Why some people can never lose the weight

Losing weight is straight forward. You eat a good diet and you work out regularly ensuring you are burning more calories than you care consuming and voila...weight loss will follow.

However, if I had a gold coin for every time someone has told me that they are different and they are the exception to the rule and that no matter how much they work out and eat salads, they are still fat - I'd be very wealthy. I've just been reading an article based on some new research that may just prove those people right. Maybe there are some people out there who have the fat gene and there's nothing hours in the gym can do about it.

Steven Blair, a professor of exercise science has discovered that genes and hormonal balance can have a huge impact on your weight and size. Here's a selection of his findings:

1. Some people have more fat cells
Some people could have as many as twice as many than then next person which would help to explain why they may struggle so much where other find it easy to shed extra weight. Fat cells never go, they can reduce in size but they are always there - waiting to be filled up.

2. The Fat Gene is real
Fatso - that's what the fat gene is called and those with the genes are 60% more likely to be obese than those without. This may explain why some people do so many sports and physical activities and eat and balanced diet and still have a lot of extra body weight.

3. Your mother's pregnancy sealed your fate
If your mum ate very unhealthily during her pregnancy, according to these findings, a sugary and fatty diet can cause havoc to you before you're even born if the womb has higher levels of glucose and free fatty acids floating around than it needs.

There's plenty more nuggets of research in this report which are worth a look but I'm a little skeptical. I'm willing to accept that you don't have to be thin to be fit - slightly overweight people can be fit to but just unable to shift that last 10 pounds. But I'm not convinced yet that fat can be blamed wholly on genes. Maybe this report will convince you?

To discover more on the 13 things you never knew about your weight, read the full article here.


Photograph by insecurity (flickr)

Better the Calorie You Know

Counting calories is a bore.

I'm sure we can all agree on that. Watching what you eat makes you crabby and resentful and somehow, it makes you eat even more. I've worked with plenty of people battling with their weight and their energy levels and there are two techniques that really make them sit up and take notice of what they put in their bodies. Two simple tricks that get them changing the way they think immediately.

First - cut back on portion sizes.
As plates get bigger and restaurants go OTT with the amounts they serve us up, it can be hard to keep track of how much we should be eating at mealtimes. Websites like Diet-Blog are a great help here - they have a section of photos showing you what a 300 calorie meal (this is how much you should aim for per meal) will look like.
Another website I like is MyPhotoDiet that's great for showing sample daily meal plans, again with pictures, so you can see exactly what's required to keep you on track and get you great results. Having looked at these photos, you realise just how easy it is to over-eat and it may explain why those pounds have been creeping on..

The second trick is examining the quality of what you eat. Are you eating balanced meals? Calories, sugar, salt and fat content can really stack up throughout the day, even though you may not think you're consuming very much. I send people to the website Calorie King where you can examine thousands of different food and drink items and look in detail at what exactly what's in them. The great thing about this site is that it also tells you how much walking, jogging, swimming or cycling you'd need to do to burn off the calories in each item of food which really helps put things in context. Are you willing to do 22 mins cycling to burn off 1 low fat Latte from Starbucks? Makes you think, doesn't it?

To sum up:
Don't obsess about counting calories - just stay vigilant to the AMOUNT you eat and get into the habit of reading food labels. Visit the sites I mentioned because seeing in black and white just how fattening some foods are may help you make better choices, especially if you are trying to shift some weight.

Give it a go now.


Photograph by Marshall Astor. Flickr