One of the big changes I need to make to lose weight is to change the ratio of protein and carbohydrate in my daily diet. I am not a believer in complete elimination diets so I like to keep a little fruit in there and I don’t restrict non starchy vegetables but I need to cut potato, rice, pasta and breads right back and eliminate any processed food.

I don’t love protein foods but I know how essential they are. It can be a little tricky as I can’t eat red meat or any quantity of egg. While this limits my choices it leaves me good options like chicken breast, fish and seafoods, which provide sufficient protein combined with some cheese, milk and soy based products in addition to the standard vegetarian proteins of pulses and nuts. The problem with vegetarian protein on a fat loss nutrition plan is that they are substantially higher in carbs and fats.

It is essential to include good quality lean protein in your diet every day, the optimal results come from including a little in every meal. Proteins provide Leucine, an amino acid that works to improve body composition, it has been shown to be a regulator of muscle, which is important to maintain when losing weight. The more muscle you have in your body composition the more calories you will burn even when you are sitting or sleeping, making it easier to reduce body fat.

The obvious question then is how much protein do I need each day – obviously too much is just going to be metabolised and then excess stored as fat the same as excess calories from any source.  There is a lot of debate but the most commonly quoted figure is 0.80 grams for each kilo of body weight, now you have to remember that this is for an average person (average weight, average exercise).  It doesn’t make sense that a 150kg person needs double the protein of a 75kg person – so to me it makes more sense that it is 0.80 grams of my target weight.  However you need to adjust this if you are under severe stress, undertaking higher levels of exercise or suffering from serious illness or disease.  In these cases the requirement can increase to 1-1.2 grams per kilo of body weight.

There is lots of other good news about protein:

• It has a high satiety factor – you feel full longer
• Around 30% of its calories are used metabolising it vs 5% on average for carbs and virtually none for fat
• Helps regulate blood sugar reducing spikes and cravings
• Assists with insulin regulation so there is a slower more sustained uptake of energy to the cells resulting in lower likelihood of it being stored as fat.

Here are a couple of articles I found useful:

• How much protein do you need?
• Protein 101
• Does strength training increase protein requirements?

This was really an important aspect for me to understand, it makes a big difference to my choices, it is why my eating plan needs to be more than counting the calories (or kilojoules) in and out.

As a base mathematical fact then yes all calories are the same, it is a unit of heat, or to the human body the ‘credits’ it has to spend on keeping itself running through the day. If one day it gets more credits than it spends it saves them, storing them as fat to be broken down and spent the next day. This is really efficient, unless of course you keep putting in more than you need on a day by day basis.

Even at that base level though there are differences between eating for example 100 calories of sugar vs 100 calories of spinach. When you consume the sugar it is a very efficient way of consuming the calories, they are available to use by the body virtually immediately and take virtually no effort or energy for the body to utilise from their original form. The spinach on the other hand is a much larger serve, consuming it will take longer and because it is fibrous the body needs to work quite hard to extract the energy and other nutrients from it. Of the 100 calories some will be used just getting it to a usable state within the body, so its net value in calories is a little less. This distinction is important, sometimes your body needs instant energy, for example endurance athletes spend a lot of time planning this, in everyday life for most people though the opposite is true, we want fuel that will be broken down and available evenly over an extended period of time.

The other important difference is the value of the nutrition coming from the calorie. The sugar, along with many processed and treat foods, are sometimes referred to as empty calories. This term is perhaps not entirely correct, their calories are fine they provide the energy they promise but not much more, they often lack significant degrees of vitamins, minerals and proteins that the body requires to function at its optimum and keep doing so into the future.

The upshot is that all calories do not have equal advantage or disadvantage to our bodies, therefore we need to be clear what we are trying to achieve at a particular point in time. Personally in my life there is no genuine requirement for high glycemic or quick release calories on most days of the year – which is why I am now focusing on finding an eating plan for feeding my body what it needs to be strong and healthy.

Well I need to concentrate on my health, my husband and I have committed to moving to another country so we can enjoy warmer weather and the related health and lifestyle benefits, so it is only sensible that I make other changes to get the maximum benefit from that change and enjoy life to the max.

I am overweight, well overweight and if I don’t take action now it will impact on my health. So this blog is basically to keep me honest, I like blogging and a journal of my progress, recipes, exercise and what does and doesn’t work will be a great resource for me and who knows, maybe it’ll be some help to you too.

Over the years I have lost weight, I’ve done it regularly and in total I’ve lost quite a bit of it, the trick is that it finds me again, really quickly. I just don’t seem to be able to lose it for good so that’s why I’m opting for this new, scarily public option.

I’ve also had periods of loving exercise, possibly to the point of obsession but then once I let it lapse like I have lately I just can’t seem to find the enthusiasm to get into it again. Probably because my ability drops so much that I feel like a failure when I start, that plus the obvious inability to breathe during cardio and the 2 days of pain that follow starting up a weight training/resistance based exercise programme. Again I’m hoping that by blogging what I have done, and the notable absence when I don’t, I will shame myself back into a routine and then start to love it again.

Finally, I am most motivated and passionate when I have clear targets and I have a good level of knowledge and understanding. I can’t blindly follow a plan just because someone says I should, I have to understand how it works and why it works. Not saying its right but it is how I am so this is a place for me to store my research and maybe get a few views from you too.

Well that’s about it, tonight is for getting the blog set up – tomorrow the serious stuff begins!