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Easy tips for mindful snacking

As a dietitian, my role is to help patients maintain a healthy lifestyle every day by focusing on these three things: exercise, eating a balanced diet and maintaining a healthy weight. If your snacking habits are not as healthy as they once were, here are some things to remember when snacking: Plan your approach and stock your pantry. Determining your game plan for what and when to eat is important. The first step is to examine your thoughts. Think and plan — don’t react. A game plan will help you stick with healthy habits — or return to them if…
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Healthy Fast Food Options to Eat on the Road

Fast food should never be your go-to for every meal. But life gets busy and, sometimes, when you’re on the road, you have to choose convenience over a home-cooked meal. Thankfully, there are relatively healthy fast food options. Over the past decade, there’s been a shift in the industry to provide healthy fast food options. Rather than strictly opting for among fried fare, chains are lightening up classic offerings and concocting entirely new items with fewer calories, fat and carbs. A general rule of thumb for eating healthy on the road is to watch your portion sizes. Avoid high-fat items,…
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‘I’m an Endocrinologist and This Is My Go-To Meal for Weight Loss’

Losing weight in a healthy, manageable way is never easy and, unfortunately, it gets even more difficult as we age—especially for women. As you might imagine, this is partially due to hormonal changes. “Women lose estrogen as they age, and that makes it harder to lose weight,” explains Dr. Vidhya Illuri, M.Dan endocrinologist at Complete Medicine. Dr. Illuri says that for anyone who has a health goal of weight loss, diet plays a major role. There’s one meal in particular that she herself loves that falls right within the guidelines of how she tells her patients with this health goal…
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Healthy food increasingly out of reach for the Island’s poorest

Report highlights high cost of housing and food; lower-income people are forced to make difficult choices Healthy food is becoming increasingly out of reach for low-income families on Vancouver Island, a new report says. Grocery costs for a family of four on a nutritious diet costs $1,366 on average per month in the Island Health region, a BC Center for Disease Control report says. Those in the North Island health region, which includes the Sunshine Coast, were found to pay $1,370 on average, while families in Central Vancouver Island and South Vancouver Island paid an average of $1,343 and $1,386…
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The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Prioritizes Improved Access to Healthy Food Through Food System Transformation Initiatives

Today, the Provincial Government is announcing support of approximately $386,000 to Food First NL. This one-time funding will support Food System Transformation initiatives and advance collaborative efforts through four interrelated community food projects, and will open up opportunities for future investments from national partners. These community food projects include: Great Things in Store: Working with a cohort of eight food retailers across the province to develop and pilot partnerships and programs that improve food access for lower-income Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. Rethinking Food Charity: Supporting the implementation of recommendations developed through a year-long consultation process that engaged people with a lived…
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This Is the #1 Worst Food for Visceral Fat, According to Registered Dietitians

Even the healthiest people have visceral fat, which is the belly fat deep within the abdominal cavity surrounding vital organs—including the stomach, liver and intestines. While some levels of the fat help protect your organs, excess visceral fat can be harmful to them, eventually leading to various health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, stroke or fatty liver disease, explains Kayla Kopp, RD, Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Human Nutrition. What Is Visceral Fat and How Does it Form? “Visceral fat is any excess belly fat that forms deep inside your abdomen,” explains Kopp. The other type of fat, subcutaneous, is the…
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The Jungle Farm helps the community plant, grow and eat healthy food

Who better to lead these children’s activities than future public school teachers, say Jungle Farm officials. Nicole Homan and Therese Rolheiser are both working towards their teaching degrees and are spending their summer doing what they love best – working with kids. “I knew in Kindergarten that I wanted to be a teacher, because I love kids and working with people – and teaching checks all those boxes,” said Homan, who will be going into her third year of the Bachelor of Education program at Red Deer Polytechnic. “I’m from a family of teachers who also love the garden, so…
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Eight simple ways to eat healthy without blowing your food budget

Beating inflation doesn’t have to mean sacrificing good nutrition, says expert. Inflation is biting into the average shopper’s food budget, but there are ways to still keep good nutrition on the table, says a University of Alberta expert. Basic cooking skills, combined with a dash of careful planning, can help ease the price Canadians are going to pay in 2023 for groceries, says registered dietitian Heidi Bates. “We have the ability to be savvy shoppers, to plan differently and to do more food preparation ourselves to offset inflation and still eat really well,” said Bates. Despite sky-high prices, fruit, vegetables,…