Could your healthy snacks and beverages be affecting your weight loss goals?
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Often foods labelled as ‘healthy’ or ‘clean’ can be high in fat, sugar and calories, even though they may not contain allergens, additives or preservatives, they may affected the number on the scale.
I love adding peanut butter to my porridge and smoothies, but be mindful that one tablespoon of peanut butter can be about 120 calories.
Nuts contain Vitamin E, Omega-3 fatty acids and plant sterols, all of which are great for your heart health and general well-being.
Unfortunately, some café style smoothies with nuts can contain a number of different nut butters plus protein powders and bananas that can slowly add up to over 600 calories in just one serve that’s approximately over one third of your recommended daily intake of energy.
It takes about four oranges to make a 350ml glass of orange juice; would you eat four oranges in one sitting? Juicing fresh fruit and vegetables often removes all the healthy fibre and leaves behind the natural sugars.
A 350ml serve of processed orange juice equals about 28g of sugar, which is approximately seven teaspoons of sugar.
If you are buying juices from the supermarket, keep your serving size to 250ml and look for brands that are 100 per cent fruit or vegetable juice with no added sugar or fillers and don’t have juice everyday but rather once or twice a week.
Healthy or ‘clean’ treats can often filled with coconut oil, nuts and dried fruit. Dried fruit and nuts have a number of health benefits but are often high in calories, which can quickly add up.
Some cafe style clean treats can have more fat and calories then their less healthy alternative such as traditional Mars Bars and Snickers.
Though they may not contain all the other nasty additives they can still contribute to weight gain if you’re having them regularly!
Consider these treats as you would a serve of chocolate or cake and limit them to a few times a week only.
Avocado is a great source of healthy fats and fibre, but you can over do it.
A serve of avocado is about a ¼ of an avocado, which would provide you with about 90 calories.
The issue occurs when you are having a ¼ of an avocado on your toast, then another half on your sandwich at lunch and so on over the day, that’s when calories start to add up!
I believe that all these foods can be part of a healthy balanced diet and even include each one of these foods in my diet each week, but remember you can have too much of a good thing.
Consider these treats as you would a serve of chocolate or cake and limit them to a few times a week only.
Meanwhile, avocado is a great source of healthy fats and fibre, but you can over do it.
A serve of avocado is about a quarter of an avocado, which would provide you with about 90 calories.
The issue occurs when you are having a quarter of an avocado on your toast, then another half on your sandwich at lunch and so on over the day, that’s when calories start to add up!
I believe that all these foods can be part of a healthy balanced diet and even include each one of these foods in my diet each week, but remember you can have too much of a good thing.
- Jessica Ammendolia is an accredited dietitian and nutritionist.