Bec Stone Nutrition

Qualified Nutritionist & Personal Trainer

A day on a plate for an athlete

What should an athlete eat?  This is a question I get a lot, and it’s not specific to professional athletes. If you’re doing a lot of training and exercising most days of the week, your diet should look a lot different to someone who is more sedentary.

It can be very varied, as I always tailor meal plans to individuals depending on their needs, how much time they have, their food preferences, age, gender and their activity levels and exercise goals. However, below is a basic guide and some information on what a day’s food intake should look like for an active individual who doesn’t have any food intolerances or allergies.

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Good gut bacteria – why you need it and how to feed it!

It’s Winter and coronavirus is still lurking around, so we really need to be making sure we are looking after our immune system and overall health the best we can. The health of our digestive tract and the levels of our good gut bacteria play a huge role in our overall health and immune function.

Our digestive tract, mainly our colon, contains trillions of friendly and beneficial gut bacteria, known as good gut bacteria. These good gut bacteria positively affect our health in many different ways. However, the balance of these beneficial gut bacteria can be easily disrupted by some dietary and lifestyle factors, which results in negative health effects, poor mood and decreased immune function.

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Immune boosting foods (with vegetarian shepherd’s pie recipe!)

We can all benefit (particularly now) from increasing foods in our diet that help boost immune function.

Our good gut bacteria makes up close to 70% of our immune system, and includes many different strains that are fed and strengthened by different coloured fibre rich foods:

  • Orange foods – sweet potato, carrots, apricots, orange lentils, pumpkin
  • Brown foods – mushrooms, brown lentils, almonds with skin on, chickpeas
  • White foods – garlic, onion, cooked and cooled white potatoes, traditional rolled oats
  • Green foods – brussle sprouts, asparagus, celery, green leafy veg
  • Red foods – raspberries, tomato, strawberries, cherries, red kidney beans

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About protein powders – what, when and why?

There are so many protein powders on the market these days, how do you know which is the best option for you? And do you even need a protein powder?

I think good quality protein powders can be beneficial for a lot of people’s diets, but it’s not a necessary supplement for everyone.

For example, a good quality protein powder can really help athletes or avid gym goers, vegetarians or vegans, busy people who struggle to get time for proper meals, and people who are immune compromised.

However the quality of protein powder is paramount! There are a ton of poor quality, highly processed, and artificially-sweetened powders out there that you want to be avoiding! If you’re adding a protein powder into your diet, you want to make sure that it is actually going to be beneficial – you want to ensure it is made up of real, nutritionally-dense ingredients, and is minimally processed.

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