HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT?

First of all, there are a lot of terms that we need to know in order to understand the principles better and to adapt each principle to suit our individual body needs. Bear in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all method when it comes to weight loss since every one of us is unique. Also, the method that worked for you initially may not work all the way due to the dynamic nature of the interaction between our body and the loss of weight. Therefore, in order for you to achieve the ultimate results you desire, do take some time to click on the respective terms that will link you to the detailed explanations for your deeper understanding.

Weight Loss Principles:

To begin, keep the title of this blog in mind, Your Lifestyle Your weight, as the key to weight-loss, is really about changing your lifestyle.

1. INPUT less than OUTPUT

In order to lose weight, we have to ensure that we don't eat more than we need! Sounds quite obvious right? You may, most of the time, think that you did not eat a lot, but in actual fact, you have always been consuming more than you need for the day, thus resulting in the increase in weight. Do calculate how much calories you need and see for yourself how much extra you have been eating in a day!

2. EAT LOW FAT AND LOW CARBOHYDRATE FOOD

We all know that there are food that are more sinful than some others, but what are these kind of food? To keep it simple for your identification purposes, anything that’s sweet, is sinful, so are fat-laden stuff. But bear in mind that we can’t avoid them altogether since they are important to our daily functions like thinking and keeping warm. To give a comparison, between a Kickapo and Aloe Vera drink with pulp, Kickapo has 166kcal of calories whereas Aloe Vera drink with pulp has only 104kcal. Without referring to the nutrition facts label, the way to tell which one has less calories will be to decide which is sweeter. Of course, this test won’t work for those that uses artificial sweetener, but otherwise, it'll work alright :).

3. INCREASE YOUR METABOLISM

Metabolism is the the rate in which your body converts food into energy, for storage or for usage. Naturally, the faster your body converts food into energy, the lesser there is to be converted into stored fats! The detailed methods are written in another post. To summarise, the methods are tone up muscles, increase the number ofmitochondria, sleep more, eat less but more often, eat right, eat fish, allow your body’s natural cooling and heating system to work, and lastly, do interval training.

Other FUN methods:

Slimming down really doesn’t have to bring you agony, all you need is to know some tricks to achieving that figure you've always dreamt of.

1. Drink lots of water before going into that food court – so that you won’t feel like you want to eat everything in the stalls!

2. Eat fruits before meals – this is the latest research that, by eating fruits before meals, you actually prepare your stomach for the food that’s coming in, thus better absorbing the minerals. Also, the fiber and carbohydrate makes you fuller faster thus preventing you from eating too much.

3. Always say “less” – when ordering, make it a point to say “less rice”, “less gravy”, “less oil”, or even better, say “no oil”!

Remember, slimming down is not rocket-science and it doesn’t have to bring you “pain”, enjoy the process of making yourself nimble and fit again. Cheers!

Heart Rate Training Zones

To perform exercises effectively, you need to monitor your heart rate when exercising, as each heart rate zone will mean different exercise effects.

Below are a list of heart zones for different exercising effects. Before you go on to explore the different zones to decide on your needs, you'll need to understand what is maximum heart rate.

When we talk about maximum heart rate (MHR), we are talking about the highest number of times your heart can contract in one minute, beyond which, heart failure will occur. In order to find out this number, you are of course, not required to push yourself to the point of heart failure, there is an easier way to find out about that, which is by using this formula: 220 - Age.

For example, given that I'm 25 years old, my MHR will be 220-25=195 beats per minute.

1. Healthy Heart Zone (Warm up) --> 50 - 60% of maximum heart rate:

This is the easiest zone and probably the least tedious zone. Most suitable for people just starting on their exercise regime. It can also be used as a warm up for more serious walkers.

This zone has been shown to help decrease body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol. It also decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and has a low risk of injury. 85% of calories burned in this zone are fats!

2. Fitness Zone (Fat Burning) --> 60 - 70% of maximum heart rate:

This zone provides the same benefits as the healthy heart zone, but is more intense and burns more calories. The percent of fat calories burnt is still 85%, but is a necessary zone to pass through in order to do a gradual improvement to the next zone.

3. Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) --> 70 - 80% of maximum heart rate:

The aerobic zone will improve your cardiovascular and respiratory system AND increase the size and strength of your heart, which will in turn improve the respiratory process, making your fat-burning capacity more efficient! Also, this is the zone whereby mitochondrias are increased and enlarged to increase your metabolism. But due to the intensity of the workout, only 50% of the burnt calories are fats, but of course, the amount of calories burnt is much more than when you work out at 60%, so the ultimate value of fat burnt is still about the same, with greater benefit of increase mitochondria.... definitely worth the effort for weight-losing!

4. Anaerobic Zone (Performance Training) --> 80 - 90% of maximum heart rate:

Benefits of this zone include an improved stamina and thus an improved cardiorespiratory system, also that your endurance will improve and you'll be able to last longer in higher intensed exercises like e.g. sprint for a longer period of time. This is a high intensity zone burning even more calories, but our of which only 15 % is from fat. But of course, it has the same effect of increasing and enlarging your mitochondrias which will in turn increase your metabolism.

5. Red Line (Maximum Effort) --> 90 - 100% of maximum heart rate:

Although this zone burns the highest amount of calories, it is very intense. Most people can only stay in this zone for short periods. You should only train in this zone if you are in very good shape and have been cleared by a physician to do so. Bearing in mind that the MHR is only a rough guide, for the fitter folks, it doesn't mean that upon reaching this zone, you'll conk out and die, for the less-fit folks, even before you reach this zone, you might have already conked out... so... do watch your body and listen to the cues yea... stop when necessary, it's not worth losing your life over a few kilos!

Calculate Maximal Heart Rate

To perform exercises effectively, you need to monitor your heart rate when exercising, as each heart rate zone will meant different exercise effects and each zones contributes differently to the increase in metabolism.

For example,
Healthy Heart Zone (Warm up) --- 50 - 60% of maximum heart rate (MHR)
Fitness Zone (Fat Burning) --- 60 - 70% of MHR
Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) --- 70 - 80% of MHR
Anaerobic Zone (Performance Training) --- 80 - 90% of MHR
Red Line (Maximum Effort) --- 90 - 100% of MHR

(For details of what each heart rate zone, click here.)

So how do we calculate the MHR? No worries, as long as you have passed Primary 3 maths, you can do this without much problem.

Let's say we wanna increase our mitochondria, we need to exercise at the Anaerobic Zone of 80% of MHR, and assuming you are 25 years old.

Step 1: Subtract your age from 220 to find out your maximum heart rate
MHR --> 220-25 = 195 beats per minute

Step 2: Multiply your MHR by 80%
195 x 80% = 156 beats per minute

Viola! You should maintain the intensity of exercise once you reach your desired HR.

You can check your heart rate during a workout, but first slow down the pace a little so you can concentrate more. Gently place your index and middle finger on the inner part of your wrist. Now count how many beats in 10 seconds, then multiply the number by 6. Of course, there are effective electronic instruments around which can purchase to make this easier for you, like a watch that measures heart rate, but that's entirely up to you.

How to increase metabolism?

The first step to losing some fats, other than cutting the food intake and exercising tirelessly, is to increase your metabolism. In fact, if you can successfully gain a significant increase in metabolism, cutting down on your food intake will seem redundant and unnecessary. These are some methods to increasing your metabolism:

1. TONE UP THOSE MUSCLES. Remember that muscles generally call for more calories for maintenance, so by building up more muscles, the basal metabolic rate simply increases.
2. INCREASE THE NUMBER OF MITOCHONDRIA. Mitochondria are the energy factories of our body cells, the more there is, the more efficient the burning of calories to sustain our increased stamina in working out, which in turn burns more calories. To increase the number of mitochondria, we need to exercise at 80% of our maximum heart rate. More...
3. SLEEP MORE. According to research, lack of sleep can decrease the number of calories your body burns because when sleeping, our body performs more repair and restoration than when awake. Since the rate of calories your body burns at rest represents about 60% to 75% of your total daily calorie burning, the less sleep you get, will mean lesser calorie burnt for the day, which means a slowed metabolism.
4. EAT LESS BUT MORE OFTEN. Digesting food is one of the activity that burns lots of energy. Each time you eat, you stimulate your metabolism for a short period of time for digestion, which means that the more often you eat, the more you’ll increase your metabolism. Eating every 2 to 3 hours feeds muscle and starves fat. By eating frequently, you reassure your body that you aren’t going to starve; that food will always be available, thus reducing the need to slow down metabolism to store energy to last the hours before the next meal. As a matter of fact, skipping breakfast actually frightens your body into storing fat, just in case your next meal never comes. This is called the 'starvation response', which springs in everytime our body senses hunger (note that it's not 'you' who feels hungry that stimulates the response, it's a very natural process that your body goes into once the period of 'food-less time' goes beyond a few hours). STIMULATE YOUR DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. This is something you can do too to lengthen your digesting process, which is to allow yourself to salivate (when looking at nice food) and imagine yourself eating before your meal, this will kick-start the metabolism and achieve more burning of calories.
5. … BUT EAT RIGHT. Frequent eating doesn’t mean snacking of course! Rather than munching mindlessly, make each mini-meal complete and healthy e.g. a serving of vegetables and a healthy source of protein like eggs, chicken, or nuts. Upping your intake of high-fiber foods like vegetables is one of the best ways to increase your metabolism. Fiber is a non-digestible carbohydrate, but the body tries hard to break it down anyway, using up energy thus boosting metabolism in the process. Plus, vegetables are low in calories, yet high in nutrients, a huge boon for your weight loss efforts.
6. EAT FISH. EPA and DHA, the omega-3 fatty acids found only in fish oil, are found to have the power to dramatically boost your metabolism by as much as 400 calories per day. Fish/salmon oil increases levels of fat-burning enzymes and decreases levels of fat-storage enzymes in your body. For the best metabolism boosting benefit, choose capsules containing at least 300 milligrams of EPA and DHA total.
7. ALLOW YOUR NATURAL BODY COOLING/HEATING SYSTEM TO WORK. Keeping ourselves too comfortable with the help of modern appliances like air-con and heater reduces the energy we expend to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. So do give your natural body cooling/heating system to work once in a while to burn some extra calories.
8. EXERCISE! Not only does it increases metabolism, exercising helps to build muscles as mentioned in point 1 above. It also stimulates the production of endorphines which lifts your spirits just like chocolates do!
9. 'EXERCISE' CONTINUES... After exercising, our increased metabolism doesn't stop right away, in fact, the increased rate can continue up to 24 hours for continued repair through to microscopic muscle fiber tears and other restoration from the exercise.
10. INTERVAL TRAINING. Maximize the calories you burn after exercise by integrating high intensity intervals into your workout. Alternate 3 minutes of moderate intensity running or biking with 30 seconds of all-out effort. You’ll burn another 100 to 200 calories this way, even while sitting on the couch or lying in bed.

What is mitochondria?

Basically, mitochondria are the energy factories of our body cells. They are responsible for producing the fuel needed for all of our bodily activities. These fuels are produced, using the food that we eat, as the raw materials. So naturally, the more of them, the better our body can metabolise fat.

Cells with high energy needs often contain more mitochondria, therefore, exercising will help increase this need for energy thus raising the numbers. However, not all kinds of exercise will work for raising the metabolism efficiently enough to lose weight quickly.

The best way to increase the number and size of the mitochondrial mass is to exercise at around 80% of maximum heart rate (MHR) for at least 15 minutes. The changes occur within the exercised muscle cells and may happen within a few weeks if the workout schedule of at least 3 times a week is adhered to. *A word of caution though that not all abled persons are able to exercise at 80% of MHR for 15min, some unfit ones may find this hard to maintain and passing out is a probable response. To give you a feel of what 80% of MHR is like, imagine sprinting up a flight of 50 steps at your best possible timing, to effectively increase the number and size of the mitochondrial mass, do that for 15min.... panting hard already??

It is thus vital to raise the HR gradually over the course of 2 weeks or more, NO ONE should be exercising at 80% of MHR within the first few workouts, it will only reduce the ability for cells to develop at later stages. It is recommended to start off at around 40% of MHR increase it by 10% at each workout as deem fit.

Some of the recommended activities to help raise the heart rate to 80% of maximum are swimming and rowing as both require the use of the major muscle groups (the limbs). This places a greater demand on energy production to raise calorie expenditure making it easier to reach a higher level of one’s target heart rate. Also the more muscles involved in the activity, the more mitochondria involved in the adaptation process. There are other good exercises that raise the heart rate however some, such as running, tend to be traumatic to joints like the knees, ankles and hips.

To calculate your MHR, check out the formula here.

Myth 1: I can't do exercise, I'll gain weight!

How many a times have we heard our friends say this or even encounter this myth ourselves. 'Myth'... what do I mean by this is a myth?? It is a FACT! After we gain muscle mass from exercising, we DO gain weight!! BUT.... this is healthy weight gain.... allow me to explain.

Weight gaining is not a sin as long as it is not fats gain. Muscles, due to its protein nature, weighs more than fats, which is mostly made up of water. When we lose fats and gain muscles instead due to the exercising that we do, our weight will naturally go up, but in turn, we'll look toned and healthy!

Also, another important thing about gaining muscle is that, our metabolic powerhouses known as "mitochondria" will increase in number, which will increase our metabolic rate in converting food energy into energy for daily usage --> meaning, we burn fats more easily! Find out more about this building of mitochondria in another post of mine.

Just to clarify, when we say gain muscle, we do mean those tough-looking bulging muscles, but rather, imagine a toned and non-flabby arms which looks the same whether you have it down beside your body or flagging for a cab, nothing is waving in the air with every wave...

To conclude, do not fear weight gain, rather, we should be looking forward to the weight gain after some exercising to confirm that we have lost some fats and gained some muscles which will ultimately contribute to an increase in metabolic rate.

exercise = loss of fats = muscles gain = weight increase = increase in metabolic rate = a toner looking body

HURRAY!