FoodBozo.com

By Mairlyn Smith, P.H.Ec

Diets don’t work.

Anything that you can go on you can go off.

How many times have you been on a diet? Go ahead take a minute and count them. Then ask yourself this question, “If diets really worked why am I still searching for that magic weight loss plan?”

This year I want all of us, no matter who you are and what your age is, to get off the diet merry-go-round and make the decision to change your eating habits and embrace a new healthier way of living.

Make your New Year’s Resolution or goal to get healthy and you’ll lose weight in the process.

This year I am targeting my peeps – women over forty.

The media is flooded with information for younger women. It’s as if over forty year old females don’t count anymore. Maybe we aren’t quite as cute or have the same taut skin that we used to but baby we still rock.

For women over forty here’s the news – the game has changed and unless we get a copy of the new rule book we aren’t going to be able to play let alone win the next tournament.

Throw out your diet books. Years of yo-yo dieting have made a lot of us into ineffective calorie burners. The more low-calorie diets you’ve been on the more muscle you’ve lost. This makes you fatter each time you gain the weight back and therefore less able to eat a regular calorie diet without gaining weight.

This year and forever more we need to tune up our bodies so that they will take us into our forties and beyond as smooth sleek Lexuses not battered up Chevy Chevettes.

We need to up our fibre, eat disease reducing antioxidant rich fruits and vegetables, muscle protecting protein, bone saving dairy products or fortified soy milk, vitamin, mineral and antioxidant rich whole grains and heart healthy fats as we age.

What we put into our tanks has a huge affect on our long term health. So does how we incorporate fitness and how we manage stress.

Here’s the Game Plan:

You will need to measure out your food so that you are getting the right amount. We all tend to over serve and as we age those extra portions add up to extra calories that play havoc with our health and our waistlines.

To make sure that you are measuring the correct amount if you don’t have these tools in your kitchen please go out and buy:

• A set of dry measuring cups for foods like fruit, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts.
• A 1 cup (250 mL) glass measuring cup for milk or juice
• A small scale for meat, fish and poultry.
• A set of measuring spoons for foods like fats, and nuts.

Over forty year old women know all about dieting. Most of us could write books on the topic. We need to be eating a balanced diet that will provide our changing bodies with the nutrients it needs.

No secret codes, no impossible rules, no earth shaking eat this don’t eat thatkind of plan.

Every day you need to have:

• 8 servings of vegetables and fruit, pick deeply coloured fruits and vegetables, make at least one vegetable serving dark green and one fruit serving orange
• 3- 4 servings of low fat milk or milk products
• 5 – 6 servings of whole grains
• 2 servings of meat and meat alternatives, include beans at least 3 times a week, include fatty fish(salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines) 2 times a week, limit red meat to 2 servings per week
• 1 tbsp- 2 tbsp (15 – 30 mL) healthy fats – canola oil, extra virgin olive oil, or non hydrogenated canola oil margarine
• 1 tsp – 1 tbsp (5 mL -15 mL) ground flaxseed
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) walnuts, almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts, or pistachios
• Keep hydrated but don’t go over board. You need about 4 extra cups (1 L) of water per day, more if you workout. Coffee and tea count as 1/2 serving of liquids.

Click on this link for what a serving size is. Sorry there aren’t any pictures, the servings are based on measurements. Print off two copies. One for your fridge and the second one for your purse.

Don’t skip meals and try to balance out your servings throughout the day.

If you had an identical twin and both of you were eating 1800 calories per day and you ate your calories through out the day while your twin ate them all in the late afternoon and evening you would be thinner and have more muscle than your twin. Starving your body kicks into High Alert and it will try to conserve energy. Your body needs energy and it will break down your muscle versus your fat to get the energy it requires to live.

Your most important meal is now going to be breakfast. To fight off the meno-pot or the bump of fat we start to carry around our middles in our forties we need to make sure that we have a breakfast that will prevent us from attacking the fridge by late afternoon.

Breakfast:

Eating breakfast is linked with being more alert, doing better in school and at the workplace, losing weight, and a healthier you.

Here’s an example:

• 1-2 servings of high fibre cereal. [All cereals are different. Check the label to see what a serving is. My favourite pick is Bran Buds. High in both insoluble and soluble fibre this cereal can help reduce cholesterol as well as keep your gastro-intestinal tract working. Oatmeal is also a great pick]
• 1/4 cup (60 mL) dried fruit [Dried fruit like apricots, dates, prunes, cranberries or blueberries are extremely dense in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals and the Vitamin C in all of them help you absorb the iron in the cereal.]
• 1 tsp – 1 tbsp (5 mL -15 mL) ground flaxseed. [A great source of fibre, omega-3 fatty acids and antioxidants. If you aren't used to eating a high fibre diet start off with 1 tsp (5 mL) of ground flaxseed and work your way up to 1 tbsp (15 mL)]
• Sprinkle with ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp (30 mL) chopped walnuts [Walnuts are high in omega-3 fatty acids, help lower cholesterol and are a source of protein. I buy California walnuts because they taste great and are never bitter.]
• 1 cup (250 mL) skim milk or organic soy milk [Sources of calcium and Vitamin D]

Lunch: eat lunch three hours after breakfast. If this is impossible have a snack two hours after breakfast

Afternoon snack

Dinner

Evening Snack: don’t eat any later than two hours before bed.

Extras:

• Coffee drinkers: limit coffee to one cup per day and make it in the morning. As we age some of us become caffeine sensitive and need at least 8 hours of no caffeine before bed.
• Read labels to make sure what a serving is for that food.
• Take a multivitamin/mineral pill everyday. There are important vitamins and minerals that you might be missing, especially iodine. Found only in table salt that is iodized and to a lesser extent in sea salt, iodine is an important mineral that helps with the functioning of our thyroid gland. Salt added to processed foods in Canada doesn’t need to be iodized making iodized table salt, some sea salt, and seaweed the only really good sources of this important mineral. Before you run out and start throwing salt on your food, bear in mind that as we age we need less sodium and should be limiting it to 1500 mg per day. Your best bet is to avoid as much processed, packaged, and fast foods as possible and take a multivitamin/mineral pill everyday.  Works out to be about $.10 per day.
• And you can have 1 oz. (25 g) good quality dark chocolate every day. I love Dove Dark.

Lots of info for one sitting.

There are diets out there that will promise you amazing weight loss in short periods of time, please steer clear. Weight loss needs to be slow and steady especially as we age. We need to protect our muscle mass so that we enter the second part of our lives as effective calorie burning machines.

Start off slowly. Aim for the breakfast idea above and then build onto your new healthy eating style. New habits take a while to become routine. Be gentle on yourself and just keep hanging in there.

Depending on your current eating habits, if you follow this new healthier eating plan, you may lose a lot of weight or you may lose a small amount of weight, but one thing is for sure… you will feel better, your skin will look better, you will have more energy, sleep better, and be a healthier you.

Before starting any new eating of fitness plan please check with your doctor for an okay.

The book I co-authored with dietician Liz Pearson Ultimate Foods for Ultimate Health and don’t forget the chocolate, which won the Gold Medal at the Cuisine Canada Cookbook Awards, is loaded with fabulous information on healthy eating plus it includes recipes that puts that information onto your plate. Check it out at Chapters or buy it online.

It will become your eating bible.