Hurrah! No carbs are off limits...

FOR THOSE who can’t imagine life without carbs you may be wondering — with a heavy heart — whether you can bear to give them up in order to lose weight and transform your health. Well the good news is that, with the revolutionary new WW programme, you don’t have to.

Not only that, but you could soon be enjoying a nutritionally balanced food plan that’s been tailor-made to include favourites such as potatoes, wholegrain rice and wholewheat pasta as ZeroPoint foods, thanks to WW’s groundbreaking PersonalPoints programme. This means you could enjoy them freely without weighing or measuring — and still lose up to 2lb a week.

‘No foods are off limits,’ says Jess O’Shea, a nutritionist at WW.

‘Our PersonalPoints programme has been designed to fit in with your lifestyle. That includes letting you select foods you can’t live without — including potatoes, wholegrain rice and wholewheat pasta — to base your meals around. It’s all part of our pioneering new programme that guides you to take control of your own health — eating well, moving more, thinking positively and sleeping better — with no restrictions and no rules about what’s off limits.’

In fact, the PersonalPoints programme actively encourages you to eat more high-fibre foods of all varieties — including wholewheat pasta, wholegrain rice, legumes, pulses and vegetables — because research shows that fibre is vital to good health.

So now, for instance, while 100g of cooked white penne pasta has four PersonalPoints and cannot be selected as a ZeroPoint food, the same-sized serving of wholewheat pasta — which is healthier and higher in fibre — has just three. Or you’re free to choose it as one of your ZeroPoint foods if you wish.

A high-fibre diet can reduce the chances of premature death by up to 30 per cent, according to a landmark review commissioned by the World Health Organisation in 2019.

Eating more high-fibre foods, such as wholegrains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, also reduces the chances of suffering heart disease, stroke, colorectal cancer and type 2 diabetes.

The review, published in The Lancet, suggests that if 1,000 people switched from a low-fibre diet (less than 15g) to a high-fibre diet (between 25 and 29g), 13 deaths and six cases of heart disease per thousand would be prevented. The analysis found a 15-30per cent reduction in deaths from all causes, and a 16-24 per cent reduction in cases of coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer. ‘Fibre is found in plant foods such as fruits, vegetables, dried peas, nuts and lentils. For a healthy digestive system you need fibre from a variety of sources,’ explains Jess O’Shea. ‘Many foods that are rich in fibre are also nutrient-dense, containing additional vitamins and minerals that contribute to good health,’ she adds.