Food & recipes

Nutrition: Michael van Straten looks at Clare Nasir’s diet

Is super-fit weather girl Clare Nasir’s diet in for a stormy ride? Michael Van Straten investigates

For breakfast I’ll have porridge with natural low-fat yoghurt and mixed berries or a two egg white omelette with oat bran whisked into the mix. Once cooked I add vanilla, low-fat yoghurt and cinnamon.
Lunch is a lean, high-protein salad that includes prawns, smoked salmon, ham, avocado, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, boiled egg, chopped jalapeno peppers, a sprinkling of superfood seeds, celery and beetroot. Or stir-fry tuna with Moroccan spices, onion, beansprouts, red and green peppers, mushrooms, sweetcorn and sliced chestnuts with a little olive oil and crème fraîche to make it more creamy.
Dinner is baked white fish with chopped chilli, sliced ginger, spring onions and sesame seeds on a bed of homemade ratatouille. Or roast chicken, baked in garlic and onions with roasted vegetables.
I snack on ham and carrots and drink fizzy water.
My top three vices would be a glass of white wine, bacon and tomato sandwich or an Indian takeaway which I have every six weeks.

Clare is part of fitness DVD Get Slim With The Stars,?9.99, recently released by Universal Pictures.

Normally my heart sinks when I read about yet another celeb producing a fitness DVD and diet plan, but Clare’s menu is very different and incorporates great diet advice from Martin MacDonald, a graduate of the world-renowned sports and science Loughborough University.
Her breakfast choices are both good starts to the day, but what on earth is wrong with whole eggs? The yolks contain most of the nutrients and even the ‘diet’ establishment now say they should be rehabilitated into your diet.
Clare’s dinner meals are both first-rate combinations of protein, good fats and the best sort of carbohydrates. The second choice of chicken, baked in garlic and onions and a roasted mix of vegetables leaves me waiting for an invitation to dinner – in fact I might just turn up of an evening!
Water is Clare’s favourite non-alcoholic drink, but she prefers it fizzy and that’s okay except that the artificial sparkling waters can be acidic and cause bloating. The naturally sparkling Badoit from France is the best.
Snacking on carrots is fine, but I hope that the ham she refers to is lean and preferably organic as the fat in naturally-reared animals is much healthier and it would be free from most of the chemical additives in commercial meat products.
My only concern is which idiot persuaded her that a weekly glass of white wine, the occasional bacon butty for breakfast and a family Indian takeaway a few times a year could possibly be a sin?