Do carbs make you fat? This question has populated nutritional debates for a while now. To get to the crux of the argument we first have to understand what ‘carbs’ are. Carbs, or carbohydrates, are sugar molecules and as one of the three main macronutrients, are the preferred energy source for the body. Carbohydrates are broken down in the digestive system into their chemical form – glucose. Glucose is needed throughout the body for respiration, which provides energy for the majority of cells in the body to carry out their functions.   Three types of carbs There are three main types of ca ..read more

What’s all the Fuss About with Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss? Modern society has made life easier on many fronts. Cars to take us long distances, supermarkets provide an abundance of food choices, TV shows and streaming services to provide entertainment in the comfort of our own homes, social media on tap, phones and computers to conveniently order anything our hearts desire right to our doors. But all this convenience comes at a cost – a metabolic cost. In 2021, the Health Survey for England found that 63.8% of adults in the UK were either overweight or obese (1). It is harder than eve ..read more

Previously I talked about calories in. Now we need to talk about calories out. There is tremendous pressure on us to exercise to lose weight, and as I said previously,  that really didn’t work well for me – and it doesn’t for many people! Marathon Mess In 2007 I took up running, after I had shifted much of my weight and stopped smoking. I set my sights on the London Marathon! A huge goal at the time, but it was 18 months away, which I thought was plenty of time to get myself prepared and get to training… BUT, what then happened was I started putting all that weight back on again… I was do ..read more

Calorie critters Today’s article is all about calories. Specifically, calories in. But what even are calories? You may have heard that calories are those devious little critters that sneak into your wardrobe at night and stitch your clothes a little bit tighter. Unfortunately, it’s not the calories….it’s how many of them we eat that do that! Calories are simply a unit of energy (1). It’s a way of measuring the amount of energy that is in our food and how much energy we are burning. Calories are a useful way of counting the amount of energy that we’re consuming the same way you measure anything ..read more

Weight loss for many people is hard. Avoiding putting on weight is also hard. Gaining it is easier than ever. Why? We live in a very food driven culture which makes it harder than ever to try to eat less. We are living in a world we’re not built for – we’re designed to eat when food is available and lose weight when it’s not. But in the world we live in food is always available, therefore causing conflict within ourselves when we try to eat less. The reality is that we can either accept the conflict and choose to be overweight OR we can CHOOSE to do something about it! But the trouble is, losi ..read more

I am all for celebrating ourselves whatever our size and shape and agree we absolutely should not judge ourselves or anyone else by our/their appearance or size, and it’s our own choice what we do with our bodies. But I was a bit concerned recently when I read a paragraph in an article about self-love and body positivity, that, in summary, indicated that there is no point in weighing ourselves because all it does is make us unhappy and there is nothing we can do about our weight, it’s all down to our genetics, so focus on loving ourselves as we are. Now I am not suggesting that this is what al ..read more

It’s a controversial topic and not recommended for all but in my personal and professional experience it’s a very valuable exercise in increasing our understanding of what we’re eating, whether we’re following a well known programme or not. Why? Because it gives us the power to make more informed choices without relying on someone else telling us what to do, thereby making it much easier to manage our weight, both in terms of losing weight AND keeping off the weight that we have lost.    Let’s take the emotion out of it and look at it objectively…   If we are needing direction ..read more

It’s ok that you don’t find it easy to lose weight, or don’t know what to do at the moment…so I want you to stop beating yourself up, right now.  WHY? One of the biggest myths around weight loss that I come across in my work is that weight loss is easy, or that we know what to do…or at least what we ‘should’ do. Not only that, there is so much information out there, often with conflicting messages, and it’s overwhelming! And even if we really do manage to figure out what to do, applying that knowledge consistently is often really tricky because we also need a particular set of skills to s ..read more

If you’re struggling to get started with weight loss, or not being consistent, there’s a very good reason. It’s because you haven’t reached your Tipping Point yet. “My what??” I hear you say… Your Tipping Point is the point you need to reach when taking action to lose weight becomes easier and more tolerable than staying as you are… We all have to reach this point before we are able to take and sustain the actions needed to be successful in losing weight. It’s when we find and sustain the motivation for weight loss, and make and keep a commitment to ourselves to lose weight.   It’s d ..read more

Click here to read my article on the Life Coach Directory website to find out what a healthy weight means for you.     The post What does it mean to be a healthy weight? appeared first on YourOneLife - Healthy Weight Solutions ..read more