“This year I’m going to lose weight.” It would have to be one of the top New Year’s resolutions – and it should be banned! Just the thought that tomorrow you can’t have dessert, chocolate or whatever happens to be your particular weakness is sure to ruin any New Year celebration. And if you are anything like me, thinking you are not allowed something only makes you want it more!

I call it the DIG cycle. You Deprive yourself of the ‘naughty’ foods which leads to obsessing so much about them that you finally Indulge. Even as the first forbidden mouthful passes your lips, Guilt sets in and you resolve to Deprive yourself again.

So how can we lose or control our weight without becoming caught in the DIG cycle? Here are my top ten tips…

If you’ve decided to cut back on bread in an attempt to control weight, think again. Wholegrains were one of a handful of winning foods in a new study looking at long term weight control. The researchers from Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health found that people who ate more wholegrains actually gained less weight over four years.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine this study of over 120,000 people found that people who ate more unprocessed foods, specifically wholegrains, nuts, yoghurt (reduced or full fat), fruit and vegetables gained the least weight over a four year period.

These people didn’t just keep on eating the same amount over the four years; they actually increased the number of serves of these foods they ate each day. More food means more kilojoules so why didn’t they gain weight? These foods are all high fibre (apart from yoghurt) nutrient rich foods which provide long lasting satiety. They keep blood sugars stable without the rapid spikes that experts now think contribute to weight problems. If you eat lots of these foods chances are you won’t feel quite so desperate to munch on crisps or slurp on a soft drink.

Childhood Obesity Awareness Month Blog Carnival

This article was written for inclusion in the blog carnival hosted by http://www.littlestomaks.com to promote awareness of childhood obesity as part of the National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month. Please read to the end of this article to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

Last week my cousin and his 10 year-old son popped over to say hi. It’s been eight months since I last saw them. My cousin looked pretty much the same but I hardly recognised his son.

“Have you lost weight?” I asked him in the understatement of the year. He grinned and said proudly, “I’ve lost 11 kilograms since Christmas!” Eleven kilos is a lot for anyone to lose but for a ten-year-old kid it’s like almost a quarter of his body weight!

The change was incredible – not just in his external appearance but within himself. He was more relaxed and confident. His dad confirmed it. “Recently we went rock-climbing and he raced to the top faster than anyone else. In the past he has always struggled. Each time he finds he can do something really well that in the past he struggled with, it boosts his confidence even more.”

Talk to most people over 40 and you’ll hear the same comments: “I just can’t eat, drink, run, stay up all night, read the fine print like I used to”. Youth is forgiving but after 40-something years of moving, breathing, digesting and gravity, our body starts to show signs of wear and tear. We’d expect it with any other machine. But most of us are still shocked when our body can’t keep up with what we think it should do. Some desperately grasp at supplements or surgery to retain their youth while, at the other extreme, some passively resign themselves that their bulging tummy and shrinking calves are just part of getting old. Aging happens. But how fast it happens is up to us.

Over the next few posts we’ll look at some common problems that hit the 40-something age group.

Middle age spread

Why it happens

Hormones, hereditary and lifestyle are the culprits in middle age spread. For women, the years leading up to menopause see a gradual drop in oestrogen levels. Oestrogen encourages fat to be stored around the hips and thighs but with less oestrogen fat tends to accumulate around the tummy. We transform from ‘pears’ to ‘apples’ – just like the men.