Host: Murray Norton (MN)
Guest: Azmina Govindji (AG)

MN: Hello and welcome to the show. Now I'm sure you'd like to have a much healthier lifestyle, I'm sure you'd like to eat better and feel better for it. But the trouble is we are bombarded with so much information it is really difficult to know what's true and what's advertising and what's just completely myth. Well to help us today on the programme, which is, brought to you in association with AXA PPP, we have nutritionist and also dietician, Azmina Govindji is with us. Azmina is going to be telling us a little more about nutrition today – we'll be learning a great deal more. And obviously we've got your questions as well, if you've got a question about nutrition well we've broken it down in the next hour into four separate subjects, we'll be talking about the five daily portions of fruit and veg, how important are they, and finding out exactly how much makes a portion. We'll be chatting about weight control, nutritional disorders and food labelling, which is so important, particularly with the new traffic light system. Azmina, when we talk about nutrition and we talk about living a healthy lifestyle in terms of our diet, it's difficult for us to know what's right because so many people will tell us, ‘this is healthy', or ‘this is healthy', ‘this is low fat', ‘this is high fat', I'm as confused as anyone.

AG: We are bombarded with magazines and newspapers giving us hot stories but nutrition is an evolving science and it's really good that all the press are trying to get us more and more interested in it. What's important is understanding that what you eat directly affects your health so whether you are going to get diabetes or heart disease or high blood pressure, what you eat is crucially important.

MN: We've always known that really but we all say ‘yeah yeah it won't hurt if have if I have a couple of burgers' at three o'clock in the morning or something.

AG: Is that your diet?

MN: That's totally my diet, and as you can see, I'm a fine figure of health because of it as well. We end up getting mixed messages all the time and it seems that an awful lot of people are on diets all the time and that can't be good for them either. I guess it's about ironing out the bumps is it so that we aren't up and down and all over the place?

AG: I think so, it's about lifestyle and it's about acknowledging our hectic lifestyle, which is why we are becoming more processed in the way that we are eating. We're going for the ready meals that you pop into the microwave or having more takeaways and it's about seeing how often you have those burgers and at what time. So it's fine to have foods that we might consider to be unhealthy but it's about how much do you have, how often do you have what are you eating at other times of the day?

MN: We can get so zealous about the whole thing can't we?

AG: Food's for enjoyment! Let's not get too het up about it. Have variety, that's the key for me, have lots of different foods, enjoy your food and maybe take a leaf from the olive tree, think about how the French eat their food, you know, sipping wine and having a three hour lunch which I would love to have. So really perhaps we need to enjoy our food more and not worry about it so much.

MN: Alright, stop worrying, start enjoying. Let's talk about those five portions of fruit and veg, we've been hearing about this for so long now and the theme of daily intake and recommended daily intake has been very heavily promoted by government agencies and by food producers. We've got as you can see, some fruit juices here and some fruit here, just what is a portion of fruit, what would count?

AG: That's a very common question and actually it's really simple. Any fruit, an apple, a Satsuma, an orange, a handful of grapes – that's a portion. If you were thinking of a salad, perhaps a bowl of salad. Tomatoes; a couple of tomatoes. If you were thinking about boiled vegetables or steamed vegetables maybe too or three tablespoons so again don't get het up, it's about what looks like an average portion.

MN: Most people would quite happily say well an apple, an orange, some grapes during the day you know if you put that by the side of your desk when you are at work, that would work over the course of a day. You've had three before you've even got to your evening meal.

AG: And the good news is that it doesn't all have to be fresh so on your desk, you could keep a pack of dried apricots and eat through those while you are typing away or whatever. If you are buying a sandwich at the sandwich bar have a think, can I supplement this with a little side salad or maybe a portion of fruit juice so you can actually build those in and it's possible to get higher than five if you really wanted to.

MN: Yeah, even more healthy.

AG: Well the research shows we should be eating nine portions, not to frighten you but really there's excellent research to show that we ought to be going much higher than the five but currently in the UK we average two to three portions so maybe we could be doing a bit better.

MN: We've got some orange juice here as well, actually I could rather like an orange juice, what would be a portion of orange juice because glasses vary in size and people think they are and they're not so what have we got here?

AG: I'll have a go at pouring this but it's roughly a two hundred mil portion. What's the key here is that it's roughly an eighty gram portion of fruit so ideally that should come from eighty grams of orange. But because we've removed the fibre from there it takes much less time to drink. Fruit juice only counts as one portion of fruit a day so ideally you don't want to have five glasses of orange juice and say to yourself I am doing my bit.

MN: You're not getting the fibre.

AG: You're not getting the fibre, you're not getting the full range of nutrients and you will notice I chose different colours there. The more varied, the colours the more varied the nutrients so if you can, try and choose different colours, choose different mediums in order to have your fruit and veg then you are getting the best of both worlds.

MN: Is certain fruit and veg better than others? I mean it's just splitting hairs there really isn't it?

AG: Well you hear all the media stories about super foods and pomegranate and cherries were the latest ones. I the variety message is more important. So choose fruits that you enjoy, if you happen to like the cranberries there is some research to show that they help with urinary tract infections, cystitis, so that's fine, if you like blueberries that's great, but don't force yourself to have something because you have heard the latest news story.

MN: You see the problem is apples I love, grapes I love, oranges for me are the food of the devil, I just can't, it's the pulp, it's the pith that's in them and the peeling of them, I just can't be bothered with oranges.

AG: You're just lazy aren't you!

MN: Well I like orange juice but I don't like oranges in that pulpy squishy bit and so if I didn't eat oranges I suppose if I ate the other two and had a glass of orange that would be ok?

AG: That would be fine; it's about eating what you enjoy and what's easy for you and practical.

MN: See I like bananas and I like avocado and they are high in fat, I assume we are getting into grey areas aren't we?

AG: Well bananas I mean we've got some here and actually what's interested me about these is that they are green tipped bananas and these are probably the best type of bananas you can eat because they are less ripe, they are going to make your blood sugar go up less slowly, yet more of the starch is there than sugar, as they ripen more of the starches becomes sugary, so ideally so if you can choose green tipped bananas they are slightly healthier but I would say one a day, I mean you could go wild on this and say I'm going to have three bananas and two apples and I'm done but you are right the calories are a bit higher so perhaps go for one banana and a variety of others.

MN: So bananas are ok, just don't go mad on them. Well I suppose it's the same with all of the fruit and all the vegetables as well.

AG: And all the vegetables but what I was going to say is that bananas get a lot of knocking but they are really rich in potassium and that helps to lower your blood pressure so for me they are an excellent food and if you are not a breakfast person, you know, catch a banana, get on the train and you've actually got something that's helping your blood sugar to go up, helping you to concentrate.

MN: Alright now questions coming in as we speak, thank you very much indeed, we are talking about nutrition, your diet, today's show is brought to you by AXA PPP Healthcare. First question is from Eric, Eric wants to know about green tea. Is green tea good for you, should you drink green tea? Is it healthy for your digestive system?

AG: There is some research to show that green tea is richer in antioxidants which are these special chemicals that help you to deal with free radicals which are substances that are created in the body naturally, we all have them.

MN: So this is a kind of vacuum system that's taking the free radicals out?

AG: Exactly, that's a nice way of saying it, so it is richer in antioxidants and some people prefer it, if you like green tea then go for it, there is some evidence to show that it might even stimulate your metabolism but I'm not so sure about the conclusive evidence there.

MN: Ok so yeah, little bit, it's not going to hurt you, it's probably better for you than the caffeine drinks.

AG: Well there is caffeine in green tea, but it's great, enjoy it.

MN: Alright so it's ok. Another question in from Sheila, Sheila eats sesame snaps. They seem to be keeping me going and giving me energy, are they something to be eating on a regular basis or are they too fattening?

AG: Well I don't know the calories off hand but sesame seeds are actually really healthy, really rich in vitamin D, you've got some fibre in there, you've got some really good essential fats so for me I would rather people eat any kind of sesame based biscuit compared to chocolate or a shortbread type of biscuit. Really great food, don't forget they are coated in this sugar syrup which is why they taste so good but how many could you physically eat? I don't know if she really devours them but to have a couple every day is absolutely fine.

MN: In relationship to vegetables and I was just thinking about vegetables and it was one thing that I love and that's raw veg. I can eat raw veg all the time and it's a great snack as well, but getting the youngsters to eat, that's a tough one isn't it.

AG: I have two of them at home and what I decided to do was get them in the kitchen. For me that's the only way, get them from a very young age to become interested in food, to play with food, so, I don't know, get a pizza base, let them slop on some tomato puree and oregano then get them to pile on the vegetables, make a face on the pizza, throw sweet corn into a fish pie, get them mixing, get them slicing cucumbers, whatever it is that makes children enjoy the preparation of food, helps them to be comfortable with it and then hopefully they will eat it in the end and if they have had a hand in it they probably will.

MN: Right so a good way to involve the children, get them to play with the food, well, play with the preparation. We are a bit too stuffy about food don't play with your food; actually do play with your food.

AG: I think so. Make it more interesting and exciting.

MN: Make it fun, make it fun. Greg's got a question for you, are there any concerns about replacing water with diet-carbonated drinks for your daily requirement?

AG: It is better to drink a wide variety, a bit like the fruit and veg you know, make sure you get your fluid from a variety of sources. Diet drinks do provide fluid and its up to you as to how much you drink and remember they do have artificial sweeteners so if your drinking a lot of them I would suggest you vary the types of sweeteners that you have, look at the label, they will have different sweeteners on them, don't focus on just one if your drinking a lot of them. For me its about variety and enjoyment so have some water, some fruit juice, some tea and coffee, some fluid from soups and custards even, and have some from your diet drink.

MN: Custard now there's a nutritional thing, I love comfort foods.

AG: Oh I love comfort foods too, I was brought up on custard in Edinburgh, it's beautiful but a lot of people don't like it now, Kids won't eat custard.

MN: They must be mad. If you don't eat custard there must be something wrong with you that's for certain, lets go back to water, because how much water should you be drinking a day?

AG: At least six to eight glasses a day and in hot weather, possibly a bit more.

MN: But that's a lot of water isn't it? If you put six to eight glasses out that's a big bottle that's at least two litres.

AG: What I do is, while I'm working, I have my glass of water and then you actually find you become habituated to it, you actually depend upon it and the key is that don't wait until you're thirsty to drink. You're actually dehydrated by the time your thirsty so just get into the habit of drinking and for people who want to lose weight and I know we will discuss this later, just a little tip here, often you start to feel hungry because your actually thirsty so perhaps start with a glass of water and see whether your still feeling hungry or whether that satisfied it?

MN: That's not a bad tip, drink water and maybe you will eat less, we are talking about diets in just a few minutes time, get your questions in for that. Question from John, he wants to know about combining foods, if you combine foods with proteins and starches together, does that have a negative effect on the nutritional value of them?

AG: For me good nutrition is about variety as I've said and not restricting so it is about combining and in fact some cases certain foods will help you to absorb another food, for example calcium, we need vitamin D to absorb calcium, its really important to mix these two types of foods together. It's the same with iron, you need vitamin C in order to absorb vegetarian sources of iron, for example, if you're going to be eating pulses to get your iron, have a glass of fruit juice with them and that helps you to absorb it so actually food combining can sometimes give you the best of both worlds.

MN: Just one final thing about the five portions before we leave this behind, that's about expense, does it cost an awful lot, because that could be a reason why people say – Oh I'd love to have fresh fruit and veg all the time but it's so expensive.

AG: That's a good point, so buy foods in season. Frozen is just as good, in fact sometimes better. Dried fruit and veg also count; canned fruit and veg also count. Just make sure you're not buying canned fruit in syrup, choose canned fruit in natural juice or water. Choose canned vegetables in water, rather than sugar or salted water, but they all count and are much cheaper, so whatever you like does count.

MN: I'm getting hungry, lets talk about weight control, weight control is just one of those things that, you know whenever you mention food, the next thing anyone ever talks about is – oh I'm on a bit of a diet I have to watch this, I have to watch that… or I really ought to do something about my weight, and what is overweight and what isn't overweight, and some people again, are completely over zealous about it, they are habitually on a yo-yo diet.

AG: It is estimated that every woman at some point in her life has been on some sort of diet, and I think men are catching up now. It is important to watch your weight, it does make you more at risk of conditions such as diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease etc, and for me it's about choosing something that fits for you. We do get sucked into these glossy brochures and promises of the quick fix and people do get lured into the next hot diet and what's important is to choose a diet that sounds balanced, again, like you said, common sense; has it got lots of fruit and veg? If it's telling you to avoid a certain food, well, you don't really need to avoid a certain food. You've heard of the cabbage soup diets or other such diets, just focusing on one food group is likely to give you deficiencies in an other so actually make sure what your doing involves all the food groups, lots of variety and enjoy it, it shouldn't promise you a quick fix like half a stone in two weeks.

MN: So what is a sensible amount to lose?

AG: I would say one to two pounds a week, that's certainly what the British Dietetic Association recommend, one to two pounds per week, initially you might lose it a bit quicker because your body is just getting used to it, which is quite encouraging sometimes.

MN: Is that water you are retaining or is it food wastage that's all leaving you?

AG: Its mostly water in the beginning and that's why people who go on these quick fix two week diets think they have done really well, start eating normally again and the weight creeps back on and you mentioned yo-yo dieting well actually by your weight going up and down so quickly you may actually be putting yourself more at harm than being slightly over weight in the first place.

MN: Interesting questions coming in on this and I have got one here that came in earlier from Emma, thank you Emma for this; - I exercise five times a week mainly twenty minutes jogging and a gentle swim for half hour a day, which is great, that's fantastic.
What types of food should I be eating? Just as a proviso to that, I've lost a load of weight and I still am but now I don't need to lose weight; I just want to keep fit and healthy.

AG: Firstly, congratulations, that's amazing, well done, so the exercise is just the key, that's really fantastic to hear, I wish more people took that on. If it's practical for you I think that's great running five times a week. That's going to help stimulate her metabolic rate, it's going to help immobilise her fat stores and she certainly probably feels a whole lot healthier. What she needs to do now is keep that weight steady, rather than as she said, lose weight, it's about making sure that you have enough food for energy, enough food to balance the amount of exercise you are doing and so for her she is in a way her best doctor. If your feeling hungry eat, but choose those foods that are going to help you reach your goal, make sure you have carbohydrates but when your choosing carbs, choose those that are slowly digesting, we call them low GI Foods, you may have heard of that?

MN: Glycaemic Index.

AG: That's right. What are foods from the Glycaemic Index?

MN: We are talking about oats and things that are slow burn.

AG: That's it – slow burn, really what it is about is that the way your body digests that food. If you think of a bowl of porridge that's really good because your digestive systems have to work hard to digest those oats and get them into sugar. Every starch goes into sugar in your body and you want your blood sugar to go up slowly so your energy levels are sustained. This is the best thing for someone who exercises a lot, as this keeps your energy levels going up slowly and steadily helps you to cope with stress, exercise, the meetings at work. Other examples of low GI food are: - muesli, beans, lentils, citrus fruit, whole grains.

MN: Thank you very much indeed for the question on that, question in from Linda, Linda asks what the best way to lose weight long term? If you like, this is the utopia for anyone who wants to lose weight and from what you were saying before, it does seem that it's a whole life style thing it isn't just a quick fix and whatever you do and start doing you have to maintain for the rest of your life.

AG: I think Linda really poses an important question and that is around weight maintenance because we often can get the quick fix results, if you really went on a strict diet you would probably lose weight, its keeping the weight off that's important so what I would suggest Linda does is to actually make sure she is concentrating on eating regularly. Eat regular meals and eat snacks in between. When you're choosing your food make sure you have always got some vegetables on your plate, often we think of the dreaded fish and chips, sorry the only example I could think of just now but if you have to have your fish and chips think about something that can complement that to make it that little bit healthier, have a side salad, have a few table spoons of baked beans even. If you want to have fish is there a way of grilling it rather than having it in batter, if you really want to have chips, think about five per cent fat ones. The fatter chips are actually going to absorb less oil than the thin French fries which is because it's less of the surface area. Are your chips thick?

MN: My chips are really thick, here is a chef's tip, if you get a non stick tray and you just chop up large baked potatoes into those thick chips and put them into a very hot oven, maybe even just brush the non stick with a tiny brush of oil, oil and water spritzer is very good. Put them in a hot oven, they puff out and are really crunchy and they are not even fried.

AG: I'm hungry already.

MN: We want chips now; I should replace this table with a big mound of chips.
Azmina is with us and she is answering your questions on today's show, which is brought to you in association with AXA PPP Healthcare. We are talking about weight control at the moment and there are some great questions coming in. There is one here that comes in from someone who just goes by the initials, SA – I would like to lose weight but I always need sweet things like chocolates and biscuits. You mentioned snacks before in the last question – How do we get out of this? You know we can have the best willpower in the world but we seem to have a mental block, sometimes we even forget we have had snacks! I have been really good today except for the half packet of chocolate biscuits!

AG: That's very true and we have all been there haven't we? When only something sweet will do and what happens is you have something sweet and actually you do feel better – you really feel quite good. The reason for that is that the sweet food has been digested really quickly, it's made your low blood sugar which made you crave the sweet food in the first place into a higher blood sugar, so you feel great when it's up here but because it's what we call a high glycaemic food, the blood sugar drops very quickly again and at that point you need another fix so you go for yet another chocolate biscuit or whatever you had, and this is the danger. We tend to crave sweet foods – we are making it worse for ourselves actually by going for that because then again our blood sugar responses are very high and that's not going to help you in the long term – it will not fill you up, is probably high in fat, calories and sugar, so the key is if you want something sweet try things like dried fruit, dried apricots, figs, even a cereal bar with chocolate chips in it – it is still going to be more slowly digested and you get the flavour of the chocolate as well. Sometimes if you have really got to have it, have it – don't beat yourself up about it, don't feel guilty, because what happens when you feel guilty you think well I have blown it now, may as well go for the whole pack and the key is to acknowledge it and say I shouldn't have done that and say okay let's get back on track and I am going to go and hit the fruit bowl now.

MN: But nothing's bad for you as long as you get it in the right proportions? Is that fair?

AG: That's fair. Enjoy life!

MN: Even a great dietician like yourself, I bet you have a piece of chocolate every now and then?

AG: I love chocolate!

MN: There we go…

AG: Only now and then!

MN: If the dietician says she loves chocolate then it cannot be that bad. Chloe says how can you lose weight if you still want to eat sweets? It's a difficult combination between the two – something almost has to go, but there must be alternatives out there.

AG: I would probably question why you want to eat the sweets Chloe – I think we often use food to fill an emotional hole rather than a physical hole. A lot of the people I see don't really have a physiological need to eat. If you think about it, the clock strikes 12 and you think it's lunchtime – are you actually hungry? Probably not! We are so conditioned so perhaps she has got herself into this conditioning where she feels like she really needs something and it's about questioning do I really want something sweet now. Is it that I am bored, or is it that there is something else in my life that's making me upset that's making me crave these sorts of foods. Now if you've questioned that and you are totally cool and feel everything's straight and everything's great but you just enjoy sweet foods, then it's about what you said earlier – the amount you have and how often you have it. Maybe allow yourself a couple of little chocolate ιclairs or whatever sweets you like, and I would suggest you balance them with something else, so if you are having sweets, then have an apple with them and that will help slow down that blood sugar. That will help to fill you up and also helps your teeth. Another good tip actually is to brush your teeth after you have had a snack or a meal. It's that clean feeling that actually does prevent you hitting the cookie jar

MN: What a great tip. And you have got perfect teeth at the same time – what a great idea that is! The portions of food that you eat, everyone's got a different size dinner plate and the fashion is the dinner plates that have got larger and larger now. We've seen these super chefs and whenever they present something it's often on a huge dinner plate, often 15-16 inches across so we're putting more food on them. Is one of those weight control secrets to actually get smaller plates?

AG: Well…

MN: Because you are conning yourself.

AG: Well think about America. You go to a restaurant, have this huge plate that's filled and often people will have a doggy bag to take home for the next day and often people will actually finish it, so portion size is a big issue. I think in fact the government maybe looking at that in the future and we know about the takeaway places offering larger portions so it is really important to get our heads around, okay do we really need this amount and if I do want my plate to be full. Are there other items I can put on there to give me the perception that I am eating more, which I am, but they are good foods. So what I advise in the GI plan is actually imagine you have got a pair of chopsticks – when you look at your plate, put those chopsticks across each other so you virtually split your plate into 4 quarters – fill 2 quarters with vegetables or salad, that's the veggie, veggie part, 1 quarter which is your protein, which for example is meat, fish, eggs, cheese, etc and 1 quarter with carbohydrates, which is your potatoes, rice, pasta, noodles – these sorts of things – even if you have got a big plate, what you have done there is limited the high fat, high calorie food, you are only having that much protein, only that much carbohydrate and because you are filling up on the vegetables or the salad you have really improved the nutritional value of that meal – it will be filling, it will give you the antioxidants, take longer to eat, so you really feel like you are eating lots of food, but actually it is quite healthy.

MN: But eat slower!

AG: Eat slower, yes, eat slower.

MN: Someone said to me the longer you take to chew something actually you don't get bored with it but you are full before you know it aren't you?

AG: Well you are allowing yourself time to register you are full. We're taught to finish what's on the plate and we tend to be conditioned by this, so you often finish what's there without really being conscious about what your brain's telling you which is I think I have had enough now thank you very much. So what I will say to people is if you put your fork down after every mouthful you do get use to this, you have more time to chat and it actually helps you to become more in tune with your appetite which is really important.

MN: Is this the French and their 3 hour lunch we are going back to?

AG: Exactly that – they take time – they savour every mouthful, it is a pleasurable, social circumstance, sipping your wine, taking your time and enjoying the company and the atmosphere. Perhaps we need to be more conscious of that.

MN: Questions are coming in thick and fast. I am a keen cyclist (not me) but Mart. Hello Mart. He's been eating a diet that has included a lot of mixed nuts as a source of carbohydrate. Is eating too many nuts bad for you?

AG: Let's first establish nuts are a good food.

MN: I love them. I love those Brazil nuts.

AG: Anti ageing – high in selenium, but only 2 or 3 a day. But yes nuts are a great food. They get a lot of bad press as they are high in fat – about half of every peanut is fat. They are high in fat but the right type of fat. I am sure you know this – monounsaturates.

MN: Stop – you are testing me again. You said you'd do this! So monounsaturates – which is wrong fat/good fat??

AG: Good fat – monounsaturates is the good fat. It is the Mediterranean olive oil story again.

MN: Okay

AG: So nuts are rich generally in monounsaturated fats, so it's a good food. There is also really good research, in fact there was a study done which is called the nurses health study. 120,000 nurses and they had 1 group of nurses on a healthy weight reducing diet and another group of nurses on exactly the same diet but within the same calories with an ounce of nuts a day and they found those that included the nuts lost more weight and importantly kept the weight off for longer and that to me is very interesting. How can you possibly think of a food that is high in fat and is helping you to lose weight? And it's about how filling they are and if you think about it, if you're sat there with let's say a handful of brazil nuts, you feel it don't you?

MN: Well I probably would have eaten the packet covered in chocolate, but that's a different story!

AG: No wonder you feel it!

MN: Yeah

AG: They are more filling and again that's because they are slowly digested which gives you a nice slow glucose curve, very healthy and very high in fibre and protein. So my advice in short is about 1 ounce a day, which is about a handful.

MN: So a handful of nuts a day for the cyclist. Thanks very much for your question and good luck with the cycling. In terms of nuts I am just wandering when I started eating salted cashew nuts and salted peanuts I have to finish a whole bag and that's not so good for you.

AG: And you probably have the beer as well to wash it down.

MN: When you get thirsty! I mean I am just doing it out of thirst. That's the trouble, salted nuts and roasted salted nuts are covered in oil and salt. Maybe that's not such a good thing.

A: I would agree with you. If you can for example go for peanuts in their shells. Again you are more conscious, you take time to eat them and they are quite fun and interactive. You can roast them in the oven to get the shells open, or any raw nuts, brazils that are not salted, cashew nuts; almonds are a great food, again without the salt and the sugar coating.

MN: Becky has sent us a question. If exercise makes one hungry then what is the best food to have just after you have exercised? That's a great question cos for me there is nothing like a curry and a couple of pints just after exercise.

AG: Well let's think about what's happening in the body. As you exercise you are using energy that comes from your muscles. That energy is a form of glucose or sugar so what the exercise is doing is that it is taking sugar from your body to use it as fuel. What you need to do is to replace that glucose. So if you really feel like oh my God I need something right now, strangely enough try something sugary, will help to get that blood sugar up very quickly. We certainly advise this in diabetes when people are feeling slightly low. Initially get the sugar up and then think of what's going to help you in the long term. Something like the beautiful banana. Great food to have.

MN: Watching Wimbledon – How many times do they sit down to eat a banana? I'm thinking what's the secret here? Does it make me play better tennis or what?

AG: It does, but great food, nicely digested, feel full, helps to replenish those sugar and energy stores, so anything that you feel is easy to eat, digestible perhaps the curry and rice isn't the best food to eat straight after exercise.

MN: I knew it - I knew it all the way. I knew you were going to burst the bubble on that one. But there are foods you can eat and sensible ones, particularly after you have just finished exercise, you need something almost in the car on the way home don't you?

AG: Yes! Well you could have a pocket of dried fruit and nuts in the car that would be great, with lots of water.

MN: Replace the liquid.

AG: Yes! Replace the fluid…

MN: Hayley thank you for your question as well. She wants to know how many calories can I eat and still lose weight? Now calorie controlled, let's go through this cos this is a really important thing for a lot of people when it comes to weight loss.

AG: Well firstly we all probably have more calories than we need. The government recommends you have probably heard of recommended daily amounts.

MN: Yes

AG: Women should have around 2200 calories a day and this is to maintain your weight. You will probably be having more than that. In order to lose weight , you may remember, I don't know , in the 70s, where we used to have the 1000 calorie diet and sometimes even the 800 calorie diet.

MN: It seems a bit severe doesn't it?

AG: It is severe – absolutely and that's what people tend to latch onto when they want to lose weight. They think oh God I can only eat 1000 calories and yes it will help you to lose weight but sadly you lose weight so quickly that when you start to eat proper food, the weight goes on really quickly again. So for me it's about making sure you don't go too strict. If you have a calorie deficit of 500 calories a day – so eat 500 fewer calories a day, you can lose 1lb of fat a week and this is what you want to aim for. If you are looking at slow weight loss – cut out the biscuits for example. That will lose about 200 calories for example. A few biscuits a day. If you are looking at cooking methods, one tablespoon of oil will give you over 100 calories, so actually just by cutting down on the amount of oil you are using, or grilling foods rather than frying them, you have cut down your calories, so if I was to give her advice, it would probably be the best calorie intake for weight loss for women is between 1200 and 1400 which is actually quite generous and for me it is about maintenance so actually that will be sustained for longer.

MN: Right – and for men?

AG: For men I'd say about 1500 maybe even up to 1700 and you know as a dietician what I would look for, very critically, is someone's personal intake. It isn't about generalising. I would say well if you are normally having 3000 it is unrealistic for me to expect you to go down to 1500 so I would look at cutting it down to 2000 now and then gradually come down.

MN: Weight loss – Is it just about diet or about exercise and diet together?

AG: You know the answer to that!

MN: Course I do.

AG: Thanks for giving me that one.

MN: Of course it's both.

AG: Yes - It's an equation isn't it. Energy in and energy out. So in terms of energy and that's your food intake you cut that down but cut it down appropriately, cutting down on fats, eating more fibre, cutting down on sugar, make sure you have food from all the food groups. Energy in goes down and energy out needs to go up. Energy out is your energy expenditure or exercise, so if you can tip the balance, that way you will generally lose weight. Generally to lose weight they are about even, so the amount of energy we take in is balanced with the amount of energy we expend as exercise.

MN: Alessi wants to know if you eat something and then go and burn off the calories will that stop the fat setting?

AG: That's an interesting one isn't it? I think the key is to have this balance, so it is great she is thinking about the reward so she can eat a bit more if I exercise a bit more. That's really quite good advice. Enjoy your food but make sure you exercise well. It doesn't work so instantly that you burn something off so it's a long process, so we would be looking at a week in terms of what someone's eating and in terms of nice habit.

MN: Weight loss no doubt is going to come back into what we are talking about today, but for some people it's not just as simple as managing their weight on a normal diet with healthy exercise. There are in fact more, because of the knowledge that we have more eating disorders than ever before. Let's talk about some of these eating disorders because they are far more common than we thought in the first place. Let's talk about diabetes first – What's happening – if you don't have diabetes it is very difficult to understand what's going on.

A: Well in simple terms, diabetes is a condition where your blood sugar is abnormally high. So normally in non diabetes, when you eat something, especially a carbohydrate food, which becomes sugar when you digest it, you have a hormone in your body which becomes insulin. Insulin is secreted and as the blood sugar goes up, knocks, takes that sugar from the blood cells so that you can use this sugar for energy. It happens without us even knowing it. In diabetes the insulin is either ineffective or there isn't enough of it, so when you eat the carbohydrates or you eat foods that become sugar in your body – insulin may be secreted and it isn't enough or it can't work hard enough to make all that sugar bring it to the cell, so the blood sugar stays high and that's when you get the complications.

MN: Right – That's when it happens – and we have a question, quite a detailed question. Laura, thank you for your question and I am going to read this off the paper as I want to get it exactly right. I have diabetes type 2, you will need to explain that, lost 2 stone when leaving sugar out from my diet, however since then I have been eating exactly the same and the weight is going back on. I would like to lose more. I am 13.5 stone, which is too much. Can you help?

AG: Right.

MN: So, type 2 diabetes – I am guessing there might be a type 1 as well?

AG: There is. Type 2 is the more common. There are about 80% of diabetics are type 2 and this is where you still have some insulin but you tend to be overweight with it, so the key is to start losing weight and this helps your diabetes. That's type 2 diabetes. It's generally occurs in people over 35/40. With this childhood obesity epidemic more children are getting type 2 diabetes; this is the worrying fact, that never used to happen in children.

MN: Now Laura's problem here is that she is eating exactly the same but the weight is slowly creeping back on - having lost a couple of stone. Is that standard?

AG: It can be really disheartening. Anybody who goes on a weight reducing diet, initially the results are great and perhaps you have a good weight loss and then it does tend to plateau. This is normal and natural so she needs to relax about that.

MN: Okay

AG: However you do want to have some results so what she could possibly start to do is exercise a little bit more. Remember the energy in/energy out equation to get the energy out a little bit higher, exercise a little bit more. Perhaps visit a dietician who can look very critically at what she is eating. Regular meals and snacks are really important. Like you said you had two digestives yesterday. So she would look very critically at that and there may be foods that she's having that she's not aware of like we all are. She needs to look at if she can make some small changes.

MN: Alright – so small changes here and there, it's about. Laura good luck with all of that. Thanks for your question. Carol wants to know what foods should someone with high cholesterol be encouraged to eat? Now let's talk about cholesterol. This is another big one like diabetes, as I guess there will be more questions on that. Let's just talk about cholesterol for a moment. It's been the thing to know what your cholesterol is and you can get from the chemist these simple readers. For the last 4-5 years I don't know what mine is so sorry about that! I am a bad example. Cholesterol, why do we need to know what it is and why?

A: Well you are probably an average example actually. Actually I would be very surprised if people out there, many people know their cholesterol level. You only get it checked when you worry about it or when it comes up as a routine test. It's a really good question. It's important to know your cholesterol. Your GP can advise you on the level you should be aiming for. If it's abnormally high, you are more at risk from heart disease and that gives you risk of other conditions too. So it's really important to know and there are very, very easy things to do with your diet to help you reduce that cholesterol.

MN: Such as?

AG: Firstly we all know that fat and cholesterol there's some connection there. So there are different types of fat and we touched on them earlier. The ones that have the greatest influence on your blood cholesterol are the ones we call saturated fats. Saturated fat is found in full fat dairy products, fatty meat, butter, processed food too. So these fats are the ones we want to cut down on.

MN: Right.

AG: Another type, which is big in the US at the moment, is what we call trans fat and this acts in a very similar way to saturated fats. It's another baddie and you might see it on the label. Trans fats, you might have seen hydrogenated vegetable oil on the label.

MN: Do you know funnily enough I have!

AG: So these are the trans fats and these raise your bad cholesterol, so again those are the ones to stay clear of if you can. If you think about the common sense message, clearly processed foods, have more natural, home cooked foods if you can, so that will get rid of the bad fats if you like.

MN: Okay. Good.

AG: In terms of what to eat more of, we touched on monounsaturates. There's really good research to show if you do take your fat in terms of olive oil, rapeseed oil, nuts, avocado seeds, these fats actually help to lower your bad cholesterol, so you can have lots of fat, but within the fats you are having, have the right ones.

MN: Have the right ones. Further to that I have noticed a whole pletherer of brands out right now and all they are saying is have more of this and you will lower your cholesterol even more. What are these about, yoghurts, dairies, and small little drinks which battle against cholesterol. So how do they work?

A: Okay. So they are usually made from plant stanalls or sterales, you don't need to know about that.

MN: Good

AG: Basically there is really good research to show these, they are just products made out of vegetables. They are components of vegetables we eat every day, so they're safe. What these manufacturers have done is they have extracted a large quantity of plant steriles which we couldn't physically eat and put them into a bottle or into a spread or yoghurt and the research shows that if you have roughly 2 grams of that sterile and they'll tell you this on the packet, everyday, then you can reduce your cholesterol. It can be as good a reduction of between 10-15% of bad cholesterol, but it doesn't mean you can eat what you like.

MN: Of course that's the downside. Well if I am having that, I can have all of these!

AG: And the key is to keep it in context, so have lots of fruit and vegetables. Try to have a low fat diet if you can, low in saturated fat and yes I think there are great products, one a day and they can be almost as good as drugs.

MN: One a day and just one deep fried mars bar a year.

AG: That sounds alright.

MN: Let's have a question from Darren. Darren wants to know – he thinks he may be food intolerant to wheat and celiac. Wheat and celiac – are they the same thing?

AG: They are different. Celiac disease is a condition where you are intolerant to protein and wheat. A wheat intolerance is the starch parts or the protein parts and what worries me about people who suspect they have got a wheat intolerance, they just walk down to their local allergy clinic and walk out with a list of foods they are supposedly allergic or intolerant to. I learn a lot from my patients. The first thing I would say is check with your GP or see a registered dietician to confirm a diagnosis. Don't read your magazine and think, I feel bloated; I have probably got a wheat intolerance.

MN: That's a common thing people do – they never get themselves checked out.

AG: Yes and they cut out bread and lots of other foods which is actually giving them deficiencies cos as you know bread has actually got B vitamins for example, so you are actually ruling out some really good foods cos you suspect you have got an allergy or an intolerance. Get it checked.

MN: Is that the only way to know because Darren's question was – How do I know?

AG: Well if he's suffering from symptoms, he mentioned celiac disease there, then you have either got diarrhoea or some sort of intestinal discomfort for example on eating certain foods. Go to your GP, get it checked, he may refer you to take some tests, they may put you on what's called an exclusion diet, the taking out of certain foods to see if your symptoms improve and then slowly adding those foods back and checking whether you are getting symptoms again. Isolate the offending food. That's the key – don't just go to an allergy clinic cos when you look at this list of foods we are intolerant to, top of the list are foods like cheese, soya, yeast extract, red wine, wheat is quite low down yet that's the one that people latch onto.

MN: So it's the usual thing – 15 vodkas and tonics I had, but it must have been the orange juice that made me feel ill!

AG: Yes!

MN: Go to your GP and get it checked out when it come to intolerances.

AG: What I will add is that I am not knocking allergy clinics; some of them are very good. It's about checking with your own medical advisors as well.

MN: Okay. We will get all those sorted out. Another question. All my friends have their children checked for allergies and some of them have been told their kids have several intolerances – how reliable are these tests?

AG: Again it's back to the same thing, cos sometimes you will come out, I know mums, who have been devastated cos apparently their child is allergic to 20 foods.

MN: How on earth do you manage that?

AG: I mean let's just take an example of the tomato. It's not just about avoiding tomatoes, it's in soups, it's in baked beans, it's in processed foods, you might have it as a colouring, so it's really difficult to completely exclude any food and you need to do this with the advice of a specialist dietician or someone who is really trained or qualified to give you that advice. What worries me is they believe they are allergic to all these and are sent away to deal with it. Actually how do you do it without getting all these nutritional deficiencies. And just taking a supplement won't do the trick because as we said earlier cos sometimes you are mixing food gives you the best of that food, so it's about getting specialist advice and getting a confirmed diagnosis especially when it comes to children.

MN: There are worries that sometimes it is just an excuse. Just in terms of ‘Oh I have got an intolerance”. It's always the fashionable thing to talk about.

AG: It draws attention to yourself.

MN: Oh absolutely. Let's get onto something else a little bit more serious from Sarah here. Should you consult your doctor if you have got suspected IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) or are there changes to diet and lifestyle that you can implement to relieve the symptoms. So in terms of IBS – doctor straight away or can you do a little bit of home testing by changing your diet?

AG: Well we are in the world of self-diagnosis at the moment. People are accessing the web and learning from magazines, worrying about symptoms and suddenly diagnosing themselves, so for me again it's about checking with your GP. People may feel bloated and think IBS but actually you don't know until your tested. So if you do have any symptoms that worry you, go to the GP, get a confirmed diagnosis. If he feels you need a special diet you will be referred to a registered dietician and if you are getting symptoms such as constipation which is a very common one, I would say IBS this is something you can treat at home. Having more fibre, bran based cereals, fruits and cereals, lentils, rye, fruits, wholegrains.

MN: And water?

AG: Lots of water. Well actually fibre acts as a sponge. When it gets into your gut, it takes all the water from your body in order to get digested, so whenever you increase fibre, drink more water and fluids.

MN: That's why sometimes people say well I have increased my fibre but it's worse than it was before.

AG: It can actually be quite painful because your body is not getting enough fluids to create a sponge if you like.

MN: Question here from Stephanie. Thank you Stephanie for your question. Do you think food or nutrition or both can be used for healing? Can certain diets cure certain diseases – is that possible?

AG: Cure is a very big word for me.

MN: It is isn't it?

AG: But there is a lot of truth in what she says because actually certain foods can be so valuable in helping to prevent or delay the onset of certain condition, actually a bit like the constipation, we use foods to treat it. Yes there are certain foods but don't be too fussed about the promises, like this super food will cure this disease. Be very careful. It's fine to eat lots of different foods in a context of a varied diet.

MN: Varied diets – us the super foods if you want but they're not your all. Okay let's move on from all that to food labelling. It's brand new, only been out a little while and I have seen it on a couple of bits and pieces from time to time. Traffic Lights. The one thing about food and food labelling is that I am at the age now where my specs have to come out every time I am in a supermarket and I have got the long arm as I look at it, but in terms of labels, labels are so small and difficult to read. Sometimes you don't know what's on them because it's all facts and figures and I don't know how much salt and how much fat I should be taking in. Is it really important we know about these things?

AG: Well if you think about it if we acknowledge what we eat is going to prevent certain conditions which are life threatening. So it's really important we know what we are eating, but we live in a lifestyle where we are just buzzing around the supermarket, putting things in the trolley, and are not having the time to read the labels. This is why the foods standard agency is looking at ways to make it more simple for us. So you are absolutely right, the small print, all those figures – how do we know how to decipher that? What I would suggest is compare labels for example, if you have got a bit more time, look at let's say the sugar content of a breakfast cereal and compare the two together and if that says 16 grams of sugar per bowl and the other one says 12 grams of sugar per bowl, then it's common sense. Don't worry about whether there is that many grams too much or too little. If you know you like bran flakes, look at the bran flakes lower in sugar or lower in salt.

MN: And we have the traffic light system. Look at that – doesn't it look fantastic. (Looking at diagram of traffic light system) I kind of know where we are – green for go, red for stop and this is coming in everywhere now.

AG: Well certainly lots of manufacturers are using something like this or perhaps a variation of it and the reason why the foods standards agency has come up with this is because it is simple. You immediately knew green for go, red for stop and amber is somewhere in between. So this is really good cos you don't now have to look at the small print. You might not have to look at 12grams versus 16 grams, you just look at the colours and ideally choose foods that have more green on them. If you are someone for example who has heart problems or you want to protect your husbands heart cos men are at more risk of heart disease, you might want to pay more attention to the saturates for example. The saturated fat makes you more prone to have heart problems and increase your cholesterol so try to choose green saturates. If you have high blood pressure, salt is really important, so if you see a red salt maybe go for an alternative and go for amber or green.

MN: Alright so just have a look at those and if you know the symptoms that you may have or you may be worried about, it's a great system. It does work doesn't it?

AG: Well I think it does. Manufacturers are varied in the way they may take this on if you think about it. Imagine they already have a meal that they are putting in their healthy range and it may be healthy in terms of saturates but be really high in salt, in fact most of them are. So what would happen is you would get a red salt traffic light and obviously this doesn't help the manufacturer to sell their food because people might be alerted to the fact that this is a high salt food, so I think that the take up amongst manufacturers is going to be very varied. I personally think that if we can get this system and if it's universal, making it really easy, but if every manufacturer is using their own style and system I think we might get even more confusion.

MN: This is part of the question Janine is asking as well. How do you compare foods when manufacturers and supermarkets can't agree on a common system and that's the one that's been argued about for sometime now? It is really difficult. If they just stuck to one rule we would know where we were but some foods wouldn't sell.

AG: And sometimes a lot of the manufacturers are trying to adopt a similar system but are still using lots of figures so you've got to think okay so that's a percentage which is what they call GDA (guideline daily amounts). What does that really mean? If you are going to have a chocolate bar for example, and it tells you how much percentage of your GDA it is, you are going to eat so many more foods that day which will contribute to your GDA are you expected to write them all down and count them all up so it can actually get quite complicated. I actually agree with Janine that it can be quite difficult. Going back to my little system of 2 packs of cereal next to each other an compare the numbers, might be simpler than I think, and actually say okay this one's a bit lower so go for that.

MN: As we pointed out earlier in the programme GDA stands for Guideline Daily Amount. Jane wants to know, do you think it's worth buying foods labelled low fat/fat free or are they just a gimmick to sell more? You see lots of this where it says fat free, low fat and then it's stacked up with something else you shouldn't have as well.

AG: Well firstly manufacturers are only allowed to put low fat or fat free on there if they comply to legislation. So the manufacturers are not doing anything wrong. There are strict guidelines as to how much fat food needs to contain in order for them to have a low fat label but it can be misleading and I think this is what Jane is asking about. So a food could for example be called low fat but when you look at the small print it could be high in calories, it could be high in sugar, so you might think I am on a weight reducing diet. This is it, pop it in my trolley and that could be misleading cos a low fat product could actually have more calories than a standard product.

MN: So it can be misleading and I think that's where Janine was going with it.

AG: But there are still good foods. At least manufacturers are trying to have foods that are slightly healthier for us and many of them do a really good job but it's about being a bit more discerning and giving just that little bit more time and they are often that bit more expensive so it is worth giving that little bit more time to spend your money on the right thing.

MN: The alternative of course is to not buy so much processed food, then if you are dealing with raw ingredients, whether it's raw vegetables at least you know what's going into it.

AG: Yes – you have so much more control. You can use fresh ingredients and it needn't be time consuming, even if you buy dried pasta, tomato sauce or perhaps even a jar of pasta sauce. Tomato sauce made that way is rich and a great anti-oxidant. Open a can, throw that in and some sweetcorn, some extra vegetables and top it with some grated cheese. Excellent meal and you know what's in it.

MN: Mel wants to know what's the difference between live yoghurt and normal yoghurt?

AG: When you make yoghurt you need live bacteria and warm milk for the bacteria to multiply and they feed on the sugar in milk, they give yoghurt that creamy texture and sometimes quite an acidic taste. Every yoghurt needs to be made with what we call the starter culture, these bacteria so these are living organisms. Every yoghurt is live. When they are ultra heat treated, when you go around the supermarket and they are in the fridge, you might find some that are in jars and other things, those have been ultra heat treated and that's actually killed the bacteria, so those are the ones that are not live, but generally everything in the fridge is live and some of them contain pro-biotics which you may have heard of.

MN: And the pro-biotic are even better cultures are they?

AG: Well pr