Healthy Eating

M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Speaker: Danielle McGee, RD, LD
Duration: 0 / 12:17

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In our previous video, we discussed the goal of weight loss through a gradual calorie deficit. Now, let's look at a balanced way of eating. There are three ways to achieve a balance. First of all, it's important for you to know how many calories you need. Second, we want to try to create a calorie deficit. Third, we want to begin to expend energy. This is focusing on the concept that we want to take in less energy in the form of food then we expend in the form of physical activity. It's important to know “What is a calorie?” A calorie is technically the amount of heat it takes your body to raise the degree of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. In order to understand more of the specific concepts on creating a healthy balance, please see the handout titled Creating a Healthy Balance. Now, let's discuss how many calories you actually need. Contrary to popular opinion, it's not the same for every person. Calorie needs differ based on your age, your weight, your height and how active you are. So here, you'll see that there are two different formulas, one for females and one for males if you're ever interested in knowing how to calculate your energy needs. A dietitian or health professional can do this for you as well. You'll see that your weight is calculated in kilograms. Your height, here, is listed in centimeters, your age in years and then the activity factors which are included at the bottom of the slide. You know if you're sedentary, have a low activity level, a very active level, or a moderately active level and this is where you would include your activity factor. [Pause] This nutrition facts probably look familiar. You've seen it on every packaged item of food that you eat. First, you'll notice at the top there's serving size listed. Next, you'll see calories per serving. Then, you see the fat per serving, sodium per serving, protein per serving. You probably heard me mentioned one phrase over and over: per serving. Just because a nutrition label is included on a food item doesn't mean you get to eat the entire food item! Underneath serving size, do you see where it says servings per container? This is how many servings you should get out of one package of food. Also listed on the ingredients or on the nutrition facts label would be the ingredients list. This is where you can see added sugars, partially hydrogenated oils, fibers …and you can also view a more detailed list of this in the handout entitled Nutrition Label. Hopefully, you've met with your dietitian and she -- she or he-- has discussed keeping a food record. It's important to write down everything that you eat. You want to include your portion size and even the time that you eat your foods. This will help you to estimate calories. I always recommend that you write down your foods or beverages immediately after eating. If we wait until at end of the day, we tend to underestimate all of the food that we actually had at a meal. Hopefully, this will help you to become more aware of your eating habits and even help you identify your poor habits. This will also allow you to make adjustment to your meals. If you meet with a dietitian, bring your food records in so that you can review these things and ask for tips and suggestions. The handout Completing a Food Diary will help you see an example of this and also give you ways to measure your foods. Let's discuss portion control. A lot of us know what we should be eating. It's just a matter of finding out how much you should actually have. So listed here, you'll see different items of food and the actual portions that we should be eating. For example, pasta, rice and cereal: a half a cup is considered one serving. This looks like the palm of your hands. Meat, poultry and sea food would be about the size of a deck of cards which I’ve brought here. This is how much meat, poultry or sea food you should be eating. Seafood, you can typically have a little bit more. It turns out to look like a checkbook. Your dried beans, a half a cup, as it mentions, the size of your palm. Nuts- unfortunately nuts, only a fourth of a cup which is the size of a golf ball. Cheese: as it's listed, one and a half ounces. It should be the size of a die. Next are chopped vegetables: a serving is one half a cup. I never encourage people to limit the amount of fresh vegetables that they're eating. Raw leafy vegetables would be one cup. Once again, it's the size of your fist. Fresh fruit, a medium piece, size of a baseball and dried fruit: remember that golf ball? A fourth a cup. Additional serving sizes that you may want to remember visuals for: peanut butter, added fats, size of a matchbook or a small piece of chocolate candy. A slice of bread: a CD case and those pancakes and waffles that you really like to eat: unfortunately, only the size of a CD. [Pause] Let's move on to meal planning. We've all heard about the five major food groups. What we now want to do is personalize this to your way of eating. The two handouts entitled Creating a Personalized Nutrition Plan and also Menu Ideas will help you to see specific ways of applying these concepts and even focusing on getting your food groups in everyday. As I've discussed before, there are differences between servings and portions. A serving is what we're actually supposed to be eating while portions are the things we typically serve ourselves. If you're wondering how many servings you need a day and interested in finding out more about this, you can view mypyramid.gov on the internet. In general, aim for eating about 400 to 500 calories per meal and 100 to 200 calories per snack. The next few slides will review the five major food groups and the amounts of these food groups that you want to be having. Now after you've calculated your calorie range, you'll know your number. Here, you see listed the 1,100, 1,200… and so on calorie range and how many servings you would want to be having for each of these types of food. With grains, I always recommended at least half of your grains come from whole grains. These would be foods that have 100 percent whole wheat or whole grains listed on the ingredients lists. These are two examples of whole grains versus refined grains. Refined grains would be white flour, corn meal, white bread, white rice. These are more processed in our bodies and, unfortunately, are not the best options. Vegetables listed here [pause] are always going to be a good choice. Fill up your plate with fruits and vegetables. Here's a list of your dark green vegetables, your orange vegetables… also dried beans and peas which are great choices for increasing your fiber as well and other sources of vegetables such as artichokes, asparagus, sprouts, cauliflowers and cucumbers. Use this list for yourself to start experimenting. Fruits are also included in those seven servings of fruits and vegetables that we're trying to aim for a day. Here's the types of fruits. These are the most commonly consumed: apples, apricots, avocados. When it's appropriate to eat the skin on the outside of the fruit, always include that after washing well to increase the amount of fiber in your diet. Milk, [pause] you can focus on consuming skim milk if you're trying to lose weight. Or if your preference is more towards 2 percent milk, that can work itself into your overall intake. Milk-based desserts, puddings, ice cream, frozen yogurt and low fat ice cream. Also cheeses… however, you do want to limit the portion size of these cheeses because they can add a lot of fat and calories into your diet. And yogurt, aim for eating plain, non-fat yogurt and adding fresh fruit and a little bit of sweetener in if you need an added touch. Meats and beans: one ounce of meat is about the size of a deck of cards. Excuse me, 3 ounces of meat is about the size of a deck of cards. So once again, it should look about like this. You'll see your calorie ranges here and these are the different kinds of meats and beans or lean proteins that you can choose. Fish and shellfish… nuts and seeds are included in this category because they are great sources of protein… meats, dried beans and peas. As we discussed before, about the size of a deck of cards but your fish and your shellfish should look about the size of a checkbook. Your fats and your oils, based on your calorie range, this is the daily recommendation. To give you a good visual to reminder, a teaspoon looks about the size of a thimble. Let's talk about fat facts. There are different kinds of fats. They're not all bad. You've got your monounsaturated fats, your polyunsaturated fats, your saturated fats and your trans. We hear a lot about cholesterol and the fat associated with this. Monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats would be our good sources of healthy fats that include benefits for cholesterol reduction. Saturated fats are what lead to increased cholesterol. And trans fats- those fats that are found in baked goods, margarine, fried potato chips, pies, crackers, lots of convenience foods. Trans fats will always be listed on the nutrition label. You should look for 0 grams of trans fat and also look on the ingredients lists and avoid anything that lists partially hydrogenated oil or vegetable oil. You've probably heard me mentioned fiber before. Americans, on average, eat about 14 grams of fiber a day. Our goal is 25 to 30 grams of fiber for women and 30 to 35 grams a day for men. Eating more fiber each day can help increase the amount of fullness that you experience at meals-meaning that you don't feel hungry quite as often. It can decrease constipation and lead to normal healthy bowel movements, and it can also benefit your heart and digestive health. When you begin to increase fiber, you can do so by adding more fruits and vegetables. Focus on drinking less juice when you're aiming for that seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Eat whole fruits and vegetables because you'll get more fiber. Whole grain breads and cereals that we've talked about before will also increase the amount of fibers. So, aim for choosing those with at least 3 grams of fiber per serving. Eat more beans such as kidney beans, pinto beans and black beans. Any time you increase the amount of fiber that you eat, you want to be sure to drink adequate fluids to prevent any kind of digestive issues. Fluid and hydration: don't confuse your thirst with your hunger! Sometimes, we're simply thirsty when we think that we're hungry. So make sure that you're drinking enough fluids. Drink water before your meal to help you eat less. This way promotes satiety. Here's a chart that shows you your fluid needs based on your age. If you're trying to discover your weight in kilograms, take your weight in pounds and divide it by 2.2. Also, you'll see at the bottom of the slide that one fluid once is equal to 30 milliliters. [Background music] Has all of this sounded familiar? We typically know what kinds of food to eat for a healthy body weight, but there's more to it than food. In the next video, you'll learn about other aspects of weight loss.