Welcome!

Thanks for coming. What you are about to learn will give you to power to be exactly the weight you want to be.

So where to begin? At the beginning of course and it begins with...homework!

Homework? Yes, homework. Ok I can hear you groaning, but taking control of your weight requires you to understand the basics of how your body works. Once you have that knowledge you will understand how to game the system (your system) to produce the results you want. Once you've completed your homework you will understand why:

• Much of what you know about weight is carefully crafted marketing designed to you to make you feel bad and buy product.
• Diet alone does not work
• Exercise alone does not work
• One size never fits all
• You alone hold the the power to achieve your goals

So let's get started. Don't worry, it's not that complicated.

Energy Balance

We all put on weight (fat) when our energy intake (food) exceeds our metabolic needs. We lose weight when our energy intake is less than our bodies needs. So what are our metabolic needs?

Our body uses energy in two ways:

• We have our basal metabolic rate (BMR) which is essentiallly related to our muscle mass. Muscle mass decreases as we age and is one of the main causes of "middle age spread". Our BMR runs 24/7/365 so the more muscle you have the more energy you need simply to stay alive.
• On top of this we have our dynamic requirements. Digesting food, physical activity, growth, pregnancy and lactation all contribute. Those generous souls who choose to contribute blood to the blood bank also get a free 1/2 kg weight loss.

So to lose weight we need to take in less food energy than our body needs. When this happens our body taps into the supply of energy it has saved up for a rainy day (fat). The two main problems with this situation are:

• hunger and
• loss of muscle mass

When our body is faced with an energy crisis (not enough food) it digests not only our fat, but also our muscle. If by dieting we allow ourselves to lose muscle at the completion of the diet our BMR is lower, so if we eat the same quantity of food we were eating before the diet we will begin to put on weight again. How unfair is that?

This vicious cycle is why conventional diets simply don't work. But don't despair! There are things you can do that have consistently demonstrated results, and yes, we are getting to that soon.

Losing Weight Takes Time

It takes a long time to put on weight and the simple reality is that it will take time to get the weight off. This means any diet you can't stick to in the long term will not work, where "will not work" means you will lose some weight but won't be able to maintain the diet for long enough to reach your goal.

How much weight can you reasonably expect to lose? The answer is it depends but about 1% of your current weight per week is the ballpark - for most people this is about 0.5-1.5 kg a week. Yes you can lose more than this but it will be very hard to sustain, and time is your friend when it comes to weight loss. You will lose more weight when you first start so there is a bit of a silver lining here.

Ultra low calorie diets will cause rapid weight loss but they will also cause loss of muscle mass (BMR) as well as putting you at risk of a variety of illnesses related to not getting sufficient nutrients. You know what they say, if it sounds too good to be true.....

Common Myths

Eating fat will make you fat. Fat satiates hunger and carries both flavour and vital nutrients like vitamins A,E,D, and K. The removal of fat from processed foods occurred because it is know to increase consumption (ie we buy and eat more because it leaves us feeling hungry). The trigger for a baby to stop suckling is the increasing fat content of breast milk as the baby feeds - this response continues to exist in adult life.

Sure, fat does contain more food energy (gram for gram) than either carbohydrates or protein, but taken in moderation it won't hurt your diet one bit.

Salt is bad for you. We all know salt adds flavour to food but did you know the evidence linking it to adverse health outcomes is very poor? Here is a scholarly assessment of the evidence. High salt intakes are associated with high processed food intakes but like most things, taken in moderation salt is unlikely to do you any harm unless you are in the 5% of the population who should avoid it for medical reasons. What may well come as a surprise is the fact that low salt intake is far more risky from a health perspective than high salt intake. If in doubt ask your doctor.

Diet drinks will help you lose weight. The evidence says they won't. Here is a link to a study by Purdue University.

Skipping meals is an effective strategy It isn't, and as you will read soon breakfast is the most important meal of your dieting day.

The dietary pyramid has a rigorous scientific basis. It does not. Have a look at what Harvard University has to say about this. Humans are omnivores and as such we need a varied diet to stay healthy. Exactly what is in that varied diet is far less critical than you have been led to believe.

Alcohol is both bad for your health and will make you fat. While alcohol contains food energy it is only too much food energy that will make you fat. Alcohol can contribute but that late night Souvlaki has just as much, and probably more to answer for! Read about The French Paradox and, once again, have a look at what Harvard University has to say about this.

You can go on a diet and never feel hungry. Of course you are going to feel hungry from time to time! If you don't drink you feel thirsty and if you don't eat you feel hungry. These are normal physiological responses and deeply rooted in our brains. How you choose to respond to that feeling of hunger, and what foods you choose to satisfy it is what counts.

I am always going to be fat. No you are not! If you're reading this your motivated, and if you're motivated and have the tools you need (which we are giving you here) you have to power to surprise yourself.

What Foods Should I Eat?

You should eat anything you like within these rough guidelines:

You must have 1g/kg body weight of protein, and a bit of fat in your diet. You don't actually need any carbohydrate (you can make it all yourself) but it is an inexpensive and often delicious source of energy, and you do need an energy source which can be any of protein, fat or carbohydrate.

As well as the macronutrients (proteins, fats, and carbs) you also need micronutrients - vitamins and minerals, and a source of dietary fibre. A varied diet including fruits, vegetables and whole grains makes these requirements easy to achieve.

You don't actually need everything in the same ratios every day so having steak and chips one day and salad the next is just fine.

Where possible make your own food from fresh ingredients. If you don't know how to cook, learn.

Processed food has been cunningly designed to be more-ish. For the manufacturer this works to move more product, but for you it's likely to make you fatter and less healthy.

Remember that low fat foods are processed foods so select the normal varieties unless you have developed a particular taste for these carbohydrate and salt enriched, fat reduced products. Join the dots. We have more fat reduced products flying off supermarked shelves than ever before, yet we, as a society continue to get fatter.

You don't need any alcohol but it's reassuring to know that moderate drinkers live longer than people who either don't drink, or drink heavily. And of course we have already mentioned The French Paradox and what Harvard University has to say about this.

Humans' can't manufacture a lot of vital substances (vitamins, essential fats and amino acids) so there are real adverse health impacts of not having a varied diet. In the context of a diet, when your food intake needs to be reduced, variety helps to ensure you get everything you need.

Nothing you like should be forbidden! Otherwise you are likely to break your daily routine with a giant serve of {insert your favourite guilty pleasure here}, feel terribly guitly, and use it as an excuse to stop trying. Sound familiar? If you allow yourself to enjoy your treats, albeit in a smaller portion size, you are more likely to be able do what is required to reach your goals.

Eating food you hate is also a sure fire recipe for disaster. What's the point in being thin if the price is giving up all the yummy stuff! Anyway you may like this Hallelujah! Chocolate makes you thinner.

How Many Calories Should I Eat?

It's actually not that critical and it can vary from day to day. Don't sweat it if you eat a bit more than you think you should of on a particular day, simply pick up where you left off the next day. Under no circumstances allow yourself to use this as an excuse to give up your quest to reach your goal!

The key is consistency - consistently having a little less food that your body needs is all that is required for long term weight loss. As a rule of thumb your minimum calorie intake should be 1200 (5000 kJ) for women and 1500 (6200 kJ) for men.

More Information

The MyPlate Resource Guide is a comprehensive overview of current mainstream dietary guidelines, including both their history and some of the more sensible alternatives. If you want more comprehensive guidance than "A little bit of anything, but everything in moderation" this is a great resource.

The Seven Secrets of Weight Loss Success

• Fit Your Diet into Your Life with Portion Size
• Eat More in the Morning
• Exercise
• Dangers of Ultra Low Calorie Diets
• Muscle Mass
• Attend and Enjoy your Food
• Pharmaceuticals

Fit Your Diet into Your Life with Portion Size

If you live with other people going on a diet typically means eating differently to everyone else. This is time consuming, expensive, and difficult to sustain long term, especially if you're a busy mum.

A much better strategy is to eat the same food as everyone else but simply have a slightly smaller portion size. Remember the 1/2 a Mars bar analogy? A little less over a bit of time and before you know it a new slimmer trimmer you will be looking back at you from the mirror.

And this is so easy to do! Just use smaller serving containers. Instead of cereal in a bowl have a serve in a teacup, instead of eating from a dinner sized plate use a side plate. You'll still be eating the things you love but in a way that can work long term because it includes every single food you know and have grown to love.

Consider how both Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig work. They make money because you buy their food, but you lose weight because they deliver that food in small portion sizes. By all means use their products, but remember fresh home cooked food is best and you can achieve the same results for less simply by adapting their portion size model to your every day lifestyle.

If it fits your plan there is nothing that wrong with buying portion controlled meals from any of the myriad of suppliers, but remember it's the portion size that's the key, not the brand name.

Eat More in the Morning

If you step back and think about it, the way we eat our food during the day is crazy! Skip breakfast and/or lunch, use energy all day, have a big meal, then go to sleep. We give our bodies no choice but to store this food as fat.

In western society our energy intake is pretty much in complete opposition to our energy use. It's upside down, back to front and inside out.

I have no idea how this came about, but I do recall my grandmother telling me about "how it was in her day". Breakfast and Lunch were the big meals. What we now call dinner was a meal called "supper" - an end of day snack.

So why should you care?

In a recent ground breaking study two groups of people were put on a 12 week diet. In this diet both groups had 1400 calories a day. One group (the big breakfast group) had 700 calories for breakfast, 500 calories for lunch and a scant 200 calories for dinner. The other group did the opposite and had 200, 500, 700 calories for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And the results? The big breakfast group lost an average of 8.7 kg. The big dinner group lost only 3.6 kg. What is remarkable about this is that most diets end up with an average 3-4 kg weight loss. To get nearly 3 times more weight loss while having the same energy intake tells us something really important - DO NOT SKIP BREAKFAST (standard dieting advice) but how you take in your energy during the day really does matter. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Exercise

Getting some regular daily exercise has a lot of health benefits. Unfortunately losing large quantities of weight is not high on the list. Yes it will help, and every little bit does help, but don't let the fact you can't find 20-30 minutes a day 5 days a week stop you from doing the 5 minute a week exercise program described in the section on Muscle Mass below.

Light aerobic exercise burns a bit of energy while you are doing it but to really get the weight off you need to leverage the power of your BMR.

Dangers of Ultra Low Calorie Diets

Ultra low calorie diets promise rapid results but come at a very high price. You inevitably lose muscle mass so you are likely to be worse off in the long term as you will have a lower BMR working for you burning energy 24/7/365.

Another issue with ultra low calorie diets is that are bodies adaptive and when faced with lower energy availability enter what is known as starvation mode. Starvation mode is where your body "voluntarily" reduces your BMR. You don't want this to happen. As we have seen we are depending on our BMR to do most of our weight loss work for us.

Ultra low calorie diets are also unpleasant to be on (and remember you should be having a life while you are on your diet) as well as putting you at risk of a variety of adverse health effects.

Consistency and time are the key to your new thinner future, not radical calorie restriction.

Muscle Mass

One of the real keys to long term sustained weight loss is not to lose muscle mass. When you lose muscle mass your BMR will go down and your diet may well see you end up fatter rather than slimmer.

As we age we all lose muscle. We all know older people are less strong. If we can stop or reverse this muscle loss we can also aid weight loss and prevent the "middle aged spread" so common in our society.

Building muscle is actually very simple and takes very little time. Here's how to do it:

You know that if you go out into the garden and start digging you will probably get blisters. If you do that a few times you will find these develop into calluses. In essence your body goes "hey, this skin is to thin, let's make some more". The same thing happens with muscles, but only if you work them to failure.

Body builders build muscle by lifting very heavy weights, not very many times (usually 10-15). They carefully set the weight so they can only lift it 10-15 times. While this number has been proven via experimentation to be optimal it's not the key part. The key part is this: the last 2 times they lift the weight are the last 2 times they could lift the weight. In other words they have worked that muscle group to failure, and as a result their body says "build me more muscle!"

If you are scientifically minded you will find a good description of how and why muscles grow here.

So what we need is a simple exercise you can do anywhere, with no equipment, that preferably targets the biggest muscle groups in your body so we get the greatest benefit in the shortest time.

That exercise is squats. To do a squat simply stand next to a table and rest your hands on it for balance. Squat down as low as you can go and then stand up. Repeat that until YOU CAN NOT GET BACK UP. Try hard. Having done that your exercise program is over for the day. It should take you less than 1 minute. How good is that?

The next day your thighs and buttocks will be sore, and probably the day after that too. Wait until they are not sore then repeat the exercise. Not only will this build shapely muscle on your thighs and buttocks it will cause your body to build new muscle and increase your BMR with the result that if you did nothing else I have suggested but ate exactly the same amount of food you will lose weight.

If you can do more than about 30 two legged squats we need to make it harder. If you put one foot on a book/brick/step then that leg will not be able to contribute as much - you will feel the extra load in the leg on the floor. Do your squats, have a break, then change legs. As your strength builds you may well end up being able to do squats one legged. Did you know that one of the best predictors of longevity in old age is thigh muscle strength?

While doing these remember to breathe. Holding your breath is a no no.

There are a range of other exercises you could add in - push ups and chin ups being the ones that target other large muscle groups.

Now this advice may well fly in the face of everything you have been told, but trust me, 5 minutes a week of exercise to muscle failure is all it takes to change your muscle mass and get your BMR working for you 24/7/365. The fact that it will probably see you living longer is a free bonus.

You should always check with your health professional before embarking on any program of strenuous exercise.

Attend and Enjoy your Food

Did you know that the simple act of paying attention while eating and taking the time to enjoy your food will help you lose weight? You will eat less if you are not doing something else while eating, so don't eat in front of the TV or while doing other things.

The thought is that when you're distracted you fail to recognise when you're full. On a similar note - as a child you were probably told to finish your plate, as an adult on a quest to look your best you should stop eating when you're full, even if that means throwing a bit of food out. Let's just repeat that: if you are not hungry stop eating.

Food is one of life's pleasures. Even on a diet you are allowed to enjoy it, so give yourself the opportunity of mindful eating. If you're giving yourself a treat enjoy the indulgence and really savour it. Your treat is part of the plan, so ditch the guilt.

Pharmaceuticals

Have you ever wondered why fat people don't keep getting fatter until they are the size of Jabba the Hut? Me too!

It seems obvious that we regulate our weight around a set point, just as we do our blood pressure. While we have medications to turn down our blood pressure set point science has yet to find a convenient tablet that does the same to weight.

That said, there are a variety of prescribed medications that may help certain people in certain cases. All medications have both effects and side effects so if you are contemplating trying them working with a health practitioner who can monitor things should be considered mandatory. In certain circumstances Duromine (Phenteramine), Xenical (Orlistat), Glucophage (Metformin), Byetta (Exenatide) may be helpful. Hormones like Thyroxine, HCG and Testosterone may be helpful in specific cases.

If you are undertaking any sort of very low calorie diet (not a great long term idea) a multivitamin supplement should be considered a must.

For personalised tailored advice to suit you simply book an online appointment with one of our friendly GPs.

Eight Reasons for Losing Weight

Need some motivation to keep going? Reminding yourself of these facts will help you keep pushing forward to feel better about your body.

Be happier. Losing weight is one way of helping to build your self-esteem to help you feel happier. Life is always so much better when you are comfortable in your own skin.

Feel more in control. Having a daily workout schedule will make you feel more in control of your life. You decide where and when. You.re the boss!

Get a sharper focus. Do you find yourself daydreaming at work or not being able to pay attention on daily tasks? Compared to obese adults, the non-obese scored better on memory tests.

Exercise easier. You will no longer be the person not going to the gym or not being able to run a 5k. You.re part of the club now

Sleep better. This will be the end of you staying up late watching bad TV because you will be back to a normal and healthy sleeping schedule after putting in all that hard work from exercising.

Keep up with your kids. If Kris Kardashian can do it so can you! You.ll have the energy and stamina to play with your kids and feel good doing it.

Increase your confidence. Feeling good about yourself is guaranteed to boost your confidence level by a bazillion points!

Stop fearing the dressing room. Go ahead and try that body hugging dress or those skinny jeans. Nothing will be off limits!