How to eat: Back to the basics of healthy eating
Good nutrition isn’t brain surgery so it’s time to ditch the diet books for good. In fact the world’s largest study of weight loss at the University of California showed in January that diets only lead to weight gain and increase your risk of heart disease.
Fortunately, healthy eating – the kind of eating that keeps you slim for life – doesn’t leave you starving. The message is simple – forget diets and go back to basics with honest, healthy eating. My healthy eating rules are the only rules you need to know to feel good, stay healthy and lose weight at the same time. And eating better means eating more too!
1. Buy fresh and natural, read labels and learn to cook:
Ditch junk food and buy fresh, natural food instead. Most junk food is heavy in calories and light on nutrition. By junk, I mean burgers, crisps, ready meals, anything in ‘a delicious crispy coating’ or formed in unnatural shapes, anything containing hydrogenated vegetable oils, additives and preservatives.
If you look on a label and an ingredient sounds unnatural the chances are it is. You probably know you should avoid transfats and E numbers, but high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, colourings, additives and preservatives should be avoided too. As a rule of thumb if the list of ingredients looks like a chemistry experiment you don’t understand put it back on the shelf.
2. Know your fats
Fatty foods are more than twice as calorific as other foods for the same sized meals, so it makes sense to limit your fat intake but not to completely avoid it as some fats are good for you. If you are confused here’s what you need to know: transfats found in processed foods, fried foods, commercially baked items, cheap margarines, red meats and hydrogenated vegetable oils clog up arteries, making heart attacks more likely in later life. Try to steer clear of transfats and keep saturated fats to a minimum. Instead, go for ‘healthy’ fats, such as the kind found in fish, nuts and olive oil. These kinds are actually good for your heart, brain, skin and even weight loss, if taken regularly in small doses.
3. Drink lots of water
There are many reasons for drinking water – you’d be dead without it being number one on the list – but it is also vital for maintaining a healthy weight. If you don’t drink enough water your kidneys don’t function properly, and they pass some of their waste-filtration responsibilities on to the liver, which is then required to give up some of its fat-metabolising duties. The result is that you hang on to more stored fat than you would if you drank enough water on a regular basis.
4. Beat food cravings
Most of us have been brought up on the concept of three square meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. However, this throws your metabolism into disarray because you stuff yourself with food, creating an energy overload, followed by starving yourself until the next meal. Your insulin levels bounce up and down as your body tries to stabilise your blood sugar, and the result is that you store more fat than you actually need to.
A better method is to eat small meals and snacks five or six throughout the day so that you never go for more than three hours without food. That way you get a constant drip-feed of energy and, your blood sugar levels remain stable, so you’re less tempted to reach for comfort foods that are low in nutrients. Have a hearty breakfast, followed by a mid morning snack, a healthy lunch, a mid afternoon snack and a light dinner with perhaps a light snack before you go to bed.
Another great way to beat food cravings is to get to know your carbohydrates. By eating the right carbohydrates you can keep your metabolism burning calories for longer and kick start your digestive system with added fibre. The key is to avoid processed, refined carbohydrates, such as white bread, white flour, white pasta and white rice and choose wholemeal or complex carbohydrate varieties, such as whole grains, wholemeal bread, rice, pasta, oats, rye, barley, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruit instead.
5. Breakfast like a Queen
One of the unhealthiest and most fattening things you can do is to skip breakfast. Studies have shown that people with weight problems tend to skip breakfast but this is all wrong if you want to eat healthily and lose weight.
In the morning you need energy to get you through the day, so then is the time to eat metabolism and energy boosting meals. As the day goes on try to eat less with each meal so that your last meal is a small one, mainly protein-based with little or no starchy carbohydrates (save those for breakfast and lunch.) There’s no point having a large bowl of cereal before bed, because all that energy won’t have anywhere to go except on your stomach.
6. Eat quality protein
Protein helps balance your blood sugar because it stays in your stomach longer and suppresses food cravings so try to eat a little protein with each meal and snack. Avoid red meats as these are high in fat and salt and go for fish, eggs, tofu, soya, nuts, seeds, small amounts of organic dairy, legumes, grains and vegetables instead.
7. Eat 30g of fibre every day
Fibre doesn’t just get things moving down there it helps to lower insulin levels in your body, which decreases fat absorption. It also absorbs water and swells up in your stomach, making you feel fuller and less tempted to overeat. Good sources of fibre are oat-based cereals, beans and pulses and, of course, your healthy eating essentials; vegetables and fruit.
8 Get your five a day
Vegetables are the one food you can eat as much of as you like all the time as they provide stacks of vitamins with minimum calories. Vegetables make great snack foods eaten raw – carrots, celery, etc – and can provide the mainstay of bigger meals when steamed, grilled or fried. To get the most out of vegetables, pay as much attention to them as you do to the rest of your meal. Cook them quickly and eat them crunchy before they lose their nutrients.
Five portions a day is a minimum – nine would be better. Start by adding more vegetables into foods, such as soups, curries and casseroles then get adventurous and try cooking whole dishes with vegetables and treating the fish or carbohydrates as side dishes. Using fresh herbs is a great way to spice up your vegetables. Rosemary, for example is great with carrots and new potatoes. Try basil with roasted vegetables, fresh ginger with stir fries and soups and garlic with anything. Lime juice is delicious with steamed vegetables and lemon juice with salads.
9. Take a multi vitamin and mineral
If your diet is good enough, in an ideal world you shouldn’t need to take a multi vitamin and mineral supplement but your body needs a huge array of nutrients. Unfortunately, these days however hard you try to eat healthily modern farming and processing methods depletes food of vital nutrients so a quality multi-vitamin and mineral on a daily basis is advised as your insurance policy. Choose the multi-vitamin and mineral depending on your age so if you over the age of 45 go for one that is designed for the menopause whereas choose a different multi if you are aiming to conceive.
10. Follow the 80/20 rule
If you love chocolate, have a small organic bar as an occasional treat. Just don’t eat it every day. If you always deny yourself the stuff you like, you’re unlikely to be able to keep up a healthy eating plan, and you’re more likely to fall off the wagon and have a binge.
The secret is to have occasional treats to keep you happy, while eating healthily the rest of the time. If you’re eating healthily at least 80 per cent of the time in my book that is about as good as it gets. That way you’ll find it easier to make good nutrition part of your life, rather than something you do reluctantly for short periods of time.