Our celebrity contributor, nutritionist Amanda Hamilton, offers her expert advice.
Perfect proportions
As bikinis are bared these summer holidays you’ll either be flaunting or fussing over your body’s proportions. Granted, Kelly Brook-esque curves are beyond the reach of most of us (without some surgical assistance at least!) but a little bit of attention on the proportions on our plates can help us nip in the waist just a little for that 1950’s silhouette.
I don’t like complicated diets with weighing, measuring or cutting out major food groups. Even worse are meal replacement programmes; you’ve got to seriously question if such ‘meals’ are really food at all. However, understanding what makes up good plate proportions can be very helpful indeed
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When you are dishing up breakfast, lunch or dinner, ask yourself if it measures up to the perfect proportions, namely, half of your plate as fruit and / or vegetables, quarter of your plate as complex carbohydrates and quarter as protein. It really is that simple. Translated into meals this means breakfast includes not vegetables (remember it is either fruit of vegetables that count) but lots of fresh seasonal fruits or a fresh juice, plus a base carbohydrate such as porridge, muesli, wholemeal toast or oatcakes. Finally, the protein element could be natural yoghurt, milk, nuts or nut butter or eggs. Easy! |
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Lunch and dinner includes half a plate of vegetables so summer salads, stir fries, soups and roasted vegetables become a staple. It is easy to achieve this if you are lucky enough to be sunning yourself in the Med or on an exotic beach since a general rule of thumb is the hotter the weather, the lighter the diet. There is body logic behind light eating in hot weather since foods such as salads and fruits help to hydrate the body due to their high water content, not dehydrate like stodgy or what I call ‘beige’ foods.
If you are looking to fill up on low calorie foods, vegetables can help you feel fuller for longer due to high fibre content, especially if you combine with protein. Crucially for weight loss, vegetables also contain the right amount of nutrients to help your body burn fat more effectively. Finally, the antioxidant content also helps toprotect your sun from damaging free-radical ageing from the sun.
So, listen to what your Mum told you and eat your greens this summer! Get this right and it is very difficult to go wrong fitting your perfect proportions into that summer bikini!
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July 2010 Back to homepage > Hotels with weight loss programmes >
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