thinking women’s weight loss special

Over the next few months I’ll be blogging (among other things) about proven but simple changes you can make to help you lose weight and shape up while still having a life (don’t worry I won’t be telling everyone to go macro – not yet anyway).  I have found November, December and January are the months when people are either trying to fit into glam party frocks or trying to starve away the excesses from all the said parties…hopefully coming posts will show you there are alternatives to ‘dust’ – as Marjorie Dawes would say – that can help you lose a bit of weight.

MAKE IT LOOK LIKE A LOT

One of the most respected researchers into the way we eat is Barbra Rolls at the center of Behavioural Nutrition at Penn State University in the US. Her most ground-breaking finding – for me anyway – was that if we normally eat a full plate of food, or a big hamburger and fries everytime we have take away if we only eat a third of a plate of food or a half sized burger and small chips we’ll always want more. But if the half sized burger looks like a large one, say with heaps of extra beetroot, salad and dense wholemeal roll, or you eat a full plate of food but half of it is vegetables, it’s highly likely that you’ll feel full. I know, psychology trumps biology – again! That means you can, in theory anway, cut your meat, cheese, fat and carb portions in half while adding loads of exciting vegetables, salads and fruit and you’d feel as full as if you had a bigger portion.

But it gets even more exciting.  In her studies, Rolls gave study participants smoothies, but she gave half of them a smoothie that had been blended for a short time and filled only half a glass, and the other half a smoothie made form exactly the same amounts and ingredients but blended twice as long so filled with air, it filled an entire glass and the ones that ate the full glass smoothie aye 12 per cent less lunch – even though the smoothie had no more food.  So Rolls had actually shown that simply by blending food for longer when your making soups or smoothies, you can make it look bigger and trick yourself into thinking you’re eating more.  Smoothies for brekkie then?

Trustworthy advice for women post-surgery

I recently did a piece on day surgeries for women for Woman & Home and discovered a dearth of impartial advice for women post-surgery.  As the NHS pushes to free up more hospital beds, more and more patients are being encouraged down the day surgery route.  That’s fine, as superbugs and over-crowding make the prospect of a stay in hospital pretty unattractive.  But still, you absolutely must know the treatment and aftercare you’re entitled to and whose care you will be in.    With all due respect to surgeons, during my research I also found surgeons were quite blase about the pain that likely followed major surgeries such as gall bladder removal with throwaway statements such as ‘oh a few paracetemols and she should be back at work within a few days.’

The new Return To Fitness: Recovering Well range of leaflets from the Royal College of Obstericians and Gynaecologists has input from surgeons, nurses and (crucially, I think) patients too for a quick, uncomplicated recuperation.

Free from rcog.org.uk/recovering-well

Seaweed: could you? should you?

I’ve often read about the incredibly high nutritional content of sea vegetables with their odd-sounding names and mossy, boatshed smells.  Nice in theory.  Sea vegetables are the most nutritious and mineral-rich food on the planet apparently, with the ability to help the body detoxify heavy metals from the environment and regulate the thyroid because of their high iodine content.  But I tried wakame once and it made my soup taste like the beach and so gave up.  Up to now they were a healthy step too far.

But thanks to Angela Agnati-Prange (the macro-chef extraordinaire who has cooked for Rachel Weisz – I didn’t even know she was macro – and Madonna who everyone knows is a macrobiotic maniac) at last weeks’ retreat I’ve learned how to cook these nutritional lottery winners so they actually taste rather good!   They’re not hard to cook and they somehow help you feel more satisfied after eating.  It’s quite remarkable and an effect I think worth a tryst with their slight sliminess.

Here’s a crash course to using these magic foods:

Agar-Agar a tasteless gelatin replacement which can be cooked to high temperatures in jelly, mousses and quiches in the same way as jelly.

Hijiki is among the most mineral-rich of plants, containing fourteen times as much calcium as cow’s milk.  Along with its cousin Arame it should be soaked in warm water for 15 or so minutes after which it doubles in size.  Then you can dress it in a few drops sesame oil, fresh lime, chopped fresh corainder, some Japanese rice vinegar, a teaspoon grated fresh ginger juice and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds if you fancy.  This sea salad keeps in the fridge for days is a great vitamin-rich side dish.  Tonight I made this and had it with Soba (brown rice noodles, which cook in six minutes), some cubed firm tofu and a light peanut butter and orange juice sauce.  Faster than most TV dinners and guilt-free.

 

 

 

Arame summer salad

Nori I love this stuff!  Macrobiotic maestros recommend toasting the sheets over a hot flame.  This is the stuff sushi rolls are wrapped in but toasted it’s far tastier, crispier and less chewy.  You take a dark green sheet and toast it and after a few seconds the colour lightens and the sheet hardens and it’s done.  Then crush and sprinkle it over salads or stir-fries or crush it into larger flakes and munch on it like you would crisps.  Sounds strange but it’s delicious.   In a marmite-love-it-or-hate-it kind of way.  Honest.

Wakame Soak it for about ten minutes and then slice and add to soups like miso and stews.  Don’t use too much, this one can tip the fishy scale if it’s over-used.

If you’re looking for a good brand, I would recommend Clearspring who make all the varieties and they’re organic so you can be assured harvesting and production methods are fish-friendly.

 

 

 

 

 

They’re all available from any health food store

Don’t be scared, enjoy!

oh my god, I am doing acro yoga

It’s far easier than it looks on this video.

Like all yoga, you need to stay inward focused because once you start actually thinking about the shape from the outside, you become an observer and stop feeling it from the inside.  Here, it was my first time and staring at the ceiling I had no idea what i was doing, so didn’t think too much about the difficulty or danger of some of the postures.  It was only after I watched myself doing it on the video that I began to crap myself with fear at some of those flying shapes!!  That’s the moral of yoga.  Feel it.

I did it at the macro retreat (see yesterday’s post) last week because Viktor Frih, an amazing Swedish teacher happened to be up there as his girlfriend is the sister of Marie Butler the macrobiotic maestro behind the retreat and resident at the incredible old Victorian home, Penninghame.

This flying yoga thing is incredibly therapeutic for some reason, perhaps because you’re forced to trust  the other person as well as your own strength, but there is no gravity – they are your foundation/floor (can’t imagine what it’s like for the poor person doing the carrying though – it ain’t ever going to be me!).  It’s beginning to become available in and around London and some classes are called ‘therapeutic flying’.  I will post when i have tried some in town.  If you find an experienced teacher, and you have done a couple of years’ yoga, go for it. Viktor’s website is yogalife.se

PS : Be prepared for the close-up-and-personal factor – as the flying person, your head repeatedly and necessarily dangles in the other person’s crotch.  But don’t worry you’ll be too freaked out by the thought of hanging upside down on a limb and a prayer to feel any embarrassment.  Besides, if your teacher is as gorgeous as Victor, this might just be the thing that gets you there in the first place.   As the yogis would say, it doesn’t matter why or how you get to yoga, as long as you get to yoga.