Over 50? It’s time to ditch your dysfunctional diet

A generation of us grew up with warped eating habits, but it’s not too late to adopt a healthier approach in midlife, says Sam Rice

If you came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, you’ll no doubt recall the bonkers diet culture of that era. The Beverly Hills Diet, first published in 1981, espoused eating only grapes on a Tuesday, while the Cabbage Soup Diet – well, you can probably guess.

Meanwhile we were also encouraged to exercise to excess and unfeasibly thin body types were held up as the ultimate goal, all you needed to do was ‘feel the burn!’. Unfortunately the only thing this shrank was our self-esteem.

It’s no wonder that against this backdrop a whole generation of women, and to a lesser extent men, developed a seriously messed-up mindset when it came to food. Weight loss meant strict regimes involving serious deprivation. The phrase “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips” was the mantra.

And so food became the enemy, standing between us and our unrealistic ideals; embodied, literally, by the supermodels of the day. Happiness depended on the verdict of the bathroom scales. Speaking personally, it has taken a long time to unpick the dysfunctional food habits I collected over time – depressing meal-replacement shakes, having cereal twice a day, or otherwise existing on miserable salads.

Weight management is important for health at any stage of life, but never more so than in our middle years. A UK observational study based on the NHS records of 2.8 million people found that those defined as obese in middle age had twice the risk of high blood pressure and nearly twice the risk of heart failure than those who were not overweight. This is just one of a number of studies linking obesity to poor longterm health outcomes.

It’s never too late to rethink your relationship with food – and not just so you can get back into your old jeans. By making friends with food again, we can maximise the number of fit and active years we have ahead of us.

Here’s how you can reset your midlife food mindset.

FOCUS ON WEIGHT MANAGEMENT NOT WEIGHT LOSS

Trying to lose weight can seem like the dietary equivalent of scaling Mount Everest, a one-off gargantuan effort so that you can finally stick your flag on that mythical spot known as your “target weight”.

But studies have shown that when it comes to losing weight and, more importantly, keeping it off, consistency can be more effective than adopting extreme measures. In a study published in the journal Obesity, which looked at the weight-loss success of 183 obese adults, it found that those who had lost weight gradually and consistently were more likely to have kept the pounds off 12 months later.

Making permanent tweaks to your eating habits will facilitate a slow and sustainable weight loss. So think of weight loss as the side-effect of eating well, rather than the central aim.

FOODS ARE NOT ‘GOOD’ OR ‘BAD’

In his new book, Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind, nutrition coach Graeme Tomlinson has a clear message and it’s one that is crucial if you want to change your relationship with food.

“Food is made up of ingredients, not feelings or opinions, so it’s impossible for food to have a moral value,” he

‘What matters is your overall diet over time, not individual eating episodes’

points out.

“While you may beat yourself up for eating a so-called ‘bad food’, be sure to know that all foods are simply nutritionally different. Each food will have different ratios of macronutrients or different amounts of vitamins and minerals. What matters is your overall diet over time, not individual eating episodes. Understanding this can free you from the uselessness of food guilt.”

To garner a more positive food mindset, we need to move away from the vilification of certain foods. No food is either “good” or “bad”, they simply exist on a scale from more nutritious to less nutritious – and we know, of course, to eat the more nutritious foods regularly and limit the less nutritious ones.

Having more self-compassion around eating is the key to guiding ourselves towards healthier food choices. The other thing to bear in mind is that if you eat a balanced diet, you should not feel hungry and so you are less likely to feel deprived.

INCORPORATE MORE NUTRIENT-DENSE FOODS

Numerous studies have shown that the stomach produces less acid as a result of ageing, a condition known as hypochlorhydria. Low stomach acid can affect the absorption of key nutrients and has been linked to a range of chronic conditions, such as osteoporosis, autoimmune disorders, allergies and skin problems.

Compounding the issue, our calorific (energy) requirements reduce as we get older, so essentially we require more nutrition from fewer calories. It makes sense then to focus on foods that are nutrient-dense. Foods that have a high ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) score include most fruits and vegetables (particularly leafy greens), nuts, seeds, eggs, beans and lentils.

Of course, just because something is healthy doesn’t mean that you have to eat it. Not a kale fan? Fine, stick to broccoli or spinach. There are plenty of options, so seek out the healthy foods that you enjoy eating.

DON’T CALORIE COUNT BUT DO BE CALORIE AWARE

Whichever way they are packaged, most diets aim to create a calorie deficiency for weight loss: in other words, you consume less energy than you expend. But anything that requires rigorous calorie counting will only last for as long as you can be bothered to do it.

Fortunately, there is no need for you to know the exact calorie load of every morsel that passes your lips in order to manage your weight. However, it is useful to have an idea of the calorie values of the foods you eat regularly.

Some healthy foods are surprisingly calorific – avocados, nuts and nut butters, granola, energy balls (very popular at the moment) and vegan desserts, which can incorporate lots of nuts, seeds and oil. These are all healthy things to include in your diet, but note that a quarter of an avocado is the appropriate portion size, and a snacksize portion of nuts is a small handful (about 10 almonds).

As Graeme Tomlinson explains, “Think of it as increasing your awareness and part of the process of nourishing yourself with useful data to help you reach your weight-loss goal.

“It also helps to understand portion sizes. Soon, you should be able to eyeball portion sizes that represent specific calorie values. For example, weighing out 50g of oats every day for a week should be enough for you to visualise 50g of oats, so that you no longer need to weigh them.”

DON’T IMPOSE A TIME LIMIT

A “diet mindset” would dictate: I want to be X weight by Y date. It is almost designed to fail from the start, because the target is being set when we are at our most optimistic and motivated.

Research suggests that roughly 80 per cent of people who lose a significant amount of weight will not maintain their new weight for 12 months. So, rather than setting a fixed time frame, think about where you would like to be in one year’s time from now and set your sights accordingly.

It can also be helpful to think of the other benefits of losing weight as goals in themselves: having more energy, sleeping better and having a more positive outlook on life are all tangible benefits of losing weight that you will start to enjoy almost immediately.

HERE’S HOW YOUR NEW FOOD DAY WILL LOOK…

So, that’s the theory, but how do we put it into practice in the kitchen? A sustaining and filling breakfast should be protein-rich to avoid energy fluctuations. Lunch should contain plenty of complex carbs in the form of vegetables such as broccoli, and, if you are feeling hungry, add a slice of whole-grain bread to up the fibre content.

Dinner, meanwhile, should be a combination of lean protein and complex carbs incorporated from root vegetables – a nutritious yet balanced combination so that your body won’t have an arduous digestive task ahead.

We have put together a plan as well as some recipes to help you get started, based on plenty of tasty, nutrient-dense ingredients – and worlds away from what might traditionally be considered “diet” food.

This menu comes in at about 1,500 calories and includes three balanced meals and up to two fibre-rich snacks, which over the long term will facilitate slow but sustainable weight loss.