By Zoë Palmer-Wright
1. Cut right back on the amount of ultra-processed foods you buy. Ultra-processed foods and drinks such as sweets, “junk food”, packaged snacks, ready meals and fizzy drinks, are highly refined, composed mainly of starches, sugars and hydrogenated fats and contain artificial additives like preservatives and flavour enhancers. Ultra-processed foods create addictive behaviours around food, causing food cravings, binging and overeating.
2. Make sure you are drinking lots of fluids throughout the day. Dehydration can make you think you’re hungry when you’re not! Filtered water, herbal teas, turmeric, lemon and ginger drinks and miso soup are good choices.
3. If you under fuel at breakfast and lunch you are likely to feel absolutely ravenous by the time mid-afternoon and dinner time come around, making it far more likely you’ll reach for a high sugar, high fat snack or order an unhealthy takeaway. It also makes it much more likely you’ll overeat.
4. Make sure your breakfast and lunch contain lean protein, healthy fats and fibre – to give you a slow, steady release of energy and help you avoid a mid-morning and mid-afternoon blood sugar and energy crash and help you avoid raiding the fridge.
5. Make your life easier by always having some healthy snacks in your house and not keeping unhealthy snacks around (so not bulk buying them when you go food shopping). The monotony and boredom of WFH makes it even harder to resist high sugar, high fat stuff if it’s to hand, but if it’s not within reach, you simply can’t binge it!
6. If you are prone to unhealthy snacking in the evening after eating dinner, then try having a cup of herbal tea which contains licorice and cinnamon after your meal (like a caffeine free Chai blend) – the sweetness can help curb sugar cravings and prevent bingeing on sugary snacks.