If you’ve made a resolution to try to lose weight, think healthy rather than faddy as diets don’t tend to work, writes nutritional therapist Stella New

Feeling bloated after the Christmas blow-out, or finding our clothes fitting a little too snugly? This is the time that many of us resolve to shed a few pounds. But which diet to choose – low fat, low carb, low calories – or just low food? Or one of those celebrity diets where you just eat eggs, or cabbage soup, or even vinegar!

The fact is that most diets will probably help us to lose weight, but because they are impractical, unpalatable or plain antisocial they are very difficult to stick to. So sooner or later we relapse, going back to our preferred way of eating and putting the weight back on. This type of yo-yo weight loss and gain puts a strain on the body, and in extreme cases can lead to long-term health issues. It also leads to the type of weight gain that seems to happen just by looking at a cream bun!

So why is this? Our bodies have evolved over thousands of years, but our basic design is still much the same as it was in the Stone Age. Yo-yo dieting leads the body to think that lean times are ahead, so it goes into starvation survival mode, clinging onto those vital fat reserves that would keep us alive in a famine. Missing meals such as breakfast or lunch exposes the body to this kind of stress on a daily basis and slows down fat loss.

But many people find that they lose weight when they miss meals, so what’s wrong with it? It is tempting to measure the success of any diet in terms of how quickly we can shed the most pounds, but our bodies are physically only capable of losing around 2lbs of fat a week. Any more weight loss is likely to be water, or, even worse, lean muscle – the type of muscle that burns up calories during exercise and helps us to lose weight and keep it off.

So why do other diets tend to fail? Low carb diets are palatable but have the unwanted side-effects of constipation, bad breath, and sometimes joint pain. Fat has been branded the enemy because gram for gram it contains more calories. But low-fat diets lead to a slower metabolism and therefore slower fat-burning – we need to eat some fat to lose it. Low fat diets are also unsatisfying, and studies have indicated an association with depression. Calorie counting can be helpful but not if our 1,500 allowed calories consists of 5 Mars bars! It’s not just about calories; we need to be eating the right balance of foods for this type of diet to be successful.

The key to successful, permanent weight loss is to change how you eat and exercise in a way that is not just sustainable but also enjoyable. So rather than sporadically depriving yourself of the foods you like most, nutritional experts advise gradually adopting a healthy, nourishing wholefood diet that is both tailored to your needs and achievable for you as an individual.

Occasionally excess weight can be due to a hormone imbalance or food allergy which generally requires specialist advice, but for the majority this DIY approach will help. Firstly, here’s how the weight gain mechanism happens for most of us. When we eat fast-release sugary foods or white bread, pasta or rice, we get a rush of sugar to the bloodstream. Excess blood sugar is dangerous, so the body reacts to the sudden rush by removing it from the bloodstream and storing it as fat. Stimulants such as tea and coffee have the same effect because they cause us to release stored sugars, which are then re-stored as…you guessed it…fat! And as our ratio of fat:lean muscle increases, so our ability to burn fat decreases.

To reverse this fat storage mechanism it is essential to keep the level of sugar in the bloodstream as steady and even as possible. To do this, here are my 5 golden rules:

• 1) Eat breakfast! Avoid long gaps without food –although it may go against the grain, eating three meals between and healthy snacks in-between such as nuts and seeds will help you to lose weight!
• 2) Include plenty of colourful fresh fruit and vegetables that contain a wide variety of nutrients to boost metabolism.
• 3) Include good quality protein at every meal to help slow the sugar rush e.g. nuts, seeds, beans, fish, eggs, chicken etc.
• 4) Choose brown not white! Avoid refined, fast-release foods and choose slow-burning, wholegrain foods such as brown bread, pasta and rice; porridge oats etc.
• 5) Reduce stimulants such as tea, coffee and alcohol and try replacing with alternatives e.g. rooibos or herbal tea, NoCaf, Aqua Libra etc.

Don’t rush to do these all in one go, instead take a week or so to implement each rule one step at a time as for most people the gentler the transition period the more likely it is to be successful in the long-term.

Stella is a qualified nutritional therapist and homeopath, registered with the British Association for Nutritional Therapy and working from the Riverbank Medical Centre in Midhurst. Contact her on 01730 810008 or email stella@stellanew.co.uk. For more information about nutrition visit www.bant.org.uk