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UK Diet Page 7
This page contains Anne’s advice on Sensible Eating (part two).

SENSIBLE EATING (part two)

2. EAT LOTS OF FRUIT & VEGETABLES
These foods are packed with nutrition and contain minuscule amounts of fat. So BUY LOTS!

I recommend a daily quota of:
3 helpings of vegetables (or salad), plus
1 helping of potatoes, rice or pasta, plus
4-5 helpings of fruit.

WHY?
Because the more fruit and vegetables you eat, the less fat and sugar you’ll want.
Because regular consumption of fruit & vegetables is your best natural protection against colds and flu, as well as serious disease like cancer and coronary heart disease.

Ideally buy fresh fruit & vegetables, although frozen or tinned varieties can be just as good.
Buy plenty of green leafy vegetables, especially spinach.
Buy plenty of fresh garlic, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, watercress, courgettes, onions, beetroot, parsley, fresh ginger and anything else you can think of.
Buy plenty of oranges, lemons, melons, mangoes, apricots, peaches, pineapples, kiwi fruit, pears, prunes, blackcurrants, strawberries, gooseberries, bananas and anything else you can think of.
Buy lots of salad: include tomatoes, beetroot, sweetcorn, chopped onions, chopped potato, cucumber, a few olives, pineapple chunks, lettuce and anything else you can think of. Add extra flavour by adding (e.g.) chilli sauce, lemon juice, low-fat dressing and spices.

Do you hate green vegetables?
Then hide their taste inside a delicious home-made soup.
Or make lots of casseroles! The flavour of the meat makes all the vegetables taste great!

Do you hate peeling oranges? Do you dislike big pieces of fruit?
Then squeeze them! Add diet lemonade for extra fizz!
Then chop them into smaller pieces and eat separately or add to cereal or yogurt.
Add chopped fresh fruit or canned fruit to stews and stir-fries.

You can’t eat 9 helpings of fruit & vegetables every day? Oh Yes you can! It’s easy…
Having spent a large part of my life helping slimmers to change their eating habits for the better, I assure you that eating more fruit and vegetables is not only easy – it becomes very enjoyable. For instance, here is one example of the sort of daily menu that you might eat.

TASTE – the big weight-loss benefit of eating lots of fruit & vegetables
When we are overweight and eating lots of junk, we can’t enjoy food unless it’s covered in fat – like, butter, mayo, cream etc. But eating lots of fruit & vegetables helps us to change our tastes, thus making it easier to lose weight.

QUICK TIP No 28 – YOU’RE NOT HELPLESS
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a young girl called Libby. She was slim, beautiful and very happy. Then she got married, had three children and put on 3 stone. By the time she was 35, she was fat, shapeless and fed up. Every day she looked in the mirror and thought: ‘I’ve got to lose weight’. But every day there were so many things to do that by the time she was finished, she was in no mood to think about slimming. But this didn’t stop her worrying about her weight. In fact, she worried constantly. So even though she coped wonderfully well with the rest of her life, when it came to slimming she felt a complete failure. Result? She ate even more rubbish, put on even more weight and received even less respect from those around her. It was a trap from which there was no escape – or so she thought. Then one day, a friend told her about an old woman who lived in the big city, across the river. Known simply as VJ, she was rumoured to have magical powers. Even the king consulted her, it was said. When Libby heard this, she was over the moon. Perhaps this mysterious woman could help her to lose weight. So the following Monday, she took the coach to the city and by nightfall she was standing outside a large oak door inscribed with the initials VJ. Taking a deep breath, she knocked and entered. VJ was sitting by the fire. When she saw Libby, she smiled and gestured to her. ‘Come in child’ she said. ‘Come over here by the fire and tell me what’s bothering you.’ So Libby did. She told the old woman how she hated being fat, but how incapable she was of doing anything about it. ‘I’m so weak-willed’ she sobbed. ‘I must be the most useless individual in the whole world. Now no one takes me seriously, not even my husband. I’m so miserable. ‘
‘Please don’t be upset, my dear’ said VJ. ‘You may be overweight but you’re still a very lucky woman. I know lots of women who would give anything to be in your shoes.’ ‘I don’t care how lucky I am!’ wailed Libby. ‘I want to be slim! Please help me!’ The old woman squeezed Libby’s hand. ‘OK’ she said softly, ‘wait here for a moment and I’ll fetch you something.’ She got up and left for a few moments and when she returned she was holding a small flask filled with a green liquid. ‘Here’ she said, ‘take four drops of this, every day, for a week. It should do the trick.’ Libby went home bursting with optimism. Her weight problem was over. The old woman had cured her! The moment she got home she took the flask and measured out four drops. She repeated the dose each morning for the next six days and on the seventh day she woke up with a terrible shock. She was blind! It must have been the green liquid. But why would VJ want to make her blind? Then it dawned on her. It was VJ’s way of showing her that being fat is a lot easier to cope with than being blind. Libby buried her head in the pillow and wept tears of regret. If only she had understood this before, she would never have felt so helpless about her weight. She would have done something about it! Now it was too late. She was blind for life.
But Libby got a second chance. Two days later, her sight returned and from that moment on, she vowed never to make excuses about why she couldn’t lose weight. Never again would she feel helpless about her size. She would start a new diet and this time she would follow it until she was slim. So she did, and ten months later, she was a lovely size 10.

3. EAT LOTS OF HUNGER – BUSTERS
A full stomach is your best protection against junk food like candy or take-outs. Why? Because when you’re full of food, you’re less tempted to nibble. Let me put it another way – hunger makes us fat!

Unfortunately, most slimmers still think that losing weight means eating less – that’s why most of them give up dieting and stay fat. But losing weight doesn’t mean eating less: it means eating differently.

The best hunger busters
Include: bread, bread rolls, cereals, potatoes, pasta, rice and beans.

Best choices

• Wholemeal or Wholegrain bread; plain bread rolls. Eat LOTS of sandwiches!
• Any bran-based cereal, Shredded Wheat, Weetabix or any other low-fat brand without added sugar.
• Any low-fat, low-sugar muesli (check label).
• Tip! Add wheatgerm to your cereal. It’s a wonderful health-food!
• Boiled or baked potatoes – or, sauté in non-fat liquid in non-stick pan.
• Wholemeal pasta, or any plain packet variety. (Avoid filled, or luxury pastas).
• Brown rice is ten times better than white rice.
• Beans – choose red beans, white beans, black-eyed beans, pinto beans, low-sugar baked beans, chick peas & lentils. For convenience, choose the canned varieties, and spice with chilli-sauce, low-fat yogurt, soy sauce, diced onions/chillies or lemon juice. Add to casseroles, or serve on the side.

Be very careful about adding fat to these hunger-busters
Don’t add butter, cream, mayo, full-fat milk! Choose fat-free add-ons.
To bread, you may add a light covering of low-fat spread. But keep it light!
To cereal, add only skimmed milk.

Hunger-busters are good for health
As well as filling us up, these foods help to protect against a number of digestive complaints like constipation, diverticular disease, as well as diabetes and gall-stones. In addition, they seem to protect us (both directly and indirectly) against heart disease and several cancers.

QUICKTIP No 29 – COUNTING CALORIES IS NOT ENOUGH
Counting calories is not enough. Why not? Because calorie-counting only helps us to lose weight – it doesn’t help us to stay healthy. You can count all the calories you like, but it won’t ensure you eat a balanced diet or develop long term healthy eating habits. That’s why this diet talks about fat, instead of calories, and includes so much information about food, cooking & shopping. It’s designed to help you to lose weight and stay healthy.

4. EAT LESS SUGAR
Pound for pound, processed sugar is relatively high in calories. In addition, it’s almost valueless as a food. It provides us with virtually no nutrients, so if we stopped eating it tomorrow we wouldn’t be any less nourished. I’m not suggesting that you stop eating sugar overnight (and using artificial sweeteners has proved to be no better for weight-loss), but you must moderate your intake. Fortunately, although half the sugar we consume is added to food by the manufacturers, the other half is self-administered so it’s under our control.

Suggestions:
Reduce the amount of sugar you add to your tea and coffee.
Don’t add sugar to your cereal.
Avoid frosted cereals or any cereal/ muesli with added sugar.
Eat canned fruit packed in natural juice, not syrup.
Choose fruit juices with only 100% juice.
Avoid non-diet soft drinks. Instead, enjoy diet drinks/minerals or unsweetened fruit juice.
Avoid so-called treats like biscuits, chocolates and cakes. If you feel like something sweet, eat some bread and jam.
Start reading food labels and choose brands with less sugar.

QUICKTIP No 30 – TALK YOURSELF SLIM
Take two daughters. Give one lots of encouragement. Praise her on her schoolwork, praise her looks and forecast a successful future for her. To the other, say only negative things. Criticise her work, criticise her looks and forecast nothing but failure. Question: What effect will your words have on these two girls? Answer: a huge effect! The first daughter will probably grow up confident, positive and afraid of nothing. The second will probably grow up to be very unsure of herself. She will have doubts about her looks, her abilities and her future. Probable result? The first daughter will find life easy while the second will struggle. All because one was praised, while the other was criticised. See how powerful words are! They change us completely. They can fill us full of confidence or full of doubt. And they are particularly important when it comes to losing weight. You see, when we’re fat, we often have a low opinion of ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are a failure. And after we’ve said it enough times, we end up believing it. So when we try to lose weight, we are beaten before we start. We are so convinced that we’re a failure that we never put our heart into it.
Well girls, it’s time to change! Instead of telling yourself all this negative rubbish, I want you to say something positive, for a change. For example, say this to yourself: “I want to be slim. So I am going to start a sensible diet and learn some new eating habits. And if I have a problem day, I’ll stop dieting until the problem passes and then I’ll start again. And nothing is going to stop me, because I am strong enough to succeed.”
You see, words change us. And it doesn’t matter who says them. As long as we hear them often enough, we end up believing them. And don’t imagine for one moment that it’s not going to work. This technique is used every day all over the world to persuade people to change their habits. You may have heard of it. It’s called advertising!

5. TOOL UP!
You won’t eat sensibly unless you have the right equipment. So please acquire the following:

A blender for making home-made soups and smoothies.
A juicer for squeezing oranges.
A big chopping board – flat (no grooves), plastic (for easy cleaning) and a set of sharp knives.
A good (i.e. heavy) set of non-stick pans, with wooden/plastic spoons.
A family-size casserole dish.
A spice rack, or something similar – for easy access to spices.
Lots of freezer containers & freezer-bags for freezing left-overs.

Never mind the cost
Apart from breathing, eating sensibly is the most important activity in your life. So don’t make the mistake of skimping on the above equipment. You won’t spend a more sensible pound in your life!

QUICKTIP No 31 – EVERY DAY EATING HABITS MAKE US FAT
It’s not the occasional blow-out that makes us fat, it’s our regular daily habits! So if you look after your daily habits, the occasional treats won’t matter.