Since we all know the simple reality of weight-loss is eating fewer calories than you expend, it stands to reason the less you eat, the more you’ll lose, right?
Wrong.
The fact is, we know at our weight loss boot camp, that if you eat too little not only will your weight-loss slow down and perhaps stall entirely, but you’ll start losing weight from the places you really don’t want to lose it from. Our aim, remember, is to lose fat and gain, or at least preserve, muscle.
But it serves us well to remember our bodies are the result of millions of years of evolution, in which our ancestors were able to survive famine and starvation. You are the descendants of the ones who survived because their bodies had the slight “edge” needed.
And the upshot of that means your body is very efficient at hanging on to calories it needs when the incoming food-supply is cut below a certain level. What it means in practical terms is the weight you do lose will be muscle, not fat. Eventually you’ll start to cannibalise your internal organs – and that can cause permanent damage.
So if you’re tempted to skip meals in the mistaken belief that doing so will somehow accelerate your fat loss, you’re making a big mistake.
Here are just some of the ways you’re storing up trouble for yourself:
1. You’re going to make yourself very very hungry. Unless you’ve got super-human willpower, you’re going to break… and binge. You know as well as I do, that’s a vicious circle, because you’ll promise yourself “next time I’ll be stronger… and stricter to make up for that binge!”. We both know that doesn’t work.
2. You may slow your metabolism down, so instead of burning fat, it’s clinging onto it.
3. You can make yourself physically and psychologically ill. Starve/binge/starve behaviour is not healthy, not in any way.
Here’s my advice: if you’ve been really cutting back on your food and you’re getting frustrated because you think you’ve hit a weight-loss “plateau”, increase your food intake by about 20% for a couple of days before cutting it back by just 10% (meaning you’ll be eating about 10% more than you were before).
This can often get your metabolism back up to speed and burning that unwanted fat again!
Are you eating enough?
27th February 2010 at 6:58 pm
Mindful Eating
2nd February 2010 at 3:04 pm
One of the things I like to do periodically to keep
myself AND NuBeginings on track is spend some time there
as a Guest myself.
After all, I can’t expect anyone to do something I’m not
prepared to do myself, can I? And that’s where I’ve been
this past week at my own weight loss boot camp.
Good job, too: because something I’d started to lose focus on is Mindful
Eating.
You know how it is at most meal times: we sit down and
start eating, keeping a non-stop train of food going
from our plates to our mouths barely pausing to enjoy
one mouthful before having another one.
It’s an easy habit to get into and a hard one to
break… unless you can give yourself an easy helping
hand.
And that’s one thing we give you when you come to
NuBeginnings to stay: the Five Rules of Eating.
1. Drink water with your meal. Yes, the Nutritionists
might complain and say you’re “diluting your
stomach acids”, blah blah. It’s safe to ignore
them. The benefits far outweigh any negative
effect.
2. Chew your food properly. Don’t be obsessive about
this and count how many times you chew… but make
sure you chew enough so the food is properly
broken down to allow you to swallow it easily and
your stomach to digest it.
3. Put your cutlery down and let go of it between
each and every mouthful. This both slows down your
eating and encourages you to chew your food
properly. Slowing down is important: it gives your
body time to realise it’s being fed before you’ve
gone and over-eaten.
4. Listen to your body. It takes about 20 minutes for
the first few mouthfuls of the meal to start
making themselves known to your body by changes in
your blood chemistry (this is why we make you slow
down!). Be aware this signal is due and recognise
it when it arrives. Too often we just eat for
eating’s sake without really realising we’re not
actually hungry any more. It can help to have no
distractions at the table, too: no TV, magazines
or even interesting conversation!
5. Finally, leave something on your plate. It’s
giving your subconscious the message that it’s OK
to leave some food — most of us have been
conditioned, bullied and cajoled by our parents
into clearing our plates simply because that’s
what you’re “supposed” to do.
These 5 rules alone, even without anything else we do at
NuBeginnings, teach in the Monthly Seminars or in the
Elite Success Programme, will dramatically accelerate
your weight loss.
Weight Loss Goals are REALLY Important
19th December 2009 at 1:21 am
If you stand at the bottom of a mountain and look all the way up to the top… you not only get a crick in your neck, but you can also get that awful sinking feeling as you realise just how far it is to the summit… and how hard it’s going to be to get there.
And it’s the same if you’re overweight and you set a challenging goal… and then realise how much weight that involves losing and how long it’s going to take you.
At NuBeginnings weight loss boot camp we want the view to be as good as possible.
I know from my own experience how daunting this can be – when I was 21 stone the thought of having to lose something over 10 stone (half my body weight!) was almost overwhelming.
So, what to do about it? Suffer and do it anyway? Or just give up and settle for being overweight?
No. Of course not.
The trick is to set yourself frequent, small but challenging mini-goals along the way, and write them down with a date you want to achieve them by, just as I described in my last post.
Then, start working towards your first mini-goal, promising yourself some reward (it doesn’t have to be big, but it’s wise to make it worthwhile so it’ll pull you towards it).
Now, this WORKS. And it works because each mini-goal is inexorably taking you towards your ultimate goal… but it’s small enough not to be overwhelming.
Again, I stress: write these goals down AND put them in the form of a proper plan – because if you don’t, you’ll lose track and without your mini-goals and plan to guide you, you’ll almost certainly miss your ultimate destination.
Weight Loss Boot Camp Sets Your Goals
15th December 2009 at 1:57 am
In my last post, I shared with you how important it is to keep a journal of everything you do, eat, think and feel in pursuit of your goals.
One of the reasons for this, as I said, is we humans are not good at remembering objective facts — our memories are always clouded by emotions, preferences, beliefs and everything else we have going on in our heads.
There’s another reason, too: mindset. At our weight loss boot camp we spend a lot of time focusing on your mindset.
In any endeavour the single-most element in your success is always your WILL to achieve it (for example, doctors know that, medical wizardry notwithstanding, the most important factor in a patient’s survival and recovery is the will to live).
Analogously to the patient’s “will to live”, to achieve your weight-loss and lifestyle goals, you must have… a goal!
Sounds obvious, I know… but a lot of the people I speak to don’t have a goal – or if they do, it’s something nebulous like “I want to lose weight”.
You may have heard of SMART goals before – but here’s a useful version for you to use in losing weight:
Significant. To mean anything your goal has to be clear, unambiguous and meaningful.
Measurable. If you can’t easily measure your progress it means you can’t tell how well you’re doing working to get there AND you won’t know when you’ve arrived.
Achievable. What you’re aiming for has to be physically possible. For example, if Sally is 50 years old and 5′2″ tall, she’s never going to be an Olympic high-jump champion. This is NOT to say, however, she shouldn’t challenge herself and set a goal higher than she thinks she can manage (if you want to hit an eagle, aim for the moon!).
Realistic. Not only does your goal have to be possible, but it’s got to be sensible. For example, if Sally wants to lose 10 stone (which IS achievable), she can’t do it in 2 weeks (that’s NOT realistic).
Time-bound. Your goal must have a deadline. If it doesn’t, then you’ll slack off and tell yourself you’ll get there “whenever”.
In my next post I’ll share a simple tip with you for making even the biggest and most challenging goal easier to reach then you’d even believe possible.
Journaling – I know you’ve heard it before BUT it is true.
14th December 2009 at 9:27 am
One of the most effective things you can do in your weight loss journey will surprise you – because, curiously, it has nothing to do with diet or exercise at all.
It’s simply this: keep a journal.
You should write down everything you eat, the time you ate it, and how you felt before and after eating it. Then you should do the same with your exercise routines – what you did, how long you did it for, and how you felt. And, of course, do the same with all your measurements, so you can track your progress (and do remember it’s the long-term trend we’re interested in, not day-to-day fluctuations in your weight).
OK, so why go to all this trouble?
There are lots of reasons but the two biggest ones are:
1. Anything measured improves. It’s a quirk of human psychology.
What we think happens is your subconscious is alerted to the fact you want to achieve a goal and your continually measuring progress kicks it into gear to help you reach it. This is SO important because it works even if you just measure and don’t make any conscious effort to improve the results you’re measuring.
2. Human perception and memory is really, really bad. If you trust to your memory, it’s going to be coloured by your emotional state. So, if you eat a meal when you’re really hungry, your memory tells you it’s smaller than it was; if you’re really tired during or after exercise, your memory tells you it was harder than it really was and that you did more of it (this is connected with the advice not to go shopping when you’re hungry – you buy more than you want or need because your stomach is telling you what’s in your hands is smaller than it really is!).
By writing it down you have a permanent and objective record of how you’re doing, where you’re going and how you’re getting there.
There’s another benefit, too.
You see, I recommend you make your Journal a daily-commitment. Write down EVERYTHING, even if it’s not connected with your weight-loss per se.
If you have a great idea, write it down; are touched by the lyrics of a song, write it down; hear a funny story, write it down; have one of those “aha!” moments, write it down.
You can use any kind of notebook.
There’s only one “rule”: it mustn’t be loose-leaf and preferably it’ll be bound like a book (spiral-bound is OK, but it’s too easy to tear out “unpleasant” pages!).
However, while anything will suffice, I DO recommend you buy something of high quality. Why? Because it’s a psychological thing: if you’ve paid for a leather-bound journal with hand-made paper, you’re going to be motivated to fill it with ideas, goals, and words of quality and style.
But, no matter what kind of notebook you do choose, you’ll be amazed at the difference a journal makes in your life.
6th November 2009 at 6:50 pm
Hi,
As I promised a few days ago, I’d like to share something with you about a substance called glycogen… and why it’s a good reason for you NOT to get into a panic when your weight goes up or down seemingly at random.
We talk a lot about nutrition at our weight loss boot camp and one of the tings we discuss is glycogen. Glycogen is made in your liver, your muscles and to a lesser extent in your brain and stomach from carbohydrates and water. The reason your body makes it is it’s a great source of fuel when your body needs energy. So, why do you care about this?
Well, if you’ve been exercising and not eating a lot of carbs… your weight can drop by a large amount in a very short time. This is called glycogen-depletion. It’s not harmful or dangerous, although it can make you feel lethargic and short of energy. And the flip-side of this is if you eat a carb-rich meal… your body preferentially uses the carbs to replenish the glycogen… and your weight shoots upwards. Yet, as you can now see, you don’t need to panic at all – because the weight isn’t in extra body-fat at all. This is a good thing. Even better: see that word “preferentially”?
It means you can perform a biochemical trick which seemingly violates the rule saying if you eat more calories than you expend, you’ll get fat. Because if you eat a reasonably low carb diet, and you’re depleted of glycogen, if you then go out for and eat the “less nutritious options” – potatoes, pasta, chocolate dessert — those “wasted” calories won’t necessarily be stored as fat. No, they’ll go towards replenishing your glycogen instead. Now, this does NOT give you carte-blanche to stuff yourself silly with carbs and pretend to yourself you’re “refeeding” and building up your glycogen reserves. But it DOES give you a hint as to how you could have your cake and eat it every so often and still be ahead of the game. More on that in my next post.
30th October 2009 at 4:44 pm
Hi there,
I’ve lost some more weight in the last 4 weeks — finally. Now, while I’m really pleased with the results and even MORE pleased I’ll be able to make the NuBeginnings weight loss retreat experience even MORE effective for my Guests, there’s also a great cautionary tale in here.
As you’ll probably remember, one thing I warn you about is getting fixated on what the scales are telling you. It’s easy to do and my confession is I even fell into the trap myself lately — I had a period where my weight-loss slowed to practically zero, and I let it get to me, even though I know there’s no logical reason to. Just goes to show none of us are perfect and safe, effective and lasting weight loss all come from a process of lifestyle-change.
You see, there are LOTS of reasons why your weight-loss can slow-down, appear to stop and even seem to reverse itself, even though you’re doing all the right things. Here are a few examples:
1. If you have a full stomach, you’re obviously going to weigh more than if you haven’t. This is why it’s best to weigh yourself at the same time of the day after following the same routine.
2. Hydration. If the weather’s hot or you’ve been working out (or both!), you can appear to lose a massive amount of weight very quickly… and it all goes back on again (and more) when you’re properly hydrated. A friend of mine can “lose” 3lb on a 1/5 hour ride on his bike when the weather’s warm.
3. Glycogen. If you’ve been eating fewer carbs than usual and your muscle glycogen is low, then you, again, appear to have lost a lot of weight. But as soon as you re-stock on carbs… it goes straight into glycogen which makes you “gain” weight instantly. Glycogen also stores water — it’s pretty heavy stuff (but I’ll tell you why this is actually to your benefit in my next post).
4. Muscle gain. You can lose fat but, because you’re been working out, ESPECIALLY if you’re new to weight-training, you can gain muscle at the same time. The only “problem” is… muscle is denser than fat, so your weight goes up, but your body IS improving in shape, tone, and composition.
I recommend two ways of avoiding this worry: first, track your weight over the long term. Short-term variations spanning a few days are NOT indicative of your progress. Keep your eye on the long-term trend. If you’re doing everything you should be doing, that’s going to be heading the right way… downwards! And secondly, feel how your clothes fit. If your body is changing how it ought to be, you’ll find them getting looser and fitting better, regardless of what the scale is saying. OK, that’s enough for now. Watch this space, because in a few days I’ll share with you why glycogen is your friend.
27th October 2009 at 7:12 am
I promised you in my last post I’d tell you how I use
Tabata-style interval training at our weight loss retreat.
I must stress – do NOT try to dive right into this, because not only might you make yourself ill or even injure
yourself, you’re almost certain to put yourself off interval training forever!
Let’s recap how I do it:
1. I exercise for just 4 minutes after my
warm up. That’s all Ineed to do all day, so I do have time no matter how busy I am and I can see it through to the end!
2. I work as hard as I can for a short spurt, then rest.
3. I repeat this 7 more times, giving a total workout of just 8 sets.
First, I pick my exercise. It can be almost anything . The only limit is that
treadmills dont work for this (they don’t respond fast enough to the speed-up and
slow-down signals). I don’t do this more than twice a week.
Here are some examples of the exercisises I do:
Body-weight squats
Stationary cycle
Rowing machine
Elliptical training machine
Sprinting/jogging (NOT on a treadmill!)
Star-jumps
Squat-thrusts
Push-ups (as a last resort!)
And here’s how I do it:
1. Choose a comfortable pace or resistance level, one that makes
me work, but not too hard. For 10 seconds I work as hard as I can at
this level and then slow right down to a comfortable pace for 20
seconds. Repeat this another 7 times.
2. The second week, I do the same again, only work hard for 15
seconds and “coast” for 15.
3. The third week, I do the same again, only work hard for 20
seconds and “coast” for 10.
4. In subsequent weeks, I aim to increase the level of intensity for
the 20-second work periods a little EVERY week, until I am
working at FULL intensity by week 6.
5. Every 8 weeks, I take a week off this.
Reading it now, you probably think this is too easy. I know it looks
it. But, believe me, it;s tough!
26th October 2009 at 1:13 am
Hi there.
I’ve got a little secret for you… I’m over in California right now,
almost melting in the heat.
But it’s not a holiday, before you ask. No, I’m working. You see, one
of the things I do to make sure everything we do at NuBeginnings weight loss retreat is as
good as it can be, is research.
Here’s an example.
A short while ago I briefly mentioned “interval training” – where you
vary the intensity of your exercise within the exercise period.
And this approach is supported by proper research. Way back in the
1990s Izumi Tabata, discovered what’s known as The Tabata Protocol -
it’s quite simply the most effective fat-burning workout anyone has
ever found.
But, as you’d expect, it’s not easy (and if you’re not exercising at
high intensity now, then start off more gently and work your way up).
The original Protocol looked like this:
1. A 5 minutes’ warm-up
2. Then 8 intervals of 20 seconds FULL intensity
exercise followed by just 10 seconds of rest
3. Finally 2 minutes’ cooling down
I repeat… don’t start out trying to do this. Even if you don’t hurt
yourself or make yourself physically ill, you’re going to find it MUCH
harder than it looks written down here.
Now, I am not going to suggest you EVER follow the Tabata protocol
exactly, simply because the people in the original study were already
high-performance athletes.
But what I AM going to do in my next post is share with you a very
powerful and GRADUALLY increasing interval-training regime that I use
to accelerate my weight-loss without spending hours and hours in the
gym.
Calorie Cycling…..
18th October 2009 at 3:47 am
Our founder Victoria Wills continues her weight loss journey and as she does she stays at the very cutting edge of the science behind the fads and the myths.
At our weight loss retreat we like to share news of her journey. She has lost a lot of weight and now she needs to work very hard to keep her metabolism high and her weight loss going.
She uses calorie cycling to make sure that her metabolism remains fired up. We will explain more about this tomorrow and how it can work for you too.