You can download a copy of the slide here

On a recent car journey, we needed to stop at a motorway service station for a comfort break and we called in the shop for a newspaper and bottle of water.

After collecting the items we wanted, we had to walk past two isles of complete and utter junk (see the pic) to get to the checkout where the assistant tried to ‘upsell’ us even more sugary junk.

On a similar point, we noticed at Bristol airport that that WH Smith bookshop had swopped some valuable book shelf space for sugary snacks and confectionery.

Britain is often referred to as the ‘snackfood nation of Europe’. With temptations like these and continuous upsell’s, it’s little wonder we’re a nation battling with our weight and health…

Recorded on 7 February 2012 at an open public lecture at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales.

Here’s the audio file only..

You can also listen and download it from iTunes here

Or in a new tab and download here (It’s a big file!)

And you can download the slides from the presentation here

THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC – HARDBACK. SPECIAL OFFER – LIMITED QUANTITIES

A common question I get is “Am I losing fat or water?” which I answer in this podcast.

Hi Zoe,

Since coming off the pill in late August i’ve had some probs with irregular periods (a 56 day cycle & a 49 day cycle).

Doc wants me to go back in Feb if things are still funny because she doesn’t think i’m ovulating & wants to put me on some drugs to rectify this.

I am not keen to take drugs & was wondering if there’s anything in particular I can eat that would be good for increasing oestrogen levels – (don’t really want to go near soy!)

I also think it might have something to do with the fact that I was on the pill for 11 years & my body is bound to take a bit of time to sort itself out however frustrating that might be!

Would be interested to hear your thoughts.

Answer.
Hi there – this is really common when coming off the pill. Some people get caught out and get pregnant immediately! More typically, cycles are quite irregular for quite a few months. You’ve effectively stopped your body releasing eggs each month for 143 cycles! Hence it’s going to take more than one or two cycles to get this back to normal. Having had two period suggests to me that you are ovulating – just not back into a c. 28 day cycle yet. You must have had a couple of cycles or there would be no lining to shed – which is what a period is.

I would take the time to sort it out – if you were 40 and running out of baby time, that would be one thing. But you’re no where near there! So – let the body sort things out naturally.

You really, really don’t want to go near soy because it’s effectively a birth control pill! It contains isoflavones – plant oestrogen hormones – and these a known to severely impact fertility (see Kaayla Daniel’s great work or Dr Mercola’s site on this). You may also like to memorise this fab wiki chart – we get pregnant in the mid part of the cycle and there are 4 hormones at play – LH, FSH and osterogen are all high at this time.

Eat super well (as we do!) Loads of meat, fish – consider a folic acid supplement if you are thinking of getting pregnant – don’t think you can start this too early and let nature sort things out. Manage stress, have some ‘me-time’ every day – all of the well being stuff will speed up getting one’s natural body back!

Marisa Peer (http://marisapeer.com/ and on twitter) is also mega on fertility – may be worth following for a while and deffo one of us!

Good luck!
Bye for now – Zoe

Starting January 2012, Diet & Health Today is available online and as a downloadable eMagazine (PDF) to subscribing club members.

Headlines in this January issue are:

The Big Issues: 10 reasons not to count calories
In The Media: There’s still time to lose a dress size
Diet Tips 1: Getting ready for the last diet you’ll ever need
Video: Most difficult times of the day.
Recipe: Devilled Kidneys.
Diet Tips 2: 3 Top motivational tips
Footnote: Do protein calories matter?

Sample Article.
Diet Tips Part 1: Getting ready for the last diet you’ll ever need.

It is estimated that 15 million people in the UK alone are on a diet at any one time. Most people start a diet each Monday and rarely make it past Wednesday. It is further estimated that eight out of ten women and seven out of ten men start a diet on New Year’s Day! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1343571/Love-slim-Want-lose-weight-The-secret-think-youre-beautiful-just-way-right-now.html I guess a number of these have fallen by the wayside already.

If you’re starting The Harcombe Diet this January, here’s how to make it the last diet you ever start:

1. Get your mind ready: Understandably if you’ve switched from one calorie restricted diet to another, and none have ever worked, you would quite rightly expect the next low calorie diet not to work. This is why you need to try something completely different. The Harcombe Diet is so different that you have every reason to believe that it will work for you. Go in with the commitment that this time you plan to work with your body and have it work back with you – no more starvation, no more calorie counted processed food, just real food, three times a day and plenty of nourishment.

2. Get your body ready: So many people have a last binge before starting the diet “I’ll lose it all tomorrow” is the thinking. This is possibly the worst thing you can do. You want to get the body ready to work with you – not fighting you because you’ve just stuffed it full of things that it doesn’t recognise. The day before a diet you should actually be trying to get all the processed food that you’ve been eating out of your system and then you’re ready to start eating well with stable blood sugar, not a binge hangover.

3. Get your kitchen ready: The right food has to be in the house and the wrong food has to be out of the house – simple as that! If you are following The Harcombe Diet for planners, have the shopping list worked out and have everything you need until the next shop (not just the first 5 days). If you are doing your own flexi plan, again have the meals planned and groceries in the house ready. To get the wrong food out of the house, be ruthless! You don’t need any temptation so don’t hang on to biscuits “in case I have a visitor”. The visitor doesn’t need them either! Either take everything in a bag to a slim neighbour, or to a local shelter, or simply throw it in the bin.

Read more >>, Membership required.

To help you get 2012 off to the healthiest of starts, we’d love to invite you to our online open day on Sunday 8th January 2012. All registered club members are welcome and can participate in the forum on the day – no subscription required (non-subscribing members posts will, however, be moderated to keep gate crashers out)

Anyone can take part on the day, you just need to be registered to post. If you’ve not yet registered, you can do so here…

On that day, the forum will be open all day and Zoe and Andy will be there to answer as many questions as we can. As well as answering questions, we’ll be having some competitions, with prizes, including ‘Most Inspirational Story’, ‘Best Submitted Recipe’ and ‘Most Interesting Question’.

You can enter any of the competitions as many times as you like up to the close of the party. Here’s how…

The forum will be open all day and Zoe an Andy will be online at least during the following times:
10.00 – 12.00 and
16.00- 18.00
Please note that these times are London, GMT.

Most Inspirational Story:
Just send an email to clubadmin @ theharcombedietclub.com with ‘Inspirational Story’ in the subject line (or use the contact us form..) briefly telling us your story: How you found out about The Harcombe Diet; When you started; How much did you lose over what time period; What you found easy/hard about the eating plan; Before and after pics (optional, if you’re happy to share them with other club members); Anything else that you may want to say about your journey. Your story needn’t be about weight-loss; it could be that a long-standing ailment has cleared up or you have gained some other health benefit (more energy to play with the kids or improved skin and hair, for example).

Best Submitted Recipe:
Simply complete this form. Recipes need to be original and ‘Harcombe Friendly’. If you have a photo that you’d like to send in with it, please send it attached to an email to clubadmin @ theharcombedietclub.com with your recipe name in the subject line. If we get enough entries, we’ll do another members’ recipe book.

Most Interesting Question:
We’ll run this on the day, all you need to do is create a new thread and post your question.

Looking forward to seeing you then.

Very best wishes

Andy & Zoe

This podcast was originally published on 19.12.2011 and talks through the times of the day to be alert to.

You can subscribe to all podcasts by clicking on the podcast icon at the top of the right hand column.

Here’s a short video that will hopefully help answer a few frequently asked questions on The Mens Book..

Headlines in this issue of Diet & Health Today are:

The Big Issues: Projection, envy, guilt & attacks – things you may get for Christmas!
World News: What other people will be eating at Christmas.
Video: Vegetables and Salads.
Recipe: Christmas Nut Roast.
Footnote: What is The Harcombe Diet? In case someone shows interest.

What will people be eating this Christmas:

I thought that this may make an interesting change for our Christmas edition – what will different populations be eating on Christmas day?!

We have a very multinational club, so do please tell us what you’ll be having for your festive meal …

The UK classic is turkey with all the trimmings. This means turkey, stuffing (usually meat and wheat based), carrots, sprouts, gravy, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, cranberry sauce and, often, chipolata sausages. Some people have a soup or prawn cocktail kind of starter (completely unnecessarily) and pudding is usually Christmas pudding (dried fruit and alcohol based) with brandy butter or brandy sauce. Mince pies are often served with coffee after dinner – also completely unnecessarily. It is a rare person who can indulge in all of this and NOT fall asleep in front of the Queen’s speech!

Many Australians are moving away from the traditional European meal of roast meat and vegetables, heavy fruit cakes and puddings. Most likely because of the hot weather, many people now prefer to have a barbecue at the beach or a picnic in an outdoor location. This will more likely be meat (steaks on the barby) and/or seafood and pudding is more likely a Pavlova (meringue, cream and fruit) or something cold and special.

France also have the special meal on Christmas day. The starter is usually fois gras (goose liver pate) and then the main course is usually seafood – invariably lobster and oysters. How much healthier is that?!

Germany tends to have fish (often carp) or goose on Christmas day – another healthy choice.

NZ goes for a turkey with trimmings (British style) lunch, but, weather allowing, it will be barbecue and beers in the evening.

Poland is mostly Roman Catholic and their big day is Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is a day of fasting before feasting – not a bad idea! The Christmas meal is known as “Vigil” and it is considered an honour to be invited to such a celebration. Likely menu items will be borscht (beetroot soup – very common in Russia) and herring in various forms is another key item. Cabbage, soup and potatoes also feature – again – typically Russian and Polish staples.

Russia didn’t used to celebrate Christmas, as Christianity was not embraced by communism. Christmas can now be openly celebrated, but not everyone does so. There are two dates to choose from for the main celebration – either December 25th or, more often, January 7th. The latter date comes from the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church uses the old ‘Julian’ calendar for religious celebration days. Whenever Russians decide to celebrate, traditional Christmas food includes cakes, pies and ‘meat dumplings’.

Sweden is one of the many countries to have Christmas Eve as a more important day than C

The Harcombe Household will be having a light breakfast – cappuccino & dark chocolate; berries & NLY kind of thing. Then we will take Roxy for a long walk around the reservoir, to wear her out and give us a roaring appetite for lunch (exercise used to be used to work up an appetite – not to burn off calories!) Our neighbours then come round for a glass of bubbly, to start the drinking. Then they go home for their turkey and we sit down to a perfectly cooked rib of beef with the trimmings – neither of us are big on turkey. I used to have the nut roast recipe from the recipe book (in this edition), but now join Andy on the beef. We have carrots, sprouts, parsnip chips and celeriac chips for trimmings. You can also use the nut roast recipe as a substitute for stuffing – a bit of mixing, but much better than wheat based stuffing. Andy’s brother works in a vineyard in NZ, so he always send over a very special bottle for Christmas day. Sometimes Andy has some Christmas pudding and brandy butter – my mum makes a wicked pud from scratch, so they’re always worth a cheat. Then we sit down to watch a TV series like House (24 when we had some left!) and drink a lot and usually eat a whole Christmas box of Hotel Chocolat. Supper is usually a bit of cold beef and cheese and some ‘garnish’, as Mat would call it!

The countries that favour opening presents on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day include: Argentina, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden. Apparently the British royal family do this also – thanks to their German heritage. I’d be a bit gutted to wake up on Christmas morning to find all the presents opened already! I like the way the UK, USA, Italy, Ireland, Canada, South Africa, NZ and Australia do it – get a good night’s sleep on Christmas Eve and enjoy the presents on Christmas morning.

Read more >>, Membership required.