Search Weight Loss Topics:

Page 1,942«..1020..1,9411,9421,9431,944..1,9501,960..»

Home » Page 1942

L

OS ANGELES He knows he sounds like a snake-oil salesman.

Its not every day, after all, that a tenured professor at a prestigious university starts peddling a mail-order diet to melt away belly fat, rejuvenate worn-out cells, prevent diseases ranging from diabetes to cancer and, for good measure, turn back the clock on aging.

But biochemist Valter Longo is convinced that science is on his side.

Longo has spent decades studying aging in yeast cells and lab mice. He now believes hes developed a diet that may boost longevity by mimicking the effect of periodic fasting. So hes packed precise quantities of kale chips, quinoa soup, hibiscus tea, and other custom concoctions into boxes that go for $300 a pop.

Longos ProLon diet (it stands for pro-longevity, he says, and not Professor Longo) reflects a growing interest in episodic fasting, which has been touted by celebrities such as Jimmy Kimmel and Benedict Cumberbatch and in best-selling books like The Alternate-Day Diet. His approach stands out because he insists he can use certain combinations of nutrients to trick the body into thinking its fasting without actually being on apunishing, water-only diet.

Kale crackers and hibiscus tea: My five days on a fasting diet

Intrigued, STAT reviewed dozens of scientific studies and talked to a half-dozen aging and nutrition experts about fasting in general and ProLon in particular. We visited Longos lab at the University of Southern Californias Longevity Institute, where slender black and whiterodents pass their days in clear plastic boxes labeled DO NOT FEED. We even tried Longos diet for one long and rather hungry week.

Our conclusion? Fasting does appear to boost health certainly in mice, and preliminary evidence suggests itmight do so in humans as well, at least in the short term. Its not yet clear whether thats because abstaining from food prompts cellular changes that promote longevity, as some scientists believe or because it simply puts a brake on the abundant and ceaseless stream of calories we consume to the detriment of our health. Either way, it can be a powerful force.

Were not meant to eat three meals a day and snacks, said Mark Mattson, a pioneer in studying the effects of intermittent fasting on the brain who runs the neuroscience lab at the National Institute on Aging.

Does good food count as health care? New research aims to find out

Mice and rats on fasting regimes are slimmer, live longer, and stay smarter and physically stronger as they age. They resist tumors, inflammatory diseases, and the neurodegeneration that characterizes diseases like Parkinsons and Alzheimers. They handily fight off infection and can even sprout new neurons. They dont end up with diabetes, autoimmune disease, high cholesterol or fatty livers.

Longo, who runs labs at both USC and at at the IFOM cancer institute in Milan, believes he knows why. Fasting, he and others argue, gives cells a break to rest, renew, rebuild themselves and, essentially, take out the trash as the body shifts from storing fat to burning it. They cant do that when the body is constantly ingesting food, stockpiling excess calories and pushing cells and organs to exhaustion.

The animal data is very striking, Mattson said. These arent trivial effects on health.

Of course, many exciting findings that hold true for lab mice dont translate to more complex human biology. Small, short-term studies in humans do show that periodic fasting reduces weight, abdominal fat, cholesterol, and blood glucose, as well as proteins like C-reactive protein and IGF-1 that are linked to inflammatory diseases and cancer.

But its not clear how long these effects last or whether they translate into any lasting clinical advantage such as fewer heart attacks or longer lifespan.

So some experts say there just isnt enough clinical data to prove the diet does everything Longo claims. These are only animal studies. There isnt a big body of evidence in humans, said Kristen Gradney, a dietician in Louisiana and a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. It could work, but I cant confidently say that it will.

Were not meant to eat three meals a day and snacks.

Mark Mattson, National Institute on Aging

Yet even some scientists who fully understand the limitations of the data are sold.

Satchidananda Panda, a researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., compared mice that were allowed to eat whenever they wanted to mice that only had access to food during a 10- to 12-hour period each day. The differences were profound. The mice that fasted intermittently had no gray fur and werent lethargic, even as they neared 2years of age, the average mouse life span.

The results were so striking, Panda and his family haveadopted the practice. He also undertakes a water-only fast for a week each year.

Once you see these animals, Panda said, its hard not to follow.

Mattson, too, eats all of his roughly 1,800 calories per day in a six-hour window in the late afternoon and early evening. He hasnt eaten breakfast in 40 years.

As for Longo, he uses his own diet every few months especially to lose weight after returning from stays in Italy. Otherwise, he often eats just two meals a day and is passionate about natural, healthy, and plant-based food.

As one of his senior researchers, Sebastian Brandhorst, put it: Valter always gives us crap when theres junk food in the lab.

Valter Longo was born to study aging.

Italian by birth, he spent summers in his familys ancestral home, a town called Molochio in southern Italy thats home to an unusually high percentage of centenarians. His father is 91. Exactly why the villagers live so long is a question thats always simmered in the back of Longos head.

Now 49, Longo originally came to the U.S. to be a rock star. He enrolled at the University of North Texas, which has an acclaimed jazz guitar program. But he soured on the program when he was forced to run a marching band and turned instead to biochemistry as a way to study aging.

Food fight erupts as top nutritionists gather to define healthy eating

He moved on to UCLA to pursue a Ph.D. with Dr. Roy Walford, who had become something of a celebrity scientist while pushing the idea that severely restricting caloric intake would extend life.

While he calls Walford a pioneer, Longo soon grew disenchanted with the extreme regimen he espoused. First, it was brutal to maintain. Then, there was what it did physically to Walford, who had been among a Biosphere 2 crew that restricted food intake dramatically during their stay in the experimental habitat. When they exited Biosphere, they looked liked hell, Longo said. Walford looked like a skeleton.

Walford, a colorful character known for walking across Africa and paying for med school by gaming roulette tables in Reno, Nev., had hoped to live to 120. But he died in 2004 at age 79 of ALS, a disease a number of researchers assert was exacerbated by, or even caused by, his severe diet.

At UCLA, Longo was growing frustrated with Walfords attempts to study longevity in humans, and even mice, without having adequate tools to drill down into the genetic mechanisms underlying aging.So Longo turned back to biochemistry.

He transferred to a genetics lab focused on yeast, figuring that would let him study the mechanisms of aging in the simplest of organisms.

If someone said, What are you working on? we would say oxidative chemistry. You couldnt say aging. That was viewed as a joke.

Valter Longo, University of Southern California

Few people took his early results seriously. Studying aging was still considered flaky. And many scientists at the time were deeply skeptical that you could learn much about human biology by studying simple yeast.

If someone said, What are you working on? we would say oxidative chemistry, Longo said. You couldnt say aging. That was viewed as a joke.

Convinced his work was important, Longo kept his head down and kept going. I didnt pay attention to what people were saying, he said. In just a year, Longo was able to work out a genetic pathway to describe aging in yeast and show that food proteins and sugars could speed aging. It was 1994.

I was so excited, I thought people were going to say, This is the discovery of the century, he recalled. Of course, it was sent back rejected.

He rewrote the paper and resubmitted. No luck. He couldnt get any of the work published without taking out every last reference to aging. The discovery he thought most important the aging pathway he published only in his UCLA thesis. We would get insults from reviewers. The yeast world was the worst. They thought it was crazy science, he said.

As years passed, other groups started publishing work detailing, as Longo had, specific aging pathways, first in worms and eventually in flies. The frustrating thing is, Longo said, we had all of these things figured out and no one was listening.

Frank Madeo, a yeast researcher at the University of Graz in Austria, had seen Longo being dismissed at conference after academic conference. Now, he said, the work is finally being embraced. Valter for sure is a fighter. He doesnt care what others think, Madeo said. He did something that at first was considered weird and he was attacked. Now, its the basis of work in so many labs.

The turning point, Longo said, came when an editor at Science recognized that his rejected paper was part of the new paradigm to understand the genetics of aging. The paper was published in 2001, seven years after hed first submitted it. It has since been cited hundreds of times.

Once he had the aging pathway worked out, Longo went on to look more deeply at what restricting calories did to yeast cells. He found withholding food completely reprogrammed the yeast cells lived longer and were resistant to threat after threat. You could throw in any toxin you could think of and it wouldnt die, he said.

Fasting is at the foundation of the bodys ability to protect, repair, and rejuvenate itself, he said. We started to wonder: What can we use it for?

Records found in dusty basement undermine decades of dietary advice

So he started experimenting with limiting rodents intake of the proteins and sugars that hed seen activate the aging pathways. (His lab cooks up a diet by hand for the animals; its also the inspiration for the the five-day diet he sells for humans.) His team has found that the diet shows promise in restoring pancreatic cells that keep diabetes in check, boosting immune cells, and helping prevent the deterioration of myelin, which plays a role in multiple sclerosis.

San Diego computational biologist Karmel Allison, who blogs at the diabetes lifestyle site ASweetLife, took a deep dive into Longos paper on pancreatic cells and found the data unconvincing. She thinks the improvements in mice could have simply come from their weight loss, not from any cellular change brought on by fasting.

Other scientists agree thats a key question for further study, in both mice and people. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this May startled some diet researchers by showing alternative day fasting was no better at decreasing cardiovascular health risk factors than normal dieting and was harder to maintain. (Longo maintains that the popular alternate day and 5:2 diets, where people eat up to 800 calories on their so-called fasting days, are not true fasting, just calorie reduction, and therefore dont cause the metabolic shifts and cellular improvements of his diet. He thinks at least three days of fasting are needed, though other researchers disagree.)

In humans, is intermittent fasting only effective for weight loss because were restricting calories? In my mind, thats the big question, said Grant Tinsley, an assistant professor of kinesiology at Texas Tech University who studies sports nutrition. Is this just about eating fewer calories or are there unique cellular changes?

In humans, is intermittent fasting only effective for weight loss because were restricting calories? In my mind, thats the big question.

Grant Tinsley, Texas Tech University

Tinsley himself practices intermittent fasting: He restricts himself to eating during a six- to nine-hour period each day or does a 24-hour fast once a week. He likes the idea of Longos diet. Yet hed still like more data. There really are no side-by-side comparisons of different fasting programs in humans, he said.

He knows firsthand, though, how hard it would be to conduct such a study. For one thing, its hard to get corporate funding for a study involving abstaining from food. For another, human beings are prone to cheat on diets. Obviously its not ethical to keep people in cages for a year and feed them what you want, he said.

Longo can, however, do that with mice. And he and his lab are excited about new studies showing that fasting seems to strengthen normal cells in rodents while making cancer cells more vulnerable. Longo thinks this means fasting may increase the potency of chemotherapy while reducing its side effects.

And, indeed, small clinical trials in humans have shown patients report less fatigue and fewer gastrointestinal symptoms while fasting during chemotherapy treatments. Longo now has clinical trials underway at several cancer centers worldwide to see if his diet improves outcomes as well.

Longo came up with the idea for the fasting mimicking diet about 10years ago. He was trying to test the effect of a water-only diet for cancer patients. But most patients refused to fast and oncologists were worried about their already thin patients participating.

So Longo decided to devise a diet with minimal calories that would provide the nutrition the patients needed, but also confer the benefits of fasting. His lab worked out the precise amounts and types of calories, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats by testing various diets on mice.

The cancer fasting diet amounts to just 200 to 500 calories a day for four days. The ProLon diet allows 1,100 calories the first day and 800 for the next four. (Longo recommends doing the diet under a doctors supervision and notes that its not appropriate for people with certain health conditions, such as diabetes.)

His diet is low in protein and fat; he gets furious when he sees doctors advocating the opposite, a trendy practice he believes speeds aging.

He gets really fired up when nutritionists call fasting a fad. Fasting is as old as it gets, he said, noting that our hunter-gatherer ancestors likely went long stretches between meals. If 70 percent of America is obese or overweight, you would think theyd have figured out their [more traditional] interventions dont work.

He said, I need to have something thats going to have almost no calories but still have taste.

Ambra DiTonno, cafe owner

To devise fasting diets that people would actually want to eat, Longo turned to Ambra Ditonno, a longtime friend who runs a popular Italian cafe in Hollywood.

The two worked together after hours in Ditonnos panini shop concocting extremely low-calorie soups some just 30 to 45 calories per serving out of pumpkin, beets, tomatoes, and broth. He said, I need to have something thats going to have almost no calories but still have taste. It was really hard, Ditonno said.

Its not typical work for a scientist, but was typical for the hands-on Longo, whos not married, has no children, and is used to working long hours (though hes prone to pulling out his guitar when asked, and also does a lot of bike riding).

He doesnt have any other interests. Hes married to his job, Ditonno said. And, she added, he had a natural flair for the work: Hes Italian, so he has some idea of cooking.

Theyd then freeze individual portions of the soups for delivery to cancer patients. (The soups are now manufactured in a facility and freeze-dried so they can be easily shipped and stored.) The diets include additional ingredients algal oil supplements, specific proteins, trendy additions like flax seed, inulin, glycerol, and cider vinegar that Longo believes act to improve health or trick the body into thinking it is fasting.

Deep dive into diets shows just how much processed food Americans eat

After cooking so many fasting soups, Ditonno tried the diet herself last year. She lost weight, got rid of the extra tummy fat shed carried since having a child and eased several digestive issues. The benefits have persisted long after that initial fasting period. Like many who work with Longo and have tried the diet, shes become a convert. I believe in it like 1,000 percent, Ditonno said.

The idea of a professor marketing his own longevity diet has raised eyebrows. Its a tricky spot to be in, said Allison Dostal, a registered dietitian and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She was part of a watchdog team that wrote a scathing review of a press release touting one of Longos studies that was put out by USC, which also stands to profit if the diet is a financial success. Its not something Ive generally seen.

The cost of ProLon has also raised questions, especially since theres no proof this particular combination of foods works better than any other ultra-low-calorie diet or episodic fast.

The diets OK, Mattson said. Im just thinking about the people who cant afford it. A lot of obese people are of low socioeconomic status. Thats the target population that could really benefit most.

Longo created a company, L-Nutra, to market the diet, and retains majority ownership. He intends to funnel any personal profits into a nonprofit to fund research. For now, not much money is rolling in, though he says about 5,000 people have used ProLon some paying customers, some research subjects. He hopes to one day receive FDA approval to market the diet as a tool to help prevent diabetes, but thats well in the future.

Panda, the Salk Institute researcher, calls Longos approach a smart business move.

The general public wants something encapsulated, they want a prescription, he said. Valters done a very smart thing. Hes encapsulated fasting.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the location of the University of Graz.

Usha Lee McFarling can be reached at ushalee.mcfarling@statnews.com Follow Usha Lee on Twitter @ushamcfarling

See the original post:
He wants to sell you a $300 'fasting diet' to prolong your life. It might not be as crazy as it sounds - STAT

Read More..

New study shows how different people react to various breads.

In a new study, researchers discovered that different peoples bodies react differently to the same foods, which could be a breakthrough in understanding why dieting, for millions, hasnt worked.

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, based their study on the nutritional and glycemic effects of eating two different types of bread. Their findings were published on June 6 in the journal Cell Metabolism.

After decades of studies on which breads are healthiest, it remained unclear what effect bread and different bread types have on different systems in the body, especially the microbiome, which encompasses the millions of microorganisms that naturally live on and in the human body.

One of the researchers new findings is that there is no clinical difference in the effects of ingesting white or wheat bread.

The researchers came to this conclusion after performing a crossover study of 20 adults. Processed white bread was introduced into the diets of half of the subjects, while the other half ate handmade, whole-wheat sourdough bread.

Read more: Simple carbohydrates vs. complex carbohydrates

In addition, researchers found that the composition of the subjects microbiomes was generally resilient to the dietary intervention of bread, and that the glycemic response (the effect on glucose, or blood sugar, levels) to the two bread types varies greatly among the population.

Dr. Eran Elinav, a researcher in the Department of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute, and one of the study's senior authors, said these findings were fascinating and potentially very important.

To date, the nutritional values assigned to food have been based on minimal science, and one-size-fits-all diets have failed miserably, he said.

Eran Segal, PhD, a computational biologist at Weizmann, and another senior author, told Healthline they also performed a crossover clinical trial where subjects were compared with themselves. The results were very powerful as it compared short-term effects of interventions.

Subjects were compared to themselves, he explained. We compared increased short-term (one week) consumption of industrial white bread vs. matched consumption of artisanal sourdough-leavened whole-wheat bread, which we originally viewed as radical opposites in terms of their health benefits.

The researchers also measured various clinical end points, including weight, blood pressure, various blood tests, and the gut microbiome.

Read more: Best breads for people with diabetes

To their surprise, Segal said they found no difference between the effects those two breads had on the various end points they measured. They combined and analyzed data on the two bread types, testing whether bread of any type had an effect.

The scientists found that just one week of bread consumption after eating no bread resulted in statistically significant changes to multiple clinical parameters, he said.

We saw a reduction in essential minerals in the blood (calcium, magnesium, iron) and an increase in LDH (lactate dehydrogenase, a marker of tissue damage), Segal said. But we also saw an improvement in markers of liver and kidney function, inflammation markers, and cholesterol levels.

In the microbiome, he said they found only a minimal difference between the effects of the different breads two microbial taxa (groups of organisms), that were increased with white bread. But, generally they saw that the microbiome was very resilient to this intervention.

This is surprising, as the current paradigm in the field is that a change in nutrition rapidly changes the makeup of the microbiome, Segal said. This is probably dependent on the kind of change. We had a nutritional change that was significant enough to change clinical parameters, which we tend to think of as very stable. And yet it had a minimal effect on the microbiome.

The researchers were also co-authors of a paper published in 2015 in the journal Cell. In that study they observed the nutritional habits of 900 people. The researchers found that bread was the single most consumed food item in their diets, making up roughly 10 percent of their caloric intake.

In their latest study, participants also normally received about 10 percent of their calories from bread, Segal said. Half were assigned to consume an increased amount of processed, packaged white bread for a week (about 25 percent of their calories), and half were assigned to eat an increased amount of whole-wheat sourdough. The fresh wheat bread was baked specifically for the participants and delivered to them. Then, after two weeks without bread, the diets for each group were reversed.

Segal said they monitored numerous health effects before and during the study. These included the subjects glucose levels upon waking up; their levels of the essential minerals calcium, iron, and magnesium; fat and cholesterol levels; kidney and liver enzymes; and markers for inflammation and tissue damage.

The team also measured the composition of the subjects microbiomes before, during, and after the study.

In fact, half the people had higher glycemic responses to white bread, and the other half had higher responses to sourdough bread, Segal said. We also proved rigorously that this was statistically significant and not a result of random fluctuations.

So, having very personal, often opposite responses, to the same kind of bread poses a problem. How would we know, in advance, which type of food is better for each person?

Mood food: Can what you eat affect your happiness?

The scientists created a prediction algorithm: We showed that we could have predicted, with fairly good accuracy, which bread induces lower glycemic responses for each subject personally, and did that based on their initial microbiome configurations, Segal said.

This is one very important way in which the food we eat affects our metabolism, he said. High glucose responses are a risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and liver cirrhosis. It is also associated with obesity, and enhanced all-cause mortality in both type 2 diabetes and cancer.

Using personalized medicine has become increasingly popular in medicine, but using this technique for diets could potentially mark a shift in how nutritionists work with patients.

Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD, told Healthline that rather than giving universal dietary recommendations, nutrition advice is most effective when tailored specifically to the person, considering metabolic characteristics, microbiota, food allergies or sensitivities, insulin and glucose sensitivities, and genes, if applicable.

Kirkpatrick, also the manager of Wellness Nutrition Services at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute in Ohio, has co-authored Skinny Liver: A Proven Program to Prevent and Reverse the New Silent Epidemic Fatty Liver Disease. She said despite the findings in this small study, a longer-term study is needed.

The findings in this study are based on two 1-week-long interventions. A small snapshot in time, she said. It may not be indicative of the potential nutrition effects that can take weeks, months, or even years to be seen and quantified.

The study also brings up a question. Which is better bread: processed white or fresh, whole-wheat sourdough?

There are certain facts about whole-grain bread vs. white bread that support healthier overall nutrition, regardless of glycemic response, Kirkpatrick said.

We know that the processing [milling] of intact grains to white flour removes layers of essential nutrition: B vitamins, minerals, proteins, healthy fats, and fiber in the bran and germ layers removed, she said. This leaves the white flour with only the endosperm, containing all the starch without a lot of nutrient density.

So, even if glycemic responses after ingestion were the same, she added, study participants most likely would still miss out on those these vital nutrients if they chose white bread over whole wheat.

How did the Weizmann team measure the makeup of microbiomes? Some trips to the bathroom and a little help from their smartphones.

Stool samples were collected from participants at several points during the study. Segal said they extracted DNA from the samples, and analyzed the DNA sequence of the microbes in the stool.

To identify the source of each of these DNA sequences, we matched it with databases of known DNA sequences of different bacteria known to reside in the gut, he said.

Participants also used a smartphone app, developed by the scientists, to log their bread intake in real-time.

Called the Personalized Nutrition Project, the app analyzes the microbiome to predict sugar responses to thousands of different foods. Originally developed for the teams previous 2012 study, the app was licensed and is now marketed by DayTwo.

The study raised questions that Segal, Elinav, and their colleagues are exploring now. Which genetic mechanisms drive differences between people? What biological mechanisms in the microbiome drive differences between people?

If one-size-fits-all diets do not work, Segal said, how can we better personalize diets? We are currently conducting research to answer some of these questions.

We need more research to establish precisely how the microbiome affects how people respond to food. But, we envision a future where each of us would have their microbiome profiled, and then receive personal nutrition advice based on it.

See original here:
White or Whole Wheat Bread Study May Shed Light on Diet Failure - Healthline

Read More..

Men's Health

3 Supplements That Actually Workand 3 That Are Just Wasting Your Money Men's Health In some cases, supplements can fill in the nutritional gaps that can crop up even in a healthy diet, says Brianna Elliott, R.D., a coach at nutrition counseling service EvolutionEat. But there are some nutrients that you likely to get enough of in your ...

Link:
3 Supplements That Actually Workand 3 That Are Just Wasting Your Money - Men's Health

Read More..

Losing weight can be extremely hard. Keeping it off can be even harder. In the show The Big Fat Truth , which premiered this past Sunday, former The Biggest Loser contestants who regained weight are on a mission to lose it again. J.D. Roth, executive producer of The Big Fat Truth and former executive producer of The Biggest Loser , told People that bad decision-making patterns are to blame for the contestants' weight gain. This is despite a National Institutes of Healthsponsored research study demonstrating the damaging effect the shows extreme weight-loss strategies have had on the contestants' metabolisms.

Is the contestants' weight gain due to metabolic changes? Or does it come down to what Roth blithely describes as decision-making patterns that aren't conducive to maintaining weight loss? The truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Though the Biggest Loser study, which was published in May 2016 in the journal Obesity , looked at only 14 former contestants, it still offers an intriguing glimpse into what's going on here. In it, researchers showed that several key regulators of metabolismthe protein adiponectin, the hormone leptin, and thyroid hormones T3 and T4were, in fact, significantly altered after 30 weeks of the contestants being on the show. What's more, some of those changes contributed to contestants regaining the weight.

First up, let's discuss adiponectin, a protein released from fat cells that is important in the regulation of fat and sugar metabolism . Generally, adiponectin concentration is higher in lean people than in those who are overweight or obese, and it's thought to be protective from issues like inflammation and resistance to insulin , a hormone your pancreas releases so your body can properly use glucose (sugar). In the NIH study, the participants adiponectin increased with weight loss, which may demonstrate that their fat cells, along with their fat and sugar metabolism, were more functional after weight loss than before. Since adiponectin is thought to help reduce glucose production and release from the liver and increase glucose and fat uptake into cells, higher levels of this hormone can lead to lower overall circulating sugar and fat in your bloodstream.

However, the story changes with leptin and thyroid hormones. Leptin is a hormone also released directly from your fat cells, and it tells your brain's hypothalamus to dial down the urge to eat. So, when contestants' leptin went way down after weight loss, their hunger most likely went way up. To that point, a November 2016 study in Obesity found that when people who have lost a significant amount of weight are left to their own devices, they tend to eat about 100 calories more every day per kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of weight lost. This phenomenon has been shown in other studies as well.

The thyroid hormones T3 and T4 also went down in most participants, signaling reduced metabolism. And, indeed, the researchers noted that participants resting metabolic rate (the amount of calories you burn simply by being alive) went down by about 600 calories per day, compared with before the show. With a reduced metabolic rate and increased hunger, you have a perfect storm for weight regain. That's not about making bad choices, it's about physiology.

When the researchers went back to investigate if contestants' numbers may have normalized six years after the original study, they found that adiponectin and T3 went up, but leptin and T4 stayed low, as did resting metabolic rate. So, not only did the hunger pangs never abate, peoples bodies were still burning way fewer calories than they used to.

When these Biggest Loser contestants were on the ranch, they were burning, on average, approximately 2,000 calories per day, with about three hours of vigorous exercise, and eating only about 1,300 calories, according to a May 2013 study in Obesity . When they went home, they were exercising about one hour per day and eating approximately 1,900 calories.

Even if every single one of those calories wasn't devoted to healthy food, or if the contestants decided to lay off such a vigorous level of exercise, can this really be considered "bad decision-making patterns"? Is it reasonable to believe that these participants could maintain three hours of vigorous activity every day and a very low-calorie diet in the real world?

The real issue is not that these participants are weak, or need more willpower, or simply don't want to keep the weight off badly enough. It's that living in the real world means we have tight schedules, family dinners, unhealthy yet convenient food around every corner, and all other elements that life throws at us. Were not locked away with every calorie accounted for, hundreds of thousands of prize-money dollars on the line, and cameras rolling. Plus, we're stressed and we don't get enough sleep , both of which can contribute mightily to our weight.

The researchers behind the November 2016 Obesity study even state that individuals who successfully maintain weight loss over the long term do so by heroic and vigilant efforts to maintain behavior changes in the face of increased appetite along with persistent suppression of energy expenditure." Translation: It is absolutely not easy, and it's unfair to blithely blame regaining weight after losing it so rapidly on someone's bad choices.

In an environment like the Biggest Loser ranch, where every meal is prepared for you and exercise is overseen by intense trainers, people dont learn to actually incorporate weight-loss tactics that work in the long term. Losing weight, gaining weight , or otherwise changing your body is a personal process, so it all varies from person to person. But it should never be torture, and it should never require life changes so huge that they simply don't feel practical.

For example, the May 2013 Obesity research suggests that if the contestants had committed to about a 20 percent reduction in calories and 20 minutes of vigorous exercise each day, they would eventually have lost the same amount of weight and most likely would have maintained the weight loss when they went home. Yes, losing the weight would have taken a few years rather than a few months, but it would be a less physically and mentally stressful way of going about it in the first place.

Instituting tiny lifestyle changes, rather than a complete behavioral overhaul, is what has helped many people who have lost weight maintain those results over time. Making small changes doesn't result in a quick fix, but it can lead to long-lasting, sustainable weight loss.

So, perhaps Roth and anyone else who criticizes The Biggest Loser 's contestants for regaining weight should be looking at the process rather than blaming the contestants. When people make dramatic changes to their metabolisms and appetites via grueling tactics that are ultimately far too demanding, the weight is going to come back.

Rachele Pojednic, Ph.D. Ed.M., is an assistant professor in the nutrition department at Simmons College and staff scientist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. As a researcher, her work has a specific focus on physical activity and nutrition interventions for the prevention and treatment of non-communicable chronic disease. Dr. Pojednic has also been an active member of the fitness industry for the past 15 years and is an indoor cycling instructor at Flywheel Sports in Boston. She has been a consultant to and writer for several organizations, including the Today show, the Huffington Post's Healthy Living blog, Boston magazine, Runner's World, Mens Fitness, and Womens Health. She tweets at @rachelepojednic .

Update 6/15: This post has been updated to reflect that The Big Fat Truth is not a spin-off of The Biggest Loser.

Related:

You may also like: This Body-Positivity Clothing Line Will Change How You Think About Wedding Dresses

See original here:
Don't Blame 'Biggest Loser' Contestants' Weight Gain on Bad Choices - SELF

Read More..

19 Shares

Chat with us on Facebook Messenger. Learn what's trending across POPSUGAR.

The majority of people who lose weight soon learn that maintenance brings new and often more difficult challenges to overcome, and they often gain the weight back within a couple of years. Many diets, intense workout programs, and detox plans are often a setup for failure. They can help you lose weight, but don't help you learn the habits to support it for life.

If you asked someone who lost weight and kept it off long-term how they did it, they'd probably say, "It's a lifestyle," but that's vague and rarely helpful if you're struggling to do the same. Below are five key habits that will help you not only lose weight but also keep it off.

Instead, shift your focus from results to habits. Small changes make the biggest difference long-term, so appreciate the moments you made healthier choices, like getting in an extra walk, adding more vegetables to your meals, or eating less sugar. After consistently improving your habits, results will follow.

Image Source: POPSUGAR Photography / Paul Kabat

Popsugar Pride

How to Get Facebook's Rainbow Pride Reaction (If You Don't Have It)

by Ryan Roschke 3 days ago

Sleep

I'm Proof That Morning Workouts Can Change Your Life

by Elise LaChapelle 4 days ago

Relationships

My Ex Replaced Me With a Victoria's Secret Model

by Dania Curvy 5 days ago

Body Positive

Fitness Blogger Proves Happiness Doesnt Always Come From Weight Loss

by Dominique Astorino 3 hours ago

Latina Living

I Look and Sound Like Selena and Use My Talents to Honor Her Legacy

by Amanda Solis 39 minutes ago

Continue reading here:
Good Lifestyle Habits For Weight Loss | POPSUGAR Fitness - POPSUGAR

Read More..

Lets face it, dieting can be exhausting, overwhelming, and frustrating. There are tons of different diet plans to choose from, many of which involve calorie counting, food restrictions, and prepackaged foods that are filled with artificial ingredients. But you dont have to diet to lose weight. In fact, by following these tips youll be able tolive a healthy lifestylewithout feeling deprived.

Eating Mediterranean mealscan reduceyour risk of heart disease and cancer,and has also been linked to a decreased incidence of Parkinsons and Alzheimers, Mayo Clinic explains. Following the eating habits ofthose who live in the Mediterranean consists of eating primarily plant-based foods, such as fruits, veggies, whole grains, legumes, and nuts; replacing butter with healthy fats, such as oil; and using herbs and spices rather than salt to flavor your foods. In addition, Mayo Clinicsuggests eating fish and poultry at least twice a week, and limiting your red meat to no more than a few times a month.

Shape adds that you can also enjoy an occasional glass of red wine. By focusing on healthy, antioxidant-rich foods, youll feel full and satisfiedthroughout the day.In fact, Shape notes that byallowing yourself to occasionally sit down to a glass of wine or a steak dinner, youre ensuring you wont end up feeling deprived, which cancause you to binge eat or ditch your diet altogether.

Eating frequent, small meals has proven itself to be an effective weight-loss strategy. Livestrong.com explains that eating five small-portioned meals a day can help you maintain a healthy body weightby keeping you feeling full and satisfied throughout the day. This ensuresyou wont end up feeling extremely hungry and overeatinglater on.

After about 3 hours without food, blood sugar begins to fall. And after 4 hours, your body has already digested whatever you sent down earlier, Amy Jamieson-Petonic, a dietitian, told WebMD. Once youve crossed the five-hour mark, yourblood sugar begins to plummet, and you grab whatever you can to refuel. The best strategy? When you wake up, make sure one of the first things you do is eat breakfast. After that, Web MD recommends continuing to eat small meals every 3 to 4 hours, which should consist ofcombinations of lean proteins, grains, vegetables, and fruits.

Youd be amazed at what the occasional meat-free meal can do for you. According tothe Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, vegetarian diets are high in fiber, naturally low in saturated fat, and filled with antioxidants and phytochemicals. Those who eat meatless meals have lower rates of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and asthma, states the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. However, you dont need to swear off meat for life in order to reap these benefits.

SparkPeople explains you can become a semi-vegetarian, meaning youonly need to replacesome of your meat with plant-based foods.By filling up on more grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables, youll be eating fewer calories, less fat, and more vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Womens Health Talk suggests eliminating animal products from your diet for one meal each day or one day each week. One thing to keep in mind: Make sure you are replacing your meat with produce, legumes, and grains. You wont benefit from thisif youre just substituting it for artificial, sugar-packed foods.

Experts estimate that our brains register theyre full about 20 minutesafter our stomachs do. Readers Digest warns that if you eat too fast, you wont give your brain time to catch up toyour stomach, which leads to overeating and weight gain. Eating slowly, however, will help prevent you from eating too much. To force yourself to eat more slowly, WebMD recommends turning off the television and any other distractions, and simply concentrating on the meal in front of you. You can use this time, particularly at dinner, to catch up with your loved ones. Remember, the more you talk, the more slowly youll eat!

In addition, Readers Digest suggests scheduling more time for meals, so you dont find yourself quickly gobbling up your dinner. If possible, try to tweak your schedule so youre taking about 30 minutes to eat your meals. You should find yourself starting to get full about two-thirds of the way through. Finally, Greatist states you should take sips of water in between bites. This will force you to take breaks and help to fill you up. You can also pace yourself by chewing each bite at least10 to 20times before swallowing.

Dont deprive yourself of anything. Instead, become an intuitive eater. Science of Us explains that intuitive eaters dont believe in good or bad foods but know there are nutritional differences between the two. It follows the basic premise that cravings shouldnt be ignored and by occasionally indulging, you will prevent yourself from binge eating later on. This means that an intuitive eater may eat a piece of pie but will then instinctively crave more nutritious foodsafterward to balance out the excess fat and sugar.

It might sound easy on the surface. But it does take quite a bit of practice, Michelle Gallant, a Harvard University Health Services nutritionist, told the publication. Gallant explains that this approach doesnt mean you can overindulge on burgers and fries. Instead, it means listening to your body and figuring out what foods will make if feel best. The main idea here is if you focus on what foods your body actually needs, you wont find yourself constantly craving junk food.

Beginning a meal with a broth-based soup or a nutrient-rich salad will helpyou eat less. The Huffington Post writes startingwith a side salad has been shown to help you eat about 12% fewer calories at that meal. Additionally, research has also shown that people who startlunch with a vegetable soup end up eating 20% less than those who dont have any.

Livestrong.com explains that the high water and fiber content in soups and salads helps fill you up.But in order to reap these benefits, make sure youre making the right salad and soup choices. Try to fill your soups and salads with nutritious, low-calorie foods, such as vegetables, lean meats, fish, and legumes. Make sure your salad dressing comes on the side and choose soups that arebroth-based. Looking for a few homemade recipes to help get you stared? Eating Well recommends trying its creamy chopped cauliflower salad orspinach and warm mushroom salad.

See the article here:
Yes, You Really Can Lose Weight Without Going on a Diet - The Cheat Sheet

Read More..

A new US study has found that going vegetarian can be more effective for weight loss than following a conventional low-calorie diet.

Of the many ways to lose weight, one stands out as by far the most healthful. When you build your meals from a generous array of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and beans that is, healthy vegetarian choices, weight loss is remarkably easy. To lose weight quickly, even when vegetarian, youll still need to moderate your calorie intake and exercise.

When you eat fiber rich foods, this fiber sweeps through your intestines helps in detoxifying. On the other hand, animal products contain ZERO fiber.

And along with it come major improvements in cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and many other aspects of health. The message is simple, Cut out the foods that are high in fat and devoid of fiber, and increase the foods that are low in fat and full of fiber. This low fat, vegan diet approach is safe and easy once you get the hang of it.

Being vegetarian can make putting a healthy meal plan together a little difficult. Making sure you get enough good nutrition with fewer calories is key.

Millet is a grain that dates back to the ancient Eastern Asian region. Even though it has been around for centuries, millet has received little attention as a food staple compared to other grains like rice and wheat. Millet is starting to gain more popularity because it is a source of many nutrients, low in calories and is a gluten free grain.

ALSO READ: Google to launch Android wear 2.0 watches in 2017

Millet is also considered a whole grain and eating whole grains, especially in place of refined grains, is associated with health benefits.

While eating at night wont cause weight gain, eating a large meal that makes you exceed your daily calorie intake will. If you want to drop pounds, make lunch and breakfast your largest meals of the day, and make dinner a smaller meal.

Protein:

Plant foods have plenty of protein. Most vegetables, legumes, and grains contain this amount or more. Excellent protein sources include beans or lentils.

Calcium:

Plant-based sources of calcium are widely available. Good sources of calcium include broccoli, kale, collards, mustard greens, beans, figs, fortified orange juice, fortified cereal, and fortified, non-fat soy- or rice milks.

The research, led by Dr. Hana Kahleov, director of clinical research at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington D.C., also suggests that a vegetarian diet helps to improve metabolism by reducing muscle fat.

ALSO READ: Is your unhealthy lifestyle habits increasing your Colorectal Cancer Risk:Healthy lifestyle can keep Colorectal Cancer at bay.

For the research, the team recruited 74 participants, all with type 2 diabetes and randomly assigned subjects to two groups, either following a vegetarian diet or a conventional anti-diabetic diet.

The vegetarian diet included vegetables, grains, legumes, fruits and nuts, with animal products limited to a maximum of one portion of low-fat yogurt per day.

The conventional diabetic diet followed the official recommendations of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD).

All participants had their daily diets cut by 500 kilocalories per day.

The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the adipose (fat-storage) tissue in the subjects thighs to see how the two different diets had affected subcutaneous fat, found under the skin, subfascial fat, on the surface of the muscles, and intramuscular fat, on the inside of the muscles.

The team found that the vegetarian diet was almost twice as effective in reducing body weight, resulting in an average loss of 6.2 kilograms compared to 3.2 kilograms for the conventional diet.

The results are important for those with type 2 diabetes as subfascial fat has been previously associated with insulin resistance, so reducing it could have a beneficial effect on glucose metabolism.

ALSO READ: Lower your risk for diabetes with exercise:10 mins of vigorous exercise may cut diabetes risk in kids.

Reducing intramuscular fat could also help to improve muscle strength and mobility, particularly in older people with diabetes. The researchers also emphasized the importance of exercise in weight loss programs to preserve lean mass.

Dr. Kahleov concluded that in addition to the vegetarian diet proving most successful in their research, it also showed that a vegetarian diet is much more effective at reducing muscle fat, thus improving metabolism.

This finding is important for people who are trying to lose weight, including those suffering from metabolic syndrome and (or) type 2 diabetes, Kahleov said. But it is also relevant to anyone who takes their weight management seriously and wants to stay lean and healthy.

The results can be found published online in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.

Vegetarian and other plant based diets are known for being lower in fat and sugar than meat eating diets, but the truth is, adopting a vegetarian diet is no guarantee of weight loss.

Vegetarians struggle like everyone else to avoid junk food, processed foods and other unhealthy eating habits. If you are becoming a vegetarian to lose weight you will want to follow some basic, natural weight loss strategies.

Read more:
Looking to Lose Weight? Try a Vegetarian Regime. - ScrollToday

Read More..

Eating lighter, vegetable-focused meals during winter is an easy way to keep the weight off.

WINTER is well and truly upon us. Along with the cooler temperatures and shorter days is the tendency to gain weight as we indulge in hot chocolate, puddings and pies much more frequently.

So how can you achieve weight loss success this winter without too much effort?

Stay away from high-fat pastries like croissants.Source:Getty Images

1. GET RID OF THE PASTRY

Whether it is your favourite croissant, sausage roll or warm fruit pie on the weekend, a high fat, high calorie pastry will quickly add on the kilos if you indulge too regularly.

A single serve of puff pastry contains more than 600 calories and 30g of fat, much of which is saturated, which is bad for both the fat in our blood and ultimately our weight.

Often poor dietary choices are made when we are presented with tempting foods without any reference point about whether they are a good choice or not.

Making a blanket rule about avoiding pastry altogether is an easy way to eliminate extra fat from your diet without the need to make the decision each time a tempting pastry treat comes your way.

2. SWAP A MEAL FOR VEGETABLES

Whether you prefer a daily salad, a light meal of vegetables, a breakfast vegetable juice or a nourishing soup, integrating one vegetable-based meal into your daily routine is an easy way to control your calories, while significantly increasing your nutrient intake.

As most vegetables and salads are literally calorie free (with the exception of corn, sweet potato and potato), using them as a meal base slashes your daily calorie intake, minus the feelings of deprivation that can be experienced on a diet that is constantly focused around eating less and cutting back.

3. QUIT THE CALORIES IN DRINKS

You may love a chai latte or a cheeky hot chocolate, but the truth is that liquid calories, especially the sugars found in milk and juices, add up.

We do not eat less because we have consumed them and they result in rapid increases in blood glucose levels, which can drive hunger.

When you consider that a small hot chocolate can contain up to four teaspoons of sugar or six in a chai latte, it is easy to see why skipping these drinks in favour of green tea or black coffee can dramatically reduce your daily calorie intake.

Warm sweet drinks are delicious, but they contain a lot of calories and sugar. Picture: Nathan DyerSource:News Corp Australia

4. CHANGE THE TIMES YOU EAT

Who needs a strict diet, when all you need to do is limit the number of hours each day that you eat?

The simple shift of eating in just 10-12 hours of each day leaves up to 14 hours a day without food which has been shown to have the same benefits when it comes to weight control as formal fasting.

So simply aiming to eat breakfast by 8am, lunch at 12pm and your final meal by 6pm will support weight control, without any real limits on what you are eating at these times.

5. EXERCISE AFTER DINNER

You are likely to skip early morning sessions when it is freezing outside. Instead, commit to a short training session or walk after dinner.

All you need is 30 minutes and exercising at this time will help to burn off the food consumed at dinner. It will also keep you out of the house, so you are less tempted by Tim Tams as you sit on the lounge and watch TV.

And even more powerful is the virtuous feeling you will have when you return, which in turn will help to motivate you to keep focused with your diet and weight loss goals.

After being diagnosed with high cholesterol and a fatty liver, Dr. Garth Davis set out not just to lose weight but to examine conventional thinking on protein-based diets. The result is a new book, "Proteinaholic." Dr. Garth joins Tanya Rivero to discuss his book and healthy eating tips. Photo: iStock

Read more:
The easiest ways to lose weight in winter - NEWS.com.au

Read More..

Conn. Health I-Team Writer

Last fall, Sharon Boland was worried shed never lose the extra 70 pounds she was carrying. At age 54, everyone told her, it would be nearly impossible to slim down.

Ive probably carried weight most of my life, said Boland, a business lawyer who lives in Greenwich, but she had gained an extra 25-30 pounds in the previous few years.

Her friends were right: It is undeniably harder to lose weight after about age 50. Eating and exercise habits that worked fine during the 30s and 40s can quickly lead to extra pounds and paunches a decade or two later.

People also tend to get less active in their 50s, with no more small children in the house and more aches with which to contend.

Advertisement

Further, the body loses more muscle with every passing decade. Muscle burns more calories than fat, so the less muscle, the fewer calories burned while going through lifes routines.

But experts emphasize that middle-age weight gain isnt inevitable.

Its not a done deal that everyones going to gain weight, said Catherine Staffieri, a registered dietitian with Greenwich Hospitals Center for Behavioral and Nutritional Health.

And weight loss remains possible even as middle age progresses, she and other experts insist.

Boland, now 55, is living proof.

She didnt lose much when she tried a well-known diet plan in October, or when she began lifting weights with a personal trainer a few weeks later. But in December, when she combined a nutritionists advice with twice-weekly coached workouts and 30-minute walks on other days, the pounds started falling off.

Im down 29 pounds, she said with pride and some amazement. I know I can go all the way down, because this is effortless. For the first time in my life, I think Im going to see what my body really looks like without extra padding.

Everyone needs fewer calories as they age. Staffieri estimates that most 50-year-olds need 200-500 less per day than they did in their 20s and 30s.

Weight gained in middle age also tends to clump around the belly, which increases the risk for heart disease and metabolic disorders, she said.

And theres a lot of stress in the 50s and 60s, as aging parents sicken, children still need support, and the financial demands of retirement loom, said Mireille Blacke, a dietitian-nutritionist and bariatric center program coordinator at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford.

The easiest place to stop taking care of yourself is with food and nutrition, Blacke said. Sleep, too, often gets short-shrift, which can affect metabolism and make it harder to lose weight, she said.

Everyone loses muscle mass as they age. For women, body fat increases on average of 1 to 4 percent during menopause, slowing the metabolism down by 10 to 15 percent, said Barbara Schmidt, Bolands nutritionist and a nutrition lifestyle program specialist at Norwalk Hospital.

This shift leads to a weight gain of about 12 pounds for a woman going through menopause who doesnt eat less or exercise more, said Schmidt, who also runs a hypertension program for the Department of Health in Greenwich. The same process happens with men, but more gradually.

Losing weight at any age drives up levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin, making people feel hungrier than if they werent trying to lose weight, according to Dr. Maria Cecilia Asnis, an endocrinologist at the Stamford Health Medical Group, who says that people are not overweight because of a lack of willpower.

An overweight body does whatever it can to conserve calories, Asnis said, so someone who is obese and trying to lose weight will probably need to eat about 15 percent fewer calories a day than someone who has been in the normal range and is just trying to drop a few pounds.

Weight loss for someone who is heavy requires an enormous amount of willpower and very few calorieswhich is difficult to sustain, Asnis said.

Thats why people with a lot of weight to lose may need the extra help of medications or surgery, which change the bodys regulatory mechanisms, she said. Medications can generally lead to a 7 to 10 percent loss of body weight, she said, while people who undergo surgery can drop 50 to 60 percent of their excess weight.

Schmidt likes to consider food and exercise as her medications.

Combating middle age weight gain requires speeding up your metabolismand theres no better way to do that than by pumping some iron, Schmidt said. Many times, women are doing cardio, cardio, cardio. But they need to do weight training, weight training, weight training.

Transforming fat into muscle increases the metabolism and helps the body burn more calories naturally, she said.

Women over 50 should be doing weight training twice a week, in addition to getting some aerobic activity at least 30 minutes a day the rest of the week.

In terms of diet, Schmidt recommends filling your plate at least half full with vegetables before adding carbs. And not all carbs are created equal: minimize processed foods and sugar, she advised.

If Im eating foods that are high in fiber, its going to take more energy for my body to process it, and therefore Im going to be taking in fewer total calories, she said.

For her part, Boland said its the combination of eating more carefully and building muscle that has made such a big difference for her.

Youve got to marry the two, she said. Its bizarre how well it works.

This story was reported under a partnership with the Connecticut Health I-Team (www.c-hit.org)

See the original post here:
Connecticut experts: Weight loss gets harder, but still possible after 50 - New Haven Register

Read More..

My fitness journey started with a climb up the spiral staircase to my office. It is a short, spiral staircase, consisting of 17 steps. But to me, it might as well have been my Everest at the rate it left my lungs breathless and my legs burning.

This will not do, I told myself. And thus began yet another search for fitness.

In the past, the aim to lose weight was an annual resolution. But 20 years have gone and 10 kilos have come - and stayed.

It was time to try a different tactic and this is why I decided to sign up for The Straits Times Run, which will take place on July 16.

In the past four months, while training for the 5km run, here's what I've picked up about losing weight and getting fit.

As noted above, losing weight was an annual resolution but my targets were never specific enough.

Signing up for a run gave me a clear goal (to finish the 5km without stopping) and a deadline to work towards. In other words, there's pressure.

Participants at The Straits Times Run last year. Training for the run this year, to be held on July 16, gives one a clear goal to work towards, says the writer, as there is pressure to be ready. The closing date to sign up for the run has been extended till June 28. ST PHOTO: ONG WEE JIN

For me, this meant trying to remove as many excuses that could crop up. So I decided to pick a gym (True Fitness in Ang Mo Kio) that was only a five-minute drive from my home, as opposed to a swankier and newer outlet that was in town but would entail me spending as much as 30 minutes on the CTE in the morning in order to reach it.

If not heading to the gym, I also sleep in my running gear, so as to psyche myself up and remind myself I have a "date" with the road.

For newbies like me, this has been an invaluable tool. Not only have I learnt to train safely and efficiently, but my trainer Mohamed Faizal is also my motivator and cheerleader.

This is where the value of having a PT comes in, as opposed to training on one's own. Faizal keeps a strict eye on my form, that is, he ensures I do a movement correctly, which reduces the chance of injury.

He also ensures that I use my muscles - and not just momentum - in executing a move. When performing any exercise, doing it correctly is more important than doing it fast, or doing more reps because you are working the correct muscle.

I have learnt not to dismiss the small stuff in this aspect. One doesn't need big, huge movements to get an effective workout. For instance, when I was doing leg raises, I started by raising my legs 10cm to 12cm upwards but Faizal corrected my movement and limited it to only 5cm and, boy, is that harder than lifting my legs way higher because it targets the correct muscles (lower abs).

I run on my own and on the treadmill in the gym. That takes care of the cardio element.

But my workouts with Faizal focus on building up my core muscles, which ensure proper posture while running, and also my leg muscles.

Maintaining a proper posture has been key to helping me feel less fatigued on a run. It was a huge challenge initially, correcting years of poor posture where my shoulders in particular were hunched, and I would always lean forward. But my posture has since become slightly more upright although it is still a work in progress.

To me, running is about as interesting as counting rice grains. I admit it. Particularly if one is on a treadmill. By mixing things up in the gym, be it doing lunges or a farmer's walk and core workouts, I am challenged in different ways at each gym session with Faizal and this keeps me going.

I learnt that one does not need to use fancy machines to become fitter.

Very often, the workouts I do with Faizal require minimal equipment and sometimes nothing besides my own body weight. This is particularly true for things like calf raises and lunges. I have found the hardest exercises to be simple things like sideways lunges with a simple band. As I said before, form is king. If you execute a movement with good form, it will give your muscles a workout.

When the dietitian told me this, I remember thinking: "Why don't you just kill me now."

Sad but true. But this is a simple case of mathematics, plus and minus. Make sure you can burn off what you put in, or if you put in something that you're not going to burn off through exercise, then make up the difference somewhere else by taking something out that day. For instance, if I know I am going to have a Coke that day, then I know I have to "minus" something else from my calorie intake.

I will be the first to admit that this is easier said than done. Especially when I am stressed and head for comfort (fattening) food as a habit, cue Milo dinosaurs and mac and cheese. Nonetheless, just having that knowledge has helped me be more conscious and make more careful choices in the food I eat.

I must underline the fact that I am by no means an expert on running, although I am pleased to say that I have lost 1.3kg of fat and built 500g of muscle since embarking on this.

But if I can do it, you can too.

The closing date to sign up for the ST Run has been extended to June 28. Sign up at straitstimesrun.com

Send an e-mail to askST@sph.com.sg

Excerpt from:
Staircase climb was her first step to fitness - The Straits Times

Read More..

Contact Us Today

Page 1,942«..1020..1,9411,9421,9431,944..1,9501,960..»

Home » Page 1942