Eat Shop Save - The Lowthers

Tune in this week to see the Lowther Family take on the Eat Shop Save challenge.

Claire and Steve live in Newcastle with their two daughters Lucy and Katy. When they first met Ranvir, they were struggling to find enough hours in the day to meet the demands of busy family life. Steve is a keen cook, but his love of fat laden ingredients such as butter, oil and cream was causing the calories in their meals to really add up. During their 8 week challenge they undergo an amazing lifestyle overhaul. Claire finds a way to fit exercise into her routine, the family give their mealtimes a makeover, and manage to save over £1200 along the way!

Dale’s Healthy Food Swaps

Ranvir sends the couple to meet chef and nutritionist Dale Pinnock, who reveals that the fats that Steve was adding to his Sunday roast added up to around 1000 calories! 

Dale demonstrates some simple healthy swaps to turn the family’s food habits around:

  • Swap meat for lentils and pulses. This tip can save you money, increase your fibre intake, and with red meat production being one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases, it’s a positive change for the environment too.

  • Swap fizzy pop for water or herbal teas. After cutting out the pop altogether, Claire says she feels much better, and is no longer bloated.

  • Swap full fat double cream for a couple of tablespoons of low fat soft cheese. This simple change helped Steve to cut 800 calories out of his favourite creamy chicken pasta recipe!

To try to convince Steve that he doesn’t need to add fat-laden ingredients to make food tasty, Dale gives a family favourite a facelift. 

You can see Dale’s recipe on later today at itv.com/eatshopsave.

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)

To tackle the family’s fitness, Ranvir sends personal trainer Marvin Ambrosius. 

To help get Claire back to fitness, Marvin makes use of a cross trainer that was gathering dust in the garage. He shows Claire how to use interval training to maximise calorie burn and get the greatest benefits from her workouts. 

HIIT (aka high intensity interval training) is one of the best ways to keep your heart healthy and lose weight. It’s an exercise technique that can be applied to lots of different types of workouts. It involves alternating between a slower pace and bursts of high intensity, which maximises the benefits from exercise and burns more calories.

If you want to try HIIT, you don’t need a crosstrainer. Why not check out these NHS Introduction to HIIT videos to get you started, they are suitable for beginners and they dont’ require any equipment.

In her 8 week Eat Shop Save challenge, Claire manages to make time to work out three times a week and loses half a stone!