Keep up the good work
DANNY DRYSON
F YOU signed up for Dry January or Veganuary and managed to stick to them, congratulations. A month of abstinence will have given you a great boost for the year ahead.
Mindful eating regimes can also be a great way to reset your eating and drinking habits.
But don’t beat yourself up if you found yourself reaching for a chunk of cheese or large glass of wine as soon as February rolled around (or before).
Sticking to an extreme diet, or completely denying yourself treats, is difficult to maintain, but going straight back to your old ways will undo all your good work.
Instead of ditching the diet completely, try and take the best from it and continue the good habits.
For those of you who didn’t start off the year as you hoped, let’s take the time to remind ourselves of some of the basics of healthy eating and take a look at what you should be serving up to ensure your whole family enjoys a healthy 2019.
THE BUILDING BLOCKS
CARBOHYDRATES are a great source of energy. Our bodies convert them into glucose which fuels our bodies and brains.
Protein is what our bodies use to build and repair muscles. Most commonly associated with meat, protein can also come from fish, dairy, beans, nuts, seeds and meat alternatives like tofu.
Fruit and vegetables contain essential vitamins and minerals, and most importantly fibre! This helps us to feel full, regulates blood sugar levels and keeps us… (ahem)… regular.
However, if we eat too much of anything and we don’t use the energy (by moving) it’s converted into fat. The secret to avoiding over-indulgence lies in ensuring proportions are balanced.
PORTION IT UP
CARBOHYDRATES shouldn’t make up more than a third of your family’s
plate. Another third needs to be vegetables. Make sure to eat some lean protein with each meal, and limit sugar and fats.
To make sure you’re getting the right amounts of each food group, check out the NHS Eat Well plate (nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/ the-eatwell-guide/).
It’s not unusual for families to serve up a bowl full of pasta with a tomato and meat sauce and not much else. However, a healthier option would be to have less pasta, add more vegetables and use a lean protein, such as white meat, fish or beans instead of red meat.
If you’ve been doing Veganuary, you may have experimented with meat alternatives such as quinoa, lentils and beans. It’s a good idea to continue to include these in your diet as they’re a great source of protein, as well as low-fat carbohydrates.
They’re also a great alternative to pasta and bread.
Whole grains are better as they are digested slowly, releasing energy for longer – so choose brown pasta, rice and bread instead of white.
WATCH OUT FOR THE SUGAR
SUGAR is one of the worst offenders when it comes to empty calories in your family’s diet. Free sugars – sugar added to food or drink – are the ones we really need to watch out for as they don’t provide us with any nutrients.
Too much sugar means extra calories, which can lead to obesity, raising your risk of heart disease and other conditions.
Learning how to identify sugars – particularly those in processed foods – will help you keep track of how much you and your kids are consuming.
Keep an eye out for words ending in ‘ose’ (glucose, sucrose, fructose, lactose, maltose etc) as these are all forms of sugar. The higher up they appear on the ingredients list, the more sugar the product contains.
Adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars a day – around seven sugar cubes, children aged seven to 10 should have no more than 34g, and children aged between four and six should have no more than 19g.
It’s OK to have a sweet treat, but keep them for special occasions, not every day.
BALANCE IT OUT
A GOOD way to get the balance right is to keep an eye on portion sizes. While it can be tempting to polish off the last bit of lasagne, it can also be bad for our health.
The British Nutrition Foundation has just launched the Find Your Balance guide (nutrition.org.uk/ healthyliving/find-your-balance), showing you what a portion looks like per person.
Home cooking is always more preferable because it allows you to control what’s added – takeaways, ready meals and processed foods often contain lots of hidden fats and sugar, with less fibre or vegetables.
If you have a blow out – which most of us no doubt will at some point – don’t beat yourself up, use your knowledge to balance it out.
If you and the kids have devoured a box of chocolates in one sitting, or you couldn’t resist the spaghetti carbonara AND the garlic bread, think about how you can work off that added energy. Planning meals ahead means you can reduce excess energy intake for a few days after a blow-out.
A good way to cancel our excess calories and keep your family’s weight regulated is to get moving!
Anything that gets your heart pumping will burn energy. That could be a trip to the gym, a Saturday swimming session, a family walk to the park or a bike ride.
The trick to a healthy, happy family is to strike a balance and keep everyone moving.