3 Things You Can Do TODAY To Improve Your Health

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Transcript

You’re listening to The Love & Lettuce Podcast, episode number one. Today I will be diving into three things you can do today, like right now, to improve your health and therefore feel so much better. I will also be giving you my number one tip for stopping evening snacking (come on, you know we all do it). And I’ll be sharing my all time favourite piece of advice that I give to my clients.

Hey, this is Laura Lima, holistic nutritionist and founder of New Mama Nation, and host of The Love & Lettuce Podcast. I am here to help mamas know what to eat to give them energy and help them feel fantastic, so they can better enjoy life with their littles. And remember, this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only, and does not replace medical advice from your healthcare provider, and is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition. As always, please consult your health care provider to find out what is right for you. With that said, let’s get to the show.

Well hello there! I am Laura Lima, and today I am recording my first ever podcast episode, and I am so excited about it.

Over the years as a nutritionist, I’ve worked with clients one-on-one, and I’ve taught classes, both in person and online. And even though I really enjoy working one-on-one, teaching classes is my jam. I love giving helpful nutrition and food tips and sharing recipes. And I really enjoy taking complex topics and breaking them down in a more digestible way. I love simplifying health and nutrition information to help you improve your health.

And that’s what I hope to do for you in this podcast. Because of my love for teaching, it just feels like a podcast is the perfect thing for me to do. And I can’t wait to just give you all the things. I am so excited.

In case you don’t know me. I am Laura Lima. I’m a mama to two girls, Ellie, who is three and Maggie who is one. I’m a wife to my husband, Miguel, who I met at a local grocery store, where we both worked in our teens. And I’m a holistic nutritionist. I’ve always been interested in health and natural foods, but it wasn’t until I became an aesthetician and worked at a spa, that I realized my favourite part of working with my clients was chatting with them about how to improve their health. (Well, the little I knew back then.)

Fast forward to today, and I’ve been a nutritionist for 14 years. And I still get so excited to talk about health and nutrition to anyone who will listen. So it goes without saying that I am so happy to be starting my podcast, something that I’ve been thinking about for at least the past few years. And it is finally happening. 

The Love & Lettuce Podcast

We will release one episode weekly. And it will be a mix of solo shows with yours truly, and guest interviews where I will chat with other experts in the health and nutrition field and specifically, nutrition for new mamas.

And in case you’re wondering if you’re in the right place, my definition of new mama, aka the mamas that I work with and give advice to, is moms with a newborn (whether it’s their first or fifth), all the way up to when the kids go to school. Because I believe this to be one of the most important times in a woman’s life. One that helps set her up for years of enjoying her times as a mama vs. kind of just showing up and getting by.

No, I want you to have energy and feel awesome, so that you can truly enjoy life with your littles. That’s why I decided to focus in on working with new moms, because I 100% feel the difference myself when I’m truly nourishing my body. I’m able to fully be present and soak up my time with my girls, as opposed to feeling sluggish, foggy headed and moody. No thanks.

And that is the power of good nutrition, my friend. The difference it makes is incredible. Yes, our food intake is that important. It sets us up for the day (and therefore our life because life is a series of days), mentally, physically and emotionally.

My goal is for you, the listener, to walk away from each episode not only with practical steps to take to improve your health, but also the motivation to do it. To get started and to stick with it.

So welcome to The Love & Lettuce Podcast, my friend.

I am so excited to talk to you about one of my favourite things to talk about… three things you can do today to improve your health. I love that with health, you can choose to do something today, right now, and you can start to feel the benefits almost right away. That’s why this is one of my favourite topics, because I love giving people advice on how to improve their health that they can use right away. They can implement it, apply it that day, and start feeling better almost immediately.

So here’s the first thing you can do today to improve your health: Add in more nourishing fat and reduce the harmful ones.

So we want to actually have more nourishing fats, and definitely less of the harmful ones. But what is what? Which one is which, right? Well, first off, did you know that your brain is almost 60% fat? Your brain is almost 60% fat. And so it just goes without saying how important it is to have the right type of fat. Because literally, the fats that we eat help to construct our brain, help to fuel and nourish our brain. And literally, our brain is made of the fats that we eat, like, come on… how much more, how much more motivation do we need to eat the right ones? Am I right? 

So let’s talk about this. What are the right types of fats? And by the way, before we get there, I will also say that every single one of our cell membranes, and we have trillions of them, is surrounded by fat. So it’s not just, quote, not “just” our brain, but it’s our cell membranes, of which we have trillions. 

And it’s also, I mean, fat is good for so many things in our body, our brain, our nervous system, our heart, and our circulation, our joints, our inflammation response. So if we have pain, we likely have too much inflammation. The right type of fats can help to bring that down, reduce the inflammation, reduce the pain. 

Also, fat is so important for proper, healthy skin, proper, healthy moods, I mean, so many things that I find that fat is too overlooked. Although lately it’s been getting better. People are now thinking of it in a better way, which I’m really happy about. But we still have to look at what are the right types (and we should be eating more of those ones), and what ones are not so great (and we should be reducing them).

So this is not an exhaustive list by any means. But I will tell you a few of my favourites.

So here’s some of the really, really good ones to help improve your health: olive oil, butter, coconut oil, and flax oil. Those are some of my favourites. And you’ll see that those were a mix (well you might, you may or may or may not know) that those were a mix of unsaturated and saturated fat. So, liquid at room temperature and solid at room temperature.

And truly, our bodies need both. We need the structure that saturated fats provide for our cells. And we need the fluidity that unsaturated fats provide. So we really do need a mix of both. And all different types of fats have different benefits to the body and different ways that our bodies and our cells use them. So they’re both so very important.

Now, we can also think of fats not just as oil, but think about the foods that contain healthy fats. So like avocados, eggs, salmon, sardines, if that’s your thing (it’s my thing), coconut pieces, so not just the coconut oil, but the coconut pieces, the coconut shreds, you know, unsweetened coconut flakes, coconut milk (get the one in the can, get the full fat coconut milk in the can). So, so healthy for us, and delicious, am I right?

When we have more fat in our diet, our food is more delicious; fat just is delicious. And so now that you know it’s good for you, as long as you have the right type, what is stopping you my friend?

Now let’s talk about the ones that are not so good, the ones that we should be having less of.

So again, not an exhaustive list. But I will tell you that the ones to improve your health. Damaged fat. These are the oils that you find on the grocery store shelf, just picture this, clear plastic containers, the yellowy kind of oil. And they just, I mean, there’s so many of them. They’re just like, they override the shelf, kind of, because I mean, they’re cheap to produce. They’re cheap to buy, and they’re just so prevalent.

So these guys are soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, and just “vegetable oil.” And when you see vegetable oil on an ingredient list or the actual oil itself, look at the ingredients. If you’re looking at the oil, it’s going to be a blend of usually soybean, canola, like one or more of each one that is your vegetable oil quote unquote.

Now it’s not just these oils themselves, but it’s the foods that contain the oils. So honestly, most packaged food contains some kind of vegetable oil, even salad dressing, my friend (make your own salad dressing, use olive oil as your base). Make your own because it’s so easy, it lasts in the fridge, you just provided yourself so much less stress during the week, because you’ve already made it. And you’re providing your body with healthy, nourishing fats that will help improve your health.

Help your body to get fueled, to run properly, help your mood to be stabilized. You’ll be avoiding that packaged salad dressing that you buy at the store, which undoubtedly has vegetable oil as the base. And not only that, but it’s usually got sugar in there as well, and other flavours, chemicals, preservatives that we just don’t want and we are so much better off without.

By the way, my all time favourite piece of advice that I give to my clients and students is to eat more fat.

Yeah, we have to look at the type of fat, that is huge, eat more of the good ones, less of the bad ones. But that’s my all time favourite piece of advice. Because a lot of times people come to a nutritionist, or they chat with one, and they’re thinking, okay, she’s gonna tell me to have more smoothies and salads and a lower fat and just like cardboard diet. And I’m like, no! I’m here to squash that belief, my friend! Like healthy eating should absolutely taste and be delicious, satisfying, nourishing, and fat has a huge place there.

Now, why are these fats not so good to improve health?

Why are the vegetable oils not great? Well, they are typically really, really highly refined, they are refined at super high temperatures, which changes the structure of the fatty acids. And when you change the structure of the fatty acids, you’re essentially damaging the fat, you’re damaging the oil, and damaged fat damages our cells. Our cells cannot properly use damaged fat. So we really have to reduce this type of fat that we have.

Now, the other thing about vegetable oils is that they are a source of omega-6. Now, omega-6 is an essential fatty acid just like omega-3. But it’s pro-inflammatory. Not all the time, but if we have too much of it, we have too much inflammation, which leads to things like pain. And omega-6 is not all bad. But we want to get the right sources of it.

And vegetable oil is just not the right source of it. And because we get so much vegetable oil in our diet, and you might think that you don’t, but if you look at your packaged foods, you will likely see oh my gosh, I really do get a lot of it. Because we have so much of it in our diet, typically, there’s too much omega-6, there’s too much tendency toward inflammation. So you can do so much for yourself by reducing that.

So I encourage you, I challenge you, in fact, to look at your food labels, look at your ingredient list. All to improve your health.

And if you see any of those vegetable oils, just that word “vegetable oil,” the soybean, canola, corn, cottonseed, leave it on the shelf, or leave it in your cupboard, because it just doesn’t have a place in a really truly healthy diet.

And believe me, I am not saying 100% of the time, you have to avoid all those fats. Because this is reality, right? You are going to come in contact with cake. You are going to come in contact with cookies and chips and all of that. And I don’t want you to always have to say no. In fact, I would suggest an 80/20 rule. So 80% of the time you are super-nourishing your body, you’re choosing the foods that will just provide your cells with so much good fuel, so much good to improve your body health. And 20% of the time is when you’re allowing for those treats, those indulgences. 

Could you use more energy, mama? I mean, who couldn’t, right? Get my free New Mama Energy Guide, where I’ll give you 10 tips to increase your energy, stat. Go to bit.ly/newmamas, that’s bit.ly/newmamas to get your free copy.

Okay. Are you ready for number the number two tip to help improve your health? Stop snacking at night.

I know this is probably a big one because we all do it. We all have a tendency to finish up dinner, and even while we’re still eating dinner, we’re thinking, okay, so like what am I going to have for my snack tonight? What am I going to have for my snack tonight? Hmm, oh yeah, I’ve got that pie left over. Oh yeah, I just bought those chips. Or those cookies. I’m going to finish those with some milk. We all have a tendency to want to snack at night. It’s just it’s habit, isn’t it? Like, it’s hard to break this because it is a habit. And it’s just so, it’s so in us.

Especially like if we think about our childhood, a lot of our childhood would include dessert, it would include, well, what are we having after dinner, mom, it’s pie, it’s cake or a slice of, I’m having a slice of banana bread. And so it’s just in us. And so it can be hard to break that habit. But I’m going to tell you a few reasons why we want to break that habit. And then I will give you my number one piece of advice for doing so because it can be tough, I know.

So first off, we have to think about our blood sugar to improve health.

What are we typically eating at night? We’re eating chips, cookies, ice cream, maybe that slice of cake that’s left over, all things that are higher carb, maybe chocolate, right? All these things that are higher carb, and the higher the carbohydrate content (sugar and total carb), the higher and faster our blood sugar level rises, and the higher and the faster it rises, the lower and the faster, it just plummets back down. 

When we have these blood sugar swings, our mood goes right along with it, it goes up, we feel so great. And then it crashes down, we’re mood swingy, we’re tired, we’re craving more of the same that will make that same feeling come back. So it’s just this constant cycle when we eat these high carbohydrate foods, and we’re typically choosing those types of foods for our evening snack.

So we just need to avoid this blood sugar swing, not just for our mood, but just for our body.

Having these blood sugar swings will not help to improve your health; it sends our body just into overdrive trying to drive our blood sugar level back down, but not get too low. And it’s not good to have all this extra insulin that comes from high blood sugar. We’ll talk about insulin in future podcast episodes for sure. But just know for now that it is typically an inflammatory hormone, and a fat-storing hormone.

When we have a lot of insulin, our body goes into fat storage mode, as opposed to fat burning mode. And fat burning mode is the one where we tend to have more energy and more excitement. And we feel better, our metabolism is running as it should, and we’re being fueled by our food. That’s what we want. We don’t want blood sugar swings. And the snacks at night tend to be high carb.

The other reason for not snacking at night is because of our digestion.

We’ve just had dinner, we just had a whole day’s worth of food… and now we’re adding in so much more for our body to digest. When really at night, especially as we’re sleeping, our body should be resting and rejuvenating, detoxifying while we sleep. But instead, it now has to digest all this extra food that we likely didn’t need, and that is often hard to digest, all these types of foods that we’re eating, not to mention all the work it takes to bring our blood sugar level back down to normal. We’re just like, hey, body, here’s this extra food, don’t worry about it, just deal with it. And our body says, whoa.

And do you know how much of our energy is spent digesting? Like upwards of 80% or more, 80% or more of our body’s energy is needed to digest food. So no wonder we’re feeling so tired, not just at night, but throughout the day. If you’re constantly eating, if you’re constantly grazing, your body’s always being called on to digest this food that takes so much of our energy. So just think about that.

Now the third piece of why I don’t love snacking at night for people is that it tends to be mindless.

Now I’m all about mindful eating. So when you’re eating your food, when you’re putting that piece of steak into your mouth, when you’re sipping that smoothie, because yes, some of those are good for you, and delicious… when you’re eating these healthy foods, I want you to be mindful about it, the taste, the texture, the overall feeling that you get as you’re eating it.

But what happens at night when you’re snacking? It’s mindless, right? You’re just like you, you get to the bottom of that chip bag before you even realize that you had a lot, that much. You’re like, whoa, and it’s done, and here I am licking the crumbs, because that’s what we do. And now I’m going to look for the chocolate almonds because that’s what we do. It just leads to needing more and more and more, but this is a mindless way of eating.

And it’s also like, you might not be focusing on what else you’re doing. Maybe you’re watching TV. And yes, like I’m saying focus on TV. That seems weird, but focus on what you’re watching. Focus on the conversation that you’re having with your partner, if that’s what you’re doing. The FaceTime with your best friend that you’re doing. The work that you’re doing, the book that you’re reading. I want you to focus on that and not being drawn away by this food, this mindless eating, this mindless snacking.

So now, you may be wondering, okay, that all sounds great, Laura. But how the heck do I stop snacking at night?

Well, I am here for you. Here is my number one tip for stopping evening snacking: Make sure you eat enough dinner, and that it has enough protein and fat in it. In fact, all meals we should be eating, and all meals should have good amounts of protein and fat. And we should be eating enough of those meals. So when we have that healthy breakfast, enough protein and fat in it, we eat enough of it.

That leads us to having a better lunch than we would have, if we didn’t do that with breakfast. So breakfast is definitely most important only in that it sets us up for having a healthy lunch, which then sets us up for having a healthy dinner. That’s why I think breakfast is most important to start with, not because it’s the most important meal for our bodies, but because it sets us up for a healthy day… healthy lunch, healthy dinner, healthy day, healthy body.

So, we have to make sure that we’re eating enough.

In this case, dinner. What happens a lot of times that I see is that I look at my clients’ food chart, food journal, and I’m like, oh, you had half a chicken breast, that’s not enough protein. Or you just had like a few pieces of salmon, and a lot of potato, and a few pieces of broccoli. Hmm, that wasn’t enough protein and fat. And what I find happens is that, and you can admit this, you know it’s true, we tend to eat less dinner when we’re thinking about snack. When we’re thinking about dessert, we’re like well, I actually want to save a little bit of room, because I want to have that little piece of food after dinner. So whether it’s conscious or not, this is what we’re doing so often.

So what we need to do instead is have that whole chicken breast, have that whole piece of salmon, have that whole egg, like whatever you’re eating for dinner because yes, you can eat eggs for dinner. Why not? I want you to have that and I want you to make your own salad dressing. Pour that on your salad, pour it on your chicken nevermind, like it doesn’t have to just be reserved for salad, get the protein, get the fat, fuel and nourish your body.

When your blood sugar is controlled, when your body is properly nourished from your meal, you will find a lot less of a need to snack afterwards. We have to get the physical in place first. After that we have to deal with, well, the habit, the emotional part, the mental drive toward that snacking because it’s such a habit.

One of my favourite things to do is to have a cup of tea.

I know it sounds so boring, believe me, but just try it and trust me, number one, and number two, try it. See how it feels. Have a cup of tea, have your magnesium drink (which is like powder you put into hot water)… delicious. Calms you right down; magnesium is so great to have before bed. Oh my goodness, trust me, just try it. See how you feel. It is so much better for your body, for your mind, than those high carbohydrate snacks, and so much better than food, period. Because you ideally have just finished your dinner, which was supposed to be nourishing, enough protein, enough fat, and you shouldn’t need that extra fuel.

Now if you do, if you’re feeling hungry, my friend, eat, but I’m talking about this mindless eating that we didn’t actually need. We didn’t need that food because our meals were fueling and satisfying and nourishing enough.

Alright, here is number three, the final thing you can do today to improve your health. Instead of basing your meals on a carb, base them on protein and fat.

So here are some examples: Think about your cereal with milk in the morning. That’s a carb-rich breakfast. Think about your piece of toast or your sandwich. Think about your pasta with dinner. Those are all sources of carbs. Those are all meals that are based off of carbs.

But now let’s turn that around. Let’s think about eggs. Yeah, three eggs for breakfast. Amazing breakfast. Can you have your toast, too? Yeah, there are better types to have, like I love sourdough rye bread. My favourite, sourdough rye, better process, better type of grain. I also love sprouted bread. So sourdough and sprouted, definitely better for you, and a different grain than wheat, so rye for example. Awesome.

So yes, you can have your eggs with your toast. But here you’re having, for example, if it makes sense for your body, three eggs… awesome. And one piece of toast, maybe two, maybe that’s going to make you too full, in which case, get rid of one piece of toast.

A smoothie.

Yes, smoothies are healthy for you. It’s stereotypical for a nutritionist to say smoothie, I know, but they can improve your health, as long as you have the right things in them. I don’t mean putting in yogurt and fruit and calling it a day. That is not enough protein, not enough fat, Greek yogurt, awesome. I mean yogurt, yes, but we have to also add extra protein to that smoothie. So protein powder, easy, fast way… I love whey protein powder. You can also get vegan protein powder, look at your protein amounts, and just make sure that you’re getting at least 20 grams of protein in that protein powder.

So smoothie, add protein powder, yes, you can do yogurt, Greek or not. And as far as the fat is concerned, make sure you’re adding oil to your smoothie. Yes, add oil to your smoothie. You can’t even tell it’s there and it’s delicious. My favourite oil to add to a smoothie, by the way, is coconut oil. But you can also do flax oil. Or you can do a mixture of both like just kind of go back and forth to get all types of different good fats. So that’s a smoothie. Yes, that is great to have not as a carb being your base, as your protein and fat being your base.

Think about salmon, think about steak, pork chops, chicken.

So that is now your protein- and fat-rich base for, well, protein for most of those things, fat in the salmon as well. But you can add your fat by adding, again, salad dressing, super easy way of adding fat. You can add avocado also to your smoothie or the side of your eggs… like there are ways of having protein and fat and basing your meals off of those, as opposed to basing your meals off of carbs.

Because when we base our meals off of carbs, we have those blood sugar swings, we have that insulin surge that we really want to reduce, and reduce as much as we can. But when you have your protein and fat as your base, and carbs throughout, if you, quote, must… carbs are not bad, don’t hear me wrong there. But we want to not base our meals off of those carbs; we can add them to our meals. Just be sure that we are basing our meal off of the protein, off of the fat as well.

So there you have it. I hope this has inspired you to make some upgrades in your eating, maybe just three of them for today, three upgrades. I can’t wait to hear your takeaways from this episode. Find me on Instagram @lauraannlima, and let me know what you thought of this episode. I will see you there. 

And don’t forget to get your free copy of my New Mama Energy Guide. Just go to bit.ly/newmamas for instant access.

Thanks for listening to The Love & Lettuce Podcast. To find out how to work with me and for more great info, check out newmamanation.com. This is Laura! Until next time, love and lettuce.