Chose to lose weight to a level that doesn't compromise your health nor quality of life.
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It surprises me the medical fraternity is still debating which is worse – a high fat diet or a high sugar diet? The question is irrelevant. What we know is a diet high in bad fats and/or refined sugar is bad for you. We also know we benefit from a certain amount of good fats and complex carbohydrates.
It is very easy to obtain the foods to provide a balanced diet. We can eat daily foods that provide protein from both meat and non-meat sources, fat which is large poly- or mono-unstaturated and unrefined sugars.
A piece of lean meat fried in olive oil and a variety of steamed vegetables – carrots, beans, broccoli and spinach. Whack on one or more herbs and you have taste sensation thats great for you.
I see two main challenges. Firstly, many of us currently rely on bad fats to give taste to our food. To address this we should move to healthy AND tasty meals. While low-glycemic diets have been developed for people with diabetes they are appropriate for everyone. They ensure we get a steady stream of ’fuel’ that avoids the fluctuations in blood sugar associated with foods high in refined sugar.
Secondly, whatever we eat we eat too much. This is a double whammy when the food we eat is high in fat and/or sugar. This is probably the harder challenge, both initially and in the longer term. We need to train ourselves to eat smaller meals and limit the in-between snacks. While there is no alternative to eating only what we are going to burn up during the day we can mitigate over-eating by changing what we eat. If you are going to have a blow out then eat food that is lower in fat and/or sugar. For example, fill up on salad greens rather than potatoes.
With attempts to change any ingrained behaviours it does take persistance. With something as central to our lives as eating most of us do not have the discipline to stick stick to a regime that isn’t pleasurable. So enjoy losing weight and stick with a healthy and tasty diet.
Keith
I have found to lose weight I need to focus on what I am eating. Exercise has not been that helpful in directly losing weight. For unfit people my suggestion is you can improve your overall health by losing weight through managing what you eat.
While low glycemic diets are generally only recommended for people with diabetes I believe they provide excellent eating principles for all of us.
However you should not avoid exercise for ever. Consider slowly increasing your activity levels. You do want to exercise regularly as long term health is dependent on being moderately fit. Putting my money where my mouth is you will note from my other blogs I keep myself fit through regular and varied exercise.
The importance of exercise has been reinforced by a study that compared dieting with dieting and exercise. While the weight loss was similar across both groups the group that exercised improved their blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin sensitivity more than the group that did not.
Reference: Enette Larson-Meyer, Ph.D., R.D., assistant professor, family and consumer science, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo.; Walt Thompson, Ph.D., professor, kinesiology, Georgia State University, Atlanta; January 2010, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
Eat well and consider what exercise you would enjoy doing and how you can motivate yourself to undertake this exercise regularly.
Follow my guidance in Enjoy Losing Weight if you are over-weight.
Regards, Keith
Christmas is the time of year when its hardest to lose weight. However there are a number of strategies you can use to maintain weight loss.
Plan for the majority of food eaten over Christmas to be both tasty and healthy. Restrict food high in fat and sugar to a limited number of big favourites.
Chose a way of cooking meat that results in lower fat on your plate. Select deserts that include and are garnished with fruit rather than cream.
Plan Christmas day so you eat the main meal and then do something that doesn’t involve continuing to eat - avoid eating on and on. And a little bit of exercise never hurt anybody!
The Christmas period can easily end in a session of overeating from Christmas through to New Year so be selective in when you are going to have ’special’ meals and stick to normal, tasty meals at other times to lose weight.
In other words, keep making food a focus of Christmas but in such a way you continue to lose weight.
Enjoy losing weight over Christmas
Keith
Exercise makes you hungry – not a new concept to most people I would have thought. However if you are seeking to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight you don’t want extra eating overwhelming the benefits of exercise in assisting to lose weight.
A small study of 58 overweight and obese adults found some lost weight through increased exercise while others appeared to have their exercise efforts counteracted by increased eating. For those who managed to lose weight exercise may have improved their body’s ability to signal when they were full. The researchers found these subjects were hungrier before breakfast but were not hungrier during the rest of the day.
The learning from those that didn’t lose weight is a general warning to all of who are managing our weight. We need to be aware of any tendancy to over eat after exercise and address this if it occurs.
It also reinforces the need to control our eating habits as the main contributor to losing weight.
To read the abstract go to American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Neil A King, Phillipa P Caudwell, Mark Hopkins, James R Stubbs, Erik Naslund, and John E Blundell
Dual-process action of exercise on appetite control: increase in orexigenic drive but improvement in meal-induced satiety
Am. J. Clinical Nutrition, Oct 2009; 90: 921 – 927.
regards, Keith
Training for the Three Bridges Half Marathon is in full swing with a two hour run undertaken today. For someone who was not fit six months ago this is great progress. It has been most helpful to have lost weight prior to starting the training. By losing weight previously I am not causing extra stress to my joints etc with the raised level of activity.
While my runs are typically between one and two hours I wonder what the minimum level of activity is to keep fit? I wonder where the recommendation of a minimum of half an hour of moderate exercise orginally came from. Has it been actually tested? So many studies are based on this level of activity but why is this standard being used?
So get off the couch and get moving. Any exercise is better than none.
Keith
Modern life sees us rushing here and there (and back again). Lots to be done. No time to relax. We eat fast food and we tend to eat food fast.
However, to help us in our endeavours to lose weight it appears we should slow down and eat slowly. A brief video points to the value of eating slowly. By eating food over a longer period there is time for the body to tell the brain it is full. To watch the video click on the link to the HealthDay website
HealthDay video
So, to lose weight, eat food more slowly (and perhaps more slow food as well)
Keith
The pressure is on. The Three Bridges Half Marathon in Wanganui is three weeks away. A 1.5 hour hill run yesterday indicates the training is on track.
I am aiming for 1 hour 45 minutes. To a runner this will seem a very modest target however the point is I’m not an athelete. If I can achieve this so can most people.
I have got to this point through two steps. Firstly I lost over 25 kgs. This rekindled an interest in getting and keeping fit. Since then I have been jogging and, in October, ran a half marathon to test my fitness. With little idea how well I would go I finished in 1 hour 50 minutes. To maintain this fitness I then selected completing the Three Bridges run as the next goal. Having a relatively short term goal helps keep the interes7t and motivation up.
I see a large number of overweight people out training – mainly walking, running and cycling. However from my experience exercise alone wont get your weight down. I found to lose weight I first needed to change my eating habits. In addition, once you have achieved the weight loss you don’t put the same stress on your body, particularly joints, when you are out training.
Go for a run, eat an apple. And, if you are looking for a goal consider participating in an event like The Three Bridges Marathon, Half Marathon or Walk.
cheers, Keith
We are bringing up a generation that will need to lose weight.
As parents we are concerned about road safety and stranger danger. However we seem to be less vigilant about a widespread danger to our kids. We appear to be compromising their health at an increasingly younger age. While historically many adults have drifted into obesity in middle age we are raising a generation that will enter adulthood obese. Not the proudest of legacies!
An investigation of children’s meals at fast food outlets found only 3% met the standards set by the National School Lunch Program. The average energy density of the meals that failed the standards was 2.3 calories per gram compared with 1.5 in the standards. Of the meals that failed 65% had too much fat while the levels of a number of key nutrients were inadequate.
reference: J.M. Mendoza, “Kids, Fast Food, & Obesity: Menu Reviews From a Houston Pediatrician” Agricultural Research, October 2009
To read the article click on: article
Lets make sure our kids eat well and enter adulthood healthy. It will then be up to them to determine their future health and hopefully they will follow the guidance provided to them in their formative years.
regards, Keith
Researchers have found adequate sleep levels were a factor in workers making healthy food choices.
reference: O.M Buxton et al, Vol 99, No. S3, American Journal of Public Health, November 2009,
While the research has relevance for workplace practices we can take the finding on board personally. If we are not sleeping properly we are more likely to make poorer choices about what we eat.
Sleep well, Keith
While you may have a natural tendancy to put on fat easily you can lose weight and control weight loss whatever genes you have.
A review of an article in the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Nutrition reported on research regarding a possible link between genes and the propensity to develop belly fat. It was found the presence of various genetic factors increased the ease at which individuals put on body fat. It was noted some participants were consuming excessive saturated fat.
While there were genetic links to obesity there was not a link between genetic traits and the risk of developing metabolic syndrome. (See blog on metabolic syndrome)
Probably the most interesting comment from the study is – “while we may have a genetic disposition to obesity we are largely in control of our weight.”
According to Health Day the orginal source can be found in Journal of Nutrition, November 2009.
To source the article click on: Health Day review of article
regards, Keith
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