Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Hormone Hub. In today’s episode, we’re gonna have a look at what’s going on when our healthy eating isn’t working as [00:01:00] well as we would think. So we all know what healthy eating looks like. You know, when we’re not silly, we know that we should be eating more vegetables.

We know we should be eating, you know, protein. We know we should be eating healthy fats and we know we should probably drink more water. But when we are trying to do all the right things and nothing’s working, you know, I, today I sort of want jump in and have a look at, you know, what’s going on.

You know, what’s missing when we think that we’re eating healthy or, you know, what can be some of the traps that we’re sliding into that are, you know, blocking us from, you know, shifting some weight or, you know, slowing us down or making us feel bloated. So today I’m gonna have a look at what’s going on and you know what we can do instead.

Now, It’s not always about your eating habits, okay? So all of our, our journey towards a healthy lifestyle is unique for all of us. And so, you know, I think it’s, I really wanna say, you know, it’s not that we need to sort of [00:02:00] adopt one lifestyle over another. It doesn’t need to be vegetarian. It doesn’t need to be keto, it doesn’t need to be paleo.

It doesn’t need to be, you know, we don’t need to put a, a judgment on it and we don’t need to put a lifestyle on it. Instead, what I want you to do is focus on your own health and wellbeing, okay? And get information from trusted sources. So stop kind of Googling, stop, you know, oh this worked for my friends, mom’s, sisters, auntie’s, cousin’s, neighbor, because though that’s not helpful, okay?

So try and kind of pick a source of information that resonates with you and just stick with that and block out all the noise. Okay. So I just wanted to sort of throw that in there because there is so much information out there. It is very confusing, very conflicting. And you know, I think we need to get back to basics.

All right. Just wanted to put my 2 cents worth in there. Alright. So if ever you’ve caught yourself saying, oh, I eat really [00:03:00] healthy, but. Or you know, why isn’t this working? I eat really well. I’m trying really hard and nothing’s changing. So the thing is that many of us sort of believe that we have a healthy diet and you know, in reality we probably do, but it’s just that we might be missing key nutrients or, you know, there might be a few too many little extras that are creeping in.

So today I’m gonna have a look at some of the common ones and what we can do to overcome that. Okay, so first up, like, because there is so much information out there, there are a lot of misconceptions about what actually constitute a healthy diet. So, you know, low fat, I think we can all agree that low fat foods are not healthy. And you know, in the reality is when they take out the fat out of a food, they’ve gotta add in sugars and generally, you know, thickeners and things like that so they’ve got a, a product that tastes okay. And when we rely on [00:04:00] labeling and marketing to determine what’s healthy, this is where sort of a lot of us, you know, it can go a bit sideways.

So when a product’s got organic on it, Or natural on it. Okay? So it may still contain things that aren’t good. So when they take out something, they remember that they’ve gotta add something in to, for the product to be half decent and taste half decent. So all of your gluten-free products, all of your sugar-free products, all of your vegan products, all of your paleo products, your keto products, you know, all of these things are quite processed foods.

So gluten-free products, for instance, when they take the gluten out of something, they’ve gotta put because, so gluten is the glue that holds it together. So when you take the gluten out, they add in thickeners and emulsifiers and a whole bunch of chemicals so that product does hold together. So, you know, [00:05:00] necessary, if you do 100% need to avoid gluten, but you know, If you don’t, then have a look at the difference of the ingredients between the original product and the gluten-free product.

So just because it’s gluten-free doesn’t mean it’s better for you. Unless of course you celiac, then yes. You know, sugar free products, you know, they’re only, the labeling requirements in Australia is sugar free means, you know, like table sugar. So if a product is sugar free, they can still put in maltose, sucroses, syrups, you know, so those other kind of sweetners. So have a look. So any kind of ingredient that ends in O S E, that’s a form of sugar, it just means that they don’t have table sugar in there. If you are looking at, you know, keto products or paleo products, you know, again, It’s, it’s a marketing sort of concept.

That think, you know, lead us to believe if we are following a keto [00:06:00] lifestyle or a paleo lifestyle, then hey, this cookie is okay because it’s keto or it’s paleo. You know, at the end of the day, it’s still a cookie. All right, so, so kind of step back and kind of go, oh, it’s a cookie. Just because it’s got a, a label on it that it’s healthier or that leads us to believe it might be healthier.

It’s probably not. So again, read the ingredients. And the same as all these vegan products that are on the marketplace now. So, you know, vegan cheese and vegan meat and vegan sausages, and you know, all of the things. A lot of this, and again, read the ingredients, a lot of the, you know, if it’s not meat, ask yourself what is it?

So if it’s processed soy, it’s not a healthier alternative to a vegan meat. Sorry to, to meat. So if you are looking at, you know, going down the, the pathway of vegan, vegetarian, plant-based, you know, sort of [00:07:00] eating, go instead for actual plant-based foods. So your beans, your legumes, you know, organic tofu or organic Tempe.

There are much better options than, you know, these fake meats and fake cheeses and things like that. So again, read the ingredients, look out for processed soy, uh, look out for thickeners, emulsifiers, flavors, numbers, you know, all of those things because our body isn’t designed to eat them and they’re not doing us any favours.

And the next thing is, you know, people sort of might also not be aware, or we might not be aware of how much we’re eating. So definitely our portion sizes have increased over the years, and even though we don’t think we’re consuming a lot of food and consuming a lot of, you know, calories and unhealthy ingredients, you know, we are possibly having more than we think we should.

So, you know, a smoothie, for instance, if we buy a smoothie when we’re [00:08:00] out, it’s a giant, you know, up to half a liter or more of smoothie. Whereas in actual fact, we only need about 200 mls. That should give us what we need. But you know, they just come in these giant portion sizes. So it’s good to sort of like be aware of that.

 Likewise, if we, you know, decide to be healthy and we’ll have a salad, you know, so salads are awesome. They’re a great source of nutrients. They’re fiber, vitamins, minerals. They fill us up, but they can also be loaded with unhealthy ingredients. So when we sort of start to see in our salad, crunchy noodles and cheese and croutons and, you know, what’s actually in the dressing that tastes so delicious.

So, you know, just good to be aware of that. Likewise fresh juices. Again, you know, we think it’s a healthy drink option, and again, a small juice might be totally [00:09:00] fine, particularly if it’s vegetable base. But while we’ve got, you know, lots of, you know, more than two fruits in a juice, you know, it’s more than two pieces of fruit go in to make a juice.

Okay. So we wanna get a vegetable-based juice, more so than a fruit-based juice because, you know, that just adds sort of extra sugar in right there. And, you know, often in a juice it’s more pieces of fruit than we would physically be able to eat. And then, yeah, I’ve sort of spoken about the vegetarian and you know, going vegan and we automatically sort of tend to think that that’s a healthier option.

But it is possible, you know, like I said earlier, to eat a lot of unhealthy, processed vegetarian foods or plant-based foods. And when we’re following a plant-based diet, it is possible to do it well, but we need to work a lot harder because it is easier to become nutrient deficient. So we, you know, often missing, you know, protein, [00:10:00] iron, zinc, b12, omega3.

So if you are following a plant-based diet, sort of focus on, okay, where are those nutrients gonna come from, so we don’t become nutrient deficient. So when we are, you know, nutrient deficient, you know, and I see it all the time in women who have been following a plant-based diet that they, you know, it impacts their energy levels.

It’s gotta knock on a effect to their thyroid, to their hormones and more. So we want to sort of, Make sure that we’re, we are doing plant-based eating well, so we are covering, you know, those protein, iron, zinc, b12, omega-3, you know, buckets. We need to be ticking all of those. So, yeah, lots of healthy benefits to plant-based, but you’ve gotta, you know, make sure you’re working a bit harder.

Another, you know, thing I sort of wanted to mention today was what is healthy for one person may not be for another. So some people don’t tolerate sugar well, some people don’t tolerate grains or legumes well, so we need to find out exactly what’s not working for you before we jump in and start eliminating entire food groups.

 So FODMAPs is a big one [00:12:00] and a lot of IBS people, so, you know, if you swing from constipation to diarrhea, and probably 50% of my clients would have some form of IBS, when they come into the, the well-balanced woman program and, you know, some of them have been told to use a FODMAP diet, and again, it’s, you know, we think it’s a healthier option.

But what happens is you get a, a big list of foods that you can’t eat. Okay. And very rarely are, you know, people who’ve been given a big FODMAPs list of things not to eat, very rarely you’ve told sort of what you can eat, so it makes it really hard to sort of stick to. So instead I use, you know, with all of my clients, I use a food sensitivity test.

So this is, you know, we’re identifying exactly what isn’t working for you, so then we can focus on what you can have. Okay. And that is also always what’s missing with [00:13:00] FODMAPs. So, you know, you can sort of see how these sort of like healthier options like plant-based or FODMAPs or, you know, low carb or low sugar or, you know, whatever it is, may not be the healthiest option.

So first up, you know, what we wanna do is have a look at, you know, what, what is a healthy diet. So educate yourself about what constitutes that? So are we getting enough protein? Are we getting enough healthy fats? Are we getting carbohydrates and are we getting fiber? Okay, so we wanna be eating as much real food as possible.

So real food, you know, the ingredient is the real food. So broccoli is broccoli, chicken is chicken, you know, meat is meat. Potatoes are potatoes. Like we know what we’re eating. And you know, if you are eating sort of processed foods or packet foods, get in the habit of ignoring what the marketing label says and actually reading the ingredients list.

[00:14:00] Forget the nutrition panel because you know that doesn’t mean anything, but what, what foods are in the packet food that you’re eating? If it sounds like real food, it is. If, it sounds like if the ingredient list sounds like an science experiment. It is a science experiment. Okay, so, so get to know what it is you’re actually eating.

Be mindful of portion sizes and try and eat mindfully. So enjoy what you’re eating. Smell your food. Chew it well, swallow it. Eat it slowly. Eat it sitting down with a knife and fork, okay? Pay attention to, you know, hunger and fullness. You know, are you hungry coming up to a meal or are you just eating because it’s one o’clock?

Are you, you know, do you feel full or are you just filling up? You know, you’ve gotta eat, finish what’s on your plate, okay? And then think about how certain foods make you feel. Do you feel [00:15:00] light and energized after eating? Or do you feel heavy and bloated? So I want you to sort of like really start to think about, you know, am I enjoying this and is it making me feel good?

 Now certainly, you know, I hope you found this helpful and you know, why we might be missing the mark when it comes to, you know, our healthy eating. So if you are looking for sort of more personalized nutrition advice, you know, we can certainly help set you up with more achievable goals, you know, for a healthier diet, healthier lifestyle. So, you know, if you wanna find out more about what we do and how we work, you are most welcome to book in for a hormone health call. We can chat about what’s going on for you. We can chat about where you’re feeling stuck, and we can certainly, you know, talk about the best way that we might be able to help you.

So I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions or there’s any topics that you’d like me to cover in the future, leave me a comment, reach out to me [00:16:00] via PM or you know, in the Facebook group because yeah, this is your podcast, so I am happy to cover the topics that you’re after.

All right, thanks for tuning in and I will see you next time.