A posting for the soon to be wedded Rad:
Rad’s wedding is approaching fast, in November, but if you chat with her, it would seem like November is ten years away
…ahhhh… the impatience of newly found love! And this has incite an urgent desire to lose weight, in me as well …a girl has to look good on her good friend’s wedding day, doesn’t she? That got us talking about dieting. As I am the one in the health industry, she asked my opinion on a proper and healthy diet. Speedy result is a necessity of course, being overweight can hurt more than your looks.
Well, I have been on a diet numerous times. I have no problem with diets, it is the sticking to it part that makes my life hell, and the lives of those closed to me, of course. My frequency of mood swings is inversely proportionate to my blood sugar level I think, so anytime you see me morose and turning into a shrew, give me some Hershey’s Kisses
and the world would be a better place
Physician heal thyself!
I am no expert on Atkin’s, Cambridge and what-not diet, but I do know one type of diet that would surely work.
So, here goes:
In our daily live, we need energy for every little thing we do (output). We need it for walking, running, and talking. We use energy to breath, to digest food, to move the smallest muscle in our body and even to sleep. The energy that we accumulated comes from the food we ingested (input), of course.
The problem with overweight people is that we have too much unused energy, probably from over eating as well underutilizing. These extra energy is stored in the in the form of fats
.
The math is simple:
In order to maintain body weight, output of energy must be equal with the input.
Input – Output = 0 ( no excess energy burned from our fat store)
To lose weight, the output of energy must exceed the input.
Input – Output = -x (this excess energy comes from the fat we burn from our store, thus making us lose weight)
Let us concentrate on the input first:
All group of food supplies a specific amount of energy in equivalent portion. For example, a gram of fat would give 9 Kilojoule of energy while a gram of carbohydrate would give us 4 kiloJoules. Calorie counter for common food in Malaysia are easily available now and we can accurately know how much calorie a piece of 400g roti canai or a bowl of nasi lemak has. This will enable us to know how much calorie we are ingesting everyday by adding up each meal’s calorie intake.
If we want to lose weight, our calorie intake should be less than what our requirement are so that we can used up the fats in our body to supplement the deficit in our intake.
Our recommended daily requirement for a sedentary life such as mine is 35kCalories per kg of body weight. For a more active life, you will need a higher calories intake.
Now the output:Output is the amount of energy we used up.
As a living being, we are constantly burning energy with our daily activities. This is what we call basal metabolic rate (BMR). In some lucky individuals with high BMR, the energy is burned faster and in larger quantity compared to those with lower BMR.
In addition to the BMR, our daily activities also require energy. The more active life we lead, the more energy we burn. The more sedentary our life is, the more energy we store. Therefore, to burn more energy, we have to have more activity. The calorie counter can also provide a list of how much energy is required for certain activities. Walking for a mile, running, doing housework etc. Just look it up and choose the activities you like to do and make a note of how much calories it will burn.
Let us say we have a friend called A, who has to lose weight. Let us now calculate how much energy A can take and how much energy A has to burn to lose 1-2 kg per week.
- A’s weight : 70kg
- A’s ideal weight : 50kg
- A’s daily activity : sedentary
- A’s daily energy requirement: 35kC/kg body weight
- A’s aim of weight loss: 1-2kg per week , therefore A has to take a diet with 500kC less than her daily requirement.
- A’s daily energy requirement : (35kC x 70kg) -500 = 1950kC (let us round it up to 2000kC for easy calculation)
Now, this 2000kC that we have calculated has to be spread out into the number of meals A will have for the day. I would suggest we take small frequent meals to avoid severe hunger pangs. We will divide it into six meals. Now, refer to the calorie counter and choose the food that can supply that amount of energy per meal. One important caveat of dieting, choose a low calorie type of food such as protein and fibers to provide bulk to the diet and make a filling meal. Some examples are:
- Breakfast : 300kC ( a piece of toast with a ¼ tsp of butter, coffee with no sugar, an apple)
- Morning tea: 150kC (a cup of tea with ¼ cup of low fat milk, a low fat cracker)
- Lunch :800kC ( a bowl of plain rice, a portion of fried chicken, a portion of mixed vegetables, plain water and a fruit platter)
- Afternoon tea: 150kC ( 250mls of low fat milk, I portion of cake)
- Dinner: 500kC ( a plate of chicken salad, a slice of banana, plain water)
- Supper: 100kC ( 125 ml of low fat milk)
In order to increase intake, so that we could eat more, we must increase our output. This can be done with exercise, for example a one-mile brisk walking can burn up to 300kC. The thing is, in order to lose fat, we have to exercise in such a way that it will burn the fat. Therefore, in exercising, we start with a good warm up for 5 minutes, then the aerobic exercises for about 15 minutes that uses sugar as energy and then work our way up to anaerobic exercise. The anaerobic phase will occur in the next 15 minutes or so and will burn the accumulated fat. Then we cool down for 5 minutes. (Just buy one of Denise Austin’s aerobic DVD and do that over and over again, at least three times a week).
Easier said than done, I know! But it is doable! Supplement it with puasa ganti, nazar and sunat and a lot of window shopping (avoiding the food section and restaurant floor, of course), I’m sure the pounds will drop off. The thing is, it needs discipline. So Rad, are you up to the challenge?
~Hope: at first we have too much of it, later not enough of it
