“Lose 20 kg in 12 weeks.” That was the advice a GP doctor gave one of her patients last week. Is it possible to do this? Yes – but you would have to go on that 4-letter word – a diet! And quite a strict one. The worst thing about ‘going on a diet’ is that you go off it. It’s far better to make small changes that, if you stick with them for a few weeks, turn into new healthy eating habits. Remember the fable of the hare and the tortoise? Slow and steady wins the race!

The ideal rate of weight loss is 0.5 – 1 kg (1.1-2.2 pounds) a week. Any more than that and you will also be losing muscle and water. Standing on the scales doesn’t tell you whether you have lost fat or muscle. That’s why some people actually gain weight when they start increasing exercise. They are building muscle which weighs more than fat. A better way to check whether you are losing fat is to check how tight your clothes feel. In winter my clothes feel as though they have shrunk but when summer arrives, thank goodness they miraculously loosen up again. It’s easier to blame the clothes than the cakes and chocolate!

Too much fat around the tummy increases the risk of all those nasty heath problems – heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. Instead of the scales grab a tape measure and check your waist circumference. For good health, women need to keep it under 90 cm (35 inches) and men under 100cm (40 inches).

I found these digging through the www … all from down-under!

KFC dumps palm oil Yum! Restaurants, makers of KFC, will ditch palm oil for a healthier alternative, two years after the company stared down the Federal Government and refused to change its ways…

Cindy: Good news for KFC-lovers’ hearts but those deep fried delicacies will be just as fattening – and if the chicken skin is on there’s still a fair whack of saturated fat.  See my post on palm oil chocolate controversy.

Dramatic weight loss on Maori diet – Health – NZ Herald News A dangerously obese man lost 75kg in a year because he reverted to a “hunter-gatherer” diet, says a fitness expert …

Cindy: Good on you, Rob. Hopefully your example will inspire many to get back to basics – lean protein, lots of vegetables and moving your body every day. I bet he didn’t visit KFC – even with their fancy new ‘healthy’ oil!

Junk food TV ads reined in | National News | News.com.au AUSTRALIA’S fast food industry has agreed to a voluntary code to govern the way it markets products to children. The Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA)  welcomed the move as a “good start”.  “The DAA has been calling for regulation in relation to marketing to children, particularly during children’s television viewing hours, and we support any initiative to improve this,” chief executive Claire Hewat said…

Cindy: You know the thing that really jumped out at me about this story was the title of the review: The Australian Quick Service Restaurant Industry Initiative… I guess ‘The Australian Fast Food or Junk Food Industry Initiative’ just doesn’t sound nice enough! Oh, the power of words. No longer do we talk about ‘husbands’ and ‘wives’, we have ‘partners’, and now we don’t eat fast food, we go to the ‘quick service restaurant’. Doesn’t it make you feel like ‘dining out’ right now!

His family were worried, his workmates were worried. But Charlie (name changed) wasn’t worried – at least not worried enough to do anything about it. Sure he was a bit overweight, sure he could only sing a couple of songs at church before he had to sit down, out of breath, but he was doing fine.

“You are doing the nutrition course,” his boss ordered him. Reluctantly he came along to the ten week course to learn about healthy eating. It doesn’t happen to everyone but for Charlie, the timing was right and the light went on! In the first session he realised that his breakfast was not that great. Two French sticks split open and filled with thickly sliced butter – his workmates said it was like thickly sliced cheese. He decided to give up the butter and boy did he look miserable the next week!

Habits and taste preferences take about three weeks to change so by about week 4 Charlie was looking much happier. By the end of the course he looked alive – his face glowing with life, not sweat.

At the end of the course he stood up and spoke to everyone. “Please allow me to preach a little,” he said. “It says in the Bible ‘My people perish for lack of knowledge’. That is what happened to me – and is happening to many of our people. I didn’t realise what all that butter was doing to my body – or what all that soft drink was doing to my grand-kids. Now I eat two pieces of wholemeal toast for breakfast, not two French sticks.” He patted his greatly diminished tummy. “Now I can stand up in church and play guitar for three hours without getting breathless, and my wife is very happy too.”

Charlie was probably eating about 100 grams of butter a day. When he quit the butter he slashed his kilojoule intake by at least 3000kJ (700 calories) a day. That’s about a third of his daily kJ requirement. He started walking a bit more but nothing too extreme. Diet or exercise?  In Charlie’s case it’s pretty obvious which had the biggest impact.

I normally do quite a lot of exercise and yes, it allows me to eat a bit more, but not that much more. For the past six weeks I have not been allowed to go for walks or runs. That’s about 24km running and 3-4 hours walking a week that I am not doing. You would think I might have ballooned out into a big blimp. But no. Despite massively reducing my exercise, I have only had to reduce my food intake a little to maintain my weight. I just can’t get away with the extra muffin or naughty snack, especially if it’s after dinner.

So when the NZ Herald today published a story about diet being more important than exercise for weight loss, I tend to agree. Exercise is important too – to build and maintain muscle strength, to keep your metabolic rate up, to help you look firm, not flabby, to help reduce high blood pressure, to give your heart a work-out and to produce some mood-enhancing endorphins. But as Charlie and I have both discovered, cutting back on a few unnecessary extras like butter, cookies and cake is all it takes to maintain or lose weight.

Follow-up post here.