Your Personal Freedom: 13 Tips from a Dietitian for Healthy and Balanced Nutrition

The Festival of Matzot, also known as the Festival of Freedom, is just around the corner, and this means a week full of family meals at the table. For many, this might sound like a challenge best postponed until after the holiday, but it's important to see Passover as an opportunity for personal freedom and making significant lifestyle decisions. In honor of the holiday, Adina Bechar, a diabetes and ketogenic nutrition dietitian, offers 13 tips for maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle.

1. Stay Focused

You're already used to not going with the flow. Yes, people have comments about how you eat, but ignore irrelevant remarks. Remember, only you know what's good for you and how to focus yourself on the path to a healthy lifestyle.

2. Listen to Your Body

Ensure that after each meal, you've consumed enough fat to be satiated. Remember, if you're not hungry, it's better not to give in to eating (or continue eating). It's okay to sit in company and just have a cup of tea or enjoy soda with lemon. Consider the looks and comments from your surroundings - "Did you choose to diet specifically during the holiday?". Respond politely and do what you must.

3. Don't Fear Variety

Think about all the variety you can enjoy rather than the foods you need to avoid. How nice it is to eat liver pate without guilt and enjoy ketogenic desserts. You'll find it's much easier than you think once you succeed in creating especially delicious new foods without special effort. Diabetics are advised to check the impact on glucose levels with a continuous glucose monitor, without pricks.

4. Space Out Meals

Set a defined time for meals and avoid snacking between meals. Maintain a four-hour gap between meals and twelve hours between your last meal and the first meal the next day. This way, you'll benefit from your nighttime hours and enjoy fat burning while you sleep.

5. Plan Your Eating

Prepare foods you'll enjoy, like fried schnitzel with almond flour, creamy spinach, stir-fried mushrooms in wine, or roasted cauliflower. Soup with chicken/beef and vegetables is always good to satisfy and provide you with fluids and minerals.

6. Matzah is Off-Limits!

Prepare almond rolls, tahini bread, bagels, or ketogenic matzah for yourself. A ketogenic diet is based on not consuming carbohydrates, but on foods based on proteins and healthy fats.

7. Drink More Water

It's advisable to drink about two liters of water per day. Your urine color is your indicator: it should be clear, and if it's too yellow, it's a reminder to take another glass of water. Cheers! Avoid sugary drinks and added sugar in hot beverages.

8. Wine Cheers the Heart

Choose a drink with a relatively low alcohol percentage like red wine, white wine, or champagne. Wine has good health effects such as lowering blood pressure, reducing inflammatory and oxidative processes, and increasing good cholesterol. Excessive alcohol consumption is not recommended, especially for diabetics, as it poses a risk. Alcohol suppresses sugar production by the liver, potentially causing low blood sugar levels (hypoglycemia). Enjoy alcohol that does your body and soul good in a measured and controlled way, even daily (one glass for a woman, two glasses for a man).

9. Use Free Time for Nature Walks

Include walking whenever possible. Many studies have shown that a 30-minute walk improves cardiovascular endurance, thereby reducing the risk of heart disease, helps maintain weight, and lowers blood sugar levels. Consider moving family gatherings to nature. If you stay at home, reduce sitting time at the dining table. Move to sit elsewhere, away from your plate. During Passover, incorporate physical activity for the whole family or play with small children.

10. Increase Physical Activity

Even during the holidays. Don't tell yourself "after the holidays" I'll get back to fitness. Physical activity is essential for increasing blood flow and improving mood. Vary the types of activity to accumulate more hours of activity - walking on the beach (you can dip in already), yoga, pilates, and exercises that don't even require you to leave the house.

11. Keep a Food Diary

Record what you eat and drink, so you can maintain mindful eating and stay under control.

12. Correct Mistakes Instead of Feeling Guilty

If you deviate and it didn't work out, return "home" to your regular menu. Remember, success isn't only about weight loss (and maybe during the holiday that's not a realistic goal), but the habits you're able to change. Small successes provide enjoyment and strengthen motivation for change. This allows you to stop fighting and not lose strength on the way to achieving the goal.

13. Include Healthy Foods in Meals

The winning formula - proteins alongside vegetables, that's how we reach satiety (and maintain muscles that are a "pension fund" for a healthy and toned life). Reduce carbohydrate and sugar intake and remove processed foods from the menu (less bagged food...). A fish course with salad as an appetizer and a meat course with cooked vegetables for the main dish will do the job.

Recipe: Oven-Baked Nile Perch with Rosemary, Garlic, and Tomatoes

7 servings, 225 calories, 3.5g carbohydrates, 1g fiber, 22.5g protein, and 13.5g

fat per serving

Ingredients:

Fresh Nile perch fillet without skin, sliced (700g after filleting)

2 sprigs of rosemary

3 cloves of crushed garlic

3 tablespoons of olive oil

Coarse salt

Sauce Ingredients:

2 tomatoes chopped into small cubes (or crushed)

2 cloves of crushed garlic

Thinly sliced red pepper

2 tablespoons of olive oil

A bunch of cilantro

2-3 anchovy units

Paprika, turmeric, salt, pepper

Preparation Method:

Place the fish on baking paper.

Spread with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary, and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 18-20 minutes.

Heat olive oil in a pan or small pot, add the spices for the sauce, add the vegetables, cover with water, bring to a boil, lower the heat, and cook until the vegetables are tender.

Serve the hot sauce on a serving plate and place the fish on top when it comes out of the oven. Delicacy.

Kosher and happy holiday.

Adina Bechar is a diabetes and ketogenic nutrition dietitian at the DMC Diabetes Treatment Center