Here is the truth about weight loss...Sssshhhh.... My clients don't want to hear this (after signing a long-term personal training contract), and my boss doesn't want me to say this (it might cut into the gym’s profits), but here it is... hope I don’t get fired. At least 70 percent of weight loss is dependent upon what we EAT! Scientific studies support this, as well as my own personal experience. And I tell this to all my clients because it is important for them to know the truth so that they can approach weight loss in a realistic manner.
That is not to say that exercise is not important... it plays an important role in enhancing our overall health, fitness and performance. Exercise improves cardiovascular health, increases bone density, enhances balance and flexibility, decreases risk of injury, provides rehabilitation, increases metabolism, improves strength and changes body appearance.
I personally love to exercise and would never consider life without it. A program combining exercise and diet is considered by doctors to be the best approach. But when it comes to weight loss, the truth is... You are what you eat!
With that said, I want to share what I consider to be my top six nuggets of advice that I regularly suggest to my clients. Most of which are probably not new to you if you have ever been on a quest to lose weight, but I consider these to have the most impact.
Changing your diet to lose weight is fine and dandy, but if that diet is unrealistic or too difficult to maintain, then you will generally end up regaining the pounds. What I suggest is an approach that helps people make healthy maintainable changes for life. And I highly suggest making changes one at a time... once you are used to the first change, then you can apply another. If we lose weight slow and steady (1 to 2 pounds per week which equals 3,500 to 7,000 deficit calories a week or 500 to 1,000 calories per day over the course of a week) it is much more likely to be kept off long-term.
1) Keep a Food Diary: This is the very first thing I ask my clients to do and they hate it, but it works! It doesn’t need to be detailed, so if my client balks at this task, I ask them to keep the diary for only a week or two so I can analyze their intake. After that they are asked to begin to make the changes suggested. If they don’t see results, I ask them to start a new diary.
You can begin by jotting down what, how much and when you eat something in a small notebook. First, this allows you to see what you are truly putting into your body... calories, fat, sugar, etc. It allows you to see patterns and determine what needs to be changed. Secondly, if you have to write it down, you often think twice before putting it your mouth.
There are free online calorie counters available like MyFoodDiary, Calorie Count or My-Calorie-Counter. These sites offer calorie counts for national brand foods and popular restaurant items. They also break down fat, carbohydrate and sugar intake. Additionally, you can record your daily exercise so you can determine your overall deficient or surplus of calories.
Even more convenient are the inexpensive cell phone applications (My-Calorie-Counter Mobile or LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker for iPhone or iTouch) that do the same thing. The bottom line: Expending more calories than you take in equals weight loss.
2) Eat five to six small meals a day: In our hectic lives it is easy to skip breakfast... grab lunch on the fly... arrive home starving, leading to the consumption of a huge dinner. I recommend three smaller meals and three snacks a day instead.
Never skip breakfast. When we start our day without any fuel, we are sabotaging our natural caloric burn. In order to keep our metabolism high, we must give it fuel. Start out with a protein rich, low fat breakfast like two scrambled egg whites, a piece of whole grain toast and fruit or non-fat yogurt mixed with fresh fruit and a small amount of whole grain cereal.
Here a few healthy snacks ideas:
Handful of nuts and fresh fruit
Unsweetened/unsalted trail mix
Cottage cheese - with fresh fruit or whole grain crackers
Fresh raw veggies or fruit
Apple with 2 tablespoons peanut butter
Cup of low-fat soup
Turkey or chicken lunchmeat, low-fat cheese and whole grain crackers.
Small spinach or Romaine salad (light on the dressing and croutons)
Whole grain pretzels
Low-fat microwave popcorn
Edamame
Beef jerky
Watch your portions and read labels, minimizing fat and sugar intake. The key is fueling your body all day, so that you can maintain a higher, healthier metabolism, which also makes it less likely that you will over eat or make an unhealthy food choice because you are famished.
3) Water, Water, Water: Most of us (yes... I am guilty too) do not drink enough water. The rule of thumb is eight 8-ounce glasses per day... just not all at once. More is necessary if you sweat a lot due to exercise or heat. The Mayo Clinic recommends “...if you drink enough fluid so that you rarely feel thirsty and produce 1.5 liters (6.3 cups) or more of colorless or slightly yellow urine a day, your fluid intake is probably adequate.”
Water helps with weight loss by flushing out the by-products of fat breakdown. Drinking a tall glass of ice cold water before meals increases our feeling of satiation or fullness, while increasing our caloric burn as our body works to warm up the water. In addition to the weight loss benefits, maintaining adequate water consumption relieves fatigue, reduces muscles cramps and headaches, helps with digestion and constipation, improves skin appearance and health, and reduces risk of cancer.
4) Replace with Fruits/Veggies and Lean Protein: What I find with most of my clients is that they are not eating enough of the good stuff. I recommend cutting out certain things... chips, doughnuts, burgers and fries and replacing them with fresh fruits and vegetables and lean protein. Now there are fruits and vegetables that contain more sugar or fat than others, but I try not to be a stickler on any of them. I recommend eight servings daily from a variety of sources with dark green, red, orange or yellow being the best choices. Fresh or frozen are usually the best nutritionally, avoiding canned or fried, though canned tomatoes are an exception.
The best lean protein sources include chicken or turkey breast, fish filets or shell fish, lean beef (top round), canned tuna (in water), egg whites, non-fat cottage cheese, soy (beans and tofu), and dried or canned beans or lentils.
Vegetables and fruits are generally low in calories, replacing high calorie foods with lower calories ones is the first step to weigh loss. Fruits and vegetables are high in fiber so they make us feel fuller than low fiber foods. In addition, the body expends more calories breaking down and converting fruits and vegetables to energy than it does on foods like fries or chips which get converted much quicker.
5) Replace with Whole Grains: This is one of the most difficult changes for my clients to make, which is why I recommend one change at a time. Eating whole grain bread isn’t too much of a stretch, but replacing pasta with whole wheat pasta or white for brown rice usually gets resistance. But these changes one at a time will contribute to weight loss and increased health over your lifetime. Whole grains, like vegetables, are high in fiber, so they quench hunger with less food, while demanding increased caloric expenditure to break down within the body.
6) Trim Sugar/Fat: Now notice that I didn’t write ‘cut’ sugar and fat, just trim back. I don’t think it is wise or necessary to remove all sugar and fat from our diets. We need to cheat once in a while, so that we don’t feel like we are being denied the total enjoyment of eating.
But take a look at this...a Small Whopper with Cheese/Coke Value Meal from Burger King has 1270 calories, 65g of fat, 67g of sugar and a Caramel Frappuccino with whipped cream from Starbucks has 490 calories, 16g of fat, 77g of sugar. Often times we aren’t even aware of how many calories we are consuming. Most restaurants have nutritional information available online... so look it up, ignorance is not bliss. As a rule, avoiding fast foods, fried foods, whole fat dairy products and surgery snacks will greatly reduce caloric intake. But if you just have to cheat, don’t blow your whole week. Cheat in small ways and restrict it to once a week.
Remember, I am not a doctor (like you ever thought I was...LOL) but these are my suggestions that have worked for myself and my clients who have chosen to use them. When you make changes, apply one change at a time. Find a weigh loss goal that is healthy for your body size that is attainable and sustainable, and take it slow. Anything too extreme most often results in failure.
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Good information.
ReplyDeleteWhat about time of day? I have read that eating too late at night is not helpful for weight loss/control... Is that valid?
ReplyDeleteGreat question... It is rumored that eating late at night will cause weight gain, but this isn't necessarily true. The fact is our metabolism does not shut down at night, which means we are still burning calories, though not as many as during the day.
ReplyDeleteOverall intake is the key verses WHEN we eat. As long as we burn more calories than we take in over a period of time--a day, week or month--we will lose weight... not hour by hour. Excess calories will be stored as fat no matter what time of day or night we eat. Look at the big picture for the day or week, not one evening, to determine if you are running on a caloric deficit (weight loss) or caloric surplus (weight gain).
There are things to consider though when we do eat at night. First, It is important to look at the amount we eat... If we are putting off dinner until it is late, then we may have the tendoncy to overeat because we are excessively hungry or have low blood sugar. Also consider what you are eating... are you choosing foods high in sugar, fat or calories in lue of healthy choices? Finally, watch how you eat late at night... are you sitting in front of the TV mindlessly shoveling straight from the bag without realizing how much you are consuming?
Eating late at night can also wreak havoc on our digestion and sleep patterns, so eating large portions right before bedtime is not recommended.
Personally I almost always eat within an hour of bedtime, but I stagger small meals/snacks throughout the day (six to seven) to maintain my energy levels and reduce ravenous hunger at any point. Eating a portion controlled healthy snack is fine if you are truly feeling hungry. I suggest something like low-fat microwave popcorn, yogurt or fruit.
Hope that helps!