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Tag: dieting

BEST PROTEIN SOURCES for meat eaters and vegetarians

Protein helps you stay fuller for longer - it is the macronutrient with the highest satiety factor (over carbohydrates or fats). Protein also, very importantly, helps build and maintain lean muscle mass in your body, which is super important in keeping your metabolism high throughout your life, and helps in building and maintaining a lean body that burns fat effectively.

To oversimplify, if you are currently inactive, make sure you get an absolute minimum of one gram of protein per every kilogram of bodyweight, every day. So if you weigh 80 kg, you should aim to get at least 80 grams of protein daily. You can track your protein intake easily with an app like MyFitnessPal (by going to the nutrition section in your food diary).

 

Here's a simple list of the best protein sources:

  • Poultry (chicken, turkey...)
  • Red meat (beef, pork, lamb...)
  • Seafood (tuna, salmon, mackerel, prawns, scallops...)
  • Eggs
  • Dairy (yoghurt, cottage cheese, fromage frais, milk, cheese...)
  • Whey protein powder (not necessary, but great if you struggle to get enough protein in)

And if you're a vegetarian, here are the best foods to help with your daily protein intake:

  • Beans (kidney, chickpeas/hummus, haricot...)
  • Legumes (lentils, peas, peanut butter...)
  • Nuts (walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, cashews...)
  • Seeds (sunflower, flax, pumpkin, hemp...)
  • Milk alternatives (almond/cashew/hazelnut/soya/rice drinks etc. ...)
  • Soy/tofu
  • Whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, oats, bread...)
  • Veggies (peas, broccoli, spinach, kale etc. ...)
  • Protein powder  (hemp protein/pea protein/rice protein etc. ...)

For optimal health and best results from any training you do, try to include a source of protein with every meal you have.

 

Good luck, and make sure to join The 10 Minute Body team on Facebook where you can ask nutrition and exercise related questions.

/Erika

My 5 top tips for building a healthier diet

I did personalised calorie & protein calculations for a young lady recently. She started using MyFitnessPal, and despite hitting her fat loss eating targets she's struggling to know where to start in terms of building a healthier, more sustainable overall diet instead of eating crap within her allowances. Both will make you lose weight, but of course it's better to focus on good quality nutrition to keep your body healthy and mind sharp. Now I know it's much more media attractive to promote a simple unsustainable shitty juice diet than make BALANCE an attractive idea. If you've done several diets in the past, you're used to being given specific rules on how to eat for a short period of time. Unfortunately, this is very rarely sustainable and the cold truth is that if you want to lose weight and keep it off for good, you have to work on finding your own balance with nutrition. A professional can help you build up good basics, but you must do the hard work of integrating the new habits into your lifestyle yourself.

Here's my top 5 tips on how to make the process as painless as possible:

  1. Eat only when you're hungry. Wait for it, and then really enjoy your food. Always have a healthy snack handy though (fruit/nuts/natural yoghurt/even just a glass of water), because the time when you're most likely to make bad choices with nutrition is towards the end of the day when you're tired and hungry. Kill off the biggest hunger whilst you're making a quick healthy meal.
  2. Focus on colours. The more colours you have in your diet, the more vitamins your body gets from the food you eat. Now obviously this doesn't include artificial colourings. Stock up on different coloured veg to get up to a great start, or have a side salad with your meal. If you're not a huge fan on veg, just chop it up small to hide it in great traditional dishes like spaghetti bolognese or various oven bakes. I tend to throw in onion, garlic, peppers, grated carrots and even celery for a great tasting, authentic spag bol.
  3. Eat from a small plate. This has all to do with your brain - research shows that if you eat the same amount of food from a small plate versus a larger plate, you'll be full sooner eating from the smaller plate. This is because your brain  will perceive that you've had more food  when you've finished off a full plate. If you're genuinely still hungry after finishing it, feel free to top up. Another related tip that can work wonders is to eat with a smaller fork, or even just a teaspoon.
  4. Focus on the positives. There are no foods you can't have if you're trying to lose weight. Your brain is very bad at processing negatives - if you tell yourself you "can't have chocolate", all your brain hears is "have chocolate". Traditional dieting - where you're only allowed certain types of foods - and not allowed others, is based on a deprivation mindset. This won't help you build long lasting habits. To build a sustainable healthy diet, you are in fact allowed anything you want, but you should learn to not want a lot of it. Just think about the reasons of why you want to eat it. To successfully maintain your dream weight, your diet should consist 80-90% of real foods and 10-20% of treats (this can be readily processed foods, chocolate, alcohol... whatever you fancy). When your overall diet is based on real, nutritious food, you'll feel fantastic and full of energy... So why would you want to ruin it with tons of junk? Remember, the first bite of your favourite foods/treats is always lovely.... And the experience doesn't increase on the 10th mouthful. You can learn to just have a bite of chocolate, not the whole bar at once.
  5. Balance out your macros. Try to find a balance with having all three types of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) in good proportion with every meal. Fats are highest in calories, so although you need fats to be healthy, you also want to be careful not to over consume them. For portion control, take a handful (not more) of carbs with each meal (that's pasta/rice/potatoes...) and limit added fats to a minimum. You'll get enough fats pretty much with any diet, so focus on foods that contain great quality fats like avocado or salmon. Also, a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil a day has great health benefits, so you can make sure to top your side salad with that every day. Processed fats (transfats) are the worst and super unhealthy, as these are produced in factories just to make your processed food palatable. Most importantly, try to make sure to have protein (meat, dairy, eggs...) with every single meal of the day and you're off to a great start - it's also the macronutrient with the highest satiety factor, i.e. it'll make you feel full for the longest.

I hope these tips will help you build a healthier, sustainable diet that'll get you the body you deserve. Maybe you can share it with a friend to help them out too.

Peace out, love yourselves.

Erika xx

How to lose weight without dieting

Dieting... Such a nasty word.

Let's make a clear distinction here at first. Being on a diet is bad. Having a balanced diet is good.

Dieting translates to deprivation, forbidden foods and ultimately failure. I mean I would hate to live my life if I wasn't allowed chocolate or red wine! Scientific research has shown over and over again that it is very rare for people to go on a diet and be able to keep the weight off afterwards. And basically this is just because on a diet you're not eating like you normally would. You're not learning to build new habits, because your dieting guidelines are so strict your brain doesn't want to focus on yet another complication.

Instead, having a balanced diet means you've learned to control your weight, no matter what you eat. You've learned to recognise when you're hungry. You have learned to stop eating when you're satisfied instead of stuffing yourself. You've learned that having a bite of chocolate feels good (now and afterwards), whereas having masses of chocolate makes you only feel good in that exact moment it's in your mouth, but then you'll feel shit about it afterwards (both mentally and physically).

What people should realise more often is that as human beings we are on top of the food chain. We are a species who don't struggle to access food. Our ancient mammalian brain does in fact love sugar and fat, but that's just residue from the times when food was scarce and someone would actually have to go out there to gather & hunt for it. We rarely crave cucumbers (although I do :D), and that's because it's low in calories and therefore doesn't provide a lot of energy. A cucumber doesn't make you sprint faster, whereas a sugar glazed doughnut does. (But we know that's not the best option as it spikes up blood sugar levels way too quickly and makes you crash - i.e. feel like shit)

What's good news is that we also have the brain capacity to affect how we think. Understanding that you don't need to obey your mammalian brain is a great start. You can ultimately be in control of what you desire. Reshaping your food and drink preferences can take time, but it certainly is doable. Just because my mouth is watering when I see a stack of ribs and a pint of coke doesn't mean it's the best option for me. Instead, I can learn to be a bit more long-sighted and appreciate the flavour of spiced steamed veg, some succulent chicken breast and Mexican spiced rice. And why I love it is how it makes me feel afterwards. (The danger in ribs and coke comes with the ratio of sugar and fat it has in - and that makes it very hard for your brain to even let you know you're full so you are much more likely to over eat)

If you want to learn to control your weight, you need to start shifting your mindset. Dieting is deprivation, whereas building habits for a better diet helps you enjoy life to the max and achieve your dream weight.

A kickstart is sometimes a nice way to reset your mind and body, but you need to also think about how you're going to change your habits/lifestyle so you can control your weight better afterwards.

And remember, you can lose weight eating Mars bars and drinking coke. But you'll also be feeling like shit all the time.

OR you can eat a shit ton of veg, turkey, quinoa and salads and have people tell you they wish they 'have your metabolism' cos you're eating all the time.

But the best possible way to maintaining your dream weight forever is to just get the balance right. Have various colours in your diet (not the artificial ones though...) and then have a treat when you want it.

If you want to foolproof your success with flexible dieting and logging your foods, just get in touch and I'll help you out. That way you can know you're not overeating, and therefore never putting on weight. No matter what you eat. But first... Get the basics right. Remember that you are in control, not ancient part of you brain.

Lots of love,

Erika

The secret behind EVERY successful diet

Low carb, 5:2, the alkaline and blood type diet, bullshit “detoxes & cleanses” (Forever, Juice+, Cambridge etc), paleo……. you name it.

None of them are ‘good for’ you and most likely only make you gain weight afterwards.

But here’s the secret as to why “they work”:

YOU

ARE

ON

A

CALORIE

DEFICIT.

 

If a diet makes you lose weight, it’s simply because your body is burning more than what you’re eating, no matter what the method

Some of you may have tried eating a shit ton of vegetables once and noted that you can in fact eat more and lose weight. This is true, because vegetables are not calorie dense foods

[a kilogram of carrots = 410 kcal, whereas

a kilogram of vegetable oil = 8,115 kcal]

Which also makes them a great food group to have when you’re trying to lose weight (on top of the fact that they’re packed with vitamins).

 

So STOP giving shitty diets credit, when in fact it’s nothing to do with

what you eat

but rather

how much energy you consume (vs. burn)

 

Then there’s what I hear all the time… “I know what I need to do to lose weight, but…..”

Yep yep. There’s just one thing that might come as a shock to many - even healthy eating does NOT guarantee weight loss. Shocking, right? It’s definitely a wise idea to make your eating habits healthier and include a lot of colour in your diet, but……. too much of any food can make you gain weight. I remember watching this documentary when I was young on a morbidly obese woman who did not understand why she was dying because of her weight… seen as she had 52 (!!!) oranges a day. They’re healthy, right?? This is an extreme example, but just let me tell you

that in 52 average oranges

there are 3,796 kcal and

884 GRAMS of sugar

That’s close to a fucking kilogram of pure sugar!!!

So yeah, fruit is not bad for you

as long as you have it in moderation

just like anything else

 

There’s a BIG problem if you follow diets that others have made for you without knowing anything about your general eating habits and preferences

And the problem is that you’re not going to be on that diet for the rest of your life, so it WON’T WORK [here’s why]

 

So the solution?

Learn what’s in your food

Start tracking your calories today by downloading MyFitnessPal

And no matter what you eat,

if you stay under your average needed calories you will lose weight.

(Check how many you need here)

You can achieve anything you want. Just decide you're going to do it, and figure out why you want to do it. Then go get it!

 

Good luck!