6-week family health challenge: the families start their healthy eating journey.
Rebecca Miller, Clinical Nutritionist talks us through the family meal plans.
"When I was asked to be the Nutritionist to help these four families reach their health goals I was over the moon to help out! There's nothing I love more than helping people finally find a way of eating that suits them as individuals to help them lose weight whilst enjoying the process. Instead of a quick, fad, unrealistic diet, I worked with each family to develop plans that actually fitted in with their habits, preferences and lifestyles. This ensures long term success and change as they will actually want to continue on after the 6 weeks.
Amanda Woodward, 48, Husband Craig, 49 and Children, Daniel, 16, George, 13.
With Amanda, our main priority for her personally was to cut out all sugar and gluten as she suffers from inflammatory conditions and cutting these foods out can drastically help with this. So we decided to make sugar and gluten removal the first steps initially, and then alter her program into a more lower-carb plan over the remaining weeks. I advised her husband to follow the same diet but add in an extra snack/ more protein, and with the kids I added more fibre into their diets and cut out a lot of sugars.
Zoe Michele, 30, Mum Leonie, 58, and Aunt Trudi, 55.
As for Zoe, catering to her having Type 2 Diabetes and PCOS, we decided a low-carb plan would work best to help reverse and manage these blood sugar regulation conditions. It was great that she'd already gotten used to eating this way throughout her weight less journey so she adapted well!
Her mother Leonie and aunty Trudi are following a very similar plan as they are all of similar body weights and this type of eating is a very maintainable, satisfying and healthy way to eat.
Elena grace, 37, and Children Mariah, 9, Ebony, 7, Calvin, 11.
Elena wanted to try something new - a totally plant-based/vegan diet! She also wanted to reduce her carbohydrate load, so I constructed a plan for her that incorporated both, maintaining some carbs but excluding refined carbohydrates.
I advised her kids to follow the same diet for dinners, yet recommended eggs and wholegrain toast for most breakfasts, with similar lunches to Elena or wraps filled with salad and chicken/ ham, and sugar free, low GI snacks for their lunch boxes.
Watch Elena's video diary and find out how she is feeling as she takes on Week 1 of New Idea's 6-week Family Health Challenge.
Elsa Tesi, 35, Husband Joh, 41, and their Daughters Suliana, 11, Leilani, 9.
As Elsa and her Husband are of similar weight, and her husband can’t do much activity, I recommended that they consume a similar amount of food.
I set their intake to below approx 1700 calories a day, including the option for a healthy dessert to be consumed (such as 2 squares of dark chocolate or other sugar-free recipes I provided), as I wanted to allow them to continue their habit of enjoying something sweet after dinner. It’s all about the healthy swaps!
The kids were advised to follow the same dinners, but consume regular pasta and rice in place of the cauliflower rice and zoodles I suggested to Elsa and John."
