Hello Everybody,
When we think of foods that cause weight gain we think of a full English breakfast, or a Big Xtra! with cheese. Eat a few of these and you will certainly get fat. But getting fat is not only the result of eating a lot of unhealthy food. It is also the result of the constant drip of high calorie snacks and light meals every day. You hardly notice what you are eating, but it adds up.
For example your day might be like this.
Breakfast. Coffee and toast. That is fine - always eat breakfast and this is a healthy meal. 308 calories.
Mid Morning. You are in town so you call into the coffee shop for a latte. The butter croissants look good, and you had a small breakfast, so you have one of those as well. 628 calories.
Lunch. You don’t have much time, grab a cheddar and pickle sandwich and a bottle of sparkling water. 538 calories.
Afternoon. Another latte and a healthy muesli bar to eat on the way home. 409 calories.
You have not eaten anything you might have considered particularly fattening. No bars of chocolate, no cream cakes, no pizzas. You have even tried not to eat junk food, but you have consumed 1883 calories and it didn’t seem much at all.
The recommended calorie intake varies with height, weight and sex. As a rough guide an average man needs 2550 calories a day and an average woman 1940 calories a day. Which means that an evening meal of any size can easily result in more calories being consumed than have been expended. Carry on like this long enough and you will get fat.
So let us try again.
Breakfast. Black coffee and toast. Not such a difference, but we now have consumed only 94 calories.
Mid Morning. Black coffee. You would still like a butter croissant? Have one - don’t worry about it. 295 calories.
Lunch. Salmon Nicoise salad and sparkling water. Not too easy to eat running for a bus, but it tastes better than a sandwich. 291 calories.
Afternoon. Black coffee and a banana. 149 calories.
So without doing anything dramatic you have dropped your calorie intake from 1883 calories to 829 calories. That gives room for your evening meal without thinking too much about what you must eat.
None of this is rocket science - but it does help to have some idea of how many calories are in your food. You can do this by reading the small print on labels or carrying out a Google search on foods you don’t know about. Beware of anything labelled as ‘Healthy’, it may have as many calories as other similar products.
Do not turn calorie counting into a way of life, just know what you are eating and then stop worrying about putting on weight.
See you soon,
Peter Stockwell
16 July 2010
Photo. Keepps (Flickr)
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