Eat Shop Save - The Paivas
The Paiva’s from Southport are made up of Fatima and Sergio, and their two daughters Helena and Victoria.
Before presenter Ranvir Singh and her team of experts’ intervention, the family were living off a diet of fried foods, struggling to remember the last time they ate vegetables and worrying about money every month. Mum, Fatima - a self confessed yo-yo dieter - had tried every diet there was out there and wanted to become a better role model to her two girls.
No diets, just lifestyle changes
To get to the bottom of the family’s relationship with food, Ranvir sends in top chef Dale Pinnock. Fatima confesses to trying some drastic diets over the years - including a time when she lost five stone in five months.
When Dale first met her, she was taking diet pills bought off the internet costing her £160 every six weeks. They were posted to her from abroad, and they didn’t list any ingredients on the label, so Eat Shop Save sent them to a lab to be tested. The contents of the pills included:
Diazepam
Antidepressants
Caffeine
Laxatives
As well as others
Dale inspires Fatima to break to yo-yo diet effect, by telling her slow and steady wins the race, with tasty, healthy food on the menu. He kicks off with a nutritious dish packed with flavour, which is a real hit with the family:
Cod and chorizo skewers with a tabbouleh salad - find the recipe on itv.com/eatshopsave
Impulse buy cash cow
Savvy shopper Kate Hardcastle confronted Fatima’s online shopping habits. The house was full of pricey impulse purchases that end up not getting used.
Kate reveals they add up to a whopping £3,502.
As a way to combat the chaotic spending, Kate has a simple trick up her sleeve:
Find a notepad
In it, write down anything in it you’re thinking of buying and add a date next to it
Come back to it after thirty days, if you still really need it - then you can buy it. If you don’t, you’ve saved the money!
This simple trick forces you to find out how much you really need something, and by adding up the money you would’ve spent, you can feel excitement for how much you are saving, instead of spending.
Music motivation
Fatima, like millions of people in the UK, pays each month for a gym membership that she rarely uses. Personal trainer Tom Pitfield, shows her that you don’t need to spend any money at all to get fit and healthy...by the power of music!
Tom shows her that by doing some home workouts to your favourite tunes, and by keeping a record of it throughout the week by using a fitness tracker - it’s a great way to stay inspired.
Challenges ahead
Three weeks into the Paiva family’s Eat Shop Save challenge, the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK and the country went into lockdown. The restaurant where Sergio worked as a kitchen manager closed down, leaving him furloughed on lower pay. With money getting tight, Fatima found work on the frontline as a key worker at a hospital.
Despite all that, at the end of their eight week challenge, the Paiva’s had made huge improvements on their health and wealth.
You can find out how much money the Paiva’s saved on those impulse buys and the incredible weightloss in this evening's episode of Eat, Shop, Save - on ITV at 7:30pm.
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