Name: Personal Training, Pilates, Bootcamp, Holistic Lifestyle Coaching Brisbane Southside.
Item: Core Health Coaching
Rating: 4
Author: CAMERON

Healthy Diet – Which diet is the healthiest?

Their is always confusion about which is the healthiest diet. In this video, we are going to start off talking about the healthy diet from Nutrition Australia’s Healthy Eating Pyramid, the recent changes to the pyramid and how to modify your diet to suit you by listening to your body.

Here is the transcript from the video:

Good morning everyone. My name’s Cameron and I’m from Core Health Coaching. Welcome today to another health tip. We’ve been doing this for the last couple of weeks just to go through a couple of basics, foundation sort of things around health, so I welcome you here.

Today what I want to go through is which diet is the healthiest. Last couple of weeks we’ve talked a fair bit around water. Now, obviously, I said that water is the most important macro-nutrient, and then the next part of our overall health would have to be the food intake that we have. There’s a lot of different information around what food is the healthiest, what diet’s the best, and to be honest a lot of it falls short. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about the food pyramid, which is recommended from the Australian Nutrition organisation. So we’ll go through that. Welcome to those that have joined us.

http://www.nutritionaustralia.org/national/resource/healthy-eating-pyramid

Firstly, let’s start off with the food pyramid. There’s been a little bit of controversy about the food pyramid. Some people say that when it was implemented there wasn’t a lot of nutritional guidance given, but at this point in time I just really wanted to talk about what the actual facts are in regards to the nutritional guidelines (and a healthy diet) that are given by the Australian government, and then talk and answer any questions you might have around that. I suppose one of the biggest things I find a bit of a shock was that probably about 15 months ago the health pyramid changed, and not many people know about it. There were significant changes that actually happened, so I wrote an article for the South City Bulletin, that I write for on a regular basis, just to go through that. So I just wanted to start there, if I could.

Some of the biggest changes was the structure of the food pyramid stayed the same, and down the base what happens is that’s where the majority of the foods that we’re meant to have, and then up the top is then the not-to-have foods. Hi, Susan, how are you? Thanks, mate. With the structure is the base, which is the most important part, has changed significantly. It was grains and legumes and now it’s actually fruits and vegetables. Now, that might shock a lot of people, but there’s been a lot of research over the last 40 to 50 years that shows that vegetables have so much nutrition and they should be the staple of a healthy diet.

One of the things that I’ve written about there is the biggest change is vegetables. Now, with vegetables, they’ve replaced the cereals and grains, and they represent over 70% of what we should be eating. Now, if I said to someone that your plate needs to be 70% vegetables for a healthy diet , I tell you what, a lot of people would go into shock because they’re nowhere close to that. What I would really suggest there is just think about having more fruit and veggies, veggies being predominantly the biggest one. Fruit is, nutritionally-wise, fantastic, but for those that are trying to lose weight the sugar content, the fructose, might not be helpful in regards to your goals.

The next one that happened through there is around eating healthy fats. A lot of people then would say, “Well, you know, fats are bad.” We hear part of the story, but not the detail. When we’re talking fats, we’re talking really good quality fats, omega-3s are obviously probably one of the best well-known ones. Omega-3s are in sea-based foods. Chia seeds, highest plant form of omega-3s. We know that that’s really good in regards to the brain development, brain health. It’s good for people with dementia, diabetes, really positive sort of fats to actually have. When we’re talking about some really good things, that actually sits up the top, but there’s been a significant change in regards to the placement and acknowledgement in regards to the healthy fats.

No surprises, what happens now is that the sugar and salt is actually now being taken out of the food pyramid. It’s now on the side, which I think is kind of funny. It was always good to have “in moderation”, but now, obviously, with recent research showing that a lot of that sort of stuff is in moderation that we thought it was, and given that the food pyramid hasn’t been changed for the last 15 years, you can imagine some updates in regards to food technologies in there as well. That’s actually being now restricted rather than in moderation in a healthy diet.

They’ve included herbs and spices, which for the first time really great around medicinal purposes, so that’s been excellent.

Drinking water, we’ve talked a lot about water, so that’s fairly important. And they’ve actually got move more, which obviously, as a personal trainer, that’s really important from my point of view, and that’s being acknowledged in the food pyramid, which kind of in itself, food pyramid, move more, adds an understanding that it’s really critical in regards to our overall health. Now, there’s probably not a lot of surprises to people around that. It’s just more around the implementation of a healthy diet.

I think the biggest thing that’s been a shock for my clients is just how much vegetable matter they should have, and there’s ways of actually introducing more vegetables. Juicing is one of them, obviously really popular, but it’s a really good way of getting two to three serves of vegetables. A lot of people I think struggle to have two or three serves of vegetables a day, and they definitely don’t have it over the whole day. Generally we have some veggies with our dinner, and then some salads during the lunch, but to have it for breakfast, a lot of people, that’s very difficult for them, so that’s why juicing is actually pretty good to have as a morning tea or afternoon tea, really bump up the serves. The serving should be six to seven, which is almost double what most people have for a healthy diet .

That’s actually a really positive, that the acknowledgement of vegetables is really important. Obviously the fibre, cleaning out the colon, the nutritional value through there is just brilliant, it really supports our probiotic growth as well. If the one thing that you take from today is definitely having more fibre in your diet, more veggies in your diet, look, that’s been a real success because majority of people don’t have enough, even though we know it’s healthy. It’s just one of those things that we don’t tend to make time for or prioritise or even know how much of our plate. If you’re saying that … If the Australian government’s saying that 70% of our foods should be plant-based, that’s at least half your plate should be vegetable-based. Consider that when you’re dishing up. That’s some of the stuff I wanted to cover in regards to the food pyramid, and obviously the recent changes.

Now, I don’t want to short-circuit the learnings that you get through some of the changes through there and how that’s being directed towards the general public, but one of the things that’s included in the side note, it’s just talking about listening to your body. It’s a proviso saying, okay, well look, if some foods don’t work well for you, it’s to take it out, and they talk about food intolerance’s and food allergies. Now, this is a really big thing now is that we’ve got significant amount of people with allergies, and a lot of people with food intolerance’s that don’t know.

Listening to your body is the most important thing that I can talk to you around your diet. If you’re passing wind, if you’re burping, you’re body is telling you something that’s not right for the body. There’s some of the biggest things is that exploring some food intolerance’s, the body treats it as a toxin. As a result it then takes a while for it to process, your body is sluggish, it just doesn’t operate, it’s not operating on the right fuel. Listening to your body is critical in more ways than one. If you’ve got some food intolerance’s that’s great, but also fine-tuning in regards to what macronutrients that you can have. When we talk about protein, carbs, is that if you’re having too much protein and you’re a body type that doesn’t respond well to protein, it’s going to make you sluggish. And vice versa, is you’re body needs protein and you’re giving it a whole heap of carbs, is then your body’s going to be a little bit tired and wired. Really important to listen to it.

The three things that I tell my clients when they’re having food is one in regards to having … You should feel full. An hour after your meal, it kind of makes sense you should feel full and that you’re not looking for more food. If you’re then sort of, you’re not energised after your food, again, that’s another warning signal. You should be energised. You should be full, you should be energised, and your mood should be really good. This is one of the things that I learned when we did our holistic training was that the difference food can make to your mood is significant.

Now I’ve got small kids and I’ll tell you what, when I give them sugar, or if I give them food that doesn’t respond well to, I can tell straight away based on their mood. As adults we tend to leave that behind and not actually think that our mood is actually a result of our food. So what I question you is next time you’re feeling a little bit angry, a little bit aggressive, your patience is not there … Yeah, I know, Susan, you’re great about listening to your body, that’s awesome. You’re mood can be directly related to the food, and not a lot of people actually get that connection until you try different foods. If you’re having a high-sugar diet, give it a go, see how your body responds. If you’re then sort of, have a high-protein meal, see how you feel an hour afterwards, and I’ll tell you what, you’ll get a really good understanding when you’re actually listening and you’re aware of that.

That was probably the biggest thing that I wanted to talk to you about with it was just those couple of important parts about the food pyramid. Next time I’m going to actually talk a little bit more about listening to your body. That is so critical in regards to the macronutrients and how that fits in, and so I’m going to take that a little bit further in regards to making sure what the healthiest diet is for you. Because the food pyramid is a great guide, but, to be honest, everyone is very different in regards to their requirements, even twins have been worked out to be different. Knowing what food type is really important for you, and then that gets through the debate about which diet is the healthiest. It’s actually turning it around, it’s the food pyramid isn’t perfect for everyone. Full stop. Our bodies are very different, so as a result of that is that we need to then listen to it and then try and work out what the right macronutrients are.

I’ll talk through that next time, if you’ve got any questions, more than happy to answer them. I will post a link in regards to the original article I wrote awhile ago around a healthy diet and the food pyramid changes. Really worthwhile having a good understanding of those, but the big takeaway that I wanted you to really think about: one was in regards to the increased vegetable intake, and two about listening to your body. That’s really important. If there’s no questions, thank you for listening to me. I hope you got some benefit on this topic – healthy diet.

Finishing off, we do have a free Facebook group. If you wanted to go to that for more health tips, we do something on a daily basis through there. Again, I’ll post a link, but it’s called Daily Health and Fitness Tips, and I’ll put those on the links after this video. Have a great day, really look forward to a healthy week for you, and really happy for any sort of feedback. See you later, bye.

For more health tips come to our FREE FB Group Daily Health and Fitness Tips

Healthy Diet – Which diet is the healthiest?