What a great topic we have this week.  How do you crowd out the bad with the good? What does that even mean?

I often get asked, “how can I improve my food plan”? “How can I eat better”?  “How can I stay safe, and make better decisions”?  “How can I stop eating, rice, potatoes, chips, ice cream”?

My answer is, “crowd out the bad stuff with good stuff”.

What does that even mean?

So, if my client is having a breakfast that consists of cheerios, a sugar-laden yogurt, a glass of juice, and a ½ bagel for breakfast, how can I improve that start to my client’s day?

Where do I begin?  I would start by replacing the sugar-laden yogurt with some plain Greek yogurt, flavored at home.  I’ve crowded out the yogurt and offered a solution to REPLACE the yogurt.  I never took it away right?

Cheerios?  What can we do to replace the cheerios?  I would start with two easy suggestions: 1/ my “no-oatmeal” cereal recipe, which is easy to prepare and quick to make, or 2/ eggs cooked in any style.   I’m not just taking away the cheerios, I am replacing them with whole, live, fresh, natural, good-quality food.

The half bagel and the juice?  Well, I would love to re-invent their diet but why don’t I just take some baby steps and keep those in place for the next two weeks?  In two weeks I will follow up and discuss those two food items and offer new options to replace them with healthier options. Think avocado. Maybe a serving of berries, instead of juice.  Maybe a green juice instead of a fruit juice.

Do you see how I’ve not “demonized” cheerios?  I’ve not said “don’t’ eat that” in horror!!  I didn’t criticize this breakfast or “breakfast-shame” my client.  I’ve just offered some easy swaps to “crowd out the current breakfast” with better options.  That’s how we make real lifestyle changes.

If I lecture my client about the evils of cheerios, I may lose the opportunity to make a real change for the better with their health issues.  Easy does it.  Besides, my recipes taste better than cheerios.  They don’t cost a lot more and my client will feel better and more satisfied with the dietary swaps.

Guess who wins?  My client wins. 

Next up, my client is having a problem eating cookies at 8 pm while watching Netflix.  Do you think she hasn’t thought about “not eating the cookies”?  She has.  She doesn’t need to be told “don’t eat cookies”.  She’s an adult and adulting can be hard.  Cookies happen.

I have an idea.  Let’s improve her current cookies.  She’s eating store-bought ones.  They are full of ingredients like sugar, canola oil, etc.  These are not healthy ingredients.  Instead of smacking the cookie out of her hand, I’m going to offer her a recipe she can make at home with 3 ingredients and 12 minutes. Hello, homemade peanut butter cookies. 

I provide these lessons to my clients, but why can’t we take these lessons and transfer them into our lives today?  What is it that you can improve with your diet/ lifestyle?  What swaps would you like to make?  How can you crowd out your bad habits with better habits?

Healthy Hugs,

Sheri Burke – your bariatric RHN

I know.  Meal prepping is the equivalent of food logging.  We all know we should do it but to do it…not many of us do it.

I can’t help you today with the food logging part, other than saying “do it”.  I currently do not log my food.  I can say that my clients who actually log their food, do better than those who do not.  That says a lot.

I can help you today with the meal prepping part.  I meal prep all the time.  I don’t do huge meal preps for 4 or 5 days ahead.  I don’t have to due to my lifestyle, but I do meal prep for two days.  I mean, I set myself up for healthy meals to not fall into a bag of Frito Lays. 

It makes me happy to prep my fridge for success.  So what does that look like?  It starts at the supermarket. 

My cart hits the fruit and veg first.  I get radishes, cucumbers, orange/red peppers, cucumbers.  When it comes to fruit, I always get berries.  It could be strawberries, raspberries, blueberries or blackberries.  I’m getting the ones that are on sale. 

Next up is the meat department and once again, whatever is on sale is going into my cart.  I cook for 4 to 6 people almost daily.  The sales are where it’s at!!  I plan my meals in my head when I am shopping for food.  If it’s stewing beef on sale, we will be having this on the menu for the week.  If chicken is on sale, get ready for 4 different kinds of chicken dishes.

Now I am headed to get some pickles, good quality deli meat, eggs, and cheese. Hello Greek yogurt.  My Greek yogurt doubles as my sour cream.  I get the kind that has 19 grams of protein per ¾ cup serving.  I use my Greek yogurt as a salad dressing/ dip also.  It is very versatile. I won’t just eat a bowl of it, but I do use it for so many other things.

When I am at the supermarket, I try to stay out of the aisles.  That’s where the danger lurks.  I’ll grab my coffee there, and my avocado oil etc.  I try to keep my hands off the chips, popcorn, pretzels, crackers, cereals.  If I buy the chips, I am going to eat them.

My last stop is at the frozen fruit section.  I like to use frozen fruit to make my “nice-cream” recipe which is ½  a cup of frozen berries mixed in a food processor with ½ a cup of cottage cheese.  Try this!!

When I get home, I put my groceries away and prep at the same time.  I will marinate whatever meat was on sale, get my veggies washed and cut/ stored, get my berries washed/ready to go.  I pop 10 eggs into water to boil. 

That’s it.  That’s my food prep.  I don’t package things into individual containers. I just make sure that there is high quality REAL food waiting for us when the fridge door opens.  It’s just as easy to grab a bowl of berries, as it is to grab a bag of chips.  Pass the nuts, not the pretzels.  Pickles, not ice-cream.

Come to think of it, I am hungry right now.  I’m going to grab two hard-boiled eggs and some fresh strawberries.

Set yourself up for success.

Healthy Hugs,

Sheri Burke – your bariatric RHN

Hey!  Have you heard about the “Bariatric Food Police”?   Those are the people who can’t wait to bash that beautiful recipe you created because it contains half a potato.  Those same people will jump all over you when you show your breakfast of cottage cheese and peaches because,,, well, peaches are too high in carbohydrates.

Why are they terrified of a bit of carbohydrate?  Why do they feel the urge to tell you that you are doing the WRONG thing by eating the peach?  I think that they’ve been over-programmed to be terrified of carbohydrates.  I mean, if you are following a ketogenic plan (which most of us are not doing), then yes, a peach may throw us out of ketosis but, most of us are following a low-carb lifestyle.

It’s not that I have anything against ketosis or a ketogenic lifestyle. I just don’t like the word “keto” any longer.  I stopped using it a long time ago because the food manufacturers decided to start using that word and printing it on their labels for “keto-products”. 

For me, ketogenic eating is eating REAL food.  Not prepacked junk that has a long list of ingredients.  All of a sudden there were keto-pizza-crusts, and keto-granola-bars.  What about keto-microwave dinners?  Hey add some more cheese, bacon, and heavy cream, and let’s do the keto-dance.  See what I mean?

Most of my clients have blood sugar issues.  They are insulin resistant. They have pre-diabetes or full-blown diabetes.  Eating tons of carbohydrates is NOT recommended for them.  Since most of my clients are suffering from blood sugar issues, I tend to stick to a very low-carb lifestyle for them.  Let’s switch the peaches to berries because berries contain less natural sugar and more fiber to slow down the blood sugar response. 

When you are actively losing weight, it’s a great plan to keep your blood sugars low, which in turn keep insulin levels low.  High insulin levels make it harder to lose weight which in turn means that lower insulin levels make it easier to lose weight.  See how that works!

Remember, we are all at different stages in our weight loss journey.  Some of us are just starting, while others are halfway there. Many of us are already at our goal.  I’ve seen a lot of my clients with diabetes go into full remission.  All of our diets are going to look a lot different.

Let’s try to be more understanding when somebody posts their breakfast online.  If they want to eat oatmeal, more power to them.  Would I want a big bowl of oatmeal, probably not?  It messes with my blood sugars and my biochemical individuality and I am STARVING hungry after only an hour.   I would swap it out for my recipe of “No-0atmeal” which doesn’t contain grains.

Now, does that mean that YOU can’t eat oatmeal?  Of course not.  That means that I cannot eat oatmeal.  You could slap on a glucose monitor, have yourself some oatmeal, and see how your body reacts to it.

Remember, this is not a race.  We are learning every day as we proceed through our journey.  I used to be a vegetarian.  I used to be vegan.  I used to be strict ketogenic. At one point I was a pescatarian.  My diet has changed throughout my life. Right now I am rocking a low-carb lifestyle.  I am sure it will change again a few more times.  I’m flexible to what serves me during each stage of my life.

If you have serious blood sugar issues, be rigid in your approach, but also be understanding to those people who do not have blood sugar issues.  I guess that’s the point I want to make with this blog.

Healthy Hugs,

Sheri Burke – your bariatric RHN