The Zen Diet Revolution (10 page)

It’s amazing what small changes can have a big effect in the long term. Studies have shown that people who eat from smaller plates eat 20 per cent less than those who eat from a standard 12"-diameter plate. Our perception of how much food we have is influenced by how big the container is. Another interesting study shows that eating with your left hand decreases food intake significantly. The psychologists conducting the study believe that this isn’t due to the difficulty of eating with the left hand, but rather by using the non-dominant hand, we make it a more conscious task and we stop ‘automatic’ eating. This is something significant to remember: most of our eating habits are absolutely automatic; we eat the same things day after day, year after year. To change that, we need to focus on making a conscious act of eating. Much of this can
be done by preplanning. One study showed that people who preplanned any section of the restaurant menu, and indeed the restaurant they ate in, managed to keep to their diet far better than those who went in with good intentions. So one thing you can do is to just choose your meal from the salad section of any menu placed before you; if you only look at the salad section, you won’t be tempted by anything else.

Ladies! If you want to eat less, eat with men – some studies have shown that women instinctively eat less when with a member of the opposite sex!

One final note on eating out or on the go: I find that planning snacks or planning my lunch when I’m out is ultimately the best thing to do – I might pack a salad, some chicken breast and a pint of milk. Something that is the right nutritional or calorific amount for you and your goal will also be good for your pocket as well.

Ban the bread basket!
And not just the bread – the corn chips and salsa, the crisps, peanuts and any other little bowl of nibbles that we all absentmindedly pick at when they are conveniently placed before us. But it all adds up calorie-wise. If you really need something to keep the hunger pangs at bay when waiting for your meal, ask for some crudités, i.e. carrot, celery or cucumber sticks.

A natural extension of eating out is eating when on holiday – it is a challenge. A real challenge! You may be in another country and you might not be able to self-cater. The control you have over your food is significantly reduced. When we relax, we tend to treat ourselves. If you have an all-inclusive package, it is hard not to try to get your money’s worth. I think I must be the only person in the world to go on an all-inclusive holiday and not to drink a single alcoholic drink! But how can we have such discipline on holiday and how can we use our time away to burn extra calories?

I used to struggle with keeping the weight off on holiday, but over the years I have perfected the formula! First of all, I make sure I keep to my exercise routine no matter what, and with the additional calories burned from exploring and swimming, I can burn more calories than when I am stuck at work. Because the meals are so big at most restaurants, I cut out all snacks and I am very careful not to overeat. Standardization is not something I would normally recommend – it is an unsustainable tactic usually, but you don’t need to sustain it, you are only on holiday for a couple of weeks!

On most holidays you will have a breakfast buffet. I love cooked breakfasts and used to find myself unable to resist a full English cooked breakfast every morning, but I had to
find a way of preventing this. After all, a full English can have well over 1,000 calories! Basically, nowadays I have a compromise. I have a nice big bowl of fruit and then either an omelette or scrambled egg. And lots of tea! Again, I am using bulk as my ally. If you eat a full bowl of fruit, it is far harder to fill up on anything else, and it makes a great start to the day. When you are on holiday, find a high-bulk food to start with; don’t think of it as an either/or. Have a low-calorie, healthy, bulky start to your meal like some grapefruit or melon and eat lots of it. Then move on to a treat of an egg or that sweet something. Just so you don’t feel deprived!

You need to have one light meal every day. I tend to choose lunch because it’s easier to eat light when on the go. I tend to buy a can of tuna and a salad, and I can get this almost anywhere in the world, even in rural Japan. If I can’t find that, I will buy a sandwich or the local equivalent. One warning if you are in a Middle Eastern country: avoid the falafel – they are deep-fried and calorie-laden. If you can find a salad and protein source, then you’re winning. I have this almost every day for the whole period. It really helps keep the weight off.

If you
can
eat your light meal in the evening, it is far better for fat burning (more on this later). I find this quite difficult when staying in a hotel as I end up eating in a restaurant where it is hard to eat lighter food.

You are going to have to eat out at some point, so you have to apply all the rules and tactics listed previously. When in a foreign restaurant, you may have a problem recognizing what you are ordering or knowing how it is going to be cooked. There may be few healthy options to choose from. I recommend you find what you want, or rather find the closest option, and to ask for exactly
how
you want it. Most restaurants will do what you want with no quibble.

I go to Egypt often, where steak is inexpensive, but it is frequently served with chips and other fried things. So I always ask for steak, rice and vegetables If they won’t do it, I will go elsewhere! Once I find somewhere that will give me a healthy meal (like fish tagine with couscous), that’s what I will eat every single evening. That’s not to say I won’t try the odd local dish now and again, but only one that’s not deep-fried. If you can find a healthy local dish, stick to that instead. Once you find a formula that’s working, stick to it.

One other tip – there are many ways to relax. Make your holiday the one that is in line with your goals. Do something active. So many people just lie in the sun drinking beer. It’s an amazing planet, why not explore? You will be surprised how many calories you burn seeing it!

Snacking is important! The more you spread out your calories, the less likely you are to store any of them as fat. You see, fat storage is triggered by your blood sugars reaching a peak; if you keep your blood sugar constant, then you should decrease the probability of fat storage. Likewise, if you eat every three hours or so, you will hardly ever feel hungry and you are less likely to give in to a craving for an unhealthy meal or to overeat at a meal time.

But what to have and how to plan it? I always have something high in protein as I find that it takes a long time to digest and cuts out my hunger. You could have a chicken breast or a protein bar. I sometimes have a pint of skimmed milk or a packet of beef jerky. If you prefer carbohydrates, you need to have something that takes a long time to digest, such as rye bread or wholewheat rusks. If you are a creature of pure virtue and self-control, or if you really like vegetables, then carrots and celery or fruit are the best snacks in the world. You would have to eat a wheelbarrow of them to make a dent in your calorific input. Find something that’s high-bulk and low-calorie and make sure you plan ahead and pack your snacks in the morning. To fail to plan is to plan to fail.

Drinking is a powerful tool in your weight-loss arsenal. Studies show that those who drink more water have less body fat than those who remain dehydrated, and there are many reasons for this.

•   Water makes you feel full. One study by scientists in Virginia proved that those who drank a couple of glasses of water before their meals ate a lot less than those who had not tanked up – up to five pounds less over a three-month period.
²
This is probably due to the fact that the stomach is full of calorie-free water! So drink lots, drink often, as it keeps you feeling full.

•   Energy levels. It takes only a 5 per cent reduction in hydration levels to give you a whopping 50 per cent reduction in energy levels! Many people misinterpret the low energy levels as low blood sugar and decide it is time for a snack. Keep your energy levels up by staying hydrated.

•   Energy release. Although there is no firm evidence, some experts believe that when you are fully hydrated, it is easier to release fat stores and that a dehydrated body goes into a conservation mode that prevents any fat loss.

•   A taste of the cold. Yes, it is only a small thing, but imagine how it adds up over a few years. If you drink cold water with ice, your body has to use energy to
warm you up. This burns calories and thus fat. If you can go for the cool option, have ice and lemon with your water and watch your fat melt with the ice cubes.

It’s a strange thing. When you change your life and make an effort, many people don’t like it. Even when people say words of support, sometimes they are less than helpful in their actions. I think this is because many people feel inferior and disempowered when someone starts doing what they can’t. For this reason you need to protect your goals and your enthusiasm from the negative thoughts of others. The world around you needs to be adjusted for you to make permanent changes. Most of us would agree that it would be hard for a smoker to give up if he lived with smokers and continued to spend his time in the places he used to smoke. We would never advise an alcoholic to keep going out with his drinking buddies if he really wanted to turn over a new leaf.

The same is true of all habits and lifestyle changes; if you want to change your life, it is best to change your habits. I, for example, used to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet with my friends every Saturday. Every week I used to kid myself into thinking I was not going to eat more than I needed. I would drink diet cola and try my best to keep down the calories, but … I always failed. The truth is that if you want to be slim, you can’t keep going to the all-you-can-eat.
When I go to the gym, I notice some people whose build never changes. It’s a strange thing if you think about it.

One woman I know is always on the treadmill. I have been going to the same gym for five years, and I have never seen her lose weight or indeed get any faster on the treadmill. Something is not working, and when I talked to her, I found out quickly what it was. She exercised out of guilt, as a means to burn off calories that she had put on going out partying with her friends. That’s why she always used to come in on a Monday and Friday. She was almost exercising to make room for extra calories and then to take off what she had put on. When we talked in depth about her weight-loss goals, she told me a very long story of her attempts to go out night-clubbing and to keep down the calories. First she tried just drinking rum and diet cola, then she moved on to only having white wine spritzers. She had tried everything, but after five years she had made no progress. When I suggested she give up night-clubbing completely and take up something else, she was horrified. The problem is that after decades of going out drinking and eating, she couldn’t dream of a world without it. At the same time she said she would do ANYTHING to be slim. After talking it over for a while, she revealed the truth: she was scared of the friends she would lose if she stopped taking part in the activity that bonded the group. She showed me a picture of her and her friends on the town. They all looked just like her! The terrible truth is she may have been right. If she decided to break the mould and to invite her friends to a yoga club or slimming group, or even
to go out swimming, they would be rather taken aback. It may even be that they would start to reject her after a month of her no-partying policy!

But this is part of the path of change. It could be that she could start a revolution and turn all her friends into health buffs. However, more often than not people who have bad habits want you to stay with them and are hurt when you try to make a change. Every week I still see the same woman at the gym. She never seems happy because she is living in conflict. Remember that old saying: ‘If you chase two hares, you don’t catch either!’ She feels bad at the gym due to guilt from the extra calories drunk the night before and feels bad when out drinking due to the effect on her health and weight. It’s time for her to take a risk and move on; if her friends are genuine, then they will stay with her. If they fade away, she will need to replace her activities with something positive that puts her in touch with people who are supportive of her goals.

But how do we get in this state? We need to cultivate our goals. We need to protect our dreams and to build our hopes with a gentle effort every day. To do this, we have to make sure that we focus on far more than just ourselves; you need bigger reasons to do the things you do. You need to build your dreams and make your goals and positive motivation so strong that no one can break them down. I often practise this exercise while going to sleep or when I have a moment or two to myself on the bus or train. I find that if I formalize it, it becomes rigid and lifeless. Bruce Lee used to call this exercise ‘the mental charge’. He used to sit
and imagine all the things he wanted to do and focus on the wonderful events in the future.

Take time to imagine your goals. Use recent events to aid you in building both motivation and confidence. Try to put yourself into a situation when everything makes you stronger: for example, if you have had a success and you are happy with yourself, use that as proof of the ongoing transformation in your life and personality. If you had a day when you ate your perfect diet, think about how easy it will be in the future to be able to make this the standard.

Use setbacks and negative things to your advantage. If someone called you something rude or showed doubt in your goals, imagine how wonderful it will be to prove them wrong. Try to enjoy the feeling of success when you get to the point you dream of.

Most of all, focus on your current
kaizen
change, that small change that you are introducing to your life. Think about how powerful this small change is going to be and what effects it will have on yourself and others. If you have decided to make sure that you cut out a snack you eat by routine – for example, a chocolate bar every day – and perhaps replace it with two glasses of water and a carrot, focus on this. Don’t spend much time on other goals, just image how this is going to change you and your life. The extra calories you used to take in from the chocolate bar are no longer going to be part of your daily routine, so that’s 250
less calories! Over a ten-day period that’s 2,500 calories, which is a whole day’s worth of food less! You could only cut that number of calories by fasting for a whole day. Wow, imagine how you start to see the weight slowly coming off! Imagine how others see this happen. Everyone is looking for a secret diet of slimming product, but you know the truth is in the Zen Diet, in the small and EASY change.