It's Not What I Eat, Honest (General Weightloss & Healthy Eating Tips)

Name: Nibelung

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Product:	General Weightloss & Healthy Eating Tips
Date:	17/02/03 (162 review reads)
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Advantages: Getting to a sensible target weight has several health advantages

Disadvantages: Your method needs to be sustainable otherwise, you just slip back.

This opinion carries a non-Governmental Health warning - constant flip-flopping between systems of measurement can confuse the hell out of you.

It seems like it's 'that' time of year - the New Year's resolutions have come, failed and gone, but the one thing that's still with me is a bit more spare tyre than I remember from before Christmas.

JUST HOW FAT AM I? A GUZZLER FESSES UP

Being overweight is now of epidemic proportions throughout the westernised world, so we are told.

I, for example weigh 14st 7lbs (that's 203 pounds to US readers or 90 kilos for people who measure properly), which for someone of average build and 6'1" in height (1.87m it says in my passport) is a tad outside and above the acceptable weight range.

How did I get like that? Little by little is the answer, but I refuse to accept my mum's argument that you tend to put on a pound for every year in middle age. That's defeatist talk - it may be what actually happens on average, but that's no reason to let it happen to you.

As we get older, it's even more important that we don't lose sight of our waistlines and all points south. Being overweight is not just bad for your heart, it puts a strain on the structure, knee and hip joints in particular (and we all know how long you have to wait to get those replaced, don't we?).

So what is an ideal non-health-threatening weight? Forget all those "I don't understand it, it's not what I eat" or "ah yes, but I'm big-boned" excuses, unless you have a genuine disorder, it IS what you eat.

A good way to assess your present weight is to convert it to the BMI, no, not an airline, but the Body Mass Index. All you adherents of "Avoirdupois" or Imperial measurements are not going to like this. You need to know your weight in kilos and your height in metres. The method is quite simple; you square you
r height in metres, (in my case 1.87*1.87=3.49) and divide the result into your weight in kilos, (here again, in my case, 90/3.49=25.78). So I have a BMI of 26. Big deal, but what does that tell me?

Well, working out some figures is one thing, judging where you are in the scheme things is entirely another.

There are several websites that can help here, one of which is http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/yourweight/bmi.shtml, which helpfully does the Imperial/Metric conversion for you.

It also assesses your BMI compared to an acceptable range. Mine, at 26 in just above the top limit of the acceptable range of 22-25, so not too much to worry about there, although there's also no need for complacency. To get to a midway point of 23.5, I need to lose 10% of my body weight, well over 18 pounds - either that or lie about my height!

This flexibility in range of 22-25 gives all the "big-bone" apologists some leeway if they can only get down to exactly 25 and no further.

THE MECHANICS

We are often told that the body is a machine, which requires refuelling just like any other. The other thing that we have in common with machines is that food and fuel are both measured in calories. You may not have thought of your car in this light, but petrol has a calorific value just like Mars Bars do, as does the kerosene that jet planes use to fly.

So how come cars and planes don't put weight on? Quite simply, their tanks overflow if given too much fuel. The human body is cleverer than that though. Faced with a surfeit of fuel, it enlarges its tanks to store it for a rainy day, giving us more "range" before the next fuelling stop. Of course, the average westerner has no need of this extra "range" in the way a camel does, after all, most of us know where our next meal is coming from, and when. Unfortunately, this process means that we get bigger, in the form of extra fat reserves.

Carryin
g on with the car analogy, the average car would need 5 litres of fuel (weighing somewhat less than 5 kilos) to takes it, say 35 miles - sorry there's that mixture of measurements creeping in again, but that's actually how motorists have to think in the UK at the moment. So at the end of 35 miles, it's 4-point-something kilos lighter.

You may not be aware that there is a parallel in human terms. For someone of my build, and assuming that I actually wanted to stay this weight, my body would need somewhere around 3000 Kcals* just to keep going, with average activity, the effort needed to run my body's systems, luxuries like breathing and to keep up with heat loss.

(*Dietary calories are already bundled into 1000's, hence Kcals, as you may sometimes see them written. A single calorie is a unit of energy equivalent to the raising in temperature of 1 cc of water through one degree Celcius. Hence a Kcal could have the same effect on 1 litre of water, and 100 Kcals could take one litre of water from freezing point to boiling point.)

Another general rule of thumb is that 'losing' around 3,000 Kcals from my diet will lose someone like me one pound in weight. Therefore, in a normal "maintenance mode", I would eat enough food to create one pound of reserves, but use up enough energy to burn off one pound of reserves. Also, if I fasted all day, I could expect to be one pound lighter tomorrow, although I would probably have taken in a lot of water to stave off hunger pangs, in which case, I may notice no difference until my fluid levels return to normal. I would also be so hungry that I'd over-compensate by eating too much the next day.

It also follows that if, in a whole year, my Kcal intake was 3,000 less than it was last year (and we're only talking about 8 Mars Bars here!), then I'd be one pound lighter over the whole year. It's a sobering thought that if you follow my mum's '
pound-a-year' adage, then all you have done wrong is eat eight Mars Bars too many over the period of one year.

A result like that would get you drummed out of just about every slimming club on Earth as not putting your heart into it! Another way to work off 3,000 Kcals, and therefore one pound in weight is to walk a Marathon course - of course, you mustn't eat anything - some hope! Here again, fluid loss could fool you into thinking that the weight loss was even greater.

Please note - all the above figures are VERY approximate. All I wanted to do was cement in your minds that fact that the bulk of what we eat is fuel. Other factors like how active you really are, whether you work outdoors (and how cold the outside temperature is) and whether you're just a plain old fidget come into the equation. Ironically, telling someone to "wrap up warm" stops them burning energy on retaining body heat, just like lagging your hot water tank.

Fasting is not a good way to lose weight though, as the body is craftier than we think. Faced with not knowing where its next meal is coming from, it assesses the most recent 'intake' data it has, and alters your metabolism to suit. Therefore, if you crash diet for days on end, the initial spectacular weight loss tails off, and you just slow down instead. Besides which, who wants to feel constantly hungry? I've read quite a few "de-tox" diet opinions, a lot of which involve eating little and a huge increase in fluid intake. One or two even mention feeling steadily more tired. Yes, they loose seven pounds, but has it taught them anything about altering their eating habits for life? I doubt it, apart from "oh well, there's always the de-tox" diet".

CHOOSING A METHOD

In reality, the choices when losing weight are pretty stark.

a) Use more energy and eat the same.
b) Eat less and do the same.

Of course, there is a weal
th of middle ground permutations like "do a bit more and eat a bit less".

Frankly these would be my favoured options. A and B both involve a drastic measure that will be impossible, and possibly expensive to keep up forever. What is need is something sustainable. Many people, on weighing themselves after Christmas, sign up with a gym immediately and get onto an exercise bike expecting it to be the answer to all their problems. Of course, anything that improves cardio-vascular function is good, and yes, you will burn off some extra calories, but bear in mind that you have to burn off thousands to achieve a measurable weight loss - what you think is weight loss will probably be sweat.

Being the right weight is not the same thing as fitness - you can't tell me that all fashion models are fit, except in the "phwoar, she's fit!" sense. It is however a start. Being lighter makes it easier to move around, and therefore makes it more likely that you'll feel like taking exercise.

My own personal take on exercise is to re-assess whether I really NEED to get the car out just to go to the shops - after all, there's a bloody folding bike in the boot.

Just lately, I started thinking much more about what I eat. Not so much the content as anyone reading my recent opinions will know, but merely to ask my self "How hungry am I?"

Eating more slowly and deliberately gives your stomach time to send 'flow-control' signals to the brain. Personally, I could nominate two areas that could be cut out of my diet immediately, with little pain. One is dessert, (well, except bananas, custard, vanilla ice cream, maple syrup, condensed milk.......) and the other is snacking between meals. If I feel hungry now, I eat fruit.

Since getting back from New York, when my weight was 15st 2lbs (that's 212 pounds - the heaviest I've EVER been and a real wake-up call, I can tell you) I'm a
lready back to 14st 7lb (203 pounds) and I haven't missed a thing. I still have a couple of 'jars' with friends when I want to and I still eat out a lot (what a surprise).

I just think about what I'm doing first, eat more slowly and reach for the fruit. I aslo use my bike for more small errands - I already cycle "for a living", well part-time anyway, but tend to put the bike away for weeks at a time, during school holidays.

This won't suit everyone, I realise, but whatever you do to lose weight, chose a regime that's sustainable, and don't expect miracles overnight. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was my existing waistline! Increasing your exercise levels alone could do it, as long as it doesn't start making you eat like a Sumo wrestler to compensate. The only major problems I have with this approach to overall fitness are A) It's expensive and B) I find exercise for its own sake mind-numbingly boring.

I'm not quite sure why people think that paying to exercise means it's better exercise. Why not locate a gym several miles away, cycle there quickly, and come home again, all without going in. Who knows, you could do some (food) shopping on the way back!

MIRACLE CURES

I'm not going to enter into a slanging match with those that swear by 'product X', but in recent years, one product hit the market, which caught my eye. It was a so-called fat-free fat, synthesised in such a way as to pass straight through the body without saying hallo to its stay-at-home relations. It's called Olestra. As I said, it caught my eye, but then so did some small print, which stated that in certain circumstances, Olestra was known to cause "anal seepage". I can't even start to think of a circumstance where anal seepage would be socially acceptable. Maybe it should be re-launched as Skidmark.

So to finish off with, here follows a short treatise
on the merits of a high-fibre diet combined with Olestra.

Or as Geoffrey Chaucer once never said,

THE PROLOGUE TO THE SURGEONES TALE

Wann that Alle-Bran with hise Fybers so thycke,
Mix'ed was with the Sproutes of Brusselles,
Than longen folkes to farten in privy,
Where no man them can accuse,
With odoures so unfruitsome,
By whose virtu out-of-boundes is the 'Bogge'

Then up spake the Kinges Surgeon Royale, and sayth,
"Good Lordyngs, the fartyng is the least of our ills,
In verity 'tis rumour'd in ferne londes of the New Worlde
That the "Olestra" causeth the seepynge from the fundement,
For 'tis a fatte-free fatte but not without its vexations.

Tis a wise saw that runneth - "There can be no gayne without the payne,
Or in thyse case, without the drayne"

Alle that heard him were of one resolv'ed,
Ne'er to goon near to the Olestra without a barge-polle
For the openynge of the wind-eyes,
(and eek a plastyk buckette for to catch the seepynges).

Thus endeth the Prologue

OK, I know it's not really Middle English, but who's going to know?

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