Let’s Get Back to Ignoring our Epidemics
The COVID pandemic is thankfully nearly over, so we’ll be going back to the long-standing epidemic underpinning our susceptibility to it: the epidemic of diabetes and obesity.
According to the latest Government stats, 28% of adults in England are obese and a further 36% are overweight.
If you’re overweight, you’re more at risk of:
heart disease
stroke
diabetes
cancer
arthritis
high blood pressure
Losing weight helps to prevent and control these diseases.
BUT it is important to know that fast weight loss and fad diets do not result in healthy, lasting weight loss.
Here are some tips to achieve healthy, long term weight loss:
1. Do not starve yourself
Rate your hunger level out of 5, where 5 is really hungry and 1 is not hungry. Eat at hunger level 3 or 4. Leave it until you hit 5 and you’ll overeat and end up making bad food choices.
2. Drop weight loss as a goal
Make your goals about health habits, healthy behaviour and eating really really well at every meal. Goals around weight loss keep you stuck in diet mentality and end up with over-restriction when you haven’t lost weight for whatever reason.
Keep your goals realistic. You might set a goal to drink 2 litres of water every day and eat half a plate of greens at lunch and dinner. Have a mindset that you want to eat healthy to stay healthy for the rest of your life.
Remember, a truly healthy meal makes you feel good before you eat it, while you’re eating it and after you’ve eaten it.
3. Drink lots of water
Your body needs water to work properly. The end.
You know you don’t drink enough water! Get to it!
4. Avoid sugar
It’s more addictive than cocaine (for rats at least, but you get the gist). Sugar is such an amazing taste that everything else pales into insignificance when compared against it. Stop eating refined sugar, and apples taste sweet. It’s a gamechanger.
5. Eat enough fat
Eating low fat will make you permanently hungry. You need good fats for weight loss and maintenance.
Eat oily fish like mackerel, sardines, nuts and seeds and olives, which all contain good fats.
If you're struggling with weight or health problems, book in for a FREE 30 minute call with me to talk through the things you can do.
