weight gain

New year, new me? Dieting in January

by Christina
18/01/2021

Today’s article is written by the lovely Lucy Jade who is a recently registered associate nutritionist. Lucy stands out to me as a nutrition champion because of her values and impactful nutrition science communication which busts dieting myths and addresses nutrition stereotypes.

Lucy graduated in September 2019 with a first class degree in Applied Food and Nutrition from University College Birmingham, and has interest in weight management, busting diet culture myths and helping to promote sustainable, evidence based strategies to improve health and wellbeing. She works for Healthy Lifestyles in Coventry as a weight management advisor helping those that have health issues such as a high cholesterol or pre-diabetes to improve their diet and lose weight to help them. AND she’s the founder of the Nutrition Graduate group (which you know I rave on about) that helps to support those that have graduated nutrition with careers, CPD, networking and other support.

You can find Lucy Jade on Instagram at @lucyjade_nutrition and Twitter as lucyj_nutrition. While the Nutrition Graduates group can be found on Facebook, Instagram and their new website!

January is the time of year where it seems like the whole world wants to go on a diet. December is such an indulgent month of Christmas chocolates, meals out and parties, meaning that we are more likely to be consuming more, therefore leading to some weight gain. But the media has made us believe that in January we all have to go on diets, detoxes and nutritional resets to ‘fix’ this. But we really don’t.

Should I avoid Carbs?

by Christina
14/10/202009/03/2022

I always found it confusing when people said stuff like, “oh I have to cut down on bread to lose weight”. From a scientific perspective, bread is not super-charged with anything to cause weight gain. It’s definitely not like the magic bean that Jack had. If anything, bread is one of the most affordable staple foods capable of providing energy and micronutrients that you may not otherwise be getting. So, why do people think it’s making us fat? What about other starchy foods and sweet carbs? Today, we’ll talk a bit about the role of carbohydrates in global diets and hopefully, you’ll be able to determine if it’s the cause of weight gain.

Carbohydrates are one of the macronutrient trio which supplies energy to the body. CHO, or Carbs are a diverse set of molecules which are derived from organic monomers (units) such as glucose, fructose and galactose. Plants are the most diverse sources of carbohydrates because they use carbon dioxide and water to create carbs for energy and structure. Carbohydrates can range from the simplest sweet sugars like those found in fruits, to long, branched chains which taste starchy, such as those in potatoes, ground provisions and starchy foods.

Facing the Fats: The Basics and Saturated Fat (Part 1)

by Christina
03/04/202009/03/2022

Fats… poor demonized and misunderstood fats. Almost like the middle child of the macronutrient trio. Aside from Carbohydrates which are quite often condemned, no other nutrient is as unappreciated as fats. Hopefully, in this 4-part series, we’ll be able to unravel some of the misconceptions associated with fats and oils, and by the end be able to make more educated decisions on our fat intake.

Assorted bottles of cooking oils. — Source

Fats, also known as oils or lipids are important for supporting cell growth and maintenance, providing the body with warmth and protecting your organs. Interestingly, 1 gram of this nutrient can provide 9 kcal (calories) of energy, in comparison to Carbohydrates and Protein which provide about 4kcal per gram. Meaning that fats are “energy-dense” (you might want to remember that phrase).

When we speak about dietary fats, we are referring to a molecule consisting of a glycerol backbone and 3 fatty acid chains. These are called triglycerides by scientists and health professionals. Excess fatty acids which have not been used for energy production or other bodily functions are stored as… you guessed it, Fat in tissues around the body called adipose.