Seeking help and advice to try to resolve weight problems is the first positive step that you can take to achieving success — my mother always used to say that a problem shared is a problem halved, and I do believe that there can also be an added bonus in sharing the problem with someone who is anonymous. It makes me very happy that so many of you feel able to write to me with your personal weight and dietary problems and I always endeavor to reply as soon as possible to all of your letters and E-mails. For every letter that you see published in my weekly column, there will be hundreds more that I have responded to on a personal basis.
Research has shown that sharing email information is one effective way that helps lead to successful weight management. Brown University School of Medicine found that people with weight problems who received E-mail advice during their weight loss program were more successful than those who did not and this is the basis of the online Actrim Slimming Club.
As regular readers know, I often offer readers the opportunity to mail me for a fact sheet — my Healthy Eating Guide and Mini-Morning Workout are among the favorites — and they are now so popular that I receive many hundreds of emails every week. This has been taking up more and more of my time to reply to these requests, and so I now have an auto-reply system to send out the fact sheets with a small acknowledgement. It is therefore very important for readers to ensure that they accurately use the correct email address specified for each fact sheet — and if you require any specific advice, send a separate E-mail to the correspondence E-mail address shown alongside this column. If you ask for any additional information when requesting a fact sheet, I am afraid it will no longer be replied to, as the system is fully automated!
Recipe of the Week
Banana Cake
Ingredients
125g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (sieved together)
1 ripe banana
50g soft butter
1 egg
125g sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
pinch salt
Method
Place the egg, banana, sugar, butter, and vanilla essence and salt in the liquidizer and blend on speed 3 to a smooth consistency.
Sieve the flour and bicarbonate of soda into the bowl and pour the liquidized mixture over. Mix on speed 2-3 just long enough to combine thoroughly. Bake in a greased 7 in square tin for 40 minutes at 375°.
Ask Alva
I am a regular reader of your column and I value your recommendations greatly. I am 16, having height 5’ 4” and weight 85 kg. You can say that I am really overweight. I don’t know what to do, because of my figure I can’t go out and enjoy myself, and my breasts are too large, so when I wear T-shirts I look horrible. Please can you recommend a method or an exercise to reduce the breasts and a diet sheet for me to follow? I really want to look fit and slim. Would taking Actrim help me? Earnestly waiting for your reply. Baby
I’m glad to hear that you are reading my column. You do need to lose weight, as your BMI is 31. So your target should be to reduce it to 66 kilos. But first of all, aim to just lose your first 5 kilos. Because you are under 18 I don’t advise taking Actrim without your parent’ consent. Many teenagers are overweight due to the pressure of exams at school, as they tend to snack a lot. Do you? You can get away with snacking when you are quite young but once you stop growing it just puts on kilos. Exercise for 20 minutes every morning before you go to school. You can buy an exercise tape and do this in your bedroom. Or else you can do my mini-morning workout which is available by email at [email protected]
Make sure you eat a powerful energy giving breakfast e.g. wholemeal toasted bread or Muesli with skimmed milk, and fresh juice. This will take away the temptation to snack during the day. Try to walk or swim 3 times a week.