Weight Loss
Weight loss - doing it healthily, and making it stick!
We consume a volume of food regardless of calories. Think more about what you are adding to your diet (legumes, pulses, fibre, vegetables), foods that are full of nutrients and keep you fuller for longer, instead of what you are cutting out (sugar, bad oils, sweets). Your diet will change to start to crave healthier foods quicker than you think. Swapping what you eat, not how much you eat = weight loss without volume reduction or nutrient deficiency.
Don’t just count calories, a calorie from a doughnut is not the same as a calorie from broccoli. If you simply reduce calorie intake, you will be hungry all the time. This is the hardest way to loose weight.
So what to ADD to your diet (try to hit these targets with at least 2/3 meals a day), increase intake of:
1. Fibre!!! breaks down into short chain fatty acids. These help stop leaky gut and secrete things that literally suppress hunger, and keep us full for longer.
2. Protein, have it with every meal, especially breakfast. This regulates blood sugar and keeps you fuller for longer. Also make sure a large proportion of this protein intake is plant based! Animal protein is higher in bad fat, salt (makes you thirsty/hungrier), antibiotics etc (increasing inflammation so adding to weight gain), and also contain very little fibre.
3. Complex + low Glycemic index foods, unrefined, brown - eg brown rice, quinoa etc. and let these carbs cool for 10 mins before you eat them (creating more resistant starch)
4. Soaked pulses/legumes - beans, lentils, chickpeas. These keep you full for longer (high fibre), are full of nutrients and have a very low glycemic index, especially if they are eaten for dinner they keep you more full when you wake up in the morning.
5. Adding lemon onto many foods lowers the glycemic index + often increases nutrient absorption
6. Healthy fats - (hummus, avocado, extra virgin olive oil). Consumption of sugar causes oxidative stress, healthy fats on the other hand have a ‘clean burn’ + fats in our stomach causes the release of a hormone that triggers satiety (feeling full)
7. Pre+probiotic foods (or take a probiotic supplement) our gut bacteria play a huge role in weight gain/loss with obese people showing different ratios of certain bacteria. Eat sauerkraut/kimchi, eat the rainbow, eat fibre. They have done studies where they took gut bacteria from lean people and implanted it into obese people (and visa versa) and they lost/gained weight, gut bacteria is that powerful.
8. Anti oxidants If you are overweight, you have excess inflammation in the body. antioxidants, phytonutrients, flavonoids - i.e. all the stuff in veggies and berries help decrease those levels of inflammation, making weight loss easier.
9. Water intake + Prioritise your elimination - i.e. bowel movements. If you are constipated its harder to loose weight, and instead you will get a build up of recycled hormones. Drink more water, eat more fibre (making you feel fuller too)
10. Eat organic where you can - this way you boost your nutrient intake from the same volume of food consumed. You will be healthier and feel fuller.
What to cut out:
1. All processed food, especially sugar, including white carbs like pasta and white bread. High sugar foods stimulate the dopamine reward system. if you eat them a lot, some of your dopamine sensors in the brain get turned off, so you need to eat more sugar to get the same reward/feeling…. this cycle causes overeating (and depression when you try to stop!)
2. Decrease fruit intake (cut out fruit juice completely). Fructose is the sugar in fruit. It is converted directly into liver fat. Fruit is healthy and packed full of antioxidants + fibre, but if weight loss if your goal or you have insulin resistance, favour vegetables over fruit and stick to a handful of berries a day max (super high anti oxidant levels, high fibre, plus huge cancer benefits) instead of eg mango (much more sugar!). I know there are a bunch of people in this group that live in the US where high fructose corn syrup is used in a lot of things (even bread). This causes fat accumulation in the liver and is a risk factor for diabetes, hypertension, accelerated ageing etc. Please check your food labels + avoid this.
3. Stop drinking alcohol. When you drink alcohol your body prioritises those calories to be burned first. i.e. if you drink and don’t exercise (dance/walk) after drinking, the calories consumed (1g alcohol = 7kcal) get turned directly into fat tissue. If you do exercise after drinking, the alcohol calories are burned before the food calories you have consumed.
4. Be nice to your liver - it controls how we store and use fat/glucose for energy, and if we abuse our livers it can result in excess fat accumulation (stop drugs, alcohol, smoking etc)
Lifestyle:
1. One of the MOST IMPORTANT: MOVE. YOUR. BODY!!! - exercise makes loosing weight much easier and healthier. Hiit training causes oxygen deprivation, after we finish working out our bodies have to work harder just to replenish the oxygen lost. This working harder actually keeps us burning fat for up to 2 days after the workout is finished. Just walking your 10,000 steps a day means you loose 500 calories per day, that’s 3500 calories a week just from walking!!
2. Intermittent fasting does work, for women don’t go over 10:14 (only eat during a 10 hour window), men can go 8:16. Start slow, and work your way up. DO NOT STARVE YOURSELF ON ONLY COFFEE. This causes increased cortisol levels (aka increased stress on the body)...
3. Decrease stress + get better sleep. If stressed, levels of the hormone cortisol go up, this causes a rise in blood sugar and in turn causes insulin levels to go up. Chronic stress = insulin resistance which results in weight gain (especially abdominal fat). Stress and sugar also cause increase in neuropeptide Y which is designed specifically to increase our appetite. Good sleep promotes melatonin production, one of our most powerful antioxidants which reduces oxidative stress and in turn makes loosing weight easier. Decrease stress/improve sleep via: diaphragmatic breathing which stimulates the vagus nerve, balance your blood sugar levels (as low blood sugar also causes cortisol to go up), drink adaptogenic herbal teas (camomile, ashwaganda), avoid stimulants (coffee, alcohol), take Epsom salt baths with lavender drops (epsom salts are 100% magnesium which gets absorbed into the body).
4. Chew well, eat mindfully, don’t overeat, stick to 3 meals/day only - try not to snack, keep track of your weight, be clear on portion sizes, food diaries help stop mindless eating