How’s your weight? Are you miffed with your muffin-top, beleaguered by your batwings and gutted with your, er, gut? Most people could go a long way to improving their diet and we Asians are no different. Indeed you could say that with the endless celebrations that we seem to have that we could do with a bit of a reminder about the basics of healthy eating.
Changing the way that you eat doesn’t happen overnight. There are plenty of companies out there ready to sell you solutions, but supplements and replacements are not going to help your health much in most cases and they could actually make you fatter in the long run.
Some simple tips that are less based on snakeoil ‘get thin quick’ approaches and more based on proven ways to improve your diet and wellbeing include:
Eat fresh food everyday.
Just eat as much fruit and veg as you can. Especially veg. Aim for more than 5 servings.
Drink a lot of water.
The average adult will need 1.5 to 2L of fluid at a minimum each day and another half a litre to 1L for every hour of intense physical activity. That’s a lot of water. If you can’t stand plain water then dilute cordials or hot drinks are okay.
Plan your food.
Planning what you are going to eat and packing it into a lunchbox will make you think about what you are eating. If you’ve got your healthy food ready you won’t need to visit the sweet trolley.
Eat Carbs wisely.
We need carbs but often not as many as we eat. Controlling the portions and types of carbohydrates we consume each day is the secret to success with weight loss. The type of carb matters too: the more fibre the better.
Don’t leave it till late.
Late night dinners, of particularly energy dense foods including take aways and pizza with desert mean that far too many of us are consuming too many calories too late at night. Stick to healthier options, before 7pm.
