Sunday 11 September 2011

"I am going on a diet!" - My article for www.foodforfitness.co.uk

Hi All this is the article I wrote for http://www.foodforfitness.co.uk/ incase you missed!! Tomorrows blog is all about cooking and my experiences!

Let’s be honest, how many times a year do you say that one sentence, “I’m going on a diet!”, and you mean it, you really really mean it, but as soon as the words are out of your mouth unfortunately you are kind of setting yourself up to fail! Why? Well, to go on a diet means at some stage you are planning on coming off it. The word “diet” now seems to be always associated with losing weight, fad-diets, and often, not always, dramatically changing your eating patterns and habits.




Now don’t get me wrong I have tried many “diets” and going on and off them, but now “I have a diet!” And the best thing about it is that it is simple! I eat clean 80% of the time. I am not a saint, I have human needs for chocolate, and wine and all those things we know we shouldn’t have, but most of the time, I eat clean food.



So what do I mean by clean? As I said for me it is simple, and I don’t like giving my food choice a title but i guess if you want to its, “Semi-paleo”. Feel free to Google, and you will probably find that I eat some things which are strict and miss out something that others think are part of the regime. By “clean”, I mean foods which I can look at and name all the ingredients, and as I am not the smartest bear out there, that has to be one ingredient or I get stuck. Its classic “Meat (fish) and two veg!” I don’t eat bread or pasta, not that I hate carbs, they have their place, and there place is in vegetables, for me!



My body does not like bread and pasta, I do! But my body doesn’t! By the way it took me 28 years to find this out, but once I did it made sense to me! For thousands of years man has walked on this earth, eating what he caught, and what he could pick and find, it worked for them, and we know they were stronger than modern man. They didn’t have delicious smelling warm French stick or al-dente pasta which tastes like heaven (I warned you I love these foods) so why do I need them. Simple answer, I don’t.



So I stopped eating these foods which I loved, and yes it did take will power, and yes I had the advantage of having stomach ache when I ate them , but I tell you what, when I cut them out, I lost weight! I had more energy! I felt soooo much better. And the great thing about eating clean and being “semi-paleo” is that I can still go out and have dinner with my friends, and if they decide they want a curry well then that is my naughty 20%! And even then I can say no to the rice, no to the breads!



You don’t have to GO ON a diet to lose weight, you don’t need to stop going out and having fun with your friends and family. Make small changes, see what works for you, have a salad for lunch instead of a sandwich, have strips of carrots and courgettes and runner beans instead of spaghetti with your bolognaise. Small changes are stepping stones, you take them one at a time and you reach the other side, jump and the chances are you will land in the river!



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