Why the sensible iDip diet will help you stay slim for longer

By boosting your protein and filling up on fibre, this is a realistic diet plan that could have long-term health benefits

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Most diets are doomed to failure because they are overly prescriptive and impossible to stick to; step forward the cabbage soup diet. Popular in the 1980s, this diet allowed you to eat unlimited cabbage soup and little else. Not exactly a recipe for success.
As a nutritionist, following healthy patterns of eating, such as the Mediterranean diet, rather than strict regimens, makes much more sense. The IDip (or individualised diet improvement programme) is the latest, and works along similar lines.
Rather than focussing on cutting certain foods down, or cutting them out, the iDip is based on the sound nutritional premise that increasing fibre and protein intake will fill you up. Alongside a modest calorie reduction, it can lead to sustainable weight loss.
The diet, devised by researchers at the University of Illinois, saw participants create an individualised program based on the foods they usually ate – but increasing their daily protein intake to around 80g and fibre to 20g.
So, if a chicken salad was on their usual menu, they would just increase the amount of protein and fibre in it. They simultaneously reduced their overall calorie intake to no more than 1,500 per day. As a result, the dieters successfully reduced their waists by an average of 7cm after 6 months, and a further 2cm after 15 months.
Increasing fibre and protein in your diet is easy and will make you feel fuller which should mean you eat less overall, helping to shift those unwanted pounds.
Here are a nine tips on how to do it…
To get up to 80g of protein per day you need to include 20-30g at every meal. For example, have scrambled tofu, eggs, oats, or yogurt with nuts and seeds at breakfast time, beans or fish for lunch such as a tuna and bean salad, and fish or lean meat with wholegrains for dinner.
Cottage cheese is the original dieter’s food, but did you know it’s packed with protein, containing 2g per tablespoon? Rather than eat it the traditional way dolloped on a cracker, add a couple of tablespoons to your morning smoothie instead.
If you prefer a cereal-based breakfast, a 55g portion of this homemade muesli, which will keep for three to four weeks in an airtight container, delivers 12g of fibre and 6g of protein:
Mix together 300g oats, 100g psyllium husk (available in all health food shops and online), 50g flaked almonds, 50g mixed seeds, 50g raisins.
Keeping the skin on potatoes means you’ll be getting double the fibre. Similarly, when roasting butternut squash there’s no need to peel it, not only is it quicker to prepare, there’s less waste and you’ll increase your intake of fibre and vitamins.
Protein is usually associated with animal products like chicken and eggs, but some vegetables are particularly protein-rich, in particular those I call ‘everyday’ legumes, such as green beans, sugar snaps peas, mangetout and the good old-fashioned frozen pea.
Tins of lentils, beans and chickpeas are a convenient way to add more fibre and protein to a meal. Add tinned lentils to a Bolognese sauce, beans to soups and salads and chickpeas to a curry or tagine.
Wholegrain versions of staple foods contain double the amount of fibre, so switch to buying good quality, wholegrain bread, wholegrain seedy crackers, wholewheat pasta and brown rice.
Hummus on a seedy cracker is the perfect iDip snack for extra fibre and protein.
Make a delicious curried hummus by simply blending the following until smooth: 1 tin of chickpeas (drained and rinsed), 1 tbsp plain Greek yogurt, 1 tbsp tahini, 1 clove garlic, 1 large green chilli (deseeded), 2 tbsp lemon juice, 1 level tsp each of cumin, turmeric and mild curry powder, a good pinch each of salt and black pepper.
If you want to see off the munchies, there is nothing better than nut butter. One tablespoon contains 4g of protein and a gram of fibre, as well as healthy fats, which immediately curb your appetite. Have some on wholegrain toast, stuffed into a pitted date or spread on apple slices for the ultimate satiating snack.
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