Work
A dietitian’s seven tips to healthier eating
Dietitian Kathryn Hawkins shares her top tips for healthy eating for nurses and midwives.
1 Pay attention to your gut : “We know that we’ve got a lot of serotonin receptors down in the gut and they talk to the serotonin receptors in our brain. So good gut health usually equates to good mental health,” Kathryn says. Improve your gut health – and reduce the risks of all kinds of disease – through eating lots of fruits and vegetables, probiotic and fermented foods. “Foods that are high in fibre that are giving the good bacteria a chance.”
2 Reduce red meat intake: Buy a can of tuna and throw it on the top of some salad and add some balsamic vinegar. Take boiled eggs to work to eat with toast and a quarter of an avocado. Make a batch of falafels and freeze them and get them out and put them with a salad wrap. Reduce your intake of processed meats to reduce your salt intake too.
3 Don’t focus on weight : “Weight really doesn’t equate to health at all,” Kathryn says. “I often will have a patient sitting opposite me that might be in a larger body. And I look at their blood work and it’s perfect. Their diet is healthy and everything that they’re doing is great. I can have someone sitting across from me in a body we deem to be a ‘normal size’ and their blood work’s atrocious and they’re eating very poorly with very poor lifestyle choices.”
4 Mindfulness is key: “Be aware of what you’re eating and consciously sitting down and enjoying a meal. If I pour a wine and sit down and do some reading, I’ll think ‘I didn’t even taste that, I’ll have to have another glass.’ But it’s because I’m distracted.
5 Check in with your hunger keys: After a meal stop and ask, ‘Am I full or do I need seconds?’ Kathryn suggests. “When you go back for seconds, get seconds of everything. Don’t just get seconds of the good bit. Get seconds of the vegetables as well.”“A good way of thinking about hunger is on a zero to five scale, where zero is I’ve never been hungrier in my life and five is I’m Christmas day full. You need to be sitting around a three after a meal.” Throughout the day aim to stay between a two and a four so that you don’t end up so hungry you overeat.
6 Reduce alcohol intake: “The standard government guideline is two to three alcohol-free days a week. Make those alcohol-free days in succession and give yourself a real break from alcohol. If you drink every night, your drinks slowly start to get a bit bigger. After a couple of days without alcohol, when you pour a drink it’ll go back to just being a nice small manageable glass of wine.”
7 Use this visual cue: “When it comes to lunch and dinner, look for half a plate of fruits and vegetables, a quarter of a plate of protein, and a quarter of a plate of carbohydrate.”