Weight Loss

  • Only eat when you are hungry. If you find yourself snacking because you are depressed, bored, or frustrated, try to distract yourself with non-food activities like going for a walk, ringing or emailing a friend, reading a book or magazine, or start a new project such as gardening, sewing or painting.
  • Enjoy your food. Take time to savour each mouthful and concentrate on the tastes and textures of what you are eating. It can take 20 minutes for you brain to register that you are ‘full’, so allow time between meals and snacks. Avoid ‘unconscious eating’, eating on the run or while you are watching TV. Eat slowly and stop halfway through a meal to check if you have had enough. You don’t have to finish everything that’s on your plate.
  • Plan healthy meals and snacks and make them readily available. Knowing what you are going to cook most nights of the week and buying the necessary ingredients saves relying on takeaways and fast foods. Pop a piece of fruit in your bag when you go shopping, instead of buying high fat snacks. Don’t forget to eat before you go shopping too! You’re more likely to be tempted by unhealthy snack foods if you are hungry.
  • Rethink ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods. Instead of ‘banning’ certain foods from you diet, try thinking of them as ‘everyday’ foods and ‘occasional’ foods. If you really feel like an ‘occasional’ food like chocolate or chips, wait 15 minutes, you may forget about your craving or it may disappear if you get busy with other activities. Then, if you still want to eat it, allow yourself a small amount and really enjoy it. Usually a small taste is enough to satisfy a craving!
  • Eat regular meals, especially breakfast. Eating regular meals based on vegetables, fruit, grains, legumes and nuts will provide all the nourishment your body needs. Regular meals also keep up your metabolism and decrease the risk of ‘grazing’ throughout the day.Reduce the amount of fat in your diet, particularly saturated fat. Because fat contains twice as many kilojoules per gram as carbohydrate or protein, cutting down on fat means cutting down on kilojoules, ways to reduce fat include:
    • Trim all visible fat off meat and remove skin from chicken before cooking.
    • Swap to low-fat varieties of dairy foods and soy alternatives.
    • Try steaming, microwaving, dry-roasting and stir-frying to limit the amount of fat added during cooking.
    • Roast vegetables and meat on a rack instead of letting them sit in oil or fat. If you can, make casseroles the day before and skim off the fat when they cool, before reheating to serve.
    • Reduce the amount of margarine used for spreading.
    • Avoid or limit high fat foods, such as takeaways, chips, biscuits and pastry.
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