Losing weight can be difficult and challenging and getting as much support as you can is crucial to the success of the any diet or weight loss programme.

Getting a personal trainer helps ensure you training programme is structured and effective to ensure you achieve your goals safely and in the quickest possible time. A personal trainer will ensure you remain motivated and will not allow you to give up and yes you will want to!

However, starting an exercise programme is only half the battle, changing your diet can be very difficult and even stressful and getting it right will determine the  uccess and maintenance of any weight loss  goal.

Eating healthier can be difficult and requires time for planning, organisation and preparation, you will need to count calories, weigh your portions, plan your meals,  shop for food  and of course prepare the meals all of which require time you may simply not have.

Esteem Fitness provides you real meals delivered to your door based on your current BMR and AMR to ensure to lose and keep the weight OFF.The service is not available independent of a training programme as we believe that it is essential include exercise in every weightloss programme as this will help maintain a healthy metabolism.

We offer-

    Nutritional Assessment
    Meal Plan
    Real food  and snacks delivered to your door
    Regular review of calorie intake
    Help and support to keep you on track

Call now to book your assessment.
www.esteemfitness.com

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Visualise then actualise- Body Magic sensation

Power of positive visualisation, the ability to visualise an end result can be a powerful tool in the process of achieving any goal, not least the very common weight loss struggle. Seeing yourself slimmer can give you the motivation to push through and keep up with a fitness regime and nutritional balance that will eventually actualise the goal.
Body magic helps you to drop 2-3 dress sizes in minutes, boosting your confidence and self esteem instantly. Designed with medical and engineering principles, Body Magic offers the unique combination of a useful and necessary shape wear garment with physical health benefits. Produced to the highest quality standards, Body magic is the leading and most effective reshaping garment available in the market today.

The Body Magic reshaping garment offers an extremely comfortable fit with no pinch points, rolling and bunching, it is superbly engineered for comfort and durability – distributing any fat evenly so it feels like a second skin all day long.

Body Magic benefits include:

Lifts shoulders and helps correct posture

Relieves lower and upper back pain

Lifts the buttocksInstant breast lifts                                                                                           

Helps reduce fat in the pelvic area

Corrects posture and sharpens overall figure

Smooths out lumps and bumps 

Helps prevent additional fat deposits

www.magicbodyuk.com

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Post from: Fitness Magazine

Fruit and vegetables are generally lower in energy per gram while offering usually high amounts of minerals, vitamins and antioxidants. Both are vital requirements for weight loss diets, because when you aim to lose weight you need achieve a balance between reducing your energy intake and consuming enough vital nutrients. If you would only reduce your energy intakes without considering how you can achieve enough vitamins, minerals and antioxidants in your diet you may actually cause harm to your health by dieting and leading to nutrient deficiencies.

Fruit and vegetables furthermore are rich sources of fibre which helps to feel full for longer and has many other health promoting effects in your body. Vegetables in particular should be eaten at high frequencies and in a broad variety, because they are low in simple sugars. Fruits on the other hand contains large amount of natural sugar, which make them taste nice and sweet however there is some evidence that even natural sugars in fruits may lead to quick raises in blood sugar levels.

Regular, quick and high raises in blood sugar levels have been indicated to increase the risk of diabetes. Moreover if sugar or carbohydrates are absorbed more slowly as it applies for most vegetables, it fuels your body more consistently and this is believed to avoid hunger pangs and mood swings.

You may also know that fruit and vegetable are the heroes in the storage cupboards if one aims to prevent many common chronic diseases and to help your body to fight infections, however commonly people struggle to consume the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables and more importantly most people struggle in particular with vegetables. Vegetable juice could offer an easy and tasty solution to this problem. Whereas many people regularly consume 100% fruit juices significantly less people opt for vegetable juice although they offer the same convenience and may have even more health benefits.

Studies in the USA suggest that recommending drinking regularly vegetable juice is a much more successful approach to increase the total amount of fruit and vegetables in the diet than nutrition education or one-to-one nutrition advice promoting fruit and vegetable consumption. This highlights that most people are aware about the health benefits of fruit and vegetable but find it often difficult to implement more fruit and vegetables into their daily eating routine.

Two further studies in particular highlight why vegetable juice could be an especially useful addition to everyone’s diet. One study assessed changes in blood pressure over a 12 week period in overweight people (40-65 years) who consumed 2 glasses of vegetable juice per day and found that blood pressure was significantly reduced after the 12 week intervention in all participants who complied with the 2 juice a day regime. Moreover the participants who complied with the 2 juices per day schedule also met the 5 a day recommendation. There is however one word of warning some commercial vegetable juices contain quite high amounts of salt and may therefore not be suitable for healthy diets, hence it might be worth comparing brands and labels and opt for those with lower salt levels.

The second study was even more encouraging. Again participants were asked to consume one to two vegetable juice per day over a 12 week period in this case however all participants were overweight with metabolic syndrome and were additionally enrolled on a weight loss programme. Participants who drank 1-2 portions of vegetable juice per day appeared to be more successful in their weight loss with an average weight loss of 4 pounds compared to 1 pound for the non-juice dieters. Although there might some other factors interacting with weight loss than the vegetable juice and these might moreover vary for overweight people without the metabolic syndrome it appears drinking regularly vegetable juice could be beneficial if someone tries to lose weight.

Andrea Zick – Esteem Fitness Nutritionist
Esteem Fitness – Personal training London and South East UK

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Today I will however tell you a little bit more about reducing your television hours. Statistics show that about two thirds of adults spend between 2-5h per day watching television and this although most adults spend about 5h per day seated in the UK.

People watching less television have generally a lower risk to become overweight and most adults increase their television viewing with increasing age. More interestingly some studies found that the risk of hypertension in obese children increases with the number of hours of TV viewing and TV viewing has also been associated with poorer diets.Apparently there is barely any other daily activity which decreases our metabolic rates more than watching television, surely the amount of energy spend while watching television may also depend on the content of the television program but watching television needs less energy than reading a book or surfing the internet in most cases and for someone aiming to lose weight this minute energy differences could be of importance as a recent study highlights.The study was carried out in California.

Researchers observed the effects of reducing television viewing by 50% over a 3 week period on 20 overweight men and compared this with a group of 16 overweight men who not being restricted in the Television viewing time. Both group underwent an observation period were ‘normal’ energy expenditure was measured. The results of this study indicate clearly that reducing your television time by 50% can increase your energy needs. The 20 men were found to expend 119kcal more per day during the intervention period than during the observation period.

Respectively the men following their normal television routine expended 95 fewer calories during the intervention period. Moreover the group of the 20 men reduced energy intake per day by 244kcal indicating they also consumed less food or drinks, while the other group increased their energy intake by 57kcal per day.

Although these energy imbalance achieved through reduced television viewing may not appear much considering that is takes about 500kcal energy reduction per day to reduce you weight by about 1kg over 2 weeks this amount of negative energy balance could help to prevent weight gain over prolonged periods and might be more sustainable than many other weight loss measures. Hence considering switching off the TV more often and switching it on later on the day might really help some people achieving healthy body weight, even without making many of the other commonly recommended weight loss measures.

Does it matter what type of exercise you do when you aim to lose weight?

Most people will generally agree that exercise will aid a great deal if you are set to shed pounds. Yet only about 39% of men and 29% of women achieve the recommended exercise levels according to self reports in the UK. Hence in some way it might not matter as much what type of exercise is done to prevent people becoming overweight as long as people generally become more active. The numbers appear even more shocking if real exercise levels are observed with pedometers, then only 6% men and 4% women achieve the amount of exercise needed to protect us from chronic diseases. So really for most people starting to do any sort of exercise will help to maintain and lose weight.

Scientist estimate adults need to exercise for about 150 min per week to prevent weight gain. However this is not really the magic number as it also depends on other physical activity during your daily routine. Someone working on building sites or being a cycle courier clearly will need less extra physical activity than someone working on a checkout counter at Sainsbury’s or in a City office.

On the other hand for many people aiming to lose weight it appears to be quite important to know which type of exercise is the most efficient exercise in terms of weight loss. To answer this question it really depends on how precisely this question is phrased. There is reasonable amount of evidence out there indicating that building muscle mass will increase your metabolism. This is of particular importance because losing weight will decrease your metabolism and as such your energy needs progressively. Building muscle while you are losing weight has been shown to counter balance at least some of this.

That also implicates that muscle building is highly important for people aiming to lose a dress size.Yet if you ask which type of exercise reduces your appetite most significantly the answer will be very different as has been suggested by a study published in 2008. The researchers of this UK based study observed the effects of 60 min jogging or 90 min weight lifting on 11 male students and found that the activation of two different hormones which regulate appetite varied in both conditions. Jogging on the treadmill altered both hormones whereas lifting weights only influenced one hormone. The researchers suggested accordingly that aerobic exercise might be more effective in suppressing appetite.

However to complicate this matter there appears to be a gender difference in the effects of exercise on appetite. Regular exercise has for example been shown to lead to greater fat losses in men than in women, so more recent studies aimed to investigate whether there could be differences in the activation of appetite stimulating hormones.  One study found that exercise stimulates energy regulating hormones and appetite differently in women and men. Women were found to have higher acylated ghrelin levels (indicating more stimuli to eat) and lower insulin levels after exercise, this may suggest that women have a more robust hormonal response to stimulate appetite and possibly energy intake. This may explain why men tend to lose body fat quicker than women.

However ladies there is no need to give up on your weight loss goals other Canadian studies showed that women who trained intensively lost more weight and body fat over a six month period than women training less intensively. So although different types of exercise might influence your appetite differently you will still benefit of working out more frequently and for longer times.

Andrea Zick – Esteem Fitness Nutritionist
Esteem Fitness – Personal training London and South East UK

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Can foods really help with your sex life? Over centuries people have believed that certain foods can have an effect on different aspects of your sex life, some foods are thought to increase libido whereas others are thought to help with fertility in men and women. Often the origin of the claim can be centuries old and most often only relates to the specific shape of the food (e.g. asparagus, oysters, eggs etc.). However modern media has also advocated foods such as pumpkin seeds as the ‘Viagra for women’ based on their specific nutrient density. So is there any real evidence that certain foods could influence any aspect of our sex life?

Firstly, it’s important to point out that there are many conditions which may interfere with a healthy and satisfied sex life such as depression, anaemia, stress, recurrent bladder infections etc. It appears obvious that being healthy will support a healthy sex life and in this respect a healthy balanced diet can surely support fertility and sex drive. As an example anaemia which can be caused by iron deficiency can make you lethargic and unwilling to have sexual intercourse. Considering that one in five women in the UK are iron deficient it seems to be important to advocate: eating a variety of foods containing iron and vitamin C to help with iron absorption. This could improve overall health and well-being and female sex life.

Also there appears to be some evidence for reduced or delayed conception in women consuming large amounts of caffeine, hence the Food Standards Agency recommends reducing your caffeine intake to around 200mg per day (2 mugs of instant coffee), yet a more recent review of the existing evidence concluded that current scientific evidence is insufficient to recommend caffeine avoidance to conceive.

Over and underweight can furthermore interfere with you sex life as both have been shown to reduce fertility in women and lead to complications during pregnancy. Body fat content appears here to be the strongest predictor for fertility. Some evidence even puts forward that as much as one quarter of female infertility could be attributable to current high levels of obesity and overweight. Interestingly high body fat percentage can have long-term effects: obese girls have been shown to have a higher risk of irregularities in the menstrual cycle and infertility in adulthood.

One of the reasons Trans fats in processed foods such as commercially baked and fried foods should only be eaten rarely is that they have been shown to increase ovulatory infertility in women, so avoidance of processed foods appears a wise choice if women aim to conceive.

Erectile dysfunction affects half of all men aged 40-70 years at least once and there is growing evidence that obesity could increase the occurrence of erectile dysfunction. Hence being at healthy weight will reduce the risk of erectile dysfunction. Some nutritional supplements have had promising results to treat erectile dysfunction in larger studies. The strongest evidence currently exists for red ginseng, yet the placebo effect for this type of ailment has been shown to be as high as 25% so it is not clear in how far red ginseng really helps to improve erectile function.

Fertility in men has been shown to be influenced by the following: zinc and selenium concentrations in the blood, high intakes of soy foods and isoflavones, vitamin C, E and beta-carotene intakes, L-carnitine (an amino acid) and vitamin B12 intake. Low levels of zinc and selenium in the blood have been shown to influences the semen quality, while vitamin B12 deficiency has been linked to abnormal semen analysis. High intakes of soy foods and isoflavones were suggested to decrease sperm counts in men.

On the other hand higher antioxidant intakes such as vitamin C, E and beta-carotene appear to increase the numbers of sperm and its mobility. Finally supplementation with L-carnitine in infertile men has been suggested to increase pregnancy rate and sperm quality. However, it must be emphasised that research in this area is still young and many other environmental and lifestyle factors can be involved in fertility so current advice is to consume a healthy balanced diet rather than taking any of the above as supplements without specific recommendation from a specialist.

Andrea Zick – Esteem Fitness Nutritionist
Esteem Fitness – Personal training London and South East UK

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The study investigated the effects of two different diets on 32 obese participants over a six week period. Both groups achieved an average weight loss of 6kg but the group which consumed only 20g carbohydrate or less a day was found to have significantly increased LDL cholesterol levels. The group consuming a high carbohydrate diet with about 55% calories coming from carbohydrates on the other hand decreased their LDL cholesterol levels significantly and most importantly had cholesterol levels within the healthy range after the intervention.

The low carbohydrate group had furthermore increased levels of free fatty acids in their blood (by products of body fat breakdown) and high circulating levels of free fatty acids permit effective glucose uptake in the liver and lead to increased sugar levels in the blood. This is a very important aspect of the research results as high blood sugar levels define diabetes risk.

Low carbohydrate diets have become increasingly popular because they are promoted to consumers as the easy way to lose weight and some promoters even claim they would lower the risk of diabetes and lower cholesterol, hence this new research is vital to shed more light on these claims. It must be said that this current research is only of small scale but it seriously questions the claims that low carbohydrate diets are an easy and healthy way to lose weight.

A larger study published earlier this year compared a low carbohydrate Atkins type diet with a low fat diet with added weight loss pills and found also higher cholesterol levels in the participants following the low carbohydrate diet whereas the participants consuming the low fat diet and orlistat decreased their cholesterol levels during the trial.

This study had 146 participants involved and again one of their selection criteria was a BMI above 30, hence all participants were classed obese.  It might be therefore in question if similar physical responses occur in overweight people trying to lose weight as their metabolic function is usually better and the low carbohydrate diet may therefore not have the same impact. Moreover overweight people who did not struggle with raised cholesterol level may not worry about such outcomes as losing weight is supposed to increase their overall health and well-being.

In spite of that the results increase critique on Atkins type diets and with many people aiming to lose weight quickly and easily it is important to clarify whether these diets may pose health risks such as raising cholesterol levels. Rarely long-term outcomes of the Atkins diets have been tested and even promoters of Atkins diets know that prolonged compliance could lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, hence it is questionable whether such an approach to weight loss is suitable in respect that keeping the weight off needs prolonged lifestyle changes.

Andrea Zick – Esteem Fitness Nutritionist
Esteem Fitness – Personal training London and South East UK

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My diet hasn’t been too bad this week although I must admit I felt less able to decide consciously which foods would be good for me and when to stop eating. Moreover as I have been so very busy and literately ran from A to B, I thought I should have rather lost weight than gaining it.

Additionally not sleeping long enough should have also kept my metabolism running on higher levels for longer and avoid any weight gains from extra treats I felt more inclined to deserve. Yet the end of the week tells a different story, but feeling and acting this way is no real clue that job stress could really increase your waistline. So I thought I must investigate this and indeed I found a study I read a while ago which did an investigation on this topic.

The study suggests that the assessed Japanese men were more likely to have eating behaviours such as eating fast and eating to satiety while being more likely to be of higher weights when they had high job demands. So basically the ones who were working under higher workloads were more likely to be overweight and furthermore eating to satiety and eating fast were both eating behaviours which appeared to be more common when working under pressure.

Both eating behaviours were also related to psychological stress responses such as fatigue, anxiety and depression. Hence the researchers concluded that work related stress could contribute to weight gains. Yet all workers assessed were working in a factory setting which required quantitative work which may imply that particularly repetitive work environments are prone to this weight and work stress relationship.

However reading a little deeper into the study I realised that all managers were excluded from this study and the managers were more likely to be overweight or obese, which could mean that other types of work may be prone to similar relationships with different levels of interaction.

A further interesting study surrounding this topic was a study from Canada which investigated the effects of knowledge based work. This study compared the eating behaviour of 15 female students after two different tasks with each other. One task was the knowledge based work (reading a document and writing a short summary 350 words) and the other was simply staying seated for the same amount of time, although both tasks did not differ very much in the energy required the students consumed more calories after reading and summarising the document.

The researchers suggest that it might be useful for the future to assess whether knowledge based work/mental creative work would increase energy consumption above the expended energy of the day and as such lead to weight gain. I could not agree more and I really would like to know whether working mentally and creatively on an office chair and working longer hours while being under more work related stress could lead to eating more calories. Yet for now it must be said the research is not yet strong enough to tell my boss I need a little more time off to assure I retain my great bikini shape.

For the moment I think I will avoid the treats even if I work more hours and it feels as if I deserve these treats. Moreover I promise myself to take a real lunch break from now to avoid eating to quickly and stacking up the pounds, so hopefully I can like this break the cycle of overeating when being stressed at work.

Andrea Zick – Esteem Fitness Nutritionist
Esteem Fitness – Personal training London and South East UK

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Breakfast might the most important meal of the day. People skipping breakfast rarely meet their recommended intakes of complex carbohydrates, fibre and fruit and vegetables. Their overall micronutrient intake is also significantly lower than the micronutrient intake of breakfast eaters.

So people enjoying breakfast on most days do much better on meeting government recommendations for fibre, fruit and vegetable and micronutrient intakes and are commonly found to have lower average BMI’s.

The meaning of the word breakfast also highlights its importance in everyday life. When we consume some form of healthy breakfast we break the overnight ‘fasting’ period which can have lasted 5 – 12 hours depending on the length of sleep. Having breakfast will kick start your metabolism which is usually at the lowest level during sleep and just slightly higher just after waking up. Digestion needs energy and therefore having breakfast will increase your metabolism whereas not having breakfast won’t have the same effect.

Although there is still controversy whether people skipping breakfast compensate for the missing energy intake during the day, most research suggests that people eating breakfast regularly tend to follow healthier lifestyles. Research claiming breakfast skippers compensate for the energy intake often suggests this occurs through overeating at lunch time and dinner.

The reasons why breakfast skippers compensate energy intake throughout the day could vary, some of them might simply be not able to make healthy choices after they have left the home and end up eating foods which are higher in fat, sugar, salt and lower in fibre and fruit and vegetables. On the other hand they might also be so hungry by the time they eat that they are unable to sense when they had enough food.

Studies on schoolchildren furthermore put forward that skipping breakfast might reduce mental and physical performance. Research on adults is less frequent and appears to have more varied findings, some seems to show reduced performance in breakfast skippers whereas other find reduced performance rather in people who are used to have breakfast and have skipped breakfast for study purposes. On the other hand from a physiological perspective it is likely that skipping breakfast interferes with performance as the body would not have enough glucose available which is vital for brain activity, yet so far this has been not sufficiently investigated and for some people skipping breakfast may indeed not mean they are unable to concentrate.

More recent studies are trying to gain an understanding of the apparent benefits of breakfast and also aim to answer whether certain types of breakfast are better than others.  One study in the USA investigated whether ready to eat cereals is a better choice than the typical American fry up. In this study consuming ready to eat cereals was correlated with significantly lower BMI’s after a year of investigation, this could mean opting for high fibre and low fat breakfast options could support weight maintenance and maybe weight loss.

Yet we also read frequently bad headlines about ready to eat cereals in our morning papers. Apparently many breakfast cereals are found to be high in sugar and salt. So some people are confused whether breakfast cereals should be avoided or could be part of a healthy start into the day. About 69% of adults and children consume breakfast cereals in the UK so the market for cereals is massive. Moreover many breakfast cereals have health claims attached to them and so it is difficult to know which of the cereals are healthy options and which of the cereals should be better understood as a once in a while treat. But a recent investigation of ‘Which?’ (Going against the grain) aimed to help consumers exactly with this. So there should really be no excuse anymore not to pick a healthy cereal, add some fruit and kick start your day with a healthy and convenient breakfast.

Andrea Zick – Esteem Fitness Nutritionist
Esteem Fitness – Personal Training London and South East UK

Post from: Fitness Magazine

Fibre is part of the large group of carbohydrates and is a complex carbohydrate. Complex carbohydrates are starches and fibres, whereas sugars such as sucrose (white sugar) or fructose are simple carbohydrates. The major difference between simple and complex carbohydrates is that simple carbohydrates are easily digested and broken down by your body whereas complex carbohydrates are more difficult to be digested and some cannot be digested at all.

Simple carbohydrates are fairly short chains of sugars and complex carbohydrates are very long and sometimes interconnected chains of sugars. Bacteria in the gut play an important role in the digestion of complex carbohydrates. The speed of digestion also influences sugar levels in the blood, which means simple carbohydrates cause blood sugar levels to increase quickly whereas complex carbohydrates will influence blood sugar levels slowly and more consistently.

Most fibres are found in plants were they are the structural support of the cell walls such as the kernel of a sweet corn. Hence high fibre diets usually include high amounts of whole grains, fruits and vegetables and low amounts of processed foods. As fibre is indigestible it carries no calories, as such it is even more surprising that nutritionists and dieticians appear to be so keen on increasing fibre in the diets of their clients. One explanation for this drive might be that a large proportion of the UK public is consuming less than the recommended 25-35g of fibre per day.

Yet what does fibre than add to our diet and why is it so important? Fibre adds bulk to your meals. This means fibre rich foods are often lower in energy. More importantly fibre rich foods help to give you a feeling of fullness because they are harder to chew, hence it takes longer to eat them and your brain has more time to register that you are full.

But this is not the only way fibre rich diets help you to feel full for longer, fibre swells in your stomach and takes much longer to pass through the digestive tract which means your urges to eat are delayed. Other suggested health promoting aspects of fibre rich diets are that fibre contains commonly pre-biotics which feed your gut micro flora and therefore could help to boost your immune system and fibre rich foods are also full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Finally fibre is thought to aid the binding of cholesterol and therefore helps to balance cholesterol levels.

There is another important aspect to know about fibre. Fibre comes in two different forms in our foods soluble and insoluble fibre. Soluble fibre becomes gel like if liquid is added. Hence soluble fibre swells in our stomach to a gel, which influences the binding with cholesterol and other fats in the digestive tract as mentioned above. Insoluble fibres on the other hand pass through the digestive tract without forming gels. They are believed to be highly beneficial to manage diabetes, constipation, haemorrhoids and appear to prevent some cancers.

However because most people’s diets are low in fibre increasing fibre in the diet may need some consideration. People opting for higher fibre intakes should assure to increase their liquid intakes to avoid getting constipated. It is also advisable to gradually increase fibre intakes to avoid bloating and wind, which often occurs alongside increased fibre intakes. The reason for these side effects are often a not well adapted gut micro flora so it will take some time for the gut micro flora to change and adapt to the new diet.

Although all plants are good sources of fibre, food particularly rich in fibre includes pulses (lentils, chickpeas, and dried beans), nuts and seeds, whole grains and cereals. If you aim to increase fibre intake also try to eat fruits and vegetables with skin/whole and chose regularly raw fruits and vegetables as cooking reduces the amount of fibre in fruits and vegetables.

Fibre has clearly become an interesting tool for the food industry, with ever more foods claiming to be high in fibre and whole grains to make us buy more of their products. While there is evidence that fibre has beneficial effects we need to remember that many other aspects of our diet and our daily lifestyle choices will influence our future health and therefore increasing your fibre intakes while sticking to other unhealthy habits may not be enough to prevent future health troubles.

Andrea Zick – Esteem Fitness Nutritionist
Esteem Fitness – Personal training London and South East UK

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