TINA'S TOP TEN NUTRITION HABITS FOR GOOD HEALTH
Once you’ve reviewed whether your current nutrition habits are working for you (see previous list), you might wonder where to begin to improve your eating habits to help you achieve those goals. Here are some additional guidelines for how to do that:
Ensure sufficient protein. On the lower end, aim for 1.2 g/kg if you are an omnivore, and 1.6 g/kg if you are a strict plant based eater. This ensures adequate support of muscle and bone health and goes a long way to improving satiety.
Ensure more of your carbs are whole grain products. Refined carbs have less nutrients and fiber than their whole grain counterparts. Start swapping carbs for whole food, whole grain alternatives more often.
Limit fats to 3-5 servings per day aiming for more omega-3’s. Most fats should come from mono and polyunsaturated sources. The best source of Omega-3s are oily fishes. Aim for 2-3 servings per week.
Eat your veggies! Veggies are a major source of micronutrients, fiber and hydration in your diet. Aim for a minimum of 5 servings per day. Note: 1 serving is roughly the size of your fist.
Limit snacks. Snacking may be necessary after a workout (add a protein source), or when the time between meals is greater than 4 hours. Requirements for snacks due to true hunger outside of these situations necessitates a look at the preceding meals for quality and quantity.
Avoid eating after dinner. There should ideally be 3 hours between your last meal and bedtime. If you are up late, see the next habit.
Go to bed earlier. This may be a surprising thing to put into a list of nutrition habits but studies have proven that people who are sleep deprived eat more calories (subconsciously) than those who are better rested. Since most of us have to get up to go to work, the best bet to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep is to move bedtime backward. Sleeping in on weekends contributes to an inability to fall asleep early during the workweek. Stick with the same sleep schedule 7 days a week barring occasional exceptions,
Eat out less often. Restaurant food is typically more calorie dense than wholesome home-cooked meals. When eating out, be aware of this and order less, or eat less and take the rest home.
Avoid ultraprocessed foods. This is stuff that is prepackaged, salted, sugary, oily and hard not to overeat. Anything that is convenient often falls in this category.
Eat on some semblance of a regular schedule. This will go a long way to help regulate what you eat (since people who eat regularly are more likely to have a planned meal, eat more slowly and less rushed) but also how much you eat since your appetite regulation will be better overall.
If, in reading this list, you feel more confused, you could likely benefit from a consultation with a registered dietician to help improve your knowledge of nutrition.
TINA’S TOP TEN SIGNS THAT YOUR NUTRITION HABITS ARE WORKING FOR YOU
The first thing I want you to notice is that I didn’t call it Tina’s Top Ten Tips for Losing Weight, or Gaining Muscle, or “Beating Menopause” (BTW you aren’t in a fight with your own body). These kinds of lists are full of generic rules and following food rules is the fastest path to disordered eating that I know. Instead, this Top Ten takes a different approach that asks you to consider whether your nutritional habits are actually working for YOU. That is because nutrition is highly personal: what, when and how much you eat depends on a whole bunch of individual factors including, but not limited to: your current body composition (body fat percentage, muscle mass), your personal goals (eg. fat loss, muscle gain), your current state of health and any chronic health conditions, your age and stage of life (eg. puberty, pregnancy, older age), amount and type of regular physical activity, sociocultural influences, upbringing and attitudes around food and your body (including a history of eating disorders), dietary allergies and intolerances and on and on and on. So to watch the world of health “influencers” try to tell people the “do’s” and “don’ts” of eating for good health is simply absurd. Instead, my top ten is a chance for everyone, regardless of their dietary needs and preferences, to objectively examine their own eating habits by asking themselves key questions about whether or not their past and current dietary habits are really working for them.
In order to approach nutrition this way, women must really be willing to see themselves through an objective lens. This is really tough because it’s often the silent job of our brains to subconsciously convince ourselves that what we feel comfortable with is the truth. And when we are faced with our own behaviours - eating included - it’s usually much easier to find evidence that supports what we are currently doing. This is a big reason why there is so much hot debate, controversy and lack of consensus in this area: you can find evidence of almost anything in nutrition research if you look for it. That is the nature of nutritional studies: they’re generally done on free-living humans and often rely on self-reported data with relatively short follow-up periods. Inherently, this leads to lower quality research than something like a randomized, placebo controlled drug intervention study. So really, between the tremendous individuality of “best practices” in good nutrition along with the inherent ‘messiness’ of nutrition research, capped off with a frustrated, disillusioned and confused population of people trending more and more toward ill-health from overweight and obesity: you have the perfect storm for nutritional dogmatism. But here’s the great news: starting RIGHT NOW, TODAY, you can simplify your life and start eating in a way that supports your personal health if you are ready to really embrace my top ten list of things that will get you there.
So without further ado, here’s the checklist of things to ask yourself in order to consider whether your current nutritional habits are working for you:
You have a healthy body composition. This means that you have sufficient muscle and not too much body fat. Insufficient muscle mass leads to frailty, lack of functional strength, low bone mass and risk of falls and fragility fractures as well as a reduction in your insulin sensitivity (which predisposes to fat gain and metabolic disease). Meanwhile, too much body fat is associated with an elevated risk of many diseases including cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and multiple cancers. It is important to understand whether your current body composition predisposes you to an increased risk of disease as this necessitates attention to your current eating habits. Eating sufficient protein (along with resistance training) and reducing total energy intake will help improve your body composition for better health.
You have good appetite regulation. A healthy way of eating manages appetite such that you aren’t swinging between extremes. Eating on some semblance of a regular schedule goes a very long way toward naturally regulating appetite and satiety and thus managing intake to match your body’s true energy needs.
You have good energy. This is tricky since energy relates to sleep, stress, exercise patterns etc, and not entirely on food. But assuming you’re reasonably well rested and not in an unusual state of stress, your baseline energy can relate to nutritional habits that keep you hydrated and avoids wide blood sugar swings which can lead to energy “crashes”.
You don’t consider food and alcohol as rewards or coping mechanisms for stress. We likely grew up being told that if we were “good” we’d earn a treat. We are socialized to drink alcohol to deal with stress. The messages surrounding food as coping mechanisms are abundant and we absorb these constantly. (Next time you watch a Netflix show, count the instances in which the protagonists pours herself a stiff drink when times get crazy). The more we shift our lens toward enjoying these indulgences as occasional means of celebration and shroud them in positivity, the healthier our consumption patterns tend to be.
You don’t suffer from persistent food cravings. Food cravings are characterized by a strong desire to have specific (typically less nutritious) foods and are very different from true hunger. If you are unsure of the difference, this can be an area to discuss with a trusted professional. Good nutrition habits help keep cravings at bay.
You aren’t overly dogmatic or ideological about your nutrition. These days, it seems that people assign themselves to a “camp” and eat according to a set of ideological principles that becomes akin to religion. If you are moralizing food (you are a better person, or better than other people, because of how you eat) this applies to you. Good nutrition involves keeping an open mind so that you can benefit from potential ways of changing your nutritional habits for the improvement of your own health.
You aren’t constantly thinking about food. We need to plan well to eat well. But if this planning takes on a degree of obsession, whereby the minute you finish one meal, you are already thinking about the next time you might eat, you are becoming overly focused on food to a degree that reflects food anxiety.
You are focused on your eating habits not food rules. How often have I seen someone refuse cake at a party for the sake of wanting to lose weight? Too many to count! This is usually a reflection of someone deciding that cake is an off-limits food, instead of asking the more relevant question: do I eat cake as a matter of habit? Distinguishing occasions from habits is a critical distinction when it comes to managing your indulgences, whether they be desserts, cocktails or junk food. If the consumption is routine and is associated with regular activities in your life, it’s worth considering how to change that. Your habits are impactful, occasional events are not.
You don’t feel guilty about your eating habits. Food guilt suggests that you need to work on your mindset and the psychology of healthy eating. It isn’t “normal” to routinely feel guilty about eating, even if social messaging suggests that it is. This usually stems from longstanding beliefs about good and bad food and relates to #6 - having strongly held food ideologies.
You look forward to, and enjoy, your meals. Meals are a celebration of health. A chance to nourish your body but also to share in the enjoyment of eating with loved ones. When viewed this way, as in many European cultures, meals tend to be eaten more slowly and savoured - as they should be. As opposed to the North American fast paced, guilt and shame-ridden eating that happens when no one is looking. This isn’t good nutrition.
If you can tick off each of these, congratulations, you are truly ahead of the game with eating for good physical and mental health. If, on the other hand, you see areas requiring work then consult a trusted professional whose approaches align with the principles above.
Tina’s Top Ten Tips for Finding Reliable Health Information Online
In this day and age of information overload, it’s really hard not to get caught up in confusion about what is accurate health information. So here I lay out some guidelines to help you decide whether the content you are consuming meets the mark when it comes to scientific credibility.
Check credentials. Many “health experts” are just people with an online certificate in a field of human health eg. “Menopausal Specialist”. Certified Personal Trainers are not the same thing as Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialists. Nutrition experts are generally people with an actual post-graduate degree in Nutrition Science, Metabolism and Physiology, and are educated in understanding and interpreting scientific literature. Holistic Nutritionists, Nutrition Coaches are NOT trained to do this. Not all MD’s are reliable either: they know clinical medicine but unless they do primary research AND have publications in reputable, peer-reviewed journals, then they ARE NOT EXPERTS.
Be skeptical of radical, absolute and/or polarizing claims. If the health advice sounds absolute (this is the “best” way, the “only way” etc), overly complicated or departs from what mainstream scientific scholars in the field are saying: be wary. People are doing their job to make a living and the more attention they get, the more money they make. So being different, being opposed to the common wisdom or claiming that something new-fangled is your golden ticket, it's often just great marketing.
Listen to people who sound less pontific and more uncertain. If someone is standing on a pulpit of truth, telling you that everyone else has been wrong and they are telling you they have the “solution”, they are a fake. Real scientists understand and speak of the inherent uncertainty of science. It’s always evolving and requires an inquisitive and open mind. Listen to experts who describe the uncertainties and nuances of a given question, not the fakes who pretend things are black and white, because they NEVER are.
Don’t base your trust in an expert on the fact that they have a large social media following. The number of followers a person has is largely a reflection of their time, energy and talents for creating sizzly and attractive posts. Real scientists have better things to do.
Just because someone wrote a book (or many) doesn’t make them an expert! This tip is often shocking to people. But anyone can publish a book. The process of writing, editing and publishing a book has more to do with time and money than expertise. It has NOTHING to do with the rigorous application of scientific knowledge and process and is not peer-reviewed. Getting published in a REPUTABLE journal is the gold standard for reliable scientific content.
Their advice should stem from a large consensus of scientific work, not a single research paper. Single studies can be published to show results but their “power” is very weak unless they are huge, rigorous multicentre studies. Meta-analyses are more powerful data than even a collection of single studies. Even if you don’t know the difference, you should be very skeptical of someone generalizing health advice on the basis of a single small study. This is commonly done by news media outlets. They sensationalize studies. Eg. the study on blending fruit in smoothies as being a bad idea (I wrote about this a while ago). You can do a study to “prove” almost anything you want if you set it up the right way. This is why consensus and peer-reviewed data is so important.
Don’t trust anyone who can’t or won’t cite their sources.
Curate a very short list of people you trust in any given field. Avoid clicking on everything you see. Go ask your trusted experts when you have a specific question that falls in their area of expertise: see what they say. Eg. a menopausal “expert” is selling tickets to a weekend of info on eating to “fix” menopause. Don’t buy a ticket unless Jen Gunter is there. She is a go-to world expert in this field. A holistic nutritionist and menopausal specialist is NOT. Instead of paying for that ticket and wasting all that time: go to Jen Gunter’s website and google any TED talks she may have done on the subject.
Generally speaking, don’t get your information off of social media. This also means NOT clicking on health claim posts. Start cleaning up your social media: unfollow, block and hide content that is clearly just selling you health misinformation.
Trust your gut. Common sense and your instincts go a really long way to guiding you in the right direction. These instincts will be off during times of health panic! Recognize when you are spiralling: you are fed up, tired and impatient for results. These are times when you are vulnerable to believing fake health claims. Stay the course, calm down, trust the process and TAKE YOUR TIME. The idea that great health can be siphoned down to a hack or some quasi-magical new-fangled idea is just preying on your impatience to fix things that are usually just down to good old common sense stuff that your grandma always told you was good for you. Just remember: we haven't gotten healthier since the advent of widespread communications and media so ......
Tina’s Top Ten Tips for Exercise Consistency.
This is the first of a series of short write-ups highlighting my top ten tips for a given health habit or exercise. Consistency is the first topic because it’s the most important aspect of your workouts: not the type, timing or intensity. Without consistency, any progress will be limited at best, and non-existent at worst. So if you are serious about getting meaningfully fitter or developing muscle and strength, you must first work on your consistency over LONG periods of time (eg. a year). So here is my top ten list of things you should do to help you become more consistent with exercise:
Schedule your workouts. Put them into your calendar and treat them like appointments. Schedule them as recurring events - not just one-offs or week-by-week. When you look ahead to your week, you are permitted to reschedule if necessary but not to skip them.
Do timed workouts. Decide how much time you have for your workouts and just do as much as you can within that time frame, as opposed to worrying about workout completion (as written on spreadsheet).
Be realistic about your time. Don’t schedule workouts for an hour in the early morning if you have never been a morning person. If you never know what time you will finish work, avoid scheduling workouts at the end of the work day. You need to be honest with yourself about what will work best for you.
Don’t make the workouts conditional. You will always take the opt-out if you believe you have one. “I will do my workout, IF I wake up early”. “I’ll do my workout IF I finish work on time”. “I’ll do my workout IF the weather permits”. These are statements that reinforce the optional nature of your workouts. They cannot be optional in your mind. Replace these statements with “I will workout when I’m done work” “I will workout once the kids are in bed”.
Establish more routine to the workouts. Having workouts appear in random places where you can jam them in is not likely to help you stick to them. Decision fatigue and incidental events are more likely to derail you if this is how you “plan” to workout. If you know you always work out before work, then you will eventually stop thinking you can do other things during that time. If you don’t have any routines, your brain is constantly working hard to fit your exercise time into your day. This adds to decision fatigue.
Try morning workouts to every extent possible. End of day workouts tend to be much more problematic: psychologically it lowers the priority of exercise because you are telling yourself it’s only something you have time to do once everything else in your day is done, and secondly, everyone runs out of time during the day and the last things on your to-do list are always the least likely to get done. Morning workouts leave much less room for distraction. If you can make them work for you, do it.
Make your workouts more convenient. This is part of being realistic about what works for you, for right now in your life. Don’t plan to get to the gym if getting there is intimidating and time-consuming. Try something at home for a while instead. Or choose a gym that is en route to work. Use the gym AT work if there is one. Workout with a band and no equipment if that is what will get this done.
Meet a friend. If possible, exercise with a partner who will help you stay accountable.
Track your progress. Keep some kind of training log. Even if it’s just tick marks on a calendar. Seeing evidence of success is very motivating.
Stop the emotional overlay. Your feelings about getting the workout done are to be ignored. Full stop. When you start the business of “I’m too tired” “I’m too busy”, “It is so hard”, “I don’t want to push today”, it’s useless disruptive thinking. Just get on with the task and ignore the inner voice. You never regret a workout.
Do I need a personalized strength training program?
It all begins with an idea.
This is a question I get asked frequently as a personal trainer. My answer may surprise you.
But first I’d like to make an important distinction that I think is relevant to start the conversation. Training is different from exercise. All training is exercise but not all exercise is training. Exercise is any movement that elevates the heart rate and works the muscles. Regular exercise is critical for good health and great for building general fitness. Examples include fitness class, bootcamps and follow-along videos such as Fitness Blender. Each exercise session isn’t necessarily connected to the previous or subsequent sessions. Training, on the other hand, is a structured series of exercise sessions that progress toward a specific fitness adaptation such as increased strength or muscle mass. A training plan can be generic or personalized. Generic training programs can be purchased from a coach or personal trainer, but in order to be personalized, a trainer or coach would have to perform an individual history and physical assessment prior to writing the program and no two programs are alike.
So now back to the question at hand: who really needs a personalized training plan? I think there is a widespread notion that a personalized training plan is universally “better” than a generic one. However, most people, especially beginners, would do just as well with a properly designed generic program. This is because the most important ingredients for making initial gains in muscle mass and strength aren’t in the nuances of the training program itself but rather relate to 2 critical, and often overlooked, training principles. Those principles are 1. long term consistency and 2. progressive overload. Let’s look at each of these things in turn, and finish with who might need special considerations.
Consistency
The single greatest determinant of progress in training is consistency over time. The body adapts from repeated exposure to a training stimulus. If the gap between training sessions is too great, no adaptations are accrued (and the risk of injury is high). See Figure 1 for a schematic representation of how the body adapts to successive stressors. In Figure 1A you see improvements in performance over time, while in Figure 1B there is no cumulative impact from the sporadic or infrequent exposure to the stressor. In this case performance is an improvement in strength or an increase in muscle mass and the stressor is a single workout. The best program applied inconsistently (Fig 1B) will always be inferior to a good program applied consistently (Fig 1A). Stated differently, without consistency, the program details are irrelevant. When training is paused for a period of time - even 1 month - the majority of improvements in performance are lost. So finding a way to stick with something, even when life gets chaotic (which it always does) is the single most important determinant of progress.
Figure 1A
Figure 1B
Progressive Overload
This is a concept that relates to how strength and muscle are built. Quite simply, the principle is that in order to get stronger and build muscle you must gradually increase the amount of weight you lift. Sticking with the same weights, sets and reps every time you workout won’t require your body to adapt to anything more. Adhering to a program for several weeks while gradually increasing the load (weight) and volume of work (set and/or reps) is necessary. Meanwhile, many people’s “training” consists of varied workouts that change from one session to the next, for the sake of novelty. This is good for engaging people in general fitness for health but not the correct strategy for gaining muscle and strength. Once a plateau is inevitably reached with one program, continued progress requires a new program to which the body can adapt. Thus, a proper training plan to build muscle and strength should have “instructions” built in for progression within a single program, as well as an overarching structure of successive programs.
Once you have followed a training plan consistently for a long period of time, and build the requisite foundation of strength and muscle (and a good solid habit of heading to the gym), then a personalized approach may need to be the next step IF further goals are sought. Examples include advanced sports specific training, bodybuilding, competition lifting etc. If, on the other hand, the goal is to maintain general strength and muscle for health, simply repeating the training plan in an annual cycle may suffice.
The exceptions to this advice, and those for whom a personalized training plan might be important from the beginning, include those with physical limitations due to prior injury or due to specific health considerations including pregnancy and medical conditions. These populations require consultation from specialist trainers.
The take-away here is that the nuances of the program itself are much less important than seeking assistance to 1. stay consistent and 2. apply the principle of progressive overload to your training. The role of a personal trainer or strength coach in this regard is not to be underestimated. But eventually, the goal should be for the client to learn these principles and develop autonomy in order to establish a lifelong habit of lifting. Thus the goal of working with a fitness professional should be to learn how to be more autonomous in the gym.
My online strength training program Women Who Want Muscle (WWWM) was designed with education, accountability and support in mind. Afterall, self-sufficency is the foundation of lasting change.