Derval O'Rourke: Why you are not losing the weight you want to lose
This week I’m chatting about five reasons why you are not losing the weight you want to lose. Recipe wise, I’m focusing on breakfast with my healthy ‘fry up’ and delicious French toast.
Generally speaking, I concentrate on health way more than I focus on weight. I keep an eye on my weight but put more emphasis on other factors. By having this approach my weight tends to stay within a healthy range.
I know many people are targeting a number on the scales and there may be some basics that are making that hard for you. Here are my top five tips:
1) What goes in and what we use:
This is key. If we take in less energy than we use, we lose weight. While other factors like environment, hormones and genes can play a part, to a certain extent it really is that ‘simple’.
To achieve the calorie deficit required to lose weight we can either decrease the calories you consume from food and drink or increase the calories you expend through activity and exercise.
Generally speaking, a combination of the two works best long term.
2) The latest diet trends plus weekend eating:
There have always been and will continue to be diet trends, from Atkins to paleo. But the basics of energy deficiency stay the same.
As long as you keep jumping from diet to diet you will struggle to lose weight long term. To maximise success, base your diet around minimally processed whole foods (fruit and vegetables, wholegrain, lean proteins etc).
If you really have no clue about what calories are in your foods consider tracking your food on an app for a few days. This will give you a good grasp on what you are consuming.
My Fitness Pal will do this for you. I know quite a few people who stick to a strict routine on the weekdays and then go a bit mad at the weekend. Try to consider the week as a full block rather than the weekend as being a time to let rip.
3) How much do you move:
An important area to consider is your NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermo genesis). This includes all daily life movements that aren’t deliberate exercise like housework, carrying groceries and playing with your kids.
A practical way to increase this could be to count the number of steps you do each day and aim for 10,000 as a starting point. I do this with my fitbit. In terms of training consider doing different exercise to get different results.
My own personal experience and research has shown that lifting weights can produce the most significant changes to your body. I heavily rely on weight training for body composition.
4) Are you sleeping enough:
This is one of the most important, yet overlooked, areas of weight management. Lack of sleep increases levels of our hunger hormones, which means cravings for highly palatable processed foods are also elevated.
When you don’t sleep enough you raise your cortisol levels (I discuss cortisol in the next point) which will inhibit weight loss. Seriously, go to bed!
5) Are you stressed:
When we are stressed, our bodies will trigger a fight or flight response. This causes a host of adaptations to help us deal with the stressor, one of which is increased cortisol levels.
Cortisol tells our body to breaks down fat and carbohydrates to give us energy to run away from the danger. It stimulates insulin production, to make you hungry so you will eat more carbohydrate, to give your body the sugar it thinks it needs to run away from the stress.
And when the event is over, it stimulates your appetite again, because it believes you now need to eat to replace all the energy you needed when you were stressed.
The issue is that stress-causing situations in our lives (think traffic jams versus running away from a tiger) don’t require the body to use up a lot of energy hence how long term stress can hinder weight loss efforts.
Personally I can tend to get stressed and I try to identify what stresses me and manage my response to this.
Fitspiration: @one_arena_
Edward Finn is the owner of One Arena, it is a personal training service based in Cork. I love chatting to Ed about his approach to fitness and weight.
He has a sensible approach and is really good to deal with. If you are considering a personal training plan then look him up on social media.
One of my favourite weekend activities is brunch, coffee and the paper. This fry up is a twist on the classic and the quantities can easily be multiplied depending on how many mouths you have to feed.
Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat.
Add the broccoli tips , asparagus spears and mushrooms and cook forfive minutes.
Add the cherry tomatoes and cook for a further two minutes.
Sprinkle with salt and pepper and transfer to a plate. Put the frying pan back on the heat, add ½ tbsp oil, add the potatoes and fry forfive minutes until golden brown.
Transfer to the plate. Toast the bread. Meanwhile, put the frying pan back on the heat and add ½ tbsp olive oil. Break in the egg, lower the heat and fry until cooked to your liking.
Ttransfer to a plate. Place the vegetable mixture beside it, then crumble over the feta on top (if using) and enjoy with your buttered toast.
