"BRITAIN SHOULD GO ON A DIET"

Did you see this headline EVERYWHERE last week? 

The government have produced meal ideas with the suggested calories adding up to 1600 Kcal per day for adults. Hooray, 30 years too late but Hooray! 

The 2000 kcal per adult recommendation was introduced in 1968 (yes thats not an error!) so thats 50 years ago, when we were all doing our washing by hand, cleaning daily without vacuum cleaners and doing much more manually intensive jobs, and they were not revised down to 1800 kcal until 2016!

Now it is being suggested that 1600 kcal is probably a more sensible aim for most people spread over 3 meals

400 Kcal for Breakfast

600 Kcal for lunch

600 Kcal for Dinner

The thing is MOST people (people reading my newsletters are more clued up then most people!) do not have a clue how many calories are in the foods they eat daily, even though the labels are there, folks see a load of numbers and 'the mist of maths' comes down as they just go, "Its too complicated" or "I don't understand"

I get it, at first glance a label does look complicated, especially when they give you 100g and not the actual serving size and natural unpackaged foods as well as takeaway food ain't got no labels anyway!

So you then have to get out the weighing scales and it all becomes a bit of a chore....

Or is it just our perception? After all when we follow a recipe for baking and we know it won't work if we get the ratio of ingredients wrong, we have no problem weighing things do we?! 

I know that some chain fast food outlets do put the nutritional info on their menus & chain coffee shops have labels now with the info so tiny you need a magnifying glass to read it. 

Btw in 2016 the info was in bigger print in Costa, Starbucks and the like, but sales of cakes, pastries etc at the counter dropped so much, they stuck to the law of having to show it, but made it so small you need your face up to the glass to read it! 

Profit is the problem, food is BIG business!

Fast food and take away outlets & coffee shops are growing by 2.9% year on year, making them worth BILLIONS of pounds and contributing massively to the British economy. Globally, fast food generates revenue of over $570 billion - that is bigger than the economic value of most countries.

So do we need to "Go on a diet" 

Or do we just need to get ourselves more clued up about nutrition and our own bodies? 

I SAY WE NEED TO STOP FALLING FOR THE MARKETING OF SO CALLED HEALTHIER OPTIONS

And educate ourselves and our families.  

There is no doubt a revision of nutritional guidelines was way over due and welcomed, but suggesting you "look for 100 calorie snacks two a max" isn't that helpful, unless you suggest which snacks are better choices! As manufactures are jumping on the band wagon pushing their 100 Calorie Snacks, junk food dressed up to look healthy!

For kids especially its not the meals they are being fed at home (though they are a big part!) its the food between meals, eaten on the street, on the bus, in the playground on the way home. 

And of course its not just food, its drinks too the pic above show under 100 calories but sweeteners cause the same response in the body as real sugar, so you may have fewer calories and they may be kinder to teeth, but your body will be struggling to process the colours, preservatives and chemical sweeteners.

Many people still have this strange idea that if its liquid it doesn't have calories! 

KNOWING THE CALORIES IN YOUR SNACKS & TREATS IS A GOOD START

Your coffee shop medium hot chocolate comes in at 327 Kcal with whole milk or 235 with skimmed

A chocolate brownie at 373 kcal. So lets say you have a hot chocolate and a brownie as a treat that's 700 Kcal in total which is more than the recommendations for Lunch or Dinner. 

It doesn't fill you up, its crammed full of flour, fat and sugar thats going cause you to crave more carbs or sweet stuff in an hour or so and is likely cause internal inflammation. 

Dairy, flour & sugar are the TOP 3 foods that cause inflammation and most health issues start with inflammation! 

What if you take the SEEMINGLY healthier option of a fruit, seed & nut bar at 317 Kcal and a skinny latte at 109 kcal? Well you still clock up more than the 400 kcals which is the amount recommended for breakfast. 

Even though you think you picked the healthier option as far as your body is concerned the response is the same as if you had the brownie and hot chocolate, as the carb and sugar & fat content is still way too high and your body has to try just as hard to re-balance its blood sugar.

Chances are after these teats or snacks you will then still eat your meals too. So you can see how easy it is too go over that suggested 1600 kcal limit 

Now I know they also suggest you add on 2 x 100 calorie snacks, to bring the total daily calories up to 1800 kcal, but this is just encouraging you to eat between meals, if weight control or loss is your goal this is going to make it much slower and much harder than not snacking at all. 

Calories do count, there is no arguing with the fact that is you keep eating more than you need you will gain weight, BUT where those calories come from is also key when it comes to health issues. 

Most takaway meals come in at over 1000 Kcal if you include a drink

Eg: There are 301 calories in a Cheese Burger, 380 calories in a Chocolate Milkshake and 337 calories in Medium Fries leave out the drink you still get 638 Kcal

I slice of pepperoni pizza is 249 calories &who eats just one slice? Most people eat 4 slices totaling 996 Kcal if not the whole thing - and thats only pizza not fries, or garlic bread or whatever else you normally get with it! 

Most Chinese & Indian takeaways come in portions that should serve 2, however the majority of us eat the whole thing just a Peshawar naan bread contained 748 calories before you add in a TIkka Marsala at 1,249 calories and rice at 500 for a fulll container, not to mention poppadoms, onion bhaji, samosas etC.  

Chances are you have some kind of dessert after all that too...

If most of your calories come from carbs and the wrong types of fats and not many from protein but you still hit the 1600 Kcal target, it doesn't mean you are going to fair beter than someone who is eating 2000 kcal but is getting more calories from protein & fats when it comes to heart disease, cancer & diabetes. 

Of course these figures are based on an average, but non of us are average! 

The easiest way to work out how many calories YOU need just to maintain your current weight is to multiply your weight in Lbs by 10 

So say you weigh 140 lbs (63kg or 10 stone) you need 1400 kcal to stay exactly as you are (140 x 10 =1400) 

To drop weight you need to go lower than this number on average per day. 1000-1200

I prefer the 5:2 approach and looking at the number over a week, rather than stressing over daily values our bodies don't want the same amount of energy every day, they naturally have days they want more food and days they want less, a good practice is to learn to tune into that yourself. 

Or easier still Intermittent fasting where you fast until mid-day or later and eat just two meals a day. This is the easiest way to control blood sugar levels & help Reverse insulin & Leptin resistance

Ideally you still need to look at where are you calories coming from and the main 3 Big Nutrients, Carbohydrate, Fat & Protein .The easiest way is to use an app eg: Fitness Buddy, Nutra check, my plate, spark people, Calorie counter etc. These allow you to set the targets for the above nutrients as well as calories, they also give you optional meal plans and some have recipes too. 

Here is a picture guide to help you set your app.

Reading labels is also something we all need to be able to do if we are to make informed choices when it come to our food.For those of you who have read the last bit and looked at the numbers and just gone "Arrghh!"

How about you just aim to do this:-

This pic shows THE easiest way to reverse insulin resistance and inflammation and get control of your weight it is ONE of the things I cover in my Thrive & Shine Workshop with my ladies on MONDAY 19th March.

INVITATION TO JOIN ME

YOU are not too late to join us. If you are ready Break Out, Break Through & Break Free of those things making life harder than it should be, whether it is health, wealth, relationships, confidence or happiness I will show you how simple it can be. Join me here https://thrivenotstrive.com/workshopspa/

As I learned from my unexpected heart attack 11 DAYS AGO you just never know what could happen, don't wait or it may be too late!

Yours in Truth, Passion & Purpose

Victoria Midwood