Earlier on this year I did a food diary for a few weeks. I hated every minute of filling it in - counting and recording everything. The annoyance of looking up foods on the Internet. Throwing away wrappers and then having to fish them out of the bin again to record the statistics. Trying to cook simple meals so all the math wouldn’t take too long.

It wasn’t fun, it took a lot of time and effort and there’s no way I could do it for long.

It was, however, one of the most useful diet-related exercises I have ever done.

It blew me away.

You get set into a diet that is reasonably healthy and you stick to it. Slowly over time, if you’re not very careful, you start to stray from it. You add a little something here. Take away a little something there. And slowly over time it morphs into a slightly more “comfortable” version of what you started off with.

My food diary revealed that my eating habits weren’t too bad at all (though of course there’s always room for improvement!) but it was my drinking that was letting me down. Not alcoholic drinking (I barely touch the stuff) but rather the fruit juice, energy drinks, coffee and so on.

Do you have any idea how many calories are in fruit juice?!

I nearly died! I assumed in the past fruit juice was a pretty safe bet. No siree!

If it *weren’t* for my drinking, I would have been well within my desired calorie count but it was this drinking that was pushing me way, way over the limit (by hundreds of calories).

I had a very hard time changing. I now survive on average on plain water with the odd decaf coffee or skimmed milk to drink. That’s it. Gone are the sodas and energy drinks except once in a blue moon for a treat.

So consider what you drink on a regular basis - could you be drinking yourself fat, and what can you do to change that?

Popularity: 23% [?]

Browsing in a bookstore last week I inevitably stumbled upon the weight loss section. And when contronted with a range of good diet books I do like to have a little browse to see if anything catches my eye.

I figure - I’m always willing to try a new idea and anything which might help me (or you, dear reader!) is something worth aiming for.

In amongst the usual selection of books generally categorized as “read it” or “you must be joking” was one I’d never seen before entitled the “Duvet Diet”.

Never before have I heard a more unbelievable book title. You lose weight by getting yourself down the gym, not by lying in bed. The claims seemed so “out there” I decided to buy a copy so I could read it at my leisure and discover if there is actually anything to it or not.

The main premise, as far as I can see, is two fold. Firstly, if we’re sleepy, we’re more likely to not have the patience to cook proper, nutritious meals and instead are likely to rely on junk food. Fair point, but hardly earth shattering.

Secondly that sleep affects out hormones, so lack of sleep can result in weight gain. The first part I agree with, the second however doesn’t naturally follow for me. Maybe I’m missing the point or being overly unkind but there just isn’t enough hard science for me in this book.

It seems like the author of The Duvet Diet - Jane Worthington - has come up with a crazy sales ploy of inventing a diet that claims essentially that by being lazier you will lose more weight.

Great marketing, poor diet.

There is a lot of padding in the book, which could have been half the size or smaller in my opinion and I think any results gained from this book are mainly because the author recommends 30-60 minutes of exercise each day plus a reasonably calorie-controlled diet.

I say reasonably because in the acceptable snacks list are such foods as beer, Smarties and ice lollies!

Oh, and according to her tables, I shouldn’t lose any more weight as I am at my minimum, though as the pictures featured here recently show, I have quite a bit more to lose.

In my opinion this is one diet book to steer well clear of!

Popularity: 10% [?]

A phrase I only heard recently, the Clean Plate Club refers to people who hate to see food wasted. They huff if you leave any on your plate in a restaurant. They try to offload the last remnants of food at a dinner party. They comment about people starving in other countries.

Maybe you’re tempted to be one yourself.

One of the tricks to losing weight is realising where your barriers are.

*Don’t* stuff yourself with food. Eat only until your appetite is satisfied. Even better, eat slowly, and drink plenty of water with every meal. You’ll be surprised how little food it actually takes to make you feel better.

Restaurants can be the worst as they can use huge plates and pile food on.

Whatever you do don’t be tempted to eat everything on your plate when you have a meal. It’s not a competition. The aim isn’t to finish everything put infront of you but rather to eat as much as you need to not feel hungry any more. If it takes till the plate is cleared to feel like that - fine. But don’t do it for the sake of it. Or because someone huffs when you don’t.

Take it slowly, and don’t be afraid to leave some food if needs be. The Clean Plate Club isn’t a nice club to be a member of.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Preparing myself for my next diet experiment I have been spending some time familiarizing myself with the GI Diet, and most specifically the book “The GI Diet” by Rick Gallop.

The first impression when you flick through the pages of the book is that it is a very “friendly”, welcoming book. It is well laid out on nice glossy paper with lots of charts and color and straight away you want to read more. This is in stark contrat to the Atkins Diet book I read which is very dull inside to look at.

The book itself does a good job of explaining the GI Diet and what it is about in general. It discusses the reasons why the diet works in a logical manner and provides tables of food.

These tables are arguably the most useful - and interesting - part of the book as they give loads of different foods graded into red, yellow or green. Red foods are to be avoided altogether, yellow can be eaten ocassionally and green can be eaten whenever you like. This makes it quick and easy to know what you can eat and Gallop should be applauded for this.

One chapter I particularly liked was on motivating yourself where the author suggests working out your ideal weight from charts he provides then subtracting it from your current weight to work out how much fat you need to lose. Then, you fill a rucksack with books are similar that equal this weight and carry it around on your back for a few hours.

It’s likely this extra weight will soon start to annoy you, limit what you can do and make you extra tired.

When you’ve had enough, take it off and enjoy the feeling of freedom when you do so.

Remember - that is how much weight you are going to lose and how great you will feel when it happens.

Nice idea.

The book contains a good number of recipes which look quite reasonable and additional GI Diet recipe books are available too.

Just three slight complaints about the book.

Firstly I don’t feel the author is very clear about portion sizes - how much you can eat at each meal. I read the book from cover to cover and found that was the only question I had. I had to reread quite a bit I felt in order to find the answer I was looking for and even then I felt I was reading between the lines a little.

Secondly, there is arguably rather a lot of padding in the book. The charts seem to go ovee the same things several times so it seems the author was given a word count to stick to and had to do some padding.

Lastly, I am a little concerned that the author suggests exercise isn’t important for weight loss. He argues that to lose a pound of fat in a week you need to put yourself in a calorie deficit of around 3,500 calories, which is true. But he claims half an hour of cardio will only burn 50-200 calories depending on which exercise you do at what intensity, while you can easily cut 500 kcals a day from your diet.

Consequently reducing calorie intake is more effective than increased exercise levels.

I would argue that exercise leads to a healthy lifestyle in general and is important for reasons other than weight loss and that exercising will help maintain lean muscle mass while dieting so you burn more fat and less muscle. Lastly, the author seems to have forgotten that regular exercise can raise the metabolism meaning you will burn more fat at rest anyway. So suddenly it’s not just 50 calories while you’re exercising, but a whole lot more once you stop.

In general, I think the book is worth a read and it’ll be interesting to see the results the diet generates.

Popularity: 12% [?]

The GI Diet is going to be my next diet experiment here on this blog and I have some high hopes for it. It is, to be fair, quite similar actually to the Body For Life diet which we know works and so it seems reasonable to assume this diet will bring similar results.

The diet consists of eating 3 meals a day, and 3 snacks as well. This is in contrast to the Body For Life diet where you eat 6 meals each day and so should be even easier to stick to.

Foods are graded as red, yellow or green depending on the Glycaemic Index (or GI). The GI is basically a measure of how quickly a food is broken down by your body. The theory goes if you eat foods that take your body a long time to break down (and so have energy to burn) you will feel fuller for longer and won’t need to eat as much. Also, your body will use up energy digesting the food so increasing the calories burned.

Lastly, with this “slow release” food there shouldn’t be spikes of blood sugar leading to the body putting down fatty deposits.

The food choices are pretty close to Body For Life - lean meats such as chicken and seafood, a variety of vegetables and fruits.

There are some surprises. Rice and pasta will be pretty much banished, as will potatoes and all cereals except oatmeal.

So this is going to be a classic “low fat, high protein diet” with slow-release carbs. I am swapping some fo the fat from the Atkins Diet for some of the carbs in fruit etc so it will be interesting to compare and contrast the results.

In the initial phase you only eat the green foods and when you have reached your goal weight you are allowed to start including some yellow. As I will only be doing this for a few weeks, I will only be eating the green foods throughout.

The other difference between the GI Diet and Body For Life is that you won’t get a “free day” on this diet which I think may make it harder to stick to, but only time will tell.

We have already been grocery shopping and stacked up on oatmeal, fat-free yogurts, fruit and veg plus a variety of meats to let the fun begin!

Popularity: 12% [?]