Losing weight kills metabolism

This means if you exercise and diet, without building muscle - you'll lower metabolism significantly, which will make it forever harder to keep that weight off. 

The research shows that the changes that occur after weight loss translate to a huge caloric disadvantage of about 250 to 400 calories. For instance, one woman who entered the Columbia studies at 230 pounds was eating about 3,000 calories to maintain that weight. Once she dropped to 190 pounds, losing 17 percent of her body weight, metabolic studies determined that she needed about 2,300 daily calories to maintain the new lower weight. That may sound like plenty, but the typical 30-year-old 190-pound woman can consume about 2,600 calories to maintain her weight — 300 more calories than the woman who dieted to get there.

Scientists are still learning why a weight-reduced body behaves so differently from a similar-size body that has not dieted. Muscle biopsies taken before, during and after weight loss show that once a person drops weight, their muscle fibers undergo a transformation, making them more like highly efficient “slow twitch” muscle fibers. A result is that after losing weight, your muscles burn 20 to 25 percent fewer calories during everyday activity and moderate aerobic exercise than those of a person who is naturally at the same weight. That means a dieter who thinks she is burning 200 calories during a brisk half-hour walk is probably using closer to 150 to 160 calories.

Catastrophe

Oprah had food writer Michaell Pollan on her show this past week. Pollan wrote some of the best books on food that I've ever read - The Ominvore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, etc.

 

The New York Times named Pollan one of the most influencial people in the last 100 years.

 

The following exact interchange between Oprah and Pollan was so darn compelling, I took the effort to transcribe it for you here.  I so passionately agree with these views expressed - it's the reason I email you folks adnaseum and berate my husband if, god forbid, he makes himself a bagel instead of eggs in the morning.

 

Pollan:  The American diet is now a catastrophe. When you hear the phrase "the health care crisis" that is a euphemism for the catastrophe that is the American diet. Seventy-five percent of our health care spending is on chronic diseases linked to diet. That's really what's bankrupting us (this country) - and that has to do with the way we're eating: way too many calories, too much processed food, tons of refined carbohydrates....

 

Oprah interrupts: Define refined carbohydrates.

 

Pollan: Things with white flour in it, and sugar. And soda.

 

Oprah: It's all those things in boxes, in packaging...

 

Pollan: Exactly - it's all about processed foods. Our diets have changed more in the last 100 years than they have in the last 10,000 years........Look, cheap food is a great blessing, but it's also a great curse....

 

How do you feel about what you had to eat today? How much of it was processed, and a refined sugar and carb? How much of it are you proud of? 

 

I'm always worried that I set too high a standard and stress you out too much.

 

What I hope to do is compel you to make just a few changes.

 

Just a 30% change in your diet will make a corresponding 30% change in your weight, health and energy level. That's BIG. Can you imagine weighing 30% less than you do now?  Exciting - yes.

 

Of course we're all going to still enjoy refined carbohydrates occasionally.

 

But could we at least not make them the primary component of every single one of our meals, as many in this country are doing.  

 

Refined carbs and sugar as meals is a perfect recipe for catastrophe - for your weight, your health, and the fiscal and environmental health of our planet.

 What's your food plan for tomorrow? I have chicken, tuna, raw hamburger patties, cheese, nuts, fruits and vegetables ready to go for tomorrow. So I KNOW right NOW what I'm gonna eat tomorrow. So I know RIGHT NOW that I'm going to eat right tomorrow.  And that feels good. I feel in control. 

 

I had so much mental and physical energy today - surely due in large part to the fact that my diet today was almost completely free of refined carbs and sugar.  

 

What to eat to lose weight - circa 1825

Can anyone guess where the below quote came from?

"...and since it has been proved that fatty congestion (being overweight) is simply due to flour and starch in animals as well as man, it may be inferred, as an exact consequence, that a more or less strict abstinence from all floury or starchy food leads to a diminution of flesh." 

It's from a famous book called, The Physiology of Taste, which was written in 1825!

My point - you can negotiate with me for your grains all you want. But it's been very clear for a very long time that grains are the key to gaining weight. 

In case you're not quite clear what is meant by grains : wheat, corn, oats, rice and all their by products, including bread, cold boxed cereal, hot cereal, donuts cookies, crackers, biscuits, pancakes, pasta, tortillas.  

Another quote from this almost-two-hundred-year-old book about what exactly to have for dinner if you want to lose weight: 

"Avoid all things floury, in whatever guise they come; for you are still left with the roast and the salad and the green vegetables. And if you must have something sweet afterwards, choose a chocolate custard....."

Clearly, the dietary prescriptions I've been giving you are hardly new and revolutionary. 

On being thin, this book has to say, "As for women, it is a frightful misfortune; for to them beauty is more than life itself, and beauty consists above all in roundness of form and gracefully curving lines."

Of course, the book then goes to to prescribe, to thin women, a diet high in sugar and all things floury. 

Finally, just for your sheer amusement, I'll give you one final quote which really made me guffaw. 

But we see no reason why women who are born thin, yet whose stomach is in order, should be any more difficult to fatten than chickens; and if it takes a little longer , that is because their stomachs are comparatively smaller and they cannot be subjected, like those devoted birds, to a strict and meticulously executed diet. 

Diebetes

It means going blind and losing your legs!

Is it worth it ?

If you're drinking a lot of soft drinks and juice every day, you're headed for diabetes.

Turning my personal training email 'list' into a blog

As a personal trainer I've realized that there's too much information to share with too many to try and do it one person at a time over tea.

I've exchanged hundreds of emails with my clients about their food and fitness progress.

The issues and solutions we covered are so common to anyone who's into health and fitness and struggling with weight loss, I hope they feel free to post there comments here so even more folks can learn from and be inspired by their example.