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Design your diet
Meat – more or less
You well know that some meat is fatty and you might have noticed, like I did, that there is more taste in the fatty varieties. Bacon is a prime example. The streaky is delicious. This doesn’t mean that back bacon isn’t, it is just that streaky is even more tasty, as it has more fat.
I am using the word ‘fat’ in the broadest possible way
and relating it to all that I am talking about.
Look at the issues
If you investigate meat today a number of issues will crop up.
Almost immediately, 'medical' specialists will begin to separate different types of fat, by giving them different names like Saturated, or (I’ll break this into bits), mono-un- saturated and poly-something-something etc. I can’t remember them all, or which fat is better or worse than the next one from a Health point of view, because I’m not an expert, but whatever they tell you, just remember:
that it is ALL ‘fat’, from a Weight point of view and that means energy.
Find out for yourself;
it’s really interesting once you start looking it up, even if, like me, you can’t remember it all for very long.
I will illustrate a 'health' issue to be aware of later in this episode.
These days there is another issue cropping up and this is whether or not to eat meat at all.
I’m not getting into this debate, because it is up to you what you want to think about it.
The main thing that I am worried about is losing weight, by making the right choices for me.
I hope that you are doing something similar.
Go online and look up the issues if you are interested.
Whilst you are there just find out how much energy there is in the different meats, like 100gms beef = 288.
(You will understand the number if you have read the earlier articles.)
(Look at Ingredients > 10. Detective Work)
What are the others?
Different parts of the meat will also have more or less fat, for example, poultry skin has more fat.
Find out about different ways to cook meat if you are going to eat it, because it does make a difference.
Other sources of energy, carbohydrate, protein and sugar, have complicated stories, but meat is even more complex than them. When you have worked out what is considered ‘safe’ and what is not, you have to look at what you eat and how you might manage to reduce the energy that you will be taking in.
Take it steady.
Don’t suddenly scrap what you were doing,
just change it slowly.
Should you be eating that American-fast-food meat EVERY day?
One thing that your investigations on the internet will have told you, is that your body does need fat, wherever you get it from, to function properly, so crash dieting by cutting it out entirely, is NOT the thing to do – IF you could even manage to do that. I have seen reports of the death of ‘influencers’ trying to follow this kind of extreme Diet. We are not in that category, are we?
Processed meat?
Did you see anything about processed or ultra-processed meat? Any meat that has been ‘processed’ such as might be found in sausages, meat pies, hamburgers, beef burgers, is said to be statistically linked to the increased risk of developing cancer. This is not a weight issue, but you need to be aware of it and to search out more information, in order to make up your own mind. It is suspected that the problem is linked to processed meat having more salt and preservatives in it.
Unsafe?
When we look at almost any food, there may be reasons to avoid it.
There used to be a popular song about all the things that we like. The song was called, It’s illegal. It’s immoral or it makes you fat! Almost every food that we eat has been dragged into the spotlight and declared ‘unsafe’ for one reason or another over the years, rather like the song title.
One thing is certain, NOT eating any food will be even worse for your health.
Vitamins and Elements
The thing is, not to eat just ONE food, or the same thing all the time to the exclusion of the others. You should eat and drink a variety, a bit of everything, as balanced as possible, but not to excess. If you want to, you CAN eat bacon, but you have to know how much you can eat and how often (See Strategies > Boosting and Portions). The more you know about it, the easier it will be to get it right for you.
Images by E.C. Segar
Meat also raises another issue. ‘Experts’ (some producers?) will tell you of the other ‘beneficial contents’ to be found in meat. Take an example – ‘iron’ that some meats are ‘rich’ in. However, various other foods will also provide iron, which is important if you want to avoid becoming anaemic. Anybody old enough to have watched Popeye cartoons will know that when he needed strength to save his girlfriend Olive Oyl, from the dastardly clutches of Bluto, he cracked open a tin of spinach and ate the lot, sometimes sucking it in through his whistling pipe that he almost never used to smoke tobacco. This gave him the strength of Superman and he always saved the day and the girl.
We understood that it was the iron in the spinach that did it. Beef has nearly double the iron of spinach - but Calves’ liver has seven times as much. If you’re eating to increase your iron content, then you need to know which meat to choose. The point is, that we are not looking at contributors towards health such as elements and vitamins at the moment. Our main concern is weight; how to Eat less and Move more.
Looking at the shape of Bluto and Olive,
one of them has been following this blog and the other hasn’t.
Which one are you?
Beware. It is VERY EASY to eat too much fat.
Something else
Which is a bit different, but an allied subject.
I was watching a TV programme on Ready Meals on Channel 5 and Professor Giles Yeo from Cambridge University was explaining issues about meat to a group of people in a market place (above). The professor is a wonderful communicator and a top expert on everything to do with food. The participants were eating samples of Chicken Tikka Masala followed by a Vegan substitute.
The first question being asked was:
Which tastes better?
The tasters were clear that vegan version was much better,
as it had more flavour and the sauce was richer, with more texture.
The follow-up question was:
Which one is the most healthy option?
The audience expected that to be the Vegan version.
The point the professor was making, is that there is a perception amongst the general public that anything with ‘Vegan’ on the label must be a more-healthy option and this might not be the case. Bridget Benelam from the British Nutrition Foundation explained that a vegan recipe has to recreate the ‘taste experience’ of the meat meal and this probably involves the use of fat or salt. Professor Yeo illustrated the use of salt in the two samples. To do this he used bags of Salt-and-Vinegar crisps, rather like I have used tomato sauce – as a quantity indicator.
The meat option had the salt equivalent of 5 bag of crisps, whilst the vegan option had the equivalent of 7 bags.
He might have 'loaded the dice' a little? using the word Salt. He didn't use Cheese & Onion, or Prawn Cocktail. Zoe Davies from Action on Salt explained that because vegan products are plant-based it seems that they must be a healthier option than other products. The programme showed how the packaging is mainly in green and yellow, words like ‘holistic’ or ‘eat well’ inside flower-shaped logos are use.
The programme’s message to remember was:
‘Don’t judge a meal by its cover!’
They were saying:
‘Investigate – think for yourself.’
The same advice was applied to the Ready Meals themselves, but I won’t go into that.
You can read the ingredients on packets for yourself,
but there was a good tip that would save you money.
Use your own fresh ingredients and a Cook-in Sauce.
Weasel Words ?
I understand that one of the American burger giants has announced that it will ‘adapt’ 50% of its ‘products’ to be vegan by 2030. This is a headline grabbing statement (with my inverted commas), but there are a couple of words in there that are open to interpretation, so beware. Let’s see how they get on.
Talking about words. I bought a couple of (Top British supermarket) Steak Slices recently.
They were not cheap.
Imagine that delicious ‘Steak’- m-m-m
What does it mean to you?
In case you want a description, read the label
‘puff pastry filled with tender steak in a rich beef gravy’.
I’ll bet your mouth is watering - m-yumm
It said ‘filled’ –
repeat ‘filled’ with ‘tender steak’.
I sliced through the pie.
This is the reality.
Now, what do you understand by ‘filled’?
What do you understand by ‘Slice’?
Would you mistakenly think
a slice of steak?
and the 'rich beef gravy'?
The 12th item on the ingredients list is 'Beef stock (Yeast Extract)', this is a biproduct of the brewing industry that is sold under the trade name Marmite. The 13th ingredient is ''beef fat'. It seems to me, that this product description sails close to being deceptive.
Don’t believe a meal by its name.
Or its description on the packing!
Moving More
I had an old bike in a shed. Its been there for years. I was having a bit of trouble walking with a dodgy hip, so I dug out the ancient bike, swept off the cobwebs and found a pump for the tyres. It squeaked a bit, so I sprayed it with oil and squeezed the brakes. It seemed to work. I didn't know if I could balance it, but after a wobble round the nearest car park on a quiet day. I thought I would get the hang of it. You don't see fat people riding bikes do you? I've gained a bit of confidence. If you don't try it, you won't be able to do it. I'm getting quite brave.
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Design your diet
20. Greatest Diet Danger.
What is the greatest diet danger that slimmers face?
Sugar?
No
Fatty food?
No
What then?
Your long-term custom of ... ‘a-little-bit-more’ is the greatest danger.
At almost every meal you will have choices that you hardly recognise as being important, when you have to choose the size of what you are about to eat. In its simplest form it may be the choice of which cake to take from a selection on a plate.
Is your immediate reaction to look for the smallest or the biggest one?
Be honest.
It’s not something that you normally think about, is it?
You run on autopilot.
The cake
A cake has been divided into different portions.
Etiquette says that you should select the one nearest to you when they are offered.
You look. You evaluate.
You are checking sizes.
The one to the left near you, is slightly thinner than the one to the right
Which one will you take?
You always take the ‘little-bit-more. option.
You feel happy.
The extra amount may be infinitesimally small, but you still make that choice.
How would it feel to take the smaller slice?
How important is it?
Could you bring yourself to do it?
If you did, would you feel less happy?
A lifetime of making such choices has conditioned you.
Two boys
When we opened a box of buns made by machines in commercial bakeries where every portion is automatically produced as an exact clone of every other portion, so they are utterly identical, the immediate reaction from the two boys was to scan the contents for the ‘biggest’ cake. With some cakes such as Cherry Bakewells, the choice came down to the size, or the offset location, of the cherry on top. This tiny fluctuation was sufficient to trigger the choice.
It's a natural reaction.
In evolution, it was maximising your chance of survival.
Fairness strategy.
If cake had to be divided equally between two boys, the strategy to avoid dispute, was for one boy to cut the cake, but the other boy had the first choice of which piece he wanted. This ensured fairness.
The principle of ‘a little bit more’ applies many times a day.
More-heaped sugar on your cereal spoon.
Loaded marmalade on your toast knife.
Getting the very last crisp-bits out of the bag.
Just one more chocolate biscuit.
Only an extra spoonful of custard.
These are very small things.
Surely, they don’t make me FAT?
This is not the full story.
There is the similar issue of ‘eating-up’.
Most people - RIGHTLY – do not like food waste.
I don’t like food waste.
When a meal is being prepared, there are containers to be scraped
Utensils to be cleaned.
An easy way is to lick the spoon.
When a meal has been eaten, there is often a little left-over that has not been served out.
It is not right to bin it. It needs eating-up.
So, you eat it, to clean up the bowl or plate, ready for washing.
And there’s more …
And there’s worse …
Some food is sold in pre-arranged quantities.
Let’s look at Fish & Chips
In shops, they give you huge amounts of chips, these days.
In a restaurant they put your chips into an individual container.
This restricts the portion size, but makes it look a reasonable quantity.
There may be only one-third the quantity of chips compared with the chip-shop amount.
You accept this smaller amount as a 'meal amount' – or should do.
Back to the chip-shop chips
Do you eat ALL of the chip-shop chips?
OR
Do you use only the chips needed for a reasonable meal?
When you are eating them, do you add tomato sauce?
Do you add baked beans, mushy peas, or curry sauce?
You have CHOICES.
If you open a tin of baked beans for yourself, do you put half of them into the fridge for next time?
Do you save excess chips for reheating in another meal?
On joint orders, do you look at the battered-fish dimensions to select the biggest for yourself?
These individual described-dangers may be small by themselves.
You may think that they don’t matter – but they DO.
They accumulate.
They add up and they’ve always been adding up
For YEARS!
You need to know about them –
Be conscious of them.
Your lifetime of 'a-little-bit-more’ habit can be changed,
if you know the dangers.
I know it sounds crazy, but you need to start experimenting
With ‘a-little-bit-LESS’.
It will be hard to begin with, but if you want to make progress -
Choose a place to start
With cake slices make the decision that you will automatically take the small piece
Always
With quantities on a spoon, you will knock a bit off
rather than adding another extra quarter
Always
Find a way to deal with excess chips.
Order ‘Small’
Buy one portion between two.
Save and grill/air fry them next day.
They’ll make another meal.
They’ll save you money.
This small, subtle shift can be the start of helping you
But only you can do it.
Look for your own examples.
Where do you think you could start?
Let's Do it!
Moving More
I’ve been walking, walking, walking and I hope that you have too.
Without exercise you’ll never lose weight.
I said, right at the beginning,
that you do NOT have to take exercise to extremes.
You don’t have to run or jog.
I have also said that
exercise alone won’t make you slim.
You should walk to make yourself feel better.
As you walk, you see people.
You see and hear nature.
You find time to think.
When you look at my latest picture
It may give you a clue as to
my latest experience.
I never thought I’d do it.
I’ll say more next time.
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Design your diet.
19. Breakfast-cereal portions
(Read Diet 18. Flavour boosting)
Portion size starts to get important when we look at Breakfast cereals,
The manufacturers and dieticians choose about 40grams as a portion size, but when you see this quantity in a dish, you know that it is a lot less than you usually eat. Weetabix can choose two biscuits as a ‘serving’ (37.5gms), but then they once ran an advertising campaign encouraging the eating of three Weetabix per meal. Why did they do this?
Food energy numbers are given for 100grams.
So, energy number for 40grams will be a bit under half the 100 number.
You can do the maths if you want to 100gms ÷ 10 - then x 4.
Eg. 380calories ÷ 10 = 38
38 x 4 = 152calories in 40grams
When we look at the energy numbers for 100grams of the usual cereals they are all rather similar,
Weetabix 358calories,
Kelloggs Corn Flakes 381
Fruit & Fibre 380
Nestlé Shredded Wheat 340
Alphen original 357
In most cases, the sugar content (carb) levels
in cereals are similar, from about 67 to 69.
Energy bars
The alternative ‘energy’ bars are a bit different,
OR are they?
Stand by for a some more mathematics.
Also, some different words
A Pack. The complete product that you buy.
A Bar. The four individually wrapped bars inside the packet.
A Portion. The amount that you should eat. (Manufacturers recommend 45gms)
An Oat, Raisin and Almond bar has 412cals (per 100gms)
This is high in fat, resulting in a carb number of 61.6cals, sugar being 24.4cals.
If you have followed everything so far, (Design 10. Detective work) you will see that they are probably selling cooking oils (Vegetable, Rape seed and Palm) in addition to sugar to reach that carb level, as well as the raisins and almonds that feature in the description on the packet/bar.
But also note, these bars are sold in packets of 4 with 750 grams per pack.
Warning: Here comes the maths.
This means that each bar weighs about 187grams.
The energy in one bar = 770cals
Compare this with cereals above.
However
All the recommended-quantity information relates to
One portion of 45grams
which is just under a quarter of a bar.
(Bar = 187grams)
How many people will take their ‘bar’ and cut it into 4 pieces?
Then eat one quarter of a bar for breakfast?
It is my guess that once the wrapper is off, most people will eat the full bar of 4 portions. An ‘energy’ bar may not be a ‘healthy’ bar (in the sense of reducing weight) IF you misuse it.
Are you being misled?
No.
The manufacturers will claim:
The information is there for you to see.
Have you been too lazy to read it and to do the sums?
Yes.
They are supplying you with 16 portions per pack, but in 4 portions per wrapper. If you want to know these things, you have to make the effort. I can eat all of these cereals, but I have to know HOW MUCH of each I can eat.
'Let them eat cake'
There’s another similar situation you need to understand.
It concerns ‘cake bars’
Cake used to be sold predominantly in single, large 'slabs’.
The ‘bespectacled-bakers’ (Plump, cuddly little chaps with flour on their aprons - who live in 'advertising-land' - not international industrial conglomerates) have found a way to accelerate the way that cake is eaten. If you have a ‘slab’ you can cut it into 4 or 6 or 8 or 10 separate portions to eat it. You have control of portion size. If the cake is already cut into 6 pieces, displaying each slice separately in vacuum-packaged trays with additional wrapping, it looks bigger and when opened, each piece will be eaten whole. Nobody will cut a slice in half, but they may eat two slices. The quantity is pre-determined for you and you never calculate the cost (in cash or in calories) per slice.
Back to Breakfasts
Alternative Sweetener
I was using Honeynut flakes instead of sugar as a sweetener on my breakfast cereal, wasn’t I?
Well time to change that now.
Use something else, to make the change.
Change is good.
I noticed that when I was eating muesli-type breakfasts, the bits I was looking forward to the most were the sultanas in the mix. They are the little sweet rewards you get from eating quite a lot of oat or wheat flakes (which are good, but tedious). I also noticed that you can buy normal corn flakes or flakes with strawberry flakes or ‘red berry’ flakes mixed in. You pay half as much again for these ‘upmarket’ flakes that seem to imply that they are a 'more-healthy' option. When you look at how many 'flakes' or ‘berries’ you get, it is very small. The fruit has been freeze-dried and sliced wafer thin. Do you get 4? or 5? berries per packet? OR - Do you get less than 1 berry? That is a very expensive strawberry. AND - Check out the size of the box compared with the normal cereals without the added fruit flakes.
The point of this is for you to recognise that you will probably see the addition of fruit to flakes as being a good thing. Added fruit is better and it's not only sultanas, strawberries and freeze-dried banana, I have seen apricots added too. They come in little parcels called Apricot Wheats or others called Blueberry Wheats. They are good, they are tasty and they always cost MORE. A lot more.
I hope that you can see where this is going.
All these fruits are sweet.
Fruit is good.
But - you don’t have to buy it already added to the cereal by the manufacturers.
They add it because they know that they make a bigger profit-per-pack using 2 (max) strawberries.
Fresh fruit is better.
And if you buy fresh you can have MORE of the treat in the cereal
In the muesli you might get about 4 freeze-dried slices of banana per dish
that you have to crunch up in your mouth.
Why not have half a REAL banana in 12 slices?
It is cheaper
It tastes much better.
On-Ration
Sliced bananas. There’s a lot of food energy in a whole banana.
WATCH TENNIS PLAYERS
Cut it, then only unpeel half of it. Keep it in the fridge for the next time.
You can get packs of sultanas, (Homebaking aisle),
but you MUST put them On-Ration.
Sultanas = 302cal, so make a Rule:
No more than one, level, desert spoonful of scattered sultanas per bowl.
You can 'dome' the spoon a bit if you are on skimmed milk – otherwise – No.
If you are on Fruit & Fibre, well done; go for the fresh fruit.
The milk on all of these cereals adds to the energy intake.
Phew! That’s enough numbers.
You probably lost track somewhere anyway.
Suggesting that you use these sweet fruits is dangerous for dieters
They have calories.
You cannot use the HoneyNuts that replaced sugar, in addition to fruits.
Stop HoneyNuts
If you have followed this from the beginning, you will know the dangers.
It is your understanding that provides the sensible approach
It boils down to this:
Eat more energy than you use in the day, and you get fat.
Eat less energy than you use, and you don’t get fat.
Find your sensible, energy level and stay with it.
I am trusting you.
Walking
I hope that you have an umbrella. You should still be able to walk if it is raining, providing it’s not too bad. If the wind is strong when it is raining, you might let yourself off. The danger is that you get lazy and find excuses. You need decent shoes as well. I try to avoid muddyI paths in the rain and stick to the streets. Walking on muddy paths just makes them worse. You must keep up the exercise. Move more.
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Design your Diet.
Flavour boosting
&
Portion Size
When I was talking about salt and vinegar, (Diet 9 in Ingredients at the top of the page)
I mentioned this:
‘Both salt and vinegar in moderation,
might help as flavour boost to some other less-popular stuff that we could eat –
so they might be helpful to us?’
Here’s a little bit more about sauces and there will be more to come about them later.
Sauces are very important.
Ask anybody who is addicted to Subway southwest sauce.
I'm NOT talking about commercial sauces
- just the simple ones and what's in them.
Learning more from sauces.
Sweetened Vinegar. Well, it’s time to mention these condiments again. Sweetened vinegar, it seems to me, is the basis of most of the popular sauces. I noticed this when eating a small, pickled onion with a meal.
It didn’t taste of onion at all.
Its flavour wasn’t even close, so why was I eating it?
I examined the taste and found it be mainly ‘vinegary’.
Nobody would drink a spoonful of neat vinegar.
The closest we come is on fish and chips
The vinegar had been sweetened by adding sugar and a little salt (It says on the jar). The little onions are dropped into the vinegar to soak it up, so that you can move the sweet vinegar from the plate to your mouth more easily. With a blindfold test you’ll find that tomato sauce comes close and mayonnaise can do it too, but the thicker consistency and more sweetener gives them away, plus some additional flavourings.
What else is added to the sweetened vinegar?
Still comparing energy levels
Brown pickle = 115. The other sauces that I mentioned right at the beginning (Diet 10 Detective work), French dressing, Garlic and Herbs, Honey and Mustard (Reduced fat) = 101 are also based upon sweetened vinegar. Worcester sauce = 96 has anchovies listed as an ingredient. All these rate around our yardstick of Tomato sauce = 100.
The pickled onions themselves are 53.
Now, that is a result! The label said that a 440ml jar of pickled onions contains 4 servings of onions– there must be a mistake somewhere. If you eat brown pickle, you can add Cauliflower, apple and dates to the fruit and veg that you eat, but in such small quantities that, they don’t really count.
More about Quantities
Portion size. Eating a quarter of a jar of pickled onions as ONE serving, as it suggested on my jar, made me think again about quantities and, reminded me about the energy ratings of Marmite and Strawberry jam (See Diet 17. Strategies) which are both about 250.
This is worth repeating. If I was eating two different sandwiches using these ingredients, I would smear the Marmite as thinly as possible, but I could load on the strawberry jam. I might eat ten times more jam, than I would have Marmite. To borrow from George Orwell: ‘All spreads are equal, but some are more equal than others.’ They have similar energy numbers, but potentially different portion sizes. Understanding this, is the key to applying the right controls on what you are eating. You can eat everything, but you have to understand how much of everything. The amount of Marmite you put on the bread is probably not significant in making you fat, but the amount of strawberry jam you put on, definitely IS. Energy at 250 may not be as ‘dangerous’ in some foods, as it is in others.
Imagine how this relates to Crunchy Peanut butter.
Next time I’m going to look at some helpful information about for Portion sizes, but for now
I’m going to take a break and return to my poem based on
The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carol.
The last episode was on a page in Ingredients at the top of the page.
To find out what this is all about go to Introduction at the top of the page
and find the page The Time Has Come -
This from the original poem
“It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,
‑‑“To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
‑‑And made them trot so quick!”
The Carpenter said nothing but
‑‑“The butter's spread too thick!”
This is our rewrite
“It seems a shame,” the Vicar said,
Life plays you such a trick,
Sadly, to bring an end like this.
A life so short - so quick.
The fattest ones said nothing, but
The butter must be thick!”
The poem is
About making decisions
About who you trust
About thinking for yourself
About the consequences of your choices
Walking
This image is NOT about eating.
It is about things that I see on my walks.
We are supposed to be walking to MOVE MORE.
But if you walk you see interesting things.
Seeing and thinking means that you forget why you are walking,
- you just enjoy it.
In wet Autumns there comes a time when all the fungus comes up and it happens very quickly. One day there is nothing to see and the next, all manner of fungus is there. I snapped this fungus on a piece of rotten wood. I understand that under the ground there is a vast network of the fungus busily helping to make the soil. I wouldn't have learned about that if I hadn't been out for my morning walk.
Now it's your turn
What have you seen when walking and what have you learned?
I will just add that mushrooms - proper ones,
not ones like in my picture - are very low in calories.
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Design your Diet
17. Strategies, Rules and Rations
(for the weak-willed?)
In the previous section I mentioned Strategies and Rules.
In an earlier section when we were talking about sugar, I asked a question: What is a teaspoonful? I suggested a Rule that you might apply:
Make a Rule for yourself.
Decide that: The filled teaspoon can only be level with the rim, not above it.
If you use a heaped one, you have to count that as two spoonsful.
Have you done it?
Well, why not?
Have you got a better rule that might limit the amount of sugar you are using?
If so – Good, well done.
Time to talk tough
If not, it is time to change, or to put it bluntly -
If not, then it could be that you are weak-willed?
You have to start somewhere with your Will-Power.
Shaving a tiny bit off a small spoonful of sugar is not going to kill you -
leaving it on – might – eventually?
If you’ve NOT been able to do this, it says that you don’t have enough of a wish to help yourself. Yes - it does! I can say these words, which may sound harsh, because I don’t know you or your situation. We are not face-to-face and so, I don’t have to be polite. I am telling you what you already know inside yourself. If you cannot help yourself, you cannot expect other people to do it for you. You cannot blame them. There is no excuse. Make an effort, no matter how small.
Use the teaspoon rule for ONE day.
Can you do that?
Don’t be offended by me being rude to you.
Instead, make a small change,
to benefit YOURSELF.
Let’s Learn
Looking back at what I have been learning, I knew right from the beginning what my problem was. I ate too many sweets, biscuits and large meals. I slowly started to think of strategies to deal with the problem. I had to be smart and think things out for myself. How could I cut down?
You know what your problem is.
Is this you?
Learn about - Boredom
When you are watching TV and the adverts come on, you have nothing to do once you have clicked the mute button to stop the sound. So - - - - now what do you do?
You snack?
This is when the crisps, the chocolates and the biscuits get eaten and the booze gets drunk. Why? Because you are bored. Your mind is switched off and your fingers are idle. You have to do something whilst waiting. This is a mighty challenge. It is like the cigarette to round off the meal and it is probably doing you almost as much harm.
Is this YOU?
It is a habit
It is very difficult to crack, but you MUST try to find a strategy to try to break the habit
Learn about – A Strategy
Strategy. I must NOT have a tin of chocolates next to my chair when watching TV.
This is a way of changing the circumstances. You cannot resist just having another chocy every-now-and-then, if the sweets are close to you. I used to say that the chocolates were ‘calling to me’, all the time that they were there. As time passed, they became more and more insistent, until I cracked and had one - or two - or three.
Then it was too late.
They had won and I was a miserable weak-willed-... (expletive!) …
The official ‘portion’ size for chocolates is TWO.
Do you know anybody who can manage that?
It is impossible.
Bars of chocolate are even worse; they just get eaten-in-one.
I could see that it was my fault. Just like you can see that it is your fault, with your weakness. This is what is different about this ‘non-Diet’ that we are looking at. No outside person is imposing the strategies or setting the rules for you by saying you can only eat cabbage soup, or have NO alcohol until Sunday.
It is up to you.
YOU have to be smart enough to see the problem,
YOU devise the strategy
YOU think of the rules
and then stick to them for as long as you can – and that means, until you can see a difference in yourself and can see that YOUR strategy is working.
YOU have to make achievable rules
My sweet tin had to be moved.
It went into a kitchen cupboard.
Then it was time for another Rule or two.
You can only work a strategy by having Rules.
Rule 1. The tin must not leave the cupboard.
Rule 2. No more than 3 sweets can be removed at any one time.
This made it harder to scoff the lot in one go.
Sweets go On-ration
When I started, I immediately began to make my sweets last a bit longer; bite them in half to make 6 sweets. Next, I could only go for them when the adverts came on TV. Some other rules gradually crept in. Only access the tin at hourly intervals when the programmes changed. And so on… Take this slow, but keep making a bit of progress. You CAN do it.
Learn about – What helps?
Is this too tough?
There is something that could help, rather like a nicotine patch helps the smoker and that is Grapes. Grapes are about the same size as sweets. They taste sweet. If, during the adverts break you are longing to have something to do, something to eat, then grapes are a good substitute. Keep them in the fridge and limit them to no more than 6 being removed at one time (to begin with). You have to get up and make the effort to go and get them. Eat half a grape at a time to make them last. 100grams of grapes has 69 calories, so you are taking in energy, but it should help you get off the other sugar in the chocolates which will be much more. The goal, as you’ll guess, is that after a week or so, you drop down to 5 grapes, and so on.
Rules can only be changed for the better. is a Strategy
After some time, the rules can change, as I did with the grapes, or only 2 sweets at a time. Only 3 fridge visits in an evening.
Or a really tough rule –
The sweet tin has to be kept in the garage.
The length of time it takes to squeeze yourself on the rules is up to you, but try not to make it drag out too long, keep it moving if you can.
Learn about - Avoiding Temptation
It makes most sense of course, to NOT have the temptation at all. I find that if I have sweets rationed, as I have just described, I will continue to eat them according to the rules. If I first taper them down, I CAN stop them. If I don’t even have them, after (say) about a month of not having them, I am not missing them and the pressure gets easier. I have changed the habit.
Not seeing them
Not having them
is the best solution, but to do a ‘sudden quit’ is probably too big a move and they will be missed. This is like suddenly starting on an imposed 'Commercial Diet' . The change is too great - too sudden and it probably won't be sustained. Sudden change makes it harder to stick to the biggest strategic rule of all:
Don’t start anything that you cannot keep going.
This problem was a tin of sweets
it is the same for crisps and drinks.
You know what it is for you
Learn about - Biggest Temptation
The moment of greatest weakness, of greatest temptation is when shopping in the supermarket. Avoid the snack aisles. A huge triumph would be walk out without having bought the temptation in the first place. You need to work up to this, over time.
Learn about – Some Useful Tricks
Some strategies that I have found useful. They worked for me.
I had heard of this one, so I tried it.
For over-eating:
Use a smaller plate or dish
It was easiest with breakfast cereals. Find a slightly smaller dish and then applying something similar to the teaspoon rule. The cereals must not be heaped above the rim. Even when the milk is added.
Limit Alternatives
Some more about breakfast cereals. I suggested changing from sprinkled sugar to using some Honeynut cereals as a sweetener instead of the sugar. You have to have a rule about how much of these flakes you can use. A rule like – No more than two desert-spoons-full of Honeynuts, because they must be On-ration. I’ll have more to say about breakfasts later, as they are a place where changes can be made more easily.
Change appearance of food
I thought of this next strategy myself and it works quite well.
It’s for chocolate digestive biscuits.
How many Diets contain chocolate biscuits?
First, I had a Rule Limit of:
No more than 3 choccy-biccies to finish a meal.
(Here comes an important bit)
When I went to 2 biscuits, I broke them up onto a small plate, so that I had 10 – 12 pieces to go with my coffee. Even though I had broken the biscuits myself I was much less concerned about the quantity reduction, by making it look like more on the plate. I can easily recognise the 'unit' of a whole biscuit. I know its quantity. When I take biscuits from their packet I take a known quantity - two or three etc. My brain knows the quantity and it will be disappointed if it does not have the recognisable amount. By breaking that recognition-habit I found it easier to become satisfied with the new 'unrecognisable' amount.
I eat the pieces one at a time, sipping coffee in between and they last a lot longer. It doubles the eating time. This too, is a known help. I understand that it takes up to 20 minutes for food to begin to 'register' as being eaten and therefore, for the body to feel its effects. Eating slowly is a strategy. I have heard that chewing every mouthful 20 times (or 30 etc.) can be part of a Diet. It would help this 'slowing mechanism' to work, allowing time for you to feel more satisfied by the food eaten. I save the bigger bits to the end as a treat. I make sure I have enough drink left to wash away the chocolate flavour in my mouth, because that taste is the greatest reminder of wanting more.
Rules that limit quantities can be adjusted downwards
But NOT upwards
You have to work some strategies out for yourself.
You are clever enough.
The Rules will be YOUR rules, so you will know them.
They relate especially to you, so they must work.
Learn about - Expertise
This is Very Important. Just because somebody has written some rules on the internet or in a book, it does NOT mean that they are wiser about YOU than you are.
If they are trying to sell you something – sell you anything -
beware!
It does NOT give them superior status.
It does not give them intelligence; their concern could be making profit for themselves.
If you think you need assistance about any issues regarding weight, emotions or confidence, you can choose who you want to ask, or to follow. In the end, after all the advice - no matter what anybody says, it will come back to YOU deciding what to do. This blog is mainly about losing weight. To lose weight you have to be wanting to do it - enough - for yourself. I don't want to talk tough to you, but sometimes you may have to talk tough to yourself. If you've not made changes yet -
You can start by doing something about that sweetener teaspoon
Walking.
(You are walking as part of your effort to MOVE-more)
Walk to the shop. Walk children to school and back. Walk to visit friends. Keep walking. Find excuses to walk a bit further. Find a longer way to walk on these ordinary walks. Change. Vary the route. Make a different habit. Have a reason to walk (See 12. under Ingredients - top of the page)
To read more go to top of page
Eat Less. Ingredient. Fast Food