The Wellness Scoop - Bite-Sized: Eating for Energy

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

5 ways to boost energy with nutritional therapist Alice Mackintosh. Feeling tired all the time is the most common complaint in GP surgery’s, in this short episode we break down the simple steps to combat exhaustion from balancing blood sugar to the key vitamins and minerals to look out for, plus the role of coffee, sugar and artificial sweeteners. Here’s a simple recap - eat lots of bright, colourful, whole food ingredients and look at: Balancing blood sugar Switching to whole grains Including protein in every meal Including lots of iron (with vitamin C for added absorption), B vitamins, magnesium and essential fats (omega 3) Be mindful of the quantity and timing of coffee consumption Try to avoid consuming lots of additives, refined foods, artificial sweeteners and burnt foods Alice Mackintosh: @alicemackintosh_nutrition www.alicemackintosh.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hi, I'm Ella Mills, the founder of Deliciously Ella, and this is our podcast, Delicious Ways to Feel Better. This year we're launching a new format with these 10 to 15 minute bite-sized episodes which will run alongside our longer form conversations. So we'll have a resident expert each month and each week we'll break down one topic such as how to eat to boost our energy or our gut health, how to manage our stress better and how to sleep better. It's all about making health and well-being easy and digestible, so that each week you can start to feel a little bit better too. To help you implement those learnings, we'll also update our app, also

called Feel Better, every week with tools across nutrition, mindfulness, sleep, and movement. And you can download the app from the App Store now, or Google Google Play or on our website, deliciousyellow.com. And across January, we've got a special 25% off the annual subscription. So it's just £1.75 a month, although it is available globally as well. The discount will be applied automatically on the App Store and Google Play and on our website, just use the special code PODCAST25. And this week, you're also going to find our brand new nutritionist approved seven day meal plans. So each meal in the plan is completely balanced nutritionally. Nothing takes more than 30 minutes to make, but there's also very clever uses of leftovers to make meals in minutes, which means eating well is easier and

more delicious than ever before. And for this, we worked with Alice McIntosh, a brilliant nutritional therapist who also has a degree in biomedical science. And I'm thrilled to say that Alice is our January expert for the Bite Size series. As well as working with clients one-to-one, Alice is also the founder of EquiLondon, an award-winning supplement brand that supports women at every stage of life, from skin health and energy to pregnancy and menopause. So welcome Alice, thank you for being our first guest. Oh thanks Ella, it's great to be here, thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure. So Alice can we actually just jump straight in, how can we eat to feel more energised so we've got more of that get up and go in our lives? Yeah well did you know that being tired and having low energy is the most complained about symptom with GPs in the UK? They've even got an acronym tired all the time, TATT, because it's just such a common issue. And it's an issue I get asked about all the time in clinic as well. I mean, what can we do? Let's start by talking about blood sugar. This is so simple and so easy, but most people I speak to are actually not getting it quite right. And I feel like I've been talking about blood sugar for the last 10 years. I still have to remind every client,

but it's the thing you can do to get the most immediate results with your energy levels. What we want to think about doing is reducing the white refined carbs because these are the carbs that release their energy really quickly and that gives us a really quick blood sugar spike then what happens is our blood sugar levels drop afterwards so that's why we can find we suddenly get these slumps in between meals where we're reaching for sugary things or coffee to keep us going. So aim to reduce those white refined carbs like processed breakfast cereals or white bread, pastries, as well as anything with added sugar. And instead, choose whole grains. It's so simple, but these

basically just release their energy much slower into your bloodstream so you don't get those spikes. So to give you an example, rather than choosing a sort of sweeter processed cereal for breakfast, go for oats, overnight oats, for example. But the other thing to really remember here is to put protein with your whole grains. So rather than just having porridge on its own with, say, a banana, get some nuts and seeds or some nut butter into that porridge or some hemp seeds for example because basically that protein will slow the release of that sugar from the food and that's so important for keeping your energy levels sustained over the day and actually we should

talk about protein too because that's also very very important for your energy levels when you're on a plant-based diet it's something to give a lot of attention to. So things like hummus and chickpeas and well, all types of beans and pulses and lentils are great sources of protein. Seeds, nuts, nut butter, tofu is a fantastic source as is tempeh, tahini. Basically, we want to be trying to get protein with every meal and ideally getting a couple of different sources. We need about 50 to 60 grams a day. So it's definitely something to be thinking about getting enough of. So that's the first thing. Balance your blood sugar. Really, really important. I mean, some other things that are really needed. Iron.

Iron is one of the most commonly deficient minerals in the modern world. And it's especially the case in women, actually. And we as women need double the amount of iron than men do, because we're having children, having periods, losing blood, basically. So we need to make sure we replenish that iron level each day in our diet. And low iron can really impact your energy. I think it's important to note that there's different types of low energy. That low blood sugar feeling is very different to the feeling of low iron. Low iron can feel like tired to your bones. You walk up the stairs and you get out of breath. It's sort of a deep fatigue. And so if you're feeling those symptoms or if you have thyroid issues, for example, get your iron checked. Really important.

It can also cause brain fog and low immunity. It can actually cause heavy periods, which is a bit of an odd one, because obviously that then makes your iron even lower. But I think it's also really easy to miss low iron. A lot of women just kind of trudge on and accept that they feel low in energy, but it's such an easy thing to resolve. Basically, we want to think about eating more iron. And the sources I mean obviously if you eat meat and fish you know you can get iron from that but the best vegetarian sources again are things like black beans chickpeas

cashews edamame peas tomato paste is a good source beetroot dark green leafy veg, things like kale, for example. And then also pumpkin seeds, quinoa. Tofu is a great plant-based source and actually dark chocolate is as well. The only thing to note with iron is that it's harder to absorb if you're eating it from vegetarian sources. So what you want to do is make sure you're getting lots of those vegetarian sources in, but also pair them with vitamin C because that helps you to increase the rate of your uptake of iron and actually avoid having coffee after a meal or tea because that can slow the absorption as well so some simple things there but so important to for your energy

levels and alice when you say vitamin c there if you were say for example having a kale and black bean salad and you wanted to increase that vitamin C to support the iron absorption, would adding lemon juice, for example, to the dressing of the salad, obviously you could get tahini, etc, in there to further support the sauces, would that be a good approach? It would. To be honest, when you're eating plant-based foods, the ones that contain iron also contain vitamin C, so it's kind of taken care of but if you want to add in some roasted red peppers or a squeeze of lemon juice then go for it and that may well help even more the one thing i would say about iron a little sort of tip is we often

think about spinach being a great source of iron but actually though it does have iron in it the iron is quite difficult to absorb because there are these compounds called phytates in there and oxalates. So actually think about things like kale and bok choy and salad leaves, for example, over spinach. It's the one source that's a little bit harder to absorb. Yeah, that's a really good one to know. And so in terms of supporting energy, we've got balancing blood sugar sugar supporting with getting a good amount of protein alongside our whole grains making sure our iron levels are good are there any other key things to focus on or perhaps any things that really actually quite sap our energy and can be

maybe part of the reason why our diets are making us feel a little bit more lethargic yeah definitely well i mean i think we should mention B vitamins as something that helps to support energy. Basically, in every single cell, your cells all create energy and they need B vitamins and also magnesium actually to make that energy. Each cell has what's called the mitochondria. And that's kind of like the power station of our cells. And B vitamins help fuel that power. So again, it's things like green leafy vegetables and beetroot sunflower seeds chickpeas cashews marmite is actually a fantastic source of B vitamins the one B vitamin you can't get on a plant-based diet is B12 so we do have to remember that if

you're eating a fully plant-based diet get your B12 checked yearly with your doctor and it might be a good idea to supplement as well and get a really well-formulated B12. Methyl cobalamin is a particularly good form. So I would be thinking about that. Magnesium is found in banana and kale again, oats, brown rice, quinoa, really, really important. Magnesium is actually a very common deficiency as well.

And if you're stressed and you're working out a lot and you lift weights, for example, or if you run marathons, you often need actually more magnesium than the average person. So we need to make sure that we're getting enough of that through the diet. The other thing is essential fats.

Omega-3 helps our cells make energy more efficiently. So flaxseed and hemp seeds, walnuts are great sources, or you can look at supplementing with an algae-based DHA. I think in terms of the things that sap our energy, I guess coffee is probably one to be mentioning because coffee isn't, it's not bad to have, and really we're talking about caffeine here. Caffeine isn't bad for us. Actually, there are lots of benefits to drinking caffeine in terms of our concentration, and it does give us that immediate burst of energy the problem comes when you're kind of running on empty and not eating properly and kind of replacing meals with coffee or having too

many cups of coffee a day that definitely can have an impact on our ability to synthesize energy and it does also kind of make us run like that running on empty is quite demanding for our adrenal systems which again are really important to keep healthy if we want to feel energized caffeine impacts our sleep so if you have a cup of coffee at midday a quarter of that caffeine can still be in your blood supply at midnight so a lot of people don't realize it but it really can be affecting your sleep so caffeine i would say is one thing the other thing is these kind of classic refined white carbs we've mentioned those already but anything that's got added sugar a long list of ingredients that you can't necessarily decipher artificial sweeteners can

also have a real impact on our blood sugar they actually can trick the body into thinking it's getting energy and sugar into it when actually it isn't and that can have quite a adverse effect on our metabolism and on our energy production so it really comes down to those sort of additives refined foods burnt foods are also something we should be trying to reduce because that can actually impact that they they contain certain compounds that can impact our ability to create energy so it just comes back to those lovely fresh vibrant colorful whole foods doesn't it yeah exactly it's so funny because there's so many conversations around what's immunity and

gut health and energy and our sleep and our skin and so on and it feels like there's specific things as you mentioned there b vitamins magnesium etc it can be particularly important for energy production but it's so interesting because it's so often just boils down to the same thing which is that you need a real variety yeah of healthy nourishing whole food ingredients and that it's so easy at the end of a busy day to be like i'm just going to get a takeaway and there's nothing wrong with doing anything like that every now and again but it's just actually putting fresh vegetables lots of colorful food on our plates every day

genuinely makes the world of difference even if it seems so simple and Alice I've got to ask two last questions the first is because I know everyone will be thinking it is how much coffee is too much coffee well we're all different right so some people can definitely tolerate more coffee than others I think the goal really is to be getting down to one to two cups of caffeine per day and don't do that quickly if you're drinking more than that don't suddenly cut a load out because you can have withdrawal symptoms so reduce it slowly and have replacements like green tea for example or matcha or even rooibos which actually is with a little bit of milk you can feel like

you're having a cup of tea but just without the caffeine so try to reduce down to one or two and really aim to have that last cup before 3 p.m or earlier if you're not sleeping well okay great and then so our last question is for anybody listening to this they're inspired they've learned a lot from you what is the one change that our listeners could make in their lives to feel more energized I would say get more protein at mealtimes we've just talked about why it's so important and it really can be that secret weapon in terms of keeping your energy levels balanced over the whole day brilliant Alice thank you so much thank you guys for listening we'll be back with another bite-sized episode with alice next week next week we'll be talking about how we can use food to boost our

mood and don't forget there's 25 off our feel better app this month and alice's nutritionist approved meal plans as well on there have a a lovely day, everyone. Thank you. Bye. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.