FEBRUARY 2012

CHANGE OF ADDRESS

NORMAN PARK OFFICE

As of February 21, 2012

Norman Park Healthy Beings New Office Address:

Maximize Health

57 Samuel Street (cnr Herbert St)

CAMP HILL. Qld. 4152

•  Just 5 minutes drive away from the previous location
•  For all appointments please call: 0402 754 770
•  There is plenty of street parking & easy street level entry

Alternative Healthy Beings offices are: 

Gumdale

Gumdale Medical Centre @ Eastside Village

696 New Cleveland Rd

Gumdale 4154

(07) 3890 2233

Brighton   

Brighton Village Medical Centre

6/353 Beaconsfield Tce

Brighton

(07) 3631 6000

Healthy Beings Dietitians would like to thank you for your continuing support and looks forward to seeing at the new location.

Amanda Van-Eyk (APD)

Tasty chicken

salad

Ingredients:

• 90g of chicken breast per person
• 1 ½ cups of shredded lettuce or cabbage
• Thin slices of red onion
• Handful of mint leaves
• 1 nectarine/peach/ ½ a mango sliced thinly
• ½ large red chilli thinly sliced
• Optional: cashew nuts (5 per person – to limit fat content)

 Dressing:

• 1 tablespoon low fat mayonnaise
• ½ tablespoon of lime juice

 Method:

1. Cook the chicken breast in a pan. Once cooked shred finely
2. Mix all salad ingredients and the chicken together in a big bowl (and the cashews if you’re including them)
3. Dress salad with the lime mayonnaise

Friday night seafood dinner

Ingredients

• 6 green prawns per person
• Fresh garlic cloves
• Fresh lemon

Salad

• 1/3  cup of couscous per person
• 5 cherry tomatoes per person
• 6 green or black olives per person
• ¼ of avocado per person (or less)
• Handful of mint leaves
• Baby spinach leaves

Method:

1. Boil the kettle. In a bowl put dry couscous and cover with an equal amount of boiling water. Cover the bowl with a plate and leave to sit.
2. Rinse and chop tomatoes, olives, mint and baby spinach leaves
3. After 5 minutes stir the couscous with a fork, add the salad ingredients + 1 teaspoon of olive oil and scatter thin slices of avocado on top.
4. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic and add fresh chilli if you like a bit of spice.
5. Shell the prawns. Preheat a frying pan over high heat and a tiny amount of olive oil. Place prawns and garlic in the pan and cook for approximately 1 min each side or until they turn orange.
6. Remove from pan and serve with couscous salad.

While the kids are on school holidays, encourage them to get in the kitchen and cook rather than reaching for a packet of chips or a chocolate bar. Here are come quick and easy recipes for muffins and ANZAC biscuits to try.

AMANDA’S MUFFINS

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup of plain flour
• 1 cup of self raising flour
• ½ cup of caster sugar
• 3 tablespoons of margarine
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of reduced fat milk  
• extras

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 170^°C
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl
3. Melt the butter for 20sec in microwave (covered!)
4. Add egg, milk and butter to dry ingredients and mix with a large wooden spoon
5. Add extras
6. Spray a 12 hole muffin tray with canola oil and bake for
7. Cook for 12 –15mins

FLAVOUR OPTIONS

• Apple and blueberry = 2 small apples peeled and chopped into small pieces + 1 cup of frozen blueberries (they’re cheaper than the fresh ones!). Try adding some cinnamon too.
• Apple and Cinnamon = 2 teaspoons of cinnamon + 2 large green apples, grated or chopped in to small pieces. Mix 2 teaspoons of caster sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and sprinkle on top of muffins before placing them in the oven
• White chocolate and raspberry = 3/4 of a packet nestle white choc bits cup and 1 cup of frozen raspberries

TIPS

• Don’t over mix or your muffins as they will become hard instead of light and fluffy.
• Don’t worry if your mixture has lumps in it, this is how it should look.
• Avoid the raspberry white chocolate muffins for weight loss.

ANZAC BISCUITS

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup of plain flour
• 1 cup of rolled oats
• ¾ cup of desiccated coconut
• ¾ cup of white sugar
• 80 grams of butter
• 1 tablespoon of golden syrup
• 60ml of boiling water
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda

METHOD 

1. Preheat oven to 150^oC
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl
3. Melt the butter in a hot saucepan with the syrup
4. When the butter is melted, add the boiling water and the baking soda immediately after that. Stir briefly and allow to foam
5. Add foam to the dry mixture and mix by stirring and then kneading
6. Roll mixture into golf ball size biscuits, place them on some baking paper on a baking tray and flatten them out (they do expand)
7. Bake for approximately 10 minutes or until golden brown on top

 Each batch makes approximately 12 biscuits, depending on their size.

It’s that time for New Year’s resolutions

According to the 2007-08 Australian National Health Survey (NHS), 61.4% of the Australian population is either overweight or obese. It should be no surprise then that once again weight loss is one of the most popular New Year’s resolutions. Setting short term goals and documenting, measuring and recording your progress to help you stay focused are key factors in helping you to accomplish the goals you have set out to achieve this year.

So how can you make sure you achieve the positive lifestyle changes you’ve been wanting so badly in 2012? You can start by following this quick guide of do’s and don’ts for weight loss and make a commitment to yourself that 201 i2 is the year to improve your health.

Don’t

• Be one of the many people to start a crazy celebrity diet such as the cabbage soup diet, baby food diet or the one meal a day diet. These diets are not maintainable, will slow down your metabolism and more often than not result in larger weight regain after just a couple of weeks so you’re worse off than when you first started.
• Set your sights too high. A weight loss goal must be realistic otherwise it will seem too far out of reach and impossible to achieve. Set daily and weekly targets rather than one final goal.
• Skip meals. This will cause you to get hungry and result in bad moods and poor food decisions. If you let yourself get hungry you are far more likely to eat any food you can quickly get your hands on and large amounts of it!  
• Miss out whole food groups. Diets that do this are not healthy and are therefore not a good choice when you’re actually trying to improve your health. Following such diets means you’ll miss out on important vitamins and minerals that your body requires for optimal functioning and a healthy metabolism.

Do

• Set short term simple and realistic goals. This will help you to stay focused and will ensure that you have small successes along the way that will help to keep you motivated. Short term goals can be as simple as: committing to preparing your own lunch each day, drinking water only or limiting your carbohydrate intake at night time. Setting realistic goals such as losing 0.5-1kg per week will assist you to stay on track and committed to your long term goals. Remember the research shows that quick weight loss results in weight regain – so be patient!
• Eat regular meals. It is important to eat regularly. Eating breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon and dinner will help to keep your hunger at bay. Many people worry that eating regularly means consuming extra calories. However by choosing healthy foods such as wholegrain breads and cereals, fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meats and low fat yoghurt or other 100 calorie snacks you will ensure your daily calorie intake stays low and hunger will not take over.
• Measure and document your progress. This is an important part of monitoring your progress. By recording your weight at the same day and time once a week, you have reliable feedback that will confirm whether or not your diet is working. Seeing your weight loss results written down in front of you is motivating and forces you to be accountable to your goals. So go ahead and write them down!
• Follow a balanced diet. By choosing to follow a diet which includes meat or meat alternatives, breads and cereals, fruit, vegetables and dairy foods you will be giving your body the essential vitamins and minerals it needs to function optimally. Limiting the portion size of these foods will be important for weight loss but diets that cut out an entire food group should be avoided. Cutting out foods which are not included in one of the five food groups mentioned above such as bakery foods, take away, chips, chocolate, soft drinks and alcohol will help to speed to up your weight loss.

So the decision is yours. You can lose weight in 2012 by following these simple steps. If you are ready to commit to shedding those extra kilos and would like professional advice and guidance to ensure you maximise your weight loss efforts then please contact Healthy Beings Dietitians today. We will set you up with a weight loss meal plan to ensure this year you do achieve your New Year’s resolution for weight loss.

Cooking classes with year 2 students at

Ferny Grove State Primary School

 I recently had two days sharing my love for cooking and healthy food with the year two students at Ferny Grove Primary School. The aim was to teach these students about healthy eating and how to make healthy food taste good.

The session involved a short power point presentation  “Does the food you eat each day really make a difference to how healthy you are?” which was designed to get kids to realise the importance of making good food decisions from a young age. Together we prepared easy, healthy afternoon tea snacks which the students would be able to prepare at home themselves. We made:

• Grated and apple and cheese tortilla wedges;
• Avocado and salsa dip with vegetable swords; and
• Berry and banana smoothies

Surprisingly the overall favourite was the avocado and salsa dip!

The students were fantastic; everyone had a chance to help and everyone tried something new which was very impressive for kids so young! There were lots of students who hadn’t been involved in food preparation before, so many new skills were learnt and their food knowledge was greatly improved simply through helping to prepare the dishes. The students were fascinated in the preparation of fruit and vegetables and loved that they could, cut, mash, slice, pour and mix things together. While the students were surprised about a variety of things, I think my favourite comment was “Wow, this avocado has a massive nut inside it!”

Teaching kids about food and how to put different things together to make bright, colourful interesting, tasty and healthy food is invaluable for their long term health. Teaching healthy behaviours such as selecting, preparing and cooking simple food will set your kids up with life skills which they will carry with them forever and will enable them to lead long healthy lives. 

For information on how your school can get involved contact

Amanda at Healthy Beings Dietitians today.

W: www.healthybeings.com.au

E: amanda@healthybeings.com.au

P: 3310 4816

6 weeks to shed the kilos before

Christmas!

Christmas is an exciting time of year with lots of social functions to look forward to; however it is a notoriously bad time of year for weight gain! Nevertheless, the festive season doesn’t need to be a disaster on the scales.  With a few good tips and a bit of motivation behind you, you can avoid piling on the extra kilos this Christmas.

Weight loss or weight gain this festive season? It’s your choice;

1. Pay attention now and lose weight before Christmas day so you approach the day feeling good about yourself and you can relax about your food choices on the day;
2. Aim to maintain rather than gain weight over the festive season. This means starting to pay attention to your diet and exercise now!
3. Ignore your weight issue, watch the extra kilos pile on over Christmas and start 2011 feeling very uncomfortable!

Here are some easy tips to help you keep off the kilos this festive season:

• Set yourself some limits and reduce how much you eat and drink aover the Christmas events you attend between now and Christmas day. For example set yourself a limit of two drinks. Choose low alcohol drinks were possible as these contain fewer calories and only choose diet mixers. Think about the food you eat and don’t fall in to the trap of eating a whole lot of cheap deep fried finger food. Instead, go for things which are brightly coloured and contain fresh ingredients – your body will thank you for it!
• Bring a healthy plate! Do something different and bring along a healthy plate to your work or family get together (it’s surprising how often these dishes are first to go). Make the most of the beautiful fruit that’s in season this time of year and prepare a delicious fruit platter.  Or you could make a simple avocado dip by layering avocado, light sour cream, taco seasoning and small diced chunks of green capsicum and fresh tomato served with wholemeal biscuits and veggie sticks.  This is a great healthy alternative to all the high calorie cheeses that will be on offer.
• Avoid any extras. Do you really need that latté on your way to work each day? You can reduce your daily energy intake by 250 calories just by having an instant coffee a long black or tea instead. While you’re cutting out the morning coffee, avoid the biscuit jar as well and grab a piece of fruit each day instead.
• Increase your exercise. You have 6 weeks to make a difference. Plan your week and include a minimum of three exercise sessions (ideally five or six but three is a good start!) each week up to Christmas. Whether it’s walking, running, swimming, riding, yoga, boxing or something completely different it doesn’t matter, just make sure you enjoy it! But be quick and start now! Try asking someone from work or rope in family or friends to come and exercise with you. You still have 6 weeks to tone up so get started now!

If you’re serious about shedding a few kilos in time for Christmas day, then book an appointment with Healthy Beings today. You will receive a calorie controlled meal plan which will show you how to shed 0.5-1kg per week. Get started now and lose up to 6kg before Christmas day so you can then enjoy the day and all the trimmings!

Pikelets

Ingredients

• 1 cup of self raising flour
• ¼ cup of caster sugar
• Pinch of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• ¼ cup of low fat natural yoghurt
• ½ cup of reduced fat milk
• Spray oil for cooking

Method

1. Combine flour, sugar and bicarbonate of soda in a mixing bowl
2. Combine egg, yoghurt and milk in a separate small bowl
3. Pour milk mixture into dry ingredients and stir to combine
4. Heat a medium non stick frying pan over medium to low heat
5. Pour 1-2 tablespoons of mixture into the pan per pikelet and cook for 1-2minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface.
6. Turn and cook for a further minute
7. Eat them while they’re still warm!

Serving suggestions

• Leave off the butter and margarine, you don’t need it!
• My favourite – plain old golden syrup
• Thin spread of strawberry jam and a dollop of low fat vanilla yoghurt – you have to try it!
• A dollop of low fat vanilla yoghurt with a drizzle of honey
• Fresh strawberries thinly sliced and drizzle with maple syrup.

Healthy heart challenge for women

Did you know that heart disease is the number one killer of Australian women? When we think of women’s health issues breast cancer is often the first thing that pops to mind but alarmingly heart disease claims four times as many lives as breast cancer.

This year starting on the 11^th of September the heart foundation is challenging women to take part in the 10 week challenge and make a few small lifestyle changes to improve their heart health and reduce their risk of developing heart disease.

Women over the age of 45 or after menopause are at greatest risk of developing heart disease and you don’t have to be overweight or unfit to be at risk. Research shows that many women are unaware of:

• their risk of developing heart disease
• the simple steps they can take to prevent heart disease
• the symptoms that indicate something is wrong  

Therefore it’s important to examine your current lifestyle and begin making a fresh, healthy start today. Look at the checklist below and see if there are any changes you can make to your lifestyle to reduce your risk of developing heart disease.

For further information on any of these topics contact a healthy beings dietitian today who will help you get started with your new healthy lifestyle plan.

Remember: you’ve only got one heart so you need to look after it.

Simple steps to reduce your risk of heart disease:

• Increase my physical activity
• Reduce my time in sedentary activities (e.g. sitting, TV viewing, computer time)
• Reduce my calories and/or portion sizes
• Increase my fruit and vegetable intake
• Eat less take-away food
• Reduce saturated fat intake 
• Reduce alcohol consumption
• Quit smoking
• Reduce my blood pressure
• Improve my cholesterol levels
• Improve my mental health

What is heart disease?

Heart disease is when your coronary arteries (the arteries that supply oxygen and nutrients to your heart muscle) become clogged with fatty material called ‘plaque’ or ‘atheroma’. Plaque slowly builds up on the inner wall of the arteries, causing them to become narrow. This process is called ‘atherosclerosis’. It can start when you are young and be well advanced by middle age.
If your arteries become too narrow, the blood supply to your heart muscle is reduced. This may lead to symptoms such as angina. If a blood clot forms in the narrowed artery and completely blocks the blood supply to part of your heart, it can cause a heart attack.

What are the signs of a heart attack?

• Pain, pressure, heaviness or tightness in the chest, arms, back, shoulders, neck or jaw
• You may also feel short of breath, cold sweat, dizzy, nauseous

If you experience these symptoms stop what you’re doing and rest. If you’re with someone tell them what symptoms you’re experiencing. If these symptoms are severe, worsen or last longer than 10 minutes (even if they’re mild) this is an emergency. Get help fast. Call 000 and ask for an ambulance.

References: The Heart Foundation @ http://www.heartfoundation.org.au/sites/GoRedforWomen/SiteCollectionDocuments/WomenHeartHealth_Booklet_LR_FINAL%20for%20website.pdf

Check out the Heart Foundation Website for more information and resources.

Two weeks ago I finally decided to put myself on the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH) elimination diet to see if I could get rid of some of the symptoms that have been annoying me for quite a while now. The symptoms I was experiencing included frequent headaches, puffy eyes, dark circles under my eyes, frequent bloating, I felt vaguely unwell and I found it hard to concentrate on tasks. These symptoms have varied in severity for some time and it was very easy to attribute these general kind of symptoms to one thing or another and so I was able to ignore the possibility that these symptoms were caused by the food I was eating. A strange thing since I regularly see clients with food intolerance who benefit from this very diet!

However with my wedding day fast approaching I decided it was time to get rid of the symptoms and I started the RPAH Elimination diet myself and I am so glad I did! I am just about to finish day eleven of the moderate elimination diet which allows you to eat all low chemical foods and some moderate chemical foods. Since following this diet I now have no headaches, no puffy eyes, no bloating and no trouble concentrating on tasks. I feel so much better and I’m confident that I won’t wake up on my wedding day with big puffy eyes and dark circles! Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the first four days which caused me great discomfort. When completing the elimination diet it is expected that your symptoms will get worse before they get better as your body goes through a kind of withdrawal.  For four days I had intense headaches and felt quite unwell. I think if I hadn’t known to expect things to get worst before I noticed any improvements I may have given up. Withdrawal symptoms like this may even reoccur into the second week and it’s really important to keep going as this often indicates that you do have underlying intolerances.

At this stage I am yet to complete the food challenges to determine which naturally occurring food chemicals I am sensitive to. I am feeling a little bit anxious about reintroducing some of these foods as I am feeling so much better. However re introducing foods is an important part of the diet to ensure the long term nutritional adequacy of my diet.  So when I have had five days of being symptom free the food challenges will begin! Despite feeling a little anxious I am really interested to work out my tolerance levels for different groups of food chemicals so that I can start to increase the variety of food in my diet again and be social again!

For those of you who are also doing an elimination diet I have included some of the meals I have eaten which fit into the moderate elimination diet. If you think food intolerances might be affecting the way you feel contact Healthy Beings Dietitians today to book an appointment. Remember symptoms will vary from person to person with the most common ones being: recurrent hives and swellings, stomach and bowel irritation, headaches, feeling run down, flu like symptoms, moody, irritable or restless, aggravation of behavior problems such as ADHD and babies can develop colicky irritable behavior, reflux, loose stools, eczema and or nappy rash.

 My meals while on the elimination diet:

Breakfast:  I’m boring! I love my muesli and I’ve hated having to take out my sunflower and pumpkin seeds and change my mixed natural nuts to cashews only but it’s all for a good reason and this is what I’ve been having every morning for the last two weeks. 

• ½ cup of oats with raw unsalted cashews, 1 tablespoon of low fat natural yoghurt and ½ a  ripe peeled pear

Lunch and dinners:I have alternated these meals depending on what’s happening and I feel as though I have been much better at having a bigger meal at lunch time and then a smaller meal for dinner. The secret is lots of veggies. They fill you up and they’re low in calories – perfect!

• Scrambled eggs with shallot and low fat ricotta cheese and one slice of white toast (no grains allowed, not happy!) For something different add shredded chicken breast and once cooked top with bean sprouts.
• Couscous with roast sweet potato, plain chicken breast, snow peas and a dressing from the elimination diet handbook (canola oil, water, citric acid and brown sugar)
• Salmon with  shallot, soba noodles, bok choy and green beans
• Lamb backstrap with grilled peeled zucchini, snow peas and home-made tatziki (yoghurt, garlic and cucumber)
• Home -made chicken and vegetable soup – no stock just water, and lentils, carrot, celery, sweet potato and zucchini, garlic and chicken breast (I’d prefer some chilli and tomato in there but it’s really pretty good).
• Lamb with sweet potato, snow peas, shallot and low fat ricotta

 Snacks: Special K, Vita Weats with home-made tatziki, homemade pikelets with golden syrup only, raw beans, snow peas, cucumber, peeled apple.

Sweet things: when you just need something sweet! Nestle white melts (only a couple) a tablespoon of Sara lee Butterscotch and honeycomb ice cream.

 Drinks: decaf coffee and water. This was possibly the hardest change for me. Without realizing it I had become quite addicted to my morning skinny flat white. After two weeks of consciously not having the morning coffee, it is a habit I really don’t want to get back in to so I think I’ll try and save it for the weekend only.

(MY MONDAY NIGHT FAVOURITE because it takes only 20minutes from start to finish and it has loads of vegetables that make you feel good after a night out on the weekend!)

Ingredients

• 500g chicken breast
• 1 onion
• 3 tsp crushed garlic
• 1 tsp crushed chilli
• 1 head of broccoli
• 1 red capsicum
• 2 large handfuls of green beans
• Fresh bean sprouts
• 1 cup of fresh basil leaves
• 100g of unsalted cashew
• Rice (Basmati, Doongara or brown)

 Sauce

• 80mls oyster sauce
• 40mls fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• Juice of half a lime

Method:

1. Cook the rice (in a rice cooker if you have one!)
2. Cut the chicken into thin strips and cut all other vegetables into chunky pieces
3. Prepare the sauce by mixing everything together and set aside
4. Heat a small amount of canola /peanut oil in a wok add chilli and garlic and stir until fragrant
5.  Add the chicken breast and cook until just golden brown then set aside
6. Fry the onion for around 1 minute add the remaining vegetables (not the bean sprouts) and the cashews and stir for another minute.
7. Add the chicken breast, the basil and the sauce, stir well and serve on top of rice
8. Top with a handful of fresh bean sprouts

Tips:

• If you’re trying to lose weight, avoid the carbohydrates and have your meal without rice and leave out the cashews. While they’re full of good essential fatty acids they are also very high in kilojoules
• Keep your meal low GI by using Basmati, Doongara or Brown rice