by Louise Mclean, LCCH.
There have been thousands of articles written on this subject but I would like to tell you what I did to get slim and stay slim!
When I was a teenager in the mid-1960s, there was a fashion model icon named Twiggy, who was terribly thin and we female teenagers all wanted to look like her! Years later, I realised that being so thin was actually not at all attractive and in fact quite ugly. It made us look as though we were suffering from malnutrition and many girls became ill on the extreme diets they went on!
I understand some people for different reasons decide to go on a fast in order to detox their bodies, where they just drink water and eat fruit. In the short term there is nothing wrong with this, as long as it does not continue for more than a few days. I am talking about women who want to be very thin and starve themselves to achieve this.
For many years after Twiggy was in Vogue, the fashion for thin women continued. It was a pity to lose all those feminine curves. For older women, this kind of diet can have an aging effect on their faces.
So on the starvation diet, I would lose weight fast and then of course my willpower would desert me, I would be really hungry and I would put all the weight back on plus more! I also noticed that every time I did this diet, the weight would come off more slowly than the time before.
Anyway, I realised that if I was going on all these starve diets, I really needed to know which super healthy low calorie foods I should be eating. I came across this book, Let's Get Well by Adele Davis, which is still available today. At the back it lists every food and which vitamins and minerals they all contain. This helped me to make sure I was getting enough of them on my low calorie diet.
It is very bad for your body to yoyo like this, as your stomach shrinks when you starve yourself and expands when you overeat. Yet the body thrives on a regular diet with regular meal times, where the size of your stomach remains constant and you always know when you have eaten enough. This is the first goal you need to achieve, where you never overeat and you have no desire to do so. Try eating more slowly, as this will help and also is much better for your digestion.
Eventually after years of dieting and counting calories (!) one day I realised that all I had to do if I wanted to be slim was to simply eat Natural Foods. This means no synthetic or processed foods whatsoever.
So you can eat meat, fish, seafood, eggs, all cheeses, all vegetables including potatoes, all salad foods, all fruits, all nuts. (This is not a Keto diet!) For people who want to eat bread, yes, you can. Just eat sourdough bread which is very digestible and more healthy than other breads. If you buy organic whole wheat flour, you can maybe make your own bread. I only eat butter and have never eaten margarine, which I do not recommend.
In addition, you can have chocolate but only the very dark at least 70% chocolate and I eat the Green & Black one, but I only have about 3 small squares of it after supper. In the old days, I would want to eat the whole bar but I learnt to remind myself, that if I had a little, there would still be lots left for tomorrow!
You can also have a glass of red or white wine but only one glass or one beer. It is horrible having to give up everything for a diet! That's what puts people off!
If you desperately want cake, you can make one with organic whole wheat flour but without very sweet icing on it. Sugar is not good for us and I only use organic coconut Sugar which is great.
The problem with most of our biscuits, cakes and bread is that it is made with genetically modified flour, which is not at all good for your body. I buy organic digestive biscuits. If you are in the UK you can get them from Waitrose made by Dove Farm. This brand also makes spelt flour, and I still need to try making a spelt loaf, as it is delicious. In the UK you can get Duchy whole wheat organic flour from Waitrose but you can also get these things from a good independent health shop.
Yes, I know these things are more expensive but remember you are going to be eating less! What you put in your body is so important because you literally are what you eat!
However, the point I am trying to make is that a diet doesn't mean you have to give up everything you like eating! It always seemed that way to me in the past. You can have the things you like but just make sure you get the organic version and you do need to train yourself not to eat too much. Start to seriously identify which is real food and which is not. You will find that eating these kinds of foods will fill you up but they are healthy and good for you. They contains vitamins and minerals necessary for your body.
Now I always make a joke that if everything in the supermarket was priced in relation to how many vitamins and minerals were in it, most of the products would be free! Sadly our foods and drinks are full of very nasty additives, which our bodies do not know how to break down or digest and they often end up as excess fat.
Diet coke is an example. It is full of aspartame, which is very bad for you and it does not help you to lose weight. In fact most people I know who take it are fatter than ever, so it makes me wonder. In addition I met a diet coke addict who ended up in a wheelchair. All the so called Soda drinks are full of sugar and unfortunately we really should not be drinking them, as sugar feeds cancer or causes diabetes. Better to drink mineral water or pure fruit juice mixed with mineral water.
There are laboratories that make food additives, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, dyes, amino acids. Many of these are not at all good to eat and bad for the body. They come in lots of products in the supermarket, especially heat up meals and jars of sauce. Some of these additives have been created to be addictive because the food companies want you to keep buying their products!
Unfortunately if you want to eat healthily, you will need to cook things from scratch yourself, so then you know exactly what is in your meals!
You can have pasta but I would avoid pizza which has lots of additives. If you make pasta, try to buy the organic pasta and I do not eat any of the pasta sauces in bottles. You do not know what additives are in them. It is quite easy to make a pasta sauce using tomato juice as a base and adding tomatoes or vegetables. I do add basil pesto to mine, as well as olives and even grated cheese. For cheese, try to not to buy the very processed types. Of course Parmesan cheese is lovely with pasta, you don't need much and it will last for ages in the fridge.
Things don't always have to be expensive. You can make an aubergine curry by frying the pieces in coconut oil and then putting the curry ingredients in. I buy organic brown rice to eat with curry, which is very nutritious and full of vitamin B for the nerves. You can also make soups by boiling up vegetables, blending them, then adding salt, pepper, even a bit of organic cream! I buy organic Kallo stock cubes.
For salt, never use table salt which contains anti-caking agent and is very bad for us. I use Himalayan crystal salt but sea salt is also good.
We are told to avoid seed oils, which are very bad for us, people use them for cooking and they come in lots of different products. I only use a good quality olive oil for frying and cooking, except when I use coconut oil.
Yoghourt is delicious but I am very wary of the fruit yoghourts, which contain high fructose corn syrup. I buy organic plain full fat Greek yoghourt, add a teaspoon of organic strawberry jam (or whatever jam you like best), stir it in and there is your fruit yoghourt that you know exactly what is in it. Takes only a minute to make. I don't worry about 'full fat' products. We need fat and it is not fattening!
As regards milk, we buy the organic whole milk containing cream. The ordinary kind may contain hormones given to the cows. I do like my Earl Grey tea with milk and put one small teaspoon of coconut sugar in it.
I know it is like a minefield trying to avoid dangerous foodstuffs but over time you will get good at it! Getting the Adele Davis book above is a good start, especially if you want to know which foods contain the most vitamins and minerals!
The worst thing about dieting is feeling as though you have to go without, but later you will realise clearly that some of the things you have been eating, are horrible and bad for you. Dieting can mean that you think of nothing else but food, which makes it more difficult. Once you are in the right habits that will stop.
I would also recommend not weighing yourself every day but maybe once a week. It can become obsessive. Better to judge your weight loss by how your clothes fit!
So the way to get slim and stay slim is basically avoid all synthetic, processed or junk food. Eat only real food and try not to overeat. This way you will lose the kilos slowly (which is the best way to keep them off for good) and eventually reach your target weight. You will also feel much better if you eat healthy food. It doesn't have to be boring and you don't have to feel deprived. Eventually, it will become a way of life and then you will always be slim!
