How to eat well and fit into your skinny jeans!

On the menu this week: we answer our final two top questions. Enjoy!

1. What should I be eating?

This is an interesting one. There is no ‘one diet fits all’ solution. In fact, one man (or woman)’s food is often another man (or woman)’s poison! The concept I am referring to is that of ‘bio-individuality’. We are all unique individuals with our own individual dietary requirements and our own responses to particular foods.

What we should eat also varies according to location and season. There’s a reason everyone is talking about eating locally-sourced, seasonal produce. It’s good for the environment but it’s also better for us. Put simply, it’s more natural to be eating what is readily available to us in our surroundings.

Finally, the word ‘should’ when combined with ‘eating’ rings alarm bells to me. Eat what you want to eat, when you want to eat it (within reason) and you will often find you eat far more healthily (and far less) than if you impose restrictions on your diet (and end up reaching for the nearest pack of Tim Tams).

2. How do I lose those last five kilos?

Most of us have a normal weight and a ‘skinny jeans’ weight. I think the issue of losing the ‘last five kilos’ is really about something entirely different: letting go. Obviously I don’t mean renouncing all willpower and reaching for the nearest pack of chips. What I mean is letting go of our OCD calorie counting, treadmill pounding and habitual self-loathing. We are officially a nation of ‘orthorexics’ – people unhealthily obsessed with being healthy. Sounds ironic, doesn’t it?!

Now, I’m not saying that you can get fat by just worrying about it or look at a slice of cake and turn into one. But you can definitely shed the kilos if you stop agonising over your weight and just let go! If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. When you are relaxed and happy, you sleep better and make the right food choices. You get outside more and laugh more. You lower your stress hormones and boost your mood!

So next time you catch yourself obsessing over what to eat for dinner, take a step back, breathe and remember to live a little. You might even make a more sensible decision...

Beat the bloat

It’s ‘beat the bloat’ week here at Urban Remedy – yes, a whole week dedicated to the dreaded bloat! We think it deserves it… after all, bloating leaves you feeling and looking significantly heavier than you are, and for a lot of people makes that ‘skinny jeans day’ seem almost unattainable.

Let’s shed some light, first of all, on what it means when we say we feel bloated. Essentially (if there is no underlying medical condition), bloating is caused by one of two things: trapped air (aka ‘gas’) in your digestive tract (common) or fluid retention (less likely and more frequently encountered in women around their time of the month).

Bloating due to excess air is often caused by bad bacteria producing gas as they ferment (ew!) and feed off sugar inside of you. We all have these nasty creatures in our gut; the challenge lies in maintaining the correct balance of good and bad bacteria, thus avoiding bacterial overgrowth – medically known as dysbiosis or candida (for overgrowth of the bacteria candida albicans). It is worth noting that food intolerances (wheat, dairy etc) can also cause excess gas in the digestive tract.

Most of us are victims of bloating caused by excess air – for some it’s a case of jeans feeling a wee bit tighter than usual; for others bloating can be so extreme that it makes the simplest activities seem unbearable. Whichever end of the scale you’re at, I’m guessing you’d be happy to say goodbye to the bloat once and for all.

Now it may not be possible to banish bloating forever but there are certain things you can do to help reduce its frequency and intensity.

10 golden ‘beat the bloat’ rules:

1. Chew your food properly to activate digestive enzymes
2. Eat your meals in a relaxed setting, preferably at a table
3. Minimize your water intake with meals (1/2 glass max) to avoid diluting your digestive juices
4. Drink filtered water as tap water kills off good bacteria
5. Boost your good bacteria with probiotics (in natural yoghurt or in supplement form for more severe bloating)
6. Avoid foods such as: lentils, beans, cruciferous veggies (cabbage, cauliflower etc), onions (red are OK for some people) and garlic
7. Minimize your intake of yeast (pizza, bread, pastries, yeast added to condiments and sauces, wine, beer) and malted foods (soy sauce, malt added to drinks such as soy milk)
8. Cut back on wheat and replace with other grains such as rye, spelt, quinoa, millet, amaranth…
9. Avoid artificial sweeteners (sorbitol, mannitol, aspartame etc) and sugar
10. Say no to chewing gum; when you chew gum, you swallow air!