Sometimes making huge sweeping changes are counter productive and hard to stick to. It is often the small changes that we make to our diet and lifestyle that makes the most effective and long term difference.
For example change your white bread, pasta and rice for wholegrain – that simple move with reduce the rapid processing power of refined sugar in your diet and replace it with slow release energy, fibre and more importantly B Vitamins essential for so many functions within the body, including processing the carbohydrates and fats that we eat.
Another easy way to lose weight is to reduce your snack intake by half and the amount of alcohol that you drink by half. If you eat two bicuits twice a day with coffee or tea and you only have one biscuit instead you will lose 15lbs in a year. If you normally drink two glasses of wine per night every day of the week and you only drink one glass you will lose another 20lbs. I will pop back with some more tips every week to help you get started on a healthier lifestyle.

Should supermarkets be socially responsible? Not long ago we were all bashing Macdonnalds for selling high fat high salt and sugar junk foods. Macdonnalds responded by offering carrot sticks or fruit with their Happy Meals and a whole host of other more healthy options. But really, who goes to Macdonnalds for a healthy option? I know I don’t. I happen to like the occasional Macdonnalds burger and fries. Notice I said occasional. We are talking once every two or three months. It is a treat we all enjoy but we arn’t under any illusions about the food.

Supermarkets on the other hand have the capacity to sell us a wide variety of foods, some of which make the most outrageous health claims. How about Asda’s “Good for you” range of low fat but unfortunately high in refined carbohydrate products? They are not “good for us”  at all. You could possibly argue that they are not quite as bad as the full fat version but quite frankly that isn’t true. The refined carbs in these products are more fattening than the fat they replace because of the way carbohydrate is metabolised by the body!

So do Supermarkets need reining in? Why is it that most of the buy one get one free offers are mostly on junk food?  Why do supermarkets still place sweets at child level at the checkouts? How can we as consumers take back control?