Tag Archives: weight loss

7 questions to ask if you’re struggling with your weight

September 20, 2016 By in Get motivated Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Q1. What would weight loss make more possible?

It might be body satisfaction, better health or more happiness. It is different for everyone, so list whatever it would truly make possible for you.

Q2. What would achieving these things make more possible?

It might be more confidence, more energy, or even being a better parent. Again, list whatever it would make possible for you.

Q3. What would achieving these things make more possible?

And keep on asking this same question until it no longer makes sense, you can’t answer it after considered thought, or you start repeating what you’ve already said. The purpose here is to thoroughly explore the energy that is sitting behind your weight loss goal.

Q4. Now, of all the things you’ve written (body satisfaction, more energy, being a better parent, etc, etc.) which is the deal-breaker or deal-breakers?

Which one or ones pull on your heart, and make you feel that you cannot live without? Be selective here. Which is truly most important to you?

Q5. For this chosen item or items, brainstorm: how else could you achieve this, if weight loss wasn’t an option?

What are all the other ways you can improve your body satisfaction, get more energy or be a better parent, for example, if you couldn’t lose weight?

Q6. Out of all of these new strategies, which one jumps out at you?

What new strategy excites you and really helps you to achieve what you selected?

Q7. What action steps are required to achieve this newly chosen strategy?

Be specific here, and put a timeline in place stating when you will complete it.

Then start.

When you have the willingness to turn your struggles upside down, you’ll likely discover a greater sense of purpose, motivation and hope. 

As all of a sudden, you see more clearly what it is that you are actually struggling with.

[PS. i) Yes, you can still have a weight loss goal, if it is helpful, as part of this new bigger picture. ii) You can also try asking these 7 questions for just about any other goal you’ve been struggling with. Their usefulness certainly exceed weight loss.]

What is more important than sugar, saturated fat, carbohydrates and calories?

July 26, 2016 By in Nutrition that works Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

A banana is 13% sugar, and has a greater percentage of sugar than soft drink.

Yet the banana also contains potassium, magnesium, dietary fibre, Vitamin C and (when partially unripe) is one of the richest sources of resistant starch. It’s consumption, as part of a diet that contains a variety of other fruits, helps to protect you from heart disease and stroke, weight gain, and helps to prolong your life.

Cheese is typically rich in saturated fat, and has a very similar fatty acid content to butter.

Yet cheese also contains calcium, protein, magnesium, Vitamin B2 and Vitamin B12. It’s consumption lowers cholesterol when eaten in replace of butter, is not actually associated with weight gain, and may (slightly) help to protect you from cardiovascular disease and Type 2 Diabetes.

Extra-virgin olive oil and nuts are both extremely rich sources of calories and fat, and provide a denser source of both than a doughnut.

Yet both extra-virgin olive oil and nuts are very rich in monounsaturated fatty acids, phenols and other antioxidants. The liberal addition of these foods to the diet protects against both cardiovascular disease and Type 2 Diabetes (substantially), whilst also appearing to potentially reduce body weight and waist circumference.

Wholemeal bread is rich in rapidly-digested carbohydrates, and results in a greater spike to blood sugar than table sugar does.

Yet wholemeal bread also contains dietary fibre, Vitamin B1, Vitamin E, folate, various minerals and phytochemicals, particularly phenolic antioxidants. It’s consumption, as part of a diet containing a variety of other whole or fibrous grains, helps to protect you from Type 2 Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, bowel cancer, weight gain, and helps to prolong your life, too.

Why do we believe the presence of a ‘negative’ nutrient – whether it is sugar, saturated fat, carbohydrates or calories – means a food is unhealthy or fattening?

Much more important, is to look for the abundance of positive nutrients found in minimally processed foods, instead.

Relearning food and nutrition

June 13, 2016 By in Quit the dieting Tags: , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Instead of learning about the right and wrong foods to eat, let’s learn instead about the many different foods and diets each compatible with healthy living.

Instead of learning to change what we eat according to a new diet, let’s learn instead to modify what we eat according to our internal hunger.

Instead of learning to stop eating the foods we love, let’s learn instead to eat them in the amounts that provide us with long-term enjoyment and satisfaction.

Instead of learning to eat by following all of these rules and restrictions, let’s learn instead how to eat with freedom and by following our intuition.

Instead of learning that eating is a practice done primarily to lose weight, let’s learn instead that it is a practice done primarily to nourish the billions of cells that contribute to the optimal functioning of our mind and body.

Relearning food and nutrition matters.

It matters because eating within the context of diets, judgements, rules and restrictions is highly stressful. This stress is not just damaging short-term, it too has long-term impacts on our hormonal, neurological and digestive systems.

Eating in a stressful state can:

When we approach food and nutrition with a different mindset, we can help to undo these physiological effects. Research shows that eating more mindfully and with self-compassion – being aware and attentive to our eating, without judgement – promotes healthy weight management.

Indeed, our eating mindset is proposed as a better predictor of weight management than any specific combination of foods or nutrients is.

The most common question I get asked as a nutritionist is, “Is this food healthy?”

My most common answer is, “That depends, largely, on how you eat it.”

10 ways to reduce your calorie intake without thinking about calories

May 16, 2016 By in Change your behaviour Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment
  1. Use smaller plates and bowls.
  2. Replace short, wide glasses with tall, narrow ones.
  3. Use smaller spoons.
  4. Throw out the lolly jar (or replace it with a fruit bowl).
  5. Place healthy foods at the front of the refrigerator, and less healthy foods at the back.
  6. Repackage foods sold in large packages into small containers.
  7. Always put food into a plate or bowl, so you can better see how much you are actually eating. Never eat straight from the package.
  8. Snack only at the table, and only on a clean plate.
  9. Put everything on your plate before you start eating, and don’t go back for seconds and thirds.
  10. When serving your meal, try dishing out 20% less than you think you might want before you start eating. You probably won’t miss it.

Perhaps the easiest way to change your behaviour, is to change your environment.

[Hat tip to Wansick.]

The high-fat, high-calorie foods that you should be eating

November 23, 2015 By in Nutrition that works Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

The idea that we should limit the intake of all high-fat, high-calorie foods is now outdated and actually unhealthy.

Research conclusively tells us that most plant-based fats and oils should be promoted and encouraged, because adding them into our diet results in significantly better heart and metabolic health.

What’s more, this impressive health benefit is one that few other dietary changes can achieve.

From the literature, I think we can confidently conclude that even eating more fruits and vegetables or more whole grains, whilst still important, is unlikely to give us the same heart health benefits that eating more plant-based fats and oils does.

What are plant-based fats and oils?

Not all plant-based fats and oils are equal, but some examples I encourage are:

  • 30 grams (1 handful) of nuts or seeds,
  • 50mL of most vegetable oils (particularly extra-virgin olive oil or canola oil),
  • 50 grams (or 1/4) avocado,
  • 20 grams of nut spread,
  • If using salad dressings, to opt for full-fat salad dressings instead of low-fat salad dressings, and
  • If not using avocado or nut spreads, to opt for margarine instead of animal-fat or lower-fat alternatives, such as butter, honey or jam.

Will eating these foods make you put on weight?

Research now clearly tells us that the fat and calorie content of a food does not, surprisingly, predict its effect on our weight.

For example:

  • some high-fat, higher-calorie foods, such as nuts and cheese, are associated with less or no weight gain.
  • some low-fat, lower-calorie foods, such as soft drinks and refined grains (like white bread and white rice), are associated with significant weight gain.

Whilst there are a lot of factors at play here, fat is well-known to slow down digestion, and thus changes our hormonal response after eating.

This is thought to contribute to a foods impact on our weight in the long-term, and might be partly why skim-milk or low-fat milk does not appear to be any better for our weight than full-cream milk.

The bottom line

The healthiest way to manage your weight, I believe, is to mostly enjoy a wide variety of minimally processed plant foods, including the plant-based fats and oils listed above.

If your daily consumption of calories is something that needs to be addressed, the first step is eating less highly processed or “treat” foods, such as cakes, biscuits, soft drink, refined grains and confectionary.

The total calories that you consume every day is still important.

But the total calories (or total fat) found in a single food, is not.

6 myths we are told every time we watch The Biggest Loser

November 16, 2015 By in Love your body Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
  1. If I am overweight, there is something wrong and shameful about my body.
  2. If I am overweight, I need to lose weight to find confidence, happiness and self-worth.
  3. Weight loss is easy. If I can’t lose weight, there is something wrong with me.
  4. Extreme dieting and overtraining, even though they increase my risk of nutritional deficiencies and injury, are necessary practices because they result in weight loss.
  5. Weight loss is the most important outcome of exercise and eating.
  6. I am defined by the number I see on the scales.

Each of these assumptions are incorrect, ineffective and dangerous.

They do not just undermine why, and how, we should be striving to eat better and exercise more.

They also, very worryingly, reinforce the idea that changing who we are is a requirement for us to be self-accepting, confident and happy.

If you really think about it, why should this ever be true?

We now know that:

The Biggest Loser is now well over a decade behind the scientific world, which suggests that a better and healthier way to manage your weight in the long-term is, ironically, to stop making it all about your weight.

The desire to be the biggest loser undermines our ability to feel like, and be, a winner.

5 common myths about breakfast

October 26, 2015 By in Nutrition that works Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Myth 1. Eating breakfast boosts our metabolism.

The best scientific evidence we have shows our resting metabolic rate is not increased by eating breakfast. Indeed, research shows that even not eating anything prior to midday for 6 weeks straight does not impair our resting metabolism.

Myth 2. Eating breakfast means we eat less calories in total throughout the day.

This is not only unproven, we actually know the exact opposite is true: we eat more. This makes good sense, because when we skip breakfast, we are skipping the intake of a significant amount of calories.

Myth 3. Purposely skipping breakfast is a good strategy for weight loss.

The largest and longest study to compare the effectiveness of skipping vs. eating breakfast on weight found that skipping breakfast:

  • does not result in any significant weight loss, and
  • does not have any significant effect on our weight compared to eating breakfast.

Just because eating breakfast does not increase our metabolism, and can mean we eat more calories in total, does not mean that we should purposely skip it.

Myth 4. When we eat is more important than what we eat.

What and how much we eat is, in my view, what matters most:

  • Whilst breakfast eaters have higher nutrient intakes than breakfast skippers, high nutrient intake is (of course) dependant on eating more nutrient-rich foods.
  • Whilst breakfast eaters have better long-term health than breakfast skippers, good health is (of course) dependant on eating healthier foods.

Myth 5. There is a ‘correct’ time to eat for everybody.

Research shows that one of the most consistent predictors of body weight (outside of genetics!) is the driver of what makes us eat:

  • When we eat in reaction to our external environment and emotions, we are more likely to overeat.
  • When we eat in response to our internal hunger signals, we are less likely to overeat.

Being more conscious about eating according to hunger is one of the most effective strategies we have to prevent overeating.

For me, the biggest problem with advice about eating or skipping breakfast is that it gives the impression we must be eating at a certain time.

In general, we actually don’t.

For most of us, eating is best done by listening to the hunger signals of our body, and not by worrying about what the time is on our clock.

27 different ways to get a body that you love

September 17, 2015 By in Love your body Tags: , , , 3 Comments
  1. Eat less carbs
  2. Eat less fat
  3. Eat more carbs
  4. Eat more fat
  5. But just coconut fat
  6. Do quit sugar
  7. Actually, don’t quit sugar
  8. Just drink lemon juice
  9. And only eat cabbage soup
  10. Eat plenty of chocolate (of course)
  11. But only eat alkaline foods
  12. Eat meat, but never grains and legumes
  13. Eat grains and legumes, but never meat
  14. Exercise more
  15. Or don’t exercise at all
  16. Skip breakfast
  17. But never skip any meals
  18. Just go gluten-free
  19. And dairy-free, and nut-free
  20. Hey, what about some days going almost food-free
  21. Definitely don’t cook
  22. But do eat and cook like the Japanese
  23. Or maybe more like the French
  24. Count every calorie
  25. But because that’s too hard, count ProPoints instead
  26. Maybe it’s best to believe in miracles, or…
  27. Learn to love and accept your amazing body for exactly how it is.

Yes, the dieting industry is painfully inconsistent, unscientific, and, more often than not, damaging to our health and well-being.

The good news is you don’t actually have to follow along.

7 beliefs that commonly lead to weight gain

September 10, 2015 By in Quit the dieting Tags: , , Leave a comment
  1. I should feel guilty when I eat something I shouldn’t have.
  2. Food is a good way to overcome loneliness or a bad mood.
  3. Eating healthily means I have to give up my favourite foods entirely.
  4. I simply cannot control my weight because I love to eat.
  5. It is punishment to eat certain foods like fruits and vegetables.
  6. I’ve blown my diet once I’ve eaten something bad.
  7. I need to eat the foods that I enjoy the taste of right now.

Our everyday beliefs about food impact our likelihood of gaining weight.

If eating well is a struggle, start by understanding and then changing the story that you are telling yourself.

The 3 dangerous myths we believe about our body weight

August 31, 2015 By in Love your body Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Far too many people today face stigma and discrimination for being overweight.

What’s more, this discrimination is often rationalised as OK.

But please don’t be fooled: there is nothing that is OK about this.

The presence and tolerance of this discrimination is largely a result of these 3 dangerous myths we believe about our body weight:

1. Overweight and obesity are the direct result of overeating and inactivity. It’s your fault if you’re fat.
2. Being overweight is always unhealthy. For you to be healthy, you need to lose weight.
3. Sustainable weight loss is easy. If you just had the willpower to continue eating better and moving more, the weight will stay off.

Each of these 3 beliefs are very, very wrong.

First, scientific research shows body weight is a highly heritable trait. Our genes directly affect how our appetite and metabolism respond when we overeat, and in this way determine how sensitive we are to gaining weight. Indeed, the heritability of our body weight has been estimated by some to be as high as the heritability of our body height.

Second, weight loss is not a prerequisite for good health. Research shows good health is possible at a wide range of body weights, and that better health can easily be obtained without losing a significant amount of weight. Not only is it more important to live healthily and happily than it is to lose weight, but we are now seeing a growing understanding that dieting and the pursuit of weight loss often causes more problems than it solves.

Third, once we are overweight, our bodies fight hard to keep it. Decades of research shows that almost all persons who lose weight regain it within the next 5 years. Our bodies have a biological set-point that means our weight typically remains stable over the long-term, no matter how much willpower we may have.

We should all be made aware of the myths that we believe about our body weight.

Not just because we are currently buying into a worldview that is wrong. But because we are also currently buying into a worldview that helps to foster a discrimination that’s hurtful and dangerous.

When we are told and believe that how we are is wrong, not enough and less than, we feel lost, hopeless and worthless.

Slowly but surely, it breaks us down and damages the very core of who we are.

It is essential to understand too that harmful words are not helpful. Shaming and belittling others does not create greater motivation or encourage one into eating better or moving more. Indeed, research suggests shame may erase the very part of us that believes we can change and do better.

So, how can we help to reverse this stigma and discrimination?

Together, we can speak up. When we hear someone making comments about someone’s weight, we can tell them that it’s not OK and that it hurts. It doesn’t matter if the person they are talking about is us or someone else. It doesn’t matter if they are in the room or not. And it doesn’t matter if they are talking about someone specific, or just people in general. We can tell them that saying hurtful things is never OK by us.

Together, we can say sorry. If we have ever said something hurtful to someone based on their weight, it’s not too late for us to apologise. We all make mistakes and say things we regret, and it will likely do them the world of good to know that we are sorry and that we care.

And together, we can love ourselves. Research tells us that we judge people in the areas where we are vulnerable to shame, especially those who are doing worse than we’re doing. When we feel good about our body, we lose the need to make others feel bad about theirs. Loving ourselves also gives us the leverage to tell someone we know who has been affected what we really think about them: that they are beautiful, both inside and out.

Doing these things are important and they truly make a difference.

We are all deserving of being loved, and accepted, for exactly the way that we are.

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