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Small changes, big improvements for your health
A dietitian is the expert in the field of nutrition and health. Depending on the specialization and the field of work, the dietitian gives practical advice to people with overweight and lifestyle-related disorders on a daily basis. Although it is often believed that the dietitian changes the entire diet, this is certainly not always the case. In fact, the dietitian will try to make the diet healthier with the help of small adjustments.
1. Much needed
The Netherlands is a bread country. The average Dutch person eats four slices of bread a day. Still, there are a number of Dutch people who consider bread to be unhealthy. One has renounced bread. The other sticks to his old familiar habits. There are still two pressing questions: ‘is bread unhealthy?’ and ‘bread makes you fat?’. Bread is not unhealthy. Wholemeal bread, in particular, made from wholemeal (wheat) flour, contains a lot of dietary fiber and nutrients. Whole grain products have a positive effect on bowel movements and reduce the risk of certain heart diseases and type II diabetes mellitus. Moreover, bread is the most important supplier of iodine in our diet. Iodine is necessary for proper functioning of the thyroid gland. Bread is also not a fattener, provided you do not consume more kilocalories (kcal) daily than you need. That goes for all foods; if you eat more than you need, you will gain weight. What is the dietitian’s advice? Just eat good (whole wheat) bread.
2. Solid evening meals
Another view that exists is that you should only eat very solid evening meals under the supervision of a dietitian. That is, potatoes, vegetables and meat. Nothing is less true. No one will succeed in lifestyle changes if they are not enjoyed. If you want to exercise more, it is important to choose a sport that suits you. The same goes for evening meals. If you want to eat healthy evening meals, it is important to prepare meals that suit you. Don’t like cooking for hours on end? Or don’t you like boiled potatoes? Then that is not necessary at all. A dietitian has enough tips to get a meal on the table quickly. You can also prepare potatoes in the oven, such as in/on an oven dish or as oven fries (without oil).
3. More vegetables
The Nutrition Center recommends eating at least 250 grams of vegetables per day. For comparison: fifty grams of vegetables equals one serving spoon, five cherry tomatoes, half a bell pepper or a piece of cucumber. Vegetables provide few calories and a lot of dietary fiber and nutrients. Those who eat enough vegetables (and fruit) have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. However, figures from the Food Consumption Survey (VCP 2012-2014) show that the average Dutch person eats an average of 139 grams of vegetables every day. Often it is still possible to eat vegetables during dinner, but this is not enough to get at least 250 grams of vegetables. The advice is therefore to pay more attention to vegetables during the day, for example in the form of raw vegetables, fresh vegetable spreads on bread or fresh vegetable soup. This way you will quickly get more vegetables than you think.
4. Neither meat nor fish
The Dutch eat too much meat and too little fish. A pity, because in both groups there is a lot of profit to be made. The Health Council advises not to eat more than 500 grams of red and/or processed meat (including meat products) every week. Red meat is meat from cattle, calves, goats, sheep and pigs. Processed meats are smoked or salted for preservation purposes. Red and processed meat increase the risk of lung cancer, among other things. Men eat an average of 130 grams of meat per day (= 910 grams per week). Women eat an average of 86 grams of meat per day (= 602 grams per week). Reducing meat consumption offers health benefits, but it can also be used to lose weight. One way to do this is to choose suitable meat substitutes and to use fish (advice: oily fish such as herring, salmon or mackerel once a week).
5. The brown bean taboo
Legumes, among others, are suitable meat substitutes. The advice is to eat legumes once a week. Unfortunately, the association around legumes is still common: kidney beans and gastrointestinal complaints. Don’t forget that the supermarket shelf has a lot more to offer than just kidney beans. For example, try chickpeas, lentils or kidney beans. They are rich in nutrients and lower LDL cholesterol levels, among other things. You can eat them during the evening meal (for example in a bean dish), but also as a spread on bread (for example hummus).
6. Dining
Do you always eat at the table? Or do you sometimes eat your meal while you are working or watching TV? The dietitian will always advise eating at the table. By eating at the table, you increase your attention to the food. This allows you to take more time for eating and you will notice that you are full sooner. The chance of overeating decreases. What is also not unimportant is that you pay more attention to other colleagues, roommates and family members.
7. Suffer and starve
Watch out, because once you fall under the watchful eye of the dietitian, it’s hard work and starvation. Not true? No, luckily that’s not true. First of all, because not everyone goes to the dietitian to lose weight. Secondly, because a dietitian strives for a complete diet. This means that you get all the calories and nutrients your body needs on a daily basis. Nobody gets enough of these calories and nutrients by eating just three carrots and a rice cake. A dietitian teaches you that you can often eat more than you think.
8. The right proportions
What happens very often in practice is that people do not eat in the right proportions (i.e. one-sided). For example, I once had a client drink two liters of milk a day, but eat far too little of other foods. In his case that was not so strange, because he was already full from the milk. A dietitian will therefore often advise you to eat less of one food (e.g. meat, fatty products and sugary products) and more of another food (e.g. vegetables, fruit, whole grain products, nuts, fish, legumes and dairy products).
9. A healthy party
You can turn every day into a healthy party. Everything you give positive attention to becomes easier and more fun. Just think of tasty toppings for bread, such as sprouts (such as alfalfa and cress), lettuce, cucumber or tomato. And how about homemade vegetable spreads or fried onions and mushrooms? Eat in between, for example, fruit (fresh fruit, dried fruit, fruit skewers, fruit mixes), raw vegetables (possibly vegetable skewers with a dip), dairy (such as a bowl of natural yogurt, cottage cheese or Skyr with fruit and/or a little cinnamon or cocoa powder), unsalted nuts , whole-grain products (such as whole-wheat bread, whole-wheat toast or a whole-wheat cracker), a few olives or your own healthy baked goods.
10. An occasional outlier
‘Does a dietician ever eat cake?’ Yes, a dietician sometimes eats cake. And not just cake. Sometimes cake or another guilty pleasure. Why? Because it’s fine to have an ‘outlier’ in your healthy diet every now and then. A dietician does not want to teach you to stop sweets and snacking from now on. A dietitian wants to teach you how you can make your diet healthier and keep it permanently healthier. Some people and diets are very extreme; black and white. No snacking or snacking is allowed for a certain period of time. For a while it goes well (I can keep it up for a while), but the craving for previous habits continues to grow. Over time, the fence of the dam will be closed and there will be a catching up with sweets and snacking. Shame, because what have you learned then? A dietitian will teach you how you can permanently change your diet, with even the occasional tasty outlier. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you don’t have tasty outliers too often.
Liesbeth van Rossum is an internist and endocrinologist and Mariette Boon is an internist in training and researcher into brown fat. Together they wrote the bestseller ‘Fat important‘. This duo knows all about body fat and how you can influence it. Do you want to lose weight? Listen to the podcast below before you start a diet, because then you can avoid common mistakes.
Sources):
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- Bread Information Office