February 11, 2025 • 33 mins
How often should you really be eating each day? Is constant snacking ruining your appetite and weight goals? On this episode of The Nutrition Couch, Leanne Ward and Susie Burrell dive deep into meal timing, uncovering why the spacebetween meals matters just as much as what’s on your plate.
Plus, we cover:
- The popular 30-30-30 trend—does it actually work for fat loss, or is it just another social media fad?
- A brand-new healthier chocolate at Coles—does it live up to the hype?
- The truth about super smoothies—are you overloading yours with too many ingredients?
If you want to optimise your eating habits for better appetite control, weight management, and energy levels, this is an episode you can’t afford to miss!
🔔 Subscribe, rate & review to help us keep bringing you evidence-based nutrition advice every week!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
How many meals do you eat each day, or more specifically,
how often do you eat each day? Maybe it's not
a meal, Maybe it's a coffee, a cup of tea,
a snack, maybe just a little taste or nibble of something.
On today's episode of The Nutrition Couch, we chat all
things meal timing and discuss why there's space in between
our meals is so important when it comes to appetite
(00:22):
and wait control. Hi, I'm Leanne Ward and I'm ce Borrel,
and together we bring you The Nutrition Couch, the weekly
podcast that keeps you up to date on everything that
you need to know in the world of nutrition, as
well as meal timing. We discuss a popular new walking trend,
we review some healthier chocolate that we found in the supermarket,
and our listener question is all about smoothies. So it
(00:45):
kicks up today. Susie, you had a client example. I
think that you wanted to discuss and talk about meal timings,
or more specifically, what happens in between our meals that
may actually hold some of us back. Is that right? True?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
True?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
And there were severally pus through the week where I thought, oh,
we really need a break in between eating of longer
than an hour. And I think it's really relevant, particularly
as we all go back to work or school, particularly
if I've got teachers listening, because we can get into
that habit of grazing basically throughout the entire day. So
a fairly typical food diary I would get would be
(01:20):
someone gets up quite early, whether it's before a workout
or before work to get everyone off early, and they'll
have a cup of tea or coffee, an espresso, and inevitably,
in more cases than it will have some milk, and
then within an hour or two my client will have breakfast,
and then around nine ten o'clock another coffee and then
perhaps morning tea or recess if they're working in a school,
(01:41):
and then there's lunch and then the grazing through the
afternoon and in many cases ly and there can only
be less than an hour in between what we would
describe as eating occasions. And there's some issues with this
for a number of reasons. So first of all, the
body needs a period of time in between meals and
snacks to allow our blood glucose levels and our digestive
(02:04):
hormones to return to normal. So what happens even if
you're consuming low calorie food. So just say you didn't
eat much through the day, but you had several cups
of tea or coffee that did contain milk each and
every time you eat that that has an impact on
your glucose levels, your insulin release, your appetite, and whether
or not your body is depleting the circulating glucose and
(02:26):
moving into what proportion of fat stores that it's moving.
The other issue that I have with it is that
it tends to really mask hunger. So if you're constantly
having a little bit to eat or drink, you tend
to never really feel properly hungry, and as such, you're
eating when you're not hungry, and you're getting into that
pattern of basically non hungry eating. So at a minimum,
(02:48):
at a minimum, for my most active, busiest of clients
who are very metabolically fit, I would feed them every
maybe two hours, but even then I would really try
to be aiming for at least three hours in between meals,
Whereas I'm seeing clients eat every hour or so overall,
when they are consuming even a little bit of milk
in a coffee or trying to delay hunger. I see
(03:10):
that also where people might just have a cup of
tea and something small like a piece of fruit, when
they're actually better to wait the hour.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And then go to a meal.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
So I think it's just a good time of year
to really be checking how often does food into your mouth,
because it is important even if your goal is not
fat loss, you're happy with your weight. It's not good
to be constantly giving food stimulus to the gush because
it means we never have that break without eating, We
never let lu glucose and inchulin levels return to baseline levels,
and perhaps you know, stomach is never really empty, so
(03:40):
you never really experience real hunger, and as such, a
constantly in the state of overeating, and that's what we
regard as that insidious weight gain, where we're eating just
a little bit more each day than we need and
gaining weight over time, even if it's not a significant
amount and you actually don't really need to lose huge amounts,
it's just that weight creep all of the time.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And unfortunately, whether you're trying to adhere to a.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Fasting regime or just trying to kickstart your day before
you go to the gym, if it has milk in it,
it still counts, it still disrupts that balance. Now the
difference is black coffee black tea. Herbal tea is very
similar to water in the sense it doesn't disrupt that
digestive balance in the same way.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It may have a little bit of an effect.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
On glucose and insulind because of the stimulitary effect of caffeine,
but it's not adding calories and glucose into the system.
So the key thing is that if you do sort
of wait quite early or really craving things in between
a shift to black tea and coffee, you will have
a massive difference. So you're actually then hungry for an
earlier lunch for example. And you know, if I always
(04:41):
would argue with a client if you're because my clients
will say, but I'm starving, I'm hungry, And I'll say,
if you're actually hungry within two hours of a meal,
the meal's not balanced. It either needs to be bigger,
it often doesn't have enough carbohydrates. So the classic tuna
salad situation where everyone tries to be healthy and has
a tuna salad for lunch and then an hour or
two they claim they're hungry and they're actually not hungry.
(05:02):
Ly in they're craving carbo hydrate because the body's clicking
on that hasn't had the fuel that it needs. So
you need to also make sure that your meals are
balanced and have a good amount of protein, a serve
or two of carbohydrate, and of course the two to
three cups of salad or wedge. Because the other thing
I see all the time is people will have a
very simple breakfast. So I'll get a food diary that's
got a single piece of toast with a single.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Egg on it. That's not a balanced meal.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
A balanced meal needs to have whole grains, it needs
to have some sort of fresh food in there, it
needs to have some tomatoes, some vegetable content to bulk
it up. So that's actually a meal that will keep
you full for at least three hours. So that's another
question when you're looking at your meals and snacks. Will
this satisfy me for two to three hours at least?
And if not, it's not big enough. And that's where
(05:45):
we fall into trouble, and the daily graze happens inevitably.
So I thought it had come up a lot of times,
and I'll say even to clients on the weekends just
drag out the minute you get up for breakfast.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
You don't have to eat.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
It's okay to wait an hour or two and really
notice that rumble and the tummy because many of us
are very scared of feeling any level of hunger. But
that's actually keeping us in a calorie positive zone and
gradually gaining weight over time.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, and it's very dependent on I often think when
you wake up in the morning, because I certainly have
a lot of clients who, like myself, really enjoy the
morning exercise. And so if they're waking up and they're
going to do, say like a five thirty gym class,
and then their lunch is 'tuntil say twelve thirty one o'clock,
that's a really really long time to go between meals.
And I have clients say, oh my gosh, I'm so
(06:30):
hungry and it's like ten o'clock. What do I do.
I'm like, girl, eat a snack, like you're actually hungry,
Like you're really hungry. You need some fuel because to
go from you know, a five thirty gym class that
might finish at say six fifty, and they get home,
they shower, they have their break ear six point thirty
six forty for breakfast right through to one o'clock. It's
too long, Like I couldn't last that long without food.
So you have to have a really well balanced morning
(06:52):
tea snack to really get you through to lunch. But
then I have other clients who might start their jobs
a little bit later, they might work from home, they
might be in that don't really do much exercise. Their
break is at kind of you know, nine to nine thirty,
they probably don't need something. If they can have a
bit of an early lunch at twelve o'clock, they were
okay to go through. But it's really those morning exercises
(07:13):
who they probably do need a really well balanced morning
tea snack. And for a lot of us, just a
milky coffee isn't quite enough, Like you actually might need
something a little bit more substantial, almost think of it
like a mini meal to pull you through to lunch.
Have a really well balanced lunch, and then again depending
on the timing of dinner, David and I before we
had kids, used to eat dinner at like seven thirty
eight o'clock because he wouldn't finish work till six something.
(07:35):
Sometimes I would do client calls five o'clock six o'clock,
seven o'clock, we wouldn't eat till seven thirty eight. But
now with the kids, we've got a three year old
and a one and a half year old. Like I
start cooking dinner at five, I don't do any client
calls between five and six because I start cooking at five.
Everybody eats at five thirty. Throw them in the bath book,
you know, milk bed, that kind of thing. Like we're
done with the whole dinner time routine by five thirty
(07:56):
six pm. And sometimes if I don't go to bed
till ten thirty and I've eaten at five I thirty
for dinner, I'm a bit peckish later on again, I
might need a little extra snack. There's no heart or
fast rule, like you should have morning to you, you shouldn't
have morning to you, don't ever eat then, or don't
eat after dinner. It is really dependent on when you
wake up and when you go to bed, and how
far that stretch is in between the breakfast, the lunch
(08:19):
and the dinner. That's probably the biggest thing that we
really want our clients and our listeners to think about
because everybody is so different and it's really difficult to
give that, you know, stock Sandered advice online. But the
most important thing is just take a step back and
have a look at when you're eating occasions or occurring
throughout the day. And if you're someone who doesn't really
exercise a lot and has a bit of a sleep
in and doesn't really have breaky till nine or ten o'clock,
(08:40):
or doesn't have breaky at all, you probably then don't
need to be snacking multiple times each day if you
don't have you know, those higher energery requirements as well.
And even if your goal is weight loss, it's perfectly
okay to snack in between your meals, but just look
at the timing between those meals, and if it's about
an hour till lunch or an hour till dinner, you
might be better off just lunch or dinner forward rather
(09:01):
than having a snack and then eating dinner, you know,
forty five minutes later. So just take a look at
the timing of your nutrition overall for the day is
probably the most important thing that Susie and I, I
guess want to get across in this segment.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Is that right true?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
And what I do because I have a lot of
early rises for either commuting reasons or just trying to
get as much in the day. And definitely by ten
they're on second breakfast or first lunch, so I'll give
them two lunches or two breakfasts, definitely, So we're not
encouraging people to be going more than say, four hours
without eating. That's the other parameter to discuss. So if
you're meal for whatever reason is six am, by ten,
(09:36):
I would expect my client to need another breakfast or
an early lunch, or even seven, and then an early
lunch and then maybe a second lunch. That's part of it,
because yeah, over four hours is tending to be pushing
it a little bit too much as well, And in
some cases you may find that you're better to have
breakfast a little bit later, maybe eight, a quick snack
before training, a smaller snack, and then go and have
(09:59):
the earn lunch.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
There and pull it in.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
But all we can stress is that meals balance, substantial
meals will win over snacks. Every time, you know, I
see clients grabbing cheese and crackers or in bar at
eleven am, I'd much rather they ate their lunch because psychologically,
when we've had a snap, we don't register it as
a meal. It doesn't have the macro balance. You much
better to have an early lunch than you had to
grab a snack at eleven am.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Alrighty, So the new trend
that swimming across social media SUSY is thirty thirty thirty
Have you heard of this one before?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I have heard this one, actually I had.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I was a friend of mine was talking, you know
how at this time of year all people do all
these crazy diets.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Yeah. Yeah, And I was like at cricket with the boys,
and I've got like parents telling me what diets they're doing,
and it takes like every scrap of my energy to
say like really, like really. And so one of them
is doing like seventy five days of something where they literally,
I don't know, like hard seventy hard.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Seventy five and one it's not evening after it's hard.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Call.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Well, I was not eating after three pm, and I
just I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I just laugh at them because I've been doing this
too long.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And as we know, very rarely are they sustainable because
everyone goes back to their old patterns. I don't mind
the thirty thirty thirty and I actually don't mind it
as a model, but I you know, it's just another
sort of quirky fad diet in my experience.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
But if it works for you, I don't have a
problem with it.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, And I don't mind it either. And I am
on social media a little bit like you, like we
sort of cruise through, we have a little look and
see what's happening. But I didn't really realize it was
this trend because I'd opened up my TikTok and I'd
seen people like walking backwards on the treadmill. I'm like,
what's going on here? And they're like, this is the
best thing for fat loss, like walking backwards thirty minutes.
And I was like, all right, I'm going to grind
my labor and like, how is that going to be good?
(11:43):
Like I'm not that coordinatory. And then one of my
clients was like, well, what about this thirty thirty thirty trend?
And it's basically a walking trend that you can I
think you can do it outsider on the treadmill and
it involves thirty minutes of walking, thirty grams of protein,
and I think the other thirty is eating within thirty minutes.
It basically came from Tim Farriss's book which is called
(12:03):
The Four Hour Body. So Tim Bariss has quite a
few books. I think I've read his Four Hour work Week.
I think years and years and years ago I read
his Four Hour Body as well, So that's where it's
sort of originated from. And it's really gone quite viral
on TikTok in the last I think couple of weeks
and months due to there's like a guy on TikTok
I think he's like a human biologist, and he's sort
of popularized it again. And basically it says that you
(12:24):
need to within thirty minutes of waking that's the first thirty,
eat thirty grams of protein. That's a second thirty, and
then you need to do thirty minutes of low intensity
exercise such as walking or a brisk walk, and that's
the third thirty. So it's thirty thirty thirty, eat thirty
grams of protein within thirty minutes of waking up, and
then follow that with thirty minutes of low intensity exercise.
(12:45):
And it's basically going viral on social media saying it
burns body fat, it helps with weight loss, you maintain
your muscles, you can manage you know your blood sugar
levels and your insulin levels. And I don't disagree with
any of that, but I don't think it's the magic
that it's sort of like being popularized as And I
was saying to my client. She signed up with me
in my coaching program, and she had a goal of
(13:07):
about seven to ten kilos that she wanted to lose,
but she's actually quite fit already. And I was saying
to her, look, we're doing most of these things, like
your proteins hired every one of your meals, not just breakfast.
You're already doing a lot of activity, like you don't
need to do walking if you don't want to. She's
already doing some strength training, some high intensity stuff. She'll
go for a wonder with a dog a couple of
times a week as well, So she's already moving her
(13:28):
body enough and within you know, eating within thirty minutes
of waking up. She's a morning exerciser. So we don't
get her to have a full meal. We give her
a bit of carb or something, then she goes and exercise,
then she comes back. So it wasn't really going to
work for her. And I said, what you're doing you've
already lost like four or five kilos. Keep going. You
don't actually need to follow this trend. But where I
do think it is helpful four people is that it
(13:49):
just gives them a good habit or foundation to start with.
Like if you don't do any exercise, if you regularly
skip breakfast, if you have crazy cravings in the morning
and you used to sitting down to a couple of,
you know, pieces of bread with vegimile jam on it,
or a bowl of you know, quite sugary cereal, if
that's what you're used to doing, then swapping that for
about thirty grams of protein is probably going to be
(14:11):
a beneficial habit. If you do no exercise, walking for
thirty minutes on the treadmill is going to be a
beneficial thing. Whether you walk forward or you walk backwards.
I don't know how the backwards walking fits into this trend,
but anyway, if you're coordinated enough, give it a whirl.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I just think it's very dangerous the best of times.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You know, if you take a minute, if you're watching
you know, some trashy TV on the treadmill and going
to quick you can be like people can really hurt
yourself on treadmills.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
People do it at an in plane as well.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
That is way to coordinated for me. I would not
be trying that.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Maybe up a hill where there's no cars coming, maybe maybe,
but definitely not on a treadmill.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
No.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I just think that's a that's a law sit waiting
to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I think, yeah, so, if you're not used to eating
a good hit of protein at break offace, if you're
not regularly moving your body, and if you're just somebody
who just really kind of forgets to eat throughout the day.
Definitely not myself. I've never forgotten to eat. I'm way
too hungry for that. But if you just really feel
like you skip a lot of meals and you end
up over snacking and overeating later, perhaps this could be
(15:09):
a really good just sort of reset for you in
the new year. I do definitely see some benefits for it,
But I don't think that it's going to help everybody
magically lose weight. If you're already somebody who's quite active,
if you already have quite a balanced breakfast, if you
already you know, eat regular meals throughout the day, I
don't really think it's going to do anything more beneficial
for you. Put it that way, But it is really
(15:30):
important that if you are doing these things again, you
fit it into a healthy lifestyle overall. If you're going
to start off the morning having thirty grams of protein,
whether that's from a protein shake, whether you've got some
high protein yogurt, whether you're having some cottage cheese on toast,
couple of eggs and egg white scrambled up, and some
you know, nice whole grain bread with some tomatoes. You
can get thirty grams of protein in many different ways.
(15:51):
If you're going to do that, then you're going to
basically cyck off for the rest of the day and
eat way too much like ultra processed foods, not have
balanced meals, or skip the rest of your meals, it's
probably not going to end very well. So if you
want to do something like this, it is just about
that consistency with the rest of your nutrition and the
rest of your exercise overall. But I think, you know, overall,
I don't dislike it, but I just don't think it's
(16:12):
the magic kind of a lixa that everybody is looking for.
How it's murdered is everybody will be able to burn
body fat doing the thirty thirty thirty rule. But I
just think for more people than not, or particularly our
listener SUSI, who already are quite fit and active, like
we've served them. We know that most of our listeners
are quite active already, I don't think it's really going
to add anything more into their diets. What do you think? Oh?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I think sometimes people just need the novel factor, like
they just need to feel like they're doing something different.
That like, it's about what's new and exciting, isn't it?
And that's what so much of social media is about.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It's what's new.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
How can you spin the basic old principles of exercising
more and eating less into a sexy form? You know,
it wouldn't be sexy if the data Cricket came and
said that he was eating fewer calories and exercising more,
Whereas when he describes it as the seventy five hard
you know, gives it something, gives it a brand, you know.
So I you know, I think if if you can
(17:05):
take the principles and it helps and is basically supporting
sound practices that are sustainable, I think that in this case,
to me, it is reasonably sustainable, even though it may
not be so safe if you're on an inclined tread
and we're walking backwards. But yeah, I don't actually have
problems with some of those things. I think it's it's quirky.
There's nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary with it. But yeah, there's
(17:26):
always going to be these things for us to chat about,
and you know, if you can glean some ideas from
it and it helps you, like know how I'm done. Yeah,
of the same belief all right, So if you say
thirty thirty thirty, it's probably one of the better ones
out there. But speaking of something that'll be of much
more interest to our listeners, I found this chocolate in
Coals and we always review a product.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
There's a few new products around now.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Leannevery quickly said, I was an allowed to talk about
the healthier pies that are in the supermarket free se section.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
She and l that one, but.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
She gave the yes to this Coal's range of no
added sugar chocolate. There's actually quite a few of them.
There's a milk chocolate, there's a think an orange. This
is a miat one I've grabbed off the shelf. And
I'm actually writing an article lop on healthier types of chocolate,
so I thought, oh, that's quite a good chat.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Now.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
The reason I like thisly am similar to the reason
we like the Aliti chocolate is that it comes in
a portion and control little piece, because what I find
with blocks of chocolate, whether it's Limb or cabri, like
you start with two squares, then you go to a row,
then you go to two and like then before you
know what, you've eaten half a block because they're not
very big. Whereas I find anything portion control is helpful,
(18:30):
and I do think this has got how many portions
it at five individual bars, which is quite cost effective
as well, because let's keep in mind it's very expensive
some of these products in the supermarkets now.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
So I quite like it.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And there's also research to show that consuming peppermint helps
to curb cravings, so I think for people who struggle
after dinner with wanting something sweet, it isn't a bad
idea if you like peppermint to incorporate peppermint, because the
research just show it helps to neutralize the mouth and
result in less craving. So whereas if you had just
to play milk chocolate or even at milk chocolate that
had confectionery in it. You know how you can get
(19:02):
like marvelous creations or lollies in chocolate that you eat
more of it because it's sweet and it drives that craving,
whereas mint, in theory, should help to reduce it, so
you're better able to control portions, which I think is
quite interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
So it's under the cold brand.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Taking my glasses off to see per serve, So per
twenty grams, it's fifty five calories, so less than one
hundred calories, less.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Than agamma protein.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
It's got four point five grams of that twenty two
point five percent total, which is less than regular chocolate.
Two point six grams of saturated fat per serve. I
need two grams of carbohydrate I'll tell you wine second,
and also some dietary fiber. So the first ingredient is
sweetener nine to six five I need to look that up,
followed both cocoa mass, cocoa, butter, vegetable mulsifier, sunflower less
(19:47):
than so I feel mulsifiers to get it to mix,
because that's the thing with chocolate. It will need fat
to mix. Some peppermint chips again, some sweetener. Now, I
guess there's two schools of thought here. The first is
that but if you're looking for a lower calorie chocolate alternative,
it certainly ticks the box there. It's certainly lower calorie,
(20:07):
it certainly has little to no sugar in it, and
they've basically made it via a processing techniques to get
it to stick together, so a sugar alcohol will remain
undigestive through the digestive track. Too much of it can
cause bloating and abdominal discomfort. But it does have some additives,
ingredients and mulsifiers, which may be not great for us
(20:28):
long term. But I think for people who really struggle
with portion control, having twenty grams a day, if it
doesn't cause any abdominal distress, is probably nothing to be
concerned about if you can stick to that serving size
and if you find it satisfying. It's also free from dairy, gluten, nuts,
and peanuts, which will certainly appeal to some listeners who
(20:49):
have dietary intolerances. But the gut health specialists may have
some other thoughts, because obviously we've discussed issues with emulsifiers
and even sugar alcohols.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I give it middle ground.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
If I've got a client who can have a whole
food or in more natural food. So I say, seventy
percent dark chocolate, eat it in a control portion, love it.
I actually would prefer them to have that. But if
they liked this, I wouldn't have a problem with it either.
It's kind of that middle ground. Is it healthy, it's
not healthy. It's better than eating too much chocolate and lollies.
(21:20):
Is it altra process? Yes, So to me it sits
in that middle ground. I myself would prefer to have
a small amount of the real thing. But I certainly
if I had a client who liked it and felt
they could control their portion, I'd be like, yeah, I
can with fifty five cows. It's not going to make
that much difference. Because I had a few people debating
on my Facebook page, which gets quite heated at times.
(21:41):
They were debating the difference between the chop rice cakes.
You know how there's the table of plenty chop rice cakes,
and there's like dark chocolate ones and there's strawberry ones,
and they were debating whether the ingredient in it was
healthy or not. And I said, well, those chop rice
cakes are like thirty calories it Actually it doesn't matter like,
it's in such small amount in the diet, unless you're
(22:04):
having two packets a day, it doesn't have that much
of a difference overall, and that this kind of fits
there for me.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
It's fifty five cow, you know, is it good?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Is it bad?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Not?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Really, it's just middle for me, because, yeah, when they're
so low calorie, you can split hairs about the implications
for health.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
What is much more.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Important is that our patterns of dietary intake, as opposed
to one off foods like this really in the big
scheme of things.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, and I'm like you, like, I would still consider
that a soul food. Like you said, it is an
ultra processed food. We're not writing it into our client's
meal plans. Would I eat that myself? No? Would I
have some clients who would enjoy it? Yeah, I can
think of a handful of clients off the top of
my head that would really like that. But I think
the kicker here is can you control your portion? If
you're going to eat three, four, five, six rows, you're
(22:49):
probably going to get some gut distress, and you're also
probably just going to you know, increase that calorie load
as well. So I think if you find it satisfying
in a small portion. Like I said, I wouldn't stop
a client from eating it, but I'm certainly not going
to write it into clients and meal plans. It is
very much a soul food. It's how much you have
overall of those ultra processed foods in your diet. If
(23:10):
I have a client that has a really really you know,
wholesome clean diet, there's really you know, there's no alcohol,
there's rarely any meals out. They don't really have the
biscuits in the cakes and the leftovers from the kiddy
lunchbox snacks, and that's all they want, like one or
two servings of that at the end of each night.
I would not have a problem with it. But if
I had a client who regularly has the you know,
the four green milk coffee is with the sweetness and
(23:31):
the sugars and the you know, biscuits and muffins and
that kind of thing, and they have regular meals that
they like a couple of glasses of wine, they have
a croissant on the weekend at the cafe. They have
all of the extra stuff creeping in, and then they
wanted this on top of that, I would then probably
have that discussion with them, like something's got to give.
You've got to give something up because we're just adding
more ultra processed food into your diet. So I'm like you,
(23:53):
I don't like it, but I also don't dislike it.
I do find it interesting that it's dark chocolate, but
the percentage of cocoa isn't listed, So, like you said,
I would much prefer somebody had seventy eighty percent dark chocolate.
But let's be honest, I personally know like eighty percent
dark chocolate. I find it too better. I don't enjoy it.
If I'm going to eat chocolate, I'm going to eat
something around that sixty to seventy percent, So I find
(24:13):
it interesting they didn't list the amount of cocoa in there,
maybe intentionally, so I wouldn't say that it's the dark
chocolate that's going to probably give you the antioxid and
health benefits. I don't think you're really going to get
much health benefits from a product like this at all,
But if it ticks your box from a sweet craving,
you enjoy it. You're able to stick to one or
two small portions of that. I wouldn't have a problem
with those client was having two portions of that. But
(24:35):
again it's in context in how much you're having overall
in your diet, So I'm sort of you know, I'd
give it about a five out of ten. I don't
hate it, I don't love it. I wouldn't have it myself,
but I also wouldn't stop a client from having it
if they had a general fairly whole food based diet overall.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
True, yeah, one hundred percent with throat sis, so I think.
And the other thing I would be saying is that
there is a milk version. I would be definitely pushing
towards the peppermint because to meet the benefit comes in
keeping calories control when people want something sweet in a
nice portion control. But the mint should also help to
curve that craving so you don't want more and more.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Where I say the milk I would, I argue with
probably would just drive the desire to eat more sweet food.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
All rightly, And our listener question is your segment, but
I wanted to read it out because it actually came
from our Instagram, So please keep sending your questions. It's
really helpful to LeAnn and I to grab something off there.
Before we come to record, and I had one of
our lovely listeners had said, had a question about smoothies.
And I know that we've covered smoothies before, but I
wanted to reiterate because again in summer, I've had a
(25:36):
lot of clients to make themselves a breakfast bowler, a
breakfast smoothie, and certainly without design by dietitians, protein powder
and more recently create and we've got a lot of
people enjoying smoothies to get their nutrition. And I actually
posted this amazing smoothie I made Leanne because I was
doing some work for Twisted Healthy Treats, and I made
this smoothie that was meant to be like a peanut
colad or a healthy one, but I use their coconut
(25:59):
and one of their tropical little community carbs, and I
blended it with just a little bit of pineapple and
some coconut milk, and it was so frigging delicious. I
could not tell you that I'm going to repeat it
with our protein powder as a breakfast drink that's high
in protein.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So you know, it's just on smoothies or on the mind.
But she says, I was.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Wanting to know if you can advise me on mixing
all the things you need into a super smoothie. So
I put flaxy linseed, protein, powdered, create and rolled oats,
berry skim, milk, greek yogurt, spinach, and banana, as well
as all brown and put it in there for good measure.
And I thought, that is certainly a super smoothie because
that's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And it's a super smoothie. Yes, yeah, it's an expensive
super smoothie.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It is too.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
So I wanted just to talk about how do you
get meal balance when you're making smoothies because I know
that it can be tempting to literally throw everything in
there and it tastes amazing. But as a rule of thumb,
most ingredients will be adding at least sixty, if not
closer to one hundred calories per serve. So if you're
getting up there with six of those, you're going to
have six hundred calories, which is probably double what it
should really be. So when I'm encouraging clients to make
(27:04):
it smoothie, this is my formula.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
My formula is.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
One protein rich food, whether it is a protein based yogurt,
like you're a pro shavani or a protein powder. Then
I'll use one type of dairy or equivalent if you
prefer a plant based milk, so whether that skim milk
or whether that is almond milk, or in the case
I just use a little bit of coconut, which isn't
my first choice because it's client saturated fat, but it
(27:28):
does give a nice flavor. But then I wouldn't also
use yogurt, so to me, like, if you're going to
do milk and yogurt, you kind of got to split them,
unless yogat's occupying the protein section. Then I do one
fruitsh So that means if you're doing berries, you have
to only do half a banana unless you've got very
high energy demands. Veggies, I count this free so you
can put as much spinach, kale, anything green in there
(27:50):
as you want. And then I do one added fash
so I don't ever do chia plus vacseed plus linseeed.
I just do one now anywhere between a couple teaspoons,
maybe up to a tablespoon, but I certainly wouldn't be
super loading those, and I certainly wouldn't do that and
avocado or that and nuts and that and nuts spread.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I'd just pick one.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Because nutritionally they have fairly similar nutritional profile, particularly when
it comes to CHEAA flax and said. You don't need
all three and also they're expensive ingredients. So yeah, a
couple of tea spoons. You might go to a tablespoon
again if you've got higher energy requirements.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And that will give you about a four three fifty.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
To four hundred calories smoothie, which is a substantial meal.
If you want a smoothie as a snack, it's only
two hundred calories. You're basically looking at the protein, the milk,
and maybe some berries. You don't need all of that
other stuff. So obviously our listeners will have different diet
you goals. If your goal is to gain weight, if
you're happy with your weight, you have high energy demands.
You might be breastfeeding, you've got small kids, you don't
(28:48):
need to lose weight. You might be off to get
away with a super smoothie, but most of us will
probably need to tone it down a little bit and
bring it down to three four hundred cow and.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
The same with cereal.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
You probably don't need cereal plus fruit plus dairy, so
you've either got to have small amounts of each of those,
so maybe a couple of tablespoons of a cereal, half
a cup of milk, and a bit of yogurt. But
you won't need all three in full serves because, as
I said, most of them are adding about one hundred
cowper serve, and very few of us will have that
high energy demands.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, and your formula is very much specific for I
guess smaller women for fat loss, right, because I would
typically give my more active ladies who might be slightly
in larger bodies between kind of that four hundred to
five fifty calories, again depending on energy demands as well,
So I'm very similar to you. I tend to do
one to two carb, one to two fat, and then
one to two proteins. But like you, if we're using
(29:37):
Greek yogurt and protein powder, I'm not going to use
full serves of both. If we've got berries and banana,
I might do half a banana or a small banana
and half a cup of berries. And I do like
to have a bit of a two to one veggie
to fruit rule, so I might do a third of
a zucchini a handful of spinach, So two is to
one and then maybe a banana with that. So I
like to get a bit of extra veg into the
(29:58):
smoothie if I can. In the morning it's like you're
doing like a chocolate flavored smooth I don't expect you
to dump in a whole handful of like spinach and zucchini.
But if you're doing more of like a green smoothie
or something, or a very based smoothie, I will take
that opportunity because honestly, a little bit of zucchini in
a smoothie you can't really even taste it. And then
in terms of the carbs, again, like you, Susie, I'm
very kind of conscious that if I have a bit
(30:20):
of fruit in there, I'm not going to load up
with milk and yogurt and cereal and you know, honey
as well. So I'm really conscious to just control the
carbohydrate portion overall. Most of my clients, I'll be looking
at between sort of thirty to sixty grams of carb
over all in that smoothing, depending on what their goals are,
what their backgrounds are, what their health conditions are, do
(30:40):
they have insulin resistance so they're going through perimenopause, and
how much exercise they're getting in as well. So it's
a difficult question to answer because we're all different, we
all have different energy demands. But I do have a
basically a good rule of thumbwhere I really want to
see a fat serve in the smooth in the morning
for my clients because fats are so important for our
energy cellular process as hormones. And a really high amount
(31:01):
of protein like most of my ladies between twenty to
thirty grams, and a minimum of protein in that breakfast smoothie.
So it might not be a full scoop of protein powder.
It might be a half scoop of protein powder. You
might have a bit of skin milk in there, and
a couple of tablespoons of Greek yogurt because Greek yogat
makes a nice thick smoothie as well. So it's about
that overall balance. Overall, if you want to use all
of the ingredients and that's super smoothie, just tone down
(31:22):
those portions. Use a teaspoon of each of each of
the different seeds. Use a small banana half a cup
of berries instead of a large banana and a full
cup of berries. But again, if you're happy with your
weight and you're maintaining your weight and you're doing that
and it's working for you. Absolutely, there's absolutely nothing wrong
with it. All of those ingredients are very, very nourishing.
It just depends on are you getting closer to your
(31:43):
goals or are you not able to achieve your goals
if you need to continue to do the same, or
if you need to change it up a little bit.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
And the other thing I would say about as smoothie
a is a meal, keep in mind that a meal
should fill you for at least three hours, So if
you're smoothie's only keeping you full for nineteen minutes, you
may need it to be more substantial or may not
be the most filling choice. So I don't mind is
smoothies feel people up, but I find sometimes they're consumed
as a bit of an extra as opposed to a
whole meal. So maybe we'll eat them as the meal
and then have some solid food. So if it's that
(32:10):
substantially smoothie, it should be filling you for several hours
because of the number of calories, So just keep that
in mind as well and make sure that you are
getting that satiety from it, because liquid calories are not
always as filling great.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
All right, well that's our final segment and that brings
us to the end of another episode of the Nutrition Coup.
So don't forget. We have our scientifically formulated range of
supplements at designed by dietitians dot com. We have very
high quality protein powder there. We have a digestive blend
and a hormone blend. We also have our range of
functional hot chocolates and our brand new range of creatine,
which we firmly believe most healthy women should be taking daily.
(32:43):
So jump online. There is a Creatine Frequently Asked question
page online designed by a Dietitians dot com and we
will catch you all in the next podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Have a great week.
How many meals do you eat each day, or more specifically,
how often do you eat each day? Maybe it's not
a meal, Maybe it's a coffee, a cup of tea,
a snack, maybe just a little taste or nibble of something.
On today's episode of The Nutrition Couch, we chat all
things meal timing and discuss why there's space in between
our meals is so important when it comes to appetite
(00:22):
and wait control. Hi, I'm Leanne Ward and I'm ce Borrel,
and together we bring you The Nutrition Couch, the weekly
podcast that keeps you up to date on everything that
you need to know in the world of nutrition, as
well as meal timing. We discuss a popular new walking trend,
we review some healthier chocolate that we found in the supermarket,
and our listener question is all about smoothies. So it
(00:45):
kicks up today. Susie, you had a client example. I
think that you wanted to discuss and talk about meal timings,
or more specifically, what happens in between our meals that
may actually hold some of us back. Is that right? True?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
True?
Speaker 3 (00:59):
And there were severally pus through the week where I thought, oh,
we really need a break in between eating of longer
than an hour. And I think it's really relevant, particularly
as we all go back to work or school, particularly
if I've got teachers listening, because we can get into
that habit of grazing basically throughout the entire day. So
a fairly typical food diary I would get would be
(01:20):
someone gets up quite early, whether it's before a workout
or before work to get everyone off early, and they'll
have a cup of tea or coffee, an espresso, and inevitably,
in more cases than it will have some milk, and
then within an hour or two my client will have breakfast,
and then around nine ten o'clock another coffee and then
perhaps morning tea or recess if they're working in a school,
(01:41):
and then there's lunch and then the grazing through the
afternoon and in many cases ly and there can only
be less than an hour in between what we would
describe as eating occasions. And there's some issues with this
for a number of reasons. So first of all, the
body needs a period of time in between meals and
snacks to allow our blood glucose levels and our digestive
(02:04):
hormones to return to normal. So what happens even if
you're consuming low calorie food. So just say you didn't
eat much through the day, but you had several cups
of tea or coffee that did contain milk each and
every time you eat that that has an impact on
your glucose levels, your insulin release, your appetite, and whether
or not your body is depleting the circulating glucose and
(02:26):
moving into what proportion of fat stores that it's moving.
The other issue that I have with it is that
it tends to really mask hunger. So if you're constantly
having a little bit to eat or drink, you tend
to never really feel properly hungry, and as such, you're
eating when you're not hungry, and you're getting into that
pattern of basically non hungry eating. So at a minimum,
(02:48):
at a minimum, for my most active, busiest of clients
who are very metabolically fit, I would feed them every
maybe two hours, but even then I would really try
to be aiming for at least three hours in between meals,
Whereas I'm seeing clients eat every hour or so overall,
when they are consuming even a little bit of milk
in a coffee or trying to delay hunger. I see
(03:10):
that also where people might just have a cup of
tea and something small like a piece of fruit, when
they're actually better to wait the hour.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
And then go to a meal.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
So I think it's just a good time of year
to really be checking how often does food into your mouth,
because it is important even if your goal is not
fat loss, you're happy with your weight. It's not good
to be constantly giving food stimulus to the gush because
it means we never have that break without eating, We
never let lu glucose and inchulin levels return to baseline levels,
and perhaps you know, stomach is never really empty, so
(03:40):
you never really experience real hunger, and as such, a
constantly in the state of overeating, and that's what we
regard as that insidious weight gain, where we're eating just
a little bit more each day than we need and
gaining weight over time, even if it's not a significant
amount and you actually don't really need to lose huge amounts,
it's just that weight creep all of the time.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And unfortunately, whether you're trying to adhere to a.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Fasting regime or just trying to kickstart your day before
you go to the gym, if it has milk in it,
it still counts, it still disrupts that balance. Now the
difference is black coffee black tea. Herbal tea is very
similar to water in the sense it doesn't disrupt that
digestive balance in the same way.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It may have a little bit of an effect.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
On glucose and insulind because of the stimulitary effect of caffeine,
but it's not adding calories and glucose into the system.
So the key thing is that if you do sort
of wait quite early or really craving things in between
a shift to black tea and coffee, you will have
a massive difference. So you're actually then hungry for an
earlier lunch for example. And you know, if I always
(04:41):
would argue with a client if you're because my clients
will say, but I'm starving, I'm hungry, And I'll say,
if you're actually hungry within two hours of a meal,
the meal's not balanced. It either needs to be bigger,
it often doesn't have enough carbohydrates. So the classic tuna
salad situation where everyone tries to be healthy and has
a tuna salad for lunch and then an hour or
two they claim they're hungry and they're actually not hungry.
(05:02):
Ly in they're craving carbo hydrate because the body's clicking
on that hasn't had the fuel that it needs. So
you need to also make sure that your meals are
balanced and have a good amount of protein, a serve
or two of carbohydrate, and of course the two to
three cups of salad or wedge. Because the other thing
I see all the time is people will have a
very simple breakfast. So I'll get a food diary that's
got a single piece of toast with a single.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Egg on it. That's not a balanced meal.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
A balanced meal needs to have whole grains, it needs
to have some sort of fresh food in there, it
needs to have some tomatoes, some vegetable content to bulk
it up. So that's actually a meal that will keep
you full for at least three hours. So that's another
question when you're looking at your meals and snacks. Will
this satisfy me for two to three hours at least?
And if not, it's not big enough. And that's where
(05:45):
we fall into trouble, and the daily graze happens inevitably.
So I thought it had come up a lot of times,
and I'll say even to clients on the weekends just
drag out the minute you get up for breakfast.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
You don't have to eat.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
It's okay to wait an hour or two and really
notice that rumble and the tummy because many of us
are very scared of feeling any level of hunger. But
that's actually keeping us in a calorie positive zone and
gradually gaining weight over time.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Yeah, and it's very dependent on I often think when
you wake up in the morning, because I certainly have
a lot of clients who, like myself, really enjoy the
morning exercise. And so if they're waking up and they're
going to do, say like a five thirty gym class,
and then their lunch is 'tuntil say twelve thirty one o'clock,
that's a really really long time to go between meals.
And I have clients say, oh my gosh, I'm so
(06:30):
hungry and it's like ten o'clock. What do I do.
I'm like, girl, eat a snack, like you're actually hungry,
Like you're really hungry. You need some fuel because to
go from you know, a five thirty gym class that
might finish at say six fifty, and they get home,
they shower, they have their break ear six point thirty
six forty for breakfast right through to one o'clock. It's
too long, Like I couldn't last that long without food.
So you have to have a really well balanced morning
(06:52):
tea snack to really get you through to lunch. But
then I have other clients who might start their jobs
a little bit later, they might work from home, they
might be in that don't really do much exercise. Their
break is at kind of you know, nine to nine thirty,
they probably don't need something. If they can have a
bit of an early lunch at twelve o'clock, they were
okay to go through. But it's really those morning exercises
(07:13):
who they probably do need a really well balanced morning
tea snack. And for a lot of us, just a
milky coffee isn't quite enough, Like you actually might need
something a little bit more substantial, almost think of it
like a mini meal to pull you through to lunch.
Have a really well balanced lunch, and then again depending
on the timing of dinner, David and I before we
had kids, used to eat dinner at like seven thirty
eight o'clock because he wouldn't finish work till six something.
(07:35):
Sometimes I would do client calls five o'clock six o'clock,
seven o'clock, we wouldn't eat till seven thirty eight. But
now with the kids, we've got a three year old
and a one and a half year old. Like I
start cooking dinner at five, I don't do any client
calls between five and six because I start cooking at five.
Everybody eats at five thirty. Throw them in the bath book,
you know, milk bed, that kind of thing. Like we're
done with the whole dinner time routine by five thirty
(07:56):
six pm. And sometimes if I don't go to bed
till ten thirty and I've eaten at five I thirty
for dinner, I'm a bit peckish later on again, I
might need a little extra snack. There's no heart or
fast rule, like you should have morning to you, you shouldn't
have morning to you, don't ever eat then, or don't
eat after dinner. It is really dependent on when you
wake up and when you go to bed, and how
far that stretch is in between the breakfast, the lunch
(08:19):
and the dinner. That's probably the biggest thing that we
really want our clients and our listeners to think about
because everybody is so different and it's really difficult to
give that, you know, stock Sandered advice online. But the
most important thing is just take a step back and
have a look at when you're eating occasions or occurring
throughout the day. And if you're someone who doesn't really
exercise a lot and has a bit of a sleep
in and doesn't really have breaky till nine or ten o'clock,
(08:40):
or doesn't have breaky at all, you probably then don't
need to be snacking multiple times each day if you
don't have you know, those higher energery requirements as well.
And even if your goal is weight loss, it's perfectly
okay to snack in between your meals, but just look
at the timing between those meals, and if it's about
an hour till lunch or an hour till dinner, you
might be better off just lunch or dinner forward rather
(09:01):
than having a snack and then eating dinner, you know,
forty five minutes later. So just take a look at
the timing of your nutrition overall for the day is
probably the most important thing that Susie and I, I
guess want to get across in this segment.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Is that right true?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
And what I do because I have a lot of
early rises for either commuting reasons or just trying to
get as much in the day. And definitely by ten
they're on second breakfast or first lunch, so I'll give
them two lunches or two breakfasts, definitely, So we're not
encouraging people to be going more than say, four hours
without eating. That's the other parameter to discuss. So if
you're meal for whatever reason is six am, by ten,
(09:36):
I would expect my client to need another breakfast or
an early lunch, or even seven, and then an early
lunch and then maybe a second lunch. That's part of it,
because yeah, over four hours is tending to be pushing
it a little bit too much as well, And in
some cases you may find that you're better to have
breakfast a little bit later, maybe eight, a quick snack
before training, a smaller snack, and then go and have
(09:59):
the earn lunch.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
There and pull it in.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
But all we can stress is that meals balance, substantial
meals will win over snacks. Every time, you know, I
see clients grabbing cheese and crackers or in bar at
eleven am, I'd much rather they ate their lunch because psychologically,
when we've had a snap, we don't register it as
a meal. It doesn't have the macro balance. You much
better to have an early lunch than you had to
grab a snack at eleven am.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Alrighty, So the new trend
that swimming across social media SUSY is thirty thirty thirty
Have you heard of this one before?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
I have heard this one, actually I had.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
I was a friend of mine was talking, you know
how at this time of year all people do all
these crazy diets.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Yeah. Yeah, And I was like at cricket with the boys,
and I've got like parents telling me what diets they're doing,
and it takes like every scrap of my energy to
say like really, like really. And so one of them
is doing like seventy five days of something where they literally,
I don't know, like hard seventy hard.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Seventy five and one it's not evening after it's hard.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Call.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Well, I was not eating after three pm, and I
just I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
I just laugh at them because I've been doing this
too long.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And as we know, very rarely are they sustainable because
everyone goes back to their old patterns. I don't mind
the thirty thirty thirty and I actually don't mind it
as a model, but I you know, it's just another
sort of quirky fad diet in my experience.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
But if it works for you, I don't have a
problem with it.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, And I don't mind it either. And I am
on social media a little bit like you, like we
sort of cruise through, we have a little look and
see what's happening. But I didn't really realize it was
this trend because I'd opened up my TikTok and I'd
seen people like walking backwards on the treadmill. I'm like,
what's going on here? And they're like, this is the
best thing for fat loss, like walking backwards thirty minutes.
And I was like, all right, I'm going to grind
my labor and like, how is that going to be good?
(11:43):
Like I'm not that coordinatory. And then one of my
clients was like, well, what about this thirty thirty thirty trend?
And it's basically a walking trend that you can I
think you can do it outsider on the treadmill and
it involves thirty minutes of walking, thirty grams of protein,
and I think the other thirty is eating within thirty minutes.
It basically came from Tim Farriss's book which is called
(12:03):
The Four Hour Body. So Tim Bariss has quite a
few books. I think I've read his Four Hour work Week.
I think years and years and years ago I read
his Four Hour Body as well, So that's where it's
sort of originated from. And it's really gone quite viral
on TikTok in the last I think couple of weeks
and months due to there's like a guy on TikTok
I think he's like a human biologist, and he's sort
of popularized it again. And basically it says that you
(12:24):
need to within thirty minutes of waking that's the first thirty,
eat thirty grams of protein. That's a second thirty, and
then you need to do thirty minutes of low intensity
exercise such as walking or a brisk walk, and that's
the third thirty. So it's thirty thirty thirty, eat thirty
grams of protein within thirty minutes of waking up, and
then follow that with thirty minutes of low intensity exercise.
(12:45):
And it's basically going viral on social media saying it
burns body fat, it helps with weight loss, you maintain
your muscles, you can manage you know your blood sugar
levels and your insulin levels. And I don't disagree with
any of that, but I don't think it's the magic
that it's sort of like being popularized as And I
was saying to my client. She signed up with me
in my coaching program, and she had a goal of
(13:07):
about seven to ten kilos that she wanted to lose,
but she's actually quite fit already. And I was saying
to her, look, we're doing most of these things, like
your proteins hired every one of your meals, not just breakfast.
You're already doing a lot of activity, like you don't
need to do walking if you don't want to. She's
already doing some strength training, some high intensity stuff. She'll
go for a wonder with a dog a couple of
times a week as well, So she's already moving her
(13:28):
body enough and within you know, eating within thirty minutes
of waking up. She's a morning exerciser. So we don't
get her to have a full meal. We give her
a bit of carb or something, then she goes and exercise,
then she comes back. So it wasn't really going to
work for her. And I said, what you're doing you've
already lost like four or five kilos. Keep going. You
don't actually need to follow this trend. But where I
do think it is helpful four people is that it
(13:49):
just gives them a good habit or foundation to start with.
Like if you don't do any exercise, if you regularly
skip breakfast, if you have crazy cravings in the morning
and you used to sitting down to a couple of,
you know, pieces of bread with vegimile jam on it,
or a bowl of you know, quite sugary cereal, if
that's what you're used to doing, then swapping that for
about thirty grams of protein is probably going to be
(14:11):
a beneficial habit. If you do no exercise, walking for
thirty minutes on the treadmill is going to be a
beneficial thing. Whether you walk forward or you walk backwards.
I don't know how the backwards walking fits into this trend,
but anyway, if you're coordinated enough, give it a whirl.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I just think it's very dangerous the best of times.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You know, if you take a minute, if you're watching
you know, some trashy TV on the treadmill and going
to quick you can be like people can really hurt
yourself on treadmills.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
People do it at an in plane as well.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
That is way to coordinated for me. I would not
be trying that.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Maybe up a hill where there's no cars coming, maybe maybe,
but definitely not on a treadmill.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
No.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I just think that's a that's a law sit waiting
to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I think, yeah, so, if you're not used to eating
a good hit of protein at break offace, if you're
not regularly moving your body, and if you're just somebody
who just really kind of forgets to eat throughout the day.
Definitely not myself. I've never forgotten to eat. I'm way
too hungry for that. But if you just really feel
like you skip a lot of meals and you end
up over snacking and overeating later, perhaps this could be
(15:09):
a really good just sort of reset for you in
the new year. I do definitely see some benefits for it,
But I don't think that it's going to help everybody
magically lose weight. If you're already somebody who's quite active,
if you already have quite a balanced breakfast, if you
already you know, eat regular meals throughout the day, I
don't really think it's going to do anything more beneficial
for you. Put it that way, But it is really
(15:30):
important that if you are doing these things again, you
fit it into a healthy lifestyle overall. If you're going
to start off the morning having thirty grams of protein,
whether that's from a protein shake, whether you've got some
high protein yogurt, whether you're having some cottage cheese on toast,
couple of eggs and egg white scrambled up, and some
you know, nice whole grain bread with some tomatoes. You
can get thirty grams of protein in many different ways.
(15:51):
If you're going to do that, then you're going to
basically cyck off for the rest of the day and
eat way too much like ultra processed foods, not have
balanced meals, or skip the rest of your meals, it's
probably not going to end very well. So if you
want to do something like this, it is just about
that consistency with the rest of your nutrition and the
rest of your exercise overall. But I think, you know, overall,
I don't dislike it, but I just don't think it's
(16:12):
the magic kind of a lixa that everybody is looking for.
How it's murdered is everybody will be able to burn
body fat doing the thirty thirty thirty rule. But I
just think for more people than not, or particularly our
listener SUSI, who already are quite fit and active, like
we've served them. We know that most of our listeners
are quite active already, I don't think it's really going
to add anything more into their diets. What do you think? Oh?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I think sometimes people just need the novel factor, like
they just need to feel like they're doing something different.
That like, it's about what's new and exciting, isn't it?
And that's what so much of social media is about.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
It's what's new.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
How can you spin the basic old principles of exercising
more and eating less into a sexy form? You know,
it wouldn't be sexy if the data Cricket came and
said that he was eating fewer calories and exercising more,
Whereas when he describes it as the seventy five hard
you know, gives it something, gives it a brand, you know.
So I you know, I think if if you can
(17:05):
take the principles and it helps and is basically supporting
sound practices that are sustainable, I think that in this case,
to me, it is reasonably sustainable, even though it may
not be so safe if you're on an inclined tread
and we're walking backwards. But yeah, I don't actually have
problems with some of those things. I think it's it's quirky.
There's nothing groundbreaking or revolutionary with it. But yeah, there's
(17:26):
always going to be these things for us to chat about,
and you know, if you can glean some ideas from
it and it helps you, like know how I'm done. Yeah,
of the same belief all right, So if you say
thirty thirty thirty, it's probably one of the better ones
out there. But speaking of something that'll be of much
more interest to our listeners, I found this chocolate in
Coals and we always review a product.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
There's a few new products around now.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Leannevery quickly said, I was an allowed to talk about
the healthier pies that are in the supermarket free se section.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
She and l that one, but.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
She gave the yes to this Coal's range of no
added sugar chocolate. There's actually quite a few of them.
There's a milk chocolate, there's a think an orange. This
is a miat one I've grabbed off the shelf. And
I'm actually writing an article lop on healthier types of chocolate,
so I thought, oh, that's quite a good chat.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Now.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
The reason I like thisly am similar to the reason
we like the Aliti chocolate is that it comes in
a portion and control little piece, because what I find
with blocks of chocolate, whether it's Limb or cabri, like
you start with two squares, then you go to a row,
then you go to two and like then before you
know what, you've eaten half a block because they're not
very big. Whereas I find anything portion control is helpful,
(18:30):
and I do think this has got how many portions
it at five individual bars, which is quite cost effective
as well, because let's keep in mind it's very expensive
some of these products in the supermarkets now.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
So I quite like it.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
And there's also research to show that consuming peppermint helps
to curb cravings, so I think for people who struggle
after dinner with wanting something sweet, it isn't a bad
idea if you like peppermint to incorporate peppermint, because the
research just show it helps to neutralize the mouth and
result in less craving. So whereas if you had just
to play milk chocolate or even at milk chocolate that
had confectionery in it. You know how you can get
(19:02):
like marvelous creations or lollies in chocolate that you eat
more of it because it's sweet and it drives that craving,
whereas mint, in theory, should help to reduce it, so
you're better able to control portions, which I think is
quite interesting.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
So it's under the cold brand.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Taking my glasses off to see per serve, So per
twenty grams, it's fifty five calories, so less than one
hundred calories, less.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Than agamma protein.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
It's got four point five grams of that twenty two
point five percent total, which is less than regular chocolate.
Two point six grams of saturated fat per serve. I
need two grams of carbohydrate I'll tell you wine second,
and also some dietary fiber. So the first ingredient is
sweetener nine to six five I need to look that up,
followed both cocoa mass, cocoa, butter, vegetable mulsifier, sunflower less
(19:47):
than so I feel mulsifiers to get it to mix,
because that's the thing with chocolate. It will need fat
to mix. Some peppermint chips again, some sweetener. Now, I
guess there's two schools of thought here. The first is
that but if you're looking for a lower calorie chocolate alternative,
it certainly ticks the box there. It's certainly lower calorie,
(20:07):
it certainly has little to no sugar in it, and
they've basically made it via a processing techniques to get
it to stick together, so a sugar alcohol will remain
undigestive through the digestive track. Too much of it can
cause bloating and abdominal discomfort. But it does have some additives,
ingredients and mulsifiers, which may be not great for us
(20:28):
long term. But I think for people who really struggle
with portion control, having twenty grams a day, if it
doesn't cause any abdominal distress, is probably nothing to be
concerned about if you can stick to that serving size
and if you find it satisfying. It's also free from dairy, gluten, nuts,
and peanuts, which will certainly appeal to some listeners who
(20:49):
have dietary intolerances. But the gut health specialists may have
some other thoughts, because obviously we've discussed issues with emulsifiers
and even sugar alcohols.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I give it middle ground.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
If I've got a client who can have a whole
food or in more natural food. So I say, seventy
percent dark chocolate, eat it in a control portion, love it.
I actually would prefer them to have that. But if
they liked this, I wouldn't have a problem with it either.
It's kind of that middle ground. Is it healthy, it's
not healthy. It's better than eating too much chocolate and lollies.
(21:20):
Is it altra process? Yes, So to me it sits
in that middle ground. I myself would prefer to have
a small amount of the real thing. But I certainly
if I had a client who liked it and felt
they could control their portion, I'd be like, yeah, I
can with fifty five cows. It's not going to make
that much difference. Because I had a few people debating
on my Facebook page, which gets quite heated at times.
(21:41):
They were debating the difference between the chop rice cakes.
You know how there's the table of plenty chop rice cakes,
and there's like dark chocolate ones and there's strawberry ones,
and they were debating whether the ingredient in it was
healthy or not. And I said, well, those chop rice
cakes are like thirty calories it Actually it doesn't matter like,
it's in such small amount in the diet, unless you're
(22:04):
having two packets a day, it doesn't have that much
of a difference overall, and that this kind of fits
there for me.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
It's fifty five cow, you know, is it good?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Is it bad?
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Not?
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Really, it's just middle for me, because, yeah, when they're
so low calorie, you can split hairs about the implications
for health.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
What is much more.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Important is that our patterns of dietary intake, as opposed
to one off foods like this really in the big
scheme of things.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, and I'm like you, like, I would still consider
that a soul food. Like you said, it is an
ultra processed food. We're not writing it into our client's
meal plans. Would I eat that myself? No? Would I
have some clients who would enjoy it? Yeah, I can
think of a handful of clients off the top of
my head that would really like that. But I think
the kicker here is can you control your portion? If
you're going to eat three, four, five, six rows, you're
(22:49):
probably going to get some gut distress, and you're also
probably just going to you know, increase that calorie load
as well. So I think if you find it satisfying
in a small portion. Like I said, I wouldn't stop
a client from eating it, but I'm certainly not going
to write it into clients and meal plans. It is
very much a soul food. It's how much you have
overall of those ultra processed foods in your diet. If
(23:10):
I have a client that has a really really you know,
wholesome clean diet, there's really you know, there's no alcohol,
there's rarely any meals out. They don't really have the
biscuits in the cakes and the leftovers from the kiddy
lunchbox snacks, and that's all they want, like one or
two servings of that at the end of each night.
I would not have a problem with it. But if
I had a client who regularly has the you know,
the four green milk coffee is with the sweetness and
(23:31):
the sugars and the you know, biscuits and muffins and
that kind of thing, and they have regular meals that
they like a couple of glasses of wine, they have
a croissant on the weekend at the cafe. They have
all of the extra stuff creeping in, and then they
wanted this on top of that, I would then probably
have that discussion with them, like something's got to give.
You've got to give something up because we're just adding
more ultra processed food into your diet. So I'm like you,
(23:53):
I don't like it, but I also don't dislike it.
I do find it interesting that it's dark chocolate, but
the percentage of cocoa isn't listed, So, like you said,
I would much prefer somebody had seventy eighty percent dark chocolate.
But let's be honest, I personally know like eighty percent
dark chocolate. I find it too better. I don't enjoy it.
If I'm going to eat chocolate, I'm going to eat
something around that sixty to seventy percent, So I find
(24:13):
it interesting they didn't list the amount of cocoa in there,
maybe intentionally, so I wouldn't say that it's the dark
chocolate that's going to probably give you the antioxid and
health benefits. I don't think you're really going to get
much health benefits from a product like this at all,
But if it ticks your box from a sweet craving,
you enjoy it. You're able to stick to one or
two small portions of that. I wouldn't have a problem
with those client was having two portions of that. But
(24:35):
again it's in context in how much you're having overall
in your diet, So I'm sort of you know, I'd
give it about a five out of ten. I don't
hate it, I don't love it. I wouldn't have it myself,
but I also wouldn't stop a client from having it
if they had a general fairly whole food based diet overall.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
True, yeah, one hundred percent with throat sis, so I think.
And the other thing I would be saying is that
there is a milk version. I would be definitely pushing
towards the peppermint because to meet the benefit comes in
keeping calories control when people want something sweet in a
nice portion control. But the mint should also help to
curve that craving so you don't want more and more.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Where I say the milk I would, I argue with
probably would just drive the desire to eat more sweet food.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
All rightly, And our listener question is your segment, but
I wanted to read it out because it actually came
from our Instagram, So please keep sending your questions. It's
really helpful to LeAnn and I to grab something off there.
Before we come to record, and I had one of
our lovely listeners had said, had a question about smoothies.
And I know that we've covered smoothies before, but I
wanted to reiterate because again in summer, I've had a
(25:36):
lot of clients to make themselves a breakfast bowler, a
breakfast smoothie, and certainly without design by dietitians, protein powder
and more recently create and we've got a lot of
people enjoying smoothies to get their nutrition. And I actually
posted this amazing smoothie I made Leanne because I was
doing some work for Twisted Healthy Treats, and I made
this smoothie that was meant to be like a peanut
colad or a healthy one, but I use their coconut
(25:59):
and one of their tropical little community carbs, and I
blended it with just a little bit of pineapple and
some coconut milk, and it was so frigging delicious. I
could not tell you that I'm going to repeat it
with our protein powder as a breakfast drink that's high
in protein.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
So you know, it's just on smoothies or on the mind.
But she says, I was.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Wanting to know if you can advise me on mixing
all the things you need into a super smoothie. So
I put flaxy linseed, protein, powdered, create and rolled oats,
berry skim, milk, greek yogurt, spinach, and banana, as well
as all brown and put it in there for good measure.
And I thought, that is certainly a super smoothie because
that's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And it's a super smoothie. Yes, yeah, it's an expensive
super smoothie.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
It is too.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
So I wanted just to talk about how do you
get meal balance when you're making smoothies because I know
that it can be tempting to literally throw everything in
there and it tastes amazing. But as a rule of thumb,
most ingredients will be adding at least sixty, if not
closer to one hundred calories per serve. So if you're
getting up there with six of those, you're going to
have six hundred calories, which is probably double what it
should really be. So when I'm encouraging clients to make
(27:04):
it smoothie, this is my formula.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
My formula is.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
One protein rich food, whether it is a protein based yogurt,
like you're a pro shavani or a protein powder. Then
I'll use one type of dairy or equivalent if you
prefer a plant based milk, so whether that skim milk
or whether that is almond milk, or in the case
I just use a little bit of coconut, which isn't
my first choice because it's client saturated fat, but it
(27:28):
does give a nice flavor. But then I wouldn't also
use yogurt, so to me, like, if you're going to
do milk and yogurt, you kind of got to split them,
unless yogat's occupying the protein section. Then I do one
fruitsh So that means if you're doing berries, you have
to only do half a banana unless you've got very
high energy demands. Veggies, I count this free so you
can put as much spinach, kale, anything green in there
(27:50):
as you want. And then I do one added fash
so I don't ever do chia plus vacseed plus linseeed.
I just do one now anywhere between a couple teaspoons,
maybe up to a tablespoon, but I certainly wouldn't be
super loading those, and I certainly wouldn't do that and
avocado or that and nuts and that and nuts spread.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I'd just pick one.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Because nutritionally they have fairly similar nutritional profile, particularly when
it comes to CHEAA flax and said. You don't need
all three and also they're expensive ingredients. So yeah, a
couple of tea spoons. You might go to a tablespoon
again if you've got higher energy requirements.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
And that will give you about a four three fifty.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
To four hundred calories smoothie, which is a substantial meal.
If you want a smoothie as a snack, it's only
two hundred calories. You're basically looking at the protein, the milk,
and maybe some berries. You don't need all of that
other stuff. So obviously our listeners will have different diet
you goals. If your goal is to gain weight, if
you're happy with your weight, you have high energy demands.
You might be breastfeeding, you've got small kids, you don't
(28:48):
need to lose weight. You might be off to get
away with a super smoothie, but most of us will
probably need to tone it down a little bit and
bring it down to three four hundred cow and.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
The same with cereal.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
You probably don't need cereal plus fruit plus dairy, so
you've either got to have small amounts of each of those,
so maybe a couple of tablespoons of a cereal, half
a cup of milk, and a bit of yogurt. But
you won't need all three in full serves because, as
I said, most of them are adding about one hundred
cowper serve, and very few of us will have that
high energy demands.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, and your formula is very much specific for I
guess smaller women for fat loss, right, because I would
typically give my more active ladies who might be slightly
in larger bodies between kind of that four hundred to
five fifty calories, again depending on energy demands as well,
So I'm very similar to you. I tend to do
one to two carb, one to two fat, and then
one to two proteins. But like you, if we're using
(29:37):
Greek yogurt and protein powder, I'm not going to use
full serves of both. If we've got berries and banana,
I might do half a banana or a small banana
and half a cup of berries. And I do like
to have a bit of a two to one veggie
to fruit rule, so I might do a third of
a zucchini a handful of spinach, So two is to
one and then maybe a banana with that. So I
like to get a bit of extra veg into the
(29:58):
smoothie if I can. In the morning it's like you're
doing like a chocolate flavored smooth I don't expect you
to dump in a whole handful of like spinach and zucchini.
But if you're doing more of like a green smoothie
or something, or a very based smoothie, I will take
that opportunity because honestly, a little bit of zucchini in
a smoothie you can't really even taste it. And then
in terms of the carbs, again, like you, Susie, I'm
very kind of conscious that if I have a bit
(30:20):
of fruit in there, I'm not going to load up
with milk and yogurt and cereal and you know, honey
as well. So I'm really conscious to just control the
carbohydrate portion overall. Most of my clients, I'll be looking
at between sort of thirty to sixty grams of carb
over all in that smoothing, depending on what their goals are,
what their backgrounds are, what their health conditions are, do
(30:40):
they have insulin resistance so they're going through perimenopause, and
how much exercise they're getting in as well. So it's
a difficult question to answer because we're all different, we
all have different energy demands. But I do have a
basically a good rule of thumbwhere I really want to
see a fat serve in the smooth in the morning
for my clients because fats are so important for our
energy cellular process as hormones. And a really high amount
(31:01):
of protein like most of my ladies between twenty to
thirty grams, and a minimum of protein in that breakfast smoothie.
So it might not be a full scoop of protein powder.
It might be a half scoop of protein powder. You
might have a bit of skin milk in there, and
a couple of tablespoons of Greek yogurt because Greek yogat
makes a nice thick smoothie as well. So it's about
that overall balance. Overall, if you want to use all
of the ingredients and that's super smoothie, just tone down
(31:22):
those portions. Use a teaspoon of each of each of
the different seeds. Use a small banana half a cup
of berries instead of a large banana and a full
cup of berries. But again, if you're happy with your
weight and you're maintaining your weight and you're doing that
and it's working for you. Absolutely, there's absolutely nothing wrong
with it. All of those ingredients are very, very nourishing.
It just depends on are you getting closer to your
(31:43):
goals or are you not able to achieve your goals
if you need to continue to do the same, or
if you need to change it up a little bit.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
And the other thing I would say about as smoothie
a is a meal, keep in mind that a meal
should fill you for at least three hours, So if
you're smoothie's only keeping you full for nineteen minutes, you
may need it to be more substantial or may not
be the most filling choice. So I don't mind is
smoothies feel people up, but I find sometimes they're consumed
as a bit of an extra as opposed to a
whole meal. So maybe we'll eat them as the meal
and then have some solid food. So if it's that
(32:10):
substantially smoothie, it should be filling you for several hours
because of the number of calories, So just keep that
in mind as well and make sure that you are
getting that satiety from it, because liquid calories are not
always as filling great.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
All right, well that's our final segment and that brings
us to the end of another episode of the Nutrition Coup.
So don't forget. We have our scientifically formulated range of
supplements at designed by dietitians dot com. We have very
high quality protein powder there. We have a digestive blend
and a hormone blend. We also have our range of
functional hot chocolates and our brand new range of creatine,
which we firmly believe most healthy women should be taking daily.
(32:43):
So jump online. There is a Creatine Frequently Asked question
page online designed by a Dietitians dot com and we
will catch you all in the next podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Have a great week.
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