The human race is getting fatter. According to the World Health Organisation over a billion people in the world are overweight, with 300.000 of them putting their lives at risk from being clinically or morbidly obese. A sedentary lifestyle and tempting food treats are all around us, so how do we lose weight without getting on the endless diet treadmill?
Get Real
Take a good long look at your diet. Be honest with yourself. Write a food diary or join Sparkpeople.com to track how many calories you are eating. For just one week, write down every food, measure every portion and calculate how many calories you are burning with exercise or housework etc. If you are a woman of average UK height, you probably need around 2000 calories to stay the same weight. If you are in good health nut gaining weight, there is a very real chance you are eating more calories than you are burning. But where are all these calories coming from?
The Usual Suspects
Hidden calories come in a lot of different forms, but mainly consist of sugar and fat. A McDonald’s Cheese Burger has over 700 calories. A cup of tea with milk and sugar could be 70 calories or as much as 100 depending on the size of serving. If you drink 10 cups of tea and coffee a day, you could be drinking half your daily calorie allowance without realising. Also, choosing high fat or sugar snacks such as crisps, chips, chocolate and cake, you will probably be ingesting many more calories than you realise… and as it causes spikes in your blood sugar levels, it’s very likely you’ll still feel hungry!
Fighting Back
Think about swaps. Can you change some of your cups of tea to drink green tea? Green Tea has well documented health benefits and is filled with age-defying antioxidants, as well as saving you literally hundreds of “milk and sugar” calories.
Also, increase your fibre intake. Swap your current breakfast for a fibre rich breakfast such as Kelloggs All Bran, and you will burn an extra 200 calories, just through digesting the meal*.
Also, up your level of fruit and vegetables. Not only will this help you feel fuller for longer whilst nourishing your body, you will also eat fewer over-all calories without making any special effort.
Want a dessert? A cake? A chocolate bar? Have it! But… cut it in half to enjoy your favourite treat TWICE at half the calories. OR get exercising to earn the calories.
Get Moving
If the thought of the gym makes you break out in a cold sweat, or going for a jog sends you running for the hills, then you’ve got to find some form of exercise you WILL do.
If you love watching TV, get a Wiifit and do “free step” to burn around 250 calories or 3200 steps in half an hour. Need to pop to the shops? Forget the car and walk to the supermarket. You will burn around 120 calories for half an hour of flat pacing and tone up your muscles carrying the bags home. Also, if you like a nature ramble, plan a walk that includes a few miles and a few hills and you could burn upwards of 300 calories in half an hour. Do a morning of walking and you have more than earned a drink and meal at a country pub.
What Not to Do…
Don’t pile your plate with food. Look at your plate and divide it into quarters. Fill a quarter with your choice of meat/soya/protein, a quarter with pasta/potatoes/rice/carbs and the rest of the plate with fibre rich, low calorie vegetables. If you like adding olive oil to salads, don’t drizzle, get a spray bottle. If you love cream, get a light cream alternative that tastes pretty much identical to the real thing, and use less. If you love cheese, buy a tastier/stronger version and use less. At every meal, think “how can I reduce the calories of this meal”? And if you’re halfway through your meal and you feel full, stop. Don’t keep on eating until you feel completely stuffed. Your body is telling you it doesn’t need the food. Listen to it and you’ll start losing pounds.
Forget Diets
Don’t diet. Don’t even look at the latest fad diets. Just eat sensibly. Don’t get locked into Yoyo dieting and if you are already, break the cycle. In the simplest terms, going on a diet can give you a ‘siege mentality’ where you’re either locked in to diet drudgery or free to eat anything and everything in sight. When you are ‘on a diet’ you are ‘good’ and when you’re ‘off a diet’ you are ‘bad’. So stop torturing yourself and don’t be on or off a diet, at all! Eat sensibly, eat regular meals and eat good quality food. If you want junk foods, incorporate them into a meal time. If you are hungry snack on low calorie soups, salad, fruit and crudites. Up your exercise to walk, swim or step to repay any additional calories you might eat. Consciously enjoy every mouthful and ditch the diet for good.
* Audrey Eyton, The F2 diet. Published January 2006.
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