Look on the Packet

Yesterday I spent the day adding some final touches to the new book I have written this year to be published in January 2010. Not only will the diet be published in book form for sale in shops around the country, it will also be adapted into a handy format issued to all the new members who join Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs.

When I create a new diet I like to put it to the test so I run a Trial. That way I know that it is not only effective but also the comments of the Trialists are helpful in enabling me to make any adjustments. Their observations are always fascinating and I always love to hear how their health has improved, even after just four weeks. Yesterday was my day for extracting the comments from their questionnaires and deciding which ones to include in the book and which might go on the back cover. They didn’t disappoint.

One of my Trialists lost 1 stone 8 lbs in the four week trial and one day, as he walked around the local park one lunchtime to get some more steps registered on his pedometer, he felt his shorts didn’t feel quite right. He looked down to find them only just still there and his ‘sunshine’ summer briefs on show for all to see. At 45 years old he felt he must have looked ridiculous wearing teenage-style almost-falling-off shorts!

But one comment that came up again and again was the realisation that if you developed the habit of looking on the labels on the back of food products when you were shopping in supermarkets, you could dramatically reduce your calorie intake. My Trialists just hadn’t realised previously how much fat and how many calories were in the foods they ate. On top of that, they hadn’t realised how much food they were eating and that by eating differently, (healthier), and at set meal times, within a set calorie allowance, they could lose weight incredibly fast and not feel hungry.

Food labelling varies and sometimes it is confusing but my rule of thumb is simply to look at the ‘energy (i.e. calories) per serving’ and the ‘fat (all fat) per 100g’ as this will give you a percentage fat figure. To lose weight I recommend that you eat foods with 5% or less fat (except oily fish and some lean meats) and that way you will be automatically eating a low fat diet. If you do that, do some regular exercise or activity, you will lose weight. Don’t be confused by the RDA on food labels. RDA stands for Recommended Daily Allowance of calories for men and women but these figures are for your weight to remain constant, not to lose weight. To lose weight you need to reduce those figures by around 600 calories a day. Personally, I think the RDA is misleading and unhelpful on labels and if it were left to me, I’d drop it from food labelling.

So, if you are going shopping today, allow a few more moments to stop and read the labels on your food purchases.