King Si - The Hairy Dieters: good eating

CONTENTS

Food isnt just fuel for us its our life. We spend most of every day cooking, thinking about food and coming up with recipe ideas, not to mention eating! Great-tasting food is our passion and were not about to give that up.

But we have to admit that weve overdone it a bit. Years of enjoying endless gorgeous meals has taken its toll and weve piled on the pounds. Like many middle-aged blokes and ladies we found that wed got too hefty and our health was suffering. It was time to face facts and take a good hard look at ourselves so we took a deep breath and got on the scales. Ouch! It was a long time since wed weighed anything except ingredients and it was a shock. We were both a couple of stone or more overweight and over 40% of our body mass was fat. It was time to diet.

Now we have to be honest, were never going to be skinny minnies and we dont want to be. Its just not us. But weve made the effort to lose weight to stay healthy and enjoy life to the full. We want to be walking up hills and down dales without getting out of breath, and to be riding our big bikes when were 70 so we need to keep mobile and trim. And that means every now and again watching what we eat and reining it in a bit.

Okay, were not going to diet for ever were still greedy and well always love our pies and curries but our weigh-in was a wake-up call to act before we got dangerously big. Losing weight has been quite a journey for us but weve done it and were proud of ourselves. Now we know we can drop the pounds when we need to and this will help us keep a check on things in the future. If we can do it so can you.

Look at losing weight as an investment in yourself and the people you love. The benefits far outweigh the sacrifices.

Si: I was always chubby, even as a lad. I ate for comfort after my dad died when I was only eight years old and the weight just continued to pile on. I didnt know when to stop. I got teased at school, but I kept on eating. At 11 years old I was 11 stone. By my 12th birthday I was 12 stone. And then when I got into this game, I had every excuse to eat the most fantastic food whenever I wanted.

Dave : I was quite skinny as a kid, but my mam and dad and me all loved our food. But my dad had a physically demanding job in a paper mill and he burned it all off. My life has been very different, but Ive gone on eating the pies and hot pots and big roasts, as well as the fine dining all around the world. When youre on the road a lot like we are, its hard to eat sensibly and all too easy to stoke up on rich fatty food. Im never going to be skinny again but I dont want to be obese either.

SO THIS IS WHAT WE DID

We didnt want to sacrifice the pleasure of cooking and feel deprived or hungry so we knew we had to come up with meals that we would enjoy making and eating if we were to stick with the diet.

With the advice of healthy eating experts, we discovered that by making small changes in our cooking habits we could still enjoy big flavours and the food we loved while dropping the pounds. And its true. Weve shed weight and we feel the better for it. Our blood pressure and cholesterol levels are down, our waistlines have shrunk, we have more energy and we look HOT but not as sweaty as we used to!

And even more importantly, weve done all this while still eating some of our favourite, great-tasting dishes that we now cook with less fat and sugar, but bags of flavour.

We think our recipes are fantastic. Yes, theyre lower in fat and sugar but they still taste amazing and were still just as enthusiastic and creative about our cooking as ever.

COUNTING THE CALORIES ITS WORKED FOR US AND IT CAN WORK FOR YOU

Weve found a way of eating ourselves slimmer and we want to share our discoveries with you. The secret is to make better choices and use little tricks to reduce your daily calorie count. Calorie counting might have fallen out of favour somewhat over recent years, replaced by all sorts of wacky dieting ideas, but it does work. Were the living proof. Weve lost pounds and inches!

Weve made all the recipes in this book as low in calories as possible while not compromising on the taste. And weve had a nutritionist check them out and do calorie counts for each one so you know exactly where you are. If you eat these, without cheating, you will lose weight and youll love us for it.

We have to confess weve never really thought too much about calories and the amount of food we were taking in but we know a lot more now. As many as a quarter of us Brits are obese and its not good for us, so it seems that many of us are taking in much more than were putting out.

Our experts explained to us that in order to lose weight, you have to take in fewer calories so the body has to use its stores makes sense so far doesnt it?

The average man needs about 2,500 calories a day and the average woman about 2,000. That does, of course, vary according to how active you are, your build and other factors. For instance, if you work on a building site, you use more calories than if youre sitting at an office desk.

We were told that to lose a kilo (about 2 pounds) a week we should cut our calorie intake by at least half to 13001500 calories a day and thats what weve done. Before we started the diet, we kept a food diary for a few days and the results were quite something. We realised that we were scoffing about 3,500 a day before and that was way, way too much.

LOSE WEIGHT WITH US

Cook the recipes in this book, dont cheat on portion size or extra snacks and you will lose weight too. But were not experts we just know whats worked for us so we recommend that you check with your doctor before starting any diet. When you reach your target, relax a little but not too much and continue to weigh yourself once a week. The minute the scales start to creep up, get a bit stricter with yourself and get back on track.

Once youve achieved your weight loss, treat this book as your maintenance manual, your everyday cook book, to help you keep in shape.

Calories

A calorie is a unit of energy contained in food youll see the calorie count listed on lots of types of packaged food. We burn calories to produce energy, but if we take in more than we need, theyre stored as fat.

On packages youll see calories given as kilocalories, the proper name, but dont worry, theyre the same thing. On some packages you will also see a figure in kilojoules, another way of measuring food energy. This will be a larger figure (there are over 4 kj in one calorie) so dont be alarmed. Calories are all you need to worry about for the recipes in this book.