Weight Loss Made Simple
If you are confused about the whole idea of weight loss, you are not the only one. Right now, if you do a quick search on amazon for “diet books” you will get over 100,000 options of which to choose from. I know what you are thinking: How the hell is am I going to get to the bottom of this stuff? Welcome to the diet industry where confusion and controversy sells. Of course, all this just pushes people from pillar to post and as a result of today, the world has never looked so obese, stressed,…
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Why Does A Healthy Weight Matter?
If you are lucky enough to live in a first-world country you have probably been the recipient of some of the best living standards, the highest minimum wage, the best technology, and the best education. Yet with all these advantages, as you look around the places you spend most of your time, namely your home, workplace, and your weekend hangouts – you’ll notice one of the distinct differences between person to person is their waistline. With all the advances in what the world has offered us nowadays, you would think it would be relatively easy for people…
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Nutrition Jargon Made Simple
It can be easy to get bogged down with technical terms used in the various circles of the nutrition industry. Below are some of the most common ones explained so that you have a basic understanding of what they mean when you hear people say them. Calories: Calories are used to describe how much energy is yielded from the food we eat. You will see these on the back of food labels or if you do a quick search for any food on doctor Google. Calorie Dense: When we say certain foods are calorie-dense, we mean they…
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Principles vs Methods of Weight Loss
Most people in at some time or another have tried to lose weight in their lifetime, or at least tried a “way of eating” for some benefit. The problem nowadays is of course that there seems to be a new way of eating proclaiming to being the missing link to weight loss invented every minute. For example, over the last ten years you have probably heard of the likes of the following diets more than once: Paleo Ketogenic Atkins Mediterranean Vegetarian Low carb Low fat High protein Intermittent fasting Vegan And likely many more have either popped…
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Weight Loss VS Fat Loss: The Difference
When it comes to losing weight many people often only focus on a single metric which is usually that number on the scales. Although this trend seems to be changing, with the ever-increasing information we have access to, People will still judge their progress solely on whether the number on scale decreases on a weekly or sometimes daily. Both approaches are not wise. Let us discuss why this is a bad strategy from the start then. Every single piece of tissue (muscle, fat brain, liver, bones, kidneys) and everything in-between weighs something. So, when you step on…
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Why Diets Fail
The number one variable that underpins the success of a diet is adherence. In other words, regardless of the diet that someone chooses to achieve their weight loss goal, being able to “stick to it” long term ultimately determines its success. Attempts typically result in early rapid weight loss followed by a plateau and progressive regain. Unfortunately. this scenario is all too common among dieters. In fact, over a 5-year period around 80% of people will regain the lost weight. Below some of the most common reason why: Mindset Mindset remains one of the biggest limiting factors…
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The Weight Loss Pyramid: Calorie Deficit, Protein, Everything Else.
Everything needs some fundamentals and weight loss is no different. Therefore, focusing on the tried and true. When I hear questions being asked like When I get asked questions like “are carbs bad?” or “will doing ab crunches get me ripped” it confirms that most are out of context with these questions and just have not got some fundamentals whereby if they understood would not need to be asking those questions. Therefore, I’ve created a simple weight loss pyramid. Each level of the pyramid is set up in order of decreasing importance from the bottom and subsequently…
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Diet Set Up In Three Steps
Step 1. Estimating Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) To estimate your BMR you can choose your pick of the predictive metabolic equations. None of them will get it spot on to the calorie as this would require you spending the night in an expensive lab known as a metabolic ward. However, predictive metabolic equations will get you in the ballpark usually within 10% give or take of your energy needs. The one that has been shown to have the most accuracy in the research when compared against the others is known as the Miffen St. Joer. Here…
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Flexible Dieting
An emerging approach that has come to fruition over the years has been one that allows for more flexibility when it comes to eating patterns. As such, flexible dieting has become an adopted strategy for many of those whose goal is weight loss. What is it and how does it work? Simply put, flexible dieting is picking periods of time during the week or for certain situations to consume fewer calories on certain days of the week in order to have more “flexibility” on days where you want to eat above your deficit or maintenance calories. This…
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The Dreaded Weight Loss Plateau
One of the biggest roadblocks on a weight loss journey is when your weight stalls. It can cause all sorts of psychological issues that often lead to people throwing in towel even if they have lost weight. However, it should be expected well in advance that weight loss plateaus are completely normal and can happen multiple times throughout your weight loss journey. There are several reasons for this with the main ones being how your metabolism adapts to changes in calorie intake and expenditure. In addition, by default, smaller bodies burn fewer calories so essentially losing any…
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Debunking Nutrition Claims
When it comes to nutrition claims it is best to have a filtering system where you can confidently conclude whether these facts are likely to be based on fact or fiction. The key to being a savvy investigator when you are trying to debunk a nutrition claim is to adopt an evidence-based mindset consistently asking is their strong evidence to support the claim. As the saying goes extraordinary claims will require extraordinary evidence. Here are some evidence-based filters to adopt to help you decipher nutrition claims: Filter 1: If It Sounds Too Good To Be True It…
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