News — weight loss

Holidays are usually a busy time of the year, with lots of family gatherings, Christmas get-togethers and holiday traditions. Just because your schedule might seem a little more “full” than usual and your routine may be out of whack, it doesn’t mean that you have to kiss your healthy lifestyle goodbye! Sure, being surrounded by yummy holiday sweets and treats for a whole month can make it easy for your healthy habits to slip, but keeping your goals on track during the holidays is doable (with a little flexibility, which is absolute key. Click here to read our latest article on 3 healthy mindset changes to make during the holidays).

We’ve put together 10 practical tips that will help to keep your healthy habits on track this Christmas season. 

1. Be prepared. Prep ahead of the holiday season so that your house is filled with yummy wonderful healthy options. If you’re strapped for time, order a box of freezer-friendly Wholesomeness meals to set you up for success before the busy holiday season starts.

2. Eat before you go. This is a great tip to avoid turning up to a celebration ravenously starving, ready to devour anything in sight. Make a quick smoothie at home beforehand or grab a Wholesomeness snack from your freezer for a nutritious pick-me-up.

3. Be a great guest. Be a great party guest and bring a plate of something yummy and healthy that you made at home (like a huge salad or a delicious grazing plate with homemade dip and veggie sticks). That way, you’ll know for sure that there will something healthy to eat while you’re there.

4. Load up on greens. If you see a salad or veggies at your holiday party, go for it. There will be probably be lots of other yummy things that you want to conquer first but eating a salad or veggies first will be best for your digestion and you’ll fill yourself up a little bit before going for everything else!

5. Avoid fried foods. Skip the high-fat fried foods and go for the lighter options.

6. Avoid heavy and creamy sauces. Avoid the heavy sauces and opt for the lighter options on offer – it will be better for your digestion and you’ll feel better after the meal too.

7. Hydrate properly. Opt for a drink of water first, to support your digestion and prevent the dreaded “post-Christmas dinner” headache.

8. Chew your food slowly and carefully. Use your senses to enjoy your food (taste, smell, touch, sight). Break your food down slowly with your teeth. When we eat fast there’s no time for our stomach to signal our brain that we are full, so try to pace yourself, chew your food and give enough time for your body to send you those hunger/fullness signals.

9. Add a side of berries to your plate. Adding a cup of antioxidant-rich berries (e.g. strawberries or blueberries) to your meal helps to maintain a healthy oxidative balance, which helps counteract the negative effects of an unhealthy meal (check out our article on this here).

10. Create your own gym wherever you are. This is especially relevant during the current Covid times, so many of you may already be pros at this! Even just walking up and down your stairs a few more times every day, picking up things/squatting, or dancing to some holiday music can be beneficial!

How do you stay healthy during the holidays?

For anyone working on health or weight loss goals, the beginning of a new holiday season can sometimes feel a little bit stressful. There’s usually lots of parties and socialising with friends and family, and decadent holiday foods play a huge part in the festivities.

The thought of the approaching holiday season can sometimes spark fear of overindulging or gaining weight, so we thought it would be beneficial to put together 3 healthy mindset changes that you can make this festive period, so that you can enjoy holiday eating, and have more time for celebration, family and friends.

One: Be flexible

Be flexible, aim for improvement, not perfection (especially during the holidays). Striving for perfection with the “all or nothing” mentality with no middle ground or compromise will let you down. Goals and intentions are amazing to set up, but make sure that they’re realistic and achievable. If you have made a plan for yourself for the holidays, make sure that it’s not going to make you feel restricted and deprived. Having realistic goals in place will make you feel more empowered around your food choices and you’ll be less likely to overindulge, compared to if you had set up rigid goals that were unattainable.

Take home: Create goals that you know you can achieve  

Two: Enjoy what you love (and leave the rest)

The holidays always involve amazing selections of delicious foods, from appetizers and cocktails to beautiful roasts, cookies and desserts. You know yourself better than anyone, so you know what foods you absolutely love and have been looking forward to all year. When you arrive at your holiday party, ask yourself “what would I enjoy here?” and then fill your plate with those things, and leave the rest. This will help to avoid the mindless “eat everything in the room” mentality, which is often prompted by strict expectations that you may have first put on yourself (not always, but often).

Take home: Take the time to choose the foods you want to enjoy

Three: Give yourself permission to enjoy

Holiday foods are known to be super indulgent and yummy, and are usually “special” unhealthy foods that we only eat on celebratory occasions. These foods have the purpose of bringing us pleasure, because they taste amazing and someone we love usually made the food for us. When we are eating food that is meant to bring us pleasure, it’s hard to receive that pleasure if we have feelings of guilt, or we’re checking ourselves out from the eating experience. Being present while eating and using our senses to smell, taste, chew and enjoy the food allows us to really receive the pleasure that the food is giving us. When we make pleasure the priority during eating, it becomes harder to overeat because we’re more in check with ourselves during the eating process (and overeating is also not very pleasurable!).

Take home: stay present with your food choices throughout the holiday season

We hope that you found this short list of holiday mindset-change tips helpful. As December creeps up on us remember to keep your health goals in mind, but stay mindful and stay open…maybe even let the holidays guide you a little bit! 

A very widely discussed topic in the world of grumpy guts is the Low FODMAP diet…but what exactly is the Low FODMAP diet? Read on to find out more about this evidence-based dietary strategy…

What are FODMAPs?

FODMAPs are a group of short-chain carbohydrates and sugar alcohols found naturally in foods and additives. FODMAPs include fructose, fructans, galacto-oligosaccharides, lactose and polyols. They have been linked to a variety of digestive issues common with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) such as gas, bloating, diarrhoea, constipation, stomach pains and altered gut motility.

 The low FODMAP diet for IBS

The International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders has estimated that 10-15% of the world’s population suffers from IBS, with most people being under the age of 50. The condition can have a huge burden on quality of life, with symptoms being unpredictable, often causing unwanted disruptions to personal and professional activities.

As such the low FODMAP diet was created to help control symptoms of IBS, and it can also be used if you have been diagnosed with FODMAP intolerance. 

Working with a health professional, the low FODMAP dietary strategy usually involves a four phased response: clinical assessment, dietary assessment, education, followed by the reintroduction phase. The diet starts by restricting high FODMAP foods for 4-6 weeks, and ends by slowing re-introducing the high FODMAP foods. The end result is a diet that can be used long-term that is low in the individuals problematic FODMAPs.

What can you eat on a low FODMAP diet?

The types of foods that are restricted on a low FODMAP diet depends on the individual and that is why it is important to see a health professional to help you through the process.

High FODMAP foods include:

• Garlic
• Onions
• Wheat
• Some fruits – apples, apricots, cherries, figs, mangoes, nectarines, peaches
• Some vegetables – asparagus, cauliflower, leeks, mushrooms, snow peas
• Legumes and pulses
• Nuts: cashews, pistachios
• Sweeteners
• Other grains - amaranth, barley and rye
• Some dairy products – cream cheese, cottage cheese, milk, yoghurt
• Some beverages – chai tea, chamomile tea, coconut water, rum, desert wine

Food composition knowledge is key to managing this diet, that’s why we created our low FODMAP meal plan to make it easier to eat low FODMAP (no more meal planning, ingredient research, or cooking!). Our low FODMAP dishes are gentle on the stomach and are cooked with maximum nutrition with the aim of healing and promoting gut health (improved gut health helps to ease digestive symptoms AND helps to support immunity – win win!)

Some of our absolute favourite low FODMAP dishes include:

• Roast Lamb with Zucchini, Tomatoes, Lemon & Herb Quinoa and Gravy
• Roast Chicken with Mash Pumpkin, Green Beans and Savoury Jus
• Orange Spiced Chicken with Coconut and Carrot Rice
• Lentil Dahl with Lemon Spiced Rice, Green Beans & Tomato Chutney (also vegan!)

You may not realise it, but every day we are exposed to different toxins and pollutants, all products of the modernized world we now live in. From pollutants in our air, water and soil, to synthetic chemicals, heavy metals, heavily processed foods and food additives.

Normally, the body does an amazing job at facilitating toxin elimination to help keep us healthy and thriving. Each system in our body is involved in a complex process named “detoxification”, involving highly sophisticated mechanisms for the removal of toxins and unwanted substances from the body.

However, if the body’s natural detoxification process is compromised (for example, due to stress, or an overworked liver from a high intake of processed foods, refined sugars, alcohol, smoking or the exposure to too many environmental toxins), this causes significant consequences on our health.

Our liver, or otherwise our “detox manager” has the busy job of filtering out toxins from the foods we eat and the things we are exposed to in our environment. When our liver gets overloaded (just like for example, if you get overworked in your job), it starts to have trouble processing the toxins efficiently and fast enough. This causes toxins to build-up in the body, which causes inflammation, and this creates a vicious cycle which is difficult to break.

The build-up of toxins in the body is linked to autoimmune conditions, gastrointestinal disorders, inflammation, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and numerous other illnesses and diseases.

Here are 10 signs that you may need to detox:

1. Persisting fatigue
2. Unexplainable weight gain
3. Brain fog
4. Headaches
5. Stubborn belly fat
6. Skin problems (acne, rashes)
7. Achy muscles and joints
8. Digestive distress (bloating, gas, diarrhoea)
9. Irregular sleep patterns
10. Feeling anxious or depressed

We don’t believe in detoxes that are aimed to starve you or drive you insane. That’s why we created our 4-week Wholesomeness Detox, specially put together by our nutritionist and cooked by our qualified chef’s.

Our detox plan focuses on clean whole foods, we use seasonal and fresh ingredients with the aim of giving your body a little break to restore itself and catch up on the detoxification workload. With everything included that you need per week (including premium supplements to support and balance your gut health), our program is aimed to cleanse and reset your body, leaving you feeling refreshed and revitalised.

Check out our 4 week detox plan here!

Author:
Lisa Cutforth
B.Sc Nutrition with Psychology (Dual Degree)
Consulting Clinical Nutritionist to The Banyans Wellness Retreat
Owner and Managing Director of Wholesomeness and Wholesomeness-on-Roma

Too busy to hit the gym or schedule a structured workout into your day? Don’t sweat, because there’s lots of easy things you can do during the day to boost your movement and activity levels, without even realising it!

GO FOR A WALK WITH A FRIEND. Instead of meeting at a coffee shop to sit down and catch up, get your coffees to go and hit the local neighbourhood for a walk. If you have a beach nearby, taking a walk with a friend along the beach boardwalk is a nice thing to do as well.

WEEKEND FAMILY BIKE RIDE. Dust off the bikes, lace up your shoes and head outside for a weekend bike ride with the family! You’ll be getting active, getting some sunshine and keeping your family connected all at the same time.

RUN UP THE STAIRS INSTEAD OF WALK. Running up a flight of stairs is an awesome way to burn calories (ever seen those stair climbing machines at the gym?).

JUMP ON THE TRAMPOLINE WITH YOUR KIDS. You may not believe it, but trampoline jumping actually works out your entire body. A 2019 study on the effectiveness of a mini-trampoline jumping program for people with osteopenia (low bone density) found that trampoline jumping helps to improve balance, strength and functional mobility. Jumping is for everyone!  

HAVE A DANCE PARTY. Make exercising fun again! Make sure to include moves that get you down low, jumping up high and moving your arms.

PARK IN THE FURTHEST PARKING LOT AWAY FROM THE SHOPS. Okay, so this might not be the most fun idea to do all the time, but have you ever tried to steer a full shopping trolley full of groceries around the parking lot, while attempting not to smash your trolley into someone or get yourself run over? It requires a lot of muscle strength and body movements!

GIVE YOUR KIDS PIGGY BACK RIDES. If your kids are young, they most likely love to get piggy back rides. If you start thinking about it as a way to get some more exercise into your day, you might enjoy it and want to do it a lot more!

LET YOUR DOG MOTIVATE YOU. Grab the leash and your dog and head outside. Your body and your pooch will thank you later! 

BE CREATIVE ABOUT ADDING MOVEMENT INTO YOUR DAILY ACTIVITIES. For example, you could do hand and wrist stretches while waiting at stop lights, squats while you watch your kiddies bath, or even star jumps while you wait for the microwave to ding.

Getting movement into your day doesn’t have to involve intense HIIT sessions or specific “scheduled” workout time. Remember that every step counts!

Author:
Lisa Cutforth
B.Sc Nutrition with Psychology (Dual Degree)
Consulting Clinical Nutritionist to The Banyans Wellness Retreat
Owner and Managing Director of Wholesomeness and Wholesomeness-on-Roma