Friday, May 10, 2013

Day 8: Some free (nutrition) advice and a giveaway

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Day 8, Wednesday: A piece of advice you have for others. Anything at all.

I'm two days behind with #blogeverydayinmay. A very minor head cold, combined with lack of sleep, has made my brain feel a little muddled up making it difficult to write coherently. I'll confess I spent most of yesterday on the couch sleeping and watching TV.

My very late day 8 is all about advice. Rather than me give you some advice I'm going to tell you about the professional advice that I got last week. And then I'm going to offer a $150 Woolworths gift voucher to the reader who can give me the best bit of advice.

        Read on for more details...


The BB and the (famous) nutritionist


The Skype session started and Dr Joanna McMillan's familiar face was beamed into my bedroom. It felt really weird speaking to someone I know from the telly. I was quite nervous at first but it didn't take long before Jo's friendly smile assured me I was in good hands.

Dr Jo asked for my background story. "How long have you got?" I replied with some playful sarcasm.

I tried to sum it up in a few sentences: I told her that I had a history of drug and alcohol addiction as well as anxiety and depression. I told her I had five years of sobriety under my belt but was still very much addicted to sugar. I told Jo how I'd quit sugar for seven weeks last year but when I fell off the wagon with a chocolate cake on my birthday I have not been able to get back on it. I told her about my lapband and my struggle to maintain a healthy lifestyle because of my self saboteur who visits with all too much regularity. That about sums it up, right?

First up Dr Jo told me to stop being so hard on myself. With five years of sobriety up my sleeve I ought to be proud. And of course I am but I told her I wish I could do with sugar what I did with booze and drugs - let go of it. She told me I needed to take baby steps to turn my food habits around. And that jumping in the deep end with any extreme lifestyle change (like IQS or 12wbt - both of which I have attempted) was only doomed to fail.


Back to basics with you BB!


With the Alcoholics Anonymous slogan in mind we talked about "taking one day at a time", or even one meal at a time, rather than me setting huge unachievable goals that were doomed to fail. Dr Jo suggested I take "baby steps" and make small changes to my everyday eating habits.

From the Day on a Plate food diary I gave Dr Jo she concluded that I snack too much and that I needed to give more structure to my meals throughout the day. The day I diarised was actually a really good day for me and I admitted I usually eat a lot more chocolate, cake and ice cream.


A day on the BB's plate



Oats for breakfast - salad and cheese for lunch - a (tiny) bite of Noo's ice cream in the arvo


7.30am Black plunger coffee with one sweetener

8.00am Half a cup of Uncle Toby’s quick oats served with 1 cup of low fat milk, 5 chopped fresh strawberries, 5 raspberries, sweetened with 2 teaspoons of stevia, plus a dessert spoon of Benefibre for added fibre

11.00am 1 fun sized Kit Kat and a can of Diet Coke

1.30pm Shared two plates of mixed salad at the 13 Rooms exhibition pop-up café with my mum. The salads included quinoa, vegies, beef, salmon, rocket, white beans. Very healthy and gluten and sugar free. We also shared a cheese platter with gorgonzola and triple cream brie, fresh figs and grapes and lavosh crackers

3.00pm a mouthful of my son’s choc top Mr Whippy soft serve

4.00pm three slices of my son’s spinach and ricotta Turkish gozleme

5.00pm Black plunger coffee with one sweetener

6.00pm handful of plain potato chips and a handful of red grapes

8.00pm four chocolate covered scorched almonds


All in all not that bad a day. Usually I would have also had at least an ice cream or piece of cake plus much more chocolate.


Advice from the expert


The best advice I got from Dr Jo to incorporate some better eating habits into my day include:

  • Take one meal at a time. Aim to make the next meal a healthy one. And then the next and the next. Slowly but surely make changes to my everyday rather than expecting to wake up one morning as a health freak who never eats sugar, cake, chocolate, ice cream, hot chips... because that ain't gonna happen. I need to make gradual change.
  • Back to basics - Eat three solid meals a day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Seriously, that basic. Eat until almost full so I can be sustained through to the next meal without reaching for a bag of Malteasers. 
  • Make sure half my plate is salad or veggies. The other half needs to be divided three ways: protein, carbs and oil - oil being just a little bit.
  • Try to reach for health snacks between meals - a piece of fruit, handful of nuts.
  • Think of cutting back chocolate and other sweet foods like giving up cigarettes: go without for one minute, five minutes, one hour, two hours... and see how it feels and build up from there.
  • Dinner is my weakest area. Because Noo is so fussy and won't eat very much I've got lazy about cooking for one. I need to get more disciplined with dinner to avoid snacking on junk all through the evening until bedtime. Make something easy (eg steak and salad). Sit down at the table with Noo. Eat together. Offer Noo foods he doesn't usually like. Don't resort to giving him treat food.
  • Take large doses of fish oil (9000mg a day). This has also been told to me by three psychiatrists. Fish oil has been seen to help with mental health issues like depression, anxiety and ADHD. 
  • Don't rush into personal training, aim to go for a half hour walk every day and build up from there.
  • Notice as you slowly take control.
  • Avoid black and white thinking. If I have a piece of chocolate don't see it as a major fail and fall completely from the wagon. 

There's some really great advice there that I'm slowly incorporating into my everyday.


Giveaway!


Now it is your turn to give me some advice for the chance to win a $150 Woolworths gift voucher.

Just answer one of the following three questions in the comments below for a chance to win. The most creative answer will win the $150 gift voucher.

1. What is your most delicious, nutritious and simple recipe for dinner that is suitable for one mum and one fussy eater?

2. What healthy activity do you do to relieve stress (rather than eat junk like me)?

3. What is your most delicious, nutritious snack for kids?


My session with Dr Joanna McMillan and this post were sponsored by Australian Pineapples. Extra points will go to entries that include pineapples in them.






Competition details:

1. Answer in the comments section one of the questions above.
2. Like babblingbandit.me on Facebook.
3. Follow babblingbandit.me on Twitter.
4. Subscribe to babblingbandit.me (see the form at the bottom of the post).
5. Australian residents only. Sorry!
6. Most creative answer wins.
7. Judge's decision is final. No correspondence will be entered into.
8. The winner will be notified by email so please ensure you subscribe.
9. This giveaway is in NO way sponsored, endorsed, administered by or associated with Facebook.

EDIT: Competition closes next Friday 17 May 2013.
Entrants who don't use Facebook or Twitter will not be penalised as long as they subscribe my email.

COMPETITION CLOSED

GOOD LUCK!

V.

Disclosure: I was given a free half hour session with Dr Joanna McMillan to discuss my nutrition issues as well as a $150 Woolworths gift voucher to giveaway to one of my readers. No cash has exchanged hands. All opinions are my own in accordance with my disclosure policy.




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