Nutrition and Wellbeing Class - Recipe Booklet

Eating to support weight loss

When it comes to weight loss the master regulator is a calorie deficit. The principle is simply the action of consuming fewer calories than you expend. It is very easy to speak about a calorie deficit, but it is hard to actually achieve one. One of the main challenges is that, we eat food not calories, therefore understanding our food environment is a great first step toward managing our calorie intake.

Firstly, record your food in a food diary for three days (x 2 weekdays and x 1 weekend day.)

We can now break things down into the three T’s and reflect on the following:

• Total - amount of food eaten each day • Type - the type of foods and beverages eaten and drunk each day • Timing - the time between the first mouthful of food and the last mouthful each day

Ask yourself the following questions:

1.

Do you typically eat three main meals a day?

2.

Do you typically snack little and often throughout the day so that you end up consuming four-five smaller meals? In terms of overall calories, which is your largest meal of the day? How many additional calories come from beverages like alcohol, sweetened fizzy drinks (coke), specialty coffees (mocha etc) typically?

3. 4.