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The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 2
The Low-Fad Diet
The Low-Fad Diet
by Jo Travers
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 3
Contents
- Introduction
Who This Book Is For
The trouble with dieting
What To Expect From This Book
Back To Basics
What To Eat
When To Eat
The Standard Food Plan
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 4
How Much To Eat
Getting your head around it
Mindfulness
Food & Mood
Common Pitfalls
Trouble shooting
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 5
Introduction
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 6
Who this book is for
There are a lot of diet books around and I hesitated to add to this already saturated
market, but the need for this book becomes more and more apparent each February
when I find myself inundated with clients who haven’t managed to succeed with their
latest dieting attempt. Many of them had tried every diet going and still weighed more
than they did when they embarked on their very first weight loss scheme. I first decided
to put pen to paper when it became clear to me that people will always buy diet books
and I felt there needed to be a sensible one out there for people to choose. I first
wanted to help the yo-yo dieters and the people who feel like they are doomed to be “on
a diet” for the rest of their lives. And I wanted to help people who hate diets. But it has
evolved since then.
Its scope has expanded. This book is also for people who have a tricky relationship with
food. People who comfort eat and hate that they do it, and people who dread Christmas
because they can’t resist the non-stop nibbles. It is for everyone who wants to stop
thinking about food all day.
This book is for people who want to lose weight and be healthy but don’t have the time
or inclination to follow a complex diet dictated by a guru, but instead want a few basic
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 7
guidelines to help them make better choices.
Although this book is a kind of diet book, it isn’t solely to help people to lose weight. This
book is for anyone who wants to have a better understanding of basic nutrition for
everyday life. There will always be more you can learn about food and nutrition, but this
book provides an overview of the most relevant bits for most people.
It isn’t a long book – because it doesn’t need to be.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 8
The trouble with dieting
Fad diets tend to promise miracles either with no effort, or with such a complex formula
that no one can stick to them. They do sometimes result in quick weight loss but it is
rarely maintained for long. Fad diets usually involve some kind of restriction – often of
whole food groups – and demonise specific foods while promoting other foods as the
key to everything. An example would be avoiding lentils like the plague and adding
butter to your coffee. It’s time to realise that there is no magic bullet and there probably
never will be but there is a way to eat well and it doesn’t have to be difficult.
Diets are usually thought of as a temporary thing, something to do for a while and then
when you reach a certain point, stop and go back to normal. This is an attractive idea
but it doesn’t really work that way for most people. The way it works for most people is
that they diet for a period of time, achieve their goal (or get fed up before they reach
their goal) and go back to the way they ate before. Shortly followed by going back to the
weight they were before. Often followed by going beyond the weight that they were
before. Just like those people who are miserable at work so to cheer themselves up go
on holiday but come back and are even more miserable, people who go on fad diets
and then stop them often end up, after a brief period of being a bit skinnier, more
overweight than they were in the first place.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 9
I want to propose a new way of looking at things. I propose that you change the way
you eat forever – don’t get frightened by this. I am not going to ask you to never eat
carbs with protein forever, or to count points forever, I am going to ask you to enjoy food
in the right balance and the right amounts forever. I am going to ask you to give food
some priority in your life but not be a slave to a complex set of rules. There are
guidelines but they are easy to follow. You will have to make some changes, but you will
be healthier for it.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 10
What to expect
It’s important to realise that everybody is different. Our genes play a huge role in how
our bodies respond to food and exercise and without genetic testing it can be difficult to
know what works best for you. Some people for example are predisposed to gain more
weight from carbohydrates and some are predisposed to gain more from fat. Some
people have a very strong hunger signal and some could go all day without eating.
However, those who can go for long periods without eating may also find that when they
do eat they never feel full.
There is a lot of variation and you are the best-placed person to figure out what works
and doesn’t work for you, but it is very difficult to do this without first making sure your
body is getting a balanced diet. This book gets back to basics and will help give you an
understanding of how our bodies use nutrients. It will provide an excellent basis for your
own experimentation, without all the endless noise from contradictory and complicated
fad diets.
Eating well is meant to be easy and all the information necessary to make the biggest
changes to health and wellbeing are in here. There will always be fine-tuning you can
do but the things that make a big difference are where you should start. For example, in
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 11
clinic I often see people who are fretting about eating late at night. They are so worried
that this is bad for them that they skip their evening meal. The benefits of not eating late
in the evening are massively outweighed by the negatives of not giving your body
nutrients.
Another example is when people avoid fruit (because it can be high in sugar) but are
perfectly happy to have granola for their breakfast. Granola has a really high sugar
content without necessarily the benefits of the vitamins, fluid and fibre that you would
get from fruit. It’s important to think about perspective and what you are trying to
achieve.
If you are expecting miracle weight loss in a few weeks then please rethink your
expectations. If you have been on diets that promise you this and have lived up to that
promise then it’s unlikely you will have picked up this book! This book will help you to
lose weight but the weight won’t be falling off you in days. It’s a much more gradual
process. On the plus side you are far more likely to maintain your lower weight and it
really shouldn’t feel like a miserable, restrictive experience – plus, you will have learned
how to eat well and have built a positive and healthy relationship with food.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 12
Part One: Back To Basics
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 13
A healthy, balanced diet
This chapter is probably the longest and most sciencey, but it’s definitely good to have a
bit of knowledge behind the rules.
I would argue that the pertinent word in “healthy balanced diet” is balanced. If your diet
isn’t balanced it’s pretty hard for it to be healthy. However, I have seen clients who have
managed to achieve a balanced diet from foods traditionally thought of as unhealthy, but
really what we want is both.
So what is this elusive “healthy balanced diet”? We are constantly bombarded with
headlines claiming breakthrough research into the latest health trends. The all-hailed
superfoods that promise to provide the elixir of health – if you include them in your diet
you will lose weight and live longer. Some things I’ve been asked to comment about
recently include the health “cheese” that contained no fat (and consequently a whole
array of ingredients that are not quite food), the benefits of eating avocado stones, and
a “cleanse” that involved eating nothing but potatoes. How do we know what to believe?
By its very nature, science is always making new discoveries, and thank goodness –
otherwise we’d all still be smoking in order to help our chesty cough. But you need to
have a degree in nutrition in order to decode the headlines and that’s where a dietitian
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 14
comes in really useful!
There are always some caveats. What is healthy depends an awful lot on your health
perspective and priorities, and this is where you will often find contradictions in the
advice. If you are trying to gain weight then full-fat dairy products are brilliant. If you are
trying to lower your cholesterol, not so much. White bread is a better source of iron than
wholemeal bread because the wholegrain part of the flour found in wholemeal bread
interferes with iron absorption. So if you are anaemic, white bread is a better choice
than wholemeal bread. If you are trying to lose weight and want to feel fuller for longer
then wholemeal is a better choice. It’s so important to think about the context of food
and nutrients rather than just blanket labelling them good or bad.
Some foods are associated with a greater risk of ill health than others though, so what
do you do about them? Red meat has been linked with an increased risk of colorectal,
prostate and pancreatic cancer1 but it’s also a great source of protein, iron, vitamin B12,
zinc etc. You can definitely get by without red meat but (unless you are vegetarian or
vegan) there is no need to exclude it all together. By the same reasoning it is perfectly
acceptable to eat ice cream as part of a healthy balanced diet. Although ice cream is a
source of sugar and saturated fat, it is also a source of energy, protein and calcium. If
eaten in moderation these foods are very unlikely to do you harm. Even processed pork,
one of the most denounced foods, was recently shown to increase the risk of colorectal
cancer by 18%, but to get that increased risk you had to eat more than 50g (about four
rashers of bacon or a hot dog) every day.2 The odd slice of ham in a sandwich is not
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 15
going to increase your risk by much at all.
Having said all this, the choices you make do have an affect on your health. It does
have an impact on whether you lose weight, keep cholesterol down, keep blood
pressure within safe limits, develop type 2 diabetes and other diet-related diseases.
A healthy balanced diet consists of three elements:
– What you eat
This is the different food groups, which provide all the nutrients necessary for health
– When you eat
This is your meal pattern
– How much you eat
This is your portion sizes from each food group
Without these three elements it’s pretty difficult to have a healthy balanced diet, so
that’s where I start with all my clients. The next chapters will look at these three
elements in depth.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 16
Part Two: Getting your head around it
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 17
Common Pitfalls
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 18
Cravings
Cravings are common with most lifestyle changes, particularly if you are restricting too
much. Getting the right balance of nutrients (including carbs!) and eating regularly
should help to prevent them in the first place. But some people still do get cravings, and
often the cravings are for unhealthy foods. Fighting cravings is hard and can wear away
your motivation so sometimes it’s better to have whatever it is you want – but when you
do have it, you must give it your full attention! Eat mindfully, enjoy it and savour the
moment. Squeeze every last bit of satisfaction out of it so that you make the most of it.
However, giving in to cravings all the time is not going to help you reach your weight
goals. But as I said it’s hard to deny yourself the thing you want. It’s actually much
easier to not want it in the first place. And that too is easier than it sounds! It’s a
question of thinking about your short-term goal (eating the thing you are craving) and
your long-term goal (getting to your ideal weight) and which you want more. When you
are deciding whether to eat something, try to make a mindful decision about which thing
you want more: the nice taste or to get to the weight you want to be. Sometimes just
asking yourself this question is enough to change the pattern of behaviour.
Remember to look out for taste satiety as well. If the rush of pleasure has subsided
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 19
somewhat, try to stop eating. You could always finish it if you get the craving later. Re-
read the chapter on Mindfulness for more help.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 20
Big events
There are three main ways to deal with big events that involve a lot of food. I’m talking
about things such as weddings, or Christmas or holidays.
1. You can either take a break from the eating well and let go and relax.
This way may mean it takes a longer time to reach your goals but it may also give you a
necessary break from the strain of being strict all the time. Also, planning to have a day
off is often better for self-esteem than trying to eat well and not managing it.
2. Stick completely to the eating well.
This way will help keep you on track for your goals but may be challenging. Challenging
is great if you are feeling up for it because you will feel brilliant if you succeed, but on
the other hand can be somewhat miserable if you are missing out on a Michelin-starred
braised lamb with garlic butter mushrooms.
3. Have a moderate approach.
This way is a bit like damage limitation. You relax a bit but don’t go crazy. For example,
you might choose to have all three courses but you have the most balanced options, or
you choose the less healthy options but have only two courses. This approach should
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 21
leave you feeling in control without feeling deprived.
For a two-week holiday you may employ all three ways at different times. Some days
you eat moderately and then on the days where you choose to have a blowout it won’t
have so much impact on your weight. The same is true for a string of weddings or
Christmas parties.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 22
Being hard on yourself
The feeling of guilt does serve a purpose. For most people, feeling guilty is pretty
horrible and it makes us think about our actions. In an evolutionary sense this is very
useful as it helps us get along with others. However, it can be blown out of all proportion
and dwelling on feelings of guilt and being hard on yourself as a result is not helpful. In
fact, it can make life a bit miserable.
Sometimes you won’t do everything you mean to, but punishing yourself isn’t going to
change the past. It’s what you do next time that counts. There is a great tool that can be
used for reflecting on things that didn’t go as well as you hoped. It will help you to work
through what happened and how you could deal with it next time.
You start by asking yourself three questions:
What happened? Use this to briefly outline what went wrong.
So what? This line should outline why it was a problem.
What now? This bit should be your plan for the future.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 23
Let’s look at an example:
What happened?
Had a long week at work and didn’t have any food in the house because I hadn’t had
time to go to the supermarket. I ordered a pizza and ate three quarters of it.
So what?
The meal wasn’t balanced and was much higher in calories than I needed. It will mean
that it will take longer to get to my goal weight and I feel guilty for not being organised
enough to have anything decent to eat in the house. I didn’t even enjoy the pizza.
What next?
I am going to set myself up with an online shopping list including some freezer food and
quick meals so that there will always be something good to eat in the house even if I
don’t have time to go to the supermarket.
Here we have acknowledged that something went a bit wrong and we have made a plan
so it won’t happen again. And that should be the end of it. Don’t beat yourself up about it
and make yourself miserable – it doesn’t often help!
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 24
Black & white thinking
Black and white thinking can be really detrimental to weight loss and I want to
encourage you to recognise when you are doing it and stop. There are two main types
of black and white thinking.
The first type is the “I have already eaten badly today so I might as well continue”. It is
easy to do, particularly if you are looking for an excuse to indulge! But it doesn’t have to
be this way. You don’t have to either eat perfectly or not care about what you eat. You
could eat badly in the morning and then eat well in the afternoon. You could have great
meals and bad snacks. There is a whole spectrum in between eating perfectly and
eating badly and it is so much better to do some damage limitation than to completely
cut loose.
The second type of black and white thinking, and also one of the most common reasons
I see for people for giving up on a diet, is that they were putting in so much effort and
didn’t lose as much as they hoped.
I want you to picture weight loss as a journey. Let’s say the journey is your daily
commute to work. You walk to the station but when you get there you see your train is
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 25
delayed by 10 minutes. Your journey to work is now going to take you a bit longer than
you hoped but you don’t turn around and walk home again. You maintain the progress
you have made, wait for the train to come and arrive at work a bit late. This is how it
should be with weight loss.
For example, you start off with 15kg to lose. You do really well for the first month or so
and lose 5kg and now you only have 10kg to lose. Then weight loss slows down (even
though you are doing really well with your eating) and you lose only half a kilo one week
when you were expecting it to be more. Please, please don’t immediately decide to go
back to eating the way you were! You are still half a kilo closer to your goal than you
were the week before and you still have an amazing 5.5kg loss overall that you need to
protect! Even if you eat really well and you don’t lose anything one week, it can be easy
to feel completely nihilistic and eat a whole cake but it makes no sense. Unless of
course being overweight is better for you in the long run than being the right weight. And
you probably wouldn’t be reading this book if you were happy with being overweight.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 26
Getting derailed by the scales
The scales are just one way to measure weight loss and not a very precise one at that.
When we talk about weight loss what we really mean is fat loss and that’s what we want
to measure. But you can’t measure this from day to day – it needs to be measured from
week to week or month to month so you can see a trend in weight changes. Your weight
will fluctuate considerably over a day, depending mainly on fluid changes. If you weigh
yourself every morning then you aren’t really going to get a true reading of weight loss,
because of natural fluctuations. If you drink a pint of water you are going to be half a kilo
heavier. This doesn’t mean you have gained half a kilo. Equally if you go to the loo,
which makes you lighter, you haven’t lost weight.
The other thing that often derails people is that they feel great and they feel like they
look better and their clothes are looser but they get on the scales and they haven’t lost
weight. This does not mean that they haven’t lost fat. When it comes to weight loss,
don’t let what the scales say override what you can see when you look in the mirror or
feel with the fit of your clothes.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 27
Expecting to be perfect
Don’t expect to be perfect immediately. It takes a lifetime to build your habits and it
takes time to change them too. At first, changing your habits and behaviours can take
effort and concentration but with time they become easy.
There are going to be times when you are tired or stressed or other times when your
defences are low and you take the path of least resistance. At first, this path will be your
old habits, such as not having breakfast and having to eat the pastries in the morning
meeting because you are so hungry. But the more you practise your new way of eating,
the more habitual it becomes and then that becomes your path of least resistance.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 28
Testimonials
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 29
Paul Harvey, London
“Before I met Jo, my eating habits were a result of information that I had cobbled
together from lifestyle magazines, hearsay, and my own opinion: no wonder I was left
with something that didn’t work and I wasn’t happy with. Following Jo’s plan was a
revelation: I thought healthy eating had to be difficult and torturous, but Jo showed me
that keeping a varied, balanced, and healthy diet can be simple as well as enjoyable!
The principles of the plan are clear and easy to put in practice, even at the busiest of
times – I think that’s what makes this a life-long sustainable plan. Furthermore, there is
scientific, medical evidence behind the plan, which I think matters when committing to it.
Jo’s plan has transformed my relationship with food to a positive, healthy and happy
one and I am sure it will do the same for others!”
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 30
Beth, London
“At the point when I first went to see Jo I was pretty desperate. I’d been bingeing on
huge amounts of chocolate, cake, biscuits... anything bad! And not eating much else.
I was seriously low generally, I felt awful about the way I looked and I was also
desperately hungry – starving myself to gain back the calories I’d consumed bingeing
meant I was ravenous (not that I realised at the time) and would eventually give in and
binge again. This is basically the vicious cycle I’ve been in for years with food: and
getting bigger and bigger as a result. Jo was, and has been, extremely patient and kind.
And she listened. She recognised the emotional side of my eating and has helped me to
gradually change my relationship with food – but, while I’d known this already – I don’t
think I’d ever realised how much was actually very practically resolved – by eating
proper food regularly.
This hasn’t happened overnight – but we have found that every time I’ve started
bingeing again I’ve needed to return to the completely obvious idea of this basic eating
plan – 3 meals a day. Carbs, proteins and veg. Every time I have forgotten, Jo’s
reminded me how to get back on track. It now seems so simple – but it’s taken a while
to change my eating patterns as I’ve had to retrain myself after years of terrible eating
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 31
habits that had gradually formed from following unsustainable diets. I’ve needed Jo’s
input – and it’s been amazing how it now feels like I am eating the way I will always eat:
as in it feels sustainable (not like when you are thinking ahead to the end of a diet and
being able to eat normally again!!) and I’ve gradually lost around 3 stone doing it. I’ve
got more to go. I do other things like exercise too. But because I eat normally and
healthily now I have enough energy to exercise lots. I love eating now in a way I could
never do before – I felt guilty whatever I ate – whereas now it seems normal to eat a full,
proper meal and to have treats now and then and be able to control it. Still not
completely there yet – but after years of trying and failing I feel really happy in myself
and it’s a huge relief – in massive part thanks to Jo’s way of doing things.”
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 32
Tomás Fernandez, London
“I was really pleased with the results of my diet, and Jo´s approach to nutrition was so
accurate and easy to adapt to my lifestyle. She has been by far one of the best
nutritionists I have met and I am so happy I had the chance to change my diet habits for
the rest of my life.
I found Jo´s sessions very helpful, there was always something new to learn. I would
suggest everyone interested in changing diet habits for life, to approach Jo and work
together with her in achieving goals.”
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 33
Daniela, London
“I met Jo around four years ago when my weight at that time had gone through the roof
and when I reached 90 kgs, I was desperate and morbidly obese. I looked into different
nutritionists, but Jo came across absolutely like the perfect guide. She wasn't only a
dietitian, she also taught me to eat meaningfully and to treat food as fuel and not as
comfort only. In around a year, thankfully to her support, guidance, tips and amazing
knowledge I dropped 25kg and from a size 18 I went down to a size 10.
I could never recommend enough her method and her as a person. Jo supported me in
good and bad moments. It was a tough journey, I had many sets back and many times I
slipped into bad habits again, but she has always been at the other end ready to make
me think and analyse where the problem was and how we could, together, overcome it."
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 34
Amanda Hutcherson, London
“Like so many people in this technical age a desperate problem led me to seek internet
solutions. I was suffering from a severe lack of energy and some health problems that
made it almost impossible to fulfil my full time, rather challenging employment. I had
undergone a complete medical workup and started on medication to reduce my
symptoms but remained very uncomfortable, exhausted and despairing. Over the
previous two years my weight had risen sufficiently to put my body mass index into the
obese category, colleagues tried to tempt me to experiment with removing various foods
from my diet and my physiotherapist suggested that a nutritionist should help with this to
ensure that I got it right.
As a healthcare professional and teacher of health care subjects I wanted to find
support from someone who had dietetic qualifications and who would be sympathetic to
my reluctance to accept that food allergies might be the cause of my problems. I
searched, I found Jo and all I can really say is thank you so much Jo. Thank you for
your back to basics knowledge and your firm but caring, accommodating style. I knew
about the standard plate, I knew about the dangers of refined sugar and empty calories
but I was at a complete loss when it came to applying those ideas to my own diet.
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 35
Then it came to exercise! I knew about this too. I had got to such a low level of fitness
that I could not even contemplate organised exercise. We agreed, Jo and I, that I ‘must’
have accessed some physical activities that I enjoyed by the next time that we met. I
heard the word ‘must’ kindly spoken but definite and I did it! I took up church bell ringing,
I joined aqua exercise and Pilates groups and I started a compulsory twenty minute
daily walk or outdoor activity. It worked, Jo reassured me that I could manage on my
own and said goodbye – a sad day.
Over the following six months my weight dropped by 10kg and I developed new active
hobbies. My energy and my ability to do my job gradually improved, I found the space to
make changes to my professional role and feel like a different person. I am not perfect; I
can slip back to old habits, especially when out of my controlled environment on
business trips or holiday. However I now have the motivation and skills to get back on
track, I am in control of my eating and my weight.
Thank you Jo, I booked an appointment with you as a final, doubting attempt to manage
my gastric symptoms and lose weight and, within five months, I found a whole new
lifestyle that I thought was for others, not for me.”
1. Bouvard, V., et al. (2015), Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed
meat. The Lancet Oncology, 16: Issue 16, 1599-1600
2. Bouvard, V., et al. (2015), Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed
The Low-Fad Diet/Travers 36
meat. The Lancet Oncology, 16: Issue 16, 1599-1600