Healthy weight loss
Diana Noonan discovered a surprising bonus while following a plant-based whole food eating plan – and shares her recipes for wholefood bliss balls and whole grain crackers.
The following is from personal experience, and is not intended as professional dietary advice. This article was first published in Organic NZ Jan/Feb 2021.
Fluctuating weight
When friends I haven’t met for a while fail to recognise me, I try to cover their embarrassment with a joke.
“I should have become a spy,” I laugh. “I have a very unmemorable face!”
But that’s not quite true. The reason they don’t recognise me is that my weight has been forever on the move. And we’re not just talking by a few hundred grams. For as long as I can remember, and despite being vegetarian since I was a teen, latterly a vegan, and having at least 30 minutes of exercise daily, I’ve struggled to keep within a healthy body mass index (BMI) as prescribed by the New Zealand Ministry of Health.
Instead, as someone who found it impossible to stop at just ‘one’ of anything sweet or refined, I’ve been either collecting the kilos, or in the throes of a restrictive diet. From Weight Watchers to Dukan, and the Mediterranean to the raw-food diet, I’ve tried them all. What’s more, they’ve almost always worked. But then, as soon as goal weight was reached, and everyday eating cut back in, I was back to square one.
The following content is only available to logged-in members. Join us to gain access to a wide range of content.
Diana Noonan is a Catlins-based writer and organic gardener who enjoys eating what she grows.
