Healthy Weight Loss Food Without Restrictions

When it comes to losing weight it’s calories that count, and good food doesn’t have to be high calorie! Here’s our advice for kick-starting a new way of eating and shedding the pounds.

Candy, Chinese, burgers, fries and Chili! Imagine being told the best diet to help you lose weight includes all these foods and more. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But the truth is these are exactly the types of foods you can still enjoy if you opt to lose weight by counting calories.

In recent years, endless faddy weight loss methods that cut carbs, boost protein intakes or skip entire groups of foods, have helped to make eating well a complicated business.

But losing weight doesn’t have to be a complicated or an unhappy experience. In fact, there are really only two things you need to remember if you want to shift those pounds and still eat all your favorite foods, Cook Yourself Thin and Calories.

It’s calories that count

When it comes to losing weight, there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s calories that count. Ask any qualified nutrition expert or dietitian for advice on how to fight the flab and you’ll receive the same reply: quite simply you need to create a calorie deficit or shortfall.

In other words, you need to take in fewer calories than you use up so that your body has to draw on its fat stores to provide it with the energy it needs to function properly. The result: you start losing fat and the pounds start to drop off!

Fortunately, it couldn’t be easier to create this calorie deficit.

Regardless of your age, weight, sex, genetic makeup, lifestyle or eating habits, losing weight is as simple as reducing your daily calorie intake slightly by modifying what you eat and using up a few more calories by being slightly more active each day.

Better still, it’s a complete myth that you need to change your eating and exercise habits dramatically. You’ll notice I’ve said you need to reduce your calorie intake ‘slightly’ and be ‘slightly’ more active. It really is just little differences between the amount of calories we take in and the amount we use up that make big differences to our waistline over time.

For example, you only need to consume one can of cola more than you need each day to gain a stone in a year. It’s no wonder then that people say excess weight tends to ‘creep up on them’.

The good news is the reverse is also true. You only need to swap that daily can of cola for the diet version or a glass of sparking water and you’ll lose a stone in a year – it really is as easy as that!

Of course, most people don’t want to wait a year to shift a stone. But there’s more good news. To lose 1lb of fat each week you need to create a calorie deficit of just 500 calories a day. That might sound like a lot, but you can achieve this by simply swapping a croissant for a wholemeal fruit scone, a regular sandwich for a low-fat variety, a glass of dry white wine for a gin and slimline tonic and using low-fat spread on two slices of toast instead of butter. And losing 1lb a week, amounts to a stone in 14 weeks, or just under 4 stone in a year!

Taking control of calories

By now you’ve seen it really is calories that count when it comes to shifting those pounds. So it should be no surprise that a counting the calories is the only guaranteed way to help you shift those pounds – and that’s a science fact! But better still, counting calories allows you to eat just about anything, whether it’s pizza, wine or candy.

Providing you count the calories – and stick to your daily allowance – you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want!

And that’s where Cook Yourself Thin can really help. Gone are the days when it was virtually impossible to obtain information about the calorie contents of foods. The CYT food database provides calorie information for more than 40,000 different branded and unbranded foods so that counting calories has never been easier.

While calories might be the buzz word when it comes to shifting those pounds, it’s nevertheless important to make sure you eat well, in a balanced way, and get all the nutrients you need. Yes, you can still lose weight by eating nothing but, for example, candy, chips and crackers providing you stick to your calorie allowance. But you’ll never find a nutrition expert or dietitian recommending this. And there are plenty of good reasons why.

To start with, eating nothing but camdy, crackers and chips is likely to be lacking in essential nutrients such as protein, vitamins, minerals and fiber, in the long term putting you at risk of nutritional deficiencies. Secondly, research proves that filling up on foods that are high in fat and/or salt and sugar can lead to many different health problems. But most importantly, when it comes to losing weight, it’s almost impossible to stick to a daily calorie allowance if you’re only eating high-calorie foods.

Filling up on lower-calorie foods also means you’ll be able to eat far more with the result that you’re not constantly left feeling unsatisfied.

For example, six candies from a selection box contain around 300 calories, a lot of fat and sugar, few nutrients – and are eaten in just six mouthfuls! For 300 calories, you could have a grilled chicken breast, a large salad, and a nice hunk of bread.

That’s a lot more food that will take you a lot more time to eat! Not convinced? Then put six candies on one plate, and the chicken, salad, and bread on another.

Bottom line: while slightly reducing your calorie intake is the key to losing weight, you’ll be healthier and far more likely to keep those pounds off if you do it by eating good food.

Getting started

Hopefully by now, you’re excited about getting started. But before rushing into things, it’s worth taking time to prepare yourself mentally for the weeks ahead. Here are some top tips to put you on the road to success.

1. Put previous failures behind you

Don’t dwell on eating fads and failures you’ve had in the past. The chances are if you need to lose weight now, they weren’t right for you. Instead, make a promise to yourself that this will be the last time you’ll ever need to lose weight.

2. Use your head

Add up all the hours you’ve wasted in the last month worrying about your weight and what you eat. Then compare them with the number of hours you’ve spent feeling great about your size and shape. Hold on to the fact that before too long, you’ll be changing those negative thoughts for positive ones.

3. Visualize the new slim you

Spend some time visualizing your new life as a slimmer, fitter and healthier you. Find somewhere quiet where you won’t be disturbed, sit in a comfortable chair and close your eyes.

In your mind’s eye see yourself as the slimmer you. How does it feel? How much more confident are you? How do you look? What are you wearing? What are you doing in your new life? What ambitions do you have? What changes have you made? Hold onto this image of the new you and as you continue on the road to losing weight, take time to revisit it at regular intervals. Holding onto this image will help you to stay focussed and boost your determination if things get tough.

4. Prepare to fit food around your lifestyle

Forget about trying to change the way you live to accommodate a new way of eating – it’s guaranteed to result in failure. Trying to turn yourself into a Domestic Goddess when you work incredibly long hours or only buying foods from a health food shop when you have a family of four to feed will quickly result in you ditching your new way of eating. Instead, fit food around your lifestyle and you’ll be far more likely to shift those pounds.

5. Identify bad habits

More often than not, we eat out of habit rather than because we are hungry – and this can easily sabotage good intentions. Spend some time identifying those occasions when you eat out of habit. For example, do you always go straight to the fridge when you get home? Do you always have a donut with your morning coffee? Do you always buy a cake when you walk past the bakery? Then look at ways to swap these old habits for new, healthier ones. For example, go straight to the fruit bowl when you get in; swap your coffee and donut for sparkling water and fruit; or take a different route home that avoids the bakery.

6. Avoid ‘all or nothing’ thinking

Prepare yourself for the fact that you will probably overindulge from time to time. But also prepare for how you will deal with this. Remember, one small over-indulgence doesn’t mean you’ve ‘blown it’ or give you free licence to go on a food fest! Simply put the indulgence behind you and move on. Tomorrow is another day.

7. Think positively about food

Eating shouldn’t be about denial and deprivation. Instead of thinking about all the foods you should be eating less of, focus on all the foods you will be able to eat more of. And don’t picture them in a negative light. Think of words to describe them that make them sound delicious, for example, a juicy, crunchy apple, a mouth-watering bowl of strawberries or a satisfying, filling slice of whole-wheat bread.

8. Eating Well is for Life

Ban the word ‘diet’ from your vocabulary and instead focus on the fact you’ll be changing your eating habits for life. ‘Going on a diet’ infers you start on a particular day, finish on a particular day and only change what you eat in between, so that once your ‘diet’ is finished you return to the eating habits that made you pile on the pounds in the first place! Instead, use this time to kick-start a way of eating you can sustain for life.

Psychologists say that if you can identify the reason(s) why you put on weight, you'll be able to start working out strategies to help you lose it. Cook Yourself Thin will help!

Adapted from Introduction to The Calorie, Carb and Fat Bible 2007 by Juliette Kellow BSc RD