Express Newspaper features 100 Ways

Time to celebrate! How to party without putting on the pounds.

WANT to let off steam this summer without piling on weight? Diet expert Jane Wenham-Jones reveals her top 10 tips…

Nobody (except the teetotal) should be expected to go to a wedding or a big birthday and say no to champagne. Or refuse those yummy little canapés and stand there with a carrot stick. Even if we arrive at a barbecue or garden party with the best of intentions, determined only to drink water and eat the salad garnish, we’re soon going to start feeling deprived and hungry and miserable and as though we’re missing out.  No surprise then that, before the end of the evening, so many of us fall off the wagon and stuff our faces with abandon.

Jane Wenham-Jones, the author of How to Fight the Flab and Still Have Wine & Chocolate, offers her top party tips.

1. Plan ahead

If you know you are going to be out on Saturday, build in some wriggle room earlier in the week.It’s worth doing salad and protein on the nights you’re at home for the pleasure of going out with a flatter stomach by the weekend. If you get hungry, eat a bit more protein or a few squares of dark chocolate and picture yourself twirling in your slinky dress at your party and all those nibbles you’ll deserve by then. You can still have the champagne and canapes without piling on weight.

2. Eat eggs for breakfast

Studies have shown that if you eat eggs for breakfast you will consume, on average, 400 fewer calories during the rest of the day than if you have a carbohydrate-based start to the morning. Keep some back for the morning after too – eggs are an excellent hangover cure. As you will feel fuller for longer, you can skip lunch or be moderate.

3. Have a tiny lunch

If you’ve had your eggs and you’ll be out to dinner or on party food tonight, you can manage on a little salad, a piece of fruit or a lump of cheese and a tomato. Tell yourself any residual hunger pangs are the feeling of fat dissolving from your thighs. You’re going to make up for it later.

4. Wear the full hold-it-all-in regalia

No wonder Spanx as a company is now worth more than a billion dollars. Squash-it-in support tights work nothing short of a miracle on stomachs and waists and bottoms – even if you have to allow an extra 20 minutes to get them on.

5. Don’t drink too much on an empty stomach

Not only might you fall off your heels but if you really get the munchies you’ll also fall on those mini burgers and little fish and chips. A few is fine – although 17 of each plus a kebab on the way home is not.

6. Go for the protein 

Nothing’s forbidden on party night, but if you concentrate on dishes and canapés based on meat, fish, cheese, eggs etc you will feel replete earlier. Too many carb-only snacks and you’ll soon be starving again.

7. Drink water with it

Sipping at water as well as the wine will mean you’ll drink less alcohol and not feel so peckish. Keeping yourself hydrated will also save a headache in the morning and a face like a dried prune.

8. Dance (or at least keep moving)

Dancing can burn up to 400 calories per hour. Even walking around the room chatting will boost your metabolism and use up energy.  If those heels are now hurting, kick ‘em off  – you’ll cover more ground.

9. Walk home

There is nothing like a brisk walk before bed, and after you’ve finished eating for the evening, to get your body fat-burning. If it’s not safe or practical, run up and down the stairs when you get in. Or jog on the spot.

10. Have fun!

If you really want to be successful when flab-fighting then don’t let it suck the joy out of your life.Happy people look gorgeous, whatever their shape, and skip through life with an extra zing. This in turn releases endorphins, raises the metabolism and helps burn the calories. So eat, drink and be merry and if you do over-indulge a little, some extra exercise and plenty of protein and veg will put it right tomorrow.

100 Ways to Fight the Flab and Still Have Wine and Chocolate by Jane Wenham-Jones is published in paperback by Accent Press at £7.99.

See the original article at http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/diets/484952/How-to-party-without-putting-on-the-pounds.

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Flab-fighting tip No. 8 – JUMP!

Jump on a trampoline

If the kids have got a big one in the garden so much the better but otherwise get yourself a trampette (also known as an aerobic bouncer or a rebounder) – one of those mini circular jobs – and leap up and down on that. You can jog, hop or do star jumps– it will come with a leaflet with suggested exercises – and hold a small weight or a tin of baked beans in each hand to intensify the effect. It’s quite good fun, kind on the joints, and a good way of burning calories and firming muscles. Just two words of warning -both for my female readers.

1. Wear that sports bra and

2. If you’ve had children – they will laugh at you.

(If you’ve had lots of children, best have a wee before you start.)

        

Flab-fighting tip number 7: Follow the C Plan

The C-Plan

My friend, the writer Lynne (a surprising number of my friends have this name) Hackles, conceived this.

Lynne Hackles
photo by Susan Haniford

You can eat anything you like as long as it doesn’t begin with that letter. So no Cream, Chocolate, Chips, Crisps, Cake etc.

This is easy to follow and when successful, has miraculous results. But in the interests of fairness and impartiality I must warn you that it doesn’t always work.

Especially if you pig out on Gateau and French Fries.

    

We have a winner!!!!

100 Ways to Fight the Flab Competition. Judged by Janie Millman, Morgen Bailey (and me).

….  It was very, very difficult to choose. We wrangled and debated but finally in the end, we came to a decision. All five were terrific and in recognition of this, Mike and Janie of Chez-Castillon have been incredibly generous (thank you Janie and Mike!) and offered FOUR runner-up prizes of a £100 voucher to be used towards any of their fabulous courses. These go to:

Karen Booth for “The Regulating Waist Plan”

Jane Lovering for “Bum’s Away”

Cathy Lennon for “Acquire a Labrador”

Tony Tibbenham for “Roll Six for Chocolate”

But the winner is … drum roll… etc…

CLARE MACKINTOSH for her ingenious poem!

Clare Mackintosh

Janie Millman, judge and co-owner of Chez Castillon, who had this one down as a firm favourite from the start, describes it as “witty and unique” saying: “It shows a great sense of humour. I really do think it’s clever – I like the way she has managed to  mention Chekhov and Shakespeare…” Adding “and I have always love standing on my head.”

Janie

Janie and Katie Fforde at Chez Castillon

So Hurrah for Clare and our brilliant runners-up and a round of applause to all on the long list and a huge thank you to everyone who entered. I am hoping some of you will agree to your tips (and you!) appearing in the print version of 100 Ways to Fight the Flab which is coming out at Christmas (Better get on and write it then, hadn’t you? Ed).

Clare wins six nights at the amazingly gorgeous Chez Castillon in September (avec moi).

and I am hoping she will give me permission to reproduce her poem in the book too.

In the meantime, your weekly Flab Fighting tips from me will resume next Sunday and for a hundred of the buggers all at once see the kindle book, available here for a mere 77p (what a bargain).

Thanks everyone. And Happy Flab Fighting 🙂

janexx

Here – for your delight and delectation – is the poem again….

The upside-down diet tip: a poem by Clare Mackintosh

I was trim, I was slim,I attended a gym,Then I left work to become a writer. Now I scoff, and I trough (and I’m still no Chekhov) It’s no shock that I’m getting no lighter. I’m game for a change, I can’t stay the same, And I’ve hit on the perfect idea, It’ll win, I’ll be thin, I’ll have only one chin, A skinnier version of Shakespeare. So what is the plot? It won’t take a lot, I shall stand on my head when I’m eating. When I chew on my stew, without further ado It’ll stay in my head (that’s the cheating). Begone, Deli jelly! Don’t enter my belly, Go right up and hand-feed my brain. All that bread can instead go direct to my head, With an order of chicken chow mein. I shall shrink, I shall slink, I’ll be able to think, With such nutrients feeding my mind. I shall write, I shall fight, I won’t ever turn upright, In my quest for a tiny behind. The End. p.s. Don’t try this at home.

100 Ways to Fight the Flab Competition – Top 5

Following on from last weekend’s Top 12, we are pleased to announce the creators of the Top 5 Flab-fighting tips, complete with the tips themselves, again in author surname alphabetical order. We’d love to have your feedback. Please do comment!

Karen Booth – The Regulating Waistband Plan

Sort the contents of your wardrobe into two piles – one a size or two smaller than your real size, the other one or two sizes bigger than you really need (this shouldn’t be a problem for anyone who can relate to yo-yo dieting who’s likely to have a range of sizes in their wardrobe for fat and thin stages). The idea is to wear the smaller sizes whenever you’re at home or working alone – anytime you’re going to come across few people. You’ll find it difficult stuffing yourself when your waistband’s cutting you in two, you’re likely to feel full quicker and the rolls and muffin tops you see every time you pass a mirror will be a candid reminder of the need to watch what you eat!When it comes to socialising and being in company, it’s time to choose from the ‘two sizes bigger’ outfits and revel in the compliments when your friends ask if you’ve lost weight – well surely you must have done, your clothes are hanging off you! This method also works well with the ‘fast and feed’ plan, wearing your tight clothes on fast days will leave you feeling like you’ve troughed your way through a five course meal (well alright, you might also need to use a little imagination!) whereas your bigger outfits on a feed day will allow you to feel comfortable eating what you like – just don’t overdo it and end up filling your ‘big’ pants!

Cathy Lennon – Acquire a Labrador

The canine equivalent of the fat bridesmaid in lemon taffeta on your wedding photos, a Labrador will do comparative wonders for your silhouette. But he’s a practical help as well. You can get rid of those kitchen scales – when it comes to portion control, what he can demolish in thirty seconds makes the contents of your plate seem positively dainty. Even better, your chances of finishing anything are slim. Without a lifebelt and wellies you’ll have to hand over at least half of what you’re eating or risk drowning in a drool tsunami. Even cucumber and apple cores. And quinoa. (See! Helpful or what?)Not only can the Labrador deploy the Vulcan death stare to Oscar-winning standard when you’re trying to eat, he will offer you the same ‘aid to willpower’ when it comes to exercise. Labradors are creatures of habit. You thought death and taxes were hard to avoid? Try missing his usual walk time. Seriously. Psychologists in the military use Labradors as the go-to training aid for SAS-style relentlessness. You’ll cave. Eventually.On the plus side – and Labradors usually are – you’ll have someone who looks fatter than you do in high viz lycra. And to keep your motivation up he’ll always let you win any race. Well, you won’t be stopping every few yards to sniff crisp packets and lick empty Greggs bags, will you? (WILL YOU?!) But don’t do your business in the street like he does. Unless you’re an actual marathon runner.

Jane Lovering – ‘Bum’s Away’

I recommend placing a large picture of one’s object of desire some six feet distant, then practising ‘lunging’ forward with alternate legs to place a kiss upon said object of desire. Not only does this shape the behind, but it gives necessary practice in the ‘snog and retreat’, which comes in handy should one actually meet the object of one’s desire.# Aim for ten kisses with each leg. #no liability accepted for restraining orders.

Clare Mackintosh – The upside-down diet tip: a poem

I was trim, I was slim, I attended a gym, Then I left work to become a writer. Now I scoff, and I trough (and I’m still no Chekhov) It’s no shock that I’m getting no lighter. I’m game for a change, I can’t stay the same, And I’ve hit on the perfect idea, It’ll win, I’ll be thin, I’ll have only one chin, A skinnier version of Shakespeare. So what is the plot? It won’t take a lot, I shall stand on my head when I’m eating. When I chew on my stew, without further ado It’ll stay in my head (that’s the cheating). Begone, Deli jelly! Don’t enter my belly, Go right up and hand-feed my brain. All that bread can instead go direct to my head, With an order of chicken chow mein. I shall shrink, I shall slink, I’ll be able to think, With such nutrients feeding my mind. I shall write, I shall fight, I won’t ever turn upright, In my quest for a tiny behind. The End. p.s. Don’t try this at home.

Tony Tibbenham – Roll 6 for Chocolate

If you really want that chocolate roll a dice and if you get a 6 you are allowed the treat. Variations include rolling 2 dice and only allowing the treat if you get double 6.Things to be aware of: Only allow yourself one roll per treat, no rolling for hours until the 6 appears.  Consider rolling really vigorously so you must scramble all round the room and under the sofa to find the dice after the roll:  That way you get exercise and the chance of a treat.

***

And next weekend we shall be announcing the winner!

For a reminder of the prize…

The entrants had to: Write a diet or fitness tip in no more than 250 words. Entries were be judged on originality and entertainment value.

The author of the best tip will win: a week’s writing course with Jane Wenham-Jones, September 28th-4th October 2013 at Chez Castillon (see http://chez-castillon.com for full description) including meals and accommodation (flights not included) – worth £875.

And as a late addition to the goodies on offer, Janie and Mike Wilson – owners of the fabulous Chez-Castillon, have offered two £100 vouchers towards a course of the winners’ choice (terms and conditions apply). So THREE lucky names will be revealed here next Sunday at 6pm…

Thank you again to all that entered!

Jane, Janie and Morgen xxx

***

100 Ways to Fight the Flab Competition – Top 12

Taa-Raaa – we have the first set of results of the Fight the Flab Competition, judged by Janie Milman, co-owner of the fab Chez-Castillon, Morgen-with-an-e-Bailey – blog-designer extraordinaire and me. Thank you so much to everyone who entered. Morgen has been the organised one and done all the admin, so over to her….

Hi Morgen here

Yes, that’s right – the entries were so impressive that we couldn’t agree on just ten.

Five of the twelve received a vote from all three judges, the other seven were picked by two of us.

Below are the shortlisted twelve and we shall be putting our heads together to pick out a winner… we may be some time! 🙂 Only kidding, we will be posting the Top 5 here on Saturday 11th May then the winner on Saturday 18th May… listen out for the fanfare. 🙂

For a reminder of the prize…

The entrants had to: Write a diet or fitness tip in no more than 250 words. Entries were be judged on originality and entertainment value.

The author of the best tip will win: a week’s writing course with Jane Wenham-Jones, September 28th-4th October 2013 at Chez Castillon (see http://chez-castillon.com for full description) including meals and accommodation (flights not included) – worth £875.

***

and now for the Top 12… (in alphabetical order by surname)

Name	Tip Name
Karen Booth	The Regulating Waistband Plan
Philippa Bowe	Clean out your colon
Tracy Fells	The E-Plan
Ninette Hartley	Sleep The Fat Away
Jessica Kennedy	Stop Doing the Dishes
Cathy Lennon	Acquire a Labrador
Jane Lovering	Bum’s Away
Clare Mackintosh	The upside-down diet tip: a poem
Jan Newton	Make Rejection Work for You
Janet O’Kane	Why join a gym when you can work out at the supermarket?
Rebecca Stanley	In a Spin
Tony Tibbenham	Roll 6 for Chocolate

So good luck to those 12 and watch this space for the top 5 next weekend and the winner the weekend after!

Flab-fighting tip No 3 – Get a dog. (Or borrow one…)

Get a dog

I have noticed that a lot of people who should, by rights, be fatter than they are, have a mutt that they walk come rain and shine. I am more of a cat person. I find dogs too time-consuming, too needy, too fond of licking their testicles and then wanting to do the same to my face. I am also squeamish about picking up warm poo. But there is no doubt at all, that taking regular brisk walks is an excellent way of keeping the weight under control and one’s thighs and bum toned. If you too, are too self-engrossed to actually own a canine, then can I suggest you….

Kenzo

…borrow a dog

This is a good compromise. I have always enjoyed taking out Kenzo, a black Labrador belonging to my friend Lyn-Marie. Kenzo and I have an arrangement. He does a poo in the garden before we leave and I take him to all the muddy places where he’s not usually allowed. I also have an arrangement with Lyn-Marie. Should Kenzo ever let me down, I will phone her on her mobile and she will send one of the children to clear up.

Top Tip:  Walking, let us remember, can burn 100 calories per mile if you do it briskly. I don’t know how much extra you use up by wielding a pooper-scooper, but just make sure you do. I don’t want to tread in it later…

Flab-fighting Tip No 2 – Eat Chocolate!

I am serious. Although what I’ve got in mind is a few squares of the plain stuff, not three creme eggs, four chocolate rabbits and an entire layer of Milk Tray (tho, hey, it IS Easter – you can always cut back tomorrow). Keep a bar of the dark close by for when the hunger pangs hit between meals. Choose high quality chocolate – at least 70% cocoa content and preferably 85%. (Green & Black’s is good – bring on that product placement) and if you sip a black coffee with it, I find it’s even more effective. My exhaustive research has revealed that chocolate contains stearic acid which slows digestion and also tryptophan, an essential amino acid that stimulates the production of serotonin – a natural anti-depressant – in the brain. This means that a few squares will not only take a significant edge off your appetite, and leave you feeling fuller for longer, but will cheer you up as well (necessary if you’ve planned to diet and are facing the prospect of cutting out butter and not drinking). (NB this is NOT one of my tips – you’ve got to be sensible.)

Try it mid morning, or late afternoon when you feel your sugar levels dipping and are gearing up for the white wine and crisps, and wondering if diving into them at 4.30pm will constitute being a lush. I find a mere two squares – try to eat them as slowly as possible – suck don’t chew (stop that sniggering at the back) – and I can delay wine-time for at least two hours…

The next BIG blog thingy

Fight the Flab was invited by the excellent PDR Lindsay of http://www.writerschoice.org (have a look!) to do this Next Big Thing Blog thingy. It requires answers to  ten questions she sent. Here they are:

What is the title of your book?

100 Ways to Fight the Flab – the Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I take the credit for coining the term “Writer’s Bottom” – the lardy backside you get when you sit on it too long cos you’re penning your masterpiece. I wrote a chapter on the syndrome in my first how-to book: Wannabe a Writer?  As it’s the section  of the book readers seem to mention the most, I thought it might be fun to expand on my dietary and fitness advice. It’s probably not quite what your   doctor or nutritionist would have in mind, involving as it does, crisps, wine and chocolate, but I look at it this way – I ingest vast quantities of all three and am not morbidly obese. So it must work.

What genre does your book fall under?

Mind and Body? Emphasis on the rear end.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Dawn French (pre her own diet) and Robbie Coltrane for the “befores” and anyone very thin and gorgeous (not that the above two aren’t!) for the “afters” 

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Flab-fighting for those who still want chocolate

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It is published by Accent Press Ltd who did my other Wannabe Books. At the moment a short version is available on Kindle. A full-length print version is planned for the end of the year.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The short version? A week.  I didn’t move from the computer and put on two pounds as a result! ha ha

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

“How to eat everything in sight but still, miraculously, manage to fit into one airline seat”

By Hugh Jars

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

See above. The top occupational hazard of being a full-time writer and the need to keep my own derriere in check.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

When you’ve read it, you can enter a fab competition to win a writing course in the Dordogne. See here. Tho brace yourself – you will see pictures of my bottom too….

100 Ways to Fight the Flab is published on Kindle. Available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk stores… 

Now we have to suggest someone else to answer these questions too – if not five people. Come on – who’d like to? Leave a comment with your blog link and we’ll come and read the answers.

thanks xx

100 Ways to Fight the Flab

Introduction

Yes, my bum looks big in this…

I am probably not thin enough to be writing a diet book. Which is why this isn’t one. Don’t they all say that! The writers of diets do their best to avoid the word. They may call it an ‘Eating Plan’, a ‘Whole New Approach’, or put the emphasis on a change of ‘Lifestyle’. But scratch the surface and underneath they’ve all got the same bad news. You’ve got to stop eating anything nice! Typically, there’s a skinny bird on the front cover, or some mumbo jumbo science on the back and a strap line telling you you’ll never be deprived. They use words like ‘permanent’ and ‘healthy’. They tell you that, after reading these particular pearls of wisdom, you need never go on a diet again…

At this point, you know it’s going to be bunkum. Do these fine works, on any of their 350 pages (largely comprised of repeating themselves), ever recommend sitting down with a bottle of Chablis and a packet of Kettle Chips? Do they suggest on Day Four of Lose A Stone and Never Feel Hungry that a Danish pastry is the way to go? Any mention of it being just fine to mop up fourteen cold chips and half a fish finger from the kids’ plates?

Whichever way you look at it, it is all about cutting down. Books like that occasionally allow a ‘Daily Treat’. One fun-sized Mars Bar, say, or a small glass of dry white wine. What’s fun about a chocolate bar an inch long? Where is the point in ONE glass of wine? We’re not stupid. However much we may bluster about slow metabolisms and big bones and layers of lard running in the family, even those of us (me) with absolutely zilch in the understanding-science department, can secretly grasp the basic equation regarding portions in and expenditure of energy out. Namely: If what goes in is greater than what goes out, you get fat. If what goes in equals what goes out, you stay the same (this may equal above). If what goes in is less than the sum of what goes out you get thin (hurrah!).

Though maybe not ‘hurrah’ for long, because, they hasten to tell us, the moment you go back to eating anything at all that you like, you’ll be waddling again. Whole volumes have been written about how, when you drastically reduce your calories, your body thinks it’s starving (and so do you!) and your metabolism slows down so it can start conserving fat.

Then, the minute you start collapsing with malnutrition and fall on a doughnut, it packs it away in a nice wobbly deposit on your bum before you can say: GI index! Depressing innit?

That’s why there’s all this emphasis on a ‘change of lifestyle’. It’s short-hand for never, ever, eat what you really want, again. I am here to tell you, you can. I am here to save you!

I am not super-thin but neither am I morbidly obese. Which, considering my unhealthy career choice (not for nothing did I coin the term ‘Writer’s Bottom’), vast consumption of wine, crisps and chocolate and somewhat erratic approach to exercise, is a small miracle. Depending on which set of charts I use and how much I fudge my height, I am generally within ‘normal’ parameters; I have a BMI of 22 ish, a hip to waist ratio that passes muster with the medical profession and there was a day, once, when I was wearing black and the sort of underwear that crushes your internal organs, when I was even described as ‘slim’.

I am at the sort of weight where if you dress cleverly, hold your stomach in and make sure no one snaps you with a wide-angled lens, you can get by without anybody thinking you’re too much of a fat moo (heavy weekend on the peanuts, a badly cut dress and the skinniest friend in tow: different story).

If I need to, I can quickly lose half a stone, and the rest of the time, there are small steps I take to keep that writer’s backside at bay. I am going to share these with you here.

As a disclaimer, I must point out that I am not a nutritionist, or a doctor and if you are truly obese and needing three airline seats there is little I can do except to suggest you think about a gastric band and don’t wear white leggings.

But if your arse is merely on the large side and you’re feeling a little podgy round the edges, welcome to my world. Let us first comfort ourselves with the fact that whoever said that older women had to choose between their figure or their face was spot on. A bit of fat makes you look younger.

Let us also hail the research that says a big bottom can be a healthy life choice: those with plenty of gluteofemoral fat – that’s a lard arse to you and me – are set for a riper old age than those with a ballooning belly.

Let us remember that Marilyn Monroe was famously a size sixteen. And that just because you don’t get mistaken for Kate Moss it doesn’t mean you’re an elephant with a weight issue.

I am going to share these with you here.

As a disclaimer, I must point out that I am not a nutritionist, or a doctor and if you are truly obese and needing three airline seats there is little I can do except to suggest you think about a gastric band and don’t wear white leggings.

But if your arse is merely on the large side and you’re feeling a little podgy round the edges, welcome to my world. Let us first comfort ourselves with the fact that whoever said that older women had to choose between their figure or their face was spot on. A bit of fat makes you look younger.

But we all want to shape up from time to time – after Christmas and Easter; before the summer; when a wedding’s coming up or your thin friend is having a party; any time one needs to bare arms.

Or a least, we want to look as if we have. These tips may help.