Next slimming craze, what will it be?

Slimming crazes come one after the other, with celebrity endorsements thrown in. Whatever the next slimming or diet craze is, the chances are that it is unlikely to help you to lose the weight you need to and keep it off in the long term.

 That’s because sustainable weight loss is a combination of medical expertise advising on what you should eat, and your own willpower and determination to achieve your goals. No slimming plan can work on its own; you have to take the central role in your success.

Cynics would also say that slimming crazes seem to come at around the same time each year - planned to release in time for those key periods when people want to lose weight - after the Christmas celebrations and before the summer holidays.

Nevertheless, you have to decide what sort of slimming plan you want to follow. At SureSlim, we use the results of your blood test to determine which foods will work best with your body to help you achieve your weight loss goals, and give you the support to help you get there. This service is unique to the individual and we have had great successes with some fabulous testimonials to prove it! Log onto http://www.sureslimuk.com/ to find out more!

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Crash Diets, Crash Dieting Plans.. Healthy?

At SureSlim we hear people talking about “crash dieting” without really knowing what they mean.

All health experts agree that a crash slimming plan is the last thing you should do if you want to lose weight. And yet, thousands of people every year embark on a sudden, quick weight loss programme which can often do them more harm than good.

The first six months of the year often see the heaviest reliance on crash dieting. This is from people who are trying to lose weight after Christmas, or embarking on a slimming programme so that they look good in the summer. What they fail to realise is that if they try to lose weight in this way, they could end up losing more than body fat, and ultimately gaining the weight back, and possibly becoming heavier than they were before.

The problem with weaning people off slimming plans like these is that they often produce the desired results in the very short term. People do lose weight. This is, however, because they have restricted themselves to a very limited range of foods, and have reduced their calorie intake dramatically. This will result in weight loss, because the body isn’t getting its usual amount of calories and so starts to use up its own stores of carbohydrate to increase energy. This type of eating plan isn’t sustainable in the long term though, because limiting your range of foods also limit’s the intake of certain vital nutrients and, in the long run, this will cause more harm than good.

On this type of plan, you will also be losing more than the body fat you were aiming for; you will be losing muscle mass as well, and this isn’t desirable because it’s a lot harder to replace. Indeed, if you lose weight through body fat and muscle mass on these types of plans, and then return to your original weight, it is likely that the weight gain will be all body fat and no muscle.

When you are considering what type of slimming plan to choose, think about what you want to achieve. If it’s long-term weight loss, combined with a healthier lifestyle and more energy, then forget the crash diet plans; they can’t deliver those results. Instead, choose a sensible, balanced eating plan that encourages you to lose weight by eating the right things in the right amounts - that can be a recipe for life.

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Planning meals for your slimming programme

One of the most daunting things about starting a slimming programme is planning what you’re going to eat. It doesn’t have to be as hard as it seems though - a good diet is a tasty diet! Most meals are simple to make, especially if they are using healthy, fresh ingredients. Forget boiling your vegetables to death and eat them raw, or lightly steam them if you want them to be hot. Don’t peel fruit that doesn’t need peeling, it saves time, and allows you to get the full benefit of the fibre content. There are lots of ways to plan your meals that will help you to achieve your weight loss goals.

Eat fish

Fish is good for you, particularly oily fish like salmon and mackerel. The other bonus is that fish is quick to cook. You can buy it ready-prepared from the supermarket or the fishmongers and most fish will grill in just a few minutes. It’s also easy to bake in foil, and you can even add some vegetables such as leeks, peppers or tomatoes into the foil so that it all cooks at the same time. Even poaching fish in a little seasoned water doesn’t take long. Plan to eat fish at least twice a week and you have an easy, healthy meal that requires little preparation and little cooking time.

Get used to salads

Provided you have the ingredients, you can make a wide range of salads in a short amount of time. Green salads made with romaine lettuce, cucumber, celery and avocado are healthy and can be prepared in 10 minutes. Carrots, fruit and lemon juice with sesame or sunflower seeds makes a quick and easy salad to serve with chicken or fish.

Steam, don’t boil

Boiling vegetables like broccoli and cabbage reduces the effectiveness of their nutrients and makes them less appetising. Steam broccoli and other vegetables for just a couple of minutes for vibrant, crunchy vegetables and sauté cabbage in some lemon juice.

Although you have to change your eating habits when you are trying to lose weight, you don’t have to plan your meals a week in advance to make sure you’re eating properly. As long as you’re buying the right foods, cooking them well and not over-eating, you should find your weight loss plan is easy and fun.

For more information why not contact one of our Weight Loss Clinics that are near you now!

Lose Weight by listening to your body!

Listening to your body can help your weight loss programme!

Your body knows what it’s doing; pay attention to it!

When you’re body’s tired it needs sleep. When it’s thirsty, it needs water. Whatever’s going on with your body is usually communicated to you somehow. Yet most of us ignore what our body is telling us and keep on eating unsuitable foods, drinking unsuitable drinks and then wonder why we are putting on weight, have lost the shine in our hair and are biting our nails.

You should treat your body with a bit of respect, because you want it to last a long time. It’s easy to divorce yourself mentally from your body, especially when you’re younger, when everything works and nothing hurts. At that stage of your life it’s almost impossible to imagine that your diet can have a long-term effect on the health of your body.

When your body starts to put on weight, it’s telling you that you’re eating too much and not making enough effort to get rid of the excess calories. If you neglect to give your body the nutrients it needs; the vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, calcium and all the other things you need to survive, then you can’t be surprised when it stops functioning the way it should. The key is to recognise the problems you are causing and start reversing the damage.

Smoking, excess alcohol consumption, non-prescription medicines and illegal drugs can all damage your system and you should consider giving them up to get your body back to the way it should be. But the key area where you can make a difference is by changing the way you eat.

If you are overweight, lethargic, and your hair and skin isn’t in the condition is once was, then stop eating junk food, processed food, ready meals and things that are high in saturated fat, sugars and salt. Replace them with more fruit and vegetables, beans, pulses and wholegrain carbohydrates. Drink water instead of fizzy drinks, coffee and tea, and you’ll begin to feel a difference. Using a personalised plan, you can follow a slimming programme that works, and your body will thank you by reducing weight, improving your hair and skin and putting you in a better mood altogether. By listening to your body, you can change your health for good.

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DIET Talk - YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT – Why?

Appetite

Appetite is the desire to eat food. The appetite centre is situated in the brain and regulates the amount of energy intake (from food and drink)) needed to keep the bodies metabolism working normally. When the metabolism is increased e.g. through exercise more food is needed and vice versa. Hunger is the physical sensation experienced when blood sugar levels start to fall because the liver stores are being depleted. The two terms are interrelated.

Steady state

In the steady state, that is, in somebody who is neither losing nor putting on weight, the intake of energy through food/drink will balance the utilisation of energy by the body. Thus a fat and a thin person, leading similar life styles will have similar needs for food to keep to a steady state and one will remain fat and the other thin. On the other hand, a physically more active person of the same weight as a sedentary person will need a higher intake of calories in order to maintain the weight in the steady state.

Control of appetite

Appetite is controlled through the action of many hormones and other substances mostly in the brain, nerves and gut. Their cooperation ensures that we eat when we need to. When one or more of those mechanisms fail, one overeats or loses appetite and therefore gains or loses inappropriate amounts of weight. Unplanned or unexplained weight loss is usually due to a medical disorder. Obesity however, is much more commonly due to habitual overeating of high calories foods and a sedentary file.
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Why do we put on weight?

Every molecule of energy containing foods not needed, is stored. Thus every molecule of sugar, in whatever form it is ingested, will be stored as fat if taken in excess of what is needed. It is said that a daily intake of even a half a biscuit in excess of what the body needs as energy will result in an extra stone in weight within 6 months.

How to lose weight healthily?

If one eats less than is needed for providing appropriate amounts of energy for maintaining the body metabolism, once the glucose stores in the liver (glycogen) are used up (this occurs within a few hours of starvation) the body will start to utilise it’s own fat for energy. Thus, in order to lose weight, the intake of energy must be less than the expenditure of energy, the balance being made up from one’s own fat. Further, if the reduced calories intake is combined with increased calories expenditure as with exercise, the fat utilisation will be speeded up. However, there are dangers in this if the weight loss is too sudden or drastic because high fat utilisation also leads to the production of certain acids (ketones) which are broken down slowly and which can, if they accumulate too much in the body cause medical problems including heart failure.

The healthiest and safest way to lose weight is to change one’s dietary habits and eat a consistently moderately less calorific diet, in smaller quantities as well as combining it with foods higher in fibre, vitamins, minerals and proteins and doing more exercise. This is the hall mark of ‘healthy living’. For the effects on weight reduction to have a lasting effect, this healthier living has to become the new habit, replacing the old. For many people this is very hard and they go from one crash diet to the next one with rebounds in weight when they stop. Further, as metabolism also slows down with crash diets, in time, the diets become less effective.

Dr Yvette Lolin, Clinical Advisor
FRCPAth, PhD
Consultant in Metabolic Medicine and Chemical Pathology