The Skinny of Being Overweight – Some Insight on Changing the Course of Your Fat-loss Journey

Every time you look into the mirror, you might be wondering why people out there are having a nice summer body with full confidence while you are still struggling with your recent-up-sized t-shirt. You might even be wondering, are you going to be like them one day? Is there any chance for you to change? Of course there is. However, a summer body doesn’t come with ease. But fear not. We are here to help. With this blog you will get some insight on changing the course of your fat-loss journey.

Many work their butt off to attain their dream body. But, what is important is, you are healthy from the inside out. When I say fat burn, the first thing that comes into your mind is exercise. Yes, of course you need to exercise to have a nice summer body. But, do you know that our eating habit affects our body the most? Have you ever heard that weight loss is 80% Diet, 20% Exercise? I beg to differ.

Diet can actually make up as much as 90-99% of your weight loss journey. The MAIN reason why you’re overweighed is because of your lifestyle! Having an unhealthy lifestyle not only slows down your metabolism but also brings you chronic diseases. With a slow metabolic system, you can even gain weight by only drinking water! This is also the reason why some people slim down at a very slow rate but gain all the weight back in one night.

Slimming down is good, but slimming down healthily is the key point here. We want you to look into your health first instead of focusing on all the crazy diet plans and exercise regimes.

Fat Facts

So what exactly is fat? Fat is made up of building blocks called fatty acids and these are classified as saturated, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated depending on their chemical structure. Fat is essential to human life, we all need fat in our diets. For years, nutritionists and doctors have preached that a low-fat diet is the key to losing weight and preventing health problems.

However, not all fat is the same. Our body requires small amounts of ‘good fat‘ to function and help prevent disease. However, most of the ‘modern’ food contains a lot more fat than the body needs. Too much fat, especially too much of the wrong type of fat could be detrimental to our health causing serious health problems such as higher blood pressure and cholesterol levels, obesity, which in turn lead to a greater risk of heart disease.

So, it is significant to know what types of fat we should be cutting back on.

We are constantly being told that “Fats are bad”, and many will spend lots of time and money to completely rid their diet of fat. The truth is, we need fats. Fats help in nerve transmission, nutrient absorption, maintaining cell membrane integrity etc. Simply said, fat is actually necessary for you to lose weight. However, when consumed in excess amount, it can increase your risk for a number of health threats. The key is to replace bad fats with good fats in our diet.

Good fats

Good fat is sometimes called unsaturated fat. The types of potentially helpful dietary fat are mostly unsaturated. Unsaturated fat comes in two forms: monounsaturated polyunsaturated .

Monounsaturated fats

This is a type of fat found in a variety of food and oils. You can get it from:

• Nuts: walnuts and pistachios; including almonds, peanuts, cashew, macadamia,
• Avocado
• Canola
• Olive oil

The most well-documented benefit of consuming monounsaturated fats is the potential for keeping your heart healthy. It improves blood cholesterol levels, which can decrease your risk of heart disease. Research also shows that these fatty acids may benefit insulin levels and blood sugar control, which can be especially helpful if you have type-2 diabetes.

Not just that, studies have also found that switching to monounsaturated fat from diets rich with trans fats and polyunsaturated fats results in significant weight loss. Yes, both consume the SAME amount of fats in their diet, but end up with DIFFERENT results! The key here is the type of fats you’re consuming on daily basis.

Polyunsaturated fats

There are two types of polyunsaturated fat omega-3 and omega-6: these are also known as essential fatty acids. Our body can’t produce essential fatty acids on its own, so we need to get them from food.

Omega- 3 Omega-3 is a type of polyunsaturated fat. You can get it from:

• Legumes
• Soy food
• Tuna, salmon and mackerel
• Green leafy vegetables
• Walnuts, other nuts and flaxseed

Babies can also get omega-3 from breastmilk. It promotes brain health during pregnancy and early life. Omega-3 helps a baby’s brain and eye development in the womb and during the first six months of life. It has a great impact on children’s learning and behavior. As for adults, omega-3 can be good for rheumatoid arthritis, pain relief, morning stiffness and inflammation. It can also protect adults from heart disease.

Omega-6 is a type of polyunsaturated fat. You can get it from:

• Vegetable oils like sunflower
• Evening primrose oil
• Peanut
• Canola
• Cereals

Omega-6 plays an important role in cell growth, and is thus essential for brain and muscle development. The omega-6 arachidonic acid (AA) is for this very reason added to most infant formulas. Both brain development and muscle development are critical for infants.

The growth benefits of omega-6 also explain the great interest that body builders and top athletes have in omega-6 consumption. Omega-6, particularly gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), is linked to increased bone density and reduced bone loss and it helps to promote hair growth and supports skin health. Omega-6 furthermore has an anti-inflammatory effect on our skin, soothing irritated skin.

Bad fats

There are two main types of potentially harmful dietary fat:  Saturated Fat and Trans Fat.

You get saturated fat from:

• Animal products such as meat fat
• Full-fat dairy products such as butter and cream
• Palm and coconut oil in processed food such as biscuits, chips & slices

Saturated fat has no known health benefits. A high intake of disadvantageous saturated and trans fats can lead to elevated low-density lipoprotein (or LDL) and cholesterol levels, which may increase your risk of developing heart disease. These fats may also contribute to obesity, diabetes and cancer.

Trans-fat is sometimes used in:

• Commercially-made cakes and biscuits
• Takeaway food
• Energy bars
• Ready-made meals
• Snack food like chips

Trans fats can increase harmful low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol, while decreasing good high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol. In turn, this can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, it has been associated with the development of type-2 diabetes.

Your mindset drives your body, it fuels your will and determination to work towards your goal. It can be difficult to achieve and maintain your ideal body shape and weight. It takes more than just healthy eating and regular exercise. A positive and motivated mindset is essential to keep you going. If you tell yourself negative things – “This is so hard, I can’t do this.” you’re not going to make it far. But if you encourage yourself with thoughts like “I can do this. Nothing can stop me. I’m going to lose 5 pounds by the end of the week” – you’re motivated to achieve your diet goals. Mindsets are assumptions or beliefs you establish to govern your behaviour and choices.

There are two types of mindset: fixed and growth-oriented.

People with a fixed mindset think of the absolutes and allow little to no room for possibilities. They are fixated to their definite opinion and would not budge from that framed mindset. When faced with challenges, they tend to take the easy way out to avoid failure and embarrassment. This is a psychological principle known as self-handicapping.

People with a growth mindset strongly believe in possibilities. They’re open minded, willing to adopt new ideas and learn to improve. They take on challenges even at the risk of failing. They are open to embrace failure because they know they can learn from it.

Below are some common mantras (a.k.a slogan or motto) that distinctly describe the two mindsets:

Fixed Mindset

• When I fail, I’m no good
• I’m either good at it, or I’m not
• When I’m frustrated, I give up
• My abilities determine everything

Growth Mindset

• When I fail, I learn
• I can learn anything I want to
• When I’m frustrated, I persevere
• My effort and attitude determine everything

Start cultivating a growth mindset and practice these mantras and your diet plan will work much easier with more satisfying results.

Research shows that one of the many important factors that influence weight loss is your attitude – whether or not you believe you can do it and if it is worth doing. It’s a simple theory – what you think will affect how you feel, and in turn the actions you take.

Similar to how conventional medications often treat symptoms of disease without addressing the cause, weight loss diets often address your weight without addressing what has led you to be overweight. Being overweight is not as simple as eating too much or moving too less – there’s an underlying combination of subconscious conditioning, self-worth issues, emotional difficulties and more.

You might be able to lose a couple of pounds with solely changing your diet and doing exercises, but it won’t last long as symptom-specific diets will only be temporarily effective. By addressing the underlying psychological cause that led you to being overweight while applying a balanced diet and exercise will ensure you a long-lasting weight loss.

Follow these life-changing mantras that could help you eliminate any sort of destructive thoughts that sabotage your body weight.

1. Other’s opinions don’t matter as long as I love my body

Eliminate the fear of other’s opinions. When we despise how we look and how we feel, our bodies reflect and adopt to these ideas. Due to the environmental conditions, many want to impress and live up to other people’s expectations – it’s all because of other’s opinions. But loving yourself must always come first if weight loss efforts are to be effective. Shed your fears. Learn to love your own body, be grateful and each small change that occurs to it through your dieting effort.

2. Steady and slow, learn as you go. Lose too fast, it may not last. A little goes a long way

Focus on progress over perfection because no perfections come along without long-term progression. Be patient and work with a well-planned diet for a long run. Your body takes time to adjust to all the changes. Diet done in a right way will ensure your body to be accustomed to the changes and the effects are definitely more lasting.

3. I may not be where I want to be, but I’m better than where I was

“I don’t have enough time, 15 minutes of workout won’t make a difference” – sounds familiar? This is the kind of statement that gives yourself permission to veer from the healthy habits that help you lose weight. Don’t find excuses, a tiny effort done is always better than none. 15 minutes each day rather than none at all will still make a change to your body regardless of how significant it is. Always remember that each small step taken is a step nearer to your goal. Never underestimate yourself.

There are many different schools of thought when it comes to losing weight and there are many different systems, diet plans and strategies that claim to be the most effective in the world.

Of course not all of these can work equally though and so your job is to try and weed out the winners from the losers and to identify which strategies are most effective generally and also best suited to your specific lifestyle and biology.

For your consideration then: carb backloading!

The basic idea behind carb backloading is that you are going to time your meals, or more specifically time your consumption of carbohydrates.

You’ll do this in such a way as to eat carbs like bread, pasta and others only immediately after you have engaged in intensive cardiovascular training.

More specifically than that, you will be timing your consumption of simple carbs in order to follow HIIT workouts. That means that you’ll a low-carb or no-carb diet for the majority of the day and then when you’ve finished an intense training session, you’ll be able to permit yourself to have some pasta or a sandwich.

Why Does it Work?

The idea behind this system is to first empty the energy stored in the muscles (glycogen) before turning to carbohydrates. What this is thought to do is to create a demand on the body that will ensure that the new sugar influx is not stored as fat.

You see, the body only stores excess sugar as fat when it doesn’t have any use for it. If your blood sugar is low when you eat, then your body will use some of the incoming sugar rather than store it. Unfortunately, low blood sugar also stimulates the release of many hormones and it doesn’t take much to get a good supply back.

Conversely though, the body also stores a small amount of energy in the muscle cells as glycogen to allow us to run and fight when we have low blood sugar and we are burning energy too quickly to rely on fat stores.

When this is depleted, the first priority for the body (after powering basic functions) is to restore this energy. Thus, any carbohydrates that you eat within a short window of opportunity will be sent to the muscle and not the belly.

Before you try this system, it is important to note that it doesn’t work if you only use steady state cardiovascular exercise. A gentle jog will use up the blood sugar and then turn to fat stores. Conversely, if you sprint or go at 100% output, then your body will have no choice but to use glycogen (because burning fat is too slow).

We can only maintain max output for a short amount of time though and this is where HIIT comes in – as the perfect way to use up this form of energy and create that necessary demand. You can also try one of our jump rope workouts to get you going. They are great for this purpose as well.

We hope all this has given you some insight on changing the course of your fat-loss journey and offers a good starting point to really boost your mental state and improves your fat-losing effort. Remember, it starts with positive thoughts. This is why positive people always seem to get more done; it really works!

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