Lose inches with these tips
It's hard to think about losing weight when there's going to be so much chocolate circling around this weekend, but here we have them anyway.
Professor Jamie Timmons shares his expert tips, his research is not centred around faddy diets that are impossible to stick to in the long run, but are based on the way we as humans are biologically programmed to lose weight.
These, if you will, are the golden rules of weight loss – no matter how old, young, overweight, healthy, fit or busy you might be.
Professor Jamie Timmons, Chair of Systems Biology in Loughborough, the UK’s leading Exercise Science University, and founder of XRGenomics.com, is one of the UK’s leading exercise scientists.
Top 5 Tips for Losing Weight
1. Understand energy balance
The theory of weight loss is easy: it is all about the balance between how many calories you take in (your food) and how many calories you burn off (your metabolism and physical activity). If these two amounts are equal in the longer term then your weight will stay the same. If you eat more than you burn off then you will gain weight. If you burn off more than you eat then you will lose weight. These are the rules, they are set in stone, and there are no exceptions, ever! Unfortunately, applying these rules is the hard bit…
2. Almost all diets work (but only for a while…)
The rules of energy balance tell us that eating less than we burn off (i.e. calorie restriction) will result in weight loss. There are numerous diets out there which aim to achieve just this, and every few months or so a new celebrity-endorsed diet seems to pop up, promising the long sought-for answer to people’s quest of losing weight. There is the 5:2 diet, Dukan, Atkins, Cambridge, South Beach, Slim Fast, and many, many more. Do they work? If you want to quickly lose weight then mostly yes: calorie-restriction will result in a negative energy balance and therefore weight loss. But research suggests that calorie-restricted diets in general are not sustainable, and make your weight fluctuate or ‘yo-yo’, with dieters often ending up with the same weight or even increased weight in the long term. Dieting without increasing your physical activity levels is unlikely to be effective.
3. Increasing physical activity alone won’t do the trick
If diet alone is not the way forward, then surely just increasing your level of physical activity will be? Unfortunately, research suggests that it is not. Increasing physical activity tends to increase your appetite, making you eat more, and thus causing your body to remain in energy balance. Interestingly, some recent research suggests that HIT is not associated with this increase in appetite, and may even suppress it. If confirmed this would be great news for people wanting to lose weight, as it would make it easier to create a negative energy balance.
4. Work on both sides of the equation for the best results
To reduce your body weight you have to combine exercise with a lower dietary energy intake, thus creating a solid negative energy balance. Eat a bit less, and do a bit more. Research suggests that a calorie restricted diet in combination with a regular exercise routine is the optimal way to achieve a healthy body weight.
5. Slowly does it
Making a commitment to lose weight can be a big step, and once you have made it, you likely want to see results as soon as possible. However, losing weight fast is not the healthy option. A severe calorie-restricted diet may help you rapidly shed the pounds, but part of this will be muscle. Losing muscle mass will do you more harm than good in the longer term, so avoid this at all cost. Reduce your calorie intake and increase your physical activity levels, but try to limit the rate of weight loss to approximately half a kilo / a pound per week. This can be achieved by targeting a negative energy balance of ~500 calories per day.
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