TOPLINE WELLNESS Calorie shaving
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Outline Struggling to zip up your jeans after a sangria-fuelled summer? Rather than embarking on a drastic diet that will inevitably fail, the answer could lie in calorie shaving: tiny tweaks to your daily routine that will help you shed the pounds over time.
Waistline
The idea that small but consistent changes to your food intake can have a big impact on weight is supported by recent research from the University of Oxford. Experimenting with the layout of takeaway delivery apps, the researchers found that people were more likely to choose less calorific meals after a few subtle menu tweaks. Such as? Simply positioning lower-calorie foods more prominently. Or describing a portion as ‘regular’ rather than ‘small.’
‘This doesn’t mean we always have to swap pizza for a green salad,’ said study lead Dr Filippo Bianchi, but these tweaks ‘could help to slowly reduce obesity, if delivered at scale’.
Thin line
Takeaways are an obvious area in which to tackle reducing calorie intake – around half the takeout options from major restaurant chains contain 1,000 calories or more per portion. Swap thick-crust pizza for thin-crust and you’ll save 100 calories; on curry night choose plain steamed rice over eggfried, sticky or pilau options to eliminate up to 200 calories from your meal.
Decline
Say no to 300 calories a day and you’ll lose a pound every 11 days, says nutritionist Sam Rice. Look at what you eat regularly and think: how can I fine-tune this? If a latte every
morning is your unthinking go-to, swap it for a lighter option, say a white americano.
Firing line How you cook it is every bit as important as what you eat. One tablespoon of cooking oil equals 100 calories; a spritz of oil spray is one calorie. Replacing traditional fats could save up to 300 calories per portion.
Guideline The good news is that the calorie content labels on foods can be misleading. According to nutritional scientist Dr Sarah Berry on the Zoe podcast, the Atwater system, used by food manufacturers to work out the calorie content, doesn’t account for the fact that your body doesn’t absorb all the calories available.
Slimline Some foods – nuts, say – might not deliver as many calories as you’d expect (Dr Berry cites a study where ‘about 30 per cent of the calories from nuts were actually coming out in the poo’). Choosing whole nuts over chopped or ground alternatives will help cut down your intake, even if the packet says they are equal in calories. With whole nuts, less of the available energy is absorbed by your body.
Draw the line Don’t eat too late in the day. A trial published in the journal Cell Metabolism last year compared two groups eating the same meals over a six-day period, the first group ate at 8am, noon and 4pm, and the second group four hours later. Those who ate later reported double the hunger, burned 60 fewer calories and had lower levels of the hormone leptin, which decreases appetite.
Lay line The most relaxing way to shave calories? The humble snooze. Researchers at the University of Chicago found that adding an hour of sleep per night burned around
270 calories daily, the equivalent of three chocolate digestives. As good an excuse to set that alarm later if ever we heard one.
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