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Tag Archives: BRISBANE NUTRITIONIST

THE REAL ANSWER TO HEALTH AND WEIGHT LOSS
Categories GENERAL HEALTH, WEIGHT LOSS

What is the REAL answer to weight loss? Food!

You literally can not walk out your front door these days without the latest pill, potion, supplement, spray, exercise tool, exercise program, drug or surgery being pushed your way for ‘health’ or weight loss. But despite this, weight-related chronic health problems continue to climb, as do the statistics for obesity in Australia.

I’m starting to feel rather lonely over here in my own corner, because I’m not pushing the next miracle solution… instead, I still believe that the real answer to weight loss and overall health is food! Well specifically, nutrition.

With all of the products and programs now being marketed for weight loss and health, I’m genuinely scared that we are going to forget ‘food’ is the main part of the picture here.

When I see people who have digestive complaints, it may have taken decades for them to end up in my office. Sometimes they haven’t even considered that the food they put into their mouth is connected to the digestive symptoms that they are experiencing. Can we pause and consider the irony in this?

I’m not at all saying it’s their fault or they’re silly for not realising this… there’s a lot of noise out there that stops us from seeing the obvious. We are sadly becoming such a ‘band-aid’ society that having to pause and think that what we put into our mouth multiple times a day (which literally becomes part of us) is becoming somewhat of a low priority.

It’s honestly my hope that we don’t get this way with weight loss and health. That we don’t bury the importance of ‘the right food’ underneath all the other quick-fix options that are out there.

Let’s take weight loss surgery as an example. There is currently a lot of Government money going into this option as a solution for obesity. But as a stand-alone treatment, it’s not going to work. People still need to learn how to prepare healthy meals and choose the right foods for them and their families beyond surgical intervention. Otherwise:

  • Metabolic health will continue to worsen after surgery, so even though calories in may be restricted, rebound weight gain may result or weight loss may simply stall before a healthy range is reached
  • Nutrient deficiencies will prevail. Fact: Nutrient deficiencies can lead to depression, anxiety, fatigue, osteoporosis and other chronic diseases. Drugs may resolve symptoms associated with these things, but they aren’t a solution. Aren’t we trying to solve the obesity crisis to further prevent chronic disease?
  • Digestion and absorption problems will either continue to prevail or become a major issue. Again, only eating the right foods and eating consciously will help to combat this.

That’s just three reasons, and I could go on about some of the other health ‘solutions’ and how we still have to bring the ‘food conversation’ into those as well. Like the fact that people are still being prescribed Duramine. This drug is also supposed to be co-prescribed with a nutritional and lifestyle program alongside it, as per all of the drug information that accompanies it, it in itself is not the solution.

Please don’t think I’m naive about the fact that changing your diet is really hard! Eating well and living a healthy lifestyle is not like flicking a switch. And it’s not like ‘healthy people’ make good choices every day. We ALL have up and down days… up and downtimes. But the important thing is that we all need to use as many tools as required in order to make good food and positive lifestyle choice as often as we can.

This is the only, true, long-term solution to living a happy, healthy life. And it’s common sense. I don’t know about you, but I’m NOT okay with surgery and injections being the new normal and what we eat continuing to be based on unconscious decisions with no thought for their consequences.

Note: Please read this article carefully and note that I’m not disagreeing that surgical or drug interventions may be a viable option for some people. However, it’s important that these options are accompanied by support and education around adopting an appropriate nutrition and lifestyle plan to support the intervention and to minimise long term side effects. It’s only then that the intervention becomes a true solution as opposed to a short-term fix.

If you have tried every diet under the sun to attain health and find a healthy weight, with no avail, Metabolic Balance® – our signature weight management program – is for you. Read more about Metabolic Balance® here

JOURNEY OF A METABOLIC BALANCER PART 1
Categories HORMONES, WEIGHT LOSS

JOURNEY OF A METABOLIC BALANCER PART 1

I was recently contacted by a young lady (who we will call Alice from this point forward) directly interested in Metabolic Balance. She has decided to move forward with the program and I am going to be sharing a bit about her story and her results (as they happen-no fabrication here) so you can follow her journey.
Alice presented to me in clinic like a lot of other clients do, although that’s not to diminish the significance of her struggles in any way. Quite tired consistently and slow, but consistent weight gain over the past 5 years. Some of her symptoms absolutely screamed low thyroid function including low mood, periods of alarming hair loss, low mood and digestive disturbances. Despite this, all of her blood tests had come back ‘normal’ and despite trying quite a few different approaches, she had not felt well for a long time. Nor had she felt in control of her body or her weight.

Alice’s journey will be unique in that she is in the health industry herself. So she does have good awareness of her own body and a very proactive approach to her health. This attitude is one of the key’s to success not only on Metabolic Balance but any health journey. One must value their own health and be open to making changes to achieve the result they want.
When I asked Alice how she was feeling she simply said ‘really inflamed. I feel like things just aren’t right and I’m at a loss as to what to do to improve them.’
We did decide pretty quickly that MB would be the most comprehensive option as far as her food was concerned moving forward. In addition, I made some adjustments to Alice’s supplements because although she had some really good quality options in her pantry, she wasn’t taking them at the correct time or dosage or consistency.
Fast forward a few days and we received Alice’s blood results back from the lab. These are used, along with age, medical conditions, medication and measurements, to formulate the Metabolic Balance food plan. The blood tests are fairly comprehensive and sure enough, a number of inflammatory markers were well outside of normal range, and suspected iron deficiency was confirmed.

Fast forward a few more days and I received Alice’s Metabolic Balance plan back from head office in Germany. Alice is not a fussy eater (which is great – the less fussy, the more ‘ideal’ the plan will be) and at first I was really excited. I had a quick scan and saw a few things I had never seen come up on a plan before! Yay for Alice, I thought. Meanwhile, I was also considering the extra recipes I could add to me Metabolic Balance recipe book. But then on closer inspection….. ‘augh’ was the sound that came out of my mouth. This is REALLY restrictive. There weren’t a whole lot of fish options and overall the protein types were a bit limited… so was the vegetable list. I had about 30 minutes up my sleeve before my next appointment with Alice and so I pulled a few recipes out that would be suitable to help her along and did a bit of brainstorming around meals she could create.
So how did Alice take the news and the plan? Firstly, she was feeling marginally better with the new supplement routine but looking forward to nailing the food side of things. And after an hour together, reviewing her bloods, going through the preparation phase (first 2 days) and then discussing the food plan, we both found lots of positives to focus on. As Alice said, if it was the same old thing than she would simply get the same result, right? 3 meals a day, adequate water for her size and exactly the right foods…. time to get creative and let the journey begin.

In general, I find the ‘worst’ the blood tests are and the more ‘chronic’ someone’s health state is, the more restrictive a Metabolic Balance plan may be. In saying that, many people go through life basically eating the exact same thing everyday, and even Alice’s list can be turned into lots of different fast, healthy meals. We will be reviewing progress and symptoms after 2 weeks and introducing a few more items to the allowed food list. At 4 weeks, its possible things may get more exciting again, but we will wait and see how Alice responds to her Metabolic Balance plan.

I’ll update you on Alice’s journey in a week, when I next see her. The purpose of this blog series is to take you on a journey… because Metabolic Balance is ‘a journey.’ It’s also to show you first hand what kind of improvements and changes to someone’s health we can gain through nutritional medicine. My personal opinion, based on my professional knowledge is that there is no better example of ‘healing through nutrition’ than Metabolic Balance. You will see that truly regaining health isn’t always easy… but regaining ‘life’ along the way certainly makes it worth it!

Categories GENERAL HEALTH

THE METABOLIC BALANCE® RECIPE BOOK

There has been a lot of interest and support in my ‘little’ project to create a Metabolic Balance®  recipe book (the constant mess in my kitchen suggests this project ain’t that little…). All the support has been lovely, but I thought I’d clear up some of the confusion around what to expect. While many of the recipes may be tasty and easy for those of you simply looking for ‘healthy’ wholefood meals, the Metabolic Balance®   program is extremely specific. Here are some of the  hurdles that I have to account for in creating suitable meals and a taste of what to expect from the book….

1, Metabolic Balance®   is strictly food.  I mean… literally, food only. No sauces, no packets, nothing processed, not a drop of soy sauce here or a touch of mustard there. So flavor must come from basic spices, dried and fresh herbs, salt, pepper, garlic, ginger and very clean broths only. On the upside, this is one of the reasons I do love Metabolic Balance®  – it teaches people to cook with real, basic ingredients. And one of the reasons why it works too – far too much of what we put in our mouths these days is not actually ‘food.’ Its chemicals – made in a lab. Not grown in a field. These fake foods are wreaking havoc with our hormones, our gut, our immune system, our metabolism, our health and as a result our LIVES.

2. It is completely individual. This is not a lie. There’s not say, 100 templates that exist and every person is ‘matched’ to one of them. No two plans are the same. Each individual receives a list of recommended proteins, fruits, vegetables and starches and from this list they create their meals. Each individual is also designated ‘quantities’ of each food group to consume. In general, the more complicated the case (i.e. someone with multiple medical conditions and / or ‘poor’ blood test results’) the more limited the food plan. While someone with less complicated pathology is likely to get a less restricted plan. So when writing a recipe book, this makes things rather hard… would you not agree? In putting the book together, I am trying to provide recipes based on all possible proteins that may exist on a plan and then build in a couple of different options  as accompaniments based around different vegetable combinations. I am also including substitutions wherever I can so that the recipes can be ‘adapted’ to suit most people’s plans. Further to this, each week I am pulling out a ‘different’ plan to base my culinary creations on for that week. My own personal Metabolic Balance®  plan had lots of options so if I wrote all the recipes based on that, the book wouldn’t be a very helpful resource to those with restricted options*.

3, Metabolic Balance®   is not a ‘dairy free’ ‘gluten free’ ‘soy free’ ‘egg free’ ‘grain free’ ‘fat free’ vegan program. See point 2 above. Some people… get milk on their list! Some people will be able to eat gluten on their plan! Some will have more vegetarian options, others will feature beef, some won’t have red meat. You get the point. I hope if you have been following me for a while you have ‘gotten the gyst’ that I am not a namer and shamer of food groups that are ‘bad.’ Personally, I take creamy cows milk in my coffee, I eat gluten everyday and sometimes I’ll take chickpeas over a steak but other days it just doesn’t cut it. I LOVE this point about Metabolic Balance®. Again, its about the individual. Not about the latest craze.  Further to this point, the blood tests on Metabolic Balance®  do NOT test for allergies, however these can be ascertained separately and then excluded from a plan. Many people I see in clinic are convinced they may have certain ‘intolerances.’ Intolerance testing is expensive and not always helpful and in my experience, signs of ‘intolerances’ tend to sort themselves out on a Metabolic Balance®  program.

4. Although not entirely relevant to the recipe book discussion, Metabolic Balance®   is a highly supported program. Anyone on a Metabolic Balance®  plan must be guided by a degree qualified Nutritionist consistently through the program. Its not a ‘quick fix’ program. Many of the people who embark on a Metabolic Balance®  may have had health issues for many years. Its a restoration process – back to good health. Sometimes it concerns me that people who have complex pathology will try short term fad diets or shake programs or be guided on the topic of their health and nutrition by someone with absolutely no professional qualifications. Having a serious medical condition and / or being overweight does require professional support. Its a physical, mental and emotional journey back from this state. And yet, we still search for the magic pill….

Enough now. I hope to have the first edition of the book out for current Metabolic Balance clients in about 5-6 weeks time. However, it will be at least 3 months before I properly publish and release it. If you are doing a Metabolic Balance® program then I hope it is an invaluable resource. If you are thinking of doing a Metabolic Balance®  program than it will be a great starting point to ‘feel’ the program. If you simply want to check out some really quick, clean, wholefood meal ideas then it may also be a bit of fun for you.

For more on Metabolic Balance check out this page here. Thanks for reading and keep up to date on the progress of the book via Facebook and Instagram.

*The more restricted plans are necessary for those with complex pathology that have a great deal of healing in front of them to restore health. Remember that Metabolic Balance®  is  designed by Medical Doctors and Nutritional Scientists, and accounts for complex conditions and medications – restricted plans are ‘checked off’ by a team and plans are ‘expanded’ on as a person’s health improves. Healing through food at its best.

Categories GENERAL HEALTH

Gut health: It’s not a new thing

Over the past few years, there has been increasing attention given to the importance of gut health for everything from mental health to weight management and everything in between. Whilst it’s great that this important topic is being given so much attention, some aspects of this attention cause frustrations for us nutritionists and other practitioners in the health sphere.

Firstly, I’d like to give you a brief history. People working in the nutrition and natural health sphere have been emphasising the importance of gut health for longer than I have been on this Earth. Actually, Hippocrates is the famous Greek physician who first raised the flag by stating, “all disease begins in the gut” over 2000 years ago. So, this is NOT a new concept, it’s simply made its way into mainstream media and, therefore, mainstream acceptance.

Since then, up until the last say 10 years, those who have emphasised gut health have, at times, been ridiculed, laughed at and disrespected. Hmmm, I wonder what other ‘quirky concepts’ we might come to accept in the next decade?! I acknowledge those practitioners who stood by this belief and say thanks, they were the real pioneers, and I can understand if they are slightly miffed by the total ‘about-face’ on this issue.

Secondly, if we’re going to accept gut health as ‘fact’ at last, there are some other principles we need to understand. The fundamentals of nutritional and natural medicine teach us that there’s no one magic pill. There is no quick fix. Health is a continual journey, involving physical, mental and even spiritual health, the latter of which will mean something different to everyone. And yet, I feel there is a misguided belief developing that you can ‘cure’ some serious ailments by simply popping a few probiotics or adding kombucha to your diet. Whilst this may help on some level, it’s not really that simple.

Your digestive system is a pretty delicate ecosystem. The ‘microbiome’ of our body is literally all around us – inside the bowel, on the skin, in the nasal cavities, under and over your nail bed. There’s literally billions of organisms making up that ecosystem and each one of them individually has over 100 times as many genes as a single human being. So, wanting to alter the entire expression of the gut to move towards health and away from disease is going to take more than a few days, weeks or even months.

Consider the Amazon rainforest… Think of the rates of deforestation occurring there. Then consider that a foreign weed has taken hold and has spread amongst the remaining environment. Imagine what kind of effort it would take to not only eradicate the weeds, but to replant and regrow the rainforest to its former glory. This is EXACTLY what our guts are like.

High stress, medications, antibiotics, processed foods, chemical exposure, lack of sleep, obesity, not enough fibre, food poisoning, foreign bugs, air travel and the list goes on… these are all little assaults to our overall gut health that may alter the balance of ‘forest’ to ‘weed’ and destroy the overall population.

But, while we can take steps to reduce our exposure to some of the above, they are all necessary evils at times, aren’t they? So hence, gut health and health in general will always be a work in progress.

If you want to start nurturing your digestive system and combating some of the daily assaults it may face, start with the basics before you brew your own kombucha or blow $50 on a probiotic that may or may not be therapeutically dosed (read more here).

Here are some ways to start nurturing your gut:

  • Eat your vegetables. That’s 4-5 cups a day. This means that for two meals each day you need to fill at least half of your plate when colourful stuff. Vegetables = fibre = fertiliser for your gut!
  • Drink water. Pure, filtered water. Not the sugary crap.
  • Sleep. If you can’t sleep, then get help.
  • Manage your stress. Get offline. Stop overthinking. Can’t? Find a strategy that works for you to enable this to happen.
  • Manage your weight.
  • Do all of the above so you stay healthy and won’t have to take medications or antibiotics.

Nurturing your gut health is a lifelong commitment. Just like being healthy. Those bugs co-inhabit your body alongside you and if you look after them, they will look after you!

Categories GENERAL HEALTH

CONFESSIONS OF A NUTRITIONIST….

I’m a garbage guts. For real. I mean, I literally eat, basically everything.

Ok, so that might be a slight exaggeration.  What I really mean is that I eat from every food group and I eat lots of things that people may think would be ‘off my list.’ I have bread most days – so its dense, dark, usually sourdough but I still eat it most days. Every SINGLE day without fail I start off my morning (usually after exercise) with a full fat milk cappuccino, mug size in a cafe. Considering we now live 200m from one of Brisbane’s best cafes, keeping this to 1 a day is an ongoing battle ;). I’ve also never followed a gluten free diet, and 2 or 3 nights a week you can count on me sitting down with my other half and having a red wine with dinner. It would be rare for a week to go past where I don’t consume a glass of sparkling wine and I just can’t help this. It’s genetic. It’s called the ‘champagne gene’ and it’s very active in my family.

I honestly love nothing more than eating out. Nothing is off the list – we love Indian, Thai, all kinds of Asian cuisine, Japanese, Seafood, the occasional good old fish and chips… you get the gist. It still surprises me when I am out for a meal with people I don’t know well and they say ‘oh you’re a nutritionist?’ They then look down at their plate like I’m going to judge them. Or worst, they sit there waiting for me to analyse the menu and pick  the least exciting, lowest calorie option out of them all. Hmmm, you can’t rely on me for this I’m afraid.

But seriously, interspersed with the ‘fuzzy bits’ is a lot of goodness. Cheap take-away just doesn’t do it for me, my entire pantry and fridge is all wholesome, fresh ingredients and I’d prepare 18 out of 21 meals a week myself. These are generally packed full of vegetables and herbs, really good quality protein and balanced with slow release, tasty carbs. My cooking style is fresh and fast, but tasty (well I like to think so anyway, Carl may not agree….).

So I’m telling you all of this because the culture around exclusion is starting to drive me a little loopy. I completely respect and acknowledge that in order to ‘reach a health goal’ or manage a condition, this degree of relaxation may not be possible. I also agree that many people have genuine intolerances (see our recent podcaston this topic) or may need to exclude dairy or gluten in particular because they react adversely. But, it’s still my belief and something I say to my clients that a healthy gut should be able to tolerate a wide variety of food from a wide variety of food groups without too many issues. Please don’t think that healthy and exclusion are the same thing or that they must go together.  Also remember that nutrition can be very individual and will vary from person to person. Just because your friend tells you, you shouldn’t be eating cheese (for example) doesn’t mean they are right. Again, what’s right for one person may not be right for you.

Thankfully, we are moving towards a more wholefoods focus and away from a processed food society. Seriously, simply basing your nutrition around mostly minimally processed foods would solve many people’s problems! Rather than always looking for that one, single evil that’s causing all of your ailments look at the whole overall picture. Heaps of people I see have convinced themselves that ‘potato’ must be the reason they can’t lose weight or that ‘the gluten in the Big Mac’ made them feel sick…. step back, look at the entire picture. Be in control of your nutrition and your health but also allow yourself to meat each meal with joy. The psychology of food and how we sit down to a meal is equally as important as what’s on the plate itself. Always come from a place of nourishment and peace, as opposed to abuse and guilt. Those 1 or 2 meals I eat a week that aren’t perfect, I really enjoy them. I’ve worked hard on not beating myself up about it and I’d love for everyone to experience this. Eating is such a joyous ritual, a beautiful opportunity to bring people together and not to mention a blessing to have access to more than we need. The ‘stress’ we are creating around food is perhaps causing just as much harm as making poor food choices.

If nothing else, I hope this blog post served to show you that no one is perfect. The instagram world of #glutenfree, #soyfree, #nutfree, #fatfree, #dairyfree, #wheatfree, #meatfree, #sugarfree, #flavourfree #fatfree ‘perfection’ (what are you eating, air???)  is in my view far as far from perfect as possible. Think of me next time you allow yourself a little indulgence and I hope you can enjoy it, be kind to yourself and move on to the next moment in time without delay.

Happy Friday :).

P.S. Pictured is the Ruben sandwich I ate from The Coffee Nook for lunch at the top of our new hood in Secam Street. Rachel and Michael here have been banging on about these for weeks and they are so right…. ammmmaaazzzziiinnnggg! A corned meat toastie on beautiful rye bread with strong cheeses and pickles…. are you salivating yet? It was absolutely divine!