Sat, Jan-21-12, 01:15
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Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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How men can lose the paunch forever
As a follow on to the article featured below it about male body image, Dr Briffa has the following advice:
Quote:
From the Times
London, UK
21 January, 2012
How men can lose the paunch forever
Dr John Briffa
While it’s good that men are increasingly making an effort to lose weight, the real question is: can they keep it off permanently? Many men can find their excess fat to be stubbornly tenacious: after shifting a few or more pounds, they’ll go on to witness their weight quickly rebounding to where it was before. Scientific evidence suggests that this phenomenon is not necessarily the result of personal failings, but down to the body’s efforts to maintain fat levels as a certain “set point”. Understanding what determines this set point and how to lower it is critical to ensuring lasting weight loss.
The central player in “set point theory” is the hormone leptin. Leptin is secreted by fat cells and acts on a part of the brain called the hypothalamus to speed the metabolism and suppress appetite. As we gain weight, leptin levels rise to moderate it. However, if for any reason leptin fails to do its job properly — a state known as “leptin resistance” — the body will naturally gravitate to a weight that is above what is good for your health.
So what can men do to prevent this? One potential cause of leptin resistance is inflammation in the hypothalamus, and a known provoking factor is spikes in blood sugar levels. The foods most likely to induce sugar surges are those with added sugar, as well as many starchy carbohydrates including bread, potato, rice, pasta and breakfast cereals. Other inflammatory foods include so-called “omega-6 fats” found in vegetable oils and margarine.
By inducing leptin resistance, then, a supposedly “healthy” diet can actually lead to a sluggish metabolism and heightened hunger — not ideal for someone seeking to lose weight and keep it off. Critically, a diet more restricted in carbohydrate and replete with natural, unprocessed foods (vegetables, lean meat) can put all this in reverse, allowing the body to settle at a lower weight.
But there’s another reason why curbing carbs can help men lose their paunch for good: carbohydrate is the major stimulus for the secretion of insulin — the hormone chiefly responsible for the deposition of fat in the fat cells. So, a diet lower in carbohydrate facilitates fat loss by lowering insulin levels. Fat liberated in this way can fuel the body. This way of eating can therefore turn men into “hibernating bears” — able to subsist off their fat stores with their appetites naturally quelled.
What to eat
Breakfasts based on cereal and perhaps wholemeal toast may have a healthy reputation, but the ability of such foods to cause gluts in insulin and disrupt leptin make them nutritional disaster areas. A better option would be some Greek yoghurt with almonds or walnuts, and fruit — berries are best on account of their low-sugar, highly nutritious nature. Eggs are another good option, particularly if coupled with some smoked salmon and tomato or wilted spinach for their nutrient value.
Sandwiches are off the menu at lunch, and should be replaced with meat, fish or an omelette with salad or cooked vegetables. Oily fish such as salmon, trout, sardines or mackerel are particularly beneficial, as the omega-3 fats these contain are anti-inflammatory and have been linked with enhanced health and weight loss. Olive oil-based salad dressing and butter on your vegetables are fine. This same format should be used for dinner. Other options include hearty soups, stews and casseroles.
For some, it can be a long time between lunch and dinner, and this can cause appetites to run out of control. A snack of a handful or two of nuts will fill you up until the evening meal and allow you to make healthier choices when you do finally eat.
How to exercise
Working out is seen as a way to shift the pounds — again, you may need to rethink this. Forget spending hours on a treadmill: aerobic exercises such as these have been found to be ineffective for weight loss. The truth is, aerobic exercise doesn’t burn masses of calories, and can make us hungrier to boot. Short bursts of intense exercise are more effective for losing weight, and can boost leptin levels.
Lack of sleep will make you fat
One other lifestyle factor to consider is sleep. Sleep deprivation can lower leptin levels and predispose the body to keeping itself at a higher “fat set point”. Lack of sleep is associated with a heightened risk of obesity, so men seeking to lose weight permanently need to factor in early nights.
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http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/healt...icle3292216.ece
Quote:
From The Times
21 January, 2012
Why real men count calories
Toby Wiseman
David Cameron wants to lose weight . . . and he is not alone. British men have a new relationship with their bodies
Modern British men have, apparently, developed some kind of body dysmorphic disorder. If a recent study is to be believed, 80 per cent of men obsess over their body shapes, with three quarters saying that they feel pretty darned rubbish about it. Can this really be true?
I have a natural suspicion of this sort of survey. However, we do have something to address. Over the next two decades, the UK will become home to 11 million obese adults, at a cost to the NHS of £2 billion a year. Even the Prime Minister confessed in an interview published this week that he would like to lose a bit of weight. He is not alone. You only have to look at British men’s reading habits to know that we are more concerned with our bodies than ever before. In the late 1990s the biggest selling men’s magazine in the UK was, by some distance, FHM. At that time, you’d be more likely to find a story involving a doner kebab, eight pints of Stella and a gardening accident than one about your reflection in the mirror. By contrast, in 2012 the nation’s bestselling men’s publication is the magazine that I edit, Men’s Health.
And here’s the bitter irony: I am overweight. While my “negative body image” hasn’t quite led to the kind of eating and exercise patterns that attract odd looks in public, I sure as hell don’t like it. I’m edging towards the stout side; heavier than I want to be. It never used to be like this. Throughout my twenties I was slim and athletic. I drank alcohol with abandon, ate delivery pizzas by the moped-load, and I got away with it. Now 35 and a couple of kids for the worse, my body has metamorphosed. When I meet up with friends they tell me that I look “well”. A tailor recently remarked on my “timber”. This is how men tell you that you’ve piled on the pounds.
One might well think that being in possession of a solid one-pack hardly befits the editor of a magazine in league with cultivating defined torsos and bigger chests. But I disagree; if anything, I know exactly what our readers are going through. These men have gone from hero-worshipping Iggy Pop to emulating Daniel Craig. They are at the stage where the prospect of a summer holiday represents something of a physiological D-Day. Just like some of their wives or girlfriends, they could tell you, without fear of reproach, the least calorific option in Pret A Manger. This is 21st century man in his middle youth. It also happens to be me to a tee. It is not cause for societal panic. Men are not turning into women. We’re just trying to sort ourselves out.
And try hard we do. While, generally speaking, men are distrustful of fad diets and sham, celebrity-endorsed routines, we’re more than willing to throw ourselves headlong into something if it promises big results. Over the past five years I have gone beyond the call of duty numerous times as a Men’s Health journalist in pursuit of a weight-loss panacea. On one occasion I experimented with juice fasting, which involved a week of living off nothing but pulped fruit and spirulina (a dietary supplement that smells of stale urine). To break up the monotony and the hunger, I looked forward to the daily cleansing. Colonic irrigation is one of the most bizarre and intimate situations in which you can find yourself with a stranger.
Excursions into extreme therapies resulted in me losing weight, but not for any significant amount of time, nor in any way that struck me as remotely sustainable. Far better were the inter-office gym challenges, undertaken with a view to proving the feasibility of the classic Men’s Health cover lines. So yes, over the years I have added 5cm to my arms, I have built a six-pack in six weeks, and I have boxed away 5kg of flab. In particular, three months of white-collar sparring brought about both a physical and mental change in me that I’d previously never dreamt possible. Under the close and uncompromising daily tutelage of a boxing trainer at London’s The Third Space gym (thethirdspace.com), I turned myself from a lethargic desk jockey into a lean fighting machine. I ditched 2.5 per cent body fat and added 3.5cm to my chest. It was the hardest, most intense thing I’ve ever done, but in the process I gained a new body and a sharper outlook.
It meant working incredibly hard, every day, in a way that I couldn’t continue on my own. In the end I stopped because my trainer would only continue to work with me if I took it to the next level— in other words, started fighting properly. But I had wanted to get fit, not hurt people. In truth, I’d love to start it all over again. I’ve never felt as good in my life.
Why, then, do I find myself looking down at the scales in dismay? The truth is we — that is, the UK — have a problem. British men are more knowledgeable about health and nutrition than ever before and consume fewer calories than we did 30 years ago, and yet we’re growing larger. So I’m a statistic: a hard-working, deskbound, sedentary figure in the obesity epidemic. I’m also human: it’s January, 2011 was hard and Christmas was heavy. But there’s more to it. Staying in top shape once you’ve hit your mid-thirties takes work, effort and application. I’ve just embarked on another personal challenge — triathlon, this time. Even when you have an iron-clad will, a wife, kids and work will inevitably compromise that. The trouble with men is that we are inclined to want the best of both worlds. We want to have our cake and eat it, preferably with some sausages thrown in and all washed down with a nice claret.
So back to that survey. Do I find myself fretting about my body shape? Of course I do. Is my concern symptomatic of a serious issue in male society? Hell, no. It just makes me normal.
Toby Wiseman is the editor of Men’s Health
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http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/healt...icle3292212.ece |
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