Tuesday Tip: Are you Dehydrated? 💧

Obviously the hot topic this week is the heat wave so it seemed wise to discuss hydration this week. Our body contains 5 litres of water and we can lose 2 in a single workout. Dehydration is a risk, and once you’re thirsty you’ve probably already been dehydrated for a while. So what should you watch for?

1 Dry skin

Skin is 80% water so if you’re not drinking enough your skin will show it; dull, peeling, dry skin can mean you’re dehydrated.

2 Fewer loo trips

Kidneys use water to remove waste from blood. When dehydrated they don’t function as well and you’ll need fewer loo trips. So if you’re pee-ing less than normal, drink more!

3 Dark pee

Generally the darker your urine the more dehydrated you are (some foods also colour your pee). You want straw coloured pee!

4 Cramps

Muscles are 75% water. If you’re dehydrated the body will divert water and blood from muscles to essential organs so you’ll get cramps.

5 Blood pressure changes

As you dehydrate your blood becomes thicker as the water-containing plasma becomes more concentrated. With less blood volume to pump blood pressure can drop making you dizzy or light headed.

6 Headache

The brain is sensitive to the chemical changes lack of water causes, resulting in a headache, often in the back of the head and may get worse when you bend over. A sports drink or rehydration sachet will help.

7 Constipation

Dehydration causes the intestinal cells to extract more water from food waste in the intestines, causing the waste to become hard, leading to constipation.

8 Joint pain

Dehydration causes cartilage in joints to rub; weakening and wearing over time. Lack of water delays repair to these damaged joints, causing pain.

9 Bad breath

If you don’t have enough water then you won’t have enough saliva, so you’ll get a dry mouth and bad breath.

10 Fatigue

The brain is 85% water. Water deficiency can result in a reduction of the brain’s energy supply, which leads to fatigue, lethargy, and even depression.

Never drink the 2-3 litre daily water quota in one sitting, instead drink regularly, and eat hydrating foods e.g. melon, cucumber, grapes, celery etc.

Get Sipping!
Happy Tuesday!🤗
xx

Tuesday Tip: Emotional Eating 🍫

You might think you just need more willpower to stop emotional eating or that once you lose the weight, everything will click into place. The truth is emotional eating isn’t about control. It’s about unmet needs and unaddressed feelings. Many of us est not out of hunger, but to cope with stress, boredom, loneliness, anger, fatigue. And it doesn’t always look like the classic ‘crying into a tub of ice cream’ scenario. Often it’s more subtle such as:
– Snacking when you’re overwhelmed
– Eating late at night to fill an emotional gap
– Reaching for food just because you’re tired

These patterns can become habits, and over time, they build up creating a pattern that feels hard to break.

Emotional eating is a spectrum. Whether it’s the occasional stress snack or something more persistent, the common thread is using food to soothe emotions.

So what can you do?

Instead of relying on willpower, focus on building awareness. Ask yourself – What am I really feeling right now? Learn to connect with your emotions before turning to food. Create strategies like journaling, walking, or talking to a friend etc that help you meet emotional needs without raiding the fridge.

Just like adjusting calories when weight loss plateaus, emotional eating requires us to check in, reassess, and get curious about our habits and pattern, not punish ourselves for them.

Awareness is the first step toward change.

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx

Tuesday Tip: Why weight loss plateaus 📈

Usually a few months into a new diet (or eating regime) we start to see plateaus – this is despite people claiming they are still eating the same amount (at a calorie deficit) and exercising the same. Why?

It could be that you’ve lost so much that your caloric requirements have dropped slightly and therefore you need to adjust your calorie goals, but there’s another more common reason.

A couple of recent studies found that as weight (fat) loss dropped participants subconsciously increased their calorie intake. For every 1kg of fat lost, they were consuming an extra 100 calories per day, without realising they were doing it. This is due to increased hunger in response to weight loss, and as the kgs drop, the extra calories sneak back in. So after losing 3-4kg that’s an extra 300-400 cals a day which puts you back at maintenance calories, stalling weight loss.

Another study also found that for every 1kg lost participants expended 20 – 30 cals less energy per day. This is a subconscious reduction in NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) such as standing less, walking less etc and a decrease in bodily functions e.g. blinking less, breathing slower etc

Over the course of several months, with a fat loss of say 4kg you could be unknowingly consuming an extra 400 cals, and burning 120 cals less, that means an extra 520 cals a day which wipes out your deficit, can stall any fat loss and even cause weight regain.

So what can you do?

Usually a few months in, with fat loss going well, people go back to eyeballing portion sizes and that’s where those extra calories will sneak in from slightly larger portions, an extra 5g here and there etc so I encourage my clients to go back to basics and measure portions. Also be mindful of extra mouthfuls of things you’re not tracking (grabbing the odd handful of cereal, crisp, etc).

Focus on more filling foods to help combat the hunger too – foods high in fibre, protein and good fats.

In terms of energy expenditure – try to be as active as possible – add a few more steps to your day for example, be mindful of standing more than sitting etc.

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx