can be a tough call.

So how do you pick out that stealthy sugar… so first things first, remember that ingredients are listed by volume on the ingredients listing so the closer to the start of the list the more the product contains.

Sugar in All its Forms

Start by looking for the word “Sugar”… it’s a given, Its often there written in it most simple from. I would say that if you are surprised to see the word sugar in the ingredients, as I was when looking a some sausages recently, then choose another product. Also if the sugar is the second or third ingredient and the product isn’t a sweet or baked good then that’s a lot of sugar and you might want to consider an alternative.

Next look for the “Natural Sugars”, listed as Honey, Agave Syrup, Maple Syrup, Date Syrup, Concentrated Apple or Cane Juice, Raw Cane Sugar, Corn Syrup, Caramel, Molasses, Carob remember that just because its natural doesn’t mean you can consume without limit.

Now it’s the “Oses”. When you find ingredients that end in Ose it’s a good chance that these are sugars for example Glucose, Fructose, Dextrose, Maltose, Poly Dextrose, Sucralose.

Finally look for anything else on the list below…they all turn up in both savoury and sweet products all the time. Glycerin, Matodexrin, Diatase, Ehtly Maltol, Saccerides, Pectin, and some starches.

I know this seems like a long and exhausting list , but don’t despair. You don’t have to live a life without sugar, we all need a little sweetness but sugar should be consumed in moderation. With so many forms of sugar lurking in unexpected places, it’s hard even with the best intentions to limit your intake. Finding sugar on food labels is tricky, but not impossible. When you are armed with the right information and a willingness to read food labels, hidden sugars won’t sabotage your healthy eating goals.

It Only Takes A Moment

The next time you are in the supermarket just spend a few extra minutes looking at the labels of the products you buy most…you might just surprise yourself.

I’d love to hear from you about the most surprising product you found sugar or sugar alternative in. Leave me a comment in the box below.

 

Why Counting Calories Will Not Achieve A Beach Body

Its that time of year when the world goes “Beach Body Crazy”.

Of course it can be pretty hard to not feel a certain pull of beach body worthiness when our society is so image obsessed. Put to one side for a moment that a lot of the images we look at in our media are not real, having had the support of some tech wizard and the mighty Photoshop pen.

But if you are hitting the beach or poolside this year then it’s quite natural to want to feel good.

Feeling good poolside is very different from a desire to look like a Photoshop model poolside and just to be clear, there is no such thing as a beach body…your body is your body, summer, winter, spring and autumn. Feeling good inside and out is a 365 option not just for two short summer weeks. Ok…rant over.

But if you have been thinking that you want to shed your winter poundage (those unwanted pounds that have crept on since you layered up and started hibernation eating over the winter) then I want you to think differently about how you approach your weight loss this year.

In the interest of full disclosure I will say that I am much more an advocate of Gaining Health , not Losing weight. But I live in the real world and I know that there are times when we all want to trim down and tone up.

For decades now we have been told that when it comes to weight loss you need to count calories and then reduce them.

Put less in than you use up and hey presto you lose weight. It’s the perfect equation…except that it isn’t!

Playing the calorie counting game doesn’t work in the long term and even in the short term it may do more harm that good as you can actually gain weight and upset the hormones that control your metabolism, your sleep patterns even your sexual appetites!!

Why Counting Calories Doesn’t Work

Firstly,

All calories are not created equal.

For example you want an afternoon snack and you have budgeted about 250 calories. What to have?

How’s about a chocolate bar? A Mars bar has 260 calories or a Kitkat is even better at only 230 calories.  Or how about a boiled egg and half an avocado coming in at 270?

The chocolate bar will give you a real rush, your blood sugar levels will be flying for about 30 – 40 mins then you will feel totally flat as you crash and burn. Your insulin levels will be sky high coping with the sugar. You are also training your brain to respond to sugar and so set yourself up for a lifetime sugar addiction.

By contrast the Egg & Avocado option, while not as attractive from a calorie perspective of is full of good fats and proteins and so the energy is slowly absorbed, avoiding those blood sugar and insulin spikes. You will literally feel fuller for longer and you will have had the vitamin, mineral and antioxidant boost from this snack. It’s also much less likely to have you chewing your arm off on the journey home from work or craving carbs in the evenings.

Choose the chocolate and you could have saved yourself 30 calories, but you will most likely eat much more than that to climb out of the sugar crash.

It’s not about the amount of calories but rather the type of calories that you are choosing to consume.

You May Be Tempted to Eat “Fake Food”

The saviour of any calorie counting diet plan are the artificial sweetners, and processed foods.

“Need an afternoon snack? Why not enjoy our chocolate flavoured yoghurt with mini crispy balls on top for only 99 calories!!!”

Why not? Well, before you tuck in take a quick look at the ingredients list. Does it read like a chemical experiment? Are there lots of words you cannot pronounce and have no clue what they are? You are consuming chemicals, chemicals which fool your brain into thinking you are eating real food. Yes you have only consumed 99 calories but you have consumed a whole lot more “stuff” that messes up your metabolism and endocrine system.

Hormones Regulate Metabolism, Not Calories.

This is a good time to give a quick plain English explanation of metabolism.

We tend to think of metabolism as a furnace that gets switched on or off depending on what you eat and how much you exercise. But actually is much more than that.

Metabolism in your biochemistry, its actually hormonal reactions in your brain, your gut and even your fat cells that tells the body what to do with the energy you have consumed. Burn it as energy, store it as fat or use it to build muscle its your hormones that dictate that and its much more about what type of food you eat rather than the calories composition that makes these reactions.

When you eat Fake Food or very low calorie food you aren’t giving your hormones much to work with and so your metabolism gets sent into free fall.

You might lose weight this week and then having eaten a fewer higher calorie food the next you put on 3 or 4 pounds!! How did that happen? Well your metabolism’s is out of whack. You need start eating real clean food all the time…no exceptions and no exclusions. Your hormones will love you for it and so will you waistline.

When You Calorie Count You Stop Listening to Your Body.

We have all done diets. Day after day of having a fixed reduced calorie intake goal. “Today I’m eating 1,200 calories” and so you plan the day out, splitting the calories into manageable portions.

Picture the scene, you are sitting down to dinner with your calories counted portion and towards the end of the meal you start to feel full. But you still have all those calories left on the plate that you allocated, it would be a shame to waste them…so full or not… most people keep eating and clear the plate. After all they are still within their calorie budget so no problem right????

Not really.

Firstly, when you eat to feeling full that means exactly that, your stomach is full. Which means that you are every so slightly stretching your stomach. So the next time you eat, you find that you need to eat just a little bit more to gain the same feeling of fullness, then the same thing happens the day after and the day after… before you know it your stomach has stretched and you cannot seem to find that same feeling of fullness you once did.

Admittedly you are not very likely to stretch your stomach on a diet of lettuce leaves, but the problem with diets is that they never last…never! And once you have created the habit of always eating until you are full you continue this habit with the higher calorie foods, consuming the same sized portions of food that will now stretch your stomach and are stored as fat.

You Can Become Obsessive About Food

 Viewing foods only in terms of their calorific value encouraged disordered thinking about food. You can so easily become obsessed about hitting the lowest number of calories per day or working out to burn off as many calories as possible…leaving yourself under nourished and over exerted. What you fail to see is the real nutritional value of the food. Often times choosing a high calorie whole food is a better option for your waistline. Note the word whole food, we are talking organic meat and diary, fatty fish, avocados, nuts, seeds and great oils…not donuts and takeout.

What’s the Alternative?

We our top tips at The Body Retreat when you want to tone up and trim down are pretty simple..and nothing to count, measure or weigh.

Eat Clean Whole Foods…cut back on the starchy foods and increase the lean proteins and lots of green. Green is Good!

Only Eat When You Are Truly Hungry…get out of the habit of eating. Don’t eat when you are bored, stressed, upset. Learn to listen to your body, listen out for the signs of real hunger.

Never Skip Meals, (if you aren’t hungry after about 4 hours or so are you listening to your body?) You will probably eat about 4 times a day, about every 4 or so hours, this is about how long it takes for your body to use up the energy you have given it along with some of your fat stores.

Keep Hydrated…don’t confuse hunger with thirst. Stay hydrated all day, your skin, hair, eyes and waistline will love you for it.

Move More Every Day…there is no getting away from it. You do need to move. Aim for about 20 – 30 mins of activity every day to help control your blood sugar levels.

Get Your Rest….sleep helps to reset those all important hormones meaning your energy levels and hunger levels are better balanced during the days.

Relax… your body is already beach ready. When you make the decision that it’s ok, but you now choose to nourish your body and mind with real whole foods, enjoy moving your body and feeling how strong it is, how much it can do then your confidence to peel off those extra layers will be right there.