Is it Harder to Lose Weight When Your Older?

by | Apr 5, 2013 | Exercise, How Your Body Works, Metabolism, Weight Loss | 0 comments

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So the question has been asked. Is it harder to lose weight as you get older?

Well for those of us who are over 45 or 50 the answer is it can be more difficult but most of that is down to lifestyle changes rather than any real biological effects.

The thing is as we get older we start to lose muscle mass and at the same time we start to put on fat. So even though it might seem that you are staying roughly at the same weight the simple fact is you’re getting more fat and less muscle which obviously isn’t good for the body.

Most of the time that is caused by simply not enough activity and because you aren’t active well, there’s a metabolic rate change due to the fact that the ratio between your muscles or your muscle mass if you prefer and your fat mass has changed.

As the muscle mass goes down and the fat mass goes up well, the metabolism starts to slow down which of course just makes the problem a little bit worse.

So what can you do about it? Well it’s actually quite easy to break the cycle.

The first thing you need to do is obviously become more active. You could do such things simply as walking, resistance training, going dancing, you know like you used to do when you were young.

If you combine that with healthy eating well, you’ll find that you’ll start to reverse the muscle loss because you’ll be more active and you’ll also reverse the fat gain so you might even stay at roughly the same weight but you’ll be a lot fitter and a lot healthier and certainly a lot more active because of it.

You know age does have its advantages. You might be older but in terms of health just make sure you’re wiser too. 

Taking the good with the bad

by | Apr 3, 2013 | Digestive system, General Health, How Your Body Works, Metabolism, Sensible Eating, Vitamins & Supplements | 0 comments

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Did you know that the number of bacteria in our body outnumbers the number of cells in our body?

That is something that I personally find totally amazing. But you know in many ways we wouldn’t be able to live without them. Our bodies even use bacteria for digesting our food along with a healthy dose of enzymes and some really remarkable and well balanced processes but without those friendly bacteria in our digestive system we would find it very difficult to get the full range of nutrients that we need.

Now if you don’t know anything about the digestive system particularly about how the bacteria within our digestive system works, then the article I’ve linked to below is probably a very good primer and well worth reading. Enjoy!

Link to the article

Early Consumption of Carbs Heightens Obesity Risk

by | Mar 29, 2013 | Carbs, Diabetes, Metabolism, Obesity, Sugars, Weight gain | 0 comments

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Something that many people aren’t aware of is that many modern baby foods and juices have a high carbohydrate content; many of those carbs are just simple sugars. It would seem that maxim that breast is best, holds true particularly according to a study by Mulchand Patel out of the University of Buffalo.

More than 20 years, Dr. Patel and his University of Buffalo colleagues have looked at the effect of increased intake of carbohydrate-enriched calories to young and newborn children and how an early introduction to these carbohydrate-enriched foods can almost program infants to continue to overeat as they grow up.

Most of his clinical studies have been based using rats most of the time. There is a clear correlation between the studies done in the lab and the findings out in the real world. Nonetheless it does seem to give credence to the understanding that children who get fat as babies and infants very rarely get thin in adult life.

Link to the article

Talking to Doctor about Weight/BMI

by | Feb 22, 2013 | Exercise, Fat Loss, Low carb diet, Metabolism, Weight Loss | 0 comments

1297680967Xa27j9In my book unfortunately doctors are becoming increasingly weary about discussing a patient’s need to lose weight with the patient themselves.

In my recall not so long ago there was a case that came to the newspapers and television news about a woman who was trying to sue her doctor because he said she was fat and needed to lose weight.

So from that side I understand his caution. From the other side sadly it would appear that many medical practitioners can offer no further advice to somebody who is already successfully losing weight possibly because they know that the advice they’re about to give them just doesn’t work.

So if you’re already losing weight why spoil it? The fact that he went on to talk about cholesterol medication even before you had a blood test just makes me wonder if he either A -Hasn’t got a clue what he’s on about or B- He’s following another agenda.

If were in your position I’ll just keep on doing what you have been doing and let the weight come down with diet and exercise. It seems to work for you so far.

All the best,

Mark

This is a copy of the comment I made on a forum post about weight loss

HELP! A bit TMI, lets talk poop

by | Jan 31, 2013 | How Your Body Works, Low carb diet, Metabolism | 0 comments

Below is a copy of the recent comment I made at 3fatchicks about a question on constipation

 

Hi Aarrixx,

I eat hardly any vegetables and don’t suffer with constipation at all but what I do is make sure that my stomach bacteria have been salted out and are kept well fed.

So on a fairly regular basis as when needed I take a good quality probiotics and I keep them well fed by having natural home made yogurt made with unpasteurized milk and from  time to time also take enzymes for the stomach that way everything is kept nicely in order but not a Psyllium husk in sight.

Cheers,

Mark

Does extra hunger mean something?

by | Jan 15, 2013 | Food Choices, How Your Body Works, Low carb diet, Metabolism, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

Here is another copy of the post at forum.lowcarber.org where I have responded to about eating and low carb

 

KristyRusi asked:

So i just got out of induction yesterday. I plan on keeping the 20nc induction rule of thumb for at least a few more weeks to keep that fat buring quicker, however today i was sooooo hungry (in the past 3-4 days i’ve not been hungry at all), i grazed like a dairy cow lol. Every few minutes i was wanting to nibble. I think it was because i was craving something sweet (which is rare) and nothing was sating the sweet taste i wanted.

I’ve limited myself to using artificial sweetner only in coffee and the occasional glass of tea. I fear using it in a “dessert” type meal will only make me binge for that flavor and make me want sweets even more. 

My real question is though, does this extra hunger mean i’m out of ketosis? I have not ate anything i didn’t eat in induction today and like i said don’t plan to, but i want to try and stay in ketosis as long as i can. I never used the ketostix but when i was in ketosis before my urine was darker (even with drinking 90% water) and my breath was awful to even taste in my own mouth, my urine was clear today and my mouth is extremely dry but doesn’t taste bad. If i am out of ketosis, what might have caused it and what can i do to kick it back in?

Thanks in advance for the insite!

 

I replied:

Hi KristyRusi,

Does extra hunger mean anything? Well, simply, yes it does. It means you need to eat something.

My food of choice when I’m facing something like that is to nibble on a lump of cheese, maybe dressing it up with some sort of mayonnaise, homemade of course. If cheese isn’t your thing, as DaddioM said, make sure you fill that hunger with protein and fat.

Obviously the warnings from others about being careful what you eat have great merit and should be taken note of. The thing to remember here is that when we start on a low carb diet, we’re not only retraining our bodies, we’re also retraining our minds and frankly, our bodies will retrain a lot quicker than our minds will.

One of the things I liked about the low carb diet was the fact that you could get excellent nutrition to eating smaller portions. This in turn, does mean of course, that our stomachs shrink, meaning we become satisfied with a lower quantity of food. However, if we pig out like we’re inclined to if we go out for a meal,  that can temporarily expand the stomach giving rise to those naughty little hunger signals being sent up to our brain.

Thus far as eating out is concerned, my advice is very simple, if you don’t know what’s in it, don’t eat it.

Hope that helps,

Mark