Diet guidelines

Healthy food habits can help you reduce three of the major risk factors for heart attack — high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure and excess body weight. They’ll also help reduce your risk of stroke, because heart disease and high blood pressure are major risk factors for stroke. So read over these diet guidelines and prepare yourself for weight loss.

• Use up at least as many calories as you take in.
• Aim for at least 30 minutes of physical activity on most, if not all, days. To lose weight, do enough activity to use up more calories than you eat every day.
• Eat a diet rich in vegetables and fruits.
• Choose whole-grain, high-fiber foods.
• Eat fish at least twice a week.
• Limit how much saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol you eat.
• Select fat-free, 1 percent fat, and low-fat dairy products..
• Cut back on foods containing partially hydrogenated vegetable oils to reduce trans fat in your diet.
• Cut back on beverages and foods high in calories and low in nutrition, such as soft drinks and foods with added sugar.
• Choose and prepare foods with little or no salt.
• If you drink alcohol, drink in moderation.

Following these recommendations will help you achieve and maintain a healthy eating pattern. The benefits of that include a healthy body weight, a desirable blood cholesterol level and a normal blood pressure. Every meal doesn’t have to meet all the guidelines. What’s most important is to establish an overall healthy eating plan for the long term.

You know what you need to do for weight loss - here’s how to do it.

• Always include some vegetables on the lunch or dinner menu, particularly green leafy varieties such as broccoli, cabbage, spinach, kale, sprouts and salad greens, all of which are low in calories
• Fruit is great, but there are limits – five bananas a day are not a sensible option for slimmers, for example, because of their relatively high calorie content. Bear in mind that a lot of fruit is high-calorie (although lower than chocolates, of course), but if you indulge yourself in a pound of grapes at a time you’ll have swallowed 350 calories.
• Eat more starchy foods at expense of fatty foods but don’t add butter or fatty sauces to them
• Go for lean meat and fish and poultry without the skin.
• Low-fat dairy produce – such as semi- or skimmed milk can save a lot of calories and you’ll soon get used to the different taste. Don’t eat a lot of cheese, but opt for beans or oily fish instead.
• A multivitamin, multi-mineral supplement can be useful when you’re cutting calories.

Avoid the fat trap

• If you’re a pizza fan, choose a kind with no cheese
• In restaurants, don’t be shy about asking for plain grilled meat or fish if all the main courses come with a rich sauce.
• No need to deny yourself ice cream but try a sorbet or low-fat frozen yoghurt instead of the dairy kind.
• Craving for crisps or peanuts? Give Twiglets a go instead as they are lower in fat.
• Get the label habit – if foods contain more than 4g of fat in every 100g go easy with them, even if they claim to be low in fat!
• Drinking plain water can help stave off the urge to snack between meals.

Up the exercise
Experts ascribe the growing epidemic of obesity in developed countries to a combination of the wrong type of diet and insufficient physical activity. If you currently get very little exercise, any changes you make to become more active will help you with losing weight. This doesn’t have to mean forcing yourself out jogging every day or doing an aerobic class several times a week. Both these would undoubtedly burn up calories, but if you get no enjoyment from them, chances are you will give up before very long. It makes much more sense to spend some time experimenting to find an activity that you actually like doing and that fits in easily with the rest of your life.

Menu planning
Working out a weekly menu in advance may make it easier to stick to a healthy, weight-reducing diet especially if you shop accordingly. If you don’t buy calorie-laden ‘treats’, such as chocolate biscuits or cream cakes, you won’t be faced with temptation every time you go into the kitchen.

You can use the healthy eating guidelines given above to plan your meals, or base them on the outline suggestions below.

Breakfast
Don’t skip it – you’ll only get hungry mid-morning and be tempted to eat a fatty snack.

• Muesli (but check labels for fat and sugar content – go for a plain rather than a toasted variety), fruit and semi-skimmed milk or low-fat yoghurt; whole bran or whole wheat cereal with semi-skimmed milk; toast and Marmite or toast and poached egg; fruit compote and low-fat yoghurt; home-made smoothie/juice-mixture.

Lunch/dinner

• Wholemeal or rye bread sandwiches (rye bread has low glycaemic index and helps to smooth out the glucose curve) with low-fat cheese, oily fish pate, sardines; baked beans on toast; fruit; any lean meat, fish or poultry with plenty (and that means loads) of green leafy veg or a green salad plus a small portion of potato, rice or pasta.

Portion sizes

• Be generous with all vegetables, especially green and salad vegetables.
• Serve yourself small portions of meat or chicken (4 – 5oz) and remove visible fat and skin.
• White fish, grilled or baked, is nutritious and low in calories
• Potatoes without added fat can be eaten in moderation, as can rice or pasta, but resist adding butter.
• Try serving yourself a smaller meal than you think you could eat, and eat it slowly. If you’re still hungry when the food is gone, wait a few minutes before reaching for seconds and you may change your mind.
• If your meal looks a bit lost on the plate, try the old trick of serving it on a smaller one. Simple, but it works.

Dieting is never easy, so try these tricks to make it easier on yourself.

• Don’t eat too much late at night. It may not be true that late night foods are harder to digest, but according to the experts eating earlier in the day prevents you from getting too hungry, losing control and over-eating in the evening
• Make a list of 10 non-food related activities to do instead of eating when you are bored, tired or anxious. Good choices include: going for a walk, writing a letter, knitting, sorting out your holiday snaps or phoning a friend
• Every morning visualise the slimmer trimmer new you. It will help you start the day with positive intent
• Drink a glass of fruit juice or eat a piece of fruit half an hour before meals. The sugar in the fruit will satisfy your calorie cravings and you’ll end up eating less
• Recognise real hunger. Stress, loneliness and fatigue are common hunger triggers so before you reach out for the chocolate, work out if a nap, chat or a good cry are what you really need. If it is hunger go for raw vegetables rather than high-fat comfort foods
• Don’t confuse thirst with hunger. Next time you feel hungry try drinking a glass of water
• Calm down. The more stressed you are the more likely you are to seek comfort from high-fat foods. Drinking camomile tea and snacking on bananas and bread can have a soothing effect on the brain
• Don’t let food get boring. Choose something new each week. Pick an exotic fruit or veg, try a different type of pasta or borrow a friend’s cookbook for inspiration
• You know you are not hungry but that craving is about to get the better of you. Try brushing your teeth instead. It can work wonders
• Don’t buy in bulk. Buy individual rather than family size packs of the foods you’re most likely to overeat
• Keep a food diary recording every single morsel that passes your lips. It can help you eat less as well as show up any habits that could be getting in the way of the new slim you.

What’s next?
Follow these diet tips for a few weeks, recording your weight loss at the end of each week. We’ll have some more hints and ideas to encourage you to continue healthy living.

Diet
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dieting Guide and Plan including useful resources.