Why we should go on a national diet in 2018
‘High-sugar, high-fat food is pimped to us’
Food, glorious food! Oops, too soon? Sorry: I’m guessing that you’ve overshot the new 1,600-calorie edict issued by Public Health England then. No, that’s not per meal, that’s per day. Even with the promise of two healthy snacks of up to 100 calories each between meals if you’re good, that’s still a considerable lot less than most people polished off in one sitting over the festive season.
It’s that time of year, when we’re all so full to the gunwales that the Monty
Python Mr Creosote sketch starts to look suspiciously like one of those sensationalist Channel 5 documentaries you have to watch through your fingers.
We’ve all overdone it, of course we have. It’s what you’re supposed to do at Christmas: mince pies and gammon, stollen, stuffing and enough chocolate money to pay off the budget deficit.
All that remains is to finish up those leftovers – canape soup! – steel ourselves for one more blowout on Jan 1, and that’s it.
No, really. That. Is. It. We will unanimously declare that 2018 is the year we go on a diet, join the gym and attain the dream body we deserve. And a great many of us will start along the road of good intentions, spirits high, hearts full of hope, resolve untested… until we spy the first Easter eggs. That will be sooner than you might think, because they started appearing on the Co-op shelves even before Dec 25, chocolate reindeer surreally up close and personal with the spring bunnies.
You can condemn it as capitalism gone mad (which I do, because it is), you can exhort people to have more self-control (like, that’s easy), but the truth is that high-sugar, high-fat food is relentlessly pimped to us.
Most of us are hooked on sugar, junk food, processed food and fast-burning carbohydrates, which have an addictive quality that sets off pleasure centres in the primitive part of our brains that hasn’t yet adjusted to a modern world of plenty.
We are constantly being urged to give ourselves a treat. 2018 might be the Chinese Year of the Dog, but last time I checked, we didn’t need to be rewarded for not peeing on the carpet.
But we humans are very much creatures of habit, and breaking bad eating habits is not easy when surrounded by the mind-tricks of advertising, along with the cheap cost and widespread availability of biscuits, sandwiches and calorie-laden gourmet coffees.
Now, I’ve been fat and I’ve been not fat. Not fat feels nicer. Not fat feels energetic. Not fat fits clothes better and knows the difference between hunger and thirst, something a great many overweight people have forgotten.
Right now, I’m somewhere between not fat and a bit fat, and it feels really great. But I do have to stay vigilant and remind myself that I might look “normal”, but as we all expand, the new “normal” is verging on the super-sized.
Earlier this year, I had a major health shock when I was told that I was so overweight for my frame, I had a biological age of 70 (I’m 51). So I underwent a drastic diet-cum-lifestyle change in the run-up to Christmas. In less than three months, I lost 22 pounds, and my body age went down to 55. All the while, I was under the watchful eye of Professor Michael Trenell at the institute for ageing at Newcastle University.
He said he wished the body age shock tactic could be rolled out across the NHS in a bid to prevent the population from eating itself into an early grave.
It was hard work, but fascinating, too. I began to listen to my body, hydrate it, not mindlessly shove food into it. I learned to feel hungry again and be quite comfortable with the sensation; nowadays, we graze so constantly that adults react like panicky toddlers when hunger pangs strike, as though their very lives depended on cramming something, anything, immediately into their mouths. Apart from an apple, of course.
We are the fattest nation in Europe. Two thirds of us are overweight. Around 27per cent are obese. It’s not our slow metabolisms, it’s not even our lack of exercise per se – it’s all down to a doubling of portion size since the late Nineties. Dream bodies are made in the kitchen, not in a weekly spinning class. But exercise also has an important part to play.
Exercise gets us fit, stimulates our metabolism and prompts us to make better food choices; fresh fruit and vegetable consumption increases exponentially as an individual gets fitter. Psychologists link it to a phenomenon known as the “transfer effect”; learning new skills and improving one area of life triggers desire for improvements in another.
We make resolutions at New Year because we want to make our lives – ourselves – better. In theory, the transfer effect ought to mean that exercise and diet dovetail together.
Unfortunately, the £37millionworth of unused gym memberships this year will put paid to that. So what are the chances of the well-meaning but out-of-touch nanny state’s prescription of a 1,600-calorie day – 400 calories at breakfast, and 600 for lunch and supper – being a success?
Given that most of us have no idea what 600 calories look like (I’ve just Googled and it looks like pomegranate chicken and almond cous cous), I think the country will struggle.
But that’s no reason to stop trying to reduce the calorie creep (an estimated 300 extra a day) that is making us fat and eroding our health to the point where obesity-related diseases will become this century’s main killer.
It’s preventable, but how to make people understand, or even care? Thanks to my wake-up call, I’ve learned to use my fingers, thumbs, fist and palm as a fail-safe measure for protein, carbohydrate and vegetables.
Maybe if Public Health England took a practical approach, it would be more fruitful; let’s call it the “Your Health in Your Hands” campaign. We might not recognise 400 calories when we see it, but a thumb or handful of broccoli, a fistful of pasta and a fingertip of butter needs no explanation.
Bon appetit.