Weight Control & Fat Loss

Weight control has taken central stage in lifestyles of entire societies world over. This is because excess body weight (body fat actually) plays very crucial role in development of lifestyle diseases such as coronary heart diseases, hypertension, type-2 diabetes and some types of cancers.

These lifestyle diseases are cause of concern in most developed countries through out the world. America is the leading in percentage of overweight and obese population and Australia is close second in this health problem,which is a huge drainage on the budgets of health system. In fact new scientific studies are indicating a rising trends of childhood and adolescent obesity and is projected to result in an increase of heart diseases (including death) by up to 16% between the years of 2020 and 2035.

There is a huge market out there for the weight loss industry. There are many fad diets around the place. Most of fads are out of balance nutritionally, some absolutely abnormal and a few are out right gimmicks. There are a few organisation in practice as well, some for several decades. Some of these organisations give prepared meals, some give list of food to be consumed & others are giving diets in shakes.

So, they lose weight.

Here is a common scenario. Peoples go 'on' a diet, lose some weight (on scale). They go 'off ' diet and return to their 'normal' diet and regain lost weight, often more than they have lost. With frustration they go from one fad diet to another and one organisation to another without much success to achieve their desired result-which is weight loss for good. There must be something wrong that, people are hopping from place to place and not finding answers.

.

The reality is people want to lose weight and keep it for good. This is only possible with regular nutritionally balanced foods on daily basis. Any ‘diet’ with severe reduction of calories or nutritionally imbalanced food changes body’s physiology and internal body mechanisms. These physiological changes cannot be sustained for too long.

It is due to body’s natural physiological demands that, all kinds of ‘fad diets’ and nutritional imbalances cannot go on forever. Body and nature also have capacity to make up for the lost grounds and compensate.

Weight loss can come from loss of body water, loss of muscle mass and loss of fat. Loss of water from body is most easy  and fat loss is hardest, even copared to lean muscle mass. When there is lack of regular exercise and nutritional imbalance for a period of time, then first loss of body weight is that of water, followed by lean body mass and then fat, if any at all. We know it very well that, loss of body water and muscle mass is unhealthy and only fat loss is healthy weight loss.

The fact of all the 'fad diets' is that, so called weight loss is actually loss of body water and to some extent muscle mass, which is not only unhealthy but, easy to regain as well. We are yet to see a 'fad diet' working beyond a short period, certainly none works for life.

You can understand now that, although scales don't lie. Scales can measure total body weight -which is body water, muscles as well as body fat. We also know that, it is much easier to loss body water or even muscles than the body fat.

Scales often give false impression to peoples as to what is happening to their body fat levels. Scales cannot tell you body fat percentage and certainly are not able to indicate fat loss after an event.

Scales are most useful in recording body weight before and after training or exercise to measure & show loss of body water due to sweat. Scales are helpful to educate you about your water and electrolytes replacement measures. Scales are not useful in monitoring weight losses day to day basis.

This is the reason, we call our program as weight control and fat loss and not just any weight loss program.

You need to pause here and look at some hard facts and fundamentals which are in play with the body weight. All of us have a certain capacity to burn the given calories, scientist call it metabolic rate.This metabolic rate is largely genetically determined and is called basal metabolic rate (BMR). However, our body have capacity to adjust BMR high or low according to physiological demands of body. When our body needs more energy e.g. exercise ( or excess supply of calories) then our body tries to burn more by setting a higher BMR.

By the same token when we need less e.g. sedentary lifestyle or supply of calories are less e.g. 'dieting' then body set this BMR low and tries to save calories. Hence, it is important to remember that, BMR is changed by either sedentary life or an active life. So, both behaviours have potential of re-setting NEW BMR. (See More)

WHAT MAKES YOU FAT?

Is it Proteins or Carbohydrates or Fats or Alcohol?

One of the most common and enduring myth for weight gain has been sugars. We have this concept that, carbohydrate can be easily converted in to fat. With advances in research, we now know that, we needs to be in excess of 500 grams of carbohydrates at a time, before body can convert these extra carbohydrate calories into fat.  Most of the time this is not possible.  To put it into practical context, a 500 grams of carbohydrate is the amount you find in approximately 30 slices of bread. People simply can't eat that many bread slices at a time.  So, in practice it is very hard to convert carbohydrates into body fats.

And how does alcohol comes into play in body weight dynamics?  Alcohol is thought as second and a close cousine of carbohydrates as cause of excess body weight. According to researchs, here is what goes when we consume excess alcohol. Body always burns the calories from alcohol first, calories from carbohydrates second.and if there are too many calories coming into body from alcohol and carbohydrates than, the fat calories will not be utilized and the nett result is that, all of these fat calories can be converted into body fat , which is deposited in body as adipose tissue(fat).

Proteins, generally are not cosidered as culprit but, spare a thought to this fundamental fact that, most animal proteins have a lot of hidden fat. So, be careful about it as you can always add excess fat calories with proteins.

That leave us with calories from fat to the forefront of the issue 

We, now have this knowledge from variuos researchs, that, the only thing that really adds to body fat, is fat most of the times.

Here is abrief list of causes of excess body weight:

• Genetic factors: They influence basal metabolic rate, basal body temperature, enzymic differences within the cells, the hypothalamic control of hunger and eating and possibly differences in metabolism of brown fat.

• The amount of food eaten- It is like a bank balance, if we put in more dollars and spend less our balance grows. Similarly, if, we consume more calories than we can burn than, body fat grows and weight is gained.

• The intake of fat: Point to remember here is that, excess body fat can't accumulate until we take more calories from fat than body can use.

• The energy cost of the daily activity- that includes the calories burnt during your house-hold chorus, at work or exercise or any other physical activity. 

• Social factors-  there are many and we will discuss them later on.

• Psychological factors- again very important and needs to be given due 'weight'.   

And what about rate of weight loss?

Fast weight loss is not good. Fast weight loss results in greater reduction in resting (basal) metabolic rate compared to slowly paced  weight loss, where physilogical changes sets in properly and can adjusted without untowards effects on internal mechanisms of body. When weight loss is as a result of desired fat loss from an ideal combination of management of balanced nutrition and exercise, it should be around a rate of 1 to1.5 kgs per month.In grossly obese peoples, a target of 1.5 to 2 kgs of fat loss can be achieved, without too much disturbances in physiology.

This rate of weight loss can be maintained on permanent basis and does not alter metabolic rate too much, which meaning body can make required adjustments. Remember it is hard for body to sustain unhealthy physiological changes for long. (See More)

 

Contact us ...

• To learn more how can we arrive in this weight gain problem mess,
• To understand more clearly why 'fad diets' don't work,
• To understand more clearly why a prepared meal, fixed meals and diets shakes are not feasible in long term,
• To learn more about your metabolism and how this is the single most important determining factor in weight control,
• To learn more that, how and why type of foods and portion size are very important in weight control,
• To learn more about sources of hidden fat, types of fats, good and bad fats,
• To learn more how you can get control of the causes (except genetic factors) and particularly, get control of social and psychological causes, which can lead to excess weight gain,
• To learn more and understand why fast weight loss is not sustainable and strain on body mechanisms and
• Above all, to learn more about how to bring balances in your lifestyle and take control of your weight in your own hand.