It’s almost Christmas, and I know that this time of year is not the time of year you want to be thinking about dieting. This is the time of year that there are extra chocolates just laying around, wonderful party food to snack on, and let’s not forget that massive Christmas dinner that we all wait all year to enjoy. And, if you’re anything like my family, that’ll be followed by an equally massive Boxing Day dinner with all the leftovers. There really is nothing like this time of year for over indulgence, is there? But the Christmas time overeating is so often followed by the dreaded New Years Resolutions, where we all promise that we’re going to diet in the New Year and lose weight, and how many of us actually do it? Well… I did.
In 2016 I made myself a promise that it was my last year weighing what I weighed. For those of you who don’t know, I weighed a staggering 155kg (24st 5lbs, or 341lbs if you prefer). I was BIG! I knew I had to do something about it, as we all do, but I’ve tried dieting before and it’s never worked. I’m sure you’re the same. Well, right now I’m sitting here typing this and I weigh just 88kg (13st 12lbs, or 194lbs). In 2017 I reduced my BMI from a worrying 45 to an incredible 25. Even my GP couldn’t believe how well I’d done, and I have friends at work who’ve marvelled at it. And I’m not writing this to show off. I’m writing this because it’s almost January and in 2018 YOU can follow some very simple, FREE dieting advice and reach your ideal weight too.
Over the next few weeks, prior to 2018, I intend to give some simple advice on this blog for what you can do. There’s no tricks. There’s no weighing food. There’s no counting calories. There’s no avoiding one type of food completely. There IS a little work, in that I’ll encourage you to start walking more, but there’s no gym membership, there’s no high costs, there’s no diet pills and I swear there are no tricks. This is just my advice to do what I did, and hopefully see good results as well.
So, what did I do? Well, my first piece of advice is this…
Snacking Is Bad, Mmkay?
We all know this, but we all do it anyway. And yes, I managed to lose a ton of weight this year without giving up something that we all do. To do this and still lose weight I just did sensible things, like for example I refused to buy junk food – crisps, chocolate, peanuts, and all that other junk that I know you love because I loved it too – and instead I switched what I’d snack on to healthier options. See, that’s the thing about the way I dieted. I never gave anything up, I just switched to healthier ideas. So, if you REALLY fancy something to eat with your favourite TV show, don’t go for the chocolate, don’t go for the Pringles, go for either the FRUIT, the SALAD or the MEAT!
These are my three favourite snacking options. They’re incredible simple, and they genuinely work better than anything else you can eat. First and foremost for me it’s fruit. I tend to take a trip out every other day to the local supermarket (which for me is Tesco Express) and buy myself some fruit. That usually comes in the form of grapes or strawberries, because I have a sweet tooth and both make wonderful snacking items. They satisfy my need for something sweet while also being far, far, FAR healthier for me than alternative options, and in truth they’re not THAT expensive either. Grapes tend to be around £2 for a tub of them from Tesco, and I can easily get through a tub a night. Strawberries are around the same sort of price, maybe £2.50. I cut the tops off, cut them in half and then snack on them throughout my favourite shows. Yes, you’re still consuming calories because you’re still consuming sugars from the fruit, but it’s natural sugar which is far better for you than processed sugar.
My second favourite snack of choice is salad. I buy a low-fat vinaigrette from Iceland, but it’s available in most supermarkets. Then I cut up some lettuce, some tomato, some white cabbage, some red cabbage, and occasionally some onion, and I enjoy that with a little bit of the vinaigrette and some ham or chicken. It’s by no means the greatest idea to be snacking on stuff like that in the evening, and if you CAN avoid doing it I would of course recommend you do, but there are evenings where we just NEED something to snack on and when those evenings hit I’ve never been able to fight it, so instead of going mad and consuming bread or something with heavy carbs and sugars in it, I go for the simple and healthy option, and honestly there’s something to be said about a nice, crunchy salad. It’s enjoyable, even if my friends do consider it “rabbit food”. It’s not AS nice as the alternative of course, but if you do indulge in the alternative then you’re not going to reach your weight loss goals, are you? And you have the rest of your life to snack on the nice stuff once you’ve lost the weight, so while you’re pushing yourself to be healthier, go for the salad. You’ll thank yourself later.
And, if you just need to fulfil a quick craving, my fridge is normally stocked with chicken or ham. Don’t get the crazy hams with all the sugar and the salt in them. Check the packets and get yourself a nice, low salt, low sugar ham, or of course one of the readily available pre-cooked chicken options. Waitrose do a Tikka Chicken or a Sweet Chilli Chicken which are both absolutely lovely and make for a fantastic mid-evening snack when you just can’t resist the urge. Again, none are super healthy, and if you’re eating it every night and going through tons of it then you’re clearly not going to lose weight at the end of the week, but if you’re sensible and you only snack when you really need to just satisfy that craving, then you’re on the right track. And, of course, all of the three above options are CONSIDERABLY better options than a bar of chocolate or half a tub of Pringles, which is what used to get me and how I got into the state I was to begin with.
Don’t Punish Yourself
That’s the main advice done, but now just a quick thought to leave you with: don’t punish yourself. Don’t punish yourself by denying yourself food when you’re hungry. That’s just dumb. And definitely don’t punish yourself if you slip up and you can’t resist something that’s definitely not on your diet. The way I look at it is all you’ve done is you’ve slipped up on ONE DAY. That’s nothing. Everyone is allowed to slip up now and then, and one day of breaking a diet isn’t going to end the diet. What ends the diet is deciding that that one slip up is the end of all your work and now you “might as well just stop”. That’s madness. Don’t stop because you made one slip up. Don’t be that hard on yourself. Do you have any idea how many times I cheated on my diet in the first few months? But every morning, no matter what I’d done the day before, I’d get up and I’d get back on the wagon, and that’s the thought I want to leave you with. You can only ruin your diet when you give up entirely. Don’t punish yourself for mistakes, just be better the next day.
You CAN lose weight. Believe me, if I could lose all that weight last year, you can definitely do it.