Since taking my diploma in Personal Nutrition in 2016 I have been interested in the link between fitness and food.
I love eating, cooking and learning about how what we eat can affect our bodies. Using the app My Fitness Pal, I log the ingredients for meals that I create, and from that I can see the calories, and macros; fat, carbohydrates and protein in each dish.
The app also provides other nutritional information including the content that each portion contains of fibre, iron, potassium, oils and more.
Included in the recipes under 'Eat well with Jo', you will find all this information in a library of yummy, healthy meals that I like to cook and eat.
Our bodies are in constant change. Pubity, pregnancy, perimenopause, menopause…… and each stage requires different nutritional input for smooth physical transition.
Taking control through diet. Giving our bodies what they need to work at optimum efficiency can prevent these physiological changes being so challenging.
The key to this is whole foods, pure foods, and a common-sense approach to mealtimes.
Snacking is a relatively new phenomenon, and it’s amazing how those little snacks throughout the day can soon provide more calories than your main meal! Instead of 3 meals a day, most of us are now eating the equivalent of 4 when you include the snacks.
For many it’s not actually the calories that are the problem, it’s the lack of good nutrients that are missing from these foods that are causing the rise of diabetes, obesity and heart disease.
What is clean food?
Ultra processed foods are the main source of these poor nutrient deficient meals.
How do you know what an ultra processed food is?
UPF’s will normally have more than 5 ingredients, many of which will be strange sounding words, and definitely items that you won’t find in your fridge or food cupboard.
Xanthum Gum, modified starches, stabalisers, sodium, Palm Oil
shortening, High Fructose Corn Syrup, artificial sweeteners, Sodium Benzoate and Potassium Benzoate
Butylated Hydroxyanisole (BHA),Sodium Nitrates and Sodium Nitrites.....just a few on the huge list of additives included in our foods to ensure a long shelf life and flavour enhancers to make the ‘food’ so tasty, you want more and more of it!
Food companies want to make as much profit as possible at the expense of your health. They do this by taking out ‘real food’ and substituting it with chemicals.
Then they spend huge marketing budgets advertising these meals as delicious, enticing, quick and easy options for your busy, hectic lives……they are doing you a favour!
All you need is….
So, if like me you don’t want to be ingesting this ‘stuff’, it means cooking clever. It means cooking from scratch. It's super hard to avoid UPF's all together, I mean who doesn't love a bit of ketchup or chilli sauce! I just try to keep the use of them to a minimum, and make good swaps where possible, such as Ryvita for bread, air fried potatoes rather than fried chips, nuts instead of crisps.
If you really don't like brown rice, then don't worry, use white rice instead, it's important to enjoy what you cook.
On this new section on the website – Eat well with Jo…Let’s go! You can find recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner that are quick to make, healthy, tasty and packed with great nutrients.
All you need is to be a little organised by having some basic ingredients in your kitchen, below are the items I keep in stock.
Store cupboard:
Olive oil
Vegetable oil
Butter unsalted – yes as it is 100% milk with no other ingredients.
Pasta (ideally wholewheat)
Rice (ideally brown basmati)
Tinned pulses – black beans, chick peas, butter beans, cannellini beans etc
Tinned tomatoes
Eggs
Oats
Chia seeds
Nuts (unsalted)
Mixed seeds
Honey
Hot sauce like Tobasco - (only has 3 ingredients.)
Freezer:
Tuna steaks
Prawns
Peas
Frozen fruit (blueberries, raspberries etc)
Fridge:
Greek yogurt – high in protein
Low fat cottage cheese
Halloumi & feta cheese
Fresh herbs – Dill, Parsley, Coriander (whatever your favourites are)
These are the staples I keep in my kitchen, along with lots of spices to give me meals with great flavour. Please don’t miss out the fresh herbs, they have digestive value as well as being a wonderful taste enhancer.
(Also they are so easy to grow on a window sill!)
From the selection above you have the basics for so many amazing dishes.
Just add any fresh meats, vegetables and salad items to your weekly shop.
In Eat well with Jo…Let’s go! You will see all the recipes with simple instructions and a photo of the dish, and there are also the calories each portion contains, along with the amount fat, carbs and protein.
As I am zipping around from class to class during the week my time for cooking is a bit limited, so most of the meals take less than 30 minutes to make.
A word about Fibre.
30g of fibre a day!
Wow that’s a lot for most people to achieve, especially through ready meals, but that is the recommended daily amount required for great digestion and to maintain gut health.
The breakfast recipes on the website contain around 15g per portion,
so that will give you half your fibre dose in just one meal.
Nuts and seeds are also great as a quick snack that is high in fibre, also dates which are great for calcium too.
Choosing to use pulses and beans in meals will bump up that fibre requirement, you will find plenty of ideas to include them in your dishes, the homemade baked beans are particularly yummy!
You can make a big pot and freeze them for those days when you’re tight for time.
Good fats vs bad fats….what’s the skinny on fats?
Not all fats are bad.
We need good fats to operate a healthy immune system, support cell growth, produce energy and to help regulate blood pressure and cholesterol, as well as to help the bod absorb vital nutrients.
For cooking avoid seed based fats, palm oil, and saturated oils. Look for polyunsaturated and monosaturated on the label of oils.
My go to for cooking and dressings is olive oil.
Fats from ingredients like avocados, oily fish, nuts, seeds, even dark chocolate are great.
It’s all about colour and convenience.
To make healthy eating easy you need to create a rainbow. The more colours on your plate the greater the variety of nutrients is a general rule of thumb.
Not everything needs to be fresh. Tinned and frozen foods are super convenient and often cheaper than buying fresh.
These are processed foods (not ultra processed) like tinned tomatoes, peas, tuna, pulses etc. They’re harvested then may have been cooked or pasteurised before canning or freezing.
Nutrients are locked in at the point of processing so great to cook with.
A work in progress.
This new section to the website will continue to grow as I add dishes to the library. I would love your feedback if you try them, so please add a ‘like’ or some comments if you do. I hope you will find these recipes useful for those days when you just can’t decide what to cook.
Exercise and food.
The word diet conjures up visions of boring salads and soups. But provided you have portion control, eat healthy foods and have regular exercise there should be no need to ‘go on a diet’.
Basically food is just fuel, but in our first world society it has become a problem for many, with addictions to sugar, cravings and overeating commonplace. The result of this is obesity and eating disorders on the rise amongst all ages,
The recent ban on junk food advertising before 9pm is a move in the right direction, but it’s not the kids filling the fridge, it’s the parents, so why not ban it all together.
Pester power in the supermarket shop also pushes parents into buying sugar laden cereals and snacks.
We are bombarded with clever marketing at bus stops, stations, on social media, and on tv. As a society we need to mentally turn away from the constant advertising of unreal food as a staple and reconnect with our bodies and give them the best fuel for optimum performance.
Including cardiovascular exercise, strength training and stretching into our lives on a weekly basis, along with a healthy diet, you will find you have more energy and your immune system is stronger, concentration is improved, agility and flexibility greater and your whole general sense of well being fulfilled.
Health and fitness go hand in hand, but our bodies, like any super car, requires top grade fuel to give optimum performance and to be a winner.
A complete holistic approach is needed and that's what I am striving to offer my clients when they come on board to.......
Eat well with Jo, Zumba with Jo, BollyX with Jo, Functional Fitness with Jo!
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