The Dietician: The best way to beat a chocolate addiction is not to have chocolate for a week. From there you can reintroduce it again but a good idea is not to eat it on consecutive days as this often gets the addiction to a food going again!M…ake sure too that if you stop eating chocolate that you eat regular meals and snacks so that your blood sugar levels are constant so that you won’t have the physiological craving for the chocolate!

Question by Tsitsi: Is it true that for better results l should not eat anything from 3pm until the next day?

The Dietician: No, that would not be best for your body, BUT you should eat less later in the day. So a 3/4pm snack plus a small supper are fine to have, and rather eat a bigger breakfast and moderate lunch. We need our energy during the day so eat more during the morning and a smaller supper.

Question by Lelethu: I’m worried cause I eat and sleep.

The Dietician: It is best to wait about 2-3 hours after a meal to go to sleep but it wouldn’t be wrong to have a small snack and then go immediately to sleep. So just make sure that that meals is nice and small and it won’t be too bad.

Question by Herbex: Kim, what would your ideal healthy weight-loss lunch box contain?

The Dietician: An ideal lunchbox would contain some fruit (fresh or dried), yoghurt and nuts to have as snacks and a lunch such as a chicken or tuna (or other) sandwich or roast veggie and cous-cous salad or a baked potato with cottage cheese and salad. It is also a good idea to have some lite soups for those cold hungrier days!

Cravings seem to be high in winter, but this can be because we are feeling cold and want to warm up. When we eat the digestion of the food releases some heat, ‘warming’ us up. Some foods will do this more than others e.g. chillies! So how else can we get warm this winter? My answer is and always will be – throw a blanket on yourself! You’ll save yourself a lot of extra kilo’s!