Forget fads, go for 'great-granny's diet': UK surgeon

If you wish to lose those extra pounds, throw out the seemingly healthy low-fat food options and eat what your great-grandma ate, said a top weight-loss surgeon.

NHS doctor Andrew Jenkinson, who has watched thousands try - and fail - to shed the extra weight, says people should stick to the traditional fare, like a full English breakfast, reports Mail Online.

He advises people to buy food at traditional stores, like greengrocer, butcher and fishmonger, as our ancestors would have done. "Imagine you are taking your great-grandmother around shops. If there's any food she doesn't recognise, don't buy it," Jenkinson said.

In his book, 'Why We Eat (Too Much)', the bariatric surgeon presents what he learnt over decades of practice. He claims to have spoken to over 2,000 obese patients. "What they said about dieting was always the same story," he says.

While crash diets might appear to work in the first few weeks, he says, they usually backfire because they trick the body into believing it has to cope with a famine - and save energy.

"They all say they lose weight to begin with, but then put it on and end up heavier than when they started," the surgeon says.

Thus the weight-loss regime comes to an end and the dieter is driven to eat more by powerful hunger hormones. He then ends up blaming the lack of will power, when the real culprit is a diet that is destined to fail.

In his book, Jenkinson says a far better approach is to ditch the quick-fix solutions for an old-fashioned approach -- buying fresh food daily and cooking it yourself.

"My simple eating rule would be to try to buy your food from the greengrocer's (traditional one that just sells fruit and vegetables), butcher's (one that sells dairy products as well as fresh meat) and fishmonger's," he advises.

People should start the day with a traditional full English breakfast, which he maintains will "set you up for the day". Jenkinson suggests instead of "no-carb diet" go for reducing carbohydrates. It means no trips to the bakery and no toast with your eggs, bacon, sausage and tomato.

"There should be no bread in the house. You can probably remove the bread bin as you won't need this any more," he says.

Dieters must use an hour or two a day to shop and cook from scratch, the hours that many people waste "mindlessly watching Netflix or scrolling through social media".