Satisfying AND slimming dinners

ON A COLD winter’s evening, nothing is guaranteed to win over the whole family more than a steaming dish of spicy chicken and chickpea, or aromatic spinach and paneer curry.

Even better, these tempting dinners are less than 400 calories a serving, means they can help you to achieve your weight-loss and health goals.

In Saturday’s Weekend magazine and all this week, we have given you a toolkit based on my new Fast 800 Health Journal, with recipes to help you break unhealthy eating patterns, lose weight successfully and keep it off.

But we realise how important it is to have something tasty and sustaining to look forward to after a long day. That’s why, today, we’re focusing on delicious dinner suggestions — which include non-curry recipes too — that won’t take forever to make.

What you eat is important, but how and when you sit down for the final meal of the day can have a big impact on how easily you lose weight and on your general health, too.

We’ve already seen how valuable it is to leave gaps between meals and avoid snacking wherever possible.

But it’s also vital not to eat late at night. This is because the longer you leave your overnight fast, the better it is for your weight loss and health.

Pioneering scientific research by Dr Satchin Panda, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, in the US, has shown that extending your overnight fast to ten to 12 hours not only encourages your body to burn fat more efficiently but also helps it to start ‘spring cleaning’ and repairing damaged cells.

This led Dr Panda to develop the Time Restricted Eating (TRE) regime, which we’ve been advising you to try this week.

Start by trying to confine eating to a 12-hour daily window. This means if you have breakfast at 8am, you’ll need to be eating your dinner at 8pm.

You can drink plenty of water or herbal tea after this, but nothing else until morning.

Record how long you go without food in your Health Journal — there’s a weekly weight log to fill in overleaf.

Making your healthy eating habits a natural part of family life will also help you to achieve your weight-loss and health goals.

There’s no need to isolate yourself on the Fast 800 diet — as our delicious recipes, based on a wholesome Mediterranean-style diet rich in protein, vegetables, whole grains, good-quality fats and legumes, will be satisfying for the whole family.

You can adapt them by adding extra portions for hungry teens or partners who do not want — or need — to lose weight.

Sitting down to a meal as a family can help everyone to handle the stresses of daily life by talking over recent events or simply enjoy each other’s company.

Family meals also promote mindful eating — and more sensible eating habits — which in turn can help with weight loss and control. And after you’ve all enjoyed a wholesome, healthy dinner together, there will be other hands ready to help with the washing up.

For more support, visit thefast800.com. Instagram: #drclarebailey