Features

PARIS — The last day of Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday saw Chanel take a trip back to its seaside origins, while Louis Vuitton looked to a space-age future that also included a luxury take on the “pussyhat”.

Chanel’s show was dedicated to the northern French seaside town of Deauville where its founder Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel opened her first boutique in 1912.

It began with a short film starring Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz — a tribute to classic 1960s French classic “A Man and a Woman” — set in Deauville.

On the catwalk, the stars of the show were, fittingly, some huge-brimmed beach hats.

The collection had a palette of bright pastel tones across a range designed for winter walks on the beach, including pea coats, tweed suits, 1920s-style pant suits and turtlenecks.

Creative director Virginie Viard, who took over from Karl Lagerfeld when he died in 2019, has occasionally faced criticism for a lack of daring.

But that has “the merit of not losing people along the way”, said actress and model Arielle Dombasle, a regular muse for Lagerfeld, speaking on the sidelines of the show.

“It’s not gratuitously spectacular, it’s graceful and always successful,” she told AFP.

The ninth and final day of Paris Fashion Week’s women’s ready-to-wear shows also included big names such as Miu Miu and Lacoste.

Lacoste, known for its ties to tennis, finally held a catwalk show at the sport’s French home of Rolland Garros.

The brand is seeking to expand into a broader luxury sportswear market, and offered new takes on its familiar preppy vibe with more hip-hop-inspired items such as big puffer jackets.

The final show was Louis Vuitton, whose creative director Nicolas Ghesquieres marked 10 years at the helm by having a giant Death Star-like globe of lights and wires suspended over the Louvre courtyard.

There were extravagant space-age costumes that have been his marker.

Padded white jackets with big furry gloves, dresses that looked like they were made out of the brand’s well-known luggage, and sculpted female suits that looked like the uniform of some inter-planetary stewardess.

The collection also included a number of bejewelled gold, silver and midnight blue jackets — no “quiet luxury” here — as well as coats with huge fur shoulders.

These were topped with luxury versions of the “pussyhat” — the makeshift headwear that became a symbol of women-led protests against Donald Trump and the anti-abortion movement in the United States a few years ago.

Though that marked the end of the official line-up, Saint Laurent was set to hold a surprise last-minute menswear show later in the evening.

AMMAN — HRH Prince Ali, chair of the Royal Film Commission (RFC), on Monday evening attended an award ceremony for the fourth edition of the “Youth Empowerment Film and Song Competitions” at the King Hussein Business Park theatre.

The event, titled “The Power of Resilience”, and organised by the Mentor Arabia Foundation in collaboration with the RFC, celebrated 20 talented young individuals between the ages of 18 and 30 from various Arab countries who excelled in categories like fiction short films, documentaries, entertainment films and songs.

HRH Princess Rym Ali, HRH Prince Abdullah Bin Ali and Minister of Youth Muhammad Nabulsi attended the ceremony, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Four special prizes were also granted to young Palestinian talents under the theme “Mental Health of Youth”.

On the sidelines of the ceremony, a symposium titled “Mental Health, Youth, Drama and Songs”, was organised by the foundation in partnership with Zain Jordan.

PARIS — In H&M’s flagship Paris store it is hard to find clothes that do not claim to be made from “recycled materials”.

Last year, 79 per cent of the polyester in its collections came from recycled materials, and next year it wants it all to be recycled.

The Swedish fast fashion giant told AFP that recycled material allows the “industry to reduce its dependence on virgin polyester made from fossil fuels”. The problem is that “93 per cent of all recycled textiles today comes from plastic bottles, not from old clothes”, said Urska Trunk of campaign group Changing Markets.

In other words, from fossil fuels. And while a plastic bottle can be recycled five or six times, a T-shirt in recycled polyester “can never be recycled again”, said Trunk.

Almost all recycled polyester is made from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) from plastic bottles, according to the non-profit Textile Exchange.

In Europe, most textile waste is either dumped or burned. Only 22 per cent is recycled or reused -- and most of that is turned into insulation, mattress stuffing or cleaning cloths.

“Less than one percent of fabric used to produce clothing is recycled into new clothing,” the European Commission told AFP.

Recycling textiles is “much more complex than recycling other materials, such as glass or paper”, according to Lenzing, an Austrian manufacturer famous for its wood-based fibres.

Unrecyclable 

For a start, clothes made from more than two fibres are for now regarded as unrecyclable.

Those clothes that can be recycled must be sorted by colour, and then have zips, buttons, studs and other material removed.

It is often costly and labour intensive, say experts, though pilot projects are beginning to appear in Europe, said Greenpeace’s Lisa Panhuber. However, the technology is “in its infancy”, according to Trunk. Reusing cotton may seem like the obvious answer. But when cotton is recycled, the quality drops so much that it often has to be woven with other materials, experts say, bringing us slap back to the problem of mixed fabrics. To square the recycling circle, fashion brands have instead been using recycled plastic — to the anger and frustration of the food industry, which pays for the collection of the used PET bottles.

“Let’s be clear: this is not circularity,” the beverage industry wrote in a withering open letter to the European Parliament last year, denouncing the “worrying trend” of the fashion industry making “green claims related to the use of recycled material”. Recycling polyester is another dead end, according to Lauriane Veillard, of the Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) network. It is often impure and mixed with other materials like elastane or Lycra, which “prevents any recycling”, she insisted. Jean-Baptiste Sultan, of the French NGO Carbone 4, is equally damning of polyester. “From its manufacture to its recycling, [polyester] pollutes water, air and the soil.” In fact, environmental groups have been demanding that the textile industry stops making polyester entirely — despite it accounting for more than half of their output, according to Textile Exchange.

Carbon footprint 

So where do all those mountains of unrecyclable polyester and mixed fabrics end up after Western consumers dutifully bring them to recycling bins? Nearly half of textile waste collected in Europe ends up in African secondhand markets — most controversially in Ghana — or more often it is tipped into “open landfills”, according to European Environment Agency (EEA) figures from 2019. Another 41 per cent of the bloc’s textile waste goes to Asia, it added, mostly “to dedicated economic zones where they are sorted and processed”.

“The used textiles are mostly downcycled into industrial rags or filling, or re-exported for recycling in other Asian countries or for reuse in Africa,” the agency said.

A new EU rule adopted in November aims to ensure waste exports are recycled rather than dumped. But the EEA admitted that there was “a lack of consistent data on the quantities and fate of used textiles and textile waste in Europe”.

Indeed, NGOs told AFP much of Europe’s waste clothes sent to Asia go to “Export Processing Zones”, which Paul Roeland of the Clean Clothes Campaign said were “notorious for providing ‘lawless’ exclaves, where even the low labour standards of Pakistan and India are not observed”. Exporting “clothes to countries with low labour costs for sorting is also a horror in terms of carbon footprint”, said Marc Minassian of Pellenc ST, which makes optical sorting machines used in recycling.

Recycling ‘myth’ 

The terrible truth is that “recycling is a myth for clothing”, Greenpeace’s consumer expert Panhuber insisted. Others, however, are turning towards new vegetable fibres, with German brand Hugo Boss using Pinatex made from pineapple leaves for some of its sneakers. But some experts warn that we could be falling into another trap. Thomas Ebele of the SloWeAre label questioned the way these non-woven fibres are held together “in the majority of cases” with thermoplastic polyester or PLA. It means that while the clothing can be “sometimes broken down” it is not recyclable, he said. “Biodegradable does not mean compostable,” he warned, saying that some of these fibres have to be broken down industrially. But beyond all that, “the biggest problem is the amount of clothes being made”, said Celeste Grillet of Carbone 4. For Panhuber and Greenpeace, the solution is simple: buy fewer clothes.

“We have to decrease consumption,” she said -- repair, “reuse and upcycle”.

By Tara Ensour,
Nutritionist

As social media and the world around us is now saturated with strict views on eating, it is

understandable if you find it challenging to have a healthy relationship with food.

Intuitive eating involves listening to your body’s needs and growing a connection to it physically, mentally and emotionally. It embodies rational thought and instinct.

The diet culture

Rules around food are now increasing more than ever and it can be difficult to know who and what to listen to. With so many of our feelings around food influenced by diet culture, it can be easy to forget which foods we like or dislike.

Rather than stopping yourself from eating a cookie  because you’d feel like it would prevent you from obtaining the “ideal” body image, intuitive eating allows you to enjoy the cookie and move on with your day.

It helps you face your fear of foods. It teaches you how to trust your body and hunger cues and eat guilt-free while still meeting your body’s nutritional needs.

Finding your food freedom

Studies indicate that dieting never works. The cycle of restricting and calorie counting almost always leads to deeper problems. Diets always fail and often bring disordered eating to life.

A brain so obsessed with food will constantly be thinking about things like calories, workouts and how to obtain the next healthy meal. 

With intuitive eating, you give yourself more time to focus on things like family, work, relationships and the opportunity to connect with your hobbies and  passions again.

This framework helps you find your food freedom. 

A few tips for intuitive eating: 

1. Remember that food is not the enemy Make peace with your food. A food is neither “bad” nor “good”. Instead of restricting entire food groups, have all the food you like in moderation.

2. Eat when hungry, stop when full A lot of us fight our hunger and fullness cues. Instead, practice being in tune with what your body is telling you and honour any cravings.

3. Don’t stop moving Move because it makes you feel good, not because you must. Rather than focussing on how many calories your workout burns, or whether you reached 10,000 steps today, move your body because you like how you feel afterwards.

4. Change your goals Instead of having goals that focus on weight loss and body image, rephrase your goals to focus on things like feeling comfortable in your own skin, at any size.

5. Ditch diet culture To eat intuitively, you’ll need to try and fight everything your mind tells you about food rules and dieting. 

While this is easier said than done, it is still attainable with practice Intuitive eating can be a viable approach to achieving a healthy relationship with food. It promotes selfcompassion, encourages nourishing your body and helps you stay away from restrictive and often harmful diets.

If this concept sounds appealing to you, I recommend you consider incorporating its principles in your daily life and work closely with a nutritionist to reach a more fulfilling and balanced approach to food.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

PARIS — Removing cars from an expanse around the Eiffel Tower to create a green pathway sounds pretty good on paper, but the mayor of Paris is struggling to win over residents and above all the police force to revamp one of the city’s most celebrated views.

Thousands of tourists jostle every day to snap the Eiffel Tower from across the River Seine on the hill at Trocadero, with its magnificent gardens and a modernist palace housing museums.

Walking to Trocadero is less romantic, however, requiring the crossing of two major intersections and the often traffic-clogged Pont d’Iena Bridge.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo said to general surprise this week that she wants to push ahead with a project to kick out the cars and create a continuous garden between the Eiffel Tower and the Trocadero esplanade.

But while she hopes to take advantage of the 2024 Summer Olympics to begin the project as soon as the Games end, her critics — and most importantly the Paris police chief — are resisting the plan.

The proposal is in keeping with other efforts by the Socialist mayor to squeeze cars out of Paris and make the city greener, a push that has divided residents and political opponents who say her policies go too far.

A trio of Japanese tourists taking photos next to the busy Pont d’Iena bridge agreed that the plan would make a difference.

The view was “disappointing”, Mahiro told AFP, saying the vista would be “more beautiful with less cars”.

‘Pedestrian-friendly’ 

Hidalgo launched the project in 2019 but soon clashed with the city’s police chief at the time, Didier Lallement, and right-wing mayors of three of the city’s districts over concerns about traffic disruptions.

But Hidalgo, who announced a similar plan in January to ban cars on half of the central Place de la Concorde, site of the iconic Luxor Obelisk, is hoping the fervour of the Olympics will garner support for the ambitious project.

“After the Olympic Games, there will no longer be cars passing in front of the Eiffel Tower,” Hidalgo said in an interview with the Ouest-France newspaper.

A “green” Trocadero, a “pedestrian-friendly” Lena Bridge and a “reforested” Champ-de-Mars, the expansive lawn in the shadow of the Tower, “will all together form a large park in the heart of Paris”, she said.

Supporters have lauded the efforts by Hidalgo, a former presidential candidate, to reduce pollution and increase green areas in the densely populated city, which can become unbearable when increasingly frequent summer heatwaves hit.

During her first term in office, Hidalgo scored her biggest urbanisation win with the pedestrianisation of the embankment on the right bank of the Seine after a two-year battle.

But the Trocadero project was rejected by an administrative court in 2022 and 2023, and the mayor’s office acknowledged that the initial project was not destined to be implemented.

Hidalgo has submitted a “modified” plan to the police authorities, hoping the preparations ahead of the Olympics would provide a new window of opportunity.

France’s new right-wing Culture Minister Rachida Dati, an arch-foe of Hidalgo who says she will run for Paris mayor in 2026, branded the new plan a “coup”.

And Paris police chief Laurent Nunez maintained his administration’s opposition, saying “there remain many questions... on several points”.

In May 2022, his predecessor Lallement said he feared “significant traffic delays” and “hold-ups” that would slow down response times for emergency services.

Everton, a Brazilian photographer who has been living in France for 15 years, said he was worried about how Hidalgo’s plan would impact commuters in Paris.

“That’s going to block the bridge and there are people who need to drive in Paris,” he told AFP. “I believe we need to do something, but it’s important not to go overboard.”

Police authorities have said they are open to reviewing the new proposal promised by the mayor’s office.

The Eiffel Tower is one of the most popular monuments in the world, with 6.3 million tourists visiting last year.

Around 15 million visitors are expected for the Olympics in July and August, and the Paralympics in August and early September.

JAIJAIPUR, India — While India’s great and good gather for the opening of a controversial temple to the Hindu god Ram, some of his most fervent but least privileged adherents gather separately to celebrate the deity — covered from head to toe in tattoos of his name.

Once barred from entering holy sites because of their place at the bottom of India’s millennia-old caste hierarchy, members of the Ramnami religious movement aim to show that all can worship their beloved Ram.

But as India prepares to inaugurate the temple at Ayodhya — built on the site of an ancient mosque torn down by Hindu zealots in 1992 — the Ramnamis say they have made an even bolder display of their faith.

They have inked Ram’s name over and over on their bodies in flowing rhythmic script.

“I devoted my body in his name,” said Setbai Ramnami, wearing a crown of peacock feathers and draped in a white shawl also covered with Ram’s name.

“I have never been to a temple... I have not even offered flowers to a Ram idol,” said Setbai, who is in her 70s and a member of India’s 200-million-strong Dalit castes, those once known as “untouchables”.

As well as tattoos, members take the movement’s name as their surname to show their total commitment.

Defiant message 

When Setbai’s ancestors were denied entry to temples more than a century ago, they fought back with a needle and ink made from the residue of kerosene lamps.

The tattoos were a defiant message to higher caste Hindus that the god they were being prevented from worshipping was for everyone, irrespective of caste and gender.

For many Hindus, the temple opening on Monday will be a long-held dream come true.

In the early 1990s, the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi backed the campaign to destroy the mosque where the temple now sits — triggering modern India’s worst religious riots that killed 2,000 people, most of them Muslims.

Now the $240 million structure is set to consolidate Modi’s Hindu base as he seeks a third term in general elections later this year.

But the Ramnamis say their devotion, etched on their skin, is stronger than any physical structure built in the god’s name.

“For us, Ram is everywhere, in every particle, in every sound,” said 52-year-old Gularam Ramnami, adding that for those celebrating the Ayodhya temple Ram “resides in an idol”.

“We made our bodies a temple.”

Many of the scores of Ramnamis meeting Sunday for an annual gathering in Chhattisgarh state said they welcomed the Ram temple’s opening.

But they also urged caution and pointed to the violent history of the structure.

“Ram never says break a mosque, and Allah never says break a temple,” Gularam said.

“We have always said never hurt anybody through thoughts, words or actions.”

‘An ideology’ 

It took a whole day for Setbai to have her face tattooed, but she insists she did not feel pain because it was done in devotion.

“There will come a day when we will all leave,” she said. “It is good that I have immersed myself in devotion... this is exactly how I want to die.”

But times are changing for the Ramnamis too.

Full-body tattoos are becoming less common, as some younger devotees looking for jobs limit the etchings to body areas they can cover, although they say they maintain the other strict rules of the group.

Ramnamis are vegetarians, do not drink alcohol or smoke, and mostly grow everything that they eat.

Unlike most Hindus who choose cremation, Ramnamis bury their dead because they do not want Ram’s name to burn.

Many Dalits and other marginalised groups still face violence and discrimination, but Ramnamis say their tattoos show their support of a god all can worship.

“We do not care who thinks we are lower caste, we belong to a land where caste and class hold no significance,” Gularam said.

“Ramnami is an ideology... it is not caste or religion bound.”

TOKYO — Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg met Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a visit to Japan, discussing the risks of generative AI, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg is on a mini-tour of Asia that includes stops in Japan, India and South Korea, where he travelled on Tuesday night.

The 39-year-old mixed business with pleasure while in Japan, going skiing with his family and learning about sword-making from a master craftsman. Zuckerberg and Kishida met on Tuesday and “discussed a broad range of topics including the status of AI’s technological advancement... [and] the risk surrounding generative AI”, top Japanese government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters on Wednesday. Japanese media quoted Zuckerberg as saying: “We had a good, productive conversation about AI and the future of technology. I’m really excited for the work that is happening here in Japan,” he said after the 30-minute meeting.

Spearheaded by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, generative artificial intelligence is a technology that can conjure up text, images and audio from simple prompts in just seconds.

Its rapid development has been heralded as potentially revolutionary for everything from video games to politics — but with negative as well as positive consequences.

Meta was one of 20 major tech firms, including OpenAI, to sign a pledge this month to crack down on AI content intended to deceive voters ahead of crucial elections around the world this year.

Tech groups had previously agreed to use a common watermarking standard that would tag images generated by AI applications such as ChatGPT, Meta’s Llama, Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Gemini.

LG, Samsung meetings 

Zuckerberg arrived in Seoul on a private flight on Tuesday night for the second leg of his Asia trip and is expected to meet South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, local media reported.

 “We are coordinating with Meta to arrange a meeting,” a spokesperson for Yoon’s office told AFP on Wednesday. Zuckerberg met the CEO of consumer tech giant LG Electronics to discuss extended reality (XR) projects, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported. Meta is collaborating with LG to develop a premium headset that will compete with Apple’s Vision Pro, the Korea Economic Daily reported.

South Korean media said the Meta boss also plans to meet the head of Samsung Electronics, one of the world’s biggest producers of smartphones and computer chips. Yonhap said Zuckerberg will also hold talks with XR startups at Meta’s Seoul office. The agency said he will leave for India on Thursday.

Zuckerberg will attend the lavish March 1-3 pre-wedding celebrations of the son of Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Indian oil-to-telecoms giant Reliance, reports said.  Meta, Google and others have invested billions of dollars in Reliance’s digital unit Jio Platforms as it seeks to take on Amazon and Walmart in India’s vast e-commerce market

LOS ANGELES — As a journalist, Augusto Gongora fought to chronicle Chile’s violent military dictatorship. But it was his battle to hold onto his own memories that made him the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary.

“The Eternal Memory” charts the progression of Alzheimer’s disease through the lens of a couple who had to work every day to keep alive the memory of their love, just as their country strives not to forget its own violent past.

“The film became a metaphor for the loss of memory of an entire country, told through what was happening to Gongora,” its Chilean director Maite Alberdi told AFP.

“But it is also a great reminder that when you lose your rational memory, there is an emotional memory that transcends — and that historic pain remains even when you lose your memory.”

The movie, which will compete for best documentary at the Oscars on March 10, follows for five years the daily lives of Gongora, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and his wife Paulina Urrutia, an actress and former Chilean culture minister who became his caregiver.

Alberdi, 40, sought to bring a fresh perspective on the impact of a devastating disease.

“I saw a very special way of dealing with Alzheimer’s through love — without seeing Alzheimer’s as a tragedy, but only as a context. And understanding that fragility is part of life,” she said.

For the director — who was also nominated for an Oscar in 2021 for “The Mole Agent”, a documentary about loneliness in old age — the experience of filming her latest project was bittersweet.

“It affected me, because I was experiencing his deterioration. But at the same time, it was a couple that I had a great time being with,” she said.

“For me, it was not painful to film. It was a great lesson in love.”

‘I’m no longer here’ 

As a journalist, Gongora had built his career in front of cameras. During Augusto Pinochet’s brutal government, he was part of a clandestine news service.

He later co-wrote the book “Chile: La Memoria Prohibida” (“Chile: The Forbidden Memory”), which recounts the early years of the country’s dictatorship.

After the regime ended in 1990, he went on to work in national television.

Having spent decades entering other people’s homes to tell their stories, Gongora opened up the doors of his own for Alberdi’s film, relinquishing his privacy at a highly vulnerable moment.

“He above all understood that he wanted to make this chronicle, that he wanted to tell the story of his fragility,” said Alberdi.

“They threw themselves in, and got used to the presence of the camera.”

The film intersperses scenes of the couple’s daily routines following Gongora’s diagnosis with archival images of their travels, important life events and clips from his career.

In one scene, Urrutia reads to her husband the dedication that he signed in a copy of his book that he gave to her when they started dating in the 1990s.

It hauntingly reads: “Without memory we do not know who we are... Without memory, there is no identity.”

The pandemic interrupted filming, but Alberdi improvised by sending a camera to Urrutia to continue the project in isolation.

“I initially thought we wouldn’t be able to use the material,” recalled the director. “But it turned out to be such deep material — so intimate, so full of emotion — that only a partner could have gotten it, when they were alone together.

“So this problem of the pandemic turned out to be a gift for the film.”

The decision on when to stop filming was also a spontaneous response to circumstances.

“You see a scene in the movie where he says, ‘I’m no longer here,’” said Alberdi.

“It was the first time in five years that I felt like he was uncomfortable with himself. And for me, when he felt that he was losing his identity, that was the limit.”

Gongora died in May 2023, four months after the premiere of “The Eternal Memory” at the Sundance film festival, where it received the top jury prize for documentaries.

At next month’s Academy Awards, it will contend with “20 Days in Mariupol”, “Bobi Wine: The People’s President”, “To Kill a Tiger” and “Four Daughters”.

AMMAN — HRH Prince Ali bin Al Hussein, chairman of the Royal Film Commission of Jordan (RFC) attended on Sunday the special screening of the second part of the American science fiction film “Dune”, which was partly filmed in Wadi Rum.

The event was attended by several princes and princesses and took place in the presence of the film’s director, Denis Villeneuve, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Dune depicts a classic struggle of good versus evil; set on a desert planet resisting domination from another world. The film showcases the unique natural beauty of Wadi Rum, contributing to the promotion of Jordan and its regions as touristic destination.

By Sonia Salfity,
Desperate Dieter

One of the best ways we can help ourselves is by making healthy substitutions to our favourite meals. Instead of cutting out all our favourite recipes, we can make a few adjustments that will help us reach our goals.

Gradual change

If we want to have lasting success, we must put in place healthier habits that we can live with for a long period of time. Food and behavioural substitutions will eventually become part of our normal routines.

It’s very important that we don’t make all the changes at once. If we install these substitutions gradually then we will be less likely to reject them; they will become our friends instead of our foes.

Here is a list of substitutions I’ve come up with:

Almond milk: I switched from full cream to almond milk in my coffee. This was probably the hardest

change I’ve ever made and it took all my willpower,  but it was well worth it as it instantly reduced my excess calories and fat. I drink coffee three times a day so this one change made a huge impact. For those who don’t mind black coffee, this is not an issue. The only way I can take it black is if it’s Turkish coffee but my stomach is sensitive to make that my norm

Water: I switched from sodas to water. If you don’t like plain water, jazz it up with a slice of lemon, cucumber or blueberries. I love the smell of rosewater so when I feel like something different, I add a dash of it in my water

Smaller plates: I switched large dinner plates to the 

smaller dessert plates as research has shown that using smaller plates helps us to reduce the amount of food we consume. The trick is that the smaller portions seem normal when you present them in a smaller plate. It’s quite fascinating how easily our minds can be tricked and we will do well to make that work to our advantage!

Measured portions: I switched from trying to guess my portions to actually measuring them. I leave  my measuring cups and tablespoons on my kitchen counter and I always make sure they’re clean so 

there’s no excuse! Our eyes will always deceive us into thinking that was just a quarter cup of nuts we just had when in reality it’s double or triple that amount Olive oil: I switched salad dressings to extra virgin olive oil and lemon or vinegar and try to order the vinaigrette dressing when I’m dining at a restaurant Lettuce wraps: I switched from burger buns to lettuce wraps and enjoy that once in a while burger

without the added starch  Vegetables: I switched from fries to fresh vegetables even when every fibre of my being would rather taste those hot crunchy potatoes that keep calling my name! However, I must confess that now I realise just how much my body needed those veggie-rich nutrients and I learned to crave them.

There’s something very satisfying when we eat foods rich in vitamins and minerals instead of harmful empty calories Smaller meals: I switched from eating one or two large meals a day to eating 6 small ones. This helps me to recharge and never starve. Find what rhythm works for you and ensure not to starve yourself or you’ll eat everything in sight!

A change of heart: Perhaps the most important switch I’ve made is my attitude. I went from “this is way too hard and it’s easier to just give up” to “I can do this, I’m stronger than I thought I was!”  My body loves me and since it’s the only one I have, I’d better take good care of it! That’s the truth for all of us and it will help us to remember this every time we are tempted to consume unhealthy foods or have unhealthy thoughts. Let’s stop entertaining all the excuses we come up with and, instead, let’s be determined to be our own best friend and advocate.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine