Foods for Energy:Stay Satisfied and Lose Weight this Winter|Episode 19

Are you trying to lose weight this winter but finding yourself more tired, hungry and drawn towards comfort food?

The answer may not be to eat less.

In this episode of the Outlook for Life Podcast, Ginny McArthur explains how to choose foods that support steady energy, satisfaction and winter weight loss, particularly for women over 50.

When the weather is colder, it is easy to fall into one of two traps: eating large amounts of energy-dense comfort food or trying to compensate by making meals so small and light that you spend the rest of the day hungry.

A better approach is to build warm, nourishing meals around protein, fibre-rich carbohydrates, vegetables and carefully chosen healthy fats.

What You’ll Learn

Why under-eating can contribute to tiredness, hunger and cravings
How to build a satisfying winter breakfast and lunch
Why protein and high-fibre carbohydrates belong in your meals
How warm, high-volume foods can make weight loss feel easier
What Ginny means by a “pretend carbohydrate”
How to reduce afternoon energy crashes and evening overeating
Which foods can support energy, mood and immune function
Why drinking enough fluid remains important during winter

Foods Discussed in This Episode

Ginny discusses practical winter foods including:

Wholegrain and steel-cut oats
Beans, chickpeas and lentils
Kumara and pumpkin
Wholegrains such as quinoa and kasha
Spinach, kale and silverbeet
Tofu, tempeh, eggs and other protein-rich foods
Walnuts, chia seeds, flaxseeds and almonds
Avocado
Water, herbal teas, soups and broths

These foods can be combined into warm, generous meals rather than being treated as another restrictive diet list.

Free Foods for Energy Handout

Download Ginny’s free Foods for Energy handout for a simple list of foods to include more often during winter.

Download it here:
https://www.outlookforlife.com/foods-for-energy

Join the Winter Weight Loss Workshop

Would you like help creating a winter food plan that works in real life?

Join Ginny for the live Winter Weight Loss Workshop:

Wednesday 29 July at 7 pm
Live online via Zoom
$27

You’ll work through a practical workbook and begin creating a winter eating plan that supports weight loss, energy, mood and immune function.

Register here:

https://www.outlookforlife.com/offers/ZMZDcwiM/checkout

About the Outlook for Life Podcast

The Outlook for Life Podcast features practical conversations about health, confidence, weight loss and ageing well for women over 50.

Hosted by nutritionist, fitness trainer and life coach Ginny McArthur, each episode offers realistic strategies to help you eat with purpose, become stronger and build a life you feel excited to live.

Episode Transcript

And today we're going to talk about

winter energy. I guess this is part two of our winter series.

That leads up to my winter workshop, which is coming on the 29th of July. I'd love you to join me for that.

It's free for members. If you're not a member, it's 27 bucks. So come and join me and I'll write you a winter food plan.

that will work and keep your weight loss going too.

I know that during this episode, the dogs are going to bark.

And I can't be faffed with editing.

So if it's just me, I don't have a team. So if the dogs bark halfway through, just bear with me, block it out. It's real life.

If you're running out of energy and struggling to lose weight this winter,

It may well not be because you're eating too much. It might be because you're not eating enough,

or you're not eating enough of the right foods.

I was talking to one of my clients yesterday,

And she said she could not believe how much she was eating.

on the plan. She started with Outlook three weeks ago. She had lost a lot of weight, but then become totally stuck.

couldn't budge… couldn't budge whatever she did.

And in the last 3 weeks, she's lost 2 kilos. So, she's absolutely delighted.

But the big point that came across to me was that she said repeatedly, I cannot believe how much you have got me eating.

You know, and sometimes our bodies get stuck because we're not eating enough.

And when we don't eat enough, we go into survival mode.

Our metabolic rate slows down, so we have to eat less and less and less to keep losing weight, which is really hard in winter when it's cold.

And quite often we're…

you know, craving comfort foods.

We don't want to be living on smoothies and salads all winter.

Definitely, definitely not. So anyway, in today's episode, I hope that.

You'll learn why trying to eat less over winter can actually leave you more tired,

more hungry, more likely to go off track.

And we're going to talk about how to build meals that keep you full and satisfied.

Why protein and high fiber carbohydrates matter for steady energy?

And this client had been doing keto, by the way, so that was one of the biggest changes, was putting.

Good, slow carbohydrates that were high in fiber back into her diet.

That has revved her metabolism up.

made her body feel safe and got her burning body fat as a fuel again.

When her body was clearly not, you know, hadn't been doing that for months and wasn't going to.

So we're going to talk about how to avoid the afternoon slump and the evening cravings.

Now, which winter foods support your energy mood?

Um, particularly energy.

And… how to use, I guess, lower energy dense, in terms of calories,

food as comfort food, so that you still feel satisfied.

So by the end of the episode, I hope you'll have a much clearer idea.

of how to eat through winter without feeling.

deprived, and without feeling like you're banging your head against a brick wall when it comes to your weight loss goals.

So firstly, I think, as I touched on before, many of us try to get through winter on a summer diet.

And you're not going to feel warm and energized and satisfied all winter

If you're trying to…

survive on smoothies, which have got ice in them.

or salads, you know, like chicken salads for lunch. You're just not gonna do it. You're going to feel deprived.

You're going to feel like it's not fair.

You're going to crave all of the wrong kind of.

Comfort foods, probably.

For many of my clients who have lost weight over summer, winter can feel especially challenging.

You know, over summer, they've lost a lot of that insulation that kept them warm last winter, and this winter.

They're feeling really, really cold.

And, you know, during winter, we actually do burn more calories,

In trying to keep our body temperature up,

So, you know, if you… if you feel like you're stuck, and you're not losing weight.

And you reduce your food when your body is trying to use those calories to stay warm.

It will definitely have the effect

of, you know, our brains aren't stupid, it'll go, God is cold.

There's not much food around. We need to hang on to this body fat. We need to try and use that.

compensatory engine that we have,

to slow our metabolism down.

And then you end up having to eat less and less and less.

to get any weight loss at all. And at the other end of your weight loss, if you get to the other end.

You have to eat less and less and less to stay there. So, you know, that's really.

really not much fun.

So when your weight loss gets stuck in the winter, the answer is not to automatically eat less.

And definitely the answer is not to remove carbohydrates.

from your lunch, which I see a lot of people do, chicken salads, just do not cut it.

through the winter.

like I just said, regularly under-eating.

when you're cold and hungry will leave you feeling.

tired and hangry, probably, as well.

So it's not, you know, I don't want you to replace that hearty, balanced breakfast with a small protein shake.

Because you're not losing any weight, because it's going to backfire and work against you.

Instead, we want to reassure your body that there is plenty of food available, and that means including good quality, high-fiber carbohydrates at breakfast and lunch.

Along with plenty of protein.

In each meal.

And of course, lots of vegetables.

At night, I often use what I call fake carbohydrates, so I load my breakfast with oats or steel-cut oats.

So that's my carbohydrate at breakfast time. At the weekend, it might be a really… a truly whole grain bread, or a sourdough bread.

At lunchtime, I might add…

brown rice, or quinoa.

or barley, or cassia, or a couple of high fiber wraps, or a couple, again, of the

a couple of slices of whole grain toast or bread, so it's warming with my soup, you know.

It feels comforting. And that carbohydrate, along with the protein, feeds out really slowly and keeps me full all afternoon.

through until the evening. So I don't get that afternoon crash where I'm stuffing my face with chippies or looking for something sweet.

Because I've kept those energy levels stable through the early part of the day when our metabolism is up and we're burning more calories, so breakfast.

lunchtime, I've got fuel for my brain to do my work, to do my exercise.

And then in the evening, I taper it off.

But I do that by cheating a little bit.

So like last night, for instance,

Um, I… my protein, this might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I love it. For me, my protein was air-fried tempeh.

And I had a generous serve of frozen veggies.

And I added silver bait and spinach from the garden.

And so that was my protein and my veggies, and then I got a whole cauliflower, I steamed it.

I, um, whizzed it with the immersion blender into a mash.

I added a big blob of hummus,

and some nutritional yeast, and it was yummy. I filled up half my plate with it.

I was full, I was comforted, I wasn't looking for anything after dinner.

But the calories were really low!

You know, for a cup of cauliflower, I'm lucky if I'm getting 10 calories.

Because most of it is feeding my gut bugs, the good ones that help me fight immunity.

So it's a win-win. If I'd had the same amount of mashed potato or rice, I could conceive and

conceivably have done 400 calories. So it's really a no-brainer, right?

So it's getting crafty and getting clever and getting those good ideas of foods that you love.

To do that with, you could also use buttercup squash to achieve the same thing.

Or maybe cauliflower rice, or I'm a big fan of the edamame noodles and those kind of things.

So I'm still having pretend carbs at night.

that make me feel comforting.

But keep my fat loss going through the winter.

Uh, which is really important, and absolutely delicious.

So, you know, that sense of satisfaction is really important.

You shouldn't have to spend the entire winter feeling cold and hungry and deprived.

To try and lose weight.

Another thing that often I see going wrong with my clients in the winter.

is that they drop off their water, and they become dehydrated.

And you've only got to be a tiny little bit dehydrated. It's about 2%.

To feel fatigued.

And when we feel fatigued, do we think, oh, I better go and get a drink now? No, we don't.

We think I'd better have something sweet, I'd better have a quick pick me up, which leads to something else and something else very often.

So, staying hydrated through the winter is vitally important.

But it doesn't have to be with a bottle of cold water from the fridge.

I actually like cold water from the fridge.

And you might be able to feel I'm a little bit husky, I've had a bit of a cough and a cold this week.

And I find it quite soothing to drink cold water when I'm feeling like that.

But equally, things like lemon and ginger tea,

I was just looking, because I knew I had one for my members last night.

So this one I'm using this Health Reese one. I love lemon and ginger tea this time of year.

It equally could be peppermint tea, or any of the fruit or herb teas that don't have added sugar.

That ball counts towards your liquid to the day, for the day. That is hydration.

And I also make, um…

It's actually from Dr. B, from Dr. Will Bulowitz.

And it's a biome soup that he makes. Well, it's a broth really.

So it's vegetables, but made into a broth.

And you can then add beans or other protein to it to make it into a mealtime soup.

Or you can just sip at it during the day.

And that's really comforting. And again, it counts towards your hydration for the day. So it's finding whatever works for you.

If you would like a copy of that recipe, actually, just message me.

below, or email me, and I'll get it to you.

You know, when… when you're tired,

or fatigued from that lack of hydration.

your…

We call it at Outlook, the Labrador brain, because if you've ever had a Labrador or seen a Labrador, they eat everything in sight.

The Labrador brain is our primitive brain.

Unfortunately, it's there to protect us and stop us starving,

But unfortunately, it's the brain that gets us overweight in the first place.

Particularly, I think for women, when we've… when we're going or have gone through menopause.

Uh, that… yeah, we get that slight appetite dysregulation.

And that primitive brain can really jump forwards. So we don't want that part of our brain making our food choices, we want our super-duper prefrontal cortex making our food choices.

So hydration is really important.

to help stop that happening.

Um…

I've also put together

Uh, a free handout that features food that helps to support your energy throughout the winter.

And you'll find the link in the show notes.

I'll just talk about them quickly now. So the foods that will help you feel full and satisfied.

While also supporting your health,

And your weight loss goals,

This winter. And then, as I said before, if you want a hand putting them together.

Or maybe you don't like any of these foods and we need to find versions of them that you do like.

come to the workshop on the 29th of July.

So, I'm going to start with my favourite, which is the oats.

I'm using steel-cut oats at the moment.

There are really great, you know, the grainier the oat, the bigger the grain of the oat, the better.

You don't want the little fine, dusty stuff out of a packet.

Um, because you want… you want all of that fiber, that soluble fiber, you want a really good slow relief.

And you know the added benefit of that soluble fiber.

is that it helps to lower your cholesterol. So it not only keeps you feeling full,

Like those oats I add in my berries and my chia and my flaxseed and some protein powder and some of my soy yogurt.

And those oats will keep me feeling full right through until lunchtime.

I never really need a morning snack. It just keeps me feeling.

Good. So… so that's one. The other one that's your friend, so number two would be beans and chickpeas and lentils.

You know, they're great for protein as well as fiber and iron and B vitamins.

So they help with, I guess, cellular energy. You know, they just help to keep everything functioning.

And they're that slow release, and that's what we want in winter. We don't want foods that give us a quick energy burst and drop us back down again.

Because then we're going to be looking for more, right? Because as I said before, we're burning energy, keeping warm, keeping our body temperature up.

So we want slow release foods.

That keypass feeling full and keep our energy level.

Give us enough energy to keep our temperature up.

but also allow us to burn fat for fuel at the same time.

So we're kind of conning our body into thinking there's plenty of food coming in, and it's absolutely fine to burn fat. We don't need to hold on to it to stay warm this winter.

Komra and pumpkin, another favourite of mine.

Anything that's orange is high in beta-carotene, so carrots, that's why they say.

you know, carrots help you see in the dark because we convert beta-carotene into vitamin A.

Which is good for eyesight. So, Kumra and pumpkin.

I generally have that at lunchtime, like, very often.

I'll have a fist-sized Kumra.

And I'll bake it, or I'll microwave it, and open it up like a baked potato, or I'll chop it, but I love it like a baked potato.

And I'll have beans and veggies and sauerkraut and.

kimchi, and probably…

hummus or a yogurt dressing with it, that's just yum.

Leafy greens, really important this time of year for the… again, for the iron and the vitamin C.

And protein, obviously. Protein in every meal.

And whether you're plant-based like me and that protein's coming from

beans and lentils, you know, and all of the legumes. I love trying all the different ones. There's so many different ones to try.

Um, and things like tofu and tempeh, or whether you're using lean meat.

or you're using eggs, or you're using cottage cheese or fish.

make sure that every meal is a chance to get some protein in, so every meal needs to be protein rich.

Because again, that helps with your satiety.

It helps you feeling fuller,

for longer. So I think that my breakfasts and my lunches are comfort food.

And I think my fake carbs at night are also comfort food. I love food, right?

I love food, but I also want to be in a fit and healthy body.

So I've had to…

find a way to put those two things together.

And especially in winter, especially in winter. I love creating thick.

stews, and soups, and casseroles.

and adding rice and whole grains to them at lunchtime.

and fake mashed carbs at night.

And, you know, I'm in heaven. I think I love summer and I love the summer foods, but sometimes I think I love winter even.

more. Another thing not to forget about, which we talked about last week when we were talking about mood.

is omega-3. So omega-3 fatty acids, really good for mood and cognitive function.

And therefore, by default, your energy level,

So you're going to get those naturally from things like chia seeds, flax seeds and walnuts.

Um, but I advocate, um,

to, especially as we age, and we're not so good at converting

ALA to EPA and DHA, I advocate to take an algae-based omega-3 fatty acid.

Which I do every day, just to keep those up.

Um, I've put a complete list

into the free foods energy handout, so you'll find the link in the show notes below.

That's my quick rundown of foods that can help support your energy this winter.

The most important principles are include protein at every meal.

Eat high-fiber filling carbohydrates. Listen to me, eat them.

At breakfast and lunch, do not try and do low-carb or no carb.

Just do smart carbs, right? Smart carbs at your breakfast and your lunch.

Build your evening meal around protein and plenty of non-starchy vegetables,

And perhaps try one of my comforting pretend carbohydrates.

Stay well hydrated, whether that's with water, hot water, hot water and lemon.

teas, broths, all of that's fine.

Make sure that you're eating enough to feel satisfied and in control.

You do not need to starve your way through winter.

You're not punishing your body, right? You're nourishing.

Stop the punishing start, the nourishing.

And if you…

are clever about it.

And you structure it right, your weight loss will keep going through the winter months.

If you'd like help putting your own winter food plan together, please join me on the 29th.

I'll put the link below.

Um, you'll receive a workbook that will work through together, so that by the end of the evening, you'll have your own.

Personalized winter weight loss plan.

Uh, to keep you satisfied, energized, and on track. It's only $27.

You'll have that opportunity to ask me all of your burning questions about winter or anything else that you like,

I'd love you to join me, so click the workshop link in the show notes below.

And don't forget to download the free Foods for Energy. I'm croakie.

handout that accompanies today's episode.

You'll find that link in the show notes as well.

Have a fabulous day, a great week. I think we've got one more of these winter wellness series.

In two weeks' time, and that one must be on immune function, so I'll look forward to talking to you then.

Have a happy, healthy, warm winter. Speak to you soon.