Strategies for permanent fat loss to keep the weight off....
Today's Post: Tuesday, 3-8-2011
Yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle had an article suggesting that lifestyle upgrades that move people away from fattening snacks, commercial packaged desserts, most fast food, and soft drinks and replacing them with real food is becoming the mainstream recommendation for fat loss and weight loss.
Their article was titled, Forget Calories, focus on nutrition.”
In it, they note that Weight Watchers has upgraded their points system such that it rewards people who replace junky and sugary foods with fruits and vegetables IN ADDITION to cutting back on total food intake. Too often before, people who were still eating fattening foods but just less of them, were getting lower point totals. So this is a significant improvement to Weight Watchers program.
This is a real improvement to the Weight Watchers program for two reasons. Its clients will be in better health and the fat and weight they lose is far more likely to stay off.
In the article, Heather Schwartz, a dietician at Stanford Hospital said that if people only reduce calories, they do lose weight but they almost always gain it back.
If you temporarily cut calories only, when you stop you regain the weight.
But if you eat less foods and drink no drinks that directly make you fat and replace them with foods high in nutrients and fiber and you maintain that as a lifestyle upgrade, you get a far different result.
Not only do foods such as broccoli and blueberries and lentils boost your blood sugar less and directly make you fat less than stuff like white bread and fast food French fries, they also have fewer calories.
The huge difference is that making this upgrade in your eating avoids making you hungrier at the same time it cuts calories.
That makes it sustainable. So, the fat and weight you lose with the lifestyle upgrade is just gone. It will not return.
Conversely, if you still eat the fattening, high glycemic foods but less of them, you will feel much hungrier from the effect of the blood sugar surges even in the beginning of cutting back on calories.
Then, after a while the every day cut-back of more calories and often of protein as well, triggers your body’s famine response.
Your energy levels go down to ensure your fat stores last until the famine is over. You stop losing fat even at the lower calorie level. And, you get MUCH hungrier and for more fattening foods too!
That ensures your fat and weight loss will be temporary. It kept the people we are descended from alive in very severe famines
So, the famine response has its good points. It’s a survival fail safe built into us.
But NOT if you want to lose excess fat and keep it off.
To succeed, you must cut calories or burn more without triggering this fail safe.
I. So, cut back on calories a bit by upgrading what you eat and drink.
1. Have 2 or 3 treat foods a month instead of a day.
2. Completely stop eating and drinking things that make you fat.
Eliminate foods that contain high fructose corn syrup some of which was tested recently as containing mercury and which also makes you fatter than real sugar.
Eliminate all soft drinks.
The regular kind has high fructose corn syrup and even if it has sugar, when you drink them you add calories WITHOUT GETTING LESS HUNGRY. Then the blood sugar crash later makes you hungrier. That’s the perfect storm to guarantee you get and stay fat!
Surprisingly, diet soft drinks also make and keep people fat and harm your health too. So eliminate those. (See our post on Tuesday, 3-1 last week.)
Virtually eliminate foods made with refined grains. Eat fewer grains at all and to the extent you possibly can, only eat foods that are 100 % whole grain when you do. Refined grains are higher glycemic than sugar and have no fiber. Also note that white rice is a refined grain too.
Also, if you eat grains, be sure to exercise every week on most days and take chromium polynicotinate to help ensure your body can process them.
3. EAT MORE of nonstarchy vegetables and lower glycemic fruit.
Many people eat no vegetables at all if you don’t give them credit for French fries!
Eat some raw vegetables, eat some salads, eat some cooked vegetables, or drink vegetable juice. Twice a day is better than none. And five times a day is better than two.
But increase gradually so your digestion can acclimate to the increased fiber.
Add one more a week. Find the ones that you like or at least can tolerate occasionally. The goal is not to try them as a temporary fix but to find a way to eat them every week. So, if you hate a kind of vegetable after giving it a good try, try a different kind or make the original one more palatable.
For example, raw broccoli florets are extremely effective at preventing cancer. And, they are high in carotenes as well.
But, if you hate raw broccoli florets, raw cauliflower florets also are extremely effective at preventing cancer too. So eat those instead. They have a MUCH milder flavor and are a bit crunchier.
Or trying cooked broccoli with extra virgin olive oil and spices you like to get the fiber and carotenes. Or use a cheese sauce from cheddar cheese from cows fed only grass with the cooked broccoli.
Blueberries and other berries are lower glycemic than ripe bananas. So eat more berries than higher glycemic ones such as bananas.
4. Health OK protein foods and oils also cut back on hunger and allow you to keep losing fat.
Some foods are both.
Nuts if you aren’t allergic to them that are raw or dry roasted have both health OK fats and protein plus they have fiber. They turn off hunger quite well as a result.
Beans and lentils are lower glycemic than even whole grains and have abundant fiber in addition to their protein.
Wild caught fish and seafood from unpolluted waters that are not high in mercury also have health OK protein and health supporting oils.
Meat from animals fed only grass and dairy products from cattle fed only grass are high in protein and their fat is almost OK in moderation.
Some eggs and occasional meat or poultry with as much fat removed as possible and nonfat and very lowfat dairy from grain fed animals is OK -- but only in moderation. Their fat is more harmful and more fattening due to the way they are fed.
Abundant protein intake turns down your hunger. Even better, it tends to prevent the famine response when you eat that way!
II. Always eat breakfast! People who do get more calories and nutrition than people who don’t -- and without gaining fat! So, they get to eat more and still can lose excess fat and keep it off.
This is true for everyone. But it is about triple strength in women for some reason. So while it is very useful for men, it is virtually imperative for women who want to lose fat and keep it off.
III. Exercise is one of the most important keys to losing fat and keeping it off.
The reason is very much the same as for eating breakfast. People who exercise can eat more and still lose fat and keep it off.
They burn more calories from the exercise, from the after exercise boost of metabolism after vigorous exercise, and gain muscle that also burns more calories.
Exercise also has multiple and massive health benefits. And people who exercise have higher self esteem. This is even true for people just getting into it,
Do some moderate exercise several times a week if you possibly can. Walking, gardening, tai chi and others all work. More is better up to an hour a day. But, even 15 minutes twice a week is better than none.
Do both strength training and interval cardio every week. These burn extra calories after you are done with each session and help build muscle and by doing both you also minimize blood sugar surges and excess sugar and insulin in your blood.
Simply put, they are a direct force to keep excess fat off of your body.
And, even 10 minutes three times a week of interval cardio and 20 minutes twice a week of strength training is effective though more is better.
Doing those first thing in the morning at home works well for almost everyone.
And, for some people, doing them in groups fewer times a week but with the extra social support is important. This is often true for people just getting into exercise. And, it’s often true for women. (That’s why CURVES is a good resource for many women as they provide that service.)
IV. Keep careful track of the key things.
Keep records of your exercise each week. People who do are dramatically more successful in continuing to exercise. So they are also more successful in losing fat and keeping it off.
Keep track of what you find are the key things to monitor in what you eat and drink.
Routinely eating health OK, nonfattening foods and virtually only such foods is often far easier than keeping track of every single thing you eat and is as effective.
But for some things -- that can differ from person to person, keeping track every day will be important. For me, that’s alcoholic drinks. If it was neither bad for me nor fattening, I’d be happy to drink two to four drinks most days. But drinking more than two is harmful in many ways and, for me, averaging more than 1.5 drinks a day over each week is fattening. So I keep a log and enter how many drinks I had that day every day and total it once a week.
Weigh yourself and measure your waist and hips at least once a month and keep a record.
That way when you make an extra effort and it works, you get the positive feedback.
And, when you do a bit too little, you see the results which helps provide the feedback you need to correct course and/or do something extra to compensate in the next month.
(I’ve been posting once a month on my own progress to model both the way I handle progress and how I handle bad months. Sometimes I also include information new to me that you might also find helpful.)
Today's Post: Tuesday, 3-8-2011
Yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle had an article suggesting that lifestyle upgrades that move people away from fattening snacks, commercial packaged desserts, most fast food, and soft drinks and replacing them with real food is becoming the mainstream recommendation for fat loss and weight loss.
Their article was titled, Forget Calories, focus on nutrition.”
In it, they note that Weight Watchers has upgraded their points system such that it rewards people who replace junky and sugary foods with fruits and vegetables IN ADDITION to cutting back on total food intake. Too often before, people who were still eating fattening foods but just less of them, were getting lower point totals. So this is a significant improvement to Weight Watchers program.
This is a real improvement to the Weight Watchers program for two reasons. Its clients will be in better health and the fat and weight they lose is far more likely to stay off.
In the article, Heather Schwartz, a dietician at Stanford Hospital said that if people only reduce calories, they do lose weight but they almost always gain it back.
If you temporarily cut calories only, when you stop you regain the weight.
But if you eat less foods and drink no drinks that directly make you fat and replace them with foods high in nutrients and fiber and you maintain that as a lifestyle upgrade, you get a far different result.
Not only do foods such as broccoli and blueberries and lentils boost your blood sugar less and directly make you fat less than stuff like white bread and fast food French fries, they also have fewer calories.
The huge difference is that making this upgrade in your eating avoids making you hungrier at the same time it cuts calories.
That makes it sustainable. So, the fat and weight you lose with the lifestyle upgrade is just gone. It will not return.
Conversely, if you still eat the fattening, high glycemic foods but less of them, you will feel much hungrier from the effect of the blood sugar surges even in the beginning of cutting back on calories.
Then, after a while the every day cut-back of more calories and often of protein as well, triggers your body’s famine response.
Your energy levels go down to ensure your fat stores last until the famine is over. You stop losing fat even at the lower calorie level. And, you get MUCH hungrier and for more fattening foods too!
That ensures your fat and weight loss will be temporary. It kept the people we are descended from alive in very severe famines
So, the famine response has its good points. It’s a survival fail safe built into us.
But NOT if you want to lose excess fat and keep it off.
To succeed, you must cut calories or burn more without triggering this fail safe.
I. So, cut back on calories a bit by upgrading what you eat and drink.
1. Have 2 or 3 treat foods a month instead of a day.
2. Completely stop eating and drinking things that make you fat.
Eliminate foods that contain high fructose corn syrup some of which was tested recently as containing mercury and which also makes you fatter than real sugar.
Eliminate all soft drinks.
The regular kind has high fructose corn syrup and even if it has sugar, when you drink them you add calories WITHOUT GETTING LESS HUNGRY. Then the blood sugar crash later makes you hungrier. That’s the perfect storm to guarantee you get and stay fat!
Surprisingly, diet soft drinks also make and keep people fat and harm your health too. So eliminate those. (See our post on Tuesday, 3-1 last week.)
Virtually eliminate foods made with refined grains. Eat fewer grains at all and to the extent you possibly can, only eat foods that are 100 % whole grain when you do. Refined grains are higher glycemic than sugar and have no fiber. Also note that white rice is a refined grain too.
Also, if you eat grains, be sure to exercise every week on most days and take chromium polynicotinate to help ensure your body can process them.
3. EAT MORE of nonstarchy vegetables and lower glycemic fruit.
Many people eat no vegetables at all if you don’t give them credit for French fries!
Eat some raw vegetables, eat some salads, eat some cooked vegetables, or drink vegetable juice. Twice a day is better than none. And five times a day is better than two.
But increase gradually so your digestion can acclimate to the increased fiber.
Add one more a week. Find the ones that you like or at least can tolerate occasionally. The goal is not to try them as a temporary fix but to find a way to eat them every week. So, if you hate a kind of vegetable after giving it a good try, try a different kind or make the original one more palatable.
For example, raw broccoli florets are extremely effective at preventing cancer. And, they are high in carotenes as well.
But, if you hate raw broccoli florets, raw cauliflower florets also are extremely effective at preventing cancer too. So eat those instead. They have a MUCH milder flavor and are a bit crunchier.
Or trying cooked broccoli with extra virgin olive oil and spices you like to get the fiber and carotenes. Or use a cheese sauce from cheddar cheese from cows fed only grass with the cooked broccoli.
Blueberries and other berries are lower glycemic than ripe bananas. So eat more berries than higher glycemic ones such as bananas.
4. Health OK protein foods and oils also cut back on hunger and allow you to keep losing fat.
Some foods are both.
Nuts if you aren’t allergic to them that are raw or dry roasted have both health OK fats and protein plus they have fiber. They turn off hunger quite well as a result.
Beans and lentils are lower glycemic than even whole grains and have abundant fiber in addition to their protein.
Wild caught fish and seafood from unpolluted waters that are not high in mercury also have health OK protein and health supporting oils.
Meat from animals fed only grass and dairy products from cattle fed only grass are high in protein and their fat is almost OK in moderation.
Some eggs and occasional meat or poultry with as much fat removed as possible and nonfat and very lowfat dairy from grain fed animals is OK -- but only in moderation. Their fat is more harmful and more fattening due to the way they are fed.
Abundant protein intake turns down your hunger. Even better, it tends to prevent the famine response when you eat that way!
II. Always eat breakfast! People who do get more calories and nutrition than people who don’t -- and without gaining fat! So, they get to eat more and still can lose excess fat and keep it off.
This is true for everyone. But it is about triple strength in women for some reason. So while it is very useful for men, it is virtually imperative for women who want to lose fat and keep it off.
III. Exercise is one of the most important keys to losing fat and keeping it off.
The reason is very much the same as for eating breakfast. People who exercise can eat more and still lose fat and keep it off.
They burn more calories from the exercise, from the after exercise boost of metabolism after vigorous exercise, and gain muscle that also burns more calories.
Exercise also has multiple and massive health benefits. And people who exercise have higher self esteem. This is even true for people just getting into it,
Do some moderate exercise several times a week if you possibly can. Walking, gardening, tai chi and others all work. More is better up to an hour a day. But, even 15 minutes twice a week is better than none.
Do both strength training and interval cardio every week. These burn extra calories after you are done with each session and help build muscle and by doing both you also minimize blood sugar surges and excess sugar and insulin in your blood.
Simply put, they are a direct force to keep excess fat off of your body.
And, even 10 minutes three times a week of interval cardio and 20 minutes twice a week of strength training is effective though more is better.
Doing those first thing in the morning at home works well for almost everyone.
And, for some people, doing them in groups fewer times a week but with the extra social support is important. This is often true for people just getting into exercise. And, it’s often true for women. (That’s why CURVES is a good resource for many women as they provide that service.)
IV. Keep careful track of the key things.
Keep records of your exercise each week. People who do are dramatically more successful in continuing to exercise. So they are also more successful in losing fat and keeping it off.
Keep track of what you find are the key things to monitor in what you eat and drink.
Routinely eating health OK, nonfattening foods and virtually only such foods is often far easier than keeping track of every single thing you eat and is as effective.
But for some things -- that can differ from person to person, keeping track every day will be important. For me, that’s alcoholic drinks. If it was neither bad for me nor fattening, I’d be happy to drink two to four drinks most days. But drinking more than two is harmful in many ways and, for me, averaging more than 1.5 drinks a day over each week is fattening. So I keep a log and enter how many drinks I had that day every day and total it once a week.
Weigh yourself and measure your waist and hips at least once a month and keep a record.
That way when you make an extra effort and it works, you get the positive feedback.
And, when you do a bit too little, you see the results which helps provide the feedback you need to correct course and/or do something extra to compensate in the next month.
(I’ve been posting once a month on my own progress to model both the way I handle progress and how I handle bad months. Sometimes I also include information new to me that you might also find helpful.)
Labels: effective fat loss; permanent fat loss, effective weight loss methods, Strategies for permanent fat loss to keep the weight off, why lifestyle ugrades to lose weight is going mainstream
posted by David at 2:02 PM
2 Comments:
Thanks for the great ideas. I think they will go very well with the program I'm using through http://www.reallifeforhealth.com. I don't know if you're looking for other sites that really do a good job with weight loss, or if you will consider this stepping on toes. If I'm stepping on toes, sorry, you can just delete the comment, but if you're open to suggestions- my wife and I are really happy with the program we're using through Real Life Health. Have you heard of them? Their system is really easy to use and it does everything. They have 1000's of different recipes to choose from and they help you build a fitness and nutrition plan that suits your goals. Their exercises are all made by a certified personal trainer and come with printable workout cards and details of how the exercises are done. And for the nutrition part they even send you printable daily meal plans and menus, as well as printable daily or weekly grocery lists, which are broken down by the area of the grocery store or supermarket. My wife likes that all the recipes contain 12 ingredients or less, so they are easy enough for even me to cook. I like that there's no fad diets, pills, or required supplements. Again, if I'm not stepping on any toes, I suggest you check them out. They offer a free trial anyway, so there's harm in trying.
Adam's comment is on a system that is quite close to the strategies in this post. They focus on effective exercises and eating real food.
The bad news is that the site is a bit hard to navigate and fails to disclose much about what they really want to sign you up for. It's unclear, for example, under the metabolic tag if they also sell a fat loss supplement or not.
But the good news is that the exercise advice I found under the health articles link about jumping rope was decent and the information on interval training was excellent.
So,their site and system may be very good for someone who needs specifics on getting started with exercises and eating healthier foods. (Not everyone has cooking experience and already has an exercise background.)
So if that kind of starter advice and info would help you get started, check it out.
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