Food is our bodies fuel. It's as simple as that. What you put in, you get out. If you run a diesel engine on sunflower oil, the performance of that engine will degrade. Sure, it will still perform but to a lesser degree as the quality of the fuel is compromised. Our bodies are the same, if you don't eat the right nutrients, minerals and strike the delicate balance between fats, proteins and carbohydrate, you will get less out of your body. It will become sluggish and less productive at converting what it needs to energy. Surplus is stored as fat, we know the score.
I am deliberately not going to get too caught up in the actual science behind diet. For one, I don't feel I am qualified to offer a fully accurate opinion and I can only speak from my own experience. Of course and like anyone, I have my theories but I am not a nutritionalist so I would not want to post inaccuracies . Ideally I would like to study nutrition and even get my personal training qualification so I can assist others in losing weight. Then again, what I lack in qualifications I more than make up for in experience!
What I do know I have learned through my own trial and error, I am equipped with pertinent facts and I do have a sound knowledge about the main principles of weight loss. Bottom line is that we are all different, what works for one person might not for another. I aim to offer up suggestions about what worked for me, I won't force my opinion or insist that how I have done it is definitively how it is done.
Crazy diets
Hands up anyone who has been on a diet? Mine is raised albeit virtually. Whether it be the Atkins, the cabbage soup diet, celebrity slimmer diet, South Beach diet, GI, subway (really?!) diet, they all have their pitfalls. The diet industry is massive, it is estimated that by 2014, the global industry will be worth $355.7 billion (that is £227 billion). That is a lot of revenue right there. Losing weight is big money to companies pushing their weight loss products and aids. I think they are targeting some very vulnerable people, people desperate to change their health and their lifestyles and people who are willing to try anything to achieve that goal. Dieting, long term, is unrealistic. Don't get me wrong, programmes like Weight Watchers and Rosemary Conley do work in the short term but can you spend the rest of your life totting up points for everything you put in your mouth?
Lighter pocket...erm...I mean Lighter Life diet
Dieting to me suggests an unrealistic eating pattern that is not sustainable. As an experiment whilst I was losing weight, I heard about the Lighter Life diet. I am not sure if you are familiar with this but the lighter life plan essentially re trains you to eat. The initial stages require you to come off solid food almost in it's entirety, living off pre prepared shakes and soups that allegedly have the right balance of nutrients and minerals your body needs. This strict programme runs a period of months, in which time you attend group counselling sessions to address eating habits and why you gained weight but it's zero by mouth in terms of most solid food. Some elements of this I like, the counselling sessions give you the opportunity to discuss your weight concerns in a 'safe' environment and with people who truly understand. But that is where my like of this ends .
The cost of the meal replacements is steep, the theory behind it is flawed in my opinion. Stopping eating altogether is not healthy and can only result in a very confused metabolism and body. The reintroduction of food after the mostly liquid diet is where the re training starts. You can re train someone to eat but people with historical weight gain issues are more likely to fall off the wagon and revert to bad habits. After several weeks of food deprivation, how many of us would fancy a massive gorge? The body is designed to process and digest solid food.
I popped along to an initial consultation with a lighter life representative, curiosity got the better of me. I had absolutely no intention of starting the plan, I was more interested in the thinking behind it. There have been many success stories, I cannot say it does not work but the deprivation of food really concerns me. I have also heard many people say that they do see results but that the weight does pile on when they start eating again. Perhaps these people have made poor food choices when they have reintroduced solids back into their diet? Either way you have to be bloody determined and focused to stick to a diet such as this.
Are diets alone a realistic, long term solution to weight loss?
What I want to get across is that we need to realise that the calculations are fairly straightforward. It is all about input vs output. The word diet has a certain stigma attached to it. Dieting alone can certainly help you lose weight and it does work in the short term but many dieters are caught in a vicious cycle of weight loss and regain. There is a statistic banded around that suggests that over 50% of dieters who lose weight gain back what they lost and more. I do not want to say this statistic is resolute but I can imagine it is not far off being accurate. Diets in the truest sense of the word become laborious, dull, frustrating and ultimately ineffective.
Reverting back to old habits is too tempting after weeks or months of deprivation. In my opinion and experience, long term weight loss is about a lifestyle overhaul. It is not just about focusing on the diet although that plays a significant part, it is also about moving your body and becoming more active. It's about moderation, thoughtful decisions and ensuring your body maintains balanced blood sugar levels, taking on enough fibre and not starving yourself of the essential vitamins and minerals your body requires.
Input vs output
So input vs output. Not wanting to insult anyone's intelligence, I wanted to elaborate on this. We take on calories and the body uses what it needs. if the calories are increased and surpass what the body requires then a surplus develops. This, coupled with a sedentary lifestyle is when you are at risk of weight gain. Simple right? For most people I think so.
Lets say, as a general rule, an 'average' person uses 1000 calories worth of energy each day, just to exist. That means just functioning and staying alive, no accounting for movement. Add some output into that (exercise) and you start to go into a calorie deficit, as long as you are consuming a healthy amount of calories on that day. Of course it depends what kind of movement we are referring to here. A 10 mile run may use in excess of 700 calories whereby a short quarter mile walk to the shop might use as little as 60. It is all dependent on weight, sex, base fitness levels, the kind of calories you are consuming.
The body is a machine, if you fuel it right then you will get the best out of it.
I will elaborate on this topic some more in future posts, where I will outline what has worked for me and the steps I took to address my poor and unstable eating habits.
Good evening to you out there (or afternoon for some!)
L x
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