In the interests of 'authenticity' this is my actual desk ...
.... not looking too bad, there's usually an old banana skin and several cold cups of coffee dotted around! But anyway on with the blog ....
I’ve spent so much time talking to people about their struggles to lose weight, and more often their despair at not being able to keep it off, that it was one of my main motivators for starting this blog.
Whilst I am not a dietician - I think of myself as a food and health journalist - I have picked up so much information in the course of my own research, producing my cookbook and writing articles on food and health that I wanted a place that I could set it all down. StealthHealth is that place!
A theme I keep coming back to is how, after all these years of different diets, intense media focus on food and health and shops offering every conceivable weight loss product, are we no better off? As a species we are less healthy and heavier than ever before. It seems that the more we know and the more 'solutions' there are available the worse the situation gets.
Maybe it’s a case of too much information? Invariably my midlife conversations with friends are full of past successes and subsequent failures on various diets, stories of acquaintances who had amazing results on [insert name] programme/detox or who swear by having hoses stuck up their bum. In truth I find it really hard to nod and look interested but I don’t want to be dismissive either - people need to believe that something is going to work, it's human nature to look for the silver bullet.
The problem is that most of these practices are simply sticking plasters. They are not getting to the heart of the matter which is; to achieve your health and weight loss goals you need to redefine your relationship with food. What you eat has to move up the order of priorities, not to the point of obsession which is clearly unhealthy in its own way, but so that on any given day you have tasty, healthy food options available. It doesn’t mean you have to be a slave to the kitchen, we live in a world where there are more and more great options for eating well appearing in the supermarket every day: pre-packed trays of veg that can just be popped in the oven, veggies, fruit and herbs you can keep in the freezer, pouches of pre-cooked lentils and beans. We are really lucky to be living in an age where eating well is easier than ever.
So here is my challenge to you - we all spend a bit too long on our screens don’t we? (I do appreciate the irony that you are reading my blog post on a screen right now but please don’t stop just yet)! When you are next tempted to scroll, instead why not think through the ‘food day’ ahead? First, what are you going to have for breakfast? Breakfast is an easy place to start – eggs, porridge, avotoast. Then lunch, are there some leftovers you could turn into something delicious? Could you spend 15 mins making a soup from the salad drawer? And dinner (if you haven’t got into doing meals plan for the week on a Sunday I’d really encourage it), perhaps pick up some fish from the supermarket, make a nice tomato, garlic and coriander relish to go with it and have some crunchy stir-fried greens on the side. Snacks are also worth considering - take a piece of fruit or a few nuts out with you in case of the munchies. All this thinking can be done in a few minutes in the morning and then you are sorted for the rest of the day. I know it sounds obvious but it’s so easy to lurch from meal to meal by way of a bag of crisps or a few hobnobs!
And now that you have finished reading this post, please take a little break from the screen and plan your food day. I hope it helps!
Sam xx
Tomorrow I will be teeing up WEEK 4 - our final week of the 28 day programme - where everything comes together for the big push!
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