Podcast: A Day in the Life: How a Health Expert Actually Eats

Introduction

Ever wondered what a health expert ACTUALLY eats? 🤔

In this revealing episode, Dr. Orlena pulls back the curtain on her daily eating habits - from her energizing morning routine to her strategic kitchen setup. But this isn't just another 'what I eat in a day' story...

You'll discover why your kitchen system matters more than willpower, how to make healthy eating your easiest option (yes, really!), and the simple framework that makes nutritious choices inevitable. Dr. Orlena shares her practical, real-world approach that works even with busy schedules and picky kids.

If you're tired of struggling with healthy eating or feeling like it's always an uphill battle, this episode is your game-changer. Learn how to create a system that makes healthy eating your default mode, not your daily struggle.

🎧 Listen now to transform your approach to healthy eating!

3. Core Ideas:

1. The System Makes the Success
2. Creating a supportive system is more important than willpower
3. Having the right ingredients readily available makes healthy choices easier
4. When healthy eating becomes your default mode, it requires less mental effort
5. The absence of junk food in your environment removes daily temptation

2. Emotional Eating Requires a Two-Pronged Approach
2. Must address both emotional triggers and food environment
3. Understanding and managing stress is essential
4. Removing trigger foods while developing better coping mechanisms
5. Can't solve emotional eating through willpower alone

3. Flexible Structure Creates Sustainability
2. Having a routine provides framework but allows for adaptation
3. Base meals around simple, repeatable patterns
4. Adjust timing and portion sizes based on activity levels and schedule
5. Focus on nutrient-dense foods while allowing occasional treats
6. System should be personalized to individual lifestyle and preferences

Want Dr Orlena's help in doing a Reboot? Book a free chat here: https://calendly.com/orlenakerek/breakthrough-call-pod

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Find link here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1900953/episodes/16010056 

Full Transcript

Dr Orlena (00:10)
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Olena. I hope that you are feeling amazing today. Okay, today I want to go over everything that I eat in a day to draw back the curtain so that you can see what healthy eating looks like and I'm gonna explain some of the decisions and reasons why I eat the way I do. Now, a few things to keep in mind when I tell you this because

It's not just about like listening to what I eat. It's really about thinking, okay, I want to create, or you want to create, a system that works for you. So a lot of the time I see people who have the intention to eat healthily, but what happens are two big problems. The first big problem is that they don't really have a system that supports them. What do I mean by that? I mean that you get back from work, you're tired, you're stressed,

You look in the cupboard, there's nothing there, your brain goes, what on earth am I gonna make for dinner? And you find yourself turning to takeout or perhaps it's frozen pizza or something like that. You find yourself eating something that isn't desirable. Why? Because that's the easiest option for you. But when you turn your life around, as I'm gonna show you how I've created my system, you will find that the easiest thing for you to do and actually the most desirable thing

is to eat healthily. Now, I'm not saying you can't ever eat frozen pizza and you can't go out. Of course you can do those things, but you don't want to be doing those things because you have no other option. Now, the other big thing that I see that trips people up is turning to food for comfort. Now, I have done so many podcasts and so many videos on how to stop turning to food for comfort, but another thing about turning to food for comfort

is having that junk food available. And so when we look at emotional eating or turning to food for comfort, there are two big keys that you really need to work on in order to fix that. And the first is obviously understanding your emotions, those emotions that are driving your actions, which is turning to food for comfort. So really getting a grasp on what's going on. And let's just say in this example, it's stress. Now, ideally, you want to reduce your stress. You're never gonna get your stress down.

to nothing. So you also want to have some tools to deal with stress on the hoof. know, like when it's in big action, when you're feeling stressed, you need to have some tools to help you. So number one, you want to reduce your stress. Number two, you want to have some tools to help you deal with stress that you have. And number three, you also want to pair that with healthy eating. Because if you don't, say for example, your favorite go-to.

healthy, not healthy eating snack is, I don't know, let's say chocolate cookies. If you say, okay, I'm gonna stop eating chocolate cookies, but you've got all other loads of junk food in your cupboard, you're just gonna replace that with something else. So you really need to do the two of them together. You need to understand your emotional wellness and what's going on, but you need to pair that with healthy eating. And the two components are really gonna help you get over that hurdle of emotional eating. So.

That is why having a healthy eating system and a system that works for you and your busy life is really important. As a side note, this is exactly what I help my clients do. Essentially, we are creating a system for them and dealing with all the emotional aspects as well, but it's really about creating a system that works for them. And everybody's system is slightly different because we are all slightly different.

But if you're interested in working with me, then please book a call and we will chat and I'll tell you what it would look like to work with me. Okay, so this is what I eat every single day. And I'm also gonna tell you my entire routine because obviously when I eat is tied up to my routine. So I, number one, I love exercising first thing in the morning. And there's very many reasons for the reason I love that.

I'm talking about systems. Systems are all about routines and habits and doing things over and over again. So you get to that stage where you don't have to think about what you're doing. Your brain just does it automatically. Now, if you are exercising first thing in the morning, you have done your exercise. You've ticked it off. You're like, hooray, this is just what I normally do. It's a great way to wake up. It personally, for me, I feel so much more energized when I exercise in the morning.

And also if you exercise in the morning, it affects your metabolism in a positive way all day, as opposed to if you exercise later on, your metabolism is slower during the day and then it speeds up when you do some exercise. So why not get those benefits all first thing in the morning? So if you can exercise first thing in the morning. Now I swim and I cycle, so I cycle either to the beach or the swimming pool. A couple of times a week I do weights as well. That's what I do first thing in the morning. Then I come home.

and I eat my breakfast. And when I come home, depends on whether it's summer or winter. In the summer, it's around 8.30, in the winter, it's around 9.30. And before I go, depending on the day, I may have had a cup of coffee or something like that, some water, it depends. In the summer, I literally just run out of the door at half past six in the morning, and so I don't have anything. If it's winter, I don't leave till a little bit later, so I may have a coffee or some cocoa is another thing that I really love.

100 % cocoa with a splash of soy milk and topped up with hot water and I love that and then I might steal some of my husband's coffee. I try to reduce my coffee. I absolutely love coffee and coffee is healthy for you, but it can affect your sleep and I find that coffee does affect my sleep and so I try to not drink so much that it affects my sleep. Okay, so it's winter time now, 9.30, I'm eating my breakfast. What am I having for breakfast? I am having

a giant healthy breakfast. Now, I have the same healthy breakfast as my husband. It is a big bowl to set me up for the day. Remember, I have also been exercising. So now I want to fill up my glycogen store because I've used up all my glycogen store. So I am eating oatmeal or porridge. I call it porridge. At the weekends, I eat...

whole grains, so it might be spelt, it might be oats, but the actual whole grain, which I really love, they are much better for you in terms of you're getting more fibre, it slows the sugar absorption, because as much as oats are great, if you're having oatmeal, they are rolled out and the sugar hits your stomach more quickly. Now the reason I only have that at the weekend is because one of my children likes oatmeal as well, so during the week,

We make it for all three of us and at the weekend he has something different. So it's just one of those easier things. The other thing is actually that the whole grains are significantly more expensive than rolled oats. Now, I wouldn't really mind that it's mostly for my son that I eat the oats, the oatmeal, the rolled oats during the week. So I don't just have a big bowl of oatmeal. I have fruit.

whatever fruit is in season, so this morning I had, we call them khakis here, I think they're called persimmons, and they're like a big orange fruit that has a very short season, autumnal fruit, it's a bit like jam and marmalade, but super, super sweet. So at the moment, persimmon, a bit of pear, a bit of banana, other things I might have, we've just finished summer, so in the summer I'd be eating peaches and nectarines and apricots and plums and things like that.

So, but I have a reasonable amount of fruit and I eat a lot of fruit during my day, as you will see. So fruit and then nuts and seeds, a reasonable amount of nuts and seeds. So I might have almonds and walnuts. I often have sunflowers and linseed if I can get hold of it or sesame seed. Again, a reasonable amount of nuts and seeds. So from my fruit, I am getting fiber and I am getting carbohydrate or sugar.

Now, and I'm also getting antioxidants, good healthy antioxidants. From the nuts and seeds, I am getting some plant-based protein. I don't eat very much meat. And I'm at that age where we need to pay attention to our protein, particularly if you aren't eating meat. Because if you are eating meat, meat is mostly protein, it's very easy to pick up your protein. But if you're not eating meat, you do have to pay attention to what you're eating. It's not that difficult, you just need to pay attention. So from my nuts and seeds, I'm getting...

protein, a little bit of fiber, and I'm getting some healthy fats as well. And our body does need fat. So side note, there are three macronutrients, carbohydrates, which are basically sugars, which we do need. That's the fuel that we run. Unless you're doing a ketogenic diet, you're basically using sugar as a fuel. Now, you can divide sugars into different sugars. So we've got what I call white refined carbohydrates, which we want to avoid. You've got vegetables, which are...

wrapped up in fiber and a good source of carbohydrate. And then you've got fiber as well, which is a carbohydrate and it's one that we don't digest. It passes through you, but you do want to make sure that you have a diet high in fiber. You want to be eating 30 grams of fiber a day. And you find that fiber in fruit and vegetables and whole grains and lentils and legumes and things like that. So that's the first macronutrient. The second macronutrient is protein.

You want to be eating protein. You want to be making sure you're getting good, healthy sources of protein. You find protein in animal products, but also there are plant-based ones. So lentils and legumes and nuts and things like that. And then your third one is fat. And we do need some fat. Again, you can divide fats up into, are some really awful ones, which you don't want to have. And there are some healthy ones like extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil, which are healthy for us.

that most healthy is extra virgin olive oil because it comes with anti-nutrients, sorry, antioxidants as well. So going back to breakfast and breaking it down, fruits and nuts and seeds, then a little bit of oatmeal. I don't put heaps and heaps of oatmeal in. I have like a couple of spoonfuls of oatmeal. And then on top of that, I may have some full fat Greek yogurt, which has got fat in it and a little bit of protein.

Or I may have some quark, which is another dairy product which is higher in protein than the yogurt. And I just have, say, 50 milligrams of that because if it's a yogurt, I'll share one with my husband. And I also have some ginger, some healthy spices, which are good sources of antioxidants as well. I love ginger. I also like cinnamon. My husband says cinnamon is for Christmas time, so we only have it at Christmas time. I also really love

cocoa nibs as well, and I don't know if you've come across cocoa nibs, but they are basically little bits of the cocoa bean, and they're sort of like crunchy, but they don't have any sugar in them, they're just cocoa, and so I love those, that's delicious. So that is my big, healthy breakfast, and I personally love my breakfast. Now, you might be thinking about, you've done your exercise, you could not eat for a while, you could do some more intermittent fasting.

And I could do that if I wanted to, but I enjoy my breakfast and I also want to be eating my food earlier in the day if I can. And this is a little bit complicated. I'll explain why in a minute. It's basically complicated because of the school day that my children have. But I would rather be eating earlier and stopping eating before I go to bed than the other way around.

but it is a personal choice. It is about what works for you. So that's breakfast. And during the morning, I may snack, I may not snack depending on how I'm feeling or whether I'm busy. For me, actually I find if I'm busy,

Dr Orlena (12:29)
For me personally, I find that I tend to snack when I'm not busy. So if I'm busy, I don't snack as much, but it doesn't really matter because your snack is included in everything that you eat in 24 hours. Whether you eat it now or later on, it doesn't really matter. So what would I eat for a snack? Well, nuts. Nuts is my go-to. I love nuts. I go nuts for nuts. I may eat some fruit as well at that stage, depending on what's available and what I feel like.

I do find that pairing fruit and nuts together is good and here's my reason why I could just eat loads and loads of nuts and as much as fruit is wrapped up in fiber it is mostly sugar so comparing the sugar and the fiber from the fruit and the protein and the fats from the nuts means that you're getting a little bit of both but other things that you could eat would be fruit and

Peanut butter is another easy thing to do. So I just eat stuff that is totally easy and that doesn't require any preparation. But there are obviously lots of other snacks that you could eat if you want to. Okay, so lunch. Now, historically, before a couple of weeks ago, we used to have lunch at lunchtime and lunch would be...

Salad and when I say salad, I don't mean just a few lettuce leaves. I mean leftover vegetables a reasonably large Lunch so leftover vegetables obviously thinking about some protein quite often that protein would be plant-based protein Lentils and legumes it might include hummus. It might include some leftovers whatever needed eating up followed by more fruit, but a big

satisfying lunch. And then we would have dinner later on. Now we live in Spain and my children have got a new...

school timetable. So essentially they don't get home till three o'clock now. So now we are trying the European way of eating, which is to eat a bigger meal in the middle of the day. So we're basically having dinner at lunchtime. Now the idea behind this is you have dinner at lunchtime and then something small in the evening. So we're still experimenting with this and seeing how it goes. And I do have a view to thinking I could just not eat anything after that three o'clock, that big meal.

However, I did try cutting down my dinner and having just a very small dinner.

but I did notice it really impacted my swimming the next day, presumably because my glycogen storage is lower. And so I'm hitting a barrier of not having so much energy whilst I'm swimming. So I'm still playing around with this a little bit. But at three o'clock, we have our dinner. What do we have for dinner? Well, it depends. I have children. Children like to eat pasta. So sometimes we have pasta with vegetables, lots of vegetables and...

those vegetables may contain proteins like peas and things like that, or we may have another source of protein, which could be tofu or some meat. We do eat meat. I would say once or twice a week. My kids would happily eat it every single day, but I don't.

partly for ethical reasons, partly I think that meat is not healthy for you. There's a lot of evidence to show that meat proteins are not good for you. However, we do need to have some protein. So having meat proteins once or twice a week is a good compromise, I think. And when I say meat, I'm including fish in that. So I would quite often have fish. And quite often we will have sardines, which is...

we get fresh sardines and we get tin sardines, a good source of fish because you want to eat smaller fish rather than big fish. Smaller fish have less mercury in them than big fish. And obviously they're further down the food chain. you know, if you're eating a big fish like tuna, it's a bit like eating a shark. You don't really, sorry, it's a bit like eating a tiger. You don't really want to be eating these amazing big animals that are at the end of the food chain. So.

Some protein. So now we're having a big dinner at lunchtime, which includes some protein. Let me think of some of the things we have. We have chili. So I make a bean chili and that's super easy to make. Just throw everything in the slow cooker and then it is ready. And we may have that with rice and some cabbage. I love cabbage. And then I will use that to...

create nachos a couple of days later. And on Friday, we often have nachos. So a plate of corn chips with some beans and some cheddar cheese on top and a delicious fresh tomato salsa. What else do we eat? We have vegetable stir fry. And obviously I make sure there's added protein in that in terms of nuts and seeds. And I may add some lentils and legumes. We may have a vegetable pie. Again, another really easy recipe to make or

spaghetti bolognese or pasta, the same kind of thing really. So I have a few recipes that we rotate around. My husband makes what we call his yummy delicious soup. It is essentially chorizo soup. It's got a little bit of chit-a-ritzo in it. It's got lots of lentils and legumes, which are really easy. And you may be hearing me say lentils and legumes over and over again. Why? Because there was a study that showed that eating a portion of lentils and legumes a day helps you live longer.

plus they are a very good source of plant-based protein. So we have a few different dinners, fresh, easy to create food at lunchtime. And now we have lunch at dinner, basically. So later on at six or seven, we have another smaller snack to eat. Now I have found that...

when you have a big meal at three, you don't really feel hungry at six o'clock. So I wanted to have bring my eating window closer and eat not so much, but I'm finding actually that we're eating later, partly because of the kids activities that they do and things like that, that sometimes they don't get home till 7.30. So we're having a snack then. Now they will often have a sandwich and I will have a salad.

perhaps some yogurt, perhaps some fruit, something smaller. What I am finding is that that meal that I'm eating in the evening is less than the lunch that I used to eat. So overall, I think I'm eating less. Now, I'm not saying that everybody needs to eat less. I'm saying that I found that I was constantly feeling full up and feeling like I was eating too much. And yes, I could have just eaten less, but this way seems to be working for us. So that is everything that I eat in a day. After dinner,

I don't eat very much, I don't eat anything. I may have a cocoa to drink, is cocoa and soya milk, something nice and simple just to relax a little bit. But other than that, I don't eat after dinner. Now...

How does this work for me? Why is it so easy for me to create healthy foods? Well, number one, I have things that I do over and over again. So when I look in my cupboard, I have the ingredients to create the recipes that I want. And really, I decide I'm cooking this and that based on what I've got available, which is normally what vegetables need eating up. So I have created a system that works for me. And I don't have any junk food in the cupboards because when I do my kids

just sniff it out and then they just want to eat it and so quite often I just don't buy it like occasionally we buy it because I have kids and they like biscuits and they like cookies and I'm not saying they shouldn't ever ever eat it but I would just rather they were eating healthy things and occasionally I make them healthier snacks and healthier

treats, so one thing that I make them is an apple slice with some cooked apples and some oats and things like this. But I have found that I go to all of this effort to create this stuff and they're just as happy eating that as they are eating fruit or something else and they just find stuff to eat. So, in a nutshell, it is about creating your system that works for you so that it is easy for you to enjoy healthy foods

and that you just have the tools at your fingertips. It's easier for you to eat the healthy foods that you enjoy eating than it is for you to eat the less healthy food. And right now you might be saying, yeah, but it's easier for me to eat the less healthy food. Well, in that case, you haven't got your system generated. You haven't created your system in a way that works for you because it should just be easy for you to eat healthy foods. As I say, if you're interested in helping me, in me helping you,

set up that system, then please book a call and we will chat. Okay, I hope that was useful. Have a wonderful week and I will see you again next week. Goodbye.