When you think nuts and seeds, what comes up for you? Is it a forbidden food or one that you include regularly? Is it feelings of confusion around fats in the diet?
When it comes to foods that provide good nutrition but with a high-calorie price tag attached, many individuals struggling to achieve a healthy, natural weight often feel conflicted. In today's blog post, I hope to create feelings of confidence and excitement around the inclusion of nuts and seeds in your diet. And working them into your diet not just 'occasionally' but DAILY!
It is the final week in this year's Nutrition Month campaign, The 100 Meal Journey. We hope you have enjoyed working on a small, nutrition-focused goal at each meal over the month of March. This week focuses on helping you to Make It Stick.
One of the most important steps in making a new change becomes a lifelong habit (i.e. lifestyle), is making a plan for when things go wrong (or back to the 'old' habit). Professionals in the behavior change area like to call this step a Relapse Plan. We all experience challenges that can sidetrack our health and eating plans, but it is what we do to address this fact that makes the difference. Here are some helpful strategies to help make your changes stick.
It is Week 4 in Nutrition Month and this week's focus gets you in the kitchen and out of your food rut! Eating healthy shouldn't mean bland, boring food. It should inspire excitement and new flavor combinations that you've never tried before. If you haven't checked out Cookspiration yet, it is the time! Cookspiration is a website developed by Dietitians to help inspire Canadians who to try new recipes that are nutrient-dense and sure to satisfy.
It is Week 3 in Nutrition Month and our focus is on portion control. When it comes to healthy eating, how much you eat can be just as important as what you eat. Eating portions that are too big, healthy food or not, can lead to weight gain. Follow these tips to manage the munchies while enjoying health and energy-promoting portions.
It is week 2 in Nutrition Month and the focus is on building quality into your diet. When it comes to food choices, quality counts! When we include foods that are nutrient-rich (those that provide a lot of vitamins, minerals, fibre, and micronutrients for the calorie value), we feel our best. If you find yourself craving unhealthy food, one of the best places to start is to look at the quality of your diet. We are what we eat and if you pay attention, we also crave what we eat. The cleaner (healthier) you eat, the more you will crave these foods.
Get on track with must-have apps from Dietitians of Canada.
A dietitian can help you assess your eating habits, set achievable goals, and put strategies in place for lasting change. Get daily support with these top 3 dietitian-designed apps:
Eating well can boost your health and help you feel your best. Want to eat better? Instead of trying to change everything at once, take a 100 Meal Journey. We eat about 100 meals in a month, so this year's Nutrition Month theme is to focus on making a small, lasting change and stick with it… one meal at a time.
According to the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation, an astounding 80% of premature heart disease and stroke is preventable by adopting healthy behaviours. With these changes, you can delay the onset of heart disease or stroke by 14 years! In honour of February being Heart Health Awareness month, look for recipes that have high amounts of omega 3, fibre, magnesium, potassium, and antioxidant-rich ingredients. All important components of heart health protection.
It is that time of year again…. the time of year when many of us create New Year’s resolutions. We do this with the best of intentions as a way to motivate ourselves and move toward an improved self. The problem is that many times this results in a “false hope syndrome,” in which our resolution is significantly unrealistic and out of alignment with what we can really achieve. When the goal is out of alignment with a realistic and sustainable approach to living, we experience a sense of failure when it does not work out The sense of failure (real or not) does not help to build our confidence and belief in ourselves.
As the days get shorter and chillier, many of us find it even more challenging to keep our bodies moving or start a new activity. The good news is that Calgary hosts an ever-increasing number of options for those who wish to get fit and active over the holidays and into the new year. Here are 5 ways to get you started (plus one ‘bonus’ option!).
Help the Food Bank with our December Nutrition Challenge
Supporting local Food Banks is near and dear to my heart. It pains me to know that people in this world go hungry when there is an abundance of food waste that occurs every single day. It is for this reason, that I encourage you to take part in my December Nutrition Challenge with a Kitchen Clean-Up activity!
Research shows that when we have less food options available to us, we are less tempted to eat when we are not hungry which results in eating fewer calories overall. Because we specialize and focus in weight management here at CWMC, this is an activity that is worthwhile and will support your healthy weight goal.
You’ve most likely heard the connection between stress the body resisting weight loss. Ever wonder why this phenomenon happens? The connection is linked with the body’s production of cortisol. Stress causes the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, to rise in your body1. Eating causes cortisol levels to drop, which is why we tend to eat when we are stressed1. Unfortunately, this can interfere with successful weight management. With the holiday’s right around the corner, it’s a good idea to start planning strategies to cope with this stressful time of year. The good news is that there are many ways to cope with stress and reduce cortisol levels. Some of these include laughter2, music3, moderate exercise4, sleep5, and meditation6. This year, make a point to increase your sleep if you are not reaching the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Compliment this with surrounding yourself with loved ones and music, get regular exercise, and maybe try some meditation. Combining these healthy stress-reducing strategies with continued regular, balanced meals and snacks will help to curb emotional eating, allow your body to maintain or reach its healthiest weight, and allow you to enjoy the holiday season even more.
Join us every month for introductory classes to popular physical activity options. Classes are free* for all new and current patients of Calgary Weight Management Centre to attend with registration and open to the general public for $25/class.
This month, we are featuring pumpkins. Pumpkin has an incredible nutrient profile. It is packed with heart health-promoting potassium, magnesium, and fiber, LDL-cholesterol lowering plant sterols, and night vision protecting Vitamin A and beta-carotene phytonutrients.
Try your hand with our seasonal feature recipe Pumpkin Rissoto
With two kids at home and one on the way, I've been finding it a bit challenging to get a healthy, balanced homemade meal on the table at a decent time (before 7 pm). Even when I map out my day and start dinner preparations early, I still find that I'm scrambling at 6 pm (with a toddler climbing up my leg) trying to get dinner on the table. Gone are the days when I had three solid hours to prepare dinner, clean, relax, etc. during nap time. Not to mention the fact that a new school routine starts next week! So, I've had to become a bit more efficient when it comes to preparing meals and has discovered a few short-cuts. Here they are:
Building a healthy relationship with food (and healthy eating habits) starts right from when a baby first starts solids. The way (not so much what) parents choose to feed their kids can shape how they view food and eating for the rest of their lives. If you are someone who feels as though you need to clean your plate at every meal, this is likely something that your well-meaning parents or caregivers taught you when you were young. If you can't stand eating certain vegetables as an adult, there is a good chance that you were either not introduced to them as a child, OR, you were forced to eat them when you were younger. As important as it is to expose your children to a variety of foods at a young age (the earlier the better--right from 6 months!), it's even more important to introduce them in a loving and pressure-free way.
Now that my little guy is all done preschool for the year, and I'm home with him as well as his two-year-old sister, I’m finding that we are filling up our mornings with playdates, playground visits, and running errands. With two little ones in tow, I’m finding that I always need to have lots of snacks and drinks packed to get us through the mornings. Instead of scrambling right before we leave, I’ve gotten into the habit of preparing and packing up snacks the night before so that we can grab them and go. Even if you’re not heading out, having snacks ready in the fridge is always nice. Here are a few of our go-to’s right now:
Most Canadians are falling short on veggies--this likely doesn't come as a surprise. Because vegetables are often bitter-tasting, they tend not to be as appealing as fruits, which are naturally sweet. It's believed that the reason babies and toddlers tend to reject vegetables over fruit is because we are biologically programmed to prefer sweet over bitter for survival purposes (bitter taste signals "poison" or "toxic" and sweet signals "energy"). But the truth is, veggies offer a whole host of benefits from helping to protect against chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer, to help with weight control and blood sugar regulation. Veggies are chock-full of essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, not to mention fibre and water--both of which can help with appetite control. And believe it or not, veggies can be wonderfully delicious as well!
Here are 5 easy ways to sneak them into your day (you should be aiming for at least 4-5 servings of veggies per day!):
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