Successful Dieting
Continuing Your Diet Routine
Week 8 +
Give yourself a pat on the back. You have been doing this for 8 weeks now, and have started to change your eating habits over the last 6 weeks. Hopefully you will now start to see a little weight dropping off.
From here onwards, it is just settling down into your new routine. You should by now be more aware of the food you are eating, and how many calories it contains. This means you can make informed decisions about what you are putting into your mouth. It really is a new mind-set.
I have been watching what I eat for over a year now, and it really is showing. I now have to try on clothes to see if I am an "extra large" or "large" when I am in the shops (as they do vary from shop to shop and style to style). My next goal is to drop a little more so it is always the "large" that I need. What I am trying to say is that it is sustainable. You do have to work at it, but if you have a bad day, or week, it can be clawed back.
When you get to a weight you are happy with, you can then increase your eating routine to maintain your weight. Or even give yourself a week off every now and again, and eat just to maintain your weight. I tell you what, it feels good!
The next few pages are filled with little hints and tricks that I picked up along the way. You will probably pick up your own, but I feel that there is nothing wrong with sharing!
Traveling On Business
This is a killer. Hotel food is rich, and there isn't a lot else to do apart from eat. Especially if you can put the meal on expenses, it initially seems silly not to eat a lot. So what do you do?
I started off with "baby steps". I made sure that every 1 meal in 5 was "healthy". This may have been the Pasta or Risotto option instead of "Burger and Chips". I then increased this to 2 meals out of 5, and so on. I am up to about every 3 or 4 meals out of 5 that I eat whilst away are healthy. You also don't have to eat everything that is on your plate!
Try out things you wouldn't normally eat. Go away from your normal comfort food, and try the salmon surprise, or whatever it may be. One thing I like doing now is trying new food. Knowing how many calories are in food, doesn't stop anyone from trying new dishes. In fact, it is good as it challenges your taste buds and you may discover a meal that is filling, but low calories, as a result.
Don't be tempted with desert. If you are still hungry, give your main meal 10 minutes to settle down before you look at the desert menu. This is often enough time for your mind and stomach to "catch up" and register that you have eaten and feel full.
Another trick that I picked up was to take a bottle of diet coke with me (the two liter "value" ones you can get for about 50p in the major supermarkets). When I get to the hotel, I normally drink loads in my room before a meal. This helps fill my stomach up so I'm not tempted by a starters or desert.
If you are on business during the day - whenever you can, make your lunch up before you leave. This means you have a controlled portion of food at lunchtime. If you do need to get some food whilst out, grab some prawn mayo sandwiches (they are the least calorific), a packet of "healthy" crisps, and a bottle of water. This will keep lunch to under 500 calories!
Learn to read food labels
I cannot stress how important this is. Make sure you know how to read those new labels that most foods must have. They tell you about the amount of calories, sugars, fats, and salts in your food.
Make sure you read the labels correctly. Understand what the "portion" size actually means (is it the whole pack, half the pack, a quarter of the pack, etc).
If you are shopping for, say, a pizza, try and compare the values per 100g. Otherwise you end up with 1/3 pizza or 1/2 pizza contains so much - but each pizza weighs a different amount so it is hard to compare. BTW - make sure you don't eat a whole pizza! Share it with your other half or friends!
Do compare products in the supermarket. Again, you will be surprised at how much similar products vary - even tins of baked beans.
And just because a product says "healthy" or "low in fat" - check the calories on the label. Often products just have to be a little lower than their standard counterpart to be officially branded a "lite" version. Cheeky I know, but it's all advertising and marketing that the big companies trick you with.
Change to the "Healthier Version"
Wherever possible, see where or what the "healthier" version of the food you normally eat is.
This applies not only to sugar (ie sweetener), milk, and other basics, but also crisps (lots of "healthy" ranges), jams, etc...
Checking food labels (above) will help you with this. Over the course of a day, by changing to healthier products, you can save yourself 100-150 calories. This could amount to an extra bag of snack-a-jacks that you can eat per day.
Fresh Food
Cooking food from scratch is a lot healthier. Pick up a can of curry or bolognese sauce from the shops and see how many calories it contains. Then see how many calories it is if you made it from a healthy pasata base (tomatoes) and herbs. You would be amazed at the difference.
As each portion of fresh food is lower in calories than its frozen or processed counterpart, it means you can have more of it to hit your daily calorific target, and hence feel more satisfied. It's a win-win situation!
If you don't have that much time at home, cook up a few portions all at once, and store them in your freezer.
Have you seen how many calories a frozen TV dinner contains nowadays. Have you also seen how small they are? They just don't fill you up as much as home cooked fresh food.
Vegetables
I hate vegetables. But they are good for you. I am 30 years old, and have only just started to eat carrots. It took me about 6 months to get used to the idea of eating them, and then another month to try one. I am now converted, and am trying different veg.
One of the reasons I started trying more veg was because they add bulk to a meal without putting on too many calories. The best example is doing a home-made stir-fry. Bean sprouts have hardly any calories, so you can fill up the wok with them without feeling guilty. It makes your plate look huge, and your belly feel full.
I put a huge pile of peas on my plate most nights as well, as they don't contain too many calories for the amount of bulk that they take up.
Milk and Butter
Mmmm... they taste good, don't they!!!
Try changing from full fat milk to semi-skimmed. This took a long while for me to do. But now, I really do think that full-fat milk is too creamy for my pallete.
And butter. Just don't spread it on so thickly. I was amazed that bread or rolls still tasted great without being smeared all over with butter. Just try putting on the edges of your rolls. That way you taste it on the outside edges, but the middle (where the tasty filling is) won't contain any.
It's the simple little things that all add up.
