I’m a nutrition guru and pasta and chocolate CAN be your diet secret weapon

IF you’re trying to lose weight then you might think you need to restrict foods such as pasta and chocolate.

But one expert has said the trick to shedding the pounds is making sure you have a little bit of what you fancy.

GettyOne expert says that eating a little bit of what you fancy could actually help you lose weight[/caption]

Writer-in-residence at the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center at Yale University, Mark Schatzker said banning foods can ‘back fire’.

Schatzker said that cutting out foods we love from our diet and replacing them with artificial substitutes wont trick our bodies into thinking we have actually consumed foods we enjoy.

He said that it’s this restriction that could drive us to binge on the foods we have been cutting out.

He explained that eating the foods you enjoy taps into your body’s natural ability to tell you what it needs.

This, he claims, will help you live a healthier and happier life and could help you lose weight as you aren’t constantly restricting what you eat.

“No one ever looks back and remembers a great bag of potato chips they ate a few years ago.

“It’s about getting away from the idea of counting calories and nutrients and more about the experience of eating”, he told Insider.

He explained that the secret to getting on top of your food cravings is to understand that wanting and liking foods are two different feelings.

Food that seems tempting, Schatzker said might not always be the most satisfying and might prompt you to eat them in larger quantities.

“There are foods that prey on this wanting circuit and don’t deliver much on pleasure.”

He said that the focus needs to be on enjoying food, whether that be chocolate or a delicious home cooked dinner.

If you’re hungry Schatzker said you might often find yourself mindlessly eating crisps without actually enjoying them – instead just wanting to feel some sort of satisfaction or fullness.

He said that instead of eating mindlessly, enjoying a well-made meal would help satisfy both the emotional feelings we get from food as well as the physical fullness.

This he said, will mean you are less likely to binge eat later on.

He said that this is why people in countries such as Italy that seem to eat large amounts of food and where a Mediterranean diet is followed, have lower rates of obesity than other western nations.

SOCIAL FACTORS

He did however acknowledge that social factors such as time and money can also have a huge impact on the way a person eats.

Many people in the UK rely on food banks to get by and while they try and be varied on a nutritional basis that is not always the case.

Schatzker said that you don’t need to have fancy foods to eat well.

Looking after yourself is important to overall health and Dr Joshua Wolrich, author of Food Isn’t Medicine, said that there there’s always been a huge focus on what we look like and what we weigh.

He explained that weight really can come down to so many different factors.

“The risks of deliberate dieting shouldn’t be underestimated and there needs to be more of a focus on other health issues such as sleep, movement, nutrition and social interaction – without weight loss being a goal. Weight loss is not synonymous with health!”, he previously told The Sun.

Experts previously revealed the best ways you can keep cravings at bay, and said listening to your hunger queues is just as important as knowing when you have had enough to eat.