By Judy Davie
For further information about food and nutrition, visit Judy Davie’s website at www.thefoodcoach.com.au
‘I don’t have to lose much weight, but I do have a very bloated stomach and carry a lot of excess fruit. I want to wear a bikini this summer but my stomach sometimes looks like a balloon. It’s embarrassing.’
You could be suffering from fluid retention or digestive problems causing abdominal bloating. Fluid retention can be the result of many things, including smoking, too much salt in the diet, medication, etc.
Cut down on packaged foods and buy sodium-reduced goods. Eating salads with cos lettuce, celery, parsley and watercress may help reduce fluid retention, as might watermelon and pineapple.
Another cause of abdominal bloating is candida albicans, a fungal infection caused by a diet high in refined sugar and processed carbohydrates. Often triggered by a course of antibiotics which kills the good bacteria in the gut, candida can be treated by eliminating sugar and yeast-promoting foods such as bread, biscuits, cakes, oranges, melons, lemons, grapes. Other symptoms of candida include fatigue, a white coated tongue and white mucous discharge. If you suspect candida may be the problem, see a natural health practitioner for treatment.
Eating too quickly, swallowing air when you eat or eating food your body may have difficulty digesting can also cause bloating. Highly processed wheat products, like bread, pastries and cake may aggravate your condition, as may lactose in dairy foods.
If you eat excessive amounts of either wheat or dairy, try cutting down your intake to see if it makes a difference.
Finally, to improve digestion you should avoid water for at least one hour after eating.
‘Is there a good fat-free salad dressing to use? Most diet books suggest lemon juice or nothing at all on salads but I don’t like them without a dressing of some sort.’
I’m not a big fan of commercial dressings — those with no calories are full of other food chemicals which may present worse problems than added calories. Everything we eat should have some positive effect on the health and a salad dressing made from good oils has many health benefits, including reducing the risk of heart disease, cholesterol-related gallstones, improving digestive function and lowering the risk of some types of cancer.
As part of a reduced-energy diet and provided you eat it in moderation, you can include salad dressing.
A dressing using one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil and a half tablespoon balsamic vinegar is enough for two large salads and only adds an extra 83 calories to highly nutritious but low-energy salad ingredients.
For a delicious Asian-tasting salad, try this fat-free, low-energy dressing which only adds 40 calories to each salad serve.
Fat-free Asian salad dressing
1 garlic clove
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 tsp lemongrass, finely chopped
½ tablespoon maple syrup
½ tablespoon fish sauce
Juice 2 limes
Blend the ingredients together in a food processor
Serves 4
‘My husband is about to have a hip operation and even though he knows he has to lose at least 20 kilos, he won’t do anything about it. He eats all the wrong things and drinks too much beer and wine. I know deep down he’s worried but he laughs it off if I try to talk to him about it.’
Men have a great ability to bury their heads in the sand when faced with a health challenge, especially if fixing the problem involves changing old habits and behaviours. When joints and organs wear out before their time, it’s a cry from the body demanding change, so like it or not he has no choice but to do something about this before his quality of life deteriorates completely. He needs to face the fact his life is going to change whether he acts or not. Better he act to change it for the better.
The good news is most men, when they do pull their head out and commit to change, are generally more successful than women when it comes to achieving weight loss.
The simplest place to start is in cutting out/down alcohol intake. Four schooners of beer each day is the equivalent of 2500kj or 595 calories. Add to that ½ bottle red wine with the evening meal and the alcohol intake alone has clocked up a total of 3600kj a day. One kilogram fat takes approx 32,000kj energy to burn off, therefore if your husband did nothing more than cut out alcohol he could lose one kilo in less than nine days.
Another problem with many people, particularly men, is they forget to eat for long stretches at a time. If starved of food repeatedly, the body prepares for a famine, storing fat in preparation of lean times ahead.
Eating four to five meals a day is the only effective long-term way to lose weight.
A typical healthy day’s diet might include:
Breakfast
Small fruit salad with low-fat natural yoghurt
1 cup baked beans with 1 slice soy and linseed toast (no butter)
Grilled tomato
Mug tea with low-fat milk
Morning snack
Mug tea with low-fat milk
Lunch
Sandwich made with roast beef (fat trimmed) on wholemeal pitta and packed with avocado and salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, beetroot, grated carrot, sprouts)
Afternoon snack
Small handful of almonds (approx 30) and 6 dried apricot halves
10cm cube cheddar cheese
Dinner
3 grilled medium lamb cutlets (fat trimmed)
1 tablespoon mint jelly
1 cup steamed broccoli with ½ teaspoon olive oil and 1 tablespoon roasted slivered almonds
½ cup steamed sweet potato
¼ cup green peas with mint
1 glass red wine (150ml)
Make sure he drinks plenty of water throughout the day and caution him not to replace water with cups of tea!
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