The Senior Walking Fitness Blog

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)

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