Tag: weight loss

The Exercist: Mind the (Thigh) Gap

Leave a comment

The following question and response is from an interesting website The Exercist, which is a site focusing on health and body positivity, and strives to myth bust within the fitness community……….

Question from a teenage girl:

Why is a thigh gap attractive? Why is being sickly skinny hot? What is wrong with society, making every one of us teenage girls think that to be beautiful, we must starve ourselves. Some of us aren’t even built to have a god damn thigh gap or have our ribs poking out.

What happened to hot women with curves, not angles?

Please remember that a woman can have a thigh gap without starving herself or being “sickly.” Everyone is built differently – Some people are healthy at a lower weight with wide set hips, while others are healthy at a higher weight with narrow set hips. There is no reason to insult or demean one body type in order to praise another.

There are certainly a lot of problems with the way that society currently promotes one “ideal” body type for women, forcing many people to hurt themselves in an effort to attain that form of beauty. But when preaching for body acceptance and body positive thinking, it’s important to remember that the “ideal” isn’t just a mystical concept – Some people look like that and that’s cool too.

Women can have curves, angles and everything in between.

I fully understand that people can be perfectly healthy and have a thigh gap… Or “sickly skinny”.

But my point is to be happy with WHO YOU ARE.
Not to feel pressured into being skinny or unhealthy. Or a thigh gap.

That’s an awesome mentality to take on – Being happy with who you are is a huge step forward in self-love.

Just be careful with the sort of language that you use – When discussing different body types, it’s important not to associate negative terms and descriptions with certain characteristics. Inherently linking “sickly” with “skinny” is a problem, for example, as is making unfavorable implications about “angles” and “ribs poking out.” Keep in mind that these are not necessarily bad things.

It’s the idealization of thinness that presents a problem, not the body types and physical characteristics themselves.

Food for Fuel

3 Comments

If you want to improve your athletic performance, increase strength, or perform well in competition/on game day, then it is vital to fuel your exercise sessions well. Timing is as important as type of fuel. (For some people, whose only aim is to lose weight, exercising on an empty stomach may be of benefit).

Here are just a few of the reasons why it is important to eat pre exercise:

  • carbohydrate to provide the muscles with energy
  • protein to repair muscle damage caused during exercise
  • protein & carbohydrate to build new muscle
  • carbohydrate and caffeine to improve concentration

It may sound obvious, but to be used as fuel, food and fluids need to be digested and absorbed in to the body. Ideally, a meal should be eaten 3-4 hours before exercise, with a top up of a smaller snack 1-2 hours before. This snack should be low fibre and low in fat as this allows faster digestion and less likely to cause gastrointestinal discomfort. Anything consumed within an hour of exercise starting should be very quickly absorbed.

For people wanting to improve fitness while losing weight, be careful of increasing overall daily calorie intake. Adding extra food and drinks for fueling purposes won’t help with weight loss, as you want to create an energy deficit (calories used up more than calories eaten/drunk). Instead, redistribute calorie intake through the day, and use lower calorie options eg, fruit, veg, low fat yoghurt, a cup of milky coffee during the 1-2 hours before exercise.

Ideas for pre exercise meals:

3-4 hours before exercise:

  • Pitta/crumpets/toast with jam or honey + flavoured milk
  • Jacket potato & cottage cheese/beans/tuna/chicken
  • Baked beans on toast
  • Breakfast cereal/porridge with milk
  • Bread roll/sandwich/bagel/wrap with cheese/meat/chicken & salad

    image

    3-4 hours before: Noodles, chicken stir fry and broccoli

  • Fruit + yoghurt
  • Pasta, rice or noodles with tomato sauce, lean meat eg. chicken, vegetables

1-2 hours before exercise (low fat, low fibre, high carbs and some protein) :

  • Milk shake or Fruit smoothie

    Chocolate milkshake

    1-2 hours before: Chocolate milkshake

  • Sports bars
  • Breakfast cereal with milk
  • Toast with honey/jam
  • Fruit-flavoured yoghurt
  • Fresh fruit
  • Dried fruit
  • Cup of milky coffee (caffeine enhances performance by reducing perception on fatigue, and increasing alertness and concentration)

Early morning sessions: If you train first thing in the morning, it is probably not possible to have a meal 3-4 hours before. In these circumstances, have a good meal the night before, then a snack and fluid 1-2 hours pre exercise eg. breakfast cereal and milk, fruit and cereal bar, smoothie or milkshake. Make sure that you then top up carbohydrate levels during the training session or event with a high carbohydrate drink.

Specific requirements: it is possible to calculate specific amounts of carbohydrate for optimal fuelling eg. 1-4 g/kg consumed 1-4 hr pre-exercise. A dietitian can help you calculate your individual requirements, and translate these in to actual amounts of food.

Everybody responds differently to eating and drinking before exercise. Experiment during training to find out what works best for you. Don’t leave it until the day of a big event to try something new!

8 essential tips for weight loss (and feeling fab!)

1 Comment

 The key to a healthy weight and feeling fabulous: 8 essential tips………

  1. Aim for small changes that you can sustain longterm, rather than a quick fix diet for a few days or weeks. Think “where do I want to be in a year”, rather than, “I want to lose a stone in 2 weeks”
  2. Listen to you body. Don’t starve…..low blood sugar levels will affect your concentration and make you grumpy. For most people, this would mean eating at 3 meals a day, with a snack in between. Eat until satisfied, not stuffed.
  3. Nutrition Basics – get the foundations of your meals right, and the rest shall follow! Always try to have protein at each meal, a fist full size of wholegrain carbs, and 1/2 a plate of veg or some fruit.
  4. Eat Breakfast– if you don’t feel like eating first thing in the morning, have something with in an hour or two of waking.
  5. Have Healthy Snacks to avoid becoming ravenous. Don’t skip meals to try to cut calories. It may make you feel virtuous at the time, but you are more likely to snack on high calorie foods or overeat unhealthy choices at your next meal.
  6. Be aware of what fluids you are drinking – frappacinos, non-diet fizzy drinks, fruit juice etc. can add 100s of calories to you daily intake. Replace with low calorie drinks eg. a cup of tea, americano, small skinny latte herbal, tea, water.
  7. Choose wholegrain carbohydrates ie. wholemeal bread, brown rice, oats. These make you feel fuller for longer. They also blunt rises in insulin (insulin promotes fat storage).
  8. Plan ahead, so that you know that you will have access to something healthy to eat. If you are not at home, always have a healthy snack with you in your bag or in your desk drawer at work.

Tomato & Lentil soup/sauce

4 Comments

Here is a great recipe for a soup/sauce using tomatoes and lentils that is high in protein, slow release carbs, and full of antioxidants. Especially good for post workout recovery snack/meal! It has just four ingredients and takes about 20 minutes to make.

Photo on 25-09-2013 at 12.17 #7

Why’s it so great?

  • the whole pot is 400 kcal, 25g protein and 30g fibre
  • lentils are low GI, meaning the carbohydrate is released slowly, avoiding peaks and troughs in blood sugar levels. Lentils have some iron.
  • high protein makes it filling, so you’ll be less inclined to snack later on
  • tomatoes are high in lycopene, an antioxidant, which may reduce prostate, breast and stomach cancer risk and lower cholesterol. Tomatoes are also packed full of other vitamins e.g. vitamin C, which enhances the absorption of iron in the lentils!
  • it’s cheap……..approximately 80p for the batch
  • add more water for a more liquid soup, or less water for a sauce. Use the sauce as a base for bolognaise (you can use less mince than normal) or on its own as a pasta sauce
  • for those of you in strength training, super charge with protein by adding some chopped up chicken breast or tuna.

It is incredibly filling. I usually have about half for lunch and the other half as a snack in the afternoon. If I’m pushed for time, I leave out the onion.

Here’s the recipe:

tin chopped tomatoes

100g red lentils (dry)    

1 onion

Chicken/beef stock cube made up to approx 300ml with boiling water

Chop the onion, put in saucepan with lentils and stock. Bring to boil, turn heat down and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add more water if necessary. Add the tin of tomatoes. For extra flavour add a squirt of tomato ketchup, a dash of worcester sauce, and a sprinkle of cumin. For a smoother soup or sauce, use a blender.