WELLNESS

Dietary fat has long been labeled as the cause of weight gain; our supermarket shelves groan with low-fat products. But while a diet high in saturated fat certainly spells bad news for your heart and cardiovascular and should be avoided, it isn’t the main culprit when it comes to gaining extra pounds. You guessed it – sugar is the villain.

At 31, I felt old. Not in the ‘I wish I was 20 again’ or ‘life’s passing me by’ type of way; quite the contrary. But within my fitness levels, or more accurately lack of them. I would make an ‘ooooff!’ noise while getting up off the sofa, or be out of breath after a last-minute dash for the train. To put this in perspective, I am a size 8 and eat a very healthy diet. But recently when I forced myself to think about exactly how much exercise I do, the answer was a big, fat zero. I run my business from my office at home, so I don’t even walk to and from work. Tragic.

Do you ever think to yourself “what do I have to do to increase my energy levels during my workouts?”...

For many people being skinny has become the ideal image of female beauty. While being thin is probably good for us in terms of overweight being unhealthy, the main issue is that the fashion ideal often promotes a too-skinny look, so thin that it becomes unattainable for most women, and if we try to attain that look, we risk developing eating disorders.