Elite Weight Loss Program

What a pleasant surprise it was this morning to jump on the Wii fit to find that I’ve actually lost 4lb in the last 3 weeks!

I’m beginning to completely not understand this dieting lark.

The time of day that you eat seems to be as important as what you actually eat. I’ve been tucking into bacn and egg baquettes quite a few mornings over the past 3 weeks, and then not eating much else until the evening. No I know dieticians would frown on that approach, and it really isn’t that healthy, but there is a saying that seems to sum it up.

‘Eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunchtime and a pauper in the evening.’

Basically if you’re going to eat stuff, try to get it in during the day rather than in the evening. The old saying about not eating after 6pm may well be true after all.

I’m going to try to stick to this and see where it gets me – more news soon.

Click below to find out more!!

It didn’t help when we had a ‘dress-down Friday’ last week and the polo shirt I wore was a little more snug than I would have liked. Travelling home on the train I was sure that I could have balanced a pint of beer on my belly if I really wanted to!

My wife had decided that she was a bit worried about my weight, so 3 weeks ago I went to the doctors for a general check-up. Guess what? Yup, he told me that I was a bit overweight, oh, and that my blood pressure was up, even over 3 readings (to rule out ‘white-coat syndrome…)

He also took some bloods for various health checks, which to be honest I’d never had done.

I was with some relief last night then that I got the results.

My main worry was, of course, cholesterol. This turned out to be very low at 3.7! It did take me a little while to convince the doctor that I didn’t actually live on a diet of carrots.

Blood pressure was still up though and the was a slight liver erm… disfunction – both of which could be due to alcohol.

No I don’t think we’re talking about alcohol abuse here as I only have about 1/2 a bottle of red or white wine with the evening meal, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the eyes of the government, I’m a ‘binge-drinker’!

Well I’ll try to cut down on the booze a bit. That should help both the blood pressure, the liver function and also no doubt my weight.

I would recommend that everyone has these basic tests done periodically, especially if, like me, you’ve been absent from a doctors surgery for a number of years.

I was half expecting bad news and for the doctor to suggest that I should read any books a bit quicker otherwise I wouldn’t have time to finish then… The actual outcome was a great relief.

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I’d put on a pound in 2 weeks!

I suppose I should have expected it following a boozy couple of days in London and another couple of lunchtimes in the pub, but it still came as a bit of a shock.

I’m not sure this dieting lark is that good for me as I’ve now come down with a cold – it must be because I’m a bit run down through malnourishment! That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! It’s either that or I’m allergic to the ‘invisible’ cloud of volcanic ash that’s been haunting the UK for the last week.

Well you know the law – ‘Feed a col and starve a fever’. So I thought I’d start today with a toasted bacon baquette – purely medicinal you understand. I’ll get back on the diet wagon when I feel a bit better later in the week.

Having cut out the beer and the bacon baguettes for breakfast, I managed to lose 3lb last week!

No doubt I also managed to put a couple of those pounds back on again over the Easter break, but I’m going to keep up the good work so far and see what the results are this week!

Almost looking forward to the Sunday morning weigh-in on the Wii.

Metabolic syndrome is characterized by abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, insulin resistance and other cardiovascular disease-risk factors.

The study, published online March 30 in the International Journal of Obesity, examined the influence exerted by the type of foods and specific timing of intake on the development of metabolic syndrome characteristics in mice. The UAB research revealed that mice fed a meal higher in fat after waking had normal metabolic profiles. In contrast, mice that ate a more carbohydrate-rich diet in the morning and consumed a high-fat meal at the end of the day saw increased weight gain, adiposity, glucose intolerance and other markers of the metabolic syndrome.

“Studies have looked at the type and quantity of food intake, but nobody has undertaken the question of whether the timing of what you eat and when you eat it influences body weight, even though we know sleep and altered circadian rhythms influence body weight,” said the study’s lead author Molly Bray, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology in the UAB School of Public Health.

Bray said the research team found that fat intake at the time of waking seems to turn on fat metabolism very efficiently and also turns on the animal’s ability to respond to different types of food later in the day. When the animals were fed carbohydrates upon waking, carbohydrate metabolism was turned on and seemed to stay on even when the animal was eating different kinds of food later in the day.

“The first meal you have appears to program your metabolism for the rest of the day,” said study senior author Martin Young, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine in the UAB Division of Cardiovascular Disease. “This study suggests that if you ate a carbohydrate-rich breakfast it would promote carbohydrate utilization throughout the rest of the day, whereas, if you have a fat-rich breakfast, you have metabolic plasticity to transfer your energy utilization between carbohydrate and fat.”

Bray and Young said the implications of this research are important for human dietary recommendations. Humans rarely eat a uniform diet throughout the day and need the ability to respond to alterations in diet quality. Adjusting dietary composition of a given meal is an important component in energy balance, and they said their findings suggest that recommendations for weight reduction and/or maintenance should include information about the timing of dietary intake plus the quality and quantity of intake.

“Humans eat a mixed diet, and our study, which we have repeated four times in animals, seems to show that if you really want to be able to efficiently respond to mixed meals across a day then a meal in higher fat content in the morning is a good thing,” Bray said. “Another important component of our study is that, at the end of the day, the mice ate a low-caloric density meal, and we think that combination is key to the health benefits we’ve seen.”

Bray and Young said further research needs to test whether similar observations are made with different types of dietary fats and carbohydrates, and it needs to be tested in humans to see if the findings are similar between rodents and humans.

“We’re also working on a study right now to determine if these feeding regimens adversely affect heart function,” Young said.

Researchers in Germany followed 19,357 people, aged between 35 and 65, for at least ten years and found that those who ate the most amount of chocolate – an average of 7.5 grams a day – had lower blood pressure and a 39% lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared to those who ate the least amount of chocolate – an average of 1.7 grams a day. The difference between the two groups amounts to six grams of chocolate: the equivalent of less than one small square of a 100g bar.”

My diet could be getting better!