Louisa's Weight Loss Blog

Back in September, I wrote a post about why women crave chocolate and it seems to have struck a chord with the majority of visitors to Total Chunk. I put forward an answer to this age-old question by suggesting that women crave chocolate around the time of menstruation because their body is lacking in magnesium. This is a mineral that is required for bone growth (it works with calcium) but researchers have also indicated that magnesium helps to relax your muscles which is vital when a woman is menstruating for easing pain.

Can you resist chocolate when you're on a diet?

I answered why women crave chocolate and suggested that ladies drink hot chocolate if their craving becomes critical. This has been met with a mixed response, most people think this is a great idea but my mum disagrees. I am always open to (constructive) criticism and suggestions. My mum (Janey to you) said that hot chocolate doesn’t satisfy her, for her it is about the texture and feel of chocolate when she consumes it. Her desire for chocolate is not often satiated by a drink.

So back off to the drawing board I went! We are all answerable to our mothers and the purpose of Total Chunk is to offer a big range of diet tips because not all tips work for all people. What is the point in suggesting you eat only bananas for breakfast if you can’t bear the smell of them?

My first tip was to drink hot chocolate so here are a few more so you can enjoy a little of what you fancy without ruining your diet:

• Buy a small amount of expensive chocolate, you will eat less but enjoy it more because you know it is special chocolate
• Drink coffee (preferably black) with a couple of squares of chocolate as it makes the texture very satisfying and you will savour it more as it lingers for as long as it takes to drink a cup of coffee.
• Switch to dark chocolate. Magnesium is in cocoa and dark chocolate has a high cocoa content so it’s in theory, better for you anyway.
• Share your chocolate bar with a friend

If you are trying to lose weight, there is now no excuse for an untidy home!

Actually, yes! Cooking and cleaning DOES apply to you!

Depending on the household chores you embark upon, you can burn around 150 cals or more an hour just by tidying up your house. Obviously, making the bed, gardening, vacuuming and rearranging furniture require more effort but you can burn off calories and increase your metabolism simply by spring cleaning your home.

Based on a 150lb person, the following activities will burn off a surprising amount of calories:

• Ironing burns off about 150 calories an hour
• Washing up the dishes burns off 50 calories in 20 mins
• Enthusiastic vacuuming burns around 110 calories in half an hour
• Carrying small children burns 200 calories an hour

Bear in mind that if you are heavier than 150lbs, you need to consider your muscle mass. Fat doesn’t burn calories, muscle does and so if you are obese without much muscle mass and a low metabolism, you may not burn this many calories. In this case, you need to build more muscle mass and raise your metabolism and you can do this with exercise. If you are obese, cleaning is an excellent start as it is one of those things that needs to be done but is a workout that can be adapted for your exercise needs or time constraints.

You can increase the amount of calories burned when cleaning by listening to music and singing and dancing to the tune if you aren’t shy! The NHS website has some great tips about how to make everyday chores work harder for you by turning them into a more vigorous aerobic workout. Cleaning isn’t a replacement for the gym but if your time is limited and you can’t make it down the gym, half an hour of enthusiastic scrubbing, washing and buffing will kill two birds with one stone.

Marshmallows contain virtually no fat

These are marshmallows. Scouts impale them on sticks and toast them on a roaring camp fire. I shove them on a kebab stick at BBQs and enjoy the melted goo. Jonny isn’t the biggest marshmallow fan which means more for me, yay!

What do marshmallows have to do with dieting? They’re made from sugar and gelatine so they must be sent from Satan to keep us fat.

Anyone who has successfully lost weight and kept the weight off will tell you that you must not feel like you are being denied the foods you enjoy otherwise you will resent your diet and are less likely to stick to it. The answer is to factor in up to 200cals a day out of your daily allowance for treats a few times a week.

• A two finger kit kat has 106 calories
• A small glass of red wine has about 100 calories
• Marshmallows are 157 cals per 50 grams and contain very little fat. 50g is roughly 7 or 8 marshmallows.

Total Chunk Top Tip: Do not deny yourself a regular small treat, factor in little things like a 2 finger kit kat or a few marshmallows into your calorie allowance. You will feel in control by being able to say no to eating most of the packet and you won’t feel as though your diet is stopping you from having the things you like. If you don’t feel like you can only eat a couple of marshmallows from a packet, ask a friend or your partner to help ration them until you get used to eating smaller amounts. It’s all about portion control and there is no shame in asking for help!

You may have noticed that today is Wednesday. Well done for that, I noticed it too. What you may also have noticed is that I should have weighed myself on Monday night and I haven’t posted my results yet. Why did I neglect to impart this information?

When using bathroom scales, your weight can vary between different sets

Because I haven’t weighed myself this week! Why would I do such a thing? I’m on a diet, surely I should be charting my progress?

Yes, that is absolutely correct, I should be charting my weight loss progress (using the slimming aid Proactol), but when weighing yourself there are things to take into consideration. If you follow these rules, you should not be disheartened

• Always weigh yourself with the same set of scales. Remember when Phoebe in Friends said “Maybe all the rulers are wrong…” she wasn’t far wrong! All weighing scales are calibrated, meaning that you pay more for your scales to be calibrated more ‘accurately’. It doesn’t matter if your scales cost £5 or £500, stick to the results on the one that you use because your weight will appear to differ. This is not particularly encouraging when you spend the week working really hard to lose weight so don’t open yourself up to the trauma of weighing yourself at your mate’s house. I’ve seen myself scales that vary between 1-7lbs but I saw one girl post in a forum that her scales were a whole 15lbs out compared to the weighing scales at her doctor’s surgery. That is a massive difference! This is why I have been using my wii fit and my wii fit ONLY.
• Always weigh yourself at the same time of day. If you weigh yourself first thing in the morning after going to the toilet and before a sip of water passes your lips, of course you will weigh less than you will do at night after three meals and 2 litres of water have (hopefully!) gone through your body that day. Typically, people weigh 3-4lbs more at the end of the day. If you choose to weigh yourself in the evening, that’s your choice but don’t be upset if you weigh yourself in the morning and the next time you weigh yourself you appear to have lost nothing.
• Weigh yourself naked. Add jeans, jewellery and a thick jumper and you’ve added a whole lb in weight. Stop torturing yourself! I don’t weigh myself naked because so far Jonny has been filming me do it for this website… I’m hoping he’ll sort out the videos soon.

Total Chunk Top Tip: Always weigh yourself with the same set of scales. All scales are calibrated differently so results could very wildly from scale to scale. Don’t torture yourself by weighing yourself on lots of different sets of weighing scales.

I’ve not done one of my top tips for a couple of days now, apologies for my neglect! I should make it a good one. Now let me see…

Ah yes, stomach crunches! I have fallen victim to this problem. So many women who are trying to lose weight through diet and exercise complain that it doesn’t matter how many stomach crunches they do, they still don’t have a gorgeous washboard tummy. WHY OH WHY OH WHY?!

As a teenager, I bought one of those roll cage dooberries that help you to do sit ups. I must have done thousands but all I succeeded in doing was getting some hard muscle under my flab and the lower part of my stomach remained blobby to say the least. I so desperately wanted to be thin enough to get my belly button pierced but alas, it wasn’t to be. Last year I got a tattoo of a butterfly on my tummy because I figured a tattoo would look better and not get infected. You can see a picture of it on my twitter page, it was taken in April before I put on another 7lbs!

Sit ups are great... but they must be combined with a cardio workout

What was I doing wrong?

Sit ups are fantastic for working the muscles in your upper abdomen and that it. If you want to get that blobby bit under your belly button to catch up and also get toned, you need to do leg lifts and weights. The best place you can do this is at the gym because people have been over-ambitious and given themselves hernias! You can also hurt your back doing sit ups so please do take care.

The reason why I had killer abs under fat was because I wasn’t obeying the most basic of exercise rules: if you’re trying to tone an area as stubborn as your stomach, muscle exercises must be combined with aerobic exercise. So if you want to fix your stomach, go for a run, do an energetic step class, boxercise, spin whatever and THEN concentrate on your stomach crunches. You will see the results you want much quicker as aerobic exercise encourages the loss of fat so that you can see those gorgeous muscles you’ve been toning.

Totalchunk Top Tip: Only do stomach crunches when you have completed aerobic exercise. Your muscles will thank you for releasing them from under their fatty prison! Bring on those weird cut off belly tops that skinny celebs seem to love so much right now!

Now, this might sound odd to some people, but whilst I’ve been on my diet, I’ve been munching on the odd cube of raw jelly (or “jello” to Americans). This is because I have what could possibly be described as an addiction to fruity jelly sweeties. Eating 2 or 3 cubes of jelly is enough for me and at only 33 calories a cube, my desire for fruit jelly sweets is satisfied and I feel ever so slightly sick afterwards, meaning that I am not uncomfortable but I feel too naughty to munch on something else.

Jelly cubes are meant to be good for your hair and nails

Jelly cubes are said to be good for your hair and nails because they are basically just protein and sugar. Proteins are the building blocks of the human body, we need protein to patch us up when we get a boo boo or when we grow. Jelly can do loads of other cool things, but it’s best for eating! You can add fruits, make a delicious trifle and you can mix flavours to make it a bit more interesting. It’s more versatile than you think. When making strawberry jelly up, you can add milk instead of water, of course, it adds more calories but milk is good for you and it is absolutely yummy! My mum used to make it for my sister and me when I was a kid and it was always a hit because there was no other desserts like it!

Total Chunk Top Tip: If you are trying to follow a low fat diet, try eating jelly as it has no fat in it at all and is made up of carbohydrate and sugar. It’s particularly good to eat after a particularly strenuous work out and is really yummy too.

The relationships that we have with other women are more vital than you may think. Could Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte have got through their lives on SATC without each other? I doubt it! The support your friends can offer is invaluable when you’re on a diet. Why? Because women are so good at supporting each other. When I have been on a diet, my friends have helped me avoid ‘naughty’ foods, they have taken my mind off eating and they will always compliment me on losing just a tiny bit of weight because other women notice these things. Your male friends will only notice your appearance if you’re wearing a low cut top!

Your girlfriends may even go on your new diet with you for moral support. Dieting can be the most isolating and lonely experience of your adult life but a friend’s love, support and guidance changes the experience from a negative one to a positive one. Women are usually happy to discuss most things openly with each other. If you have a friend who you’re dieting with, you can discuss your meal plans, how much weight you hope to lose, your fears about losing weight and of course, all of the sexy clothes you’ll be able to wear once you’re slim! Did you know that cravings usually last 20 mins before they pass? That is just a short telephone (or text!) conversation with your friend that will get you through those darker moments. Losing weight isn’t easy and nobody expects you to do it completely on your own.. and why would you if you have good friends?

Louisa’s Top Tip: Tell your friends you’re on a diet. Good friends will help you stick to the diet and they will remove temptation from your path. They will take your mind off your cravings and might even exercise with you if you ask nicely!

I like a drink in the evenings or at the weekend. I don’t mind who knows it because I do not drink to excess… anymore! My teenage experience with alcohol is not uncommon, most young people drink too much at some time and make a fool of themselves. Some continue this behaviour long into their adulthood. I don’t feel the need to go past that lovely warm and wobbly feeling I get when I have my first drink. I like a cheeky glass of red with a meal sometimes because alcohol does have its health benefits.

However, when most young people go to university, they pile weight on and whilst this is due to many factors, I have so many friends who lost weight after graduation purely because they were not drinking the sheer volume of alcohol they drunk as students. Alcohol is riddled with calories and research shows that the weight will hang around your abdomen, the worst place to carry fat.

Why should you have to give up having fun to be thin? Nobody wants to be one of those miserable skinny minnies that can barely muster a smile. The answer is that you don’t have to give anything up, you just need to make smarter choices as far as alcohol is concerned. Factor a glass of red wine into your diet a couple of times a week. A small glass (125ml) is typically just under 100 calories but pubs rarely serve 125ml servings any more, a small glass is considered to be 175ml which is about 120 cals. Fair dos if you skip dessert.

Large glasses are 250mls and a third of the bottle. I always laugh at the ‘buy two large glasses of wine and get the rest of the bottle free’ because many women will drink two big glasses of wine on a night out but actively encouraging them to consume a third glass brings their calorie intake up to over 500 calories just in that bar. That is a whole meals worth! Usually, this bottle would be shared with a friend but many people will visit a couple of drinking establishments on a night out …

You can drink on a diet, but with everything, it has to be done in moderation. Try drinking a small glass of water between alcoholic drinks to keep you hydrated, did you know that hangovers are partially due to dehydration? Avoid alcopops like the plague! They are FULL of sugars and are full of calories. They are a dieters nightmare so don’t be drawn in by cheap offers. Instead of beer or lager which is 200 cals a pint on average, switch to clear spirits like vodka or gin that average between 50 and 60 cals and drink them with a low calorie mixer.

I drink vodka, lime and soda on a night out to keep calories to a minimum. It is cheap and I find it quite refreshing.

Total Chunk Top Tip: Make smarter choices when drinking alcohol. Beers, lagers, wines and especially alcopops are a nightmare for serious dieters. Stick to clear spirits like vodka and gin and drink with low calorie mixers. I prefer Malibu and diet coke to Malibu and normal cola but it isn’t a low calorie option so try to avoid drinking it all night. Vodka, lime and soda is a smart choice as is gin and slimline tonic. Try to alternate each alcoholic drink with calorie free water to avoid a hangover.

Let us get this one straight very quickly, dairy is not the work of the devil!

The human body does not make calcium, we have to eat it or drink it to get lovely calcium into our bodies. You might not believe it, but bones are a living tissue and they renew themselves whether we break our bones or not. Even at the age of 20, our skeletons may not be completely formed. Things go downhill from the age of 35 though because part of the ageing process is losing bone density and when a woman begins menopause bone density will drop even further. This is why it is important for women to have a calcium rich diet – because one in two women will fracture a bone over the age of 50 compared with one in five men.

Soya milk (calcium enriched) has more fat in it than semi-skimmed milk. Research on the Dairy Council’s website suggests that people who include milk and yoghurt as part of a calorie controlled diet lose more weight around their waists than those who do not include any dairy products at all. The theory is that the calcium in dairy helps to alter the way fat is broken down.

If you are lactose intolerant, don’t worry because Lacto-free milk is available in most supermarkets although I would avoid the cheese! Hard cheddar is low in lactose anyway as is yoghurt and both are full of calcium.

If you wish to try cutting out dairy completely and and following a vegan diet, please let me know if you see tangible results, I would be interested to hear your story.

Tip: Don’t cut dairy out of your diet unless you have to. Dairy contains vital calcium for bone strength and dairy is surrounded by many dieting myths. Make up your own mind about the benefits. Weight loss should be about improving your health. There is no point in being thin if your bones are weak or if your hair and nails are breaking.

I will tell you the main reason why I snack: I get bored and eating is something to do!

When you’re bored, preparing the food you want wastes a few moments… and then there is the act of eating… and then clearing it all up. You can make a few slices of toast last 10 minutes if you’re smart about it! The trick is avoiding boredom so the temptation to eat is smaller. I have started sitting upstairs in my bedroom (two flights of stairs away from the kitchen) because I am too lazy to go downstairs to get a biscuit or 8. During the day I used to take up residence on the recliner sofa – less than 5 meters from the fridge.

If you don’t have much to do, how can you stop the boredom and stop unnecessary snacking? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Start playing a musical instrument. You can buy a 3/4 size guitar for just £30 at Argos or even less at a car boot sale if you get lucky. You might even be able to get a friend to lend you one. Learning to play is difficult at first as it makes your fingers hurt pressing on the strings and it takes a while for your brain to correspond your fingers with the tab but it is really worth it as you can spend hours learning and playing the guitar without even realising you’ve missed a meal. I would advise buying an electronic tuner if like me, you can’t tune by ear. Even better, try a wind instrument like a flute or a saxophone to keep your mouth focused on what you’re doing.
2. Start knitting/crocheting/sewing. My father is excellent at crochet, he even taught his mum how to crochet! Dad likes his food but crocheting blankets while he is watching TV keeps his mind off snacking because both his brain and his hands are doing something and therefore less likely to shovel crisps down his neck!
3. Paint your nails. You can’t put food in your mouth if your nail varnish is wet!
4. Clean the bathroom, nothing puts you off eating more than sticking a be-gloved hand down the loo or pulling hair out of the drain pipe in the bath!
5. Play a computer game. We are all mesmerised by something! If you are reading this then you have access to a computer so no excuses! My grandfather used to lose hours just playing basic solitaire on a Windows 95 pc! There are lots of online games that will either turn you into a drooling zombie or get you so excited you don’t know your own name! Online games aren’t necessarily expensive so don’t let money put you off. I like Bookworm Adventures and Peggle by Pop Cap which can both be bought for about a fiver. Check out www.steampowered.com

Total Chunk Tip: Try taking part in activities that engage your brain and use your hands so that you will be less inclined to snack. If music and games don’t work, try cleaning the toilet so you don’t feel clean enough to eat between meals.