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121 Dietitian

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“My health has drastically improved thanks to 121 Dietitian”

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Suffering from a major depressive disorder and gastrointestinal issues, which included a range of symptoms, patient Pat was housebound. Here, Pat shares how thanks to 121 Dietitian’s expert guidance, her health has drastically improved.

“My road to recovery began on January 2019 after years of chronic health problems, some of which included major depressive disorder and a malfunctioning bowel of an inability to evacuate normally, therefore having to resort to mechanical means to empty my bowel daily. I was also diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Disease and Metabolic Syndrome. I am 59 years old.
Having done extensive research into my gastrointestinal issues and undergone many tests, investigations, and commenced on a plethora of prescribed medications over the years I discovered Dietitian Gillian Killiner at www.121dietitian.com. I was so impressed with her online portfolio that I decided to contact her and she agreed to come to see me mid-January 2019 for a home assessment, which was great as I rarely left the house.
To say that I was impressed is an understatement as Gillian blew me away with her extensive knowledge and experience of the workings of the human anatomy and physiology.
Having told Gillian my medical history of depression, abdominal obesity, bowel problems with associated persistent nausea, dry mouth, repeated fungal infections and abdominal pain and discomfort and poor sleeping pattern, she listened attentively and compassionately to my myriad of issues. She grasped every word that I spoke with a sincere understanding and knowledge surpassed by all professionals with whom I had come in contact over the years. Her plan of action for me was personalised and tailored specifically to my problems.
My individualised care plan was put into action and included, not a diet as such, but a healthy lifestyle food plan and high-end specific supplements following the results of a series of blood tests.
I met with Gillian again mid-March 2019 at my home and was excited to relate to her the changes she made to my quality of life. Gone are the nausea, dry mouth and fungal infections as well as the abdominal pain and discomfort. My bowels are functioning somewhat better and I’ve managed to scale back on some of my prescribed medications. My mood has markedly improved and I have a better quality of sleep. I’m also 14lbs lighter and continuing to lose weight at a healthy pace.
To summarise I have to say that during all my years of contact with the different healthcare providers (of which before retirement I was one of them) I can say without doubt that Gillian’s extensive expertise on nutrition and general health is worthy of note and I have the utmost confidence in her abilities and talents to help people vastly improve their quality of life.
Gillian’s professional, courteous, warm and affable nature affords her the highest recommendation in her chosen field of wide-ranging nutritional, health and well-being aspects of the individual.”
– Pat Morgan

If you feel you could benefit from the expertise of a dietitian, get in touch today. Email info@121dietitian.com or call Gillian on: 07717392306.

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Top health tips for 2019 by Gillian Killiner

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At 121 Dietitian, we firmly believe that small steps can always be taken to greatly improve our health.

Looking at the key areas of mental health, kids’ health and weight loss, here we share our top health tips for 2019….

Health tips

Mental health

If you want instant improvements a few simple suggestions include:

  • Stay well hydrated: fluids, notably water and not caffeinated drinks allow the brain and body to function. If dehydrated you will become sluggish and metabolism slows down adding to a depressed state.
  • Avoid processed meals and snacks: Artificial, chemical laden foods will cause your body to build insulin resistance over time. High fructose syrups and sugars affect metabolism and cause low level inflammation, affecting Vitamin A and D levels, magnesium, copper and iron to name a few. This downward spiral negatively affects mental health and causes additional chronic illness.
  • Get adequate sleep: This is essential for brain health. Poor sleep is linked to physical problems such as a weakened immune system and mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. Sleep allows the brain to shrink and eliminate toxins that can build up and lead to Alzheimer’s. It also allows to repair and consolidation of memories.

health tips

Kids’ health

Nutrition and lifestyles are ever changing as kids grow. Peer pressure, advertising and increasing independence all contribute to choices made. To optimise growth, development and good mental stability, we recommend the following:

  • Encourage your kids to eat all together and most importantly with an adult – the more the merrier! A meal with family and friends allows a relaxed, enjoyable experience. It encourages children to eat more variety and not scoff!
  • Each week or month try a new healthy food, especially with vegetables and fruits. Make it fun, research the food chosen and rate different recipes.
  • When eating, turn the gadgets, phones and TV off. This will reduce the risk of mindless eating and thus obesity.
  • If your kids are eating many unhealthy snacks, try to reduce these over time. Use tasty protein/fat alternatives like nut butters, avocados, cheeses, eggs, seeds, greek yoghurt topped with a little natural sugars such as dark chocolate or berries, plenty of vegetables including peppers, celery, carrots, cucumber and make flaxseed wraps or oat buns.

Health tips

Weight loss

  • Do not get caught up in kcal counting! The quality of your food is vital for providing satiety and happiness, better than any sugarless, fatless, processed biscuit.
  • Make sure you are not battling with a hormonal or nutritional imbalance. These can thwart your best efforts and really damage your confidence.
  • Always chew your food well and take time to enjoy what you eat. Getting the enzymes in your mouth involved will assist metabolism and send the correct signals from the gut to the brain to indicate fullness.
  • Avoid low fat/sugar processed foods where possible.
  • Eat a rainbow at each meal for nutrient density.
  • Alcohol provides liquid energy so be careful of how much you consume. It can negatively affect your weight loss goals.

If you have any concerns about how to get healthier please get in touch. We are experts in nutrition and able to assist you with all health issues.

To book an appointment, click here. Call 07717392306 or email: info@121dietitian.com

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Information checked & correct on 12th December 2018.

Make October The Month Of Your New Year Resolution

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When it comes to diet and lifestyle changes, there is now better time than right NOW to put your well intended plans in place. If you still haven’t made progress with your New Year Resolution, you’re not alone.

A client came to me for help with her New Year’s resolutions IN AUGUST!

She was disappointed she had not yet achieved her personal goal of “being as healthy as possible.” Despite her good intentions, she had made disappointing progress and it was 8 months into the “new year”!  Her weight was going up, not down.

Many of us can relate to this. We have expectations for great changes and we feel motivated at the start, but events and responsibilities seem to work against us and we are left feeling frustrated and sometimes discouraged that the changes we want to see will never be accomplished.

New Year Resolution

With this client, and many others, I’ve found a few simple strategies help to make significant changes in order to promote health, fitness, and control without the stress.

I advised this client that October would be the perfect time to make her changes. The kids are back in school, the home routine is in place, and it is a long time until the Christmas rush.

My client is now focused for October – she is prepared to make the time and energy to commit to her new plan.

The following are a few of the goals we decided to focus on:

New Year Resolution

Step 1: Start small

In the case of my client, instead of her usual pattern of becoming a slave to the gym with no rewards, she has already started with two 30-minute walks per week. Over the past three weeks, these have lengthened and she now looks forward to her evening walks most nights of the week. This simple change should add years to her life and assist her food focus.

New Year Resolution

Step 2:  Be ‘SMART’

Identify specific, measurable goals. They must be realistic and linked to a period of time so you can assess your achievements. These goals are “SMART” goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.)

My client’s goals were, I think, what we would all like to achieve; ‘eat better and be more active’, but how do we measure success with a goal like this?

As a starting point, we broke down her goals into some straightforward, but significant, changes:  Below are 2 examples:

1) Begin to eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking, five out of seven days per week.

2) Keep records of your food intake and exercise for five days to promote self-awareness of your eating and activity patterns.

New Year Resolution

Step 3: Get support

Do ask for support from a friend, spouse or family member. In this case of this client, her husband has been a great supporter. He reminds her to sit down and eat breakfast with him instead of running around after the kids and he provides the motivation for her to be fit by walking with her in the evenings. He and the kids are enjoying the health changes too. They are eating better and their mum is happier and healthier. The walk also has the added benefit of keeping away from tempting snacks.

In addition to her family support, my client has benefited from professional support. In working with a dietitian it has helped her make appropriate goals, identify obstacles and help overcome challenges.

My client laughs now when she recalls her fears of attending to see me. She expected I would stop her eating normal foods and she would be miserable, but instead she admits she enjoys the one-to-one online consultations when she can’t get to my clinic and the programme she is following. She is already feeling much healthier and fitter (see our google reviews).

New Year Resolution

 Step 4: Get accurate information

As a Dietitian, I spend a lot of time correcting people’s myths. Most of my clients come in expecting they will be told to only eat salads and slave away on a treadmill seven days a week. We know from countless studies, that healthy eating does not mean dieting. While there are specific dietary requirements for many conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and IBS, most people do not have to cut anything out – they just need assistance in finding the right balance. Obtaining professional guidance ensures you learn which strategies are appropriate for you.

Accurate nutrition information is easier and more accessible than you may think…

For help with putting your New Year’s Resolution in place this October, contact Gillian today Call: 07717392306 or email: info@121dietitian.com

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Obesity Statistics and associated Health Risks- check yours….

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While obesity stats might be shocking, the good news is that there is still time to do something about it. Here, we get clear on the statistics and share how 121 Dietitian has been successfully helping patients to lose weight.

A person who is assessed as being clinically obese (BMI – Body Mass Index of 30 and above) is:

  • 6 times more likely to develop high blood pressure
  • 4 times more likely to develop diabetes
  • 2 times more likely to develop arthritis
  • 6 times more likely to suffer gall bladder disease
  • More likely to be infertile
  • More likely to suffer from back and joint problems
  • More likely to have problems with asthma exacerbated
  • Increased risk of suffering depression
  • More likely to suffer sleep problems such as sleep apnoea
  • Increased risk of heart problems and stroke
  • And have a shortened lifespan (1 in every 11 deaths in the UK is linked to obesity related problems)
  • More likely to have nutritional deficiencies

Obesity stats

This is not a scare tactic message, but rather, we feel, an important message to highlight the negative health implications associated with obesity that we see every day. It may surprise you to know that many of the men and women who come to our clinics are unaware of the risks associated with obesity, and when informed are so grateful they could do something about it before their problems became irreversible.

If you wish to reverse the risks as mentioned above, the good news is something can be done. Losing weight and lowering your BMI (body mass index) to normal or lower levels, or with a 5-10% reduction in weight as a starting point will significantly reduce your likelihood of developing these potentially serious medical conditions, and significant weight loss can resolve many pre-existing conditions associated with obesity.

Of course there are also many, many psychological benefits in losing excess weight; people become more confident, feel less isolated, feel more attractive and feel more assertive as well as the obvious benefits associated with feeling healthy like a new wardrobe!

HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT AND ENJOY DOING SO!

  • Our team are highly skilled weight management Dietitians, providing a unique evidence based programme, tailored to each individual.
  • Over the years, we have helped many people to successfully lose weight, (read our google reviews) when they have struggled in the past.
  • You will learn how to enjoy foods and how to manage your diet, weight and health for life.
  • If you need to lose more weight, then you can safely do so, as you will know exactly how to do it safely for optimizing health for life.

We would love to help you. The 121 Dietitian team are waiting! so please contact us on 07717392306 or email: info@121dietitian.com or click here today.

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Information checked & correct on 16th May 2018 rechecked Jan 2021.

Eat right for mental health and overall wellbeing

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How and what we eat has an overarching effect on the mind and body.

We all know that, don’t we? But really have you been doing anything about it? If you are in the camp of the invincible guts of steel, or “never taken a day off in my life” type person then you are either in luck, on borrowed time or in a minority!  More and more people we find are attending 121 Dietitian’s clinics with symptoms they just can’t get answers/pills or potions for, and its having a detrimental effect on their mind and body so I thought I would write a little about it and how we have been able to help.

For some people it may not have been an overnight change but crept up over a few years, or for others it may have been a bolt out of the blue. Everyone and their circumstances are different, however the symptoms are often similar, or cross over with other illnesses making diagnosis vague and frustrating. But ultimately the most detrimental outcome for each person sitting beside me is that the problem is ongoing and impacting on their quality of life. Work suffers, family life is stressed, holidays become an idea of hell than heaven….

 

desk lady

One recent example: Jen, she attended our clinic Jan 2014, a woman in her 30’s, busy life, young family and working a full-time job, full of life, shopping wasn’t always a priority and food was from ready-made meals for her and her partner. She started out in March 2012 with some episodes of feeling tired, low in mood, then progressed to feeling very low all the time coupled with some aches and pains, loss of appetite, change in bowel habits, unable to sleep well, feeling real fatigue, colder than others, weight gain, brain fog, forgetfulness, hair thinning……. She felt alone, worried and isolated. She had been for some tests and told she had fibromyalgia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and needed to exercise more. She didn’t get the answers she needed so attended our clinic. She had a life before this and wanted it back.

We requested a series of blood tests for her re: her nutritional status, full thyroid function and antibodies, cholesterol profile, etc, we took her body composition and waist circumference. Jen also completed our questionnaire and 7 day food diary.

Tests showed that Jen was in poor nutritional health, she had multiple low levels (not out of range but very low levels sub-optimal for health) of essential nutrients in her blood.  She had an elevated glucose and triglyceride level. Her macro and micro vitamins intake were minimal with a high sugar/salt, sat fat intake. These problems, you may be surprised to read, however were not addressed at this stage. This was not until we got her GUT working again, if the gut isn’t absorbing then those expensive vitamins and minerals pills and potions that you are encouraged to buy (and Jen had stack loads in her bathroom cabinet) would be a waste of time. Having a poor gut function like IBS impacts on more than the GUT and as mentioned above it has a negative effect on overall health, with prescribed  antidepressants, antacids, laxatives…..being common.

To fix this we guided Jen through our excellent Low FODMAP elimination programme. 8 weeks later with full support she came back a changed lady her IBS symptoms had improved significantly. Next we were ready to address the diet for her mood, total health and for her life back.

As Jen was carrying extra weight she decided to enrol in our Counterweight Weight management programme, a 12 month fully supported evidence based programme. Returning for the last appointment she has now lost the weight she had been so desperate to shift, she had fixed her GUT, and is now eating a nutrient rich diet. This in turn has helped her low mood, her family life, energy levels and is now looking forward to a holiday abroad with her family, something she feared greatly when we first met her. Jen is one of many we see men, women and children are all reporting problems.

So why is this happening?

Many factors can play a part here but certainly modernisation is a big one. We are living faster lives with fast foods and less down time to relax. We have over recent centuries moved from a whole foods diet to one that is based on processed and refined foods.  These processed foods are leading not only to greater ill health: obesity, heart disease and inflammatory diseases, they are also leading to greater emotional distress in the form of depression, anxiety and insomnia.   Eating a diet filled with chips, fast food and fizzy drinks is leading to an epidemic of “mental illness.”  We also eat too quickly, chewing food has declined and food is beige, soft and gulped down, not allowing our mouth enzymes a look in.

Good Nutrition is vital for your mind and body.  This does not have to be difficult, so many people are confused with all the shouting and pushing of some extremes.  Adhering to veganism, vegetarianism, Low carbs or paleo is not required.  If the first changes you make are by concentrating on cutting out industrial based processed foods and eating more from scratch, cooking meals in the kitchen, focusing on a whole foods diet filled with wholesome prepared meals then you are doing well.  Sitting and savouring food with family and friends is a part of life and its importance should not be overlooked for total happiness and health.

family meal

At 121 Dietitian we look at the full person. We spend a large amount of our time building a profile of the individual’s health by using blood results, checking symptoms, assessing the diet and body composition and most importantly discussing with the patient how they feel. Our programmes are detailed but we get the results to get people’s lives back.

If your GUT is down so are you.

Information checked & correct on 16th May 2018.

 

Oats NOT so good!

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Well, 16 years of educating others I thought I was immune to the everyday angst of nutritional dilemmas!!!!!!

Until very recently, so recent that I still can’t believe it and I may be in recovery for a while!

Okay enough drama, here’s what happened:

I was on a long journey driving through the night and pulled into a service station to refresh with a coffee. It was 3am so calculating ahead as my usual Dietitian head does, I considered my ‘up and coming’ breakfast options and I decided I would pick up a snack at this point so if anything changes later with my journey then I could keep on driving.

While ordering the coffee I perused the appealing, but limited, arrangement of sweet stodge!

I decide I would over look these and went for the most righteous option the ‘Nutty Flapjack’.

I paid, ate and drank with satisfaction. Ah! However things quickly turned nasty! As I finished my flapjack I smelt a rat, (okay not literally) the flavours were sweeter and fattier than my finely tuned palate was expecting, alarm bells rang. The detective flick switched on in me and I peered at the small print – the ingredients and nutrient information.

AHHHH! I nearly choked, if the coffee hadn’t woken me up at 3am then the info on the packet certainly did!!!

I had consumed the equivalent of a hamburger and small fries, or two slices of cake, or a cooked breakfast. What a cheat.

What made it even harder to swallow (wished I hadn’t!) was that it was made with 60% butter and condensed milk with a scant offering of oats, nuts and more sugar!!!! So I couldn’t even glory in the, ‘well the ingredients were superior’ therefore I shall accept the wonderful nutrients and the kcal’s come as a consequence.

This experience brought me straight to the coal face of what my clients experience daily and why sometimes when you think you are doing right you are doing wrong.

The moral of the story: no matter who you are! If you are keeping to a healthy eating plan, check all ingredients and nutritional information as you could be in for a surprise!

Information checked & correct on 16th May 2018.

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