How to get your fitness on track

Physical activity is a huge part of a healthy lifestyle, says David Stalker, CEO of ukactive. And, whether you’re active by habit or not, it’s easy to go astray. Here are some tips to help you stay on the go

Just start...
That first step is always the hardest, so willpower is key. Focus on and remind yourself why you want (need!) to make being active an important part of your daily life. Even if you start small, getting started will make all the difference.

Make time
Decide on a time that works you and stick to it. If a walk at lunchtime fits your schedule, a light run after work is better or even a short fitness class before work – put it in your diary, then refuse to move it.

Find something you enjoy
It’s all about doing something that appeals. If running isn’t for you, try a new sport or an exercise class. There will be something out there that gives you a buzz.

Involve your folks
Tell friends and family about your fitness plans and they’ll give you the encouragement we all sometimes need. They might even join you in getting fitter and make it a part of your social life.

Don’t focus on losing weight
Even if it’s your weight that kickstarts you into exercise, getting fitter and healthier should be the priority. By being more active, the weight usually takes care of itself as long as you make good nutritional choices. Importantly, muscle weighs twice as much as fat, so weight isn’t always the best indicator of health or fitness levels.

You don’t have to be sporty
Being active doesn’t have to be all about sport, though. Recreational cycling, swimming, dance or anything that gets your heart rate up and your body moving will get you on the way to a healthier future.

Make sure you rest
Eating healthy food and having plenty of sleep after exercise is vital in recovering from exertion. I know as much as anyone that finding time to get enough sleep can be tough, but trying to do an hour of hard exercise after only 4 hours’ sleep isn’t fun for anyone.

Record your progress
Activity trackers can be great way to keep motivated. Apps that learn from your daily movements and give advice can act like a virtual coach, helping you improve and maintain your fitness. Remember effort leads to rewards so look for something that tracks heart rate so you can get an accurate picture of how hard you’re working. Listening to your body is vital, but knowledge is great and keeps you accountable.

How to tackle obesity head-on

By Melanie Leyshon

25% of adults in the UK are already obese and two-thirds are overweight. Worrying statistics, which, according to Professor David Haslam, National Obesity Forum chair and Healthy Food Guide expert, means we could be facing a ‘doomsday scenario’. At the start of National Obesity Awareness Week (13–19 Jan), David wants to see campaigns for obesity becoming as hard-hitting as those against smoking.

‘There’s a lot more we can be doing by way of earlier intervention and to encourage members of the public to take sensible steps to help themselves,’ says David. ‘But this goes hand in hand with government leadership and ensuring responsible food and drink manufacturing and retailing. We need more proactive engagement by healthcare professionals on weight management, more support and better signposting to services for people who are already obese, and more importance placed on what we drink and how it affects our health.’

To tackle obesity successfully, health experts believe all the elements of the condition must be addressed. One successful scheme has been trialled in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

The town’s weight management programme brought together health authorities and commercial enterprises such as WeightWatchers, with a focus on healthy eating and exercise. Its community approach encouraged overweight people to request a referral to the Rotherham Institute of Obesity from either their GP, nurse, pharmacist or dietitian, or to refer themselves.

Of the patients who completed the six-month weight-loss programme, 93% lost weight and 66% met or did better than their targets. Overall weight-loss results were up to 29% of the original starting weight.

‘It worked because once assessed, patients could see a weight management professional, dietitian, exercise physiologist or talking therapist, or whatever they needed,’ says David. There were three stages to the scheme: stage one identified people at primary care level; stage two was community based, where nutrition and lifestyle and exercise advice was given by trained staff; and stage three looked at specialist interventions, such as bariatric surgery. For children, this included residential weight management camps.

David believes the Rotherham approach is utterly cost effective and should be used across the country. ‘People are sitting in the wrong clinics. They’re in the cardiology clinic and the diabetes clinic or liver clinic, when really they should have started in the obesity clinic so that the problem could really be dealt with.’

‘If you rolled out the Rotherham programme everywhere, it would cost far less than the amount obesity is going to cost us in 25 years’ time, according to Government predictions,’ he says. The programme costs under £1m and if it were rolled out nationally, it would cost around £250m - a small fraction of the bill we will be faced with in 2050 if the obesity crisis continues at its current pace.’

For advice on tackling obesity, check out the National Obesity Awareness Week website www.noaw2014.org.uk/recipes - Healthy Food Guide has a week’s worth of recipes available for you to try.

For more everyday recipes - all 500 kcal or less - get a copy of Healthy Food Guide’s Make it Special 100 Speedy Suppers Recipe Collection (£3.99), out now at branches of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and WH Smith, or download the iPAD edition from iTunes. 

Easy ways to cut down on sugar

The Action on Sugar campaign was launched yesterday to tackle concerns that we’re all consuming too much sugar. 

While the debate rages on what can be done about the national obesity problem, here are Healthy Food Guide’s practical tips on how to reduce your own sugar intake – plus we reveal which foods are higher in sugar than you may have thought.

7 ways to replace the white stuff:

1.     Get baking – if you like the occasional cake or biscuit, make your own so you can control the ingredients (you can normally halve the sugar content without affecting the quality). Look out for healthier sweet recipes in the pages of HFG.

2.     Try sugar substitutes – natural products like stevia are sweeter than sugar, with fewer calories.

3.     Use spices for flavour without the sugar – try cinnamon, mixed spice and ginger in stewed fruits, porridge and puddings.

4.     Watch the drinks – alcohol, fizzy drinks and juices are an easy way to overload on sugar without noticing. Try sparkling water with lemon slices and fresh mint sprigs, chilled herbal teas or diluted juice.

5.     Look out for hidden sugar in unlikely foods (see below) – look for ingredients ending in ‘ose’ on the ingredients label and check out the value for sugars: less than 5g per 100g is considered low in sugar while more than 15g per 100g is considered high (although this value refers to all sugars, not just added ones).

6.     Choose lower-sugar versions of cereals, baked beans, soups, canned tomatoes and ketchup.

7.     Eat fewer processed carbohydrates such as white bread, croissants, muffins, biscuits, cakes, chocolate and sweets. These convert rapidly to glucose in the blood, so high levels may contribute to energy highs and lows and cravings. Switch to wholegrains instead.

Do you know where sugar is lurking?

Food doesn’t have to taste sweet to contain sugar. Check out some of the more unlikely products you’ll find it in if you look closely…

* 30g cornflakes = ½tsp

* 1tbsp salad cream = ½tsp

* 1tbsp balsamic vinegar = ½tsp

* 1 slice bread = ½tsp

* 1tbsp tomato ketchup = 1tsp

* Half a large tin mushroom soup = 1tsp

* 2tbsp coleslaw = 1tsp

* A third of a jar of salsa = 1tsp

* 30g branflakes = 1½tsp

* 125g ready made Bolognese sauce = 2tsp

* 400g lasagna ready meal = 3tsp

* 400g chicken tikka masala ready meal = 3½tsp

Sugar in our diets: what's the risk?

By Paul McArdle, British Dietetic Association dietitian and diabetes specialist

The newly launched Action on Sugar Campaign is pushing for a reduction of 20-30% in the amount of sugars in our diet – sugar hidden in products we buy and the sugar we add to our food and drink. Can our sweet addiction really put us at risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes?

It's true most of us are consuming too much sugar, and much of the sugar we consume is already in pre-packaged or convenience foods.

Although sugar has fewer than half the calories of fat, it's very easy to consume large quantities of it, especially in the form of drinks, which doesn't leave you feeling very full or satisfied. Often foods with added sugar provide very few nutritional benefits and, therefore, 'empty calories'.

The British Dietetic Association (BDA) supports the call by the campaign group Action on Sugar for the food industry to reduce the sugar added to foods. If successful, the reduction in sugar may contribute to cutting the number of calories people are eating.

This is the main problem: the sugar we eat is part of a diet which is already too high in calories – indeed it may be contributing to this, and therefore to the increasing numbers of people who are overweight and obese. Small amounts of sugar, as part of a balanced diet and in people who are successfully managing their weight, is not necessarily a problem. Moreover, there are no research studies that have proved eating sugar causes type 2 diabetes. However, there are studies that look at links between dietary patterns and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

One such link is sugar-sweetened beverages. A very large study of men found an association between drinking sugar-sweetened beverages and developing type 2 diabetes. Over a 20-year period, it showed a 24% increased risk for those with the highest intakes of these drinks. This doesn't demonstrate they are the cause of the diabetes in the study population, as different types of research studies would be needed to determine that. Watch this space.

A breakthrough for type 2 diabetes?

By Tracy Kelly

Can we put type 2 diabetes into long-term remission? It’s a question that’s asked often and to date we don’t have the answer – but that could all change within a few years. 

That’s because Diabetes UK has recently awarded a £2.4 million research grant to look into whether losing weight – and keeping it off – through a low-calorie liquid diet is a feasible long-term treatment for putting type 2 diabetes into remission.  

As part of the Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiRECT) study, researchers will recruit 280 overweight people with type 2 diabetes and put them on two separate diets. This new trial follows a 2011 study that found that 11 overweight people with type 2 diabetes saw their insulin production return to normal and their type 2 diabetes put into remission after eight weeks on a low-calorie liquid diet. 

Following the huge media interest in this study, many people with type 2 diabetes were interested in this approach. But as exciting as these findings were, the study did not focus on the effects of the diet in the long term and there is still much about low-calorie diets that we are yet to understand.

As part of the new trial, one group of 140 people will spend between eight and 20 weeks on a low-calorie diet of 800 calories a day – mainly nutritionally complete diet soups or shakes, plus ample fluids. Then, as normal food is reintroduced, they will learn how to change their lifestyles permanently. 

The results of this group will be compared with an equal number in the second group, who will follow what is currently accepted as the best advice for weight loss and weight maintenance. 

Both groups will be monitored for two years to study the long-term effects of their diets on weight. MRI scans will look at what’s happening inside their bodies during the diet.

The aim is to see whether the stress and effort of following a restrictive diet for several months is beneficial in the long run. After all, 800 calories is not a lot – people following such a diet are likely to feel hungry quite a lot of the time. Also, will they be able to stick to it for long enough for it to be successful? Even more fundamentally, this kind of diet is not an easy option or a ‘quick fix’ and people will still have to follow a healthy lifestyle afterwards to stop their type 2 diabetes coming back. It’s a fact that weight regain after liquid diets is common.

Type 2 diabetes will always be a serious condition, but perhaps it won’t always be seen as a condition that people have to manage for the rest of their lives – and that inevitably gets worse. If this study shows that low-calorie liquid diets can be used safely, on a bigger scale and as part of routine care, it could completely change what we know about type 2 diabetes and how it is treated by the NHS. It could also provide an accessible way to help people with this condition live longer, with a better quality of life and a reduced risk of serious health complications.  

For more information about the trial visit www.diabetes.org.uk/DiRECT

Take a stand against extreme diets

By Melanie Leyshon

 

As you'd imagine, being the editor of Healthy Food Guide magazine, I check the daily newspapers for health breakthroughs. And there's no shortage of stories – some based on reliable scientific evidence, others rely on more flimsy statistics. 

Putting aside the well-researched advances in overcoming cancer, finding a cure for Alzheimer’s, etc, at this time of year, when the beach beckons, many health sections become obsessed with diets – and extreme diets. Yet, despite the growth of the dieting genre – juicing, fasting, no carbs, feeding tubes – we continue to upsize as a nation.

When we read about a diet that promises you'll lose 7lb in a week, it can be tempting to give it a go. 

I’ve taken shortcuts myself. There was the miserable, stinky week of the Cabbage Soup Diet (dire daily doses of soup, fruit and a hellish day of 5 bananas that left me too weak to think), then there was the anxiety-inducing South Beach Diet (I was so shaky after day 6, I made straight for the sandwich shop for a cheese bap).

Now I eat in moderation or semi-moderation and factor in exercise to offset the excess. I’m no Jessica Ennis, but even I’ve found a mix of running, cycling and yoga works. It's helped me maintain a healthy weight and BMI, which my recent NHS Health Check confirmed.

Health professionals, such as British Dietetic Association (BDA) registered dietitians, know it’s not necessary to go to such extremes to lose weight. Doing so can mess with your metabolism and compromise your health, as you may miss out on vital nutrients. What’s more it’s almost impossible to stick to restrictive diets that cut out food groups, or expect you to exist on under 1,400 calories a day - so any weight loss achieved is short lived.

That’s why at Healthy Food Guide magazine we decided to launch our mission to Fight the Fads: Make Every Meal Healthier, which has gained the backing of the BDA, Diabetes UK and the British Nutrition Foundation.

Our aim is to encourage both women and men to eat healthily every day instead of resorting to extreme, yo-yo dieting. Healthy Food Guide magazine is the only dedicated food magazine with a panel of health and diet professionals (qualified dietitians, not self-styled nutrition therapists), registered fitness experts and fully-trained recipe consultants. They bring their expert know-how to our fully referenced features – we don’t print facts that can’t be substantiated.

In our September issue (which comes out tomorrow), our nutrition consultant, registered dietitian Juliette Kellow, has put together a visual guide to portion sizes (no scales required) that will help you reduce your calorie intake without missing out on any of your favourite foods. We also have 46 taste-tested and nutritionist approved recipes, including slimmed down versions of your favourites, such as steak and chips and chicken kiev – that are full of flavour, but easy on your waistline. Plus, we’ve investigated the claims surrounding cancer and diet, to bring you the latest scientifically supported advice about what to eat to help reduce your risk. 

Pick up your copy of Healthy Food Guide magazine in larger supermarkets, Boots, WH Smiths or M&S; download a digital edition or purchase a subscription.