DIET CHEAT SHEET TO FIGHT FESTIVE FLAB
The weather’s turned tolerable, the festive and wedding season has begun and most of us are inundated with invites that promise fun, liberally tempered with fattening food and drink.
For many of us, the annual weight gain — usually about 1 kg — happens in the last two months of the year, with those who are overweight putting on more weight, found a study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2013.
You can, however, avoid the festive flab by using these cheats to negotiate high-calorie pitfalls over the next three months.
‘No added sugar’ doesn’t mean ‘no sugar’. Foods that claim to contain no sugar or artificial sweeteners may not have table sugar (sucrose), but could have other natural sweeteners (fructose, dextrose, dextrine, malitol and high fructose corn syrup) that widen waistlines. Go for products labelled ‘no added natural and artificial sweeteners’. While artificial sweeteners are low in calories, they do not satisfy the brain’s sugar cravings that make you feel full, reported researchers in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. This leads to increased appetite and cravings for sugary food, so if you have cravings, don’t give up completely on sugar and carbs.
Cholesterol free isn’t fat free. Foods that are free of cholesterol may be full of other artery-blocking and high-calorie unhealthy fats that go under harmless sounding labels such as edible oils, vegetable oil, partially hydrogenated oil or fats. All these labels are euphemisms for trans fats, which is as efficient in blocking arteries as bad cholesterol (lowdensity lipoprotein), which is found only in food from animal sources, such as meats, eggs, butter, full-fat milk, cheese and ghee.
Like many foods with artificial sweeteners, a lot of so-called low-fat and fat-free foods are packaged, processed and offer lower carbs and calories, but not much else in terms of nutrition. The exception is low-fat yoghurt, low-fat cheese and low-fat milk, but make sure they have no sugar added.
Shun packaged, processed foods. Even packaged foods labelled ‘100% natural’ are very often high in calories. Unless eaten in the raw form, most packaged foods contain high amounts of sugar, sodium and fats, including fattening trans fats, and may even have permissible artificial colouring and preservatives. Fresh, whole foods — fruits, vegetables and whole grains — on the other hand, are low in calories and give you all the essential protein, fibre and vitamins needed. If you’re looking for organic, however, insist on certified products.
Go natural. You’re best off eating foods that are naturally low-fat, such as vegetables, fruits and whole grains loaded with vitamins, minerals and fibre. Add a sprinkling of dried fruits, nuts and seeds, all of which are packed with healthy fats and fibre that make you feel full and eat less through the day. Always go for clear soups as fattening cream and cornflour is used to thicken them. Salads that come drizzled with creamy and rich dressing often pack in several hundred avoidable calories, so opt for low-cal dressings like lemon, balsamic, honeymustard or vinaigrette. Don’t go for seconds. Closely watch how much you eat and make it a rule not to go for seconds, especially when eating out. Most of us tend to overeat when we go out because we’ve paid for the meal and don’t want good food to be binned. Don’t be embarrassed to get leftovers doggy-bagged. You’ll not only do your waistline a favour but also save yourself the trouble of cooking a meal.
Go easy on alcohol and juices. On average, you should not have more than one alcoholic drink a day if you’re a woman and two if you’re a man — a portion size is 330 ml (one can or small bottle) for beer and 150 ml for wine (one bottle has five portions of wine). Two or more glasses of drinks, including wine, flavoured yoghurt, smoothies and non-sweetened fruit juices, have calories equal to a pizza slice. Since these are usually accompaniments to a meal, you end up having 300 to 500 extra calories per day that you often forget to factor in your carefully crafted diet plan.
And if you do put on a kg or two, don’t worry. Most low-cal weight-loss plans typically equal 800 calories a day, and can safely be followed intermittently — say once a week every two months — if you don’t have a medical condition such as diabetes. This, along with a little exercise, can help you lose 2 kg or more a month, so don’t let weight gain come in the way of a good time as long as you are ready to work a little to lose it after the party is over.