Everyone needs a friend!

Every person’s body is different; you may start quickly and settle down or start slowly and speed up! I know every individual is unique and that is why, as a Personal Wellness Coach, I work on giving my clients personal and private advice.

Group support can also be important as you can give and receive encouragement from others, as in our weekly Weight Loss Challenge groups or other slimming classes you may attend. Another option is to have a “Diet Buddy” who you share your goals, tips and experiences with.

As they say on the TV quiz show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” – phone a friend when you’re stuck and don’t know the answer!

As with any change of diet, the first few days will be the hardest, so a friendly, encouraging support will help you through it! After this time your appetite will decrease and it will get much easier plus you will start to feel all the benefits of good nutrition. If you chose your programme well and you stick to it, you should expect to lose weight safely and gain health, vitality and energy.

Beware the green-eyed monster!

I’ve had a few clients now who’ve experienced a problem with their friends as they’ve lost weight and started to feel good about themselves.

This ‘friendly’ sabotage can take many different forms from a genuine kind of concern “you’re starting to look a bit gaunt, don’t you think you should stop now?”(although you are still 2 stones/28lbs overweight!) to thin friends becoming jealous because you now wear the same or smaller clothes size as them and are no longer their “fat friend”!

As hurtful as this can be, just stick to your guns and keep going as only you know how much better you feel!

"Phone a friend" when you need support!

To summarise:

• Use a support system. Make sure you attend your weekly meeting, call your Personal Wellness Coach for advice or a friend, partner or relative who will listen positively to you and remind you of your reason why you want to lose weight.
• Become someone else’s support system.  Find a weight loss “buddy” – a friend or relative you can talk to who is also trying to lose weight. Providing support for them will also help keep you on track as you’ll want to set a good example!

Hooray! Back on track

Very pleased to report that my weight is going down again! I lost 0.9kg/2lbs last week so definitely back in the game again.

Not succumbing to the temptation of sweet desserts and chocolate has help me refocus and so has making sure I’m eating enough and am recording what I eat – so easy to forget those extra calories!!  More about this in a blog later this week.

The other factor that has made a real difference is making sure that I’m drinking enough water – always more of a challenge in the very cold weather and snow we’ve had this week.

I’m off the gym as I was very lucky to win a year’s gym membership in a competition right at the end of last year.  Have just got going as I am a very definite gym novice but starting to enjoy it now I’ve got the hang of how the machines work. I will need to be aware that as I build muscle it will weigh more than the fat it is replacing but I know the change in shape will help me look much better in my clothes.

What do you think?  Is it about weight loss for you or changing shape?  Think I’ll run a poll to find out!

I did watch UK “The Biggest Loser” last night when they were in Florida and am constantly amazed at how little some of the contestants are losing when they work out 4 times a day and, according to the introduction, are “on a strict calorie controlled diet”.  I do think they need more help and support with their eating habits.

Power of Protein!

It seems everywhere we look someone is promoting a new diet that praises the power of protein. But whether you want to lose, gain or maintain your current weight, the importance of protein goes far beyond physical appearance and muscle building.

According to Dr David Heber in the LA Shape Diet, “your Protein Factor is the amount of protein that you need to consume during the day to maintain a healthy lean body mass.” Normally you would need 1g of protein per 1-1.5kg of lean body mass.

• For women it’s usually between 80-100g
• For men 100-150g.

If you are not exercising you need the lower end of your specific protein factor and if you are, then it’s advisable to eat the middle of the range of your particular protein factor.  If you eat more protein than you use, you will store the excess as FAT!

Protein is an important component of every cell in the body. It is stored in muscles and organs and the body utilises it to build and repair tissues, as well as for the production of enzymes and hormones. Proteins also make it possible for blood to carry oxygen throughout the body.

A lack of protein can cause loss of muscle mass and decreased immunity, as well as weakening of the heart and respiratory system.

Benefits Of Increasing Your Protein Intake

• Protein is a hunger buster – helping you feel fuller for longer
• Protein has a gentle, steady effect on blood sugar
• You no longer ‘crave’ carbohydrates as sugar drop is not as significant
• Protein helps build muscle that keeps you younger longer
• It takes more energy to digest protein so you use more calories!

What Is Protein? 
Protein is the basic ‘building block’ of all living things. Our bodies are about 25% protein.  Protein is made up of 22 amino acids, 9 of which are essential. Your body needs them and cannot make them for itself – they have to be ingested. They are not stored and so a daily supply of all 9 is necessary.

There Are Two Types Of Protein: 

• Animal Proteins
• Plant Proteins

Animal proteins can come with a high percentage of saturated fat, e.g., a 6oz/150g steak contains 16g of saturated fat.  Fish and poultry are best sources of ‘lean’ (less saturated fat) protein.

You can obtain healthy sources of protein without high levels of saturated fat. For example, soybeans, nuts and whole grains provide protein without much saturated fat and offer plenty of healthful fibre and micronutrients as well.  The soybean is a complete protein, containing ALL 9 essential amino acids without ANY saturated fat!

If you’re looking for yet another great way to obtain healthy protein, vegetable sources of protein found in Herbalife’s Formula 1 is high quality and has lower calorie levels with virtually no added fat. Herbalife^® products personalise your daily protein intake to match your body’s needs.

Examples of healthy protein!

Three Weeks over – mustn’t yield to temptation!

Managed to maintain my weight loss this week, keep to my target and even lose just a bit which after something of a blowout weekend (well, Sunday really) was a great result! My 2kgs/5lbs a month target is now looking eminently sensible as it does allow me to occasionally indulge.

It was of course entirely my own fault as I had my brother and sister round for lunch and made a fairly evil dessert rather than a health fruit salad!  But that’s life and my weight loss regime does have to fit around all the normal things that I do.  There’s always going to be birthdays, anniversaries or special occasions and the key is to learn to cope with them.

If you do fall off the wagon or, as in my case this weekend, fall off your horse (yes, I actually managed to do that too – probably why the dessert was so tempting as comfort food!), in the words of the song “just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again”!

I’ve learnt not to let one bad meal become a bad day, then a bad couple of days, then a bad week and finally a bad month and give up.  I accept it as just that meal (or day if it’s that kind of occasion), don’t beat myself up over it and get right back into my routine the next day.

Now it’s the start of a new month and I have my target all set again and feel really positive about achieving it because I’ve learned the benefit of just sticking to that level.

After plateau period weight now on the way down again!

Muscle versus Fat!

I watched the UK Biggest Loser this week and found the weigh-in concerning as it isn’t very clearly explained why the contestants who appear to have worked so hard  lose very little weight.

My own theory, based on both my own experience and coaching my clients through their weight loss journey, is that it’s the muscle versus fat conundrum.

The Skinny on Fat & Our Body

Basically, fat is lighter than muscle but takes up more volume.  A poor “diet” leads to depletion of Lean Body Mass and increase in body fat so you have to reverse cycle by losing fat and maintaining and increasing lean muscle mass.

MRI of fat stored around the body

Why increase lean body mass (LBM)?

• Every 1lb/0.9kg of LBM burns 14 calories per day
• Every 1lb/0.9kg of fat burns only 2 calories per day
• Muscle occupies less space (smaller trouser or dress size)
• More muscle = more calorie burn
• Fat is unhealthy and undesirable, studies now show fat releases health damaging hormones into your body

Our bodies use the food we store in the following order:

1^st            Sugar

2^nd           Protein

Finally      Fat

So we need to keep our lean muscle mass healthy and growing – every 1lb/0.9kg  of muscle burning 14 calories – sounds like a great reason to ensure that we have the right amount of lean muscle mass to me!! By increasing our daily intake of good nutrition we get our bodies out of starvation/survival mode.

Help your body become a “lean mean fat burning machine”

In order to effectively burn fat, we must use it as a source of fuel. To do this in a healthy way, we need to decrease quick sugars and increase protein and good nutrients. This will keep the body working at optimum and help steady and increase metabolism.

So there are three quick ways to make your body a fat burner:

1. Eat enough of the right calories (good nutrition)

2. Eat enough protein

3. Starve your body of the ‘quick sugars’ found in starches and processed foods

TIP:  Don’t obsess with the scale. Instead, look at/focus on your inch/cm loss and how your clothes fit as what matters. What your measurements will tell you is how your resting metabolic rate and fat percentage are responding to your changing habits. You WILL ‘eventually’ lose ‘weight’ if you are burning body fat.

Two Weeks complete!!

Just a quick update…

As I said last week, the real challenge for me last week was to keep my focus on my original plan, sticking to my SMART goal of 5lbs/2kgs a month and not be distracted because I achieved that in my first week.

After years of dieting I do finally know myself and, with a couple of breakfast meetings and a really packed schedule for this week, making sure I didn’t fall off the wagon in week 2 was going to be tough.

I did keep feeling tempted to set myself a new goal but resisted and so have maintained my loss and have still lost 5lbs/2kgs this month.  In reality this means I didn’t lose any more weight this week but I’m not at all disappointed by this as I am still on track to achieve my goal for the month!

I can feel my body changing shape and know that muscle weighs more than fat so that this is very likely to be the reason why coupled with the fact that I’m drinking more water as I was quite dehydrated.

I will explain more about both muscle and water in my next couple of blogs and then let you know how week 3 went!

Setting Realistic Goals

I read several really great and inspiring books while I was away over the Christmas period.  They have really helped me look at the “baggage” I’ve been carrying around and get my head in the right place to deal with my current challenges in life.

They weren’t anything particularly to do with weight loss but were about setting clear goals and focusing on achieving them in every area of your life.

One particular book, Stop Talking Start Doing by Sháá Wasmund with Richard Newton and subtitled A Kick in the Pants in Six Parts, was originally intended for people thinking about setting up their own business.  As the authors say, “But it changed.  The impetus needed to start a business is the same as anyone teetering on the brink of anything…”.

I have my goal weight that I want to achieve this year, which as I’ve said in previous blogs is losing 2½ stone/16kgs (35lbs), but perhaps here “want” is the key word!  For those fans of Blackadder what we now need is a plan, though it doesn’t necessarily have to be cunning.

The first step in that plan has to be to restate my goal as “I plan to lose…” and then move swiftly on to the next step of chunking it down.

Again to quote Stop Talking Start Doing, “losing 2 pounds a month sounds far more focused than losing 2 stone in a year” which, of course, is what you’ll have achieved. But 2 pounds a month sounds too easy!  Where’s the sacrifice? The punishing exercise programme? The deprivation? The martyrdom to your weight loss cause?

We all want the quick fix in today’s fast moving, instant society but stop and think about how long took you to put on the extra weight in the first place.

My usual approach is that I have no particular monthly goal or plan but really want to lose 1 stone/14 pounds in a month or even my whole target! But this is just demotivational and not necessarily realistic or healthy. Instead of feeling good about whatever I lost, I would just feel depressed, a failure and want to chuck the whole thing in and give up!  Sounds familiar?

My own plan is now to lose 5lbs/2kgs a month which I feel really comfortable about and happy with.  When I achieve it, I will feel successful, really pleased with myself and motivated to do it again the next month.  And if I overachieve it, it will be absolutely brilliant and truly fantastic!!

Feel free to join me in planning and, of course, doing!

I’ll let you know how I get on.

New Year’s Resolutions – Getting Back on Track

Well, as most people do for New Year but I began in December, I started with great intentions to lose weight and did lose 2kgs (just over 4lbs) in 2 weeks but an extended break when we went away to Portugal for Christmas and New Year really called a halt to my progress.

I did manage not to gain any weight over Christmas and ate pretty healthily, sticking to my Herbalife^® maintenance routine of 1 shake a day and my suggestions in my blog.  I must confess that my reason for not losing any more weight was overindulgence in alcohol! The bottle of wine, shared with my husband, every evening and local lager-type beers definitely put a stop to any further weight loss.  I did increase my exercise level with long beach walks and horse riding in absolutely beautiful sunny weather with a friend who lives out there, which probably helped damage limitation!

Now I’m back in the UK and, along with millions of others around the world, have made my New Year’s resolution to make 2012 the year that I achieve my goal weight.  I still have my target set as losing 2½ stone/16kgs (35lbs) and get my BMI to under 25 and my body fat % to between 25-30%.

To keep me on track I’m monitoring and recording weekly my weight, BMI, body fat %, body muscle % and water levels with a hand held body monitor.  Body fat monitors can be quite cheaply purchased from local chemists or online now and, while not 100% accurate, will give you consistent information.  Knowing myself well, I will probably weigh myself most days as though everyone says you shouldn’t, I just can’t resist as I have to know, particularly after I’ve had a good day, whether what I’m doing is working.

Body fat % is an important measure as I want to know that I’m losing fat and not water or lean muscle.  People who look thin and lean often have a very high internal body fat level which is a real health risk. With the right level of protein, which I will definitely achieve using Herbalife^® shakes and products combined with a healthy main meal, this should not be a problem for me though.

I’m now two days in to my new regime and feeling better and my clothes are getting more comfortable so I know I’m on the right track!