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Healthy Weight Loss

This section contains practical hints and tips for finding your healthy weight and keeping it for life.

Golden Rule:

If the amount of energy (calories) in your diet is greater than the energy you expend, the excess will be stored in your body as fat, whatever type of food it came from. To lose weight you need to cut down your food intake and increase physical activity. To lose 1lb per week you need to use 3500 calories more than you eat.

Eating and weight gain

Lots of us eat too much not because we’re hungry but for other reasons: boredom, habit, eat too fast, comfort …

Learn to recognize the difference and eat more sensibly

You can outsmart a weight plateau

Setting Weight loss goals

Weight loss is a marathon - not a sprint. That's why it's important to set weight loss goals...

Meal replacements can be a great short term weight loss tool

Healthy Meals

Advice on a balance diet, calorie information for common foods, reduce fat, suggested recipes, etc

If  you’re a busy working person and don’t have time for weighing foods or putting recipes together, try this simple eating plan.

Choose one breakfast, one lunch, one dinner and one snack each day from the list .

Have an extra ½ pint of skimmed milk each day to add to tea and coffee, or just as a drink.

Fill up on fruit and vegetables – have five portions every day (potatoes don’t count).

Drink eight glasses of water daily to fill you up and aid hydration.

BREAKFAST

Toast – with low-fat spread and Marmite, peanut butter or just simply low-fat spread. Plus one glass of orange juice.

Fresh fruit – 1 orange, 1 pear, 1 apple, 1 peach and a handful of strawberries. (Eat these on the go while making the kids breakfast).

Scrambled egg – 1 slice of wholemeal bread with 1tsp low-fat spread, 1 egg and 1 grilled tomato, 1 apple.

Cereal – Low-fat cereal such as Special K with skimmed milk.

LUNCH

Ready-made sandwich – Choose a 300 calorie sandwich with wholegrain bread and a low-fat filling. Try to eat tomato and some lettuce with it.

Sardines on toast – 2 slices wholemeal toast with ½ small can sardines in tomato sauce. Have a small pot of fat-free fruit yoghurt afterwards.

Chicken Salad – 1 grilled skinless chicken breast with 5 new potatoes boiled in their skins. Plus salad.

Low-fat Soup – One bowl with chunk of wholemeal bread. Have a fat-free fruit yoghurt afterwards.

DINNERS

Salmon Steak – Serve 1 poached, grilled or baked salmon steak with lightly-steamed vegetables.

Roast Pork – Serve 3 thin slices of lean roast pork with 5 new potatoes roasted in 1tsp olive oil, vegetables and fat-free gravy. Plus an apple.

Spaghetti Bolognese – Dry-fry extra lean minced beef until brown. Add ½ sliced onion, 1 sliced carrot, 1 crushed garlic clove and a handful of mushrooms. Cook for a few minutes. Add 1 small can of tomatoes, 1tbsp tomato puree and mixed herbs and cook for a few minutes. Serve with a small portion of  wholemeal spaghetti.

Steak and Salad – Grill or griddle a medium lean sirloin steak, 1 halved tomato and a handful of  mushrooms. Plus an apple.

Exercise

It doesn’t mean joining the gym, lycra and pumping iron, suggested changes to help you increase your activity and shed the pounds

The four key steps to weight maintenance