From Leanne and Susie on The Nutrition Couch this episode:
- We talk about the importance of liking what you are eating and striking a healthy balance between good nutrition and food enjoyment;
- We discuss brand new research about how probiotic supplements can be used to treat depression;
- Our listener question is about overnight changes on the scale and what they mean.
So sit back, relax and enjoy this week’s episode!
Tune in on Wednesday for your mid-week motivation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you like what you eat? When you plan your meals?
Do you take time to consider what you actually feel
like eating or is it more likely that you eat
on autoq Actually liking what we were eating is a
really important part of healthy, balanced eating, and today we
share how to strike a balance between getting your nutrition
right and actually enjoying your food. Hi, I'm Susie Burrow
(00:22):
and I'm Lean Wood, and each week we bring you
The Nutrition Couch, the bi weekly podcast that talk about
everything that is new in the world of nutrition as
well as liking what we eat. Today, we have some great,
brand new research to share that maybe especially helpful if
you suffer from depression, and our listener question is one
that will resonate with many how is it possible that
the scales could be two kilos heavier after a big
(00:43):
night out? Or to kick us off lean We know
that depression and anxiety will affect a significant number of
people in their lives, and certainly with my client base,
I would say at least twenty percent of my clients
are taking some form of anti anxiety or antidepressant. Such
as the tensity of modern life and the stresses that
we have on a day to day basis. Now, of
(01:05):
course there's evidence based medication management that should be discussed
with your GP or psychiatrist. But we also do know
that lifestyle variables, whether it's active exercise regularly or even
certain diet profiles. So an anti inflammatory diet pact full
of AMGIA three facts is positively associated with improvements in
scores of depression. And there was a fantastic new article
(01:27):
that you sent me this week which was fascinating because
its a look at individuals with a major depressive episode
and not only with their medication, but combining that with
some moral probiotic supplements. And they had some really interesting results, didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
They Yeah, absolutely, And the key headline was provertic supplements
may help with depression And that was enough. I was
like click, I'm all in, Like, let me know more. Basically,
we know we've known for some time that diet has
a huge impact on mental health. If you've never heard
of the Smiles trial, give it a google. It was
actually conducted. It was a world first trial, one of
the first ones to show the impact that nutrition has
(02:05):
positively on mental health. It was actually done at one
of the universities down in Melbourne and it was really
really exciting research worldwide, and it really did show the
power that positive nutrition changes can have. So this is
really interesting because it really just studied probotic supplements. So
essentially researchers in King's College in London, which is very
well known for a lot of great new and up
(02:27):
and coming gut health research. They're some of the you know,
they're really the forefront in the gut health space at
the moment that the King's College in London. And what
they did is they published this study in the Journal
of Psychiatry, which is really interesting, and they studied individuals
with major depressive disorder. So these guys, you know, this
is a clinical condition. This isn't some people who wake
up and they occasionally have a bit of a bad day.
(02:48):
These are people with clinically diagnosed major depressive disorder. And
what they did is they got them to take a
probotic supplement containing at least fourteen strains of different types
of bacteria, and then they looked at their overall symptoms
of depression and anxiety. So it was an eight week
double blinded, randomized, placebo controlled trials. It was a very
well done trial. They used fifty out patients who, as
(03:10):
I said, had major depressive scores, and they studied them
over the eight weeks, and they gave one group the
placebo was just a capture with nothing much in it,
and the other group had the probotic strains, which contained
at least fourteen strains. It was really interesting outcomes.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
True, there was an additive effect of having the probiotic supplement,
so it's not you know, certainly lifestyle variables can have
a benefit on top of any actual medical management. So
they're actually planning a larger follow up trial with this
to really have a look at what's going on there.
But it was cumulative, so the improvement in mood was
(03:45):
improved basically with the probiotic supplement. But actually what I
found most interesting actually was that that effect was seen
after thirty days, which links to a lot of what
we talk about when it comes to digestive health. It's
not about the one of supplements, it's about the consistency
with diet because that's require to really work on improving
that gut microbio. And so it's not good enough to
eat well for three days before going on a bender
(04:06):
where you're having fast food and takeaway and alcohol because
that's what's working against your gut health. You've really got
to make a commitment to eating pretty well five or
six days a week. You can think of more debaucherous
meals in terms of a meal to hear or there,
rather than scattered and happening multiple times each week. So
that's actually what I took from it. That comes back
to that diet consistency. So you're much better to be
taking a probiotic supplement, so whether it's a fermented food
(04:29):
each day, or a great quality yogurt, or an actual
supplement like your cult as opposed to just popping a
tablet every so often, particularly if you are vulnerable to
lower mood. And let's be honestly, and we're sort of
in the cooler months of the year, a lot of
Australians can have lower itamin D which can mimic full depression.
So you know, it's just a reminder that that consistency
in our gut health, and you know they using probiotics
(04:53):
regularly in the diet. There's a number of lifestyle benefits,
particularly if you do already suffer from depression.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Absolutely, just go back and say I did find that
the results of the study honder or I to do
a little bit of scrolling through the paper. But basically,
at the end of the eight week pilot study, like
Susie said, basically the majority of participants found an improvement
in their measures of anxiety and depression versus the Sleeber group.
And like Susie said, there were marked improvements from about
week four, but the longer they took this for the
(05:20):
greater the improvements. So it is something that tended to
compound over time. It's not something that you'd want to
just take for a couple of days and stop or
randomly take every tool three days. I think with a
lot of supplementations, people forget that consistency is key. So
these guys were taking this probotic supplement every single day
for eight weeks. They weren't doing it when they felt
like it, they weren't doing it occasionally when they remembered it.
(05:41):
They were consistently taking it over time for a period
of a minimum of eight weeks, and they saw some
great benefits. So we're not saying that you should come
off your antidepression medication, not at all. We're saying a
lot of these things work in conjunction with modern medicine
as well. So it's really something that I would have
a great chat to either your doctor or your clientrist
or your therapist about. But I really do think that
(06:03):
a lot of these strategy is a good quality diet
plus potentially trialing a probodic form a minimum of eight weeks,
plus also your medication that you're on can potentially improve
both depression and anxiety as well. So I think it's
a really really powerful study, but it does just kind
of hit home and bring home what we already knew
is that diet and gut health has a huge impact
(06:23):
on things like depression and anxiety, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And we're moving on from that to a topic that
I think a lot of listeners will find really interesting
because usually when I start working with a client, you know,
will develop a meal plan with different food options, and
for some clients, after about maybe a couple of months,
I'll get a little bit of pushback and there will
be a bit like I'm sick of what I'm having,
(06:46):
I want more ideas, and there's a real kind of
annoyance but that they're over what they're eating. So what
I will often say is, well, what do you feel
like eating and when I put that question back to them,
they actually don't know, because I think, to a certain extent,
when it comes specifically to weight loss or even the
perception that healthy eating is a set prescription and you
(07:08):
have to follow it, people think that they have to
do it no matter what. And I really thought it
worthy of a discussion about how important it is that
you actually enjoy what you're eating, but also really take
time at any meal or snack to think about what
you feel like. Because even though we can calculate calories
(07:32):
and requirements and macros and combos that fit the box
when it comes to our meal plans and achieving calorie
deficits and timing and all those sort of scientific aspects
of nutrition that dieticians are trained to do, there also
is that personable aspect that there's a huge amount of
pleasure and satisfaction that comes from enjoying food. And we're
okay to say that. It's okay to say that you're
(07:54):
allowed to enjoy and like what you eat, and when
you start to get back in touch with your body,
not to be more aware of your hunger and eating
according to that rather than on autoqueue. It's amazing how
much more satisfying the food will be. So I'll give
you a classic example, someone who'll be eating healthy and
they'll have a tuna salad for lunch because that's what
(08:16):
they think is healthy. So they'll have the dry or
tuna the salad leaves and have the same lunch every day,
every week day, for months years of a time, and
they're highly resentful of it. They actually don't enjoy it
at all, but it's what they think they should be eating.
And then you know what happens, They end up going
all afternoon and snacking to try and get that satisfaction
of what they're looking for. So I just wanted to
(08:39):
talk about that as a important aspect of your food.
And there would be very few foods, with say the
exception of hot chips and soft drink that I couldn't
find an alternative for. So, for example, if you said
I'm so sick of my boring salad or sandwich or
wrap for lunch, and I said to you, what do
you feel like and you said, I feel like a
(09:01):
burger and fries, well all you had to do is
get a lean beef patty, a high protein bun, or
a low one of those sandwich thin buns, which we've
covered before on the Nutrition Couch, and have it with
loads of salad and you've had your burger. It's just
about what I would call healthifying the food. And as
I said, there's very few recipes or meals out there
with the exception I guess of a fast food meal
(09:23):
deal that you could really replicate in a healthier version
and actually feel satisfied. So whilst there's some requirements to
hit when it comes to weight control, for example, Leanna
and I are always going to want to have a
couple of serves of veggies, We're always going to want
to have a lean protein. We're going to want to
try and make sure the carbohydrates the best quality. You know,
no one meal or food ever disrupts a diet. It's
(09:45):
always about the balance. But I would urge you to
really sort of start to think outside the box when
you're planning your meals, to think what do I really
feel like what's going to satisfy me? And the same
with a snack, if on your meal plan or what
you've been having says a certain snack, I do know
it might be yogat and fruit, and you're so over
yogurt and fruit, you never want to see it again.
It's okay to try something different, you know, look at
(10:06):
the different options in brainstorm or work with a dietician
to think about how can I still tick the box
and things I like, Do you want something hot, We'll
have a slice of protein toast. Can you bake something
that's got a protein based so it's actually a baked treat.
Do you want a hot drink or a sweet drink?
How can you do it? Because that simple art of
being able to not only get the nutritional balance right,
(10:28):
but really think about what you feel like eating is
the difference between creating a meal plan that is sustainable
and enjoyable for you and following something that you think
you should be doing that will never be sustainable because
as a human, you will always want agency to actually
choose what you're doing. So a little bit of homework
for everyone, and this will work particularly for people who
have a sweet tooth. If you're someone who is always
(10:50):
looking to reward yourself with chocolate or biscuit, something that's
got or ice cream, next time you go to buy
that food, whether it's a block of chocolate for the
week or packet Abstel gets a lyce cream or one
off dessert. I want you to really look at the
section in the supermarket and really take time to think
about what exactly what you feel like. Do you want snack?
(11:10):
Do you want fruit and nut? Do you want top deck?
Do you want dark chocolate? Do you actually want a biscuit?
What is it you really actually are craving that will
give you the most satisfaction. And if you can start
to take that time and the same if you are
eating or going to get a fast food meal or
a takeaway, what cuisine do I actually really feel like?
And then if I do, I don't have to go
on auto Q and eat the rubbish. So if we're
(11:32):
having tie, I don't have to have pad tie, But
I could have a stir fry with veggies and a
couple of spoons of pad tie and feel just as satisfied.
And there's an art to doing that so you don't
come into contact with high calorie food and automatically feel
the need to overeat it. Because when you learn to
do that and really tap into what you feel like
and what's satisfying, you will no longer binge and eat
(11:53):
mindlessly because you will feel much more in control but
you will actually like your diet more.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And I always say to my clients meals have to
be two things, filling and satisfying if you hit the
filling component, like a tuna salad may very well be filling,
but it's not satisfying in winter. I mean, I reckon
tempest out of the population would find a tuna salad
satisfying in winter, right, Susie and I had definitely not
on that list, Like, no way we choose hot lunches,
not unless it.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Was covered in that QP mayo that everyone loves.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So yeah, so filling versus satisfying because it has to
tick some boxes in terms of nutrition, but it also
needs to be satisfying. And I had the perfect example
as well Susie with the client this week where it
was just her birthday yesterday and she went out for
it was time for dinner, and she chose a little
bit of an andre she was going to share. She
had a curry which she shared half of that with
her partner, and then there was birthday cake as well.
(12:42):
And when she was there, she texts me and she's like, oh,
what do you think of these cocktails? Like she's not
a drinker. She rarely drinks, Like alcohol is not really
on her soul food list. I think in the nine
or so weeks we've been working together, she had one
glass of wine when she celebrated her anniversary with her partner,
and that was it. Like she's just not a real drinker.
And she sent with these cocktails and they they were
just full of sugar and juice and like that was
(13:02):
two or three shots of alcohol in it. And she said, oh,
what would one of the like, how could I work
this into my plan for the weeknd? Even that was
her birthday week. She was determined to hit her deficit.
We had the conversation, you can go back to maintenance.
We can maintain all the great fat loss. I think
she's lost nearly seven kilos to date, like she's doing wonderfully.
And I said, why don't we just hit maintenance to
give you a bit more calories to play with? And
she was determined. She was like, no, no, no, we're
(13:23):
going to hit you know, I'm going to go lean
for the rest of the week and have a nice birthday.
Did her out and I said, oh, the cocktails aren't great.
I said, if you want one, don't you have something
that's going to make you feel good because between the
heavy curry and the rice and the cake, the birthday cake,
like she had this decadent birthday cake she'd picked out.
She was really excited for it. And I just said
to her, those sugar cocktails, I'm not going to make
you feel great, but you're more than welcome to have
(13:44):
one if you want, but I would, you know, choose
this one and then just have one and stick to that.
And she came back to me and she said, you
know what, You're right looking at the ingredients. That's not
going to make me feel good. I'm actually so satisfied
with my curry and I'm about to have my cake,
and I'm so happy with that choice. And then this
morning she text me and she said, I'm going out
to lunch with my mum in law out for my birthday.
She's taken me out for lunch and I'm really craving
a salad. Can you have a look at this menu
(14:06):
and let me know if that's a good option. It
was like this nice beach root fet a salad was
a vegetarian one. She said, I'm going to add some
grilled chicken. How does that sound? And I was like perfect,
and the fact that I hadn't told her to lean
it up or you know, because if she'd had a
bit of heavy night. She's like, I actively am craving
a salad after having a heavy curry and some birthday
cake the night before. So I really feel like, when
(14:26):
you're really in tune with your body and you're listening
to what it wants, if you have a heavier night,
the last thing you probably want is like a burger
and fries or something the very next day. So despite
it being her birthday and her birthday weekend and her
mom in law was taking her out to celebrate, she
was really honoring her body and her hunger and what
she felt like. And she's like, I feel so satisfied
from last night. I still feel a bit bloated and heavy.
(14:47):
I really genuinely feel like a salad. Because I said
to her, look, it's your birthday celebration. You can have
anything you want. Let me know when I help you
budget it and from a menu perspective, and she said,
I really just want the salad. It sounds really yummy
and it's nice and light, exactly what I I want,
and I'd really love to have a bit of birthday
cake later on as well, and so that's what she did.
So I feel like when you start to listen and
like you said, Susie, really on your body and trust
(15:09):
that what you're choosing is the thing that you truly
want and just having a small amount of it. You
don't have to go gangbusters on it or overeat it
or anything like that. But I do feel like we
can gain that trust more with our body, and our
our bodies fullness and satisfaction signals a lot more over
time when we are truly going towards foods that we
love versus foods that we think we should have. It's
(15:30):
a really important conversation this week.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I think it is, and it's a trust in self
and that comes back to a lot of hunger management
as well. And it makes sense lean you know, people
have had years of programming externally to eat according to
a sheet of paper or what everyone else is eating,
you know. So it's about getting back in touch with
self in small steps that aren't too overwhelming. So that's
my little practice assignment. Really just take those moments and
(15:52):
then if you are at the chocolate, ill really really
differentiate all the different flavors. It's quite a fun little task,
all rightly, and we're to wrap us up today something
that's not unrelated. We had a great listening question on
our Instagram, so please send them through, because whenever we're
writing scripts, we have a quick scroll and often grab them.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Even if we don't respond to you, we do apologize.
We get there's hundreds and hundreds of questions there. Yeah,
if we don't respond, we apologize, but we may see
them when we may chat about them anyway, So feel
free to send them through.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yeah, and I love this question. I said to Lam
this is a great one. It says, how is it possible?
And it may have included a swear word, how is
it possible that I can be two kilos heavier on Monday?
And I thought, oh, that's a really good conversation, because
that's why I hate clients weighing too frequently. I usually
say leanne Tuesday and Friday, before the weekend and after
the weekend, because inevitably, if you're going to have more
(16:38):
indulgent foods a restaurant meal, if you drink several of those,
it's on the weekend. And what happens is if you've
been following quite a calorie deficit or a reduced calorie
eating plan that's lowering carbohydrate. You're probably having reasonably low
carbohydrate stores, so as soon as you expose the body
to a higher carb meal, whether it's noodles or fast
food or even alcohol, those muscles will veryly fill up,
(17:00):
and that can be as much as a couple of kilos.
The other reasons tends to be fluid balanced, because if
you've had a few drinks, it really plays have it
with your fluid balance, so you might be quite clogged
up and have or you may also have dehydration if
you're hungover, so sometimes you'll notice you're feeling quite light.
But the other issue is often the salt. So those
meals we eat out can have two or three times
(17:20):
the amount of sodium, and that attracts a lot of fluid.
And that's why if you've had a pizza or Mexican
food or Asian cuisine, you can be a couple of
kilos heavier. So the message is I wouldn't be taking
a weight on a Monday morning, no matter what I think.
Take it. If you must take it, take it later
in the week and then go for the average because
absolutely it can change by as much as a kilo
or two overnight, just based on what you've eaten and
(17:42):
if you've been to the bathroom or if you had
more heavier food. You know, if you've had more liquids,
it moves through you more quickly, and if you haven't,
if you've had a more stodgy meal and not a
lot of veggies, your digestive system may have extra food
in it as well, or you may just have had
a larger volume of food through the gut and that's
still moving through the system. So that's my best advice,
And the other advice I've news with clients is go
light on Monday. I always like a light day Monday,
(18:03):
just extra soups or salads or veggies, just to buffer
that effect of the weekend not being overly restrictive. But
we can admit that we often overeat. It's okay to
have a lighter day or two to buffer that.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And I think it's really important to note that it's
a scale goes up one or two kilos. Genuinely, it's
not fat gain. If you've been off track all week,
potentially it is. But if you've been on track all
week and you might have had one or two bigger meals,
but it wasn't a full on weekend bender. It's generally
not fat gain. What it is is just water weight
or a bit of hormone shifts over the weekend. Because
we've got to remember that for every gram of carbohydrate
(18:34):
we eat, the body stores two to three grams of
water weight. So the scale goes up most of the time,
particularly when it comes back down on a couple of
days later. You haven't gained two kilos of fat, You've
gained two kilos of kind of just water weight. And
as Susie said, what you're eating alcohol salt that retains
more water on your body. At a client on Friday
night and her and a hubby got a big bowl
(18:55):
of fur and I said to her, yep, that's cool.
Like we talked about how to budget it in and
I said, just don't weigh yourself. Goodness sex. So I
don't let my clients weigh on a Monday morning because
a lot of them they say, no, no, it's fine,
it's fine. I say, no, it's not. I know it's
going to essentially mess with your head. I make them
way midweek, on like a Wednesday. So just remember that
a bigger weekend can cause the scale to go up,
but it's not true, you know, fat gain. It's generally
(19:17):
just water weight.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Excellent point, all rightly, And what that brings us to
the end of the Nutrition Couch for another Sunday. Please
keep telling your friends about us and go on to
our website, the nutritioncouch dot com for our increasing range
of products, including the Peri Plan and our Snack Guide.
And we will see you on Wednesday for our midweek
motivational catch ups.
Do you like what you eat? When you plan your meals?
Do you take time to consider what you actually feel
like eating or is it more likely that you eat
on autoq Actually liking what we were eating is a
really important part of healthy, balanced eating, and today we
share how to strike a balance between getting your nutrition
right and actually enjoying your food. Hi, I'm Susie Burrow
(00:22):
and I'm Lean Wood, and each week we bring you
The Nutrition Couch, the bi weekly podcast that talk about
everything that is new in the world of nutrition as
well as liking what we eat. Today, we have some great,
brand new research to share that maybe especially helpful if
you suffer from depression, and our listener question is one
that will resonate with many how is it possible that
the scales could be two kilos heavier after a big
(00:43):
night out? Or to kick us off lean We know
that depression and anxiety will affect a significant number of
people in their lives, and certainly with my client base,
I would say at least twenty percent of my clients
are taking some form of anti anxiety or antidepressant. Such
as the tensity of modern life and the stresses that
we have on a day to day basis. Now, of
(01:05):
course there's evidence based medication management that should be discussed
with your GP or psychiatrist. But we also do know
that lifestyle variables, whether it's active exercise regularly or even
certain diet profiles. So an anti inflammatory diet pact full
of AMGIA three facts is positively associated with improvements in
scores of depression. And there was a fantastic new article
(01:27):
that you sent me this week which was fascinating because
its a look at individuals with a major depressive episode
and not only with their medication, but combining that with
some moral probiotic supplements. And they had some really interesting results, didn't.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
They Yeah, absolutely, And the key headline was provertic supplements
may help with depression And that was enough. I was
like click, I'm all in, Like, let me know more. Basically,
we know we've known for some time that diet has
a huge impact on mental health. If you've never heard
of the Smiles trial, give it a google. It was
actually conducted. It was a world first trial, one of
the first ones to show the impact that nutrition has
(02:05):
positively on mental health. It was actually done at one
of the universities down in Melbourne and it was really
really exciting research worldwide, and it really did show the
power that positive nutrition changes can have. So this is
really interesting because it really just studied probotic supplements. So
essentially researchers in King's College in London, which is very
well known for a lot of great new and up
(02:27):
and coming gut health research. They're some of the you know,
they're really the forefront in the gut health space at
the moment that the King's College in London. And what
they did is they published this study in the Journal
of Psychiatry, which is really interesting, and they studied individuals
with major depressive disorder. So these guys, you know, this
is a clinical condition. This isn't some people who wake
up and they occasionally have a bit of a bad day.
(02:48):
These are people with clinically diagnosed major depressive disorder. And
what they did is they got them to take a
probotic supplement containing at least fourteen strains of different types
of bacteria, and then they looked at their overall symptoms
of depression and anxiety. So it was an eight week
double blinded, randomized, placebo controlled trials. It was a very
well done trial. They used fifty out patients who, as
(03:10):
I said, had major depressive scores, and they studied them
over the eight weeks, and they gave one group the
placebo was just a capture with nothing much in it,
and the other group had the probotic strains, which contained
at least fourteen strains. It was really interesting outcomes.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
True, there was an additive effect of having the probiotic supplement,
so it's not you know, certainly lifestyle variables can have
a benefit on top of any actual medical management. So
they're actually planning a larger follow up trial with this
to really have a look at what's going on there.
But it was cumulative, so the improvement in mood was
(03:45):
improved basically with the probiotic supplement. But actually what I
found most interesting actually was that that effect was seen
after thirty days, which links to a lot of what
we talk about when it comes to digestive health. It's
not about the one of supplements, it's about the consistency
with diet because that's require to really work on improving
that gut microbio. And so it's not good enough to
eat well for three days before going on a bender
(04:06):
where you're having fast food and takeaway and alcohol because
that's what's working against your gut health. You've really got
to make a commitment to eating pretty well five or
six days a week. You can think of more debaucherous
meals in terms of a meal to hear or there,
rather than scattered and happening multiple times each week. So
that's actually what I took from it. That comes back
to that diet consistency. So you're much better to be
taking a probiotic supplement, so whether it's a fermented food
(04:29):
each day, or a great quality yogurt, or an actual
supplement like your cult as opposed to just popping a
tablet every so often, particularly if you are vulnerable to
lower mood. And let's be honestly, and we're sort of
in the cooler months of the year, a lot of
Australians can have lower itamin D which can mimic full depression.
So you know, it's just a reminder that that consistency
in our gut health, and you know they using probiotics
(04:53):
regularly in the diet. There's a number of lifestyle benefits,
particularly if you do already suffer from depression.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Absolutely, just go back and say I did find that
the results of the study honder or I to do
a little bit of scrolling through the paper. But basically,
at the end of the eight week pilot study, like
Susie said, basically the majority of participants found an improvement
in their measures of anxiety and depression versus the Sleeber group.
And like Susie said, there were marked improvements from about
week four, but the longer they took this for the
(05:20):
greater the improvements. So it is something that tended to
compound over time. It's not something that you'd want to
just take for a couple of days and stop or
randomly take every tool three days. I think with a
lot of supplementations, people forget that consistency is key. So
these guys were taking this probotic supplement every single day
for eight weeks. They weren't doing it when they felt
like it, they weren't doing it occasionally when they remembered it.
(05:41):
They were consistently taking it over time for a period
of a minimum of eight weeks, and they saw some
great benefits. So we're not saying that you should come
off your antidepression medication, not at all. We're saying a
lot of these things work in conjunction with modern medicine
as well. So it's really something that I would have
a great chat to either your doctor or your clientrist
or your therapist about. But I really do think that
(06:03):
a lot of these strategy is a good quality diet
plus potentially trialing a probodic form a minimum of eight weeks,
plus also your medication that you're on can potentially improve
both depression and anxiety as well. So I think it's
a really really powerful study, but it does just kind
of hit home and bring home what we already knew
is that diet and gut health has a huge impact
(06:23):
on things like depression and anxiety, all right.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And we're moving on from that to a topic that
I think a lot of listeners will find really interesting
because usually when I start working with a client, you know,
will develop a meal plan with different food options, and
for some clients, after about maybe a couple of months,
I'll get a little bit of pushback and there will
be a bit like I'm sick of what I'm having,
(06:46):
I want more ideas, and there's a real kind of
annoyance but that they're over what they're eating. So what
I will often say is, well, what do you feel
like eating and when I put that question back to them,
they actually don't know, because I think, to a certain extent,
when it comes specifically to weight loss or even the
perception that healthy eating is a set prescription and you
(07:08):
have to follow it, people think that they have to
do it no matter what. And I really thought it
worthy of a discussion about how important it is that
you actually enjoy what you're eating, but also really take
time at any meal or snack to think about what
you feel like. Because even though we can calculate calories
(07:32):
and requirements and macros and combos that fit the box
when it comes to our meal plans and achieving calorie
deficits and timing and all those sort of scientific aspects
of nutrition that dieticians are trained to do, there also
is that personable aspect that there's a huge amount of
pleasure and satisfaction that comes from enjoying food. And we're
okay to say that. It's okay to say that you're
(07:54):
allowed to enjoy and like what you eat, and when
you start to get back in touch with your body,
not to be more aware of your hunger and eating
according to that rather than on autoqueue. It's amazing how
much more satisfying the food will be. So I'll give
you a classic example, someone who'll be eating healthy and
they'll have a tuna salad for lunch because that's what
(08:16):
they think is healthy. So they'll have the dry or
tuna the salad leaves and have the same lunch every day,
every week day, for months years of a time, and
they're highly resentful of it. They actually don't enjoy it
at all, but it's what they think they should be eating.
And then you know what happens, They end up going
all afternoon and snacking to try and get that satisfaction
of what they're looking for. So I just wanted to
(08:39):
talk about that as a important aspect of your food.
And there would be very few foods, with say the
exception of hot chips and soft drink that I couldn't
find an alternative for. So, for example, if you said
I'm so sick of my boring salad or sandwich or
wrap for lunch, and I said to you, what do
you feel like and you said, I feel like a
(09:01):
burger and fries, well all you had to do is
get a lean beef patty, a high protein bun, or
a low one of those sandwich thin buns, which we've
covered before on the Nutrition Couch, and have it with
loads of salad and you've had your burger. It's just
about what I would call healthifying the food. And as
I said, there's very few recipes or meals out there
with the exception I guess of a fast food meal
(09:23):
deal that you could really replicate in a healthier version
and actually feel satisfied. So whilst there's some requirements to
hit when it comes to weight control, for example, Leanna
and I are always going to want to have a
couple of serves of veggies, We're always going to want
to have a lean protein. We're going to want to
try and make sure the carbohydrates the best quality. You know,
no one meal or food ever disrupts a diet. It's
(09:45):
always about the balance. But I would urge you to
really sort of start to think outside the box when
you're planning your meals, to think what do I really
feel like what's going to satisfy me? And the same
with a snack, if on your meal plan or what
you've been having says a certain snack, I do know
it might be yogat and fruit, and you're so over
yogurt and fruit, you never want to see it again.
It's okay to try something different, you know, look at
(10:06):
the different options in brainstorm or work with a dietician
to think about how can I still tick the box
and things I like, Do you want something hot, We'll
have a slice of protein toast. Can you bake something
that's got a protein based so it's actually a baked treat.
Do you want a hot drink or a sweet drink?
How can you do it? Because that simple art of
being able to not only get the nutritional balance right,
(10:28):
but really think about what you feel like eating is
the difference between creating a meal plan that is sustainable
and enjoyable for you and following something that you think
you should be doing that will never be sustainable because
as a human, you will always want agency to actually
choose what you're doing. So a little bit of homework
for everyone, and this will work particularly for people who
have a sweet tooth. If you're someone who is always
(10:50):
looking to reward yourself with chocolate or biscuit, something that's
got or ice cream, next time you go to buy
that food, whether it's a block of chocolate for the
week or packet Abstel gets a lyce cream or one
off dessert. I want you to really look at the
section in the supermarket and really take time to think
about what exactly what you feel like. Do you want snack?
(11:10):
Do you want fruit and nut? Do you want top deck?
Do you want dark chocolate? Do you actually want a biscuit?
What is it you really actually are craving that will
give you the most satisfaction. And if you can start
to take that time and the same if you are
eating or going to get a fast food meal or
a takeaway, what cuisine do I actually really feel like?
And then if I do, I don't have to go
on auto Q and eat the rubbish. So if we're
(11:32):
having tie, I don't have to have pad tie, But
I could have a stir fry with veggies and a
couple of spoons of pad tie and feel just as satisfied.
And there's an art to doing that so you don't
come into contact with high calorie food and automatically feel
the need to overeat it. Because when you learn to
do that and really tap into what you feel like
and what's satisfying, you will no longer binge and eat
(11:53):
mindlessly because you will feel much more in control but
you will actually like your diet more.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
And I always say to my clients meals have to
be two things, filling and satisfying if you hit the
filling component, like a tuna salad may very well be filling,
but it's not satisfying in winter. I mean, I reckon
tempest out of the population would find a tuna salad
satisfying in winter, right, Susie and I had definitely not
on that list, Like, no way we choose hot lunches,
not unless it.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Was covered in that QP mayo that everyone loves.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So yeah, so filling versus satisfying because it has to
tick some boxes in terms of nutrition, but it also
needs to be satisfying. And I had the perfect example
as well Susie with the client this week where it
was just her birthday yesterday and she went out for
it was time for dinner, and she chose a little
bit of an andre she was going to share. She
had a curry which she shared half of that with
her partner, and then there was birthday cake as well.
(12:42):
And when she was there, she texts me and she's like, oh,
what do you think of these cocktails? Like she's not
a drinker. She rarely drinks, Like alcohol is not really
on her soul food list. I think in the nine
or so weeks we've been working together, she had one
glass of wine when she celebrated her anniversary with her partner,
and that was it. Like she's just not a real drinker.
And she sent with these cocktails and they they were
just full of sugar and juice and like that was
(13:02):
two or three shots of alcohol in it. And she said, oh,
what would one of the like, how could I work
this into my plan for the weeknd? Even that was
her birthday week. She was determined to hit her deficit.
We had the conversation, you can go back to maintenance.
We can maintain all the great fat loss. I think
she's lost nearly seven kilos to date, like she's doing wonderfully.
And I said, why don't we just hit maintenance to
give you a bit more calories to play with? And
she was determined. She was like, no, no, no, we're
(13:23):
going to hit you know, I'm going to go lean
for the rest of the week and have a nice birthday.
Did her out and I said, oh, the cocktails aren't great.
I said, if you want one, don't you have something
that's going to make you feel good because between the
heavy curry and the rice and the cake, the birthday cake,
like she had this decadent birthday cake she'd picked out.
She was really excited for it. And I just said
to her, those sugar cocktails, I'm not going to make
you feel great, but you're more than welcome to have
(13:44):
one if you want, but I would, you know, choose
this one and then just have one and stick to that.
And she came back to me and she said, you
know what, You're right looking at the ingredients. That's not
going to make me feel good. I'm actually so satisfied
with my curry and I'm about to have my cake,
and I'm so happy with that choice. And then this
morning she text me and she said, I'm going out
to lunch with my mum in law out for my birthday.
She's taken me out for lunch and I'm really craving
a salad. Can you have a look at this menu
(14:06):
and let me know if that's a good option. It
was like this nice beach root fet a salad was
a vegetarian one. She said, I'm going to add some
grilled chicken. How does that sound? And I was like perfect,
and the fact that I hadn't told her to lean
it up or you know, because if she'd had a
bit of heavy night. She's like, I actively am craving
a salad after having a heavy curry and some birthday
cake the night before. So I really feel like, when
(14:26):
you're really in tune with your body and you're listening
to what it wants, if you have a heavier night,
the last thing you probably want is like a burger
and fries or something the very next day. So despite
it being her birthday and her birthday weekend and her
mom in law was taking her out to celebrate, she
was really honoring her body and her hunger and what
she felt like. And she's like, I feel so satisfied
from last night. I still feel a bit bloated and heavy.
(14:47):
I really genuinely feel like a salad. Because I said
to her, look, it's your birthday celebration. You can have
anything you want. Let me know when I help you
budget it and from a menu perspective, and she said,
I really just want the salad. It sounds really yummy
and it's nice and light, exactly what I I want,
and I'd really love to have a bit of birthday
cake later on as well, and so that's what she did.
So I feel like when you start to listen and
like you said, Susie, really on your body and trust
(15:09):
that what you're choosing is the thing that you truly
want and just having a small amount of it. You
don't have to go gangbusters on it or overeat it
or anything like that. But I do feel like we
can gain that trust more with our body, and our
our bodies fullness and satisfaction signals a lot more over
time when we are truly going towards foods that we
love versus foods that we think we should have. It's
(15:30):
a really important conversation this week.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
I think it is, and it's a trust in self
and that comes back to a lot of hunger management
as well. And it makes sense lean you know, people
have had years of programming externally to eat according to
a sheet of paper or what everyone else is eating,
you know. So it's about getting back in touch with
self in small steps that aren't too overwhelming. So that's
my little practice assignment. Really just take those moments and
(15:52):
then if you are at the chocolate, ill really really
differentiate all the different flavors. It's quite a fun little task,
all rightly, and we're to wrap us up today something
that's not unrelated. We had a great listening question on
our Instagram, so please send them through, because whenever we're
writing scripts, we have a quick scroll and often grab them.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Even if we don't respond to you, we do apologize.
We get there's hundreds and hundreds of questions there. Yeah,
if we don't respond, we apologize, but we may see
them when we may chat about them anyway, So feel
free to send them through.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yeah, and I love this question. I said to Lam
this is a great one. It says, how is it possible?
And it may have included a swear word, how is
it possible that I can be two kilos heavier on Monday?
And I thought, oh, that's a really good conversation, because
that's why I hate clients weighing too frequently. I usually
say leanne Tuesday and Friday, before the weekend and after
the weekend, because inevitably, if you're going to have more
(16:38):
indulgent foods a restaurant meal, if you drink several of those,
it's on the weekend. And what happens is if you've
been following quite a calorie deficit or a reduced calorie
eating plan that's lowering carbohydrate. You're probably having reasonably low
carbohydrate stores, so as soon as you expose the body
to a higher carb meal, whether it's noodles or fast
food or even alcohol, those muscles will veryly fill up,
(17:00):
and that can be as much as a couple of kilos.
The other reasons tends to be fluid balanced, because if
you've had a few drinks, it really plays have it
with your fluid balance, so you might be quite clogged
up and have or you may also have dehydration if
you're hungover, so sometimes you'll notice you're feeling quite light.
But the other issue is often the salt. So those
meals we eat out can have two or three times
(17:20):
the amount of sodium, and that attracts a lot of fluid.
And that's why if you've had a pizza or Mexican
food or Asian cuisine, you can be a couple of
kilos heavier. So the message is I wouldn't be taking
a weight on a Monday morning, no matter what I think.
Take it. If you must take it, take it later
in the week and then go for the average because
absolutely it can change by as much as a kilo
or two overnight, just based on what you've eaten and
(17:42):
if you've been to the bathroom or if you had
more heavier food. You know, if you've had more liquids,
it moves through you more quickly, and if you haven't,
if you've had a more stodgy meal and not a
lot of veggies, your digestive system may have extra food
in it as well, or you may just have had
a larger volume of food through the gut and that's
still moving through the system. So that's my best advice,
And the other advice I've news with clients is go
light on Monday. I always like a light day Monday,
(18:03):
just extra soups or salads or veggies, just to buffer
that effect of the weekend not being overly restrictive. But
we can admit that we often overeat. It's okay to
have a lighter day or two to buffer that.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And I think it's really important to note that it's
a scale goes up one or two kilos. Genuinely, it's
not fat gain. If you've been off track all week,
potentially it is. But if you've been on track all
week and you might have had one or two bigger meals,
but it wasn't a full on weekend bender. It's generally
not fat gain. What it is is just water weight
or a bit of hormone shifts over the weekend. Because
we've got to remember that for every gram of carbohydrate
(18:34):
we eat, the body stores two to three grams of
water weight. So the scale goes up most of the time,
particularly when it comes back down on a couple of
days later. You haven't gained two kilos of fat, You've
gained two kilos of kind of just water weight. And
as Susie said, what you're eating alcohol salt that retains
more water on your body. At a client on Friday
night and her and a hubby got a big bowl
(18:55):
of fur and I said to her, yep, that's cool.
Like we talked about how to budget it in and
I said, just don't weigh yourself. Goodness sex. So I
don't let my clients weigh on a Monday morning because
a lot of them they say, no, no, it's fine,
it's fine. I say, no, it's not. I know it's
going to essentially mess with your head. I make them
way midweek, on like a Wednesday. So just remember that
a bigger weekend can cause the scale to go up,
but it's not true, you know, fat gain. It's generally
(19:17):
just water weight.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Excellent point, all rightly, And what that brings us to
the end of the Nutrition Couch for another Sunday. Please
keep telling your friends about us and go on to
our website, the nutritioncouch dot com for our increasing range
of products, including the Peri Plan and our Snack Guide.
And we will see you on Wednesday for our midweek
motivational catch ups.
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