Sunshine Coast Dietetics (SCD): Carbs

Carbs get a bad wrap – pun intended.

This is the sad truth because the world we live in would be a far happier place if we could all embrace glorious carbohydrates as they are. In all their hearty, doughy, grainy glory.

Carbs are one of the main three macro-nutrients that provide us with energy to sustain life. Some would argue that carbs are the most important macro as they are the preferred energy source for our bodies over proteins and fats. They are so important that we recommend that 45-60% of your total energy intake comes from carbs.

Before we all go celebrate the good news with pasta and garlic bread, let’s first understand that not all carbs are created equal.

You may have heard of the scale ‘the glycaemic index’.

To put it simply – carbohydrate rich foods with a low glycaemic index, or GI, will be released into the blood stream as energy at a slower and more sustained rate than foods with a higher GI. Foods that have a higher GI are typically foods that give that sugar spike and crash that we are all familiar with.

Some examples of low GI foods include: beans, lentils, some fruits (pears, berries, grape fruit) and wholemeal pastas and breads. High GI foods include: some fruits (dried fruit in particular), some white breads and some white potatoes.

It’s not recommended to exclude high GI foods, rather enjoy them in moderation with a focus on an intake of low and moderate GI foods.

So here is the short list on why we love carbs and shouldn’t be afraid of them:
1.    They are our body’s main source of energy – for literally everything. Our muscles, our brain and everything in between.
2.    They don’t make you gain weight – this myth has been busted by several studies. Enjoy your carbs as part of a balanced diet and you will be sweet (pun).
3.    They can even help you lose weight – enjoy high fibre, low GI carbs that will help you feeling fuller for longer. Legumes, beans and whole grains should be your new besties.
4.    They are full of essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients – iron, B vitamins and dietary fibre. Win.

The Sunshine Coast Dietetics Team
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SCDietetics
Snapchat: @dietitianlife

GUEST BLOGGER: Kaye Vlachos (Soul 2 Soul Wellness)

I’m Kaye Vlachos, a positive mindset coach inspiring aspiring elite athletes here on the Sunshine Coast to live their dreams and help them get there with my heart-centred guidance and super inspirational "Athlete Empowerment" School Holiday Workshops.

What qualifies me to inspire the athlete in your family?
I have always been passionate about health & wellness.　
As a teenager & young adult, I was fortunate to play football (yes that’s right- soccer) & represented NSW/Australia during my 15 year sports career. My involvement in the world of elite sports, became the turning point for my journey into combining elite athlete ideals with a holistic approach to a well-rounded lifestyle.


I partner with elite athletes for a variety of outcomes, from improving their confidence to managing nerves & anxiety leading into competition. Elite athletes are under extreme pressure to perform consistently, so it is imperative I teach them how to balance their sporting, school & work　commitments effectively. Providing elite athletes with the knowledge on the benefits of fuelling their bodies combined with a positive vision for their performance, will enable them to consistently perform at their best during competition, in most cases blitzing it!

In the Level 1 "Athlete Empowerment" Workshop here in Currumundi, you can learn how to:
+ Master your Mindset
+ Peak Performance Tips
+ Visualization 4 Success
+ Fuelling your Body 4 Performance
+ Mind Relaxation Tools
+ How to Prepare 4 Competition

I share with you my rise to sporting success, how I managed to overcome the stumbling blocks which appeared from time to time and the amazing life I’ve created beyond football.

You may also be interested to know that I also run MOTIVATIONAL TEAM BONDING workshops for your sporting team & mentor athletes who prefer more personalised attention regarding a specific concern perhaps related to confidence or nerves via skype.
I’m not only your cheerleader, I will arm you action packed tools that you can start implementing immediately into your day to day life, to master your athletic pursuits & fast track you on your way to sporting success.


Some of my Soul2Soul Athlete’s who have worked with me privately & through my workshops have already achieved for themselves include –
+ International Representation – Football
+ International & Interstate Dance Scholarships – Ballet & Contemporary
+ National & State Representation – Calisthenics & Cross Country
+ National & State Championships Success – Calisthenics & Cross Country
+ Regional & Districts Representation – Rugby, Tennis, Surf Lifesaving, Athletics, Oztag, AFL, Football, Basketball, Netball & Gymnastics


If you’d love to keep in touch with me, please come & say hi on my social media tags below or send me an email if you’d like to come along to my upcoming workshop or work with me in my private coaching practice.

Kaye Vlachos

Instagram - @kayevlachos_soul2soulathlete

Facebook – kayevlachos_soul2soulathlete
Email - kaye@soul2soulwellness.com.au

Sunshine Coast Dietetics (Hannah): Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and FODMAPS

Accredited Practicing Dietitians are one of the most successful practitioners at relieving symptoms from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). IBS is a chronic disease which can cause lower abdominal pain or discomfort, bloating, wind, alternating bowel habits (diarrhoea to constipation) and distention. The diagnosis of IBS if given by a medical practitioner once other investigations have revealed no abnormal pathologies. IBS affects one in seven Australians, and it can greatly impact your quality of life.

Some sufferers will state that they are anxious about travelling or going to new places where they can’t guarantee they know where the bathroom is, or that the pain is so debilitating that they need to take time off. To make it more difficult, there isn’t a clear cause of IBS, it is very individual as to what the triggers are. The main two candidates are usually stress/anxiety, a dietary intolerance, or a combination of these factors. The combination of dietary management and counselling offered by dietitians helps a lot of sufferers every day to get their lives back.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a cure or specific medication that helps to alleviate the condition. But this is where dietitians shine. Treatment options include increasing dietary fibre, reducing common gas producing foods, and establishing eating routines. However, a group of carbohydrates called FODMAPs are also strongly linked to symptoms of IBS, and a reduction in FODMAPs under the supervision of a dietitian has yielded many fantastic results.

FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols. They are a large group of dietary sugars that are found in lots of common foods such as dairy foods, fruits, vegetables, wheat containing products and sweetened products. The low FODMAP diet aims to reduce the total load of FODMAPs for a short period of time (2-6 weeks) at which point each FODMAP is reintroduced slowly to monitor your tolerance. This is best done with your dietitian so you get clear results. You may react to only one FODMAP, or a couple, or find that no one FODMAP is the cause, but rather too much is the issue.

Importantly, the low FODMAP diet is never meant to be followed long term as this can cause nutritional deficiencies. With your dietitian, you can find a balance that enables you to eliminate your symptoms, but still meet your nutrition requirements. Meaning you can live a healthier and happier life.


Hannah Roberton – Accredited Pracitising Dietitian
Sunshine Coast Dietitains
Facebook: www.facebook.com/SCDietetics
Snapchat: @dietitianlife

Paul's Body Engineering: Sugar & Snacking

In simple terms, sugar is a part of everyday life. Sugar can be found in nearly everything we eat and drink, and is a major contributor to the current obesity epidemic. Sugar can impact our lives in so many ways, especially when consumed in excess.

 

So how do we reduce our sugar intake?
It is harder than one would think. A simple diet with the reduction of sugar is not that easy to maintain. For years and years, without as much knowledge as we have now, we have consumed copious amounts of processed sugar in our foods and drinks. Through years of this consumption, we have developed, over time, a primal addiction to sugar. Trying to simply cut it out of one’s diet completely is very difficult to do and even more difficult to maintain over a longer period of time. Therefore, simple reductions and changes in one’s diet is the best approach to reducing your sugar intake.

 

For example, cutting down on soft drinks, chosing clean cereal options over packet cereal, including more fruits and vegetables in your diet and less canned produce.
Another example, if you are a coffee drinker and have two cups on average per day with one teaspoon of sugar per cup, that equates to 14 teaspoons of sugar per week. Swap each teaspoon of sugar for a natural sweetener and you have immediately reduced your sugar intake by 56 teaspoons per month. It is the simple changes that you can make in your diet that will inevitably create a healthy and more energetic lifestyle.

 

We all fall victim to searching for those late night or mid-morning sugar hits (i.e snacks) and it is these snacks that cause our sugar intake for each day to exceed any limitation we may have intentionally set for ourselves. Therefore, in order to avoid these temptations follow some simple rules;

• When you have finished dinner and any desert brush your teeth.
• If you feel the need to snack and don’t have a healthy option available have a big drink of water, cup of tea or coffee and go for a walk.
• Always distract yourself with chores, tasks etc when you feel the need to snack.
• Always swap chocolate, chips etc for healthier options such as rice cakes, greek yoghurt, homemade protein balls etc.
• Support a healthy diet with regular exercise. If you should indulge do an extra session to make up for it.

 

Education is key when it comes to sugar.

 

Sugar is a carbohydrate. On all packaged groceries bought from a supermarket is a nutritional chart that identifies how many carbohydrates are in each product. To ensure you buy the healthiest version of the product you desire, look over each of the nutritional charts to see which one has the lowest carbohydrate content. Obviously quality products should supersede the ‘cheap and nasty’ however once you have done this a few times with your regular shopping you will start to learn what products are cleaner than others thus removing excess sugar from your weekly diet.

Again it is the simple changes that can be made that will make a huge long term difference in your diet and your family’s diet. The less sugar in your diet now, the better your health long term.

Paul Hooper
Paul's Body Engineering

Email: paul@paulsbodyengineering.com

Phone: 0466 587 643

Facebook: www.facebook.com/paulsbodyengineering

Website: www.paulsbodyengineering.com

Instagram: @paulsbodyengineering

MAB Personal Training and Adventures: Introducing Amy Woods

Name: Amy Woods
Business: MAB Personal Training and Adventures
Age: 33 Years
Years In The Industry: 12 Months
Qualifications: Cert III & IV in Fitness
Interests: Lifting weights, cooking yummy food, art, being creative
What Makes Me Passionate About The Fitness Industry: Knowing that people can overcome depression, addiction, sickness and everything that goes with that through fitness and looking after their bodies. I love seeing someone working hard and achieving results, its amazingly rewarding in that respect.

Being a busy mum of 4 kids, I understand how hectic life can get some times. After getting everyone ready for school, doing the school run, cleaning up, washing, folding, working, cooking, somehow squeezing 25 hours out of a 24 hour day, I understand the last thing you think you have time for is exercise right?

Well think again. Everyone has the time to exercise it just needs to become a priority. Think of it like brushing your teeth, you wouldn’t go to bed without doing it because it keeps your teeth healthy, well guess what? Exercise is vital to keep our bodies healthy.

Getting up at 5am in the morning to train is not everybody’s cup of tea. It’s early, it’s cold, my bed is really comfy and quite frankly the desire to just curl up into a snug ball and fall back to sleep is incredible. So why then do I get up?

Because I have promised myself to make no excuses, I have made my ‘why’ stronger than my ‘why not’ and I just don’t have time to beat around the bush about it all. Just do it.

Sometimes the only time I have to train is in the middle of the day, outside, when my son is asleep. It’s stinking hot, I don’t have a home gym and I have limited room but I do it, because that is my time for me so I can be the best mum that I can be.

If, like me, you only have a small amount of time to train daily, try these tips:

• Do some high intensity training – eg 5 minutes of burpees.
• Go for a walk at night after dinner. Take the whole family.
• Find your fun, something you love doing and just do it.
• Get up 30 minutes earlier – even if it is cold or set aside 30 minutes each night for exercise.
• Exercise while your watching TV at night.
• Have heaps of sex – yep that’s right, it’s classed as exercise
• Make exercise a priority.

Remember that each and every one of you deserve to be happy and healthy. It is your right to take time out of your busy days and do something for yourself. Make exercise a priority. You are all awesome and deserve awesomeness in your life.


Amy Woods
MAB Personal Training and Adventures
Website: http://www.mabpersonaltraining.com.au/
Instagram: @mabptadventures
Email: amy@mabpersonaltraining.com.au 

AmSo Fit and Healthy (Danica): Protein

Protein. It seems to be common knowledge now that if you train, you need protein. But what doesn’t seem to be understood is what we need it for, how much we actually need and where we can get it from.


Why is protein important?
Protein is made up by long chains of amino acids, some of which the body can make itself, but others must come from foods and are consequently known as ‘essential amino acids’. The body takes these chains of amino acids, breaks them down, separates them and restructures them to become body proteins and uses them for a number of things, including:

• Transporting oxygen around the body (heard of haemoglobin?)
• Building bones, tissue and cartilage
• Creating hormones and enzymes
• Repairing tissues
• Source of energy

How much protein is enough?
You’d be surprised to know, based on the current hype around protein, that you don’t really need a lot. An 80kg male needs little more than 65g of protein each day and a 65kg female less than 50g. Now these amounts are based on every day healthy adults (19-70years) and requirements will increase based on the amount and type of exercise you’re doing but with most people meeting or exceeding their daily requirements already, it’s not that much extra. Think about the rump steak you’d have at the local pub, sometimes around 300g yeah? Well that one steak, without anything else, will give you over 70g of protein. More than enough for the average person for the whole day!

Now you’re probably thinking that eating more protein, especially after a high intensity strength session, means more gains and bigger muscles. This isn’t the case. After a session, the body can only use 20-25g of high quality protein to repair and build muscle, any more than that provides excess energy which can lead to excess weight gain.
But this doesn’t mean that you have one protein filled meal/snack after your workout and then forget about it. After a high intensity workout, body protein breakdown is elevated within the next 24 hours while the building of body proteins remains priority for 48 hours. What this means then is that if you’re doing regular strength sessions, your protein intake should be well distributed throughout each day for the whole week.


Where do we get protein from?
Protein shakes yeah? Well if you’re an elite athlete and you’re struggling to meet all you requirements from food alone then yes, protein shakes are for you. But for the everyday person, why spend loads of money on supplements that often taste like sh*t when you could just eat delicious real food?!

Instead of getting your 20-25g of protein after your workout from a scoop of protein powder, you could have a bowl of Greek yoghurt with nuts, seeds and fruit. Or a delicious peanut butter and banana smoothie. Or even a tin of tuna on crackers. All will give you the required amount of protein but plenty of other useful nutrients. People often forget about carbohydrates in their post-workout snack but it’s important to replenish the glycogen stores that are burnt for energy in exercise and eating carbohydrates can do that. 


Take home messages
Protein is a controversial topic these days and one that could be discussed at length for hours. Keep an eye out for future AmSo Fit & Healthy blog posts that will dig a little deeper but for now, remember:

• Protein is essential for more than just building and repairing muscles
• Most of us are already getting enough protein on a daily basis
• More intense exercise will increase the need for protein but not by a lot
• Protein supplements are okay to have if you can afford them, if you like them and if you’re not already meeting your daily protein requirements

 REMEMBER: excess protein = excess energy = excess weight gain

- Danica

AmSo Fit & Healthy - Student Dietitian

0458 001 848 | danica@amsofitandhealthy.com.au

www.amsofitandhealthy.com.au | facebook.com/amsofitandhealthy

Instagram@amsofitandhealthy

DISCLAIMER: Recommendations for requirements made in this blog post are based on Nutrient Reference Values for Australia and New Zealand (NRVs) and are designed for healthy adults. Requirements will change based on a number of factors. Contact Danica for more information or a Sports Dietitian for your individual needs.

GUEST BLOGGER: Lucy from The Wholistic Being

Every day in Australia, 7 people die by suicide. Every year mental illness affects 1 in every 20 people. (Both statistics are approximate)

When I read that I understand why mental illness is a worldwide health issue. However it also affects us closer to home with friends and family and those we know in our community. I am one of those people. I identify with/am recovering from/am living with/have/had, a mental illness for about 10 years of my life thus far.. I’m Lucy and I’m the founder of a small business; The Wholistic Being. It’s important to know before you read any further, that I whole-heartedly believe that everything happens for a reason. Good, bad, happy, sad, unreasonable, improbable, unforeseen and inconceivable; whatever it is I believe it serves some purpose to your life. I want to be clear that I do not always understand what the purpose is and I’m not sure I need to. When it really, really counts – you just know.

The Wholistic Being is the representation of my purpose. I have studied Drama and Education, but have a degree in Business Management. I have been unwell with depression and anxiety and now my career is focused on positive mental health, which is how my business came to be. The journey makes sense and has created my purpose as well as my passion.

The Wholistic Being is small business with a big purpose. Our aim is to partner together for positive mental health. Partner with community groups, families, work places, big organisations, small organisations and with individuals – to make positive mental health a priority. The Wholistic Being provides training to the fore-mentioned groups to break down the stigma and build knowledge around mental illness.
At present, we offer three courses; Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), safeTALK and Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). MHFA is a two-day course that looks at depression, anxiety, psychosis and substance use and informs participants on how to deal with several different crises associated with these illnesses. This course is to mental health, what conventional first aid is to physical health. No prior knowledge is required for this course and it something I would encourage everyone to do. safeTALK is a 3.5 hour suicide-alertness workshop, about promoting awareness and creating a suicide-safer community. This is also an introductory course, which is also open to everyone. ASIST is a two day course which teaches participants a suicide intervention model that informs them how to intervene and prevent the immediate risk of suicide. This course is important for all those in caregiver roles (doctors, nurses, teachers, police, support workers, youth workers etc) but is based on the idea that everyone can make a difference in preventing suicide, so the more people who attend ASIST, the better.

When I was struggling in the midst of depression and anxiety, those close to me also had a difficult time as they didn’t know a lot about mental illness and had to learn quickly what worked and what didn’t. The reason I have based my business around MHFA, safeTALK and ASIST is because they offer relevant information and practical techniques and frameworks that can be applied in the real world.

I feel incredibly grateful to have found my passion and purpose, presenting to different and diverse groups. If you are interested in any of the courses we offer or would like to talk about how we could partner together for positive mental health, I would love to hear from you.

The Wholistic Being promotes positive wellbeing and we are very grateful to be associated with Sunny Coast Health and Fitness!

Want to find out more about The Wholistic Being?
Website: http://www.thewholisticbeing.com.au/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholisticbeing/
Email: lucy@thewholisticbeing.com.au