Top tips to reduce body fat

I’d have to say that losing body fat is harder for me now than it has ever been, I’m drinking my water, exercising and eating pretty well – its working but its slow. Then slow is what I wanted, well that’s to say I want changes I can make and live with for a lifetime. Here are what I think are among the best bits of advice I’ve received …

1. Reduce high calorie, low nutrient food, yes you’d think that went without saying but have you ever worked with a woman on a diet who can eat an entire box of weight watchers lamingtons before lunch because they are low points …. go figure. It has got to be common sense to cut out the processed, trans-fat and chemical crammed stuff and focus on eating natural fruit, non starchy vegetables, yogurt, cheese, meat and fish. The fibre in a natural diet will also help improve blood sugar control, not to mention keep your digestive tract healthier.
2. Read labels. Those number you see on the packaging next to colourings, flavourings, thickening and preservatives – your body doesn’t actually need those and for a large portion of the population your body REALLY doesn’t want them and is sending you messages to tell you that. I only really noticed the message when I cut out the numbers from my food and realised how good I felt. Now I appreciate not everyone is impacted the same way but then leaving them out won’t do any harm either.
3. Cut carbs. No I don’t mean cut vegetables and fruit from your diet I now eat even more of those but avoiding the low nutrient processed carbs has done wonders for me. Sugar, bread, white rice and potato have limited nutrient value so I would rather have extra meat, fish and salad veg. If you want to reduce your carb intake watch out for the low fat craze, most reduced fat items you pick up in the supermarket replace the fat with sugar and chemical flavours and thickeners. I now prefer to have a little of the full fat version then the tampered with alternative.
4. Eat foods that help you lose weight. There really are food that are virtually neutral or even negative in their calorie value as your body is going to take up similar amounts of energy in processing them. A lot of green salad vegetables comes into this category.  Add these to a diet of lean protein and healthy fats and your body is primed to drop excess body fat.
5. Drink water, yes it really is true, your body needs it to function effectively. Read more here.
6. Decrease alcohol. Its not voodoo magic and a glass or two now and again won’t stop you being healthy or losing weight but alcohol is empty calories which just means your body doesn’t derive any nutrients it needs from the alcohol and it will use the alcohol energy first before it uses uses energy already stored for use in the body or metabolising fat to use as energy. So it will slow down your fat loss as a result.
7. Exercise. Cardio exercise uses the energy stored as glycogen in the body and when energy supply is insufficient forces the body to go metabolise some fat to use as backup, it keeps your heart healthy by making it work regularly under different load levels and works the big muscles in the body. The adage use it or lose it really is true, if you don’t exercise regularly you fitness level and flexibility will decline with age. Weight bearing or resistance exercise is equally important, whether you use weights, your own body weight or routines such as pilates and yoga you need to put muscles under repetitive load to maintain them. The good news is that muscle requires more energy to maintain than fat your your basal metabolic rate will increase once you start rebuilding your lean body mass. Again this is particularly important as muscle will naturally decline with age unless you actively work to keep rebuilding it. There is further evidence that resistance exercise helps ward off osteoporosis and mental decline in older generations.
8. Be aware of your emotions. Eating does not make me happy nor does it make the boss less grumpy and reduce my stress levels at work, not sure why I thought it did but somewhere in my neuro programming in the past I got that muddled up and it is taking a bit to reverse it.
9. Eat when you are hungry. How good is it to know you can lose weight without having to be hungry, the trade off is you need to learn to listen to your body, if you are going to know when you are hungry and eat, you also need to learn to know when you are no longer hungry and stop. Interesting point that stuffed, can’t move, couldn’t eat another bite feeling is not what we are aiming for. I also needed to eliminate habit snacking like I had an association between going to the movies and eating an ice cream in the movie, even if I had just eaten and wasn’t in the slightest hungry.
10. Avoid sabotage. You love you family and friends and they love you but everyone is going to have a reaction and not everyone is going to support your efforts. You need to have a plan in place to deal with the friend who will be hurt if you don’t try her triple decker, double cream chocolate gateaux or the one who heard that people die on the nutrition plan you are on, or those that just need to tell you because no one else will that you are looking a bit peaky after losing all that weight.

 

How many calories do I need each day?

It is important to eat enough calories each day to support your bodys basal metabolic rate (BMR) if you don’t your body thinks things have got really tough and there’s a famine going on, after all your body knows you are pretty smart and know how to get it food, your not dumb enough to stop feeding it so it needs to help out. It does that by switching down the metabolism and using energy as slowly as possible. In turn this slows down your fat loss and your functioning, you may find you’re heads a bit foggy, your reponses slowed and energy levels drop.

To achieve optimal fat loss you need to feed your BMR enough calories for its vital functions this still leaves a significant gap between the calories you eat and the amount your body needs for fat loss and you can increase the gap by adding in or increasing your active time and exercise programme.

So what is my BMR, it is the amount of energy your body uses to perform its vital functions such as breathing, heart beat and maintaining the body temperature. This takes 60-70% of the daily energy requirements.

In addition to BMR the body uses energy for physical activity, this is another 20-30% of the required calories and for the thermic effect of food, the energy used to digest it is around about 10% of the calories consumed, it depends a bit on what you eat.
So our minimum level to keep burning is to feed at lest the BMR, for women this is roughly calculated as 655 + (weight in pounds * 4.3) + (height in inches * 4.7) – (4.7 * age in years). For men the calculation is 66 + (weight in pounds * 6.3) + (height in inches * 12.9) – (age in years * 6.8).

To roughly calculate the total calorie burn of the body in a day you can select your activity level and calculate as:

• Sedentry – BMR = 30%
• Moderately active (cardio exercise every second day) – BMR + 30
• Active (cardio exercise every day) -BMR + 50

 

The awesome nutrition in mushrooms!

You might have noticed already that I use a lot of mushrooms, not only are they delicious but they are:

• Low calorie
• Low fat
• Low carb
• Nutrient packed, and
• Versatile

A mushroom isn’t actually a vegetable, although we usually talk about it as one, this gives a couple of big advantages – firstly it can’t synthesise sugar like most plant foods, therefore it is low carbohydrate (ideal for low carbers) and secondly unlike other plant food it manufactures vitamin B12 (which makes it great for people who can’t eat red meat or choose to limit the quantity they consume).

A 100 gram serve of mushrooms contains only 12 calories, virtually no fat and no cholesterol. It is however packed with nutrients including Niacin (to help the body cells obtain energy from foods), dietary fibre, folate and other B complex vitamins.

There are also a huge variety of mushrooms now available in our stores and markets so watch out for them and find new ways to add them to your weekly menu.  I’ve added a couple of recipes to this site to get you started.

 

What can I add to my diet?

Often when we think about diet, or our nutrition plan which seems to have become the accepted euphemism for what we consume, the focus is on what can be reduced or eliminated. For weight loss and health that is definitely important but can be a negative mind set to start a new regime with.

Instead when you are gearing up to focus on improving your health think about what you can add into your diet that is going to make the difference:

• Water is top of the list. Every organ in your body needs water to function correctly and most of the population are not drinking enough or consistently enough to keep their bodies healthy. For fat loss it is important to increase your fluid intake for two reasons, firstly your body can’t metabolise the fat as efficiently without a good supply of it and secondly it is very easy to confuse thirst and hunger.  Between meals if you think you are hungry try drinking a glass of water and waiting half an hour before you eat.

• Fruit and vegetables. To improve health and lose surplus body fat you need your body to be functioning optimally which means providing it with the essential vitamins and minerals. Eating a selection of fruit and vegetables of a range of colours will help ensure you are getting the variety you need. If you still aren’t sure then a single good quality multi-vitamin is a good option. With the extra fruit and vegetables comes additional fibre which while it is technically a carbohydrate is not able to be absorbed by your body so it helps keep your digestive tract healthy and gives you a sustained feeling of fullness reducing the risk of overeating.

• Make your meal an event. We are all busy these day and sometime if almost feels necessary to eat on the run but it isn’t good for your digestion and it is really easy to eat too much and make the wrong choices when we are in a hurry. Try to make time to sit at the table and eat your meal, where possible make it a social event and enjoy your meal with another person. Not only is the interaction mentally and emotionally healthy but you will eat slower which gives your body time to react and tell you when it is full.

 

Zucchini Pancakes

Some weeks I can eat salad after salad and it doesn’t bother me, other times, particularly when it is cold wet and miserable like it is in Auckland at the moment I need my vegetables to be interesting to stop me being tempted to eat other less nutritional carbs.

I found this recipe in an old Kimkin’s newsletter – she calls them latke’s after the crispy potato pancake that Jewish families enjoy at Hannakah. The zucchini version are not as crispy but definitely healthier and still very yummy. I think they make a good lunch option with a bit of salad or other cooked vegetables but the original recipe also suggests them as a breakfast alternative.

I collect recipes from a variety of places and haven’t been on the Kimkins plan but if you are wondering it is a low fat, low carb plan similar to the South Beach diet or Atkins. Their recipes are generally tasty and interesting.

Herbed Zucchini Pancakes

• 2 zucchini, grated & squeezed dry
• 1 tsp garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons onion, finely chopped
• 1 egg, well beaten
• 1/4 t salt & pepper
• Splash Tabasco (optional)
• Chopped fresh herbs (optional)

Mix all ingredients well, let sit for a few minutes for flavors to mingle. Heat nonstick frypan on medium, spray with cooking spray (or wipe with olive oil). Drop zucchini mixture in by large tablespoon fulls and cook until set & lightly browned (5-6 minutes), flip and cook 3-4 minutes on reverse.

 

The BEST Protein Powder

I’ve tried quite a lot of protein powders over the years, and there aren’t many that I love, in fact in honesty I can say that there are quite a few I’ll drink but only one I really love.  It mixes up to a perfectly smooth consistency with either no fat milk or water, absolutely no gritty texture and awesome flavours.  It is low fat and low carb and enriched with the vitamins and minerals us women never seem to get enough of.

This is one of my favourite breakfasts, I get a bit of carb for breakfast so I get to make it with no fat milk and a little fruit.  I use either mango or strawberries as they blend really well and have a great taste.

Leppins active woman protein comes in a variety of the most divine sounding flavours like white chocolate latte, butter toffee cream and choc mint delight.  For some reason not many of the local stores sell this product so I was really excited when I found it again last week because it means I choose to have a shake for breakfast again rather than finding excuses not to.

 

Eat more protein

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?

 

Are all calories created equal?

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.