By Heather The London Olympics 2012 app has a beautiful amount of data on the athletes. My husband, Harry, came up with the idea of calculating the BMI for some of the athletes to show just how rubbish BMI is - the results were even better than we hoped. A BMI of 25 means you are overweight. A BMI of 20 to 25 is normal but once you start going past 24 (and some will even say 23) you are in a danger zone within which you need to be careful. Of the 11 athletes featured on the London 2012 app yesterday (plus one we just added to have an even number), three are overweight:
This goes to show how inaccurate BMI is. These guys are as fit as you get - their diets will be on point and at risk of stating the bleeding obvious, they take regular exercise. These aren't even body builders or weight lifters, they're standard top athletes. Anyone who does a lot of physical work should take BMI with a pinch of salt. If your BMI is in the 25-28 range and you know you're fit and eat well, do not despair! Although your personal finances and your business success are my primary interest, I believe you only operate at peak efficiency when you're fit and healthy. If you feel good, it filters through to your work. To help you with that, click for your free ebook: The Quick Guide to Sexy
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By Heather I decided to look into whatever I could find on the employment prospects of fat people in the developed world. This is what I found: A daily mail article reported that:
Having gained a lot of weight following the death of her grandmother, a highly qualified woman interviewed by the Daily Mail said, "When you are fat, they assume you must be stupid and lazy, because only a stupid, lazy person would allow themselves to get so big." A Forbes report assimilates various studies:
Indeed, American employers seem to have some stats to back up their discrimination against overweight people: between 1997 and 2004, obese workers:
In addition, the average medical-claims costs per 100 employees was $51k for the obese and $7.5k for the non-obese. An article by The Guardian summarises the phenomenon as follows: Fat people are regarded as less successful at restraint. Fat bodies (are deemed) - less worthy, less capable and less employable. Fat-hate is so pervasive in Western society although it's so superficial. I would like to think that in hiring someone I would ignore what they look like and focus exclusively on their ability to perform a certain role. For many roles, what you look like doesn't and shouldn't matter. Sadly, overweight people often share the bias against them and that impacts on their self esteem and confidence. When it comes to fatness, I prefer to focus more on health factors rather than on aesthetics. Health consequences are more real and if you're obese that should really be your key concern. Being fit means you can run around with your kids, you'll live longer and you're less likely to get any obesity-related illnesses. Whatever your size, love yourself and know your value as a person. Peace and chicken grease, Heather Although your personal finances and your business success are my primary interest, I believe you only operate at peak efficiency when you're fit and healthy. If you feel good, it filters through to your work. To help you with that, click for your free ebook: The Quick Guide to Sexy By Heather You know, I really didn't get it. When people said 'My confidence grew when I lost weight' or 'I was finally able to walk with my chin held high, blah blah blah'. I thought puh-lease, get perspective. If a few extra pounds are your primary concern in life, thank your lucky stars. Some people have very real problems to think about out there. Whilst I have never been the shy retiring type, I can honestly admit that I now feel even more confident having lost some weight. Not in the sense that I am now able to walk outside after many years of hiding my fat self behind closed doors but in the sense that if cosmo offered me a pose-naked photo opp, I would at the current time say "hell yes"!! That's major for me. So what about being slimmer makes me happier and more confident: 1. The belly jive Ever run down the stairs and suddenly realised that your belly seems to have a life of its own: it seems to be jigging about independently with each step. If not, ever run for the train and had the same experience? I have. My belly has a little way to go but it certainly no longer moves of its own accord. 2. The belly rest Ever sat down and noticed that your belly is taking a rest on your lap? Seriously, even at size 14 I was having this experience. I sat down and my belly rested in my lap. I didn't like that feeling at all and I am proud to say this is no longer the case. 3. Clothes shopping It's great to go and fit into a normal-shaped dress in a shop. A little story. A friend of mine is in charge of uniforms at a school. A new worker came in and said she was a size 18. My friend got the 18 but it didn't fit. So she got the 20 and it too did not fit. She got their largest size, a 22 and golly-freaking-gee, it also didn't fit. They had to get that lady a custom dress. Who would feel good in this situation? Denial is not a river in Egypt and this is what many people actually do. They are in denial. When I was fat, if I loved a dress but I fit into the size 14, I left it in the shop. Why? Because I was not a 14 and I didn't want that size of dress in my wardrobe. Lots of women do this. I don't know why I did it, I guess buying the dress would be an admission of sorts, an acknowledgement that I was no longer a size 8 or at least 10. I was a size 8 at the age of 19 before I started gaining weight for the first time. 4. Feeling fit My body shape looks good in the mirror. Call me narcisstic but I do now, regularly stop and look at myself in the mirror. I now accept that the body is not an object of shame. It is a creation of beauty and should be carried with pride. I don't have to wear a jacket to hide my muffin top because I no longer have one. My arms look fabulous and my waist has definitely come a long way. I feel proud. Is there anything else that I need to work on? Strength. When you're overweight, you don't generally think about whether or not you're fit and strong. However, now that I'm almost there in terms of weight loss my attention has turned to my lack of upper body strength and my weak core muscles. When I was a kid, I could swing on the bars at my school's car park. It was easy. I tried that a couple of months ago and I couldn't swing at all. I put one hand on a bar and I couldn't carry my own weight to grab onto the next bar! Shame on me. Strength is a lot harder to achieve than thinness. You can starve yourself thin but you actually have to work hard to get your strength up. Sit-ups, push ups, weights, yoga - whatever. When I can do 15 successive leg-drops. I will let you know. Fat snobs! Anyone who has struggled to lose weight through careful eating and exercise will inevitably become a fat-snob. If you think thin people are snobbish about their weight try slim people that used to be fat. I have former fat friends who have admitted it to me. We all acknowledge that we were lazy when we were fat. We didn't want to make the effort to eat better and we desired scheduled exercise even less. It's only when you're on the road to sexiness that you can reveal these truths. When we were fat, we were shamelessly fat but deep down it gnawed at us. For me, exercise is not fun and it never will be but I feel great when I've done it. The pain of exercise inevitably makes one view those that are fat as lazy. The bottom line is: eating consciously and making time for physical exercise is exhausting; it is hard work. I was too lazy to make the extra effort to get fit and healthy at first and that is how I know that fat people are lazy: I used to be one. I am still lazy deep down but I am working at it. My excuse was usually my job or my polycystic ovaries. It took real mental effort to admit that, "You know what Heather: a) You eat too much cake, b) You eat too much bread, c) Your portions are out of control, d) You never exercise and you need to do something about that!" Good luck to anyone who tried to point out any one of these things to me: Heather on the defensive is not a pretty sight. I and my former fat friends are certainly not pro-skinny: all we want is to be fit, maintain a regular exercise routine and fit into the slinky clothes in shops. Although your personal finances and your business success are my primary interest, I believe you only operate at peak efficiency when you're fit and healthy. If you feel good, it filters through to your work. To help you with that, click for your free ebook: The Quick Guide to Sexy I discovered RSS feeds quite by accident. I thought an RSS feed was a news strip that flashed recent news updates at the bottom or the top of your computer screen, much like what we now see on TV news channels. Then I got Mac. I was playing around with it when I figured out how the whole RSS thing works: 1. When you see the RSS sign on any website, if you click on it you're given a feed url. 2. You insert this url into a feedreader and every time that blog or news site produces a fresh article you get an update via your feedreader! On Macs the mail app has an in-built feed reader that you can paste urls into. This is fabulous because: a) You don't have to give your email away but you get the news straight to your inbox. b) When you don't want to be subscribed to that feed anymore you can just delete it in one click. c) It's easy, fast and just as cheap as email plus you don't need to fill in forms etc. d) If you have a business listed on LinkedIn, there's a spot there for a feed url so your blogs can be posted straight to your Company's LinkedIn profile with no extra work on your part. I useweebly to build my websites and with them adding/creating RSS feeds is easy peasy. e) If you have a business you'll capture people that prefer RSS to email. So - if you haven't got a feedreader try one of these: I was rather disappointed to discover that the top two newspapers in Malawi don't have an RSS url. This is shocking because you'll hardly every find a news site without this form of news syndication. As a result I was only able to add a feed for Nyasa Times to Chichewa101.com/malawi. I'm currently reading A Short History of Nearly Everythingby Bill Bryson and realising that there are many practices that we now think of as new that are actually darn old: 1. Self publishing Lots people that wrote books self-published them or funded the printing in days gone by. Some lost a fortune as a result. What we now accept as the "traditional" publishing system actually replaced self-publishing and we've now come full circle. 2. Working past retirement Most people stopped working when they died or when they simply didn't have the physical capacity to. This was especially true amongst the educated classes - they worked for the joy of working and discovering new things. They were many tinkerers. Seeing retirement as a time when you completely stop work and get paid money anyway only came in post-world war 2. Regulators decided it was humane and fitting for the "civilised" world to give the elderly a break. It's an ideal situation that is in fact completely untenable. To support retirees you would need an ever increasing class of working people; with the decline in both birth rates and death rates this won't happen. 3. Working from home Many scientists in the old days worked from home. I imagine they rolled out of bed at 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. and continued where they'd left off the night before. Now we're trying to revert to this old way of working - funny. Admittedly, you will find that many early scientist came from privileged backgrounds and were unbound by the need to earn a living wage. 4. Being a jack of all trades A lot of entrepreneurial literature talks about how the ease of technology means the same person can do lots of previously "specialised" tasks. This is true but people in the olden days didn't specialise either. They didn't have the advantage of all this technology we now have but they all dabbled in a multitude of trades. If you look at profile of distinguished people of old you'll frequently see "Biologist, Chemist", "Writer, Geologist". Amongst the writers you'll find many people that wrote books on very different topics - "Economics, Psychology, Beauty". On the other hand business schools also espouse the benefits of focusing on just one business. Personally, I think the idea that you'll do better if you just stick to one thing is complete rubbish. If you've got four start ups on the go because you simply want to make money you'll probably fail. If you've got four start ups because you're passionate about all them and are committed to consistently producing some output for all based on a focused schedule - that's a successful result in itself. Next time you're confronted with a new idea, know that it might just be an old idea coming back.
By Dr Harry
Going on holiday usually leads to gaining a few extra pounds. Being aware of this fact will help you to be on your guard, and avoid fat creep during the vacation season. I expect you go on holiday to enjoy yourself. For many of us, summer vacation is something to look forward to the whole year. But it's all too easy to come back from holiday weighing more than you expected.
Why are you at risk of gaining weight during the holiday season?
There are many reasons for possibly gaining weight, but they fall into two broad categories: doing less, and eating more. Doing less
Eating more
The usual story of an imbalance between calories going in and energy expenditure: put all this together and no wonder your weight inevitably balloons!
How much weight do you think you will put on during your next vacation?
The answer to that question depends on where in the world you will visit and what you are planning to do. Visiting America is well known for piling on extra pounds for a variety of reasons: the large food portions being one. Beach holidaymakers have options to be more active: beach volleyball, swimming, watersports, etc. But the opposite also holds true: sunbathing, building sandcastles and reading on the beach are also popular beach time activities which are not that calorie burning. How can I avoid fat creep during my vacation? Being aware of the problem is a great start because you can be on the lookout for pitfalls and be ready to act positively to prevent problems before they arise.
Weigh yourself pre-holiday and also when you return. If you follow these tips and other healthy living advice, you should find that your perfect bikini beach body is not bursting out of your work clothes when you get back to reality! Although your personal finances and your business success are my primary interest, I believe you only operate at peak efficiency when you're fit and healthy. If you feel good, it filters through to your work. To help you with that, click for your free ebook: The Quick Guide to Sexy By Heather A 2009 study by Brenda Davy PhD et al. found that two glasses of water before a meal helped people lose weight and stay slim! I wasn't in this study and I didn't even know about it but I have been drinking 2 glasses of water before every meal and another two glasses mid-afternoon so I can vouch for the effectiveness of water. But why might a higher water in-take lead to more weight lost? 1. You are less likely to drink other higher-calorie drinks I don't know why many people think a meal has to be accompanied with wine or juice. Wine is a very high calorie drink and so is juice. The calories aren't even that filling. When I go to a restaurant and I'm offered the wine list, I don't even look at it. I hand it back and request either water or a sugar-free peppermint tea, preferably fresh peppermint leaves in water. Make two glasses of water before a meal a must and you will discover that you have less capacity for juice and wine. 2. Metabolism is boosted Some studies have shown that drinking cold water might lead to a boost in calories burned as the body has to warm this water up. This impact is rather small and is irrelevant to me because I always drink warm water. However, I believe even warm water improves metabolism because as soon as I boosted my water intake there was a marked increase in my, for lack of a better word, 'regularity'. 3. It curbs hunger Sometimes thirst comes through as hunger. Have a drink of water when you're hungry mid-morning or mid-afternoon and you won't feel as hungry any more. Water is filling in itself. It has no calories but it has volume. 4. You will eat more slowly Usually, I'm starving when I sit down for eat a meal. This inevitably leads to me eating a lot faster than I should. Since I started drinking water before meals, I eat a lot more slowly. It takes 15 minutes before your brain tell you that you're full so the slower you eat, the less you will have eaten by that cut off. This is great when you are eating out because they invariably give you too much food. When you're at home eating a 'calorie-budgeted' meal, eating too fast can leave you feeling unsatisfied. After this point you can't have more because you've already scoffed all the calories you were going to allow yourself. The pre-meal water can completely eliminate this lack of satiation. 5. You will have the energy to work out for longer When you feel hydrated, you have more energy to keep going. I was on a treadmill one day having done 5 km and very read to give up; that's my usual distance anyway. One of the trainers could see I was thirsty, she brought me 500 ml of water and I did my first 10 km ever! Water will give you that extra va-va-voom to work out for longer. What if you hate the taste of water? 1. Squeeze some lemon juice into it. I do this every morning and every evening (with real lemons). The four glasses during the day are 100% water. 2. Try warm water. I personally find it easier to gulp down than cold water plus it doesn't make my tummy hurt like cold water does. Caution! Don't drink too much water 1. Too much water before work and you might have an embarrassing accident en route to the office. 2. Too much water will dilute the concentration of salts in your blood and that can be fatal. Although your personal finances and your business success are my primary interest, I believe you only operate at peak efficiency when you're fit and healthy. If you feel good, it filters through to your work. To help you with that, click for your free ebook: The Quick Guide to Sexy By Heather Everyone knows that if you want to lose weight all you need to do is eat less and exercise more, right? Well, the question then becomes - how much less should you eat and how much more should you exercise? We map it out here: One pound of weight equals 3,500 calories. If you want to lose 1 lbs of weight per week you need to burn 3,500 calories in that week. You can achieve this by burning 500 calories more per day or eating 500 calories fewer each day. If you do both i.e. burn 500 calories more and eat 500 calories fewer each day, you will have a 1,000 calorie deficit everyday. This 7,000 calories of energy per week will amount to 2 lbs of weight lost. Simples. STEP 1: CALCULATE HOW MUCH ENERGY YOUR BODY NEEDS PER DAY A. Your basal metabolic rate is the minimum energy your body needs to carry out all the vital functions to keep you alive every day. You can calculate it using this excel based BMR calculator. My basal metabolic rate as a woman is: 1,303 kcal. Formula for women: {9.99 × weight (kg)} + {6.25 × height (cm)} – {4.92 × age (years)} – 161 Formula for men: {9.99 × weight (kg)} + {6.25 × height (cm)} – {4.92 × age (years)} + 5 Weight in lbs ÷ 2.205 = Weight in kg; Height in inches x 2.54 = Height in cm. B. Calculate how much you burn sitting around all day. Apparently, I burn 705 kcal per day. The formula is 1/3 * weight in lbs * hours not sleeping (=16 hours if you sleep 8hrs/night). Weight in kg x 2.205 = Weight in lbs C. Total calorie needs per day = A + B. I need 2,000 calories per day according to the formula. However, I have a condition that makes me prone to weight gain so accounting for this, I have (over time) deduced that I need about 1,500 kcal/day to stay stable. Unfortunate I know but it is what it is. STEP 2: FIGURE OUT HOW MUCH YOU WILL BURN PER DAY Spread your weight loss throughout the week. If you eat too few calories per day, your body will go into starvation mode. This means it will conserve energy and not burn as many calories. In fact, if you eat less than 900 kcal per day for three days you will produce less of the hormone that tells your the brain when you have eaten enough; your appetite will be higher making it very hard to stick to a diet. How to spread the calories out So if you need 1,500 kcal / day like I do and want to lose 1 lbs/week, you can burn 500 per day every day OR you can have a day off and burn 600 kcal/day six days per week. On day 7 you can have your full 1,500 kcal. My formula: eat 1,200 kcal / day plus do enough exercise to burn 300 kcal / day. Here is a list of 8 activities that burn exactly 300 kcal. So there you have it: a more scientific approach to weight loss. Lots of diets like to dictate: do this and do that but we at Fat Creep™ think it is important to explain WHY you should do this or that. Although your personal finances and your business success are my primary interest, I believe you only operate at peak efficiency when you're fit and healthy. If you feel good, it filters through to your work. To help you with that, click for your free ebook: The Quick Guide to Sexy By Heather In the 1960s people in the developed world slept 8-9 hours per night on average. In the 1990s, this had dropped to about 7 hours. Many now regularly sleep six hours or even less. What impact is this lack of sleep having on waistlines? 1. Regulatory hormones are impacted - metabolism is lower Several studies have looked at the impact of fewer hours of sleep on hormonal patterns, metabolism and the immune system. In one study, the subjects of the study slept for four hours per night for 6 nights and as a control, the same tests were undertaken following 6 nights of 12-hours of sleep per night. Cortisol is higher in the sleep deprived (and the stressed out) People who had been sleep deprived for six nights had six times more cortisol in their blood. The hormone cortisol is associated with the development of insulin resistance. Insulin resistance can lead to obesity and diabetes. Less than one week of sleep deprivation can result in a young, healthy individual becoming pre-diabetic. The metabolic function that takes sugar out of the blood is reduced. The body (liver and muscles) has a limit on the amount of glucose it can store as glycogen anyway. Excess carbohydrates in your body are converted to and stored as fat. There is no limit on how many calories the body can store as fat (unfortunately). Thyroid Stimulating Hormone is 30% lower and Growth Hormone higher in the sleep deprived Lack of sleep leads to lower levels of the Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) and higher levels of Growth Hormone (GH). This combination increases weight gain. GH has an anti-insulin effect. 2. Your brain loses its power to decide This is also a hormonal impact that you cannot fight. During sleep, various regulatory hormones related to weight loss are released. If you're not sleeping enough you eat more because appetite-controlling hormones are suppressed. Leptin lower (appetite suppressant) The hormone leptin tells the brain when you have eaten enough. When you sleep less your body produces less leptin so the instruction telling your brain you are full is poor. Importantly, note that you also produce the same low levels of leptin after 3 days of eating less than 900 kcal! Do not eat too little. Every hour of sleep lost is thought to lead to a 6% increase in leptin. Ghrelin higher (appetite stimulant) The hormone ghrelin stimulates your appetite. Studies show that people who are sleep-deprived have a higher level of ghrelin in their blood. 3. You eat more because you are awake Okay, so why would you be awake when you should be sleeping anyway? You're either heavily overworked and still in the office or you're out having fun. Have you noticed how it feels okay to comfort yourself with cake, biscuits and crisps when you are working late? Being overworked feels like punishment and the food seems to nullify the annoyance from being in the office when you would rather be at home. If you're not at work, you might be in a bar, club or restaurant drinking your calories; or perhaps you are at the cinema throwing buttered or sugary popcorn down your gullet. Whatever way you look at it, the more hours you are awake, the more time there is for eating. The above said, note that another study involving 68,000 women found that women who slept less (less than 5hrs/night vs. 7+ hrs/night) were more likely to become obese even where they consumed fewer calories. This is likely due to the hormonal impact of poor sleep - lower metabolism. 4. Decreased exertion When you feel tired you are not only less likely to take your scheduled exercise but you also fidget less. Yes, fidgeting does burn calories and the less of it you do, the less energy you are using up. So far from being cool - regular sleeplessness can make you fat. I have to admit that before I acquired this knowledge I admired those who seemed not to need sleep. Of course, the impact of sleep loss is worse on some people than it is on others but let's face it, most of us need at least 8 hours of sleep to feel sane and some of us even need nine hours. I sleep 8 to 9 hours almost every night and I am not ashamed! Further reading: Medscape.org (registration to read articles is free) Sleepdex™ National Center for Biotechnology Information Although your personal finances and your business success are my primary interest, I believe you only operate at peak efficiency when you're fit and healthy. If you feel good, it filters through to your work. To help you with that, click for your free ebook: The Quick Guide to Sexy |
By Heather
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