Spring clean your diet!

It’s that time of year when the reappearance of weight loss fads in which the importance of ‘detoxing’ your body is deemed essential for health and well-being. It may be tempting to think you can undo over eating with a rigid diet and some herbal powders and supplements. The truth is that the human body does not need to be detoxed or ‘cleaned out’ as the kidneys and liver do a perfectly good job of this on a daily basis.

The after-effects of drinking and eating are not toxins, but new layers of fat around your waist gathering around the heart, kidneys and other vital organs and possibly clogging your arteries. The body sees fat deposits as a survival mechanism for lean times. And while too much fat is a definite health hazard, it’s not a toxin that can be flushed from the body by taking a laxative, extra vitamins or diuretic herbs in a detox plan. We don’t need extra fat stores if we haven’t got a famine. We get rid of excess fat by eating less of almost everything. Restrictions should be on drinks that contain sugar (including juices) and alcohol also. Many detox programs suggest cutting kilojoules so far that the body simply goes into slow motion mode. This means the body is running on low power and you feel lousy.

 

There are lots of great vegetables and fruits that are available. Also the barbecue is a good friend. Use it for seafood, moderate portions of chicken or lean meats, and don’t forget to add skewers packed with zucchini, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and capsicum marinated with soy sauce, garlic and spices which are great when barbecued. Rather than punishing yourself spring clean your diet by eating more nutrient dense foods to nourish and energize your body and best of all, sensible eating also tastes much better than so-called detox powders.

Little pickers wear big knickers!

Picking is not snacking! Picking is not that chocolate bar or that energy laden treat from the shop. It is that unconscious eating we do that we don’t know we do. It is incidental eating. It is when we are treating ourselves like a garbage bin.

 

Picking is:

Those sultanas that jump into your mouth when your making that cake

or

that bit of sliced ham that didn’t quite fit into the children’s sandwich as it hung off the side, so into the mouth it went or those crusts you have cut off.

or

those left over bits on the children's plates after a meal.

or

the couple of crackers or peanuts you grab from the open packet as you go past the pantry.

or

those broken biscuits that couldn’t go in the barrel, but you couldn’t throw them out.

or

when you go to the fridge and there is yesterdays leftover cheese cake. It looks a bit uneven on the side so you straighten it up a bit, until you have straightened it off the plate.

 

We do it when we cook.

We do it when we clean up.

All the time we are doing this we are saying to ourselves ‘one won’t hurt’.

 

We can very easily eat a ‘fourth’ meal a day in picking. If we do this every day for a week, it adds more than 2 extra days of food to our week, and then we wonder why we are putting on weight.

 

The Picking Jar - Put a large screw top jar on your bench then put everything you go to pick, into the jar. It is very interesting to see what sabotage we do to ourselves.  

 

Plan to have planned snacks, and to sit down when you have them. Don’t walk around the kitchen eating. 4 – 5pm is a time when our ‘blood sugar’ is running low and we need to have a snack. When you come home from work, as you walk in the kitchen, turn on the kettle and make yourself a cuppa and have a small snack. Sit down for 5 minutes and relax. That small 5 minute break will make all the difference. It will stop you picking while you are preparing your evening meal. Have a large glass of water on the bench and sip at that as you are doing your meal preparation.

 

When you are serving out the meal, put an empty container next to the plates. Put all the leftovers straight into the container and put them in the fridge before you sit down to eat. Out of sight, out of mind. If you leave them in the pots on the bench, you can be sure you will go back for ‘seconds’ or pick at them when you are cleaning up.

 

This will give you food for tomorrow and is very economical on your body.

Get everyone to scrape their own plates off into the bin so that you don’t have to deal with their leftovers. You will enjoy your evening meal much more as well.

 

Don’t have tempting foods in open packets in your pantry. You are only human, and if it is under your nose you will pick them.

Eat a Balanced Diet!

I once heard someone say, a balanced diet is a block of chocolate in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. No doubt many would agree, but we have to ask the question: What is a balanced diet?

 

There are several factors that go into a diet with balance:

1. the food we choose
2. how often we eat
3. the size of the portions we eat
4. where we eat
5. how we eat

In the foods that we have available, we have 6 wonderful food groups available to us.

 

CARBOHYDRATES are the ‘tiger in our tank’. They are vital for wellbeing as they are the body’s most important and most usable fuel. They easily breakdown so the body can use them to keep ‘all systems’ running smoothly and efficiently.

They are the flours, grains, pastas, breads, cereals and potato.

 

PROTEINS are the ‘body builders’. They play an indispensable role in building and repairing body tissues, digesting food and fighting infections. They also help repair our muscles, skin, enzymes and hormones.

Proteins are fish (we should include a lot of fish), chicken,  meat, eggs, legumes (baked beans etc) and cheese.

 

VEGETABLES are highly nutritious, being rich in vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre and are very low in energy, so we should eat lots of them.

 

FRUITS are a good source of vitamins, some minerals and contain some dietary fibre.

 

DAIRY or ‘bone food’ are the best source of calcium which is essential throughout life for the growth and maintenance of our bones.

 

FATS – Low fat NOT no fat. Fats contain essential nutrients, needed for good health, vitality and a clear skin. They are a very concentrated source of energy so should be used in small, controlled amounts.

 

All of these food groups are of vital importance as they each supply different and important nutrients for good health. So to take advantage of these vital nutrients, we should utilize all of them on a daily basis. Yes, even the CARBS and FATS, contrary to popular opinion. We should include choices from most of these groups at every meal if we want to have good balance. The food on our plate should be balanced, with carbohydrate (rice, pasta, potato etc) and protein (fish, meat, chicken etc) being the ‘side show’ and vegetables (green and yellow) being the ‘main event’.

Don’t Let the Easter Bunny Bite YOU!

Another holiday is approaching and it’s Easter. Easter brings friends and families together for feasting and good cheer. Some dread it while others rejoice. The Easter Bunny can bite leaving more unwanted rolls around your girth. Easter is the chocolate holiday of the year.

Unfortunately with well meaning relations (mothers, fathers, grandparents etc) Easter can be of major concern for those looking to stay trim. Often there is enough chocolate given to us to last the whole year.

Chocolate ingredients are okay BUT in small amounts. The energy or kilojoules in chocolate are highly concentrated in the form of fats and sugars BUT chocolate doesn’t make you fat unless you over indulge in it. It is best to buy good quality chocolate and savor a small amount. Hot cross buns can also pose a challenge as some of them can equal 3 – 4 slices of bread not to mention the butter we pile on it. 

If you are going to indulge it is good to add balance with good amounts of fruit and vegetables. Consider barbequing chicken or fish and marinating some vegetable kebabs. Drizzle grilled vegetables with balsamic vinegar. If you or your children are given far too much chocolate this Easter, rather than sabotaging your good intentions, use up any left over chocolate by turning them into Chocolate Crackles. Melt 250gm of chocolate and combining it with 4 cups rice bubbles and then spoon the mixture into 24 patty pans. Refrigerate.

Inch by inch, life's a cinch!

Everyone would like to go to bed fat and wake up slim! Unfortunately it’s NOT going to happen. Even if it did, we wouldn’t be able to keep the weight off, as we wouldn’t have learnt to make the necessary changes to our eating habits to maintain our new weight. That is why diet pills, meal replacement shakes and pre packed diet meals don’t work long term.

 

Don’t put your weight management into the ‘too hard basket’. Losing weight doesn’t have to be an awesome task. Don’t try to change everything at once. This is too radical and it is unsustainable. If we make a few small changes consistently it will make a huge difference. If you lose .2kg a week for a year, that is a loss of 10.5kgs. That is 3kg x 3.5 bags of oranges. You could do that just by changing from fast eating to eating slower, and if you apply a few more of the ‘Sure fire how to's’ imagine the positive results you will enjoy. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, just do it. If you are not happy with the way you look and feel, do something about it.The time to start is NOW. Think of how much better you will feel!

I've Blown It!

Have you been trying to eat ‘healthy’? Have you then dined out and ‘blown’ your healthy eating resolve. That is when you suffer the ‘I’ve blown it!’ syndrome. I have learnt that the ‘I’ve blown it’ syndrome is one of the worst weight saboteurs. We feel we have blown our healthy eating, then we feel like a failure and continue to go back to old eating habits or say we will start again on Monday. A good thing to remember is that there are 21 meals in a week. We possibly eat out 1-4 times a week, that still leaves us 17-21 meals we are in control of where we can employ our healthy eating habits. Forget it. If you feel you have eaten badly when you have dined out you can’t change it, but you can control the meals from here on.

If we are in the habit of going out for morning tea, and treating ourselves to coffee and one of those innocent looking 97% fat free muffins (that look like they could feed a small family) generally we have no idea as to how much energy (kjs) we are consuming. The average coffee shop muffin has an energy (kjs) value of between 2000 – 3000kjs. These muffins can contain the same energy (kjs) as one ham, cheese and tomato sandwich, an apple, orange and a small banana plus a 15gm chocolate frog combined. The difference is that we consider the sandwich and fruit a meal, but the muffin we consider a snack and promptly forget about it. So if you are wondering why your girth is expanding, this could be one of the reasons.

Learning to manage that ‘I’ve blown it!’ syndrome is one of the best weight management skills we can learn. It’s not how we eat occasionally that does the damage, (if we don’t overeat when dining out) it’s how we eat most of the time that counts.

Break The Fast

The saying goes: ‘We should eat like kings for breakfast, princes for lunch and paupers for dinner’. Ever skip breakfast, secretly hoping you’ll fit into your jeans better if you do? It can be a natural thought. You might think it means more room in your waistband if you have less food in your belly. Think again. Skirting the ritual of a breakfast can totally sabotage your waistline by setting you up for burning minimal kilojoules and then because of that you experience a bigger appetite during the day. In fact, breakfast skippers are twice as likely as those who eat breakfast to pile on kilos. This maybe due to the fact that energy deprived breakfast skippers tend to be less active throughout the day, so they burn fewer kilojoules. As well as that when breakfast is skipped our blood levels of a hunger inducing hormone called ghrelin creeps higher, upping the odds of downing a high-kilojoule treat or a supersized meal later in the day. People who often skipped their breakfast reported bigger drops in vitality, social functioning, and mental and emotional well-being compared with the breakfast eaters. So get up to the breakfast table every morning. You’ll look better and feel better if you do.

20 Helpful Hints & Motivators

1. Nothing tastes as good as being slim feels!
2. Our eyes are bigger than our bellies!  Eat off a smaller plate, it helps to control portion sizes.
3. It's not the week between Christmas and New Year that is the problem.  Its the weeks between New Year and Christmas!
4. Wear something 'tight fitting'.  It's a nice reminder that you are working towards a slimmer and healthier you.
5. When dining out, always ask for sauces or dressings on the side so you can choose how much of them you eat.
6. Drink 6-8 glasses of water daily.  Drinking 1-2 glasses at the start of our meal can help to quell our hunger and then we tend to eat slower and enjoy our meals more.
7. Always bulk your meals up with salad or vegetables.  More satisfaction and less kilojoules.
8. Our body is the baggage we carry through life.  The more baggage we carry, the shorter our trip.
9. NEVER skip meals!  Even on the days you know your evening meal will be larger, always have a light breakfast and light lunch.
10. Waste goes to our 'waist'!
11. A 30 minute walk will burn approximately 700kjs, so get MOVING!
12. Being overweight is something that just 'snacks' up on you.
13. Little pickers wear big knickers!
14. You'll never blow it in just one uncontrolled meal.  It's how you eat most of the time that determines your success.
15. The more you chew your food, the better your digestion.
16. Definition of insanity: Changing nothing but EXPECTING different results!
17. Try to eat your meals slowly.  It takes 20 minutes for the stomach to inform the brain that it is satisfied no matter how much you eat in that time.
18. If it is going to be, it's up to ME!
19. Those who over indulge, bulge!
20. A person who eats with one chopstick, will never have a problem with obesity.