Welcome to my blog, where you'll find short tips, quick stories, resource links and other useful stuff about weight loss for professionals. Its also where I rant and rave from time to time. I hope you find it useful!This month I've been collecting items and have just updated the snacks for you.
21 Dec 2004 - Don't let your metabolism fall at night
The promotional flyer in my mail box for Westfield Shopping Mall's 33 hour pre-Christmas retailer marathon states, “Don't sleep. Shop!” This is perhaps an effective strategy to prevent your metabolism falling at night when you lie down to sleep.
Shopping all night is a sure-fire metabolic booster, and far more effective than any of the over-the-counter thermogenic fat-burner pills you can buy. Seriously, your only alternative to experiencing this natural overnight drop in metabolic rate is never go to sleep. And you can't do that.
The next time your client expresses concern over food eaten at night turning into fat, share this story and help them to reduce the amount of calories they consume over a 24 hour period. It's average daily energy intake that influences body fat levels over days, weeks, months and years.
So, how can you help clients manage night-time eating? Firstly, I believe there are three main reasons why we can overeat at night:
- Forgetting to plan - Failure to plan to eat enough during the day often leaves you hungry at night and more likely to binge.
- Social pressure - When you are served a large plate of pasta for your evening meal by your loving partner or mother, it's sometimes difficult to say no to finishing the plate. Eating is a social activity, so you may have to negotiate your own portion sizes.
- Emotional escape - After a stressful day, food can offer soothing and relaxation, which can help make us feel better in the short term. However, we may really need alternative emotional rewards.
To eat less at night; focus on planning, healthy family eating habits and stress management. There are two guidelines for your evening meal:
- Catch up on your nutrition - For example, if you've gone short on your three serves of fruit during the day, have some fruit salad for dessert. Eat a little less of your main dish if needed.
- Eat enough to get the bed - Unless you are an athlete or exercising strenuously in bed, you won't need to carbo-load at night. Serve a smaller portion to take the edge of hunger and then get an early night. If you're asleep, you won't feel hungry until morning. Then you can have a good breakfast, say wholegrain cereal and low-fat milk. Eating late at night can curb hunger for breakfast and so the negative cycle continues.
If this sounds like you, make a plan in January to break the cycle!21 Dec 2004 - Princess Mary's Diet on a Plate
The December 6 issue of the Australian Woman's Day had the cover story about the Denmark Princess' “amazing new body” and the diet she may have followed to get it. The Perfect Portions diet allows you to eat a wide variety of foods, as long as you cut back on portion size.
And there's a great tool to help. It takes the thinking out of eating for weight loss by giving you a diet to follow and a set of portion controlled plates and cards to use for sizing up your portions. If you only fill your plates with what they are meant to hold, you'll consume around 5000kJ (1200 Cal) a day which will cause weight loss in most people. This figure is also the minimum energy intake recommended by most dietitians to ensure an adequate intake of vitamins and minerals.
As one client said to me, “I think all day. I don't want to have to think about what to eat when I come home.” Sounds like this tool may work for her.
21 Dec 2004 - My Pet Fat!
Another potentially useful tool? I'll let you be the judge. Check it out at www.MyPetFat.com.
21 Dec 2004 - Are we getting too big for elevators?
To fill in some time whilst going up in a lift the other day, I calculated the average weight of passengers based on the figures they gave on the lift information panel. The maximum capacity was 1360kgs or 20 people. That's an average of 68 kilos per person when full.
Whist this figure may have represented the average Australian woman, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics figures from 1995, more recent figures from the National Size and Shape Survey released in 2003, show the average female weighs around 74 kilos. This means the maximum lift capacity may be out of date and may need to be adjusted to18 females, or less if some men get in the lift too.
21 Dec 2004 - Oops! Dress size 16 labelled as a 10?
According to Daisy Veitch, Managing Director of SHARP Dummies, a manufacturer of mannequins, “Women genuinely do have trouble finding clothes that fit and find the current sizing inconsistent and annoying”.
In the media release about the National Size and Shape Survey mentioned above, Ms Veitch explains that the data used to make dummies is outdated…
“Originally a size 12 was meant to fit a 12 year old girl, size 16 a 16 year old and so on and women's sizes were labelled SW, W, L and XL etc. Gradually these sizes for the `mature' woman came to be replaced by sizes 18-24. As time has progressed manufacturers and retailers have simply been switching labels so that a garment that 30 years ago would have been labelled a size 16 is now labelled as usually size 10 or 12. This has created great confusion for shoppers.”
Tip: Dress for now. If you've got clothes in the closet that are too small, you may not need the added pressure of feeling you have to fit back into them. Although, you may feel there are financial cost implications, cleaning out your cupboard and giving small clothes to charity can be quite liberating. You can then buy new fashionable items now, or make a plan to reward yourself when you get smaller.
Read more about how dress sizes have changed at Sharp Dummies or download the results (103kb pdf) of the National Size and Shape Survey (2003).
21 Dec 2004 - Low-carb food boom
According to Euromonitor International quoted at FoodNavigator.com, a mere 3.8 percent of US new food and drink launches in 2003 were either “no or low-carb” products. In 2004, this jumped to 17.9% or 2585 new no or low-carb products. Whilst eating a low-carb diet isn't necessarily healthy or effective for long-term weight loss, this trend provides a wider range of food options with a broad range of macronutrient (fat, protein and carbohydrate) makeup.
For example, it's great to see salads on offer at fast food outlets. Last month a study revealed that those people who ate a big salad at lunch, ate less energy at lunch and less energy later in the day. So just like Seinfeld, go the big salad next time you drive through.
21 Dec 2004 - New name for a bulging waist
Here's the question I was asked in a lecture last week... “How can I reduce my muffin top?” The muffin top, I was told is the new name for “love handles” or those bits that hang over the sides. May the next diet book best-seller will be The Muffin Top Minimisation Plan?
21 Dec 2004 - Wise exercise advice
Being close to Christmas, it's the silly season, so here are some funnies to get you in the festive spirit. They came to me on email without a source, so if you were the original author or know of them, please own up so I can credit you. Why not share these with your clients to lighten things up.
- The only reason I would take up jogging is so I could hear heavy breathing again.
- I joined a health club last year, spent about 400 bucks. Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to show up.
- I have to exercise in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing.
- I don't exercise at all. If God had meant us to touch our toes, he would have put them further up our body.
- I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
- If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.
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