Things I’ve picked up along the way
Here’s some tips & calculations I’ve acquired over the past few months!
• stay hydrated!! 💦 Drinking more water actually makes your metabolism faster. Your metabolism is all the chemical reactions taking place in your body keeping you alive - specifically, catabolism (catabolic reactions) is responsible for converting food into energy. Proper hydration improves the transport of glucose to your cells and also improves sensitivity to insulin, which speeds up weight loss. I normally drink 2L of plain water per day, then a few cups of tea on top of that.
Drinking 0.5 litres of water is shown to increase resting metabolism by 10-30% for up to an hour. Bonus - cold water will burn even more calories as your body uses energy to warm it up.
• caffeine ☕️ will boost your metabolic rate and increase fat burning, BUT don’t drink too much. 500mg or more caffeine in one day (around 5 cups of coffee) is enough to have a significant diuretic effect. This means that it increases urine production in your kidneys to the extent where it may dehydrate you. For every cup of coffee or green tea you have, pair it with a glass of water. Drinking too much coffee can also cause your body to become tolerant to caffeine intake, meaning the positive effects on your metabolism will be lost.
• spicy food 🌶 hot foods containing peppers provide capsaicin, which boosts your metabolism! Plus, if it’s really spicy, you’re more likely to finish eating sooner and eat less overall.
• probiotics 💊 by taking probiotics, you increase the number of and diversity of ‘friendly’ bacteria 🦠 in your gut. These bacteria help you to digest food properly, and low diversity of these bacteria in your gut can contribute to weight gain. Probiotics containing strains of Lactobacillus can also help with reduction of body fat, as studies have found individuals to lose an average of 3-4% body fat over 6 weeks, and in another case 8.2-8.5% of belly fat over 12 weeks.
• take your vitamins & meds 🍊 to help make sure your body gets the nutrients it needs (minus the excess calories) take multivitamins. Specifically, vitamins B12 & Iron help to maintain a healthy metabolism and will stop you getting so dizzy. Vitamin C is also good for keeping up your immune system, which would otherwise be difficult if you’re malnourished.
If you’ve been prescribed antidepressants, take them. It’s easier to overeat when you’re down. Plus some antidepressants (e.g. citalopram) reduce your appetite significantly.
• HIIT training 🏃🏻♀️ intervals of walking / jogging followed by 30 second sprints are better for fat burning than low intensity, long jogs.
Your body’s aim is to maintain its energy stores, so it wants you to perform in the most efficient way. Like driving a car, repeated sudden & rapid acceleration uses more fuel. Your body will also continue to burn calories at a higher rate for hours after a HIIT workout, due to the replacement of your depleted oxygen levels after sprints. This wouldn’t be the case if your workout only included steady state cardio.
• sleep 💤 not getting enough sleep can slow down your metabolism by reducing your cell’s sensitivity to insulin. It also increases the hormone that causes hunger (ghrelin) and decreases the hormone that makes you feel full (leptin).
• try to eat fewer than 100g of carbs per day, regardless of your calorie goal 🍞
• reduce sodium intake🧂 and increase potassium intake 🍌 to decrease water retention!
• vitamin B6, dandelion extract and magnesium 🌼 also decrease water retention.
• jelly 🍓 - Hartley’s have a ‘10 cal’ range of jellies in loads of different flavours, each pot being a maximum of 10 calories! Most flavours are less than that though, my favourite being the raspberry at 3cals per pot
• miso soup!! 🥣 Miso is super good for you, it has loads of different vitamins and probiotics which aid digestion (as mentioned above!) Its also only 21 calories per bowl. It tastes pretty good, but it smells disgusting, which is great for curbing your appetite afterwards.
You can mix miso paste with hot water, or brands like itsu sell individual soup sachets. I prefer the sachets as I feel more sure of the calorie content.
• Shirataki noodles 🍜- these are white, almost translucent noodles which are made from glucomannan (a fibre which causes weight loss!) and contain no digestible carbs. The brand I buy is called Barebaked Noodles - there is 2 servings in one bag at 15 cals each. I normally mix up some chicken or beef stock and mix the noodles in after cooking them.
• Rice crackers with Dairylea spread 🧀 are amazing. There are 26 calories in each lightly salted rice cracker, and only 50 cals in a serving of the cheese spread (which normally covers two crackers for me)
• protein 🍳 I know we’re all terrified of protein for fear we might get bulky or even just maintain muscle that we don’t want - but by eating a small amount of protein per day, that won’t happen. By not consuming enough protein as well as being malnourished, you risk your hair falling out. Your hair is made up of a protein called keratin, and it’s also not necessary for survival. As I mentioned above, your body’s aim is to function as efficiently as possible for survival - so when nutrients are scarce, it will only do what’s necessary - which doesn’t include hair growth.
In one egg white, there’s 17 calories and 4g of protein. Even just a small amount will help maintain your metabolism somewhat, and could prevent hair loss.
• keep a rubber band around your wrist. If you feel the urge to binge, gently pull it back and snap it against the back of your forearm. Don’t do this too hard or you might break your skin and I’m not encouraging self harm here! If you do this each time you feel the impulsive urges to eat everything in sight, you’ll slowly start to condition yourself out of overeating.
• keep a food diary, and record your feelings before & after each meal, especially binges. You’ll start to see a trend and identify your fear / trigger foods. Knowing that you will need to write down your feelings after eating will also discourage you from a binge before it happens, as you already know how it ends. 📔
• 1lb of fat is equal to 3500 calories - this is the amount you need to be in deficit by to lose 1lb of fat.
• your BMR (basal metabolic rate) is the amount of calories you will naturally burn each day without exercising. You can calculate it using these formulae:
Men: 88.362 + (13.397 x weight in kg) + (4.799 x height in cm) - (5.677 x age)
Women: 447.593 + (9.247 x weight in kg) + (3.908 x height in cm) - (4.330 x age)
• to convert lbs to kg, divide by 2.2 :)
• METs (metabolic equivalent of task) are like a measure of the intensity of a workout, or energy expenditure compared with when just sitting doing nothing.
You can google the MET of a particular workout (e.g jumping jacks) and use this to calculate how many calories you’ll burn per minute. Here’s the formula for that:
( MET x 3.5 x your weight in kg ) / 200 = cals burned per minute
Hope these are useful! Stay safe everyone 💛🌸
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