Essential Oils: Essential Oils (The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Uncovering the Healing Benefits of Aromatherapy) (23 page)
Authors: Abigail Cruise
Step 3: Principles of Natural Weight Loss
A few principles should be understood, to ensure that you are doing the most important things that will lead to achieving your weight loss goals.
How Weight Loss Works
To lose weight one things needs to happen. You need to expend more calories than you intake. This can happen a number of different ways, but that is what it comes to, at the end of the day.
You can increase expenditure by exercising, moving more and increasing your metabolism (see more information below). You can decrease intake by eating less, eating lower calorie foods or following a targeted diet.
To see weight loss, you
will
be expending less calories than you intake. This doesn’t have to mean extreme dieting, or even eating less at all.
Metabolism
Metabolism basically means energy turnover for the amount of calories that your body burns in a given time period.
By manipulating your metabolism, you can increase or decrease weight loss. Indeed, when you severely restrict calories, or heavily over-exercise, your metabolism will actually drop, making it harder to lose weight in the long term, or keep off what you do lose. This is where many popular diets fall down. They ruin your metabolism and while you will lose weight, it is near certain that you will gain it back.
On the other hand, by eating the right kinds of foods and doing the right kind of exercise, you can increase your daily metabolic rate. This means you will burn more calories every day and lose more weight. Not only now, but in the future too, making it easier to maintain your great results, forever.
In the next couple of steps we talk about how to eat and how to exercise, that will lead to the greatest spike in your metabolism and subsequently the best weight loss results. Before we get to that, I want to cover a couple of common mistakes that I see people make time and time again.
Common Mistakes That People Make
Failing to set effective goals.
We started step 1 with goal setting because it is so critical to achieving results, yet many people neglect to do it at all. Don’t make this mistake. Go back to step 1 and set your goals now if you haven’t done so already.
Not following the plan.
The plan will only work if you follow the plan. Modifying or otherwise not following the plan will not lead to optimal results, as mentioned in step 2.
Not eating enough food
. Under eating is a sure-fire way to slow your metabolism down and make it progressively harder to lose weight. It will work in the short term, but harm you in the long term.
Under or over exercising.
Of course, not doing any exercise is not ideal when you want to lose weight, get fit and tone up. If you have not been working out before, I will tell you how in step 5. It is also important that you don’t do too much exercise, or the wrong kind of exercise. Doing too much exercise is not ideal either; it will cause too much stress for your body and lead to you eating more.
Manipulating your metabolism is the most important thing to achieve weight loss. Follow the plan in steps 4 & 5 to do this
Avoid the common mistakes that many people make by following this plan as it is written
Ensure that you lose weight in a healthy way, to protect your metabolism by not over exercising or under eating. Follow the plans in steps 4 & 5 and you will be fine.
Diet is the most important thing for your weight loss results, so read this step carefully.
Types of Foods
Losing weight to the detriment of your health is not a good idea, it will come back to bite you with low energy, illness and bad mood. All of which will cause you to crave unhealthy foods and likely regain the weight.
To successfully lose weight, you want to also build your health. This means eating healthy foods that will increase your energy, mental focus and well-being; as well as lead to weight loss and increased fitness.
Lean proteins, lots of fruit and vegetables, healthy fats from nuts and seeds should be the basis of your diet. Avoiding obviously unhealthy foods that you know will make you gain weight. See the table below for recommendations of foods to eat and foods to avoid.
| Foods to include | Foods to exclude |
Fruits | All fresh whole fruits | Dried fruit, fruit juice, smoothies |
Vegetables | All fresh raw, steamed, boiled, sautéed, or roasted | |
Starch | Sweet potato, all root veg (squash , pumpkin, swede etc.), quinoa, bulgar | Wheat, white potatoes, rice and other grain based products included breads, pasta, pastry and cakes |
Legumes | Kidney, butter, & black beans etc., chickpeas, lentils, tempeh, miso | Soybeans, tofu, soy milk, baked beans, soy ‘fake’ meat |
Nuts and seeds | All raw nuts | Roasted or salted nuts, seeds |
Proteins, meat and fish | Chicken, beef, pork, turkey, wild game and all types of fish | hotdogs, canned meat, sausages, meat substitutes made from soy |
Dairy products and milk substitutes | cheese, thick cream (double, clotted), butter, yoghurt | Milk, ice cream, non-dairy creamers, low fat anything, soy milk, almond milk |
Fats | Extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, butter, goose/duck fat, olives, avocado, ghee | Margarine, seed oils such as sunflower, soybean and safflower oil |
Drinks | Water is priority and should be consumed regularly. Tea (all kinds) is good and small amount of coffee – green tea is better. | Alcohol, sodas, fizzy drinks (including diet drinks), fruit juice, smoothies, veg juices |
Herbs, spices and sauces | Salt, pepper and all herbs and spices | ketchup, barbecue sauce, mayonnaise and oil based dressings, other sauces |
Sweeteners | Honey | White or brown sugar, maple syrup, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, desserts |
Calories
You have probably heard contradicting information about whether calories are important, or whether you can eat as much as you want, as long as it is the right food. The fact is you
have
to have a calorie deficit to lose weight.
This may not mean eating less calories, it could mean eating certain foods and working out, to increase your metabolism. The fact is you still have a calorie deficit.
If you are eating too much food, you will not lose weight. Be careful about eating foods that are healthy and recommended, but high in calories. Foods like nuts are good for your health, but very high calorie and you can easily over eat them if you are not aware.
I suggest you aim to eat 14 calories, per pound of bodyweight, per day, if you are very active. That means if you weigh 150lbs you should aim to eat 2100 calories per day.
If you are not very active, drop it to 13 or even 12 calories per pound of bodyweight.
Timing and Meals
Another area of contention among different authors and fitness professionals is meal timing and the number of meals you should eat per day.
In this author’s opinion, the research shows little difference between different meal frequencies. The primary determinant of when and how often you eat should be a combination of your lifestyle (what works for you) and hunger. If you struggle to eat more than twice a day, trying to force in six meals is probably not going to work for you.
Equally, if you find that you are hungry every couple of hours, you should eat many smaller meals every 3-4 hours to keep hunger at bay.
Find a plan that works for you, and stick with that. Being able to follow your plan over the long term is more important than any 2% difference in effectiveness. It won’t be effective if you cannot follow it!
Follow the dietary guidelines for foods to eat and foods to avoid, to ensure you have a healthy diet rich in nutrients
Work out your goal calories for the day and eat the recommended amount depending on your activity level. This can be tweaked as you go along based on how much progress you are making
Eat in a way that works with your lifestyle and habits, ensure that you are not overly hungry, nor eating all of the time
Exercise is required to shape and tone your body, to achieve the shape that you desire.
Types of Exercise
Exercise is not just about burning calories. Of course, you will burn additional calories when you exercise, but the true benefit of exercise is how it changes your metabolism. The change in your metabolism will have a much greater impact, over a much longer period, than simply the energy burnt whilst exercising.
Low intensity cardio:
Low intensity cardio is the typical ‘steady state’ cardio that most people have tried. Things such as walking, jogging, cross trainer, cycling or swimming for 20-90 minutes. Low intensity cardio is good to burn some additional calories and improve your health and endurance. It should be included in a training program for health reasons, but is not the best way to lose weight or tone your body.
High intensity (interval) cardio:
Interval training is a form of high intensity cardio that usually last 5-20 minutes and involves periods of high exertion (sprinting) alternated with periods of low exertion (rest or slow pace). This can be performed outdoors (sprinting, sprint swims) or indoors on traditional cardio machines such as a treadmill, rowing machine or exercise bike. This style of training will improve fitness extremely quickly, and also cause a large increase in metabolism over 12-48 hours. This means that for the next 2 days following this style of exercise, you will burn significantly more calories than normal, as the body recovers from exercise. This makes it a good option for weight loss.
Resistance training:
Resistance training is training against weight, whether your own body weight or external bars and dumbbells at the gym. This type of training is the best way to lose weight and tone your body. Let me tell you why. First resistance training will have a similar metabolic increase in the short term like high intensity interval cardio does. Not only that, but as you build lean muscle tissue, you will permanently increase your metabolism.
Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of calories you burn every day to sustain your body. As you build lean muscle tone your BMR will increase, meaning you have to burn more calories each day to sustain your body. This makes it easier to lose weight and also to keep it off after you have lost it.
Resistance training also allows you to shape and tone the muscles, to create the kind of look that you desire. Included below is a resistance training programme that you can follow at home. This will be the most effective way to train for weight loss and toning.
Training Plan
The resistance workouts use supersets of exercises, or two different exercises back-to-back with no rest between, that hit different muscle groups and movements patterns.
Within the programme we refer to reps, sets and A1, A2 notation.
Reps are how many repetitions of the exercise you do, e.g. do 12 or 8 or 6. Sets are how many times you repeat that set of x reps. The A1, A2 refer to the different exercise within a superset.
For example superset A pairs hip lifts and planks. You do 12 reps of the hips lifts, or A1, followed straight away by 30 seconds of the planks, or A2. A1 and A2 make one set of the superset. Rest 60 seconds. Then repeat these 3 times to make 3 sets. Then move onto the next superset; B1 and B2.
All the exercises that are in the programme are listed over the next few pages, with diagrams and instructions on how to perform the movements.
Weight Loss Naturally Resistance Training Plan
All the exercises for the resistance program are laid out below the programme.
Order | Exercise | Sets | Reps | Rest |
A1 | Hip Lifts | 3 | 12 | None |
A2 | Planks | 3 | 30 seconds | 60 Seconds |
| ||||
B1 | Squats | 3 | 12 | None |
B2 | Press Ups | 3 | 12 | 60 Seconds |
| ||||
C1 | Split Squats | 3 | 12 (Each Leg) | None |
C2 | Planks Forward and Backwards Rock | 3 | 12 | 60 Seconds |
| ||||
D1 | Step Ups | 3 | 12 (each Leg) | None |
D2 | Side Planks | 3 | 20 seconds (each side) | 60 Seconds |
|
A1- Hip Lifts
For this you need a step or a bench.
Initiate the movement by squeezing the buttocks muscles and pushing through the heels to raise the hips up, until knees, hips and shoulders are all in alignment.
Slowly lower the hips to the floor under control.
A2- Plank
Place the elbows on the floor underneath the shoulders and the legs out straight. When in the plank position make sure the hips stay level by squeezing the stomach muscles and buttocks.
If you feel your hips drop finish the set and then aim to increase the time in the next session. The aim is keeping a stable and controlled position.
B1- Squat
Stand with the feet shoulder width apart and turned slightly out. Lift the chest by pulling the shoulders back, tighten the abs. This position should be held throughout the set.
Start the squat by pushing the knees out and sitting the hips down. Squat as far down as possible. Your aim should be to get all the way down so the hips are below the knees. At the bottom drive up by pushing the heels down and pull the hips through, squeezing the buttock muscles at the top.