We are now at the end of the first quarter of the year and I was thrilled last week to see just how many of my clients have made amazing progress this year. Even though it was a short week and I only worked 2 1/2 days, when I looked at the results obtained by the clients I saw, I just had to share them, so here goes.

Cherie 17.8 kilos – read her testimonial here
Lianne 14.9 kilos (and she looked amazing for her 50th birthday two weeks ago!)
Kerry 14.5 kilos
Richard 12.0 kilos
Nikki 10.0 kilos
Lisa 9.2 kilos – read her testimonial here
Rob 8.3 kilos
Megan 7.0 kilos (Megan started while her twins were only a few months old and she was still breastfeeding)
Amelia 6.6 kilos – read her testimonial here
Trish 6.3 kilos
Michelle 5.8 kilos (while running a busy household of 4 young children pretty much single handed)
Sandie 5.6 kilos
Carol 4.5 kilos

Of course there are lots of other clients achieving amazing results, these were just some of the clients I saw last week.

So what does it take to keep the ball rolling when you start to feel a bit complacent and it all seems a bit too hard? First of all you have to re-evaluate why you are doing it. Why did you seek help in the first place? Why do you want to achieve fat loss? Are you doing it to make yourself feel better, to have more confidence, to be able to fit into your clothes? Are you doing it for health reasons because of family history or because your doctor has told you that if you don’t make some changes your health is at risk? Most people come to see me for a combination of the above factors.

Those factors don’t change, but your enthusiasm can! As I wrote last month, you need to accept that it may take time to get to your goal, and there will be ups and downs along the way, so the best thing you can do is to put strategies in place. Strategies like adopting a zero tolerance approach to getting your exercise in. Exercise itself isn’t huge when it comes to fat loss, but it does put you in the right frame of mood to do better with your food if you make the effort to exercise. It also helps reduce stress, increase your energy level and it sets you up for the day.

Another strategy is use your food diary as a menu planner. Write up the day before what you are going to eat the following day. Once you have committed to paper, you are way more likely to follow through. Strategy is not keeping tempting food around – willpower waxes and wanes, don’t rely on yours to keep you out of trouble. Strategy is to measure your portions – it really can make a difference, as can keeping a food and exercise diary. Don’t wing it and expect great results – great results come from following the plan and steps we have laid out.

Winter Exercise

If the dark mornings put you off exercising outdoors there are other options you can consider, rather than hibernating until spring. Here are some suggestions:

• Hire a piece of exercise equipment, put your headphones on and go for it. Or put it in front of the second TV and catch up on your favourite programmes.
• Buy a concession ticket for gym classes if you like exercising in a group.
• Try a Zumba class, they are very popular and are suitable for all ages and abilities.
• Grab a couple of workmates and walk in your lunch break.
• Join a gym, they are warm, dry and have plenty to keep you occupied! Most gyms offer a free trial period so you can see if you feel comfortable there.
• Make weekend exercise non negotiable.

Warming Foods

Once the days start shortening we start seeking warmer, more hearty food. The trick is to aim for hearty, not stodgey food. Starting from breakfast, if you like oats, make yourself a bowl of steaming hot porridge from a bag of rolled oats. Oats are just oats – with nothing added to them, unlike most of the commercial cereals. Throw in some frozen berries or a few slices of banana and top with lite yoghurt or milk and you have a healthy, high fibre, low GI breakfast. The sachets of instant oats have a fair bit of sugar added to them, so if you do want to use the sachets, look for lower sugar varieties. There is also an original variety with no added sugar.

Soups are really popular and a great way to use up any vegetables lurking in the fridge that are getting a bit old. The simplest of soups can be made from a variety of vegetables like onions, celery, carrots and tins of tomatoes with a carton of stock, plus seasonings and dried herbs. If you make up a big pot of vegetable soup, then you can add some protein such as chopped cooked chicken when serving. I added a new soup recipe to my website last week, check it out here (smokey bacon and bean soup). A favourite, super easy soup is Green Pea Soup, find it here. This Tomato, Vegetable and Lentil Soup is yummy too, check it out here.

It is almost casserole time too and there’s nothing wrong with making a big casserole up, either in the oven or crockpot. Add plenty of veggies to stretch the casserole out; you can also add red lentils to beef casseroles to make the meat go further and add extra fibre to the meal. If you double the mixture it means you can come home to leftovers, then you simply have to cook extra vegetables that night. Frozen vegetables are fine and if you have a few bags in the freezer then you don’t have to worry about getting to the vegetable shop on the way home. Frozen beans are usually much cheaper than fresh beans and there are some really good stir fry type frozen vegetable mixes now. In general avoid mixes with peas and corn in them, stick to the lower carbohydrate vegetables.

New Product – Select Chicken or Beef + Vegetable stir fry

Countdown have put out a new frozen product which is great to keep on hand for times when you don’t have the time or inclination to cook. It comes in either chicken or beef strips and it has a good selection of veggies with it. All you do is heat a pan, spray it with a little non stick spray and pour the frozen contents of the bag in. Stir fry for 7 minutes, add some sauce and you are done! I tried the beef version today and added Teriyaki sauce. My recommendation is that a bag equals three servings, each serving being 215 calories, plus 1 tablespoon of sauce per serving, plus 1/2 cup of cooked rice, if you have starchy carbs with your meals. To speed things up, you might use a bag of instant type microwave rice, 1/3 bag for a woman, 1/2 bag for a man. There is no excuse to order in takeaways when you have something like this on hand. Pam’s also have a similar product, which comes in beef, chicken and lamb. I tried them last year and preferred the beef version to the chicken. These products do not use 100% beef or chicken strips, they are 71% beef, the rest being maize starch etc to hold it together. So, it is not the same as using 100% beef or chicken, but it is not too bad and extremely convenient.

I’m always looking for new products in the supermarket, especially quick meals which, while they don’t contain as much protein or fibre as ‘ideal’ meals you would make yourself, they are still a way better choice than grabbing a pizza, or burger and fries. Lots of lower calorie frozen meals I have tried are pretty awful, but last week I tried a McCain Healthy Choice “cottage pie” and it actually tasted very nice and was a reasonable sized serving. Good to keep on hand for maybe a hot lunch or a quick dinner when you are racing off to drop kids at sports events, etc. If you are buying a frozen meal, do read the ingredients list as some of them have a lot of additives and preservatives.

There are some beautiful pumpkins in season now. I love baked pumpkin! Simply chop unpeeled pumpkin into big chunks and place on a baking paper lined baking tray. Fan bake 180 degrees for about 20-30 minutes, depending on the size of the chunks. Cool and store in the fridge and add to your salad at lunchtime. Or roast the pumpkin in smaller pieces and make my pumpkin frittata, find the recipe here Frittata leftovers make great lunches, just add a salad.

New Silver Fern Lamb product. Silver Fern have added lamb (and venison) medallions to their product range. I tried the lamb medallions a couple of weeks ago and oh my goodness, they are superb. They are more of a luxury item, but mmm, they are just delicious and so lean. You don’t need to add anything to them, just serve with vegetables or salad.

Mother’s Day is nearly here. If you’d like to give your Mum (or a special woman in your life) a gift voucher to come and see me, get in touch and I’ll organise it for you.

If you have borrowed any of my books, could you please return them as soon as you have finished with them, so I can let other clients read them, thank you.

Next Monday I am going to send out a very brief survey which should take no longer than around 2 minutes to complete. I’d really appreciate your taking the time to complete it for me, thank you.

Until next time…

Regards
Lynda

Well if he is, here are some things to consider.

Any 100g of any chocolate is a minimum of 500 calories. Yes, that’s right, that cute 200g foil wrapped hollow bunny beckoning you from the end of the supermarket aisle is going to add at least 1000 calories of mainly fat and sugar to your day.

Fancy a decent hot X bun (and let’s face it, there’s no point in having anything less than a decent one), slap a couple of teaspoons of butter on it and savour the sensation as the grease leaves telltale smears around your mouth. The calorie cost? Around 200 calories for the bun + 70 calories for the butter. Those 270 calories of bun + butter will take you almost an hour of brisk walking to even the odds.

The 200g bunny, well that will take you around 2 hours of running or 3 ½ hours of walking. Phew, makes you think doesn’t it!

Something else to consider is: Do your kids really need a ton of chocolate at Easter? With grandparents and other family members buying for the kids, often they end up with a ridiculous amount of Easter Eggs. Remember that milk chocolate is around 55% sugar……..so for every 100g of milk chocolate there is 55g of sugar. That is a heck of a lot. An egg or a small bunny is fine, but make it a smaller size and really savour it.

Three Important Points to Keep in Mind When it Comes to Fat Loss

1. It’s do-able
2. It takes time
3. It’s a long term commitment

I know we all wish that there was an easy way to lose weight which didn’t require lifestyle changes. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to eat what we like and not gain weight? But, unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way.

I’ve written an article and put it on my website which goes into more detail on the above points. Find it here.

Fad Diets

I know I’ve written about this before, but it really gets me going when I see outrageous claims made for products or weight loss programmes which are just marketing, money making hypes. At best they are harmless (and useless); at worst they can damage your health and teach you to binge.

Here are two (of many) I’ve noticed lately.

The KEN, or Ketogenic Enteral Nutrition diet, involves eating absolutely nothing at all.

Instead, for ten days at a time, a patented liquid formula made up of protein and nutrients is dripped directly into the stomach via a plastic tube that goes up the patient’s nose and is taped on to their face. (Yes, that’s right; you walk around with a tube taped to your face!)

At the other end of the tube is an electric pump which works day and night to deliver two litres of the formula over 24 hours.

While on the KEN, dieters can go about their lives as normal but must carry the pump and liquid in a bag or backpack and hang it by their bed at night. They are allowed to unhook themselves from the pump for one hour a day — for bathing — and can drink water, tea, coffee (with no milk, sugar or sweeteners) or sugar-free herb teas with the tube in.

Side effects –constipation caused by a total lack of fibre, bad breath, exhaustion and no doubt the social stigma of having a plastic tube hanging out of your nose for 10 days at a time. Effective? Probably, if you could suffer it for the 10 days, but what would you learn? I’d suggest that once you got the tube out you would end up bingeing on everything you’d missed out on in the previous 10 days.

I received something in the mail the other day about a “celebrity secret” which turned out to be a colon cleanser and wait for it, you ‘lose up to 4 kilos every week’ with this product. 4 kilos of what I have to wonder!! To lose 4 kilos of fat you have to be in a 32,000 calorie deficit, so no matter what you are flushing out, if you don’t reduce your calorie intake, you aren’t going to lose fat.

There are loads of quick fix type products out there, but you have to ask yourself, does this product involve me eating less, because if it doesn’t then you aren’t going to lose fat. Nothing works better than learning what to eat, how much to eat, when to eat it and what options there are. Put that together with a regular exercise routine and you are on to a winner. No fancy products required. Read my article on the Three Important Points for Fat Loss here.

Kathy recently reached her fat loss goal and this is what she wrote: “Thank you so much for helping me achieve a new approach to food. Your support and knowledge has been fantastic and my lifestyle has changed. As a result I feel great.” Just like you, Kathy didn’t need to buy into any fad type diet, she just needed to learn what to eat for her body and to learn how to tweak her lifestyle to achieve the result she wanted.

True or False: A kilo of fat weighs more than a kilo of muscle?

I hear that statement quite often, but when you think about it, a kilo of anything weighs a kilo. But, fat takes up more space than muscle. Fat is fluffy and squishy whereas muscle is firm and dense and takes up less space on the body than fat.

Another fallacy is that if you stop exercising, your muscle will turn to fat. Muscle cells and fat cells are two different things. If you are thinking of an ageing ex athlete who has gained fat, it just means that he is consuming more calories than his body needs and he has expanded his fat cells. His muscle mass may be less from the natural ageing process and less exercise, but the two types of cells are not interchangeable.

It’s a win-win situation to have more muscle, as muscle burns more calories than fat does. A person with 50 kilos of muscle burns a lot more calories in a day than a person with 40 kilos of muscle does. Fat is burnt in muscle cells and used for energy, so more muscle = more muscle cells = more fat burning. We all lose muscle as we age, unless we eat sufficient protein and do resistance exercise. Don’t let your muscle and fat burning capability decline, stay active and eat right.

Fitbit

An amazing personal gadget that does so much. I recently purchased one of these (click here to see the detail) and have found it very useful. It has a huge capability – you can diary your daily food intake, current weight, goal weight, water intake, blood pressure, etc as well as your daily activities and it calculates calories in and out for you. It does so much, it even measures your sleep patterns. I love it! www.fitbit.com is the official website for it.

Fizzy Facts: New Zealanders are the 9th highest consumers of soft drink in the world, drinking 82.4 litres a year per person. Australians drink 100.1 litres and Americans – wait for it – 216 litres per person, per year!

From the Kitchen:

For recipes this month I wanted to show you some recipes that the Healthy Food Guide website contains as it is a wonderful resource. Their website has recently been updated and contains over 1500 recipes, all with nutrition panel details.

I’m happy to show you which recipes to look for when you are in at your next appointment, but here are a couple which meet the guidelines of higher protein, lower carb and moderate calories.

• Honey and Soy Chicken With Cashews
• Simple Chicken Casserole
• Barbecued Beef and Orange Salad

Each of these recipes meets the criteria I mentioned above, so you can see it’s possible to eat healthy, tasty meals while losing weight.

The Healthy Food Guide magazine is a great little monthly publication which I highly recommend as being educational and informative.

That’s it for this month, so until next time, beware of the Easter Bunny!

Regards
Lynda

The list of 49 foods we ‘didn’t need to eat’ that was published last week sparked a lot of debate.  Do we need to be told what to eat and what not to eat?  Well, in many cases, yes we do.  But will publishing that list make any difference?  I doubt it.

While many of the foods on that list are obviously not suitable as everyday foods, some of them are fine in moderation and that’s really what needs to get through, that there are foods which should be put in the ‘occasional’ category and not consumed on an everyday basis.

I was interested to see that alcohol came top of the list and then I realised that the list was alphabetical!  Alcohol should be one of the items put back into the occasional category, whereas in far too many cases it has become an everyday item.  When alcohol becomes an everyday item, do we actually enjoy it as much, or is it just a habit?

There is so much confusion about what we should and shouldn’t eat, but if you get back to basics, we should be eating mainly real food.  That is food that will go off or rot if not consumed within a reasonable period of time.  That covers fruit, vegetables, meats, eggs, nuts and seeds; all the things we know are good for us.

We were never meant to eat out of boxes.  Our bodies were never designed to be bombarded with foods containing chemicals and foods laced with additives and preservatives to extend the life of food.  Food scientists can make food taste like the real thing and look like the real thing, but it probably bears absolutely no nutritional resemblance to the real thing.  Do we really want to consume food which has been designed in a laboratory, rather than grown naturally?

Everything that we eat ends up in our bloodstream and then passes through our liver.  How challenged will our livers be if they are constantly detoxifying additives and preservatives.

The same goes for alcohol; it goes straight into our bloodstream from our stomach and into our liver.  Your liver processes alcohol preferentially, to get it out of your system and while it is doing that very little fat burning is happening.   Your liver is your biggest fat burning organ, responsible for breaking down stored glucose for fuel, do you want it compromised by hitting it hard with alcohol on a frequent basis?  Alcohol intake can make or break your fat loss attempt.

When we were hunter gatherers, our biggest concern was having enough food to survive, now we are swamped with so much choice that in many cases our biggest concern is that we are shortening our lifespan by our choice of food and lifestyle.  Most likely if we could ask our ancestors for one word to describe what food meant to them, they would answer ‘survival’.  I doubt many of us would give that answer now.

We need to make an effort to get back to eating more real food on a more regular basis.  Eat simply – fish, chicken, meat, legumes, wholegrains, lots of fibrous veggies, moderate amounts of fruit, low fat dairy and some good fats from seeds, nuts and fish.  When the majority of your diet looks like that, you are less likely to have inflammation in your body.  Inflammation is a real health concern and can lead to heart disease, some cancers and is also implicated in the onset of type 2 diabetes and other diseases.  If you are eating poorly and over indulging in alcohol it is quite likely that you are setting yourself up for an inflamed body.  Omega-3 fats can be very helpful in dealing with inflammation and I would highly recommend that everyone take fish oil capsules daily if they aren’t eating fresh fish at least 2-3 times per week.  Note:  If you are on a blood thinning medication, check with your doctor before taking fish oils.

That leads me on to supplements. Yes, I do believe in supplements, but as an adjunct to a healthy diet, not instead of a healthy diet.  The basics would include a good quality multivitamin, omega-3 oils, vitamin C and vitamin D.  For specific health conditions there are many options to try, ask me when we catch up next.  An important point to remember is because tea and coffee may inhibit the absorption of minerals, don’t drink tea or coffee for one hour either side of taking your multivitamin or minerals.  Also, if you are taking iron pills, don’t take them with a meal containing calcium, but do take them with a meal containing vitamin C, to help with absorption of the iron.

Eating out while trying to lose weight can be a real challenge and if you are eating out more than once a week, you will have to be very careful with your choices.  For instance if you were to go to a restaurant, choose two courses and have two glasses of wine over the evening, you could be consuming around 2500 calories!  For a small woman that would be like two days food in one evening.  Your body only requires so much energy in a day, consuming more than that limit means you are filling up your fat cells.

If you know where you will be eating out ahead of time, see if their menu is online and study it carefully.  High calorie options include risotto, anything crispy or deep fried, anything with a creamy sauce or satay sauce; vegetable mashes are often loaded with cream or butter, scrambled eggs are normally scrambled with cream, anything pan fried may be pan fried in butter or a load of oil, or both… the list goes on.  You only have to watch one of the many cooking shows on TV to see just how much fat goes into a special meal.

Remember, that gram for gram, fat contains almost twice the energy (calories) as protein or carbohydrate, so anything containing fat or cooked in fat, is likely to be higher in energy.  If you are choosing a salad, always ask for dressing on the side to avoid a load of high calorie dressing swamping your healthy salad. Also ask for any sauces to be on the side.  If you don’t want the crispy noodles included with your meal, ask for ‘no noodles’ please, etc.

If you’ve put exercise in the ‘too hard to find time’ basket, then how about this, lace your walking shoes up and step outside your door.  Walk for 15 minutes and then turn around and walk home.  How easy was that?  Or do it from work at lunchtime, grab a workmate, put your shoes on and off you go.  Psychologically, if you think “I’ve just got to walk down the road for 15 minutes and then turn around”, it doesn’t seem too difficult.  Regular exercise helps protect you against developing type 2 diabetes, but it has to be regular exercise, not a hit and miss affair.  Prioritise exercise and it will happen.

Something to ponder:  If you have 1 can or bottle of beer, or 1 x 150mls glass of wine per day, every day, over a year that comes to 54,750 calories.  SEVEN KILOS of fat contain 56,000 calories, so just by having one drink a day and not cutting back on something else or exercising off the equivalent of 150 calories a day, it sets you up to gain seven kilos of fat over a year.

Client Special Deals for the month of March

• Pay for 3 x 30 minute follow up appointments ($135.00) and receive the 4^th one free!
• Pay for 5 x 15 minute accountability weekly appointments ($150.00) and receive the 6^th one free.

The deal is: pay upfront, no refunds or extensions for appointments cancelled with less than 24 hours notice and appointments must be used within 10 weeks of purchase.

Recipes for March

Smoked Fish Hotpot – serves 2

• 200g smoked white fish, skin and bones removed
• 1 cup trim milk
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• Cracked black pepper
• ½ cup green peas
• ¼ cup corn kernels
• 3 tbs milk extra
• 3-4 tsp corn flour
• 300g potato chopped
• 2 tsp grated parmesan cheese
• Salt if required

Smoked Fish Hotpot

Into a large microwave proof jug and add milk, onion, bay leaves, fish and pepper.  Cook on high until the mixture boils – watch it doesn’t boil over.  Stir and simmer on low for about 5 minutes.  Remove from microwave and add frozen peas and corn, stir and leave for about 10 minutes or longer if you wish.

Strain mixture through a sieve, removing bay leaves and reserving the milk.  Put the milk back into the jug and reheat.  Mix the cornflour and additional milk together and add to hot jug of milk.  Carefully bring to the boil and stir until thickened, then cook 2 minutes on a low heat, taking care that it doesn’t boil over. Taste and season if required.  Add fish mixture to thickened sauce, mix well and tip into two large ramekins.

Bring a pot of salted water to the boil, add potato and cook until tender.  Mash with about 2 Tbs milk and then beat with a spoon until smooth and of a spreadable consistency. Use more milk if required.  Spread over fish mixture in ramekins and sprinkle cheese on top.

Put under a hot grill until the cheese is golden.  Let stand a few minutes as the mixture will be very hot.

Because this has mashed potato on top, it is a higher calorie meal than if you weren’t having complex carbohydrates for dinner.

You could make extra servings and have leftovers for a hot lunch.

Thai Chicken & Rice Noodle soup– check out the link to my website recipe index here:

Smoked salmon and egg salad – find the recipe here:

With autumn officially here now, it’s time to take stock of where you are, body composition-wise, before the colder months hit.  Once the cold, dark days are here we tend to eat more and move less, a sure fire recipe for weight gain.  Make sure you go into winter at or below your goal weight.  It’s way easier to deal with a two kilo fat gain over winter, than adding another two kilos to that Christmas/New Year roll of fat that you haven’t quite got around to losing yet.  Take advantage of my March Special Deals above to get in great shape NOW.

That’s it for now, take care and I’ll look forward to catching up with you again soon.

Regards
Lynda

Are you still waiting for the right time to get back into your healthy eating and exercising regime. What are you actually waiting for?

• Christmas and New Year to be over? Well, they are.
• Family and friends to go back home after the holidays? They more than likely have.
•   All the Christmas contraband to have been consumed? Hasn’t it?
• Waiting to get back to work again so that you can get into a routine. Most people are back at work by now.
• Maybe you’ve been waiting for the summer weather to appear, to help motivate you. Well, fingers crossed, it’s looking good at present.
• Auckland Anniversary Weekend – done and dusted.
• Waiting for the kids to go back to school? It’s happening this week.

It seems to me that just about all the excuses you have been tossing around as to why you haven’t got back on track can be dismissed now. Yes, it can be difficult to get back into the swing of things after a holiday, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and get on with it. The alternative is to keep filling up those pesky fat cells around your middle, yes, you know the ones I mean.

Here are a couple of special deals to motivate you to contact me right now!

The Six Week Nutrition Challenge is still running and everyone who is doing it is achieving fantastic results. The Challenge consists of an initial 30 minute appointment where we set targets to meet over the following 5 weeks, measure your body composition and write up a plan. Then you come every week for the next five weeks for a 15 minute ‘accountability’ appointment. You must keep a diary, you must keep your weekly appointments (no extensions) and ideally you will take a before and after photo. Simple! The cost to existing clients is $185.00. New clients can also do the Challenge, ask them to contact me for details.

The Back to School Special consists of an initial 30 minute appointment to set goals and boundaries, measure body composition and write up a food plan, followed by 1 x 30 minute appointment and two x 15 minute appointments. The follow up appointments can be at either weekly or two weekly intervals. The cost to existing clients is $135.00. Don’t wait another minute – phone or email me now and let’s get started!!

New Study Confirms Overweight People Die Earlier

The lethal impact of carrying extra kilos of fat may seem obvious. Until recently, however, no one could point to a study that did not have confounding flaws such as including those with pre-existing heart disease, cancer, etc.

A pooled analysis involving 1.46 million men and women was published in the New England Journal of Medicine that measured risk of dying with body mass index (BMI).47 Those with pre-existing illness and smokers were excluded.

The findings showed that compared with women of normal weight during the study period:

• Overweight women (BMI between 25.0 and 29.9) were 13% more likely to die;
• Moderately obese women (BMI between 30.0 and 34.9) were 44% more likely to die;
• Severely obese women (BMI between 35.0 and 39.9) were 88% more likely to die;
• Morbidly obese women (BMI between 40.0 and 49.9) were 151% more likely to die.

The body weight/risk of dying pattern was similar for men. The lowest mortality risks were for the people who had a body mass index (BMI) of 20 to 24.9. Click here to check your BMI: Hit the metric button and enter your height and weight. (BMI is different to body composition, ask me to explain next time we catch up if you are unsure.)

BMI is not a completely accurate mortality predictor, as a large waist circumference, even in those in the normal BMI range, can increase one’s risk of early death. Men should aim for a waist measurement of no more than 94cm and women no more than 80cm. Health risks increase as your waistline does. Grab a tape now and check your waist measurement.

While most of us are more concerned about how extra fat looks on our bodies, we really should be thinking about the health risks of carrying those extra kilos.

I often hear from clients that they are genetically more likely to be overweight because their mother/father/aunt/brother/grandfather or other relation is very overweight. I usually suggest that it is more likely that their lifestyle is the issue. If a family as a whole eat more meals away from home, if they don’t regularly exercise and if they don’t eat ‘real’ food including plenty of fibrous vegetables, then of course they are more likely to be an overweight/obese family. Nurture, not nature is at work here.

It doesn’t mean that the situation can’t be changed if the individuals are prepared to change their habits. Sadly though, it often isn’t until someone in the family develops a serious health issue that the rest take notice.

We need to be proactive about taking care of our health. Aside from genetics, the risk factors associated with heart attacks are generally ones that we have some influence over. Being a smoker, being overweight, having high blood pressure and having elevated blood fats are all risk factors, often caused by our lifestyle. Which is better, modifying your lifestyle now or having a heart attack? Did you know, with 50% of heart attacks that is the only warning you get? 50% of heart attack victims die with no previous warning. Don’t be a victim, take care of yourself now.

If your goal is fat loss, go easy on fruit. Yes, fruit is good for you, but it is also high in sugar and eating more than 2 or 3 servings of fruit a day may slow down your fat loss because of the effect it has on raising your blood sugar and insulin levels.

What’s new at the supermarket?

• Sugar free maple syrup. If you like your porridge sweetened, but don’t want to add extra calories, try the new Queen brand of sugar free maple syrup. It is sweetened with sucralose which is a safe sweetener and 35g (7 teaspoons!) contains only 18 calories.
• Sunsweet have multi packs of lovely soft prunes and apricots which are only 63 calories and 70 calories respectively. A bag of these with a pot of lite yoghurt would make a good afternoon tea. Or you could take a pack of these with a small amount of nuts in the car for a healthy snack on the run.
• Peckish Thins are delicious thin, crisp rice crackers which are only available at New World. They have to be the best tasting rice crackers I’ve tried and contain slightly less energy than the other brands.
• Select (Countdown range) are producing their own ‘chicken in a can’ now.

Tip:

Want to know a super easy way to get the husk off a cooked corn cob? Slice the bottom (stalk end) off the cob then hold it by the top and shake the cob out. It comes out clean as a whistle!

Speaking of corn, if you have an allowance for starchy carbs in your plan (rice, potato, kumara, etc) you can exchange those for a medium sized corn cob. I just microwave them in their husks. Enjoy it now while it is in season.

Recipes:

Cottage Cheese Dip. Blend lite cottage cheese until smooth, like the texture of ricotta. Pile into a serving bowl then drizzle sweet chill sauce over. Serve with rice crackers and vegetable sticks.

Bean Salad Wrap. Serves 2. Mix a 400g can of Craigs Mixed Bean Salad with diced red onion and scatter 40g of feta cheese over. Divide in two and using large iceberg lettuce leaves, roll up for a crispy tasty, vegetarian wrap.

Chicken + Cranberry Pizza. Go to my recipe index for this super easy, crispy pizza.

Chocolate Mousse + blueberries. Serves two. 4 Tbs Weight Watchers drinking chocolate mixed with 4 Tbs boiling water. Stir until smooth then stir in 4 Tbs lite Greek yoghurt. Stir well and chill for at least 30 minutes. Put ½ cup blueberries into a parfait glass and top with half of the mousse and repeat for the second serving. ** I really like orange zest mixed into the mousse, it is delicious!

Does anyone have contacts in the insurance industry in London? One of my clients who are experienced in commercial insurance is moving to London in April and will be looking for a job. Please get in touch with me if you have any contacts.

Until next time.
Lynda

The Christmas decorations are down, the leftovers are all gone (thank goodness!), the visitors have returned home and it’s time to get back into good habits again.

How did you fare over the Christmas period? Did your discipline go out the window, along with your best intentions of regular exercise and drinking alcohol in moderation only? Don’t worry – it happens. I’ll put my hand up to adhering to the see-food diet over Christmas and New Year! Now it’s time to work on strategies to get back into the right frame of mind again.

Here are some suggestions:

• Clean out the fridge and pantry and remove any treats or food you know won’t be good for you to have around. If it’s there, it will be eaten.
• Plan your food for at least one day ahead and know what you will be eating for all your meals and snacks. That means having the right food in the house, so get to the supermarket if necessary.
• Start your food diary – and enter everything that goes in your mouth that has calories. Be totally honest so that there aren’t any mysteries as to why that extra flab is not shifting. It’s always a surprise to find out just how many little picks we have during the day.
• Measure your portions. This seems like such a basic step, but being complacent about portions sizes is one of the main reasons for weight gain.
• Drop the excuses – you do have time to exercise, to grocery shop and to prepare healthy meals. You just have to make those things a priority. Drop the excuses to drop the fat.

We all have the desire to ‘be better’. Those who succeed are unwilling to quit when the going gets tough. Every goal you desire will take effort and perseverance and at some point you are going to hit a bump in the road or take a detour. Then you begin to doubt your ability to reach your goal.

When that happens, acknowledge your feelings of frustration and disappointment, but know that it happens to almost everyone. The important thing is not to give up – start the next day with a clean slate and make as many good choices as possible. It might take a few days, or even a week or two, to get properly back on track again, but that’s okay, you are still doing better than if you’d just packed it in and gone back to your old habits completely.

My most successful clients all had setbacks along the way, but they just picked themselves up and kept going. Perseverance, not perfection, will get you there in the end.

Make 2012 the year that you decide to give it your best shot to improve your health, fitness and wellbeing.

Last year Shalome changed her life by dropping 20 kilos – read her story here: http://www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/testimonials/

The MRI scans below show the distribution of fat within two female bodies. One, that of a female of normal weight and the other, that of a morbidly obese woman.

The obese woman has a grossly enlarged liver (probably infiltrated with fat, making it a fat storage organ instead of a fat burning organ) and a large amount of fat in her abdomen surrounding her internal organs. You can also see how the fat between her thighs is forcing her hip and leg bones into an abnormal posture which will probably contribute to her developing osteoarthritis of the knees.

Fat isn’t just a cosmetic problem, it is a serious health issue. Did you know that abdominal fat in particular produces estrogen and inflammatory chemicals? So the more abdominal fat someone has, the more likely it is that their body is in an inflamed state. Inflammation has been shown to be the cause of various cancers and many other health conditions. Excess estrogen also causes many health issues and unbalances other hormones. Both men and women produce estrogen in abdominal fat.

Excess abdominal fat also likely means higher insulin levels in the body and higher insulin levels not only make it more difficult to lose fat, insulin also feeds the growth of cancers. Carrying extra fat around the middle substantially increases your chances of becoming diabetic and having cardiovascular disease.

If you are a woman and your waist measurement is more than 80cm, you need to work on reducing belly fat. If you are a man and your waist measurement is more than 94cm, likewise, it’s time to do something about it. Don’t wait until that belly fat causes you serious health issues, let’s work on it now.

Some things to ponder:

• In the United States, one of the fastest growing industries is the oversize coffin business. The standard size of a coffin is 24 inches wide, but the trend now is the double oversized model which is 38 inches wide. With our growing rate of obesity in New Zealand, perhaps there is an opportunity here for an entrepreneur?
• There are now as many overweight people on earth as there are underweight. How things have changed in the last 30 years.
• Hangovers – what actually are they? The Swedish translation for the word hangover is ‘smacked from behind’ and the Danish translation is ‘carpenters in the forehead’. Hmm, I wonder if any of you felt like that earlier this week?

  While dehydration used to be thought of as the reason for a hangover, scientists now believe that alcohol withdrawal and chemicals formed in the body when our livers break down alcohol also contribute to the hangover symptoms. Toxins pass through the stomach into the bloodstream and from there go right throughout the body, irritating and probably damaging cells and cell membranes. Sore heads, sore eyes, woolly mouth, nausea……no more need be said! Now is a great time to give your liver a break and have a few weeks alcohol free.

• Figures I read today show the average ‘crash’ diet lasts just 15 days and 35% of people who do a crash diet end up putting back on more weight than they lost in the first place. Nothing works better long term than learning how to eat for your body and lifestyle and doing it most of the time.

Kitchen notes:

I haven’t included any recipes in this month’s newsletter because really, after all the excesses of Christmas, it really is time to get back to basics with eating again. (check out my recipe index here for ideas though) http://www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/recipe-index/

Fire up the barbeque, use your portable grill, eat clean, real foods like lean steak, chicken and fish, served with big salads consisting of a wide range of brightly coloured vegetables. Make the most of the warmer weather and good supply of reasonably priced vegetables while you can. Eat simply, use interesting dressings and chutneys to jazz up the flavours and above all, make your meals colourful and tasty.

Appointments

My normal hours commence this Saturday 7 January. Make an appointment now so that we can set goals, write a new plan and get you fired up to get in the best shape of your life this year. Don’t put it off, thinking that you need another week or two to lose any weight you gained over Christmas, because in that week or two I can guarantee you will find ‘reasons’ why you need another week or two to get yourself sorted. It’s time – let’s do it!

Let’s make 2012 the year you fulfil your health and fitness goals.

Lynda

PS: That is my new assistant, baby kitten Harley

It’s very easy at this time of year to put yourself on the back burner while you put everyone else’s needs first. When that happens you probably find that good habits with your food and exercise start to slide. The key is to make time for yourself. If it means getting up half an hour earlier so that you can fit in a quick walk before work and have time to eat a healthy breakfast, so be it. Exercising first thing in the morning helps set you up for the day. You are also more likely to eat a healthy breakfast and stick to your healthy eating plan if you have made the effort to fit your exercise in. Getting up earlier also allows you time to pack a healthy lunch.

Hydration
It’s getting warm out there! Ensure that you take a water bottle with you wherever you go as it’s easy to become dehydrated very quickly on warm days.

About 60% of your body weight is water. The average adult loses around 1.5 litres of fluid a day via urine plus another litre through breathing and sweating. Obviously on hot days or while exercising this can increase. We receive about 25% of the fluid we need each day from food while the remaining 75% has to come from fluids we drink.

Here are some good reasons to drink sufficient water throughout the day.

• It’s easy to confuse hunger with thirst! Sometimes you ‘feel like something’ and reach for food when really, its fluid your body is asking for.
• Dehydration can lead to your blood becoming thicker and more difficult to pump through your body. This can put pressure on your heart.
• Water transports nutrients around the body.
• Water allows our muscles to contract easily.
• Your brain needs water! Once you are 2% dehydrated your mental and physical performance is affected.
• Dehydration can be a cause of headaches. Don’t let it get that far.
• If you are exercising or working in the heat, insufficient fluid may lead to fatigue and nausea.
• Not drinking enough water can affect your saliva production and dental health.
• Dehydration can lead to kidney stones, saggy skin, urinary tract infections and also be a factor in other health issues.

How much water do you need? There is an equation which will give you an approximate indication. Multiply your scale weight by 0.034. So for a 70 kilo person that means 2.3 litres per day. Are you drinking enough water?

Lack of routine

A big issue that comes up with holidays is lack of routine. You know how it is. During the working week you eat your meals at similar times, you tend to make similar choices for many of your meals and snacks, you go to bed and get up at similar times and it all flows along nicely. Then, along comes the weekend or worse still, days or weeks of having no particular routine in your life and bingo it all falls to pieces.
If you are having a few weeks off work over the Christmas period – and you don’t want to whack on a few kilos of fat during that time, it’s probably a good idea to have a think about how you are going to handle the lack of routine.
Here are some suggestions for surviving the holiday period without excessive weight gain:

• Make a deal with yourself that you will do some kind of exercise at least four times a week. It’s not like you don’t have the time to whip out for a 45 minute run or walk!
• Aim to eat plenty of fresh, raw food. This is absolutely the easiest time of the year to prepare interesting salads. We are fortunate to have available a great array of fresh vegetables and most of them have a high water content, adding to your water intake.
• Use the BBQ if you have one. How easy is it to throw a piece of steak/chicken or fish on the BBQ. Make kebabs, grill vegetables, experiment with new ideas for cooking food on the BBQ. Maybe buy the man of the house a BBQ cookbook for Christmas and let him do the cooking.
• Ask now that family and friends don’t give you boxes of chocolates or other treats if you don’t want to be tempted by having them hanging around. If you do get given treats, then only open them when there are other people around to share them with. (remove your favourites first of course)
• If you are invited out, check to see whether there is a meal involved, or just nibbles and drinks. Check also if you can bring something. If it’s just nibbles and drinks, perhaps you can take a healthy platter. Click here www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/recipes/entertaining-platter to get some ideas. A “normal” nibbles platter can be a disaster. High fat cheeses, high fat crackers, high fat dips………oh the list goes on. If you are invited out for just nibbles and drinks, then eat something before you go and avoid the nibbles at your destination. There can be more calories in the nibbles than in your normal, healthy dinner!
• Don’t use a plate. If do you decide to indulge in the nibbles, then don’t use a plate. You will eat a lot less if you only have one thing available at a time. It’s too easy to try one of everything and load it onto your plate.
• Don’t stand by the buffet table. Get your food and move away – and stay away. Don’t go back for seconds. Eye up the offerings first, load up on salads and a moderate amount of cold meat and go easy on the bread and stodgy stuff.
• Decide before you go to the function how many alcoholic drinks you will have there – and stick to that limit. Be the sober driver, that way you have to keep your resolve and limit your intake.
• If you are unsure whether there will be non alcoholic drinks served take your own. Sparkling mineral water, soda water and diet drinks poured into a nice glass can all replace alcohol.
• Use low fat cream cheese, lite sour cream and lite Greek yoghurt instead of the full fat versions in your desserts. Buy lite ice cream instead of the full fat version.
• Pop seedless green grapes in your freezer and snack on them instead of lollies. They taste like sorbet and are very refreshing.
• Buy mini versions of Magnums etc and keep them in your freezer instead of the giant sized ones which come in at around 330-400 calories each.
• Freeze your own pots of lite yoghurt, for about 90 minutes or until just thickened and creamy, not hard. Delicious with berries.

Scary fact
A 420g box of chocolates contains around 2100 calories! It also contains the equivalent of approximately 195g of fat (over 1/3 of a packet of butter, eww) and 210g of sugar. That’s why when you wolf down that box of chocolates in a day you feel so ill!

If you blow it, despite best intentions and end up feeling like you have an alien glued to your tummy after the holidays, just move on and get back on track as soon as possible. Generally, the weight comes off pretty quickly once you get back into good habits, so don’t delay after New Year, book an appointment in with me now!

Remember: Planning and organisation will always be key to success. Failing to plan, is planning to fail. Don’t let that be you.

Devine Whey Powder
I’ve just got my last whey order in for the year so if you need whey before mid January let me know and I’ll put some aside for you to collect.

Another idea for a platter
Make crostini by cutting thin-ish slices of French stick and baking them until crisp. Cool then spread with this mixture.
125g each of lite sour cream and lite cream cheese mixed with ½ tsp lemon zest and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, some finely chopped dill and salt and black pepper. Top with small pieces of smoked salmon.

Holiday break
I’ll be working 9-6pm on Tuesday 20 and Wednesday 21 December and I will be available for a few hours on the 22nd if required. My first day back will be Saturday 7 January.

Special deal
Pay for two x 30 minute sessions between now and 21 December and receive a discounted 30 minute session in the New Year to set goals and get you back on track for 2012. Pay just $115 instead of $135 and lock yourself in for the New Year. The January session must be used by 19 January.

That’s it for the year, thank you for custom during the year and I wish you all a happy, healthy and safe holiday period.
Lynda

PS: Check out the recipes on my website if you are looking for inspiration www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/recipe-index

Recently I was making up some handouts to give to a client regarding the do’s and don’ts to help with elevated blood sugar and cholesterol. As I was doing so, I was thinking that really, nearly every common condition that doctors are medicating people for, whether it be high blood pressure, overweight, cardiovascular conditions, allergies, and often depression, really come back to what we put in our bodies and to our lifestyle.

What we eat, how much alcohol we drink, how often (if at all!) we exercise, how successfully we manage stress in our lives, our exposure to toxins – these all have an effect on our waistline, energy, mood, hormones and ultimately, our long term health.

Generally, conditions like insulin resistance, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, elevated blood sugar, etc take many years to manifest so it’s easy to carry on mistreating our bodies, not realising the damage we are doing. It might take 30 years of nutrient deficiency or incorrect lifestyle before a serious condition becomes apparent. Then, once it does, often there is no going back.

It makes sense to change your lifestyle before your health deteriorates and you are prescribed drugs that you may then have to take for the rest of your life.

Of course it is much easier to take a pill than to change your diet and lifestyle, but the problem with taking a pill is that nearly every prescribed drug has side effects. Of course there will be a pill to deal with the side effects as well, but how many pills do you want to be taking and the bottom line is that the pills aren’t actually curing the original problem, they are just suppressing the symptoms.

So, what are my recommendations for a healthy diet and lifestyle?

• Drink a good amount of water every day. Ideally have the juice of a lemon in warm water first thing in the morning to help cleanse your liver and alkalise your body.
• Exercise most days for at least 30 minutes. This helps regulate your blood sugar and insulin which is essential for fat loss. Exercise helps reduce stress and it makes you feel good!
• Have regular bowel movements. If you are constipated you are more likely to re-absorb toxins from the waste in your colon back into your bloodstream. These then go back to your liver for processing. If you have trouble with constipation, feel free to discuss it with me.
• Manage stress levels in your life. Exercise is very helpful for this and there are also some very good natural supplements which can help. Chronic, ongoing stress is damaging to every organ in your body, leading to many health issues.
• Eat protein regularly during the day. There are many reasons for this, but two of the most important I think are:
• a) When you combine protein with a carbohydrate food it helps prevent the spike in blood sugar that comes from eating carbohydrate on its own. Blood sugar spikes mean insulin spikes and insulin spikes mean fat gets stored rather than burnt as fuel. Who needs that?
• b) Protein is made up of amino acids. Amino acids are essential for the formation of hormones, for your immune system and they are responsible for all the growth, maintenance and repair jobs in your body. We need to eat protein regularly to give our body a constant supply of amino acids.
• Eat a high fibre diet. Yes I know I bang on about eating lots of fibrous vegetables, but they are a great source of fibre. Fibre has many benefits, from gut health, to, as with protein, it helps prevent blood sugar spikes when carbohydrate is digested.
  There are two types of fibre, soluble and insoluble and we need both. Soluble fibre (like that found in oats, grains and some veggies) helps move food through our gut as it absorbs moisture and forms a gel like substance. Insoluble fibre (like bran, seeds, nuts and some other veggies) doesn’t dissolve and it adds bulk to the content of our guts. Our good bowel bacteria feed on insoluble fibre. Both types of fibre help relieve constipation, along with plenty of fluid.
• Eat real food! That means unprocessed food in its natural state. Food without additives, preservatives and chemicals. Real, fresh food doesn’t need added colours, stabilisers, emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners.
• Drink alcohol in moderation only. Have at least two alcohol free days per week and on the other days, 2 standard drinks is the limit for women and 4 for men. Studies have consistently shown that alcohol is a contributing factor in breast cancer, bowel cancer and stomach and other cancers. Too much makes you fat. Alcohol is loaded with additives and preservatives. What else do I need to say? Drink in moderation for a healthy life.
• Eat at least two meals of fatty fish like fresh salmon or tuna per week or take essential fatty acids in supplement form daily. Essential fatty acids are just that–essential-and our bodies can’t manufacture them, unlike ordinary fat. The two main ‘ingredients’ in EFA’s are DHA and EPA. DHA is very important for brain health and EPA helps quell inflammation in the body. Canned fish is not as high a source of EFA as fresh fatty fish is.
• Have your Vitamin D level checked. Most New Zealanders are low in Vitamin D and correct levels are important to help prevent certain diseases and conditions, including depression.
• Have regular dental checkups. Bacteria in the mouth can travel via the bloodstream to your heart, with serious consequences.
• Get enough quality sleep.
• Reduce sugar, salt and white flour items.
• Drink green tea, at least 3 cups a day.
• Supplement where necessary.
• Lastly, make some ‘ME’ time. Whether it be for a walk, time to read a good book, a yoga class, time spent relaxing with good friends, or a soak in the bath with the door locked.

That list is by no means exhaustive, but if you apply most of those principles, most of the time, you are doing a lot to help yourself head off disease later in life.

November is 5+ a day month. Only 41% of adult New Zealanders meet the recommended daily intake according to a 2010 poll by Colmar Brunton. If you have a serving of fruit with your breakfast, 2 cups of veggies with your lunch and another two with your dinner, plus another piece of fruit during the day, that equates to 10 servings of fruit and veggies a day. That amount has been shown to reduce the rate of cancer, strokes and other diseases so load up your fridge today!

Asparagus contains fibre and this is the time of year to enjoy it. Try cooking some very lightly (very lightly) and then plunging it into cold water to cool it quickly. It retains its green colour and its crunch and is perfect for topping off salads. I also like lightly cooked, hot asparagus with a blob of plain low fat yoghurt on top.

As I mentioned, fresh salmon is a great source of essential fatty acids, but because it is high in fat, it is also higher in energy (calories), so a smaller serve is appropriate. The same applies to smoked salmon; it is high in energy so a small amount is sufficient and best kept as a treat. A really nice platter idea is to serve rounds of cucumber topped with light cream cheese and a very small piece of smoked salmon.

One of the most common ‘comments’ I get is “I’m sick of salads”. But you know what, eating salads works great for fat loss. The key is to keep them interesting with different textures and colours. Don’t just throw a lettuce leaf, a tomato and a chunk of cucumber into your lunchbox that IS boring. Make the effort to put together a great salad, it only takes 5 minutes and if you do it when you are making dinner the night before, it’s all done for the morning.

Here are some suggestions: Assorted greens (lettuce, baby spinach, rocket, herbs), cucumber, capsicum (red are the sweetest), cherry or vine tomatoes, red onion finely sliced or diced, grated carrot, raw baby mushrooms, lightly cooked asparagus, chickpea sprouts, sango sprouts and other sprouts. Mix it up and keep it interesting.

If you always have protein on hand you can then make your lunch or dinner in less than 10 minutes. Easy protein choices could be ham, hard boiled eggs, a can of salmon or tuna, or lite cottage cheese. If you are late home or can’t be bothered cooking, all you need to do is throw together a salad and grab a protein item. It is much easier and quicker than driving to a takeaway joint. And, you will feel a lot better afterwards.

Bits and Pieces

Xmas Shopping

Kristin School on the Old Albany Highway have opened their annual gift store. It is open from 28 October until 2 December and it has loads of wonderful gift ideas in store. Festive foods including preserves, oils, dressings, naughty treats (allowed at Xmas!), as well as homeware and tableware. They can even arrange gift baskets for you. On Wednesdays they have high tea from 1.30pm to 3pm at a cost of $35.00 per person. http://www.kristin.school.nz

Interior Designer

If you are looking for help with interior design, from choosing paint colours, furniture, kitchens, bathrooms, etc to fabulous ideas for smartening up your home without breaking the bank, then I can highly recommend Wendy Goode of Goode Interiors. Wendy can help with just about anything to do with your home and I was blown away with her suggestions. www.goodeinteriors.co.nz

Free 15 minute appointments for your friends and family

If you know someone who has been considering seeing me, but hasn’t quite decided, they are welcome to take advantage of my offer of a 15 minute appointment to see if they think I can help them. Just ask them to call or email me.

6 Week Drop a Dress Size Challenge and go into the draw to win a dress for Christmas!

If you or a friend are interested in this, check it out here:

http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e53sn8mb07c3237d

If both you and a friend enter, then you both receive free nutrition and exercise sessions in the New Year to get you back on track.

Recipes

New recipes on my website this month are:

• Smoked Salmon, crispy potato slices, eggs and asparagus dish
• Creamy chicken
• Satay chicken
• Chicken + cashew stir fry
• Honey marinated beef skewers

Remember, if you are invited to a BBQ, check out my Entertaining Platter recipe on the website. Follow this link to the recipes:

http://www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/recipe-index/

That’s about it for now. I’d love to know how you get on with putting in place my principles for a healthy life. Remember, you don’t have to be perfect, but if you adopt most of the principles, most of the time, you will reap the rewards of fat loss, increased energy, better mood and long term, a healthier life.

If you have any questions about the items in my newsletter, feel free to bring them up next time you are in.

With just 55 sleeps until Christmas the weeks are flying by. Remember that the keys to managing a healthy lifestyle are organisation and planning. The old saying of ‘failure to plan is planning to fail’ is so true.

Kind regards

Lynda

Has the RWC thrown your best intentions of eating well over the weekends out of the window? Well, you are not alone judging from what I’ve spied in supermarket trolleys over the past few Fridays and from what clients are telling me.

Entertaining and socialising can weaken the strongest resolve and with so many weekends of events coming up it can make a big dent in your fat loss endeavours.

With Christmas now a mere 12 ½ weeks away and with Christmas functions starting earlier every year, there isn’t a great deal of time left to drop those extra kilos before the silly season starts. It’s time to get serious now, if you want to be swimsuit ready by Christmas. Those extra kilos of fat won’t disappear by wishful thinking, but you can say goodbye to them if you are prepared to put in the effort to eat well and exercise regularly.

It is vitally important not to give up at the first hurdle when you start with a weight loss programme. Persistence, not perfection will get you there. There will always be special occasions that make sticking to your plan challenging, but just do your best, choose the best option there is and move on. If you regularly let your weekends slide with extra alcohol, high calorie food and little exercise, you can’t expect to make progress.

Something interesting I read the other day in respect of our growing obesity problem in New Zealand is that if we look back at our grandparent’s photo albums there weren’t too many overweight people in the photos. Children, teenagers and adults were pretty much of a healthy weight and if you did spot an overweight person, they were the exception. Why was that? It certainly wasn’t because our grandparents were hitting the gym five times a week, or training for half marathons, in fact, how many of our grandparents actually did partake of regular, formal exercise? Not many from what I recall.

So, if it wasn’t the exercise, what was it that kept them slim? The food they ate and the amount of it they ate, combined with more incidental exercise from having less labour saving devices. They stayed slim because they were more physically active during the day, but they also didn’t have access to the huge range of foods that we do today, including all the processed foods and takeaways and in general they didn’t eat out, unless it was at friends’ houses. There weren’t any food courts or takeaway coffees in those days!

How things have changed. But are we better off for it? Probably not if the figures released last week are anything to go by. The shocking statistics, taken from 2009, are that 40.7% of New Zealand men are classified as obese (with a BMI higher than 30) and 48.1% of New Zealand women are obese. That is obese, not overweight. The Health Ministry commissioned survey found that 65% of us are overweight or obese. 65%!! To quote Heart Foundation’s Professor Norman Sharpe “New Zealand is in the grip of a global obesity epidemic, the future costs of which will be enormous and potentially unaffordable for the health system.”

Overweight and obesity leads to so many health conditions, not only the well known heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and cancers, but also to things like worn out joints and depression. There is no way that our public health system can possibly cover the cost of treating the huge numbers of potential patients needing hip and knee replacements, kidney dialysis, cancer treatments, etc. Already obesity is the cause of many hospital beds being occupied by patients who ate themselves into illness.

I recently watched a documentary where a 40 year old woman had a BMI of 126. I’ve never heard of anyone with a BMI that high. Normal BMI is 19-24.9, overweight is 25-29.9 and obese is over 30. If you want to calculate your BMI check it out here: http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ You need to know your height in feet and inches and your weight in pounds. To convert kilos to pounds, multiply your weight in kilos by 2.2.

We are literally digging our graves with our knives and forks. Remember, if you are 35 years of age now and you gain a mere one kilo of fat per year, by the time you are 50 years old, you will have accumulated another 15 kilos of fat. Excess fat around the abdominal area combined with inactivity are the two main risk factors for developing type 2 diabetes.

Behind every four premature deaths in developing countries you’ll find diabetes, with cardiovascular disease the most common complication. Diabetes is also the leading cause of blindness, disease-related amputations and chronic kidney failure. Sadly it doesn’t stop there. Diabetes and obesity are associated with a greater risk for several cancers, osteoarthritis, migraines, psoriasis, asthma, and other inflammatory diseases. In addition, far more people with diabetes develop depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

One of the most alarming features of diabetes is that for every person diagnosed with diabetes, another person has the disease but doesn’t know it. It’s mainly the rise in cases of type-2 diabetes that is fuelling the epidemic. This used to affect mostly people over 60, but increasingly it affects younger people. The thing is that Type-2 diabetes is generally a direct consequence of diet and lifestyle and it can be prevented in most cases with the right diet, regular exercise and stress management. Isn’t that the case with so many health issues – if we ate better and took regular exercise we would feel better, look better, perform better and live longer, happier and more productive lives. Don’t become a statistic.

The Last Two Kilos

Sometimes the last two kilos can be the hardest to lose. Why is that? It’s often because by the time you get down to the last two kilos you are feeling pretty good about yourself, your clothes fit, your motivation is waning and you become a bit complacent about dropping any more fat.

Whereas before you would have said No to treats, you now say Yes. Where before you were measuring your portions, planning your meals, keeping a diary and living it’, you aren’t so focused now and have less motivation to keep up with the good habits. Those two kilos can still be lost, but you have to re-harness your focus and pay attention to detail again. If you do mean business, and you do want to drop those last few kilos before Christmas, then think about taking up my spring special offer of an initial half hour appointment + 5 x 15 minute weekly appointments for $170.

Protein Bars

As you know, I am no longer able to buy in the FX Lo Carb bars, but a really nice bar that I would recommend are the Carbrite bars. You can buy these from NZ Muscle on Constellation Drive, Mairangi Bay. Carbrites come in a good selection of flavours and contain no artificial sweeteners, no trans fats or preservatives and are gluten free. Probably the most popular flavour is the toasted coconut (like a Toastie bar), but the chocolate mint and chocolate are my favourite flavours. NZ Muscle have given me some $5 vouchers to give my clients who wish to buy boxes of bars (or you can use the voucher on any of their products), just ask. www.nzmuscle.co.nz

Cafe with healthy options on the menu

How many times do you walk into a cafe and look at the menu and think “there’s nothing here that I can eat”? Well, now there is a local cafe offering healthy options on their menu. Altura Cafe & Roastery at 23 Douglas Alexander Parade in Albany have included a yummy, weight-wise chicken salad and also a lite omelette option in their new spring menu. www.alturacoffee.co.nz

Travelling somewhere?

I can highly recommend Amanda MacLeod of The Travel Brokers http://www.thetravelbrokers.co.nz/main.asp?broker=amandamacleod if you would like help with planning a trip, organising accommodation, transport or need advice on any aspect of travel. Amanda takes the hassle out of it for you and is mobile, so she can meet you at your home, business or a cafe if preferred. She is accessible 24/7, researches the best solution for you and has 27 years experience.

From the Kitchen

This month’s new recipes are on my website and are:

• Entertaining platter
• Simple vegetarian pizza
• Chocolate orange mousse (with mocha option)

The mousse is delicious and is low fat, low sugar and takes only a few minutes to make. Find the recipes here: http://www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/recipe-index/

Summer Wrap Ideas

Now that iceberg lettuce are back in season and almost affordable (!), try washing a large leaf, drying it, then using it as a wrap for a protein and salad filling. Add some chutney or dressing and a few cubes of feta and you have a delicious wrap.

Egg wrap. Beat up two eggs with a little salt and black pepper then pour the mixture into a heated, non stick pan. It will cook within a couple of minutes, no need to turn it over. Remove from the pan, cool, add a salad filling (the wrap is your protein) and roll up.

The take home message from this newsletter is that it will be Christmas before you know it, so don’t let social occasions and weekends throw you off track, keep your goal in mind and stay focused. The rewards are so worth it!

Lynda

If you’ve been hibernating over winter and come to a standstill with fat loss, or if you’ve been meaning to get around to ‘starting again’ with your healthy eating habits, now is the time to make the commitment to get back on track.  It’s all too easy to keep thinking “I’ll start next Monday”, but before you know it, Monday has been and gone, along with your good intentions!

Sign up now for my Spring 6 week accountability special.  Many clients tell me that they need accountability to keep them on track.  They think they can do it on their own, but without someone to check in with regularly, they just don’t make progress.  If this sounds like you, and you are ready to roll again, let’s get started.

The 6 week package includes a 30 minute nutrition consultation where we will do a measure up, re-set goals and write up a new plan, plus 5 x weekly 15 minute appointments to keep you on track to meet those goals.

The deal is that you book and pay for the six week special in either one or two payments and then you are committed to those appointments.  Tough love to drop those kilos before swimsuit weather arrives.   Are you ready to get serious and re-focused on meeting targets again?  The cost for the 6 week special is just $170.00.  Contact me now to get started!

Don’t be embarrassed to come back if you have fallen off the wagon.  Lately I’ve caught up with several clients I hadn’t seen for a while and they all said that they were waiting to lose weight before coming back to see me, but realised it just wasn’t going to happen on their own.  Does that sound like you?

Have you noticed that quite a few chemist stores are promoting various meal replacement diets?  These usually consist of shake sachets, soup sachets and bars.  These VLCD (very low calorie diets) are often fronted by someone who has lost a large amount of weight very quickly.  And you will, if you can live off soups, drink powder sachets and bars every day, because these diets often come in at under 1000 calories per day.  Starvation level.

The problem is that these diets do nothing to teach you about keeping the weight off.  About how much to eat, when to eat it and all the other the factors that are important in not only losing weight, but in learning to keep it off.  No one size fits all.  We each have our own likes and dislikes – and issues around food.  Simply cutting back to starvation level does nothing to address these.  What does work is an individualised plan and regular appointments to help work through problems as they occur.  There simply is no magic bullet or quick fix.

When we think of spring, we think of renewal, new leaves on the trees, new baby lambs, maybe some spring cleaning at home and attending to jobs we didn’t get around to over winter.  What about our bodies?  How about a spring clean for them?

Optimal digestive and liver health are essential for healthy bodies.  Yes, we are what we eat, but we are also what we absorb.   Without optimal digestive health we may not be absorbing the nutrients from our food and if we aren’t absorbing them, then we can’t receive the benefits of them.  If you suffer from excessive gas or bloating, constipation or hormonal issues, then it’s time to look at optimising the health of your liver and digestive organs.

When it comes to digestion, let’s start at the top with a few tips that need little explanation.  Eat slowly.  Chew your food well.  Don’t bolt your food.  Pay attention to your food as you eat it.  Eat mindfully.  Only eat sitting down and not while watching TV, reading or working on the computer.  Don’t eat large amounts at once – it’s like putting two loads of washing in the washing machine if you eat large amounts of food and it’s unrealistic to expect your body to digest it efficiently.

Your liver is your second largest organ (after your skin) and it performs many vital functions, including detoxification of every substance that goes in or on your body.  Sadly all too often it gets abused with excess alcohol, caffeine, toxins from the environment and from what we put in our mouth and on our skin.

Carrying excess fat around the abdominal area and eating and drinking the wrong kinds of thing can lead to a fatty liver.  If you imagine your liver as a big sieve, and that everything you ingest eventually goes through it (via your bloodstream), then imagine what happens when the sieve gets clogged with fat?  It can’t function properly!

You don’t have to do any fancy de-tox programmes to improve your liver health, but you do need to provide it with the right nutritional and lifestyle support.  It always comes back to basics, plenty of fresh, clean water, ‘real’ food, regular exercise and moderation of things like caffeine and alcohol.

I can’t emphasise enough how detrimental it is to your liver to over indulge in alcohol.  Remember, the ‘safe’ daily limit is two standard drinks for women (as in 2 x 100mls of wine) and 4 standard drinks for men – with two alcohol free days each week.  Humans were never designed to be drinking alcohol every day and in the amounts it is now consumed.  Keep in mind that your liver is also your biggest fat burning organ and you want it in tip top shape.

For your liver to carry out its detoxification processes, it requires the right nutrients, especially amino acids.  Amino acids are what make up proteins, so regular intake of low fat protein is essential for liver health, as is a good intake of fresh vegetables and fruit.  Lemons are plentiful at this time of year and a great liver cleanser is a glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice in warm water first thing in the morning.

Fresh, leafy green vegetables are essential for our bodies for so many reasons.  They provide minerals and fibre, help make our blood more alkaline and have been shown to help prevent bowel cancer too.  Remember, our bodies are made from what we eat, so if you put poor quality, nutrient lacking foods into your body, then that is the raw material with which it has to use to replicate all its cells, manufacture hormones, build an effective immune system, as well as carry out many, many other functions that are happening within us constantly.

Can you really expect to have a strong, healthy body if year after year you don’t provide it with the right building materials?

Water, water, are you drinking yours?

If the taste of ‘plain water’ puts you off drinking it, try one of these options:

• Float lemon, lime or orange slices in a jug of water in the fridge and fill your water bottle from it.
• Place a piece of fresh, unpeeled ginger (about the size of your thumbnail) in a heatproof container and poor boiling water over it. Cool in the fridge and use to top up your water bottle for a refreshing ginger flavour
• Squeeze the juice of a lemon or lime into your water bottle and chill

Off the Shelves

Foodtown and Countdown have their own FreshLite brand of dried fruits and nuts, some of which come in a packet of 5 x 40g bags.  The Invigorate Mix is a very nice blend of walnuts, cashews, peanuts, almonds and dried fruit and is useful to throw into your glovebox or handbag for a snack on the run.  They contain around 165 calories per 40g bag.

An easy, healthy snack for kids could be an Annies Veggies and Apple fruit leather bar.  They are normally found in the fruit and veggie section of the supermarkets and contain two strips of fruit and vegetable leather.  Just ensure the kids rinse their mouth out with a swig of water after eating the leather as it may stick to their teeth.

Website Links

As you probably know by now, my website has been updated and all my recipes are on there.

This month another batch of recipes has been added, including two sweet ones plus the following meals:

• Kumara and cottage cheese lunch
• Vegetarian Sloppy Joes
• Beef Burgers
• Smoked Chicken and Roast vegetable dish
• Felafels

To save my newsletters from becoming too long, future recipes will be added to the website and I will advise you what has been added.

To check out the recipes, follow this link:

http://www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/recipe-index/ recipes are in alphabetical order

I’ve also loaded more tips on my tips page; go here to check them out:

http://www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/weight-loss-tips-and-healthy-eating-guidelines/

The tips are added in chronological order, so new ones appear first.

More testimonials have also been added, check them out here:

http://www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/testimonials/

Lael is very proud of having lost 13 kilos to date and really looking forward to her upcoming overseas holiday.

Sally’s Fitness Tip for September www.fitnessfix.co.nz

Find an Exercise Buddy

If you are new to exercise it is a great idea to find a buddy to work out with.  If you make a commitment to a friend you are much more likely to exercise.  It is also a great way to be social at the same time as getting some exercise in.

Now that spring is in the air why don’t you find a friend who you can meet 2–3 times per week for a walk.  My tip is to vary your walk each time and try to add some hills so that you get a good cardio workout.  Make sure that you walk as fast as you talk so that you can maximize your workout effectiveness!

Odds and Ends

Online Supplement Company

I highly recommend Healthpost as a great company to order your supplements from.  They have a huge selection of brands, great prices and superfast delivery.  They also have articles on various conditions on their website and are very quick to respond if you have any queries.  Check them out here:  www.healthpost.co.nz

Are you a knitter?

Every winter many South Auckland babies and children are admitted to Kidz First Children’s Hospital with respiratory illnesses. As part of an initiative by the South Auckland Health Foundation teams of ladies are knitting baby clothing and baby beanies and desperately need donations of knitting yarn, any colour, wool or acrylic, double knit, 4ply and 3ply.  If you are able to help with knitting or with donations of wool please contact Bronwyn on 0274286797 or email delaceys@clear.net.nz.  Guidelines and the baby beanie pattern are available on http://www.sahf.org.nz/?id=305.   I decided to dust off my knitting needles and am really enjoying beanie making.  It would have been a lot easier though without the ‘help’ of Simba who, before I had even finished casting on, bit through the wool and took off with it wrapped around his legs!

Do you know of someone who is interesting getting into business for themself?

Remember the Spring 6 Week Special if you are ready to get back on track and want to benefit from weekly appointments at a great price.  Call me now to set up an appointment time.

Lynda

However, it is now August and that does mean it is only five weeks until spring officially starts. Already the days are lengthening and when we do have a fine day, we are reminded that before long we will be peeling off a couple of layers and exposing a possibly less streamlined shape than we would have liked.

If you have accumulated a few bulges around your waist over winter, don’t wait any longer to take action, because the sad news is that those muffin tops will not disappear of their own accord. In fact, left alone, they seem to gather momentum and spill even further over the top of your jeans!

What is the first step? To have a goal! Whether it is a fat loss goal, a clothes fit goal or a couple of habit change goals, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you take positive action now. It might be something as simple as your deciding not to drink alcohol for two weeks. (maybe that doesn’t sound too simple to some of you!) Or you might have a goal of losing two kilos of fat by the end of August. Your goal might be to buy a pedometer and do 10,000 steps a day. If you have been hiding from me for a while, your goal might be to come back in this week and let me help you re-set goals and write you a new food plan. Whatever your goal, write it down and make a start today.

Often when you make a commitment to re-establish one good habit, by default you tend to pull other habits into line too. It is generally never one thing in isolation that makes us gain fat, it is a combination of a few things that add up over time. The main culprits are increasing portion sizes, decreasing exercise and picking between meals and snacks, especially late afternoon and after dinner.

This is a great time of year to get your workmates onboard and inspired to shape up for spring too. Maybe you can organise a biggest loser type competition at work or organise lunchtime power walks. Have a ban on office shouts, birthday baking or other dangerous activities? If there are enough of you interested.

Sometimes we just need to make more of an effort and yes, toughen up. Stop looking for reasons as to why you can’t do something and instead look for ways that you can. If you really want it, you will make it happen. It might take a few false starts, but hang in there and persevere. Don’t give up when you have a bad day? – just move on and make the next day a great one.

There are so many studies that show keeping to a healthy weight and exercising regularly can help prevent bowel cancer, breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease and many other conditions which seriously impact on enjoyment of life. Eat well and exercise regularly now to help prevent health issues later in life.

For recipe ideas, check out my updated website: www.nutritionforlife.co.nz

Protein

Protein is responsible for all the growth, maintenance and repair jobs that your body is constantly carrying out, so it makes sense that your body needs a regular supply. Unlike fat and carbohydrate, we don’t have storage depots? For protein on our bodies so we need to eat protein throughout the day.

Just one of the good things about protein is that it has a high thermic effect? Meaning that some of the energy in each gram of protein is wasted as heat during the process of digestion and metabolism. The thermic effect of nutrients is approximately 2–3 % for fat, 6–8 % for carbohydrates, and 25–30% for proteins. What that means is that about 25-30% of the energy (calories) contained in protein foods is burnt off during digestion. Protein is also more satiating than carbohydrates or fat, meaning you stay full for longer after eating protein.

Including protein with each meal and snack also slows down the rate at which blood glucose levels rise after meals. Spikes in blood glucose levels lead to elevated insulin levels, which in turn means fat burning stops! To stay in the fat burning zone you need to have steady levels of glucose and insulin.

Protein doesn’t have to mean meat, it can be low fat dairy like yoghurt, cottage cheese and milk, or nuts, nut butter, whey shakes, protein bars and other enjoyable foods.

Fat – we need it!

While fat does contain more than twice the energy of carbohydrates and proteins, gram for gram, we do need fat in our diet to stay healthy. It is the type of fat which is important and of course how much we consume.

Fats such as the essential omega-3 fatty acids found in krill and fish oils actually help your body burn fat, fight inflammation, prevent mood swings and keep your hair and skin healthy.

Our body needs fat to burn fat and the healthiest type of fat is obtained from deep water fatty fish such as salmon and tuna. Unfortunately, tinned fish has quite a bit of the good oil drained from it, but it is still a source of omega-3 fat. Supplementing with omega-3 capsules is an easy way to obtain your good fats if you aren’t eating fresh fish 2-3 times a week, which most people don’t. You can also use a vegetarian form of essential fatty acid, such as flax oil, as a dressing on your salads or as an extra in your smoothies.

Did you know that belly fat is a strong predictor of heart disease? It is, and it’s hardly breaking news. This finding was first reported by the British Medical Journal back in 1984.

In the study, researchers measured a surrogate marker for belly fat known as the waist-hip-ratio or WHR, and this is what they concluded: “results indicate that in middle aged men the distribution of fat deposits may be a better predictor of cardiovascular disease and death than the degree of adiposity [fat].”1 In short, it’s not about the amount of fat, but where it’s found that leads to trouble.

www.nutritionforlife.co.nz

So just as the type of fat you eat is important, where you carry it on your body is also important. Fat deposits in the abdominal area especially release inflammatory chemicals which can lead to heart disease, insulin resistance and diabetes. Fat stored around the organs is called visceral fat and it is this type of fat which is the most dangerous. You can measure your own waist to hip ratio by grabbing a tape measure and measuring your waist (at the narrowest part) and your hips, widest part.

Here is a link to a WHR calculator: http://www.healthyforms.com/helpful-tools/ and it also gives the healthy range of WHR.

Protein Bars

Sadly, my supply of the Lo Carb Fx protein bars has run out and they are no longer available in NZ. Probably the closest in texture and flavour is the Carbless range (blue wrapper) from the supermarket. The best value protein bars are the HPLC bars. Half a bar = a serving as they are big bars. Try the Chocolate Crunch flavour. These are available in most supermarkets too.

Off the Shelves

Kelloggs All-Bran Apple flavoured Crunch is a nice crunchy high fibre cereal which is new on the shelves. A ¾ cup serving contains 6.8g of fibre and around 160 calories.

Soup: Good Taste Smoked Fish & Wine chowder found in a bag in the chilled section of your supermarket.

Lemons are in season now so make the most of them. Try microwaving a whole lemon (or other citrus fruit) for a few seconds to get more juice out of them. Plain old lemon juice makes a nice dressing on salad.

Instead of eating until you are full, try eating slowly, until you are no longer hungry. The difference in energy between the two could add up to a couple of kilos of fat per year.

Fitness Tip from Sally of Fitness Fix www.fitnessfix.co.nz

People who exercised during their workday were 23 per cent more productive on those days than on a non-workout day, says a recent study from the International Journal of Workplace Health Management. With a good cardio workout your circulation increases, which fills you with energy, and your thinking becomes sharper and clearer. So next time you get writer’s block and you can’t see the weeds from the trees get outside and fill your lungs with fresh air.

Yummy Mash with a difference

Mash kumara (no butter or milk added) then add stewed apple + Dijon mustard. One stewed apple added to enough mashed kumara to serve 4 people. Delicious!

It’s still soup weather so I’ve made up a hearty chicken soup recipe to keep you warm. Leftovers are great for lunch the next day.

Hearty Chicken Soup – serves 6

• 500g cooked chicken, chopped
• 2 medium onions, sliced
• 2 large carrots, diced
• Few sticks of celery, chopped
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 1 litre of chicken stock
• 1 packet of Maggi Creme of Chicken Soup
• 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
• 3 cups water
• Black pepper and salt to taste

In a sprayed, large non stick pan sauté onions, carrots and celery until tender. Add rest of ingredients, bring to the boil and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Serve with 2 Corn Thins broken into the soup, they make great croutons!

Chicken is such a versatile protein, there are endless ways to use it. The next recipe has a few options, but there are many other ways of filling the chicken too.

Filled Chicken ‘Rolls’

150g chicken breast per person.

Place the chicken between two layers of baking paper and using a meat mallet or similar beat out chicken until schnitzel thickness, then use one of the fillings below.

Filling #1 (serves 1)

Mix 1tbs Extra Light Philadelphia cream cheese with 2 well drained, chopped, sun dried tomatoes and spread on one half of the chicken. Roll up firmly, tucking the sides in too.

Filling #2 (serves 1)

Mix 1 tbs Extra Light Philadelphia cream cheese with 2 diced dried apricots then spread on chicken as above and roll up.

Filling # 3 (serves 1)

Spread chicken with ½ teaspoon of pesto, then sprinkle with 1 level dessertspoon of grated parmesan. Roll up as above.

Line a baking dish with baking paper then place rolled breasts, seam side down in the dish. Bake at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until cooked through. You don’t want to overcook them or they will be dry.

The recipes in my newsletters will be added to my website regularly, so check in at http://www.nutritionforlife.co.nz/recipes/ for easy, healthy meal ideas.

That’s it for now, remember, if you have gained a muffin top over winter, call me now and let’s put a plan in place to get rid of it.

Lynda