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Showing posts with label can't lose weight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label can't lose weight. Show all posts
10 December 2009
24 November 2009
Why Can't I Lose Weight? Part 2
This is a question that I get asked all the time. I made some suggestions in the blog of the same name Why Can't I Lost Weight? but because it's such a key area of interest I wanted to revisit the topic and add some more suggestions. Here's the next installment.
Why can't I lose weight? Part 2 - Hidden sugars
The average American consumes 2-3 pounds of excess sugar PER WEEK.
We know there's sugar in sodas, sweets, chocolate and desserts but that's only part of the story. Where does the rest of it come from?
One source is low fat food. Shocking I know. Why is low fat food high in sugar? Mainly to give it more flavour.
Lets use yoghurts as an example. Most people like yoghurt and anyone who wants to stay healthy will opt for a low fat version. I took a closer look at some yoghurts today and found that one brand of natural, probiotic, 2% fat yoghurt had 3 teaspoons of sugar in it. Another brand of low fat fruit flavoured yoghurt had 6 teaspoons of sugar in it.
Yes, you read right, 6 teaspoons of sugar in a small 150g pot of yoghurt. One pot of this yoghurt a day would see you consume 35,050 calories a year which could leave you heaving around an extra 10 pounds of body fat if you're not careful.
If you want to check out how much sugar is in some of the food you eat, look at the label, find the sugar quantity in grams and multiply this by 4 to get the amount of sugar calories in the product. Then divide this by 16 to work out how many teaspoons of sugar are present. When you're shopping compare similar products and opt for the ones with the least sugar.
Then you can lose weight!
11 December 2008
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)
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