Category Archives: Dietitian Advice

I love Christmas and all the build up that goes with it, I’m like a small child with the excitment of it. For me it is special celebration. However through my work in eating disorders I know what a hard time it can be for some.

Christmas brings with it a lot of socialising, which can mean a lot of different meals. Eating in restaurants, buffet events, and more alcohol than usual. Then we have all the delicious, but high calorie festive foods: mince pies, christmas cake and pudding, stollen, pannetone, yule log, pastry items, cheese, nuts and those tubs of chocolates. All of this can cause someone with an eating disorder a lot of anxiety and that is before we get to the Christmas meal itself.

I know I will freak out over buffet food but I really want to go, what can I do?

How can I eat in front of other people?

Should I cut my intake down the rest of the day if I am eating out?

How much can I drink and how does it affect my calories?

The 25th December. A special day, spent eating, drinking and being around people you may not see all the time. In our family we end up having 2-3 Christmas days as we visit my side of the family and hubby’s side to celebrate with them too. So it could end up being 3 Christmas meals. Suddenly you are in an environment where you may eat at different times, have higher calorie foods at meals that you haven’t eaten for a while and are eating with different people.

Will everyone be looking at me and watching what I eat?

If the Christmas meal is late what do I do about sticking to my usual meal plan?

How much should I have at that meal, will it be more calories than I am used to?

What will this do to my weight?

I don’t want to spoil the meal/day for everyone but how what do I do if I am not coping?

Should I have dessert?

This year, I have spent time with each of my clients talking through their plans for the build up to Christmas. It’s been a real challenge for some with meals out with work colleagues and planning the Christmas Day itself. However everyone has a plan in place and I hope everyone will be able to relax a little and enjoy the moment.

Here are my top tips:

Preparation is key. Try to get as much information about what is going to be happening in advance. If you take some of that element of surprise out of the equation you will reduce the anxiety somewhat.
Ask others around you for support. Let someone know that you may find this meal/event tricky and if so this will be your signal and give them ideas of what they can do to help. Maybe they can distract you with conversation or use a few motivational phrases to boost your confidence.
If people do not know about your eating disorder then they are unlikely to be watching you. If they are watching you then it is probably out of sheer intrigue. You could try smiling at them to show things are ok (even if they are not). Remember that this is a moment for you to enjoy and you don’t want to let little things get in the way of your recovery.
Plan out which days you will be eating differently over the festive time. Then also plan out a list of foods you want to allow yourself to eat. When are you going to do this? Can you swap a normal snack for a mince pie? One of my clients worked out a mini mince pie was not that different to her usual cereal bar so that was an easy way to build a mince pie into her meal plan. Try not to let yourself miss out.
The meal itself can be overwhelming. It is one meal out of 21 in a week. It is 1 day out of a week. If you eat an extra 700kcals that day, it only equates to an extra 100kcals every day that week – not enough to cause any effect on your weight. You need to eat an extra 250-500kcals everyday for your weight to increase, and even that is not enough for some people.
The 80/20 rule – stick to your meal plan 80% of the time and you can come off your meal plan and relax more around food 20% of the time. It is a normal and healthful way of eating – for example think how people eat in a more structured way during the week but eat differently at weekends.
Keep some meals on that big day safe and normal. It may be you can have a normal breakfast and morning snack but then you have a large lunch with dessert. Listen to your body and your wise thoughts. Check out those feelings of fullness – are they related to your emotional fullness, your anxiety or your physical fullness? Use your knowledge and common sense to decide what else you need to eat for the rest of the day.
Restricting, purging or exercising after a big meal is not the answer. It may help you feel better initially but it won’t help your recovery in the long term. Find ways to distract yourself – crafty things can be good, get a mindfulness colouring book (all the rage right now it seems!), phone a friend, hang out with that family member you haven’t seen in ages, suggest a gentle post-meal walk with people.

Relax a little.

Enjoy the moment so you can look back and be proud of you.

Keep recovery in mind and keep going one meal at a time.

If you need any support get in touch and we can set up a face to face or Skype consultation.

Dietitian Advice, Nutrition Education, Video

Filming – it’s a wrap “Good Enough to Eat”

7 December, 2015 Priya Leave a comment

This weekend has been busies that usual as I was asked to take part in some filming for a BBC2 new show. So as a family we travelled up early Saturday morning to the Chicago Rib Shack in Twickenham.

Filming for me is something I quite enjoy and when done in a relaxed manner is quite easy and natural to do. See my top tips below if you are getting involved in any filming work.

1. Do your research before hand. Find out what they want you to talk about, in what style and are there are key messages they would like you to convey. From this you can draft out your ideas or come up with a rough script.

2. Take a few outfits with you in case your first choice is not suitable!

3. Don’t expect it to be all glitz and glamour. You will probably have to do your own hair and make up and there can be quite a bit of standing around and waiting.

4. TV work is not usually well paid 😉

I spent 30 minutes talking, pointing and gesticulating towards a pile of red meat. What was great about this work was the opportunity to get a message out about red meat in a positive light, after the bad press.

My top points were:

1. Red meat is fine to eat as part of a healthy. balanced diet and I would encourage it. It is all about that word “moderation” once again. The guidance is we can eat 500g uncooked weight of red meat a week, so think about having it 2-3 times a week.

2. Protein, iron, zinc, selenium, B vitamins and vitamin D are all nutrients found in red meat.

3. Red meat can actually help with some health conditions such as anaemia. It contains haem iron which is easier for the body to absorb and use than non-haem iron in plant proteins.

(This show won’t be aired until Spring 2016).

Dietitian Advice

Why dietitian’s need to be blogging. The basics.

22 October, 2015 Priya 2 Comments

When I started blogging I had no real idea what I was doing or why I was doing it. I was dabbling and seeing what happened. I had a few friends who were blogging and told me I needed to get on it. So I listened and over the years I have learnt a lot. I’ve done things that have worked, I’ve done a lot of things that really haven’t. So I thought it was about time I shared some of my tips.

How hard is it to start a blog?

It really is about as easy as setting up your Facebook profile. I love WordPress and started out with a free account with them. There are templates and themes you can choose that will allow you to add some images and then you can go for it and start sharing your knowledge.

Why blog?

For me the benefits have been:

It is a great platform to use to share knowledge and recipes. I can then direct clients to my blog, send them certain links or I use my own recipes in people’s meal plans.
It raises your profile and gives people an idea of who you are and what you do.
You can put examples of your work on there. I sometimes put up media work that I have done or a summary of a talk I have given.
The public are hungry for knowledge and there is so much incorrect nutrition information out there. We need to counteract this by sharing the right knowledge. Even if you don’t blog you can share other people’s work.
I’ve connected with brands, companies and people who I would not have met otherwise. Which can lead to work!
You can use some things as CPD.

The key components of a blog post:

Keep it short. Split a long post into a series.
Use pictures or video and label these. When you upload a picture name it as your own. For example I name things in this way: Dietitian UK – banana flapjack 1. Either take your own photos, buy one from an images site or create an image using a website such as Canva. Be aware that you cannot just use a random image off the internet as it may be copyright.
Blog about your interests, your specilialism and your passion. Add some of your personality in.
Add tags to your blog post, these are for when people search for a certain topic your post will be more likely to pop up. See right down the bottom of the post for my tags.
Share, share and share your blog post. Don’t hide it away once your have written it!
Try to blog regularly as then people get to know you and follow you.
Save your blog posts on your laptop or back up your blog.

If you are starting up a blog then do let me know as I would love to take a look at it and share it!

Dietitian UK

Category Archives: Dietitian Advice

Having an Eating Disorder over Christmas.

Filming – it’s a wrap “Good Enough to Eat”

Freelance Dietitian specialising in helping those with Eating Disorders and a Media Spokesperson for the profession.