At a recent function where afternoon tea of sandwiches, pastries, cakes and slices were served, a young lady with Coeliac Disease was saying that when she’s out she just stays away from the food. She’s so accustomed to there being nothing suitable that she doesn’t even look at the food.

Those with Coeliac Disease can’t eat any food containing gluten, so that rules out anything with flour including bread, pastries, most hot finger food, cakes, slices, sauces and a huge range of other foods. It may sound restrictive, but meats, fruits, vegetables, dairy foods, nuts and the like are all naturally gluten-free, so this leaves many options that provide excellent nutrition without the side effects of illness and weight gain.

This one comment at the function got me thinking: could everyone wanting to lose weight and improve health adopt similar strategies?

Here are a few things to consider:

1. If the function serves afternoon tea, chances are that you’ve already had lunch and it’s only a couple of hours until dinner. There’s no physical need to eat.
2. Thinking like someone with food allergies could involve focusing on the detrimental effect that food will have on your body. In the case of the lady with Coeliac Disease, this would mean extreme pain and bloating, diarrhoea, and increasing her risk of cancer. For someone wanting to lose weight, think about how the carbohydrates will be digested and stored in the fat cells.
3. It’s easy to say No to the first bite of food, but much harder to resist subsequent bites. Having “just a taste” can be the start of the end, both physically and emotionally. Abstinence is far easier than moderation.
4. The purpose for attending a function are to celebrate, socialise, support, or meet, not to eat. Be there for the people and the event, chatting, networking, socialising and reminiscing, and feed yourself at home.
5. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. In all honesty, will your life suffer if you can’t eat the party pies? You don’t wear the same clothes as the person next to you, so why do you need to eat the same foods?

As it turned out, the large function we were at had a table of gluten-free foods, so the young lady with Coeliac Disease did have a bite or two, but she would not have suffered at all had this not been the case. She’s accustomed to others eating while she doesn’t, she doesn’t feel deprived, and – I have to say – she looks amazing.

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How often have you searched for inspiration about what you might prepare for dinner? You contact Chef Google and start searching while considering a range of questions: What’s already in the cupboard? Do I have meat in the freezer? How many people am I feeding tonight? Who likes what?

While you’re searching, you find that you start getting hungry. Perhaps it’s the lovely images that go along with recipes, maybe it’s the anticipation of the tastes to come, or there’s even a chance that you start salivating because you don’t want to miss out.

Some factors that contribute to thought-induced hunger:

• Intellectual work – even just thinking about what to include in tonight’s menu – makes you hungry.
  

  Is it dinner-time yet?

• The sight of delicious food stimulates the hunger hormone, ghrelin. Social media is awash with “food porn”; images of delicious foods that tempt beyond reason. Food porn images are rarely of broccoli, instead offering up delicious-looking desserts and artfully presented meals.
• Classical conditioning, as we know from Pavolv’s experiments with dogs, demonstrates that external triggers can make us hungry. The smell of a bakery or simply knowing that a meal-time is approaching are examples.
• Fear of missing out – we see this in children all the time, where the thought that they might miss out on an opportunity creates hunger. A sibling has a biscuit so they demand one. A walk through the food court creates cries of “I’m starving” or “Can I have…” Are adults any different?

With so many everyday occurrences that can create thought-induced hunger, how can we avoid it?

Plan ahead

1. Take some time on the weekend, preferably immediately after a meal, to write out your meals for the week. Make sure to include a couple of meals which can be prepared in advance and then stored in the fridge or freezer in meal-sized portions.
2. Use this plan to create a shopping list.
3. Go shopping.
4. Unpack the shopping and get started preparing a meal or two. A slow cooker can be a life-saver, as can using the oven at the same time for a few different meals.

Be organised, avoid food porn, and stay away from tempting environments, and your thought-induced hunger will be a problem of the past.

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Is it that people who buy these magazines want to lose weight without losing the very foods that contributed to their weight? If so, it’s an approach doomed to fail.

As idiotic as the mantra “everything in moderation” is the idea that weight loss is likely while eating cake. For most people, the two are mutually exclusive. Women we’ve seen over the years who have tried this approach are met with frustration, anger, and cries of “it’s not fair.”

It’s definitely not fair.

Why can some people eat cake – and pasta and bread and drink as much alcohol as they like – and stay slim while others seem to gain weight just thinking about it?

It all comes down to biological differences. Genetics, hormonal responses to food, gut bacteria, appetite, and activity levels all contribute to each person’s weight. Our faces are all different and this is a biological and genetic difference. Our skin tones are all different. We are shorter or taller, more muscular or leaner, introverted or extroverted.

We. Are. All. Different.

It’s important that each person eats according to the needs of their own body. Following a plan that worked for Jenny over the road, or the exercise program that Internet Susie recommends, is unlikely to give you the results you want. Eating cake – other than for very special and rare occasions – is unlikely to give you the results you want.

What works for most people is to avoid nutrient-poor foods like cake, and instead select nutrient-rich, unprocessed foods that satisfy hunger, and nourish the body and mind, and to set up habits of selecting these foods.

Overcoming the need for sweet flavours is essential for those with a sweet tooth, and keeping cake as a regular part of their eating pattern will at best slow results, and at worst sabotage so much that the person gives up.

Instead of being lured by images of foods you instinctively know you shouldn’t eat when losing weight, forget the magazine and instead go to the butcher and greengrocer and get your food ideas from there.

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Poor sleep has negative consequences for the hormones that control hunger, appetite and weight:

• Increases ghrelin, the hunger hormone – you eat more
• Decreases leptin, the satiety hormone – your body doesn’t tell you when to stop eating
• Decreases serotonin, the ‘feel good’ hormone – your mood is lower and you tend to go for ‘comfort’ foods to try to life mood
• Decreases melatonin, the sleep-wake cycle hormone – poor sleep leads to poor sleep: seems obvious but it’s harder to get back into a good sleep pattern
• Increases cortisol, the stress hormone – this increases fat storage (especially around the middle) and decreases muscle tissue
• Decreases Human Growth Hormone, which leads to increased fat mass and decreased muscle mass, along with reduced energy.

Any of these effects, alone or in combination, can slow your metabolic rate and make you eat, on average, an extra 500 calories per day. Your body is in survival mode and so does everything possible to maintain or build energy stores. Eating well is more difficult.

When you think about making dietary change, feeling positive and in control are important psychological components of sticking to good intentions, so sleeping well is perhaps the unrecognised success factor in adopting a low-carb eating pattern.

It’s clear that sleeping well is essential, but if you’re not a good sleeper, how can you improve?

No coffee or chocolate after noon

Caffeine has a “half-life” of 5 to 6 hours in the average person. The half-life means that if you ingest 200mg caffeine, 5 to 6 hours later you’ll still have 100mg in your body. As it’s a stimulant, this means that the caffeine is keeping you more alert and less likely to sleep.

The half-life is variable. For some it’s shorter, for others longer; depending on age, gender, size, and genetics, as well as liver function and hormones.

A small espresso coffee (or cappuccino or café latte) contains around 200mg caffeine, which is the suggested healthy daily amount. A 100g serve of dark chocolate contains around 50mg caffeine – though if weight loss is a goal this serving size is not desirable.

Avoid alcohol: Try mineral water with lemon or lime

Most alcohol adds carbs, but it also disturbs sleep. Sure, you might be able to drift off more quickly if you’ve had a drink or two, but it disturbs sleep later in a few ways:

It raises your blood glucose levels, which raises insulin and makes you hot. The extra heat wakes you, or at the least disturbs your sleep. Insulin is a hormone that works by delivering blood glucose to the cells for storage, and for most people this means storage in the fat cells.

Alcohol decreases the amount of time you spend in REM sleep – the restorative sleep that you need to maximise.

Instead of alcohol, there’s something almost magical about drinking sparkling water with a slice of citrus that makes you feel a bit special. Nutritionally, it’s not much different to a glass of tap water, but psychologically it makes a big difference.

Give it a try. Select a lovely glass, or even a cut crystal hi-ball tumbler. Fill it with sparkling water, add the lemon or lime slice or even a squeeze of fresh juice, and enjoy.

Ribbons of cucumber in water is a surprising delight, too, so why not give that a try.

Go to bed early

To get around 8 hours of sleep, it’s important to work out the time you need to get up in the morning and then work backwards to determine your bed time. If you need to be up and about by 6am, for example, then sleep time needs to be 8 hours earlier – 10pm. Then, if it takes you say 30 minutes after getting into bed before you get to sleep, then bed time needs to be 9.30pm.

If you’ve been habitually burning the candle at both ends, you’ll probably need to gradually bring your sleep time back. It won’t work if you’ve been going to bed at midnight and then today decide that 9.30pm is more appropriate. You’ll probably lie awake for hours! Instead, go to bed at 11.45pm for a week, then 11.30pm for another week, then 11.15pm for a week, and so on.

No TV or mobile phone in your bedroom

Ah, the dreaded curse of being permanently connected. The ‘ping’ of a notification, the red stand-by light of the TV, and the invisible wi-fi signals can all interfere with sleep quantity and quality. Focusing on what you’re missing out on in the wider world means you miss out on sleep.

The bedroom should have limited functions: sleep, dressing, and time with your partner.

Establish a consistent bed-time routine

Like training children to sleep well, we also need to train ourselves to sleep well. Going to sleep and waking at (more or less) the same time every day makes it easier, as do things like having a shower before bed, turning off the TV an hour before bed, and ensuring that we don’t have a huge meal right before bed time. You might like to read a chapter of a light novel before settling down, just to help your body relax.

Early morning walk or exercise

Starting the day right makes it easier to continue the day right. Exercising before breakfast is great for waking you up, making you hungry for breakfast, and setting your mind into the right space to continue well. Feeling good carries over and helps you make better food choices for the rest of the day.

Schedule 2-3 gym sessions per week – and go!

Getting to the gym has many benefits, especially when you’re losing weight. Maintaining muscle while losing body fat keeps your metabolism firing higher. This means that you lose primarily body fat and not your valuable lean muscle. As with exercising early in the morning, a gym workout makes you feel your body working, sometimes feel glad that it’s over, but you feel food. Feeling good carries over to help you eat better and sleep better, so it’s a winning move to get to the gym regularly.

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1. Pre-plan your meals and shopping

Getting to the supermarket without a plan, especially when you’re trying to shop for a new style of eating, will see your good intentions fail. If it’s too early in your change to low-carb, you just have little idea about what foods are low-carb and which ones just say that they are.
Make it easy on yourself: take 30 minutes before shopping to plan your meals. This allows you to write a shopping list that includes everything you need to purchase. Then, at the supermarket, you just go about selecting foods from your list.

2. Buy fresh whole foods

This sounds so simple, but many people new to the fresh foods sections of the supermarket just don’t know where to start. Your meal plan and shopping list will be the lifesaver here.
As a rule, almost all your grocery choices will come from the sections closest to the walls. Vegetables are generally not packaged, so you just load the amount of each item into bags. Meats are usually wrapped in plastic but otherwise unpackaged. Both are fresh whole single-ingredient foods.

3. Minimise packaged & processed foods

Supermarket aisles are reserved for the packaged stuff: food that has a long shelf-life. This includes canned vegetables, bottle water and the like, but most packaged foods are multi-ingredient foods that will not suit a low-carb eating plan. Steer clear of the aisles and it’s easier to steer clear of packaged and processed foods.

4. Herbs & spices create flavoursome meals

Buy a couple of small packets or jars of spice blends that suit your palate: Piri Piri Seasoning, Moroccan Seasoning, and Lemon Pepper Seasoning are examples. Use these blends as a great way to enhance and alter the flavour of your foods.
A simple chicken and vegetables meal, for example, can be changed to Mexican, Thai, Chinese etc just by changing the seasoning. Experiment a little and prepare to be surprised at how easy it can be.

5. Eat every meal from a plate

This sounds really strange, but it stops you from eating on the run. Eating with your hands usually means that the meal is not low-carb: it’s wrapped in bread and the like to hold everything together.
Another problem with eating on the run is that you don’t focus on the food, and the signals your body sends are blurred or not noticed. In short, it’s easier to maintain appetite control when sitting down and eating from a plate, using a knife and fork. You eat more slowly and your brain has a chance to ‘catch up’ to your stomach, telling you it’s time to stop eating.

6. Don’t eat in front of TV or in the car

Distraction = mindless eating. Have you ever become engrossed in a TV program and suddenly noticed that the biscuit plate or popcorn bowl is empty? Eating while not paying attention to the food is a trap for most people, so make it easier on yourself and combine points 5 and 6.

7. Discover your daily carb tolerance

Some people can eat a lot of carb, some a tiny amount, and most in between. We’re all different.

Think of it like this: roll up your sleeves and compare your forearm to that of a friend. One of you will have skin that can obviously handle more time in the sun than the other. One of you would have a lower sun tolerance than the other.

What can you do about it?

Other than following the slip, slop, slap message, one of you will need to get out of the sun earlier than the other or risk getting sunburned.

Carb tolerance works similarly. You and your friend will be different, so it’s essential to find your personal carb tolerance, and then make food choices that help you achieve the results you want.

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Food Tips

1. Pre-plan your meals and shopping
2. Buy fresh whole foods
3. Minimise packaged & processed foods
4. Herbs & spices create flavoursome meals
5. Eat every meal from a plate
6. Don’t eat in front of TV or in the car
7. Discover your daily carb tolerance

Kitchen Tips

1. Stock fridge & pantry with low carb basics
2. Steamer & cast iron frypan
3. Sharp knives & cutting board
4. Microwave-safe containers
5. Prepare tomorrow’s lunch tonight
6. Double the recipe and freeze left-overs
7. Dishwasher! (LOL)

Sleep & Exercise Tips

1. No coffee & chocolate after noon
2. Try mineral water with lemon or lime
3. Go to bed early
4. No TV or mobile phone in your bedroom
5. Establish a consistent bed-time routine
6. Early morning walk or exercise
7. Schedule 2-3 gym sessions per week

You might be saying to yourself “Big deal I know all this stuff”. Knowing this, if you’re not happy with your current results, take advantage of our free intro session. We’ll show you the difference you can achieve with an individualised program that suits your unique body and lifestyle. Call your nearest centre today.

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The temptation factor can influence your food choices, so learn how to make it work in your favour.

Anyone falling victim to the temptation factor or with a problem giving up certain foods may want to rethink their access to those foods.

An experiment into candy consumption found that more candy is eaten when it sits in see-through bowls within arm’s reach compared to when in opaque bowls in the same location. When the candy is six feet away? Even less is eaten. See a quick video here that summarises the results. The temptation factor strongly influences behaviour.

What was surprising was that despite eating less when they had to stand up and walk to get the candy, the study participants consistently said that they ate more. It seems that the effort involved made them more aware of their eating behaviours.

So, what does this mean at home for someone trying to lose weight? Keep these temptation foods out of the house. If they’re not there, you won’t eat them.

Failing that, keep these foods

1. Stored on the top shelf of the cupboard or back of the fridge or bottom of the freezer. If they’re hard to access, you’ll eat less.
2. In opaque containers and out of the packaging which has been designed to tempt. If they’re hard to see, you’ll eat less.

Let’s look at the positive implications of this experiment. If ease of access and clear visibility can make you eat more of a food, which foods should you keep in line of sight? A bowl of vegie sticks. A fruit bowl. A small container of nuts.

Does it translate to exercise? Keeping your runners at the bedroom door might prompt you to go for an early morning walk. Laying out your gym clothes at night might help you say yes to coming to an early-morning class.

Structure your daily routines around actions and behaviours that use this knowledge of the temptation factor in your favour.

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“My weekly meal prep! On the menu this week is garlicky spinach and mushrooms with chicken and cajun spiced roast cauliflower, carrots and portabello mushrooms. Yum! Make sure you set aside just a few hours to prepare and plan delicious food for you to to grab ‘n’ go during the busy week. You will be grateful you did!” Ellissa-Mae, Health Coach at Prospect, SA

This is one of the secrets to being able to stick to your healthy eating plan. The saying “Fail to plan plan to fail” is true when it comes to changing eating habits. Without planning, motivation and conscious thought is required to create suitable meals. This is all well and good when you’re just starting, or when there are limited stresses in your life, or when time is plentiful.

But what happens if these ideal conditions do not apply?

We often see people start out well and get great results, only to find their weight loss slows and motivation drops as time passes. The problem is not with the program or with the person’s body; it’s a problem of organisation. Without organisation, the person ends up ‘winging it’ and, eventually, falling back into old habits.

Think about this scenario: You’re driving home from work at 6pm on a Tuesday night. You need to feed the family, get a child to soccer training at 7pm, feed the pets, water the garden and get at least one load of washing on the line. Just reading the list might be enough to create a little panic response, so something has to give.

Without weekend planning (and preparation), it’s likely that you’ll stop at a take-away and buy dinner. This might be OK if you weren’t trying to lose weight!

Imagine a different weekend, one where you thought ahead and knew that Tuesday night would be problematic. What to do?

“50 Shades of Green!! Cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, steamed greens, kale chips, parsley & basil pesto, salad bases (shredded cabbage, lettuce & cucumber).” Prospect, SA

Here are some of the strategies that I use to ensure the family eats well every day:

• Think about the week ahead and determine which meals can be prepared on the day, and which need advance preparation.
• Write a detailed shopping list – and remember to take it to the supermarket! Shop from the list. (I only shop once each week, but it’s fine if you have time and motivation to shop more frequently. Just ensure it’s always with a plan and a list.)
• Store the foods that will be prepared on the day they will be eaten. Keep out the foods that will be prepared now.
• Prepare and cook a variety of foods at once: A rump roast, a whole chicken, a tray of vegetables, and a frittata or breakfast muffins all fit in the oven together – I just need to remember the timing on each one.
• Use the slow cooker year round. It surprisingly does not heat the house up (like the oven would) in summer, so pulled pork can be prepared in the morning and eaten in the evening – with very little total time spent.
• Lay out a number of small and 1 large container and make salads for the week.
• Chop up vegie sticks, ready for a quick snack. Pre-slice some cheese (or buy it sliced) so it’s ready to grab. This works especially well for kids who can’t be bothered, or are too young, to cut their own food.

Enlisting this type of strategy not only ensures you have great food on hand for the week, it also saves time. Many of us are time-poor, so it makes sense to allocate an hour or two, once a week, for meal prep so that you save an hour every night.

For recipes or more ideas, talk to the Health Coaches in your nearest Healthy Inspirations centre.

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“Consumption of free sugars, including products like sugary drinks, is a major factor in the global increase of people suffering from obesity and diabetes,” said Dr. Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO’s Department for the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases.

It’s not just the WHO proposing initiatives such as this. Social media is abuzz with groups like That Sugar Film, SugarByHalf, and SUGARbriety, amongst myriad others, are strong advocates for reducing the amount of sugar we consume.

It seems that those most vehemently opposed to the introduction of a tax are companies which rely on sugar in the manufacturing of their products, and those most addicted to the products that would be taxed.

A report last month said “British Sugar… has teamed up with a number of industry associations, including the British Soft Drinks Association, the British Beer & Pub Association, and the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, to call on the Government to scrap the tax.”

Their fear was the job losses the tax would create. Interestingly, we are now seeing major soft drink manufacturers making significant changes to their offerings. Coca Cola, for example, has an extensive range of bottled water for sale around the world. Perhaps the job loss fears are unfounded if the company is willing to expand their offerings. If not, perhaps they will go the way of Kodak, who refused to adapt for the digital market.

Sugar taxes have been implemented in the UK (March 2016) and Mexico (2014). In Mexico, the tax was a paltry 0.6 cents per litre, according to a study in the British Medical Journal, but it resulted in a 6% drop in the sale of sugary drinks and a 4% rise in the sale of water and other non-taxed drinks. Perhaps the tax is working, and other countries are following suit.

The fight against Type 2 Diabetes and obesity should not stop at the introduction of a sugar tax. Blaming one ingredient – albeit a damaging one – for the dramatic rise in these health conditions is too simplistic. Added sugar is not the only problem.

Diets high in processed foods (many of which contain added sugars) and low in fresh produce, eating too much, having the wrong macronutrient balance for the body, inactivity, stress, poor sleep patterns, gut microbiome issues and the like all contribute to society’s general state of unwellness.

We might be living longer, but we’re certainly not living ‘weller’. The WHO also advices the subsidy of fresh fruit and vegetables by 10-30% and encouraging public support for sugar taxes. If the sugar tax is used to fund obesity prevention programs, as has been done in Mexico, the public tend to be more supportive.

It remains to be seen how long it takes for countries like Australia and New Zealand to tax sugar, but it seems fairly certain that it eventually will happen.

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