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How do I keep my weight in December?

December is supposed to be a cozy month, where you should not be concerned with unnecessary stress. Quite a lot of people start worrying in advance, about how they are supposed to handle all these extra calories, which they will be offered this month. It quickly adds up, if you say, “Yes please” every time someone offers you something delicious.

If your December is filled with parties and social gatherings, it might be a good idea to keep an extra eye on the number of calories you consume, so it does not end up with your clothes starting to tighten around the waist. If you are invited to parties during December, you might want to cut back on the calories some days before, as well as some days after – that way you limit the possibility of it be visible on your waistline.

It means that you try to cut back (or remove) all unnecessary calories in your diet before and after the big party. Try the whole-wheat alternatives to bread, pasta, and rice, which gives you the needed satiety – that way you make sure that you eat less. In addition, of course, it is recommended that you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables! When looking for meat, choose something lean such as chicken, turkey, or even fish, and aim for something that is low fat. Avoid beverages filled with sugar whether it is alcohol or non-alcohol and drink plenty of water. Limit yourself to one portion at each meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and limit your snacks to fruits or vegetables. Eat something at home – such as fruits, etc. – before you attend the party that way you avoid emptying the bowl filled with chips and candy because you are hungry before they serve the starters.

If you – despite everything – have gained a few kilos during December, you can easily get rid of them again by using Nupo’s VLCD (Very Low-Calorie Diet) Shakes, which are available in five different flavors: Strawberry, Mango Vanilla, Caffe Latte, Blueberry Raspberry, and Chocolate Flavour. You should drink six shakes every day as well as making sure that you drink at least two liters of water. You do not need anything besides the shakes, as they contain all the nutrition you need. Advantageously, you can schedule some extra physical activity in your every day in December. It makes some additional room for some extra calories during December, as well as helping your digestion, strengthen your heart, and provide you with a better night’s sleep – all in all, a solid investment. However, remember to stay realistic and do not aim way too high, you need to be motivated to repeat it the next day as well. If you are trying to increase your physical activity during December, then try to set some goals for yourself, but remember to stay realistic – it should be a successful experience!

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Men’s health (…or lack of it?)

Did you know that men are not as good at taking care of themselves as women are? If you are in a relationship with a man, this might not come as the biggest surprise. Generally, men are worse at visiting the doctor, when they are sick or feeling down, and men have a tendency to “lie to themselves” and see themselves as being healthier than they really are.

Men are generally not as good at eating healthy as women are. Men’s health and eating habits have been a subject of research for many years – studies show that men’s education has an effect on their eating habits; a longer education means healthier eating habits. Women are also superior when it comes to eating fruits and vegetables. There are tons of benefits, which you give yourself if you eat healthy on a daily basis – we are doing our children a massive favor, if we teach them to enjoy some of the healthier alternatives. Children copy their parents from a very young age – we are their idols – so by eating healthy, we have the possibility of affecting our kids, to eat fruit and vegetables as well.

As a health consultant, I rarely experience having single men for my consultations. Their partner usually accompanies the male clients I have. Despite the rarity, the men I have for my consultations are extremely easy to work with, and they show great results when they are given a plan, which they need to follow. The same can be said about the Nupo Diet products, if you follow the instructions, you will most likely have positive results.

“Men’s Health Week”, is an international event that starts on the 11th of June, and ends on the 17th of June. The event is used to create awareness about men’s health or lack of it. If you somebody – more specifically a man – that does not eat very healthy, then give them a friendly reminder, and help them to begin a healthier lifestyle.

Health consultant, Team Nupo.

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Healthy Christmas sweets

It is almost impossible to get through December without making or eating Christmas sweets. I do not advocate that you should eliminate anything such as Christmas sweets from your diet. Every kind of food can be part of a healthy diet, but of course, you cannot eat unlimited amounts of Christmas sweets.

You will not gain weight just because you eat a piece of Christmas sweets once in a while. But no matter if you eat a bought sweet or you eat your own homemade sweets you will have a bigger calorie intake than normal unless you eliminate something else from your diet. If you want Christmas sweets that are healthier than the sweets you can buy in ordinary shops, a large number of recipes are found on the internet.

It is often a recipe where the main ingredient is dates or oats. The fat is often coconut oil and the sugar has been substituted with an artificial sweetener or honey. The homemade version does not necessarily have fewer calories but the content of fibers and micronutrients is off course higher.

If you like a quick version of a healthier sweet you can take a Nupo Life bar and cut it into smaller pieces and dip the pieces in melted chocolate. The Nupo Life bars consist of healthy natural ingredients and contain different vitamins and minerals. No matter which flavor you prefer you will get a healthy snack.

If you like to make your own Christmas sweets, I have some suggestions for you to make yours less unhealthy. They contain nuts and chocolate and they do not contain sugar.

Nuts mixed with chocolate:

1) Almonds

2) Walnuts

3) Hazelnuts

4) Dark chocolate with a high content of cocoa

Melt the chocolate in the microwave.
When the chocolate is melted put the nuts in and turn them around in the chocolate with a spoon.
Put a few of the chocolate-covered nuts in a small candy cup or on a piece of baking paper.
When the chocolate is stiff they are ready to eat.

Here is another variation:

1) Different kind of dried fruit such as mango, melon, cranberries, raisins

2) Rice Crispies or Corn Flakes

3) Dark chocolate

Melt the chocolate, put in the other ingredients, and turn them around in the chocolate with a spoon.
Pour the chocolate into a small baking pan covered with baking paper and let it stiffen.
When stiff, break it into smaller portions and they are ready to eat.

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Why is breakfast important?

”Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, is a quote that plenty of us have been raised with, and been told more than a few times by our parents – and our parents were actually correct! When you wake up in the morning, it usually has been quite a while since you last ate, and therefore your body is in need of a refuel of energy, so it can make it through the day. Studies do not show that we do worse in school or at the job if we have not had our breakfast, but it shows that our mood most likely will take a turn for the worse.

The tendency from studies shows that more and more people neglect breakfast. People that do not eat breakfast, show tendencies to eat more sugar and fat at later meals – probably to get an energy boost. Furthermore, studies show that people that do not eat breakfast have a higher chance of overeating during the day, and therefore gain some extra weight.

Over the years, there have been discussions on whether to eat many meals during the day or eat a few meals. The benefit of eating a few extra meals during the day is that you maintain your body’s energy level, so it can burn calories. But if you are one of the persons that do not eat breakfast (and never have), it might not be the best idea to start at this very moment, as you just add to your daily amount of calories.

Breakfast does not have to be served just as you wake up from your beauty sleep. If you prefer to eat your breakfast at later stages of the day, you can do that without any problems. If you are in a rush, a good idea might be to bring a Nupo One Meal product that can be enjoyed on the go and does not need any preparation from your side (… besides shaking the product, if you prefer our shakes).

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Do NOT use cake, cookies, or candy as a reward for yourself or your children

Many people use candy, cake, or other sugary foods as rewards. Are you one of them? Both when rewarding yourself, but also when rewarding your children? It is never a good idea to use food or something eatable as a reward because we will get used to rewards being equal to eating or snacking.

Cake, cookies, and candy can be part of a healthy diet and can also be part of a meal plan designed for you to lose weight. Of course, it is not the best option to continue eating sugary food every day if you want to change your dietary habits or if you want to maintain a weight loss after a diet. If you hold on to your unhealthy habits after a weight loss, it can be difficult to maintain the weight loss.

Maybe you are on a diet and losing weight? Most sugary foods do not contribute to any fullness, vitamins, or minerals. Sugary food contains many calories and they could be the reason why you have gained weight and want to lose weight. It is better to reward yourself with activities or items that encourage you or your family to be more physically active. It could be some new workout clothes, a new soccer ball, beach ball, or something else.

If you have been working out or have been out for a run, it is a bad idea to use candy or cake as a reward for yourself after your workout. When you have been working out or have been running you might need a small snack, but not as a reward. You need some proteins to build up and maintain your muscles and you need some carbohydrates to fill your glycogen depots. Choose a healthy snack instead of an unhealthy one. A healthy snack after your workout could be one of the new Nupo Life snack bars. They contain good complexed carbohydrates that give you a portion of good energy and some proteins to rebuild your muscles. They come in four different tastes and they are all enriched with vitamins or minerals that are beneficial to your immune system.

At our house, we often use activities as rewards. For example, my husband or I will go for a bike ride with the kids after dinner, we will play a soccer game in the backyard, or we will play cards or a board game with the kids. Sometimes we all go golfing. It is fun and the kids love it.

The greatest gift you can give your kids from a health point of view is to teach them healthy habits. It is during childhood and adolescence our children adapt to good habits regarding food and physical activity. You are the greatest role model. Your kids will do as you do. If you have healthy habits regarding food and physical activity, it is likely that your kids will be healthy and physical activity too. If you use sugary items for rewarding your kids, they will likely do it too.

Health consultant, Team Nupo.

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Healthy Halloween

Halloween is an American tradition that takes place on October 31st each year. During the last decade, the Halloween tradition has spread outside of the USA and many people in different countries have taken up the tradition where pumpkin lanterns are being carved and people dress up in scary outfits and go “trick or treat” at night time on the 31st.

More and more neighborhoods make a big deal out of making their neighborhood scary to visit this day. Some smaller towns are having huge Halloween parties and have a Halloween committee that spends a lot of their own time planning activities and how to dress their town to make it extra scary. Outside of Copenhagen, there is a very small town called Måløv. The town has a huge Halloween party each year. It cost a small fee to participate in the activities. In 2017 the town decided to support the Unicef project “Education for All” by donating a dollar for every sold ticket.
If you are doing Halloween activities with your kids, you can surprise them with some extra scary homemade Halloween treats.

For example, you can make:

  1. Cookies formed as fingers with almonds as fingernails
  2. Small meringues ghosts in different pale colors with eyes made of melted chocolate
  3. Plastic gloves filled with popcorn
  4. Small bags with almonds or other nuts roasted in cocoa or chili
  5. Small oranges with a small green stick of celery on the top to make it look like small pumpkins
  6. Spiders made out of oat balls with string candy as legs and small marshmallows and melted chocolate as eyes
  7. The really fast adult Halloween snack is to take a Nupo One Meal bar and cut it into small pieces

Remember to wrap the small snacks in paper or to put them in small bags or in small paper cones. You can use ordinary sandwich paper or wraps for candy.

If you want to tease your kids, you can dip Brussel sprouts or other vegetables in chocolate. It is easy and fast, and most kids don’t exactly love Brussel sprouts. Of course, it might backfire, if you serve it to your kid’s friends, as they might not come back next year for “trick or treat” for Halloween.

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What do I need to eat, when I have been physically active?

I am often asked what you need to eat when you do a certain sport or work out in a certain way. A lot of people, especially young people, are very eager on getting sufficient protein. They drink protein shakes, eat eggs every day and eat large portions of meat. But do you really need that much protein to build muscle mass?

According to science, you need to have 0,8 g of protein per kilo body weight per day to maintain your muscle mass.  If your weight is 80 kg you need 80 x 0,8 g = 64 g protein spread out throughout the day to maintain your muscle mass. Most people get a lot more protein than they need and they don’t need to think about if they get enough.

When you do weight lifting and you want to increase your muscle mass, your protein need is a little bit bigger. You need approximately 1,5 g of protein per kilo body weight. If your weight is 80 kg you need to intake 80 x 1,5 g = 120 g protein spread out throughout the day. You might benefit from eating a small meal with protein just before your workout and again just after you have finished your workout. After your workout, your body needs to recover. During the recovery, you can continue with meals containing the protein your body needs to build muscle mass. The body can only turn over 20-25 g of protein per hour. Therefore, you need to divide your protein need into several smaller meals. Nupo produces a protein bar called Protein Bite.  It weighs 40 g and it comes in three different flavors. It contains 12 g of protein. It is suitable to have in your bag and it can be eaten both before and after your workout.

When you exercise or work out you use energy. The energy you use comes from the glycogen stored in your muscles. The glycogen comes from the carbohydrates you eat. When the carbohydrates are digested and absorbed in your body they will be loaded as glycogen in your muscles. When you do physical activity, you use glycogen in your muscles. Your muscles can only store a certain amount and it is beneficial to eat or drink something that contains carbohydrates before your exercise or work out to fill up the depots. After your workout, it is also a good idea to eat or drink something that contains carbohydrates to fill up the now more or less empty depots. When you do high-intensity sports such as running, swimming, or biking your diet and especially the carbohydrates are extremely important according to your performance. When you do a sport such as weight lifting or bodybuilding, your glycogen levels are important according to your performance. A lot of athletes are focused on especially getting enough protein, but the glycogen levels are also important when you have to do your best performance whether it is one kind of sport or another.

Health consultant, Team Nupo.

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How many meals per day is the right amount?

How many meals do you have to eat a day? That is a really good question and it is also a question without a straight answer. It is individual how many meals one should eat a day. If your weight is within, what is considered normal, and you are used to eating three meals a day and no snacks in between, then you will probably gain weight if you start to eat snacks three times a day without adjusting your main meals.

Other people can benefit from getting a more structured meal plan that includes planned snacks or in-between meals instead of snacking whatever is available between main meals. When I help a person to either lose or gain weight, I always design a meal plan with a meal pattern that is close to what they are used to. There are so many habits around the way we eat and what we eat. To be successful with a weight loss or a weight gain, the meal plan has to make sense to the person it is designed to. When your meals are spread throughout the day with planned snacks, it is less likely that you increase your eating at the next main meal. I often hear my clients tell that they skip breakfast and are too busy to eat lunch, so they often eat very large loads of food later in the day. The body is not designed to consume large loads of food at one go and especially not at nighttime. Your body needs to recover while sleeping, and not use energy on digesting.

For many years, especially the fitness industry has been maintaining that many meals throughout the day keep the burning of calories high. The burning of calories does not stop and/or slow down if you only eat three meals a day. You can boost your calorie burning by being physically active and increase your muscle mass. It is in your muscles that you burn the calories that are gained through the food you are eating. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you will burn.

If you normally eat in-between meals or snacks in order not to eat too much food at your next main meal, then Nupo has some handy solutions. Nupo makes some snack bars that are called Nupo Life. They are made of natural ingredients and they are very tasteful if you ask me. They come in four different flavors and you can use them as a snack for your kids as well. Nupo also produces a protein bar called Protein Bite. It is a small snack that is great before or after your physical activity to help you maintain or build muscles. It is of course always a great idea to have a healthy snack at hand when you are on the go and you want to maintain or lose weight.

Health consultant, Team Nupo.

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When is a good time to begin a healthier lifestyle?

Women love to talk about diets and (un)healthy food. All the magazines write about more or less healthy diets and they also show lots of pictures of the fashion world’s interpretation of how the ideal female body should look. It is understandable that people get confused when it comes to dieting and a healthy lifestyle.

Many women have issues with their bodies and how much they weigh. Most women have some sort of experience when it comes to diets and most women like to share their experiences with other women. Almost everyone has an opinion about what works and especially what doesn’t. Many women say that they would like to lose weight, but often they have an excuse for not doing something about it. The excuse could be a family birthday, a holiday, a family vacation, or other social gatherings coming up. No matter when you decide to begin your weight loss journey, something will come up. That is life. But when you feel ready and motivated, just do it! Don’t let a family party or Christmas get in your way. Life doesn’t stop just because you change your lifestyle to a healthier one. You still need to live your life and do what you like to do, with whom you like to be around. Just because you are conscious about your diet and maybe eat differently than before, you still need to interact with other people. It is through interaction with other people we create good memories. If you find it annoying not being able to stick strictly to your diet, you must look at it as a small bump on your way to your goal. Your healthier lifestyle is something that is going to last through the rest of your life. You need to make a long-term plan, otherwise, you will gain all the weight you have lost, once you have reached your goal and let go of your healthy lifestyle. When I talk to a client about changing the diet and living healthier, he or she is often surprised that it is not temporary. When we have talked it through and discussed different tools to maintain weight loss, they understand why the new diet must be continuing. The lost weight will be gained back very fast if you let go of your new diet and go back to your old diet and habits. When you change your diet, there is still room for the food and the drinks that you want to have in your diet, but if they are the reason you need to lose weight, there will for obvious reasons only be room for these foods and drinks in limited amounts.

If you want to lose weight it is a good idea to have a weight loss buddy. A weight loss buddy is someone you can share your experiences with. The ideal weight loss buddy is of course someone who also wants to lose weight. The best buddy is someone who has the same goal as you, e.g. a wish to lose ten pounds or kilos. First of all, you can help each other to get going. Once you have started you can help each other to stay focused.

Everybody who starts a weight loss journey will experience ups and downs, and it is such a nice feeling when you can share your victories with someone and also a relief when you have someone to push you forward when life is tough. On Facebook, you can find a great number of closed groups for people who want to lose weight. Especially some of the American groups (that I have come across) are really good and the members are really good at supporting each other. I often see comments where you can write your weight, height, age, and your goal weight.

The members, buddy up in pairs or smaller groups, where they share their experiences and support each other. It is worth trying.

Health consultant, Team Nupo.

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Is chocolate healthy?

Most people fancy chocolate. Chocolate is different compared to other kinds of food or sweets, as chocolate comes in a huge variety of different flavors and consistencies. Dark chocolate contains a number of ingredients that are healthy for the human body. It contains flavonoids that suppress inflammation and atherosclerosis and helps lower your blood pressure. 

When I make individual diet plans for my clients who want to lose weight, I always ask them if there is anything they do NOT want to eliminate from their diet. Most of them are honest about what they really would like to have on their diet plan. A lot of clients for example do not want to have an alcohol-free life and they want to be able to drink a glass of wine maybe every other day. Other clients want to be able to eat a roll with butter and cheese on Saturday morning when they have breakfast with their family.

More of my clients need something sweet or a piece of chocolate in the evening with their coffee or tea.

Most people get really surprised when they learn that all the things mentioned above (and all other kinds of food for that matter) can be part of a healthy calorie-reduced diet plan. Of course, you cannot consume an unlimited amount of chocolate if you want to lose weight, but chocolate can be part of a healthy and varied diet and even if you want to lose weight. If your diet plan consists of the food that you normally eat but in the right portion sizes, you are more likely to have a successful weight loss. Being able to eat a piece of chocolate for your evening tea or coffee is often the one thing that makes you able to pass the other 117 times a day when you are being offered something that is not part of your diet plan.

If you want to live a healthy life and maybe lose weight too, Nupo offers a variety of products that can help you on your weight loss journey. If you fancy the taste of chocolate, Nupo has several products that have cocoa or chocolate flavor. One of the flavors of the Nupo VLCD powder in Chocolate Flavour is great for weight loss if that is your goal. The taste is really good and it gets even better if you blend it with ice cubes. It also comes in other great tastes, it is of course individual which one you prefer. Nupo VLCD is a full meal replacement and you can replace all your food with the Nupo VLCD diet. All you have to do is to shake six shakes a day and drink them. When you drink six Nupo VLCD shakes every day, your calorie intake will be lower than your calorie need and you will lose weight. Besides the six shakes, you also need to drink two liters of water a day.

Nupo also offers a series called Nupo One Meal. These products are meal replacements and you can replace up to two meals a day with one of these products. The series consists of ready-to-drink shakes, pancakes, and bars. One of the four shakes has Chocolate Flavour and it is an easy meal to bring along on busy days. Several of the bars are chocolate-covered. For example, one of the bars has an intense flavor of chocolate, and another bar is called Brownie Crunch and it has the taste of crunchy chocolate brownie. I often hear from clients that their weight loss journey is bearable because they can eat at a bar once in a while. Many people use the bars as a snack when their colleagues are having cake. If you eat half a bar, as a snack, you have only eaten 100 calories.

Health consultant, Team Nupo.