Guest contributor Mimi Spencer offers some down to earth, alternative ways to get a feel-great body.
Doesn’t this article's title just seem like your dream-ticket? If you could have anything in the world – really, anything – wouldn’t a slimmer body with no hassle whatsoever come somewhere high up the list, above, say, a villa in the Algarve, above eternal youth, above a new pair of Manolo Blahniks every second Tuesday in the month?
Most of us, most of the time, would dearly love to lose weight. A bit. A lot. It’s the desire that binds us together as women – and we’re equally bound by our insatiable appetite for dieting. It only takes Lily Allen or Jennifer Aniston to mention in passing that they have been on the chilli diet or the zone/hay/blood-group/whatever diet, and off we go, allowing hope to triumph over expectation yet again, convinced that a new deprivation regime will help us shift those extra pounds.
It won’t of course. Not for long. They’ll creep back on, just like a cat creeps back into the house after a night on the tiles. The relapse rate for dieting is a massive 95 per cent – with most dieters weighing MORE at the end of proceedings than when they started.
So what to do?
In my new book, 101 Thing to do Before You Diet, I explore exactly how to look, feel and be slimmer without resorting to fad diets. There are tons of tips (far more than 101, but the title seemed snappy), but, just for starters, here are five sure-fire ways to fight the flab while remaining delightfully, enviably sane.
1. Eat protein at breakfast. An egg. A sliver of smoked salmon. Ham. It doesn’t matter. This WORKS.
2. Have soup for lunch. Renowned studies – as you can read in the book – have shown that soup fills you up and keeps you there. Replace that sloppy lunchtime sarnie with soup throughout the week and watch the pounds pile off.
3. Dress thin. Seems obvious, right? But you’d be surprised at how many of us wear clothes that make us look wide, bottom-heavy and nowhere near the thinnies we really could be. By way of a small example, did you know that vertical stripes make you look wider? Surprised? It’s been scientifically proven. So get into those horizontal striped matelot tops this instant.
4. Order one pudding, two forks… there is no reason not to treat yourself from time-to-time – in fact, there’s every reason to do exactly that. Just do it with awareness, with moderation and a happy heart. That way, you’ll never feel deprived, never feel hungry, and (brilliantly) never feel fat.
5. Keep your hormones happy. Amongst many other things, hormones govern your appetite, your sleep cycle and your metabolic rate – get a handle on them and approaching food with a healthy positive outlook will probably be a lot easier. If you are aware that you have hormonal imbalance issues, talk to your GP about how you might be able to get back on track.
Mimi’s book, 101 Things to do Before You Diet (Bantam) is out now in paperback, £7.99. www.mimispencer.com