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Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 03 Addiction To Sugar: You Are Not Weak Willed with Nicole Bathurst

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This week, I am featuring Nicole Bathurst, an Australian Dietitian talking about eating less sugar and not feeling hungry. We go over how to break that sugar addiction that might be holding you down.
Nicole Bathurst is a Dietitian with a difference. She has a unique blend of expertise and experience which helps facilitate practical, lifestyle changes.

Nicole helps women embrace their relationship with food and is able to unravel the years of confusion around “What is Healthy Food?” She is able to bring clarity to what to eat, and more importantly help you start the real food journey! You will get off the dieting roller coaster forever. More importantly, you will be given the tools, tailored to your lifestyle, to successfully implement your goals.

Nicole has a knack for explaining nutrition jargon in everyday language, taking her years of experience and distilling it into easy-to-understand terminology. Having been a Dietitian for over 25 years, and raising and home educating her 4 children during that time, Nicole has a depth of experience that translates into totally understanding where you are right now in your journey.

Nicole delights in seeing the freedom her clients experience when they are no longer slaves to their food choices and embrace the real food lifestyle.

Find her at https://www.naturallynic.com.au

Mathea Ford: [00:00:00] Hi there. It’s Mathea. Welcome back to the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast featuring nutrition experts who are leading the way using food starts today. Right now with our next guest it’s great to have Nicole Bathurst on the show today. Nicole, welcome to Nutrition Experts. I’m excited to have you on the show and share your expertise with my tribe.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:00:26] Thank you. I’m so excited to be here today. All the way from Australia.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:30] I think our guests will notice that you have an accent.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:00:36] Well, I think it’s you who had the accent but anyway.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:40] I have a little bit of a southern accent. Yes!

Nicole Bathurst: [00:00:43] You do!

Mathea Ford: [00:00:45] Nicole you are a registered dietitian… Well, you know in the United States we call them registered dietitians. What is… Is that the same terminology used in Australia?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:00:56] It is similar terminology. Yes. Yes. We also have Dietitian who work who are a part of the Dietitians Association of Australia. You have just fill certain… You have to be from memory have to be working full time. And I don’t fall into that category because I’m only working part time in my position and in the other part of my position is I’ve got my own business.

Mathea Ford: [00:01:25] So can you tell us a little bit what led you to dietetics?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:01:33] Absolutely! I sadly grew up watching my mum struggle with emotional eating. And I developed my own struggles with emotional eating so I actually developed bulimia when I was about 18 and struggled with that for nearly 10 years.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:01:54] It also created in me a real desire to understand food and nutrition and when I first left high school and worked in the bank I would buy nutrition books. I don’t know whether you remember many many years ago. Lesley Clinton and her raw energy book and then. And then Fit for Life and you know those kind of books really sort of intrigued. It really intrigued me and I just loved that connection between food and health and it sort of drew me back to university and I went back to university at 23 and it wasn’t long you know into my journey when I realised that bulimia wasn’t really a healthy weight loss strategy and began to sort of take two steps to deal with that. You know at 53 I’m still fascinated with food and its effect on our health, I just love it. I just [you know] I read I still read everything I possibly can and yeah I just love sharing…

Mathea Ford: [00:02:59] I read a little bit on your history and it said that you had breast cancer and that kind of led you towards more of the raw food stuff. Is that… How is that changed your… Go ahead.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:03:12] Yeah so it was actually the other way around. So it was just it was a little bit of an interesting journey. I did manage to definitely deal with my Bulimia and by the time I got married at 28, it was no longer a part of my life but I was still struggling because of what I witnessed with my mum still struggled with that whole fear of gaining weight. So I maintain my weight was always a big part of my life.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:03:43] And then when I turned 40, a friend of mine died of breast cancer it was almost like my fear of gaining weight became my fear of getting breast cancer and I was doing a lot of research back then in that field of you know avoiding cancer and a lot of the literature at there was talking about you know going raw food, becoming a raw food vegan and I started down that track you know in hindsight when you look back you just go “Oh my goodness me” [you know] I was hungry all the time. I had abdominal pain all that time and it wasn’t until I got breast cancer myself at 48 that I kind of woke up and just went know what am I doing? You are you actually eating a lot of sugar and I think it’s so easy for us to not realise how much sugar we’re actually consuming. And I was having eating a lot of fruit. I was eating you know having green smoothies which contain dates, I was having honey in my tea – you know all these things that we can kind of look at and think all the healthy there is nothing wrong with them but when you’re having a lot of them it all adds up. And I was literally eating every hour. I just… I was always hungry and when I got breast cancer I’d done enough research into cancer to realise that to give myself the very best chance of recovering and eating healthy again, I decided that I needed to cut out all of that fruit for a season and then all of a honey and all of the dates and it was really really hard because you know when I look back now I can see I was definitely addicted to this stuff that changed my life.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:05:31] Not only did all my abdominal pains and bloating and [00:05:35] gas go away [0.0] but for the first time in my life I could actually eat breakfast and not be hungry again for about three hours. Sorry. It was it was a real eyeopener and it kind of began my journey into sugar and my this whole awakening what should I be doing this.

Mathea Ford: [00:05:55] So, if you think about the way that people normally eat for what is a normal diet if you can categorize anything as normal so to speak. What would you say is kind of wrong with the way most people eat?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:06:13] I think what we’re realizing now is that this whole low fat era pushed us in to a high sugar era. So, you know we became a very afraid of fat and we were cutting, you know we’ve just cut out fat but when you cut out fat what actually happened is you increase your sugar. Now that’s especially true of processed products. And so you know we think we’re doing the right thing by having let’s say low fat yogurt. But in actual fact, that low fat yogurt is high sugar and we think that we’re having you know a healthy muesli but in actual fact it’s packed full of dried fruit and honey. And so we’re just consuming what we think is healthy products but in actual fact they are packed full of sugar and that’s not even… We do we’re talking about products that appear to be healthy that’s not like the obvious unhealthy foods like cakes and biscuits which are everywhere as well.

Mathea Ford: [00:07:18] In the United States, its kind of funny because we subsidize sugar production and so there is no fat lobby I guess but there was a sugar lobby so we went to the low fat kickin. Can you talk a little bit about the addiction part of sugar like how we’re just so drawn to it and how it affects us?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:07:45] Absolutely. I don’t know whether there’s a movie over here that was produced in Australia called That Sugar Film. I just encourage all of my clients to watch this movie because it’s a fantastic journey of a guy who is a very healthy eater and then he start to aid average person thinks is healthy and he’s consuming like 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. And it just shows you how easy. He actually comes to America one stage which is really good because they really blows me away. You guys Supersize Me products and you can be you can be consuming 40 teaspoons of sugar in one drink which is so scary. But I’ve got a whole addictive side, I actually think this is really really exciting for anyone listening to this podcast because what it means is that you’re not weak willed. You don’t lack self discipline. You are addicted. And that means that we can relieve ourselves of all the guilt and all the shame that goes around being. You know when we go I can’t resist having you know my chocolate bar every afternoon or I just want to have sugar after everything I eat. It’s not. You’re not weak willed. You’re not. No I don’t like self-discipline. You’re addicted. And I think that’s really important to understand because sugar affects the same part of the brain as drugs and alcohol. And that’s proven.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:09:24] So whenever you have sugar, it’s releasing hormones in your body to make you feel fantastic. These hormones of things like adrenaline and Serotonin and Dopamine, we get addicted to that and because we love it. And so absolutely and it gives us that kick up and and then what happens is about an hour later all of a sudden your blood glucose which was really high because she just had this can of coke or this great big donut or something like that has now crashed because your body has worked so hard get that blood glucose down because your body doesn’t like having a blood glucose level that’s too high or too low. This is in addition to all those other hormones been being released now that your blood sugar is too low, your body releases different hormones to make you feel really really hungry so that you will go to the fridge and have another donut or have another can of Coke. So you got all these factors working against you soo to speak to drive you to eat more sugar. So it’s just this whole cycle which unless you become aware of it it’s very difficult to move over on it.

Mathea Ford: [00:10:47] Like it’s not an illegal subtance, it’s a very common substance. Yeah.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:10:52] Absolutely! And it’s everywhere. It’s just you know workplaces. You know I think one of the hardest things, work environments has you know whether it’s machines that have chocolate in them or whether you know is some of our companies up here provide free tim tams. You know there, I don’t know…

Mathea Ford: [00:11:13] No, we don’t have it at home here in America.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:11:17] There are chocolate coated biscuit with you know a soft center that people just love to dunk in their coffee you know. Providing, I mean they just they’re just so moreish you know people just… It’s so easy to eat three or four and before you know it you’ve eaten a whole day’s worth of calories. Yeah. Is it frightening really how addicted we are. And I think all of the products are so many products these days that we that we give to our toddlers. I don’t know about you but we’ve got a little yogurt pouches that you can give to your toddler who can just take the lid off and stop sucking this sweet. Yeah. So we think that healthy because it got the labelled yogurt on it and it might have you know the word fruit on it. It really is giving your child you know five teaspoons of sugar.

Mathea Ford: [00:12:08] So, how do you break free from that addiction? How do they break that cycle that constant high sugar, low sugar, need more sugar. How do you do that?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:12:20] I believe it starts with education. Start with educating people on exactly where the sugar is. Coming to the realization that there is absolutely no nutrients and no fiber in these products. And there you are on a very unhealthy pathway because when you have a look at all of our lifestyle diseases they all have gone through the roof as our consumption of sugar has gone through the roof. We need to begin a process of moving away from it. And really it means getting back into the kitchen and and cooking your own food. So I think as for me I really begin a process of educating that we need fat proteins and carbohydrates. So what are the healthy fats?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:13:14] What are the healthy proteins and why are the healthy carbohydrate. This is one of the biggest missing links I’m finding in working with clients is that we don’t realize that the healthy carbohydrates are vegetables. I don’t know about you but we’ve got a healthy pyramid that really leads people to believe that they need to be eating bread, pasta and rice to get their carbohydrate. And of course we don’t have a bread, pasta, and rice. We just we throw in there muffins and doughnuts and you know we’ve got this belief that we need to be eating those products when in actual fact we’re not getting any nutrients from those products. It’sthe vegetables that we get all of our vitamins and minerals and fiber because fat and protein don’t provide us with any fiber. Definitely, education and then teaching people how to learn to eat that way.

Mathea Ford: [00:14:15] When you’re thinking about what you teach people you know how do you get away from those cravings for sugar though? I mean because those are so strong?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:14:28] Yeah! Yeah! They are so strong. Absolutely! And it i is not an easy process. But like any addiction we have to you have to go through a weaning process. So, in many respects it’s easier to give up alcohol and smoking because you can just stop them altogether. But we can’t stop eating. But what we can do is stop eating the sugar. And I think in the beginning it’s about getting … and really not even in the beginning. I don’t know about you but I still know exactly what I’m going to be eating from one meal to another.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:15:09] I have a meal plan and I and I shop and I cook in advanced and I have and I know what I’m going to be eating. Because if we leave it to chance it’s just too easy to go “Oh! I don’t know what I’m having for dinner tonight.” And then you get tired and before you know it you’re going through the drive through and having takeaway. You’re just grabbing a chocolate bar or something like that. I really like to talk to my clients about that whole decision fatigue. I’m not sure whether you know you’ve come across that but it’s a very real thing where we. That was what scientists have learned is that we actually only have so many decisions that we can make in a day and so if we get to the end of the day and we’re tired and we’re hungry we can’t be bothered to make a healthy decision anymore. We just go. It’s just I’m too tired. And and we just don’t make a healthy choice. But if we know what we’re going to be eating for dinner that morning or even you know that week we decide what we’re going to eat and we prepare in advance. It’s just that much easier to make a healthy decision. So it really does involve not eating the sugar and starting off the day especially with good quality protein good fats and vegetables.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:16:31] So eating something like you know eggs cooked, even even having something like bacon and eggs but adding in lots of vegetables like some mushrooms and tomatoes and baby spinach and having a really good breakfast that isn’t full of sugar, that isn’t going to send your blood glucose through the roof so that you don’t start that cycle and then it’s the same with lunch having a good lunch and a good dinner is going to keep your blood sugars balanced especially in that first, those first couple of days. Because what you find is after a couple of days of not having the sugar, those cravings start to go away. But it is it’s not. It’s not an easy process. And people really need to set themselves up for success by planning and prepping and being organized and knowing exactly what they’re going to be eating. And you know and even having some healthy treats so that you don’t feel deprived. I think that’s really important as well. But making healthy sweet treats like I have like little protein balls just squeezed nuts and seeds and maybe some dates. So that you’ve got that little sway trade but you have it straight after a meal so it doesn’t send your blood glucose through the roof and then you have the little treat and then you go and clean your teeth. You know what I mean? We really have to pull out all the stops because it’s not easy, it’s not easy. But once you start to process it definitely get easier once you weigh you know sugar.

Mathea Ford: [00:18:18] What I love about what you just said is the meal planning and the decision fatigue which I have known about and it’s important even like just to pick out your clothes the night before and lay them out so you don’t have to think about it in the morning. With the meal planning, the awesome thing is is that you can involve your family.

Mathea Ford: [00:18:41] Involve them not only in the planning because I have a 12 to 13 year old. They have pretty vague opinions about what they want for food. Whether they gets that or not. But if you have your meal plan and say you work you know and your child comes home maybe at three o’clock in the afternoon, you’re not going to be home until five. They can start some of that preparation if they’re old enough and that teaches them then the value of cooking and preparing food. And it becomes actually a very pleasant experience for that child or family to see it kind of a time to come together as a family. And instead of that rushed mindless driving here, driving there, drive through eating in the car. That type of activity, it becomes a memorable experience. So I think because food has meaning beyond you know what it’s a beet or it’s a carrot. It also may be what we had as a child. You know you have some very specific memories you can put those positive memories in your kid’s life brain whatever. So I love that. You just so much have to when you have the mind set when you’re ready to do your meal planning for the week. You know buying food. I mean you don’t have it in the house. It’s really hard to cook healthy. So it’s your time to go to school for the weekend then you’re planning ahead and you do it. So I love that.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:20:22] Absolutely. I love it so much that I developed and I help my clients develop a three week cycling menu so that…

Mathea Ford: [00:20:35] That’s what you do in the hospital. I mean you have a cycle menu where it might be offset a little bit but you don’t see the same thing over and over. It never really occurred to me to do that at home. But that is an awesome idea.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:20:50] Yeah. And the other thing I do with a lot of my clients is they have partners who are on these rosters so that the partner might be working for six days and then off for four days. So we work as a cyclic menu related to that. Because you cook different meals when the husband is working as to when they’re not working. So they might be involved in some of those meals when they’re not working. We even either look at it from that perspective as well. And that has really helped a lot of my clients. But you know what’s really really exciting I have to share this I’ve got four children who are all grown up now but they even do menu planning. They tell and they tell their friends you know oh you should be doing a menu plan. You know what I mean? So that they you know because they know how much easier it is.

Mathea Ford: [00:21:41] And its not a toll for them because it’s something that they grew up with. And they experienced and it was a positive experience.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:21:50] Yeah. And look the other thing I don’t know whether you have it in America but we have something like where you can get online and order your food and then go and either pick it up from the supermarket or they deliver

Mathea Ford: [00:22:00] Yeah we have that.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:22:03] So that just you know all that time that you would have spent walking round the shops and buying your food you can now spend in fruit food preparation. So it’s just that whole mindset. And I think too when you’re not walking around the shopping center, it’s less, it’s easier not to be tempted to buy those foods that are you know at the end of the aisle than buying…

Mathea Ford: [00:22:27] So, when you are working with people, how do you help them because I know that some of the hunger that you feel is truly like yes you’re really hungry. And then some of it is kind of that false hunger like you know you’re just you’re on a sugar low or whatever but you don’t really need to eat something necessarily. How do you help them identify what is real hunger?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:22:52] Look I think that once again is there is a real journey. And my big belief is at the beginning of this journey you don’t let yourself get too hungry. Because when we’re really hungry whether it’s real or perceived we tend to not make good choices. In addition to eating you know a really healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner which does have you know the healthy fats and healthy proteins, I also encourage my clients to have on hand you know some healthy snacks and that usually is like a handful of nuts or if they eat dairy maybe some carrot sticks and some cheese sticks. So something that they can just they’ve got there just in case they are starting to sort of feel a bit of a bit wobbly emotionally “Oh! I’m starting to feel hungry and I you know this is the time of day that I would normally go and have a chocolate bar.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:23:51] They’ve got their handful of nuts there. Or an appropriate snack like hummus and carrot sticks that we’ve got pre prepared and then they can have that even if they’re not really truly hungry. At least it’s something that not going to derail them and that will kind of in time they will get much stronger because it really is a morsel isn’t it? That we strengthen by not having the sugar. Our cravings go away and we become less afraid of being hungry although we find that we were not hungry anymore.

Mathea Ford: [00:24:29] I have some other thoughts, when I kind of read on your website a little bit and I was looking at the testimonials. Some people were loving the fact that you know you were so kind and so helpful to them. But one thing they mentioned was their personal shame or fear about going to a dietitian because their eating habits cause they have bad habits. You know a lot of people are apprehensive about even getting help because they’re afraid of you know they eat bad. So what do you think about that? How do you help people with that? How do we as dietitians change that perception that were the Food Police?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:25:18] The Sugar Nazi. Look, I think that’s why I am so excited to share that sugar is addictive because for me it does release people from that shame of you know you’re not weak willed. You don’t like self-discipline. You are addicted. So there is nothing shameful about how you are eating and it’s not your fault.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:25:44] I think too that’s the other thing I find myself saying a lot is it’s not your fault that you think that what you’re eating is healthy or that you have found yourself in this place where you’re eating a lot of food that you know are unhealthy because our marketing is so powerful and even some of the messages that we as dieticians and health experts have been sending over the years has been you know less than helpful. It really can’t it can’t blame it’s not a blame game. It’s just it is what it is. You know what I mean? We thought we were doing the right thing by encouraging you to eat low fat but in actual fact we let you down the garden path but we didn’t know it back then. So it’s just really embracing what we do know now and educating people about what happened to calling it out and saying look it’s not your fault you know. Let’s get on with it. Let’s start a journey. Let’s try and work on this and provide you with healthy alternatives. You know whenever I run a function live I always have food. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are surprised at how tasty healthy food can be. You know people have this you know this image that eating healthy means you know a boiled chicken breast and lettuce. So, so much of what we do really is education and being gentle with people and saying you know let’s start a journey that’s just a journey of walking towards a healthier lifestyle. And I’m really gone on. It’s not a diet. It has to be a lifestyle choice you know.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:27:35] Because if you go on a diet it becomes an on off thing whereas a lifestyle is embracing everything that that brings. So, that means that you know you might get a bit wobbly and fall off track on your birthday or Christmas. But let’s try and make sure that we’ve got as much healthy through there as possible. If some extra things do creeping, let’s try and push them out as as soon as possible and get that on track.

Mathea Ford: [00:28:02] I love it. I remember when I was in the Army and I was the dietitian for the post. And people would see me in the grocery store and they would rush by me and say don’t look what’s in my car. And I’m like I don’t know it’s … But it’s so funny. I think he has to get over that perception that we are somehow perfect we are not. You know you said you struggle with Bulimia. We all have some sort of… Everybody have something that affects you that either made you choose this way of life made you choose to be a dietitian or made you more or specialize in a certain field. So, I think we as dietitians though don’t acknowledge that shame or fear or apprehensiveness about us being the food police. So I love that answer. Hey! It truly is and I don’t necessarily care were you then. If you’re ready to change I’m ready to go with you. Nicole, what is your favorite food?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:29:08] It’s Chocolate!

Mathea Ford: [00:29:08] What kind of chocolate?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:29:11] I love I love the dark chocolate you know. Did you know that 85 or 90 percent chocolate but what’s been interesting is that I have always loved chocolate and but the more sugar I’ve cut out the more I’ve liked the darker stuff. So, to me now it is not that bitter. It’s actually quite nice and if I’d go and have the normal Cadbury’s you know we have Cadbury’s here in Australia. It’s actually too sweet.

Mathea Ford: [00:29:43] Like I drink diet coke and if I go to a restaurant and they give me the wrong thing they give me the regular soda then I’m like Oh yeah.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:29:53] Yeah! So, it would have to be that and mangoes. I absolutely loved mangoes. In fact I spent some time in Thailand a couple of years ago. And just the fruit is just amazing over there and to be able to get you know fresh coconuts and have the coconut water and the meat inside and oh gosh I feel like I was in heaven.

Mathea Ford: [00:30:20] That’s awesome! What are some ways what we’ve talked about today what are some things that our listeners can do in their daily life to just make their life a little bit better from what you’ve been talking about? Some simple things.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:30:34] Absolutely do some meal planning. One of the biggest things that I do and encourage my clients to do is prepare your vegetables for time. So, if you come, I would come home when I had a family feeding a family of six. I would come home from shopping and do things like peel the whole kilo of carrots, grate some, chop some ready for a casserole and chop some ready for like a roast dinner and then put them all in containers and do the same with my cabbage and I would wash my spinach and chop it out ready to go.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:31:12] If you’ve got your vegetables ready to go you will use them. If you’re starting it and you haven’t prepared your vegetables it’s all too hard. It’s like having your clothes really fit for the next morning. You know you don’t have to think about it and I think you know even even chopping up your meat so that it’s ready and diced ready to go in the casserole or it’s sliced ready to go in the stir fry, you are far more likely to do that in just even helped even if you’ve got a meal plan. It’s just that extra step closer to actually doing it and making life easier for yourself. We have to get our food preparation to become such a habit like cleaning our teeth. We don’t think about cleaning our teeth anymore we just do it and so we’ve got all these things in place. We’ve got our meal plan, we’ve got our food prep, we’ve prepared some of our meat and some of our vegetables in advanced. It just makes life that much easier.

Mathea Ford: [00:32:16] And the other thing about that what you talked about is that makes it easier for other people to help. You already got everything together and you’re running late or somebody else can throw them in the crock pot or put it in the oven or whatever needs to happen so it allows the helpers. Because sometimes we take everything on ourselves I think that just adds to the stress level so we can find ways to let other people help us. That’s good.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:32:45] Absolutely! Absolutely! And you know one of the things that we did in my family was you know my husband would cook a barbecue and very very quickly the boys learnt how to cook a barbecue and so they would learn how to cook the meat and then come in and helped with the salads and things like that I’d agree with you I think that if we can if we know what we’re doing it just flows down and it means that everybody else can get on board like you said and it can become an enjoyable experience rather than a stressful “What are we having for dinner? I don’t want to do this! I don’t want to do that!” It becomes these “Oh yeah! We’re having a barbecue. Who wants to cook who wants to cook the meat. He wants to help me do the salad?” It becomes an enjoyable experience that we can do together. And not only that you know as mums more is caught than is taught. So if we’re modelling these organised healthy way of eating, that’s when our children are going to catch that’s what they are going to grow up doing.

Mathea Ford: [00:33:47] At the house, I always have a basket of. When the kids come in and they’re like “I’m hungry, I want something to eat!” I’m like “There, go grab some fruits!” So they’ve got a habit a very good habit to have. Who would you say is best suited for what you’re talking about going through a process of getting off of the addiction to sugar and stuff? How do you know if you’re addicted to sugar? Although, I know the audience probably know.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:34:12] Yeah. It’s interesting because mostly people know, mostly people know that they’re addicted to sugar especially if it’s really obvious like you know they have a chocolate bar every afternoon and that on a thing but sometimes people don’t know.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:34:30] Sometimes people will come to me and say “Look, you know I’m just the weight started creeping on and I’m not sure why. I eat pretty healthy but when I do a dietary intake and have a look at what they’re typically eating during the day, there’s a lot of heat and sugar and it’s in those products that like I was talking about at the beginning of the session where we’re just not aware that there’s so much sugar in diet products and yet so-called healthy mueslis. That’s where the education comes in and been able to look at a person’s diet as a whole because one you know the muesli might not have an you know an extraordinary amount of sugar in it but the muesli or cereal coupled with some low fat yogurt and then coupled with you know a health bar and before you know it you are eating a lot of sugar. So, it’s that education and making people aware of of where it is and then making some healthy sauce.

Mathea Ford: [00:35:39] I’m always amaze that the amount of fruit juice that people drink?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:35:46] I’m a big proponent of you do not drink fruit juice, you eat fruit. I know that’s probably the biggest area and even even almost all the studies show that the biggest area where we consume the most amount of sugar is in our sweet drinks. Atrocious. It is so easy like a can of Coke has 10 teaspoons of sugar just so easy to down you know an extraordinary amount of sugar. So, I think you just have to cut them out tightly and if you want fruit juice you need to eat a piece of fruit and drink a glass of water.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:36:18] You know what we don’t understand is that fiber in the whole fruit slows down the sugar getting into our body. So we’re not having that addictive effect and we’re not having that its not putting us into their cravings and constant hunger cycle which is why it’s you know it’s important to understand how to make a smoothie properly. You know smoothies can be quite full of sugar if you’re making them incorrectly. You know if you’re just taking them, packing them full of fruit and then putting dates in them as well or some people even put honey in them for goodness sake, you might as well be drinking a can of Coke. Making the smoothie itself you are getting rid of a lot of fiber. Yes the fiber is still there but you’ve broken it up so that it’s so fine that now the sugar is able to rush into your bloodstream. So I think we need to learn also how to make smoothies properly and you know have one piece of fruit in there have lots of greens in there because that’s why we’re eating having a smoothie in the first place to get some greens into us and then putting some healthy fat in there like maybe half an avocado or a handful of you know nuts or seeds to make a more of a balanced product but also so it’s not going to send blood glucose highly.

Mathea Ford: [00:37:41] What do you think is next in this kind of field of sugar addiction and way of eating changes. What’s next and how do you think it can affect health care?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:37:52] I think that it’s the whole sugar.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:37:55] And I think that it is in Australia and I know that they are talking about it in England is actually putting charges on sugar. You know taxing sugar, these sugar products become more expensive. I think that’s the way that we’re going is that we’re going to be really educating people on sugar and also refined carbohydrates like bread and pasta. You know our bread is just so refined and full of sugar. Many of them that is just not a health product anymore. And I’d love to talk about how bread has in a hundred years ago the bread used to be a healthy product because we actually it was we actually use the whole grain. There was the fiber and there was a wheat germ in the middle but you know through time, we’ve processed it so that we don’t have the germ in the middle anymore which is got the healthy fat in it. You know the wheat germ in it and it doesn’t have a fiber anymore so this product that used to be healthy and a staple I should say of our meals has now become just a processed product. Yeah! It’s just not viable anymore to be to be eating large quantities of it. So, I think that’s the way that we going is really moving away from sugar because we’ve realized how damaging it is. All of our lifestyle diseases are because of the amount of sugar and processed products that we’re eating. So, hopefully we’re coming back to really what we eat more of what we were eating a hundred years ago not just run of food.

Mathea Ford: [00:39:37] I noticed one of the things that happened here in the U.S. is they’ve started putting calorie counts on menus.

Mathea Ford: [00:39:41] I watch people how it takes them a to see that the healthy restaurant, the healthy walkup place or whatever. If it’s a national chain it has the calorie levels typically and it can make you stop and think about what you’re picking just even not necessarily to the granularity of how much sugar is in it but just to the point of saying this food item is 1200 calories and that’s in your mind. You know maybe half of or more of the total calories you should eat for the day. But I love that because I do think we have to do something to make people more aware and we of the health care community did kind of create a little bit of the problem by saying “Oh, we need to be low fat!” So of course food processors replace fat with sugar. They want the food to still taste good.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:40:37] I think too is understanding that food manufacturers actually don’t care about your health. But what they are interested in is you buying their product. And so they spend a lot of time finding the bliss point of foods which is the exact amount of fat and sugar so that you keep coming back for more. And you know not believing educating people on labeling because can say all the right things on a packet. But if you read the ingredients you can have a basic understanding of those ingredients and a nutrition label you can very quickly see that this is not a healthy product to be eating at all. So, so much of our jobs I see is education. You know I think that there’s so much power in knowledge in understanding all that we’ve been talking about today. Yeah.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:41:35] Getting out there and sharing this knowledge and relieving people of their guilt and their shame and their fear and helping them you know on this journey, this healthy eating journey because it’s fun. You know it’s liberating. I still talk about how liberating it is not to be addicted to sugar anymore and to be able to feel satisfied after a meal and easily go you know three to four hours without eating or feeling hungry.

Mathea Ford: [00:41:58] Nicole, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on this show. I know my listeners have learned a lot about just sugar and eating better just by paying attention to what you’re eating. So, I hope you’ll be open to coming back again and maybe even sharing more. OK. If the listeners want to connect with you what’s the best way to do that?

Nicole Bathurst: Via my website at naturallynic.com.au.

Mathea Ford: I’ll put a link to that in the show notes and its N-I-C.

Nicole Bathurst: Yes Nic right. NaturallyNic. Right!

Mathea Ford: Alright. Well guys this has been another great episode of Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast that is all about learning more so you can do more with your nutrition in your life.

The post Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 03 Addiction To Sugar: You Are Not Weak Willed with Nicole Bathurst appeared first on Nutrition Experts Podcast.

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This week, I am featuring Nicole Bathurst, an Australian Dietitian talking about eating less sugar and not feeling hungry. We go over how to break that sugar addiction that might be holding you down.
Nicole Bathurst is a Dietitian with a difference. She has a unique blend of expertise and experience which helps facilitate practical, lifestyle changes.

Nicole helps women embrace their relationship with food and is able to unravel the years of confusion around “What is Healthy Food?” She is able to bring clarity to what to eat, and more importantly help you start the real food journey! You will get off the dieting roller coaster forever. More importantly, you will be given the tools, tailored to your lifestyle, to successfully implement your goals.

Nicole has a knack for explaining nutrition jargon in everyday language, taking her years of experience and distilling it into easy-to-understand terminology. Having been a Dietitian for over 25 years, and raising and home educating her 4 children during that time, Nicole has a depth of experience that translates into totally understanding where you are right now in your journey.

Nicole delights in seeing the freedom her clients experience when they are no longer slaves to their food choices and embrace the real food lifestyle.

Find her at https://www.naturallynic.com.au

Mathea Ford: [00:00:00] Hi there. It’s Mathea. Welcome back to the Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast featuring nutrition experts who are leading the way using food starts today. Right now with our next guest it’s great to have Nicole Bathurst on the show today. Nicole, welcome to Nutrition Experts. I’m excited to have you on the show and share your expertise with my tribe.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:00:26] Thank you. I’m so excited to be here today. All the way from Australia.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:30] I think our guests will notice that you have an accent.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:00:36] Well, I think it’s you who had the accent but anyway.

Mathea Ford: [00:00:40] I have a little bit of a southern accent. Yes!

Nicole Bathurst: [00:00:43] You do!

Mathea Ford: [00:00:45] Nicole you are a registered dietitian… Well, you know in the United States we call them registered dietitians. What is… Is that the same terminology used in Australia?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:00:56] It is similar terminology. Yes. Yes. We also have Dietitian who work who are a part of the Dietitians Association of Australia. You have just fill certain… You have to be from memory have to be working full time. And I don’t fall into that category because I’m only working part time in my position and in the other part of my position is I’ve got my own business.

Mathea Ford: [00:01:25] So can you tell us a little bit what led you to dietetics?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:01:33] Absolutely! I sadly grew up watching my mum struggle with emotional eating. And I developed my own struggles with emotional eating so I actually developed bulimia when I was about 18 and struggled with that for nearly 10 years.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:01:54] It also created in me a real desire to understand food and nutrition and when I first left high school and worked in the bank I would buy nutrition books. I don’t know whether you remember many many years ago. Lesley Clinton and her raw energy book and then. And then Fit for Life and you know those kind of books really sort of intrigued. It really intrigued me and I just loved that connection between food and health and it sort of drew me back to university and I went back to university at 23 and it wasn’t long you know into my journey when I realised that bulimia wasn’t really a healthy weight loss strategy and began to sort of take two steps to deal with that. You know at 53 I’m still fascinated with food and its effect on our health, I just love it. I just [you know] I read I still read everything I possibly can and yeah I just love sharing…

Mathea Ford: [00:02:59] I read a little bit on your history and it said that you had breast cancer and that kind of led you towards more of the raw food stuff. Is that… How is that changed your… Go ahead.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:03:12] Yeah so it was actually the other way around. So it was just it was a little bit of an interesting journey. I did manage to definitely deal with my Bulimia and by the time I got married at 28, it was no longer a part of my life but I was still struggling because of what I witnessed with my mum still struggled with that whole fear of gaining weight. So I maintain my weight was always a big part of my life.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:03:43] And then when I turned 40, a friend of mine died of breast cancer it was almost like my fear of gaining weight became my fear of getting breast cancer and I was doing a lot of research back then in that field of you know avoiding cancer and a lot of the literature at there was talking about you know going raw food, becoming a raw food vegan and I started down that track you know in hindsight when you look back you just go “Oh my goodness me” [you know] I was hungry all the time. I had abdominal pain all that time and it wasn’t until I got breast cancer myself at 48 that I kind of woke up and just went know what am I doing? You are you actually eating a lot of sugar and I think it’s so easy for us to not realise how much sugar we’re actually consuming. And I was having eating a lot of fruit. I was eating you know having green smoothies which contain dates, I was having honey in my tea – you know all these things that we can kind of look at and think all the healthy there is nothing wrong with them but when you’re having a lot of them it all adds up. And I was literally eating every hour. I just… I was always hungry and when I got breast cancer I’d done enough research into cancer to realise that to give myself the very best chance of recovering and eating healthy again, I decided that I needed to cut out all of that fruit for a season and then all of a honey and all of the dates and it was really really hard because you know when I look back now I can see I was definitely addicted to this stuff that changed my life.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:05:31] Not only did all my abdominal pains and bloating and [00:05:35] gas go away [0.0] but for the first time in my life I could actually eat breakfast and not be hungry again for about three hours. Sorry. It was it was a real eyeopener and it kind of began my journey into sugar and my this whole awakening what should I be doing this.

Mathea Ford: [00:05:55] So, if you think about the way that people normally eat for what is a normal diet if you can categorize anything as normal so to speak. What would you say is kind of wrong with the way most people eat?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:06:13] I think what we’re realizing now is that this whole low fat era pushed us in to a high sugar era. So, you know we became a very afraid of fat and we were cutting, you know we’ve just cut out fat but when you cut out fat what actually happened is you increase your sugar. Now that’s especially true of processed products. And so you know we think we’re doing the right thing by having let’s say low fat yogurt. But in actual fact, that low fat yogurt is high sugar and we think that we’re having you know a healthy muesli but in actual fact it’s packed full of dried fruit and honey. And so we’re just consuming what we think is healthy products but in actual fact they are packed full of sugar and that’s not even… We do we’re talking about products that appear to be healthy that’s not like the obvious unhealthy foods like cakes and biscuits which are everywhere as well.

Mathea Ford: [00:07:18] In the United States, its kind of funny because we subsidize sugar production and so there is no fat lobby I guess but there was a sugar lobby so we went to the low fat kickin. Can you talk a little bit about the addiction part of sugar like how we’re just so drawn to it and how it affects us?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:07:45] Absolutely. I don’t know whether there’s a movie over here that was produced in Australia called That Sugar Film. I just encourage all of my clients to watch this movie because it’s a fantastic journey of a guy who is a very healthy eater and then he start to aid average person thinks is healthy and he’s consuming like 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. And it just shows you how easy. He actually comes to America one stage which is really good because they really blows me away. You guys Supersize Me products and you can be you can be consuming 40 teaspoons of sugar in one drink which is so scary. But I’ve got a whole addictive side, I actually think this is really really exciting for anyone listening to this podcast because what it means is that you’re not weak willed. You don’t lack self discipline. You are addicted. And that means that we can relieve ourselves of all the guilt and all the shame that goes around being. You know when we go I can’t resist having you know my chocolate bar every afternoon or I just want to have sugar after everything I eat. It’s not. You’re not weak willed. You’re not. No I don’t like self-discipline. You’re addicted. And I think that’s really important to understand because sugar affects the same part of the brain as drugs and alcohol. And that’s proven.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:09:24] So whenever you have sugar, it’s releasing hormones in your body to make you feel fantastic. These hormones of things like adrenaline and Serotonin and Dopamine, we get addicted to that and because we love it. And so absolutely and it gives us that kick up and and then what happens is about an hour later all of a sudden your blood glucose which was really high because she just had this can of coke or this great big donut or something like that has now crashed because your body has worked so hard get that blood glucose down because your body doesn’t like having a blood glucose level that’s too high or too low. This is in addition to all those other hormones been being released now that your blood sugar is too low, your body releases different hormones to make you feel really really hungry so that you will go to the fridge and have another donut or have another can of Coke. So you got all these factors working against you soo to speak to drive you to eat more sugar. So it’s just this whole cycle which unless you become aware of it it’s very difficult to move over on it.

Mathea Ford: [00:10:47] Like it’s not an illegal subtance, it’s a very common substance. Yeah.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:10:52] Absolutely! And it’s everywhere. It’s just you know workplaces. You know I think one of the hardest things, work environments has you know whether it’s machines that have chocolate in them or whether you know is some of our companies up here provide free tim tams. You know there, I don’t know…

Mathea Ford: [00:11:13] No, we don’t have it at home here in America.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:11:17] There are chocolate coated biscuit with you know a soft center that people just love to dunk in their coffee you know. Providing, I mean they just they’re just so moreish you know people just… It’s so easy to eat three or four and before you know it you’ve eaten a whole day’s worth of calories. Yeah. Is it frightening really how addicted we are. And I think all of the products are so many products these days that we that we give to our toddlers. I don’t know about you but we’ve got a little yogurt pouches that you can give to your toddler who can just take the lid off and stop sucking this sweet. Yeah. So we think that healthy because it got the labelled yogurt on it and it might have you know the word fruit on it. It really is giving your child you know five teaspoons of sugar.

Mathea Ford: [00:12:08] So, how do you break free from that addiction? How do they break that cycle that constant high sugar, low sugar, need more sugar. How do you do that?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:12:20] I believe it starts with education. Start with educating people on exactly where the sugar is. Coming to the realization that there is absolutely no nutrients and no fiber in these products. And there you are on a very unhealthy pathway because when you have a look at all of our lifestyle diseases they all have gone through the roof as our consumption of sugar has gone through the roof. We need to begin a process of moving away from it. And really it means getting back into the kitchen and and cooking your own food. So I think as for me I really begin a process of educating that we need fat proteins and carbohydrates. So what are the healthy fats?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:13:14] What are the healthy proteins and why are the healthy carbohydrate. This is one of the biggest missing links I’m finding in working with clients is that we don’t realize that the healthy carbohydrates are vegetables. I don’t know about you but we’ve got a healthy pyramid that really leads people to believe that they need to be eating bread, pasta and rice to get their carbohydrate. And of course we don’t have a bread, pasta, and rice. We just we throw in there muffins and doughnuts and you know we’ve got this belief that we need to be eating those products when in actual fact we’re not getting any nutrients from those products. It’sthe vegetables that we get all of our vitamins and minerals and fiber because fat and protein don’t provide us with any fiber. Definitely, education and then teaching people how to learn to eat that way.

Mathea Ford: [00:14:15] When you’re thinking about what you teach people you know how do you get away from those cravings for sugar though? I mean because those are so strong?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:14:28] Yeah! Yeah! They are so strong. Absolutely! And it i is not an easy process. But like any addiction we have to you have to go through a weaning process. So, in many respects it’s easier to give up alcohol and smoking because you can just stop them altogether. But we can’t stop eating. But what we can do is stop eating the sugar. And I think in the beginning it’s about getting … and really not even in the beginning. I don’t know about you but I still know exactly what I’m going to be eating from one meal to another.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:15:09] I have a meal plan and I and I shop and I cook in advanced and I have and I know what I’m going to be eating. Because if we leave it to chance it’s just too easy to go “Oh! I don’t know what I’m having for dinner tonight.” And then you get tired and before you know it you’re going through the drive through and having takeaway. You’re just grabbing a chocolate bar or something like that. I really like to talk to my clients about that whole decision fatigue. I’m not sure whether you know you’ve come across that but it’s a very real thing where we. That was what scientists have learned is that we actually only have so many decisions that we can make in a day and so if we get to the end of the day and we’re tired and we’re hungry we can’t be bothered to make a healthy decision anymore. We just go. It’s just I’m too tired. And and we just don’t make a healthy choice. But if we know what we’re going to be eating for dinner that morning or even you know that week we decide what we’re going to eat and we prepare in advance. It’s just that much easier to make a healthy decision. So it really does involve not eating the sugar and starting off the day especially with good quality protein good fats and vegetables.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:16:31] So eating something like you know eggs cooked, even even having something like bacon and eggs but adding in lots of vegetables like some mushrooms and tomatoes and baby spinach and having a really good breakfast that isn’t full of sugar, that isn’t going to send your blood glucose through the roof so that you don’t start that cycle and then it’s the same with lunch having a good lunch and a good dinner is going to keep your blood sugars balanced especially in that first, those first couple of days. Because what you find is after a couple of days of not having the sugar, those cravings start to go away. But it is it’s not. It’s not an easy process. And people really need to set themselves up for success by planning and prepping and being organized and knowing exactly what they’re going to be eating. And you know and even having some healthy treats so that you don’t feel deprived. I think that’s really important as well. But making healthy sweet treats like I have like little protein balls just squeezed nuts and seeds and maybe some dates. So that you’ve got that little sway trade but you have it straight after a meal so it doesn’t send your blood glucose through the roof and then you have the little treat and then you go and clean your teeth. You know what I mean? We really have to pull out all the stops because it’s not easy, it’s not easy. But once you start to process it definitely get easier once you weigh you know sugar.

Mathea Ford: [00:18:18] What I love about what you just said is the meal planning and the decision fatigue which I have known about and it’s important even like just to pick out your clothes the night before and lay them out so you don’t have to think about it in the morning. With the meal planning, the awesome thing is is that you can involve your family.

Mathea Ford: [00:18:41] Involve them not only in the planning because I have a 12 to 13 year old. They have pretty vague opinions about what they want for food. Whether they gets that or not. But if you have your meal plan and say you work you know and your child comes home maybe at three o’clock in the afternoon, you’re not going to be home until five. They can start some of that preparation if they’re old enough and that teaches them then the value of cooking and preparing food. And it becomes actually a very pleasant experience for that child or family to see it kind of a time to come together as a family. And instead of that rushed mindless driving here, driving there, drive through eating in the car. That type of activity, it becomes a memorable experience. So I think because food has meaning beyond you know what it’s a beet or it’s a carrot. It also may be what we had as a child. You know you have some very specific memories you can put those positive memories in your kid’s life brain whatever. So I love that. You just so much have to when you have the mind set when you’re ready to do your meal planning for the week. You know buying food. I mean you don’t have it in the house. It’s really hard to cook healthy. So it’s your time to go to school for the weekend then you’re planning ahead and you do it. So I love that.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:20:22] Absolutely. I love it so much that I developed and I help my clients develop a three week cycling menu so that…

Mathea Ford: [00:20:35] That’s what you do in the hospital. I mean you have a cycle menu where it might be offset a little bit but you don’t see the same thing over and over. It never really occurred to me to do that at home. But that is an awesome idea.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:20:50] Yeah. And the other thing I do with a lot of my clients is they have partners who are on these rosters so that the partner might be working for six days and then off for four days. So we work as a cyclic menu related to that. Because you cook different meals when the husband is working as to when they’re not working. So they might be involved in some of those meals when they’re not working. We even either look at it from that perspective as well. And that has really helped a lot of my clients. But you know what’s really really exciting I have to share this I’ve got four children who are all grown up now but they even do menu planning. They tell and they tell their friends you know oh you should be doing a menu plan. You know what I mean? So that they you know because they know how much easier it is.

Mathea Ford: [00:21:41] And its not a toll for them because it’s something that they grew up with. And they experienced and it was a positive experience.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:21:50] Yeah. And look the other thing I don’t know whether you have it in America but we have something like where you can get online and order your food and then go and either pick it up from the supermarket or they deliver

Mathea Ford: [00:22:00] Yeah we have that.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:22:03] So that just you know all that time that you would have spent walking round the shops and buying your food you can now spend in fruit food preparation. So it’s just that whole mindset. And I think too when you’re not walking around the shopping center, it’s less, it’s easier not to be tempted to buy those foods that are you know at the end of the aisle than buying…

Mathea Ford: [00:22:27] So, when you are working with people, how do you help them because I know that some of the hunger that you feel is truly like yes you’re really hungry. And then some of it is kind of that false hunger like you know you’re just you’re on a sugar low or whatever but you don’t really need to eat something necessarily. How do you help them identify what is real hunger?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:22:52] Look I think that once again is there is a real journey. And my big belief is at the beginning of this journey you don’t let yourself get too hungry. Because when we’re really hungry whether it’s real or perceived we tend to not make good choices. In addition to eating you know a really healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner which does have you know the healthy fats and healthy proteins, I also encourage my clients to have on hand you know some healthy snacks and that usually is like a handful of nuts or if they eat dairy maybe some carrot sticks and some cheese sticks. So something that they can just they’ve got there just in case they are starting to sort of feel a bit of a bit wobbly emotionally “Oh! I’m starting to feel hungry and I you know this is the time of day that I would normally go and have a chocolate bar.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:23:51] They’ve got their handful of nuts there. Or an appropriate snack like hummus and carrot sticks that we’ve got pre prepared and then they can have that even if they’re not really truly hungry. At least it’s something that not going to derail them and that will kind of in time they will get much stronger because it really is a morsel isn’t it? That we strengthen by not having the sugar. Our cravings go away and we become less afraid of being hungry although we find that we were not hungry anymore.

Mathea Ford: [00:24:29] I have some other thoughts, when I kind of read on your website a little bit and I was looking at the testimonials. Some people were loving the fact that you know you were so kind and so helpful to them. But one thing they mentioned was their personal shame or fear about going to a dietitian because their eating habits cause they have bad habits. You know a lot of people are apprehensive about even getting help because they’re afraid of you know they eat bad. So what do you think about that? How do you help people with that? How do we as dietitians change that perception that were the Food Police?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:25:18] The Sugar Nazi. Look, I think that’s why I am so excited to share that sugar is addictive because for me it does release people from that shame of you know you’re not weak willed. You don’t like self-discipline. You are addicted. So there is nothing shameful about how you are eating and it’s not your fault.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:25:44] I think too that’s the other thing I find myself saying a lot is it’s not your fault that you think that what you’re eating is healthy or that you have found yourself in this place where you’re eating a lot of food that you know are unhealthy because our marketing is so powerful and even some of the messages that we as dieticians and health experts have been sending over the years has been you know less than helpful. It really can’t it can’t blame it’s not a blame game. It’s just it is what it is. You know what I mean? We thought we were doing the right thing by encouraging you to eat low fat but in actual fact we let you down the garden path but we didn’t know it back then. So it’s just really embracing what we do know now and educating people about what happened to calling it out and saying look it’s not your fault you know. Let’s get on with it. Let’s start a journey. Let’s try and work on this and provide you with healthy alternatives. You know whenever I run a function live I always have food. It never ceases to amaze me how many people are surprised at how tasty healthy food can be. You know people have this you know this image that eating healthy means you know a boiled chicken breast and lettuce. So, so much of what we do really is education and being gentle with people and saying you know let’s start a journey that’s just a journey of walking towards a healthier lifestyle. And I’m really gone on. It’s not a diet. It has to be a lifestyle choice you know.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:27:35] Because if you go on a diet it becomes an on off thing whereas a lifestyle is embracing everything that that brings. So, that means that you know you might get a bit wobbly and fall off track on your birthday or Christmas. But let’s try and make sure that we’ve got as much healthy through there as possible. If some extra things do creeping, let’s try and push them out as as soon as possible and get that on track.

Mathea Ford: [00:28:02] I love it. I remember when I was in the Army and I was the dietitian for the post. And people would see me in the grocery store and they would rush by me and say don’t look what’s in my car. And I’m like I don’t know it’s … But it’s so funny. I think he has to get over that perception that we are somehow perfect we are not. You know you said you struggle with Bulimia. We all have some sort of… Everybody have something that affects you that either made you choose this way of life made you choose to be a dietitian or made you more or specialize in a certain field. So, I think we as dietitians though don’t acknowledge that shame or fear or apprehensiveness about us being the food police. So I love that answer. Hey! It truly is and I don’t necessarily care were you then. If you’re ready to change I’m ready to go with you. Nicole, what is your favorite food?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:29:08] It’s Chocolate!

Mathea Ford: [00:29:08] What kind of chocolate?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:29:11] I love I love the dark chocolate you know. Did you know that 85 or 90 percent chocolate but what’s been interesting is that I have always loved chocolate and but the more sugar I’ve cut out the more I’ve liked the darker stuff. So, to me now it is not that bitter. It’s actually quite nice and if I’d go and have the normal Cadbury’s you know we have Cadbury’s here in Australia. It’s actually too sweet.

Mathea Ford: [00:29:43] Like I drink diet coke and if I go to a restaurant and they give me the wrong thing they give me the regular soda then I’m like Oh yeah.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:29:53] Yeah! So, it would have to be that and mangoes. I absolutely loved mangoes. In fact I spent some time in Thailand a couple of years ago. And just the fruit is just amazing over there and to be able to get you know fresh coconuts and have the coconut water and the meat inside and oh gosh I feel like I was in heaven.

Mathea Ford: [00:30:20] That’s awesome! What are some ways what we’ve talked about today what are some things that our listeners can do in their daily life to just make their life a little bit better from what you’ve been talking about? Some simple things.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:30:34] Absolutely do some meal planning. One of the biggest things that I do and encourage my clients to do is prepare your vegetables for time. So, if you come, I would come home when I had a family feeding a family of six. I would come home from shopping and do things like peel the whole kilo of carrots, grate some, chop some ready for a casserole and chop some ready for like a roast dinner and then put them all in containers and do the same with my cabbage and I would wash my spinach and chop it out ready to go.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:31:12] If you’ve got your vegetables ready to go you will use them. If you’re starting it and you haven’t prepared your vegetables it’s all too hard. It’s like having your clothes really fit for the next morning. You know you don’t have to think about it and I think you know even even chopping up your meat so that it’s ready and diced ready to go in the casserole or it’s sliced ready to go in the stir fry, you are far more likely to do that in just even helped even if you’ve got a meal plan. It’s just that extra step closer to actually doing it and making life easier for yourself. We have to get our food preparation to become such a habit like cleaning our teeth. We don’t think about cleaning our teeth anymore we just do it and so we’ve got all these things in place. We’ve got our meal plan, we’ve got our food prep, we’ve prepared some of our meat and some of our vegetables in advanced. It just makes life that much easier.

Mathea Ford: [00:32:16] And the other thing about that what you talked about is that makes it easier for other people to help. You already got everything together and you’re running late or somebody else can throw them in the crock pot or put it in the oven or whatever needs to happen so it allows the helpers. Because sometimes we take everything on ourselves I think that just adds to the stress level so we can find ways to let other people help us. That’s good.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:32:45] Absolutely! Absolutely! And you know one of the things that we did in my family was you know my husband would cook a barbecue and very very quickly the boys learnt how to cook a barbecue and so they would learn how to cook the meat and then come in and helped with the salads and things like that I’d agree with you I think that if we can if we know what we’re doing it just flows down and it means that everybody else can get on board like you said and it can become an enjoyable experience rather than a stressful “What are we having for dinner? I don’t want to do this! I don’t want to do that!” It becomes these “Oh yeah! We’re having a barbecue. Who wants to cook who wants to cook the meat. He wants to help me do the salad?” It becomes an enjoyable experience that we can do together. And not only that you know as mums more is caught than is taught. So if we’re modelling these organised healthy way of eating, that’s when our children are going to catch that’s what they are going to grow up doing.

Mathea Ford: [00:33:47] At the house, I always have a basket of. When the kids come in and they’re like “I’m hungry, I want something to eat!” I’m like “There, go grab some fruits!” So they’ve got a habit a very good habit to have. Who would you say is best suited for what you’re talking about going through a process of getting off of the addiction to sugar and stuff? How do you know if you’re addicted to sugar? Although, I know the audience probably know.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:34:12] Yeah. It’s interesting because mostly people know, mostly people know that they’re addicted to sugar especially if it’s really obvious like you know they have a chocolate bar every afternoon and that on a thing but sometimes people don’t know.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:34:30] Sometimes people will come to me and say “Look, you know I’m just the weight started creeping on and I’m not sure why. I eat pretty healthy but when I do a dietary intake and have a look at what they’re typically eating during the day, there’s a lot of heat and sugar and it’s in those products that like I was talking about at the beginning of the session where we’re just not aware that there’s so much sugar in diet products and yet so-called healthy mueslis. That’s where the education comes in and been able to look at a person’s diet as a whole because one you know the muesli might not have an you know an extraordinary amount of sugar in it but the muesli or cereal coupled with some low fat yogurt and then coupled with you know a health bar and before you know it you are eating a lot of sugar. So, it’s that education and making people aware of of where it is and then making some healthy sauce.

Mathea Ford: [00:35:39] I’m always amaze that the amount of fruit juice that people drink?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:35:46] I’m a big proponent of you do not drink fruit juice, you eat fruit. I know that’s probably the biggest area and even even almost all the studies show that the biggest area where we consume the most amount of sugar is in our sweet drinks. Atrocious. It is so easy like a can of Coke has 10 teaspoons of sugar just so easy to down you know an extraordinary amount of sugar. So, I think you just have to cut them out tightly and if you want fruit juice you need to eat a piece of fruit and drink a glass of water.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:36:18] You know what we don’t understand is that fiber in the whole fruit slows down the sugar getting into our body. So we’re not having that addictive effect and we’re not having that its not putting us into their cravings and constant hunger cycle which is why it’s you know it’s important to understand how to make a smoothie properly. You know smoothies can be quite full of sugar if you’re making them incorrectly. You know if you’re just taking them, packing them full of fruit and then putting dates in them as well or some people even put honey in them for goodness sake, you might as well be drinking a can of Coke. Making the smoothie itself you are getting rid of a lot of fiber. Yes the fiber is still there but you’ve broken it up so that it’s so fine that now the sugar is able to rush into your bloodstream. So I think we need to learn also how to make smoothies properly and you know have one piece of fruit in there have lots of greens in there because that’s why we’re eating having a smoothie in the first place to get some greens into us and then putting some healthy fat in there like maybe half an avocado or a handful of you know nuts or seeds to make a more of a balanced product but also so it’s not going to send blood glucose highly.

Mathea Ford: [00:37:41] What do you think is next in this kind of field of sugar addiction and way of eating changes. What’s next and how do you think it can affect health care?

Nicole Bathurst: [00:37:52] I think that it’s the whole sugar.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:37:55] And I think that it is in Australia and I know that they are talking about it in England is actually putting charges on sugar. You know taxing sugar, these sugar products become more expensive. I think that’s the way that we’re going is that we’re going to be really educating people on sugar and also refined carbohydrates like bread and pasta. You know our bread is just so refined and full of sugar. Many of them that is just not a health product anymore. And I’d love to talk about how bread has in a hundred years ago the bread used to be a healthy product because we actually it was we actually use the whole grain. There was the fiber and there was a wheat germ in the middle but you know through time, we’ve processed it so that we don’t have the germ in the middle anymore which is got the healthy fat in it. You know the wheat germ in it and it doesn’t have a fiber anymore so this product that used to be healthy and a staple I should say of our meals has now become just a processed product. Yeah! It’s just not viable anymore to be to be eating large quantities of it. So, I think that’s the way that we going is really moving away from sugar because we’ve realized how damaging it is. All of our lifestyle diseases are because of the amount of sugar and processed products that we’re eating. So, hopefully we’re coming back to really what we eat more of what we were eating a hundred years ago not just run of food.

Mathea Ford: [00:39:37] I noticed one of the things that happened here in the U.S. is they’ve started putting calorie counts on menus.

Mathea Ford: [00:39:41] I watch people how it takes them a to see that the healthy restaurant, the healthy walkup place or whatever. If it’s a national chain it has the calorie levels typically and it can make you stop and think about what you’re picking just even not necessarily to the granularity of how much sugar is in it but just to the point of saying this food item is 1200 calories and that’s in your mind. You know maybe half of or more of the total calories you should eat for the day. But I love that because I do think we have to do something to make people more aware and we of the health care community did kind of create a little bit of the problem by saying “Oh, we need to be low fat!” So of course food processors replace fat with sugar. They want the food to still taste good.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:40:37] I think too is understanding that food manufacturers actually don’t care about your health. But what they are interested in is you buying their product. And so they spend a lot of time finding the bliss point of foods which is the exact amount of fat and sugar so that you keep coming back for more. And you know not believing educating people on labeling because can say all the right things on a packet. But if you read the ingredients you can have a basic understanding of those ingredients and a nutrition label you can very quickly see that this is not a healthy product to be eating at all. So, so much of our jobs I see is education. You know I think that there’s so much power in knowledge in understanding all that we’ve been talking about today. Yeah.

Nicole Bathurst: [00:41:35] Getting out there and sharing this knowledge and relieving people of their guilt and their shame and their fear and helping them you know on this journey, this healthy eating journey because it’s fun. You know it’s liberating. I still talk about how liberating it is not to be addicted to sugar anymore and to be able to feel satisfied after a meal and easily go you know three to four hours without eating or feeling hungry.

Mathea Ford: [00:41:58] Nicole, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure to have you on this show. I know my listeners have learned a lot about just sugar and eating better just by paying attention to what you’re eating. So, I hope you’ll be open to coming back again and maybe even sharing more. OK. If the listeners want to connect with you what’s the best way to do that?

Nicole Bathurst: Via my website at naturallynic.com.au.

Mathea Ford: I’ll put a link to that in the show notes and its N-I-C.

Nicole Bathurst: Yes Nic right. NaturallyNic. Right!

Mathea Ford: Alright. Well guys this has been another great episode of Nutrition Experts Podcast. The podcast that is all about learning more so you can do more with your nutrition in your life.

The post Nutrition Experts Podcast Episode 03 Addiction To Sugar: You Are Not Weak Willed with Nicole Bathurst appeared first on Nutrition Experts Podcast.

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