No More Diets

How do I know if eating too much or too little?

If you leave the table and feel even slightly uncomfortable then you have eaten too much. The aim is to feel satisfied rather than stuffed. The only way to detect this point during a meal is if you eat slowly and focus on the food rather than eating quickly and mindlessly.

If you have been overeating for some time and your body has got used to having too much food you may have to retrain your stomach to get used to less food over a few weeks by gradually reducing quantities. The right amount of food for comfort is about the size of two fistfuls - not a huge amount - but your stomach is about the size of your fist and has to expand to accommodate even that quantity of food.

In order to get a balanced diet it’s best to eat lean protein about the size of a pack of cards, a small portion of whole grain carbohydrate and filling up on fruit and vegetables. But in practise if you keep quantities down you can eat more or less as you like - it just won’t be as healthy.

For most people eating this amount for lunch or dinner, a snack will be required between meals - mid morning and mid afternoon. Choose fruit, vegetables and a little lean protein to quell your hunger.

Apart from this the only thing to be aware of are the hidden calories in drinks. Drinks don’t fill you up but they can easily add as many calories as a meal. Be wary of milky drinks (including coffees) and fruit juices as well as alcohol and sugary soft drinks.

Once you have regulated the quantity of food you can tell whether the food choices you are making are causing you to lose weight, gain weight or stay the same. Generally this plan is enough to lose weight if you don’t waiver from it. If you want to waiver (and let’s face it we all have special occasions when we might want to) then you may have to start and change the type of foods you are choosing as well as the quantity.

I have read so many diets which all propose different calorie amounts. How many calories should I be eating to lose weight?

The simplest calculation for the number of calories you need to maintain your weight is to take your weight in pounds and multiply by 12. (Remember, there are 2.2lbs in a kilogram if you weight yourself in kilos.)

If you weigh 10 stone (or 140 pounds) that’s 1680 calories daily just to stay the same.

To safely lose weight, subtract no more than about 250 calories from that and then make sure you get active to the tune of 250 calories a day. That doesn’t have to be formal exercise - it can be doing gardening, housework, cycling or walking - anything active.

This will give you a 500 calorie a day deficit, and should result in you losing about a pound a week.

Actually I’m not that fond of calorie counting because it’s too easy to underestimate the amount you are eating or to forget to add something in and too easy to overestimate the number of calories you are burning. And even if you manage to lose weight by being meticulous in your calculations, who wants to keep calorie counting forever? When you stop counting the weight piles back on.

To my mind it’s better to forget about counting calories and to train yourself to eat sensible portions of delicious healthy food and to change how you interact with food so that you have good habits and a slim body for the rest of your life - and so that’s what I teach in my 8 week weight loss coaching program.