Nicole’s Nutrition Blog

Snacking can derail your weight loss plans or it can help you achieve a healthy, balanced diet.  You can include a wide variety of snacks in your diet and still continue to lose weight.  The most important thing to remember is that snacks are not meals they should be 100 to 150 calories. It is also important to plan your snacks.  If you have healthy lower calorie snacks on hand, it can help prevent trips to the vending machine or rides through McDonald’s drive through.  If you always walk into your house after work ravenous, plan to have a bowl of fruit available to snack from.  This will save you a lot of calories and fat and will satisfy your hunger. You can also add a little protein to your snack to help satisfy hunger.  For example, add some sliced almonds to your fruit.

Many people snack because they crave sweets, crunchy foods or cold foods.  Figure out what you usually crave and find a substitute.  For example, if you like crunchy foods, skip the chips and try crisp vegetables with low fat dip.  If you like cold foods, skip the ice cream and try a low fat frozen yogurt bar.  Individually portioned foods often make for good snacks because the calories are controlled.  It is also ok to satisfy cravings ONCE IN A WHILE.  If you always crave chocolate, give in once in a while and get yourself ONE chocolate bar or ONE chocolate cupcake, etc.

When you do snack, make sure that is all you are doing.  If you snack while watching TV or working on the computer, you will often lose track of how much you have had and will end up over snacking.  If you are a nighttime snacker, make sure you designate a place for your snacks.  Snack only in the kitchen or at the dining room table.  This will stop you from snacking mindlessly.  With evening snacks, try to recognize if you are hungry or if your snacking is purely recreational!

3 Main Tips to Successful Snacking:

1. Schedule your snacks 30 minutes to an hour before your hunger usually hits.

2. Control wide swings in blood sugar and stay satisfied by combining foods that contain a little protein, fat, or fiber with other snack foods.

3. Treat snacks like a mini-meal, with a beginning and an end. Back and forth snacking will get you in trouble every time.

Create healthy snacks by combining foods from the following categories:

Protein-rich Foods
Bean spreads or dips, bean soups, soy foods, nuts and nut butters, tuna, salmon, yogurt, milk or soymilk, string cheese or other low-fat cheese, low-fat cottage cheese, eggs, edamame (green soybeans in the pod)

Carb-rich Foods
Whole grain crackers, instant oatmeals, whole grain cereals, healthy tortillas, whole grain bread, rice/ popcorn cakes, energy bars, popcorn, low-fat granola bars

Fruits & Vegetables
Baby carrots, celery, cut up apple slices, cut up bell pepper slices, cherry tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, dried fruits, whole fruits, applesauce, salsa, other fruits & veggies

Healthy-Fat Foods
Nuts and Nut Butters, Olive, canola, walnut, grape seed, flaxseed oils, olives, olive spread, avocado

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Nicole Andrews, RD, LD/
Nutrition Therapist & Lifestyle Educator
Website: http://www.livingfresh.org
For order information on the supplements mentioned, visit http://www.livingfresh.meta-ehealth.com. Click Register Now to create a username and password and click Quick Order Form to find and order the desired supplement.

This flavorful dish contains lots of nutrients such as healthy monounsaturated fat, antioxidants, protein and fiber. It’s a perfect way to put leftover chicken to use and can even be prepared ahead of time for a quick lunch on the go.
Ingredients:

1 medium chicken fillet
1 can mixed beans (or favorite beans), rinsed and drained
½  of avocado (or more as desired)
8 cherry tomatoes halved
1/2 red pepper chopped
2 tsp of olive oil
2 tsp of limejuice
1/4 tsp of chilli powder
Sea salt & Pepper to taste

Cooking Instructions:

Cook the chicken fillet either by grilling it; pan frying it or roasting in the oven. Cut the chicken into strips or cubes, and place in a bowl with the beans, sliced avocado, tomato halves and pepper. Mix the olive oil, chili powder and limejuice and then drizzle over salad. This salad can be refrigerated and makes great leftovers too!
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Nicole Andrews, RD, LD/
Nutrition Therapist & Lifestyle Educator
Website: http://www.livingfresh.org
For order information on the supplements mentioned, visit http://www.livingfresh.meta-ehealth.com. Click Register Now to create a username and password and click Quick Order Form to find and order the desired supplement.

Battling sweet cravings?  Sometimes sweet cravings can come from imbalances in our diet. Here are some tips to tame that sweet tooth!

-Drink 16 ounces of cool water.
-Make sure you’re balancing out your meals with whole grains.
-Eat palm-sized portions of protein
-Cut back on salty foods.
-Work out!
-Have a natural sweet treat instead like fruit, yogurt or natural nut butter on a whole wheat graham cracker

Here is a delicious shake that really satisfies my sweet tooth. It makes a great meal replacement too!
MUDSLIDE SMOOTHIE

Ingredients:
1 scoop Metagenics Ultra Meal Chocolate flavor
2 tsp. carob powder or chocolate syrup
¾ cup soy milk or rice milk
½ medium banana
1 t. almond, cashew, or peanut butter
1 t. honey or agave nectar
1 cup crushed ice

Instructions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Serve in a tall glass.

To check out the shake mix mentioned above go to the following link. If interested in purchasing, just follow the instructions at the bottom of the page.

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UltraMeal Medical Food: http://www.metagenics.com/products/detail.asp?pid=20

Nicole Andrews, RD, LD/
Nutrition Therapist & Lifestyle Educator
Website: http://www.livingfresh.org
For order information on the supplements mentioned, visit http://www.livingfresh.meta-ehealth.com. Click Register Now to create a username and password and click Quick Order Form to find and order the desired supplement.

As many women approach menopause they suddenly find their worst nightmare has come true- they have reached an unimaginable number on the scale and find themselves asking, “How in the world have I gained this much weight? Could it be hormonally related?”
The simple answer is yes! In fact, weight gain is one of the most common complaints of perimenopausal women.

Here are my top 3 reasons why perimenopausal women gain weight:

Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a lot of controversy over java lately so I just wanted to clear up any mass confusion. There have been a number of studies conducted lately regarding coffee’s effect on our system, and believe it or not- coffee is appearing to be the next superfood.

A study performed by Harvard researches found that drinking coffee (up to six cups) has the potential to cut diabetes risk in half! Of course more research is needed, although overall research does show that coffee is actually more helpful then harmful. Other studies show that people who drink coffee are 80 % less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease, have a 25% reduced risk of colon cancer, 80% reduced risk of colon cancer, and are 50% less likely to develop gallstones. Other beneficial properties of coffee include fewer asthma attacks, headaches, cavities and elevated mood.

These beneficial boosts to our health are attributed to the compounds discovered in coffee. It appears that coffee contains the antioxidants, chlorogenic acid and tocopherols.
Trigonelline is another compound in coffee that gives it its bitter taste and contains antibacterial properties.

The caffeine in coffee can also enhance our athletic ability by causing our muscles to make stronger contractions, which in turn helps us to burn fat more efficiently.

The downside however is that drinking coffee may cause you to ignore fatigue and your body’s natural cry for relaxation. If we choose to ignore these signs and continue to drink down the “jo” –day in and day out– we may end up with what’s known as chronic fatigue syndrome due to exhausted adrenal glands.

If you suffer from anxiety, drinking coffee can exacerbate symptoms and may cause more frequent panic attacks. This reaction is very individual so if you find that coffee causes nervousness, rapid heartbeat or trembling, you may want to start decreasing your intake to prevent such reactions.

Coffee also takes between 3-6 hours to get out of our system depending on your metabolism, and very often times sleep is affected by caffeine intake. If you have problems getting enough sleep, you may want to limit your coffee to a morning cup if at all. In addition, coffee may also increase cholesterol levels in some people.

Other folks that should limit or avoid caffeine include heart patients, pregnant women, and people at risk for oseatporosis since caffeine intake has been shown to cause calcium loss in the urine.

There are pros and cons to everything, so depending on your current state of health and what issues you are dealing with, coffee may or may not be a superfood you need to include in your daily routine.

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Nicole Andrews, RD, LD/
Nutrition Therapist & Lifestyle Educator
Website: http://www.livingfresh.org
For order information on the supplements mentioned, visit http://www.livingfresh.meta-ehealth.com. Click Register Now to create a username and password and click Quick Order Form to find and order the desired supplement.