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Tag: healthy eating

Top Tips To help you with emotional eating.

Written by trish on . Posted in Brain Health, Gut Health, Hormone Health.

Do you suddenly feel hungry, stressed and overwhelmed?

Do you crave specifically unhealthy foods? Do you feel guilty or ashamed after eating?
Do you feel as though you have to eat immediately? Is your hunger satisfied when you’re full?

Physical hunger won’t make you feel shame about eating food, whereas emotional hunger is often linked with unpleasant emotions.

How to stop eating emotionally?

It can be difficult to stop emotional eating, especially when it’s become a habit over a long period of time. But don’t worry—it’s absolutely possible to address emotional eating and pay attention to your true hunger cues, allowing you to work through your emotions separately.

This will improve your physical and your mental wellbeing, and will be an important step to healing your gut and balancing your hormones.

If you feel hungry, drink water first.

Sometimes you can be dehydrated and confused about hunger sensations.

Wait five minutes before eating when you feel hungry.

Try to identify your emotions before eating. How are you feeling? How do you want to feel?  If you are feeling tired, bored, lonely, angry, sad it can be helpful to find another way to sooth other than food.

Have a list of your tools in your toolkit and post it on the fridge. This could be a short walk, legs up the wall, lying down, calling a friend, or listening to your favourite music.

Keep track of your eating habits to identify your triggers.

My clients find it useful to track daily food in the client app – this helps with accountability.

Keep healthy snacks on hand for when you are physically hungry
Things like carrot sticks and hummus or a handful of nuts will help to satisfy true hunger – and if you don’t want to eat them, it’s a sign that you may not be physically hungry,

Incorporate healthy habits into your daily life

Go for walks – anything to get OUT OF THE KITCHEN!

Eat regular well-balanced meals – DON’T SKIP MEALS. This adds to stress.

Get enough sleep and

Connect with friends and family

All these will help to boost your mental health and help you to address your emotional eating.
Triggers such as boredom, sadness and stress can result in overeating—even positive emotions such as excitement and happiness can be a trigger, as well as using food as a reward.

By working to understand why you’re eating emotionally, you’ll be better able to recognise your trigger emotions and be able to actually work through them instead of reaching for food.

If you are struggling with bloating and emotional eating please download the free eBook.

To get started download the free eBook to beat the belly bloat and balance hormones. https://passion4juice.groovepages.com/

5 ways to lose weight when you love food

5 Ways to Lose Weight When You Love Food

Written by trish on . Posted in Gut Health.

Losing weight does not have to be stressful, painful, or outrageously difficult. Many people lose significant amounts of weight just by tweaking their diet and making small changes to their routine. You do not have to starve and you do not have to abandon your favourite foods. You do not even need to centre your life on the treadmill or weight room. But, you do need discipline and willpower. Here are five simple ways to start losing weight and still enjoy the food you love.

1. Control your portions:

Embarking on a weight loss journey is not the time to punish yourself or eliminate all food you take pleasure in. Take baby steps and slowly reduce your portion size. For instance, if you are craving chocolate, instead of buying the biggest bar, purchase the smallest one instead. Those cravings are often satisfied by just a few bites. If you buy the bigger size, you may feel obligated to eat the whole thing, which you will later regret. Similarly, choose smaller food portions when you go out to eat. The key is to take less at the beginning, see if the smaller amount satisfies you, and then get more if you still feel hungry. Remember, it takes your body almost 20 minutes to register that it is full.

2. Drink a lot of water, green tea, and kombucha:

Water is the elixir of life. Increasing your water intake will not only curb your hunger but will improve your skin’s appearance and increase your energy. Drinking water will also help you burn more calories and will help detoxify your body. Daily consumption of green tea and kombucha will also help you burn more calories at a faster rate by improving your metabolic system. Drink tea twice a day after your meals.

3. Take protein powder:

Organic protein powder is one of the few weight loss supplements that is healthy and has been proven to show actual results. It is incredibly low in calories and high in fibre, making it a good appetite suppressant. This supplement may be helpful for people who struggle with binge eating. Protein Max is what I recommend. It is water-soluble so it helps reduce water weight and bloating. You can order it here

4. Eat foods that are high in fibre:

In general, foods that are high in fibre are typically low in calories. Fibre keeps your stomach full, curbs hunger pangs and helps limit your calorie intake to a minimum. Foods that contain a high amount of fibre are beans, lentils, rice (both brown and white), items listed as “whole grain” on their label, and nuts like almonds, pecans, and walnuts. Other good options are porridge, bran-based cereals, oats, and apples.

5. Eat foods with high water content:

Adding foods with high water content, like watermelon, zucchini, strawberries, cucumber, broccoli, yogurt, cantaloupe, and fish, will help your stomach feel full and stave off cravings. Many of these foods make great alternatives to your previously unhealthy foods. For example, if you are craving a thick milkshake, try one with yogurt, fruit, and ice, instead of one laden with calories and sugar. Zucchini or spaghetti squash also make great substitutes for pasta.

If you would like to learn more about my 8-week gut healing, hormone balancing programme book a free call here

Yours in health and wellness,

Trish

Healthy Low Carb Breakfast - Nutrition Gut Specialist - Gloucestershire

How to Make a Healthy Low Carb Breakfast

Written by trish on . Posted in Gut Health.

Keeping up with fitness and clean, healthy eating can be a challenge. Striving to limit carbs and calories and boredom with limited options can cause people to get tired of the same old foods and lead them back to unhealthy habits. It is important to incorporate variety and change in our diets to make sure we don’t become stagnant. Our bodies may prefer healthy eating, but they also crave variety and flavor. Replacing ingredients with healthier options is an easy, simple way to do this.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The kind of breakfast you consume will have a significant impact on your activities throughout the day. To function at your best, your breakfast should be healthy and rich in protein.

Healthy breakfast choices do a lot to keep the cravings for carbs and extra calories at bay. Here are some easy healthy breakfast choices:

  1. Eggs and vegetables cooked in coconut oil is a great breakfast and it will keep you full for a long time. Fry the eggs to your desired consistency, toss the vegetables in to sauté for just a minute, add some seasoning, and enjoy.
  2. Baked eggs with spinach and yogurt is a great, easy-to-make breakfast that is full of nutrients to kick-start your day. Baking is a fantastic way to cook meals because you do not introduce any additional oils or fats. Pre-heat the oven to 300°F. Combine yogurt, garlic and a pinch of salt in a bowl and set aside. Melt a little coconut oil in a skillet over low heat. Add spinach, leek, scallion, lemon juice, and salt and sauté occasionally stirring. Remove skillet from the heat and crack several eggs into the veggie mixture, keeping yolks intact as much as possible. Bake for 10-15 minutes and top with yogurt mixture before serving.
  3. Who doesn’t love a creamy shake or smoothie? But who really loves all those carbs and calories? This avocado green tea smoothie is your perfect solution. It is rich and creamy and very easy to make. Whisk together 1 teaspoon of matcha powder and 1 tablespoon of hot water and set to the side. In a blender, combine half of an avocado, a ½ cup of Greek yogurt, 1 ¼ cups of almond milk, protein powder and a sweetener like honey, agave, or stevia. Blend together, add the tea mixture and serve! I have a great new organic vegan protein powder in stock and on sale here
  4. We get fed up with eating eggs every time we are on a diet, these low-carbs pancakes will be your new go-to favorite breakfast. All you need is 2 oz cream cheese, 2 eggs, 1 tsp granulated sugar substitute and ½ tsp cinnamon, blend this all together, let the mixture rest for the air bubbles to escape, cook the mixture on a pan on medium heat for 2 minutes each side and you are done. Tasty and healthy pancakes every time.
  5. Chia pudding is another easy to make breakfast. In a bowl or mason jar, combine ¼ cup chia seeds, 1 cup non-dairy milk, and ½ tablespoon of honey. Mix well and refrigerate overnight, until the seeds have become jelly-like in texture and the pudding has thickened. Top with your choice of fruit.

If you would like to learn more about my 8-week gut healing program just click here.

Yours in health and wellness,

Trish Tucker-May

Nutrition Gut Specialist

how to read a label - Nutritionist Gloucestershire

How to Read Food Labels

Written by trish on . Posted in Gut Health.

When you are trying to lose, gain or maintain weight, it is important to understand and know what you are putting in your body. Food labels have become increasingly easier to read and more informative for even beginning label readers to know what they are consuming. Food labels provide all the information you need regarding the nutritional values of a particular food product.

Reading the labels will make it easier for you to judge what type of food product is good enough to put in your body. With labels, you can easily compare the food products and select the best option for your diet.

Read labels and stay away from hydrogenated fats, margarine, fake sugar, e-numbers, colours, and flavours. There are great apps and charts you can download to stick on your fridge to guide you.  www.fedup.com.au is a great guide.

Anything with wheat or gluten causes bloating, mucus in the stool and weakened digestion. Read labels. If it contains gluten, throw it out and stock up on fresh fruits, veggies, and seeds.

Don’t get sucked into the marketing and advertising that is around you ALL THE TIME. There are thousands of items at the supermarkets, petrol stations, paper shops and corner stores masquerading as food. They have colourful, enticing packaging, misleading label’s and point of sale promotions designed to catch your eye. They are NOT REAL FOOD and should be treated with caution.  Be savvy when you are shopping, learn to read labels using the helpful tips listed below.

Don’t go shopping on an empty stomach. Stick to a list. If you have to have to children with you, talk them through labels, teach them about the 57 possible names for sugar. Make yourself aware of the dangers of high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats and other nasty chemicals that should not be in our food chain.

Replace all processed snacks with healthy alternatives.  Crisps, chips, crackers, granola bars, biscuits, and other processed foods need to be replaced with healthy alternatives instead.   It is so hard to be disciplined when you have a cupboard full of crinkly packet snack foods.  They are devilishly Moorish and hard to resist, even if you have them hidden away.

It is too easy to munch out late at night, or when you feel tired at 3pm and you feel you deserve a treat.  You are far better off not having them in the pantry.  Willpower will only get you so far each day.  Roasted vegetable homemade snacks, soaked nuts, pots of hummus or chia puddings in the fridge are better snacks for energy and keeping you on track with your goals.

As necessary as it is, reading food labels can be a little tricky at first, but here are a few tips to get you reading them like a pro.

  1. Servings:First things first. Check the amount and size of servings contained in a package because the nutritional values are written relative to that size of a serving. Serving sizes are mentioned to make it easier to compare similar amounts of food products. Every nutritional fact mentioned on the label is influenced by that serving size.
  1. The total number of calories:

The next thing you should check is the number of calories. It will tell you how many calories you are consuming per serving. You can easily calculate the number of calories that you have consumed based on the amount of the food product you have eaten. Calories are very important because the number of calories you consume or burn determine whether you are going to gain or lose weight. For instance, if you consume or burn 3500 calories, you are going to gain or lose one pound of weight, respectively.

  1. Nutrients to avoid:

The number and type of nutrients listed let you know how much energy you are consuming and how are the ingredients of this food product are going to affect or nourish your body. While reading the label, check for things like saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, and sodium; these are things you need to completely avoid if you intend to maintain your health or lose weight. These four nutrients are notorious for contributing to heart disease and various types of cancers.

  1. Nutrients to focus on:

On the flip side, look for foods that have high amounts of fibre, calcium, iron, proteins, zinc, and a variety of vitamins. These nutrients will nourish your body and get you through your day without draining you of energy.

  1. Percent Daily Value, or % RDA:

This percentage gives you an idea of the number of nutrients that are available in a single serving. If you intend to avoid or limit a certain nutrient like cholesterol, sodium, trans fat or saturated fat, select food products that show less than 5% Daily Value. Similarly, if you want to start increasing the protein in your diet, look for food products that contain 20% or more of your daily value.

If you would like to learn more about 8-week gut healing hormone balancing program, click here

Yours in health and wellness,

Trish Tucker May