10 Healthy Ways to Survive the Festive Season Eating Frenzy

Chat Leave a comment December 15, 2016 nutritionadsa

Every year the festive season arrives and all our healthy eating plans go out of the window. There is no doubt that time to relax and enjoy ourselves is important to our well-being, but we tend to over-indulge in rich foods, sweet treats and alcohol. At the same time, we are cutting back on regular physical activity and staying up too late, too often.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to indulge a little, but allow for eating in moderation and maintaining a varied diet. Ditching your weight loss or weight management plans, or letting go of your health conscious habits over the festive season stresses both body and mind. Of course, you want to enjoy yourself, and it’s certainly not the time to feel deprived, but you can avoid the holidays becoming an extended binge by using strategies to moderate the inevitable excesses.

We asked a team of registered dietitians from ADSA (Association for Dietetics in South Africa) to give us their top tips on how to balance holiday fun with staying healthy, and here’s what they have to say:

Surviving holiday parties: Don’t attend a party on an empty stomach – grab a small healthy snack before you go. When you get there, don’t rush to eat – socialize and settle into the festivities before you eat and keep your socializing away from the buffet table or appetizer trays – to help limit nibbling. (Cheryl Meyer)

Eat mindfully: The buffet table is an invitation to eat all you can, so first survey what is available, choose the foods you really want to eat, and then move away. Eat slowly, focusing on enjoying the taste and smell of each bite. (Jessica Byrne)

Eat what you love, leave what you like. Be picky – don’t deny indulges, but only eat treats that you really love – avoid “wasting” calories on non-favourites. Think quality rather than quantity. (Cheryl Meyer)

Make water your MVP (most valuable player) this holiday season:  Jazz it up with lemon, cucumber or even fruit cubes like watermelon ice cubes, adding an element of holiday indulgence to plain water. Also try plain fruit or herbal tea for a change.  Water and tea can help fill you up preventing holiday overeating or even overindulging in alcohol or fizzy drinks, both loaded with calories/ energy. (Hlanzeka Mpanza)

Balance less healthy meals with healthy ones: Choose only one less healthy item or meal per day.  For example: one day an English breakfast, the next day an ice cream and the next day a take away, but not all three on one day. Ensure the other meals are healthy by eating lots of fresh vegetables and fruit. (Zelda Ackerman)

Be a snack smuggler: Travelling, shopping and lack of routine during the holidays can lead to skipping meals, or grabbing that seemingly convenient fast food. To keep your appetite in check, never leave home without a snack. Fruit makes a refreshing and no fuss snack, and a small packet of unsalted nuts can easily fit in your handbag for when the hunger hits. (Jessica Byrne)

Avoid after-dinner nibbles and snacks: Those chocolates and biscuits that come out after an indulgent lunch or dinner are unnecessary calories and will probably only make you feel more uncomfortably full. (Lila Bruk)

Have your cake and eat it too: If you do have one of the many sweet treats on offer, keep your portion size as small as possible and choose the healthiest of what you can find. For example, generally fruit-based cakes and desserts are better choices, so an apple tart would be a better option than a chocolate cake, especially if you don’t eat all the pastry. (Lila Bruk)

Start your day with a wholesome breakfast: Have a low GI breakfast such as oats, wholegrain cereal or wholewheat toast with avocado or eggs. This will not only keep you satisfied, your sugar levels stable and hunger pains at bay, but will also prevent you from snacking on sugary treats that are empty calories with little nutrients. (Lucinda Lourens)

Get moving with friends and family: Spend quality time with friends and family these holidays, but instead of catching up over coffee and cake, make the most of the warm weather and plan to do something where you can be active together. Meet for a walk on the beach or get a group together and go for a hike. Go for a swim, or get the whole family involved in a post-lunch stroll around the neighbourhood. (Jessica Byrne)

This ADSA NutritionConfidence recipe, created by Chef Vanessa Marx, is perfect for keeping your health on track this holiday, while still indulging in delicious festive food: “Grilled Ostrich Fillet with Egyptian Dukkah and Cucumber Raita”.

Ostrich is a truly South African and healthy alternative for the braai this festive season! The raita bursts with flavour while being low in sugar and fat. Ostrich meat is a great alternative to other ‘red meat’ sources. Classified as a ‘white meat’ due to its fat content, it’s low in fat (even lower than some chicken cuts) and saturated fat; but also a good source of biologically available iron. This makes a great pairing with the “Spinach, Beetroot and Pomegranate Salad”.

“Sensible, long-term healthy eating is not the sexiest of subjects” – meet dietitian, Hlanzeka Mpanza

3 Comments June 8, 2016 nutritionadsa

Why did you become a Registered Dietitian?

By accident actually. My father brought a career guidance book home that featured a dietitian when I was in standard 9.  I was fascinated about the idea that everyday food could help with getting the most out of life whether in sports, work, disease and general mental well-being. I still am.

What do you enjoy most about the work you do? What are the most satisfying moments?

I work in the food industry. I believe this is the most exciting area to work in in dietetics today as there is so much happening in the field of food policy worldwide. My job as an industry dietitian is to make nutrition relevant and accessible to our consumers through relevant  products, messages and projects. And most importantly to provide our consumers with nutrition information that they need to make informed choices.  I like knowing that when we hit that sweet spot between the right health message and product/ project, we can positively change lives of millions of people every-day.

What has been your career highlight?

For a black girl from very humble beginnings, my job has allowed me to travel to places I never thought I’d see in my life. After qualifying, I registered as a dietitian in the UK, where I later went to work as I travelled my way around the continent over a number of years.  I not only got to work and live with diverse people from all over the world, I did it whilst still feeling like I was making a difference in peoples’ lives. Those years were special for me.

What are the most challenging aspects of your career?

Sensible long-term healthy eating is not the sexiest of subjects.  How do we as a profession get better at enabling the general public to eat better, without bells and whistles?  I’d like us to crack the key to population-wide healthy eating messages that are based on nutrition science yet are simple, engaging and accessible (not just financially but culturally as well).  We have to get to a point where investing in credible nutrition is the only sensible choice. At the moment, there is so much information clutter that the general public is mostly confused about what sensible healthy eating is. And when people are not food literate, they are not able to make lifestyle changes that they need to make for them live longer, more productive lives.

How do you cope after a day of nutrition disaster and bad eating choices?

Except I don’t call them nutrition disasters. I call them celebration days like when your BFF gets a promotion and you share one big cake between the two of you or sad days when you get ceremoniously dumped by your ‘not-really-serious-boyfriend’ and you eat all the food in the house.  The problem is when sad and celebration day kind of eating becomes the norm, which is when you need to start recreating a healthier normal.  How I cope is I pick myself up the following day and go live my best life, it’s all about trying to do better every-day. I believe food is a legitimate way of coping with emotional events and marking milestones, that’s ok.  I don’t think shame and guilt are useful when it comes to sustainable healthy eating.

What are the three things that you think people should stop saying when they meet a dietitian?

Are you really going to eat that?

How do I gain muscle or lose weight?

Don’t look at what I’m eating! (this makes us feel like the food police, which we’d like to think we are not)

What should clients look out for when deciding which dietitian to work with?

Find someone who gets you and your vision. Someone who understands what you want to achieve. Other than when dealing with certain medical conditions, success in nutrition is mostly relative. Define what success means for you, your health, your culture, your work, your mental well-being, your budget, stage of life, support system, etc. Choose someone that can help you navigate what success means for you and how to get there without giving up the most basic parts of yourself that make you YOU. You are more likely to be successful when you do that.

What is your favourite dish and your favourite treat food?

It changes, right now I am loving ujeqe obrown ( steamed brown bread) that I make at home a serve with everything. As a treat, I have a weakness for  spicy chicken wings from the orange fast food chain.

LET’S TALK ABOUT ‘HEALTHY EATING IN THE WORKPLACE’

Chat 6 Comments October 8, 2015 nutritionadsa

What we eat at our place of work has a huge impact on our overall diet and influences our productivity. The prevalence of overweight and obesity combined is now 65% for females and 31% for males (2012 South African Health and Nutrition Examination Survey – SANHANES) and unhealthy workplace eating behaviour is believed to be playing a role in South Africa’s growing obesity problem.

The Association for Dietetics in South Africa (ADSA) has partnered with National Nutrition Week since the late 1990s to highlight important nutrition messages to South Africans. “In line with our continued efforts to support South Africans in living healthier lifestyles and to promote dietitians as the go-to experts for nutrition advice, the issues around healthy eating in the workplace are close to our hearts and something our dietitians deal with on a daily basis”, says ADSA President, Maryke Gallagher.

Employees consume at least half of their meals and snacks during work hours, making this an important place to promote healthy eating. Registered Dietitian, Alex Royal, says that healthy eating at work can be a challenge as there are often too many temptations: the vending machine, the sweets trolley, colleagues who have bad habits that influence others. “During a busy day we don’t have time (or forget) to prepare healthy meals or even forget to eat. So blood glucose levels drop, resulting in an energy dip and potentially cravings, especially for highly processed and sugary foods. This fuels the cycle of unhealthy eating at work”, Royal concludes.

The question is what can employers do to create a healthier food environment at work? Suggestions include changing meal options available at work to be in line with the guidelines for healthy eating, offering a variety of foods, controlling portion sizes, overhauling vending machines and kiosks to include healthy snack options, offering drinks that are not sugar-laden and changing the menu of food provided during meetings. Cath Day, Registered Dietitian and ADSA spokesperson, also offers some tips for employees:

• Before grabbing a snack, first ask yourself if you are really hungry or if you rather need to take a break from what you are doing. Going for a short walk or getting some fresh air – may be all you need.
• Don’t skip meals or healthy snacking between meals. Skipping meals and snacks results in dips in blood glucose (sugar) levels and thus you will be more likely to crave unhealthy foods.

We often talk about school lunchboxes, but what about work lunchboxes? These go a long way in giving employees more control over what they eat during the day. According to Registered Dietitian Kelly Schreuder the goals of a healthy work lunchbox include: Variety and balance of foods, providing a variety of nutrients, including protein, carbohydrates, fat and micronutrients. Real food, as opposed to processed snacks and those that are high in added sugar, excess salt and poor quality fat, and portion control.

And what about fluids – what should we be drinking while we are at work? “The simple answer is that water should be the main beverage we are drinking while working but there are many other healthy options to choose from as well. People often forget that beverages can contain a large amount of energy (and many beverages contain too much sugar such as sugar sweetened beverages and fruit juice) so we need to be more mindful about what we are drinking”, say ADSA spokesperson Catherine Pereira.

Being active in the workplace is also important and employees should try to be as physically active as possible. Durban-based dietitian, Hlanzeka Mpanza says that it is not impossible to include some physical exercise in the workday. Use the steps instead of the lift; form an exercise club with colleagues and try to fit in a 15 minute walk during the lunch hour; wear a pedometer during the day to keep track of activity levels and as a motivator; and stretch your legs by walking over to your colleagues’ desk instead of sending them an email.

What we eat affects our mood, how alert we are and our overall productivity. We asked dietitian Maryke Bronkhorst why food influences us in this way. “Some foods contain nutrients that are used to manufacture certain brain chemicals that may enhance mental tasks like memory, concentration, and reaction time.   Protein foods enhance the brain’s production of dopamine, a natural brain chemical that helps one to feel alert. Large quantities of carbohydrates, on the other hand, result in the production of serotonin, a natural brain chemical that can cause drowsiness, but glucose in the bloodstream is the brain’s main source of energy. So it’s important that you eat at regular intervals and choose low glycaemic index options to prevent your blood sugar levels from dropping too low”, says Bronkhorst. Lean biltong, a small handful nuts, a piece of fresh fruit e.g. blueberries, vegetable crudités with a dip like hummus and plain yoghurt flavoured with handful of berries are great ‘go-to’ snacks.

On Tuesday, 13^th October ADSA (@ADSA_RD) is hosting a #WorkplaceNutrition twitter talk from 1pm to 2pm. The talk will focus on healthy eating and healthy living in the workplace providing employees with tips, ideas and advice about achieving a better nutrition balance during work hours. Dietitians and National Nutrition Week partners will be answering questions such as:

• What are challenges employees face with healthy eating at work?
• What can employees or workplace do to improve healthy eating during the workday?
• What should be included in a work lunchbox?
• What should we be drinking while we are working?
• How do we stay active while working?
• What are the go-to snacks that give energy needed to work well?

Join the conversation live on Twitter, follow the @ADSA_RD handle or track the hashtag #WorkplaceNutrition to get some great ideas and tips on how to eat healthily at work.