Health of the Nation: Experts’ 10 top tips to shed kilos by Easter

Losing weight doesn’t have to be difficult or boring. See experts’ advice on the best ways to shed kilos and keep them off.

Two in five Australians will have stacked on an average of 3kg over the Christmas break a Cancer Council study found.

Our expert diet tips can help you shift that spare tyre by Easter.

TOP 10 TIPS TO LOSE WEIGHT, STAY HEALTHY

1. SWITCH TO A MEDITERRANEAN DIET

Switching to a Mediterranean diet based on mainly fresh vegetables, wholegrains, olive oil and small amounts of meat is the key not just to weight loss but good health.

RMIT Mediterranean diet expert Dr Catherine Itsiopoulos says four fifths of your plate should be plant foods and legumes with lots of rich colours, a predominance of leafy greens and onions and garlic. Eat Aromatic herbs and spices and tomato every day.

Learn to slow cook onions and garlic and other vegetables like celery and carrot in a sofrito and then add fresh tomato or tomato sauce and legumes or a little meat.

Switching to a Mediterranean diet can help Aussie shift the kilos they stacked on over Christmas.

2. AVOID CRASH DIETING

Do not try to crash diet because our survey found eight in ten people who lose weight will put it back on. Your body is programmed to make you regain any weight you lose. Adopt an interval weight loss strategy to overcome these defences.

Lose no more than half a kilo per week for a month then take a pause for a month to reset your body’s hormonal response to the weight loss before starting to lose weight again for a month.

University of Sydney’s Professor Nick Fuller’s research has found diets slow down your metabolism causing you, over time, to not only to regain the weight you lost but pushing you to gain a further 1.5 kilograms each year.

3. EAT SMALLER PORTIONS

Buy smaller 18 cm dinner plates to control portion sizes.

Fill half that plate with vegetables (not potato chips), dedicate a quarter of the plate to proteins like meat or legumes and a quarter to healthy wholegrain carbohydrates like breads, rice or pasta.

“Things like smaller dinner plates make such a difference, it’s a physical reminder of portion sizes,’ said Healthy Wellbeing Queensland dietitian Dr Robyn Littlewood.

4. DITCH HIGHLY-PROCESSED FOODS

Ditch highly processed foods like cakes, chips, hamburgers, chocolate, lollies, ice cream and even sweetened yoghurts and diet bars and protein bars.

These ultra-processed foods contain industrial ingredients like emulsifiers artificial flavours, salt, sweeteners, fat and preservatives to make them longer lasting, more affordable and tastier that are bad for gut bacteria.

A study by researcher Melissa Lane at Deakin University study found eating ultra-processed foods increased the risk of depression by 23 per cent.

5. RETRAIN YOUR BRAIN

Retrain your brain to make fruit and nuts your treats not processed high sugar foods. Try to eat foods like plain natural yoghurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, sourdough bread cold potatoes and cooled rice to build good gut bacteria.

6. BREAKFAST IS KEY

Eat large to small with most calories consumed in the morning. Studies show people who eat a good breakfast lose more weight than those who don’t.

If you skip breakfast you are prone to consume more calories later in the day. The body is more insulin resistant in the evening so it’s better to eat lighter less carbohydrate driven meals then.

“Breakfast will be a portion size that is equivalent to three closed fists, lunch will be approximately two closed fists, and the evening meal will be approximately one closed fist. These guides exclude vegetables, so you can load up as many vegetables and salad as you like at each meal,” says Dr Nick Fuller.

7. GIVE UP SUGARY DRINKS

Research shows every sugar-sweetened drink you consume could increase your Body mass index by 0.18 per serving per day.

The Cancer Council warns “the average 600ml bottle of soft drink contains 16 teaspoons of sugar and about 1,000 unnecessary or ‘empty’ kilojoules. This means that they exceed the World Health Organisation’s recommendations for sugar (which is around 12 teaspoons per day for the average adult).”

Even low calorie drinks aren’t good for you. Artificial sweeteners like aspartame, cyclamates, saccharin, or sucralose might be free of calories but some studies have found they may increase appetite by stimulating hunger hormones, altering sweet taste receptors but studies on this are mixed.

They have also been linked to an increase in diabetes and heart disease.

Drinking water is best.

8. GET MOVING

The amount of kilojoules your body burns is linked to your muscle mass.

Better Health Victoria says even at rest, the body burns calories and the higher your muscle mass the more calories you’ll burn.

People aged 18-64 years should do 150-300 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per week or 75-150 minutes of vigorous intensity physical activity.

They also need to do exercises to strengthen or tone their muscles at least 2 days per week.

Incorporate short bursts of vigorous physical activity into your day so less exercise time is required to stay healthy.

*Instead of using the lift climb three flights of stairs for about a minute and a half.

*Park the car a little further away when you go shopping and carry five kilos of groceries back to the car at a brisk walking pace.

*When you go for a coffee with friends we park a few blocks further away from the cafe and do a walking sprint all the way to the café at 140-150 steps per minute.

“In our study the equivalent of three one minute long bouts of this kind of activity a day was associated with 50 per cent reduction in cardiovascular mortality risk on average,” University of Sydney’s physical activity expert Professor Emmanuel Stamatakis said.

9. EXERCISE TIMING IS KEY

Timing your exercise can be important:

*working out before breakfast can help the body used stored fat as fuel.

*muscle strength peaks between 4-6pm so it’s a good time to do your muscle building workout

* exercising after eating can help lower your blood glucose levels

*Exercising in the evening can lower your blood pressure and blood sugar.

*don’t exercise two hours before going to bed because it will raise the body’s core temperature and make it hard to get to sleep.

10. AVOID SITTING FOR TOO LONG

Sitting for 8 hours a day can be as bad as bad for your health as smoking or obesity.

Take a break from sitting every 30 minutes and try:

•Standing while talking on the phone or watching television.

•Try a standing desk

•Walk with your colleagues for meetings rather than sitting

Originally published as Health of the Nation: Experts’ 10 top tips to shed kilos by Easter