Calorie Counting, IIFYM or Clean Eating: Which is best for weight loss?

 

20140912-0593
I run a small Online Women’s Weight Loss
Program
that offer a personalised nutrition and exercise support to produce life changing and
life-lasting results.
If you want to give up the guessing game and have someone just
tell you what to do and hold you accountable to actually doing it
then this is probably
exactly what you have been waiting for.
Life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by choice. Now you have a moment where you can choose to take a step towards a very different future
and join the community of like minded women who are not just losing weight, but transforming their
lives
, filling them with happiness and health.
To find out more about how my coaching program can help you, please fill out the application
below
to book a complimentary breakthrough call and find out out about working with me in
more detail.
 
 
 
 

Four Reasons Why Your Diet Is Failing You


 

20140912-0593
I run a small Online Women’s Weight Loss
Program
that offer a personalised nutrition and exercise support to produce life changing and
life-lasting results.
If you want to give up the guessing game and have someone just
tell you what to do and hold you accountable to actually doing it
then this is probably
exactly what you have been waiting for.
Life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by choice. Now you have a moment where you can choose to take a step towards a very different future
and join the community of like minded women who are not just losing weight, but transforming their
lives
, filling them with happiness and health.
To find out more about how my coaching program can help you, please fill out the application
below
to book a complimentary breakthrough call and find out out about working with me in
more detail.
 
 
 
 

Exercising for Weight Loss Goals


 

20140912-0593
I run a small Online Women’s Weight Loss
Program
that offer a personalised nutrition and exercise support to produce life changing and
life-lasting results.
If you want to give up the guessing game and have someone just
tell you what to do and hold you accountable to actually doing it
then this is probably
exactly what you have been waiting for.
Life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by choice. Now you have a moment where you can choose to take a step towards a very different future
and join the community of like minded women who are not just losing weight, but transforming their
lives
, filling them with happiness and health.
To find out more about how my coaching program can help you, please fill out the application
below
to book a complimentary breakthrough call and find out out about working with me in
more detail.
 
 
 
 

Love your legs

One of the questions I often get asked is “how do I lose weight off my legs?”. My top half is leaning off but I always feel that my legs are getting left behind.

To be honest, this is a question I find rather difficult to actually answer. My legs have been the body part that I have battled with most of my life.

Cellulite…

According to my memory, I have had cellulite even before I hit puberty and I still have cellulite today. I was overweight as a younger child and I remember looking enviously at the other girls in my class at school with their petite ankles and nicely shaped calves.

And then…

Last week Friday it was a beautiful day. I’d had enough of work for the day, my head was ready to explode, so I decided to shut down my laptop and head down to the beach for a late afternoon walk. I was walking along the beach looking down to avoid looking into the sun and it suddenly occurred to me…

I don’t dislike my legs anymore, in fact I quite like them!

I will never have fine ankles (thanks mom!), I will always have cellulite on my bum, but they are strong, they are shapely and, to me, it doesn’t matter what size they are, but that they look this way.

I will be honest and say the legs I have today, are not the same legs I had 5 years ago and they are probably not the legs I had 5 years before that. They may not even be the same legs I will have in 5 years time… but I think I know what works for me so that I can continue to love them.

My Oestrogen Body Type

In 2010 I went to Sweden to attend a Biosignature Conference by Charles Poliquin. His assistants measured everyone’s body fat using skin folds in front of the entire class!

Slightly embarrassing when the measurement of the skin sitting just under your bum is called out in front of a whole group of people and later projected on the screen at the front of the room!

Anyway, if you go by the whole Biosignature thing, higher skinfolds on your legs are associated with higher levels of oestrogen.

Biosignature or not, this is called a gynoid body type – pear shaped as opposed to android which is apple shaped – and this body type is associated with increased risk for hormone-related-cancers which are typically oestrogen driven due to oestrogen being associated with growth (e.g. tumour growth).

I definitely do have symptoms associated with higher levels of oestrogen. If you had asked me this before I moved to London in 2008 I don’t know if I would have been able to answer this. Not because I didn’t, but probably because I was less aware.

But now that you mention it, I did have a benign breast lump aspirated when I was only 15.

How our genes express themselves in dependent on the environment in which we bath them.

When I moved to London in 2008 I was hauled head first into an environment which did not suit my genes and by the end of the year I was hospitalised for a laparoscopy to investigated endometriosis – which fortunately came back negative – because of my extreme symptoms come that time of the month.

I still do suffer with monthly symptoms but I have brought these under control using the advice I gave in this video.

Last year I did genetic testing with 23andme and it did reveal a few polymorphisms in the gene’s associated with metabolising oestrogen. This would mean that I don’t necessarily breakdown oestrogen that well and this would make sense in terms of my “gynoid” body type.

The point of all of this background information is to say these are what my genes are doing. Yes genes interact with the environment and I’ve done a lot to improve the environment with food, lifestyle and supplements, but I am never going to have flawless legs. I CAN make a difference to the shape and tone of my legs and if I can (with my genes!) so can you.

These are some things that I do/have done which really help

  1. Resistance training

I train my legs currently 2 times a week, I also use my legs when I do some sprints, yoga and running but even when I’m not doing these things 2 times a week does the trick. This is usually focussing one session on squats, lunges and more quad dominant movements and a second session on glutes, hamstrings and posterior chain.

I don’t mess about, I lift heavy and I push myself. I have a love hate relationship with split squats and I would definitely say that adding split squats as well as some isolation and activation work into my weekly training has made a big difference in the shape of my legs

 

  1. Eat all the food

Everyone is different and will be at a different stage in their health and fitness journey. I am a massive believer in personalisation. What works for me will not be the exact thing that will work for you, you may need a tailored version or something completely different.I don’t know, it depends where you are at. For me, if I train my legs hard I need to eat.

On these days I will mostly eat an excess of 2000+ calories and 200g+ carbs. Your numbers might be different but if you want to build shape, you will need the building blocks. Low carbs and low cals probably won’t cut it.

Not to mention that restrictive diets increase adrenal stress which can drive oestrogen up (or at least the relative balance between progesterone and oestrogen creating what is known as oestrogen dominance). 

 

  1. Moisturise

I have naturally dry skin. I always have. I’ve noticed in the past couple of years that my skin gets even more dry than what it used to. I’m not sure if it’s an age thing or a sun damage thing but it was becoming a problem.

I’m quite picky about what I put on my skin. Because of the whole oestrogen thing I prefer natural skincare products without parabens or phthalates (chemicals which can look like oestrogen to the body). That said, I am also a little lazy with these kind of self-care practises – I’m not really a make-up done, hair styled, toes painted kind of girl! Lately however, I’ve been working on increasing my patience with it and 2-3 times a week I exfoliate and then do a deep moisturising session using bio-oil.

 

  1. Speaking of which…. Exfoliate

This has been a life long habit of mine. I use exfoliating gloves several times a week to get rid of dead skin and improve circulation and blood flow.

 

  1. Eat foods that support detoxification of oestrogen

There are plenty to mention but important ones include

  • brassica vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts)
  • pomegranate
  • grapefruit
  • flaxseeds
  • green tea
  • blueberries

I have also supplemented in the past with:

  • DIM (the active component in brassica’s)
  • calcium-d-glucarate
  • vitamin B
  • magnesium
  • zinc
  • green tea
  • curcumin

-all of which have been very effective.

 

  1. Ensure my gut works well

Oestrogen is detoxified an excreted via our bowels. Therefore, you want to make sure you not only have the tools to detoxify oestrogen but you also want to make sure you eliminate it from the body in a timely manner. Fermented foods and a good diet with plenty of fresh foods make sure my digestive system works well.

  1. Manage stress

My life is a continuous journey of stress management. I think everyone’s is. I don’t think we can ever be totally free of stress but we can accept responsibility for the things we can change – I’ve changed many things from where and with whom I live, the relationships I have been in, the way I run my business to who I will or will not spend time with – and change our thoughts to the things which create stress – this is much harder to do!

Stress affects the body in so many ways which I won’t go into the details of here, there will be another blog for that… BUT… what you do need to know is that stress will impact you hormones and your weight.

 

  1. A little bit of self love…

Self love and compassion is something I aim to teach my clients. It’s not an easy thing to do. However unhelpful it is to berate ourselves, changing this doesn’t come easy as it is often the case of shifting behaviours built over a life time.

I am a MASSIVE fan of giving gratitude. I give gratitude for the amazing things I have in my life and I also have gratitude for the amazing things my body can do (however it looks!).

I love feeling strong.

I love being strong and it is not something I want to sacrifice anytime soon.

I don’t want to be limited in life by being too weak or too unfit. I like my body to be as ready as it can be for anything. So far, it’s serving me well, because I treat it well and I will continue to appreciate this symbiotic relationship we have.

Anna x

 

 

 

Weight Loss Secrets 104: Can’t stop thinking about food?

So if you’ve been following me a while you will know that I love an analogy.

I often come up with ideas for blogs and newsletters at random times of the day when I am doing different things.

The idea for this one came to me this morning while I was doing an early morning run.

I’m not a massive runner. At the moment I am just doing 1 run and some sprints each week to build up some cardiovascular fitness to compliment my weight lifting and yoga.

So, one of the things I often hear is…

“I’m just so sick of having to think about food all the time!”

You’ve been there right?

When you are on a diet you are thinking about what you can eat.

You are thinking about what you can’t eat.

You are thinking about when your next meal is. Or if you do the whole cheat meal thing then you are mentally planning your next cheat meal from one to the next.

This makes dieting really hard.

You are trying not to overeat, yet all you can think about is food!

The more you try not to think about it. The MORE you think about it!

It’s like if I say to you, don’t think of a pink pig. What do you think of?

Let’s talk about planning and meal prep…

One of the things I tell all my clients is that they must plan what their food at least a day in advance and they must do a weekly food shop where they get the right foods in for the week.

This can often be expressed as a massive hurdle and planning, unless you are a natural planner, is something I lot of people don’t do very well.

It takes time. AND, yet again, you have to think about food.

However, let’s face it, you do need to become more mindful of food and be conscious  (remember that word because I’ll come back to it later) of your choices as you start to build new habits.

So let’s go back to my run this morning…

It’s mostly a flat route with one pretty big hill in the middle and a nice downhill towards the end.

So when I was on the uphill I had to use a lot of mental energy to stop myself from giving up.

I had to focus on MOTIVATING myself to keep going.

I’d say things to myself like

“you got this!” “keep going!” “one step at a time.” “almost there!”

A little cheesy perhaps but I do this stuff because if I thought…

Gosh this is so hard…. I hate running…. Why am I doing this… it’s fine, just walk….

It would be so easy to give up.

However, what I noticed on the downhill is that it took very little mental effort. Instead of having to self-motivate my mind drifted and I had the freedom to think about all sorts of different things.

So what does this little story have to do with weight loss?

A whole lot!

You see weight loss is all about creating sensible and sustainable habits.

If your weight is stuck right now or you have yo-yo dieted or “started a diet” more times than you have fingers and toes, I am sure you will agree that you probably need to try something different that you haven’t tried before.

Trying or doing something different requires you to get out of your comfort zone, learn something new so that you can grow.

That growth is required to get the result – weight loss!

 The beginning of change is your uphill…

  1.  You have to be focussed.
  2. You have to think about it a lot more – it will take a lot more mental effort, but you shouldn’t be obsessing about food 24/7 (see note below) 
  3. You will need to think positively (you got this! vs why can’t I just eat pizza!?)
  4. You will need to plan and prepare – the planning and preparation should actually help you to think about food LESS (provided you are on the right plan). If you plan each week what you’ll have for your meals and you buy that food in a big shop once a week, all you have to do is follow the plan. And if you need help with planning, that is something else I can blog about – just holla!

Note: 

If you are on a diet that requires massive amount of will power or all the time, you might be on the wrong diet!

If you eat each meal and start counting down the hours until the next, unless you are entering a body building show, you are probably on the wrong diet!

If you are on a diet where you feel restricted and continuously think about all the things you can’t have, you are probably on the wrong diet!

But the downhill is when it all clicks into place…

  1. Your repeated behaviours from the mental effort your applied [to the right program] in the beginning, become habits. It is the creation of these habits that move you from being consciously incompetent (thinking about it a lot) to consciously competent (thinking about it a lot) to finally unconsciously competent (where it becomes effortless)
  2. Prepping and planning soon become natural.
  3. You shouldn’t have to obsess over grocery lists and recipe books each week – if you are smart, you’ll probably just do an online shop and click “repeat” when you find what works.
  4. If you learn moderation, not restriction, you won’t need to reply on will power to get you through the week.
  5. If you enjoy a birthday party (and the cake) and not let it become a slippery slope of self berating

Then you can be mentally free. You can then focus on other things that life has to offer (not just getting to the top of the hill), look around and enjoy the view!

So, some questions you might want to ask yourself are…

  1. Am I following the right plan? is my resistance, resistance to learning or is it a warning sign for the wrong plan?
  2. What am I learning from my struggle? if you aren’t learning, you aren’t growing and if you aren’t growing then you probably aren’t doing that something different that we already established you need to be doing to get a result.
  3. Are you relying on will power alone [and then failing miserably]? Then your approach is most likely to wrong one. Losing weight doesn’t have to be restrictive or hard. Having the right tools and guidance to learn moderation is very important.

 If you feel that you would like…

  • more support and accountability
  • a sensible solution, not a short term fix
  • top quality coaching from qualified professionals
  • to lose weight and keep it off

​​​​​​​Then take a look and apply for a FREE Break Through Call  where we can chat through where you are right now and create a future vision of where you would like to be and how to ACTUALLY get you there.

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