Can­di­da Khan

As women, we are not giv­en the cred­it we de­serve. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, women are of­ten re­gard­ed as the back­bone of the fam­i­ly. Usu­al­ly, women, whether they are moth­ers, sis­ters, cousins, or friends, are awake be­fore every­one to pre­pare meals, or­gan­ise school bags, head to work, at­tend school meet­ings, care for age­ing par­ents, and some­how clean, and help with home­work to keep every­thing run­ning smooth­ly. When are we ac­tu­al­ly tak­ing a mo­ment to care for our­selves? Our days can be busy, but if we don’t pri­ori­tise our health, we will not be able to pour from an emp­ty pot.

The truth is sim­ple. Habits make up our lives. These are a few rou­tines we tend to ne­glect, but can be used to reg­u­late our health:

Skip­ping meals

Eat­ing on time is a habit that is usu­al­ly for­got­ten be­cause of the mul­ti­ple tasks that we do on a dai­ly ba­sis. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, for busy women, eat­ing break­fast is the first sac­ri­fice. Maybe we slip in a caf­feinat­ed drink on the way.

Skip­ping meals slows down me­tab­o­lism, sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fects blood sug­ar lev­els and can in­crease mood swings, ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, headaches and fa­tigue. This can al­so con­tribute to weight gain, which in­creas­es risks for lifestyle dis­eases such as di­a­betes.

Sim­ple break­fast op­tions in­clude:

Roti and veg­etable cho­ka, e.g., toma­to or baigan.

Ce­re­al mixed with fresh fruit, oats, mixed nuts, chia, flaxseed pow­der, wheat germ, low-fat milk, low-fat yo­gurt and peanut but­ter.

Sand­wich with eggs, let­tuce, cu­cum­ber, and toma­to for bal­ance

Nu­tri­tious smooth­ie with ba­nana, peanut but­ter, oats, low-fat milk, and cu­cum­ber

My favourite go-to break­fast is the ce­re­al mix when in a rush. It’s a per­fect bal­ance with nu­tri­tious com­bi­na­tions. I usu­al­ly choose a low-sug­ar ce­re­al.

Lack­ing bal­ance

Nu­tri­ent de­fi­cien­cies can oc­cur in women when we don’t eat the right com­bi­na­tions based on the food groups we need dai­ly. This may seem like a small over­sight, but it can lead to com­mon de­fi­cien­cies such as iron de­fi­cien­cy anaemia. Foods that we can in­clude to re­duce this risk in­clude:

Dark green leafy veg­eta­bles, e.g. callaloo

Beans and lentils

For­ti­fied ce­re­als

Com­bin­ing iron-rich foods with vi­t­a­min C, from foods such as sweet pep­pers, cit­rus fruit, can im­prove ab­sorp­tion.

A healthy meal can in­clude your favourite fruits and veg­eta­bles, com­plex car­bo­hy­drates of choice, pro­tein and beans. My favourite bal­anced meal is mac­a­roni pie, stew chick­en, and callaloo.

Avoid­ing snacks

Snacks are of­ten giv­en a bad name, but we can snack more nu­tri­tious­ly to en­sure that we get a va­ri­ety of nu­tri­ents to fu­el our bod­ies. In­clude both healthy and un­healthy snacks to boost your mood, en­er­gy and me­tab­o­lism! My favourite is a fruit, e.g. ba­nana and nu­tri­tious treats from Di­di’s Healthy Liv­ing Cafe. I love any­thing with dark choco­late.

Putting it all to­geth­er, we can ac­com­plish this on­ly with a plan! You de­serve to feel and look your best with the right nu­tri­tion. Amaz­ing en­er­gy lev­els will be ac­com­plished as we fo­cus on batch cook­ing, choos­ing a day to plan for the week and dis­trib­ut­ing tasks to oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers, such as help­ing to wash dish­es and get mar­ket goods. Small and steady move­ments will cre­ate ever­last­ing lifestyle changes. Start to­day!

Can­di­da Khan, MSc RD al­so known as Di­di is a Reg­is­tered Di­etit­ian Nu­tri­tion­ist.

She is al­so the CEO of Di­di's Nu­tri­tion Con­sul­tan­cy

didis­nu­tri­tion­con­sul­tan­cy.com