In the last article in this series on diet, I'll reiterate some basics

If you stick to a diet based on fresh fruit and vegetables, with as much of it eaten in as close to its natural state as you can, with small amounts of proteins such as meat, fish, nuts and cheese, and small amounts of complex carbs such as wholemeal organic bread, you will quickly become very healthy.

You will also drop weight if you're carrying an excess, and you will not be hungry while doing so, because you will eat your fill at every meal.

You will receive all the nutritional requirements your body needs, and in the correct way, rather than via vitamin supplements. And you will feel packed with energy.

If, until now, you've followed a more unhealthy diet, however, introduce your changes gradually. If you don't, you will almost certainly get diahorrhea, constipation or flatulence. These three things are enough to put anybody off a healthy diet! Your body needs time to get used to doing things properly, especially eating raw food. Remember to chew and chew and chew when you eat. 

Eating out 

Also remember - all things in moderation, including moderation. A pizza once a month won't kill you as long as you eat properly the rest of the time. Nor will a blowout at McDonald's (although you may find that its appeal certainly wanes). But don't make a habit of eating out.

Eating out used to be an occasional luxury but in today's busy times, it's become normal to eat out several times a week - indeed, some people barely eat at home at all any more. But eating out on a regular basis is a recipe for poor health and weight gain. Restaurant food may be delicious, it may be beautifully presented, but it is not designed to be nutritionally balanced - to eat properly, you must prepare your own food.

For birthdays, Christmas and special occasions such as wedding anniversaries, the DH and I eat a bang-up five-course restaurant meal that costs an arm and a leg. It is fantastic, and we look forward to each and every occasion. But we don't make a habit of it.

Do's and don'ts

*    Cut out sugar from your diet entirely. Replace it, occasionally, with honey if you have to. There is no reason to eat sugar at all - if offers no health benefits and gives us many problems from tooth decay to diabetes. Human beings are naturally programmed to desire sugar because it's a high energy food, but in nature it is a rare beast - our bodies aren't designed to eat it on a regular basis. Cutting out sugar may be a shock at first, but once you're used to it, anything with added sugar will taste unbearably sweet. The first three to six weeks are the hardest - after that, you're home free. Cutting out sugar obviously means cutting out items such as chocolate, cakes, biscuits, patisserie etc, but these are all processed foods and should be avoided anyway (again, have a piece of cake on a special occasion, such as your birthday).

*    Cut out salt. A pinch or two when you're cooking is ample. Don't put salt on the table. Even a teaspoon of salt a day (which isn't much) is seriously detrimental to your health. When you use salt, make sure it's grey sea or rock salt with no additives.

*     Treat dairy products as food, not drink. Don't have milk or yoghurt with meals, but in between meals, as a meal in themselves, in order for your digestion to work on them fully. Incidentally, it won't do you any harm to cut out milk and milk products altogether if you wish to. Milk is designed for baby animals, not adults, and human beings lose their ability to digest milk well at about the age of three, with the decline of the enzymes renin and lactase. Nor are we in any way designed to process cow's milk, which is much higher in casein than is human milk. You won't lack for calcium in cutting out milk as long as you eat plenty of green, leafy vegetables and nuts. 

Personally, I enjoy dairy, but I only eat fermented milk products such as home-made yoghurt, and hard cheeses, which are virtually lactose-free, and even these only in small quantities.  

Treat the following as poison:

artificial colouring

artificial flavouring

artificial preservatives 

MSG

aspartame

saccharin

This is one good reason for avoiding processed food - if you avoid it altogether, you won't have to endlessly read around the labels.

 

Be cautious about the following:

yeast extract

fermented foods such as soy, nuoc nam and tamari

Reduce the following:

caffeine

alcohol

fat

high-fat meats such as beef and pork 

Eat modest amounts of these:

lean meats such as chicken, turkey, duck, guinea-fowl and rabbit

fish

nuts

cheese and yogurt

milk 

Eat as much as you like of the following:

fruit

vegetables

In conclusion

Remember, in the end, no-one else can eat for you. If you have a weight problem, or are not fit and healthy, look first at your diet because, fundamentally, you are what you eat.  

 

In this penultimate article on diet, I'll look at circadian rhythms and how they affect you

To make life easy on your digestion, you shouldn't snack all day, but nor should you overload your system with only large meals. It's better to eat four or five small meals a day rather than three big ones. Many people benefit from a light breakfast, something to snack on at about 11.00, a main meal at lunch, a booster at about 4.00pm, and an early but light evening meal. That way, you're eating larger portions when you need them most. The way of eating outlined below follows the programme in the book Fit for Life by Harvey Diamond, which is full of pseudo-scientific gibberish, but also offers some sound principles on nutrition.

Breakfast 

From rising till noon, I find the best thing to eat is raw fruit and freshly-squeezed fruit juices, as much as you like. If you want to eat a lot of fruit, invest in a juicer - it's the most useful thing you'll ever buy.  Juice from a juicer is completely different from bought juice (which in any case is processed - even the freshly squeezed stuff is pasturised). It's thick and frothy and should be sipped like a soup.

When you juice your fruit, eat the pulp too but peel and deseed as necessary (there are also one or two pulps I don't personally eat, such as kiwi and blackberries, because of the seeds). Nature designed fruit to be eaten whole, not juice-only - having only the juice gives you a sugar rush and packed calories without fibre, which is not a good move.

Mid-morning

If you're munchy at 11, eat a banana or some dried fruit. I am often astounded at the number of women who won't eat a banana because it's 'high in calories' but then starve themselves all day and down half a bottle of wine in the evening (not exactly a calorie-free option). A banana contains about 90 calories, and an apple about 50 - and the effort of eating the thing is going to burn up quite a lot of those calories anyway. 

Lunch 

5    At lunchtime (preferably at 12.30 or so), eat your main meal and base it on vegetables. A big salad, or a stir-fry is ideal, and you should be able to find a salad box no matter where you work. Concentrate on vegetables with a high water content such as sweet peppers, tomatoes and courgettes (all technically fruits, of course). Place as many different colours on your plate as you can manage - colour is a quick guide to different vitamins and minerals. No dessert. If you're desperate for something sweet, eat a spoon of pure unfiltered honey, or a cube of crystallised ginger afterwards, but try to wean yourself off the sweeties.

Snack 

6    Mid-afternoon, say at 4.00, make time for a snack if you want one. If you like complex carbs, now's a good time to eat them, but keep the amount small. A small slice of wholemeal toast is good, or a baked potato with a little butter or yoghurt. If you prefer to avoid complex carbs, a handful of raw nuts (chew them to death), or a banana, or a small handful of dates or other dried fruit are all good snacks. If you enjoy dairy products, a bowl of yoghurt or a small plate of cheese will also work. Having a snack at this time will get you through the afternoon nicely - you don't need much, just about a saucerful.

Evening 

7    Try to finish your last meal of the day at least three hours before you go to bed. (I go to bed at 11.00, so I cook at 7.00 and finish by 8.00.) This means you've  already digested for three hours or so before you lie down to sleep, so your food should have passed from your stomach into the small intestines. You'll get a better night's sleep for it. 

Make your evening meal smaller than the meal you had at lunchtime but now is the best time of day to have protein. Have as many grams of protein as you weigh in kilos (I weigh 52 kilos, so I can have 52g of protein, which isn't much). You may need more protein if you're weight training or very physically active, but most of us eat WAY more than the recommended daily amount and your body can't use it - it just excretes it, placing a demand on your kidneys.

Your protein might be cheese or nuts, or meat or fish, but some people feel it's better to keep it to one kind rather than mixing proteins (so no slivered almonds on your fish...). And dieticians will always tell you to favour fish rather than meat, and lean meats such as chicken over fatty meats such as pork.

With your protein, have vegetables, not starches - if you mix proteins and carbs, it's more taxing to your digestion. No dessert.

If you're hungry before bed, eat a piece of fruit - this will pass from your stomach in about 30 minutes (45 or so for a banana), so it won't impede your sleep.  

Tomorrow: final part, diet basics.  

Firstly, as we all know, you have to keep your nose in good order. The skin on your nose will split and crack from the endless blowing unless you take measures. The best method I've found is to use 'balm' tissues, which are impregnated with moisturiser, but if you can't get hold of these, or the damage is done by the time you get them, a dab of calendula cream topped with Vaseline works wonders. Do the inside as well as the outside of your nostrils, and really slather the stuff on at night - it will do a great repair job by morning.

While you have a cold, take your makeup off with a cream cleanser rather than water-based, as this will sting less, and avoid skin toners at all costs, especially those with alcohol in, as they'll feel like acid. Use more moisturiser than usual, as you'll be touching your face more.

When you have a cold, you usually look pretty pallid but blowing your nose will bring your makeup right off so it's pointless to apply it. Instead of using foundation, settle instead for just a bit of concealer around your nose, and keep reapplying as needed throughout the day. Don't bother with powder, especially if you're not sleeping well, as your skin tone is bound to be a bit off and you'll just make yourself look like a corpse - it's better to keep a bit of dew in your skin.

If you're looking deathly, your most crucial cosmetic is blusher. Even if you eschew all else, dab on a bit of blusher, and if you're not already flushed, add a bit to your forehead, temples and chin to 'lock' your face together. This alone will make you look brighter and healthier and means you don't have to wince quite so much when you look in the mirror.

Eye makeup is problematic when you have a cold - especially if you're tearing up and your eyes feel like hot boiled eggs. Your best friend here is sunglasses, if you can get away with it. Sunglasses with very lightly graduated shades can disguise a heap of problems and still be wearable all day long (trust me on this - I wore them for months when I had a corneal infection and got chatted up all the time as a woman of mystery). Also use artificial tears to keep your eyes moist throughout the day, especially if your environment is air-conditioned.

If you do want to wear makeup, save your effort for your brows and keep them carefully shaped to frame your eye but keep the rest to a minimum. The worst culprit is mascara, especially waterproof mascara, as if this has any lash-lengthening or lash-thickening properties, it's liable to flake off and fill your sore, tired eyes with grit. I would leave off the mascara altogether and opt for just curling your lashes instead.

If your eyes can tolerate it, using a white or pale pink kohl eyeliner inside your eye instantly removes the red-eye look, while a bit of light brown eyeliner under your eyes and a dab of cream or mousse eyeshadow on the lid will give you some definition. But avoid anything with mica - even if this isn't normally a problem for you, when your eyes are sensitive, it will again feel like grit. Look for cosmetic brands such as Eyecare, which are hypoallergenic and mica-free.

Lipstick can also be a problem when you have a cold, as constantly wiping your nose tends to bring off your lippy, as does covering your mouth when you cough. Lip liner, used all over the mouth, has more staying power than lipstick. To apply it, moisturise your lips, draw your outline with a liner pencil and then fill in. Choose either a bright colour to give you some life or a nude shade. 'Nude', with regard to your lips, doesn't mean flesh-coloured - it means the same colour as your lips are when you bite them - a shade or two darker than your 'resting' lip colour. Applying this shade makes you look healthier but still natural. Once you've applied your liner, apply a coat of Vaseline or lip salve to keep your lips moist, and keep that topped up during the day.

During a cold, you'll really look better if you wear your absolute best colours - the ones that make you look healthy and pert - up by your face (anyone notice that Hilary Clinton switched to a bright yellow jacket when she was down with a cold on the campaign trail?). Your 'best' colours vary for each woman, but they don't generally include drab, olive, black or white. Instead, opt for girly, feminine colours such as pink, peach, eau-de-nil and soft blue (especially if you have blue eyes), or even red to make yourself look more vibrant.

Finally, if you're not wearing shades, wear a largeish pair of earrings that match your eye colour, and you'll look better in seconds.