If you have already done the hard work, lost a decent amount of weight, and are now staring at the same two or three kilos that simply will not budge, this episode is going to make a lot of sense of what is happening and exactly what to do about it.
Leanne and Susie break down the real physiology behind why losing the last few kilos is significantly harder than losing the first ten, why the strategies that got you here are not the ones that will get you there, and the specific changes that actually move the needle when you are already doing most things right.
Then they do the research nobody wants to do themselves: wading through the menus at Eljana, Grilled, Nando's, A Perto, Guzman y Gomez, Subway, Betty's Burgers, Fishbowl, and more to find the lowest calorie, highest protein options you can actually order without sacrificing the whole meal.
In this episode:
- Why losing 30 kilos is genuinely easier than losing three, the physiology of why the human body resists leanness, and why everything that worked before will eventually stop working
- Why going to bed slightly hungry is actually a useful signal when you are trying to lose the last few kilos, and why the fear of hunger is one of the main things holding people back
- Why eating earlier rather than eating less can be one of the most powerful and sustainable strategies for shifting stubborn body fat, and how to apply it practically around a busy family schedule
- Why some people need to do less exercise, not more, to finally see the scale move, and how to tell which camp you are in
- The role of the weekend in undoing five days of good eating, why most people are maintaining rather than losing without realising it, and the one change that breaks the cycle
- The lowest calorie, highest protein options at Eljana, Grilled, Nando's, A Porto, Guzman y Gomez, Subway, Betty's Burgers, Fishbowl, and KFC. Specific menu items named, calorie counts given, and honest advice on what is actually worth ordering versus what just looks healthy
- Why Guzman y Gomez burritos and bowls are significantly higher in calories than most people assume, and the menu hack that most people would never consider
- Why a well-chosen burger from Grilled or Nando's is often a better nutritional choice than sushi, and what to ask for to drop the calorie count further without sacrificing the meal
- The Arnott's Quattro Caramel and Peanut Bar reviewed: 140 calories, five grams of protein, 33 ingredients, and the honest debate between Leanne and Susie about whether it is genuinely healthier than a chocolate bar or simply better marketing
The vitamin C question answered with the actual evidence: does it prevent colds, does it shorten them, and is there anything better to take in winter if that is your goal
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Are you one of the many listeners who would like
to lose a couple of kilos, or maybe you've lost
a lot of weight, but the last few kilos is
proving increasingly difficult to drop. On today's episode of The
Nutrition Couch, we discuss why weight loss becomes harder the
less weight you have to lose, and the tricks we
know to get rid of those pesky few kilos. All good, Hello,
(00:22):
I'm Susie Burrell and Amile and Ward, and together we
bring you The Nutrition Couch, the weekly podcast with everything
that you need to know in the world of nutrition,
as well as all things the last few kilos. We
chat the lowest calorie fast food options out there. We
have a new protein snack bar to review from the supermarket,
and our list of question is all about vitamin C
in winter. So Leah, and first of all, I've had
(00:43):
a trauma. If anyone who follows my social media, you
will know that a couple of weeks ago I had
to come on to a story and say that one
of my all time favorite supermarket products has appears to
have been deleted from calls. So there is a product
there called coals Finess Mediterranean vegetables. I freaking love this product.
(01:07):
It's seven dollars. It had eggplant, zucchini, red and yellow
capsicum in it, and I feded incame eat it, or
had been eating it every day literally of my life,
because I am in my late forties and I am
sick of making meals. So the idea of just throwing
some vegetables in a pan and eating it with my
(01:28):
chicken or salmon dumplings, whatever I'm eating just was making
my life a whole lot easier. I told everyone about
this product, every client of mine, It's in every product guide.
A routinely talk about it as one of my most
favorite foods. I put it in every trolley. I keep
getting comments and dms. Am I being pie block holes? No,
I wish? And suddenly I go away lean for a
(01:50):
month and I come back and it's gone. I cannot
find it in a single coals in Sydney. I've been
to like three or four different coals all over the
bridge back this way everywhere. They're gone. In some supermarkets
the space is still there, in others it's completely gone.
It's also gone with several of the other in the range,
including the Radituy and I just am like after the
(02:11):
trauma lan of the Bird's Eye mushroom cauliflower rice rosotto
being deleted a couple of years ago. I just can't
cope anymore. It's just too much for my poor heart.
Why is this happening, Leanne, Why is this happening? Have
you noticed this? And why is this happening?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I've noticed it, But in the grand scheme of things,
you'll be okay, all right? Firstly, but I can also
order it. Maybe I should express ships on down to you,
because at the time of recording, it's still available in
my cult. So maybe it's just a bit of a
shortage insidnan at you. The gods may be on your side,
but we do know that often I've got a lot
of black clients that might have Seiliac disease, for example,
and they can't access a gluten free product. I want
(02:46):
them to, so I say, go to the manager of
the store and ask them if they'll order it in.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Specifically for you.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So I think just perhaps people in your area may
not be buying it as much. Maybe, but I don't
want to say it's been deleted just yet, because I
do think that potentially it hopefully may come back because
it still seems to be available in Brisbane at the moment.
But also it's like cottash cheese, like a cant of
mine in Sydney was like, I can't find cottash shoes anywhere,
and all my Sydney clients like it's just gone. It's
(03:11):
but in Brisbane there is so much cottage shoes it's
not even funny. So I'm not sure what's happening in
state to state, But so far things crossed. It still
seems to be available up here, so it may not
have been deleted. It may just be I don't know,
a transport.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Issue break something. Yeah, I had a little break. It's
gone overseas for a while.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
None of this happened before COVID. Before COVID, there was
no food shortages ever, everything cost a reasonable amount. Now
every second week the supermarkets are empty. I can't believe
how bare the shelves are, particularly in the local Coals
to my house, and I only post a lot of
Coals products because that's where I tend to go. You know,
Willies have got plenty as well, It's just my local
Willies is super hard to park at, so I tend
(03:50):
to avoid it. Like the plague. But whenever I go
into this cold which is in inner city Sydney, it's
half empty, Like what is going on? It's just very
upsetting across the board. And yeah, I don't know what
to say to people other than I'm feeling highly disillusioned
as well. I like pre done vegetables in sauces because
I think it just adds a little something to the
food and let's just hope it returns. I don't know,
(04:13):
whenever there seems to be a good food, I fall
in love with it and it gets moved on or deleted.
Like there's such a brutal reality in supermarkets where foods
just don't survive very long unless people buy huge amounts.
You know, even the major brands I know struggle to
keep new skews on the shelves. But I would think
that vegetables, given they're so expensive fresh that frozen would
(04:33):
be having a resurgence. But maybe not. All that survived
is the starchy potatoes and corn, Like there's very few
of those sort of leafy greens and stuff available. So yeah,
I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm still
in the midst of depression. So if anyone in Sydney
notices the Cols Mediterranean Vegetables, Please DM me which calls
it's at, because I will be very happy to drive
there and stock up. When the birds eye mushroom resoto
(04:56):
cauliflower rice got deleted. I found a random one in
the Northern Beaches and I bought like twenty packs and
I had months and months supply. So I do crazy
things like that, and I am open to it. So
if you see them anywhere, let me know and I'll
come and pick them up. But that's enough of a
win today, Lynne onto more important matters. I've had several dms,
both myself and on the Nutrition Couch Instagram complaining about
(05:19):
when can we talk about losing the last few kilos? Leanne?
And as someone who wrote a book titled Losing the
Last five Kilos, you would like to think that we
know a little bit about this. But I thought it
was a good opportunity to at least chat to our
listeners about why it is so difficult to lose a
few kilos. And if I have a new client approach
me and they tell me they want to lose thirty kilos,
I'm much more excited than I am for a client
(05:40):
who messages me when they want to lose three or four,
because I know losing thirty kilos is surprisingly much easier
than losing three or four. And the reason is if
you're someone who only wants to lose three or four kilos,
chances are you already pretty healthy, which means to cut
back and get metabolism up and train in a different way.
It's actually a lot harder, and as such, you're not
(06:01):
alone if you do struggle. Basically, from a scientific perspective,
it's harder to lose a handful of kilos because the
human body doesn't like to be very laan. It likes
to be fat, which is why it's so easy to
overeat and very difficult to under eat, because every hormone
in our body screams when we're hungry, and it makes
it incredibly easy to eat a little bit too much
on a daily basis, which is why we have that
(06:22):
gradual creep of weight. And that is also why Leanne
and I will always say it's much easier to prevent
weight gain than it is to lose it once it's there,
So Leanne will have some tips as well, but my
first recommendation if you only want to lose a handful
of kilos. Is that you have to change something around
because the human body gets very lazy and likes things
(06:44):
to be the same. So if you exercise the same way,
go to the gym the same number of times each week,
eat a pretty stable healthy diet, nothing will change if
you keep doing the same thing. The best thing is
mixing it up, you know, starting to have a bigger
breakfast and less dinner, or change you're eating times, or
exercise in a different way at a different time each day,
(07:05):
really go out of routine, which naturally human beings don't
like to do. So they really like to have their
set breakfast or their set lunches, or their routine at
the gym, so it can be really disconcerting to mix
it up, or say, look, why don't you have dinner
at five o'clock instead of seven. That is the kind
of change that will make a big difference. So that's
the first thing. The next thing I would say is
(07:25):
that you've really got to make sure that your body
is getting a training effect of exercise because a lot
of us are moving and we're actually going to do
a segment coming up on the truth what is real
strength training? But a lot of us are moving and
a lot of us are doing the similar cardio workout,
but your body's already fit. So sometimes it's just a change.
And in many cases, land it can be doing less.
(07:47):
I've got some clients who are, you know, walking ten
fifteen thousand steps a day, who are routinely doing spin classes,
routinely doing strength training, and sometimes they need to do
a little bit less to give their body a break.
To lose not always a matter of doing more. Sometimes
it's a matter of eating less or doing less. The
same with the food. Sometimes people actually need to eat
more to burn. So it is hard and change is
(08:10):
the most important thing. And I think the other differentiating
factor for people is that sometimes to get initially into
fat loss, you have to have a week or two
that is really quite strict, because what tends to happen
is we eat pretty well in the week, and then
we have a few blowouts on the weekend, and we're
always just maintaining the status quo and tense. You feel
(08:32):
like you're trying really hard, but again you're not doing
anything to change, Whereas if you really want to lean up,
you might have to have that couple of weeks of
feeling a bit hungry where you do go to better
bit hungry, where you do skip the takeaway or eating out,
just to get in that consistent deficit, because you've got
to reprogram your body to be comfortable sitting at a
lower weight. So if you're seventy kilos and want to
(08:53):
be sixty five, you've got to go back to being
like a sixty five kilo person and burn some tissue.
And that is not easy. It is possible, but it
does often require that commitment, the change, and also the
strictness for a period to get you into a fat loss,
because once you've knocked off a couple of kilos, it's
much easier than to just constantly be even down each
week and never getting into that set deficit.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I'm so glad you said that, because I've had so
many clients say to me or they're just so fearful
of being hungry, and I think that, as you said,
it's actually easy to lose more weight than it is
to lose the last kind of three or four kilos.
That is absolutely the hardest, because again the reality is
that most people don't need to lose the last few
kilos for most women, that's an esthetic goal, and.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
That's perfectly okay.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
It is okay to want to look good, is okay
to want to be lean, It is okay to want
to drop, you know, the last few kilos if that's
what you want to do. But for many of this
that us, that is an aesthetic goal. It's not something
that needs to happen from a health perspective. So I
have a lot of clients that might want to lose
say twelve kilos all up.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
The first eight nine kilos come off fairly easily.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yes they're working hard, but you know, we're seeing good,
consistent losses each week. And like you said, it's the
last couple of kilos. They are absolutely the hardest to
lose because the leaner you become, the slower fat loss happens.
So they might get used to losing three, five, six,
eight hundred grams a week in the beginning, then as
you get down to those last two three kilos, it
might be one hundred and two hundred grams a week
(10:20):
and that's it. And we become so impatient forgetting that.
For some of us, particularly leaner individuals, who might just
want to go from say seventy down to sixty seven
kilos or sixty five down to sixty two kilos for example.
That can take you months to get two to three
kilos off. And that is perfectly okay and perfectly normal,
because the larger calorie deficit you put yourself in, the
(10:40):
hungrier you're going to be, and that hunger is very uncomfortable,
and so many people have a love hate relationship with hunger.
We no one wants to feel hungry. It is very uncomfortable.
But the reality is that when you are leaner, trying
to lean up that little bit more or dropping those
last few kilos, as you said, Susie, going to be
hungry basically is a sure way to ensure that you
(11:01):
know that you're in a deficit. And if you're going
to bed very well satisfied, you're probably not in a
tight enough calorie deficit to actually make that count. So yes,
it's uncomfortable. No, it won't damage your metabolism or do
anything crazy to you, as long as obviously you're not
perpetually in this calorie deficit state where you are constantly
under eating for months and months.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Obviously that's not good.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
But going to bed a little bit hungry or I
say to my client's that discomfort feeling where you're like,
I definitely could eat more, But often we'll say, well,
I don't want to eat more if the goal is
to drop those last two three kilos, because that is
that tricky, uncomfortable spot you need to be on to
truly get those last few kilos of that ascetic look
that a lot of people are going for, which again
is perfectly fine, but you know, you can do smart things,
(11:43):
particularly early on in a calorie deficit, like high volume
eating lots of veggies, leaner protein sources, higher protein, of course,
but for most people when it gets down to the
last couple of kilos, that hunger is a difficult thing
to manage. So there are some things around that, but
I do think that's sort of tightening porsches. And like
you said, Zusie, the alcohol to take away the meals
out is often a better strategy rather than just cutting food,
(12:07):
because that hunger is there, it is real, So expending
calories on alcohol or multiple portions of chocolate or heavy
meals out each week, you just don't really have that
budget and you're not going to see that scale move
if that's what you're doing, or if you're doing that,
you're going to be very hungry, and most of us
can't really sustain that for more than a good few
days or a good week or so, because it is
quite uncomfortable, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I like that message around going to bed if certainly,
if you're going to bed and not sort of feeling
quite full, you're right, you're not in a deficit. I
think the other sign for me is if you're not
waking up empty and hungry. You know, if you really
are not noticing, that's a sign that you're probably eating
not only too much at night, but I find too late.
Most of my busy clients are eating seven eight at night,
and really it's a bit late.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
We really want at least twelve hours, if not fourteen overnight.
So if you have capacity to, rather than feel like
you're restricting food, but just change your timing and eat
your dinner at work even or or a bigger meal
at lunch and more of a snack at five or six.
And that for women can be quite practical because you're
often waiting for kids and partners to get home late
in the evening. But women will often sacrifice their nutritional
(13:11):
needs for the family and wait to eat heavier food
till everyone comes home. When really nutritionally and from a
metabolic perspective, you're better to eat earlier when you can,
and that can be a really powerful strategy to have
something at five or six o'clock and then suddenly you
do go to bed with that kind of emptiness and
suddenly you're losing a bit of weight. So I find out,
of all the times to cut back, that is the
(13:33):
best time to intervene, either lighter or eating just earlier
as an intervention and going to bed earlier without feeling
like you're being overly restricted. That can be really powerful strategy.
So basically it's not easy, and change is the key.
What can you change? And basically you want to get
yourself hungry, like not starving all the time, but noticing
hunger time and time again. I'll have clients who will
(13:55):
eat a certain thing on their food diary and I'll say, well,
you're hungry, and they said, oh, but it's on the
I said, well, not if you're not hungry, it's okay
sometimes if you've had more. And really, you want to
let yourself get hungry at times, and that's a sign
that you're depleting what's available. But you're right, the fear
of hunger is holding many of us back, and then
we're very happy or it's very easy to overeat. So
(14:17):
you certainly need those longer periods of time without eating
to actually notice hunger at all and learn how to
do it in a way that doesn't lead to late
night and later binging. I think that's the thing behaviorally
we're always trying to avoid, and you know, simple things
like going for a walk after dinner, or upping the
ante on the treadmill, or changing the weights that you're doing,
(14:37):
or you know, I have a lot of clients who'll
go to the gym and do their strength or weight training,
but they don't think about doing ten or twenty minutes
of cardio as part of it. Like, just do ten
minutes on the treadmill before you lift and ten minutes
after and you're going to burn an extra couple of
hundred calories and there you go suddenly in fat loss.
So all those little extras and tricks make a massive difference.
Same as if you're working at home and you don't
(14:58):
have time to exercise, just get up after lunch and
do a twenty minute, walk around the block, you know,
do some housework at home. It's those little extras that
really add up. If you're someone who for work or commuting,
you're sitting for twelve fourteen, sixteen hours a day, it's
going to be really difficult to lose weight with that
little activity. So the more that you can spread through
the day, the better, and again that's a really powerful change.
(15:20):
So little extras are often the key, and just doing
things differently to lean up. And I always work more
off the waist measurement anyway than I am on the scales,
because that can change so slowly body composition. Whereas if
you're noticing your waist or measurements are reducing, that's a
pretty good sign you're in body fat loss, even if
the scales don't correspond. Because I find lean fit people
(15:40):
who are small and they want to get back to
fifty eight sixty kilos, probably that's not always realistic. As
we get older and body composition changes, I would lose
that attachment to a scale weight and really shift it
to body shape and size. That's going to tell you
much more about what's going on in your leanness and
your health than a number on the scales, which is
often syndicative of muscle wasted, which is of course what
(16:02):
we're seeing with people who lose large amounts of weight
using a g LP one medication. From a metabolic health perspective,
if body fat loss is your goal, just work on
your measurements. That's going to be much more powerful year.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And I'll just quickly, we do want to say that
these are really tips for losing the last couple of kilos.
So please don't come at us and be like, oh
LeAnn and Susie were saying, you need to be hungry,
you should be going to bed hungry. That's certainly not
what we're saying, but we are saying that that is
a reality of being in a calorie deficit. When you
are a lena individual who might only have last two
three kilos to lose, you may need to experience or
(16:34):
feel that hunger that little bit more throughout the day.
And as Susie says, yes, we can add more to
the exercise, change it around, but for some people they're
doing too much, which is driving up the hunger, which
is meaning that they can't actually stick in the calorie deficit.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
They need to be in.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So sometimes more movement is better, for other people, less
movement is a little bit better. But like you said,
a lot of us aren't actually eating enough protein, which
is really important, particularly for LENA individuals to preserve that
muscle mass. It also helps to make the case deficit
easier because it helps to improve fullness and satiation as well.
So just a key point to bring that home is, yes,
your macro nutrients matter, Yes, the overall calories matter, but
(17:10):
also what you're doing in a day is very I
guess different to what somebody else might be doing. So
if you're already someone who's doing seventeen thousand steps a day,
adding an extra three thousand is probably not going to help.
You should probably dial that back a little bit and
perhaps do a different type of training, or reduce the
movement back a lot and actually focus more on the
nutrition so you can actually stay in that tirer deficit
(17:30):
that little bit easier, and probably a good little plug
bround services as well. Susie, I think a lot of
people think, oh, I can't work with a dietician unless
I'm you know, got twenty thirty kilos to lose. You
and I both have you know, different programs that work
with women who just want to lose the last sort
of three to five kilos as well, and we can
sort of tailor different coaching packs to that as well.
So definitely reach out to us if you've been doing
it by yourself for a while and you're still struggling,
(17:51):
because it is an art, I would say, losing those
last couple of kilos, and it is very easy to
get kind of demotivated from doing really well for three
four five days. Then thee and hits and everyone wants
to eat out and drink alcohol, and it makes it
very difficult to stay on track when you don't have
that sort of regular support and accountability as well.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
True All right, Well, I've seen a few posts going
around Instagram that I thought are super interesting, and I
actually Leanne wrote an article recently for one of the
publications I write for, and I had to go through
mainstream fast food places and pick their healthiest item. Now
that sounds super easy. It sounds like, just go to
(18:32):
the website, look up maccas, what's their lowest calorie burger.
It is so hard to find this data because as
soon as you're going to the major chain, so obviously
there's things like Macas, KFC, Subway. As soon as you're
getting a bit more obscure and say Nando's, El Jana Chargrill,
Charlie's It's Grilled, you have to weed through those websites.
(18:55):
And in the end I ended up emailing a lot
of the pr reps. It took them days to come
back to me with what was the lowest calorie burger
or choice. You know, whilst these companies will say the
informations there, it is certainly not easy to find. And
I think we talked about this quite recently when we
were talking about Subway, which we love, actually how hard
(19:15):
it is to weigh through because Subway had a promotion
on recently about their high protein options. So when you
would go into a Subway store, it would have these
sort of big images of high protein chicken salad and
chicken wrap, but when you went back to the website
you couldn't find the numbers. So they're really not as
transparent as perhaps we would like. And I guess in
general people are not necessarily thinking about the healthiest option
(19:36):
if they're going to pick up a chicky El Jena
on a Friday afternoon. But it is helpful I think
some of this information so based on a hybrid of
some of the social media posts I've seen out there
recently and also some of my own numbers. I thought
it might be interesting to go through some of the
healthier choices at mainstream takeaway joints. So do you want
me to start with some of the ones I know,
(19:57):
and then you want to take over? Is that helpful?
We know Leanne's got a special relationship with grilled, she should.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Not sponsored very open to it.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
All right, Well, the first one I want to share
with you is el Janna. Now do you have el
Janna in Queensland?
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
She's like looking at me like I don't. I'm not
like a yeah, I don't know. I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Potentially, I know in Brisbane they've opened a Childgirl Charlie's,
because Child Girl Charlie's is a chicken place that has
been very big in Sydney for the last say twenty years,
and they're everywhere here and then they got brought out
by private equity and I'm pretty sure they've started opening
in Brisbane. So I'll come to them in a minute.
But El Janna is massive in New South Wales. It's
a child Girl chicken outlet. It actually started in the
(20:44):
southwestern suburbs of Sydney near where I grew up, and
it's very well known for amazing tasting chicken. But also
when you buy chicken, they give you a bag of
lebonese bread and this most delicious garlic sauce that you
dip the chips and bread into and it's just like amazing,
but it is not healthy. But what I wanted to
share today for the child the Eljana fans is that
(21:04):
when I went through the menu and they actually do
list all of their menu options there if you are
looking to control calories and choose a healthier option, their
grilled chicken burger does only have just over four hundred
calories to serve and thirty grams of protein, which is
a pretty nice amount of protein. Like macasburgers are sort
(21:25):
of closer to twenty they really don't have a lot
of lean protein in them unless you superload the calories,
whereas thirty grams of protein for four hundred and eight
calories is actually pretty good And if you were ordering
that and ask for no mayonnaise, you would drop it down. Again,
it's the sauces in these burgers that really loaded up.
The same with KFC. If you go to KFC and
order a grilled chicken burger, it's actually pretty good, except
(21:48):
it adds another sort of ten twenty grams of fact
because of that aoli type stuff they put on it.
So if you are being sort of super healthy and
you want to make a better choice, if you always
ask for no mayo with the burgers, you're going to
really cut back on the faton calories. But yeah, that's
a pretty good option. Now, there is very few at
Child Girl Charlie's Land that is pretty healthy. So their
(22:09):
healthiest one I could find was their pulled chicken wrap
seven hundred and eight calories, so almost double what's in
the burger at Eljenre for forty six grams of protein,
so it's a much bigger meal. But I would say
that's too high. You know, four or five hundred calories
is reasonable. It's not local, but it's not horrifically high.
(22:29):
Like meal deals from McDonald's and KFC are like eight hundred,
one thousand calories easy, So if you're pulling, if you're
getting a burger that's four hundred, five hundred calories and
twenty or thirty grams of protein. You're kind of on
the right track, all right. The next one a porto.
You got a porto, Yeah, she's a porto. A porto
double filet o pre go Burger's five hundred and ninety
(22:53):
calories and forty one grams of protein. Now, if you
have only the single filet, so that's two filets of chicken,
it takes it down to twenty five grams of protein.
So for my clients, I'd prefer one piece of chicken
down to probably four hundred four to fifty calories and
about twenty five grams of protein. A surprising good option
in Nando's. Another Portuguese chicken option is the Perrenaise Classic,
(23:18):
which has four hundred and ninety calories and forty one
grams of protein. And that's quite a nice burger. So
I thought, oh, that's actually a pretty good choice. Mexican. Now,
often people think Mexican is healthy. They think you go
to Guzman, you go to text Mes g'ambreros and it's
got like salad, vegetables, healthier choice. Do you know how
(23:39):
many calories burritos and even the healthy bowls have They
have eight hundred, one thousand easy, and when they list
the nutritionals in and they're very cheeky because they don't
add the cheese, they don't add the sour cream, they
don't add the avocado. They're only adding the basic meat
and vegetables used in cooking, and the basic tortilla or rice.
So if you're a Guzman and Gomez fan, which we
(24:00):
we all are, let's be honest, it's tasty. The best
option is one of the Kid's menu options, which is
a mini chicken bowl which comes in at four hundred
calories and twenty four grams of protein, or a mini
grilled chicken burrito at four fifty three calories and twenty
six grams of protein. So it's so high in calories
that if you want to eat healthy at Gusmin and Gomez,
you've got to go to the Kid's menu basically, so
(24:21):
you're actually in many cases better to go and have
a burger and be fuller from it if you can
skip the chips, which, let's be honest, is easier said
than domb grilled. Leanne's favorite one hot bird is where
it's at Leanne. If you want to be healthy at grilled,
you've got to have a hot bird on panini at
four hundred and thirty five calories and forty one grams
of protein. That's actually quite nice. Four hundred, just over
(24:43):
four hundred. I don't think lean orders a hot bird, though.
What do you orderly am when you go to grilled?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I like assignment says without the bacon, the chickens and henna,
which is quite good. Or I like the I think
it's the mustard and pickle.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, zen hen actually is. We're going to mention that
in a minute. That's atually quite a good one too.
Subway our favorite s way. The two best options is
the chicken protein wrap at four hundred and fifty calories
and twenty six grams of protein, or the chicken protein salad.
Come on, who goes to Subway for a salad two
thirty calories and twenty one grams of protein? But myself,
if I go to Subway, I'll order a six inch
(25:16):
on whole wheat. The chicken. You can get the sweet
tiarchy or just get the general chicken, and that's about
four hundred calories and about twenty twenty two grams of protein.
So they're a pretty good choice too. And the last
one I'm going to finish on because we could go
all day is Betty's Burgers. Now Betty's Burgers, I know
you guys have because it's in Nooser I get started
in USA. The issue with Betty's Burgers is that they
(25:39):
use GI so all the burgers have got a really
high saturated fat content. That's why they smell so good.
But so the type of fat in them isn't overly healthy.
But if you want to be and go chicken grilled,
you can get the grilled chicken burger for three ninety
six calories and thirty two grams of protein. And they
do offer the bear options, which in Lettuce I don't
(26:01):
think anyone orders that, but just say you wanted to,
it's there. So Betties is never hired prefer a grilled
et cetera, because the oil in Betties is not overly healthy.
And just I'll do one more fish bowl. The og
chicken bowl is where it's at at about five twenty
calories twenty nine grams of protein. So there are some
options that aren't too bad. And we've done the work
for you, as have some other dieticians online that they're
(26:23):
putting some of these numbers up, are there any that
you want to add to the healthier options? And I
think the difference in some of them, so the grill,
the Porto, the Eljana there actually tend to be better
than the mainstream macas KFC because KFC macas don't put
much salad or veggie bulk on their burgers. At least
sometimes if you go to child grilled chicken or grilled
(26:43):
you get a bit of salad as well. It's sort
of better quality, Whereas you know, the constant issue with
KFC is that you can order a chicken filip burger,
but there's no real healthy with it. There's no tomato,
there's no bulk, and that's one of the biggest issues
with fast food. It doesn't have a lot of the
sort of range of ingredients to bulk out the meal,
does it.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
And I also don't like those burgers that are like
the sweet white buns like KFC and maccas, Hunger Jacks.
I all use that same burger. I just I don't
find it feeling honestly like I might. I don't eat
there because I don't find it feeling I'm hungry, like
within an hour, even though it might be similar calories
to say grilled or Nando's or something.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
I had a Nanto's down the road for me. It
was great. It closed down about six months ago. It's devastating.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I prefer the grilled deer Porto, the Nando's those options
because you're often getting like a piece of chargrilled chicken,
so you're getting better quality. It's not I find that
with like the Hunger Jacks, the macas, the quality of
the protein isn't great. And also I just don't love
the bun is it grilled. I just get the normal
traditional one with the you know, the sesame seeds on top,
and I just I feel so much full of the
quality of the salads better. Like if you look at
(27:45):
something like a cave S Zinger burger, like my client said, Mick,
can I have this one? It's pretty good Galleries And
I was like, you know, only if you love it,
because let's be honest, it's not great nutritionally. Like if
you want a burger, there are certainly better options that
are still just as tasty in my opinion, and that
fill you up a lot more. Because something like a
Zinger berger about four fifty calories twenty six grams of protein, Like, yeah,
it fits the macros, but it's that white sweet bun.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
It's deep fried like that crunchy chicken, and it's layd
in mayonnaise. Like there's actually no real much nutritional.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Value on there at all besides calories and a whack
of protein on there. I'd prefer, like you said, to
get something else, like a grilled a zen hanburger is
around four fifty calories, forty three grams of protein. It's
a good amount of grilled chicken. And then there's like lettuce, tomato,
red onion, there's carrot, like, there's a lot of like
salad on there. So the volume of the meal is
a lot better as well. And Ada Porto they do
(28:37):
this grilled chicken wrapper wrap. I think about four four
ten calories, about twenty seven grams of protein, nice grilled chicken, breast, salad, tomato, lettuce,
that sort of thing as well.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
There's certainly some better options around. And sushi. I know
everybody loves sushi. I know you hate it. I'm a
rice girl, so I don't mind it. But it is that.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Clear white I say, I hate it, Well, you don't
hate it. That's polarizing. No, I think that you've got
to be careful with the white rice. Don't slander Melian,
don't slan to me black rice. I prefer I think
that there's better options than white rice in sushi.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
The brown rice is a good option in sushi, and
the tarioaki rolls are a good option as well, and
that's really hard to find though, like a lot of
my sushis won't ever do black. They often will do
like one or two of the rolls in brown, but
traditionally it's all on the white rice. But you've got
to be careful with sushi because it's not anywhere near
as high protein. Like if a client said to me, like,
what's the best option in sushi or burger, I'd say
a burger. And I think a lot of people are
(29:32):
quite shocked by that. But if you can get a
nice piece of grilled chicken breast or Lena beef patty,
a burger can be a great option, as long as
you're not super loading it with the fries on the
side and a ton of mayo, then with the cheese,
then with a bacon or a double paddy. You know,
it can be a really good option. And like you said,
fish Bowl has some really great options as well. Even
some of the salmon ones are around that sort of
five five fifty calories. I kind of think I'm a
(29:54):
little bit more linear than you. But for a client,
I think anything under six hundred for fast food I'm
pretty happy with. Like, I don't think you can get
really many options around that four hundred cow. So anything
under about six hundred for a fast food option, which
I would assume most people are only getting maybe once
or twice a week max, that's a pretty good option.
And the last one, I'll add a subway they used
to do.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
I don't know if they still call it, but it
used to be the six grains, six grams of fat
and under range. So in there was like turkey, chicken strips,
ham tuna. There was a five or six of them
in that range.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And they are around yeah, three sort of between three
hundred to four hundred options.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
But there are really good options.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
There's six inch I like the Italian cheese, bread, the
wheat's good, the rise good.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Options as well. Stay lean and with the sauce.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Often they can do quite a few swipes of the sauce,
So I just say just a little bit of sauce
and then you can get so much veggie volume in there.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And I often preference a six inch bread over all
wrap because sometimes it's Subway they do those big white
wraps where you're actually better off with like a rye
bread or a wheat bread. From a health perspective, it's
actually better better for blood sugar control as well. So
we've always been a big fan of Subway. They're really
good options there, depending on obviously what you're choosing, so
they're kind of my go to. But I'm a grilled chicken,
you know, burger girl forever. I always think that's a
(31:04):
really good option. It's delicious, it's satisfying, and you can
add a whole lot more salad, I guess, depending on
where you go as well.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
True.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
All right, Liam, we've got a new product to review.
Have you seen these? So I've got them with me
and I took one for the team and I ate
one the new Arnot's Quattro bars caramel and peanut, And
before I went away, they these came out in the
supermarket and I bought all three varieties. There's a white
chocolate one and they look like a mass bar. They
(31:34):
kind of look like a healthier mass bar and on
the front they've got a big slash five grams of
protein and under one hundred and fifty calories, And yeah,
I thought it was interesting. Have you seen them?
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I've seen them, but I haven't bought them.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I haven't tried them. I don't think my gut would
do very well with them, so I'll leave the taste.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Of sea yawning. Jesus, you're right. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Oh, my whole family's been so sick.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I have had the worst sleep in my life for
the last three months were of when the kids were newborns.
I've been so sick the last couple of months. I'm
very slip deprived.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
So tried me.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Have you tried some magnesium land some restore?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I have changed my life, But even that's not the
magical that I'm looking for. I just need some more
time in bed without being woken up six times a
night with a child.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
All right, well, I'll take you through this product, shall
I like you? I tasted one before we got on,
so yeah, I'm just having a look. On that sign.
There's caramel and peanut, there is white chocolate caramel and peanut,
and there is fruity pieces caramel and peanut. So they're
in three different boxes. I think they're about I think
I paid five dollars for them, but I think they're
probably about seven dollars. Usually there's a packet of six
seventy five bars. Six. Yeah, So what we're going to do.
(32:41):
I'll read the ingredients first, So milk, chocolate coating, twenty
five percent sugar, vegetable fat, milk solids, cocoa solids, and mulsifiers,
natural flavors. This is the concern straight away because there's
this range of glorified bars out there. They healthy masquerade,
they're chocolate bars. The first ingredients chocolate, there's heaps of
them out there, will layer nineteen percent, and then going
(33:03):
through Leanne's favorite chickery, root fiber, soy, protein isolate, peanuts
and flower oil, humor. Can't even say that word. Biscuit
pieces weigh protein concentrate. So it's a long ingredient list
full of.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Additives, patinated glucose syrup, cocoa powder and natural flavors and
multiple Yeah, it just goes out.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
One four col per serve, five point two grams of protein,
saturated fat twelve percent, so high saturated fat products. Straight away,
it's four point one per bar, eleven point seven grams
of total carbohydrate, eight point five grams of sugar, but
most importantly and twenty six percent sugar overall, three point
three grams of dietary fiber coming from the chickery root.
(33:46):
Now this is where I struggle, right, because I had
a I tasted it before we got on and it
actually tastes really cool.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
I stove because it actually tastes really good, and I
don't really.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Like it was thirty two grams. They're tiny, They're not
really big. They're like just a slightly bigger than a
tim Tam. And I thought, I'll just have a quick
taste of it, and I thought, oh, not too bad.
I was like, stop eating, you're not hungry.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
It's so hard because they sit in this middle ground
of some positive health characteristics. So they're marketing on protein content.
Are they better than a tim tam a bit? Are
they healthy? No, they're ultra processed. So it's a really
(34:29):
tricky space to be in because if one of my
clients came to me and said, can I have one
of these after dinner? I would be hard pressed to
say no. Like, it's one hundred and forty calories. Do
you love them? I'd say, if you love them, have it?
Would I normally buy them myself? No, because I think
that they're more like a candy bar. They're a chocolate
(34:51):
if the first ingredient's chocolate. And if you look in
the musley bar section of coals and Woolies, there's a
whole range of these bars. The first ingredient's chocolate. And
Leanna and I are trying to formulate a healthy bar
for you guys, and we're struggling because really, what's out
there is chocolate bars that are made to look a
bit healthier, but they're not. You know, a nut bar
(35:12):
or a seed bar is a million times healthier, but
people don't buy them as much because they don't taste
as good. So I don't know. I give it like
a six. Would I encourage clients to buy it?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Would I recommend it?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
No?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It's an ultra processed food. But is it healthier than
a chocolate bar? A little bit? It's less calories than
a chocolate bar, Like what's the Snickers one hundred and eighty?
Not that many less, I guess which it's way smaller though,
thirty two? Well, all the chocolate bars are smaller now too, though,
like but you had have you seen a Mars bar later?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
But say, this is probably the equivalent of two fun
sized chocolates. So it's actually not healthier than a chocolate
in my opinion, not well slightly.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
It's got similar sugar, it's got slightly less fat slightly,
what's a chocolate bar is thirty percent fat? So this
is not.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Everyone being I would not buy it. I would not
recommend it. Like again, if someone said, oh, I love it,
can I eat it? I'd be like, okay, but this
is like what I call a soul food for you
for the week, So a couple of week okay, cool,
But I don't think this is any better. I would
actually handle my heart recommend my client had a chocolate more.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
I counted it.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
It has thirty three ingredients, and it's not just about
oh it's got five grams of protein. That literally matters
nothing to me, Like, I'm like, you get your protein
from other foods, you don't get it from a chocolate
coated snack bar. Like I think I would rather someone
have like a better quality like a link chocolate or
something which has you know, a handful of ingredients, not
thirty three, and I think the issue is, and you
know the issue, so many chronic diseases, metabolic diseases, autoimmune
(36:40):
conditions are on the rise because this isn't real food. Like,
this is not real food at least with chocolate. It's
got a handful of ingredients. It's cocoa butter, it's cocoa,
it's sugar. At least we actually know what we're eating.
This is a kindhly modified definition of ultra processed food.
I'm a lot stricter than you on this. It might
taste good, cool, but I wouldn't. I would never buy that.
(37:00):
Rather eat chocolate or eat a plane of ice cream
or something instead. Is that rather a mini magnium like
the same calories? I think honestly, a mini magnum is
on part, Like, I don't actually think this is any healthier.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
He's a mini magnumund one hundred and forty calories.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Oh it's something, wen, it's like semantics.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I don't know, I know, I hear you. It's a
chocolate bar. So yeah, I think it's a tricky place
in the supermarket right now because there's so many of
these foods out there. Like I just had to review granolas,
and I purposely didn't put in any of the high
protein granolas that are out there because to me, they're
all much more processed, so I don't think they're healthier,
(37:42):
you know. So it's this whole situation in supermarket that's
going out there. Would I want my client to have
this is an afternoon snack if they loved it? One
hundred and forty calories, it's only five grams of protein. Though,
where are they getting the rest of the protein? You know,
Like if they had this with a a yopro yoga
and had a two hundred and fifty cow snack that
(38:02):
had twenty five grams of protein and they had a
chocolate and were happy. Maybe, Like if it means that
they're not overeating other pieces of rubbish, would I rather
they have this than biscuits? Yeah? I would. I would
rather they have this than biscuits. Would I add it
to a meal plan? Probably not. But it's that kind
of middle ground where the calories are quite controlled and
(38:23):
if people can control themselves. I think the issue is
again like it's so easy to eat too, Like I'll
have another one.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
They're only tiny, Like I'd rather my client had one
or two of the mini snaplicks.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
Say Mars Viral Snickers or a little boost or something like.
One or two of them is fine, and I think
you're getting that hit.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
I think the worst. But who has one or two?
Everyone has ten? Yeah, but this is too mini boosts.
This is the same problem. This is tiny.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Like you said, it's only slightly larger than a tim tank,
like struggle bigger than stop at chocolate. You're going to
struggle to stop at one of these. You're gonna have
the same issue. And these are six dollars seventy for
five bars. Was not much super Let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, I don't know. It's that middle ground for me.
I just I don't hate it. I don't love it.
Would I recommend it? No, If a client said ask
me about them, that, that's potentially where I'd put them.
Like i'd say to a client, I'd rather you have
this than eating chocolate bars and biscuits and stuff. If
you feel satisfied from it, I'd team it with something
like a high protein Yogan in the afternoon, if that
(39:24):
would tie them over. But I haven't heard anyone ask
me about them either, So would I buy them again?
I don't buy stuff like this because they're too easy
to eat. I just find that.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
I know.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
I haven't given them to my kids yet. Actually i'll
see if they like them, but they can't have them
at school because they've got nuts in them exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And also, can I just do a quick PSA service
announcement as well. I saw a post on just because
my little girl's got allergies. She's got an allergies, so
it's close to my heart. There's the Cobs I think
they did. They were like a popcorn kind of bar,
and the advertisers popcorn and almond bar, but they actually
have I think ten percent peanut or something. And there
was a little child in the last week that had
went into anaphlexus and was rushed hospital because the mom
(40:04):
forgot to read the label. And it's very easy to say, oh,
we'll be more careful, but I've certainly been in the
same case where I've just forgotten, you know, once in
a blue moon to do that as well. And as
busy parents, we just forget sometimes despite our best intentions.
If anyone does have kids with peanut allergies, just be
very careful and a reminder in the supermarkets particularly in
the Musli bar aisle, that a lot of these bars
now do have peanuts because peanuts are very cheap. You
(40:26):
know that we're not adding you know, cashews and pasta
shows to a lot of the bars because they're a
lot more expensive. That was just a little one because
they don't specifically call that peanut. On the front of
the label, it says armor. So it's very easy for
a parent with a child with a peanut allergy to
grab that or an adult themselves and just think, oh,
this has got armored in it. It's very safe and
unfortunately a child has experienced anaphylaxis in the last week
or so. With that, just a friendly reminder to check
(40:48):
your labels with allergies.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
That no good call. All right, Well we don't know
what's I don't think we can go on at abatus anymore.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Yeah, three out of ten, you can give a six?
Speaker 1 (40:59):
All right, move on, all right, I'll ask that vita
and be uplifting.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Vitamin is Aren't they worth it? Uplifting? This is hard?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Probably not, No, I think if you're a healthy individual,
and I think the reality is that most of our
nutrition couch listeners are pretty healthy, right, Like we've done that.
We've surveyed you guys. We know you're pretty healthy. So
I think a vitamin C tablet's worth it in winter
for the average healthy nutrition couch listener, probably not. But
if you are someone who doesn't eat much fruit and vegetables, potentially,
if you are if you have like a high risk
(41:28):
of a deficiency so you're following a kutogenic dart, or
you're a smoker, they have high vitamin C requirements potentially
as well. Or if you're someone who for whatever reason
has a very limited dart, you're quite fussy, you have
food preferences, perhaps you have allergies to different things, they
could potentially be worth it. But I routinely will say
to my clients, don't you don't need the vitamin C supplement.
I think everyone thinks that it will prevent colds, but
(41:49):
when you actually look at the research, there have been
large reviews that they don't really reduce people's chances of
catching a cold. If anything, there's a small amount of
research that it may slow lightly reduce the duration in
a cold in a healthy adult by about half a day.
So to me, I'm like, that's not really if you're
going to have a cold for like a week and
you know, might reduce it by half a day. It's
(42:10):
not really something I'd invest in. But where there is
a tiny bit of research is vitamin C can be
beneficial for those that are under significant sort of like
physical stress.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
So think like high level athletes, people.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Who do a ton of exercise, military personnel, those exposed
to really extreme sort of temperature kind of environments, really
cold environments, they may benefit from vitamin C. But I
think the average healthy person probably wouldn't do. I buy
vitamin C myself in winter. Know, if I do look
like getting a cold, if there's a lot around, I
prefer to take zinc. There's a smaller there's probably a
little bit more research around zinc in winter to help
(42:44):
reduce duration and severity of colds. But it needs to
be a high amount of zinc. From memory, it's around
seventy seventy five milligrams a day. It has to be
in a lozenge of form. So there's a few different
lozenges that do have some zinc in there. If a
client said to me, what's the better of choice, I
would say that you better off with a zink lozenger
than you are with vitamin C tablets, and this is
from like a cold perspective in winter, but it's not
(43:06):
going to sort of prevent anything. So if you're struggling
sort of with the dollars or you're trying to budget,
I'd be spending it more towards the fresh fruit and
veggie intake or someome creatine than I put on the
vitamin C tablets because unfortunately we just don't have the
research to support it at the moment.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Well, I don't think I can answer because I've got
a bias. I take it.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Sousey takes vitaman, but you don't take it for colds
and winter do?
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I just no, I take it all the time. I
take a thousand milligrams a day. I just think that
it's potentially helpful and cheap and good antioxidant. And yeah,
I don't know, it's against the evidence.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I don't take a lot of It's funny because you
have a cold at the moment and you're sick, and
that's what it's funny, because how doesn't work it up
for you?
Speaker 3 (43:51):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I'm funny with I don't take I didn't even take
something I was pregnant so I am a bit funny
with it, but I do have it on my desk
and I do. I don't know. I think it's like
quite a good anti agent, but you're right, there's no
evidence for it, so don't do what I do.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Perspective. Yeah, most people probably don't need it.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
But if you love it and you find it's helping, well,
you know, please le bo's help to Well.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
When I did come back from being away a bit sick,
I was taking it as well because I wasn't really
eating very much, you know. So there's all those things,
but it's the thing. Good thing about vitamin C is
that it's cheap and it's not dangerous. I think what
concerns me as a dietitian is a lot of people
are taking stuff like B group vitamins, and you shouldn't
be taking concentrated amounts of nutrients that can be potentially stored.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
The thing about vitamin C is that it's not stored,
so it's quite a safe thing to take and it
can be quite cheap with no damage kind of being done.
So I think when people are traveling and things, it's
quite helpful, you know, like you're often not getting the
fresh foods and things when you're traveling, so I think
that it's not a dangerous thing to be taking. But yeah,
this is from someone who you know pops a few
every now and again. Anyway, I'm not really good with supplements,
so I probably don't take my word for it either.
(44:56):
But you're right, doesn't prevent it just potentially shortens the
length of a cold land So in reference to your
referring to it, the fact I've got a cold, I'm
probably having a colder day shorter because of my vitamin
C supplements. So all right, on that note, have infuriated Liam.
We've spoken about healthy chocolate bars, vitamin SEA. She's off bag,
down a grill, obsessions. She's not happy, so let's just
(45:17):
push on. Thank you for listening to us, and we
will see you next Wednesday for a regular episode. Drop
and if you are looking for some evidence based supplements,
go to Design by Dieticians, where you will notice we
don't have a vitamin C talb. Thanks for listening.
Are you one of the many listeners who would like
to lose a couple of kilos, or maybe you've lost
a lot of weight, but the last few kilos is
proving increasingly difficult to drop. On today's episode of The
Nutrition Couch, we discuss why weight loss becomes harder the
less weight you have to lose, and the tricks we
know to get rid of those pesky few kilos. All good, Hello,
(00:22):
I'm Susie Burrell and Amile and Ward, and together we
bring you The Nutrition Couch, the weekly podcast with everything
that you need to know in the world of nutrition,
as well as all things the last few kilos. We
chat the lowest calorie fast food options out there. We
have a new protein snack bar to review from the supermarket,
and our list of question is all about vitamin C
in winter. So Leah, and first of all, I've had
(00:43):
a trauma. If anyone who follows my social media, you
will know that a couple of weeks ago I had
to come on to a story and say that one
of my all time favorite supermarket products has appears to
have been deleted from calls. So there is a product
there called coals Finess Mediterranean vegetables. I freaking love this product.
(01:07):
It's seven dollars. It had eggplant, zucchini, red and yellow
capsicum in it, and I feded incame eat it, or
had been eating it every day literally of my life,
because I am in my late forties and I am
sick of making meals. So the idea of just throwing
some vegetables in a pan and eating it with my
(01:28):
chicken or salmon dumplings, whatever I'm eating just was making
my life a whole lot easier. I told everyone about
this product, every client of mine, It's in every product guide.
A routinely talk about it as one of my most
favorite foods. I put it in every trolley. I keep
getting comments and dms. Am I being pie block holes? No,
I wish? And suddenly I go away lean for a
(01:50):
month and I come back and it's gone. I cannot
find it in a single coals in Sydney. I've been
to like three or four different coals all over the
bridge back this way everywhere. They're gone. In some supermarkets
the space is still there, in others it's completely gone.
It's also gone with several of the other in the range,
including the Radituy and I just am like after the
(02:11):
trauma lan of the Bird's Eye mushroom cauliflower rice rosotto
being deleted a couple of years ago. I just can't
cope anymore. It's just too much for my poor heart.
Why is this happening, Leanne, Why is this happening? Have
you noticed this? And why is this happening?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I've noticed it, But in the grand scheme of things,
you'll be okay, all right? Firstly, but I can also
order it. Maybe I should express ships on down to you,
because at the time of recording, it's still available in
my cult. So maybe it's just a bit of a
shortage insidnan at you. The gods may be on your side,
but we do know that often I've got a lot
of black clients that might have Seiliac disease, for example,
and they can't access a gluten free product. I want
(02:46):
them to, so I say, go to the manager of
the store and ask them if they'll order it in.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Specifically for you.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So I think just perhaps people in your area may
not be buying it as much. Maybe, but I don't
want to say it's been deleted just yet, because I
do think that potentially it hopefully may come back because
it still seems to be available in Brisbane at the moment.
But also it's like cottash cheese, like a cant of
mine in Sydney was like, I can't find cottash shoes anywhere,
and all my Sydney clients like it's just gone. It's
(03:11):
but in Brisbane there is so much cottage shoes it's
not even funny. So I'm not sure what's happening in
state to state, But so far things crossed. It still
seems to be available up here, so it may not
have been deleted. It may just be I don't know,
a transport.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Issue break something. Yeah, I had a little break. It's
gone overseas for a while.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
None of this happened before COVID. Before COVID, there was
no food shortages ever, everything cost a reasonable amount. Now
every second week the supermarkets are empty. I can't believe
how bare the shelves are, particularly in the local Coals
to my house, and I only post a lot of
Coals products because that's where I tend to go. You know,
Willies have got plenty as well, It's just my local
Willies is super hard to park at, so I tend
(03:50):
to avoid it. Like the plague. But whenever I go
into this cold which is in inner city Sydney, it's
half empty, Like what is going on? It's just very
upsetting across the board. And yeah, I don't know what
to say to people other than I'm feeling highly disillusioned
as well. I like pre done vegetables in sauces because
I think it just adds a little something to the
food and let's just hope it returns. I don't know,
(04:13):
whenever there seems to be a good food, I fall
in love with it and it gets moved on or deleted.
Like there's such a brutal reality in supermarkets where foods
just don't survive very long unless people buy huge amounts.
You know, even the major brands I know struggle to
keep new skews on the shelves. But I would think
that vegetables, given they're so expensive fresh that frozen would
(04:33):
be having a resurgence. But maybe not. All that survived
is the starchy potatoes and corn, Like there's very few
of those sort of leafy greens and stuff available. So yeah,
I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm still
in the midst of depression. So if anyone in Sydney
notices the Cols Mediterranean Vegetables, Please DM me which calls
it's at, because I will be very happy to drive
there and stock up. When the birds eye mushroom resoto
(04:56):
cauliflower rice got deleted. I found a random one in
the Northern Beaches and I bought like twenty packs and
I had months and months supply. So I do crazy
things like that, and I am open to it. So
if you see them anywhere, let me know and I'll
come and pick them up. But that's enough of a
win today, Lynne onto more important matters. I've had several dms,
both myself and on the Nutrition Couch Instagram complaining about
(05:19):
when can we talk about losing the last few kilos? Leanne?
And as someone who wrote a book titled Losing the
Last five Kilos, you would like to think that we
know a little bit about this. But I thought it
was a good opportunity to at least chat to our
listeners about why it is so difficult to lose a
few kilos. And if I have a new client approach
me and they tell me they want to lose thirty kilos,
I'm much more excited than I am for a client
(05:40):
who messages me when they want to lose three or four,
because I know losing thirty kilos is surprisingly much easier
than losing three or four. And the reason is if
you're someone who only wants to lose three or four kilos,
chances are you already pretty healthy, which means to cut
back and get metabolism up and train in a different way.
It's actually a lot harder, and as such, you're not
(06:01):
alone if you do struggle. Basically, from a scientific perspective,
it's harder to lose a handful of kilos because the
human body doesn't like to be very laan. It likes
to be fat, which is why it's so easy to
overeat and very difficult to under eat, because every hormone
in our body screams when we're hungry, and it makes
it incredibly easy to eat a little bit too much
on a daily basis, which is why we have that
(06:22):
gradual creep of weight. And that is also why Leanne
and I will always say it's much easier to prevent
weight gain than it is to lose it once it's there,
So Leanne will have some tips as well, but my
first recommendation if you only want to lose a handful
of kilos. Is that you have to change something around
because the human body gets very lazy and likes things
(06:44):
to be the same. So if you exercise the same way,
go to the gym the same number of times each week,
eat a pretty stable healthy diet, nothing will change if
you keep doing the same thing. The best thing is
mixing it up, you know, starting to have a bigger
breakfast and less dinner, or change you're eating times, or
exercise in a different way at a different time each day,
(07:05):
really go out of routine, which naturally human beings don't
like to do. So they really like to have their
set breakfast or their set lunches, or their routine at
the gym, so it can be really disconcerting to mix
it up, or say, look, why don't you have dinner
at five o'clock instead of seven. That is the kind
of change that will make a big difference. So that's
the first thing. The next thing I would say is
(07:25):
that you've really got to make sure that your body
is getting a training effect of exercise because a lot
of us are moving and we're actually going to do
a segment coming up on the truth what is real
strength training? But a lot of us are moving and
a lot of us are doing the similar cardio workout,
but your body's already fit. So sometimes it's just a change.
And in many cases, land it can be doing less.
(07:47):
I've got some clients who are, you know, walking ten
fifteen thousand steps a day, who are routinely doing spin classes,
routinely doing strength training, and sometimes they need to do
a little bit less to give their body a break.
To lose not always a matter of doing more. Sometimes
it's a matter of eating less or doing less. The
same with the food. Sometimes people actually need to eat
more to burn. So it is hard and change is
(08:10):
the most important thing. And I think the other differentiating
factor for people is that sometimes to get initially into
fat loss, you have to have a week or two
that is really quite strict, because what tends to happen
is we eat pretty well in the week, and then
we have a few blowouts on the weekend, and we're
always just maintaining the status quo and tense. You feel
(08:32):
like you're trying really hard, but again you're not doing
anything to change, Whereas if you really want to lean up,
you might have to have that couple of weeks of
feeling a bit hungry where you do go to better
bit hungry, where you do skip the takeaway or eating out,
just to get in that consistent deficit, because you've got
to reprogram your body to be comfortable sitting at a
lower weight. So if you're seventy kilos and want to
(08:53):
be sixty five, you've got to go back to being
like a sixty five kilo person and burn some tissue.
And that is not easy. It is possible, but it
does often require that commitment, the change, and also the
strictness for a period to get you into a fat loss,
because once you've knocked off a couple of kilos, it's
much easier than to just constantly be even down each
week and never getting into that set deficit.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I'm so glad you said that, because I've had so
many clients say to me or they're just so fearful
of being hungry, and I think that, as you said,
it's actually easy to lose more weight than it is
to lose the last kind of three or four kilos.
That is absolutely the hardest, because again the reality is
that most people don't need to lose the last few
kilos for most women, that's an esthetic goal, and.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
That's perfectly okay.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
It is okay to want to look good, is okay
to want to be lean, It is okay to want
to drop, you know, the last few kilos if that's
what you want to do. But for many of this
that us, that is an aesthetic goal. It's not something
that needs to happen from a health perspective. So I
have a lot of clients that might want to lose
say twelve kilos all up.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
The first eight nine kilos come off fairly easily.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yes they're working hard, but you know, we're seeing good,
consistent losses each week. And like you said, it's the
last couple of kilos. They are absolutely the hardest to
lose because the leaner you become, the slower fat loss happens.
So they might get used to losing three, five, six,
eight hundred grams a week in the beginning, then as
you get down to those last two three kilos, it
might be one hundred and two hundred grams a week
(10:20):
and that's it. And we become so impatient forgetting that.
For some of us, particularly leaner individuals, who might just
want to go from say seventy down to sixty seven
kilos or sixty five down to sixty two kilos for example.
That can take you months to get two to three
kilos off. And that is perfectly okay and perfectly normal,
because the larger calorie deficit you put yourself in, the
(10:40):
hungrier you're going to be, and that hunger is very uncomfortable,
and so many people have a love hate relationship with hunger.
We no one wants to feel hungry. It is very uncomfortable.
But the reality is that when you are leaner, trying
to lean up that little bit more or dropping those
last few kilos, as you said, Susie, going to be
hungry basically is a sure way to ensure that you
(11:01):
know that you're in a deficit. And if you're going
to bed very well satisfied, you're probably not in a
tight enough calorie deficit to actually make that count. So yes,
it's uncomfortable. No, it won't damage your metabolism or do
anything crazy to you, as long as obviously you're not
perpetually in this calorie deficit state where you are constantly
under eating for months and months.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Obviously that's not good.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
But going to bed a little bit hungry or I
say to my client's that discomfort feeling where you're like,
I definitely could eat more, But often we'll say, well,
I don't want to eat more if the goal is
to drop those last two three kilos, because that is
that tricky, uncomfortable spot you need to be on to
truly get those last few kilos of that ascetic look
that a lot of people are going for, which again
is perfectly fine, but you know, you can do smart things,
(11:43):
particularly early on in a calorie deficit, like high volume
eating lots of veggies, leaner protein sources, higher protein, of course,
but for most people when it gets down to the
last couple of kilos, that hunger is a difficult thing
to manage. So there are some things around that, but
I do think that's sort of tightening porsches. And like
you said, Zusie, the alcohol to take away the meals
out is often a better strategy rather than just cutting food,
(12:07):
because that hunger is there, it is real, So expending
calories on alcohol or multiple portions of chocolate or heavy
meals out each week, you just don't really have that
budget and you're not going to see that scale move
if that's what you're doing, or if you're doing that,
you're going to be very hungry, and most of us
can't really sustain that for more than a good few
days or a good week or so, because it is
quite uncomfortable, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
I like that message around going to bed if certainly,
if you're going to bed and not sort of feeling
quite full, you're right, you're not in a deficit. I
think the other sign for me is if you're not
waking up empty and hungry. You know, if you really
are not noticing, that's a sign that you're probably eating
not only too much at night, but I find too late.
Most of my busy clients are eating seven eight at night,
and really it's a bit late.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
We really want at least twelve hours, if not fourteen overnight.
So if you have capacity to, rather than feel like
you're restricting food, but just change your timing and eat
your dinner at work even or or a bigger meal
at lunch and more of a snack at five or six.
And that for women can be quite practical because you're
often waiting for kids and partners to get home late
in the evening. But women will often sacrifice their nutritional
(13:11):
needs for the family and wait to eat heavier food
till everyone comes home. When really nutritionally and from a
metabolic perspective, you're better to eat earlier when you can,
and that can be a really powerful strategy to have
something at five or six o'clock and then suddenly you
do go to bed with that kind of emptiness and
suddenly you're losing a bit of weight. So I find out,
of all the times to cut back, that is the
(13:33):
best time to intervene, either lighter or eating just earlier
as an intervention and going to bed earlier without feeling
like you're being overly restricted. That can be really powerful strategy.
So basically it's not easy, and change is the key.
What can you change? And basically you want to get
yourself hungry, like not starving all the time, but noticing
hunger time and time again. I'll have clients who will
(13:55):
eat a certain thing on their food diary and I'll say, well,
you're hungry, and they said, oh, but it's on the
I said, well, not if you're not hungry, it's okay
sometimes if you've had more. And really, you want to
let yourself get hungry at times, and that's a sign
that you're depleting what's available. But you're right, the fear
of hunger is holding many of us back, and then
we're very happy or it's very easy to overeat. So
(14:17):
you certainly need those longer periods of time without eating
to actually notice hunger at all and learn how to
do it in a way that doesn't lead to late
night and later binging. I think that's the thing behaviorally
we're always trying to avoid, and you know, simple things
like going for a walk after dinner, or upping the
ante on the treadmill, or changing the weights that you're doing,
(14:37):
or you know, I have a lot of clients who'll
go to the gym and do their strength or weight training,
but they don't think about doing ten or twenty minutes
of cardio as part of it. Like, just do ten
minutes on the treadmill before you lift and ten minutes
after and you're going to burn an extra couple of
hundred calories and there you go suddenly in fat loss.
So all those little extras and tricks make a massive difference.
Same as if you're working at home and you don't
(14:58):
have time to exercise, just get up after lunch and
do a twenty minute, walk around the block, you know,
do some housework at home. It's those little extras that
really add up. If you're someone who for work or commuting,
you're sitting for twelve fourteen, sixteen hours a day, it's
going to be really difficult to lose weight with that
little activity. So the more that you can spread through
the day, the better, and again that's a really powerful change.
(15:20):
So little extras are often the key, and just doing
things differently to lean up. And I always work more
off the waist measurement anyway than I am on the scales,
because that can change so slowly body composition. Whereas if
you're noticing your waist or measurements are reducing, that's a
pretty good sign you're in body fat loss, even if
the scales don't correspond. Because I find lean fit people
(15:40):
who are small and they want to get back to
fifty eight sixty kilos, probably that's not always realistic. As
we get older and body composition changes, I would lose
that attachment to a scale weight and really shift it
to body shape and size. That's going to tell you
much more about what's going on in your leanness and
your health than a number on the scales, which is
often syndicative of muscle wasted, which is of course what
(16:02):
we're seeing with people who lose large amounts of weight
using a g LP one medication. From a metabolic health perspective,
if body fat loss is your goal, just work on
your measurements. That's going to be much more powerful year.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
And I'll just quickly, we do want to say that
these are really tips for losing the last couple of kilos.
So please don't come at us and be like, oh
LeAnn and Susie were saying, you need to be hungry,
you should be going to bed hungry. That's certainly not
what we're saying, but we are saying that that is
a reality of being in a calorie deficit. When you
are a lena individual who might only have last two
three kilos to lose, you may need to experience or
(16:34):
feel that hunger that little bit more throughout the day.
And as Susie says, yes, we can add more to
the exercise, change it around, but for some people they're
doing too much, which is driving up the hunger, which
is meaning that they can't actually stick in the calorie deficit.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
They need to be in.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
So sometimes more movement is better, for other people, less
movement is a little bit better. But like you said,
a lot of us aren't actually eating enough protein, which
is really important, particularly for LENA individuals to preserve that
muscle mass. It also helps to make the case deficit
easier because it helps to improve fullness and satiation as well.
So just a key point to bring that home is, yes,
your macro nutrients matter, Yes, the overall calories matter, but
(17:10):
also what you're doing in a day is very I
guess different to what somebody else might be doing. So
if you're already someone who's doing seventeen thousand steps a day,
adding an extra three thousand is probably not going to help.
You should probably dial that back a little bit and
perhaps do a different type of training, or reduce the
movement back a lot and actually focus more on the
nutrition so you can actually stay in that tirer deficit
(17:30):
that little bit easier, and probably a good little plug
bround services as well. Susie, I think a lot of
people think, oh, I can't work with a dietician unless
I'm you know, got twenty thirty kilos to lose. You
and I both have you know, different programs that work
with women who just want to lose the last sort
of three to five kilos as well, and we can
sort of tailor different coaching packs to that as well.
So definitely reach out to us if you've been doing
it by yourself for a while and you're still struggling,
(17:51):
because it is an art, I would say, losing those
last couple of kilos, and it is very easy to
get kind of demotivated from doing really well for three
four five days. Then thee and hits and everyone wants
to eat out and drink alcohol, and it makes it
very difficult to stay on track when you don't have
that sort of regular support and accountability as well.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
True All right, Well, I've seen a few posts going
around Instagram that I thought are super interesting, and I
actually Leanne wrote an article recently for one of the
publications I write for, and I had to go through
mainstream fast food places and pick their healthiest item. Now
that sounds super easy. It sounds like, just go to
(18:32):
the website, look up maccas, what's their lowest calorie burger.
It is so hard to find this data because as
soon as you're going to the major chain, so obviously
there's things like Macas, KFC, Subway. As soon as you're
getting a bit more obscure and say Nando's, El Jana Chargrill,
Charlie's It's Grilled, you have to weed through those websites.
(18:55):
And in the end I ended up emailing a lot
of the pr reps. It took them days to come
back to me with what was the lowest calorie burger
or choice. You know, whilst these companies will say the
informations there, it is certainly not easy to find. And
I think we talked about this quite recently when we
were talking about Subway, which we love, actually how hard
(19:15):
it is to weigh through because Subway had a promotion
on recently about their high protein options. So when you
would go into a Subway store, it would have these
sort of big images of high protein chicken salad and
chicken wrap, but when you went back to the website
you couldn't find the numbers. So they're really not as
transparent as perhaps we would like. And I guess in
general people are not necessarily thinking about the healthiest option
(19:36):
if they're going to pick up a chicky El Jena
on a Friday afternoon. But it is helpful I think
some of this information so based on a hybrid of
some of the social media posts I've seen out there
recently and also some of my own numbers. I thought
it might be interesting to go through some of the
healthier choices at mainstream takeaway joints. So do you want
me to start with some of the ones I know,
(19:57):
and then you want to take over? Is that helpful?
We know Leanne's got a special relationship with grilled, she should.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Not sponsored very open to it.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
All right, Well, the first one I want to share
with you is el Janna. Now do you have el
Janna in Queensland?
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
She's like looking at me like I don't. I'm not
like a yeah, I don't know. I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Potentially, I know in Brisbane they've opened a Childgirl Charlie's,
because Child Girl Charlie's is a chicken place that has
been very big in Sydney for the last say twenty years,
and they're everywhere here and then they got brought out
by private equity and I'm pretty sure they've started opening
in Brisbane. So I'll come to them in a minute.
But El Janna is massive in New South Wales. It's
a child Girl chicken outlet. It actually started in the
(20:44):
southwestern suburbs of Sydney near where I grew up, and
it's very well known for amazing tasting chicken. But also
when you buy chicken, they give you a bag of
lebonese bread and this most delicious garlic sauce that you
dip the chips and bread into and it's just like amazing,
but it is not healthy. But what I wanted to
share today for the child the Eljana fans is that
(21:04):
when I went through the menu and they actually do
list all of their menu options there if you are
looking to control calories and choose a healthier option, their
grilled chicken burger does only have just over four hundred
calories to serve and thirty grams of protein, which is
a pretty nice amount of protein. Like macasburgers are sort
(21:25):
of closer to twenty they really don't have a lot
of lean protein in them unless you superload the calories,
whereas thirty grams of protein for four hundred and eight
calories is actually pretty good And if you were ordering
that and ask for no mayonnaise, you would drop it down. Again,
it's the sauces in these burgers that really loaded up.
The same with KFC. If you go to KFC and
order a grilled chicken burger, it's actually pretty good, except
(21:48):
it adds another sort of ten twenty grams of fact
because of that aoli type stuff they put on it.
So if you are being sort of super healthy and
you want to make a better choice, if you always
ask for no mayo with the burgers, you're going to
really cut back on the faton calories. But yeah, that's
a pretty good option. Now, there is very few at
Child Girl Charlie's Land that is pretty healthy. So their
(22:09):
healthiest one I could find was their pulled chicken wrap
seven hundred and eight calories, so almost double what's in
the burger at Eljenre for forty six grams of protein,
so it's a much bigger meal. But I would say
that's too high. You know, four or five hundred calories
is reasonable. It's not local, but it's not horrifically high.
(22:29):
Like meal deals from McDonald's and KFC are like eight hundred,
one thousand calories easy, So if you're pulling, if you're
getting a burger that's four hundred, five hundred calories and
twenty or thirty grams of protein. You're kind of on
the right track, all right. The next one a porto.
You got a porto, Yeah, she's a porto. A porto
double filet o pre go Burger's five hundred and ninety
(22:53):
calories and forty one grams of protein. Now, if you
have only the single filet, so that's two filets of chicken,
it takes it down to twenty five grams of protein.
So for my clients, I'd prefer one piece of chicken
down to probably four hundred four to fifty calories and
about twenty five grams of protein. A surprising good option
in Nando's. Another Portuguese chicken option is the Perrenaise Classic,
(23:18):
which has four hundred and ninety calories and forty one
grams of protein. And that's quite a nice burger. So
I thought, oh, that's actually a pretty good choice. Mexican. Now,
often people think Mexican is healthy. They think you go
to Guzman, you go to text Mes g'ambreros and it's
got like salad, vegetables, healthier choice. Do you know how
(23:39):
many calories burritos and even the healthy bowls have They
have eight hundred, one thousand easy, and when they list
the nutritionals in and they're very cheeky because they don't
add the cheese, they don't add the sour cream, they
don't add the avocado. They're only adding the basic meat
and vegetables used in cooking, and the basic tortilla or rice.
So if you're a Guzman and Gomez fan, which we
(24:00):
we all are, let's be honest, it's tasty. The best
option is one of the Kid's menu options, which is
a mini chicken bowl which comes in at four hundred
calories and twenty four grams of protein, or a mini
grilled chicken burrito at four fifty three calories and twenty
six grams of protein. So it's so high in calories
that if you want to eat healthy at Gusmin and Gomez,
you've got to go to the Kid's menu basically, so
(24:21):
you're actually in many cases better to go and have
a burger and be fuller from it if you can
skip the chips, which, let's be honest, is easier said
than domb grilled. Leanne's favorite one hot bird is where
it's at Leanne. If you want to be healthy at grilled,
you've got to have a hot bird on panini at
four hundred and thirty five calories and forty one grams
of protein. That's actually quite nice. Four hundred, just over
(24:43):
four hundred. I don't think lean orders a hot bird, though.
What do you orderly am when you go to grilled?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I like assignment says without the bacon, the chickens and henna,
which is quite good. Or I like the I think
it's the mustard and pickle.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah, zen hen actually is. We're going to mention that
in a minute. That's atually quite a good one too.
Subway our favorite s way. The two best options is
the chicken protein wrap at four hundred and fifty calories
and twenty six grams of protein, or the chicken protein salad.
Come on, who goes to Subway for a salad two
thirty calories and twenty one grams of protein? But myself,
if I go to Subway, I'll order a six inch
(25:16):
on whole wheat. The chicken. You can get the sweet
tiarchy or just get the general chicken, and that's about
four hundred calories and about twenty twenty two grams of protein.
So they're a pretty good choice too. And the last
one I'm going to finish on because we could go
all day is Betty's Burgers. Now Betty's Burgers, I know
you guys have because it's in Nooser I get started
in USA. The issue with Betty's Burgers is that they
(25:39):
use GI so all the burgers have got a really
high saturated fat content. That's why they smell so good.
But so the type of fat in them isn't overly healthy.
But if you want to be and go chicken grilled,
you can get the grilled chicken burger for three ninety
six calories and thirty two grams of protein. And they
do offer the bear options, which in Lettuce I don't
(26:01):
think anyone orders that, but just say you wanted to,
it's there. So Betties is never hired prefer a grilled
et cetera, because the oil in Betties is not overly healthy.
And just I'll do one more fish bowl. The og
chicken bowl is where it's at at about five twenty
calories twenty nine grams of protein. So there are some
options that aren't too bad. And we've done the work
for you, as have some other dieticians online that they're
(26:23):
putting some of these numbers up, are there any that
you want to add to the healthier options? And I
think the difference in some of them, so the grill,
the Porto, the Eljana there actually tend to be better
than the mainstream macas KFC because KFC macas don't put
much salad or veggie bulk on their burgers. At least
sometimes if you go to child grilled chicken or grilled
(26:43):
you get a bit of salad as well. It's sort
of better quality, Whereas you know, the constant issue with
KFC is that you can order a chicken filip burger,
but there's no real healthy with it. There's no tomato,
there's no bulk, and that's one of the biggest issues
with fast food. It doesn't have a lot of the
sort of range of ingredients to bulk out the meal,
does it.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
And I also don't like those burgers that are like
the sweet white buns like KFC and maccas, Hunger Jacks.
I all use that same burger. I just I don't
find it feeling honestly like I might. I don't eat
there because I don't find it feeling I'm hungry, like
within an hour, even though it might be similar calories
to say grilled or Nando's or something.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
I had a Nanto's down the road for me. It
was great. It closed down about six months ago. It's devastating.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I prefer the grilled deer Porto, the Nando's those options
because you're often getting like a piece of chargrilled chicken,
so you're getting better quality. It's not I find that
with like the Hunger Jacks, the macas, the quality of
the protein isn't great. And also I just don't love
the bun is it grilled. I just get the normal
traditional one with the you know, the sesame seeds on top,
and I just I feel so much full of the
quality of the salads better. Like if you look at
(27:45):
something like a cave S Zinger burger, like my client said, Mick,
can I have this one? It's pretty good Galleries And
I was like, you know, only if you love it,
because let's be honest, it's not great nutritionally. Like if
you want a burger, there are certainly better options that
are still just as tasty in my opinion, and that
fill you up a lot more. Because something like a
Zinger berger about four fifty calories twenty six grams of protein, Like, yeah,
it fits the macros, but it's that white sweet bun.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
It's deep fried like that crunchy chicken, and it's layd
in mayonnaise. Like there's actually no real much nutritional.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Value on there at all besides calories and a whack
of protein on there. I'd prefer, like you said, to
get something else, like a grilled a zen hanburger is
around four fifty calories, forty three grams of protein. It's
a good amount of grilled chicken. And then there's like lettuce, tomato,
red onion, there's carrot, like, there's a lot of like
salad on there. So the volume of the meal is
a lot better as well. And Ada Porto they do
(28:37):
this grilled chicken wrapper wrap. I think about four four
ten calories, about twenty seven grams of protein, nice grilled chicken, breast, salad, tomato, lettuce,
that sort of thing as well.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
There's certainly some better options around. And sushi. I know
everybody loves sushi. I know you hate it. I'm a
rice girl, so I don't mind it. But it is that.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Clear white I say, I hate it, Well, you don't
hate it. That's polarizing. No, I think that you've got
to be careful with the white rice. Don't slander Melian,
don't slan to me black rice. I prefer I think
that there's better options than white rice in sushi.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
The brown rice is a good option in sushi, and
the tarioaki rolls are a good option as well, and
that's really hard to find though, like a lot of
my sushis won't ever do black. They often will do
like one or two of the rolls in brown, but
traditionally it's all on the white rice. But you've got
to be careful with sushi because it's not anywhere near
as high protein. Like if a client said to me, like,
what's the best option in sushi or burger, I'd say
a burger. And I think a lot of people are
(29:32):
quite shocked by that. But if you can get a
nice piece of grilled chicken breast or Lena beef patty,
a burger can be a great option, as long as
you're not super loading it with the fries on the
side and a ton of mayo, then with the cheese,
then with a bacon or a double paddy. You know,
it can be a really good option. And like you said,
fish Bowl has some really great options as well. Even
some of the salmon ones are around that sort of
five five fifty calories. I kind of think I'm a
(29:54):
little bit more linear than you. But for a client,
I think anything under six hundred for fast food I'm
pretty happy with. Like, I don't think you can get
really many options around that four hundred cow. So anything
under about six hundred for a fast food option, which
I would assume most people are only getting maybe once
or twice a week max, that's a pretty good option.
And the last one, I'll add a subway they used
to do.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
I don't know if they still call it, but it
used to be the six grains, six grams of fat
and under range. So in there was like turkey, chicken strips,
ham tuna. There was a five or six of them
in that range.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And they are around yeah, three sort of between three
hundred to four hundred options.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
But there are really good options.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
There's six inch I like the Italian cheese, bread, the
wheat's good, the rise good.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Options as well. Stay lean and with the sauce.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Often they can do quite a few swipes of the sauce,
So I just say just a little bit of sauce
and then you can get so much veggie volume in there.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
And I often preference a six inch bread over all
wrap because sometimes it's Subway they do those big white
wraps where you're actually better off with like a rye
bread or a wheat bread. From a health perspective, it's
actually better better for blood sugar control as well. So
we've always been a big fan of Subway. They're really
good options there, depending on obviously what you're choosing, so
they're kind of my go to. But I'm a grilled chicken,
you know, burger girl forever. I always think that's a
(31:04):
really good option. It's delicious, it's satisfying, and you can
add a whole lot more salad, I guess, depending on
where you go as well.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
True.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
All right, Liam, we've got a new product to review.
Have you seen these? So I've got them with me
and I took one for the team and I ate
one the new Arnot's Quattro bars caramel and peanut, And
before I went away, they these came out in the
supermarket and I bought all three varieties. There's a white
chocolate one and they look like a mass bar. They
(31:34):
kind of look like a healthier mass bar and on
the front they've got a big slash five grams of
protein and under one hundred and fifty calories, And yeah,
I thought it was interesting. Have you seen them?
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I've seen them, but I haven't bought them.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I haven't tried them. I don't think my gut would
do very well with them, so I'll leave the taste.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Of sea yawning. Jesus, you're right. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Oh, my whole family's been so sick.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
I have had the worst sleep in my life for
the last three months were of when the kids were newborns.
I've been so sick the last couple of months. I'm
very slip deprived.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
So tried me.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Have you tried some magnesium land some restore?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I have changed my life, But even that's not the
magical that I'm looking for. I just need some more
time in bed without being woken up six times a
night with a child.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
All right, well, I'll take you through this product, shall
I like you? I tasted one before we got on,
so yeah, I'm just having a look. On that sign.
There's caramel and peanut, there is white chocolate caramel and peanut,
and there is fruity pieces caramel and peanut. So they're
in three different boxes. I think they're about I think
I paid five dollars for them, but I think they're
probably about seven dollars. Usually there's a packet of six
seventy five bars. Six. Yeah, So what we're going to do.
(32:41):
I'll read the ingredients first, So milk, chocolate coating, twenty
five percent sugar, vegetable fat, milk solids, cocoa solids, and mulsifiers,
natural flavors. This is the concern straight away because there's
this range of glorified bars out there. They healthy masquerade,
they're chocolate bars. The first ingredients chocolate, there's heaps of
them out there, will layer nineteen percent, and then going
(33:03):
through Leanne's favorite chickery, root fiber, soy, protein isolate, peanuts
and flower oil, humor. Can't even say that word. Biscuit
pieces weigh protein concentrate. So it's a long ingredient list
full of.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Additives, patinated glucose syrup, cocoa powder and natural flavors and
multiple Yeah, it just goes out.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
One four col per serve, five point two grams of protein,
saturated fat twelve percent, so high saturated fat products. Straight away,
it's four point one per bar, eleven point seven grams
of total carbohydrate, eight point five grams of sugar, but
most importantly and twenty six percent sugar overall, three point
three grams of dietary fiber coming from the chickery root.
(33:46):
Now this is where I struggle, right, because I had
a I tasted it before we got on and it
actually tastes really cool.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
I stove because it actually tastes really good, and I
don't really.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Like it was thirty two grams. They're tiny, They're not
really big. They're like just a slightly bigger than a
tim Tam. And I thought, I'll just have a quick
taste of it, and I thought, oh, not too bad.
I was like, stop eating, you're not hungry.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
It's so hard because they sit in this middle ground
of some positive health characteristics. So they're marketing on protein content.
Are they better than a tim tam a bit? Are
they healthy? No, they're ultra processed. So it's a really
(34:29):
tricky space to be in because if one of my
clients came to me and said, can I have one
of these after dinner? I would be hard pressed to
say no. Like, it's one hundred and forty calories. Do
you love them? I'd say, if you love them, have it?
Would I normally buy them myself? No, because I think
that they're more like a candy bar. They're a chocolate
(34:51):
if the first ingredient's chocolate. And if you look in
the musley bar section of coals and Woolies, there's a
whole range of these bars. The first ingredient's chocolate. And
Leanna and I are trying to formulate a healthy bar
for you guys, and we're struggling because really, what's out
there is chocolate bars that are made to look a
bit healthier, but they're not. You know, a nut bar
(35:12):
or a seed bar is a million times healthier, but
people don't buy them as much because they don't taste
as good. So I don't know. I give it like
a six. Would I encourage clients to buy it?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
No?
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Would I recommend it?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
No?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It's an ultra processed food. But is it healthier than
a chocolate bar? A little bit? It's less calories than
a chocolate bar, Like what's the Snickers one hundred and eighty?
Not that many less, I guess which it's way smaller though,
thirty two? Well, all the chocolate bars are smaller now too, though,
like but you had have you seen a Mars bar later?
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:43):
But say, this is probably the equivalent of two fun
sized chocolates. So it's actually not healthier than a chocolate
in my opinion, not well slightly.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
It's got similar sugar, it's got slightly less fat slightly,
what's a chocolate bar is thirty percent fat? So this
is not.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Everyone being I would not buy it. I would not
recommend it. Like again, if someone said, oh, I love it,
can I eat it? I'd be like, okay, but this
is like what I call a soul food for you
for the week, So a couple of week okay, cool,
But I don't think this is any better. I would
actually handle my heart recommend my client had a chocolate more.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
I counted it.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
It has thirty three ingredients, and it's not just about
oh it's got five grams of protein. That literally matters
nothing to me, Like, I'm like, you get your protein
from other foods, you don't get it from a chocolate
coated snack bar. Like I think I would rather someone
have like a better quality like a link chocolate or
something which has you know, a handful of ingredients, not
thirty three, and I think the issue is, and you
know the issue, so many chronic diseases, metabolic diseases, autoimmune
(36:40):
conditions are on the rise because this isn't real food. Like,
this is not real food at least with chocolate. It's
got a handful of ingredients. It's cocoa butter, it's cocoa,
it's sugar. At least we actually know what we're eating.
This is a kindhly modified definition of ultra processed food.
I'm a lot stricter than you on this. It might
taste good, cool, but I wouldn't. I would never buy that.
(37:00):
Rather eat chocolate or eat a plane of ice cream
or something instead. Is that rather a mini magnium like
the same calories? I think honestly, a mini magnum is
on part, Like, I don't actually think this is any healthier.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
He's a mini magnumund one hundred and forty calories.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Oh it's something, wen, it's like semantics.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I don't know, I know, I hear you. It's a
chocolate bar. So yeah, I think it's a tricky place
in the supermarket right now because there's so many of
these foods out there. Like I just had to review granolas,
and I purposely didn't put in any of the high
protein granolas that are out there because to me, they're
all much more processed, so I don't think they're healthier,
(37:42):
you know. So it's this whole situation in supermarket that's
going out there. Would I want my client to have
this is an afternoon snack if they loved it? One
hundred and forty calories, it's only five grams of protein. Though,
where are they getting the rest of the protein? You know,
Like if they had this with a a yopro yoga
and had a two hundred and fifty cow snack that
(38:02):
had twenty five grams of protein and they had a
chocolate and were happy. Maybe, Like if it means that
they're not overeating other pieces of rubbish, would I rather
they have this than biscuits? Yeah? I would. I would
rather they have this than biscuits. Would I add it
to a meal plan? Probably not. But it's that kind
of middle ground where the calories are quite controlled and
(38:23):
if people can control themselves. I think the issue is
again like it's so easy to eat too, Like I'll
have another one.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
They're only tiny, Like I'd rather my client had one
or two of the mini snaplicks.
Speaker 3 (38:34):
Say Mars Viral Snickers or a little boost or something like.
One or two of them is fine, and I think
you're getting that hit.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
I think the worst. But who has one or two?
Everyone has ten? Yeah, but this is too mini boosts.
This is the same problem. This is tiny.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Like you said, it's only slightly larger than a tim tank,
like struggle bigger than stop at chocolate. You're going to
struggle to stop at one of these. You're gonna have
the same issue. And these are six dollars seventy for
five bars. Was not much super Let's be honest.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, I don't know. It's that middle ground for me.
I just I don't hate it. I don't love it.
Would I recommend it? No, If a client said ask
me about them, that, that's potentially where I'd put them.
Like i'd say to a client, I'd rather you have
this than eating chocolate bars and biscuits and stuff. If
you feel satisfied from it, I'd team it with something
like a high protein Yogan in the afternoon, if that
(39:24):
would tie them over. But I haven't heard anyone ask
me about them either, So would I buy them again?
I don't buy stuff like this because they're too easy
to eat. I just find that.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
I know.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
I haven't given them to my kids yet. Actually i'll
see if they like them, but they can't have them
at school because they've got nuts in them exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And also, can I just do a quick PSA service
announcement as well. I saw a post on just because
my little girl's got allergies. She's got an allergies, so
it's close to my heart. There's the Cobs I think
they did. They were like a popcorn kind of bar,
and the advertisers popcorn and almond bar, but they actually
have I think ten percent peanut or something. And there
was a little child in the last week that had
went into anaphlexus and was rushed hospital because the mom
(40:04):
forgot to read the label. And it's very easy to say, oh,
we'll be more careful, but I've certainly been in the
same case where I've just forgotten, you know, once in
a blue moon to do that as well. And as
busy parents, we just forget sometimes despite our best intentions.
If anyone does have kids with peanut allergies, just be
very careful and a reminder in the supermarkets particularly in
the Musli bar aisle, that a lot of these bars
now do have peanuts because peanuts are very cheap. You
(40:26):
know that we're not adding you know, cashews and pasta
shows to a lot of the bars because they're a
lot more expensive. That was just a little one because
they don't specifically call that peanut. On the front of
the label, it says armor. So it's very easy for
a parent with a child with a peanut allergy to
grab that or an adult themselves and just think, oh,
this has got armored in it. It's very safe and
unfortunately a child has experienced anaphylaxis in the last week
or so. With that, just a friendly reminder to check
(40:48):
your labels with allergies.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
That no good call. All right, Well we don't know
what's I don't think we can go on at abatus anymore.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Yeah, three out of ten, you can give a six?
Speaker 1 (40:59):
All right, move on, all right, I'll ask that vita
and be uplifting.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Vitamin is Aren't they worth it? Uplifting? This is hard?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Probably not, No, I think if you're a healthy individual,
and I think the reality is that most of our
nutrition couch listeners are pretty healthy, right, Like we've done that.
We've surveyed you guys. We know you're pretty healthy. So
I think a vitamin C tablet's worth it in winter
for the average healthy nutrition couch listener, probably not. But
if you are someone who doesn't eat much fruit and vegetables, potentially,
if you are if you have like a high risk
(41:28):
of a deficiency so you're following a kutogenic dart, or
you're a smoker, they have high vitamin C requirements potentially
as well. Or if you're someone who for whatever reason
has a very limited dart, you're quite fussy, you have
food preferences, perhaps you have allergies to different things, they
could potentially be worth it. But I routinely will say
to my clients, don't you don't need the vitamin C supplement.
I think everyone thinks that it will prevent colds, but
(41:49):
when you actually look at the research, there have been
large reviews that they don't really reduce people's chances of
catching a cold. If anything, there's a small amount of
research that it may slow lightly reduce the duration in
a cold in a healthy adult by about half a day.
So to me, I'm like, that's not really if you're
going to have a cold for like a week and
you know, might reduce it by half a day. It's
(42:10):
not really something I'd invest in. But where there is
a tiny bit of research is vitamin C can be
beneficial for those that are under significant sort of like
physical stress.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
So think like high level athletes, people.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Who do a ton of exercise, military personnel, those exposed
to really extreme sort of temperature kind of environments, really
cold environments, they may benefit from vitamin C. But I
think the average healthy person probably wouldn't do. I buy
vitamin C myself in winter. Know, if I do look
like getting a cold, if there's a lot around, I
prefer to take zinc. There's a smaller there's probably a
little bit more research around zinc in winter to help
(42:44):
reduce duration and severity of colds. But it needs to
be a high amount of zinc. From memory, it's around
seventy seventy five milligrams a day. It has to be
in a lozenge of form. So there's a few different
lozenges that do have some zinc in there. If a
client said to me, what's the better of choice, I
would say that you better off with a zink lozenger
than you are with vitamin C tablets, and this is
from like a cold perspective in winter, but it's not
(43:06):
going to sort of prevent anything. So if you're struggling
sort of with the dollars or you're trying to budget,
I'd be spending it more towards the fresh fruit and
veggie intake or someome creatine than I put on the
vitamin C tablets because unfortunately we just don't have the
research to support it at the moment.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Well, I don't think I can answer because I've got
a bias. I take it.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Sousey takes vitaman, but you don't take it for colds
and winter do?
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I just no, I take it all the time. I
take a thousand milligrams a day. I just think that
it's potentially helpful and cheap and good antioxidant. And yeah,
I don't know, it's against the evidence.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I don't take a lot of It's funny because you
have a cold at the moment and you're sick, and
that's what it's funny, because how doesn't work it up
for you?
Speaker 3 (43:51):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I'm funny with I don't take I didn't even take
something I was pregnant so I am a bit funny
with it, but I do have it on my desk
and I do. I don't know. I think it's like
quite a good anti agent, but you're right, there's no
evidence for it, so don't do what I do.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Perspective. Yeah, most people probably don't need it.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
But if you love it and you find it's helping, well,
you know, please le bo's help to Well.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
When I did come back from being away a bit sick,
I was taking it as well because I wasn't really
eating very much, you know. So there's all those things,
but it's the thing. Good thing about vitamin C is
that it's cheap and it's not dangerous. I think what
concerns me as a dietitian is a lot of people
are taking stuff like B group vitamins, and you shouldn't
be taking concentrated amounts of nutrients that can be potentially stored.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
The thing about vitamin C is that it's not stored,
so it's quite a safe thing to take and it
can be quite cheap with no damage kind of being done.
So I think when people are traveling and things, it's
quite helpful, you know, like you're often not getting the
fresh foods and things when you're traveling, so I think
that it's not a dangerous thing to be taking. But yeah,
this is from someone who you know pops a few
every now and again. Anyway, I'm not really good with supplements,
so I probably don't take my word for it either.
(44:56):
But you're right, doesn't prevent it just potentially shortens the
length of a cold land So in reference to your
referring to it, the fact I've got a cold, I'm
probably having a colder day shorter because of my vitamin
C supplements. So all right, on that note, have infuriated Liam.
We've spoken about healthy chocolate bars, vitamin SEA. She's off bag,
down a grill, obsessions. She's not happy, so let's just
(45:17):
push on. Thank you for listening to us, and we
will see you next Wednesday for a regular episode. Drop
and if you are looking for some evidence based supplements,
go to Design by Dieticians, where you will notice we
don't have a vitamin C talb. Thanks for listening.
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