User's comments:
I'm usually very bad at eating breakfast as I leave the house too early. By the time I get to work and have downloaded emails, it feels like a waste to have breakfast.
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My New Year’s resolution is to live healthy and this morning I had a bowl of Special K with 2% milk and honey-flavoured low-fat yoghurt. For lunch, I had tuna with a little bit of mayo and three Provitas.
My biggest problem is that I don’t eat any fruit or salad and only a few vegetables. Most of this is due to the texture. Part of my living healthy resolution is to start learning to eat at least more vegetables. But I don’t even know where to start!
I try to get to the gym at least three times a week, doing at least 30 minutes cardio and the weight circuit at the gym. I am aiming to do a Yoga class every Saturday. I need to loose at least 15kg, but I’m pretty much a chocoholic!
Expert's comments:
To begin, I want to congratulate you on starting 2008 with such a positive attitude and for being so determined to live healthily. As you are aware, the pros of making tiny adjustments to your daily eating pattern are enormous for your well-being and longevity. I'm pleased that you are concentrating on the health benefits of losing weight rather than on the actual weight loss per se.
To lose 15kg at an acceptable rate (about 0.5 – 1kg per week), using both moderately restricted energy intake and increased physical activity, means you need to remain on a weight-reduction programme for at least 15 weeks (3-4 months) without failing. To motivate yourself, collect small successes to achieve your goal of being healthy (which have nothing to do with what the scale tells you), e.g. walking with a friend 4-5 times a week, not frying food at home, doing something creative and practical such as sewing, gardening etc.
Weight loss will vary from week to week and as you start gaining muscle mass, you may even plateau slightly in terms of your weight. Again, look at other aspects to motivate yourself, e.g. being able to tighten your belt by a notch, losing centimetres, clothes feeling loser, feeling stronger and fitter while exercising, having increased energy levels, a glowing skin etc.
You should also aim to measure percentage body fat and your waist circumference (it should be less than 88cm) to assess any improvement in your body composition. Losing centimetres rather than kilograms is usually a better reflection of losing fat mass, but as I said above your main goal should ultimately be to obtain optimal health.
You are quite right in starting with the first much-needed change to your daily intake – to eat breakfast. This is an essential element to any healthy eating and weight-loss plan. A morning meal kickstarts your metabolism after your body has been deprived of food throughout the night. Skipping breakfast keeps your metabolism running slowly and you'll save rather than burn any calories you eat later in the day.
I suggest you take your breakfast to work if you leave too early in the morning. Eat it as you're downloading your emails.
Examples of quick breakfast ideas:
A sandwich, made from 2 slices of brown or wholewheat bread with marmite/Oxo, tomato and 2-3 thin slices of cheese, or a quarter mashed avocado pear, or peanut butter and honey.
Fibre-rich cereal, e.g. Jungle muesli or Oatsoeasy (both come in tiny sachets if you prefer) with low-fat or fat-free milk or yoghurt. Add some chunks of fruit and/or seeds and raisins for a little variety.
Low-fat drinking yoghurt or 175ml low-fat yoghurt with a banana and a sachet of Jungle muesli.
Jungle raisin or yoghurt bar and a banana.
Never allow your blood sugar level to dip too low. Don’t miss a meal and eat healthy snacks in between. This will keep your metabolism working throughout the day. Snacking also prevents you from becoming too hungry – the hungrier you are, the less control you have over what and how much you eat.
The composition of your meals, as well as the amount of what you eat, is essential in controlling your overall energy intake.
For any meal or snack to 'hit the spot', it's important to ensure the balance in terms of content: it should contain fibre-rich carbohydrates (starches), low-fat protein, vegetables or fruit and a small amount of healthy fat. Fibre and fat are important components in food necessary to keep us full for longer. Fats provide satiety between meals while fibre-containing carbohydrates provide satiety during a meal. If you eat a meal that is fat free, you will tend to feel hungry again much sooner than if you have a meal containing some fat. Satiety during meals depends on your carbohydrate intake, which means that you will not feel satisfied with that meal until you have consumed sufficient carbohydrates.
Check your portions of each food group. Balance is again key. You need to eat enough for your body and activity levels without feeling over-full. Dish up as much as you think will satisfy you, but remember that your eyes may be larger than your stomach. Rather underestimate than overestimate your needs.
Here is a helpful guide to visualise portion sizes without having to measure any of the food:
CARBOHYDRATES/ STARCH: Approximately the size of your fist; a tennis ball; 1 slice of bread
PROTEIN: The palm of your hand (no thicker than your ‘pinky joint’); 1-2 packs of cards
FRUIT: Size of your fist; a tennis ball
VEGETABLES: Unlimited
DAIRY: 1 cup low-fat milk; 1 small tub low-fat/ fat-free yoghurt; matchbox block of cheese; 250-300ml drinking yoghurt
FAT: 1-2 level teaspoons oil (canola/olive), ‘lite’ margarine, butter, peanut butter, regular mayonnaise; 1 tablespoon reduced oil/‘lite’ mayonnaise and salad dressing; ¼ medium avocado; any spreads ‘thinly’ on breads/crackers; 1 small handful of nuts or seeds
Fruit and vegetables are definitely lacking in your eating plan. You mentioned that the texture is a problem for you so in order to reach the recommended ‘5-a-day’, you need to become clever in how you eat these essential foods.
If you struggle with raw vegetables, rather eat them cooked. Julienne carrots, sugarsnap peas, cauliflower, broccoli and green beans can be cooked al dente and eaten with a nutritious dip, e.g. tzatziki or humus, as a snack. Try to incorporate vegetables into stews and soups. Fruits can be blended into delicious smoothies. Dried fruit (not more than a handful at a time) can also be enjoyed as a snack. Stewed fruit can make a fantastic dessert, served with vanilla yoghurt or custard.
Getting into a regular exercise routine at least 3-5 times a week will help achieve weight loss and then weight maintenance. The combination of cardio and weights is excellent. Cardio fitness activities (walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, aerobics, dancing) speed up your metabolism for several hours after your workout so additional calories will be burned off long after you stop moving. Lifting weights will build and tone muscle, which burns up to five times more calories than fat (even when your body is at rest). More muscle means more calories burned and more weight lost over time.
Remember that your metabolism needs water to function properly and even more so if you are active. Individual requirements are highly variable and depend on the person as well as factors such as activity, humidity, climate, body temperature and body composition – it is extremely hot at the moment, further increasing your body’s fluid requirements. The latest recommendations for women are about 10 glasses (250ml) of water a day. It is helpful to keep a water bottle at your desk or in your car as a constant reminder that you should be drinking more.
Chocolate has its place – of course in moderation! Eat it to treat yourself occasionally and make sure you savour and enjoy it, but limit yourself to small portions. Dark chocolate has actually been found to be beneficial and the darker the chocolate (>65% cocoa) the greater the health benefits.
For an individualised healthy eating plan, I suggest that you consult the ADSA (Dietetics Association of South Africa) website to find a registered dietician in your area - www.adsa.org.za.
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