Dietary Advice

My years of experience have taught me several things about diet.

• One size doesn’t fit all.

 

This means everyone is different.

• Just because it’s healthy doesn’t mean it is right for you.

For example, someone suffering with IBS needs to avoid certain foods that are normally considered ‘healthy’ and promoted as ‘essential for a normal diet.’

• There are around 3,500 calories to 2lb of weight, and around 10lb to a dress size.

So, in order to lose weight you need to reduce your calorific intake, or increase the amount of calorific energy (your metabolism) your body uses each day.

Some years ago I had a lady come to me who was very overweight. She told me she didn’t eat chocolate, crisps, fast food, fizzy drinks or other such foods. She was going to her GP surgery to be weighed every two weeks and wasn’t losing any weight.

She said she knew that they didn’t believe her, but she was telling the truth. Their main advice to her was to watch the amount of carbs she was having.

She had beautiful skin and lovely bright eyes. I asked her about her diet. She ate mainly vegetables and fruit along with meat and fish. When I worked out how much fruit she was having per day it amounted to 800 calories! We were both shocked. She immediately changed her diet and the weight started to melt away.

That doesn’t mean all fruit is to be avoided, it means that food contains calories and in order to lose weight we need to reduce the amount of calories we are consuming. People misunderstand that fruit in particular contains calories.

The problem is you need to have an idea of what your metabolic rate is before you start. The easiest way to do this is to spend a week weighing every single item that you put in your mouth, and work out exactly how many calories this contains.

You then need to reduce the amount you are consuming in order to lose weight. That sounds obvious, but everyone is different so don’t assume you know how many calories you burn a day and also don’t assume you know how many calories are in the food that you are eating. It may seem a bit or a chore for a week or so but in my experience it works really well.

If you want advice about diet and losing weight, please contact me.