The Essentials Of Weight Management

• And you are busy putting the correct habits in place to support you into the future. Most quick loss programmes are not possible to incorporate into an ongoing healthy regime.

• Maintaining a healthy weight on an ongoing basis.
  Once you have lost weight, and reached your ideal body mass, you’ll want to be able to keep it that way!
  This means adapting your lifestyle to match your particular requirements. You can then keep the excess weight off over the long term.
  • Healthy eating on a daily basis
  • Exercise programme

Improving your eating habits

There are some habits worth taking a look at. Perhaps they apply to you?

• Do you eat too fast?
  If you want to improve your digestion, get maximum nutrition from your food, and manage your weight, leisurely eating is the answer!

  If you eat too fast several things happen:

  • You can feel bloated and gassy because you actually swallow air.
  • Slower, proper chewing breaks the food down into smaller more easily digestible particles.
  • Effective signalling between your stomach and your brain doesn’t work so well. It actually takes about 20 minutes before the brain can even begin to register that you have eaten enough. If you eat too fast you very easily overshoot the mark and overeat befoe you even realise it.
  • You tend to make poor dietary choices. It becomes a habit to eat ‘on the run’ and so you reach for convenience foods, There seems to be no point in preparing a good, attractive tasty meal if no-one is actually going to sit down and enjoy it.
  • You waste a golden opportunity to be present with family members and friends!
• Do you ‘clean the plate’?
  If you were raised as I was eating everything on the plate was a rule. And we were reminded about not wasting, and being mindful of the starving kids who would give anything for some food.

  Fortunately, we were fed nutritious food, and not too much, so the effects were psychological rather than physical at that time. But to this day I cannot bear to waste food, and will sometimes eat more than I should so as to avoid it.

• Do you eat when you aren’t actually hungry? Eating out of habit can be a pitfall because we ignore our brain-gut signals or override them, and all the important checks and balances that our body have to help us maintain a healthy weight cannot operate as they should.
• Are you a meal skipper? Or even just a breakfast skipper?
  There are several reasons why skipping meals is not a great idea.
  • You get dips in your blood sugar levels. This interferes with your ability to think straight, as glucose ids the primary fuel for your brain! If your brain is on a go slow strike, so is your whole body.
  • Low blood sugar causes irritability, a sense of confusion and, of course fatigue – which is why you tend to get slumps at certain times of the day where you simply are’nt functioning well at all. The cause of this is an increase in the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, as a response to low blood sugar levels.
  • Your metabolic rate slows down when you skip meals habitually. This makes weight loss very difficult to achieve and to add insult to injury cause you to actually gain weight!
  • If skipping a meal makes you feel very hungry at some alter point you tend to overeat and crave unhealthy ‘comfort’ foods.

Improving what you eat

The most important aspect of a good diet in my view is about what you don’t eat (or at least eat in moderation).

So on the no-no list I would suggest the following:

• Processed foods
• Fast foods
• Fried foods
• Sugary foods
• Fizzy drinks

Then, as far as good foods to eat, there are so many recommendations that you will find around this topic, so I’ll list a few foods that are generally claimed to be good for a weight loss diet:

• Lean (and preferably organic) sources of protein such as eggs, skinless chicken and lean cuts of red meat – a good protein source and rich in nutrients, so it assists with appetite control
• Fish, especially the dark fleshed fish like salmon, tuna and mackerel. They provide protein and a good source of omega 3 fatty acids. Wild caught are way better than farmed fish, by the way.
• Fibre rich foods such as leafy greens, whole grains, legumes, popcorn!
• A wide variety of fruits and vegetables, including cruciferous vegetable – these include broccoli, kale, cabbage and cauliflower. Their special claim to fame is as a source of a number of cancer preventing phytonutrients.

Exercise or physical activity

If you move enough, you use up more calories than you consume and weight loss will follow!

But there are so many added benefits to be gained from exercising regularly that it’s worth doing so.

For example, you convert fat into muscle. So even if the scale does not show a big difference, your body composition improves, and your body shape benefits a whole lot.

It turns out that we were designed to be physically active! Our modern lifestyles have sabotaged us somewhat as we now lead mostly sedentary lives, unlike our forebears who were kept physically active in the process of surviving. So now we have to make intentional choices to make sure we get physical regularly.

There are lots of different types of exercise so the recommendation it to find something that really suits you and brings you pleasure to do. Then you will be able to make it part of your regular routine more easily. This is important as you have to remain active after you have reached your gola weight so as to maintain it.

Here are some options to consider:

• Cycling
• Jogging
• Walking and hiking
• Dancing
• Gardening
• Playing sport
• Yoga
• Going to the gym
• Swimming

And best of all, find a buddy with whom to ‘play’. You can then hold each other accountable and have fun in the process.

Contact me if you would like to chat further!

084 506 3643

andre.positiveoptions@gmail.com