7 HABITS THAT MAKE YOU FAT - and how to beat them.
1. Dieting
Stop the loss/gain cycle by getting off the diet treadmill
The bottom line is: yo-yo dieting makes you fat! When you start a diet you lose an amount of weight – but that weight loss is linked with the loss of lean body mass as well as fat mass, and loss of lean body mass slows your metabolic rate. So, when you break your diet and resume “normal” eating again, you re-gain the weight you lost plus a little bit more. So dieting itself is a habit that makes you gain weight.
2. Portion Distortion
When it comes to the size of the portions you’re eating, size does matter.
Information gathered over the past 30 years has shown the size of portions, especially in packaged foods, has increased dramatically. Even more scary is that as portion size increases, so does consumption – often we are driven by getting the best value for money. Over time we have also become used to the new over-sized portions food manufacturers have developed – so much so we’ve normalised these to the point of thinking an over-sized portion is actually the “right” serving size.
So it’s time to stand back and think again. Studies have shown the larger the portion, the more we tend to eat. Ask for regular or standard servings rather than “combo” deals whenever you’re ordering any meal or snack. Or share the larger muffin or mega serve of fries with a friend (or the whole family!).
Use your hands to guide you
The size of the palm of your hand (and that doesn’t include your fingers) along with the thickness of your hand together represent the personalised size of an ideal portion of meat for a person of your build.
Use a clenched fist to equal the amount of carbohydrate to put with that meat, and two cupped hands to show the amount of vegetables or salad to serve for a balanced meal.
This works for kids as well: the size of a portion for them is relative to the size of their hand. And it’s a great way to teach children to work out portion sizes for themselves.
No matter what size you are, the proportion remains the same: if you are looking at a dinner plate a quarter should be carbohydrate (rice, potato or pasta), a quarter the meat or protein serving, and half should be vegetables or salad.
3. Unconscious Eating
Eating without thinking is far too easy for our own good. It’s a classic habit: a stimulus – such as a commercial break during a favourite TV program – becomes an automatic cue to do something – go to the fridge for the bar of chocolate, for example. Or perhaps you pass by the corner shop on the way home every day, and that’s a stimulus to always buy a packet of chips. At first it was because you missed lunch and you needed something to get you through to dinner but before long it became a habit. Added to the problem is that we tend not to “count” snacks we’ve eaten unconsciously or habitually.
How to change the snacking habit
Get into the habit, instead, of noticing when you snack, where it happens and what’s triggering the behaviour. Then you can simply change one part of the equation so the sum doesn’t work any more – trip up the habit by changing the trigger, for example.
So if you find yourself unconsciously eating while you read, you could change where it happens. Get into the habit of reading somewhere a long way from your food source. Or create a new habit around what you eat when you read – always make it a raw carrot and celery.
If you’re always popping bits into your mouth unconsciously as you prepare meals, eat something substantial before you start, or do something else with your mouth while you cook – you could sing, whistle or recite poetry!
4. The energy density trap
Snacking or grazing on “energy-dense” foods can seriously undermine weight loss. Because of the oversized portions of many common snack foods such as muesli bars, muffins and cookies, food that was once considered a snack food may now contain the energy of a meal.
What is energy density?
Think of the difference between an average banana (500kJ in 120g) and a small chocolate bar (1075kJ in 51g). Both are snack size but the chocolate is a lot more energy dense than the banana.
High-energy foods such as biscuits and fried food may taste appealing but often don’t make you feel satisfied or full unless you overeat. Compare energy-light foods such as fruit, low-fat milk, soups and wholegrain cereals – they make us feel full with fewer kilojoules, and are also more nutritious. Since we basically eat the same amount of food every day, deciding on whether to eat high or low energy-density food can be the difference between weight gain or weight loss.
When making low energy-density choices, look for the food with a high water content.Learn to read the labels of snack foods and compare the energy (kilojoule) per 100 grams listed with other similar food products. Choose a product with the lowest kilojoule content if you want to restrict your total energy intake to allow for weight loss.
Compare the kilojoules per serving with the actual volume or size of the serving. Just because a snack is small in volume doesn’t necessarily mean it is small in energy. Think of the banana and chocolate bar comparison again. See the table above for some simple swaps you can make to move from energy dense to energy light.
Drinks are another trap. In a recent study it was reported that if people were fed an extra 500 kilojoules a day as solid food, they would compensate by eating less energy for the rest of the day. However when given the extra 500 kilojoules in a soft drink, juice or other clear liquid they did not reduce their daily intake accordingly. That makes water the drink of choice for weight control.
5. Treat overload
Is a treat still really a “treat” if it becomes a daily occurrence? No, that’s called a fat-inducing habit, unfortunately. An indulgence or treat should not be a daily event.
For weight loss I recommend one treat a week and for weight maintenance three treats a week. If a treat happens daily it’s no longer special, and you start looking for new replacement “treats”. And then you’ll find you’ve developed a whole series
of high fat and sugar food dependencies you see as acceptable regular food.
Call a treat a treat and decide how often and when you’ll have it. Then develop a plan to deal with the inevitable treat cravings – it could be eating a set healthier alternative (see some ideas in the table above) or doing something specific to shift your focus. So, when the thought of eating a chocolate bar pops into your head at 3pm, decide you’ll always drink a glass of water, or walk round the block (in the opposite direction to the snack machine or convenience store) instead.
6. Alcohol
Alcohol can be a trap for people watching their weight. We know it has energy (kilojoules) but because it’s liquid it’s not filling and we easily forget just how much energy it’s giving us.
“Light” beer refers to the alcohol content, which will also affect the energy content. Note the difference between a low-alcohol beer (107kJ per glass) and a reduced-alcohol beer at (265kJ per glass).
If you’re using mixers, go for the low-kilojoule versions; the spirits give you more than enough energy on their own.
When you’re looking at the table of alcohol traps opposite, note especially that a standard glass of wine is defined as 100ml. It’s a good exercise to measure that amount out at home so you can appreciate how small a serve it really is – and to invest in a set of wine glasses that will limit you to that amount.
After one or two glasses of wine or beer, a packet of high-salt crisps suddenly looks like a viable meal replacement. It’s not!
7. Not Moving
Many people over-estimate how much they move or do in a day and under-estimate how much they eat in a day. Keeping a food and exercise diary can start to give you an idea of the “sneaky kilojoules” getting into your day via food, and how much or how little you’re really exercising.
A pedometer is a favourite gadget of mine and I often ask clients to wear one. It is a non-intrusive device that shows a person exactly how little they are moving. An adult should be aiming for approximately 10,000 steps a day for health and a child should be aiming for 15,000 steps. Turn to the article on page 84, “How to get off the sofa”, for a simple plan to start moving more.
Even if you don’t see yourself as an “exerciser” you can introduce activities that mean you are moving incidentally – plan social outings that involve walking to and from somewhere, or start a social walking club. Before you know it, you could be trading your not-so-healthy eating habits with a much healthier exercise addiction, and feeling fabulous for it!
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