The Senior Walking Fitness Blog

Hello Everybody,

Everybody wants the best weight loss program. But is the best weight loss program for women any different to one for men? Both want to lose weight and with the right diet and exercise they can do it. In the US and the UK there are a lot of overweight people.  Fewer women are overweight than men, but only about 10 percent fewer, which suggests that they both have the same life style. This is to be expected as most families live the same way and eat the same food. So why have a special weight loss program for women?

One reason is that there are differences in dietary needs between men and women. Women tend to need fewer calories each day than men who are taller and more muscular. Women should eat more iron and calcium, men more protein. There are behavioural differences as well. Women comfort eat, men comfort drink. The difference in body shape also has an effect on the dietary needs of men and women. Women naturally carry more fat on their bodies, so it is more difficult for them to lose weight. This is not the case with men who are able to lose weight faster.

So what is the best weight loss program for women? It need not be so different to one for men except for additional iron and calcium. For iron you can eat legumes, such as common beans or chickpeas, artichokes and grass fed beef (in moderation). For calcium eat gruyere cheese, yoghurt and non fat milk. Both iron and calcium is obtainable as off the shelf supplements. But I suggest you eat a balanced diet and avoid spending money on expensive supplements.

If you are looking for just a diet the Mediterranean diet is my favourite and is fine for both men and women. Many recipes will contain women’s iron and calcium requirements but just make sure you are including them on a daily basis. If you want help with your dieting the Weight Watchers program is for you. It is not only a good diet but can provide the type of support and social interaction women enjoy.

All weight loss programs are helped greatly by regular exercise. If a man wants to lose weight he thinks of the gym, maybe even before thinking about his diet. A woman probably thinks of a diet. Although some women do go to the gym most would prefer to walk or jog each day. A woman with a young child will get a lot of exercise just caring for the child anyway. She should get as much regular exercise as she can manage and if she can’t manage much make sure she keeps to her diet.

The best weight loss program for women depends on what they want but is probably Weight Watchers. For those with no time or interest in attending meetings it is still possible to follow a Weight Watchers diet. But if you like good food and even an occasional glass of wine the Mediterranean diet is a good choice. Both of these are long term lifestyle changing diets. Fast weight loss is another story. There are plenty of available diets, check them out and so long as you only use them for a short time they are unlikely to do you harm. But for long term safe weight loss Weight Watchers or the Mediterranean diet is the way to go.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

23 January 2012

Photo. Nohobot (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: best weight loss program, best womens diet, fitness for women, how women lose weight, weight loss for women, womens weight loss

Hello Everybody,

Christmas is over, 2012 is here and many of us have proved that being overweight is not the result of bad genes or big bones. It is the result of sitting around eating too much. An excellent New Year’s resolution is to lose weight, and as resolutions seldom last long, a fast weight loss program is a good way to begin. You will see results and be encouraged to make the lifestyle change which is the only way of maintaining your weight loss over time.

For a many years we have been told fast weight loss programs are often dangerous and do not work long term. This is true but research is now showing that if you use the right program for a short time it can help you start an effective long term weight loss diet. George Blackman, associate director of nutrition at Harvard Medical School says that most people who lose weight only maintain 5-15 percent of their loss. They do better if they get down to the weight they desire and then try to maintain it.

What is the best way of losing weight fast? There are many fast weight loss programs that work.  Have a look and see if there is one for you. Do avoid obvious fad diets with extravagant claims, and look very hard at the latest promoted celebrity diet before you try it and regret it. The sort of thing which is worth a try is the diet proposed by Blogger Tim Ferris.

This is a shortened version which you can follow for three or four weeks.

Avoid ‘white’ carbohydrates: That is white bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, fried food with breading or anything else white.

Repeat just a few different meals: Cook using one of the ingredients from each of the following groups in every meal.

Proteins.:

Egg whites with one whole egg for flavour.

Chicken breast or thigh.

Grass-fed organic beef.

Pork.

Legumes:

Lentils.

Black beans.

Pinto beans.

Vegetables:

Spinach.

Asparagus.

Peas.

Mixed vegetables.

Eat as much as you like of these food items. Just stick to three or four meals you like and repeat them in whatever order you prefer.

Drink Water and low calorie drinks: Drink a lot of water. You can also have iced tea, tea, diet sodas, black coffee. Do not drink milk, normal soft or fizzy drinks or fruit juice.

Take one day off a week:  Tim Ferris recommends that you take one day off a week and eat what you want. He has good reasons for this and in principal it is a good idea. I would suggest you don’t spend an afternoon working through a fast food menu. Eat what you like in moderation and you will be fine.

The Tim Ferris diet is one of the fast weight loss programs that work. It is sensible and can have dramatic results. But be aware that Tim also exercises – he exercises a lot. It is important that you too have as much exercise as you can manage. Try brisk walking or any other exercise you enjoy for one hour each day.  Spend half an hour morning and half an hour evening if it is easier for you. This can be a big commitment but remember to lose weight quickly you need only do it for three or four weeks.

So we are back to the findings of Harvard Medical School. Drop your weight fast with the Tim Ferris diet or another diet you enjoy. Then carry on with a safe long term lifestyle changing diet like Weight Watchers or the Mediterranean diet. These still need some exercise for best results, but half an hour a day should be enough. Then you will see results and best of all maintain them for as long as you want.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

6 January 2012

Photo. Hampshire Hippy (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: fast weight loss, healthy weight loss, lose weight, lose weight fast, low carb diets

Hello Everybody,

If you are looking at easy diet plans for weight loss it is best to also look at your long term goal. It would be good if you could lose weight at a reasonable speed, carry on to achieve your desired weight and stay that way. One of the essentials is to make sure the diet is as healthy as possible. Your diet should not depart too far from the basics of plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meat and fish. Of course the difficulty is not always eating the good things, it is leaving out the bad things and it is here you may need all the support you can get.

There are dozens of easy diet plans available and the best thing you can do is look at what is on offer and decide the best for you. Do beware of online recommendations. A glowing review from Debbie of New Jersey is worth nothing unless it comes with a website address or other means of proving Debbie exists. Before and after photos could owe more to Photoshop than to a miracle diet. The sale of weight loss products is big business so don’t always believe extravagant claims.

Here are some good diet plans to consider.

Calorie Counting: This is what most of us try to do. We know that there are more calories in a chocolate cake than a carrot and we try hard to eat the carrot. But real calorie counting takes some dedication. You must know how many calories you should be eating for your sex and lifestyle.

If he takes an average amount of exercise a male will need 2900 calories and a female 2300 calories. Sedentary people need less and active people more. Eat 500 calories less than your calorie need each day and you will lose 1 pound a week.

You must know the calories in what you are eating and there are many charts available online to give you that information. The downside of this is the paper work. Until you get a feel for the calories in food you will have to write down everything you eat and its calorific value. It is worth doing and will probably give you a shock at first, but it can be a bit like hard work.

Calorie counting works and you do not have to keep entirely to healthy food so long as your calorie count is right. If you are happy with the effort of doing it you will lose weight.

The Weight Watcher’s Diet: Useful for people who have difficulty with motivation.  Weight Watchers is there to help. There are weekly meetings and an online version for those who are unable, or don’t want to, attend meetings. When you start there is an assessment by a course leader to see what your weight is and to agree on your goals. There are two types of diet available – the Points Plan and the Core Plan.

The Points Plan allows you to eat anything within a daily points allowance which is agreed at the start and based on your weight loss goals. It is a bit like Calorie Counting.

The Core Plan allows you to eat what you want from a list of fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, chicken, eggs and healthy carbohydrates like brown rice and potatoes.

This is an excellent way of losing weight with support from others. Be aware there is a cost involved, which may be a factor when deciding which diet to choose.

The Mediterranean Diet:  This diet is similar to the Weight Watcher’s Core Plan. The basic diet consists of fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meat such as chicken or grass fed beef, oily fish like salmon or mackerel, brown pulses, wholemeal pasta, nuts and granary bread. There are numerous recipes available both online and in books and you can even drink the occasional glass of red wine with your meal.

This diet works – a study recently published by researchers at the University of Gothenburg tells us that older people who eat a Mediterranean diet live an estimated 2-3 years longer than those who don’t. It is an effective healthy diet for all ages. The Mediterranean diet is well worth trying and is one of my favourite easy diet plans.

What these diets have in common is that they are mainstream. They all tell you to eat healthy food and not too much of it. Do this and you will lose weight at a steady healthy pace. But if you want something faster there are plenty of fast weight loss diet plans available. Check them out by all means, but don’t be taken in by extravagant claims. Give yourself a little time, have regular exercise and it will not take long for you to reach your weight loss goal.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

27 December 2011

Photo. Jom Manilat (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: best diet plan, diet plan, easy diet plan, find best diet, good diets, healthy diet plan

Hello Everybody,

We hear a lot about detoxing – but what is it and does detoxing work? The theory is that we are taking nasty toxic substances into our bodies all the time. Everything from pesticides in our food to air pollution falling on our skins can have a toxic effect on our bodies. Get rid of this and we will be a lot healthier and maybe lose weight at the same time. Sounds good, but where’s the science?

The difficulty is that there is not much science there. We all need to remove toxic matter from our bodies. But so long as our liver and kidneys work, we get regular exercise, and eat a healthy diet we can forget about detoxing.  Those who advocate detoxing say that isn’t enough. They tell you to eat fresh vegetables, beans, pulses, herbal teas and drink plenty of water. There is a mass of food you should not eat including meat, dairy products, fish, eggs, processed foods, alcohol and caffeine. The interesting thing is that if you put some of the allowed products together with some of the banned products you will have a healthy diet. But if you don’t you won’t.

Put simply the idea of a vegetable, herbal tea diet or something similar is to flush out of you body the toxins contained in the meat, fish and other food you had been eating. As it happens the toxins in food question is a minefield, as some vegetables contain natural toxins more powerful than chemicals you may find in meat or fish. But never mind about that, you can eat the vegetable diet and hope to lose weight. As a detox can last for up to 21 days you are almost sure to lose weight. This would happen on any reduced diet and by giving up alcohol and caffeine as well you are likely to feel a lot better afterwards. Then you must decide what to do. You have worked hard to get rid of the toxins you have put into your body. Are you going to carry on with your previous diet, or any diet, and put them back again?

At this point it may be worth listening to Martin Wiseman, visiting professor of human nutrition at the University of Southampton.

‘The detox fad – or fads, as there are many methods – is an example of the capacity of people to believe in and pay for magic despite the lack of any sound evidence’.

If you still think detoxing a good idea do what Carol Vorderman does. She detoxes twice a year. Do that and you are unlikely to do yourself any harm. If you just want a fast weight loss diet there are plenty of others to choose from which do not have the less pleasant side effects of detoxing. Then eat a healthy diet comprising fresh fruit, vegetables, pulses, lean meat and fish.  Exercise each day and you will become fit and lose weight permanently. That has to be a success and you may even decide to give up detoxing altogether.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

18 December 2011

Photo. raggi di sole (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: detoxing, does detoxing work, is detoxing safe, safe detox, why detox

Hello Everybody,

 People sometimes think there is no such thing as cheap food for weight loss. A healthy diet costs money, so they head for the local fast food outlet, convinced that healthy living on a budget is not an option. This is a pity because they are wrong – it is possible to buy cheap healthy food, although there may be problems for some. With fast food you go to the shop, pay the money and eat. It certainly is fast, there is no need to prepare anything or even sit down if you don’t want to. But the downside is you get fat doing it.

Buying cheap food for weight loss is different. The cheap food is out there, but you must look for it. You will need to trawl the superstore for cheap cuts and special offers or browse the local farmer’s market looking for fresh fruit and vegetables. This takes time – you need not add cooking time if you don’t want to. It is possible to eat a tasty, healthy diet without cooking anything, but there is buying time. That may be daunting if you work a twelve hour day, have two children and get home exhausted. It might be possible to arrange a weekly food shop, and if you eat a healthy diet and lose weight you will be better able to cope with a busy lifestyle.  But we all live different lives and what is possible for one is often impossible for another. The decision is yours, but cost should not enter into it because cheap food for weight loss is available.

So what sort of food is healthy and cheap? Here are some approved by the British Heart Foundation.

Canned fish:  Not all healthy food has to be fresh. Oily fish like sardines, salmon and mackerel are cheaper in cans and still good for you. Do not buy any sort of tuna if you want to save the planet, it is being overfished to extinction.

Canned vegetables: Avoiding discussion over what is or isn’t a vegetable try canned tomatoes, beans, peas, carrots or new potatoes. Except for baked beans I would use canned vegetables only occasionally, as fresh vegetables are cheap and easily obtained. Check the labels for excessive sugar or salt in canned food. You may find there is a more healthy option for the same price.

Fruit and vegetable in season:  There is often more produce in season than people to buy it, so prices are low. Fresh fruit and vegetables taste good too.  Look for perishable fruit when it is over ripe but still eatable. The vendor has the choice of either selling it cheaply or throwing it away. Bargains are to be had.

Oats for breakfast: Oats with low fat yoghurt and some grated apple and cinnamon is a filling breakfast. This with a cup of coffee – black or made with skimmed milk, is cheap and healthy.

Adjust the ingredients:  Vegetables are cheaper than meat, so include more vegetables and less meat in your meals. Soups and stews are also a good way of saving money.

Cheap pasta: Pasta in all its varieties is cheap to buy and easy to store. It features in numerous Italian dishes from the simple to the complicated. Whole grain pasta is the healthiest.

There we have half a dozen ways to choose cheap food for weight loss. If you have the time to shop once a week you could have a healthy diet and spend no more than you do in a fast food outlet. It’s worth considering.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

Cambridge UK

11 December 2011

Photo. Hilltowngal  (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: avoid fast food, cheap healthy food, cheap weight loss, eat for less, lose weight cheap, lose weight with cheap food

Hello Everybody,

You know what happens in winter. You put on weight.  But you don’t have to - why not make this a lose weight winter? It helps to know why we put on weight at this time of year. It is not entirely our fault; our ancestors had abundance of food available and like many animals stocked up for the winter. Their fat reserves saw them through at least some of the bad weather and they emerged thinner but alive.

Today we have a less natural lifestyle but, with Christmas fast approaching, abundant food is certainly available. The tendency to eat more may also be prompted by less sunlight causing behavioural changes such as depression and comfort eating. Cold weather makes it tempting to sit indoors, rather than spend a daily half hour cycling or jogging. The result is predictable, but for us instead of surviving on our fat reserves we carry on eating and not exercising through the winter. We emerge at the end not thinner but fatter and have a struggle to lose weight in the spring. This is all fairly obvious, but we must be aware of how the problem comes about before deciding how to make this a lose weight winter.

Christmas is a different story but most of the time we don’t eat more in winter. We just eat different foods like sugars and those containing fat.  Lack of sunlight and winter depression may cause comfort eating and chocolates can seem a better choice than an apple or a stick of celery. Lack of vitamin D -  the sunshine vitamin -  also results in storing more fat. Add that to lack of exercise and we put on weight. Exercise is an important part of keeping our weight down. There are not too many fat skiers and they, like the rest of us, have to contend with lack of sunlight and winter cravings for comforting food. Skiers achieve weight loss through lifestyle.

What can you do to make this a lose weight winter? First of all do not feel guilty about Christmas. Accept that for two or three days you are going to eat too much of the wrong kind of food and probably put on some weight. Enjoy it. But try not to start Christmas on 1 December and finish on 2 January – do that and you will put on a lot more weight than you want. During winter try not to eat large portions; eat fruit, fresh vegetables and not too much fatty meat. Exercise if you possibly can. There are things you can do if you don’t want to go outdoors. Winter is a good time to join a gym. Swimming is good indoor exercise as is squash for the more active. Of course if you live twenty miles from the nearest gym or swimming pool you may have a problem. But there are plenty of exercises you can do at home without equipment. For the more enthusiastic, weights or an exercise bicycle can help.

Do get outside if you are able, the weather in winter is often pleasant or even warm and sunlight on face and arms helps provide vitamin D. There are many things to do and enjoy; you might even take up skiing. That would be sure to make it a lose weight winter.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

Cambridge UK

4 December 2011

Photo. Arkworld (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: christmas weight loss, lose weight in new year, lose weight in winter, winter exercise, winter weight loss

Hello Everybody,

You are often told you must exercise to lose weight. There is a lot of truth in this. Just look at an average truck driver to see the effect of little exercise and a poor diet. Britain has recently achieved the honour of being the most obese nation in Europe as a result of its lifestyle. Spending all day in coffee shops, their time interrupted only by pushing a pushchair to the nearest fast food outlet is the routine of many British women. The result is highly visible and now statistically confirmed. Nearly 24 percent of women are obese, followed closely by men at 22 percent, many of whom have similar sedentary lifestyles. Just across the English Channel the French are doing a lot better. They enjoy their food and are not fitness fanatics but only 13 percent of their women are obese and 12 percent of their men. I have rounded up the figures, but they are close enough. So there is a difference and we must ask why.  The secret, of course, is what the French eat and how much.

It is well known that to lose weight you must burn more calories than you eat. You don’t have to exercise to burn calories; you can use up 95 calories in an hour just sitting reading a book. The problem is you would have to do it 5 hours a day for 7 days to lose 1 pound. That is assuming you made no change to your present diet and you were not snacking while you read the book. Many people do spend long periods sitting still and put on weight, which means they are eating more calories than they burn.  Just to carry on with your present diet and cut down on your food consumption will probably not work. You become hungry and struggle on, but as you get more and more hungry you become more and more likely to give up and head for the nearest Big Mac.

It is not too difficult to lose weight without exercise with a fast weight loss diet and there are plenty available. That’s fine if you just want to lose a few pounds for a party.  But for long term weight loss exercise together with a healthy diet is really the best option.

If you want to lose weight long term without exercise, because you don’t like exercise, you must ask yourself how much you really want to lose weight. If there is a genuine reason not to exercise you must do your best to lose weight by diet alone. It is not impossible, the French seem to have no problems, but now we are discussing a change of lifestyle.

Many French eat healthy food, although not all French cooking is healthy cooking. But the real secret is portion size and taking time over their food. There is no tradition of super sized anything and fast food is avoided.  Breakfast may be just a coffee and croissant; other meals are eaten off small plates perhaps with a leisurely glass of wine. Eat like this and normal activity takes care of the exercise.

So eat healthy food, have several small meals a day rather than three big ones and drink plenty of water. You will then be well on the way to losing weight. Those who say you must exercise to lose weight are wrong, but if you can manage 30 minutes exercise each day you will lose weight faster and more easily. If not keep to a healthy diet and small portions and in time you will succeed.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

Cambridge UK

27 November 2011

Photo. Bernard Rose.

Technorati Tags: diet and exercise, diet without exercise, exercise and weight loss, french food, how to lose weight, lose weight

Hello Everybody,

The Dukan diet is one of the best known celebrity diets. But does the Dukan diet work? Perhaps we should ask why some diets are endorsed by celebrities at all. It seems to me that a free celebrity endorsement of anything is unlikely, so perhaps we should not put too much faith in their opinion. But if the diet works so be it and perhaps it is worth a try. Do not expect to end up looking like Carole Middleton or any of her friends. Unless you have a lot of money, a personal trainer, a good surgeon and in some cases a camera man skilled in the art of air brushing you are unlikely to achieve a celebrity body

But back to the Dukan diet. This was designed by French nutritionist Pierre Dukan and has become popular in the last few years. It is complex, but put simply it is in four phases. To begin with dieters eat nothing but protein for 2-10 days. This can give a weight loss of up to 7 pounds. In the next phase they add 28 types of vegetables to the diet and aim to lose 1 pound a week for as long as they need to achieve their desired weight. After that they move to a ‘consolidation phase’ which adds food to their diet with the intention of maintaining the weight they have achieved. The final phase is to adjust the diet again and include daily exercise to maintain health and fitness.

This does not sound too bad, apart from the excessive weight loss in the first 2-10 days. But it has massively annoyed the British Dietetic Association (BDA) which definitely does not think the Dukan diet works. The BDA is so annoyed that it has made the Dukan diet number one in its annual list of the five worst celebrity diets. It says, ‘This diet is so confusing, very rigid, full of French foods that most Brits would run a mile from, like rabbit and offal, and even Dr Dukan himself warns of the associated problems of lack of energy, constipation and bad breath.’ The BDA considers the diet has, ‘absolutely no solid science behind it at all’. Leaving aside the matter of rabbits – which the British have been eating since their introduction by the Romans, and also the British love of French food, this is not very encouraging.

The BDA carries on listing numerous reasons not to embark upon a Dukan diet. For them the Dukan diet is very bad news. In some respects they have a point. I worry most about the first 2-10 days. To lose 7 pounds in 2 days is silly but even to lose it in 10 days is still bad. It would require a daily calorie deficit of twice the average normal calorie requirement for a man and two and a half times for a woman. Your body would go into starvation mode and begin consuming muscle to survive; this lowers your metabolism and makes losing weight even harder. It is just the sort of thing I would advise against.

So it looks like the Dukan diet is not the best, although it may be a matter of opinion about it being the worst. Remember there are plenty of other weight loss diets out there. Do your research and try one you think might be for you. Do not lose weight too quickly and be careful about celebrity diets; to be fashionable is not always the way to go.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

Cambridge UK

20 November 2011

Photo. AZ Greyhound Rescue.

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Technorati Tags: best diet, best weight loss diet, celebrity diets, dukan diet, how to lose weight, lose weight, what is the best diet

Hello Everybody,

To find out how to lose four pounds in a week you must first know how many calories you are eating each day. There are plenty of calorie charts available online and you just keep a record of what you have eaten in a day and check the calories. Do this for two or three days to get an average. To lose four pounds in a week you will need to eat 2000 calories a day less than you now eat, but do make sure you are not eating under 1000 calories in a day.

Losing four pounds in a week is a big weight loss and whether you lose it by a healthy diet and exercise or by one of the numerous diets available do be careful. After you have lost your four pounds lose only a pound or so a week from then on. This is easy enough and having lost four pounds in a week losing one pound will feel like nothing at all.

To lose four pounds in a week you will just need to do what I usually advise but more so. Eat a healthy diet of fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, chicken or fish, low fat dairy products and whole grains. Be sure to eat small portions and check the calorie count of what you are eating. If you really find calorie counting a bore you could try pre-portioned meals which will tell you the calories in each meal. But I would not advise living entirely on pre-portioned meals for seven days. Try to eat fresh food as well.

You will need to exercise or you will never lose four pounds in a week. With a reduced diet you may not feel like exercise but do as much as you can – a minimum of 60 minutes a day. This can be split into 30 minutes morning and 30 minutes evening if it helps. The easiest way to exercise is to take a brisk walk around the block or in the country. Do anything else you enjoy, so long as it feels like exercise and you put the time in.

Avoid eating out. If you normally take lunch to work make sure it is healthy and does not include crisps or sweets. Drink a lot of water and avoid fizzy drinks.

Do this, count the calories and you should lose those four pounds, or close to it. Now that you have lost four pounds in a week take it easy. Do not be tempted to carry on and lose another four pounds in the next week. Your body won’t like it and you could feel unwell. You can lose more weight, but only lose a pound or so each week, a deficit of 500 calories a day with 30 minutes exercise. That is sustainable weight loss and it will add up over the weeks.  Losing a lot of weight fast is not easy and should be avoided if possible but it can be done. Good luck and do be careful.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

Cambridge UK

12 November 2011

Photo. Roving I (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: fast weight loss, lose 4 pounds, lose four pounds, lose pounds, weekly weight loss

Hello Everybody,

French women have a reputation for elegance and style second to none. But how do French women stay slim? In any French city you will see slim women of all ages. Of course not all French women are slim – but a lot are. A remarkable thing is that the French like their food and spend a lot of time eating and drinking. So how do French women stay slim?

 For them food is important. They don’t walk down the street with a sandwich in one hand and a bottle of coke in the other. They don’t sit at their computer all lunchtime with an apple and a packet of crisps. Eating is a serious business. These are some of the ways French women stay slim – you can do the same.

Take your time:   In France people sit down to eat. A lunch may be a leisurely affair. An evening meal can take an evening. Family, friends, colleagues are involved – as well as eating the French like to talk. Fast food is not an option.

Eat small portions:   French women do not eat supersized portions. There will be several courses in a meal but the portions will be small.

Eat like the French:  The secret of eating like the French is to eat fresh food. Markets are busy every day selling fresh produce for restaurants and the home and this is the essence of French cooking. The type of food eaten varies with region. In the south there is the very healthy Mediterranean diet of salads dressed in olive oil, tomatoes, fresh vegetables, lean meat, and fish. In the north more butter and sour cream is used. Everywhere you will find cheese in all its varieties and wine is often served with a meal. Try these typical meals. 

 Breakfast:   Drink coffee, black or with a little milk, or maybe fruit juice.  Eat a croissant or crusty bread with jam.  Breakfast should always be eaten.

Lunch:  This used to take two hours, now it is more likely to be one. Chicken or fish, a light salad and plenty of fruit would be typical, perhaps a cut baguette with a cheese and salad filling.  Wine may be drunk but it is more likely that a lunchtime drink will be fizzy water.

Dinner:  The big meal of the day with several courses. There are many possible variations but dinner might be of chicken, veal or steak with fresh salad and vegetables. There will be fruit and cheese and fresh bread. Wine will be consumed and, if with friends, the meal will carry on a long time.

So the answer to the question, ‘How do French women stay slim?’ is that they live in France. The lifestyle is on their side, but we can still learn from what they do. Eating fresh healthy food in small portions and taking time over meals is something we can practice anywhere. I did not mention exercise. French women walk or cycle a lot, but exercise is not a high priority. With a calorie intake right for what they do there is no need to worry about burning fat. It is all very easy and is just a matter of fresh food and small portions. There you have the secret of how French women stay slim.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

Cambridge UK

5 November 2011

Photo. Dami3n (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: eat like the French, French weight loss, healthy diet, mediterranean diet, slim French women