Keys to Successful Weight Management

As we’re now heading towards summer again, more people are becoming more conscious of their weight, in preparation for those beach days.

An Overview Perspective 

As we’re all unique, hence there’s no one ideal weight management protocol that suits all. However, here’s some key tips that may help. Firstly, it’s important to become clear about a few aspects. Contrary to what’s often thought, it’s not necessarily just about losing weight. 

Consider, as muscle weights more than fat, it’s actually more-so about getting in better shape. Hence, maybe the goal is loosing fat and gaining muscle tone in the ideal places. More-so, it’s about enhancing wellbeing, which is living a better lifestyle. This includes such as eating better and becoming fitter and healthier. Let’s face it, the main reason that many people are overweight is simply because they eat too much and are not active enough. In general, this comes down to a poor lifestyle. There are also a few other possible reasons that we’ll discuss in some detail.

Resolving the Subconscious Issues that Sabotages Our Success

We’re interesting creatures. We often self-sabotage because we’re still unresolved about the issues at hand, however too often we are not actually aware of these issues. As an example, we may self-sabotage just to give us more opportunity to be aware of what we truly desire. We may hold a ‘negative core belief’ that we’re ‘not good enough’ and hence we don’t deserve success. This may often be due to low self-esteem, low self-confidence and low self-worth. 

Counselling Consultations

To help resolve these issues,  it may be an idea to seek the support of a qualified and experienced counsellor.  There’s several strategies that may to help ‘break-through’ our subconscious blocks in achieving greater success.  Also, as so many weight management issues are much about lifestyle, life coaching is also a wonderful way to develop new skills in enhancing the quality of your life. 

Lifestyle Considerations

Sadly, so many are suffering a poor lifestyle. This is so common in our modern society.  Too many people eat too many of the wrong foods and are too sedentary. One reason may be with such an excessive emphasis on money and work. For many in today’s society, much of the work is sitting down behind a computer screen. Yet, once, not that long ago people were much more active.

Honour Thy Temple

If we wish for our body to serve us well, then we need to take good care of it. For successful weight management, there’s 4 main ‘pillars of wellness’ that need to be addressed. For our physical body, we need to ‘eat well’ and ‘move well’. Also, for our mind, we need to ‘think better’ and in connecting our mind-body to ‘breath better’. Also, as the basics, remember to keep well hydrated.

The Lazy Syndrome

Most of us have a tendency to seek the easiest way to gain the best results As we grow older, we learn ways to do less and at the same time how to get better rewards. Whilst young children enjoy skipping and playing, as we grow older we rather just sit and watch. Sure, the occasional well earned moments of feeling a bit lazy isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We all deserve a good rest or a slow day every now and then. However, if you’re finding that there’s too much ‘down-time’ and it’s difficult to get motivated, a lack of passion and it’s having an adverse effect on your life, then it’s time to do something about it.

To beat the ‘Lazy Syndrome’ we need to make small, progressive and achievable goals. Create a realistic ‘action-plan’ and monitor your results. Remember, the ‘don’t-do’ list is just as important as the ‘to-do’ list.  Above all, avoid the trap of trying to be too perfect. Embrace ‘towards-to’ positive self-talk that helps to steer you closer to your desired goals. Take an inventory of your strengths and select ways to best use your best assets to your advantage. Remember to recognise and reward yourself with celebrating your accomplishments along the way. Remember, it’s ok to reach-out and ask for help. Practice the art of focusing on your goals and to avoid distractions. Sure, sometimes, the small steps may seem tedious, however also keep your sights set on your bigger goals.

Boost Your Vitality

Eventually, with being too lazy for too long we may become weaker, loose vitality, with slowed metabolism, diminished muscle strength and gain excess fat. Often, the underlying cause may just be that we haven’t aligned with our true desires and passion.

As we boost our vitality, we also become stronger, more muscularly toned, with increase metabolism and less fat. As well as good exercise, balance rest, deep relaxation and sleep is also vital in boosting our vitality. The trick is getting the best balance between activity and rest. Ideally, we should exercise well to earn our rest.

Stress Management strategies

Chronic, long term adrenal stress can cause increased cortisol which can eventually lead to obesity. We all need to learn how to respond well to challengers rather than just reacting in a stressed way. Remember, some stresses are more due to internal dysfunctions.

I recommend a ‘stress-test’ to look at where our strength and weaknesses lie. From there we can formulate a treatment plan to navigate our-self in a better direction. 

Let’s Get Physical

Once upon a time, we we’re much more physical because hard work was the only way to survive. Back in those days, people could eat almost anything they wanted as they were burning much more calories than what they consumed. But, as times have changed, and life in general has become easier, the technology of today’s world has left us much more prone to obesity.

Now-a-days, our life-style has changed so much that our comfort level has increased probably about tenfold. As it’s said, every rose has its thorn. This overly comfortable lifestyle can also bring with it obesity and its many health dangers.

Fat and Fatigue

Excessive fat can spell a greater chance of falling prey to a multitude of illnesses. An an example, it may bound to be from diabetes or a heart attack. Along with an array of obesity-related chronic diseases it lowers the quality of life. However, we all have a choice to do something proactive to prevent it.

Keep in mind, it’s not necessarily about being ultra-toned and sculpted. However, more-so it’s about achieving an ideal BMI that is not so much lowering the quality of life or being life threatening. Once you achieve good health, as a bonus you may choose to work on your ‘six-pack’ abs later.

The key to obtaining your ideal weight is primarily living a healthier lifestyle. Hence, this guide to enhancing your lifestyle which may help you with your weight management. As you progress, you may be amazed at how simple changes in your lifestyle can help you in shedding any excess fat and toning those muscles. In simple terms, it mostly revolves around eating right and getting your body moving.

Body Mass Index

Here, we grasp an appreciation of BMI as a tool for measuring and hence motivating us to achieve goals in weight management. BMI gives us an indication of our fat and muscle ratios which can help predict health status. This can be summed-up as follows.

A BMI of less than 18.5 means that a person is underweight.
A BMI of between 18.5 and 24.9 is ideal.
A BMI of between 25 and 29.9 is overweight.
A BMI over 30 indicates obesity.

The BMI combines your physical dimensions such as height, waist circumference weight to calculate a BMI measurement. It’s suggested to obtain a BMI reading at the start of this weight management journey. You may then, have ongoing readings at selected intervals to track your progress. A good BMI reading will also give us an indication of the ration between intracellular and extracellular fluid.

Good Hydration

Our diet should also include good hydration. How much water to drink has for many years been a hotly debated topic. However, as we’re all different, with different conditions we need to find what is the best level of hydration for our-self. Ideally, our fluids would be well balanced with our other nutrients. This includes especially minerals and electrolytes.

Most people don’t know that when they feel hungry, they may actually really be more-so be thirsty. It’s believed that over 66% of your body weight should be water. It’s about the same percent of water on our planet. Our hydration levels play an important role in weight control. It primarily does this as water is a cleanser, solvent assists with transport and detoxification.
Water also helps in helps convert food into energy, regulation  of our body temperature and as a cushion. As a solvent, water dissolves many different substances

Ensure you drink plenty of water. Ideally smaller sips throughout the day. It’s generally recommended that you drink 8 glasses per day, but that may take you some time to work up to. This equates to 2 litres. Your body needs this water to help flush the toxins out of your body. Much overweight can be attributed to toxicity. Being well hydrated can help you feel better and healthier.

As you drink more water you may begin to feel better and motivated to lose weight. One of the best things about water is that it has no calories. Also, as you’re drinking more water, you won’t feel so hungry, so you’ll eat less. So remember, if you’re feeling hungry, try drinking a glass of water first. Then you’ll probably realise that you you were just dehydrated and not actually hungry at all.

Ideally, as you get up in the morning, start off your day with a filtered glass of water. It’s likely that as you drink more water, you’ll awaken your thirst for more water. Maybe, a glass of water will also awaken your digestive juices. Avoid excessive stimulants such as nicotine and caffeine, such as in coffee and teas. These are also diuretics that will dehydrate you. 

Eat Your Self Well

One main reason for obesity is adrenal fatigue. When suffering from adrenal fatigue, it’s most likely that you wont be hungry upon arising in the mornings. To help counteract this, eat breakfast within an hour of waking up. Always include a healthy serve of protein for breakfast. It’s the best way to give your body the jump start it needs. A good breakfast is important.
Remember, the idea is that you’re breaking the fast from throughout the long night.

Let’ face it, if we starve our-self long enough, we’ll eventually get fat loss. However, this is not the ideal way to lose weight, nor is it very healthy. This this approach, you’re most likely causing yourself stress and much harm. The key to weight management is in eating the right way for you.

When most people think about losing weight, they instantly think about dieting. However, sometimes the less we eat, initially the more the body may hold onto fat in preparation for the next famine. Be intelligent about what you eat. Be aware, not to eat just for comfort or to suppress emotions. Don’t be an emotional impulse eater. Learn how to tune-into what your body wants to eat.

Also, as you sit down for each meal, sip a glass of water before you eat. Tune-into your body to determine just the ideal amount of water each time. Be sure to have a good breakfast. Eat plenty of protein such as yoghurt, eggs, almonds, fish, etc. Avoid sugary products such as fizzy drinks, white bread, pasta, cakes,

Avoid all refined sugar. It’s sugar that fattening. There’s just so much refined sugar lurking in just about all processed products. As an example, if every time with a coffee, you’re eating a piece of chocolate cake. Think of it this way, when you have one or two cubes of sugar, you’re stacking on calories that takes much effort to burn off.  It’s important to get a grip on the sweet tooth. Remember, those sugar cravings will eventually pass.

Many people have an impulse to eat when they see food. Be conscious to eat only when you are hungry. The more ‘junk food’ you can cut out of your diet the better. In general, avoid as much as you can any processed products. These typically have excessive refined sugar and not much fiber.

Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables that have high water content. All of these, like paw-paw, kiwi fruit, grapes, watermelons, tomatoes etc. are good for you. Much of these foods contain about 90% water. A variety of leafy greens should also be added daily in a healthy salad mix. Be aware not to pour too much processed dressing on top. The leafy greens are also packed with a lot of nutrients and natural water.

Be diligent in watching everything you consume. Be aware of the food itself along with what you put on top of it. Sometimes, garnishments and condiments can sabotage a healthy meal. To get best results, it’s necessary to have discipline. Discipline yourself to set meal, at specific times times and stick to them.  A disciplined eating pattern will help you to control what you eat and when you eat it. It’s probably better to have several small meals a day rather than just one huge meal.

Just eating once a day may make your body feel as though it is starving. This in turn may pack on fat instead of using it as fuel. Don’t wait until your  starving to eat. This only makes you overeat until you’re stuffed.

Be sure to drink a glass of water first to determine if you really are hungry or if you are really thirsty. Try to avoid the temptation of snacking too much between meals. If you feel compelled to have a snack make sure it is a healthy one. Remember, fruit and veggies can make great snacks. They can help you get you through the hunger pangs.

Many people when dieting count calories. Counting calories may be a good idea if it appeals to you. However, it can become very tedious and time consuming. Most packaged food items nowadays will have the calories recorded on the packaging.

The best, if you can is organic, pesticide free fruit and veggies. Attempt to eat a balanced diet. Eat foods from all of the food groups each day. It’s a great way to ensure you are getting all the nutrients your body needs and avoids any diet deficiencies. Don’t eat the same foods all the time.  Allow yourself to experiment with eating different foods so that you don’t get bored with same old diet. 

It’s an idea to treat any sweets, such as chocolates should be treated only as luxury items. As such, only to be consumed rarely on very special occasions. Ideally, your weight management should be enjoyable. Your diet should include all aspects of the food groups.

The Caffeine Conundrum

There’s an ongoing debate about the pros and cons of coffee and other sources of caffeine. We need to remember that in essence, caffeine is a drug. Through it’s processing, we consume it in excessive proportion to how it would be naturally. It has a very stimulating effect upon us and can be very addictive.

As caffeine is a stimulant, it’s also reported to speed-up metabolism and hence thought as a great way to loose weight. However the concern is more-so with the safety of its long term use and effect. It’s considered that one reason for obesity, called the ‘Pot Belly Syndrome’ is the effect from adrenal fatigue. Basically, cortisol levels run a muck causing great difficulty in loosing weight.

Also, remember, caffeine has a detrimental dehydration effect. There’s much widespread debate about the pros and cons of tea and coffee. Yet the general consensus is that there seems to be more harm than good. Hence, be aware of excessive caffeine in beverages such as tea and coffee. Especially, do not add any sugar in them.

It’s been reported that drinking coffee before exercising can help to lose more weight. It’s believed it may stimulate a metabolic pathway through which we release stored energy. This is induced by adrenaline during fasting or exercise. In other words, the idea is that this fat can be burned. To counteract this, remember to drink plenty of water during and after your exercise. Although, avoid drinking excessive amounts of coffee, as it may desensitise your body to its potential natural fat burning effects. As with most aspects, dosage and frequency are the most crucial aspects.

1 Hour Consultation

To learn more, inquire about the special October ‘Successful Weight Management Strategies’ 1 hour consultation. Learn individually tailored ways for ‘managing your ideal weight’ with this integrated ‘Holistic’ naturopathic and life-coaching consultation.

For more info. and to book – please phone 07 5535 9833