Shifting excess kilos is as easy as making a few changes in your eating habits and food mind-set.
Experts share their tried-and–tested tips to help you get into great shape…
1. Accept the truth: Your expanding waistline is unlikely to be due to a slow metabolism or a gland problem and more likely to be due to what and how much you eat! Come to terms with this and you’ll find it easier to get motivated.
2. Don’t delay, start today! It’s easy to say you’ll go to a gym on Monday. But you want to lose weight now, don’t you?
3. Focus on changing your eating habits for life, rather than dieting. Otherwise, once your ‘diet’ is done with, you return to the eating habits that made you pile on the kilos in the first place.
Nibbling Solutions
9. Chew sugar-free gum while you’re cooking. It’ll stop you from nibbling. Cut out a daily slither of cheese and you could lose almost six kilos a year.
10. Keep your hands busy if you nibble on sweets, chocolate and crisps while watching TV. Try knitting, sewing, or even giving yourself a pampering manicure.
11. If you always eat when you drink, change your drinking habits. For example, if you normally have a couple of biscuits with your afternoon cup of tea, swap your tea for a low-cal cup of soup!
12. Clean your teeth when you fancy nibbling. Food tastes horrible after toothpaste! |
4. Avoid ‘all or nothing’ thinking. One small overindulgence doesn’t mean you’ve blown your diet and can now go on a food fest. Simply put the indulgence behind you and move on and away from the fridge.
5. Keep an honest food diary to identify how much you eat and when. Once you see an accurate picture of your eating habits, you’ll find it easier to identify things you can change.
6. Stop blaming special occasions for poor eating habits. Accept these situations as a normal part of life and incorporate the food and drink that’s on offer into your healthy eating plan rather than use them as an excuse to constantly overindulge.
7. Stay away from the diet foods you don’t actually enjoy eating. Food should be pleasurable, not painful.
8. Don’t assume all salads are healthy. Some might be laden with oily dressing or cheese, making them higher in calories than a meat pie.
13. Watch the way slim women eat. For example, they might skip dessert, and only occasionally succumb to the daily chocolate run at work.
14. Focus on eating more of the good things rather than less of the bad thing. For example, eat more fruit and veggies and you’ll automatically eat less fatty and sugary foods because you’ll feel fuller.
15. Identify the obstacles that might stop you from losing weight, and then decide what you can do about each one. Put together a plan that combats each obstacle and you’ll be much more likely to lose weight.
16. Swap your cooking oil for spray oil. Just 1 tablespoon of oil contains 100 calories whereas ten squirts of spray oil contain 10 calories. Make this daily change alone and you’ll lose about 4.5 kilos a year.
17. Don’t eat from packets or tubs. It’s easy to scoff half a tub of ice cream or a packet of chips when you can’t see how much you’re eating. Put food into bowls or on plates instead.
18. Think about how you eat your favourite high calorie foods and find lower calorie alternatives that you eat in the same way. For example, instead of having a packet of chips, go for a small bag of baby carrots. You’ll still have to open the packet and frequently put your hand into the bag and then to your mouth. The only thing that’s different is the food itself!
Fast Food Know-How
25. Keep a supply of microwaveable low-fat ready meals in your freezer and serve them with salad or vegetables.
26. Serve scrambled eggs and fresh tomato on toast or make an omelette and serve with salad and a microwaved jacket potato or crusty bread.
27. Throw together a salad using cherry tomatoes, canned sweet corn, canned tuna or salmon, grated reduced-fat cheese and a little balsamic vinegar.
28. Cook a handful of whole-wheat pasta and frozen veggies in the same pan. Drain and add some low-fat tomato sauce. Heat through, top with Parmesan cheese and serve with a mixed salad. |
19. Have a glass of water whenever you feel hungry to make sure you haven’t mistaken thirst for hunger.
20. Remember that healthy foods like muesli, brown rice and bread still contain calories and so you need to control portion sizes.
21. Make food tastier by adding seasoning such as garlic, herbs and spices rather than butter or oil.
22. Buy small packets of foods such as biscuits and nuts rather than large packets that you have to divide yourself. You’ll be less tempted to eat the whole lot in one sitting!
23. Swap fizzy drinks for diet versions or sparkling water.
24. Clear out fatty and sugary foods from your kitchen. 29. Always serve vegetables or salad first when putting food on to plates. That way you can make sure they cover half your plate. Then fill a quarter with rice, pasta, noodles, bread or potatoes and the last quarter of the plate with meat, fish, chicken, eggs or beans.
30. Always take notice of the serving size suggestions on ready-made foods, especially for pasta and rice. Be sure to follow the advice.
31. A glass of regular cola contains a lot of calories. Instead, pick diet drinks or soda water with a dash of lime.
32. Go for quality rather than quantity. Good-quality ingredients are packed with flavour so food made with them quickly satisfies your taste buds and you’ll be happier to stop eating earlier on.
33. Serve your food on a smaller plate. It’s the oldest trick in the book but it really does work, especially if you like having seconds – two servings on a small plate is still only the equivalent to one normal-sized portion.
34. Beware of low-fat foods – it doesn’t mean they’re low in calories. Sweet, low-fat foods such as biscuits and muffins are usually the worst offenders. While they’re low in fat, the extra sugar keeps the cal count high.
35. Don’t read or watch TV at mealtimes. Being distracted when you’re eating will leave you shovelling food into your mouth, regardless of whether you really want it.
36. Find substitutes for comfort eating. Instead of seeking solace in a bar of chocolate, get a hug from your partner, listen to your favourite music, have a bubble bath or phone a friend.
37. Eat regularly and don’t skip meals, especially breakfast. Studies show that breakfast skippers tend to be fatter than people who eat this meal because they overcompensate and eat more later in the day.
38. Identify habits that sabotage your good intentions and swap them for newer, healthier ones. So, if you always buy a bar of chocolate when you walk past the newspaper stall, take a different route!
39. Get enough sleep. Constantly being tired can lead to weight gain – plus an extra couple of hours in bed each night means more time away from the biscuit tin!
Easy Tricks To Beat Hunger
42. Start every main meal with a large bowl of salad and a little balsamic vinegar or fat-free dressing.
43. Choose foods with a low-glycaemic index – in other words, which give you a long-term energy boost – as they’ll help keep blood sugar levels steady so you’ll be less likely to feel hungry and snack. Good choices include whole-wheat pasta, noodles, porridge, whole grain cereals, pulses and most fruit and vegetables.
44. Try these tasty, low-calorie snacks if you’re hungry:
Cup of low-fat soup.
Slice of melon
Bowl of fresh fruit salad
Prawn cocktail with a fat-free seafood dressing.
A simple Florida cocktail made from juicy grapefruit and orange segments.
45. Keep a bowl of chopped vegetables in your fridge so you always have healthy snacks at hand. |
40. Always choose the smallest portion available. Studies show that the more food people are given, the more they’ll eat, regardless of whether or not they’re hungry.
41. If you’re thirsty, choose water – it’s completely calorie-free.
46. Hide your deep-fry pan!
47. Use chopsticks to help you eat meals slowly and wait a while before deciding whether you want seconds or a dessert. The brain needs 20 minutes to receive the ‘full’ signal, so no matter how much you eat during that time, your signal won’t come any sooner.
48. Prepare most of your meals yourself rather than relying on eating out, ready meals and takeaways. It makes it much easier to control your intake of fat, sugar and salt.
49. Banish the bathroom scales. Your weight fluctuates naturally throughout the day and from day to day, so constantly jumping on and off the scales is guaranteed to send your moods up and down like a yo-yo. If you can’t stay off the scales altogether, just weigh yourself once a week.
50. Don’t cut out major groups of foods such as carbs or dairy products in an effort to lose weight. Sure, they’ll shift the kilos, but can you really carry on eating like this forever? The eating habits you develop to lose weight should be sustainable forever. Good luck!n
