No More Diets

I don’t eat vegetables. How can I diet without eating them?

This question is a bit similar to the one from the lady who couldn’t eat salad (”Salad upsets my stomach“) but also subtly different so I wanted to answer it too.

There are so many people who just don’t eat vegetables - and at least two of my friends run a mile from anything green.

First of all, do you have to eat vegetables to be slim?

No - neither of my friends are carrying too many pounds

Do you have to eat vegetables to lose weight?

Here I would have to say that they definitely help - they add a huge amount of bulk to your diet without adding many calories at all.

I usually recommend that you try and fill half your plate with vegetables or salad and then have a quarter lean protein and a quarter whole grain carbohydrates. Without the vegetables you can’t add much more carbohydrate or protein (which are relatively calorie dense) to fill you up.

So if you try and lose weight without them you will probably get hungrier than your friends who eat more veggies. You may also have to go into calorie counting mode because you won’t just be able to rely on the fullness signals you get.

I just wonder why you are so against vegetables.

Maybe you were forced to eat them as a child and swore never to eat them again once you had a choice. But there are so many different varieties and so many ways of cooking them that I wonder if you could not learn to love them for the sake of your health as well as your weight.

If you want to give vegetables another try, some ideas which work for my friends “because they don’t taste like vegetables” are

• roasting vegetables in a little olive oil in the oven to create a sweet taste and crunchy texture - great for carrots, peppers, parsnips and sweet potatoes
• making them into soup - even disguising them completely by pureeing the soup in a blender
• adding them to a curry, casserole or stew - where the taste of the sauce disguises that of the veggies
• adding grated vegetables to bulk out minced (ground) meat in a bolognaise or chilli dish
• mixing in vegetables in a macaroni cheese (e.g frozen peas and sweetcorn)
• stir frying them and adding a strong stir fry sauce which disguises the vegetables
• combining mashed potato with mashed root vegetables

Each of these ideas will add bulk to your diet without the calories and without that heavy boiled sprouts and cabbage taste you might have grown up to dislike.

What are the easy ways to lose weight and stay healthy?

The easy ways to lose weight are different for everyone because it depends on your eating and activity habits. Some things you can change quite happily and not care but other habits might be a big stretch for you.

In any case I would start to look for habits in your life that are keeping you overweight that you are reasonably happy to change. Think about what you are getting out of the habit and find a (lower-calorie or calorie-free) substitute. For example, a chocolate-chip cookie with your coffee might give you a feeling that you are treating yourself. Ask yourself what else you could do that would give you that same boost. Maybe you could drink your coffee from a special cup, have one square of luxury chocolate instead of the cookie and make it melt slowly in your mouth or have 10 minutes with your feet up and a good book while you drink your coffee. Your idea of a treat is your own but you can see the principle.

To lose weight easily make small changes like these to your habits one by one and over and over until they stick, substituting healthier habits for less healthy habits.

As long as each habit involves eating fewer calories or using more up by moving your body you will be going in the right direction. A deficit of just 100 calories a day (less than 2 cookies worth) adds up to 10lbs lost over a year. And what does it take to change a 2 cookie a day habit? Very little effort - all that takes is no longer buying cookies when you do the shopping.

Other ways?

Drink water instead of juice, soda, milky drinks or alcohol
Avoid the bread basket at a restaurant
Take lunch to work instead of eating out
Put a single tablespoon of dressing on your salad and toss well instead of pouring from the bottle
Eat 2 squares of chocolate instead of dessert
Have soup and dessert (instead of main course and dessert) when you must have dessert

Add your own in the comments