For the love of food

Tonight I enjoyed Man vs. Will at the Udderbelly (the purple upside down cow on the Southbank). In his show the Aussie comedian, Will Anderson, joked about the differences between English, Australians and Americans, including their attitudes to food.

In particular he theorized that the Americans have a bigger problem with obesity due to the way they love food and have so much focus on it.

It's true that the Americans love their food and this can encourage over-eating - particularly their association between food and pretty much all social activities. However the French and Italians are arguably more passionate about food without having the same obesity problem, although there passions are usually around quality rather than quantity.

And that difference is key - eating isn't just about fueling the body - although some diet regimes would have us act as if it were - we can't deny that eating is a pleasurable sensory experience that is also intertwined in our social fabric.

In this way good food should be celebrated and we should always aim to eat the highest quality produce, even for something as simple as our breakfast make sure the fruit is ripe and tasty or have a good quality muesli. If something doesn't taste good or isn't pleasurable to eat then put it to one side and eat something else.

Try it out over the weekend - you might be surprised at how much food you reject but also that when you really think about it you may be getting more pleasure out of some simple healthy foods rather than processed unhealthy ones.

Once you tune into quality in this way you'll find not only do you enjoy your food more but you'll generally eat less. Good food is savoured and eaten slowly, whereas eating something bland generally leads to mindless eating where you work your way through your food like a chore.
Perhaps if the Americans loved their food in this way they wouldn't be such an easy target for comedians.

Will is at the Udderbelly for the next three nights if you fancy a good laugh.
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Summertime slaw

Whilst the weather is still fairly patchy at the moment I was fortuitous enough to have a few hours of sunshine for my bbq on Saturday.

I love a good bbq - tasty food, eating al fresco and good company, but they aren't always the healthiest of affairs. So one advantage of playing host is you can make sure there are some healthy options.

Amongst the usual bbq fare I included my favourite vegetarian/vegan/gluten and dairy free burgers (Tesco Mushroom and Tesco Bean Burgers), with tesco wholemeal gluten free rolls, fresh corn on the cob (boiled til they change colour then finished off on the bbq) and a few different side salads. One of the salads that was a big hit was a celeriac coleslaw.

It's a yummy alternative to coleslaw without the cream so it's dairy and gluten free and can be made with egg-free mayo for any vegans. Try and use real mayo if you can make it, or look for the lowest sugar content for shop bought - you'll find the 'lite' versions have more sugar so are actually worse for you than regular mayo.

Celeriac slaw:
Grate 250g celeriac root and 250g carrot (I use the larger gauge grater for this). Mix and sprinkle with 1 tsp fresh lemon juice to stop the celariac from browning.

Mix up the following dressing in a large bowl:
125ml mayonnaise
Salt + pepper
1tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp red wine vinegar

Add the grated celariac and carrot and mix thoroughly, then refrigerate for 20minutes and serve. Enjoy!
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Time for a sit down

An almost universal complaint of clients in the city is that don't have as much energy as they'd like/used to have. Now whilst a lot of us probably think that's part and parcel of getting old, I personally think it doesn't need to be the case.

I've blogged fairly recently on how certain foods can rob you of energy (http://nutritionistinthecity.blogspot.com/2011/03/energy-thieves.html), but what we also neglect to do is get sufficient rest. Yes this includes sleep, but also just sitting down and doing nothing - something most A type, multi-tasking city folk find very difficult.

It seems as if in learning to operate at hyper-speed and become super efficient at work that we unlearn how to relax properly. Watching tv, going to the gym, playing squash, might all feel like stress relief but infact they still provoke a stress response and don't count as true relaxation.

What I highly recommend is that when you get home from work and just feel like collapsing in front of the tv, that instead you spend 10 minutes sat somewhere comfy, or even lying down, and just do nothing - no reading, no talking, no watching tv. Try and keep your mind calm too - let your thoughts drift around but don't start planning what you're going to do that evening or replaying about what happened at work that day.

You may fear you'll fall asleep, and this may happen, but what you'll be surprised to find is that after even just 5 minutes you're energy levels will come back up and you'll feel refreshed and ready to do something more constructive than watch re-runs of Jersey Shore!

If you really struggle to switch off mentally I recommend reading The Power of Now
to help you get into the habit of clearing your mind.

Doing nothing (for a short period!) is also good for weight loss reducing your circulating levels of stress hormones which encourage fat storage, particularly around the middle, so if you're trying to lose weight it's worth making some time to do nothing at all!

Day off!

As I commented in yesterday's blog I like to take a day off every week where I don't do any exercise, don't rush about doing chores, have a lie in and generally relax.

I appreciate that this is a luxury that those of you with kids can rarely afford but working out a rota with your partner to at least get a lie in once a week can be extremely beneficial.

Something I notice on these days off is that my appetite is much lower when I'm relaxed - this is to be expected as mental activity burns up calories just a physical activity does, so a stressful day in the office can drum up quite an appetite. Equally not going to the gym means that in the evening I'm also much less hungry.

This is one of the many reasons I don't give clients calories or quantities of food to eat and instead encourage them to eat when they're hungry, eat slowly, stop when their appetite is satisfied and then not eat again until their hungry.

Putting it into practice myself generally means having a small dinner on my day off, maybe some soup with a gluten free roll or some homemade nori rolls with salad, as I'm just not that hungry - cooking up a big dinner and eating my usual serving would mean taking in more food than I needed that day.

I think learning to follow your appetite really is the key to having the right food intake (unless your appetite is suppressed due to stress or deficiencies). Learn to eat to your appetite and you can constantly match your food intake to your activity levels and won't ever have to worry about how many weight watchers points or calories are in your lunch.

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Bye bye BeachCamp

It seems somewhat perverse to be blogging about BeachCamp as the rain pours down outside my window but, despite how it looks outside, it is June and we will all hopefully get to don our swimwear sometime soon!

I have to say with the rainy weather I've found I've been less motivated to stick to the regime than I normally would in my pre-holiday tone up. In particular I find the cold weather makes me reach for comforting food and there have been a couple of chip eating incidents in the past two weeks (shhh don't tell anyone)!!

Oh well, even us health professionals aren't immune to comfort eating! And sticking to any regime too rigorously normally needs to cravings for banned foods, so I'm now going to go back to my usual 80/20 rule ... pretty much following BeachCamp 80% of the time and 20% of the time eating what I want. This also includes one rest day a week of no exercise whatsoever so that I have a day where I don't feel under pressure to stick to a schedule.

Where alot of dieters go wrong is that once they've lost the weight they wanted to they go back entirely to their old eating habits and the weight comes back on again. This is where the 80/20 rule comes into it's own by instead gradually introducing the less healthy foods, but keeping to your healthy regime the majority of the time.

So what habits will I be keeping up from BeachCamp?

Well first up is drinking water on waking and before each meal - I'm generally pretty good at drinking enough water at work, but I find I forget on weekends, so this is a habit I'm going to try and stick to.

Eating some protein with each meal. From the big 5 (water, fibre, fat, protein, wholegrain carbs) it's the protein that I will sometimes not have enough of. Particularly with breakfast, so this is another habit I'm going to try and stick to.

Finally the half hour exercise rule. Those of you that know me might find it odd that I'd find this rule useful as I'm a total gym bunny. But actually by limiting myself to just half an hours exercise, rather than doing longer gym sessions, I've found my whole gym experience more relaxed and I've been able to fit in more sessions than I usually would. For example I was away this weekend with friends and so it would have been antisocial to go off to the gym for 1.5hrs but instead I took my running shoes and went for a half hour run before breakfast which really didn't eat into the day at all.

By sticking to these habits I'm confident that the time the sun does come out my good work will have paid off and I'll be beach ready!

Beachcamp: Banish the bingo wings

A common concern amongst women at the gym is that if they do upper body weights they'll end up with popeye arms ... not a good look!! Now whilst most personal trainers would brush this fear aside, it's one I actually share. Having trained with free weights a personal trainer for a couple of years I found that my biceps looked toned but also looked out of proportion to the rest of my body.

Whilst this is a purely aesthetic concern, it is part of Beachcamp's objectives to get in good shape for the beach including your upper body. For the guys this likely means developing an impressive pair of guns, whilst for the girls this probably means banishing the bingo wings without building too much bulk.

Building muscle and toning muscle require different exercise techniques, and so doing the right exercises can make all the difference as to the shape you achieve.

To build muscle: The most effective training, in my opinion, is pyramid training with free weights which involves decreasing reps with increased intensity. This is the training used in the Body for Life programme and is most effective when combined with frequent protein intake. All the details can be found on their site: http://bodyforlife.com/library/exercise/weight-training

To tone muscle: If you don't want bulging biceps but do want toned arms then you need to do lots of reps with low weights. This is the premise behind the Tracy Anderson Method and also the weight training in The Bodydoctor
programme, which is a great all round toning programme with good instructions on proper weight training technique.

Whichever you go for you need to train your upperbody at least twice a week for decent results so some commitment is required, although just doing 30 pushups each evening at home will yield surprising results.

Butt camp

A week and a half into beachcamp and I'm really seeing results, my clothes are looser and for the first time in quite a few years my weight is under 8 stone (I'm only 5ft 1) - all cause for celebration. Best of all I haven't felt hungry or deprived the whole time, well with the exception some bacon sarnie envy last weekend!

The key to effective and painless weight loss really is in changing the quality of what you eat, rather than obsessing on the quantity. Eating healthful foods and following your appetite is really a whole lot easier and more enjoyable than counting calories, carbs or grams of fat and being hungry half the time.

However this method does rely heavily on cutting out the bad stuff - and for the duration of Beachcamp this means no sugar, dairy or meat.

If this is something you're struggling with and you need a motivator then getting your butt beach ready should be it - as well as contributing to weight gain these three foods are also major contributors to cellulite. So if you want to lose the orange peel effect it's time to drop the bacon sarnies and café lattes.

Cellulite is much more common in women but is also seen in some males. It is caused by a particular formation of fat so excess fat stores make it worse but water retention is also a major factor, so even if you're not overweight you can have it. This is why cutting down on toxins and allergens can help reduce cellulite, as can lymphatic drainage massage such as endermology, which drains fluid away from the cells. This can be expensive but there's no need to fork out - you can use a body brush at home to create the same effect or if, like me, you don't enjoy that particular sensation you can easily give your thigh region a quick massage each day when you moisturize. Apply firm pressure and massage in strokes up the leg towards the heart. And remember exercise also encourages lymphatic drainage as the muscles squeeze the lymph vessels moving the fluid around the body.

But there's more than just tackling cellulite when it comes to getting the perfect posterior. Unless you've inherited a naturally great shape, which some lucky people do, you'll need to put in a consistent effort in the gym to get a butt like JLo in time for the summer.

An effective programme combines weights twice a week (lunges and squats) with cycling or the stairmaster, also twice a week.

Cycling is great for shaping the bum and thighs, but you don't have to take up spinning to see results. Interval training on a bike at the gym (see www.bfl.com) will give you a resistance and cardio workout in just 20 minutes. Equally cycling to work, particularly on a heavy Boris bike, will give your thighs and glutes a good workout, especially if cycling uphill.

For those without access to a bike at work or home, the Tracey Anderson mat workout dvds have comprehensice sections of butt toning exercises, however be warned these can get a tad repetitive!
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