Here you go. For me, 53 rules are far too many to remember!
Rules
Weigh yourself daily and record the weight, either in a diary or on an app (participants in the study used the free aktiBMI app). Then stick to as many as possible from the 53 steps below each day, aiming for a wide range every week.
Vegetables are essential in a healthy diet
Vegetables are essential in a healthy diet
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The basics
- Eat at least five portions of fruit and veg a day. Most adults manage only 4.2 portions, according to Public Health England.
- Snack only on vegetables. The fibre will fill you up and they contain minimal calories.
- Study the label. Stick to pre-packed foods with a green label for total fat content. This means they contain less than 3g of fat per 100g.
- Replace rice, potatoes and pasta — all of which raise your blood sugar levels — with vegetables.
- Look for low sugar. Eat foods only with a green label for sugar content, meaning they contain 5g or less of sugar per 100g.
- Make half your main meal salad or veg. Eat boiled or steamed veg and salad with low-calorie dressings made from yoghurt, lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, which are nutrient-dense and low in calories. Potatoes don’t count.
- Avoid fatty and processed meats. Remove all visible fat or skin on meat that you do eat.
What to rule out
- Snacks between meals. That means no extras and sticking to three main meals a day at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
- Crisps, biscuits, cakes and sweets. Don’t eat these even as part of your three daily meals.
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Fried food: sorry, but chips, crisps and battered fish are out.
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Ditch starters and desserts at lunch and dinner. At breakfast consume only one type of food (porridge, toast or eggs, for example).
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White carbs (such as potatoes, white rice, pasta, white bread, and breakfast cereals) and sugar foods (such as pastries, cakes and biscuits, sweets and chocolates) are out. Dairy and fruit are permitted.
What to swap
13. Make your vegetable intake as varied as possible. Bulk up your main meals with extra steamed vegetables, including carrots, broccoli, cauliflower or cabbage.
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Replace unhealthy snacks with fruit and vegetables. If you do get the nibbles between meals, make sure you have a supply of carrot, pepper and celery sticks or apples and berries to keep you going.
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Eat six to eight nuts: being high in protein and fibre, nuts will fill you up, but allow yourself only six to eight a day and instead of your usual bag of crisps or unhealthy snack.
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Try a meal replacement product. Specially formulated bars, shakes and soups are designed to provide the nutrients you need to support health, but with fewer calories than in a typical meal. Scientifically, they have been proven to help overweight people to shed pounds when used appropriately.
Restructure your meals
17. Plan each day’s meals. This is critical. Decide what you are going to eat tomorrow and don’t deviate from it.
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Stick to a maximum of three eating occasions. Allow yourself breakfast or brunch, lunch and dinner or supper. Eat nothing in between the three meals.
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Skip one meal a day. Miss out on breakfast, lunch or dinner and don’t compensate by raiding the biscuit tin. Doing this means your body skips some of its usual calories and starts to use its fat reserves for energy instead.
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Eat nothing after 8pm: people are more prone to impulsive eating during the evening — and that usually means higher-calorie foods such as crisps, wine and beer.
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Count calories. A lot of people still don’t really know how many calories their food contains and yet there is clear evidence that counting calories can help people to lose weight. Use nutrition labels and apps to keep a tally and think about lower-calorie alternatives.
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Set a personal daily calorie goal. First establish a rough idea of how many calories a person of your weight and height needs each day. You can do this with online calculators such as bmi-calories.com.
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From the total provided once you have input your details, you need to subtract 600 calories to reach your daily goal. Keep tabs on your calorie intake using apps such as MyFitnessPal and make sure you stay within your upper daily limit.
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Fast once or twice a week. A fasting day on which you consume fewer than 800 calories cuts out about half of the daily calories you usually consume. Your body will have to source 50 to 75 per cent of the energy you need from fat reserves. Make sure you stay well hydrated on your fasting days.
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Keep a diet diary. Studies by psychologists have proven that it not only helps people to focus more on what they are eating, but also provides insight into when they are most vulnerable to hunger pangs and snacking. Write down not just what you eat, but how you feel when you are eating it. With this knowledge you can prepare strategies to reduce boredom bingeing.
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Check portion sizes: a big diet downfall is overestimating what constitutes a portion.
Have an alcohol-free day each week
Have an alcohol-free day each week
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Think about what you drink
27. Stick to only water, black coffee or tea. Fizzy, sugary and sweetened drinks contribute more calories to the average person’s daily intake than most people realise. And don’t add sugar, honey or syrups to your drinks.
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Switch to diet drinks. A can of sugary drink contains about 100 calories.
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Have an alcohol-free day. A glass of red wine contains upwards of 125 calories, a pint of beer 250 calories and a gin and tonic about 170 calories.
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Drink a pint of water before a meal: several studies, including a 2018 paper in the journal Clinical Nutrition Research, have shown that drinking water before a meal results in fewer calories being consumed.
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Swap juices and smoothies for the whole fruit and vegetable to get more fibre to increase feelings of fullness. You are also less likely to get a spike in blood sugar levels.
Mealtime tactics
32. Take 20 chews per bite. This will reduce your eating speed, and studies have shown that this results in feeling full before you overeat. Put your cutlery down between forkfuls.
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Smell your food. Smell and taste every mouthful. This can help to prevent rushed overeating.
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Stop before you are full: this can take practice, but it is possible to pre-empt satiety.
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Use a smaller plate for a smaller serving size.
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Cut up your food: reducing the bite-size of food increases the number of mouthfuls you need to take and chew. This triggers the gut hormones into action and they send messages to the brain that you are full.
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Spend no longer than 20 minutes eating a meal.
Get active
38. Walk or run up and down stairs. Stair climbing is fantastic for working the heart and lungs as well as the glutes and leg muscles. Do it fairly vigorously, until you are puffed. Take a breather and then repeat until you feel you can do no more.
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Cycle farther. Try to increase the duration of your rides by five to ten minutes.
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Try intervals. Run or swim (when pools reopen) over a short distance (100m running or maybe a length in the pool) at a fairly hard pace. Take a rest. Go again.
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Stretch or do yoga: neither is a terrific calorie burner, but they do help to restore your body after exercise.
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Join a Zoom exercise class.
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Play tennis — you will burn about 285 calories in half an hour.
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Lift weights or do a circuit: adding some strength and resistance work to your routine helps to boost your body’s metabolic rate, and a circuit has the added advantage of raising the heart rate.
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Do a daily 21-minute workout: these are advocated by the NHS and include a six-minute warm-up, ten-minute session and five-minute cooldown.
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Power walk for at least 15 minutes: brisk walking (at a pace when you are too puffed to chat) is one of the best low-impact ways to get fit. You will burn about 155 calories in 15 minutes.
Incidental activity
47. Accumulate 10,000 steps throughout the day. By doing this you will burn about 500 calories.
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Have as many car-free days as you can.
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Walk and talk when on the phone and with friends. Minimise your sitting time.
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Stand up at work. Stand at your desk and you burn from 100 to 200 calories an hour, nearly twice what you do sitting down.
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Use the stairs more often. Climb a flight and you burn nine calories.
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Organise a family hike or Frisbee game. Schedule an hour of outdoor activity.
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Don’t sit in front of the TV. Stand up while you watch the box