13 Healthy Tips for eating to lose weight

Over my years of training people and helping them to lose countless kilos of excess body fat, I have come to the conclusion that most strict diets do not work long-term.

For a diet plan to be maintained over a long period it must be simple, realistic, manageable and flexible. No-one wants to be counting calories, weighing out portions, avoiding all fats or eating like a rabbit every day for the rest of their lives. This is why most people slip back into their old eating habits within 12 weeks of beginning a diet.

Instead, think about introducing longterm changes that will benefit your health and keep that extra body fat off for good.

Here are a few basic diet guidelines that will help shed extra body fat, keep it off and improve your overall health.

1. Eat protein with most meals and snacks. Add protein to lower the GI of foods, e.g. add nuts and seeds to cereal or add cottage cheese to just about anything.

2. Replace grains with greens. Try using lettuce or red cabbage as the bread of sandwiches and burgers. Substitute crackers with slices of cucumbers with your favorite toppings. Place poached eggs on spinach instead of toast.
 

 
 

 

3. Drink plenty of water. Water can and does affect weight loss. Drinking plenty of water is essential to ensure good kidney function. Without enough water the kidneys dump part of their workload on the liver. The liver is the body’s main fat-processing plant; if it is doing some of the kidney’s work it will metabolise less fat and weight loss will stall.

Water is also needed to flush out the toxic waste released from fat stores.
 
Use fruits to enjoy more drinking water. Always carry water on your person.

4. Plan ahead with food and snacks. This is the best defence against making poor food choices. Plan ahead for the week’s meals and take good quality snacks with you from home like raw nuts and seeds, boiled eggs, fruit or carrot sticks with hummus.

5. Do 90% of your shopping in the outside isles of the supermarket. Supermarkets are set out so most of the natural and whole foods are around the outside and the processed foods are in the middle isles. Do most of your shopping around the outside as processed foods should be avoided. It is also a good idea to try to eat in technicolor, by which I mean eating a variety of different coloured fruits and vegetables in order to get a wide range of nutrients.

 

 

6. Eat most of your food earlier in the day. Eat the majority of your food in the morning and early afternoon. Food is our fuel; therefore it makes sense to have it before we do activity. Eating a huge meal in the evening is a waste of energy as most people simply relax or watch television, then go to bed. Consider eating less in the evening and adding it throughout the morning.

7. Be good 90% of the time. Eat natural whole foods 90% of the time. Allow the other 10% for meals out or having pizza or other processed foods. If you allow the 10% indulgence you will not feel trapped in a healthy food plan and are much more likely to continue eating well in the long term.

8. Don’t go hungry! Consider 4-6 smaller meals. A good option is to eat 4-6 smaller meals throughout the day. This may seem like a real inconvenience but it is worth it, and with a little planning becomes easy.

Over the years the human race has gone through cycles of famine and plenty. Because of this the body has a storage system similar to water retention. If you miss a meal or go for a prolonged period without eating the body moves swiftly into ‘survival storage mode’. This means that the next thing you eat will be stored as fat for later use and is due to the huge amount of insulin released. Eating at regular intervals will keep this survival mechanism in check.

9. Good fats are friends. Good fats are found in natural substances such as fish (Omega-3) especially salmon and sardines. These good fats are found in most varieties of nuts and seeds (almonds, flax seeds, peanuts, cashews, walnuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds etc) plus avocado and olive oil. These fats are essential for our good health and actually help you lose weight but remember they are also very high in calories so eat in moderation.

10. Eliminate starch totally from 3-4 dinners per week. This means no pasta, rice, breads or potatoes. Consuming the high amount of sugars in these foods at night is a bad move. At night we generally do very little activity, which means those carbohydrates will have to be stored as body fat.

11. Cut down on starchy and high GI food. A good way to do this is to avoid anything made from flour like muffins, baked goods and bread. Go for lower GI options such as brown rice instead of white and buy bread that is dense, with soy and linseed. Replace crackers with cucumber and avoid sweet drinks, especially energy drinks. Remember that it is important to keep your blood sugar levels constant and stable.



Brown Rice Sushi



12. Do not eat anything sweet after dinner. When high sugar foods are eaten close to bed-time, insulin levels shoot up and you will gain fat during sleep. Also, do not eat anything three hours before going to bed.

13. Eat plenty of fibre. Fibre is essential in weight loss through its cleansing effects and bowel function properties. Good sources of fibre are found in fruit (kiwifruit), green salad and vegetables, All Bran cereal, and of course fibre supplements like psyllium husk (you can add psyllium husk to a lot of recipes). A great idea is to have a glass of warm water with a squeeze of lemon first thing in the morning to get the bowels moving.



Gluten Free Polenta Bread with Psyllium Husks and Yoghurt

Gluten-free flour/Psyllium Husks tortillas

Eating to lose weight and be healthy does not have to rule your life. If you make these easy changes you will see great improvements in your health and your waistline. Eat natural and whole unprocessed foods most of the time, exercise most days and you will be amazed at what you can achieve. Remember that true outer beauty is a reflection of inner health.

Diets and Falacies (V): Other extreme diets.

Other extreme diets

 

There are many other extreme diets like the ‘cabbage diet’ and the ‘bread and water diet’. These extreme diets fly in the face of healthy eating and I do not recommend anyone partake in such health-damaging food regimes.

Another terrible trap to avoid is skipping meals. This may seem a good way to reduce calories, but in fact is very bad for you and will cause long-term weight gain.
Over the centuries of human existence we have been through hardships and famine. From this our bodies have developed a defense mechanism to combat long periods without food.

After skipping meals or going for long periods without eating our bodies release huge amounts of insulin to store the next thing we eat as fat so it can be slowly used in case the perceived famine continues.

Therefore, eat regularly and do not let yourself get over hungry and your body will reward you by using the food for energy throughout the day.

Diets and Falacies (IV): Low GI diet

Low GI diet

Carbohydrates are all classified on a scale depending on how fast they release sugars into the blood stream. Glucose is 100 and no food is 0. This is called the Glyciemic Index.

Foods are known as high glyciemic if they are 70 and above, medium is 56 to 69, and low is below 55. High GI foods include bread, potato, white rice, pasta, sweets, banana and most dried fruits. Low GI foods include apple, asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, lean meat and fish. 

When high GI foods are consumed there is a large spike in your blood sugar levels. The body reacts by releasing the hormone insulin whose job it is to lower blood sugar levels by gathering up blood glucose and storing it in fat cells.

 

A high spike in blood glucose will cause a large spike in insulin. This causes blood sugars to drop dramatically, often too low. In turn, this gives a person a low energy, flat feeling and a desire for more high GI foods. The same cycle repeats itself in a yoyo fashion all day – gaining body fat with low energy slumps.

 

The body functions best when blood sugars are at a constant level. By eating medium to low GI foods the blood sugars stay lower and energy is released at more constant level.

 

Less insulin is released and food is used for energy and not put into storage. There is a lower desire for sweet sugar foods and you feel less hungry.

 

The GI level of carbohydrates can be lowered by adding protein or fibre. For example add seeds or almond slithers to cereal or yoghurt.

 

As a guideline to a healthy diet and to assist weight loss I recommend people eat low GI foods and avoid high GI foods.

 

 

Diets: Facts and Falacies (III). The low fat diet.

The low fat diet

 

Fat has higher levels of calories per gram than either proteins or carbohydrates.

The low fat diet can therefore be a good way to reduce the total amount of calories consumed.

Although fat has a bad reputation, it is also vital for us to live. Fat is:

1. our energy store: fat is stored energy to be used when there is not food.
2. insulation: our body is insulated by fat to keep us warm.
3. organ protector: organs are protected by a layer of fat.
4. toxin storage system: toxins are removed from the body are stored in our fat cells.

The problem with a low fat diet is that it is very hard to find good sources of proteins that are low in fats. The body also needs ‘good fats’, omega 3 and 6. Good sources of these are found in fish, nuts, olive oil and avocado.

I would recommend reducing saturated fats (animal fats, butter, eggs, red meat...) and trans fats (margarine, chips, fast food, baked products, cereals...) rather than putting all fats in the same category.

Diets: Facts and Falacies (II). The Low Carbohydrate Diet (LCD).

The Low Carbohydrate Diet (LCD)

The low carb diet is another commonly used diet. There are many different structures, some good and some bad.

Basically the person drastically reduces the amount of carbohydrate (sugars) they consume. This includes all flour and sugar products, breads, cereals, rice, pasta, potato, grains, processed foods and even fruit. 

When the carb intake is extremely low the body switches to a state called ketosis. This is where the body turns fat and proteins into sugar for use of energy. If you switch to a higher-protein, higher-fat, higher-fibre and lower-carb diet you won’t have enough sugar to burn as fuel and your body will have to make its own, mostly from fat and some protein.

 

1. Low carb diets do work but can have negative effects. For instance, lack of fruit and fibre cause the bowel to slow, and vitamin levels suffer.

 

2. The human brain needs carbohydrates so brain function and concentration may be impaired.

I would only recommend a more flexible LCD that allows fruit and some good carbohydrates during the day, or a simple version where you drop starchy carbs from the diet like bread, pasta and potato.

 

Diets: Facts and Falacies (I). Why NOT to do a VLCD.

Weight loss or body fat reduction is a problem that hangs around like a bad smell. Many people are constantly worrying about or battling this issue. For some, it is the major battle in their lives.

There is a huge amount of information available on this subject, much of it conflicting. No wonder most people are confused about the correct way to go about reducing their body fat. Hopefully these series of posts will set you on the right track.
 
As the world has evolved into a place of convenience and abundance, our waistlines have expanded accordingly. Over the past 100 years the human lifestyle has changed dramatically. Thanks to technology our daily physical activity has decreased resulting in a far smaller energy output. This, coupled with an increase in our intake of processed and pre-prepared foods that are very high in calories and often low in nutrition, has caused an increase in the numbers of overweight people. The consequence has been a skyrocketing amount of body fat in the western world!

Reducing body fat comes down to two major components, exercise and diet. Many you may also have tried several types of diets or eating plans. Some may have been a complete failure, some may have affected your health, and some may have worked in the short-term. Many diets are confusing, hard to follow, and virtually impossible to maintain in the long-term. In these series of posts I want to touch on a few common diets and give my opinion of them. Today:

Why NOT to do a VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet)

The VLCD is one of the most common diets attempted by the average person. Followers consume only a very small number of calories in a given day. The calories consumed are much lower than the amount used by the body. This causes the body to source the extra calories it needs from fat and muscle tissues.
 
1. This diet may be effective in the short term but is very hard to maintain over a long period. As soon as the person begins to eat normally again the weight goes back on much faster than it came off.
 
2. The VLCD has some negative effects on your health. Energy levels suffer and the body’s metabolism slows down. The body begins to burn muscle as fuel which slows the metabolism even more.
  

I personally do not recommend this type of diet to anyone!