Too much or too little?

Happy New Year! I hope it was a good one and you are feeling good and positive about the year ahead. Its always good to start the new year with plans of what you intend to do. I challenge you to figure out what you would like to achieve this year. Set you sights high but keep things realistic, goals should be realistic but challenging. Check back in to posts right at the beginning of this blog to discover effective goals setting strategies.

To help you on your way I thought I'd touch upon what quantities we should expect within our packaged foods. Reading nutritional labels can be challenging if you don't really know what you are looking for.

When comparing products:

• Always read from the per 100g column
• Check the serving size - some things look like they are 1 serving but are actually 2 or 3, this is how they get away with being low fat or low in sugar

What is a little and what is a lot?

Per 100g of food

Sugar: High= 10g or more Low= 2g or less
Fat: High= 20g or more Low= 3g or less
Saturates: High= 5g or more Low= 1g or less
Fibre: High= 3g or more Low= 0.5g or less
Sodium: High= 0.5g or more Low= 0.1g or less
note Sodium is often listed in mg's 1g =1000mg so 0.5g =500mg & 0.1g=100mg

When you have decided upon which product buy, paid for it, taken it home and are now sitting down to eat it wouldn't do any harm to pull out those kitchen scales and actually measure the recommended serving size. Do this for a couple of weeks and get a true idea of what a serving size of each food looks like before you pile it onto your plate. Many people make the mistake of eating healthy food but eating way too much of it. At the end of the day no matter what you eat if you eat too much your body will store it as fat.