Weight loss tips

  • Eat a variety of foods to ensure that you get enough nutrients
  • Exercise for at least 30 minutes per day. Try rollerblading or dancing.
  • Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables
  • Eat less salty, fatty, sugary foods - these are usually very energy  dense
  •  Increase fibre intake by swaping white bread for wholemeal/wholegrain bread. High fibre foods tend to be more filling than low fibre foods.
  • Eat fatty take-aways (like fish & chips) only occassionally, try sushi or Turkish kebabs instead
  • Choose nutritious snacks, for example, fresh fruit salad, date scones, roasted kumura, fruit yoghurt
  • And make your environment healthier. Remove any temptations and spend time with people who support your weight loss goals! 
  •  But don't forget to have an occassional treat.
  • Eat more slowly, enjoy your food, and avoid distractions while eating - this way you are likely to eat less.

Ways to reduce dietary fat

  • Choose trim milk instead of full fat milk
  • Spread margarine or butter lightly
  • Eat lean meat, for example, skinless chicken with visible fat removed
  • Grill, boil or steam food
  • Use non-stick cook ware 

Reducing sugar intake

  • Limit soft drink intake
  • Water down fruit drinks
  • Reduce cake, biscuit and confectionary consumption 

Reducing salt intake

  • Go easy  on added salt
  • Go easy on soy sauce

 Why should I care about my weight?

  • Staying in the normal weight range (BMI =18.5-24.99) is important for being healthy and feeling good, both physically and mentally. 
  • Being at a healthy weight can also reduce your risk of various health problems, such as, cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes, certain cancers, osteoarthritis, and impaired fertility

How do I know that I'm at a healthy weight?

  •  If your body mass index (BMI) is between 18.5 and 24.99, your weight is in the normal range. Additionally, if your waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is less than 1.0 if you are male and less than 0.85 if you are female, your body is a healthy size.
  • To measure your BMI, divide your height in metres (m) by your weight in kilograms (Kg) squared.
  • To measure WHR, divide your waist circumference by your hip circumference (widest part of your buttocks).

Questions and answers

I have lost 13kg in two months by cutting out junk food and without doing much exercise, is this good?

Yes and no. It’s good because you have decided to lose weight healthily. It’s good to lose weight if you are overweight, as long as you have a healthy attitude, you eat well and exercise regularly. Weigh loss can improve lead to improved health. However, it’s seems that you have lost weight a little too quickly, experts recommend that you aim to lose 0.5-1.0kg per week. But you probably find that your weight loss will slow down, despite improvements in your diet. Anyway, I recommend that you try exercising moderately for 30 minutes each day. This will improve your health even more so. Exercise can help stablise your blood glucose levels, control your blood pressure, and make you feel better.

 One thing I would like to know about is all these celebrity diets (Atkins, zone) that the magazines write about - are any of them good for you? Will they help you lose weight and keep it off? Are there negatives to these diets? Is Weight Watchers the way to go or is that another fad as well?

I believe that the Atkin’s Diet isn’t good. It’s high in saturated fat and low in carbohydrates, which is not good.  High saturated fat intake has been linked with heart disease and other diseases. Carbohydrates are needed by the body to make glucose, which is needed to run the body. The Atkin’s Diet can help you lose weight and keep it off according to some studies, however some say that it doesn’t (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet ). In saying that, eating a low energy (calorie/kilojoule) diet and increasing your physical activity levels can help you lose weight. It has been claimed that the Atkin’s Diet can cause bad breath, fatigue, diarrhea, rashes, muscle cramps and it can make you more likely develop osteoporosis.

 The Zone diet aims to keeps your insulin levels in “the zone”, that is, it’s supposed to keep your insulin levels stable. The Zone diet recommends acquiring 40%, 30% and 30% of your energy from carbohydrates, protein and fat, respectively. According to Ministry of Health (MOH), we should consume more carbohydrates and less protein than the Zone diet recommends. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_diet, the Zone diet may lead to weight loss.

Personally, I think Weight Watchers is an okay diet program (I’m not being paid to say this). Weight Watchers encourages healthy eating (which includes having a treat occasionally) and exercise. It also provides a supportive environment, which is great because if you surround yourself with like-minded people you are more likely to reach your weight loss goals.

I recommend focusing on physical and mental health, rather than obsessing your weight. I know it’s easier said than done, but it is possible. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables, wholegrain/wholemeal foods, low fat dairy products, and slowly cut down on junk food and alcoholic beverages (!), so you don’t go mental. I also recommend eating slowly and enjoying your food; eating off a small plate, so your meal seems bigger; reducing portion sizes; increasing your energy expenditure; and surround yourself with supportive people. If this fails, you might need to see a doctor, because your difficulties with losing weight maybe related to a medical condition.

 How about healthy meal alternatives for common high-fat meals or takeaways? 

I recommend going for foods that are generally low in fat and high in vegetables such as; doner kebabs (avoid creamy dressings), salad (again watch out for the creamy dressings), Subway, a stir-fry with lots of vegetables or sushi; when getting takeaways. I also recommend avoiding foods that are deep-fried, battered or crumbed, covered in cheese, coated in cream, or are particularly salty.

How can I incorporate exercise into my daily routine so it's not such a chore? 

Just do anything that you find fun. I recommend indulging in (safe) sexual activity; dancing at home in your pjs; window-shopping; doing star jumps during add breaks; and walking your dog/cat/bunny.

 This may be silly but I was told that eating a meat pie would mean you would have to exercise for an hour to burn it off. Is this true?

That depends on your body weight, your gender and the type of exercise you do. Generally, males, heavier people, and intense exercise burn off more energy than females, light people and mild exercise. However, yes it can take an hour to burn off a pie’s worth of energy.  A 165-gram meat pie has about 470 calories or 1900 kilojoules in it. Thus, if you weighed 70 Kg and you jogged (which uses 420 calories/hour) for just over an hour, you would burn the amount of energy found in a meat pie.

 

 Why is it that the bad foods taste so damn good and the good foods don't?

 I would have to say evolution and conditioning are responsible for this People learn to like certain foods and they evolve to prefer some foods to others. The more familiar you are with a certain food, the more you will like it. Therefore, you are also more likely to enjoy a food if you see other people eating it, and if you have tried several times. Additionally, if you were breastfed as an infant you are more likely to prefer foods that your mother ate, because the flavour of the food comes through in the breast milk and these flavours become familiar to you. Therefore, if you have been exposed to junk food, you are more likely to want it. In addition, you’re also more likely to prefer certain foods (for example, junk food) if you have had positive experiences which involve this particular food. For example, being rewarded with a food, or feasting on certain foods on Christmas day.

 According to evolutionary theory, our ancestors ate fatty, protein rich food to boost brain growth. The size of human brains increased significantly around the same time we started to eat meat. Because humans have a small gut, we needed to eat low volume, energy rich food (in modern days, this includes most junk food) so we could get enough energy to aid brain growth, but without overloading the digestive tract. Therefore, what I am saying is that we have evolved to like energy dense food.

Can you tell me about BMI and other similar measurements?

BMI stands for body mass index, which is found by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in metres squared.  BMI is one of the simplest measurements used to estimate body fat. Its correlation with body fat is high, and it is not suitable for certain groups, such as, pregnant women and body builders. The normal range for BMI is 18.5 to 25.0 for NZ Europeans, and 18.5 to 26.0 for Maori and Pacific Islanders.  

 

Skinfold thickness measurements is measurement related to BMI, they are both indirect ways of estimating body fat. This method of estimating body fat is based on the assumption that total body fat and subcutaneous (just under the skin) fat are relatively constant, thus total body fat can be estimated by measuring the amount of subcutaneous fat. Subcutaneous fat can be estimated by measuring skinfolds using a skinfold caliper. This form of body fat estimate becomes less accurate when used on older and obese people.

 

Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is a measurement, which is used to identify those at risk of obesity related disease. WHR is calculated by dividing your waist measurement by your hip measurement. A WHR 1.0 or higher in men and 0.85 or higher in women indicates an increased risk of disease.