The Side-Plate Diet: New Research On Portion Sizes

Posted in Diet, Health by buzzanniebee

Hello friends

As many of you know, I am a keen proponent of losing weight, or keeping weight off, by controlling your portion sizes. You eat normally (though healthily) but use smaller plates to impose control over your food intake. This has worked extraordinarily well for me. I started doing The Side Plate Diet about eleven months ago and it has transformed by body and my relationship to eating.

The BMJ this week reports that

~ Theresa Marteau from the University of Cambridge and colleagues recently published a Cochrane review that found the “most conclusive evidence to date” that people consume more food or drinks from larger size portions or packages, and when using larger items of tableware.

Additionally, they say that reducing portion sizes may mean going back to the noticeably smaller tableware which was being used in the 1950s, and suggest that one change which could make a difference would be,

~ Designing tableware to encourage smaller mouthfuls, such as, shallow plates, straight sided glasses, cutlery.

My views and information on plate sizes, if you want to read more, are here. And if you are worried about your weight and would like to try The Side Plate Diet, use the search bar at the right of the blog, and have a look at this.

This new research has some great suggestions and is taking a very sensible and longer-term view about reducing over-consumption and preventing obesity. The most recent statistics showing the problem in the UK of childhood obesity are, frankly, alarming.

The possibility of a new sugar-tax being implemented is also currently at the top of the agenda here, but we have a long way to go.

Using smaller plates is a very easy approach to dieting. It works.

Please share the buzz ~

Annie Bee x

28Nov2015

Brilliant Idea: Free Fruit Bonanza

Posted in Australia, free fruit, Health, New Zealand, Parenting, Supermarket by buzzanniebee

Sometimes you see a new idea which is so brainy, it makes your eyes water.

In the UK, Woolworths is sadly a thing of the past. Many of us still fondly remember Ladybird kids clothes and Pick’n’Mix. It is a thriving supermarket chain in other countries though, and has recently successfully trialled offering a free piece of fruit to all kids entering all of its (961) Australian stores, from a complimentary basket of apples, pears, bananas and mandarins. The idea was originally put to the test in their New Zealand shops (which trade as Countdown) and seems to be popular. Woolies expect to be giving away about one million pieces of fruit a year and assures consumers that the cost of fruit will not rise to compensate.

If you have ever had a child in tow who could name 107 places they’d rather be than in a supermarket with Mummy (unless she is going to provide biscuits/sweets/chocolate/magazine and toys from the shelves at will) the offer of a piece of fruit sounds to me like a welcome initiative. Anything to help keep mum sane and Little Jonnie happy. And of course this option is healthy, one of your 5-a-day, and it will presumably encourage the habit of healthy snacking when sitting in the trolley. Better than a packet of Wotsits.

Tesco has already trialled it here in the UK at one, forward-thinking store in Lincolnshire and have decided to roll it out to 15 Glasgow branches. Hopefully it will prove popular enough to go nationwide.

It won’t end the sound of the screaming kid in the trolley ~ and lord knows we have all been there. It might help though and I imagine it could be an incentive for parents to shop at that supermarket rather than another. Let’s see.

supermarket children

My own trips to the supermarket are a bit like Groundhog Day but without the humour. Or romance. I might not be screaming out loud but inside my head there is often an ear-piercing silent yell. Perhaps the free piece of fruit will eventually be offered not just kids but exasperated shoppers in their 50s. We can but hope. Great if you are on a diet. Blood sugar dropped? Have an apple. Feeling rough after a long night at the bar? Help yourself to a banana. Bored with the duties of being the Fridge Fairy? Here’s a pear.

I think it could work.

Annie Bee x

15Sep2015

New Research On The Importance Of Portion Sizes

Posted in Diet, Health, portion control, portion distortion, side plate diet by buzzanniebee

Some of the news headlines today about a new piece of research (which is in fact a round up of 61 previous studies) are,

~ Portion size key in tackling obesity, says study

~ Growing portion sizes a major factor in rising UK obesity, study finds

~ End to supersizing could reverse obesity trend

~ Want To Lose Weight? Buy Smaller Plates!

The Cambridge University led team of researchers says that by simply replacing large sizes of foods and drinks with standard amounts, British consumers could reduce overall calorie intake by up to 16 per cent. Over a year, that could result in weight loss of around two stone. If American adults did the same, they could reduce their intake by 22%-29%.

One of the ways of achieving this, the authors say, is by shifting away from a culture of large dinner plates, wine glasses and “supersize” portions. They found that people offered portions of food or crockery in larger sizes “consistently” consumed more of what they were given.

Add to this the well-documented evidence that portion sizes of packaged foods have increased substantially, and you have a recipe for trouble. My blog post The Side Plate Diet: Portion Distortion from earlier this year cites a number of pieces of research on the subject.

Of today’s news, Dr Alison Tedstone, the chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: “This study clearly demonstrates that reducing portion sizes is a successful way to cut calories. Given that almost two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese, it’s important to keep an eye on portion sizes when cooking, shopping and eating out to avoid overeating and help maintain a healthy weight.” You can find the full research on the Cochrane Library webiste.

Well you could always try my simple solution, which is to eat all your meals off a side plate. How small will it need to be? Have a read of my Side Plate blog post.

It has worked for me ~ I am a very healthy weight and I am eating perfectly normal, healthy food; in addition, I am avoiding adding a layer of what I regard as complication, such as calorie counting, fasting, or the cutting out of one food group (for example carbs).

Give it a go. I can highly recommend it. And please share the buzz!

Annie Bee x

19Aug2015

Willpower ~ How Does It Work?

Posted in Diet, Health, willpower by buzzanniebee

I have been giving a lot of thought to the question of willpower. I can’t say I have it in abundance, but when I do decide to do something (even if it is after many years of not doing anything), I do seem to be able to stick to my guns. So much about our health (by which here I mean diet and exercise) comes down to that often elusive willpower.

Anyone with a slightly addictive personality (which refers to a particular set of personality traits that make an individual predisposed to developing addictions) will know about hitting rock bottom. There is often a trigger for deciding that enough is enough, whether it relates to drugs, alcohol abuse or over-eating. These triggers are very personal, but in my experience there comes a moment of compete clarity after which you know change MUST take place. It is only then that you take control of the problem and make changes.

Firstly then, what exactly is willpower?

The American Psychological Association calls willpower

the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals.

From what I have researched on the subject, willpower has a finite supply. You therefore need to use it wisely, which is a nuisance frankly. I won’t be the only person out there who has thought it was a bottomless well and the issue was how you can harness as much as possible. On the flip-side, the good news is that you can work on building strategies to improve your use of it.

One interesting aspect of willpower is that people will often use up the limited supply on family and professional matters, leaving little for themselves. After a taxing day at the office, or with the kids, it is far more difficult to then find the time to keep on making good decisions about food. A recent study showed that people faced with a very stressful work-related task who were then asked to choose between different foods tended to make less healthy choices. Personally I think this is also compounded by the reasoning that a difficult day requires reward. You have had a very tough day at work, or dealing with 3 kids under the age of 7, or 2 moody teenagers, and a large glass of wine at 5.30pm (“the sun is over the yardarm somewhere”) sounds infinitely justifiable. Or, in food terms, you have a had the day from hell in the workplace, so you decide that a takeaway curry will cheer you up instead of the omelette and salad you had originally planned.

So willpower is definitely a tricky one: it is limited and it can be sabotaged fairly easily too. Sounds like other strategies are required. What are some ways of improving your chances of making best use of willpower when it comes to dieting?

Have a long-term, achievable goal. Are you going to a wedding in November, to which you would dearly love to get back into your favourite dress? Perhaps you want to be able to run a 5K next year and have realised that shedding some weight will make that goal a great deal easier to achieve? Make a record of your achievements as you go along and set yourself a goal you can meet.
Stay well rested. Over-tired people make bad decisions.
If you have a bad day, and your diet has seemingly gone out the window, put it behind you. It is done, nothing can be achieved by dwelling on it (except perhaps to work out why it happened and try to take steps to avoid making that mistake again – learn from it). Get back on track and don’t be too hard on yourself.
Minimise temptation. We are expecting a lot from willpower – don’t make it doubly hard by putting temptations in your way.

I don’t want to sound preachy, but for those people who say “I simply don’t have the willpower” I would say this: you haven’t hit your rock bottom yet. When you do, and you decide to take control, have an achievable plan and work hard. The benefits are joyous.

Annie Bee x

26Jul2015

You Cannot Get Fat Without Eating Too Much

Posted in Diet, Health, resolutions, Side Plate Diet, SidePlateDiet, weight, weightloss by buzzanniebee

Sundays can be a bit of a mixed bag really. They can be slow and without purpose. They can be full of dread for the week ahead. They can be a day of dashed hope ~ you plan for brunch in the garden and it turns out to be cold and wet as it is here in the ‘burbs today (many degrees below the July norm).

They can also be a day of resolution, particularly when it comes to fitness, health, dieting and wellbeing. All diets start on a Monday – every woman knows that and those decisions for a NEW YOU tend to be formulated on a Sunday. You resolve to change your attitude to all sorts of things on a Sunday – how tidy you keep the kitchen, cooking pancakes from scratch instead of buying them pre-packaged, building a new veg patch in a sunny bit of the garden. But surely more than anything else, losing weight.

One of the most sensible and interesting exponents of diet and health in the UK is Susan Jebb OBE, who is a nutrition scientist, and the Professor of Diet and Population Health at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford; she is also the UK Government’s advisor on obesity. Her many years of research on human metabolism has proved without a doubt that you

………. cannot get fat without eating too much .

Metabolism is a bit of a red herring in her view and energy intake is KEY: she says that ultimately, obesity is about food intake. Other factors (physical exercise, metabolism etc.) play a relatively small role.

If you are thinking about your weight, diet and health this Sunday I urge you to have a look at my previous posts on the side plate diet (see the Search Buzz Subjects bar on the right) and follow my instagram posts (Annie Bee on instagram ) which will help to show how easy it is to follow.

Hope you are having a pleasant and fruitful Sunday.

Annie Bee x

26Jun2015

The Side -Plate Diet ~ What To Do On Holiday

Posted in buffet, holiday, side plate diet, Sri Lanka by buzzanniebee

Hello from Sri Lanka !

I am in an odd situation whereby I am away from home for the best part of six weeks. This is due to a once-only opportunity to visit my family in Australia, nip across to NZ where I was born and brought up (but left for the UK in 1977), pick up one of the Baby Bees after her year abroad and then meet up with the rest of the Bees for our 2 week annual summer holiday.

Having started The Side- Plate Diet on January 6th, I had slimmed down considerably during the 6 months before my travels began. Would it be easy to stick to it while away? Well, it has been a mixed bag.

Eating with my family while abroad has been easy: they understood I was watching portion-sizes. Self-catering motels were also simple and when eating out, I would just have a starter – sometimes with a treat of a side of fries. I have not wanted to be massively strict on the odd occasion when a lovely meal out with family and friends was on the cards. Not feeling guilty and getting back on track is the best plan.

The biggest problem has been the buffet meals at the 2 hotels we have stayed at here in Sri Lanka. You would have to have an iron will not to want to try lots of the wonderful foods on offer, particularly when they are in a new cuisine (Sri Lankan cuisine has influences from colonial powers, foreign traders and Southern India. Key ingredients are rice, coconut and spices, reflecting the island’s history as a spice producer and trading post over several centuries) and you are here for the total holiday experience ~ food included. The hotel we are in now has a superb chef who, knowing I have Coeliac Disease, keeps making me special plates of the most amazing concoctions. For breakfast this morning, for example, he presented me with rice flour pancakes with a filling of chopped banana and desiccated coconut + honey paste. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. My intention to just have a small plate of fresh pineapple with a small serving of yoghurt was nowhere to be seen.

Buffets are essentially tables laden with food, most of which one wants to try, and there can’t be many people who don’t find themselves over-doing it, given the self-service nature of the beast. The term buffet originally referred to the French sideboard furniture where the food was served, but eventually became applied to the serving format. It also used to be an opportunity to show off one’s wealth (both with the food and the vessels in which it was presented) and it is, at this hotel anyway, a chance for the chef and his kitchen staff to really show off their considerable skills.

The Buffet (Jean-Louis Forain) 1884

I am not proud to admit as well that there is also an element of “all you can eat for the set price”…. let’s pig out while we have the chance and we aren’t eating/paying a la carte. Sad, I know.

So there is no doubt that for at least 2 of the 6 weeks I am away from home, I will be eating more calories than I had been doing. I guess the trick is to try and compensate (tomorrow is another day), love the freedom of being on holiday, not worry about a few pounds going on, and know that when back home, this morning’s breakfast will be the stuff of dreams.

Annie Bee x

11Apr2015

To Weigh Or Not To Weigh?

Posted in Diet, Health, weight by buzzanniebee

I was listening last week to Clare Balding on R4’s Woman’s Hour chatting about the Oxford and Cambridge Women’s Boat Race. This year it took place on the Thames for the first time ever, and occurred on the same day (Saturday 11th April) as the men’s. What interested me was that Clare Balding had been along to the weigh-in and was pointing out that while the rowers are all quite small women, they do weigh a fair amount. They are small, lean and full of muscle.

This reminded me of a diet and fitness statement one often hears bandied about: a pound of muscle weighs more than a pound of fat. Well, no. They weigh the same. But the point (which is correct) is that muscle is about 18% more dense than fat and one pound of muscle occupies less space (volume) than one pound of fat.

These pictures illustrate the point.

Some people weigh themselves every day, and there is research to show that they do in fact lose the most weight. The research was published in 2014 in the online publication PLOS One (you can access it here http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0113164). Although a relatively small number of people took part (40) there are two or three other studies which show much the same thing.

I NEVER weigh myself. I did get super slim aged about 20 and enjoyed jumping on scales as often as possible, but the more I weigh, the less happy I am to know the truth. When I am forced onto the scales (perhaps at the hospital or by the GP), thankfully very rarely, I look off into the middle distance with a thoughtful, intelligent look in my eye and pray I am not going to get a lecture from the health professional. Often it is in kgs anyway, which is complete gobbledy-gook to me.

I have lost weight recently (see posts on the Side Plate Diet) but am still going nowhere near the scales. For me it is all about how I feel, how I look, and how my clothes are fitting. Also how much muscle I have – the aim is to be lean and fit. Bring it on.

Let me know if you weigh yourself, how often, and whether it is motivating – does it make or break your day? Do you calculate your BMI? Or do you have your body fat percentage measured? I am not sure I am brave enough to face those body fat calipers just yet, but you never know.

Annie Bee x

5Apr2015

Am I Getting My Oats?

Posted in avenin, celiac, coeliac, gluten, Health, oats by buzzanniebee

Having Coeliac Disease is not a big issue as long as you do just one simple thing: never eat gluten. Undiagnosed Coeliac Disease definitely does have negative health impacts though and if you have reasons to suspect an intolerance you should certainly get it checked by a doctor (there is a simple blood test as the first step towards diagnosis). Here is some very basic information on the disease, taken from Coeliac UK, the oldest and largest Coeliac Disease charity in the world (https://www.coeliac.org.uk/home/)

Associated conditions and complications

Dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) is a skin condition that is associated with coeliac disease. It affects approximately 1 in 3,300 people. Like coeliac disease, it is treated with a gluten-free diet.

Coeliac disease is an autoimmune disease that can occur in those people who have the genes that predispose them to the condition.For this reason, coeliac disease is more common among people with other autoimmune disorders, such as Type 1 diabetes and autoimmune thyroid disease.

Undiagnosed and untreated coeliac disease may lead to developing osteoporosis, which is where the bones become thin and brittle. This is because you may not have been absorbing calcium properly for some time.

Lactose intolerance can be associated with coeliac disease as the disease damages the part of the gut where lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose, is produced. Symptoms of lactose intolerance are similar to that of coeliac disease.

Lymphoma and small bowel cancer is a serious complication of coeliac disease. However, once someone with coeliac disease has been following the gluten-free diet for three to five years, their risk of developing these specific types of cancers is no greater than that of the general population.

There is also the question of whether coeliacs can eat gluten-free (gf) oats, and this week, I have been forced to do some further research into the subject as I have been very ill. This is also from Coeliac UK:

Oats contain avenin, which is a protein similar to gluten. However, research has shown that most people with coeliac disease can safely eat avenin.

Problems can occur if oats are produced in the same place as wheat, barley and rye, as the oats can become contaminated with these other grains. Only oats which are uncontaminated can be eaten by people with coeliac disease.

There are a very small number of people with coeliac disease who may still be sensitive to gluten-free, uncontaminated oat products.

When I was first diagnosed with Coeliac Disease, I had a list in my mind of the things I would miss the most: croissants, pizzas, pasta, but what trumped all that was flapjack.

Oats are such a good food. Porridge such a wonderful breakfast. When gf oats were brought onto the market several years I ago, I was tremendously happy. I definitely remember reading that, even if you tried them out and found you could tolerate them, it was sensible to only eat them every now and again. Sadly, my on-off switch in life sometimes goes AWOL and for the last couple of months, I have been eating gf oats as the basis of my breakfast pretty much every day. About 10 days I ago I started to feel poorly but it took me ages to figure out what was causing the flu-like symptoms/nausea/mental fogginess and worse. So for the time-being, I am off them while I recover. Quite a wake-up call.

Happily there are plenty of gluten-free Easter eggs to help me regain my mojo.

Annie Bee x

30Mar2015

Habits: Hard To Form? Hard To Break? ~ The Impact On Dieting

Posted in Diet, habits, Health, portion control by buzzanniebee

Parents try to instil habits in the tiniest of babies – we bath a newborn at bedtime partly in the hope that it becomes a cue for a good night’s sleep and, later, a habit. Many habits start in early childhood: cleaning your teeth, eating nicely at the table, saying “please” and “thank you”. Those are the good ones. Bad ones – biting your nails for example, a habit I eventually conquered at the ripe old age of 31 – also often start in childhood. Once they are entrenched, new behaviours are terribly difficult to adopt. This makes the whole challenge of dieting both interesting and hugely difficult. Once the bad habits become ingrained into your subconscious, they become ‘learnt’ behaviours and are really tricky to quash.

Some years ago some self-help bods started bandying about the phrase that it took 21 days to form (or indeed break) a habit. Research in 2009 at University College London, however, (‘Intervention Based on the Principles of Habit Formation’ published in the European Journal of Social Psychology) showed that actually it takes an average 66 days for people to perform an initially new behaviour.

Habits are behaviours which are performed automatically because they have been performed frequently in the past. This repetition creates a mental association between the situation (cue) and action (behaviour) which means that when the cue is encountered the behaviour is performed automatically. Automaticity has a number of components, one of which is lack of thought.

They suggested that because bad habits are very difficult to break, one helpful way of conquering this is to take control of your environment so you don’t encounter the cue which acts as a trigger. The research also highlighted that while being wildly inconsistent meant no change to habits, the odd inconsistency was not the end of the world. So we need commitment, but not necessarily a 100% track record. Many women on diets think all is lost if they have a bad day. We need to change that mindset and keep looking forward.

There is undoubtedly truth in the argument that most diets fail and if we want to lose weight, eat healthier and feel leaner and fitter, we need to make a lifestyle choice, not reach for a short-term solution.

I firmly believe that much of this can be answered by strict portion control. In his book “Mindless Eating”, Brian Wansink argues that just an extra 10 calories a day will make you gain a pound in one year. So there appears to be a small margin of error, but this should give us all hope. If you missed my info on Portion Distortion, please have a read: http://wp.me/p5MNeq-2r

Lifestyle change and a long-term outlook then is the answer: breaking bad habits, making new ones and sticking with them once and for all. Diets which work over a long period of time and which become a way of life are ones which suit the dieter and which don’t require too much aggravation and thought. For me, the Side Plate Diet is a winner (see http://wp.me/p5MNeq-2). I eat what I want and enjoy my food, but I simply restrict the amount. Let me know if you are giving it a try.

What experience have you had with habit-breaking and habit-forming? How has it impacted on your diet? Please feel free to comment – I would love to hear from you.

Annie Bee x

17Mar2015

The Nightmare Cycle of Diet Loss and Regain

Posted in Diet, Health, portion control, side plate diet, weight, weight gain, weight-loss by buzzanniebee

Hello again

Put your hand up if you have been on a successful diet and NOT put at least some of the weight back on? Put your hand up if you put it all back on and then some. Are you confused about the very latest thing we are all supposed to be giving up? (Sugar seems to be the most recent baddy, but it is sometimes hard to keep up). Studies show that between 50% and 80% of dieters will put all their lost weight back on and some may well find they are heavier than they were when they first started the diet. How incredibly depressing.

In April 2007, UCLA research in American Psychologist, (the journal of the American Psychological Association) concluded that, “you can initially lose 5 to 10 percent of your weight on any number of diets, but then the weight comes back”.

Traci Mann, UCLA Associate Professor of Psychology and lead author of the study, conducted the most comprehensive and rigorous analysis of diet studies by analysing 31 long-term pieces of research.

“What happens to people on diets in the long run?” Mann asked. “Would they have been better off to not go on a diet at all? We decided to dig up and analyse every study that followed people on diets for two to five years. We concluded most of them would have been better off not going on the diet at all. Their weight would be pretty much the same, and their bodies would not suffer the wear and tear from losing weight and gaining it all back.”

“We found that the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more. Sustained weight loss was found only in a small minority of participants, while complete weight regain was found in the majority. Diets do not lead to sustained weight loss or health benefits for the majority of people.”

Traci Mann

So where does that leave us? Depressed? Unmotivated? Confused? Turning to the nearest donut?

Diets are a very personal choice – there is probably one to suit everybody’s preferences and lifestyles. For some people, five small meals per day works best; the 5:2 diet (fasting for 2 days of every 7) suits others. Some enjoy counting calories, others hate it. What seems indisputable is we have to conquer how to make them work in the long run. Many dieters relax after initial weight loss and then the diet slips. Or results are too slow and people become unmotivated.

We all feel better at an optimum weight so we need to remind ourselves of that: it is easier to move around, easier to run for the bus, our joints don’t suffer, we feel more attractive and (perhaps counter-intuitively) we seem to have more energy. So where do we find this extra motivation? Sadly I don’t have the magic answer – I wish I did.

There is a book called ‘Mindless Eating’ by Brian Wansink which has some interesting information on the psychology of overeating and how we make decisions about the food we eat. He has done some research into the correlation between the size of bowl/plate and the amount of food people subsequently help themselves to. If you have read my previous blogs on the Side Plate Diet you will know that I am a convert to eating off three (occasionally four) 7 inch plates a day. It works for me, but I realise it won’t suit everyone.

If you missed the pieces, use these links below and I would love to hear from you.

https://buzzanniebee.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/the-side-plate-diet-the-background/

https://buzzanniebee.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/when-is-a-side-plate-not-a-side-plate/

https://buzzanniebee.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/the-side-plate-diet-portion-distortion/

https://buzzanniebee.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/the-side-plate-diet-breakfasts/