Category Archives: Weight Loss Information

Research has uncovered that when women get married they put on approximately half a stone (7lbs) in the first 2 years.

It is thought this is mainly due to the fact that men eat in general less healthily than women. Once a woman marries she end up catering to his tastes more, as men seem much more resistant to changes in diet. The other reason men eat more so be careful not to get into the habit of eating more than you did before.

Half the battle is being aware, so you can do something about it.

Sonia Jones ND from The Haven Spa and Alternative Treatment Clinic

Many people tell me they don’t have a sweet tooth. Declaring how they never add sugar to their tea or coffee. Often a case study and a closer look at their diet, reveals a different story. So you don’t actually go out and buy bags of sugar, but that doesn’t mean you are not consuming sugar, some a lot of sugar.

In just about every processed foods sugar hides like baked beans or most drinks. Of-course there is the obvious stuff like marmalade, jam, jelly etc  contain a whopping 60% of sugar. For every tablespoon of chocolate there is 2 teaspoons of sugar. Take crunchy nut cornflakes, the word nut makes it sound better than straight forward cornflakes, the difference is 6 times more sugar. A cans of sodas, canned fruits in syrup much more sugar than you would realize, or tomato ketchup, those little sachets contain between 1 and 2 teaspoons, just in that little bag.

Then there are is yogurt I always have natural plain yogurt with fresh fruit, if you eat those fruity yogurts that are so popular, contain loads of sugar.  Sweet and sour dishes are laden with sugar! Many products may contain a lot of sugar, even those that do not list sugar as it can be hidden, for instance  in the fruit concentrate of fruit juices.

Still convinced you don’t have a sweet tooth?

For lose weight success you need to start re-educating your taste bud

Forget the advertising hype – that sugar gives you energy and is pure. It is nutritionally void it contributes nothing but calories. You will get the energy (real long lasting healthy energy) from complex carbohydrates, that fill you up and provide nutrients and fiber.

Labels don’t always make things clear for instance you would never know from the label on a can of coke, that it contains about 12 or so spoons of sugar!

Think again you may have a sweet tooth and not realize it, all those extra empty, additive calories. Keep a diary, check the labels.

What happens to you at the week ends? Routines and healthy eating habits go out of the window. You turn into a snacking eating machine?

Typical things that happen at week- ends  Saturday morning get up later than usual and skip breakfast. Go shopping staving, shopping trolley gets filled with unhealthy snacks and those must have “week-end treats”. Chocolate to keep you going, some crisps (chips), tea and cookies.

Saturday night go out or have friends around or go to their house for a take-away, not eaten properly all day – devour starter, main course and a big fat dessert? It wouldn’t be the week-end without a few drinks too.

Down the pub before sunday lunch for few drinks, the crisps (chips) and the peanuts are so inviting, again not had breakfast. Home for large Sunday lunch, Sunday evening stay home watching TV, impossible without snacking the night away.

Now feelings of quilt set in the thought of Monday morning looms and once again its back to week-day dieting, back to being hungry all the time. A lot of women have got themselves into this trap. Stuffed or starving. It is normal for people to think about eating a little more and maybe having a drink or two. For some women it has been revealed they eat about 500 calories a day on week-days, and 3,500 calories on week-end days!!

If you take the total calories and divided by 7 it would work out at below the daily calorie intake of a normal person’s eating habits. However, this boom and bust way of eating, is preventing people from losing weight. The problem also shows in all the research of people eating this way, they choose unhealthy foods.

Sonia Jones ND from The Haven Spa and Alternative Treatment Clinic

You may have seen these terms before? I would just like to clear up what they both mean.

GI stands for Glycemic Index – this refers to how fast a particular carbohydrate is digested. In foods with a high Glycemic Index this happens quickly causing a surge in blood sugar levels, causing the body to release insulin, which as a knock-on effect of encouraging the storage of fat in our cells. This in turn results is a drop in blood sugar levels, resulting in hunger and cravings.

GL stands for Glycemic Loading it not only looks at how quickly it affects the blood sugar levels but more importantly the proportion of ‘carbs’ contained in the food.

What does this mean? Okay, a food might have a High Glycemic Index but a Low Glycemic Loading as is the case for watermelon, this is the important thing, only a small proportion of this food has an affect on blood sugar levels. So in reality its affects are much lower than its G I rating.

This is true of most fruits and vegetables.

Another fact you need to know – you could eat a relatively low GI food but eat a load of it in one sitting this over-load will change the GI rating to be higher.

The research shows people who go to the supermarket when they are hungry and their blood sugar levels are low, the choices they make are more often than not unhealthy decisions. More food is bought in general and they seemed to pick the bigger sizes. In contrast the research followed people who where not hungry and they made much healthy choices, spent less, and where not tempted with the larger packets.

Sonia Jones ND from The Haven Spa and Alternative Treatment Clinic

Most people are social beings and there are always invites to dinner, birthday parties, weddings, christenings, Christmas, Easter, New year, anniversaries etc etc. Party food can be a real stumbling block for a lot of people because …

in our experience dieters are in the habit of going to a social event hungry. Many dieters have a mentality of skipping a meal or ‘saving themselves’ so to speak for later as they know they are going out. Big mistake! Your blood sugar levels will have dropped. I hear all the time people say at dinner or a party “I am starving”. That person will be eating what ever is laid out in front of them. These people say to me “you have so much self control, are you not tempted?” I never go out hungry, I have a healthy snack before I go, so when I get there I can make choices. Never expose yourself to that, make sure you never go out hungry.

A habit of a dieter is to not eat much during the day, as they think about what they are going to eat when they go out that night. They book a table for 7.00 by then they are really hungry – there are nuts on the bar, there is bread at the table and most people can not resist as they are hungry and it could be 8.00 or 8.30 before they are served. While you are ordering your food, your blood sugar levels are low, you will not make good choices or eat more than you would have. Now you are eating more at the wrong time of day. You have allowed your blood sugar levels to drop encouraging your body to lay down more to fat ultimately.

In future – eat regularly during the day have a healthy snack before you go out (around 6ish), then when you go out you will have stable blood sugar levels – you will not be tempted in the same way for the bread or nuts or make unhealthy decisions when ordering.

Any food we eat needs breaking down fully so you can absorb and utilize their nutrients properly. A vital part of digestion. So you could be eating the right sorts of fats, but not be getting their full benefits. You need enough enzymes, so your liver and gall bladder can do their job well.

Symptoms of digesting fats poorly

Feel overly full or heavy

Feel slightly nauseous

Burping and belching after eating fatty foods

Bloating

Discomfort on the right upper side

Indigestion

Pain

There are two very important aspects to fat digestion and utilization – a) bile and b) the enzyme lipase. Bile emulsifies fat meaning it breaks it down into smaller droplets to increase the surface area so that the enzyme lipase can do its job properly.Bile is made by the liver and stored in the gall bladder.

In the short term, it maybe necessary at first to take digestive enzymes which include lipase (found at the health shops). Once you have improved your eating habits and hence your health over the next few months, digestion will improve a long with absorption. The pancreas will get the nutrients and proteins it needs to produce enough digestive enzymes. The body will no longer be stressed by a high-carbohydrate diet. The liver and gall bladder function will improve and your body will no longer be working overtime to produce insulin to handle so much extra refined carbohydrates. Cravings will subside.

Fats help you feel satisfied so that you know when to stop eating. You will need to eat just a little fat with each meal, as this will help you to overcome carbohydrate cravings. The body seeks fat and will not stop eating until it gets what it needs.

You need to eating the correct sort of fats and I am certainly not suggesting you eat a lot of it. Eat the natural fats that come from seeds, nuts, avocados or yogurt.

Have you ever thought about keeping a food/mood journal, but couldn’t see the point?

It has been discovered that people who keep food/mood journals lose weight and maintain their weight better than people who don’t!

How to keep a journal?

Some people just use scrap paper, others buy beautiful purpose designed journals that give them daily inspiration, while others prefer to use their computers. Its up to you what ever feels good to you, we are all different.

What ever method you choose, be honest with yourself and try in enter information everyday. Enter what you eat sure, but also enter your symptoms, ie did you sleep well, have a got a headache, did you have more or less aches and pains before a period, and how you felt – good mood or anxious etc.

As the days go by you will see patterns emerging – for instance if you have regular headaches – it could be you forgot to drink enough water on some previous days. Being dehydrated will sabotage your weight-loss. If you didn’t sleep well, check what you did the day before, being tired also sabotages your weight-loss.

Your journal should be more than a quick inventory of what you ate and drank that day. If you note down everything, it will enlighten you to every aspect of your life for the first time. It is well worth time time and effort. Don’t worry you won’t have do this for the rest of your life unless you want to, of-course.

So use your journal like a detective would – as they say no clue too small.

Sonia Jones ND

The food industry is looking out for its own interests not yours. These are huge profits to be made by leading you up the proverbial garden path.

The industry and the media had so many people flocking to buy their no-fat, low-fat, lite-fat, reduced-fat products, however the large majority of these products where very high in refined carbs and sugar. The media had painted fat as the big enemy.  In reality the truth is as described in a book called Some Fats Heal and Some Fat Kill by Udo Erasmus. Some particular fats are vital to our good health and weight-loss, called essential fatty acids. Whereas processed fats are totally destructive. So people have become ‘essential fatty acid’ deficient.

The worst offenders are partially hydrogenated oils and fats.

History is repeating itself the food industry has now declared carbs as the enemy and people are buying their low-carb, lite-carb, no-carb products that are often high in processed destructive fats! I am being told by people they have cut right down on fruit as its a carb! Not that nations where eating enough fruit in the first place. It is good news that people are cutting down on white flour products but don’t be tempted to remove all the good carbs from your diet. You will end up being deficient is so many other ways.

The worst offenders is high fructose corn syrup HFCS an extremely processed product not to be confused with fructose from fresh whole fruit, that is entirely different.

These deficiencies set up cravings!

Sonia Jones ND

The advice has always been if you want to lose weight you have to exercise! Just hearing that puts some people off completely. Most people think of the gym or jogging.

Why is it a problem?

In this day and age many people feel they don’t have the time. We try to fit so much into our lives these days and we all seem to be working longer hours.

Then there is the fact, in most people minds its the fabulous looking people that are working out down the gym. How awkward some people feel about joining. Of-course for some its the cost of membership and the time it takes to get to and from the gym, puts them off.

Joining a class can have the same problems – time involved, the feeling of being seen as foolish or embarrassed about size.

Or they think exercise means sweating, aches and pains.

What’s the answer?

it’s easy, every time you use the phone, (these days it seems like a lot of the time), get into the habit of getting up and walking or pacing round. You will be surprised how much exercise you will get. While being productive.

Research has shown walking will help you lose weight and increase you metabolism without sweating. So get up the phone is ringing.

Sonia Jones ND

Once upon a time few people few what an anti-oxidant was, today most people have heard of an anti-oxidant.

We have heard that if we get enough of these antioxidants they can slow down the speed of destruction and aging by neutralizing free-radials.

So if you don’t get enough anti-oxidants you will age faster, the research is now saying if you don’t get enough anti-oxidant you will get fatter.

As already mentioned our cells are under constant attack and destruction by free-radials, they can damage any part of the body. It would seem without enough anti-oxidants the cells that notify us we are full are being damaged!

We will produce more free-radials with a diet of processed foods no matter the amount of calories or whether they are diet foods or not – from paste, pastry, pizza, candy, cakes, cookies, chips, diet bars, white bread etc

Each year the cells become weaker as the free-radials attack, and the “full” signals also becomes weaker.

What to do to protect these cells and help regenerate them, eat much much in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables – full of anti-oxidants, and fiber which will also make you feel fuller.

Protect those cells – get back that feeling “stop eating I am full”.

The other important thing about anti-oxidants is they seemed to improve the metabolism, particularly the flavonoids.

No its not hype, its true. I will explain why.

For weight-loss and that illusive maintenance of weight-loss and for that matter good health in general, we all need good quality sleep every night.

Recuperative sleep is essential to every aspect of our well-being and weight-loss. After a few nights of disturbed sleep, look at your face in the morning, can’t you just tell. Most adults need 6-8 hours of good quality sound sleep per night. Few people can stay looking good and function optimally with just a few hours on a regular basis, long term.

The research shows that when we don’t get enough good quality sleep – our bodies have a more difficult job maintaining our blood sugar levels. It showed people more often than not choosing the wrong types of foods (sugar and refined carbohydrates) due to this very fact.

Were more likely to use stimulants for energy which made balalancing their blood sugar levels worse.

People who didn’t get regular good quality sleep also moved around less, were generally less active.

Metabolisms seemed to be a little lower. People without enough good quality sleep were more lightly to be rundown, a little depressive, the result comfort eating.

The other interesting thing about being tired, the balance between two hormones leptin which helps us to feel full is lower, and the hormone ghrelin which helps us to feel hungry rises!

All these factors listed above sabotage your weight loss good intentions.

alcohol – drinking in the evening on a regular basis will initially make you drowsy but later you will get a burst of norepinephrine which is a stimulant, ultimately disturbing sleep.

caffeine – is also a stimulant which will interfere with our quality of sleep and our hormone levels. It increases our stress hormones. Besides coffee, tea (black or green) contains caffeine, as do many soft drinks (sodas) and some painkillers (read the label).

foods – that raise our blood sugar levels in the evening will interfere with our quality of sleep.

slimming pills - some so called natural slimming pills have some very powerful, all be it, natural stimulants that can interfere with the quality of your sleep.

Vitamin B - if you are in the habit of taking vitamins and minerals, don’t take a B complex (vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 etc) late in the day, as the nutrients help the body to produce energy.

exercise – do not exercise last thing at night as it will speed up your metabolism. However, exercise during the day will encourage a better night’s sleep.

herbs that help – Chamomile, Passiflora (passion flower) and valerian capsules follow instructions on the label as to how many to take a day.

Ginseng – if you are having trouble sleeping well and have been taking ginseng, I suggest you stop taking it. It is a short term energizing tonic, some herbs are meant to be taken over a long period of time ginseng is not one of them.

melatonin helps some people.

treatments that work to help you to sleep -Massage, Hot Stone Massage, Aromatherapy Massage or Back and Foot Massage, and Acupuncture.

Most people report sleeping better after making changes in their diet, taking some herbs and having treatments.

There will be an article on ‘what can you do if you can’t afford treatments’?