Sarahs Weightloss Blog

Hi Everyone!

Exercise makes all the difference – FACT! As this example will demonstrate.  During the week I can get away with a few ‘OK’ days, like the one I outlined in my last blog, as I get to exercise off the unwanted calories by cycling to uni, and walking round campus at least.  However on the weekends it is much harder, particularly when I don’t get to be active at all.

On the day of this ‘bad’ day example, it was a beautiful sunny saturday.  A really good day in every other sense apart from what I ate and how I structured my eating.  I broke a number of golden diet rules – OOPS! and was 981 calories over my recommended daily intake at a whopping 2470 for the day.  And what’s more, I was still really hungry! What a bummer!

It was an open day at my university, where members of the community are free to try out various sciency experiments and equipment provided by the various departments of the university.  I had been really busy during the week and hadn’t had a lot of time to get my demonstration of our eye tracking equipment ready and was quite stressed and rushed.  So I broke the first golden rule of the diet – I MISSED BREAKFAST, and went straight to the uni in a big rush to get my demonstration ready.

The community day was a real success we had a constant stream of loads of people to have a go at our eye tracking equipment and talk about how it worked and what we were using it for.  However this meant I had no time to go anywhere.  So I broke the second golden rule of the diet – I DIDN’T SNACK.  

This meant I was really tired and hungry by the end of the day.  I managed to wolf down a sandwich and a smoothy, but only had this at about 3pm, when I had been up since 8am.  I was starving by the time I left at 5pm.

I was too tired to walk anywhere or do anything, although I had done no exercise (my husband had driven me to and from the uni).  All I knew was that I needed FOOD and I wanted it badly.  So we stopped off at a pub and I had a very large meal – fillet of smoked haddock on a bed of lentil daal – healthy enough.  If I had left it at that it would have been fine.  But I was so hungry I didn’t give it time to settle to see if I WAS REALLY STILL HUNGRY – third violation of my diet rules.  So I dug into a large side of chips, and had ice cream for pudding.  Afterwards I felt really bloated, full, uncomfortable and tired – BOO!

We drove to rent a few DVDs, went home and watched them.  We then polished off a bottle of wine each, which was nice, but had loads of empty calories.  It also made me rather hungry, so I snacked on some crackers with peanut butter and jam.

I woke up the next morning with a big hangover, feeling really ill and bloated and regretting all I had done wrong the previous day.  This was capped off when I realised how far over my calories I had gone.  Thankfully this only happened one day out of the week – usually I follow the rules.  But it still skewed my weekly total such that I only lost 0.1 of a kg that week.  Just goes to show how a really big slip up can harm your diet success.

So the moral of the story? Follow these ‘rules’:

1) EAT BREAKFAST! This will get your metabolism going so you burn calories throughout the whole day.  You will have more energy so you can do more stuff to burn more calories throughout the day.  You’re also less likely to over eat because you are not starving hungry by lunch time.

2) SNACK! This does sound rather counter intuitive.  Surely if you are on a diet, you should hold off on snacking right? I don’t mean never stop eating and have loads of unhealthy snacks on top of meals.  What I mean is have small portions of healthy food which will give you long lasting energy to hand, so you don’t get crazy hungry and eat a massive portion of unhealthy food you don’t need.  Examples of healthy snacks to keep hunger at bay are: a banana, small handful of nuts and dried fruit mix, small (250ml) smoothie, snack size sushi, nut and fruit bar, small portion of cereal with low fat milk etc.  

A common mistake is that people over do the healthy snacks – fruit and nuts are good for you, but they have a lot of calories if you eat loads of them and you can blow your daily allowance if you are not careful.  Aim to have one snack between breakfast and lunch, and one between lunch and dinner.  If you do a lot of exercise, I tend to snack in between exercise classes too, so I have a banana straight after the class so I have enough energy to cycle back home or do the next class.  By doing this I am much less likely to binge when I get back as I am not so hungry.

3) EAT SLOW, WAIT FOR FOOD TO ‘SETTLE’: It takes time for your body to recognise whether you are full or not.  Eat your food slowly, chew, relax.  Wait at least 15 minutes after you have eaten a portion of your meal before ordering another course.  Drink plenty of water.  By doing this, you give yourself time to see whether you do in fact need any more food or if you are just thirsty.  If then you are still hungry, order another small thing.

4) BE TREAT WISE: Treats are fine in moderation.  Plan for them and try to only have one.  E.g. if you want to go out drinking, try to be healthy in all other domains, rather than let everything slide.

I broke every single one of these rules that day, and that is the precise reason it was a ‘bad diet day’.  

Next week I will take you through a ‘good diet day’ and show you how these rules can really help you stay on a really good healthy eating and exercise plan to help you lose weight.

Till next time