Tag: weight loss

Posted by Christine Pope on in Health Care, Healthy Ageing, Iodine, Minerals, Weight Loss

Over 50 and struggling with frustrating roadblocks to weight loss?

Are you finding as you get a little older that you are doing all the things that have always worked for you in the past but you can’t lost weight? In fact it even seems to be creeping on around the middle?

There are a few obstacles that can affect you as you get older that make it harder to lose weight. One of the biggest roadblocks is nutrient deficiency and there are three areas that are critical;

  1. Key minerals for metabolism like chromium and iodine.
  2. Protein in adequate quantities.
  3. Kilojoules at an appropriate level.

Chromium is a key mineral for blood sugar balance and low levels are often associated with cravings for sugar and carbohydrates (to give you the quick sugar fix). While its found in a range of foods, such as meat, grains, green beans and fruits, levels can be impacted by a diet high in refined foods and simple sugars.

Iodine is an important nutrient for glands and in particular the thyroid gland, which controls growth and metabolism. There aren’t a wide range of food options with iodine, which may explain why deficiency is fairly common. Good food sources include seafood, seaweed, organic eggs and celtic sea salt. Some products such as salt can be fortified with iodine.

A deficiency of iodine is harder to detect as quite often symptoms are sub-clinical, however one of the most common symptoms is weight gain. In more significant deficiency you see signs of fatigue, hair loss and chilliness. Another symptom that often appears for women is fibrocystic or “lumpy” breasts.

A combination of chromium and iodine deficiency results in a significant block for metabolism and makes it very difficult to lose weight.

Inadequate amounts of protein in the diet can also make it hard to lose weight. Many women often find they tend to crave carbohydrates as they provide quick and easy energy. Protein has the same kilijoules per gram but also provides balanced blood sugar for a longer period. Including an adequate amount of protein at each meal keeps your blood sugar balanced and reduces cravings. What is an adequate amount of protein? Generally for weight maintence you are looking at 0.8g per kilo and for weight loss between 1-1.2g per kilo.

Translated that means for a women who is 80kg she needs to be eating 64g of protein a day to maintain weight and between 80-96g to lose weight. You also need to be aware that typically the protein content of animal meats is usually about 20-25% whereas for vegetarian proteins its typically 10-15%. A typical day could include 2 eggs (12g of protein), a small can of tuna (24g) and a chicken breast fillet (50g).

Under eating is also a significant problem for many people. Years of yoyo dieting and keeping kilijoules low can reduce your metabolism and make it difficult to lose weight. An historical study in Minnesota with prisoners looked at the impacts of prolonged starvation with calories reduced so that participants lost 25% of body weight. The study showed a reduction in the bodies metabolism, as well as an increase in depression and emotional distress.

Eating inadequate kilijoules can cause your metabolism to slow down, meaning you won’t burn as much fat off when you engage in physical activity. Your body requires energy when you walk, work out, think, breathe, just about everything!When you deprive your body of the fuel it needs to burn calories, it will begin to store food and enter a sort of “survival mode.” So even when you exercise, your body will protect the fat that it has stored, and you may not be able to lose the weight you want to lose. 

To recover from long periods of yoyo dieting you may need to work on increasing your metabolism as a priority. Gently increasing exercise plus using hormetic stressors is a useful way to approach the problem. Heat and cold, stressors which boost energy and slow ageing has a good summary of some approaches which may be helpful.

Christine Pope is a naturopath and nutritionist based at Elemental Health, St Ives. You can make appointments online or by calling on (02) 8084 0081. Christine is also the author of the Ageing Outrageously program and there is more information on the website here.

Posted by Christine Pope on in Health Care

Adjusting your Set Point

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What is your set point and can you change it? Set Point is a theory that once your weight stabilises the body will use a series of signals to maintain that weight and most people will bounce around a consistent weight plus or minus a couple of kilo’s. When they start reducing weight below the Set Point by more than 2 kilos then they will feel hungrier when it goes above they will more easily be full.

What interferes with these signals? Hyper palatable foods! Doesn’t sound that bad does it? These foods result in cravings for more food and then a round of unsuccessful yo yo dieting which sees overall weight increasing consistently. How do you go about resetting this mechanism and achieving lasting weight loss?

There are a few key principles to achieving lasting weight loss but the first one is avoiding the foods which sabotage our efforts for at least 6 weeks. What are these foods? Well think about what you would least like to miss out on and I can almost guarantee its on the list;

  1. Chocolate
  2. Ice Cream
  3. French fries
  4. Pizza
  5. Biscuits
  6. Cake
  7. Potato chips
  8. Buttered popcorn
  9. Cheeseburger
  10. Breakfast cereal

shutterstock_1034655277The combination of fat and carbohydrate is particularly difficult to resist. Add in preservatives and other flavour enhancers and it changes our brain chemistry to crave these foods. Six weeks of avoiding these foods really helps resetting our brain chemistry and provides us with fewer cravings which can sabotage our efforts when we are tired and stressed.

The other key principles for resetting the Set point involve supportive dietary and lifestyle changes. Its critical to ensure the following are included;

  1. Adequate protein – this is critical to ensuring that you feel full and that your blood sugar is stable. Diets high in carbohydrates result in significant fluctuations in blood sugar and insulin levels.
  2. Diet breaks – this one was a personal favourite! To ensure that the body doesn’t keep returning to homeostasis or your old Set Point we need to ensure it doesn’t get used to a particular routine and sabotage our efforts. One of the key findings from research is that long term caloric restriction reduces your basal metabolic rate. You either slow down or burn fewer calories. Implementing breaks interferes with these compensatory mechanisms and yields longer term weight loss and maintenance of that fat loss.
  3. Adequate sleep – whilst it may appear contradictory good quality sleep is actually more critical than exercise. Poor quality sleep reduces willpower, increases appetite and reduces the desire to exercise. In teenagers who were overweight simply increasing sleep resulted in an overall reduction in appetite and decrease in fat mass.
  4. Regular physical exercise either medium to high intensity. Regular exercise builds mitochondria in the cells. Mitochondria are like little factories which produce energy and the more we have the higher our baseline energy consumption. Research is highlighting that high intensity training can be the best way to build mitochondria so to give your efforts a boost you need to ensure you have 4 to 5 sessions of exercise a week.
  5. The right diet for you – for some people its low carbohydrate and that is certainly popular at the moment however for other people its low fat. Again the evidence is that either can result in successful weight loss in conjunction with regular exercise and stress management.

Are you ready to try and change your Set Point? Book in for a consultation with Christine Pope at Elemental Health and see how we can work together to change it. Appointments can be made on 8084 0081 or online at the website www.elementalhealth.net.au .

More information about obstacles to weight loss can be found in the recent blog What’s your metabolism blocker ?

 

 

Posted by Christine Pope on in Allergies, Nutrition, Weight Loss

What’s your metabolism blocker ?

shutterstock_559278454The first blog I wrote was about Five simple strategies to Lose Weight  was focussed on insulin resistance and how to approach weight loss for this common problem. Historically I haven’t really focussed on weight loss in clinic unless it was related to the client’s overall health. What I found was that more complex clients require more creative solutions in terms of adapting weight loss programs to suit them and their lifestyles. You need to get more specific about supporting their metabolism to really help them shed weight.

Different diets work for different people so whilst I generally recommend a low carbohydrate ketogenic diet I have had clients do well on a range of other programs. How do you know when you are on the right diet for you? Generally you find your weight stabilises. So my top tips regardless of which diet you are using are as follows;

  1. Food Intolerances – find out what foods you are reactive to and cut them out! Regardless of the diet you are following this will often result in a 2-3 kg loss and usually a smaller waist line due to the reduction in bloating. Often the side benefit is you feel better and are more energetic and better able to follow through on exercise and food preparation. Using Bio Compatability 500 Hair Test to determine what foods are compatibile with your body often speeds up this process.
  2. Hydration – Drink 6-8 glasses of water a day and at least one litre for each hour of exercise. Nothing works well when you are dehydrated.
  3. Herbal Teas – Support your liver with some herbal teas which assist with metabolism. This can include green tea, dandelion and ginger. Have a cup of hot tea with a squeeze of lemon on rising it really helps your liver function.  Herbal teas also increase fluid intake and may reduce consumption of tea and coffee which often involve milk and sugar!!
  4. Fat Burning Exercise – Dietary changes will often produce slow and steady weight loss but if you really want to boot it up walking an hour a day is the key. The first 20 minutes you burn up the glycogen in your muscles and then your blood glucose but around 30-35 minutes you start burning fat. Consistently I have seen a significant improvement in results with adding regular walks to the program – in one case the client walked every morning and lost 7kg in 6 weeks.
  5. shutterstock_146334503Get enough protein  – how much is enough? To maintain your weight you need about 0.8g per kilo daily. BUT for weight loss you need to increase it to 1.2g per day. The protein is based on the desired weight so if you want to get to 60kg you need to eat 72g of protein a day. That is the equivilant of 2 eggs, a small can of tuna and a small chicken breast. Generally animal products are about 20-25% protein whereas plant based sources are around 10% so effectively you need to double up.
  6. Main meal at lunch  eating your big meal in the middle of the day gives you a chance to really fuel yourself well for an afternoon of work but also plenty of time to really digest the meal.
  7. Fasting  – this can be a good way to give your program a  boost. Usually I would recommend starting with a 12 hour fast between dinner and breakfast. For details on who would do well with longer periods of fasting have a look at my recent blog Is Fasting For Me .

I have had a few other tips from friends and colleagues – one of my favourites was to diet when your partner was away and empty the fridge so you can’t snack on unhealthy options. Do you have any tips on weight loss? Please share in the comments section below.

Christine Pope is an experienced Naturopath and Nutritionist based at Elemental Health at St Ives. You can make appointments on 02 8084 0081 or through the website at www,elementalhealth.net.au .

Posted by Christine Pope on in Health Care, Nutrition, Weight Loss

Stuff the diet!

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Christmas celebrations can be challenging when you are trying to lose weight. It’s easy to forget how much you have eaten when you drink too much. So how do you get through the silly season without gaining another 2 kilos?

The challenges at this time of year are often considerable, partly due to the type of events and partly due to the change in routine.

Planning is key to surviving the festivities with your waist line intact. Figure out what sort of food or drink is on offer and plan accordingly. In fact if you are going to cocktail parties try and avoid arriving really hungry. It just makes the deep fried spring rolls and appetisers look more tempting. Plan a snack with some protein a couple of hours before the function. It could be a small tub of yoghurt, humuus with some rice crackers or veggie sticks or a large handful of nuts. This means you can wait until they bring out snacks which are a little less calorie laden and you won’t eat as many of them.

Background of ripe cherries

Giving up drinking during the holidays can be tough, so try alternating a large sparkling water with your glass of bubbles or red wine instead. A couple of glasses of wine is probably not going to blow the calorie count in a week unless you are having two glasses a night! That works out at 2 bottles of wine which probably isn’t going to add a nice number to your scales. However for the week where you seem to have every night out try balancing it in the morning with a protein shake with some berries. Having a lower calorie but satisfying breakfast will help even out your consumption. Good options for protein shakes include Iso Why or Metagenics French Vanilla Shake as well as Vital Greens Protein for those who can’t tolerate dairy!

Changes to your routine, which often mean you work all day and then have functions in the evening, play havoc with your exercise routine. The worst thing is you really miss out on the regular endorphin boost of exercise as well as the fat burning. If you can’t get to the gym at least think about fitting a half hour walk into your day. I really enjoy coming back from a function and taking the dog up to the oval for a few laps in the coolest part of the day. Well mostly I enjoy it, last week I got attacked by Christmas beetles and got a bit freaked out!!

If all else fails consider a lovely detox and weight loss plan in January 2015!

Posted by Christine Pope on in Nutrition, stress, Weight Loss

Is stress making you fat?

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Many of us gain weight when we are stressed simply because we grab a quick fix of carbs to keep us going. Over the course of days and weeks this often adds up quickly to quite a few kilos. We know what we should be eating, but often we are just too tired or too busy to prepare healthy meals and snacks.

But for some people stress adds another nasty surprise with elevated cortisol resulting in weight gain around the stomach. If you usually put it on around the hips something else may be contributing.

Cortisol levels should be highest in the morning and fall during the day, being lowest at midnight. Typically if your cortisol is high you may also have problems sleeping as well. Cortisol has a wide range of functions but for weight gain it stimulates the release of glucose to maintain blood sugar levels. So elevated cortisol through the day can result in increased appetite – stress is making you hungrier (and fatter).

Getting control of your cortisol levels isn’t as simple as just balancing blood sugar. You need to deal with triggers which are creating the stress for you. Sometimes it isn’t the situation itself but how you respond to it that makes you stressed. Often what is stressful for one person is not a problem for someone else.

So once you identify the trigger try and think about some other ways to handle the situation. Take five deep breaths before you even think about reacting. If you still aren’t feeling calmer then a thirty minute walk (before you scream at your boss) which will reduce your cortisol levels and help you stay calmer. A regular meditative practice, such as yoga or indeed meditation can also be a good way to get your cortisol levels under control.

Christine runs regular Stress Managment Workshop with Cheryl Alderman at Be Ultimate . Alternatively make an appointment with Christine on 8084 0081 , her practice is at Elemental Health at St Ives, Sydney

Posted by Christine Pope on in Health Care, Nutrition, Weight Loss

5 simple strategies for losing weight

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What is stopping you losing weight?

This month I am looking at the major “obstacles” as I believe until you deal with these issues it is really hard to successfully lose weight and keep it off.

Insulin Resistance is one of the most common problems blocking weight loss and unfortunately yo yo dieting usually makes it worse. So how do you deal with insulin resistance?

First up be clear this is the problem – usually insulin resistance presents with a craving for sweet and fatty foods as well as dips in energy if you haven’t eaten for a few hours. This then makes you crave sweet food to boost your blood glucose perpetuating a nasty cycle. Your body then releases insulin to store the elevated glucose (often as fat) and this frequent activation can cause the pancreas, which produces insulin, to become less effective.

Strategies for improving your insulin resistance;

1. A low carbohydrate diet with modest amounts of protein at every meal. Low carbs doesn’t mean no carbs it just means that you need to reduce carbohydrates (such as bread and pasta) to 2-3 serves a day and increase the nutrient density of your meals with 6 serves of vegetables a day.  In addition try and eat some protein containing food every 4 hours to avoid dips in blood glucose – a handful of nuts or half a tub of yoghurt could be some easy options.

2. Regular exercise has consistently been shown to improve insulin sensitivity – 30 minutes of walking five times a week is enough to produce consistent benefit. Ideally you could add some resistance exercise to build muscle however just the walking will produce significant benefits and you don’t need special gear!

3. Supplements – this area is a little tricky as it can depend on your specific symptoms. A good base is a multi vitamin and good quality fish oil (1000mg).  If sweet cravings are an issue then chromium is often indicated. Australian soils are old and depleted so it is hard to get it from your diet. The other key nutrient is magnesium and if you also get cramps or muscle aches and pains or sleep badly this is a good signal that you may require it – generally at least 400mg a day is a good level.

4. Stress less – find a way to start managing the stress in your life as this is a major trigger. It can lead to abdominal obesity and inflammation thereby aggravating your symptoms. Ideal ways to manage stress could include a regular yoga class, meditation tapes, journalling, walking on the beach or simply meeting with a friend.

5. Avoid CRAP foods – Carbonated , Refined, Additive laden and Processed foods. If you look on the back of the packet and you don’t know what things are, then basically its not food.  Trans fats in particular are very damaging to your arteries and these substances are often used to preserve foods so best to avoid them!

Christine Pope is a nutritionist and homeopath based at Elemental health at St Ives. If you need help with managing your weight you can make an appointment on 8084 0081.