My Big Fat Diet Show, Episode 3, shown January 12th

Well I watched tonight and there were points made that pleased me. I was glad to see the 'cheese-addicted' woman helped to get over her 'addiction'. - Cheese is high in salt and so it is a food best avoided by overweight people wanting to lose weight, because all overweight people are sensitive to salt. For overweight/obese people, eating salt/sodium tends to increase their problem of fluid retention and so they weigh more. Because this woman drastically cut down on her cheese intake, this reduced her salt intake and so she lost some of her fluid/water retention. The fluid is lost by excreting more urine. If you want to lose excess weight, you would do well to reduce your intake of cheese.

Cheese figured in another part of the programme tonight too - Dairylea cheese. - But of course Dairylea cheese isn't really cheese at all: it's a concoction. The dietician on the show explained that it is mainly composed of skimmed milk powder, butter, cheese, emulsifiers and a high amount of added salt. - See Nutritional information for Kraft Dairylea Spread. Since it is so very high in salt/sodium it is not something you should be eating if you want to lose excess weight. To convert sodium content to salt content, multiply the sodium by 2.5.

Chocolate digestive biscuits, both the usual ones and the ones labelled as 'lower fat', featured in tonight's show. Both of these types of chocolate biscuit, and indeed almost all sweet biscuits, you may be surprised to learn, are high in salt! - If you are trying to lose excess weight you should cut down on biscuits or avoid them altogether.

If you find exercising difficult, please do not feel you have to do it to lose weight. Exercise is good for many aspects of health, but it has practically no part to play in losing weight.

Here is how to lose weight

Sodium in foods

FAT RETENTION

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection