Stay healthy this Christmaas
The festive season can prove tricky for those who are trying to lose weight or eat more healthily. Here, Cardiff-based clinical psychologist Dr Helen McCarthy explains how eating ‘mindfully’ and being kind to yourself can help you stay focused on your goa
First, get some sleep LOSING weight takes focus and effort and it’s not easy. You need to be in the right head space before you start.
Repeated dieting is associated with weight gain rather than weight loss, and poor sleep and high stress levels are both associated with difficulty losing weight.
If you’re usually stressed in the run-up to Christmas, either delay until a quieter time or reduce that stress and get more sleep, first. Relax your rules – eat the mince pie DON’T ban your favourite foods.
Research shows when people who view certain foods as “bad” are given a disallowed food (milkshake in the laboratory experiments), they eat more ice cream in the second part of the experiment.
This “what the hell” effect happens because of thinking, “What the hell, I’ve already blown my diet by having that milkshake; I might as well keep going with the ice cream”.
Even small amounts of a forbidden food have this effect.
Order your favourite thing at the work lunch – and eat it mindfully.
You work hard all year. Relish every bit of that work meal out and enjoy yourself.
Just reduce your portion slightly and pay attention to what you’re eating and it will be easier to gauge when you’ve had enough.
When you slow down and eat mindfully, you get much more pleasure out of less food. Focus on the event, not the nibbles SWITCH your attention away from food whenever you’re tempted to eat when you don’t intend to.
Talking about the event, or the venue is a neutral way of getting conversation going and it gives you a distraction.
As soon as your mind starts wandering to food, focus on a distraction. Start a conversation or get on the dance floor. Take three things from the buffet SOMETHING called “sensory-specific satiety” means your appetite renews every time you taste a different food.
So if you’ve piled your plate high, after you’ve eaten the piece of lasagne, the chicken marengo and the rice salad, you’re going to find it impossible to resist the potato wedges.
Take a smaller plate and choose your very favourite three things so you maximize your enjoyment.
Not overdoing it with savoury food means you can enjoy dessert.
Focus on the deliciousness of it and if it doesn’t taste fabulous, leave it. Wine, water, wine, water... THE free bar is the demonic twin of the all-you-can-eat buffet.
We don’t respect what we get for free, so we waste more.
Enjoy the freebies without overdoing the calories, by alternating each alcoholic drink (or soft drink) with a glass of tap water.
You’ll reduce your calories from drink and feel better the next morning. Serve the full fat cheese – just eat less of it THE 1980s saw the start of the lowfat craze, and food manufacturers reduced fat and added sugar.
Most of us love a cheeseboard at this time of year.
A simple, money-saving solution is to buy the original, cheaper and usually better-tasting cheese and eat two-thirds of the amount you normally have. Save the best chocolate for your guests BUT eat it with them. Thinking about how to build treats into your life is key to eating more mindfully.
Knowing when you’re going to eat them means you get added pleasure by anticipating the enjoyment.
When you eat a treat food, savour every mouthful. Make it a mini-event.
Dr Helen McCarthy’s clinic is based on Cyncoed Road in Cardiff. For information go to www. theappetitedoctor.co.uk