Well we finished off yesterday with my experiences with getting overweight and then dropping it all. When you look at it, it is very simple to do, just needs a bit of planning if you are on the go all the time.
Eat the right amount of the right foods;
Protein – Fish and Meat, do not worry about Saturated fat too much, have it in moderation. It get’s a lot of bad press but we have been consuming it as long as man has eaten Meat and at least it is natural. If you are worried about how much Saturated fat you eat, Eat Chicken, Turkey and Sea Foods.
Eat plenty of fresh vegetables and fresh fruit (not tinned and fruit juice)
Cut out Sugar, refined and Starchy foods** (**unless you are an Athlete, where things change slightly)
Drink more water
Improve your sleeping habits
You don’t have to live a life of deprivation, if you get it right 80% of the time, you can have some sweet stuff now and again if you fancy it.
Diets
Most diets are pretty radical, I think you will agree, because of this they will normally be adhered to until you have achieved your target weight unfortunately once this has been achieved, most will quickly fall off the wagon, go back to old eating habits and put all the weight back on again, and then if they can take it, have to start all over again. Guess what, this is the idea, especially if you are following certain popular big name diets. They want your money....Period! So if you are a great success and lose loads of weight, fantastic! You will tell all your friends, and some of them will go on it as well (more revenue for the company) you may even sign up for one of their courses (More revenue for the company) then work for them (more revenue for the company) and even spend all your food money on their products.(Even more revenue for the company) then eventually put your weight back on, and sign up to their diet again, or some other one, and start again (more revenue for the company) this is called YOYO dieting and it is only good for the Company, definitely not you.
One problem is that most of these diets are calorie controlled, they basically deprive you of the calories that you actually need. Yeh! You may get some nice tasting food, with their Healthy Option meals, but most of the products under these labels are just empty calories, filled with preservatives and chemicals that are definitely not good for you. To understand why these calorie controlled diets are the wrong way to go, we have to look at the Genetics we have inherited again. Yes, you’ve probably twigged. It all stems from our Ancestry. In ages past when food was a hard come by commodity, we became extremely efficient at storing fat, the reason for this was that our body recognised the fact that it may be a while before it got food again, so in basic terms it would store a bit away as fat, so it had something to live on when times got lean. Unfortunately this efficiency has stayed with us, so when you are on a calorie controlled diet, your body goes into the same mode. So what happens is the body will start to feed off its own muscle. Your muscle mass will go down, your metabolism slows down, you store more fat. Your weight goes down because of the loss of muscle mass not because you have lost all your fat mass. So even though you may be looking thinner, your fat mass can still be quite high. This is another drawback with gauging your success on the scales alone. Scales give you a false picture of what is happening to you, unless backed up by your body fat measurement as well. Besides, why do you have to get on the scales, when all you really need to do is look in a mirror or try your old clothes on?
Another word of caution is about using BMI. (Body Mass Index) BMI can be well out, especially if you strength train and increase your lean muscle mass, so be aware of this.
So my advice is stay off weird and wonderful diets that cost you money to join the club to get weighed in, to reach a target weight and buy the so called Healthy option meal choices, it is a con!! Health products and such like as I have said, are filled with preservatives (how else could they last so long), flavouring, Trans fats (Hydrogenated fat) which are chemically changed, and if not sugar (the low fat alternative) something that acts like sugar, such as Aspartame.
Why on earth would anyone want to fill their body with all that crap, (and I was guilty too, until doing some research and learning) when you have all the natural products to do the job in less time and more efficiently......It beats me!
To finish off, I want to highlight Sugar, and how it affects you.
Remember in part A of this article I mentioned that the Northern Hemisphere was ignorant of the existence of sugar until the 14th Century. Even then, when imported to the Northern Hemisphere, Sugar was so expensive, that only the very rich could afford it. All this lead to the Sugar Cane being exported to the Caribbean by Christopher Columbus and a thriving industry was born. It was sought after so much, that after the Battle of Trafalgar, the British blockaded the French ports to stop them importing sugar. It was because of this, a Frenchman, experimented with different plants and came up with Sugar Beet. Irrelevant to this, but thought it was a good story.
Well we as Europeans and descendants thereof, we do not deal very well with high amounts of sugar.
Our ideal level of blood sugar is somewhere between 60 mg/dl (low) and 120 mg/dl (high) in this band, is where we can perform at our optimum throughout the day. However, when we take in sugar or refined foods, the high reading of 120 mg/dl is breached, it then causes an insulin Spike, and (this is great after training, because the insulin will send the blood sugar where we want it, into our muscles to be stored as Glycogen). But, most times we do not want the Insulin Spike, this causes a problem, we do not want too much Insulin in our system, so a Hormone called Glucagon is released driving the Insulin and Blood sugar below 60mg/dl, we then get what I call a Sugar low, which can leave you feeling lethargic, tired and very weak. To combat this, you will crave more sugar and so on it goes, a constant cycle of highs and lows throughout the day leaving you full of energy for some parts of the day, and tired in others.
The following foods will take you into that bad cycle.
- Cereals
- Rice
- Pasta
- Bread
- Sugar
- Sweets
- Chocolate
- Potatoes (not including sweet potato)
- Biscuits
- Cakes
- Refined healthy foods
- Fat free Foods (normally have sugar or sugar substitute in them to add to flavour)
So my suggestion is that you avoid them and go fresh to feel invigorated throughout the day.
When you see sugar free drinks, take a look at the nutrition contents. In many cases the sugar substitute is Aspartame. Aspartame can be found in over 4000 different products. There are many people that feel they are sensitive to Aspartame and it has been blamed for many different types of ailments. There is a large study ongoing at the moment being conducted by A Professor Steven Atkins of Hull University (USA) that started in 2010, the results are expected next year. I wouldn’t hold your breath on it finding negative effects though; a couple of previous studies in Europe have found no ill effects. The implications of it being shown to cause all these ailments are massive.
I look at it this way, it is chemically manufactured and as far as I am concerned it is better to stay away from it. Also food products that contain Aspartame may well have other ingredients that raise your Blood sugar levels sharply causing the same effect as having too much sugar.
I would like to remind you at this point I am not a Scientist and am merely expressing my opinion, through what has worked for me. I only know, that when I was getting it wrong, I felt crap and looked crap. Now I feel full of energy and am a lot happier with the way I look, so is the Wife.
In Summary, for this Part of Leading a Healthy Life.
- Good sleep 8-10 hrs a night
- Eat Breakfast
- Eat 3 regular meals per day (Protein, vegetables, fruit)
- Eat in moderation if you feel hungry
- Don’t eat within 2 hours of going to bed
- Drink more water
- Eat fresh foods where possible
- STAY AWAY FROM REFINED PRODUCTS
- STAY AWAY FROM TRANS FATS AND ADDITIVES
- TRY TO CUT OUT FAST AND CONVENIENCE FOODS
If you do all this, you will see a positive difference in your shape and your energy levels very quickly, and that’s without doing what we are going to cover next: TRAINING.
Have a good one!!!
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