It’s January what does that mean DIET MONTH. Roll out the Fab diets, detox’s with the added commercials and supermarket promotions of all things diet and healthy. I understand this can be a bit daunting to take in, so I have put together my top 3 diets vs. healthy eating. Now before we dive in I want to draw your attention to the term “Healthy Eating” normally when people associate this term they may think of all foods green, brown, tasteless and to be quite honest boring. I also wanted to highlight positive aspects of “Healthy Eating” that are realistic and simple to follow so let’s begin.
Weight Watchers
A very popular option heavily endorsed by different celebrities like Jennifer Hudson who lost a lot of weight from this method and become their spokesperson for their brand.
How it works:
There is a questionnaire and depending on the answers this allows you to eat with the points selected so if you get 27 points for example you would need to tailor your meals to match your points. In essence the method is meant to encourage you to portion control your meals and about what you eat.
The flip side
Obsessing about what you can eat and oh no you have gone over your point guilt starts. Negative association with food instead of enjoying food you may have negative feeling towards it.
The pressure at the weigh in meeting; everyone is getting weighed and people around asking “how much have you lost” and you feeling a bit down because you didn’t lose as much as you hoped. Which may lead to emotional eating.
This method doesn’t always make you understand the principles of why you eat the food you do on a one to one level.
Health eating solution
For 1 week I want you to record what you have consumed. Write down the feeling you had before and after you ate and drank the food and drink. This way you will be able to see if you are an emotional eater and look at the feeling you have with certain food and drink i.e. happy, sad, guilt and treat foods. If you diary reflects negatively make small changes to have a lasting results.
Instant portion control goes to Ikea or anywhere that does plates, glasses etc.
Buy yourself some medium size plates; glasses and jars then use these for your meals.
Paleo
The caveman diet back in the day people use to hurt for their foods and there was no such thing as convenience foods or foods containing high sugar, fat and salt content.
Many celebrities like actress Megan Fox has contributed their weight lost to this method.
How does it work
You may eat the following fruits, vegetables, lean meats, seafood, nuts and seeds and healthy fats. You cannot eat diary, grains, processed foods and sugars, legumes, starches and alcohol.
The flip side
Some of the accepts of this method i.e. the promotion of eating lean meats, fish, fruit and vegetables form the basis of healthy eating however to completely eliminate some grains like flaxseeds, lentils, chia, hempseed quinoa and bulgur wheat to name a few resulting in a person not benefiting from their high in dietary fiber nutritional content. In addition legumes being a good source of plant based protein and several B vitamins etc.
Health eating solution
Take the foods you can eat from this method pair it with the grains, legumes and some dairy products like cottage cheese I’ve suggested and make healthy eating habits of out these food group. The trick is to be creative and limit yourself with the foods that make you feel good however limit the foods that make you feel bad. Check your cooking methods change the oils you use I suggest Rapeseed oil prefect for any style of cooking and heat. Have Fun!!!
5:2 Days
This method is a fairly new diet concept introduced by Dr Michael Mosley in 2013. Celebrities such as Alan Carr has tried this method and had interesting results.
How it works
You can eat whatever you want for 5 days and then for 2 days you will be fasting, only consuming 500kcals for women and 600kcals for men. This is meant to reduce your fat percentage and help you lose weight.
The flip side
Most common side effects are the hallucinations; mood swings, overeating during the week to eat less on the weekend. One can say this method slight promotes yo-yo dieting in the week, weekends is where everyone lets their hair down and sometime untightens their belts this method may seem quite unrealistic to stick to.
Healthy eating solutions
Before I slightly touched on negative association with food but it is important to understand why you eat the foods you do in order to make those positive changes. Habits are develops from you they are you routine with the foods you eat and what you crave. If you make small changes to your habit like for 3 weeks not only will your taste buds change but also you find you wont need to do a diet because you have successful created the healthy eating habits that suits your lifestyle and new cravings. Try it for yourself.
