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Book a Consultation

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Priya provides one to one consultations from her home consultation rooms in Southampton or online using video calls or phone consultations. See below for the types of issues Priya can help with. Skype/Zoom video calls provide a more flexible way to see Priya face to face but from the comfort of your own home. The software for this is free to use. The majority of Priya’s work is done this way as she works with clients all over the country and internationally too. She also offers dietary analysis via email where a thorough analysis is conducted on your food diary and a report emailed back to you.

As everyone is different and needs differing levels of support Priya does not have a set way of working. However she does work from a non-diet and intuitive eating background. This is based on the concepts that diets do not lead to long term change and that it is better to focus on changing health behaviours rather than just diet and a weight focus.  Retuning your body to listen to its hunger and fullness cues, learning to respect your body and listen to its needs can be a longer route but leads to lasting changes for life.

A initial consultation lasts up to 1 hour and includes an in-depth review of your current and previous diet and food related problems plus your weight and medical history. From this information Priya will give education, advice and help you set goals that are realistic and achievable. All advice is individualised and tailor-made for you. You will receive an email summarising the agreed goals set  along with any agreed information. This may include a meal plan, worksheets or educational literature.

Follow-up sessions can be booked and last for up to 30 minutes. The number of sessions you will need will totally depend on your needs. 

Prices: £95 for an initial consultation and £65 for follow ups.

Package: £260 for 1 x initial consultation and 3 x follow up sessions.

Email dietary analysis with report £65

Eating Disorders:

Priya is renown for her expertise in this subject and the majority of her clients will have an eating disorder. She takes a holistic approach, not just looking at nutrition in isolation but helps clients to look at the wider issues too. Many of Priya’s clients have worked with the NHS and need further support or have not met the criteria for NHS input. If you do not think you have an eating disorder but know your approach to food is not as it should be, then get in touch. Working as part of a team of specialists Priya can recommend a therapist for you to work with or can liase and work with your current therapy team as well as your GP. She works with the Wings Eating Disorders Unit in Romsey and also as part of the Marchwood Priory team. If you need help getting your eating back on track Priya is here to help with education, meal planning, practical help, support and an understanding ear.

Weaning Consultations

One of Priya’s specialist and much loved areas – book a weaning consultation for advice, recipes, top tips and support to help you get your baby off to a wonderful start with food. Having weaned 3 children herself Priya has first hand experience as well as the evidence case and the research to support her advice. If you are struggling with fussy eating Priya can also help with this. Family meal planning and suppoprt can also be supported.

IBS:

Priya can help with advice and support for those with IBS, this includes the low FODMAP diet which is a specialist diet that should be followed under dietetic supervision.

Other consultations topics Priya can help with include:  Chronic Fatigue, Learning Disabilities, Family Meals,  Anaemia, Osteoporosis, brain injury and achieving a healthy balanced diet. If you have another dietary issues please do contact Priya to discuss. If Priya is not able to help she can help point you to someone who can.

Some private medical insurance companies cover dietetic consultations, please check with your insurer. Priya is registered with AXA, AVIVA, WPA, BUPA, Exeter Family, Allianz and Pru Health.

Testimonial:

“The support Priya provided to help me gain weight and overcome an eating disorder was above and beyond what I would expect from a dietician. We met regularly and she never failed to surprise me with creative and interesting ideas to introduce variety into my diet and ensure that the weight gain process was as exciting and smooth as it could be. She encouraged me to face my eating disorder head on and used her incredibly extensive and detailed knowledge on nutrition to challenge disordered thinking. Her holistic approach has been so integral to my recovery that I cannot thank her more! I’d recommend working with Priya to anyone, as her caring, enthusiastic and creative approach is something you don’t find easily.” 
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Who is Priya?

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Priya is a dietitian, mum of 3 and Pilates teacher with a wealth of experience. She has worked in the NHS, in private practice, with the media, writing articles, with food brands and businesses.  Qualified in 2005 she had an unusual start to her career as she couldn’t get a NHS job. As often happens this turned out to be the push into freelance work she needed. She also runs a thriving pilates studio in Southampton and has her own range of Pilates DVDs. 

So what  is she passionate about?

Breaking down the science into realistic, everyday tips, recipes and knowledge bombs that you can take away and use straight away.

Getting the right nutrition information out there. There is so much rubbish on the internet and it can be so hard to know what to believe. We need the experts giving the correct evidence.

Cooking healthy, balanced meals. Being a mum of 3 means she totally understand the trials and tribulations family life entails. Being able to throw together some simple ingredients to make a meal that is tasty and nutritious is so important. Priya cooks as much as she can from scratch, but it has to fast and easy to do.

Getting the children cooking too and teaching them about how to eat, how to listen to their bodies and how fun it is to be active too.

Teaching people to eat intuitively. Tuning back into hunger, fullness and what to eat, when. It isn’t a quick journey but it is well worth it.

Working on a 1-1 basis with those who are struggling with an eating disorder, chronic fatigue or IBS. Priya also offers advice on pregnancy nutrition, weaning and feeding your family.

If you need any help as an individual do see my consultations page or drop me an email: priya@dietitianuk.co.uk or if you are a food brand/PR/Media team see some of my other work here and do also get in touch and I’d be delighted to help.

 

Dairy Free, Family Meals, Gluten Free, Media, Recipes, Special Diets, Wheat Free

Eat Well for Less: Ham and Cheese Bites

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Everyone is always after quick, nutritious, filling snacks. So this one shared on Eat Well for Less ticks all those boxes. 

If you want to give these a go here is the recipe, you can totally make this your own, add your favourite herbs, veggies etc. These are gluten free, dairy free (if you use dairy free cheese) and nut free.

These freeze well or keep them in the fridge for 3 days. I think they are fab for packed lunches.

Don’t forget to watch the rest of the series – BBC1 Thursdays 8pm. Or get it on BBC Iplayer.

Ham and Cheese Quinoa Bites
Yields 12
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Prep Time
15 min
Cook Time
20 min
Prep Time
15 min
Cook Time
20 min
159 calories
13 g
111 g
7 g
11 g
3 g
144 g
188 g
2 g
0 g
3 g
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size
144g
Yields
12
Amount Per Serving
Calories 159
Calories from Fat 63
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 7g
11%
Saturated Fat 3g
16%
Trans Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1g
Monounsaturated Fat 2g
Cholesterol 111mg
37%
Sodium 188mg
8%
Total Carbohydrates 13g
4%
Dietary Fiber 2g
8%
Sugars 2g
Protein 11g
Vitamin A
16%
Vitamin C
16%
Calcium
11%
Iron
9%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your Daily Values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
Does this look wrong?
Ingredients
  1. 180g quinoa, cooked in water and left to cool
  2. 6 spring onions, chopped
  3. 6 tomatoes, chopped
  4. 6 eggs
  5. 1 tsp mustard powder
  6. 120g ham, chopped
  7. 120g grated cheese
Instructions
  1. Cook the quinoa and set aside to cool.
  2. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6.
  3. Chop the veggies, ham and grate the cheese
  4. Break the eggs into a bowl, beat.
  5. Mix all ingredients together and stir well.
  6. Grease a muffin tin.
  7. Spoon the mix in then heap it up on the top, making mountains.
  8. Cook for 20 minutes.
beta
calories
159
fat
7g
protein
11g
carbs
13g
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Dietitian UK https://www.dietitianuk.co.uk/

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Dietitian Advice, Kids Nutrition, Nutrition Education

Childrens Yoghurts – how to choose a good one

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Yoghurt is one of those confusing foods. You want your children to be eating it and getting in their calcium, but so often yoghurts can be laden with sugar. Personally I encourage my children to eat yoghurt daily, it is our go-to dessert after our evening meal. To help you, I’ve come up with a ranking of children’s yoghurts and give my verdict on those to have in the fridge everyday and those to leave for occasional consumption.

Why the confusion? Well firstly the choice is overwhelming. Walk down the yoghurt aisle and you are bombarded with brands, health claims, cartoon characters, pots, tubs, pouches. What should you choose and how do you know?

Let’s talk about sugar. Yoghurt contains lactose which is a naturally occuring sugar and not one children need to cut down on. However you cannot easily differentiate between these sugars and the added free sugars. A general rule of thumb is the first 5g per 100g of total sugars is lactose. The sugars to keep an eye on are the free sugars. These are any sugars added to food/drink. These could be written as sugar, honey, syrup, agave, fruit juice for example. If you look at a yoghurt label and it is 8.5g total sugars then you can estimate about 5g is lactose and so 3.5g is added sugars.

In this blog we are focusing on children. Children aged 4-6 should have no more than 19g free sugars a day and 7-10yrs no more than 24g free sugars a day. For children under 4 yrs there is no guideline figure, it’s just keeping added sugar low and avoiding it where possible.

Labelling reading:

You can rank a food as high/low in total sugar using this guide:

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So in the instance of Full Fat Greek Yoghurt you can see that there are actually no added sugars in this. The sugar in it is all coming from the lactose and there is no sugar mentioned in the ingredients list confirming our thoughts. 

Compared it to this children’s yoghurt which definitely has added sugar. The label shows it as 13.2g total sugars per 100g, so thats around 8.2g added sugars (almost half the recommended amount for a child aged 4-7yrs). The label confirms this showing is has added sugar and the raspberry juice is also added sugar.

So it definitely pays to look at the label when buying yoghurts. If you are comparing several yoghurts it is best to compare them per 100g, Scroll down to see a table with a range of common children’s yoghurt in that have the sugar content per 100g with a quick ranking  done for you.

My Top Picks:

  1. Greek Style Yoghurts or Greek Yoghurt. For growing children I would always pick a full fat option, I eat the full fat version myself in fact. It may seem boring compared to other choices but you can add your own toppings at home – low sugar granola, dried fruit, fresh fruit, nuts, seeds, frozen berries,
  2. Natural Yoghurt is also a winner.
  3. Skyr is a low sugar yoghurt due to the way it is made, even the flavoured ones are low in sugar so these are good options if you want a flavoured yoghurt.

The Worst Offenders:

 Anything with chocolate, added crunch, pureed fruit and most of the squeezy pouches. This of course does not meant you cannot ever give these to your children but it is about the balance. I’m not in favour of cutting foods out or saying a blanket no. However I would recommend keeping these yoghurts as occasional choices. Think about where else they get added sugars from in their diet? Also check the portion size as some of these products are very large portions and you could halve them, thus halving the sugar too. In our house we keep diferent yoghurts as an occasional change or we mix our yoghurt and add something sweeter to the Greek yoghurt. 

NamePortion Size in grams (g)Sugarsper 100g in grams (g)Ranking 1(best)-5(worst)
Greek Yoghurt

100

5.4

1

Yeo Valley Natural Yoghurt

150

5.6

1

Arla Natural Skyr Yoghurt

150

4

1

Petits Filous My First Vanilla Fromage Frais

47

4.8

1

Arla Raspberry Skyr Yoghurt

150

8.3

2

Petits Filous Organic Variety Fromage Frais

50

8.8

2

Tesco Strawberry Yogurt Drink

100

9.1

2

Petits Filous Strawberry Raspberry Fromage Frais

85

9.9g

2

Peppa Pig Strawberry Fromage Frais

45

10

2

Paw Patrol Strawberry Fromage Frais

45

9.9

2

Petits Filous Magic Squares Raspberry Vanilla Yogurt

80

10.8

2

Frubes Variety Yogurt Pack

40

10.9

2

Munch Bunch Fruit Fromage Frais

42

12.7

3

Wildlife Choobs Strawberry Raspberry And Apricot Yogurt

40

12.8

3

Munch Bunch Squashums Limited Edition

60

12.1

3

Petits Filous Strawberry Raspberry Yogurt

100

12.2

3

Munch Bunch Squashum Strawberry Yogurt Drink

90

12.7

3

Actimel Multifruit Yogurt Drink

100

12.2

3

Munch Bunch Double Strawberry Raspberry Yogurt

85

12.5

3

Munch Bunch Double Up Strawberry Vanilla Yogurt

85

12.5

3

Frubes Strawberry And Raspberry Yogurt Pouches

70

13.2

4

Star Wars Strawberry Raspberry Yogurt Pouch

70

13.2

4

Smarties Split Pot Yogurt

120

15

4

Muller Corner Banana Yogurt Crunch Yogurt

135

16.7

5

Muller Corner Strawberry Crunch Yogurt

135

17.1

5

Muller Corner Vanilla Chocolate Balls Yogurt

135

17.7

5

Muller Corner Toffee Chocolate Hoops Yogurt

135

18.4

5

Milkybar Little Treats

60

21.1

5

Nestle Rolo Dessert

70

25.4

5

Cadbury Dairy Milk Pots Of Joy Caramel Dessert

70

26

5

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Social Media for HCP's

The truth about what dietitians do

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Being a dietitian is for me an amazing job, however it is also a very misunderstood job. With the rise of nutrition bloggers, wellness experts and a range of questionable nutrition courses springing up,  I guess the new kid on the block is always the most exciting. 

With it being Dietitians Week this week I thought it was a good time to remember what the heck dietitian’s actually do!

1.  Dietitians are evidenced based and have a legally protected title. So any old Joe Bloggs can’t set themselves up as a dietitian. They have to keep up to date in their specialist areas and do so many hours of continuing professional development every month. This is assessed by the HCPC (Health care professions council) and we can be struck off the register for malpractice. You can check if your dietitian is registered here.

2. It is a minimum of 3 years of training to be a dietitian, this includes biochemistry, physiology, nutrition, research skills and so much more. There are clinical placements where you work in a hospital/dietitian setting to really put things into practise. This means by the time a dietitian is qualified they have already been working and know their stuff. The way this differs to a registered nutritionist (also the good guys, I started out in nutrition myself!) is by the clinical work, the knowledge of disease states. 

3. Yes some dietitians work in hospitals or within the NHS, however many also work in other areas. This could be with the food industry, with councils, with food brands, in the media or in private practice.

4. It’s very much a food first approach and not all about supplements and selling products. You won’t find many dietitians pushing you to buy from them in a clinic setting.  In fact most of us are not that business savvy but are focused on the people/area we work for.

5. People focused is how most dietitians are. It is a very caring profession, a profession who really wants to help others, to get the right information out there and who work hard. All the ones I have met are always a lovely bunch of people who you actually want to spend time with. 

Look out for my post later this week on great dietitians to follow! 

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Media

Diet Secrets – TV appearance clip Jan 2018.

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When I was asked if I would take part in a documentary style show that was about myth busting and presenting the science behind dieting  I knew this was something I needed to get involved in. 

The show was of course a little controversial (or it wouldn’t make good TV) and I hadn’t realised celebs would be put on diets as part of it… but it made interesting viewing and had a great team of experts speaking. I love the fact that more and more times there are fully qualified, sensible talking actual experts talking about nutrition in the media.  More please! In fact I was working on a shoot recently and the food stylist was telling me about her time working with Gillian McKeith a few years ago and how times have changed so much since then.  A lot more credibility is now needed for most media outlets.

So here are some snippets of my on camera parts for the show, I hope you like it! A great facial expression to start 😉

 

 

Dairy Free, Dietitian Advice, Gluten Free, Nutrition Education, Snacks, Special Diets, Vegetarian, Wheat Free

Make your own healthy “graze” snack boxes

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So snacking, it’s one of those things I definitely do. I tend to eat my 3 meals and at least 2 snacks a day. Which means my snacks need to be healthy, well most of them! Currently I am breastfeeding which makes me quite hungry at times. It is those moments when I have children clamouring for me, a baby wanting to feed and I know I need to eat that I need a ready to grab and go snack. That moment when it could be biscuits. Although I do eat my share of those too, I’ve recently discovered a wheat free dark chocolate and stem ginger cookie… dangerously nice. So to keep me on the straight and narrow I’ve started making snack boxes. This is something I often recommed to clients and many find them so useful. You can literally make a pile up for the week and take one to work each day, keep them in your bag or just on the worktop if you are at home.

Here are some of my favourite combos:

Cranberry.almond.choc
15g Dried cranberries, 15 almonds and 10g dark chocolate

 

Pecan,apple.edam
15g pecans, 15g dried apple, 1 tbsp dried edamame beans

 

Cashew.mango
15g cashews, 15g dried mango, 1 tsp mixed seeds

 

Brazil.apricot
5 brazil nuts, 3 dried apricots, 1 tsp mixed seeds

Here is me trying out Facebook Live and showing off my not so great phone video skills:

Love to hear your healthy snack box combos. Leave me a message/comment so I can steal your ideas too 😉

I tend to buy my nuts and dried fruit in bulk online (it is cheaper per kg but costs a bit up front) and I store a supply in the cupboard and a supply in glass jars on my shelf. Which looks pretty and also means we all see them and are more likely to eat them instead of reaching into the biscuit tin. 

“Keep healthy food – In plain sight so it is in your mind to eat it”

A good example of this is my toddler boy who often asks for “prawns” and points at the jars… he means prunes! 

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Video

Priya stars on BBC1’s Food Truth or Scare.

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So if you weren’t watching BBC1 on Thurs 25th Feb at 9.15am then where were you? 

Oh yes, probably at work or out living life 😉

Well you missed watching me talking about red meat with Chris Bavin on the TV…. but don’t worry because if you are in the UK you can watch it back for the next 28 days or so. So get on over to BBC iplayer and check it out.

Dietitian UK : Food truth or scare 2

 

Dietitian UK: Food truth or scare 1

I would love to know your thoughts so please do leave me a comment.

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Video

Priya talks about heart health on Sky News.

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The other week I had a lot of fun taking part in a media interview day for a fruit juice  called Sirco. These guys have made a drink that contains tomato extracts with a health claim of it helping aid blood circulation and so it could reduce the risk of heart disease.

I love media work. You have to be on your toes, ready to answer the unknown questions and able to adapt your thinking and words. I find it exciting, full of energy and a great way to get health messages out to a large audience.

So if you missed my moment of fame, here is the clip. I’m talking with TV presenter Anna Williamson (who is lovely). The 2 of us spent the day hanging out, chatting a lot and doing media interviews in a tag-team style.

Then I got to chill for an hour on the train and eat a yummy lunch…. in peace. What more could I want from a days work?

 

Disclaimer: this interview was part of paid work conducted for SIRCO, a fruit juice drink with an EFSA health claim for heart health.