Starting the New Year Right: Nutrition & You!

W Good morning everyone warm welcome to you to our first level up webinar Wednesday for 2024 let me take this opportunity to wish you and your families all the best for 2024 we are indeed truly happy to be here with you so for those of you who don’t who may

Not know me I am your host Audra Mitchell vice president of Learning and Development and general manager for the Massi learning Institute mli and in our and if you all could recall and those of you who attended in our final webinar for 20123 we encourage you to end 2023 on a

High even if you did not hit all your goals well it’s a brand new year and we all have an opportunity to press reset in our lives by setting goals to bring about positive change for some of us if not many of us at the top of that list is healthy

Eating and healthy practices I show of hands right you see my hand is up right I’m being very intentional this year so in today’s session therefore our goal is to help you achieve Yours by focusing on nutrition and you after all there is a saying if you don’t eat your food as

Medicine you will have to eat medicine as your food in the future so one of our goals definitely is to ensure that it’s not the latter for you so as we get into our webinar you are reminded to participate by posting your questions and comments so that we can have a

Really engaging session and please look out for recording of This webinar which can be found on our website and YouTube channel so so without further Ado let me welcome and introduce today’s speaker Miss Victoria Cox so Victoria is a Canadian trained registered dietitian who returned home to Barbados in

2016 and has since established a private practice while also working on the multidisiplinary team as a contracted clinician Clinic yes clinic clinician right with the Barbados diabetes Foundation Victoria works with both both adults and children and has a passion for helping others develop a healthy relationship with food while using

Medical Nutrition Therapy as a means to promote health and prevent or manage various chronic diseases so much of Victoria’s clinical focus is on Diabetes militus types one and two and polycystic ovary syndrome Victoria also enjoys focusing on the fun and practical side of nutrition so you see nutrition can be

Fun and practical and I know Victoria will tell us more about that therefore for eating healthy foods that are enjoyable affordable and satisfying taking advantage of nutrition to fuel her love for functional fitness workouts and running so ladies and gentlemen without further Ado I warmly welcome Victoria Victoria welcome and over to

You thank you I hope I am unmuted yes and yes okay great let me go ahead and get the presentation going Al righty thank you so much for having me I’m excited to be here and yes today we will be talking about the topic starting the new year

Right nutrition and you so it’s a timely um topic really because everybody tends to as you say set goals and think about bettering themselves in the new year I was already introduced so um you got everything spot on I am a beijan but I trained in Canada and I’ve been back

Here since about 2016 uh and while I have I work on a lot of different areas um I would say diabetes cardiovascular disease polycystic ovary syndrome and weight management kind of take up most of my daily conversations so we can pretty much jump on right into the topic at

Hand so being that it is you know early in January of a new year I tend to see um not not just me everybody we tend to see a lot of you know new year new me people kind of setting all sorts of Health and Wellness goals which is great

I have you know no no problem with people wanting to take advantage of that new year motivation um but I guess the trend that we tend to see is that people set quite extreme goals I suppose um you know and when that comes to nutrition it usually means some kind of diet as

Opposed to just general healthy eating so and I get it it’s very tempting you know we tend to be sort of All or Nothing a lot of the time and it is tempting to say okay it’s new year new me so I want to lose some weight or gain

Some muscle or get my blood sugar under control or whatever the case is which is wonderful um but sometimes going to a really extreme diet can be you know I suppose the concern is always that it can end up being quite shortlived right so I mean there’s there’s all sorts of diets and

Trends out there at the moment um you know so for example the keto diet that’s been around for a hot minute but I still find you know um it’s still a pretty popular one a lot of people nowadays are into trying intermittent fasting um I also find that sort of plant-based or

Vegan type diet are becoming more and more popular but then on the flip side you’ve got people trying the carnivore diet so eating all meat um then just sometimes people people wanting to lose weight but going into sort of an extreme calorie deficit so hardly eating anything at all and then there’s the

Juices and the cleanses and then just a lot of intense very specific supplementation all sorts of little capsules and green powders and all these sorts of things and again I you know I don’t take specific issue with these things well except for extreme calorie deficit it’s almost never a good thing

Um but I think a lot of times we forget to look at the big picture of just General Health um it’s a lot more appealing in that moment to say okay I’m going to go and buy all these supplements and have this fancy green juice in the morning and that’ll fix all

My problems right um but it’s sort of taking a step back and like well am I adopting any kind of Baseline heal the patterns before I jump into something so extreme so extreme meaning that it’s probably difficult to sustain so I know this sounds kind of boring and that’s

Unfortunately kind of what I lean into to be honest so before somebody starts taking interest in intermittent fasting or taking certain types of supplements you know I just kind of want to get an idea well you know before you jump to something so intense do you eat fruits

Do you eat vegetables do you eat them every day the boring stuff right do you prepare most of your food or do you do you find yourself buying food all of the time um do you drink water are your meals overall nutritionally balanced um because as tempting as it is to hone in

On some kind of little nitpicky detail the fact is these little specific things don’t fix your overall power and ab beating so having some fancy green juice every day isn’t going to override issues if you don’t s if you don’t um you know eat vegetables and fruits uh let’s

See so as I said unfortunately it tends to be a little bit on the boring side um but I would overall first ask the question of okay well do you eat as stands a healthy balanced diet because going to these sort of extreme diets is

Not going to fix the issue so sure you may partake in intermittent fasting but if what you’re eating during your eating window isn’t nutritious you know there’s still going to be issues there so healthy balanced diet to be honest I kind of take not issue but the word

Healthy is nuanced because what may be healthy for one person may not be that healthy for another person so I’ll tend to just focus on the definition of a balanced diet and then we’ll layer some things on top of there in terms of you know kind of get it going in a direction

That may be of interest to you specifically um but a because a healthy diet for example you know I may say oh well fruits are healthy and I agree with that as a general statement but I work with a lot of people who have diabetes

And you know mango season is the ban of my existence because people eat five mangoes in a row and if you have diabetes and you do that chances are is going to spite your blood sugar really really high um so it’s not necessarily enough to say healthy it’s is it healthy

For you depending on your goals but taking a step back are your meals balanced right and this is super basic but I tend to say a balanced meal is got three components we’re starting we’re starting basic some kind of protein some kind of carbohydrate or starch um and

Ideally vegetables but also maybe fruits so just a a one two three of course we’re going to start layering because balance alone isn’t everything it’s got to be I suppose back to that idea of healthy or of high nutritional value I suppose because if I say to somebody right a balanced me meal

Has a carbohydrate a protein and um some veg then someone say all right if I go to a fast food restaurant and order some fried chicken some french fries and klaw that’s taking off one two three um but of course we know that from a quality perspective that’s not going to do the

Trick so healthy from a general sense so not looking at it through a specific lens of this person has diabetes this person wants to specifically lose weight or gain muscle you know whatever the case is just generally considered healthy or nutritious high quality foods whatever whatever you want to call it my Baseline

Take on that is going to be okay we want to be eating mostly Whole Foods what I mean by that is um like single ingredient Foods right so sweet potato broccoli fish chicken as opposed to some kind of you know highly processed uh ready to eat meal or or

Even certain types of snacky foods that have many many ingredients we want to mostly do Whole Foods and minimally processed foods so foods that don’t have tons of added sugars sodium other types of preservatives I’m not saying there’s not a place for those because we’re all

Human but most of the time right and that also applies for mostly eating homecook food as opposed to purchasing food because at the end of the day people who make food they got to make their money they got they they got to get their food to sell but what makes

Food taste good easily fat sugar and salt so when people are preparing food for the purpose of selling it those things are usually abundant um increased an increase in plant-based meals and this is not me trying to turn everybody vegan or vegetarian or anything like that both can coexist so you can eat

Meats and animal foods but I also encourage an increase in plant-based Foods so again fruits vegetables legumes things like that which again brings me to the last point which is fruits and vegetables of different colors so when we’re taking kind of a step back we’re thinking cool before we get to all the

Fun exciting nitpicky details of our 2024 diet or lifestyle asking the questions of hey do I mostly eat single ingredient Whole Foods do I prepare most of those Foods myself do I eat plant-based Foods maybe include some plant-based proteins sometimes do I do I include different fruits and veggies on

A daily basis right these are our Baseline goals that we want to start working on that I would recommend anybody start working on so just to kind of run through some examples really quickly because I you know I don’t promote really um restrictive diets or anything

Like that so if we kind of go through our one two three and we start with okay we want to include some kind of high fiber starch or high fiber carbohydrate and this topic I I’ll touch on it a little bit more this is going to be particularly relevant for anybody living

With diabetes insulin resistance PCOS with insulin resistance pre-diabetes because carbohydrate is the food group that is digested into sugar so just something to keep in mind um but high fiber starches you know will include things things like rice sure preferably brown or at least add in some peas or

Beans with your rice things like quinoa your grown provisions of sweet potato yam cassava things like bread fruit green banana planting um Breads and biscuits again ideally whole weeds are high in fiber things like oats and barley and other high fiber cereals um and even pasta again preferably high in

Fiber so whole wheat or nowadays you can get sort of red lenil pasta and all sorts of other high fiber options so there’s nothing wrong with carbohydrates they are our main source of energy you know unless you’re specifically wanting for a particular reason to follow a very

Low carbohydrate diet it’s not a bad idea to include fi uh to include carbs it’s where we get fiber from keeps us um you know going regular in the bathroom fuels are workouts if you’re exercising but as I said it is something to keep in

Mind that it is a food group that turns into sugar so um portion control is relevant especially if you have Di diabetes or history or are at high risk of diabetes lean proteins this is always an important part of the meal that I think will sometimes get left out if well I

Would say the most likely component to get left out is vegetables let’s be honest but lean proteins also get left out sometimes especially at meals maybe like breakfast and protein does a lot to keep us feeling Fuller for longer so it’s important just for satiety um regardless of what kind of health goals

You have but for General Health I’d be saying lean is the key word here lean and minimally processed so yes I encourage protein at each meal but unfortunately not necessarily you know corn beef and hot dog it’s more going for things like homecooked chicken turkey fish and I’m not against canned

Foods personally you know so tuna sardines canned salmon things like that if you’re going to go to your roote of red meat beef pork lamb Etc I would you know suggest removing any kind of visible fat cuz these just have a higher saturated fat content as I said I

Encourage inclusion of some plant-based proteins in there so could be like lens holes kidney beans chickpeas um soy products so adame which is Young soybean or things like tofu which I know is quite a polarizing a polarizing food and um eggs and then you can use sort of other more supplemental sources

Of of protein like protein powder um Greek yogurt cottage cheese not that that’s a particularly popular food I find in um well certainly not in Barbados but you know it is a good source of protein nonetheless so we’re kind of aiming for these types of proteins versus as I said

Sausages bacon chicken wings those types of things and then nobody needs The dietitian to say hey did you know vegetables are good for you everybody knows it is interesting that everybody knows but not everybody eats vegetables every day so um again before we kind of suddenly think oh gosh I’m going to

Change my eating in 2024 from Mostly purchased food and fast food to organic kale salads every single day it’s like well you know before jumping into something that you may not like that much you may find really difficult to sustain how about just kind of going through and thinking well what are your

Favorite vegetables what are your quickest to prepare veg your preferred fruits and veg and just start including them in some form or fashion every day so they said you know the the trend you know heading is 2024 is to start simple and I get you know some people may be

Sitting and listening to me kind of thinking gosh this is kind of boring you know this is it sounds too easy but I think it’s a really interesting experience even for myself because I’m human you know I’ll think about something that I read oh this is good

For me you know whether it be exercise or food related and you think it’s so it’s so basic like of course that’s good for me and then you think well do I do that though and if I’m not already doing that well if it’s so easy why am I not

You know look at examine I guess what kind of has brought you to where you are and think well hey why don’t I drink only water um you know why do I keep ending up H having to buy fast food um so you know as I said my my most simple

Goals for somebody without having met them on a one-on-one basis is kind of you know what it’s probably a good idea to ensure all your meals are balanced so think hey do I have a high fiber carb do I have a lean protein do I have a veg um

Portion size you know you can kind of go off of the picture which is the hands method so you know protein could be a little bit bigger than the image they just have it in the palm of your hand I would say it could be more like the size

Of your um entire hand the starch again an estimate is around a fistful some people may need a bit more obviously some people a little bit less um and then veg two two handfuls the other way of thinking of it is you want the veg to

Be the biggest thing on the plate or flask or container and then you start to new protein to to make up the rest drink your water I you know find simple again as best so try drinking a glass of water between and with each meal try as much as possible to avoid

Purchasing food um or eating fast food out of necessity and what I mean by that is you know when people say oh they end up having to buy lunch almost every day when they’re working I think that’s not really eating out for pleasure that’s well I’m hungry I need

To eat something I don’t have I didn’t bring food with me to work or whatever cases so I got to go and buy whatever is quick available cost effective oftentimes that’s not the healthiest option so I think if we can plan our days in such a way where we’re mostly

Eating home cook foods that almost opens you up so that when you do choose to go out and eat it is very much a choice it’s you know oh it’s the weekend and I’m going out to celebrate a friend birthday um I don’t go out often so when

I do I can order whatever sounds good whatever is most enjoyable as opposed to eating out multiple times a week every week out of necessity where you’re likely to be taking in high high sodium you know high fat foods whatnot and try and include at least one fruit a day as

A snack so I’m just going to start layering on a few things in the time you know in the time that we have together today have we done the boring Basics you know what’s a balanced meal generally what I mean when I say healthy or nutritious high quality so let’s say

Somebody’s goal in 2024 is to lose weight in a healthy manner okay no problem um you know all those things still apply but that’s is going to mean that this person essentially is going to want to achieve a calor deficit everybody’s going to try and tell you

That their specific way of losing weight is somehow better again whether it’s keto whether it’s fasting whatever the trend may be the reality is there are just creative ways to help people get in a state of calorie deficit so taking uh less calories than they are burning of

Course exercise helps with this but realistically I find the phrase you can’t outrun your fork is true that if you’re just trying to compensate by exercise alone and don’t change your eating weight loss uh you know can be a lot more difficult or may not happen so

Basically you want to start taking in less calories than you’re currently taking in or then you’re burning in order to see weight loss and you want to do this in a healthy way so I find it helpful to have a really good understanding of which foods are very

High calorie versus which foods are not right so having an understanding of which foods are calorie dense some foods are just naturally very high in calories so even if you don’t eat a lot of them they’re increasing your calorie intake and more than likely to contribute to

Weight gain or lack of weight loss um and what’s really frustrating is this can include healthy foods so this is why I said at the beginning healthy is a tricky term because I may be somebody who wants to eat healthy but maybe I specifically want to lose weight so I

Decide to cut out my corn curls or almond nuts right the nuts are obviously healthier than your corn curls they’re probably higher in calories and the corn curls too though so they’re not going to help with my specific goal in that sense so this is where things get nuanced

Right um and so if you’re interested in losing or gaining weight understanding that thought as a nutrient provides more than twice the calories per gram than carbohydrate and protein so all you need to take away with that uh from that is that all high fat foods are high calorie all oils even

The healthy ones like olive oil cheese butter margarine mayonnaise salad dressing high fat cuts of meat um again things like nuts seeds avocado those last ones they’re healthy but they’re high in calories and that is something to be mindful of if you happen to be wishing to lose weight along your

Healthy eating Journey right so generally if somebody is looking to lose weight again first and foremost I’m thinking right you full-on want to avoid deep fried food or fast food because again think of all those oils you take some chicken and potato and you deep fry it so if they were X

Calories before now maybe they’re two x calories and you’re not even getting any more food for that right you but you’re getting maybe twice the amount of calories for that um so avoiding anything deep fried anything you classify as greasy so we’re talking like macaroni pie or pasta and really cheesy

Creamy sauces processed Meats even being careful with certain condiments like mayonnaise salad dressings cheese and while I wouldn’t say oh don’t eat healthy fats it would be a case of eat healthy fats understanding that they are high calorie so if you like avocado pear nuts Nut Butter like peanut butter is my

Favorite food I love peanut butter Al Al butter but I know it’s really high in calories so I am cautious with how much of it I use as a form of weight management so this is just a reminder like as I said oil is basically pure

Pure fat so it’s the highest calorie um sort of food that we consume so while it may seem nitpicky to say oh well be careful how much oil you use to stir fry your food or cook your food there’s a big difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon calorie wise um so sometimes

I would prefer to use things like on the right which is sort of like a diffused cooking spray of just the oil so that you end up using a lot less so preparation method makes a big difference then these are just some pictures obviously they’re going to be different foods available in the

Different different countries but um getting in enough protein because I said earlier protein is it does a really good job of keeping you full so getting in enough lowfat protein is also really helpful along a weight loss Journey so tuna Greek yogurt um protein powder sort of low fat um Burgers of different

Types things like that they’re just help helpful little Foods um uh and can be snacks as well when it comes to weight management and keeping you not starving all right I will layer in then just sort of smattering in a few different topics diabetes um if there’s

Anybody you know this thing who is living with or at risk of diabetes I kind of mentioned already you want to get familiar with the food group of carbohydrates because all carbohydrates digest into sugar even the healthy ones so again it’s back to this idea of you’re not asking

Yourself necessarily is this healthy you’re asking is this going to affect my blood sugar or not um this really would get quite individualized in terms of how much carbohydrate somebody should or shouldn’t eat to avoid their blood sugars from spiking but it can explain why I may feel like I’m eating a meal

That’s like healthy like a soup and say my soup has in sweet potatoes some English potato some yam dumplings bread fruit whatever um and chicken and veg I me think well that sounds like a a healthy meal and sure I wouldn’t say it’s an unhealthy meal but it’s very high in carbohydrate because

Of that last point I mentioned there at the bottom avoid carbohydrate combining so if you have diabetes and you’re eating this soup and it’s gotten multiple ground provisions and dumplings all of those things are going to digest into sugar and unfortunately raise your blood sugar so it’s just something to

Really be mindful of that we don’t want to have lots of carbs or starches at the same meal if you’re trying to control blood sugar and then obviously you my number one suggestion for anybody with any kind of blood sugar concern is to avoid sweet drinks uh limit sugary foods

And be cautious even of natural sugars so fruits dried fruits natural sugar is still sugar and it’s not that you shouldn’t eat fruit if you have diabetes but you need to be very careful with how much um basically how much and on what type of fruit you have it’s not fair but

You know it’s the it’s the reality of um of diabetes and sugars so I just very quickly I you know don’t really want to spend um because I know I don’t have a ton of time and I always have this Grand idea of talking about so much um just to kind of show

When it comes to label reading you’re sort of looking at carbohydrates sometimes you know like the cereal on the left which is obviously has no sugar added you would think automatically okay that’s going to be the healthier version than the unsweetened cherios um but you

Can see that for 2third of a cup that cereal on the left only sorry it has 43 grams of carbohydrate the cereal on the right for a cup and a half has 29 grams of total carbohydrate so total carbohydrates is something that you would really want to be paying attention

To if you’re trying to manage something like diabetes pre-diabetes PCOS Etc um so you know label reading it it’s very helpful because some things will surprise you um and I right I already kind of mentioned for sure staying away from sweet drinks managing fruit intake and generally when you choose your starch

Choosing ones that are nice and high in fiber and Portion controlling them oh I had a quick little image here of um or a slide here of some different kind of drinks and it was just a question of if anybody has a guess as to

Which one has the most um Su so like a passion fruit juice drink then a mango juice that specifies 100% fruit juice um a very sugary coffee type drink iced white mocha um that’s a sort of dig at my husband because that’s what he would drink when he goes there and then a

Ginger ale and I mean the reality is all of these are full of sugar but the highest one is actually the ginger ale and I sort of do that on purpose because I have a lot of clients who will tell me specifically people either trying to lose weight or with diabetes so really

Shouldn’t to achieve their goals ideally wouldn’t be using sweet drinks and they’ll say to me oh I don’t drink sweet drinks just ginger ale and I think I don’t know how ginger ale who does their PR but it’s impressive because for some reason we tend not to think of it as a

Soft drink in the same way that we do other ones so again when and out check the label of anything you’re planning on drinking you know if you see a number and you think is that a lot of sugar is that too much sugar I think it’s helpful

For just a reference point to do divide that number by four and that tells you how many teaspoons of sugar are um in that drink or food and alternative beverages this is always an interesting one um because it’s quite limiting but you’ve got water sparkling water you can do infused

Waters teas and coffees coconut water and then there are sugar-free or diet drinks it’s quite a controversial topic so if anyone has questions about that um you know we can talk about that but sugar free drinks the reality is you know they’re not going to have the

Effect on your blood sugar that a regular sweet drink would have or on your weight um to be honest I don’t know how much time I’ll have really to go through the rest of the other points that I was going to touch on um but I just from

A from a cholesteral um perspective mostly going to be coming down to avoiding high fat foods again Foods processed Meats um cheesy creamy dishes and actually increasing your fiber so soluble fiber most people know this even if they don’t know that they know this because everybody has heard that oats

Are good for lowering cholesterol so um if you increase your intake of soluble fiber it tends to help lower sort of bad cholesterol levels through whether it’s oats chia seeds lentils chickpeas and then healthy fats are also good for cholesterol so salmon sardines flax seed walnuts those types of things or some

Some things you would want to eat more of and I think it’s kind of nice to think of healthy eating is something that can be targeted those foods that you want to include more of healthy eating or nutritious eating or achieving your goal isn’t just about things you

Should be eating less of it’s about things we want to include more often and then I think hypertension is probably the last one so it’s not going to be a big surprise but for high blood pressure we really want to watch sort of the sodium and the salt so whether

That’s added during cooking or in you know um maybe things that we’re using like buan cubes soy sauce processed foods tends to have a lot of sodium cheese fast food for sure um you know these are things where you want to try and use herbs and spices instead of salt

Containing seasonings uh and limit processed foods or if you’re getting canned foods look for the low sodium option um and thankfully there are foods that we can include more more often to help relax um the the blood vessel um pressure and and lower blood pressure so high potassium foods like good old

Fruits and vegetables magnesium rich foods like almonds lentils chia seeds kale and calcium rich foods as well so if you eat dairy that could be lowfat milk and yogurt or again chia seeds sardines leafy greens so generally nutritious foods help to lower blood pressure again very quickly if you’re

Looking at a label and you don’t know what to focus on sometimes it’s easiest just to look at the right hand collar and use the percent daily value as a guide so anything 5% or less is considered low 20% or more is considered high so for something like sodium if you

See more than 20% you know that’s really high in salt so this example is really really high in sodium at 90% but if you pick up a snack or a food and you realize oh okay it’s less than five or around 5% sodium that is going to be um a low sodium

Food and then I’ll just sort of end with the anecdote that in in sitting with the theme of going into the new year and wanting to set healthy goals and as I said I’m not trying to negate or slow people down from their goals I’m just

More saying take a step back do you do the basic boring healthy things and if not why and maybe we should start there I will also say that I personally am a fan of healthyish healthier anything that’s a step in the right direction because again the problem with sort of extreme

Patterns of thinking is we think okay if I’m not eating my goal standard healthiest meal Ever every day we tend to just completely flop back to maybe old habits so it’s okay if I can’t have this perfectly curated healthy meal that I wanted to have I could as well go

Through the drive-thru and buy something and it’s you know that doesn’t have to be that way I could maybe I don’t have time to Grill my fish and do my sweet potato and my salad but I have time to make a tuna sandwich which is arguably still better

Than me going and getting ribs and chips right so it’s just trying to validate the thought that healthier healthyish you know healthier by addition so even if the meal part of my meal is not that healthy it doesn’t mean that there’s no point in adding veg to

That meal at least that is something in the right direction right and so this is a message that I find really helpful um especially as the year kind of continues on and maybe you know we realize oh there’s a lot to this and it’s quite difficult yeah it can be difficult but

Healthier healthyish you know every day is a new day to to try and add a little something in or try a new swap um and remember that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing all of the time okay and I think right that’s about it in terms of the presentation so

Hopefully maybe there are some questions or for um you know discussion points I know I tend to talk quite fast and and race through things but um yeah hopefully that raises some points for discussion thank you so very much Victoria and I really loved how you you

Point you ended on right healthy or healthyish you know um it’s really a journey right because it could really feel like an all or nothing and and I can just throw in it towel so on that note I’m going to hand you over to Sharice brait who will be moderating our

Q&A segment I see we have comments and questions coming in already and um so Sharice over to you thank you Audra and thank you Victoria good morning everyone okay so our first comment we have one comment so far and it is the ginger ill comment hurt my feelings it is my favorite

Soda so that person shared their their feelings regarding this s the comment our next question this morning comes from Allison B in an attempt to increase fiber in my diet I tried the shortcut of Metamucil powder daily it peled in comparison to the impact of actual vegetables on my cholesterol

Levels why is that that’s a good question um because I mean you know using something like Metamucil is sometimes you know recommended so even to say it’s a shortcut I mean don’t don’t sell yourself short in the sense that it’s often a gen a genuine sort of recommendation to increase um celium

Fiber and help lower cholesterol but it’s interesting to hear that it didn’t do um the trick as did just increasing veg and I suppose that’s often people’s argument for increasing or getting your nutrients from Whole Foods right so why if possible I would first and foremost always recommend that people increase

You know fruits and veg and for cholesterol maybe things like oats and chia seeds Etc before um only trying a a fiber supplements because I guess those Whole Foods offer you more they would offer additional benefits right so they’re going to be high in antioxidants along with the

Fiber that helps to lower cholesterol maybe in increasing veg intake as opposed to just taking a fiber supplement um if someone is eating more vegetables maybe it’s moderating what else is on their plate that might been contributing to the actual elevated cholesterol levels in the first place um

It depends also on how much of something like Madam musil somebody was um or you were you know you were taking in terms of sort of the dosage because you may have just been getting more overall fiber from increasing the vegetables um because it’s not just the fiber intake I

Mean an overall healthy pattern of eating helps to improve cholesterol levels as well so you know it’s probably a combination of things but I think it’s kind of an interesting experience that you had and and as I said brings back the idea that before someone just thinks

Um oh this greens powder is going to count for all my veg intake I would want to explore well why don’t we eat the actual vegetables first because that is going to come packaged with lots of benefits right I think there’s done thank you so much our next question

Comes from an anonymous person and it is can a Vegan lifestyle offer enough protein if you are f focused on weight training any recommendations it’s another good question um and I feel like it uh from a personal perspective because I do um a lot of weight training myself and have

You know sort of goals of increasing lean muscle and I’m not I’m not vegan to be fair um but I am mostly plant-based I will sometimes still include fish and eggs um and it you’re right it is takes extra level of thought to kind of get in

Enough protein that you may want if as you say your focus is weight training um increase in lean muscle um that sort of thing so it is possible um and I was actually just working on something for someone um who is completely vegan and we were trying to get I forget maybe our

Goal was maybe 120 grams of protein a day um and she wanted to do it mostly from whole food sources which is wonderful I do find in terms of recommendations to achieve sort of that weight training level of protein intake that’s usually desired along with Whole Foods usually I

Will make use of protein powder at least once a day that’s the reality because you think okay well one scoop of a protein powder a vegan protein powder can give you 20 25 grams of protein very quickly very easily whereas you know a whole cup of beans is is not even going

To touch on that realistically um soy products um it once someone doesn’t have an issue with unprocessed soy so edamame and tofu and if you have it in your country Tempe it’s a little hard to get in Barbados um I would include a lot of

Those and personally I do I eat a lot of I would say I eat more I get most of my protein personally plant-base Wise from tofu and protein powder and edamame and then things like the chick bees and the lentils those are kind of supplemental

Because it is difficult to get a lot of protein um from them so it it I guess my answer is it is possible but personally I do find that tofu edamami and protein powder specifically are helpful with achieving the kind of protein intake you would need um for you know wanting if

Some for someone doing a lot of weight training and on a vegan diet so hopefully that’s helpful I know it’s you know sometimes people want to do it without the powder additions but yeah it’s it is tricky when you’re completely plant-based but not impossible okay great thank you for those

Recommendations we have another question here regarding condiments and it is are there any healthyish condiments that can be used to make boiled or salted vegetables more tasty um yeah that’s again all all good questions okay great so for sure I mean when I say the condiments I guess the

Condiments that I tend to limit most would be sort of cream based or like mayonnaise type condiments um but in terms of making veggies taste a little bit better um I’m certainly not against the use of salad dressings and vinegrets it’s more you know from a quality perspective

Kind of you know making sure they’re made with higher quality ingredients or you can make them yourself so like the usual kind of classic oh olive oil plus an acid so like lemon juice or appid of vinegar and Seasonings that’s more you know for salads as I said if someone

Happens to be trying to lose weight it it would just be a case of not using that in excess as far as amount for me in terms of making veggies taste better if I’m just doing like steamed or boiled vegetables which sure are a little Bland

I tend to use um there would likely be some salt in there but the seasoning that’s everything but the bagel seasoning so it’s like sesame seeds and dried garlic and things like that um if it’s roasted veggies I like a little bit of balsamic glaze there would be a bit

Of sugar in there but again it’s not using an excess so I think if it either I eat no vegetables because vegetables taste bad and are boring or I’m going to eat two beautiful cups of veg but I’ve added a tablespoon of low sodium soy

Sauce to a stir fry or balsamic glaze or dressing I think it’s worthwhile to add you know that condiment um as I said it’s mostly just the full-on creamy cheesy naazy ones that I would limit okay thank you they really do help to make the vegetables more

Tasty we have a question here from s she states I made small dietary changes and lost 5 pounds over a month but during one cheat weekend I gained six pounds why is it so easy to gain yet difficult to lose yeah that’s um a frustrating sort

Of experience that I think a lot of people can probably um empathize with but still kudos to you for making those small changes you know over a period of time that’s definitely the way you want to do it uh in terms of you know like a cheat weekend and seeing it seeming like

Things um you know we can regain so quickly I mean it’s usually multifactorial so the the classic things you’re going to hear are if your cheat weekend included maybe a lot more carbohydrates than you’re used to that tends to come with water retention if it included salti Your Foods or fast foods

Than you’re used to again there’s going to be water retention so you know one day or even one weekend of unhealthy eating is very unlikely to actually account for 5 lounds of say or six pounds of of of of fat gain um it’s you know mo probably mostly water retention

And I think the other kind of thing about like cheap weekends and stuff like that um and seeing that we’ve sort of regained a little bit of weight is that it can be so disheartening that it it starts this sort of vicious cycle so it’s sort of

Like if I go out and eat something you know go to an event or whatever and maybe eat unhealthily and then I weigh myself the next morning and it looks like oh gosh I’ve gained weight that mindset isn’t a healthy one for me and then I may go on and just eat something

Unhealthy for breakfast because I think oh well I’ve already ruined the week now with my with my regained weight so sometimes it’s also just the continuation so for me personally um this is again more of a personal recommendation like that I applied to myself if I know I’ve had a bit of a

Cheat weekend I I will purposely not weigh myself not right away I may give myself a week I say you know what all that’s going to do is put me in a bad mood it is what it is there’s going to be some water retention some you know

Some bloating happening saying I’m going just get back to my regular get back to those healthy changes that you made over the last month as if nothing happened and maybe if you want to check in on your weight give yourself some time thank you so much our next question

Comes from an anonymous person they State I know there were options within your presentation but pictures also included turkey meat isn’t that a processed food and what is the Nar ative for processed foods in relation to lifestyle diseases okay that’s um totally valid point so you know I think in the world

Of kind of avoiding highly processed foods which def definitely is a um something that I do recommend and I did recommend I I suppose it kind of comes back to me thinking that All Things fall on a spectrum um so the the specific sort of

And I guess this is why it is a little bit um not dangerous risky for me to show pictures like that because the specific like sliced turkey deli meat that I showed a picture of so I know that that one that particular brand is nitrat free which is something that I

Would usually look for in Delhi in Delhi Meats specifically so nitrate and nitrate free because that can increase risk of things like colon cancer and whatnot but I will admit it is still quite a high sodium option so it’s not going to be ideal for everybody I think

It’s more you know when we’re looking for quick and easy options if we write off all processed foods completely it can just be so limiting that a lot of times again we just kind of throw our hands up in the air and sort of give up a little bit so whether it’s some

Nitrate-free turkey like deli meat or like a turkey burger or something like that it’s I suppose for me the decision the thought process is I need something quick and easy that I can just rush home throw into the air fryer or the toaster oven um and eat quickly you know the

Turkey burger has a lot less fat than maybe the bacon burger from the frozen section so it’s again kind of like a healthy option is it perfect no would I recommend eating it every day no um but do I think it’s probably better than going through the drive-thru more than

Likely so there’s a lot of kind of gray area um because yeah I do recommend minimizing processed foods but I don’t think it’s kind of like the argument that we should avoid all canned foods but I don’t think that a can of sardines is on the same Spectrum as a can of corn

Beef if that makes sense but yeah it there’s a lot of nuan it would depend on your specific um kind of medical State and stuff like that as well if if it should even be included or not very insightful our next question is from Allison and it is what are some of the

Essential vitamins and minerals recommended specifically for women over 40 um so I mean the reality is it’s I I guess in terms of that Nuance of being over 40 um you know it’s not like the recommendations are not necessarily going to sort of just change like

Flipping a switch in terms of your your requirements for certain vitamins and minerals um but I guess for for anybody but sure for women as we get older paying attention to things like I mean it applies to sort of most people but you have vitamin D um which chronically

Seems to be low in a lot of people but especially as we got older uh things like calcium B12 minerals maybe like magnesium I also just find a lot of women especially not just over 40 but sort of certainly later in life so maybe over over 50 over 60 women tend to seem

To be the biggest culprits for low protein diets as well um so it’s kind of tricky because I wouldn’t necessarily say um I’m not sort of thinking of any very specific nutrients that immediately come to mind as a generalized thing for women over 40 um but I think it because

Again it kind of comes back to you know General balance which is not really an age thing it’s just a person specific thing um but I feel like yeah I’d be looking at calcium vitamin D iron magnesium protein as some of the ones that stand out okay thank you for sharing those that

Information we have a question from hem is it okay to use artificial sweeteners in coffee and teas artificial sweeteners is always a controversial topic anytime I bring it up um so let’s see I don’t personally have issue with artificial sweeners I don’t think that necessarily we should overuse them and

There are multiple trains of thought as to why um but again depending on your particular goals so say somebody has has you know diabetes or any kind of blood sugar issue where even a little bit a teaspoon or two of regular sugar honey those kind of things are going to spite

Your blood sugar and we don’t want that that’s not a good thing um the fact is yeah using an artificial sweetener is not going to do that um it’s going to sweeten your tea and your coffee by taste it’s not going to spike your blood sugar if someone is looking to lose

Weight is not going to contribute to weight gain so I am not against I I think the reality is it’s almost I don’t know it’s if I would say it’s unfortunate but the reality is in our food system nowadays you’re you’re often choosing between lesser evils right and

So I know some people I speak to are quite anti- artificial sweeteners and they’ll sort of say oh well this person should just use regular sugar and I think yeah but if that person has diabetes that regular soft drink is going to spike their blood sugar high blood sugars we know for a

Fact do a lot of damage to your nerves your eyes your kidneys all sorts of things that diet drink when they have a craving for something sweet isn’t going to raise their blood sugar so if you don’t believe in artificial sweeteners or the use of them then you’re kind of

Just really limiting yourself to just water and unsweetened teas and whatnot which is fine if if that’s your preference it’s a long-winded answer to say um yeah I’m not against the use of artificial sweeteners in tea and coffee and I think in particular it makes sense maybe for people who um are watching

Blood sugar but I do tend to suggest an overall reduction in sweetness so um say for example somebody used to put like really sweet tea or coffee they SP like four or five teaspoons of sugar in their coffee and they switch to a sweetener I would suggest fine switch to the

Sweetener but still try and wean down on a little bit in terms of the amount so you’re not always craving something super sweet if that makes sense so there’s still a general reduction in that Sweet Craving maybe yes yes very great all right we have another question here regarding eggs what is excessive

When it comes to egg consumption so I hope my personal bias is not going to come into play here because I like eggs um so obviously the the kind of classic concern with eggs is the cholesterol right so egg yolks themselves are high in cholesterol so

For a long time it was sort of recommended oh gosh only eat like I don’t think it was something really little like two or three eggs a week or something like that um and then research sort of uh you know over time suggested that eating dietary cholesterol the

Actual cholesterol in something like egg or shrimp doesn’t really have a major impact on your serum or your blood levels of cholesterol um it’s really more just the high fat like the unhealthy fats the high fat foods like saturated fats that tend to push up cholesterol so

Um you know the the the war on eggs kind of lessen down a little bit from a from a cholesterol perspective I’m trying to remember I saw someone uh I was speaking to another dietitian and she was saying but she’s she wasn’t from the Caribbean and that whatever recommendation she was following was

Saying forget how many eggs a week it wasn’t as low as two it was like six eggs a week or something like that but I can’t recall exactly um what sort of the formal recommendation would be as it um you know applies to us um you know on a

Certainly on a global level from a recommendation point of view but for me personally I um unless someone already does have really elevated cholesterol and we’re kind of trying all the things to get it down is maybe when would sort of say well let’s only do eggs maybe

Once or twice a week um but for an otherwise healthy person I don’t typically have a problem with inclusion of eggs you know two eggs or something a day uh in the it would depend on the context of their overall diet as well right um but again in the terms of I

Live in this world of lesser evils to me if someone says shoot I read that I shouldn’t eat eggs and they replace eggs with hot dogs or sausages or cheese burgers for breakfast I think you could it should go back to the eggs in my opinion thank you so much Victoria we

Have another question can you recommend some vegetables or legum that would not cause a lot of bloating sure um so well if if you deal with a lot of floating um just off the top of my head I would say um bar actually you know like working with a

Dietitian or a nutritionist if you’re not already familiar which you may be um you can kind of just do like a quick Google search of low fodm vegetables so that’s f o d m a p um low fod matat vegetables because foods that are high in This Acronym fob Maps they’re just

Really highly fermentable so they tend to C cause a lot of gas and bloating and they are present in a variety of vegetables and beans for sure now sometimes with things like beans and legumes it’s just if people jump to in increase their fiber too much too

Quickly they get sort of temporary um gas and bloating but if someone is at all susceptible to say like irritable bowel syndrome like um symptoms for the legumes they’re all pretty fermentable um now this is going to sound sort of strange uh the canned ones are less

Likely to bloat you once you rinse them well because if you soak them in water um so you can obviously do that with the dried you know like lentils and stuff in um Advance if you want soak them in water or double boil them and throw off

The water that helps leech out some of um the compounds that make them so fermentable and it can sometimes be why if people even though you’re trying to be healthy and cook the legumes from dry they can um cause more gas and bloating than the canned ones in terms of vegge

Off the top of my head I’m trying to think some of the sort of less likely to bloat ones maybe like zucchini carrots um think eggplant I’m trying to remember off the top of my head whereas a lot of people have obviously issues with things that that are more in the Cabbage family

So cabbage broccoli cauliflower um onions and garlic are a big trigger for bloating um which can be tricky because they’re in everything um but yeah low fod map vegetables would be you could do a quick search of those um and that would be something that may help with gas and

Bloating thank you so much for those tips especially the ones pretty can Foods our last question this morning is how can people make changes in their healthy eating and make it more sustainable H make it more sustainable um which is always ultimately the goal isn’t it I mean I think there’s a

Variety of ways you could sort of tackle that um some of it to me comes down to not having the All or Nothing mindset and I mean that from the pers more from the perspective of if you go into something with making ch changes and you sort of

Tell yourself that you have to be 100% on the ball 100% of the time then that one time that you’re not can be enough to sort of just feel like it completely chops you down and it’s no longer sustainable because you think oh gosh well I’ve ruined it I’ve messed up

That’s that um and then on top of that you know the the classic things you want to make sure the changes are relatively enjoyable so I love food um I try and eat healthy but I really like to eat and I like food so obviously I I guess I’m

Grateful that I happen to like to cook so I’m able to I’m comfortable in the kitchen trying to use different things to make food still taste good um but again so as much as variety and taste is really important I also think realistically having some just really good Baseline healthy meal backups are

Important so say especially for a meal like breakfast which most people don’t mind being pretty repetitive it’s like come up with three breakfast meals that are high protein maybe high fiber that you know are going to hold you over that you can make pretty quickly so that on

The day that you don’t have the time to play and experiment you’ve always got a backup plan um again sustainability wise keeping things up examine your food environment you know sometimes we’ll notice that we’re doing things and it’s well I keep doing them even though I

Know that I don’t want to do them why is that so it’s like I’m trying to stop eating so many snacks and chips but I keep eating chips take a step back and ask why are you buying them is someone else buying them so looking at the food

In your house and not playing this game of oh I’ll resist temptation and instead being like does my environment support my goal because sometimes it’s like we have this weird sense of I’mma buy the chips just in case and leave them in the cupboard but I’m not going to eat them

And then like when that Dam breaks we feel kind of bad and guilty about it so examining your food environment and making sure it’s supportive of healthy eating um which can be tricky if you live with other people so I would say you know if my husband is not on board

With what I’m trying to do from a health perspective I say find we can have snacks in the house but I’m going to make sure that there are snacks that he likes that I don’t really like because otherwise I say oh I’m buying the Cheetos for Jason when really I’m buying

The Cheetos for myself right so instead I’ll buy some kind of snack food and stuff so he’s happy he has what he likeed but they’re not my favorite so I don’t really care and instead I will stock up on healthier options that I do enjoy so you don’t want yourself to be

Hangry with no snacks at all but you’ve gotten rid of the sort of Temptation tempting ones and you buy the stuff that you do like that happens to be healthier but you don’t beat yourself up really badly by any means if you happen to go out and indulge on something either so

It’s a lot of yeah checking your environment checking your mindset um having to enjoy uh as well because anybody can do something that they don’t enjoy but it’s healthy for a short period of time but can you see yourself eating this way in a year’s time and if

Not it may be time to Pivot so hopefully that helps thank you Victoria we have just one more question we would like to squeeze in and it’s from SP and it is which cheeses do you recommend it is my Achilles heel H yeah cheese is kind of a tricky one um

I mean I like cheese most people like cheese uh it’s obviously quite high in sodium quite high in um saturated fat high in calories so it is um something I would often recommend coming down on a little bit I can’t say that there’s any one specific cheese per se um that I

Would recommend over the other I my Approach with cheese tends to be think of it as the sprinkle on top not as the main event right so if you want like cheesy pasta instead of having like macaroni pie or alfredo sauce you know I would do pasta maybe in like a tomato

Sauce or something like that and put a little bit of cheese on top so you still get that maybe like Little satisfying cheese pull or something of that nature but it’s not a Cheesy dish if that makes sense um I know I’m not necessarily going to have a cheese sandwich but

Maybe there’s a thin slice of cheese in my sandwich uh so it’s just sort of reducing the amount um I guess along those lines in terms of specific cheeses sometimes I will purposefully choose the really strongly flavored cheeses it’s not that they’re necessarily any healthier like I like Feta cheese or

Goats cheese but because they’re so strongly flavored I can get away with using less of them um and then you can get a lot of times of low fat or part skim uh mozzarella cheese so it is lower fat so it’s it’s a lower calorie option

Um and if you’re going to melt it I mean it’s not strongly flavored but again it still gives that satisfying IG gooey cheese pull um so a lot of times it’s just kind of pulling down on less not having cheese as the main event um but not necessarily not allowing yourself to

To eat it either so it’s kind of one you have to play around with a little bit thank you so much for those tips Victoria and and I will now hand back over to audre audre great thank you Sherice as as always for doing an excellent job moderating and Victoria thank you as

Well for these powerful nuggets you shared I have to say I am indeed motivated to relook my approach to my nutrition and really increase my commitment you know I I was taking so many notes you know so I’m certainly also looking forward to the replay of

This webinar when we have it up and for everybody the webinar will be available on the Mass E learning Institute website on our YouTube channel so we can all go back there and you know and just anything we missed we have an opportunity to to get back to that so

Victoria once again thank you this session has indeed been enlightening so guys thank you we’ve come to the end of our mli webinar Wednesday on behalf of the mli team on our it production Team without whom this wouldn’t be possible we really want to thank you for making

The time and for your active participation really really great questions so we’ve all benefited so we again want to thank you for your continued attendance and your engagement and your feedback is always appreciated so again when you go to our YouTube Channel please put your comments in you

Know and your feedback because that helps us to improve so we also encourage you to look up look out and sign up for all our upcoming programs on our offerings again you can see more on our website all right and and please have a wonderful rest of day keep safe remember

To level up in 2024 and of course keep focus on this nutrition goal it is a journey all right beginning of the Year enjoy so bye Everybody Take Care thank you thank You [Applause]