The impact of high-fat and sugary food

What should we eat?
To maintain a healthy weight, we need to be more active, reduce our consumption of fat and added sugars and eat less. Most of us know this already so why isn't it music to people's ears?

We live such hectic and stressful lives that it's often hard to eat structured and planned meals; rather we grab snacks and takeaways as meal substitutes and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, these takeaways and ready meals are high in fat, high in added sugar, low in unrefined carbohydrates and energy dense.

We almost need to make an appointment with ourselves to catch up on how to enjoy life and food. If the scenario sounds like your life right now, you need to take some time out and plan for your future health.

• Make time to have at least two structured sit-down meals a day, it's often hard to organise a breakfast on weekday mornings, but that doesn't mean you can skip it altogether. A hurried bowl of high-fibre cereal and some skimmed milk is quick and easy as well as filling and nutritious.

• Lunch for most of us is often another hurried meal either in front of a computer screen or grabbed snack in a rush to finish tasks before the school run. Have fruit on hand for snacks and take five minutes in the morning to prepare a healthy lunch.

• Remember this: 'think before you buy'. Scrutinize your sandwich, make sure that it contains more salad than a lettuce leaf and is not loaded with high-fat mayonnaise. Ditch those high-fat pastries, pies and chips.

• Ready meals and takeaways are lifesavers once in a while, but try not to rely on these at every evening meal. It takes the same amount of time to microwave a ready meal as it does to boil some pasta and pour some tomato sauce over it.