The office friendly diet

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'The fantastic thing about shop-bought sandwiches, soups and meals is that they're automatically portion-controlled and you know precisely how many calories they contain,' says Zest nutritionist Rebecca Amey. 'When combined with easy-to-make meals and healthy fruit, steamed veg, salads and low-calorie snacks, they're the perfect way to lose weight when you just don't have the time or the resources for complicated recipes.'

THE DIET RULES

• Every day choose one breakfast, lunch and dinner from the plan. If you have more time at the weekend, you can substitute your own choice of meal, as long as it doesn't exceed 300 calories for breakfast, 350 for lunch or 450 for dinner.
• Make sure you get two servings of dairy every day in meals and snacks to ensure you get enough calcium (milk on cereal counts as one serving, as does one pot of yogurt, 50g of light soft cheese or 30g hard cheese).
• Don't skip snacks. Eat two per day (totalling 300 calories), ideally one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon, to keep your blood sugar levels steady and stop you from cheating. Think a handful of nuts, a piece of fruit or healthy snack bars. If you have a night out planned, you can save them up for a few glasses of wine.
• Water and herbal teas are unlimited, as is normal tea or coffee with skimmed milk and no sugar. Your daily allowance includes 200ml skimmed milk (68 calories) for use in drinks.

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