Furi Pro Wooden Knife Block Set 7 pc, Knife Block with Five Premium Knives and Knife Sharpener for a Superior Cutting Performance, Stainless Steel Blades, Ergonomic Reverse-Wedge, Anti-Fatigue Handle
Seamless, all stainless steel construction of the blade and handle eliminates food and dirt traps for the ultimate in hygiene
Innovative reverse-wedge shaped handle that locks into the hand to reduce slip and hand fatigue
Walnut storage block with acrylic viewing panel to aid knife selection
Sugar what you need to know …
It is Sugar awareness week 18th – 24th January 2021 so I thought I would take a look at this in more detail for you as it is one of the biggest concerns my patients have when I see them at my clinics. What is sugar? The term ‘sugar’ usually refers to what we know as table or granulated sugar – the type of sugar that we add to our tea or coffee. We also are familiar to the different variations which include caster sugar, icing sugar, brown sugar, demerara sugar, these are types mostly used in baking.These, you may already know, are not the only sugars around. Sugar occurs naturally in all foods that contain carbohydrates, such as fruits and vegetables, grains, and dairy.All ‘sugars’ are carbohydrates and along with starch they one of our body’s main source of energy. Carbohydrates are required for our brains, bodies and nervous system. In fact it has been part of our diets for thousands of years. Sugar is found naturally in most foods like fruits, vegetables and milk as well as being an ingredient used in a wide range of foods and drinks. Great, so what is all the fuss about? Consuming whole foods that contain natural sugar is acceptable as part of a healthy intake when you have a healthy metabolism. Plant foods have high amounts of fibre, essential minerals, and antioxidants alongside smaller amounts of carbs, and dairy foods contain protein, fats and calcium which are important for the body.Because of these extra components your body digests these foods slowly allowing the sugar in them to provide a steady supply of energy to your cells. A sufficient intake of fruits, vegetables, and fibre rich foods have been shown to reduce the risk of many chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. So what’s the problem? Increasing technology has brought many changes to our food production. More and more convenience foods are available that taste good, are very addictive and can be eaten 24/7.Problems occur when regularly eating these processed foods leads you to consume too much “added sugar”. The food manufacturers add this to enhance the flavour or extend shelf life and this can often be hidden in foods you would never imagine.In the modern diet, the top sources of sugar are soft drinks, fruit drinks, flavoured yogurts, cereals, biscuits, cakes, sweets and most processed foods. But added sugar is also present in items that you may not think of as sweetened, like soups, bread, processed meats, and condiments like ketchup. How much sugar are we allowed? Our recommended dietary intake of sugar per day: Adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars a day, (roughly equivalent to 7 tsps/sugar cubes). Children aged 7 to 10 should have no more than 24g of free sugars a day (6 tsps/sugar cubes). Children aged 4 to 6 should have no more than 19g of free sugars a day (5 tsps/sugar cubes). What sugar we consume Adults in the UK take in 3 times the recommended amount at an average of 22 teaspoons/cubes of added sugar per day, according to the NHS website.Four to 10-year-olds are eating more than twice as much sugar as they should per day, equivalent to 13 tsps/sugar cubes (PHE 2018). “Excess sugar’s impact on obesity, Blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, fatty liver and diabetes and this is well documented, but one area that may surprise many is how their taste for sugar can have a serious impact on their heart health and increase risk of stroke,” says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Impact of sugar on your heart In a study published in 2014 in JAMA Internal Medicine, Dr. Hu and his colleagues found an association between a high-sugar diet and a greater risk of dying from heart disease. Over the course of the 15-year study, people who are 17% to 21% of their calories from added sugar had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared with those who consumed 8% of their calories as added sugar. “Basically, the higher the intake of added sugar, the higher the risk for heart disease,” says Dr. Hu. Sugar has several indirect connections to affecting heart health: 1) high amounts of sugar overload the liver. “Your liver metabolizes sugar the same way as alcohol, and converts dietary carbohydrates to fat,” says Dr. Hu. Over time, this can lead to a greater accumulation of fat, which may turn into fatty liver disease, a contributor to diabetes, which raises your risk for heart disease.2) Consuming too much added sugar can raise blood pressure and increase chronic inflammation, both of which are pathological pathways to heart disease.3) Excess consumption of sugar, especially sugary drinks, also contributes to weight gain by tricking your body into turning off its appetite-control system because liquid calories are not as satisfying as calories from solid foods. This is why it is easier for people to add more calories to their regular diet when consuming sugary drinks. How you can reduce your sugar intake? Reading food labels is one of the best ways to monitor your intake of added sugar. Look for the following names for added sugar and try to either avoid, or cut back on the amount or frequency of the foods where they are found: • brown sugar• corn sweetener• corn syrup• fruit juice concentrates• high-fructose corn syrup• honey• invert sugar• malt sugar• molasses Also syrup sugar molecules ending in “ose” (dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, sucrose). Check the total sugar of the product, which includes added sugar, this is usually listed in grams.If it says 5 grams of sugar per serving, but the normal amount you would eat is three or four servings, you will easily consume 20 grams of sugar which is way too much.Also, watch the amount of sugar or syrups you add to your food or drinks. About half of added sugar comes from
Menopause Diet: The Top Nutrients You Need To Know About
Learn all about the top nutrients to help minimise the symptoms of menopause, assist with it and also maintain healthy bones. Key nutrient are important to consider if you are going through the menopause. Whichever menopausal symptoms you experience, the change in the balance of your hormones is the cause. A well-balanced menopause diet is essential because it helps the body adjust to the hormone changes. Symptoms of the menopause can include any of the following; Tiredness Depression Low libido Vaginal dryness Hot flushes Bladder weakness Dehydrated skin Hair loss Insomnia Weight gain There are a plethora of nutrients that help minimise the symptoms and even assist the passage of menopause and also help you maintain healthy bones. Menopause diet – nutrients that you can consider: B Vitamins B Vitamins are known as the “stress vitamins”. This is because symptoms of B-vitamin deficiency include tension, irritability, poor concentration and anxiety. Fatigue – a common symptom of menopause – makes women feel deeply exhausted even though they haven’t done much physical activity throughout the day. B Vitamins help reduce the amount of stress on the adrenal glands, which are required to produce oestrogen during the menopause. They can be useful if you are suffering from reduced energy levels. It is important to take a complex and a formulation that you can absorb with no nasty fillers. Vitamin C Vitamin C is essential to the manufacture of collagen. Collagen provides skin its elasticity. It helps prevent and treat vaginal dryness, a painful condition which develops when the vagina loses some of its ‘stretch’. Vitamin C can be easy to miss out on if you are watching your weight and possibly on a keto or restricted diet. Vitamin D This vitamin plays a very important role in the prevention of breast cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis. We don’t get it naturally from food in sufficient amounts so the sun or a supplement is required. Again, you really need to ensure you take a balanced amount along with other key nutrients and select the active form, Vitamin D3. Vitamin E Vitamin E is also helpful for vaginal dryness and has been proven to help reduce hot flushes. It can dampen the immune system which can be beneficial for some ladies as a short term assistant for hormonal balance. Iron Iron is required to help your red blood cells transport oxygen to the rest of the body. Men store more iron compared to women and the loss of blood each month during menstruation means that women require more iron than men. A deficiency of iron will result in anaemia, which makes you feel sluggish and tired all the time. It is really important to have a blood test to check your iron and ferritin levels as you do not want to take a supplement and potential cause iron toxicity. Omega 3 Fatty Acids Symptoms of a deficiency in Omega 3 fatty acids can include dry skin, lifeless hair, cracked nails, fatigue, depression, dry eyes, aching joints, and breast pain. Omega 3 supplements have been shown to reduce the frequency of hot flushes and improve depressive symptoms in menopausal women. Magnesium Magnesium plays a vital role in 300 different enzymatic functions. It is essential in maintaining optimum bone health, which is increasingly important during the menopause. Known as “nature’s tranquiliser”, magnesium supplementation assists mood and anxiety. Picking the correct formulation for your symptoms is critical for success. Calcium Calcium is needed by the body to maintain bones, teeth, nails and hair. It is also required for healthy heart rhythm and blood pressure. To minimise the symptoms of menopause and maintain healthy bone mass, make sure to supply your body with these nutrients throughout the day. Dairy foods have become increasingly common to be eliminated from the diet of women for various reasons which can unfortunately leave ladies in deficit. Kale, spinach and tofu, are some examples of calcium rich non-dairy foods. These nuggets are just a few simple suggestions for a menopause diet. Dietary and lifestyle changes are integral in the stages of menopause. If you wish to explore this further Gillian Killiner is a dietary expert and lifestyle coach. She has helped thousands of women over her 22 years as a Dietitian. She would be delighted to help you… For more medical information on the menopause If you are unsure of how to change your eating habits, or need help optimising the foods you eat please do contact us. We would love to help you or your family and friends with any nutrition related queries big or small. In the meantime do please check out our 121Dietitian Shop If you have enjoyed this blog we would love you to share this with your family and friends on your social media channels. Why not visit our YouTube Channel for more on keeping your health optimal. How can a Dietitian help Book a consultation via our Online Portal About Gillian Killiner Check out our tailored dietary programmes Gillian x [instagram-feed] Revised 27th December 2022
Do you value your body? if you are not sure read this…
Life, from the very first gasp to the last laboured breath we take, is finite. Once born we are set on a life trajectory which varies greatly from person to person. A multitude of factors shape our lives from our parents to our location of birth, wealth, poverty, friends, education, health care…. Living in the modern world we can; see it all, do it all and eat it all. Our lives, although finite, can be stuffed full of experiences and all for the betterment of ourselves and our families??? Sadly, the modern world has also created many avenues that do not allow us to choose the best paths, especially in relation to optimal health or taking care or the environment and the future of our off-spring. We are bombarded with so much info we find ourselves switching off and burying our heads. Did you know the number of people in the world living on less than £1.50 a day is 736 million (worldbank.org)? There are 2,208 billionaires in the world (Forbes’ 2018 rich list) with the richest 1% owning half of the world’s wealth. The contrasts are stark. These figures may not be of interest to you, however what is important to note is that if you are reading this then you are one of the lucky ones and because of this you have the ability to make the best of your short time on earth for yourself, family and the environment. I have been listening to people tell me their backgrounds and health stories for over 20 years. I work with very low income to high salary earners. Interestingly the same problems keep popping up when I ask the question: How do you value your body? And what steps do you take to keep it healthy? Amazingly many people are oblivious to what they are doing to themselves – they are completely unconnected to their body and the fact they may be making choices that has led them or is leading them down a path of ill health. We all know the stereotypical Rab C Nesbitt types with fags and booze at hand, sitting all day on the sofa with battered Mars Bars! Crazily, you don’t have to be a smoker, a drinker or ‘lazy’ to fall into trouble with your health. I hear people everyday tell me what they believe the “good for health” message is, and my goodness much of it is claptrap, difficult, expensive, sucks you into some scheme, or worse still makes your life miserable. The other side of the coin is the person who smugly feels that they can eat, drink and do anything they wish as the NHS will fix them if they fall ill. Sadly neither is ideal or anywhere close to reality. You need to constantly evaluate your health and invest for the future. Family and environment included. Before I go on, I am not saying to go and start drinking, smoking, and eating processed junk! What I am saying is that just because your friend or your trainer or the people at your slimming club are recommending something amazing for them that it will automatically work for you. Chances are you have tried everything under the sun in terms of diets, exercise and stress relief already. Consider the number of apps on your phone for health related topics – is it embarrassing??! So the message I am spreading is: STOP and evaluate your health…. Consider that you may not be following the right advice for you… Do any of the following common issues I see resonate with you? Pounding it at the gym with no improvement in weight loss or performance? Take a multivitamin and still feeling fatigue? Always hungry? Even after a meal. Frequently ill? Needing naps? Gut health issues? Bloating, wind, acid reflux. Skin issues? Temperature irregularities? Struggling with good quality rested sleep? Issues with depression and anxiety? Low mood? High cholesterol and on a statin while following a “healthy diet”? Excess fat around the middle? Difficult and prolonged recovery after exercise? If “Yes” what can you do? There are many areas of your day-to-day life that you can focus on over time to address your health and well-being. Although I am a Dietitian, I am also a Health and Lifestyle Coach as diet is only one aspect of fixing or optimising the whole person. I focus on ensuring you are sleeping correctly, addressing anxiety and stress, assess and manage the correct food choices that suit your gut and overall physical and mental health, talk through the exercise options that suit you for age, sex, weight, hormones and ultimately health. This is integrated into life for ever to ensure you can manage the surprises, good and bad, that come your way. Investing your health now will save a lifetime of potential health misery. Car insurance does not cover petrol, windscreen wipers, car wash etc so neither should your healthcare insurance. After all your health is your wealth – without it you can do very little. If you are unsure of how to change your eating habits, or need help optimising the foods you eat please do contact us. We would love to help you or your family and friends with any nutrition related queries big or small. In the meantime do please check out our 121Dietitian Shop If you have enjoyed this blog we would love you to share this with your family and friends on your social media channels. Why not visit our YouTube Channel for more on keeping your health optimal. How can a Dietitian help Book a consultation via our Online Portal About Gillian Killiner Check out our tailored dietary programmes Gillian x [instagram-feed]
FODMAP – all you need to know to get results..
Here, Gillian Killiner, Principal Dietitian at 121, discusses the Low Fodmap Programme and in particular, why seeking the help of a qualified and experienced Dietitian is key to implementing it successfully. The Low Fodmap Programme has been around for over 10 years. I heard about it in its infancy and thought: “Wow! This is excellent for gut dysfunction and IBS”. And so in 2010/2011, I packed my bags and returned from Belfast to London on three separate weeks to go back to my training hospital, Guys and St Thomas’s to learn all about it – the first course of its kind outside of Monash University, Australia. The work load was intense but exciting. After qualifying with my certificate in Low FODMAP practice, I took my first guinea pigs patients and we followed the information I had learned from the course. I can’t lie. It was hard work. Now over the 7 years I have been practicing the Low FODMAP programme daily, much has changed in the way I deliver, advise and support because everyone is different. My high success rate of 97% is due to my expertise of using the programme daily. The gut is not just about absorption. It’s microbiota has a complex network of links to emotions, stress, activity, genetics, medical history, medication, lifestyle, food and fluids… We as individuals are not all uniform. We do not all follow the same diet and lifestyle. This is the basis of my increasing frustration and the fiasco I find myself in. People are coming to me more and more in desperation, telling me they have tried the Low FODMAP programme and it hasn’t worked. AhhHHHHH!! Another emotional boundary to cross. I have found that with the programme’s popularity and success has come the internet dippers. They take a bit from one website that they like and mix it with another and believe they have completed the programme. Wrong… The other – and most frustrating way that these people are not succeeding. They are being handed a “sheet” from their Consultant or GP and left to get on with it. Excuse me… WHAT??? A little more respect to the programme please! A sheet or a smorgasbord will not get results but in fact dangerously add to people’s fears around food and restriction is dangerous in the wrong hands. Low FODMAP Dietitian -why use one? A patient came to me recently and had been told by a local health food shop to avoid a major list of foods. She did so and over two years of carefully following the advice she to me gravely ill, malnourished, depressed and still her stomach issues continued. Appalling. If you have a gut health problem that has not resolved with medication, dietary changes, or visiting a health shop to pay and hold two balls in the air and told to eat very little, don’t despair – do get in touch. Gillian Killiner is an expert in all areas of Gut Health. Unsure of how to change your eating habits, or need help optimising the foods you eat please do contact us. We would love to help you or your family and friends with any nutrition related queries big or small. In the meantime do please check out our 121Dietitian Shop which has been expertly created especially for you. If you have enjoyed this blog we would love you to share this with your family and friends on your social media channels. Why not visit our YouTube Channel for more on keeping your health optimal. How can a Dietitian help Book a consultation via our Online Portal About Gillian Killiner Check out our tailored dietary programmes Gillian x [instagram-feed]
Could fitness technology be causing you to gain weight?
Are you one of the many thousands of people who has invested in a piece of fitness technology or fitness tracker app in recent years? If so, you might want to read on… I have been a Dietitian for over 20 years and have observed the many nutritional changes and fads (fitness technology) that come and go. However, over the past two years, I have noticed an increasing but new reason as to why my clients are requesting advice for weight loss and healthy eating. They are coming to me totally confused and despondent. After originally embarking on a positive health change themselves, making a conscious effort to track their food and exercise, they have found instead of weight loss and health; additional weight gain and sluggishness from the commencement of using the gadget or app they purchased one to two years previous. Doing a little investigation, I am not alone in these findings and a research paper from JAMA September 20, 2016, entitled: ‘Effect of Wearable Technology Combined With a Lifestyle Intervention on Long-term Weight Loss: The IDEA Randomized Clinical Trial‘, found that the group selected to wear technology did not lose as much weight as the group who followed regular advice and exercise. Interesting indeed. As always, there are various factors involved behind research findings and as expected, limitations. However, what I took from this study in particular was the time factor: it was monitored for a full 24 months. Other studies have shown different results with 9 months or 6 months but when looking at a full two years, the study highlights that using technology doesn’t provide all the answers and the results are disappointing. So what now with fitness technology? Well, it is not time to throw out the technology just yet! What is however important to focus on – and what I feel is the most important element – is support. I know with my own personal health and well-being, if I did not belong to a running group I would not run the length of myself!! I do believe that support is still the foundation to success and people benefit from either individual or group support when needing advice and change. I’m sure like me you have all tried to do something new or different; from watching cooking shows, to learning an instrument. If teaching yourself, it is a really big challenge and commitment. Our self-doubt and often our over ambitious desires can derail our smallest but valid attempts and efforts. Putting this into something useful for you going forward…. Support is important, and one size does not fit all. Technology can only contribute to a portion of the puzzle when it comes to health. The watch may say ‘500 kcals burned’ but has your body the capability to metabolise at the rate the watch is set at? If you are not getting results you need to seek a personalised assessment and plan. For me the bottom line is this… whatever group or individual you choose, you need to know they have evidence to back up what they are providing. The support needs to be realistic, enjoyable and you need to be comfortable to see this advice through for the rest of your life. Knowing you are not alone and that you have expert support as required is golden. If you are unsure of how to change your eating habits, or need help optimising the foods you eat please do contact us. We would love to help you or your family and friends with any nutrition related queries big or small. In the meantime do please check out our 121Dietitian Shop If you have enjoyed this blog we would love you to share this with your family and friends on your social media channels. Why not visit our YouTube Channel for more on keeping your health optimal. How can a Dietitian help Book a consultation via our Online Portal About Gillian Killiner Check out our tailored dietary programmes Gillian x [instagram-feed] Information checked & correct on 16th May 2018 and Jan 2021.
