Pray It Off 02/17/11 Consistency - Small, Frequent Meals

Consistency: Key to Successful Weightloss*

Have you ever accomplished anything great with an inconsistent effort? Unless failure is considered a great achievement, you probably haven't. You must exercise consistently to get the results you want! It blows my mind how many people don't even try to be consistent with their diet and exercise programs and complain about not seeing results. Even the best programs are ineffectual if they are not followed on a consistent basis.

Women are sometimes afraid at the idea of adding muscle due to their fear of becoming "bulky." Relax; it's a little harder to add that kind of muscle mass than you think.

Consistent spaced small meals – One of the most important things that you can do with your health in general is to keep a nice even keel with respect to your blood sugar.
When you eat a donut and coffee for breakfast and then nothing until lunch then you will get a big blood sugar spike and then a drop soon after and be just dragging your way until lunch. If you eat consistently small but evenly spaced meals every couple of hours during the day then you will not have this blood sugar problem.

Consistent meal sizes – If you make sure that you eat 200 – 400 calorie meals then this will go hand in hand with the point above. Having even sized meals will mean that you are not bloated after one meal and then hungry after the next. Of course there may be a problem with dinner being a little bigger and an evening meal being a little smaller but overall this consistent eating will make you feel much better and your weight loss will be more consistent.

Consistent exercise – Some people will exercise a lot on the weekend but get nearly no exercise during the week. This is really quite dangerous. If your body is not being exercised at least somewhat on a daily basis then these big events on the weekends can be damaging to your muscles and also lead to more injuries because of the stress you are putting the muscles through. Much better to have a quick workout in the morning and evening and then still push it on the weekend, then to takes four or five days off in a stretch and not get any exercise until Saturday. Not just any exercise program will do for weight loss. Just burning calories is not good enough. The program must be planned to draw out specific hormonal responses that are conducive to weight loss. The key is NOT hours and hours of cardio. You must do exercise at an intensity that raises your heart rate and keeps it there for at least twenty minutes at a time and go from there.

Consistent rest – This is important to your well being as well as the healing of your muscles after exercise. Stretch daily, sleep well most nights and if you need it a hot tub, heating pad, or massage can do wonders to get rid of those little aches and pains that may not be going away quickly and holding you back a bit from going all out when you want to.

Remember that consistency is the key. Focus on changing your lifestyle. Do not focus on "dieting". When you focus on dieting, you are looking at this whole weight loss thing as something temporary. Diets work ONLY to get those pounds off, but what are you going to do after the diet is done? "Living a healthy lifestyle is a marathon, not a short sprint down the road."

Learning How to build Consistency

There are a lot of ways you can gradually build momentum. Here are some examples:

Start with something that’s pretty easy to manage and build up from there. Set a goal of one 10-minute exercise session per week. Then increase it to two 10-minute sessions. Gradually add minutes to each workout (and eventually add one or more additional workouts to your week), until you're exercising as long and as frequently as you should in order to reach your goals. The simple act of setting aside some time for exercise every day, no matter how little, and sticking to it is enough to start building the habit.

Find an accountability buddy—someone who knows about your plan and is willing to give you a push when you feel like slacking off.

Join a Team or make a Fitness Friend. It’s always harder to let someone else down than it is to let yourself off the hook.

Employ an excuse buster. Find a friend, family member whose judgment and opinion you respect. Each time you find yourself thinking about skipping an exercise session or blowing your meal plan, write down the reason for your choice. Share this reason with your excuse buster and get her honest opinion about whether the reason for your choice is reasonable or just an excuse. You’ll probably find that this makes it a lot harder for you to believe your own rationalizations.

Take it one day at a time, stay focused, and stay consistent.

*http://www.womenfitness.net/consistency.htm

Small Frequent Meals*
By Dino Paul Pierce, CFT, CPT, RD, CDE

Benefits/Significance of Small Frequent Meals

Most of us were raised with the idea of three squares (meals) a day for good health. For this, we owe thanks to the Great Depression! The idea behind three squares a day is, and always has been, a very good concept. However, the dietary habits of today’s society have changed how we actually follow the three squares concept. As a result, people have gained more weight & nutritional intake has worsened.

Convenience is a killer and survival is too easy. A study published in the British Medical Journal showed that 6+ intakes (properly balanced) each day had beneficial total and LDL-cholesterol lowering properties when compared to two or fewer intakes each day. This study showed that healthful eating patterns spread out over 4hr increments (2-4hrs is preferable), in addition to other healthy lifestyle behaviors, can lower cholesterol. Furthermore, the body is better able to metabolize food in small increments vs. large ones = successful wt loss & better cholesterol levels.

What do frequent meals do for you? Here are a few of the benefits:

• Increased metabolic rate (Thermogenic Effect of Food)
• Increased energy level
• Reduced storage of calories as body fat (The liver & Kidneys can only hold so much energy)
• Reduced hunger and cravings (Satiety)
• Better regulation of blood sugar and blood insulin levels
• Better absorption and utilization of nutrients
• Keeps us in a positive nitrogen balance and anabolic vs. catabolic in concerns of muscle

To help you begin eating small, frequent, meals/snacks throughout the day, consider these pointers:

1. Be consistent with your caloric intake and spread your calories evenly among meals and snacks throughout the day. Try to eat every 2-4hrs that you are awake. Being consistent also helps measure progress.

2. To lower cholesterol cut out high saturated fat foods (like marbled meats, butter, cheese, baked goods and fast foods) and high cholesterol foods (animal products like butter, cheese, & cream)

3. Note that successful cholesterol lowering and weight loss strategies include engaging in intense and sustained aerobic activity 5-7 days of the week. Do your HIIT cardio!

4. Portion control is key! Small, frequent meals mean – small, controlled portions of energy. If you feel hungry eat more “free” veggies they will assist you in elevating the metabolism and are packed with benefits! A meal can be as big as you want it to be if you build it the right way.

5. Drink plenty of water throughout the day throughout the day to augment fat loss. Drinking 1 qt = energy expenditure of 100 Kcal daily. This = about 10# a year.
If you currently eat only one or two meals each day and find yourself skipping breakfast or lunch, gaining weight, and have low energy levels it is of no surprise. Start adding small quantities of healthful foods during these meal and snack times (Free Veggies, Nuts/seeds, Fruit, Low Fat Cheese). Make a meal plan and stock up on quick and healthy snack items so that you can “grab and go”. Being prepared in advance can make or break a meal plan! Small changes in your meal pattern can have a huge and positive impact on your weight, metabolism, and cholesterol.

*http://www.selfgrowth.com

Understanding the Thermogenic Effects of Food*
By Sly Navreet


• Protein has a thermogenic factor of 27%.
• Carbohydrate has a thermogenic factor of 7%.
• Fat has a thermogenic factor of 3%.

It might come as quite a surprise to many health-conscious people that not all calories are created equally. Depending on where you get your calories from, you may actually be getting less calories than you think.
The Thermogenic Effect as it pertains to food is a term used to refer to the way that the foods you eat can increase the amount of heat your body generates as it digests them, resulting in an increased metabolism for a short amount of time.

At its most basic level, the Thermogenic Effect is a result of your body having to consume energy in order to digest your food. Some sources of energy are less available than others, and thus require more effort to make use of in the body. It is important to note that this effect only applies on a macronutritional level--it will make either no difference or a ridiculously negligible difference if you try to make it harder for your body to digest foods by not chewing them as well. The rule still applies: liquify it. As you seek an increased metabolic rate, you'll likely end up with indigestion and bloating.

Protein is at the top of the hierarchy of macronutrients, as far as the Thermogenic Effect goes. A whopping 27% (on average) of the calories you consume from protein are used in the process of digesting the protein. Most of this is attributed to the fact that the protein has to be broken down into amino acids which then can be made use of, which is a labor-intensive process intracellularly. If you were to consume 300 Calories in pure protein (such as by a pure protein powder, or eggwhites, or something similar), the Thermogenic Effect would burn off 81 of those calories just during the act of digestion, leaving you with 219 calories.

Carbohydrates come in the middle of the hierarchy, or in second place, if you're the glass-half-full type. Calories consumed from carbohydrates experience a 7% (on average) Thermogenic Effect. This is quite a bit less than calories from protein, but it's still one more strike against the "carbohydrates make you fat" theory. Part of the reason the Thermogenic Effect is so much lower for carbohydrates is that carbohydrates, in terms of human physiology, has been the food of choice longer than proteins. It tends to be more bioavailable, and depending on the glycemic index of the carbohydrate (whether the energy is released very quickly or very slowly), the Thermogenic Effect may be more or less than 7.

Low GI carbohydrates tend to have a slightly higher Thermogenic Effect because they are actively dispersing energy over a longer period of time. Yet another reason to avoid refined sugars--they're all very high up on the glycemic index.

Fats are in third place of the hierarchy, and I'm not saying last because I happen to place a large amount of value on fats. They have a pretty low Thermogenic Effect of 3%, on average, meaning that the calories you think you're getting are, for the most part, the calories you are getting.

Fat is the most bioavailable macronutrient, hence the low amount of energy needed to make use of it. However, this does mean that it is a good idea to not eat many fats. Fats will help you stave off hunger longer, and during the early stages of human evolution, fat was rare and very nutritionally valuable. With 9 Calories per gram and only 3% of those calories being consumed during digestion, it was an extremely portable, nutritionally dense treat. It is possible to survive on a very high-fat diet, and even mostly replacing all protein with fat, as the Inuit and Eskimo have done for thousands of years. While this is not advisible or even ideal, it is possible.

In addition to having to do with the macronutrient origins of your calories, the Thermogenic Effect also has a lot to do with your actual eating pattern. If you eat only one meal a day and don't eat breakfast, you are greatly reducing your potential to see gains from the Thermogenic Effect (which, in this context, is nearly indistinguishable from simply increasing metabolism). Instead, it is advisible to eat several (6-8) smaller meals, spreading out your daily caloric intake throughout those meals, and spacing them as evenly apart as possible. Eating in this pattern consistently can further increase the metabolism via the Thermogenic Effect by an upwards of 10%.

This information is interesting, but do not let it pilot your inherent nutritional compass. If eating more protein is not working for you to lose weight, and you find you thrive on a higher fat diet, do that. No one can thrive on a low-carbohydrate diet, and very high carbohydrate diets accompanied by a lack of physical activity often result in apathy, depression, and generally feeling down.

*http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/371448/understanding_the_thermogenic_effects.html



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