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Episode 3 - New Year NEWtrition
14 Plays1 month ago
In this episode we discuss setting and sticking to new nutrition goals, what to focus on to be successful, how to avoid the most common pitfalls and Dan's practical tips for your meals to get you on the road hitting those goals.
We touched on some questions that often get banded around online, are natural foods really better for us? What are the effects of eating too much ultra-processed food? Should we be looking to include rather than exclude foods into our diet?
Looking for answers to these questions and more, wanting to understand more about what you should be eating or to looking to get inspired with your new diet?
Listen to hear LCW founder Russ Harris and nutritionist Dan Price discuss these questions and more.
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Transcript
Introduction to Wellness Podcast
00:00:01
Russ Harris
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the LCW Straight Talking Wellness Podcast, ah the show that cuts through the noise and delivers practical, no-nonsense strategies to help you thrive. Today, we're diving into one of the hottest topics in the new year, which is nutrition. One of the most common nutrition goals that we set in January ah How can we improve quality of our diets?
00:00:26
Russ Harris
What are some of the simple and sustainable tips for weight loss? And what are the biggest mistakes that we should all be avoiding?
Guest Introduction: Dan Price
00:00:34
Russ Harris
Joining me to discuss the answers to these questions is LCW consultant nutritionist Dan Price.
Common Nutrition Goals: New Year Focus
00:00:39
Dan
Hello Ross, how are you?
00:00:40
Russ Harris
Hi, I'm very well. um I'm sure there are a lot of people who are currently listening to this whilst trying a new year, new me diet.
00:00:51
Russ Harris
um We've seen a lot of over the years, some successes, some not so successful strategies.
Improving Diet Quality with Nutrient-Dense Foods
00:01:00
Russ Harris
um Let's start by, I suppose, highlighting the sorts of goals that we are talking about, in particularly at this time of year with regards to nutrition.
00:01:09
Dan
Yeah, well, there's probably, there's three big ones. um The one is, I guess it's kind of nutritional to try January thing, which I know we've kind of touched on before. That's kind of one thing that does impact nutrition. But aside from that one, the other two ones are weight loss, which is always a quite popular New Year's goal, amongst many people, whether they've kind of been in the fitness space before or not, completely beginners or people that have already been involved.
00:01:33
Dan
um And then just generally, what I would class more is diet quality stuff. So that might be having better energy levels, sleeping better, feeling generally healthier in yourself, that kind of stuff. So maybe things that aren't necessarily about losing weight or anything particularly aesthetic, more about the way that you feel in yourself. So those are kind of the two broad ones. I think that dry January probably leans into that second one a little bit more, although it definitely affects both.
00:02:00
Russ Harris
Yeah. And there's ah i mean there's lots of different tactics that people deploy. And there's lots of diets out there, aren't there? I mean, there are as many approaches as you could possibly want to hope to Google. and Some more extreme, some maybe be a little bit more manageable in terms of the amount of changes that people would need to make to take their current diet from where it is to where it would be prescribed to be through that diet approach. I mean,
00:02:28
Russ Harris
If we stick, if we let's start with the health one. If you are looking at the, I suppose, the health aspect of feeling a bit better in yourself and and maybe boosting some health biomarkers, that kind of stuff, we are looking at, you know, the diet quality plays a huge, huge role in that. Are there sort of go-to tips that people can follow for for diet quality? Is it is it that simple?
00:02:52
Dan
Yeah, for sure. um I think that one is almost one of the the ones I prefer working with in in a way because it's one where you can almost start with more of an additive approach, which is let's look at adding these foods to your diet. Often when people think about weight loss and that kind of stuff, it's all the things I'm not going to be able to eat. Versus with this, it's it's more about looking at are there some easy things, that easy kind of guidelines or whatever that we can put in that are going to help people start eating healthier food. And of course, the knock-on effect of that is if you're eating more of something,
00:03:21
Dan
you're naturally gonna end up eating less of something else. So when we kind of, we go, all right, generally, the kind of more processed foods, stuff with all the fine sugars, stuff that's not really filling you up, the takeaways, the restaurant food, the snacks in the office, we put that under the umbrella of things that we generally be trying to eat a little bit less of, rather than just focusing on that and going, how do we eat less of this stuff and feel really hungry?
Processed vs Natural Foods Debate
00:03:44
Dan
Is if you start by saying, well, let's start with snacks, for example,
00:03:47
Dan
Can we make some goals or ideas around having some more nuts in the office, having some more fruit available in the office? By doing that already, you're actually not only improving the quality of your diet, but you're actually taking away that opportunity of being hungry in the afternoon where you might reach for the crisps or for the chocolates. So for me, I think with healthy eating, it's almost making that positive first step by adding more of these nutrient-dense foods in. And then actually what you find is that the less nutrient-dense stuff has an opportunity to reduce.
00:04:17
Russ Harris
You mentioned a couple of things there. One is nutrient density and the other one is processed for foods. Generally speaking, you were moving that category of higher processed foods towards the ones that you want to reduce. And then presumably then you've got natural foods on the other side of that spectrum.
Importance of Nutrient Variety
00:04:34
Dan
Yeah, and you know, you can get into the weeds about this. people This is one of the thing with the kind of ultra processed food debate of the minute is there's ah been kind of a resurgence of what's looking at that a kind of processing of food as a way of categorizing things that quote unquote are unhealthy and then more natural foods as as healthier. And often, yeah, people get a bit tripped up with that with examples like, well, actually, this is technically processed, but it's also healthy for you. And then so is it really fair to class anything that's processed as being bad? And there's there's a whole load of merit in that argument that somebody could really delve into. But I think for the purposes of this, it's almost worth going, okay, let's imagine it's definitely a spectrum.
00:05:14
Dan
And then so if you go, okay, yeah just for example, if we were to sort of suggest that. you know, something that is a natural food, even say nuts, for example, it is possible that someone could overeat nuts to the point that maybe their diet and calorie intake is too high or or anything like that. But but if if we take it with broad brushstrokes and go the more ultra-processed stuff, so if we're talking about things like crisps, chocolates, biscuits in the office, pizza, McDonald's, takeaways, all of this kind of stuff, there's not much debate there around actually are these things kind of good for us in any way. Now, there might be some debate about the extent to which these things are harmful, but where I would pull the argument back to is simply that if you're eating a lot of this stuff, there's going to be less space in your diet from the stuff that we know is good for you, i.e. some of the unsaturated fats, more of the, you know, classic vegetables, nuts, fruits, seeds, all of this kind of stuff. If you're getting your calories from things that are low in quality, to some of that more ultra-roasted process stuff, we kind of know by default that it's not going to be the stuff that's good for you.
00:06:17
Dan
So I would make that distinction. We don't need to look right in that middle section, whereas always there's some crossover. if my If the nuts are actually peanuts that are salted, does that push it a little bit further this way? Like, yes, things like that are going to make a difference on it. But I think we largely know what we're talking about when we're almost talking about kind of junk food, to use that slightly older expression, and then foods that are more traditionally what we call nutrient-dense healthy foods.
00:06:39
Russ Harris
Yeah. And the other thing you mentioned there was just about the nutrient variety. Is that something that ah you would encourage sort of people to generally look at if they were trying to actually improve the quality of their overall diet?
00:06:52
Dan
Yeah, because I think it's another thing where often the the it might feel like a mammoth task about trying to eat healthy, which means you might have to sit down with all these spreadsheets and numbers and figure out exactly what vegetables you need to eat, what fruits you need to eat, whereas the reality is if you're having a couple of servings of vegetables or fruits even with your lunch and dinner,
00:07:12
Dan
And then there's some level of, so the reason i' I'm quite big on the kind of nuts and seeds side of things is because that kind of completes the picture a bit more in terms of nutrient quality with where a lot of the minerals that you're getting from those and some of the the nutrients as well, they're kind of on the other side of the spectrum to what you're getting with more of the kind of leafy greens and the and the colored veg. So it's quite a nice way of just rather than thinking about I need more vitamin C or I need more vitamin K, it's kind of, if I've got some of these Not some seeds in the picture, some oily fish in the picture and then I've got my leafy green veg and my colored veg or fruit. You're really going to be covering a broad spectrum of everything you're going to need in your diet. Protein as well, it's another one that's really shouted at people from kind of all angles at the minute. But again, it's kind of
00:07:55
Dan
If we're eating
Actionable Nutrition Goals vs Perfection
00:07:56
Dan
lean meats, not only are we getting our protein with that, but also getting a ton of B vitamins in there as well. People are eating our oily fish, not only are we getting protein, but also getting a lot of healthy fats, Omega-3s in there as well. So you really can kill many birds with one stone by just sticking to these kind of these kind of foods that are hitting a lot of areas.
00:08:15
Russ Harris
So that's giving everything giving you everything that you need. I suppose finding a balance a balanced approach to your diet actually provides everything that your body is utilizing or needing on a daily basis. That's what leaves you with that feeling of feeling healthier, having more energy better energy levels, less reliant on things like perhaps caffeine and you know, you can even I suppose, you know, not everybody has got a not anybody. Nobody has a perfect diet and a perfect sleep routine and a perfect this and a perfect that. So when there are times when inevitably you will sleep a bit less or maybe you'll go out and have some drinks or maybe you'll train a bit too hard, then this is the kind of diet that sounds like it supports those that kind of variation, the sorts of things you want your body to be able to do on a daily basis.
00:09:03
Dan
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's that's why it's most worth, I think, setting the stage first there with what is it that we're actually trying to move towards? That doesn't mean that we need to do all of that. But I think sometimes with nutrition, it's actually unclear about what am I even trying to do to make my diet healthier when you've got some things that are directing you maybe towards completely plant-based, which actually is another thing, which generally the vegan stuff. So you've got that that kind of narrative. You've got people talking about carnivore diets, which is literally the opposite. And then you've got low-carb stuff. So there's already so much noise. like yeah Often our meat clients who are in a position where they actually don't know what it is they should even be doing.
Strategies for Weight Loss and Calorie Management
00:09:40
Dan
So that's why I'm kind of setting that stage a little bit. But I think in the most general terms, if we're talking about better health, better energy level, better sleep, better wellbeing generally,
00:09:49
Dan
What we are really looking at doing is reducing that kind of percentage of the diets from kind of ultra-processed stuff and moving it closer towards less processed foods, more vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, oily fish. that That would be my take on what's a good thing to do. But that doesn't mean you have to get rid of all of that and do that. It's just like any other goal you might have, the sensible thing to do is look at smaller actionable goals that get you closer to this picture and a little further from that one.
00:10:15
Dan
i don't I think for most people I wouldn't say let's try and go completely clean eating vibe sort of thing. I want people to still be able to enjoy their lives, go out for dinner at the weekend and obviously have some things that would fall into that processed food category. But you have to first understand what actually is it that we're trying to achieve. So then the actionable goals kind of come from that. So you might choose stacking. Stacking is a big one. A lot of my clients actually almost like self identify as being their issue. you know I'm always stacking on stuff in the office. I was like, where did we start with that? A sensible strategy would be to have some snacks ready. If you're relying on your kind of hungry brain at 4pm making the right decision, that's a lot harder than if you've actually set yourself up by bringing in some snacks that are already healthy, let's say at half, two, three o'clock. When you're starting to feel a little hungry, you're able to have some of those and stay off that hunger. You're setting yourself up for success there rather than getting a 4pm being like,
00:11:06
Dan
Now I'm starving and now someone's just put a big box of biscuits next to me on the table. That's not something that's going to that's good go very well for most people, including myself. So you need to put in some of these actual points before it may be to stop that situation happening.
00:11:22
Russ Harris
And you do i mean you mentioned at the beginning that that was a sort of more of an additive approach where you're actually looking from a health point of view, looking at actually, like I said, adding those things into your diet rather than looking at what you take away. And the effects of adding those in is that you tend to then eat less of the other types of foods. If we switch gears for the people who are perhaps focused at this time of year more on weight loss, that then presumably is reverse reverse of that and that is we're looking at taking things away.
00:11:53
Russ Harris
Are there, I suppose, some tips because you know weight loss is not something that if you you know if you Google it, you're not lacking for information? If anything, there's almost too much information there.
00:12:01
Dan
Yeah.
00:12:04
Russ Harris
You have to be able to sift through. In your experience, what are those kind of simple, effective strategies that people should be using for weight loss?
00:12:11
Dan
Yeah. What's quite nice about it is in a way you can use the same approach, but I think it's still useful. If we dial back to that point I was making back, you've got to first know what are we trying to do? That's only what we need to get back to. and so With a weight loss thing, the out the actual kind of mechanism of weight loss is not necessarily exchanging ultra-processed foods for more nutrient-dense foods. The actual mechanism is reducing the the calorie intake relative to the expenditure so that's that's actually the mechanism. I think just as a segue on this, when we look at the excess of osempic and some of these these weight loss treatments at the minute, what's quite striking about that is,
00:12:48
Dan
People are having success with their weight loss there and they feel like they're not really making fundamental changes to their diet because essentially they're just eating less. So one criticism you could maybe push on on that kind of intervention is those people aren't reducing their calorie intake by eating more healthy filling foods. They're just eating less but potentially still a low-quality diet that's still more processed foods. still all That kind of stuff is just because the appetite is so low. They're just essentially eating less. But that does also make the point that you can still lose weight while eating, quote, unquote, junk food, as long as it's little enough of it. It's just probably not going to be great for your health and satiety. But obviously, if you have the aid of of some medication with that, it it's going to be more possible. So when that brings us back to more generally when we're approaching weight loss,
00:13:38
Dan
you You can use the same methods as for healthy eating, but I think it's worth being cognizant of. There is that added layer that while eating healthier will help because you'll have better energy, you'll be fuller, which is the main thing that's going to help you only reduce calories.
00:13:53
Dan
it won't result in rate of weight loss if you are kind of just swapping like for like calories for those things and you're still actually overeating too much. That kind of makes sense is that why why it's useful but it's important to still remember that you're going to have to ultimately result in less calories coming in for the weight loss side of things.
00:14:11
Russ Harris
So it still has to be, it still has to be lowering calories. You can't get around that regardless of your food selection, but probably you want some of those healthy eating tips in your weight loss plan anyway because it's otherwise you're sacrificing your health to the point that.
00:14:27
Russ Harris
I mean, even even sticking to the diet, I mean, because you've got to stick to a weight loss diet for a certain amount of time, right? So if if you're eating, you know, one of the issues with eating sort of processed food is that when you realize you go from a diet that's maintenance calories or surplus calories where you might be actively gaining weight, and it's that kind of food, you realize that when you drop that down into a deficit, it's not filling enough. It makes sticking to the diet really hard because you're hungry all the time.
00:14:57
Dan
So that's it. that's That's where the dovetailing is. So in answer to the question about is it a different approach, you absolutely could make three actionable changes, say, which are going to be, I'm going to meal prep my dinners for the week. And I'm going to focus on those being veggie, dense, good proteins, that that kind of thing. I'm going to look at my office stacking behaviors. And I'm going to put in some nuts and fruits to avoid some of the biscuits and things. And then lastly, I'm going to look at how often I'm getting takeaways of restaurant foods. And if it's currently twice a week. We're going to try and bring that to maybe once and reduce the quantity when you're in those environments. That's going to massively improve the quality of your diet, but also without a doubt, it's going to reduce the calorie intake in your diet because those meals that are more filling and nutrient dense for dinners are going to be lower in calories than say having your pizza or your big portion of pasta and sauce just so you're going to get that reduction. The snacks that you're having, if you're having fruits and things like this, rather than biscuits and crisps, it's going to be lower in calories and restaurant food is the biggest area where people are having a calories. So you can just the frequency of that's reduced and alcohol we could throw in there as well. um You're going to get the best of both with that. So that's where they dovetail where you just need that where you still need that level of cognizance about it is just if you made those healthy changes,
00:16:14
Dan
And yet you still found that actually there wasn't weight loss happening. It just would be worth going, okay, so these are positive quality changes, but somewhere or another, there's still a little bit too much coming in energy wise. And then that might be looking going, all right, my dinners are great and really high quality, but maybe the amount of brown rice that I'm having with it is just a bit more than I need. Maybe I'll just pull that down a little bit. But I think for most people, you could start by focusing on the quality changes.
00:16:40
Dan
and you get that knock-on weight loss effect.
Sustainable Diet Approaches and Meal Planning
00:16:42
Dan
The only people for whom I would say you would take a slightly different approach is if someone's diet is starting from a point where it really is heavily in that processed food category, where most meals are quite deep into that into that end of the spectrum, and maybe they're starting at quite a high body weight, where by far the biggest window of opportunity for their health would be reducing body weight.
00:17:06
Dan
you would you would take the hit on not necessarily having to prioritize the quality to start with and go, actually, can we just bring down these calories? So if that meant swapping, say, a very high calorie dinner of processed food for something that was almost still processed food, say, getting a Subway sandwich for 500 calories rather than a 1,200 calorie sort of pizza situation, that's actually a good swap in that context. And it might be a sort of initial move that's going to start bringing weight down. and slowly over time, we look at making those changes over to more of this side of the spectrum, more of the neutral quality side. And again, just to pull it back a little bit to what we're seeing with some of the weight loss drugs, the people that these drugs are actually designed for are probably more so people that are sitting in that group, where obviously hence why the BMI needs to be a certain level in order to to kind of have those drugs prescribed, is they're starting for a position where the biggest window of opportunity for health is just to reduce body weight. So that's why it's probably not so much of an issue
00:18:04
Dan
that the mechanism of action based just results in them eating less of what they're currently eating but then over time some habit change can bring that closer towards a healthy diet as well.
00:18:14
Russ Harris
we can clip that bit up for the social media and just say, you know, damn price nutritionist says pizza helps weight loss. And then we, that's a social media clip.
00:18:21
Dan
done like
00:18:23
Russ Harris
No, no, but I think it's interesting what you're saying because just as you were talking through, what are these main things you want to look for? For diet quality, how do they intersect with a weight loss diet?
00:18:34
Russ Harris
I think it helps people to be able to look at other diets they might actually want to try, like named diets and be able to assess the sustainability or the quality of that diet for themselves just by looking at those measures.
00:18:46
Russ Harris
You know if if the food quality or the diet quality overall that is recommended by that diet is really low either because there's low variation or there's not very much nutrient density in the foods that they're offering then it's probably not that great for health.
00:18:46
Dan
Yeah.
00:19:00
Russ Harris
Obviously if it's something that says actually you can eat whatever you want and still lose weight then whether it's doing that through being junk food you've again got the same argument around diet quality or if it's just not paying attention to calories, then people can see that for themselves then and say, well, you know, we know that that's what's going to going to lead to to weight loss. So I think that's really, I mean, it's really important for people to understand those key messages and and those are the things by which you can, I suppose, navigate a lot of that information that's out there yourself.
00:19:29
Dan
Yeah, I adapt to that because it's interesting because I think actually. Now, I would say the most common thing people are doing for weight loss, the most common method people are using for weight loss is basically working out a calorie target, which is appropriate for them and trying to stick to that using my fitness power. Typically, that calorie target is very aggressively low as well because the person would have just selected the fastest possible weight loss speed. So you're talking about 1200 calories probably for a lot of women is a really common one. And let's even just say it's 1500. But then the method that's being used is just
00:20:02
Dan
eating and trying to stay within that calorie budget, which I think is that I think that method is the one that leads almost to the lowest quality diet. Because that's when you get into that situation of like, Oh, well, I had a packet of minstrels for 300 calories in the afternoon. So now my dinner can only be 250 calories. So it's just going to be this sort of chicken thing, and I'm not going to have anything or whatever, you know, it's going to be like half a meal, essentially. Because when you're just looking at it on a calorie budget,
00:20:31
Dan
you You can really mismanage it is my point which is why when i use calories clients the way i would do it is i want to say it's fifteen hundred first i want to go as low as one hundred pretty much anyone but i'm breaking that into these manageable windows throughout the day so five hundred calories for lunch. and dinner and then make two to three hundred for breakfast and snacks, and actually giving a load of suggestions for healthy filling recipes and snacks that can go into those windows.
Avoiding Common Dieting Mistakes
00:20:57
Dan
Yes, having swaps for things that are, you know, if you're on the go, you want to grab a sandwich for M&S, that's fine, that can fit into the plan, but steering people more towards these things that are actually going to make sticking to that calorie target something you can do with quality
00:21:10
Dan
rather than just going, all the masses of calories, let's try and do it. Because to your point from before, not only is that not great for the health, it's actually just not going to work. It's incredibly difficult to stick to. Because if you have spent 50% of your calories on minstrels and crisps, the hunger is just going to get to the point where no matter how good your willpower is, it will cave and you will end up eating more, even if you think you're not.
00:21:32
Russ Harris
Yeah, I think, I mean, you touched on a couple there already, but these, I mean, almost these mistakes that we can be drawn into making when we're trying to, whether it's having a healthier diet or whether it's um whether it's weight loss. For either of those, we can sort of, there is an allure to big promises and speedy results and these kinds of things. is that Is that in your view, is that the is that the kind of biggest mistake that you can make? Is it sort of trying to,
00:22:01
Russ Harris
do too much too soon or are there other kind of other mistakes in there that people tend to trip up on?
00:22:05
Dan
ah I think that that is the biggest area but it manifests in two different ways for the for the quality one it's trying to do could be perfect immediately so it's trying to suddenly do every single possible health hack and then when you know one of them you can't keep doing is like, okay, this all falls apart. And then with the weight loss, one is the speed of weight loss. So it's trying to lose weight too quickly and also misunderstanding the relationship between scale weight change and actual fat loss. So therefore actual kind of like chronic weight change because what everyone does is they go on super low calories. Over the first week, they lose a stupidly higher amount of weight, because all of their glycogen is depleting, all the water is coming out with that. So I've lost like three kilos in 10 days. And then what will happen over the next 10 days is actually either it will either appeal that they've lost none, or they might even get a fluctuation up just as we're always getting up and down fluctuations. And then suddenly by all the diets not working anymore, and then they give up. Whereas if you could actually have that education piece of this, you've not lost three kilos of fat in the first ten days of doing it's been a sharp drop it's kind of plaau for a bit
00:23:11
Dan
and then over the next few months, we see it coming down at a more sensible rate. um So that's ah that's an area for weight loss. But with the quality, I think it's just it's not setting the bar that it needs to suddenly look like just something crazy where you've got every single consideration. um it's It's choosing two or three things that you're gonna do to change your current structure and then well firstly seeing how you feel after that because you know if it's if if it's working the way it should be you should be feeling better from that and then go great I want to add this now as well and see how much more that can improve it.
00:23:45
Russ Harris
And then the, so I suppose almost the flip of that, which you've you' already alluded to there is. getting around some of these common
Healthy Changes in Social and Busy Lifestyles
00:23:54
Russ Harris
mistakes. They're only common because you're a nutritionist and you see them all the time.
00:23:57
Russ Harris
To the person attempting them, they might be completely novel mistake they've made for the very first time.
00:24:00
Dan
Thank you.
00:24:02
Russ Harris
And it can kind of catch people out and it can take ah weeks to kind of recover, get back on a new diet. you know And we do see this kind of yo-yo patterning with diet a lot. um In terms of practical tips, you know there is a number of different, as you were talking through there, you make it sound, I'm right, if so it's incredibly,
00:24:21
Russ Harris
simple and well well packaged information because you've you've coached so many people that you've got the chance to kind of hone those messages. um But obviously when people go and apply that in their life they're going to be up against social events, they're going to be up against ah saboteur colleagues who are trying to take down their attempts to to try and change their lifestyle then you know there might not be the most supportive environment around them. I suppose organization you know how do you organize changing shopping that there's all sorts of practical considerations um to kind of make this happen. have you I mean I know it depends on the person so it might be a terrible question but are there sort of general practical tips that people can be following to sort of actually make some of this stuff happen?
00:25:04
Dan
Yeah, my own my only fear with the questions always is just time and length of time to explain all this. So I'll try and do a couple of just quick, concise things. but From a quality point of view, and a practical thing for quality is I would say start with breakfast for a number of reasons. One is breakfast is actually a really easy place to cram a load of quality quite early.
00:25:23
Dan
Like an absolute classic that I do is I get the kind of fat-free Greek yogurt. So again, without getting into the whole debate about fat-free, the reason I'm having that is because the fat is reduced, naturally just trained out. The protein is much higher. So you've got a low calorie yogurt, which has about twice the protein, if you've got kind of the 5% version of that. You've got loads of protein, low calorie. We can then go in there with our berries, maybe a bit of satsuma or something in there, some nuts, seeds on there. If you want a little bit of honey on it, fine as well. But this is something that could be 300 to 400 calories, depending on what your plan is.
00:25:53
Dan
Mine is 40 grams plus protein because of the amount of yogurt I use. Somebody else that might be closer to 25. That's an absolute powerhouse of nutrient quality and it's the first thing you've had for that for that day. So not only have you got a load of that quality in a straight way, but also it's going to fill you up so then you're not having that 11 o'clock panic in in the office in the same way as you might. But also you then get this kind of habit habit stacking knock-on effect. If you've already had a good breakfast,
00:26:20
Dan
and you're feeling full and and and and positive from it, you're more likely to make a better lunch choice than if you've already come in and grabbed a croissant on the way to work, and you're hungry, and you snack, and it's like, then it's just easy to go, oh, I'm not feeling it today, get the whatever and the lunch is, and it rolls on. So not only is it just a good vehicle for quality, it also then sets you up for better choices in the day. So that's an easy practical one for kind of, I guess, the quality side of things.
00:26:46
Dan
For weight loss, I know it's boring and I say this every time we talk about it, but it is the social calories that is the most low hanging fruit. Unless you're someone who doesn't eat in restaurants or have any takeaway,
00:26:58
Dan
then it's to even go to eat once a week. That's still the biggest area where if that was to be changed or your habits there were to be changed. And so most people I work with in the city, they're probably out having drinks or eating at a restaurant or take away twice a week. That tends to be the the typical kind of one. But then within that, it might be, or maybe there's a start or a remains and a couple of drinks.
00:27:18
Dan
The changes I would look at there is if you reduce that to once a week and you reduce it to just a main dish, one to two drinks, one if possible, it's a fundamental difference, particularly for women, just because of how the the calorie total amount impacts the amount that they can eat for their their weight loss goal. It's such a fundamental difference that sometimes that really is enough to start the weight loss process, because you're talking about taking thousands and thousands of calories out of the week by just reducing the frequency of that.
00:27:46
Dan
So that is where I would look. I know it's ah not the area people want to look, but the difference you make there is the equivalent of like taking 200 calories out of five days in the week elsewhere that you really suffer for. And it's like, oh, I really need it. But it's like, just let's just make some concessions on the social stuff. That would be the that would be the big practical one for weight loss.
00:28:06
Dan
um It doesn't quite get into the the psychology of what you're asking about. How do you deal with your work colleagues trying to get you another round of drinks? But that might be a conversation for another day that we could delve into a bit deeper.
00:28:17
Russ Harris
Absolutely, yeah. I know it's a huge topic, of course, isn't it? And I think maybe maybe we we draft Garrit in for a conversation on the psychology of handling handling colleagues and family members and friends when it comes to nutrition changes.
00:28:30
Russ Harris
Thank you very much, Dan. It's been an absolute pleasure.
00:28:33
Dan
of cool
00:28:33
Russ Harris
Knowledge Farm, play for right and centre.
00:28:35
Dan
but
00:28:35
Russ Harris
This is another good one.
00:28:36
Dan
and good luck to everyone. And just last thing, Rusty, don't leave me just yet. Here's what I'd say, big one for the New Year's stuff, is set actionable goals rather than outcome goals. So an outcome goal is I wanna lose weight.
00:28:47
Dan
An actionable goal is I'm gonna walk 10,000 steps a day. I'm gonna have two servings of veggies with my lunch and my dinner. I'm gonna make sure I get a protein serving at at each meal. Those are things you can tick off at the end of each day, but regardless of whether the scale's gone up or down that day, because it'll do what it likes for a period of time until it starts settling. So you can tick those off every day and know that you're hitting your goal. Whereas if the goal is just lose weight, that's an outcome that you're only gonna get by doing smaller actionable goals. So set the actionable goals and the outcome will come.
00:29:18
Russ Harris
Wise words. All right. See you next time. Cheers.