Size Matters

It's taken me an age to write this blog as we have new readers - and not so new readers - so I decided to stay middle of the road and make it relevant to all and stay safe. J

We completed the busiest month since launching the PortionBuster in January, so I would like to welcome over one hundred new readers from January alone. PortionBuster has sold 670 gauges in 12 months but, once again, they are only as good as the user.  It will not help you if it is shut away in a drawer.So get it out,see it,and use it!

I hope with this many sales it means that many more of you are getting around to the idea that portion size is so important. You can have everything you want to eat without being hungry, or craving for food, and can still lead a healthier lifestyle whilst slowly losing weight. You didn’t put this weight on in a small amount of time, so you are not going to lose it in a short amount of time either.  Slowly and surely is best.

Whilst we have been busy, it also means that many more of us are struggling with losing weight and are most certainly not as healthy as we could be.

One of the biggest surprises this year, for me, was what I learnt from an online nutrition course I enrolled in. For example, whilst a salad is low in calories, it's not the most nutritious of meals (unless a few almonds are added).  There are so many, better, alternatives out there! I guess this is great news for folk who hate salads! This goes for many foods we eat that we think are healthy but are not always beneficial to us.

The course also taught me to eat the best foods to meet my body's demands and to forget the weight scales. The visceral fat we carry around our organs is what to concentrate on. Reducing my visceral fat is one of my 2015 aims - together with the loss of another stone. Watch this space!

The thing that surprised me the most was facts about nuts.

Let's look at nuts - and almonds in particular.

Almonds are high in monounsaturated fats; the same type of health-promoting fats that are found in olive oil.  These fats have been associated with reducing the risk of heart disease. So, in addition to their cholesterol-lowering effects, almonds have the ability to reduce the risk of heart disease.  This may be partly due to the antioxidant action of the vitamin E found in them, as well as to the LDL-lowering effect of these monounsaturated fats. (LDL is the form of cholesterol that has been linked to atherosclerosis and heart disease).

Don't just enjoy almonds as a between-meal snack, spread a little almond butter on your toast or down the centre of a stalk of celery. Add a handful of lightly roasted almonds to your salad, or chop them and use as a topping for pasta or on steamed or healthily sautéed vegetables.  When eating foods with a higher glycaemic index, including almonds in the meal can help keep your blood sugar under control. 

Although nuts are known to provide a variety of cardio-protective benefits, many people avoid them for fear of gaining weight. In fact, it has been found that people who eat nuts at least twice a week are much less likely to gain weight than those who almost never eat nuts.  Don't let concerns about gaining weight prevent you from enjoying the delicious taste and many health benefits of nuts!

If you are serious about being healthy, look into the nutrition courses that are available online.  Amazon Local offer one at a great price of less than 30 pounds.  Don’t worry about the test at the end of the course, just take the course to get the knowledge it offers.  Find out why you have afternoon slumps and what foods to eat to get the best from your body.  Even sports nutrition and how to safely get the best results is covered.

Let me jump back to January the 1st and New Year resolutions.  The reason being that the fire in your belly about getting slimmer could now be just smouldering and on its way out. Let's look at the info on New Year Resolutions…

Depending on where you get your numbers, you are at least 80% more likely to fall back into your old habits and patterns than you are to stick with a new behaviour.

(Behaviour is what you do consciously; habits are what you do automatically.)

Changing your behaviour is hard. No doubt about it. Remember it takes at least 21 days to change or develop a habit.

Why is that? What are the biggest reasons new habits fail to stick? And what can we do to make positive changes easier?

PROBLEM 1: Trying to Change Everything at Once

SOLUTION: Pick one thing and do it well.
The general consensus among behaviour change researchers is that you should focus on changing a very small number of habits at the same time. To change a habit takes at least 21 days.(Some say up to 40 and 60 days.)

Personally, I prefer to focus on building one new behaviour into my life at a time. Once it becomes a habit, I move on to the next one. For example: changing sugar for honey, and then slowly reducing the intake of honey.  It is certainly better for me, even if I didn’t reduce the consumption.

PROBLEM 2: Starting With a Change That is Too Big

SOLUTION: Make it so easy that you can’t say “No.”

In other words, the most difficult part of developing a new habit is starting the new behaviour. It takes a lot of motivation to head to the gym for a workout after an exhausting day at work, so focus on a ten minute walk to the shop for essentials (not chocolate).  The hardest part is the beginning.

 PROBLEM 3: Seeking a Result, Not a Ritual

SOLUTION: Focus on the behaviour, not the outcome.

Nearly every conversation about goals and resolutions is focused on some type of result. What do you want to achieve? How much weight do you want to lose? How much money do you want to save? How many books do you want to read? How much less do you want to drink?

Naturally, we are outcome-focused because we want our new behaviour to deliver new results.

Here’s the problem: new goals don’t deliver new results; new lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is not an outcome; it is a process. For this reason, all of your energy should go into building better rituals and not chasing better results.

If you want a new habit, you have to fall in love with a new ritual.

PROBLEM 4: Not Changing Your Environment

SOLUTION:  Build an environment that promotes good habits.

Nobody can consistently stick to positive habits in a negative environment. You can frame this statement in many different ways:

·         It is nearly impossible to eat healthily all of the time if you are constantly surrounded by unhealthy food.

·         It is nearly impossible to remain positive all of the time if you are constantly surrounded by negative people.

·         It is nearly impossible to not drink if you are constantly surrounded by alcohol.  And so on…

We rarely admit it (or even realise it), but our behaviour is often a simple response to the environment we find ourselves in.

If your environment doesn’t change, you probably won’t either.

PROBLEM 5: Assuming Small Changes Don’t Add Up.

SOLUTION:Get one percent better each day.  (In 100 days you will be twice as good as you are now…)

If you listen to nearly anyone talking about their goals, you’ll hear them describe the minimum that they want to achieve:

·         “I want to be healthier this year”;

·         “I want to lose at least 20 pounds before Summer”; etc.

The underlying assumption is that your achievements need to be big to make a difference. Because of this, we always talk ourselves into chasing a big habit. “If I want to lose at least 20 pounds, I need to start trying really hard and working out for 90 minutes a day!”

If you look at your current habits, however, you’ll see a different picture.  Nearly every habit you have today, good or bad, is the result of many small choices made over time. It is the repeated pattern of small changes in behaviour that leads to significant results.  Each day we might make the choice to become one percent better or one percent worse, but so often the choices are so small that we miss them.

If you’re serious about building a new habit, then start with something small. Start with something you can stick with for good. Then, once you’ve repeated it enough times and it becomes habitual, you can worry about increasing the intensity.

To conclude, focus on changing your behaviour in small steps.  Keep your portions under control and say to yourself “ Size does matter” .

Have a great Spring (it’s around the corner) and let me know what your small step to change was.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Norma

Have You Ever Wondered?

Why is it that we know what we SHOULD eat, know that we SHOULDN’T be eating this pork pie or chocolate whilst dieting or eating healthily and just can't make it happen?  We have all been there haven’t we?  Read on!

We know we want to be losing weight, we know this would impact on our physical body in a good way, put less strain on our bones, lower our chances of developing type 2 diabetes, make us feel good, help us live longer, make us less susceptible to certain illnesses etc., etc., but somehow, we just can't make it happen or maintain it.

So, why is it we can't stay engaged with our eating regime - be it a diet or cutting out chocolate, etc?  It's the million dollar question isn't it?  We do it for a while then lose interest, have excuses saying "I can't afford it; I don't have the time; It was boring; I couldn't keep it up…" and so on and so forth.  Would you like to know that it's not so much lack of will power?  It's to do with your brain and your thought processes.

Decide today to change your eating habits.  Not by using the latest fad diet because, if they work, why do so many of us gain weight afterwards when we resume “normal“eating?  This is about living a life where the changes can be executed easily with a little understanding. This is not a quick fix.

Here is where you start.  Let's look at factors that affect our food choices and question ourselves.

Factor 1.  When you are hungry you will make bad food choices.

Isn’t that right?  

You know it's easy to grab convenience foods and biscuits etc.

First, don't buy them in!  Have healthy snacks ready instead for moments like this.  Prepare in advance with healthy nibbles.  There is always time to unwrap a healthy bar or eat prepared sticks ‘n dips.

ALSO, THINK “will this satisfy me and will it be tasty enough?”  

Protein is the most satisfying nutrient whilst carbs gives you the most energy.  So, might chicken bits and a spicy dip hit the spot?  If it's not tasty enough, you need to improve the taste with a spicy yogurt dip or use herbs to help the taste.  I love cauliflower soup but it's so bland without turmeric, coriander, cumin and chilies.  

In a recent food test, taste came above nutrition when making a selection; if it's tasty you are more likely to want it again. 

I digress!  Are you still fancying chocolate or that savory snack?  It's a last resort but have a bite of chocolate or cut off a small piece of savory roll.  Don’t deny yourself completely or your body will crave for it more.  Do not send out for that pizza whatever you do!

Factor 2, The cost of food.

This is always a factor.  Shop at the low cost shops or fruit markets to get more for your money.  Buy fresh and healthy food, not processed meals, and remove the temptation in your life.  You will be surprised how cheap it is to do a vegetable stew or vegetable chili - and this is a great way of using up vegetables in the fridge.

(Don't keep potatoes in the fridge but in a dark cool place; it changes the sugars.)

If you don’t have time, then cook in bulk and freeze.  It's great when you don’t want to cook and you just have to defrost some great tasting chili.  Use the portion buster for your rice size if having it with chili because judging the portions of rice and pasta is where a lot of folk make mistakes.  Anyway, why wouldn’t you want more of the better tasting chili or curry?

Factor 3, Do you have the skills to prepare healthy foods?

Not all of us can cook or enjoy cooking.  Now is the time to learn how to cook - or to cook better.

Make good use of the time you would be snacking in front of the TV.  We have some long winter months ahead of us, so use this time to teach yourself.  The charity shops are full of cook books; buy one and help a charity too.  That alone will give you a “feel good factor“.  Start with a simple recipe and make sure in advance you have everything in.

One recipe I have only uses 2 potatoes, 2 onions, 2 tomatoes, 1 stock cube and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.  (Parmesan has more taste than most cheeses, so you use less).  This is one for most cultures too.  See the portion buster web site for this and more recipes.  If you are counting calories, I can work each recipe out for you.

Factor 4, Healthy eating is not always a social thing to do.

These are the times we need to change what we would normally do. 

If I am offered a meal out, I always order a salad to start with so I will start to be feeling fuller more quickly.

Maybe share a main meal or ask for a smaller portion.  If you normally eat more than one course eat a starter, then a dessert. But if you do opt for the dessert, share it.

A report said that the higher social classes eat better. Maybe they have more money or are more knowledgeable?  Maybe they entertain more?  Maybe maybe maybe....

Well, I am certainly not rich and I now eat pretty well. - I have to say, better than I ever have done - and I am losing weight.  I still have the odd treat, but that is what they are now, an odd treat.  

It can be done; my food bill is no more expensive than it was before.  I have just changed the things I eat and the quantity and quality of things.  That is all.  If I plan ahead and have an idea what my meals will be over the next week I will know what to shop for.  Be precise as much as possible.  Don’t over order.  Don’t stock up.  These days, the supermarket is open almost all hours.  We can always get the odd food we missed.  Send someone else to the local shop for the missing item, or take just enough money and walk there. Every little movement helps.

Factor 4, Emotional shopping.

Don't write your shopping list or go shopping when stressed or upset or you will make bad food choices.  This is “emotional shopping”.  Moods, stress or tiredness will affect what you eat and when.  If you are stressed you will have less concern for your health as it goes on the back burner and  you're eating habits could easily change.  It's like a runaway train sometimes.  I know; I have gone food shopping as something to do when stressed, bored or in a bad mood.  WRONG!  Spend that money on a dress that is a size too small or on a new handbag.  You can always take it back later when the stress or mood has gone if you can't really afford it.  You can't take back the food.  Look at it this way, the guilt will also be missing.

Let’s imagine you have had a bad day at work. On your way home, you want a “feel good factor”, so you go shopping and buy that dress or the bag.  Then, next day, you take it back saying it's not the right colour or it doesn't fit, etc.  You could also save it for a Christmas box or birthday, so no guilt attached. 

Now, let's do the same with food.  Sounds like Groundhog Day doesn't it.....  Bad day at the office.  Go food shopping on the way home.  You can't take it back when the stressed feelings have gone, so you have to eat it - or throw it away!  (No way Pedro. ) So you feel guilt at eating your way through a cake or sweets.  Plus, it has hit your pocket too!  Then the feelings of “why bother” may come into play, so you stop healthy eating or dieting.  It’s a downhill spiral. You have experienced a relapse because it was food you chose to shop for when feeling low. 

Lifestyle changes come in many forms and this is a good example.  Buying a dress instead of food is a lifestyle change - especially if you bought that dress too small now, and next month it fits you.

Factor 5, Get yourself some knowledge.

I joined a course to make me more knowledgeable in the field of nutrition.  I now know more about the food I eat and how it works in my body.  I can work out my BMI, my BMR, and how many calories I need if I sit all day long or am sick, or if I am physically active.  I am aware of my body’s needs and what foods will give it the fuel it requires to be most effective.  I wanted the knowledge so I can continue helping others with the Portion Buster gauge and myself.

Most of us are creatures of habit and old habits die hard.  Same foods, same shops, same shopping list, same shopping day, etc., but this is a new start and your new lifestyle so this is the time to shake it up don't you think?  Look for new recipes.  Do it differently.  Improve and challenge yourself.  

I always say this "we are not overweight because we got it right but because we got it wrong"  

I love prawn cocktail sauce on my salad.  It's full of mayonnaise and salad cream as we know, so I looked around and found a recipe that is similar, but healthy.  I still have the sauce, but it's made with yogurt and is even less than half the calories.

Challenge yourself!  All these tweaks help you have a healthier life with more energy.  More energy means more active.  More active means more weight loss.  Get it?

So here we go 

Think about this, old habits are more embedded in you than the new ones.  Rituals are almost set in stone.  So it's going to be hard to change because routines and old ways are much easier to follow than new ones. 

But, don't lose sight of that dress in a size less or that new shape, keep positive and strong and the feelings after will be your reward.

The desire to change must be greater than keeping the habit in place.  It’s to do with your brain which stores things in a comfortable way that is easy for you to access.  When you do something often enough in a specific way your mind stores it to make life easier.  An example of an unconscious habit is having a biscuit with your midmorning coffee.  Your mind allows you to do this without much thought.  It's like learning to ride a bicycle; after a while you don’t have to think about cycling -  it just happens.  You have to be very aware of your habits in order to change them.  It's crucial.

NOW ASK YOURSELF HOW YOU WOULD GO ABOUT BREAKING A BAD HABIT

Do you know it takes 21 days to break a bad habit?  Yes, at least 21 days!

You need to have to have a strong motivation to change.  The strongest motivation is a self desire to change -  not “doing it for my husband” or anything like that, it's more like I WANT to fit into a bikini next year and I WANT to feel good. I WANT to be slimmer for that wedding; I WANT to feel healthier.

I Want will work and can be sustained.  It has to be all about you!  It can be vanity or health; it doesn’t matter.  For me, it was proving that the Portion Buster does work and what better way than to practice what I preach.  That is a commitment and a motivation.

In order to change the practicalities of our current bad habits, we need to look at change. If you are a person to turn on the TV and sit with a tin of goodies at night, then that will have to change.  You cannot expect to have the same habits and get healthy.  If you can't stop and do something different, like a hobby, then swop the bad food for healthy foods and work on the changes in sections.  Earn the reward of a snack, walk first or dance to a record.  Prepare foods for tomorrow.  Anything to make change happen.

Make small changes, your brain does not distinguish between good and bad habits, you do.

Start with the worse bad habit you have and change that first, but take it one step at a time. Dissect it.

To change a bad habit, try not to get too ahead of yourself.  Be realistic; this will require discipline.  Don’t try to change everything at once either.  One way to do this is to see change with satisfaction.  If for you the change of a habit is painful, then you might have to find a stronger reward for the change.  The motivation to change needs to be stronger than the habit.  Let me say that again,  THE MOTIVATION TO CHANGE NEEDS TO BE STRONGER THAN THE HABIT. 

Finding a way to make the process more enjoyable will make it easier.  Now, it's said that everything must be eaten at a table (not on a sofa), even a handful of nuts.  Maybe this is another lifestyle change for you.  It's harder but you will relate the table to eating and nowhere else so when you are sat with your feet up you are less likely to eat because it's not at the table.

Give yourself time before having a snack as you may be reacting to an emotional response, make sure it's because you are hungry and not because you are stressed, bored, depressed or even happy.  WAIT 15 mins before allowing yourself a snack and have a drink of water while this time elapses as you may be responding to thirst and not hunger.

Allow yourself 21 days to break a habit - most of us will need longer but its one step at a time - and small changes are more likely to remain in place.  "Small and permanent changes are better than big changes that are temporary"   Fad diets come into this area of thought.  Yes, you can do the diet and lose lots of weight, but how many times is it permanent?  Not any for me.  This is not easy to do; it will require lots of effort on your part but don’t lose sight of the rewards.  If you do not succeed then look at the motivation behind it.  Identify your barriers to get success.  Don’t think about the negative side of things; turn it around into a positive thought.  Deal with the here and now.  I am a controlling person (it's complicated) but I have difficulty controlling my eating.  Are you like this?

Your personal barriers are the biggest opposition to change; you will not succeed until you know what is holding you back.  Barriers can have negative attachments.  For example, “I only lost 2 lbs last week”.  It’s the scenario of “is your glass half empty or half full?”  Think more positively like about what you achieved instead of what you didn’t achieve.

I like to list what is important to me on a board.  All the small changes are listed so I can see them all the time.  Tick off the small changes you achieve like, eating 3 fruits or eating 5 vegetables, a 10 min run or even 3 minutes dance to a favorite record.  You can then see your results.

Are these really barriers or just excuses?  They are felt to be genuine by that person at that time.   How you think effects how you feel and behave.  Everyone has control over their own actions and you DO NOT need to respond to a stimulus in an habitual way.  You choose your response.   Some barriers might be costly or take time. It might be fear of failure, lack of knowledge, lack of preparation and sometimes just simply bad habits.  If its lack of motivation you need to look for a better one, up the stakes on motivation.  Make an action plan when you do have a good enough motivation. 

Look at what you want to change.  What's preventing you from changing?  The positives and negatives.  If you identify what your negative behaviour is - maybe its eating sugary items at night - then it needs to be changed for a non-eating habit.  Chat to a friend on the phone, go for a walk, read a book or simply soak in a bath.  Better still, go to bed.  A lot of people don’t get enough sleep.  The less sleep you have, the more chance you are likely to crave sugary foods.  The main thing to take away from this is to have a list ready of actions to replace your bad habits. 

Goal setting: you can set mini goals that work towards your main goal.  Both are equally important.  This is a powerful way to motivate us.  It gives you a clear indication of how you will achieve your end result and by goal setting it actually increases your chance of success.  They reduce time wasting and failure.  It could be used in your shopping list.  Let's say you have a cupboard full of non healthy food and you cannot afford to throw it away.  Your main goal might be to have mainly healthy food by 2 months time, so your mini goal would be to eat healthy foods for 2 nights per week and use up the other foods on the other evenings.  Increase this week by week until you achieve your goal.  

Your goal needs to be clear and precise. Make each goal a challenge, so if you can make all your meal changes happen in 1 month, not 2, you will experience a sense of achievement.  Commit to your goals and write feedback on the goals you have reached on your board.  Find out what stopped you if you fail.  Relapse is part of the process.  Make sure you have challenged yourself enough and not too much.  Don’t set yourself up to fail nor make it too easy on yourself.

Remember, set SMART goals.  That is, they should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and in a reasonable Time frame.   After achieving every goal, give yourself a reward, like a massage, manicure, trip out, new dress, cinema, etc.

So let's focus on thoughts that are affecting our behavior. 

Our thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and our actions are all connected; often they work together trapping you into a negative downhill spiral.

Let's take an example.  Your thoughts might have been, “I am fat, unhealthy and feel worthless”.  Emotionally, you may feel inadequate and anxious.  The behavior might be that you isolate yourself with no contact with others.   You might feel tired and depressed which in turn might lead to overeating - or even put you off your food - then you return to “its because I am fat and unhealthy” etc.  These thought processes are instant.  Can you see the circle?

What it doesn’t do is tell you what makes you do what you do in the first place, like overeat.  It also doesn’t consider all your surrounding factors; it only deals with the here and now.  When you go through anything in your life you do experience a variety of changes.

Support and motivation! Long term this will help you achieve your goals.

There are 5 stages to change.  Identifying where you are is vital and you can start at any stage. There is precontemplation,  contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance.

You can relapse at any stage (this is where you have been on track but then it all falls apart).

The first step is to ask yourself how you feel about changing your habits.  Happy to engage?  Then I will begin.

Precontemplation; is where you avoid the subject (in denial).  It's always someone else's fault, "they put the biscuits out","it's raining so I cannot run" or "it was on offer so I bought it",  They did it !  Refusing to acknowledge the problem.  You rationalise the problem by justifying your actions.  Sometimes you are unaware of the problem. You just resist change.

Contemplation; is the stage where you think about it.  Reflective thought. You research and become well informed, consider change, engage in thoughtful observation, study purpose or intention. You take responsibility.  Become aware of what is stopping you changing.

Preparation: a state of readiness to be able to deal with something.  You may have already decided on an action.  You might already be taking the necessary steps.

Action; you have done something or acted on your problem, actively taking the steps to change.  Controlling stress is key.  Make sure all your life is balanced, prioritise all sections of your life such as family, finances, work life, leisure time.  At this stage you can reward yourself and use the support on offer; ask for help.

Maintenance; review your list regularly and avoid situations and people who will compromise your actions.  Stay moving within the area you are at.  Keep things interesting.  Walk in different places.  Reward yourself.  Do ask yourself “how would life be better if I made changes”?  If your goal is a more physical life - like exercise - then ask yourself how would your levels of fitness improve?  How would your life improve?  What other benefits do you stand to gain.  Look at the pluses and minuses of losing weight.  As an example, you would feel fitter, look better, have more confidence, more energy and be happier but the cons are that it takes effort, requires commitment, you might have to keep a food diary, you need to think about your shopping list and what food to change and you will need support.  OK, “gyms are too expensive” you say.  Well, walking costs nothing and walking with groups gives you support too. Change the way you see things.

Make a list now of your barriers.  To change your lifestyle you have to change your thinking. Think deeper and outside the box.  Deal with your own barriers.   So, if you are saying,” I cannot afford this food”, then say to yourself  "actually, if I measure what I need for this next week in terms of meals and make my shopping list accommodate this I am actually spending less on red meat but spending more on fresh goods". Don’t stop at "I can't afford it".  Look deeper.

Remember, If you throw food away you are buying too much and new barriers will always come into play, so this is another good reason to evaluate your situation all the time.

Keep a journal of your progress.  Identify your setbacks and re evaluate them.  Identify your feelings and update yourself.  Remember old habits die hard.

Just to touch on teenagers here, as I know some of you have bought the Portion buster for your teenagers.  If you tell a teenager "if you continue to eat fast foods you might get type 2 diabetes" they are unlikely to change that habit, but if you say" fast food gives you acne" you will generate more of a change. Please remember teenagers need all their calcium as they are still growing.

Be kind to yourself folks and good luck

Norma

Size Matters

Are you like me?  Want to eat tasty, nutritious food and lose weight?  It’s not that impossible.  Instead of worrying about points and counting calories, or “can I have this or that” in my allowance, and feeling guilty if you have that “forbidden food”, think of your food in colour, think freshness, think taste, think adventure!  

If it looks good and tastes good, we want it again.  What I am saying is start with having most of the foods you like, but in proportion - and not as often.  You may find that you expect and desire them less as your taste buds change.  For myself, I will never give up the desire to have chocolate! 

We live in a society that expects treats, and expects self rewards.  Meanwhile, our bodies have to survive the rigours of this life and we need to feed them the best way we can.  We have much more choice than our parents and grandparents ever had, yet we generally are unhealthier, more overweight, and most of us are less active.  Maybe we are making bad choices due to the availability of convenience foods.  

Let me get right to the point.  I am not saying we can only blame the above for the fact that 66% of the population in the UK is overweight, (in the last twenty years this figure has doubled!) but let’s compare a few Items we eat now to what they ate years ago.

Let’s start with our grandparents.  They certainly ate differently to us, mainly due to costs.  There were lots of stews around then.  These were made to last several days – or even more.  They were boiled every day to stop them going bad because there were no refrigerators.  You could have stew two to three days running.  (Have you ever thought of turning your remaining stew into liquidised gravy.  Unlike our ancestors, you can freeze it!  Who says the fussy little ones won’t eat vegetables.)

Our grandparents typically used ten inch plates.  Nowadays plates are often 12 inches or above.  Bowls and cups have also got larger.

The “bun”.  (I mean a small, snack cake rather than a bread bun.)  Years ago, a bun was probably a small sponge cake.  Today, buns are usually much larger and more exotic.  Muffins and cupcakes are very popular but will cost you dearly in more ways than one.  Do you know that there are approx. 250 calories difference between a simple “bun” and a muffin or cupcake.

(As an experiment, take a small piece of muffin and roll it between your fingers.  The amount of fat that comes out will hopefully put you off ever eating a muffin again.  These are definitely “fatty cakes”.)

The good old burger.  It’s now 2-5 times larger in size than when it was first introduced, and is dressed lavishly with extras – not like the simple “Wimpys” of yesteryear.  They have also developed the cheapest way to make these, although the marketing makes them sound full of goodness.  That little baby will cost you over 250 calories without all its “mayo”, etc.  (If you like burgers, try to make them yourself out of meat that you are satisfied is good quality lean minced steak that is typically only 5% fat.  See my recipes for simple instructions for making burgers.  A good quality burger is a healthy snack.)

Now let’s wash it down with a cup of coffee.  Today, an average latte will cost you 330 calories (and, maybe, half an hours work to pay for it)!  It may be as much as 16 oz compared to a simple coffee like we used to be served, which were about 8 oz and 45 calories. 

Pizza.   Two slices of pizza that we might have been served in the past was 500 calories.  Nowadays, two slices of pizza would typically represent 850 calories.  (An extra 350 calories.)  In simple terms, if you normally have 4 slices of pizza a week and your weight was steady say, twenty years ago, the increase in calories would mean that over this time you would have gained 40 lbs due to that fact alone. 

This list goes on and on; it seems we have sacrificed simple and fresh for size and convenience.  And, make no mistake, many of our modern habits stem from the marketing hype which we have been gradually bombarded with that directs us towards wanting what the vendors want us to want for their convenience and profit.

So the “lets nip in and have a cuppa or a burger” will today, cost you hundreds more in calories.  Now, I am not saying don’t have it at all, but ask for a simple coffee (filter, americano, etc.) and share a bun with a companion or buy a biscuit instead.  (Oops, watch the biscuits.  Garibaldis, arrowroot, rich tea and similar biccies are OK in moderation, but watch out for the shortbread, wholemeal and chocolate covered varieties that are very high fat!)  Better still, wait until you get home.  It will cost you less money and you may have had time to talk yourself out of the temptation by then.

To get a general view on the effect of “calories”; it is generally accepted that the average person requires 3500 calories to make a pound of fat, or needs to “give up” 3500 calories to shed a pound of fat.

Of course this is extremely general because it assumes that everything else stays the same (unchanged lifestyle and metabolism) and makes no allowance for people being different – metabolic rates, body types, and so on – and doesn’t discriminate between the different food groups (too little protein input would lead to muscle wasting), but it does give us a “rule of thumb” way of looking at the situation.

Here it is:

If you have a fixed diet, are an average person with normal metabolism and constant weight, and start a twice a week 500 calorie snack habit, you can expect to gain about a pound every month (every three and a half weeks) or around a stone every year.

So four burgers a week makes you put on a stone in a year! 

For burgers, substitute any weekly indulgence with a similar energy value, like 6 pints of beer a week, 12 chocolate digestives a week, 16 hobnobs or bourbon biscuits a week, 24 garibaldis a week, 8 slices of lightly buttered bread a week, 200g of chocolate a week, and so on.  Obviously, half the indulgence would result in half a stone a year

.

Similarly, if we are in a stable situation, denying ourselves 1000 calories a week would lead to losing a stone a year.

What about the effects of exercise on weight loss in sensible terms?

Well, for a 11 stone person, a half hour jog equals a beefburger or a pint of beer.  So does about a half hour of leisurely swimming or of very brisk walking.

(Note that the amount of work done in exercise against your body mass and therefore the amount of calories it represents is directly proportional to your weight.  So a 20 stone person uses twice as much energy as a 10 stone person to accomplish the same physical objective when running or walking.   This is a bit different in the case of swimming, lifting weights, etc.)

To summarise, don’t deny yourself anything in moderation, but offset the effects of indulging in extras by cutting out something else of similar energy value or by doing some exercise.

To help with all this, adopt portion control in order to regulate the proportion of your meal made up of proteins and carbohydrates.  It is always tempting to load your plate with these but you must make sure that you get the right amount of vegetables as well.

Food Preparation on a Budget

Preparation, Preparation, Preparation

I think for this blog I would like to look at the cost of food and the benefits of shopping on a budget. By addressing this, you will not only benefit your pocket and the environment, but will also eat more healthily and control your weight.

I personally have always been a shopper that hardly ever had a shopping list. I am guilty of being a hardened impulse purchaser.

Now I am not saying that this has changed much (old habits die hard and I still love to shop) but, like many, I have to be careful with the pennies. So, this for me is one of my life changes that has a direct effect on my finances as well as my weight.

When researching on the Internet, it surprised me to find out (and these figures change from site to site) that approximately 15 million tonnes of food is thrown away each year - and half of this is from households.  That’s you and me!

I couldn’t imagine what that amount of food looked like so, to make it more real for me and you, I checked and found out that it means that an average couple wastes between £470 and £700 each year. That’s up to approximately £60 per month for a typical family.
Who wouldn’t want to save that kind of money?

Between 2007 and 2012 the avoidable food waste would fill 23 MILLION wheelie bins - and we have to pay to have these emptied and then to sort and process what is in them.
We can help the environment and save ourselves money at the same time - and this is where every little helps.

What is the cause, why is it all wasted?

There are two reasons: one is we cook too much and the other is we don’t use it in time.

One item that is often wasted is fruit.  This is because it is usually placed in a fruit bowl and only eaten when we feel the urge. All too often it “goes off “before we get around to eating it.

However, I read that if we put our fruit in the fridge it will last 2 weeks longer.

I have tried this and it certainly does.
I did a test on various types of fruit- including bananas. Don’t worry about the banana skins turning black in the fridge because they can be perfect inside and they do last longer in the fridge - especially on hot days when they are inclined to ripen pretty quickly.

It has to be said that most foods we waste are vegetables, salad items, fresh fruit, and bakery items such as bread and cakes.

When appropriate, select items from the back of the shelf and check the “use by” dates as most supermarkets stock rotate and the longer dates will be at the back. Two days more might just stop you throwing away that food.

I realise that it’s easier to buy frozen “ping” meals, but they are processed and this has a direct effect on your energy levels. I will chat in detail about this in a later blog

One of the things you might like to do is calculate how much food, in money, is thrown away in your house, just to give yourself an idea. Then turn that into how many hours you have had to work to buy that food. If we are throwing away about £60 worth of food per month and if you work for the average minimum hourly rate you could in theory be working one day less per month and get the same pay.  Or look at it this way; you are working for one day each month for nothing!!!
 Mmmmm, personally I think I could have gone part time many years ago 

Here it is at a glance. £60 of food per month wasted represents:
Retire early (1 day per month over a 40 year working life is 480 days or 96 working weeks. That’s about two years). Alright, I know you wouldn’t retire - but you could take the extra cash!!

You could also afford that extra weekend away every year.
Or a meal for four each month.

How do we address this weekly overspend and contribute our bit to the environment?

Whichever way you look at it it’s all in the preparation.

We prepare for work, and prepare for holidays, we prepare when visiting friends, our retirement, a wedding - the list goes on and on - and prepare even when cooking the evening meal so why wouldn’t we prepare for eating and shopping instead of relying on random impulsive guess work?

Make your list of foods that you have thrown away and turn this into money. Keep this figure in mind, and then let’s make a start.
First, try to shop only once a week, supermarkets love us to impulse buy so why not top up with a free delivery of food purchased online if necessary.  (Some evening deliveries cost only a pound.)

Make sure all the items with “use by” dates will last at least 1 week or from shop to shop.

Here are my thoughts on working out how much fresh meat and fish you eat every week.

In using the new healthy eating plan and using the PortionBuster or scales, if every portion of meat or fish was 100 grams per main meal for each person over 7 days a week that means no one person should consume more than 700 grams of meat or fish from your weekly shop. You obviously know roughly how many members of your family there are eating at home in a week so multiply this amount by the number of family members.

Shop with this in mind. Every packet of meat has the weight marked on to help. Include your Sunday roast in these calculations. Don’t buy more than you need and then you will make it last.
And what’s wrong with a vegetable curry, bolognaise or vegetable chilli? They can be tastier due to the fact they have fresh ingredients in them and a great way of using vegetable that are not quite perfect anymore.

Look at the recipes for the healthier spaghetti bolognaise I make.

Add fresh fruit to natural yogurts as the fruit in a shop-bought flavoured yogurt is a very small amount and can only count as 1/5 of a portion of fruit out of your “5 a day”-and these flavoured yogurts are full of sugar too.

The secret of making pasta part of a low calorie diet is simply a matter of controlling portions.  A recommended size portion of pasta is 2 ounces or 56 grams dry weight and represents about 200 calories.

I am typical of most folk in that, when I have made a pasta or rice dish in the past, I have filled the plate with pasta or rice first, and then added the sauce. It’s one of the biggest mistakes I have made and, to think about it more, why wouldn’t we fill our plates with more of the tasty good stuff, all the veggies and sauce, rather than the rice or pasta. Now I am not saying don’t have any rice or pasta, I am saying have much less because the meal will taste just the same and be much healthier for you too.

Tweaks for Healthier Eating

Tweaks for Healthier Eating

Hi, I’m Norma.

First of all, I am neither a trained dietician nor a health worker so everything detailed here is what I have been told by professionals who are, or what I have found out for myself.

However, I have been overweight for many years and have tried pretty well every diet and health reduction system short of gastric surgery.

I engaged with a number of mentors who were skilled in diet, exercise and physiotherapy etc., and tried all their suggestions with varying degrees of success.  I made a note of all the tips that helped me together with some things that worked that I discovered myself by trial and error.

My most recent attempt resulted in my being referred by my GP to a local organisation called SOAR which is a Sheffield based community regeneration charity set up to “Help people to make positive changes”.  Part of this organisation helps people make life changes in order to improve their health and I was given half a dozen sessions with a health adviser who put me on the right track. 

I have now embarked on a regime of healthy eating as a route to fitness and weight reduction with some success and I would like to share all the positive things I have discovered with you.

Following the advise I was given, I decided to monitor and control the relative size of each of the main food groups in my diet.  I looked around for a suitable gauging device but found that everything available was expensive and inconvenient, mainly consisting of marked up or moulded plates. I therefore designed my own inexpensive, convenient and portable gauge which I called the “Portion Buster”®.  This gives me a means of gauging the portions of the various food groups present on my plate because it is all too easy to add a bit more of the food we like.  I cross referred the Portion Buster dimensions with what is suggested in various healthy eating guides and took note of what my mentors were saying about the relative amounts of each main food group that we should be eating. 

I started selling the Portion Buster on Ebay and I am getting a lot of very positive feedback, so I am hopeful for the future of this device.  Some of the feedback is shown below;

What a fab item! Thanks very much. x

Very useful item. didn't realise how much i used to pile my plate with food.A**

Great product, as described, Happy to recomrnend

My daughter and I are both using it, and I have type 2 diabetes so portion control is important to me.

Best item I've ever bought.

You can get a Portion Buster for around four pounds on ebay, and that's the end of my commercial.

OK, here are my tweaks:

First and most important, use your Portion Buster when loading your plate  Make sure you fill the vegetable section nice and high and don’t overfill the protein and carbohydrate sections – no cheating!  Also, don’t forget that there is supposed to be an area around the edge of the plate without any food on it! 

NOW, eat all the vegetables first before eating any proteins or carbohydrates.   That way if, by any chance, you feel satisfied before finishing everything, it will be the proteins and carbohydrates that are left.  This is much better for you than leaving your vegetables.  However, make sure that you don’t make too drastic cuts in any food group as it is essential that you maintain a balanced diet.

To get a feel for what you have been eating, make a meal using your normal portions, and then use the Portion Buster to see if your portions have been calculated badly.  

Have a drink of water before, and also during, your meal.  It will help flush out your system and also fill you up.  Sometimes, we think we are hungry when, in actual fact, we are just thirsty.

Make sure your pasta and rice are kept within the Portion Buster section as many mistakes are made with the size of these portions.

Try to buy a smaller plate.  (It should not be bigger than 8 inches or 20cm in diameter.)  If not, slide the Portion Buster to the edge of your plate to make sure your protein and carbohydrate portions are kept within the edge of the plate and below the height of the Portion Buster.  Remember, vegetables can be piled as high as you wish.

One ice lolly is around the same amount of calories as one chocolate and lasts much longer…

If you fancy the odd chocolate, break up some Weetabix, mix this with Nutella and form it into little balls the size of an egg yolk.  Keep these in the fridge for those times when you do fancy some chocolate.  Only eat one, then wait one hour before you eat another.  Reduce the balls in size for more effect.  Only make batches using two Weetabix at a time; they are very tempting…

If you must have a chocolate, cut it in half and eat half now and half later.  Again, wait at least one hour in between.

Drink at least one litre of water - or a watery low sugar cordial drink – each day, especially if you take sugar in your hot drinks.  Drinking water will reduce the amount of hot drinks and therefore sugar, that you have.  I went from 70 teaspoons of sugar per week down to 15 just by doing this alone.  Every week, try to increase the amount you drink in this way.

Keep “nibbles” in the fridge for times when you are hungry as most people will eat what is prepared rather than make something.  It’s cheap enough to throw a carrot away if you don’t eat it.  Philadelphia Light is great to dip these snacks in - as is salsa dip.  Try using organic foods as they taste much better and you will enjoy them more.  Fresh cooked chicken pieces are a good source of nibbles.

Try not to eat after 8pm.  Don’t fill yourself up just because it’s the last time you will eat that day and don’t eat by habit at that time – only if you are hungry.  If you need something later have it but just get used to observing a cutoff point in the evening.

Make sure you have two pieces of fruit per day and three types of veggies at least

Use Philadelphia light instead of butter on a sandwich. Spread it thinly; you will hardly notice the difference and it contains much less fat than butter.

If you take sugar in your tea or coffee, reduce this amount by ¼ of a teaspoon.  Decrease this a little more one month later, and so on.

The dreaded exercise!  Do something even if it’s a short walk or swimming, anything!  Maybe get your partner to drop you off locally and then you take a short walk back. I started swimming as this is low impact but, an hour of swimming can burn about 400 calories

Don’t be a couch potato; they say we sit for 12 hours every day.  Make this less by doing just one more household chore.

Salt: never cook with salt!  If you want salt, always put it on your meal at the table.  Always sprinkle the salt from between your fingers and not from a salt pot.  This way you will use less!

Cereals have plenty of sugar in them.  If you need more sugar, sprinkle it on your cereals with your fingers and not with a spoon as you will use half as much this way.

Keep a food diary if you wish.  Draw a column to the right and, when you have written down what you have eaten, write in the column: C for carbs, F for fat, P for proteins, FR for fruit, etc.  You will see at a glance how many carbs, fats, fruits or proteins you are eating in a day.

Prepare your meals in advance to avoid the temptation of a takeaway!

Put fruit and vegetables out on the worktop to remind you that they have to be eaten that day.

Never shop on an empty stomach, and better still, have it delivered.  A hungry shopper buys more and supermarket layouts are geared to tempt you into impulse buying.  Iceland offers free delivery with a minimum order - as do some other stores now.

Make up a fresh fruit salad and keep it in fridge.  It will be more convenient to eat fruit if it is already prepared.

Fat free yogurts have lots of sugar in them.  Only have one every other day or gradually cut down.  Adding sugar is how fat free foods are made palatable.

Hide the biscuits; “out of sight out of mind”.

When making a sandwich, use brown bread as it has more fibre.  It is also a little tastier to my mind. 

Remember to use Philadelphia light instead of butter!

If you are one of the people who always prepares too much, remember 100 grams of potato weighs the same after cooking.  100grms is an average portion of potatoes.

Keep opened, healthy, unprocessed foods handy.

Eat the tiny boxes of raisins for a snack or nibble.

Eat only two dried apricot pieces at a time.

Eat seeds or nuts as nibbles - but don’t eat more than three large nuts - like brazil nuts - per day.

It is important to try to avoid eating anything that is processed.  (“Processed” foods are those that have things added to them rather than those that have things done to them.  So processed peas, dried lentils, chick peas, etc. don’t count as “processed” in this case.)

I lost 3 kg (nearly half a stone) in 3 weeks just using this list as a guide, AND WITH NO HUNGER too.

Be healthy, be wise!

Norma