In the last article, “Perfect Weight Loss Habits” we discussed three powerful weight loss habits. In this article, we’re now going to cover several more of them which can make profound changes not only to your weight but to your health.
One healthy new habit is to get rid of all snacks all together. That’s it. Remove them completely from your lives! You see, snacks are often filled with sugar, salt, preservatives, flavourings and other chemicals. Sugar, as I discussed in the previous article, is Enemy Number One when it comes to weight loss. Salt increases our blood pressure and should be avoided while preservatives and flavourings are chemicals which don’t do our bodies any good.
But how do we avoid snacks altogether? They are after all so tasty and fun to munch on. This is where shopping comes in. If you’re in charge of shopping for your family, then you need to be firm and stop buying snacks. The best way to ensure this happens is to always write down a shopping list whenever you shop.
Snacks, confectionary and sugary drinks must never make it on this list!
Then, when you go shopping, you must stick to this list no matter what. This will ensure that you don’t buy all those unhealthy items. Best still, don’t even go down those aisles which are filled with temptations. If you have young kids, don’t bring them shopping for otherwise you may well end up with a lot of unwanted stuff in your trolley!
So, what about the snacks, confectionary and sweet drinks you have at home? This is where what I call ‘The Reverse Shop’ comes in. You now need go through all your kitchen cupboards and bring out all of those unhealthy items. Then you must decide to give them away. Donate them to anyone who’ll take them and, if nobody will take them, then you’ll have to just put them in the dustbin. This will ensure that you’ll never buy such things again.
We often buy these unhealthy snacks for guests but actually, we and our family end up eating them. If you’re worried about guests, then the best thing is to always have fruits at home. What can be healthier and more attractive than a plateful of colourful fruits for your guest? And if you’d like to serve them something other than water, you’ll find some healthy drinks in The ‘So Fat Lah!’ Cookbook which is filled with healthy recipes.
Another wonderful new habit is to eat more vegetables. Vegetables are so good for us. They’re filled with vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, antioxidants and fibre. Unlike meat and dairy, they contain no saturated fats. So, whether you’re at home or eating out, fill your plates with lots of vegetables. Salads and ulam are excellent too as they’re raw and so you know that none of the goodness has been lost in cooking.
Try having Meat-free Mondays
Yet often we may just have an idea that we should eat more vegetables but, when it comes to meal times, decide that we’ll do that another time. To make sure that we in fact eat more vegetables, how about following the Paul McCartney and Jamie Oliver’s advise of making Mondays meat free? Their Meat Free Mondays campaign is not benefits your health but the environment too. This means that you’ll avoid all meats and seafood on Mondays. If you find that this is something that’s not too difficult to do then you might want to add Fridays too as a meat-free day.
An alternative to going meat free on select days is to choose seafood instead. Pescatarians replace meat with seafood and I’ve been one for many years with my weight dropping 10 kilos over a period of 18 months because of this one change. Seafood is a lot healthier than meat as seafood contains less fat and, because it has less connective tissue, it’s therefore easier to digest.
Often though, especially when I’m on my own, I’ll simply eat a vegetarian meal. Becoming a vegetarian, or better still, a vegan, will definitely get rid of those excess kilos. So you might want to think of joining the more than 1 billion vegetarians in the world. But I’m going to guess that most of us can’t do this. Meat is just too delicious to give up!
But if you think, because of the incredible health benefits, that this is something worth aiming for then you might want to start with going meat-free on Mondays and then adding other days later. Or you may simply choose a seafood diet instead. Vegetarians, because they’re eating wholesome, nutritious foods, are known to be healthier and live longer than their meat-eating counterparts. Vegetables are filled with amino acids which means that they’re getting lots of protein too.
Anything but white (four and rice)
Another great weight-loss habits is eating less rice and flour-based products. So you could reduce the amount of rice you eat by half or, alternatively, choose to eat brown, black or purple rice. The same goes for noodles, breads, pastas and anything else made from flour. Just eat half the amount. When eating flour-based products, it’s always better to choose those that are made from wholemeal flour. That’s because like brown, black or purple rice, food made from wholemeal flour takes longer to digest and therefore does not spike the blood circulatory system.
So, together with my last article, you have 7 wonderful new habits which you can follow. If you’d like more options you can find them in my book So Fat Lah! 30 Perfect Ways to a Slimmer You.
In the next article in this series I’ll be covering food and exercise. So I’ll see you then!
By Tunku Halim
