Category: Tuesday Tip

Tuesday Tip: Why you can’t stay on track 😬

Sometimes it just seems like whatever you do you can’t stay on track or stick to the ‘diet’ doesn’t it? I see this so often with my clients. They start the week well but then something throws them off and it all goes pear shaped. Very often it comes down to one main reason – the all or nothing mindset.

You set yourself unrealistic expectations that can’t be achieved. You view every week as a new week to be ‘perfect’ and as soon as anything disrupts that you fall totally off the wagon and decide there’s no point doing anything. Common examples I see are things like exercising excessively every day, cutting out food groups or types of foods (sweet things / carbs etc), or skipping meals/fasting. Or you restrict yourself all week and then get to the weekend and all bets are off – either you totally give up because ‘there’s no way I could track this’ or you under estimate what you’re having at social events etc.

So what can you do instead?
Well I often talk about trying to ditch this idea of having to be perfect. You don’t need to be – what you do need to do is not give up when something disrupts the plans. You’re going to get much better results being imperfectly consistent 7 days a week than being perfect for a few days then jacking it in all the time.

So instead of waiting to start again on a Monday and going all guns blazing instead start right now. Ask yourself what small change you could make today that would get you closer to your goals. Make it a change that you could stick to even on the worst day. So for example it might be simply to track your calories – you can do this – even when you’re over your target you can still track! It might be to eat veggies every day etc. It might be to either have a starter or a dessert if you eat out – not both etc.

Making small changes you can stick to every day will get you better and faster results than the all or nothing mindset. Something is always better than nothing – even if that something isn’t perfect!

Happy Tuesday 🤗
Xx

Tuesday Tip: Fat loss through exercise ✋🏻

If you want to lose weight/fat it’s very tempting to focus on exercise. But if your strategy is ‘just do more exercise’ then sadly you’re unlikely to make progress. Exercise has tonnes of health benefits and you should be doing it, but it’s pretty poor for fat loss on its own.

We assume more exercise = more calories burned = more fat loss. It’s not that simple.

To lose a pound of fat you need a daily energy deficit of 500 cals. It’s actually very hard to genuinely burn an extra 500 cals every day. For example whilst it obvs varies a general approximation is that a 5 mile run burns 500 cals. Fitting a 5 mile run in every single day isn’t that easy… plus in reality you’ll probably burn fewer cals than that.

Resistance training isn’t much better. Studies show you burn approx 4-8 cals/min so an hour of weights will burn 240-480 cals so you’d need to be doing 1-2 hrs of weight training a day. Aside from finding the time for this it’s also a great way to burn yourself out! Trying to do a load of cardio/weights to burn cals is a great way to just exhaust yourself (which will probably result in more hunger and eating more anyway).

I’ve also spoken before about the fact that more exercise doesn’t in fact lead to more calories burnt. Energy expenditure does increase with added activity, but only to a point. If you go from being sedentary to active, you see an increase in energy expenditure. But if you’re already active and add more exercise then energy expenditure doesn’t increase linearly. The body adjusts other processes to maintain total energy expenditure within a narrow range (energy compensation). Studies showed that If someone increased their physical

activity levels by 500 cals the actual increase in energy expenditure would only be 360 cal. In addition leaner individuals compensate less than individuals with more body fat – those with more fat compensated by almost 50% i.e. energy expenditure only increased by 250 cals. And in another study they found that this was even greater in those eating at a calorie deficit which explains why there are people who are doing an insane amount of exercise every week while eating in a deficit and not making the progress they think they should be.

This doesn’t mean ‘calories in/calories out’ doesn’t work. It means the ‘calories out’ part of the equation is a bit more complex. So this is why focusing on exercise only to lose fat/weight is a bad idea. Not only is it really hard to do on a consistent basis, but there are a number of other factors that can impact how many calories you’re actually burning.

Instead, you should ‘eat for fat loss’. It’s far easier to cut a few hundred calories by making small, yet sustainable dietary changes than it is to try and burn an equivalent amount through exercise. Exercise for health and well being (physical and mental) but not to burn calories. Any increase in energy expenditure from exercise is a nice bonus, but it shouldn’t be the goal.

Happy Tuesday 🤗 Xx

Tuesday Tip: Activity Tracker Stress ⌚️

Wearable fitness trackers like Fitbit, Apple Watches, etc might not be doing as much good as you think they are. Whilst they undoubtably have benefits when it comes to encouraging more activity etc these watches can actually be making you more stressed, cause you anxiety and to overthink what matters and even cause you to gain weight.

Here’s why… (and what to do instead)

These trackers can cause you stress because:

• You become obsessed with numbers.

• You end up going for a walk to hit a certain step count, not to enjoy the walk.

• You feel great upon waking, but your

watch tells you your sleep score is poor so now you’re worried about what’s wrong?

• You’re making progress in real life (getting stronger, maybe losing fat, being more active etc), but the scores on the watch don’t reflect that.

You end up overthinking what matters:

• You’re focused on the outcome (uncontrollable) more than the process and consistency (controllable)

•You are focused on achieving certain targets on the watch which don’t actually relate to the goals you want to achieve

• You’re “gamifying” fitness and health so much that it becomes a means to an end in itself, rather than using the data to enhance your life.

They can even make you gain weight because:

• You eat back calories burned. I’ve discussed this in depth before but many studies have demonstrated that these trackers have error rates of 40-90% for energy expenditure.

• You’re letting your workouts be determined by the watch – working less intensely because the watch tells you to, or working at a supposed ‘fat burning’ zone (again something I’ve discussed before and something that doesn’t exist in the way we think it does). Therefore actually burning fewer calories. You may also prioritise certain workouts because of the data it provides when it may not actually be the best workout to be doing for your goals.

What to do instead:

# Measure progress using things such as the number of calories consumed, improvements in strength over time, body measurements, average hours of sleep (rather than a sleep score), etc.

# Use the devices as ONE piece of data to encourage consistency, not the be all and end all

# By all means use them to track steps/mileage but only to the point where it doesn’t cause added stress. No one needs to be marching around their bedroom at midnight to add an extra 200 steps to their goal of they’ve already walked 9,800 that day!

# Use the heart rate function – a decreasing resting heart rate is a great goal and measure of overall health.

If you enjoy using these trackers then that’s fab but just be aware that it can be a slippery slope from using data to depending on it .

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx

Tuesday Tip: Visual cues 👀

Portion control is one of the biggest issues when it comes to losing weight.

We often gauge how much to eat by how much food is placed in front of us; the eat what’s on your plate approach. This even holds true when the plate refills e.g. in one study those that had soup in a bowl that refilled from a hidden tube in the bottom consumed 73% more soup than when eating from a regular bowl.

When it comes to snacks (biscuits, crisps etc) “you can’t eat just one,” right? If we have larger bags we eat more. With the current cost of living crisis this is likely to become more of an issue if we buy in bulk to save costs. However visual cues to portion size mean people eat less e.g. in one study on stackable crisps (Pringles) researchers inserted a red crisp to indicate portion size. Participants weren’t told what the red crisp indicated. Those with the red crisps tended to stop eating sooner than those without. It acted as a sort of “stop sign,” a subconscious indicator you’ve had enough. In another study participants were given unlimited fried chicken wings whilst watching a film. One group had the bones cleared from their plate regularly, one didn’t. Those that didn’t ate far more as they acted as a visual indicator of what had been eaten.

Essentially there are 3 reasons we overeat beyond satisfaction in these scenarios:

– We lose track of how much we have eaten

– We perceive a ‘normal amount’ of food to be whatever the serving size happens to be.

– Eating has become a semiautomated habitual activity, which continues until interrupted e.g you’re focused on the tv instead

Visual cues help regulate how much you eat by showing the appropriate serving size, letting you keep track of what you’ve eaten and by interrupting the semiautomated eating we tend to do when watching a film etc. How can we do this?

⁃ Use smaller plates or bowls = smaller portions. you’ll automatically eat less.

⁃ Buy pre-portioned snacks or measure out your snacks into a bowl and leave the packet in the cupboard etc.

⁃ Leave wrappers, drinks cans etc on the table so you can see how much you’ve already eaten/drunk.

⁃ Pay attention to what you’re eating and avoid mindless eating for an extended duration.

These small changes can lead to big calorie savings over time!

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx

Tuesday Tip: Lost motivation? 🤔

Do you feel like you’ve lost motivation? I hear this a lot – clients tell me they’ve just lost their motivation and don’t know how to get it back. But the fact they’re even thinking that means they haven’t lost motivation and neither have you. You’ve just lost momentum. The forward motion has just stalled temporarily – that’s all!

Here are some things you can do to ‘get back on the wagon’ and regain that momentum.

#1: Start small – with one small step and one small win. When you first started you took one step at a time – so go back to that. Whether it’s tracking your next meal, filling half your plate with veggies, hitting 1000 extra steps today etc. Small wins for the big wins!

#2: Take one day at a time. It takes time to rebuild habits so just focus on getting back into some of those habits – like tracking cals, reducing alcohol intake, doing a workout a week etc. Set yourself some daily and weekly, achievable goals.

#3: Try to remember what motivated you to start originally – maybe it was a specific event you wanted you lose weight for, or maybe it was to ensure you’d be a fit and healthy for your children/grand children, maybe it was a goal to take part in a sporting event. Got back to that and write it down your goal and why it’s important to you.

#4: Tell someone! Communicating your intentions and goals to someone will increase your chances of success of sticking to it! Find an accountability buddy!

#5: Choose exercise you enjoy! There is literally no point in trying to build exercise habits based on things you hate. You’ll never stick to it! Join a class, try swimming, focus on walking, or resistance training , or join a local sports club. You’re more likely to keep at it if you enjoy

what you’re doing.

#6: Incorporate foods you enjoy! This has to be a long term lifestyle change – so cutting out foods you love won’t allow you to do that. Find ways to include the food and drink you love – just moderate the amounts and frequency if you need!

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx