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(Part of our series on S3 Weight Management - Systematic, Stratified and Sustainable) One of the best ways to improve your overall health is to exercise. Yet from a weight loss perspective, exercise on average yields modest results. The explanation for is captured eloquently by the saying “you can’t outrun a poor diet”. Increasing physical activity increases energy expenditure - the challenge is that it increases appetite. If you have not made changes to your nutrition (eating real food, hydrating without calories, going 12 hours without food and increasing your fibre), then by increasing exercise and your appetite, you run the risk of actually gaining weight as you eat more. Where exercise has it main role in weight management - is helping to prevent you from regaining weight. Once you have lost weight, exercise does a great job of maintaining or increasing your metabolic rate.  Beyond weight management, exercise has numerous health benefits and lack of physical activity has been identified as the fourth leading risk factor for global mortality and has been estimated as being the principal cause for approximately:
It has been estimated that for every hour you exercise you increase your longevity by 7 hours (up to a total benefit of an additional 3 years) and exercise can reduce premature death from all causes by 16% and from cardiovascular disease by about 25%. Simply put, exercise helps you to avoid premature death and live longer. Exercise also has many benefits for the here and now:
Despite these benefits, only 17% of Canadians meet the current guidelines of 150 minutes of “moderate-to-vigorous physical activity” per week. (2019 Canadian Health Measures Survey) This recommendation supported by the WHO reflects the amount of exercise necessary to get most of these benefits. It can be broken down into as little as 10 minute increments. Moderate intensity physical activities will cause adults to sweat a little and to breathe harder - up to the point that you could still have a conversation. Vigorous intensity activities will cause adults to sweat more and be ‘out of breath’. In our Wellness Garage Principles, we recommend:
Some ideas from Participaction: ;
Pick a time. Pick a place. Make a plan and move more. For other posts in this series:
If you would like to learn more about the S3 program and whether you are eligible please check out our Sustainable Weight Management program page. (Part of our January series on S3 Weight Management - Systematic, Stratified and Sustainable) In the past year - one of the hottest health trends has been intermittent fasting and one it's most commonly used variants - time restricted eating. A recent New England Journal of Medicine article highlights the physiology of fasting as well as the potential benefits. Two years ago on the Better Blog we wrote on "Why time restricted eating makes sense (and maybe you should try it) which provides much of the scientific evidence for the benefits of fasting. What we want to emphasize here is something a bit different and even simpler:
 Why is this important?
From a weight management perspective - the simplest answer is that you will eliminate the empty or extra calories of night time snacking...and that might be all that there is to it. But I do think there is more; our bodies follow a diurnal rhythm that very closely follows a 24 hour light dark cycle. During the light part of the cycle, many genes are activated, while others are turned off, preparing our system for what is expected during the day:
During the dark part of the cycle, genes that were activated in the day get turned off, and others get activated, again in the effort of setting our system up for the expected activities
Up to 40% of our genes are affected by the diurnal rhythm - many by light, but some by the presence of absence of food. Putting this more simply, our bodies expect food in the daytime and fasting in the evening - evolution has designed us this way. Other benefits from going 12 hours without food is that it will improve metabolic flexibility - that switch that allows the body to go from utilizing stored carbohydrates to burning fat. If we want to lose weight, we obviously need this flexibility. In our thinking, we don't really think about going 12 hours a day without food as being a form of intermittent fasting - we think it is normal (and optimal) human behaviour. It is most likely what most of our grandparents did and it is certainly what you see in traditional societies. Consistently going 12 hours without food will likely provide many of the demonstrated benefits from intermittent fasting:
If you are interested in intermittent fasting, starting with 12 hours without food is the logical first step. We recommend that before starting IF, you have these foundations in place:
After 4 to 6 weeks extending the fast is something you can explore. The one major caveat to this is really important - if you are taking medications - please check with your doctor and come up with a plan before you start any time of fasting or time-restricted eating. For other posts in this series:
On January 22nd - we will launch a new group program - fully covered by MSP (for those with a BMI >30 or a BMI between 27 and 30 and a weight related diagnosis). During the month of January - we will be posting about the foundational behaviours for sustainable weight management - stay tuned. If you would like to learn more about the S3 program and whether you are eligible please check out our Sustainable Weight Management program page. (Part of our January series on S3 Weight Management - Systematic, Stratified and Sustainable) If you are trying to lose weight - here is a very simple rule - stay hydrated and do not drink your calories.  As Dr. Yoni Freedhof put it recently - "Drink only the calories you love", we might add "Learn to live water!"
Satiate your thirst with clear liquids - water, green tea, black coffee, seltzer. Drink when thirsty and then some. You’ll know your hydration level as the lighter your urine, the more hydrated you are! Liquid calories are always extra - they do not fill you and do not register in your brain’s satiation centre. Most calories in drinks come from either sugar or alcohol - and neither will help you with your goals. As with food, bio-individuality also applies to the amount of water our bodies need to function properly. On average men should ingest about 3.7 liters and women about 2.7 liters of water each day. This may seem like a lot, but this includes water that we get from our food, which accounts for an estimated 20% of water consumed daily. Try these tips and tricks for staying well hydrated!
For other posts in this series:
On January 22nd - we will launch a new group program - fully covered by MSP (for those with a BMI >30 or a BMI between 27 and 30 and a weight related diagnosis). During the month of January - we will be posting about the foundational behaviours for sustainable weight management - stay tuned. If you would like to learn more about the S3 program and whether you are eligible please check out our Sustainable Weight Management program page. Many of you have learned the hard way - diets do not work. Most diets are temporary and highly restrictive programs of eating pursued purely for the purpose of losing weight and are unfortunately damaging exercises in futility. If you are going to lose weight and keep it off - you have to address the root causes of your weight gain. We believe a stratified, systematic approach is the best and most reliable approach to sustainable weight loss.  To start there are two vital questions?
If there are significant medical or behavioural reasons for your weight gain - correcting these comes first. Embracing a flexible, “better mindset”, where you seek small incremental changes in behaviour works better than a rigid, “perfect” mindset. Sustainable, lifestyle change happens one healthy habit at a time. Over time, you find that you are eating real whole food, exercising regularly, sleeping well, coping with stress, and happy and fulfilled in relationships and purpose. For many people these changes are sufficient to unlock their ability to lose weight. For others we need to go deeper. In the end, all weight loss requires becoming efficient at burning fat for fuel. Unfortunately, some people, despite good nutrition are unable to effectively burn fat: they lack metabolic flexibility. Physiological testing provides the answer to whether you are metabolically flexible and able to burn fat. If the answer is no, pursuing specific strategies to unlock your ability to burn fat comes next. If at this stage you are metabolically flexible, have healthy behaviors, and have dealt with any contributing medical issues, the next thing to examine is your resting metabolic rate as determined by physiologic testing and compare it to your actual caloric intake, ensuring that there is a sufficient deficit to ensure weight loss. Our experience along with medical evidence has shown that this type of structured, behavioral program stratified on the basis of your personal data will lead to improved health and sustainable weight loss. On January 22nd - we will launch a new group program - fully covered by MSP (for those with a BMI >30 or a BMI between 27 and 30 and a weight related diagnosis). During the month of January - we will be posting about the foundational behaviours for sustainable weight management: If you would like to learn more about the S3 program and whether you are eligible please check out our Sustainable Weight Management program page. Consider this: rates of obesity continue to grow at epidemic levels while at the same time weight loss is big business ($68B and growing). If what the weight loss industry promoted actually worked, wouldn't it be reasonable to think that obesity rates should be declining? The problem is that dominant approaches to weight loss are one size fits all, quick fixes known as diets. Most diets are temporary and highly restrictive programs of eating pursued purely for the purpose of losing weight and are unfortunately damaging exercises in futility.  Research shows that dieting is ineffective for long term weight loss and maintenance of weight. Most people who lose weight by dieting will regain it after a year. Worse, many regain more weight than they ever lost in the first place. This pattern of weight loss followed by weight gain has been termed “yo-yo dieting” and has been linked to increased risk of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Contributing to these poor results are the abundance of fad diets, overly restrictive and often lacking in essential nutrients. Requiring massive will power, these diets may result in weight loss, but since the behaviour required is not sustainable the rebound in weight is swift. Inevitably, the dieter returns to the poor behaviours that led to the initial weight gain in the first place. Finally, these restrictive diets can take the pleasure away from eating and lead to lifelong disordered eating. If you are going to lose weight and keep it off - you have to address the root causes of weight loss and address the lifestyle behaviors that resulted in weight gain. Rather than restriction, the initial focus of any sustainable and effective approach should be on improving the quality of food in the first place. Healthy eating is all about eating and enjoying real food - not counting calories, points or tracking macros. But what is real food?
There is now clear evidence that eating processed foods leads to increased food consumption and weight gain. Further, when diets do work, they often do so by having people shift from refined, processed, packaged and fast foods to real, whole foods (for more on this here is a previous post). Along with making the shift to whole food eating, other keys to losing weight for the long term are:
Small, sustainable changes go a long way! Finally, understanding your weight loss in context of your history and current health should come first. It is essential that you work with your physician to understand if there are any other potential causes for your weight gain - especially hormonal, metabolic or inflammatory abnormalities. At Wellness Garage, we offer a medically directed lifestyle program for weight management. All medical visits are covered by MSP, for those with a BMI over 30 or a BMI > 27, with an obesity related diagnosis. Our program leverages a personalized, multidisciplinary lifestyle behavior change approach - your care team will consist of a physician, nutritionist, exercise professional and health coach who will get to know you from multiple perspectives and work with you to make lifelong habit changes. Learn more about the Wellness Garage Sustainable Weight Management program and to see if you qualify. |
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