Dear Monica

I am only 32, but have been told by my doctor that i have low calcium and this puts me at risk of osteoporosis.

Do I simply need to take calcium tablets? I was quite shocked at all this as I thought I ate plenty of calcium in my healthy diet. I eat lots of green vegetables and don't drink alcohol. I also have milk in my tea and cheese once or twice a week.

Is there anything else I should be doing?
regards

Alice.
Milton Keynes

Dear Alice,

Dairy products are by far the best sources of calcium. It is best to choose fatfree versions, which lose one of their calcium. Even higher levels are in tinned sardines as we eat the soft bones as well as the fish but the fact is, it's highly unlikely you'd be eating sardines as often as you might have milk or cheese.  That's my guess, anyway.

However, very often it isn't what we are doing or not doing, but compromising factors in our lifestyles. One compromising factor is excessive drinking of tea which inhibits iron far more, but isn't brillint for calcium.

Another factor is eating a lot of spinach or rhubarb.  These two contain oxalic acid  which binds to calcium and removes it from the body. (If you are ever in any doubt about the power of rhubarb's oxalic acid by the way,  place a couple of rhubarb leaves in a burnt pan and simmer with water for half an hour. Your pan will be sparkling clean!)

Back to calcium. You need to eat calcium-rich foods regularly. One problem when people are told they are deficient in a moneral or vitamin is they eat a food ot take a supplement for a few days or weeks, but then stop. In the case of calcium and iron, this needs to be watched consistently.

Good luck
Monica

Hi there Monica,

This is a cheeky question: do you follow your own advice? Do you have any sneaky guilt trips with food or the occasional binge? What is your downfall? Sorry for asking but I'm dying to know. You're always so slim.

Sonia
Newton Abbott Devon
 

Hello Sonia,

I don't mind you asking at all! I am out there as an expert and it's important that I play and look the part and follow my own example.

I do follow my advice. I have no sneaky guilt trips or binges or downfalls.  It stems back to my childhood I think. My late mother was an academic who was a good mother, but probably better at taking us for Nature Walks and encouraging us to write diaries than she was at cooking. Our meals was scant, dull and not always well cooked shall we say. At school, meals were even worse. There was no choice, so I sat silent rather than eat the fatty stews with red cabbage - i seem to remember only eating the mashed potato. My poor mother was once called to school to find out why 'Monica never eats'. When they talk of child anorexics these days, I often wonder if the food is not, perhaps, simply inedible. I know I often refused the appalling food my mother and the school dreamed up and spent endless days feeling hungry. My father once made me sit all afternoon because I wouldn't eat the fatty lamb my mother had roasted - but honestly if you had seen it, you wouldn't have eaten it either. It was served up for several days but I still wouldn't give in. I was aged six.

I've learned what's healthy and made my diet from that. These days, with all kinds of food available year-round, we don't have to wait months for fresh salmon or only eat salads in the summer.  It is easy to find healthy food wherever we are.

I love food and look forward to my lunch and dinner every day. I eat, as we all should, to feed myself, not to 'burn it off'. That's a very misguided idea. But binges? I've never had one. If you know you can eat anything, it takes away the longing. I'm glad you asked but I'm afraid the answer is very dull!

Monica

 

ALL LETTERS ENTIRELY GENUINE AND APPEAR IN THEIR ENTIRETY.
________________________________________________________

Dear Monica,

I lost my job in August and with it, I lost my corporate gym membership.  I also lost my income, my social life, my friends and everything else. I wish I could describe how I feel, but I feel I will only keep my sanity if I can still look reasonable and not face my friends in 6 months time looking a fat failure.

I can't afford to join a gym - they're about £60 - £78 a month round here. What can I do at home that's as good as the classes and the equipment I used to use, and please don't suggest bottles of water pretending to be weights. Sorry to go on. Can I also stay healthy without the expensive meals I used to treat myself to?

Frances
Bristol.


Hi Frances,
Your letter recalled the story of the great world champion boxer Mohammed Ali when he was banned from boxing for a long time: he kept up his training so when the ban was lifted, he would be ready to fight at an hour's notice.

I'm not going to patronise you - I recognise that being fit is important to you and you're not willing to give up on that feeling. So I'm just going to offer practical solutions. I know Bristol very well and the whole city is built on hills and quite a challenge - so you can spend hours walking at speed up those hills which will tone your hamstrings and bum better than any treadmill.  

Fitness DVDs are essential.  Get a schedule together so you don't just take one at random - routine is going to be very important. My favourite at the moment is Jillian Michaels Killer Buns and Thighs which is three, 30 minute workouts and very good. It's about £9.99 from Amazon. Karen Voight, the supreme American professional does a great Yoga DVD called YogaSculpt (www.karenvoight.com) and Kathy Smith, another evergreen US professional, has a fabulous catalogue of back numbers including a step workout on her DVD Fat Burning Fast which includes Pilates. Take a look. You can buy steps from Ebay and I just saw some good ones from £3.00 to £22.  A decent library of DVDs will only set you back about £30 but the compilation DVDs are best, so look for Jillian Michaels' mix of 30 day Shred, Killer Buns and Thighs and more.

I appreciuate that this is quite a cash layout but you don't have to get them all at once.

You can also use the step for step-ups, maybe running on and off and double- footed jumps and squats. I find this exercise nicely challenging, especially when I mix up my own circuit doing maybe 10 squats sandwiched between press-ups and ab crunches, or a minute each. Experiment. And don't forget stair running, if you can.  I'm not talking about 'take the stairs not the lift' which is a given. I live in a building of four floors and when I get bad cabin fever, like in this terrible weather and long dark evenings, I get the trainers on and run up and down for a set time or number of runs. You'll get puffed out and this will lift your mood and keep you healthy.

I'm not sure about weights. Unless you have lots of storage space, they clutter the place up and are limiting. Try a flexband instead and you can get one here on my website. By varying the length of the band you increase or decrease resistance. I'm not fobbing you off with spending money on my own merchandise but flexbands really are the best: very portable, and I usually have one tucked in my suitcase when I go away.

There's a DVD in the 10 Minute Solutions series, which uses flexbands. Look it up on Amazon.co.uk 
 
Frances,, you will stay healthy on a less rich diet. Healthy is an absolute: you can't be MORE healthy simply by eating double the quantity of something nutritious. You just end up with more calories. A typical piece of salmon is massive these days so eat half.  In place of lots of vegetables, take a multivitamin. Get fibre from porridge which is cheap, cheerful and good for cholesterol. Sainsbury's and Boots have a terrific range of really cheap supplements, so get cod liver oil, vitamin E capsules and a B Complex. That's the important one, because it helps the nerves. Oh, and an iron supplement like Spatone, though that can be expensive. Two pieces of fruit per day is enough and I urge you to have tinned fruit in juice because there's not much difference between tinned and fresh.  Buy one carrot a day (about 12p) and don't be afraid to go to the deli counter and ask for one slice of cheese etc. I live on my own too, and shop like this all the time. 

My heart goes out to you Frances, but that's not much use to you. Remember that things can change in an instant. I believe that the tide will turn, the phone will go and you need to be ready, fighting-fit, impressive and have lost none of your mental strength when it does.

Please let  me know how you get on.
Monica.

Hi Monica,

You sound like a woman of the world who knows a thing or two so may I ask a "Mrs Robinson" question? (I'm talking about the mature woman in the Dustin Hoffman film The Graduate)
I currently weight train to quite a high level, and have a pretty impressive upper body look, (so my friends say) similar I think to Mark Wright of TOWIE fame. 
I find training my legs a pain though, and wonder  - do girls like a man with big thighs or do we just have to have a small firm butt? Opinion varies. Also, should I consume more protein as I'm training 90 minutes on alternate days with quite heavy weights.
Thanks,
Steve from Dublin

Hi Steve,

I'm glad (I think) that you consider me mature.  I agree, guardedly, that I have a working knowledge of the male of the species and Mark Wright certainly has an incredibly impressive physique. 

So Steve, are we talking sparrow legs? Twiglets? Strong but wiry? Speaking for myself, good, muscular thighs are attractive but having said that, the most beautiful woman I ever knew who could have had any man she wanted, married a man with no job and the thinnest legs imagineable. It takes all sorts. But in my book, good muscular legs on a man demonstrate that training isn't just for vanity, but the guy concerned can actually scale a mountain, carry me out of a burning building without collapsing, lift up the car when I'm trapped under it and so on.  Having a muscular top half and a couple of string beans below below suggest he gave up out of boredom. Maybe he sits at a desk all day and only trains the bit that shows? You never know !

Women don't like men who give up. I think most women secretly want the whole lot. The flamenco-dancer's small butt is a matter of personal preference for females, so  I won't go there.

  As to protein, you do need more than the average couch potato but beware: the protein gluttony of most body-builders is unnecessary and potentially damaging as it can cause the build up of uric acid crystals in the joints and this leads to gout. Gout is incredibly painful. Excess protein is excreted so it's also a waste of money. I suggest protein shakes after training but make them yourself using ground almonds, plain fatfree yoghurt, skimmed milk, a banana and maybe a couple of egg whites.  Don't waste your money on those huge tubs of bodybuilder shake powder because while they're perfectly efficient, they have a lot of things in to keep them fresh and usually contain whey protein which will make you unbearably gassy. Sorry about that. 

Good luck, and I think we need to see pics!
Monica.

Hiya Monica

I'm 32, work in investment banking, am considered a high flyer and generally look after myself. In fact, if my friends knew I was writing to you they'd be amazed...I am considered to be pretty good looking, confident and fun.

But the problem is, my weight steadlily increases despite all my  best efforts. I get rid of it (not all of it) by going to spas and bootcamps three times a year, and they cost a fortune.

I really don't understand it because I eat quite healthily, don't drink very much and rarely splash out when i'm eating out. I just don't like a lot of junk food!  So why do you think my weight gos up a couple of pounds month after month? I don't want to embark on the whole 'diet' thing because mention diets and you instantly want whatever you're not allowed to eat! Diets just make you hungrier and fatter as far as I can see - so is there an easier solution?
I'm quite a tough, straightforward type of woman, so please give it to me straight. I'm fed up of being obsessed. By the way I am 5ft 7ins tall and 11 stone.

Many thanks and I hope you can help.

Tania. London


Oh Tania,

You want me to give it to you straight? Are you sure about that?
I think you're just being lazy. And unrealistic. And asking a lot - of life, not of yourself. I think you're asking nothing of yourself. You can't buy a good figure off the shelf. Muscles don't tone themselves.  I'm assuming you haven't got a life-threatening, muscle wasting disease, thyroid condition or any other compromising complaint. No? Right, well let's crack on.

Diets don't make you fat. How could they? That's just something that some journalist (I imagine) once said, and someone thought "hey, that sounds good - we'll make it a headline!" and everyone suddenly thought it was true. That's how these convenient folk-tales start. Well, it's not true. And that's a good place to start.

Until someone comes up with something amazing and magical that will stop us putting fat on, (and believe me, the drugs companies are working flat-out and spending billions trying to work this one out), a diet is all we have. I could add exercise into the mix, but anyone who thinks they can eat thousands of calories every day with abandon and exercise it off, had better book their hip replacement now.

Then there's the question of health. Eating tons of food will clog your arteries and stretch your insulin to destruction, so that one's out too. Hardened arteries are a serious matter and can't be solved easily, so anyone who knocks back curries and chips and stays thin has nothing to be pleased about because that fat is going to find a nice little quiet place to settle, and it's usually round the heart.

Tania, you're a high flyer who demands a lot of herself in the workplace. So you'll agree that if you worked at half the pace and put in half the effort you'd expect to lose your job. When people study for a degree, they expect to do the whole thing, not half of it. You wouldn't expect a doctor, embarking on 7 years training to stop after 4 years, but still become a GP. There are some things you just have to do to get where you want, and a diet is what you must do to lose weight.

If you put in half the effort, you'll get half the rewards. Some people don't mind half the rewards. There's nothing wrong with getting nowhere and deciding to settle, give up dieting and be a little overweight. There's no law that says what size we should be. I have plenty of overweight friends and they truly don't care. There are also those who insist that men like women with a bit of 'meat' on them. All of this is very well and a way of making us feel better, but in the final analysis you need to forget all the fighting-talk and go for what you want. Don't be swayed by the 'bit of meat' theory. On the whole, (and I expect a lot of complaints here from women) men like slim women. But never mind any of this: at the moment you want what you haven't got, but it really is achievable.

Tania, you say you can't be bothered with dieting because you get hungry.
Yes, you're going to feel hungry on a diet. You'll think about food all the time. When peple give up cigarettes they think about them every minute of the day. But after three months it's bearable. After a year they don't think about cigarettes at all.

People who stop smoking for good have managed to kick it out of their lives and see the benefits. Walk away. The key is persistence and consistency, a regime and a structure. Insted of thinking how unpleasant it all is, think of where it's getting you. Rain isn't pleasant, but we don't complain every time it rains. Getting up every night to a crying baby isn't very nice either, and neither is studying for years for a qualification, but there's a purpose to these things that somehow makes the effort worthwhile. Giving up a few thing you like to eat is the price you have to pay to look good.

At this point, most people insist that you can give up cigarettes but you can't give up food. Maybe, but you can give up things that you know cause problems, like chocolate or biscuits. Anyone can give up biscuits and never eat them again. Anyone can give up anything. If you found you had a peanut allergy you'd give them up in seconds. 
 
I am often accused of making it sound easy. Well, it may not be easy, but it is simple. There's nothing complicated about vowing never to eat a certain food again. It's not beyond our human capabilities to eat three times a day. It's not brain surgery.

I don't know your personal circumstances, but I do know that even if I gave you a realistic diet to follow which I knew would guarantee weight loss, there's nothing I can do about it if you decide to go and raid the fridge one night. I have spent years advising and helping people to lose weight and even when they have a nutritionist on hand 24 hours a day, many of them give up. I have been constantly amazed at the power food has over people: that they will even sacrifice their looks to it and spend their days regretting and crying in frustration - but they still won't give it up the one thing that's causing all the misery. And I'm afraid that's the psychological hurdle we all have to deal with.  To change wanting something badly into doing something about it.

If your weight is creeping up Tania, you're eating too much. It doesn't matter how healthy it is; you could be on a diet of apples and still gain weight if you ate too many of them. I'm afraid you've got to count calories, write them down and not give up until every extra ounce has gone. Oh, and be careful about your friends: even the best of them can be a jealous lot. 

Don't tell anybody you're dieting or the minute you look sensational all the women will pile in to tell you you're looking gaunt / too thin / no fun any more.  I'm afraid it's the way of the world that women are competition for each other whether ot not we know it. 

Start today. Don't look at the calendar for a convenient time or date when other things aren't in the way. Eat less. In my other posts here I go on a lot about diet being the be-all-and-end-all, but I'm afraid it is. Food only turns to fat when it's surplus to requirements. Be a little hungry: build up an appetite. Above all Tania, go for the best for yourself because you're going to succeed - if anyone can, you can.

Good luck!

Monica
_________________________________________________________________

Hi Monica,

A simple question but one that bothers me a lot. I'm 29, VERY fit, (into triathlons, weights, I watch my weight etc and only weigh 60kg. ) Yet my abdomen seems to be constantly big and blown up looking, and hard. PLEASE, please help as it's ruining my life. I eat very healthily indeed, plenty of the right things, low calorie etc (I control to 1,600 calories a day for maintenance) and yet nothing makes a difference. I can honestly say that nothing processed has passed my lips in 5 years. Is there anything you can suggest?

Chloe, Wilmslow Cheshire.

Hi Chloe

Oh, I do feel for you! This is probably the question I get the most, and which never changes over the years. I take it you've checked with your doctor which is always first port of call.

But I wonder if it would surprise you to know that it's also the problem that most female athletes and gym instructors suffer from.

In other circumstances, I would suspect that a high fibre diet with lots of fruit and veg was the cause. It may still be, but let's move to what I really think is causing this: the stress of being a competitive person. You said it yourself when you told me you 'control your diet to 1,600 calories'.  Nothing wrong with being vigilant - I am too - but being conscious of your health isn't the same as being fixated by it.

The stomach itself and the entire alimentary canal (the whole lot, from mouth to the other end) is extremely reactive to conditions. Ideally, we should eat and rest.   We are also intended to sleep twice a day, at night and again for a shorter period between about 2 -4pm. The so-called 'post lunch slump' is no such thing: we are meant to have a nap in the afternoon. Of course, few of us do.

So there you have an alimentary canal which is trying to process food and deal with your endless worry,  checking your abdomen several times a day in the mirror (no doubt tightening the insides as you hate your look) controlling everything and worrying endlessly about calorie and fat content - this is one of the few occasions when I would say a good plate of wholesome chips and an evening with your feet up and a relaxing comedy DVD would be the best thing that had happened to your poor insides for a long time!

As to food, I could go on and on. Sugar-free chewing gum is a killer and causes flatulence. It's not an elegant topic but it's not an elegant look if you get it wrong. Apples and apricots have a natural compound, a sweetener called sorbitol that causes gas too.  In my best-seller 5 Days to a Flatter Stomach there's a complete programme of foods to eat such as white fish, cheese, minced beef, chicken, scrambled eggs and of course, yoghurt. None of these contain any fibre so for the very short term they work, and your abdomen will shrink a few inches. However this isn't a good regime for the longer term and I am the first to admit that. We all need fibre, especially to keep a particularly nasty and painful disease called diverticulitis at bay and to promote natural removal of waste. I told you it wasn't elegant. 

But I come back to my suspicion that it is your mental approach. You probably won't do this, but my advice is to try this experiment: take a week off, or if you can't manage this, do it for a weekend. Eat lightly, but eat as I suggested above, sit, watch Tv, walk and read books. hide the computer and mobile (yes). I regularly switch off my phone completely for a whole day or an evening nd amazingly, nothing terrible has happened when I switch it back on. Train people to know your routine rather than the other way round. Take a whole week off exercise apart from walking and maybe some stretching. Most people, when they have a week off go travelling, and we all know that travel these days presents its own kind of stress and general hassle.

I think this will do you the power of good because I truly believe your continued search for perfection is causing you body to digest food poorly.

This will definitely work. I promise you that. Whether or not you do it is another matter!

Good luck!

Monica 

Dear Monica,

I hit the dreaded 4-0 in June and after a lifetime's abuse (well not really bad, but I've been a bit of a drinker!) and lots of outdoor horse riding etc, I look worse for wear.

To be honest, I don't trust all the claims of creams and lotions and wonder if I can knock off ten years with my diet? Truth?

Sophie
Staffordshire.

Hello Sophie,

You can't turn back time but you can stop it in its tracks. I've known countless women (and men) who have seen the error of their ways, started to look after themselves and managed to stay looking 40 when they're 50. However, it take vigilance.

And it also depends how serious you are.

No smoking, very little drinking, no very late nights or at least, not many. Less stress. That means the gut-churning, can't-eat type of stress. It can be work, family or a bad love affair but to your body, they're all draining it of healthy cells. And healthy cells age more slowly.

If all this sounds dull, it's a lot more dull to look old for the second half of your life, with nothing to wear.  We all have a choice.

It's like this: from birth we're ageing. That's a given and we can't control getting old. What we CAN control is the rate we age, and everything we do ages us which is why we eventually die !

My advice is this:

1.   Don't smoke
2.   Don't sunbathe excessively.
3.   Don't try to stay awake when you're really sleepy
4.   Don't take drugs for the same reason
5.   Don't exercise to excess - e.g back-to-back classes of more than an hour
      or too many marathons etc.

6.   DO take fish oil daily - 1000 mg.
7.   Drink milk and eat eggs. Eggs are great for hair.
8.   Have at least 12 hours a day without any make-up and with a good
      moisturiser on. If you go to work, take off your make-up the minute
      you get home.
9.   Take a daily combined iron and vitamin C tablet
10.  Wear a hat, epecially in wind and sun. Ditto gloves.
11.  Eat three proper meals a day nd no snacks. This allows the stomach time
       to 'snooze' and will reduce stress on insulin.
12.  Unless you have a conscientious objection, eat red meat twice a week. 100g-150g is plenty.
13.  Eat fish. White fish is as good as any other.  150g is fine.
14.  Eat shellfish once a week. e.g a couple of tablespoons or prawns or 50g
       fresh white crabmeat. They contain a lot of zinc.
15.  Eat 3 Brazil nuts a day. they contain the anti-oxidant selenium which
       fights the things that attack our bodies.  
15.  Drop sugar and puddings from your diet. If you've hit 40, take this
       seriously.  Once a week is enough.  More than enough.
16.  Think protein, protein protein. Fruit and vegetables are important but
       they don't build cells.  To rebuild and grow healthy new cells you need
       anything of animal origin - meat, fish, chicken, eggs, ,milk, cheese.
       Vegetable proteins, e.g lentils or chick peas are NOT the right sort of
       proteins to build healty cells. Aim for 50g a day minimum.

So Sophie, that's your answer. Be strict, be disciplined and be optimistic.
It takes dedication - but that's showbusiness!

Good luck - and report back with fab before and after photos?

Monica x



 

MAILBAG 31.12.11

HiMonica
I'm 45 and weigh 62kg at 5ft 2ins tall. Which diet do you recommend to help me lose the pounds for The New Year?
Juliet
Guernsey

Hello Juliet

Not a diet as such. This food and that food aren't what matters. You must count calories. My number one tip for weight loss is NEVER EAT A THING BETWEEN MEALS. I can't stress that enough. Write down 1,200 calories at the top of a piece of paper every morning and deduct calories as you eat them - never add them up. It seems boring at first and indeed it is a dull job but hardly taxing and NECESSARY. Get a calorie book and remember, you aren't going to eat all the things in that book, so after a while you'll know instinctively that a baked potato has 200 calories and a custard cream biscuit has 55.

My second and most important advice is never settle for less than you want. I hear it time and again that people lose half the weight they want, feel and look better, but settle at this point. they say to me "I'm happy to be here. I've lost a stone;  I need to lose 2 stone but I can get back into that dress so I'll stick at this."

The point is, it isn't what they want so they are constantly unhappy when they look at themselves. They might be slightly less dissatisfied at how they look , but they're still dissatisfied. So, go for the full amount and get the figure you want.

At THAT stage you can relax and maintain. When you're losing weight at the start, weigh yourself every 2-3 days. then, every week. This way you only have to lose a couple of pounds if they creep on, not face a daunting task of losing a stone.
Be firm with yourself. Don't settle for half of what you want!

Monica x

TODAY'S MAILBAG
This is one of the many emails I received today:

Dear Monica
I"m getting disillusioned about losing weight. I seem to have been on a diet for the past 15 years and though I always lose the weight, I always put it all back on again within a year. I don't know what's happened to my willpower, but I never seem to have had it. I look at lots of friends who've lost weight and look stunning, but their partners still leave them or they lose their jobs or any number of things that say to me that being slim isn't the be-all-and-end all.

I look into the future and see nothing but the agony of yo-yo weight gain and loss. I wake every day and wonder what I should be eating and tear off yet another 'miracle' diet and follow it for a few days. . then give up again when I see a cake. 
I just want a diet that ticks all the boxes.

Please help me find a way out of this torture because I'm so fed up with myself. Can you suggest a diet that's foolproof? I promise I'll follow it. I talk this over with my friends and my sisters endlessly and they just say I'm fine as I am and I look great. My boyfriend says he doesn't mind what shape I am and he doesn't like me dieting. I know I have a pretty face and good hair, but it all goes wrong below my neck.
Please help. You are my last resort.

Olivia, Tewkesbury.

Dear Olivia
I can help, but I'm sorry I'm your last resort! I hope not. I sincerely hope you'll understand that this is a problem you can beat, and you will.

I don't know what you mean by a diet that 'ticks all the boxes'. When somebody has a set of boxes, whether it be to find the woman of their dreams, a job, house of diet, and nothing is ticking all the boxes - it's time to change the boxes.
They're not set in stone.
You're in emotional limbo by all your failures and you can't imagine you'll ever feel joy about your look. You're hanging there, worrying about tomorrow without tackling today. And right now, today and yesterday are all we have.
You are concentrating on a time that doesn't yet exist.

So let's go to what does exist. Whatever you're doing, it's not working. To be successful in life, you have to believe in something - to find a set of beliefs, rules to follow and proper aims. For example, many vegetarians used to eat meat. They enjoyed it and sometimes even, they miss it. Then maybe they married a vegetaran and adopted their beliefs. Suddenly it's not so difficult to avoid meat because THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN EATING IT. And that makes it so much easier to stick to. Not the amazing vegetarian recipes, and let's face it, it can be  hassle being vegetarian. But NOT BELIEVING IN MEAT is the best way to stop eating it. So find a regime that you believe in.

A cake recipe doesn't guarantee you'll get the perfect cake. Six people can stand in a line with the same ingredients and follow the same recipe, yet every cake will turn out differently. Nobody knows why. But do we blame the recipe?

Don't expect a diet to be the answer. You're human, not a robot. Follow a diet by all means, especially if it gives you structure, but don't get upset if it doesn't magically make you slim. A fast car isn't fast if it is driven by your granny. A diet is only as good as the person doing it.

I think you are simply a little lazy. Nothing wrong with that - we're all lazy about something. But I know that when push turns to shove, we can all stop being lazy and get on with it - which brings me to this point:

YOU NEED A COMPELLING REASON TO LOSE WEIGHT

You may yearn to be slim but so far, nothing depends on it. Many women find the impetus when a marriage ends or a new relationship starts. So, we've arrived at a place where you're going to find a regime to adopt, and believe in. You're not going to blame the diet if it doesn't do it for you. Now we're going to look at what bad habits to stop.

* STOP THE THERAPY.
I'm talking about your friends and family.  You can spend months working out and talking about why you have no willpower. But you know something? Most men who say they like you as you are mean they LIKE THEIR LIFE AS IT IS.  They don't want you to diet because the house turns into a calorie-counter and they're sick of hearing about it.

 But 9 TIMES OUT OF 10 THEY PREFER YOU SLIM.

PLUS:
*after a while your friends will walk away
*They'll talk abut you as boring and avoid you.
*They might even say your misery is attention-seeking

We all need reassurance and compliments. Talking over things with friends can be helpful and make you relax for a while and you'll not feel bad to eating that take-away.

However, too much reassurance means:

* you become preoccupied with your weight
*you stop believing the reassurance, needing more and more to reduce your worry as you gradually realise you're just as fat as before.
* you look to everyone else for reassurance when you should be looking to yourself.

Most importantly, people who worry about their weight say reassurance doesn't work.

INSTEAD:

* It's fine to need support, but don't do it by associating with people who have the same problem. Seek out friends who are fit and slim, and will encourage you, not sympathise with you.

* Remove the power of food by giving your attention to something else.

* Don't keep talking about food. Change the record.

* Don't go around with unhealthy people who make fun of slim women and scoff at good habits.

*Never associate with people whO  think that bingeing, excessive drinking and smoking are fun topics.  If your friends are like this, remove yourself.

GOING ON A DIET IS PROBABLY THE BEST THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED TO YOU.

Instead of thinking 'it's tough' think of the freedon you'll get from not worrying about your size.

I'm not going to suggest a diet. If you've done it for so long, you don't need me to tell you what's good and what's bad to eat. You're an expert, Olivia! Start by wanting to be slim and all your decisions will flow from there wquite naturally.

And remember,

YOU'RE NOT A VICTIM, YOU'RE A WINNER!

** For more diet therapy, and a great diet to help you lose 10lbs in 2 weeks, try my book 'Revenge Diet' either in  paperback or download e-book.
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Hi Monica

You often recommend butter rather than lower fat spreads. Why? I thought the saturated fat content was unhealthy?

Felicity, Stafford

Hello Felicity

When you make butter, you churn milk. Nothing else. Most producers add salt, but you can get unsalted butter. Low fat spreads have to add a lot of things to stop them going rancid so quickly, although they also add vitamins which isn't a bad thing.

I eat butter because I reckon I might as well have the best. It's just grass, isn't it?! Seriously, it's your diet as a whole that makes you healthy, not an individual food. Saturated fat is undoubtedly undesirable but if you are lean, you exercise regularly, you don't smoke and a whole range of other things, butter won't bother you. If you are overweight, you smoke nd drink and eat junk, giving up butter isn't going to make you healthy - though clearly it's a start.
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Hi Monica

I do Pilates twice a week and go to an aqua fitness class. Apart from that I'm slim and feel good. Is it really important to get puffed out and breathless for health when my cholesterol is low and everything else is normal? I'm 51.
Gian, Leicester

Gian, I cannot stress enough how important it is to push yourself. I read literally hundreds of emails every week from women who can't lose those last pounds, or who wish they were 'just a little slimmer' or who suffer low moods - vigorous, energetic exercise is a cure-all for such a large range of ills, I wouldn't have space here to list them all.

It doesn't have to last more than 30-40 minutes, but it must be intense. You can check your ideal heart rate here on my website in Fit Tips.

Inclines are good, like steep hills or roads or even your stairs. In my building, there's a group who run up and down the 5 floors every day. I'm not sure I agree with running if you've never done it before: I don't run. But I climb mountains which is like climbing stairs two at a time for 3 hours! I wasn't born yesterday either but I live in a sort of bubble of not believing I'm any older than 25... and that works for me!
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Dear Monica

I am type 2 diabetic and gained 4 stone in the past 2 years. I understand that weight problems contribute to diabetes, but how, and how can I lower both the problem and my weight? I struggle so much with dieting. The guidelines the clinic gave me make food so boring and unappealing, especially as the diet is so low calorie. I thought slow weight loss was the ideal way to do it and losing weight fast sent the body into starvation mode?  Sorry there are so many questions, but everyone says something different.

Laura, Maidstone, Kent

Hello Laura,

I'm glad there are so many questions because you have neatly encompassed the bulk of my mailbag!

But yes, there are a lot of things here I am glad to answer because frankly, they involve a lot of Old Wives Tales and things people have heard someone, once upon a time. Most have little basis in fact.

Let's start with Very Low calorie diets. Starvation Mode is a ridiculous term. Starvation is not something any of us here need worry about. I think the effect is best called 'pressing pause' or going into a state of hibernation, but again, that's not something that's likely to happen to anyone here. The body naturally preserves itself so if there's not a lot of energy going in, we go a little slower to preserve what we have.

If you have a life-threatening condition, the most important thing is to bring your body into the safety zone as quickly as possible.  type 2 Diabetes isn't immediately life-threatening for you but it could be, and it's nasty. My son is type 1 diabetic. Losing weight slowly is NOT the best way to do it when you have high blood sugars, high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Losing weight quickly is the best thing you can do for your body and this involves severe calorie restriction. In hospital you might be given 800 or even 500 calories a day.

Your condition came about because of your diet. Occasionally there are other reasons, but I assume this is straightforward. Insulin is a hormone that regulates our blood sugar levels and very high blood sugars can be life threatening if they continue. We all have high levels after a big meal: this is normal and insulin's job is to bring them down. However, insulin is geared to do this just a few times a day and gradually, sugar levels can get very low when we haven't eaten for a long time. again, this is normal. If we get very hungry and shaky, glucose comes out and when it is very low indeed, our fat stores. Put simply, when one eats a diet high in carbohydrates and sugars, snack all day or 'graze', insulin is being called upon all the time to rush out and push our sugars down. This is when it gets serious. Quite simply, it gets exhausted. This is called 'Insulin resistant'.

Your weight must come down, Laura. The choice is entirely yours but I don't think there is a choice. Forget about boring, unappealing diets. Bite the bullet (and make sure this is the only thing you bite!) and be adult about this. Really, where did all that appetising food get you? Where you are now.  If you think this is misery, try staying overweight for the next 5 years, feeling tired and lacklustre, never finding clothes to fit and eventually, maybe even losing a leg.  In less than a year you could have shaken off the diabetes and lost several dress sizes. I don't know about you, but compared to the joys of a few meals, I don't think there's a contest.

You need to base your new diet on proteins and fresh vegetables. Save fruit to 2 pieces a day. Proteins hardly raise blood sugars at all because they have no carbhydrates. (Milk and yoghurt, dairy proteins have carbohydrate but that's a different story. Adding protein to carbs lowers their effect). Eating fish, chicken and meat or eggs will not bother your insulin at all. Drop calories to 1,000 a day and write them down, don't guess. Weigh portions.  I don't care how boring this sounds because I have kitchen scales and weighing my food three times a day took less than 30 seconds each time. I timed it just for you! (Anyone who can't spare 90 seconds a day to weigh their food needs to take a serious look at their schedule, and cut some slack !)

Bread, potatoes, pasta or rice should be cut out completely until you have lost at least a stone. Seriously. These items are what I call 'carriers'. You out something in bread, or on it, and the same goes for rice and pasta. Proteins like chicken are anchor foods, meaning the meal is based on that and we add other things like vegetables. So give every meal its anchor protein and go from there.

Again until you have lost a stone, eat no puddings or desserts. Have a coffee or tea after your meal, or whatever you fancy, and a yoghurt with berries which are low in sugars. Nothing else. No sneaking of the odd chocolate. No alcohol. Seriously. Don't think 'life isn't worth living without a tipple'. Really? Life absolutely isn't worth living without a drink? This is what people say. Well, I don't drink alcohol and I challenge anybody to tell me my life is misery. My dearest friend Liz doesn't drink any alcohol - she stopped some months ago - and looks amazing and gorgeous - she always did, but now she's got the best skin and smallest waist of any of my friends. (Sorry friends!)   

Finally, this is important. You need to lose weight fast, Laura. Then you can go more slowly, when the doctor has told you your glucose levels are lower and not before.  The next thing is vital DON'T GET COMPLACENT AND SETTLE FOR LESS THAN YOU NEED.  You need to lose 4 stone, Laura.  If you are typical of most women when dieting, you will lose 2 stone and think you're happy to settle as you don't look too bad. Don't clutch at straws and reason that you're a bit slimmer so what the heck. OK, maybe you won't look bad, but you'll still be 2 stone overweight and I doubt you'll ever pull on an outfit and love what you see. Maybe you will. That's not the point. Overweight is never good so remember what you feel like now and walk away from those feelings.

Stick with your diet, don't give up on it until every last ounce has gone. It will lower not just your weight but your blood glucose levels and that's what is really important.

Obsessive? Not at all. It takes real guts and a robust, adult attitude to care about yourself. Never lose your focus - that this is the only body you'll ever have, and it makes sense to look after it and not spend the rest of your life in hot tears of despair about how you look.

With love
Your friend,
Monica x

Dear Monica,

I was bereaved last year when my husband, who was only 37, died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage. I've been desperately lonely because I made the decision to move house to get away from the memories and it was a mistake. We never had any children.
I hope that one day I'll meet someone. I'm 32 and hope that in 10 years time I'll be settled again and happy, but here's the reason I've written to you: I've let myself go dreadfully since Rob died, gained 12lbs (but not nicely - my middle is just rolls of fat) and my skin looks appalling. The stress of Rob's death took its toll but I don't know where to start. Should I just eat healthily and  let the weight come off slowly like they say you should? I want to get back in the game.
Karen, Lydd, Hants.

Dear Karen

Everyone who writes to me has a story - it isn't ever just a question of weight gain and starting a diet. The menopause isn't fattening, bereavement isn't fattening and breakups don't contain any calories, so I am always criticising people for blaming situations on their weight gain, but our state of mind dominates our choices. It takes a very strong will to keep focused on how we look when everything else is chaos.

What I think is this: don't live a life that doesn't exist yet. Don't look to ten years hence, to a life that isn't here or a partner you imagine might exist but who actually doesn't, because you know through your own experiences that things can change in an instant. I don't mean the 'live for today' approach, which is infantile. Of course you should plan for the future , but don't count on it.

Look at yourself right this minute. I'm not being insensitive, but if you are lonely with long stretches of nothingness, take this as your opportunity.  Make something good come out of it. Many women are rushed off their feet with a family and friends knocking on the door and have no time for themselves. Loneliness is an opportunity to spend time selfishly on yourself so get out there, go walking, running, cycling. Lie in the bath and have a soak with a face mask. Cover yourself in oils and lounge in your bathrobe so your skin will be a treat. None of this need cost anything but one thing is for certain: it isn't going to make you look and feel any worse. 

Get to grips with your diet now, not gradually. Make it a mission. You have time on your side, so go out and buy some fish, chicken and eggs and lots of salady things and make gorgeous meals. Don't just throw a bit of lettuce on a plate but make something pretty and colourful. Weigh yourself, keep tabs on your progress. It isn't obsessive, any more than it is obsessive to study for long hours into the night to gain a degree. It isn't obsessive to go for it, lose weight and get back to the gorgeous girl you used to be. It makes sense to me.

Eating healthily won't do it and I think you know that. "They say" losing weight slowly is best - who are these people who say these things? It's not true. it just got lost in the  common mythology somewhere and because someone once wrote it, it suits us. I will say it again - it's not true. If you are very overweight, losing the initial  weight quickly is the healthiest thing you can do for your body. Obese people who go into a metabolic clinic are given 500 calories a day.

I'm not suggesting you eat this little, but cut down to 1,000 calories of proteins and salads. Don't guess: write 1,000 on a piece of paper every morning and subtract as you eat. (It doesn't work to add up calories - you'll only end up going over your budget!).
Add a multivitamin and mineral supplement, fish oil capsule every day and drink skimmed milk which is high in protein and calcium, almost fat-free. You need proteins and good fats but not the calories of starchy foods, so no bread or rice.  Breakfast on eggs every day, adding fruit juice into which you have put a sachet of Spatone iron rich spa water (from health stores, Holland and Barrett etc). You are probably iron deficient, so a daily dose will boost red blood cells and make you feel more energetic.
Lunch on more protein salads and only have a nice carb-rich meal in the evening, ideally with potatoes. No meat or chicken, just potatoes and vegetables. This is a form of Food Combining, but I believe in it.

The two messages are clear: take your time, don't be desperate but don't wait, either. Once life picks up you might not have time for yourself. I have known crushing loneliness too, but we all have to wake up every day and get through it somehow, so spending that time making yourself look and feel pretty seems a good plan.

Nobody knows what your beloved Rob would want, but you have told me what you want : you want to get back in the game.

Start right now.

Monica x