We wouldn’t recommend overindulging but if you feel you’ve been overdoing it, you don’t need to go on a detox diet to get it all out of your system.
Rather than going on an extreme diet that doesn’t contain the balance of nutrients we need to be healthy, here’s a simple way to give your body a boost:
- only eat as much food as you need
- eat a healthy balanced diet (check out our practical tips below)
- drink more water (we need about 6-8 glasses of fluid a day)
- start getting active
For many of us, losing a few pounds would be a good first step to help improve our health and well-being. (Being overweight makes us more likely to develop some health problems, including conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.)
But diets that severely limit the amount of food, or types of food, you can eat are hard to stick to.
Often, people feel deprived and meals get really boring, which takes the enjoyment out of eating. And these kinds of diet can leave you short of nutrients that are important to be healthy.
So don’t be tempted by the promise of super-fast results. The way to reach a healthy weight – and stay there – is to adapt your lifestyle gradually to reduce the amount you eat, improve your overall diet and be more active. Crash diets aren’t good for your health and they don’t work in the longer term.
Here are a few practical tips:
Base your meals on starchy foods, such as bread, rice, pasta and potatoes, and choose wholegrain varieties whenever you can. Some people think starchy foods are fattening, but it’s things like butter that people spread on bread, the creamy sauces they pour on pasta and the full-fat cheese they add to a baked potato that make them fattening.
So starchy foods are a healthier choice, but try to serve them with low-fat spread, sauces made from tomatoes or vegetables, and reduced-fat cream cheese.
Cut down on foods high in saturated fat such as pies, sausages, butter, cheese, dishes with creamy sauces, cakes, biscuits and doughnuts.
Eat lots more fruit and vegetables. These are generally low in fat, help to fill you up, and make very healthy snacks if you get hungry between meals.
Choose lower fat milk, such as skimmed, 1% fat or semi-skimmed, and low-fat yoghurts rather than full-fat versions.
Choose lean cuts of meat and don’t eat the fat. Avoid eating the skin on chicken, because although the meat is low in fat, the skin contains much more.
Find out what is a healthy weight for you by using our Body Mass Index Calculator.
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