Nutrition specialist, sports instructor and blogger Ksenia Drozhzhina.
Nutritionology ... Molecular dietetics ... What women do not study in an attempt to secure a slim figure. How not to harm yourself, moreover - how, together with a slim figure through healthy eating, help your body "recover from the inside out" - the story of a nutritionist.
- Ksenia, it seems to me that your personal story, which led you to your current work, is very revealing: something similar happens in the life of every girl. Tell her to our readers, please.
- My path to a perfect body began early. As a child, I was very thin, and my mother tried by all means to “thicken me”. I must say, she managed to achieve her goal, and by the age of 12 I was a pretty little girl. At that time, I already wanted to like the boys, and I decided, looking at my slender athletic mother, also start playing sports. At first I trained at home on a DVD-ROM and removed harmful foods from the diet, then in the magazines I read out diets from the category “eat only cucumbers and kefir for two weeks” and used everything. I lost weight to the bones, and then again I ate everything. And this happened all the time: either I tried vegetarianism, then a raw food diet, sometimes I went hungry, then I pushed protein food into myself, in general, I tested everything that was offered in glossy magazines (then it was the only source of information). I lost weight, and then again I gained everything in excess, and so for several years. It was a vicious circle familiar to many women.
And then I moved to Tomsk and started living with my grandmother, who began to instill the right eating habits in me: in the morning, oatmeal was waiting on the table, apples appeared in my bag instead of chocolates ... In short, if you want, you don’t want to, but you won’t run away from proper nutrition! Yes, and it was no longer possible to run away: health was undermined by diets, and doctors strongly recommended a balanced diet.
Then I was interested in anatomy and biochemistry, and I began to deeply study the processes occurring in our body, read a lot of studies about the effect of certain products on health, brain function, hormonal levels. I was so drawn into this topic that I became even more conscious about food not so much with the goal of being in good shape, but rather to help myself from the inside out.
Many saw my changes and asked to help them with the diet, too, but I would never have taken up such a responsible task without education in this area - I needed to study at least the basics of nutrition. However, I liked the idea, and I immediately began to look for where to learn how to become a nutritionist - specialist in nutrition.
“Oh, and where?”
- Unfortunately, in Tomsk, and indeed in the radius of 2000 km there was nothing suitable, but whoever seeks will always find! I found distance education in three American universities, could not choose and enrolled in all three courses. During the day, I studied at the university in Tomsk, at night I listened to video lectures by professors from the University of Pittsburgh Medical University and did homework from Florida. But I really caught fire with this, because the human body is so multifaceted, and so much needs to be known about it in order to competently approach the preparation of the diet.If we talk about the nutritional errors that are being addressed to me, then being overweight is just one of the problems they cause. Add here hormonal problems, the condition of the skin, hair, cardiovascular system and much more - and you will begin to think about your diet on a larger scale.
- It turns out that your clients want to not only lose weight?
- Lose weight - first of all. But many people today are facing hormonal problems, and this is also largely related to nutrition. Many girls and women in this regard have problems with reproductive function, and men also often have hormonal disorders.
Therefore, a competent nutritionist specialist should not only know what you can and cannot eat, but also have an idea of gynecology, endocrinology, psychology. I think it’s not a secret that our desire to “seize” something often lies in psychological problems.
- The question immediately arises: not all overweight people "seize" problems and troubles. There are people who just love to eat. How to be with them?
- Of course, “jamming” is a figurative expression, because some people in stressful situations, for example, cannot eat at all. Here we are talking about something else. Studying the eating behavior and habits of people, you increasingly understand that a special craving for certain foods often lies in some kind of memories and sensations that a person experienced in childhood. Suppose you were sick, and your mother always brought you cheesecakes. Since then, cheesecake for you has been subconsciously associated with care, attention, home warmth - you don’t even remember, maybe why. But between a piece of cake and a cheesecake, you will always choose the latter. Therefore, it is very important to know how our psychology works, because without knowing this, switching from cakes to chicken breast voluntarily will not work. I always teach my clients to set goals correctly, to find the right motivation so that new habits do not become stress, but, on the contrary, harmoniously blend into life. I try to explain how to find this motivation and how to keep it.
- The question begs itself: how?
- I noticed a long time ago: when girls turn to me with the goal of losing weight, they usually write with negative connotations: "now I'm fat and I don't like myself." On this negative note, they are trying to build work on themselves, but this is obviously an unsuccessful path. First of all, you need to understand what you want to go to, find the “positive guiding star” that you will strive for, which will inspire you. It’s easy to do: look at yourself in the mirror and imagine that you’ve built as many kilograms as you thought you were.
And now look again in the mirror and imagine the opposite: what will happen to you, for example, in a year or five years, if you don’t take it now. Look not only at the exterior, but in depth: what will happen to your cardiovascular system, can you be able to climb the stairs with excess weight without shortness of breath? Can you easily get pregnant and have a baby? Rate both options. You will understand that this works, by the way, in any field. This is one of the basic principles of setting goals.
- So, the girl realized that she wanted to lose weight. I understand that diet is not an option?
- That's right. Diet is fundamentally wrong. Rational balanced nutrition - this is the right approach! First of all, remove all “food waste”: chips, soda, mayonnaise, trans fats (artificially synthesized oils that are very unhealthy), sweets with palm oil and so on.Introduce the right foods into the diet: they will not necessarily be low-calorie, but the body does not always need this. Calorie content is generally a relative value. The basic value of kilocalories that a person needs for life must be calculated very individually, based on height, weight, occupation, lifestyle and much more. For this, people generally fill out a questionnaire with 14 pages.
When you watch the recommendations of "nutritionists" on the Internet, it becomes scary: they say, reduce calories to 900 per day and lose weight. The minimum allowable rate at which your body is functioning normally is 1,500 kcal. If lower - he is not able to fully supply himself with energy for cell renewal and successful functioning, all processes in it are inhibited. Calories do not always go to fat - in our body, everything is much more complicated.
- Do diets really not work, even if you need to lose only 2-3 kilograms?
“They're not working.” You just need to understand: reset for what time and for what? See the cherished figure and all? Or always be in this weight and live in it comfortably? Losing two kilograms in two weeks is easy. But returning to the previous nutrition, you will return both your previous weight and a couple of kilograms to boot. To adapt to a new weight, the body needs time, therefore, calorie needs to be cut back gradually. Usually, my clients start from 1700-1800 kcal, we monitor the body and monitor the weight, and as soon as it "gets up", we either lower the number or introduce additional loads. As a result, the body improves, and there is no hunger and weakness, and eating habits change, and the weight stabilizes.
- Tell me, is sport mandatory in this matter?
- Sport is different for sports, many have contraindications for playing sports. By the way, overweight is also a contraindication in many cases. I always say: start small. Walk at least 3-5 kilometers per day. I steadily walk 12-15 km even if I am “on Louboutin” and in drop dead pants. Sport is an extra reason for the body to expend energy and calories. Sport strengthens the back, blood vessels, joints and increases stamina. Try different types of loads - yoga, running, fitness - choose something for yourself and have fun.
Therefore, I always recommend starting with 2–4 workouts per week lasting no more than 40–60 minutes. And then gradually increase the time. Believe me, when you find your type of training, you do not have to force yourself to go to class, you will run to it! With food the same. It is important to find something that will give you pleasure with health benefits.
- Here, too, in more detail.
- We have already talked about “food waste”; it must be cleaned up unambiguously. Choosing comfortable foods means analyzing your diet and replacing one with the other. Do not like buckwheat - eat rice. Do not like breast - eat fish. I love sweets - with proper nutrition, you can easily cook various cottage cheese casseroles, replacing white flour with whole grains, and sugar with its natural substitutes. By the way, I publish a lot of such recipes on my Instagram, because the wild sweet tooth itself.
When choosing popular fitness bars in the store, carefully read the composition: most of them contain palm oil and trans fats. When reading recipes on the Internet, avoid foods that contain stabilizers, flavor enhancers, thickeners. Remove refined sugar, exclude various E in the composition of products, do not buy low-calorie “fitness granola” - they are of no use, as in most other products with the prefix “fitness”, but there is a lot of glucose syrup. You need to understand that large concerns use in the production of chemical components that affect the pleasure center in the brain, causing addiction to harmful products. Weaning from them is not an easy task. Need time. But what we eat is building materials for our body. Therefore, nutrition must be approached consciously. And after a while, your body itself will cease to require harmful products.
- Is this the intuitive nutrition that people talk about so often today?
“Essentially, yes.” Intuitive nutrition is the ability to listen to your body and rely on internal sensations regarding the choice of products. The right products. And listen to your body’s reviews. Our brain is a database, it remembers our sensations from a particular food, for example, if you want bell pepper, it means that there is a lack of vitamin C. Proper intuitive nutrition is, first of all, self-discipline at the start. It is necessary to accustom the body to the right products, and after a while he himself will strive for them. I am not a supporter of food “on an alarm clock”: you will not get a container of food in the theater or cinema. You need to eat when you want, over time, the skill to eat properly and at the right time will develop without difficulty.
- You tell so many different subtleties and wisdom that it seems as if those who decide to lose weight can not do without a curator. Does a mentor need a person who has decided to lose weight without harm to health, or will he cope on his own?
- I think that is needed, but it depends on the level of self-discipline and the person’s ability to control himself. A mentor is a person who will help, motivate, support, and in time tell you: “get together, this is only necessary for you”. This is such a rational inner voice.
- Another question: often people think that proper nutrition is necessarily expensive. Not everyone can afford to buy good meat, fruits, vegetables - the traditional "Olivier" is always cheaper than salad with arugula and seafood.
- This is not true: I calculated the cost of the grocery basket of a person who adheres to proper nutrition and a person who chooses a traditional set of products. The maximum that can make a difference is 1000 rubles. Well, for example, all people eat meat - it is different, chicken is not more expensive than pork. Rice, buckwheat, pasta also eat everything. Fish can be different - pink salmon, by the way, is much more useful than salmon, but costs less. You can always find an alternative without compromising your wallet and health. Fruits and vegetables are also in the basket of any person. But eliminating mayonnaise, ketchup, waffles, sausage from the diet, which also eat a considerable part of the budget, you can save a lot!
Whenever they tell me that proper nutrition is expensive, I reply: you invest in your health and future. Preventing health problems is always easier and cheaper than solving them later. How we will look in 15–20 years depends, first of all, on nutrition and lifestyle in general. Therefore, do not hesitate to spend money on yourself and invest only the best in yourself!
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