“I want what I eat to stay the same, but I also want to become healthier” – That’s a tall order. But yes, there are some tricks that possibly will make a change to better health, all else staying exactly the same.
- Let your food get cold – store it in the fridge, or even better – the freezer… When you want to eat it, reheat it however you wish – my preference being on the stove or airfryer vs microwave.
- Why this change?
- Supposedly letting carbohydrates get very cold, like rice, potatoes, and even pasta – changes the starch to a more resistant starch. This can also affect bread doughs, so let’s include normal breads, and pizzas and even cakes in this equation. It affects the complex carbohydrates like the wheatflour, not the simple carbohydrate i.e. the sugar. Even crumbed meats like fish-fingers or chicken nuggets, with the amount of starch used in the filling, and on the bread outside. This means that the starches change to feed gut bacteria rather than feeding you. It can reduce the calories consumed by your body by up to 40% of the meal. So you will only ingest about 60% of the calories. This is based on many articles read, so off course these numbers might not be the same for everyone.
- Summary: So if you aren’t planning on changing your meals – sticking the biryani with extra gravy soaking potatoes in the fridge for 12 -24 hours, doesn’t seem a terrible idea, if it’s going to help your health and everyone elses’, who will be sharing the meals, move in the right direction.
- I will eat carbohydrates from the freezer and fridge – for my health.
- If you wish to lose weight: Use an air-fryer to re-fry all your fried take-out, i.e. for all your fried take-away meals.
- Why this change?
- An air-fryer is built with grids, and it allows excess hot oils to drip off the foods, and onto the bottom of the air-fryer. That means less fat lining your arteries, i.e. less cheap palm oil / hydrogenated fats in your body. When emptying the air-fryer line the plate with some paper towels to catch whatever excess oils are still lingering.
- Bonus: the food tastes amazing again, as if you just collected it fresh from the store.
- Pro-tip: Line the bottom of the air-fryer with foil shaped to the bottom dish so you don’t start to hate your air-fryer. Once you’re done using the air-fryer, remove the foil without letting the excess oil drip below, and your air-fryer will stay cleaner for longer, and not smoke out your house with burning oil ( the cause of many a wrecked PC, laptop, and X-box)
- Summary: Use your air-fryer on takeaway that you’ve bought, but also to make your own meals. Seriously wonderful device for healthier meals – reducing excess calories via fats and oils.
- I will reduce oil in my foods
- Use smaller plates, bowls and in your house. This just naturally means that you will dish a touch less, for your normal meals, and over time, that change will add up. That is if you want to reduce calories you intake, and reduce your waistline. If you need to put on weight, the opposite is relevant.
- Summary: Be intentional with the size of your crockery. Smaller plates and bowls means less food plated. Likewise – larger cups or tumblers can mean more liquids taken in. Good for drinking water, overly encouraging for smoothie chuggers.
- I will use the smaller plates and larger cups
- Stop reheating your food in plastic, i.e. poisoning yourself. Micro-plastic exists, and have been found in the human body. If you’re using a microwave to reheat food – know that the microwave cooks at extreme temperatures. So glass or ceramic as good options when reheating food. Additional benefits of dishing into ceramic and throwing the plastic takeaway dishes out with the trash, is that lots of excess fats are at the bottom of those containers, and when you dish out you get rid of those remaining fats and oils.
- Summary: Don’t reheat in plastic dishes.
- I will reheat out of plastic
- Consider fasting. This does not have to change what you eat, necessarily. It depends on what fast you choose. If you decide to practice intermittent fasting, it means you delay your first meal of the day- effectively reducing the number of hours you allow yourself to eat, and giving your digestion a small break to empty, rest and repair. Have plenty of black drinks so sans milk, no milk alternatives. Have a list of drinks you plan on having before your first meal. Room Temperature Filtered Water, Boiled Water, Rooibos, Ginger Tea, Black Coffee with Spice – all before working out, and first meal. This can cause you to reduce the total amount of calories you take in, over those reduced hours of eating.. Don’t feel compelled to eat the quantity of food you would have otherwise eaten. Let your body tell you when it’s full, and stop your meal.
- Summary: Adding a fast to your week, even for just a few hours delaying your first meal or even a day, can create discipline and self control. It can also reduce the amount of food you intake by reducing the number of hours you can eat in.
- I will delay my first meal of the day, especially when I am aiming to reduce daily calories in
- Brush with a Minty fluoride after every meal. Add flossing into this regime as well, and if you aren’t in public, get that tongue of yours pink and clean, and spit out the gunk. Also great to not have any cavities. Brushing stops you from wanting to snack, it can even stop that dreaded unnecessary second portion. Each time you snack you cause a glucose spike to your blood, thereby increasing insulin level in your body. The aim for being healthier is to allow enough time for the insulin from your last meal to reduce its level in your blood stream. This only happens if you give eating a break.
- Summary: So anything that can help reduce snacking – such as brushing, and flossing, and cleaning your mouth properly – helps to this end, reducing the overall calories you take in at a time.
- I will clean my mouth after a meal
- Cleanup after you’ve eaten your serving of your meal. The fact is, you need to stop yourself from dishing that second helping.
- Getting busy by clearing your plate,
- washing your utensils,
- scrubbing your hands and nails down with a nail-brush and
- putting on some hand lotion
- Give yourself a few extra minutes for your body to register that you’ve eaten. You can also help by dishing the food that’s leftovers into containers for the fridge. And now that your hands are super clean, and your dish on the drying rack, you should feel less inclined to eat again.
- Summary: Super clean busy bodies don’t dish second portions.
- I will help in the kitchen after dinner
- You prioritise eating the veggies, and protein off your plate first – meaning you pushed aside some of the carbohydrates remaining on your plate – even just a spoonful. Don’t force yourself to clear any plate. Clearing a plate is what you do when you’re ready to use the dishwasher, not what your eating should be like.
- Summary: eat the important bits first – veggies and protein, leave behind what you can.
- I will eat the veggies first
- Dish more protein. You increased the amount of protein you ate per meal, increasing the calories you burnt through normal digestion – as protein uses more calories to digest than carbohydrates and fats.
- Summary: Eat more protein.
- I will bring in more protein, to eat more protein
- Close up the kitchen at least three hours before bed-time. That means, don’t put anything in your mouth which requires chewing for the 3 hours leading to bedtime. This includes the chocolate on the pillowcase, at your favourite hotel or bed and breakfast. It also means, don’t drink anything with milk or milk alternatives, as these require the body to process this drink as a meal. The idea being to give your body a chance to finish the digestion process properly, and not stagnate this process by going to sleep while it still is happening. So your body properly digests its last meal optimally i.e. burning as many calories as possible from the meal, and then starts to rest and repair.
- Summary: Call-out the kitchen is closed for business 3 hours before bedtime.
- This kitchen closes daily, 3 hours before we sleep
- End your showers cold. This was something my mum taught me as a teenager, her explanation being skin health. We now know that there are also thermogenic benefits to using an ice-bath or being under a shower with cold water, you burn an increased amount of calories versus when the water was warm. It activates your brown fat which burns additional calories to warm you up.
- Summary: Start to love cold water, because it loves you.
- We end showers cold
- Get a massage before bedtime. Brilliant for improving circulation, lymphatic system draining, good digestion. My mum was a real negotiator. When I was ten years old, I was her personal masseuse, for a time. And trained! I had read all the books at our local library on the topic, so that I could do a good job, and sometimes she tipped! Not sure what children these days would say about that, but personally, it’s a good skill to have. I also appreciated the cash, all the more. Not to say you can’t massage yourself. A good repair lotion is also excellent to use for your skin when you’re on a health journey and plan to lose some weight while you sleep.
- Summary: Help your skin repair itself during your weight loss journey by using massage. Massage helps the body with eliminating waste, and effective sweating and flow – try this to burn a few extra calories before bed.
- I will
- massage in my lotions
- be religious with my skincare
- dry brush my skin
- exfoliate
- use warm then cold (water, and sponge/cloth)
- move upwards, always up (anti-gravity)
- Get enough good sleep. “Enough” means 6 to 8 hours of sleep. “Good” means deep sleep. To do this, you need your devices to be away from your eyes, at least an hour before your head touches that pillow. So consider a night-time routine that works with that. Clean your mouth, and complete your skincare routine. Massage your body or feet. Read a book or read your child a story. Write down all the things you are grateful for. Pray. Just relax for an hour before bed. Learn how to chillax.
- Summary: Good sleep stops the overproduction of the fat storage hormone ghrelin. Also when you sleep better you burn more calories.
- I will have a great nights sleep
- Track your meals. See here, you said you didn’t want to change your meals. I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to track your meals – everything you eat, either in an app or a food diary, or photos of everything you’re about to eat. The fact is data is power. You can use data to create informed decisions for your way forward.
- Summary: Data is power – track your meals.
- Meal-tracking
- Track your measurements. Write the date, and the day then track: Your weight: Daily. Your measurements: Height; Bust; Waist; Upper-arm; Upper-Thigh; Butt: Take these all weekly. It’s a great habit to have. Again – data is power. Somehow, because you’ve done this step – your mind works with you in the background – keeping you making better decisions.
- Summary: Data is power – track your measurements.
- Measurement Tracking
- Change your bathroom scale setting to pounds versus kilograms:
- 1 kilogram is roughly 2,20462 pounds so don’t be surprised when the number you’ve seen in kilograms is more than doubled when expressed in pounds.
- Most digital bathroom scales display weight to a single decimal place, i.e. one digit after the comma. So when changes are slow in either direction it sometimes won’t reflect on the scale, but when it does it will reflect sooner if you have the scale set to pounds (lb).
- I enjoy seeing the changes, as and when they happen, and I expect others might too. When the number moves in a direction I don’t want it to, I quickly adjust to correct it, and get things back on course. Very agile of course, reacting to new relevant information efficiently.
- So for the digital scale with a single decimal point, I believe it is better set to pounds (lb).
- 1 pound (lb) equals 0,453592 kilograms. If the scale is working and accurate, you will see a 0,1 lb change whereas you will not necessarily see the 0,04 kilogram change it equates to. Seeing changes as they happen, means more information sooner. This allows you to respond faster to the change, directing your actions as you need to the day ahead. Seeing change can be super motivating.
- Summary: Pounds on the scales gives you more timeous information than kilograms
- 1 kilogram is roughly 2,20462 pounds so don’t be surprised when the number you’ve seen in kilograms is more than doubled when expressed in pounds.
Here’s some worthwhile reminders in large font, just in case!
