The Truth About Food
Right. I’ve just been watching the BBC’s The Truth About Food. It was all about dieting and weight loss and offered some new tricks to try and help a person gain control of their weight. This is (as usual) something I promised myself I’d tackle (again) at New Year. Now it’s the beginning of February I guess it’s time I started doing something about it.
Having yo-yoed several times now I can see a pattern developing and I’m keen to sort it out once and for all. It’s either that or become the classic middle-aged woman who’s tried every diet in the book and failed miserably to keep the weight off afterwards. I can lose weight quite effectively, but only with extreme concentration and absolute control. There’s no room for slippage and once I’ve lost weight I just revert to my old bad habits.
So, what does the BBC suggest?
Eat low fat diary foods - apparently the calcium binds to the fat in your diet helping to prevent you from absorbing it. Instead it just passes out in your poo. Marvellous.
Eat more soup - the water mixed up with the food in the soup helps fill your stomach (making you feel full). If you just drink water along with a solid meal the water quickly passes out of the stomach (like water through a sieve), leaving just the solid food which doesn’t fill your stomach. Soup, however, stays in the stomach for longer (imagine mud in a sieve) keeping you full and satisfied. Choose low fat soup for best results.
Eat lean protein - apparently protein rich meals keep you feeling fuller for longer. Have lean bacon and a poached egg for breakfast. Yum.
Control your portion sizes - hmm, this is a tricky one. Buy smaller plates and bowls and don’t go back for second helpings.
Reduce variety at each meal - if you have 15 things to choose from (eg barbeques, tapas, chinese buffet) you’ll try them all and end up eating loads. Limit yourself to 3 or 4 different foods at each meal keeping an eye on portion sizes.
Keep a food diary - it’s easy to forget that you had a packet of crisps at lunchtime. Write it down so you can keep an eye on what you’re eating. I think this idea might work for money too.
I like the diary idea best - soup based on milk may be the way forward. Just need to find some recipes now.