How to reduce your risk of breast cancer

April is Daffodil Month.
The Canadian Cancer Society asks us all to buy a daffodil pin
to support programs that help those with cancer
and to support cancer research.

It is also a good time to reflect on how we can reduce our chance of developing cancer.
In this blog I want to focus on
women and breast cancer.

Each type of cancer is unique in terms of which factors increase or decrease risk.
A key factor that affects your risk of breast cancer is
your lifetime exposure to estrogen.

Each menstrual cycle exposes you to high levels of estrogen.
So anything that reduces the number of cycles you’ve had for a lifetime…
like starting your periods later, entering menopause earlier, and breastfeeding…
all reduce your risk of breast cancer.

Two common myths about breast cancer are:

Myth #1
Eating vegetables and fruits will reduce your risk of breast cancer.
Recent studies have shown that vegetables and fruits may reduce your risk of throat or mouth cancer, but not breast cancer.

Myth #2
The hormones given to cattle will increase your breast cancer risk.
No, they do not.  This is because the amounts in beef are very small
compared to the amount of estrogen produced in a girl or woman daily.

Organic beef (90 grams) – 1.5 nanograms estrogen
Beef from cattle given hormones (90 grams) – 2.2 nanograms estrogen
Estrogen produced daily:
In a woman – 200,000 to a million nanograms
In a prepubescent girl – 54,000 nanograms

There are many environmental chemicals,
including those found in personal care products, cosmetics,
household products and plastics,
that have been shown to increase breast cancer risk.

When it comes to your diet,
the two main factors that recent research has shown
increase your risk of breast cancer are:
1.  Being overweight 
2.  Drinking alcohol

Being overweight as a girl means you begin your periods earlier.
Being overweight as a woman means you enter menopause later.
Being overweight after menopause means that you have higher levels of estrogen because of the estrogen that fat cells produce.

A glass of red wine each day may be good advice to reduce your risk of heart disease.
If you are a man.
But not for women.
Drinking alcohol on a regular basis means that you have higher levels of estrogen
because estrogen and alcohol are metabolized in the liver using the same pathway.
And alcohol always is dealt with first, while estrogen levels increase.

So, you can reduce your risk of breast cancer by:
Losing weight if you need to
Start reducing calories by cutting out sugar-sweetened beverages and deep fried foods.

Drinking alcohol only on occasion, not daily, and limiting it to one drink per occasion.

Click on the link below to view Ruth’s CTV Noon News interview about breast cancer:

Reducing your risk of breast cancer

Planning makes for better meals

A holiday is better with a little planning.  So are your meals.

Plan for your meals in 3 easy steps:

1.  Grocery shop once a week.  Better yet, shop on the same day every week.  That way it becomes part of your routine and  you are more likely to have the fresh foods, like vegetables, fruit, milk and yogurt that you need to make meals.

2.  Make a simple meal plan by listing just the suppers that you plan to make.  No need to make a meal plan for breakfasts – they are often the same foods.  Lunches can be put together with leftovers from supper.

3.  Make a grocery list based on the suppers that you plan to make.  The newest way – use an app like Grocery Gadget.  You’ll love it!

Click on the video below for more great ideas.

Planning makes for better meals

 

Volumetrics – How to feel full with fewer calories

Now that we are into January,
you may be trying to better manage your weight by cutting down on your calories.

Well, there is a little trick that you need to know.

It’s called “volumetrics”.

Volumetrics is the trick of feeling full with fewer calories.
Barbara Rolls wrote a great book about it called “The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet”.

So which foods should you choose to feel full with fewer calories?

Foods high in fibre? Yes, but…
…it is actually the foods with a naturally high water content
that have the biggest impact on you feeling full.

For example:  Raisins contain very little water
while grapes, which we know are really juicy, contain a lot of water.

Let’s say you were hungry and you wanted a snack.

For 100 calories, you could eat just  1/4 cup raisins
but if you chose grapes you could eat 2 cups!

Which do you think would be more filling for the same 100 calories?

The bowlful of grapes fills your stomach more than the handful of raisins
and it is this that makes you fill more full and satisfied.

Even if you had a glass of water with the raisins,
it would not be as filling as having the grapes alone which are naturally high in water.

Here is another example:  Nuts versus cantaloupe.

Nuts (any nuts) contain very little water
and so are what is called “energy dense”.
Cantaloupe contains a lot of water and so is much less energy dense.

For 200 calories, you could eat 1/4 cup nuts (a handful of nuts)
or you could have a whole cantaloupe!

It would be easy for most of us to eat many more handfuls of nuts,
but I challenge you to finish an entire cantaloupe!

Which do you think would be more filling for the 200 calories?

Volumetrics also works at meals.  I call it “meal magic”.
To reduce the calories of a meal, reduce the portion of energy dense food
(i.e. meat, rice, pasta or potatoes)
and increase the portion of less energy dense foods (i.e. vegetables).

This can be demonstrated with “the rice experiment”.

Even though rice is fat free, it is energy dense.  1 cup = 2oo calories
So this plate of 2 cups of rice = 400 calories

Vegetables are less energy dense, because they contain more water.
For example, 1 cup of peas = 100 calories.

So this plate of 1 cup of rice and 1 cup of peas = 300 calories.

Both plates of food would be equally satisfying, because the volume has stayed the same.

But magically due to volumetrics, one is 100 calories less than the other!!

Here’s how you can put volumtrics into action:

Add blueberries to your cereal for breakfast.
For snacks, skip the 100 calorie packages of chocolate bars or chips, have an apple instead.
At meals, skip the fries and onion rings, have a salad instead.
Have a broth-based soup loaded up with lots of vegetables or beans for lunch.
Have stews for supper more often.
Have equal amounts of rice/pasta and vegetables.
Fill 1/2 of your dinner plate with colourful veggies.
Have a small ziplock bag filled with raw veggies with your sandwich at lunch.

Make magic and enjoy feeling full with fewer calories!!

To see more, click on this video link.

Treat yourself with quality not quantity

Treat yourself with quality not quantity

this holiday season.

At a buffet,

get your money’s worth

by having one plate of

the most expensive, the most unique and the most exquisite foods.

Skip all the buns, macaroni salad and other cheap and ordinary foods.

When it comes time for dessert,

fill 3/4 of your dessert plate with fruit and 1/4 with a few delightful treats.

Eat them slowly and savour every bite!

At a party,

skip the chips and nuts

that pack  a wallop of uninteresting calories.

Instead, choose a couple of special appetizers

that your host has made or purchased.

At home,

be selective about what you bake.

Bake the treats that are your family’s favourites

and those that are most connected to your Christmas traditions.

Have a fun and joyful holiday season celebrating with family and friends.

Merry Christmas!!

To see more, click on this video link or look under the Nutrition Topics tab.

How sleep can affect your weight

Chronically not getting enough sleep (less than 6 hours for most adults) may lead to weight gain.

Why does this happen?  Here are 6 key reasons.

1. The longer we are awake the more time we have to eat – for example, short sleepers often stay up and snack late at night instead of going to bed.
2. Studies have shown that short sleep goes hand in hand with eating more high fat foods – for example evening snacks like chips, cookies or ice cream, often eaten in the evening.
3. We just have less impulse control when we are sleep deprived.  So, for example, if there are chocolate bars or chips in the cupboard, we are less likely to be able to resist them if we are tired.
4. If we get less sleep, and are more tired through the day, we are more inclined to choose high sugar drinks – e.g. pop, double doubles and energy drinks – to give ourselves an energy boost.
5. Less sleep means that we don’t have the same energy level and so are inclined to be less active.  For example, If you were tired, would you want to take the stairs or the elevator?
6. Reduced sleep affects our appetite by affecting the production of hormones – increasing ghrelin and decreasing leptin – both of which increase appetite and hunger.

To learn more, have a look at the video below or click on the Nutrition Topics tab.

October: Time to start taking your vitamin D

It’s that time of year again.
Time to go to your local pharmacy
and pick up a vitamin D supplement for you and your family.

But, you might ask, isn’t vitamin D called the sunshine vitamin?
Don’t we make vitamin D when the UV rays of the sun hit our skin.  You bet.

But…this is only true in the late spring and summer months.
From October to March, the sun may be bright,
but it is not strong enough to make vitamin D in our skin.

Why is this important?

Vitamin D is important for building and maintaining healthy bones and teeth.

And we really can’t get enough from our food.

Taking a supplement will help ensure you get enough.

How much should I take?
Health Canada recommends:
400 IU for infants less than 1 year
600 IU for those 1-70 years of age
800 IU for 70 years and above

Infants: If breastfeeding, give your infant Vitamin D drops.  If feeding infant formula, no supplementation is necessary.
Anyone over 1 year of age: You can choose from a pill form, chewable form or D drops.

Look for Vitamin D3 on the bottle. This is the form your body can absorb best.

Vitamin D supplements come in 400 IU or 1000 IU tablets.
Vitamin D can also be taken as part of a calcium supplement or a multivitamin.

So start taking vitamin D today !

Every man, woman and child in Canada should be taking a vitamin D supplement every day starting now until next April.

More information can be found under the Nutrition Topics tab or by checking out this video:

TRANSformation in the Grocery Store

Where did  the trans fats go?

I was at the grocery store checking out food labels for trans fat
and noticed that many prducts that used to contain trans fats, now don’t.

This is especially true in the cookie and cracker aisles.

And that is a good thing because trans fat is definitely not heart healthy.

However, you can still find it lurking in some products.

How do you know it is there?
By checking out the Nutrition Facts label.

For example, here are two shortenings that I found side by side on the grocery store shelf.
Note the difference in the trans fat for the same 2 tsp serving.

The better choice is the lower trans fat shortening on the right.

*****

In some products, trans fat has been replaced by saturated fat.

However, to be considered heart healthy,
a product should be low in both saturated and trans fat.

For example, here are 2 cookies.  Both have no trans fat
but one is much higher in saturated fat.

As a result, the % Daily Value (that percentage on the right hand side)
for saturated + trans fat is very different.

The top cookie is 5% Daily Value for saturated + trans fat for 3 cookies.
The bottom cookie is 30% Daily Value saturated + trans fat for 2 cookies.

For heart healthy look for 5% Daily Value or less.

So which is the heart healthy choice?  The top cookie!!

****

What are trans fats?
Most trans fats are industrially produced when liquid oils are changed to semi-solid fats through a process called “partial hydrogenation”. In this process oil is heated and the gas hydrogen is bubbled through it – thus the term “hydrogenation”. Unfortunately, this process changes heart healthy oil into a not-so-healthy solid fat, high in trans fat. 

Why are trans fats unhealthy?
Trans fats increase the risk of heart disease because over time they raise the “bad” LDL cholesterol in the blood. Saturated fats, found in red meat, high fat dairy products such as cheese, cream and butter, and tropical fats such as coconut, palm and palm kernel oils, also increase LDL cholesterol. But trans fats go one step further by decreasing our “good” HDL cholesterol as well, making them even more detrimental to heart health than saturated fats.

Look under Nutrition Topics and check out this video for more information about trans fats.

Click here to learn more about trans fats and how you can reduce them in your diet.

Summer Thirst Quenchers

Now that it is warmer, we will want a nice cold beverage to quest our thirst.
But what a lot of people don’t realize is that regular pop, iced tea and fruit drinks
contain significant amounts of sugar and therefore calories.

Sugar Shocker!!  
One can of pop contains 10 tsp of sugar!
If you drank 1 can of pop every day for a year,
it would add approximately 15 pounds to your weight!

Juice, even unsweetened juice, has about as much sugar as pop!

****

So what can you do?

If thirsty drink water!
Water is always the best choice. You can make the water more flavourful by adding a squeeze of lemon or lime. You can also cut up fresh fruit (eg. 1 slice watermelon or orange) and add it to your water for a light flavour. Additionally, sparkling waters or lemon lime diet pop can be added to your water.

Choose drinks sweetened without sugar
At a BBQ: Serve diet pops, diet cranberry juice or club soda so you and your guests can cut the calories of your mixed drinks in half.

Some ideas:
-Rum and Diet Cola
-A low cal Cosmo: Vodka, Diet Cranberry Juice, Club Soda, A squeeze of lime
-Gin and Diet tonic
-Wine Spritzer (1/2 white wine and ½ club soda)

When working out:
During exercise most of us should just sip on water – about 250 mL (1 cup) every 15-20 minutes. Without water, we run the risk of dehydration with symptoms such as muscle cramps, fatigue, nausea and headaches.

If your exercise is intense and lasting longer than 1 hour, drink water before starting your exercise and perhaps sip on a sports drink during exercise.  Sports drinks keep you well hydrated, have some sugar to provide a quick source of energy during exercise and they also have some electrolytes, like sodium, to replace losses in sweat. You can make a homemade sports drink by combining ½ cup of orange juice and ½ cup water with a pinch of salt.

When exercising, are coconut water or energy drinks recommended?
No, neither coconut water or energy drinks are recommended during exercise. Coconut water does not have enough sodium or sugar to be effective during exercise. Energy drinks are not advised either as they are carbonated and contain too much sugar. During intense exercise, choose sports drinks over coconut water or energy drinks.

For more information, click here.