Diet

The word 'diet', related to food, refers to what we normally eat and drink. However, when we say we are 'going on a diet' we usually mean that we are trying to lose weight by changing our eating habits. Click here to learn more about healthy living and exercise

Simply, you have to eat food to get the energy your body needs to live. But if you consume more energy than you expend each day by living, working, keeping warm and breathing, then over a period of time, your body saves this spare energy up and stores it under the skin as fat. As a result you gain weight.

If you reverse this process and consume less energy than you expend each day, your body calls on and uses the stored energy (fat) to make up the energy shortage and you lose weight. Reduce the energy content of your diet by reducing fat and sugar intake and avoiding alcohol.

How to eat less fat?

	Butter or Margarine Try using a low fat spread instead of butter or margarine. If you want to carry on using butter or margarine, spread it thinly.
	Milk Use skimmed or semi-skimmed. Avoid cream and food containing cream.
	Cheese Use more low fat cheeses, e.g. Cottage, Brie, Edam to replace Cheddar and Blue Veined types.
	Chicken Always remove skin.
	Meat Should be as lean as possible. High fat meat products e.g. sausages, pies and burgers should be avoided.
	Hidden fat Fat you can't see in food can be more difficult to cut down, but it is important to cut down on: chips, nuts, full fat yoghurt and desserts, ice cream, mayonnaise and salad cream.
	Look at the labels Some foods may make low fat claims yet still contain a lot of fat, e.g. crisps, mayonnaise, sausages.
	Cooking Boil, bake, grill, roast, poach or microwave foods instead of frying them.

What Sort of diet?

Firstly a "calorie controlled" diet where each food can be weighed, looked up in a food calorie table and assigned an energy value. If you consume fewer calories (less energy) than you expend per day, you lose weight. Any food can be included, so a calorie controlled diet can be used for anyone who can not eat certain foods or has a strong desire to eat a particular food (such as a vegetarian might). There are also many convenience foods and drinks that are made to help, with all the calories listed on the packet but these tend to be expensive. One has to work at it - weighing measuring and counting which soon becomes rather laborious and people tend to get fed up with it all after a week or so. It works well but the weight loss is fairly slow.

The second type of weight reducing diet is one where you eat certain types of food only, generally a high protein diet. With this type of diet you would be deprived of ‘easy’ energy giving foods (carbohydrates) and asked to fill up with protein. The energy you need to live is then drawn from your fat stores, by metabolising or burning up fat. By sticking to the diet you lose weight quite rapidly. This sort of diet is easy to follow because you can eat this but not that. You can even eat out, choosing from the menu saying I will have this but I won't have that. This type of diet however is not always suitable for people with some metabolic medical conditions such as diabetes.

There is a common misconception that there is such a thing as a weight-reducing tablet, a magic slimming pill. There isn't and won't be for many years. We do have 'appetite suppressants' such as Reductil, designed to take the edge off your appetite and make it easier to stick to a diet plan. They work very well and can lead to big weight losses if you try to eat as you are supposed to. They are intended for short-term use, to start one on a path of permanent healthier eating. They are prescription medicines because there are people with certain medical conditions who are not suitable for treatment with them. One must be under the care of a doctor to be treated with appetite suppressants. If you take an appetite suppressant and continue to eat badly you will not lose weight. There is no miracle cure.

More information about the three available oral obesity treatments click here for obesity treatment comparison table.

What is BMI?

Before we can say anything about obesity we need some form of measurement to determine who is and who isn't obese. For these purposes the accepted standard is what is known as the BMI (Body mass index). It is used as a determinant of fatness.

BMI (Body Mass Index), is a number calculated by taking your height in metres (for example 5" 6' is 1.67 metres) then multiplying it by itself to get metres squared (1.67 x 1.67 = 2.81 M2). Then take your weight in kilograms (say 72Kg) and divide it by your height squared figure, (72Kg / 2.81 M2 = BMI = 25.6) (BMI = weight in kg divided by height in M2).

Use our calculator to calculate your BMI click here.

World Health Organisation classification	BMI	Risk of co-morbidities (Dying of things associated with obesity)
Underweight	18.5 or below	Low (but risk of other problems)
Normal range	18.5 to 24.9	Average
Overweight	25.0 to 29.9	Mildly increased
Obese	30.0	Obese
Class I	30.0 to 34.9	Moderate obesity
Class II	35.0 to 39.9	Severe obesity
Class III	40.0 and above	Very severe obesity