Healthy food choices

Please can you give some basic healthy eating guidelines?

Start by trying to limit your treats, so that are just that, treats, and not a large part of your diet. We are all human and love the odd indulgence, but try to keep a balance. It is worth the effort to make sure that most of your diet consists of healthy choices because the benefits for your health and recovery are so obvious. In addition, this is a time of your life when you really could do with every bit of energy that you can scrape together to get you through. Eating a balanced diet will give you far, far more sustained energy than you would get from a poor diet.

So if you compare a slice of cake with a bowl of fruit salad and yoghurt, they may contain the same amount of kilojoules, and so give you the same energy. But the energy from the fruit will sustain you for longer, and supply you with many additional vitamins and minerals. The cake is just empty energy. This is the kind of thinking that needs to become routine for you. You probably learnt a great deal about nutrition while you were pregnant and trying to give your baby the best chance to grow and flourish in your womb. Well, all the same basics apply here. Choose fresh food over take-aways. Choose dense foods, like whole grain breads, over white bread. Get enough protein. Take a multivitamin. And try not to begrudge all this effort. Remember that healthy eating is one of the things that will contribute to returning to your old shape.