Dinner

Dinner can often be a very social event. While you’re busy chatting away about the events of the day, you can lose track of exactly how much food you’re eating. A simple entry in your food log of homemade stew and green veg might look harmless and even healthy, but if you eat too much of it, those extra calories will add up to sabotage your fat loss efforts. Healthy eating (as advised in my previous articles) will stimulate the metabolism to utilise food more efficiently and make the calorie restriction so much easier. Also, it’s not as easy to over eat protein and fat as it is to over eat carbohydrates.

The quality of your food is as important as the quantity. Portion control is very important when it comes to dinner. It is very easy to eat too much when you come home from work feeling hungry. There is a delay between the food entering your mouth and hitting your stomach so it can take up to 20 minutes to feel like you’ve eaten enough food. By this time, you may well have overeaten. The key to this is to eat slowly. You could take a small portion to begin with and if you’re still hungry 20 minutes later, take some more. Most of the time, you will be surprised with how much you normally eat that you don’t need.

This surplus is costing you more than the prices you pay in the supermarket for food you don’t need: diabetes, depression, heart conditions and obesity are expensive conditions to treat. An unhealthy diet also puts pressure on your immune system which could result in extra sick days from work due to colds and flu.

Remember, taking in more calories than you burn off will lead to consistent weight gain. The only way to lose fat is to eat fewer calories than you burn off. While doing an hour of exercise will burn off more energy than, say, sitting on the couch, the amount can often be overestimated. Exercise without addressing unhealthy eating patterns will not yield any noticeable results. I have seen friends think that starting an exercise program gives them a license to eat everything they want and they ended up putting on fat and then they blame the exercise.

There is good news. Once you’ve lost the excess weight, your eating need not be so restrictive. As I’ve already mentioned, to lose fat you need to eat less calories than you use but to maintain and keep your weight steady, you match calories in with calories out. At this stage, the odd glass of wine here or a few chips there won’t make too much difference to your weight but to get to that point, you will have to make the effort and be very strict with yourself.

So start eating healthier today. Who cares if you had a cream bun and all the chips in the world for lunch? You can’t help that now but you can make sure that your next meal is healthy and nutritious. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say “I’ll start tomorrow” but why not start today? If you start today, you’ll reach your goal weight a day earlier than if you started tomorrow! If you slip up and give in to temptation, don’t worry about it. What’s in the past is gone and you can’t do anything about it but you can control what you do next. You are in control of what you eat so do yourself justice and decide to eat for health.  See below for healthy dinner ideas.

A good dinner is a balanced dinner. You will need:

A source of protein e.g. lean meat (there are hundreds), cottage cheese, whey protein, eggs, cheese

A source of healthy fats (necessary but use sparingly) e.g. avocado, olive oil, coconut oil, butter, nuts (not peanuts!)

A source of carbohydrates e.g. a small bit of starchy veg (e.g. butternut squash, sweet potato, carrot, turnip, parsnip, NOT POTATOES!) and some green veg (e.g. spinach, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green beans etc)

My dinner generally looks like this: small piece of meat, a small bit of starchy veg (e.g. butternut squash, sweet potato, carrot, turnip, parsnip) lots of green veg, and a small bit of avocado or a spoonful of olive oil drizzled on the veg. There are literally hundreds of combinations of meat and veg you can use and each one can be made more interesting by using various quantities of onions, garlic, chilli, coriander, basil, oregano etc... The list is endless.

If you get bored of that format, then you can make it more interesting by putting the above basic healthy building blocks into stews, curries, salads, soups, coddle, chowder... Use the opportunity to be imaginative and keep your food interesting. Drop into the Asia market on Drury Street once every few weeks and experiment with some new veg or spices or meat. They sell frozen seafood mix in there very cheaply which can be a surprisingly delicious addition to a homemade curry.

 I follow two blogs for healthy eating ideas: www.cavemancook.blogspot.com and www.theirishpaleo.blogspot.com the former one is great for healthy dessert alternatives and the latter documents an Irish girl’s food transformation journey. I wrote some articles back in January and February myself documenting my 9kg weight loss (that was 12cm off my waist) and these can be seen at www.projectabz.blogspot.com in the January and February archives.

Another great addition to your food is sides such as guacamole and salsa.

Guacamole 1 tomato 1 ripe avocado juice of one lime 2 cloves garlic 1/2 tablespoon chopped coriander 1/2 large chilli (or less depending on how hot you want it) Optional: 1/4 finely chopped red onion. -mash garlic and avocado, remove pulp and seeds from tomato, chop as small as possible, add everything in a bowl and mix or use a food processor Salsa 5 tomatoes juice of one lime 2 cloves garlic 1/2 large chilli 1/2 tbsp chopped coriander 1/4 finely chopped red onion -same again, chop and mix everything or just throw in food processor.

If anyone wants some more exciting healthy recipes, I can forward some links to you via email.