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Browsing Tag
low sodium
Heart Healthy

Cut sodium and avoid bland-itis

reduce sodium salt-free flavoring

Limiting sodium can be a bit tricky at first. Most of the flavor we enjoy in food comes from one of three things: sugar, fat, or salt. Our palates just love the tasty stuff. And the more of it we eat, the more we need in order to experience the same pleasurable taste sensation. Sound kind of like addiction to you? Ehhhhh-xactly.

Besides flavor, sodium is also used as a preservative in many foods and often foods that don’t even taste salty, which can be confusing for some people just learning about limiting sodium.

 



 

Anyway, it is possible to decrease sodium intake without eating tasteless cardboard. I promise! There are several ways to increase flavor and leave the sodium out:

  • Herbs and spices: These are the best! Natural, delicious, and many are anti-inflammatory. Find a bulk section (like Winco) or grow your own for the best value. Check out the chart below from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics for tips on matching herbs and spices to the food you’re making tonight:
    Food Item Flavorings
    Beef Basil, bay leaf, caraway, curry, dill, dry mustard, garlic, grape jelly, green pepper, mace, marjoram, mushrooms, nutmeg, onion, parsley, pepper, rosemary, sage
    Chicken Basil, cloves, cranberries, mace, mushrooms, nutmeg, oregano, paprika, parsley, pineapple, saffron, sage, savory, tarragon, thyme, tomato, turmeric
    Egg Chervil, curry, dill, dry mustard, green pepper, lemon juice, marjoram, mushrooms, paprika, pepper, tarragon, tomato, turmeric
    Fish Basil, bay leaf, chervil, curry, dill, dry mustard, green pepper, lemon juice, marjoram, mushrooms, paprika, pepper, tarragon, tomato, turmeric
    Lamb Cloves, curry, dill, garlic, mace, mint, mint jelly, onion, oregano, parsley, pineapple, rosemary, tarragon, thyme
    Pork Applesauce, basil, caraway, chives, cloves, garlic, onions, rosemary, thyme
    Vegetables Basil, dill, garlic, ginger, lemon juice, mace, marjoram, nutmeg, onion, tarragon, tomato, salt-free salad dressing, vinegar
    Desserts Allspice, anise, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, mace, nutmeg, vanilla extract
  • Pre-made spice mixes: If you aren’t big on growing or buying herbs yourself, you can get a little help from sodium-free spice mix products like Mrs. Dash. The Mrs. Dash line has several pre-made spice mixes like Caribbean Citrus, Italian Medley, or Steak Grilling seasonings, all made without salt. I personally have only tried the original and I like it, especially on fish. I have several patients who have tried other flavors with success!
  • Lite salt/salt substitutes: These are usually made with potassium chloride as opposed to sodium chloride (table salt) to decrease intakes of sodium. I use it at home and in recipes and the taste is similar enough I don’t notice it. Be aware: people with kidney disease or who are on certain diuretic blood pressure medications should not use salt substitutes because their bodies can not clear potassium as well as others. Ask your doctor before switching to salt substitute if you have any of these concerns.

Lastly, be patient! Your tastes will adjust to the point where they will enjoy the flavors of food with less salt, but it does take time. Most of my patients say that after 4-6 weeks of limiting sodium, the high-sodium foods they used to eat taste way too salty for them! You can do it!

 



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Heart Healthy Recipes

Recipe Feature: Boneless Pork Chops with Mushrooms and Thyme

pork chops with mushrooms

Recipe feature time! My awesome husband made these amazing pork chops and they were probably the most delicious pork chops I have ever had. Smothered in mushrooms and surprisingly flavorful sauce (I had to ask him three times if he added extra salt to the sauce), these pork chops leftovers barely lasted 2 days. I would eat these almost every week if I could!

 



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Heart Healthy

Heart Healthy Diet Wrap-Up

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Today was my last day on the heart healthy diet. I learned a lot nutritionally and psychologically in the last few weeks. I’ve summarized my take-aways into 4 main points:

  1. Limiting sodium was (mostly) easier than I expected. At first, things are a little bland and it seems like there are a lot of things you “can’t have,” but over time I saw that I had several days well under 2,400 mg so I started adding a sprinkle of salt to bland food and found I did have a little room to add some sodium. You do also get used to needing less salt for flavor. I learned some tricks for adding flavor without salt, too. Be careful, though, because certain foods can blow almost your entire sodium budget in one fell swoop…*cough* seafood fettuccini *cough*.
  2. Limiting saturated fat was quite a bit harder than I expected. Those saturated fat grams are sneaky little suckers! I went into the heart healthy diet assuming sodium would be my biggest challenge and I quickly learned that saturated fat was much more difficult to keep within my 12 gram per day limit. Saturated fat is primarily from animal sources like butter, lard, dairy fat, and meat fat. The way I generally teach people to limit saturated fat is to eat oil-based spreads (instead of butter), low-fat or nonfat dairy, and lean meats and fish. I figured since I mostly eat that way I wouldn’t have to worry much about saturated fat on this diet. I was wrong! More often than not, halfway through the day I would check my saturated fat consumption and find it well over halfway through the budget. I now know that if patients are committed to limiting their saturated fat within recommendations, they probably need more specific guidelines and tips to keep that in check.
  3. Having dietary “restrictions” is a nasty mind game. It makes your inner petulant toddler come out: What do you mean I can’t have it? I want it! Suddenly I want lots of it! It’s a tricky thing to navigate when educating people about how to properly care for their bodies and live a life worth living.
  4. Fish is expensive. Very expensive. And I rarely get 2-3 servings per week. Unless you’re eating tuna all the time, getting in 2-3 servings per week racks up the grocery budget awfully quick-like.

 



 

Overall, I pretty much broke even on every outcome I was measuring, which didn’t really surprise me because I wasn’t eating in a drastically different way from how I normally eat. I did much better this week on my own than I did last because I made a more concerted effort to keep my saturated fat down.

 

  Heart Healthy Goal Week #1 Week #2 Week #3
# of days nutrition recommendations met 7 6 4 6
Average calorie intake <2000 1831 1571 1581
Average sodium intake <2400 mg 2064 mg 2033 mg 1972 mg
Average saturated fat intake <12 g 10.2 g 13.7 g 11.4 g (I left out the outlier of date day)
Weight change   -1 lb 0 lb +.5 lb
Blood pressure change   -5/-6 mmHg -2/-4 mmHg +8/+2 mmHg
Waist change   -.75″ -.25″ +.25″
Grocery Budget Change   +75% -65% 0%

 

So that about wraps up my experience on the heart healthy diet. What diet will I be doing next?

 

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Heart Healthy

Heart Healthy Diet Week #2 Summary

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Well, folks…week 2 is done! And unfortunately, I have become an incubus of the common cold as of yesterday. Goodie. In light of my crummy cough and angry sore throat I have resorted primarily to applesauce, soup, and nonfat frozen yogurt as my primary sustenance for the time being, but I still stayed within my nutrition goals while sick.

I was surprised to notice that I had a hard time meeting my saturated fat goal while on my own this week – I never went over on my sodium, believe it or not – but I was over on my saturated fat 3 out of 7 days. I’ll have to make a more concerted effort to watch that this week.

 



 

  Heart Healthy Goal Week #1 Week #2 Week #3
# of days nutrition recommendations met 7 6 4  
Average calorie intake <2000 1831 1571  
Average sodium intake <2400 mg 2064 mg 2033 mg  
Average saturated fat intake <12 g 10.2 g 13.7  
Weight change   -1 lb 0 lb  
Blood pressure change   -5/-6 mmHg -2/-4 mmHg  
Waist change   -.75″ -.25″  
Grocery Budget Change   +75% -65%

 



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Heart Healthy

Living a Realistic and Happy Life and Meeting Your Health Goals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw-SF5C2iHM

 

Living a healthy lifestyle of any kind – heart healthy or otherwise – can be daunting! It can sometimes feel like you should never eat those foods you love so much or that you’ll never enjoy food again. Not so! Check out this video I made to help you navigate a happy heart-healthy lifestyle.

 



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Heart Healthy

Vietnamese Steak Sandwiches

I made them with whole wheat sandwich rolls – they were delicious!

 

 

Recipe feature time! By far my husband’s favorite recipe from the Heart Healthy meal plan so far, these tasty sandwiches hail from a recipe from Eating Well. My husband said even other firefighters at work were enviously ogling this veggie-laden sammich.

The sandwiches are pretty high in sodium (likely one reason they are so delectable), so I was a little surprised to see them on the Heart Healthy meal plan, though the plan did keep me low enough for the rest of the day to keep me under my daily sodium recommendation of 2400 mg per day.

Heart-Healthy Tip: Use half the fish sauce and replace it with apple cider vinegar in the marinade to cut the sodium by 353 mg per serving.

The meat is flavorful and tender, the veggies are crisp and zesty. Give ’em a try – the full recipe is here!

One sandwich has 373 calories, 9 g fat, 8 g fiber, 858 mg sodium (505 mg with the heart-healthy modification), and 2 g saturated fat.

 



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Heart Healthy

So how does one make one’s heart healthy?

I know you are all just absolutely dying to know how I’ve been eating (note the heavy sarcasm font), so I thought I’d grace you with some sneak peeks of my heart healthy meals/snacks and the list of recommendations I’ll be following for the next 3 weeks.

 

image

 

Two days in to my Heart Healthy meal plan, my meals have been mostly enjoyable. My least favorites have been breakfast – too boring, too carby, and too lacking in protein. I’m starving by lunch, even with my morning snack. I have discovered two delicious recipes pictured above (Vietnamese Steak Sandwich, top left, and Warm Quinoa Salad with Edamame, bottom right)!

 

 

You can find the full page of recommendations from the American Heart Association here, but the quick gist is paraphrased below:

  • Use up at least as many calories as you take in (I’m aiming to hit the activity recommendations of 150 minutes of physical activity per week).
  • Eat a variety of foods from all the food groups.
  • Eat fresh, frozen, or canned vegetables and fruits without added sauces, salt, or sugars.
  • Choose fiber-rich whole grains for most grain servings.
  • Eat a variety of fish at least twice a week.
  • Eat poultry and fish without the skin. If you eat meat, choose the leanest cuts and prepare them without added saturated or trans fats.
  • Select fat-free and 1% dairy products.
  • Avoid foods containing partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
  • Reduce saturated fat to no more than 5-6 percent of total calories (in my case, 10-12 grams per day).
  • Cut back on foods and beverages with added sugars.
  • Choose foods with less sodium and prepare foods with little or no salt. To lower blood pressure, eat less than 2400 mg sodium per day. Reducing even farther to 1500 mg per day may have an even greater effect on blood pressure.
  • Drink alcohol in moderation. For women, limit to one drink per day and for men, two. And yes, those drinks have standard serving sizes.

As with any diet recommendations these guidelines have been a subject of hot debate in nutrition, but that’s a topic for another day.

 



 

Now here’s your turn to help me out: pretend you have just had a heart attack (I know, scary – but the good news? You made it!) and you are presented with the recommendations above to lower your risk of it happening again. What are your initial thoughts? Overwhelming? Easy? What the heck does any of that mean? I want to hear it.

If you had to follow these recommendations, what would your questions be? What would you want from your dietitian to make you feel confident in taking care of your heart? Commence to comment in 3, 2, 1…

 

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Down Home Dietitian

Diet culture is determined to tell you that you have to be miserable to be healthy.

That couldn’t be more wrong.

Subscribe to learn how to go from a frustrated, restricted dieter to a happy, relaxed relationship with food and fitness. Healthy doesn’t have to be hard!

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beckiparsons.rd.ep

I am OVER confusing advice, disgusting diets, and boring exercise.
Healthy doesn't have to be hard!
➢ Registered Dietitian
➢ Exercise Physiologist

Functional Dietitian | Exercise Physiologist | Speaker
Trauma is a common root that needs special support Trauma is a common root that needs special support.

In the documentary, both Tracey and Joelle mentioned how abuse related to their journeys with obesity. Trauma can lead to weight struggles in several ways:

- dysregulated cortisol
- food cravings
- emotional/stress eating
- undeveloped coping behaviors
- psychological desire to gain weight or remain heavy for a feeling of safety from sexual abusers

When this is a piece of someone’s puzzle, it needs to be addressed to help them understand the neurochemistry that patterns their habits, and provide them with tools to address and change those patterns.

It’s a rare person who can dig their way out of food and weight struggles without addressing these root causes - it’s not common knowledge!

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Focusing primarily on speed of weight lost is almo Focusing primarily on speed of weight lost is almost never healthy.

Instead, find other indicators of progress:
👚 clothes fit
💪 visible muscle
🏃‍♀️ workout performance and recovery
💡 energy and mental clarity
💤 sleep quality
😊 skin clarity
☺️ mental health

All together, they will be able to give you a far more accurate picture of whether or not you are making strides with your health or not.

Being married to numbers on the scale is a direct path to discouragement when it inevitably fluctuates.

#weightloss #fitness #registereddietitian #fatloss #dietitian #loseweight #fitfortv #netflixdocumentary #bariatrics #biggestloser
Different people need different approaches. Some Different people need different approaches.

Some people LOVE to sweat hard and feel the burn.
Some people NEED to have fun working out or they won’t stick with it.
Some people THRIVE on repetition and routine that minimizes decision making.
Some people MUST have flexibility or they will feel hemmed in.

As a practitioner, you have to get to know your client well enough to make recommendations that are a good fit for them. I often joke with my clients that they are eating healthy changes and I am their matchmaker. It’s my job to get to know them well enough to introduce them to really good potential partners. We may not always get it right the first time (and hey, bad dates are always a bummer), but I learn how to tailor things to them even more through the process.

#registereddietitian #dietitian #weightloss #fitness #fitfortv #biggestloser #netflix #netflixdocumentary
Skinny does not equal healthy. Healthy does not eq Skinny does not equal healthy. Healthy does not equal skinny.

Your habits are FAR more closely-tied indicators to actual health outcomes (likelihood of getting sick or dying) than your weight.

Here’s one study on that: https://www.jabfm.org/content/jabfp/25/1/9.full.pdf
Here’s another: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/370/bmj.m2031.full.pdf 

Now, typically if someone has a healthy lifestyle are they likely to lose weight? That depends on a lot of factors, but in many cases yes. That’s why we do find some connection between weight and health outcomes, but that’s confounded by a lot of factors.

Also, the method and rate of weight loss can impact just how healthy that weight loss is.

Here’s the article on how the contestants’ metabolisms were affected: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4989512/

#fitfortv #weightloss #biggestloser #jillianmichaels #bobharper #dietitian #fitness #healthynotskinny #netflixdocumentary
Thank you SO much to every single person who submi Thank you SO much to every single person who submitted a vote for me - I am so grateful for your support. ❤️

This means so much to me, and I am honored!

P.S. @evergreen_familychiro won Best Chiropractor too, so you can now see the best Chiro and best RD in one place! 😉
It’s not as simple as “eat less, move more.” It’s not as simple as “eat less, move more.” 

Heck, it’s not even as simple as weight loss = fat loss.

Anyone who has ever tried to lose more than 5 lbs knows that.

1. Your weight doesn’t tell you if you’ve gained or lost fat, it tells you the sum total mass of your skin, bones, organs, digestive goodies, muscle, fat, and water.

2. Hormones, stress, and fluid can fluctuate your weight much more prominently than fat loss or gain.

3. Your metabolism (the number of calories you burn) is not a fixed target. Your thyroid, adrenal system, eating patterns, movement patterns and more are constantly compensating, adjusting, and adapting. Just “eat less and move more” oversimplifies what can be a very complex concept. About half of my weight loss clients lose weight when we add calories, because of these adaptations.

4. Functional disruptions can freak your body out and make it resistant to fat loss. Gut dysbiosis/malabsorption, PCOS, and stressed-out adrenal systems are issues I see often. If you don’t address the functional root, you can deficit all you want and you may or may not see significant change.

So don’t bet everything on “eat less and move more.” It’s a good place to start for many, but if it isn’t working, dive deeper and find out why not. Want some support for your fat loss journey? DM me to get scheduled - it’s covered by most major health insurances!

#weightloss #dietitian #fitness #loseweight #bariatric #functionalnutrition
Lots of exciting things available in this partners Lots of exciting things available in this partnership! DM with questions or to get booked!

#chiropracticcare #nutritionandfitness #holisticwellness #weightlosssupport
Nutrition counseling is covered by most major insu Nutrition counseling is covered by most major insurances! DM me for an insurance verification or if you're ready to get scheduled!
Thank you so much for the nomination! You can vote Thank you so much for the nomination! You can vote daily through 5/9 by visiting votesouthsound.com and selecting Health & Beauty > Nutritionist/Dietitian > Becki Parsons Nutrition & Fitness. I am so grateful for your support!
So why wouldn't you start? Insurance coverage for So why wouldn't you start?

Insurance coverage for nutrition therapy is way better than you may even know. As a preventive health benefit, there are rarely even co-pays, and only occasionally limits on how many visits.

Get all the support you need, on the health insurance you already pay for! DM me to get started. ❤️

#nutritioncoaching #fatloss #weightloss #bariatrichealthcare #loseweight
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