Foods to Avoid during Summer – Continued
- Soft drink
Become ambivalent about it. Lose your desire for cola or lemonade. None of them are okay. If you get the desire for something fizzy, go the plain mineral water option. Not only will it make you feel better, but your skin will benefit too.
- Cake
Marie-Antoinette was wrong when she suggested that the masses should all eat cake. The inclination is always there, particularly around 3 p.m. with a cup of tea, but wrong. Cakes are okay every once in a while, but don’t make a habit of it every day.
- Lollies
If you must, try to move onto the sesame snap kind of treat. Most lollies will take you on a high and then dump you in the middle of nowhere. They are a sugar over-load. Try an energy bar from the health food shop. Most of them are really lollies, but the reality is that they contain a third less of the calories, more protein and less fat. Don’t think that they can replace a meal though.
- Fat-free cookies
Beware! Nothing ever is. Anything that says it is fat-free is not necessarily so. Read the label carefully and have a think about what is in the product. Fat-Free doesn’t always mean it is fat-free. You might be better off making your own, with dried fruit and ingredients you understand and feel good about eating because you know what you are eating.
How to win the war
Be prepared
This is the only way to avoid the cravings and sometimes the sheer necessity to eat whatever you can get you hands on that contains high quantities of sugar. Make sure you have healthier snacks on hand. Carry them around with you. Sometimes if you have a small bag of cashews or dried fruit in you handbag it will quell the desire for something less desirable. Another method is to simply stop buying sugar-loaded snacks. If they are not there, chances are you won’t eat them.
Variation is the key when it comes to eating?and most things. If you had cereal for breakfast, surprise yourself with something entirely different, like yoghurt for a snack. Then have a salad for lunch and so on. Make it your business to create food that is interesting for yourself. Ask yourself if it is something sweet, salty or savoury that you currently desire. If you can satisfy your needs this way then you will slowly stop any compulsion towards bad foods and bad party season habits.