Why vitamins and minerals are so important. BONUS: how to choose a multivitamin.

We all want to eat healthy for different reasons. One major reason a lot of people have in common is to get all the necessary vitamins and minerals. Use this guide to help you understand why dietitians recommend eating a variety of foods to ensure all the essential vitamins and minerals are eaten. 

If you are thinking of taking a vitamin or mineral supplement, it is best to stick with a multivitamin. The simplest advice is to chose the multivitamin that most closely matches your gender and age groups. If you would like to read more about choosing a healthy multivitamin, check out this Consumer Report .
The Dietitians of Canada suggest that multivitamin brands that have a NPN or DIN number on the label should be chosen over those that do not have this number. This is because those with a NPN or DIN number on the label have been assessed by Health Canada. They are considered safe, of high quality, and do what they claim.
If you really want some details on how much of each vitamin and mineral your multivitamin contains, this report by Nutrition Action Newsletter has everything you need to know!

Graphic compilated by Jenna West, dietetic intern

[Video] How to eat less in 3 easy steps

I have written about how to eat less (or eat healthier if your portions are often large) and you can see the original post here. Since I talk about this subject so often with clients that I figured a video may help to outline the important concepts.
If you prefer to read rather than watch, check out the graphic below.

Here is the companion graphic:

The secret ingredient for real corporate wellness

Companies who care about their employees’ health are often seen as being responsible and forward thinking. But could these good intentions be paving the way to harm? 

A few books have come out this year debating this question "do corporate wellness programs help or harm employees?" There have been numerous articles talking about the subject, as well as debates such as the one on the CBC radio show Q. 

One of the books in question is called The Wellness Syndrome and it was written by Dr. Andre Spicer and Carl Cederström. They state that some company's extensive wellness efforts caused employees stress. You can read a print interview of this book here.

Another book along the sames lines is Surviving Workplace Wellness…with Your Dignity, Finances, and (Major) Organs Intact. You can read a summary of it here.

At first glance, it may seem that the obvious answer is that corporate wellness programs do help employee health. However, if you delve deeper into both sides of the debate, the answer is far less clear.

On the one hand, you have the idea that healthy employees work more efficiently, are sick less often and help to add to a culture of healthiness and happiness. Also, most people feel that if your employer cares about your health and gives you time to take care of it, it is an added benefit. However, implementing a corporate wellness program and having this program actually work are two separate things. The assumption is that the wellness programs really do help people be healthier and improve their lifestyles. But this may not always be the case.
 

Labelling people who don't participate in the program as lazy or singling out people to participate can do more harm than good. People who are perceived as being unhealthy by their peers (this is usually based on their physical appearance) may be bullied or coerced into needing to participate. This backfires on the whole point of corporate wellness since stigmatizing people due to their weight or size has been linked to lower levels of healthiness. Although weight and body size is an easy thing to see (and thus judge) it really does not indicate one's health status. The factors that do matter most are the ones you cannot see, like cholesterol levels, blood pressure and stress.

Assuming that the "unhealthy looking" employees need help improving can alienate them from the corporation and their peers and assumes they are either doing nothing to improve their well-being or are too stupid to know what to do. When these initiatives come down from the top, they can persist weight biases and encourage continued ignorance on the subject of global health. In The Wellness Syndrome, the authors succinctly summarize their proposed “syndrome”. They state "that because employees had every opportunity to stay healthy, those who didn't meet extreme health standards sometimes felt like failures".

The people that these programs "would be good for" often end up feeling like they have to prove their worth in society by participating in a never-ending cycle to self-improve (in most cases, this is about losing weight). If weight loss and dieting usually leads to weight regain and weight cycling is linked to low mood and low quality of life, then the ethics of having such weight loss based programs must be reconsidered. If you want to learn more about the ethics of health professionals recommending dieting, you can read a past blog here.

Furthermore, the people who feel they must participate or risk being judged, may be already doing something to improve their health that they have not publically announced (ie. seeing a therapist for stress management or a dietitian for weight management). If these programs are poorly designed, participating can actually set them back.

It is amazing that even today, in 2015, well-meaning people want to focus on the same diet stuff that was being talked about in 1990! No, losing weight is not a guarantee that your employees will be less sick. No, it does not mean that your employees will work more efficiently. And no, it does not mean they are better people. How well do you work with the burden

when you are hungry, exhausted from dieting and feel like your company expects you to lose weight? 

The danger lies in the foundation of the wellness program. One that is designed by an actual health professional that has experience in overall well-being, not just weight loss competitions and fat shaming, is optimal. Ideally, this program would include all aspects of health as well as the proper health professionals such as registered dietitians, kinisiologists and psychologists. Including both spheres of health – the mind and the body- is key.

Another big problem is that these programs are being delivered by professionals (or pseudo-health professionals) who are emphasizing the wrong aspects of health. Focusing on the number of pounds lost or following food rules at the office (i.e. going gluten free) are just a few of the nutrition related mistakes that happen all the time. Focusing on weight lost is simple to quantify to the company who is funding the wellness program, but it is a terrible predictor of overall health.

Most people know what to do to be healthy. The question is why can't they make the changes. Focusing on ways to overcome barriers to healthy living is much more useful than reiterating the reasons why you should change. Learning (again) how to read a food label for fat content or stating the reasons why you have to aim for 10000 steps per day is fine if your participants lack knowledge. However, a more motivating discussion around why choosing high fat foods is easy or why they aren't getting 10000 steps in every day can be a lot more useful. 

The authors suggest alternatives to weight loss competitions and exercise tracking such as keeping working hours under control, letting people disconnect in the evenings and weekends, and understanding what actually causes a sense of well-being. 

For real health changes, we have to get back to the science of wellbeing and stop focusing on old school theories because the dangers in promoting a poorly designed wellness program can do much more harm than good. 

Eating in secret and other embarrassing side effects of dieting.

I consulted with a client the other day who wanted to admit something embarrassing. The admission started out like so many others that I've heard: "I've never told anyone this but... when everyone is in bed, sometimes I sneak into the kitchen and eat foods I am not supposed to. I feel out of control, like I cannot stop myself, eat more than I want to and end up feeling panicked and guilty. What is WRONG with me?!" 

While I am thrilled that my clients feel comfortable enough to share these intimate details, I am sad that they feel so embarrassed. I am also angry that, despite the awful consequences of dieting (such as this one), they are still the #1 go-to for people who want to lose weight.  

The reason why eating in secret should not be humiliating is because it happens more often than you think- it is just not something many people talk about. 
I hear these kinds of admissions all the time, mainly because dieting is a root cause. Imagine that! the very thing that is supposed to "stop you" from overeating is the very thing that pushes you to eat in secret. 

Let's explore a scenario that could lead you or someone you know to be ashamed of eating and thus eat in secret:

"Imagine that you decide to follow a popular diet to lose weight. The diet forbids you to eat your favourite foods and many foods your family typically eats. So, instead of eat your favourite meal you prepared for your family, you are choking down your "special" meal of broiled fish and steamed veggies. Feeling deprived & a little hungry but proud of yourself for eating your weight loss meal, you start to clean up. You are left alone in the kitchen and as you put away the pasta, you hear it calling your name. The internal struggle begins: 

After taking a few manic bite fulls of pasta, you figure, "what the heck! I've already ruined my perfect diet day, I might as well go nuts". So, standing at the counter, you finish off the pot of pasta. How could this have happened?! One minute you were being good, and the next you are stuffing your face. "

There are a few things that may have pushed you in the direction of overeating:

1. Feeling deprived & being deprived: it is natural for humans to "want what we can't have" and there is no better example of this than with dieting and food. When we deprive ourselves of our favourite foods or even just normal foods, we often are compelled to eat a large amount of them when they are available. Also, cravings of these off-limit foods tend to increase when we forbid them. 

2. Hunger, both physical and mental: anyone can follow a crazy diet for a little while but over time it becomes harder. If the diet leaves us feeling hungry, then it is a no brainer that we will want to eat more (perhaps when noone is looking and therefore no one can judge us). The mental "hunger" for delicious foods and the need to have pleasure when eating is something that is often overlooked. If every meal is a disappointment, it is not uncommon to eventually go looking for good tasting food. What usually tastes good? forbidden foods! Foods that are not allowed are often perceived as tasting better than if they are eaten without guilt. Remove the guilt and often you remove the sacred status the food holds. 

3. Comments from the peanut gallery. If the people around us are trying to "help" by saying negative comments about our food choices, our instinct is usually to rebel. Hearing things like "you'll never lose weight eating like that!" or "Are you sure you need to eat that?" is embarrassing and angering. A lot of people are compelled to rebel against these attitudes by eating the food they were told not to. This can happen when alone in the kitchen late at night or in your car before you go into the house.

A wise client recently told me that the key to eating less in secret or out of rebellion is to ask themselves this question:

Am I going to feel less stressed if I eat this candy bar? Am I going to feel more satisfied or over stuffed if I finish this pizza? Is eating this cookie going to comfort me or make me feel guilty?

It is ok to to eat something because you are stressed or need comfort. The big question is, are you less stressed and comforted by it? If not, then eating that food won't help the current problem. 

My client realized that they were eating when not hungry and not "getting anything out of it". In their journey to repair their relationship with food and manage their weight, my client brilliantly said to me:

Three Ways to Celebrate No Diet Day (MAY 6th)

This blog post was written by Leslie Schilling and Rebecca Scritchfield, Co-Founders of Dietitians for Body Confidence www.RD4BC.com.

Healthy bodies come in all different shapes and sizes. We see it every time we hit the gym, get our hair done, or just walk down the street. 

May 6th is International "No Diet Day" - a day where people everywhere can say "I don't need no stinkin' diet." Wouldn't it be great to throw some self-love motivation out to the universe? 

Here are three ways anyone can celebrate "No Diet Day"
1. "I love me some ME!" There’s no point in trying to look like a celeb on a magazine cover. Did you know that those celebs don’t even look like that? Over 95 percent of media images are altered (not real). We can rock our different sizes and unique shapes.  You can do it: Share what you value about your body and why - with yourself, a good friend, or on social media. 
2. "Because I'm HAPPY..." We often think if we choose to be content, we’ve become complacent. That’s simply not the case. We can find health and happiness along the way. Try to let go of the “if/then” attitude. Being happy in the body you have is possible even while you’re working on making it healthier. You can do it: reflect on what you are grateful for today and why. Can you share three things?
3. "Can I Live?" Life is happening whether you are there or not. Might as well join the party. Remember that experience trumps appearance. So what happens if you don’t get out on the beach (the dance floor, the doctor’s office, the dinner club)? It’s very likely that you lose what could have been a delightful or enlightening event. Choosing the experience is the first step in making wonderful memories. You can do it: Share a picture of a recent joyful experience - and talk about how it made you feel. 

 Learn more at www.RD4BC.com

Saying what no one wants to hear.....weight maintenance

As a dietitian most, if not all of my clients want to lose weight. I would even guess that most people I know want to lose weight. It does not matter the reason, nor does it really matter how much they actually weigh- many people want to change it, regardless of the healthiness of their weight. So, how do I go about suggesting that they should abandon their goals/dreams/hopes? Very carefully.
For some people, maintaining their weight rather than losing weight may be the healthiest option- both for the mind and for the body. This applies both to healthy weight people and - yes- people who are labelled as overweight or obese. Many studies over the last 10 years have shown a weak link between being a fit heavy person and development of diseases. So the age old statement of "I want to lose weight to be healthier" is no longer relevant. The act of losing weight may not have an impact on health if blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol levels, etc do not actually improve. This may happen if these risk factors are already in the normal range or if an unhealthy approach to weight loss is taken. Not to mention any psychological issues that can arise from dieting! (guilt, deprivation and shame do not help anyone eat healthier!)
So, how does a dietitian broach the subject that weight maintenance may be the best bet for a client? I have had this discussion a few times recently and despite their differences, each client's situation was eerily similar. My first client was a gentleman who has been struggling to lose weight through exercising more and calorie counting to try to eat less. He has found a nice balance between feeling hungry and eating just enough so that his cravings for certain foods has decreased. With less hunger, he can focus less on eating and more on work/life/family. He has been maintaining his weight for the last 2 months. He feels he cannot dedicate more time to exercising nor can he imagine eating any less (or changing much about his food choices)- but he wants to lose weight. Unfortunately, there is no magic trick I can pull out of my hat for him. Instead of following the same old dietetic approach of offering advice on eating more fibre, less dense foods, etc, I decided to listen to what he was really saying. Reflecting back to him this conundrum and pointing out the facts that he just mentioned (not possible to change exercise or eating),  I helped him come to the conclusion that maybe maintaining his weight right now is the best option. It is a good option because anything else may lead him to further frustration.
The other client was in a similar position except her family and work obligations meant she could not spend any more time exercising. She already was very conscious of what she ate and could not dream of eating less or being more careful.
Neither person was putting their lives in danger by maintaining their weight. In fact, by realistically maintaining rather than unrealistically losing weight and likely putting it back on, they are actually healthier.
Sometimes the role of a "Diet"itian is to give clients permission to maintain weight rather than take jabs at their weight like so many others do.

Embrace your inner foodie

So many of my clients consider themselves to be foodies and often this love for food is conflicted because it is both enjoyed and hated. Enjoyed because food tastes good and brings them pleasure but hated because they feel it gets in the way of their goals (whether they it weight management, lowering cholesterol or managing blood sugars). I, on the other hand, feel that this title should be embraced to enhance ones health. Foodies love to experience new foods, explore flavor combinations, and don't want to waste a bite on foods that don’t meet their high expectations. Quality, not quantity, is the attitude for foodies.

Studies have proven that our satisfaction levels during and after a meal rely more on the flavor intensity and time we took to enjoy the food rather than the quantity eaten. If we merely took more than the average 18 minutes to enjoy a family meal, we could naturally cut down on how much we eat. Setting a time in which everyone must stay seated at the table, serving food over multiple courses (ex. salad first, then main meal) or even eating with chop sticks can help you and your family enjoy more time together and more time savoring the food.

Also, respecting taste thresholds can help us to naturally eat less. There are only so many bites we can take of a food before it starts to lose its appeal. This does take some effort to open the lines of communication between the body and the brain in order to “hear” our body’s signals. In order to get around this problem of taste bud fatigue, we tend to alternate between salty and sweet food. A good example of this is having dessert at the end of a big meal- we aren’t hungry but somehow the sweet ending still tastes good. So, if we avoid cycling between the two at meals or snacks, we may ultimately help ourselves eat less.

Practicing leaving a little food on the plate can also help to avoid overeating when we eat just because the food is sitting there. Stop feeling guilty about not finishing the plate and turn up the volume on what your stomach determines as “enough”. Rating your hunger on a scale of 1-10 halfway between the meal can slow down the meal and help you determine how much more food you need.

So, next time you are served a less than desirable piece of complementary cake with your lunch combo or notice last week's stale croissant sitting on the counter- listen to your inner food critic to determine if it’s really worth your time (and taste).

Pass the sugar please

Sitting at an obesity management conference with a room full of dietitians was in interesting experience. Great food was served, fruits and vegetables easily found, plenty of time to relax ones mind with free access to an athletic center and of course stimulating conversation.

After dinner last night, as we sipped on our coffee or tea, I looked around and "I spied with my little eye something that was yellow"- all around my table. As we were listening to the last speaker of the day, 4 out of 5 of the other guests at the table had added Splenda to their beverages. Not one dietitian had used real sugar to sweeten the drink. I am sure not all tables had the same ratio of sweetener users as mine, but all I could think about was- "boy I am glad no one has taken a picture of our table because I would be :

a)embarrassed to be seen among so many sweetener packages and worry that my clients & colleagues would mistake me as a user

b)worried about how non-dietitians would interpret this message.

Is 1 tsp of sugar "so bad for us" that we resort to an inferior tasting substitute? or did a few of my fellow nutrition nuts bow to the pressure of others reaching for Splenda? OR perhaps this is the key as to how they all stay so trim and thin! ... (just to clear up that last point....NO- for those of you who may be tempted to believe this blatantly wrong assumption).

Can you guess how many calories they saved by using the offensive gustatory enhancer? 15 calories per packet of real sugar they would have used. 15 calories.

Now, lets do some math... it takes 3500 calories to make 1lb of body fat. Imagine you drank 2 cups of coffee per day, for a total of 2 tsp of sugar per day. That would mean you are consuming 30calories extra per day if compared to using Splenda instead. That would mean 210 calories per week, 840cal per month and a grand total of 10 080 calories per year. If you cut out that 10 080 calories per year, you technically could end up losing 2.9lbs.

HOWEVER, with the addition of Splenda in your coffee (a supposedly "good" thing to do for your health and weight) are you "allowing" yourself to make a less-healthy choice during the day? For example, "I have switched to Splenda so now I won't feel bad when I include a cookie in my lunch". 2 sugar packets = 30cal. 1 cookies may be anywhere from 50-150 calories.

It is normal to fall victim to this way of thinking- "if I am good now, I can be bad later". BUT what if you were never "bad" to begin with- what if you never felt guilty about your food choices- perhaps there wouldn't be the rebound emotional effect that we saw above.

Calories = Satiation + Energy

Imagine your body as a car…
What allows the car to run? Gas.
What allows our body to run? Calories.
Calories essentially are energy for our body. We find calories in carbohydrates, protein and fat. Vitamins, minerals, water and fiber have NO calories and therefore are used NOT to provide us with energy but for other functions.

Carbohydrates and protein contain the same number of calories per gram. You may have heard that carbohydrate rich foods are fattening but in fact they are not any more fattening than protein rich foods! 4 calories per gram means that if you eat 30g of carbohydrate (ex. 2 slices of bread) or 30g of protein (ex. 4oz fillet of sole) you will consume 120 calories.

Fat are higher in calories per gram- 9cal per 1 gram. Therefore, 5g or 1 tsp of margarine will contain 45 calories.

True hunger is our body is telling us that it has burnt all the calories consumed last meal or snack and that is requires more nourishing. We should not be afraid of experiencing hunger-rather embrace it as a signal that it is time to eat again.

The hardest part of listening to your hunger is being able to determine if it is “true” or “fake” hunger. Sometimes we can mistake other feelings for hunger so it is important to reflect before eating if you are unsure if you are hungry with your eyes versus hungry with your stomach. How long ago was the last time you ate? When is the next meal scheduled? These answers will determine how big of a snack will be appropriate.

The fact that we are hungry when all the calories we last ate have been “burnt” for energy, means that the more calories we eat, the longer we can wait between meals/snacks. So, if we are looking for a snack at 10am to hold us over until 1pm lunch, a mere 35cal yogurt may not be enough. This snack will be “burnt” and possibly leave us hungry by 10:35.

Knowing how many calories your body needs in one day is important in helping you lose weight. It can help keep snack and meal sizes adequate- not too big and not too small. It is important to spread the calories throughout the day to avoid being hungry and boost metabolism.

Keeping a food journal that tracts calories can help you be honest about how much you are eating. It can help to point out where the excess calories are coming from as well as any large gaps between meals.

Eating too many calories one day does not necessarily mean weight gain. Gaining weight requires more than one day of excess. Don’t despair if you get off track one day or one meal- make fresh start the next opportunity you get!