Beat the midriff misery slimmimg

As printed in Closer Magazine, every time you eat, your body will either burn your food as energy or use it to build and repair your tissues. When you eat more than your body needs to perform these functions or your diet is a bit of a road accident it will be stored as fat.
When you are trying to lose weight there are just so many booby traps that many of us get caught up in!
When you hit a plateau or worse still, gain a couple of pounds it can be seriously dispiriting. The temptation to just give up can be strong. Understanding why this happens and how to tackle it can make a huge difference to waistline management.
It’s got a whole lot to do with the stress hormones in your body. If your body is under any sort of stress (Emotional- workload, deadlines, family or relationship problems, money worries Physical- Over-exercising, under-eating, missing meals Environmental- City-living, smoky atmospheres, air-conditioning Nutritional- lack of essential nutrients) to name but a few, your brain thinks that your life is under threat and releases a substance that immediately stimulates your adrenal glands to release the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol.
Adrenaline is the one that ensures that you react quickly and efficiently to any of the above stresses and Cortisol is the one that releases the energy from it’s stores in the form of sugars and fats, AND- Importantly ensures that these stores are re-stocked regularly.
And it’s no coincidence that stocks are placed around your waistline- that sadly, is the most efficient storage site to ensure that energy can be released from your fat stores and quickly shipped to your liver and turned into energy when your body is under serious threat!
This is an incredibly efficient system, providing everything your body needs to react swiftly to what it perceives as a dangerous situation. Once the stress is over, the adrenal glands stop pumping out those hormones and your body returns to normal.
However, if the stress is on-going, your body is continually looking for fuel and an increased blood sugar level to keep the energy going.
Your body is simply doing the best it can to equip for a constant onslaught of stress, to help you cope with the threats and anxieties it perceives you to be facing each day and to keep you functioning as efficiently as possible.
Some people eat more when their body is stressed, others eat very little- both are counter-productive and lead to weight gain in the long run.
As you can see from above, Cortisol (while absolutely essential) can be a cruel chum when it comes to weight gain by encouraging your body to store fat when stress is on-going. If you restrict your diet or cut calories your body inevitably thinks there is a famine out there and that causes stress.
It will slow down your metabolism and hold on to what it perceives to be precious fat stores.
The solution is to find a way of eating that tells your body that all is well, reassuring it that there is no threat. You need to change your underlying biochemistry and feed the stress, not starve it!
HOW DO YOU DO THAT??
* Keep your metabolism firing on all cylinders by eating little and often and become a Healthy Grazer. Studies how that eating quality, balanced small meals/snacks every 3 hours can reduce your body’s damaging Cortisol levels by 20% in two weeks!
* Eat meals and snacks that are a good balance of carbohydrates (whole grains, vegetables, fruit) protein (lean meat, game, poultry, fish, shellfish, cheese, eggs, soya) and essential fats (oily fish, nuts, seeds, avocado) to provide the wide range of nutrients required for whole body to work as well as it can and should.
* If you are exercising regularly, keep your glycogen stores topped up by eating a balanced snack within an hour to ensure your body doesn’t see the physical output as a stress and alert the Cortisol devil!
* Include thermogenic foods as often as possible every day to turn up the body heat and help burn fat- chilli, spices, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric etc.
* Eat early in the morning EVERY DAY.
* Include protein in EVERY meal and snack to slow down the rate at which the stomach empties food into the next part of the digestive tract and ‘keep you feeling fuller for longer.’
* Drink a swimming pool of good, clean mineral water every day!! At least a large glass or small bottle every three hours.
* Restrict your dairy intake to natural live yogurt, low fat cottage cheese and occasional hard goat’s or ewe’s cheddar and use alternative butters, milks and creams wherever possible (nut, seed, soya, oat)
* Include some essential fats with every meal and snack if you can (their health-giving properties, their fat-burning qualities and their ability to keep you feeling fuller for longer are one of the big weight loss and weight maintenance secrets that diet bunnies just never seem to understand or embrace!)
* Have a treat if and when you fancy a treat to avoid dangerous feelings of deprivation but stay away from the sugary/salty/fatty varieties.
* Don’t feel you have to categorise your foods into breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. Eat what you really feel like eating every 3 hours. It’s a great way to keep you fuelled and avoid cravings that invariably lead to bingeing on junk, fast or overly-processed foods.
* A heavy workload, deadlines and business travel can upset your little and often eating plan BIG TIME! Try to ensure you have healthy snacks in your handbag/desk drawer/ glove compartment to deal with the inevitable energy dips which the body regards as another stress and in steps the Cortisol devil again!
* Little bags or trays of baby raw vegetables, carrot sticks, slices or chopped fruit, small pots of hummus, cottage cheese or guacamole, Marigold vegetable bouillon powder and sachets of miso soup, fruit smoothies, natural live yogurt, cold boiled eggs, chicken portions, prawns, fishy sushi, mini wraps, bean, rice or lentil salads from the deli counter, mini oatcakes and rye crackers, mini babybel cheeses, packs of raw nuts and seeds, mixed olives with feta, fruit and herb tea sachets, bottles of tomato or vegetable juice, water, water and more water!
* If you have trouble sleeping or regularly wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep (blood sugar issues all over again here!) don’t deprive yourself- good sleep is so important for de-stressing the body - go for a couple of oatcakes with cottage cheese and turkey, a small pot of natural yogurt with a couple of dates, a cup of warm soya milk with a few squares of deep, dark chocolate dropped in- watch them melt!
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Entry Filed under: Latest Diet News, Slimming and Weight Loss Tips, Weight Loss