Our resident nutrition coach Susan Hart shares her tips on weight loss – and how to keep the pounds off.
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- Don’t make drastic changes to your eating habits or food choices, its all about small but permanent changes
- Be more active – the government recommends 150 minutes a week
- Only weigh yourself once a month
- Try and consume 2000 calories a day if you’re male (to maintain weight the average is 2500 calories) or 1500 calories if you’re female (the average is 2000 calories). 500 lost calories per day adds up to 3,500 per week which is one pound of fat loss per week
- Always eat breakfast, but keep away from high sugar cereals, muffins and pastries
- Have a balanced meal containing some protein, carbs and fat. Make vegetables cover 50% of your plate
- Eat wholegrain foods whenever possible e.g. bread, rice, pasta, cereals. A portion of uncooked rice and pasta should weigh 75g
- Use seasonings to add flavour without calories e.g. pepper, lemon juice, herbs, chilli, ginger, garlic etc
- Reduce the amount of butter, cream and cheese added to dishes like mashed potato, soups, toast, sandwiches, jacket potatoes
- Eat a wide variety of foods and in the right amounts – look at the portion guide on packaging
- If the 3pm munchies strike eat one of the following:-
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- Small handful (25g) of dried fruit, nuts and seeds (125 calories)
- 2 jaffa cakes (90 calories)
- 1 fig roll (65 calories)
- 2 squares of dark chocolate (100 calories)
- A banana (140 calories)
- 1 rice cake with crunchy wholenut peanut putter (150 calories)
- Plain yoghurt (100g) with 15g of dried fruits (120 calories)
- An Apple (70 calories)
- Hummus (50g) with carrot sticks (200g) (190 calories)
- Pretzels (30g) (120 calories)
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