Lose weight without dieting - this works I swear

[AllDashNoCash]

This forum needs some health and beauty tips! It's nearly bikini time and everyone's on insane diets - don't do it, girls (and boys).

No-diet diet tip #1
Have breakfast every morning.

Studies have shown us that slim people are more likely to eat breakfast than overweight or obese people are.
Skipping breakfast is really really bad for you, 'cos you're been starving all night already. It makes you groggy, moody, tired and a little bit later on it makes you eat everything that's lying around the house or the office. That's mostly snack foods like biscuits and crisps and chocolate if you're anything like me. Avoiding breakfast might seem like an easy way to cut calories but it isn't - your body will get you back for it later.

The 3 Cs doesn't count as breakfast if you were wondering (a cough, a coffee, and a cigarette)!!

[AllDashNoCash]

Hey - hope you all enjoyed your weekends! It's sweltering today isn't it?

No-diet diet tip #2
Avoid crash diets. They are evil.

If you want to lose weight AND keep the weight off then a crash diet will always backfire on you. A crash diet is one that tends to have less than 1000 kcalories per day, if you're wondering what I mean. People who crash diet, or yo-yo from one crash diet to another nearly always end up heavier than they were in the first place, and more out of shape.

When you crash diet, the first couple of days you will think you've lost loads of weight. All you are really losing is sugar and water from your body, not flab, and you also put your body into starvation/panic mode. What you lose after that is a mixture of muscle and fat, but losing muscle isn't a good thing.

As your body starts to go into starvation mode you will get incredibly hungry - all you can think about is food for hours at a time. You will feel tired and sluggish or bad tempered, which can have a negative effect on your work and personal life. Sooner or later most people will overeat to compensate or even have a food binge of some sort. Your body slows down your metabolism to compensate for being starved and so when the diet ends if you go back to a normal eating pattern you will gain weight.

[AllDashNoCash]

Quick lunch break message boards moment. Hurrying up so the boss doesn't catch me.

No-diet diet tip #3
Enjoy the hot weather.

You know how cold weather and long dark nights make you crave stodge? Summer sun and light evenings can have the opposite effect, and the heat makes most of us lose our appetite or crave fresher and lighter food. Give in to the cravings for salad, gazpacho, grilled or BBQ fish and chicken, fresh watermelon, summer fruits, sorbet... Wow, that's so difficult innit? Just remember to drink lots of water to stay hydrated, and don't have too much alcohol if you're spending longer in the beer garden.

[AllDashNoCash]

Back again!

No-diet diet tip #4
5-a-day is even better than you think!

The standard medical advice is to eat at least 5 portions of fruit or vegetables each day, and the standard advice is pretty reliable. Fruit and vegetables give you valuable nutrients, some water, and some fibre to fill you up. They tend to be low in calories as well. Any diet that bans fruit or vegetables is probably a bit dodgy as far as I'm concerned.

Try not to have 5 portions of the same thing, variety is the key here. It's also more colourful and interesting
If you are hoping to lose weight, there are a few things to remember:

• You can't count potatoes in your 5-a-day(these are counted as starchy foods)
• You can include one portion of pulses towards your total (peas, beans, lentils, soya)
• Tip the balance of your eating in favour of vegetables
• You can only count one fruit juice or smoothie per day, and a portion of 200ml to 250 ml is about right (fruit juice isn't very filling as it tends to have low/no fibre, and can mess with your blood sugar levels if you drink too much)
• Many diets ban avocado because it's oily and calorific, but it actually contains 'good' fats so it's fine to have in moderation
• If you increase your intake to 7 portions per day, it can really fill you up, and you may feel less likely to snack between meals or have second helpings of dessert
• Dried fruit is good as an occasional snack, but have small amounts
• Most traditional salad vegetables are low in fibre so they aren't as filling as you might like - try adding beans, grated carrot or shredded cabbage

As a very rough rule of thumb, for your main meal of the day half of your plate should be covered by vegetables. The rest of the plate should be equal amounts of protein and carbs.

[AllDashNoCash]

Speaking of carbs....

No-diet diet tip #5
Carbs are NOT the enemy. You need them.

Carbohydrates went out of fashion for a while, but all decent nutritionists and dieticians carried on suggesting that you should eat them. By decent I mean people who read and understand quality research, and don't spout unreliable mumbo-jumbo. Cutting out a whole food group from your diet is never good for you, unless you have some rare life-threatening disease. Besides, carbs are NICE. I would go as far as to say they're delicious and wonderful things.

Broadly speaking you get sugary carbs (sugar, syrups, honey), and starchy carbs. Go easy on the sugary ones, and help yourself to some unrefined starchy ones like wholemeal or rye bread, brown rice, oats, buckwheat (soba) noodles, potatoes in their skins and so on. They give you slow release energy and fibre, and they can contain B-vitamins, amino acids and other good things. It's OK to have refined starchy foods too sometimes, like white bread and white rice, but don't overdo it just have have normal/sensible portion sizes where you aren't overfilling the plate. It's easy to eat a mixture of starchy foods that's about 50% unrefined and 50% refined.

Try to keep sugary snacks for a treat after a meal (better for your teeth as well - fewer bills and less pain at the dentist). Again, go for small sensible portions - you don't need to ban them completely.

[AllDashNoCash]

Let's get a bit Zen for Friday lunchtime

No-diet diet tip #6
Nothing is forbidden

A lot of people attach a moral value to certain foods. For example they may say "chocolate is BAD" and "celery is GOOD", then they completely ban themselves from ever eating the foods they've labelled as 'bad'.

The trouble with this is that many of their so-called 'bad' foods are also really rather tasty. The more you try to ban something, the more attractive it becomes in your imagination and sometimes you can end up completely obsessing about it. Eventually your resolve will crack and you'll eat some - maybe even a lot more than you'd normally eat of it - and then, if you're like most people, you'll wind up feeling guilty about it/ like a failure/ annoyed with yourself, and that can set you up for a whole new downward spiral of emotional over-eating.

While it's fine to take a temporary break from eating certain foods, it's not a good idea to ban them completely unless there are specific health reasons such as serious allergies or blood cholesterol problems.

If your favourite thing is, say, cake or wine, there should be room for a bit of it in your diet sometimes. A little of what you fancy does you good.

[AllDashNoCash]

Been AFK for a couple of days, back now

No-diet diet tip #7
Think before you snack

We Brits spend way more per head on snack foods than any other European country. We are also far ahead of the rest of Europe in the obesity stakes. Perhaps there is some correlation between these two facts, especially since many of the things we now eat between meals are super-sized compared to ten years ago or contain more hidden fats and sugars than we realise.

Obesity is a complex issue, of course, but if someone who snacks a lot slightly changes their eating habits then this may be the only dietary tweak they need to get back to a healthy weight. For example, a large creamy coffee with flavoured syrup shots plus a big choc-chip muffin from one of the high street chains can easily contain all the calories/energy that the average woman needs to keep going for a whole day - so a daily snack like that on top of your average food intake will pile the pounds on faster than you realise. Switching to a medium sized latte with skimmed milk and picking a small bar of nice chocolate to go with it still gives you all the coffee and chocolate 'hit' and the good flavour, but it's far less likely to sabotage a healthy eating plan.

In some 'skinnier' countries such as Italy and France many people do not snack at all between meals. That doesn't suit everyone, of course, and I know I get hungry mid-morning most days so I need to eat. If you're like that too, try to make about 80% of your snacks healthy ones like fresh fruit, a little dried fruit, or veg sticks. Then the remaining 20% can be a normal sized bag of crisps, a flapjack, an ice cream cone, a small choc bar or slice of cake or whatever else takes your fancy. Take a break, eat your snacks slowly and really enjoy them.

Yum

[AllDashNoCash]

No diet diet tip #8
Make it easy to get portion sizes correct

There are lots of reasons why we're getting an increasingly distorted view of portion sizes, but here's a very easy idea to help get them right at home. Buy smaller plates, bowls and glasses - many of these have become bigger over recent years, and it fools your eye into thinking that more needs to go on the plate or in the glass.

Be on the lookout for smaller dessert dishes (to hold a scoop or two of ice cream or dollop of crumble), wine glasses designed to hold one unit of alcohol at a time (about 125ml), juice glasses that hold 200-250ml of juice, breakfast bowls that hold 30-50g of cereal plus milk, small snack pots to hold 25g of sweets or nuts, and dinner or pasta plates that aren't restaurant sized.

That way a normal meal fills the plate or dish well, and you subconsciously feel that it's going to fill you up.

[AllDashNoCash]

Penny G has asked me to do some more no-diet diet tips for all you people out there who are doing battle with that evil January bulge feeling. So here's an idea for you today and there will be some more to be posted soon. Stay away from those crash diets people and everything will be ok!

No-diet diet tip #9
Soup it up

Nobody quite knows exactly why this one works, but eating a nice thick blended soup for your lunch or dinner can keep you feeling happy and full for longer than many other meals. Keeping hunger pangs at bay can be key if you're trying to lose some weight or you're trying to stop yourself from eating too many unhealthy snacks between meals. A plate of meat and vegetables plus a glass of water appears to keep you feeling full up for less time than the same food and water blended up into a smoothish soup.

Chunky lumpy soups and thin soups don't seem to have the same effect. Beg/borrow/steal a liquidiser or hand blender if you'd like to try this idea out because let's face it nobody has the time or the patience to do it the old fashioned way by pushing the whole lot through a sieve.

Your soup will work even better if it has some fibre in it and some protein so you can go crazy with the root and leaf vegetables, brown rice or pearl barley and some beans or lentils or meat/fish.

[DaisyMae]

I think I can answer this one for you Alldash. I saw a documentary about diet recently in which they carried out an experiment with two groups of soldiers. Both groups were given roast chicken and vegetables and a glass of water for lunch. One group had it as it was and the other group had the whole lot blitzed up including the water into soup. The teams then went out training for a while and then they were tested. The group who had eaten the normal meal, their stomachs had emptied after about two hours leaving them hungry again. The other group who had eaten the soup still had food in their stomachs after 4 hours. It seems that when eating the lumpy food and then swallowing the water, this helps it to break down quicker therefore passing through the system quicker. As the water is already in the soup this 'watering down' does not happen therefore the food lingers longer in the system and not leaving you with hunger pangs.
Incidently, patients who have had weight loss surgery are told not to drink any liquid for at least half an hour before a meal and half an hour afterwards and it is because of this washing through effect. because they are only eating in small amounts it is important to ensure the food stays in the stomach for as long as possible.