Category Archives for "Nutrition"

0 Eat More and Lose Weight

“Eat more and loose weight”.

Yesterday I said that to my client and he looked at me as if I was speaking Klingon.

No, I am not crazy and that is exactly what I meant.

The human stomach can dilate to about 4 litres in volume, and that is quite a bit.

Unfortunately, there are still people talking about cutting calories and decreasing portions, without regards to food quality. That leads to the persistence of thinking that in order to loose weight one should starve. That just isn’t true.

Even worse: if you starve into leanness it will work short term but long term you will end up with more problems than in the beginning, as you will have selectively mal nourished your body, stayed in permanent starvation mode and turning yourself into a fat making and storing machine.

Have you even heard of metabolic damage?

It is exactly what it sounds: someone pushes his body to the extreme for so long that the person creates damages in the organs, tissues, glands and hormones. So deep that it takes a lot of work and sometimes professional help to get better, without any guarantees that the body will ever be able to process food and nutrients properly.

But that is the subject for another post.

Let’s go back to more food = a better you.

There is so much space in our stomachs and if your stomach can dilate to 4 liters and you have 3 litres of useless soda there you will not have much space for grass fed beef, sweet potato and greens salad.

It is mathematics, pure and simple.

Eat first the things that your body needs to help you look and feel better: green leafy vegetables, non-starchy veggies, lean animal protein. Then a bit of the things that are high in calories but helpful to you, like fatty fish and nuts. Then the stuff that you like, has some nutritional value and tastes good, like fruit.

After all that, you will not have much space for anything else, and you will be satisfied.  So the likeliness of you binging on high-caloric, low-nutrient junk will be sharply decreased.

In plain English: stuff yourself with good food and you won’t have much space for the junk.  You’ll end up looking and feeling great and you won’t starve!

0 The Thirst For Success

We all want to:

1. feel better

2. look better, and

3. be richer!

Well, I can’t really help you with number 3, but if you are really into the first 2 there is something quite simple that everyone can do: drink water.

It has 0 calories, it’s used in pretty much in every function of  your body, and it makes up 70% of your tissues.

Do you feel pain? Drink water.
Do you feel lethargic? Drink water.
Do you feel cranky? Drink water.
Do you feel bloated? Drink water.

You may not solve all of these problems as they each can have more than one cause, but I assure you that if you are drinking enough H2O, you are better physically than most people that I know, as chronic dehydration is rampant.

So how much is enough?

1 litre (or 4 cups) for each 50 lbs of body weight.

Normally people complain about 2 things when I tell them that they should be drinking more:

1. I am not thirsty! Translation: I am so dehydrated that my brain has shut down that thirst response in order to keep working properly.

2. I pee all the time! Maybe you just didn’t urinate at all before, or maybe you are drinking too much at once, as the body can absorb only a certain amount at the time.

The trick is quite simple.  Let’s say that you are 150lbs. You should be drinking 3 litres of H2O a day.  But you don’t feel thirsty!

So:

wake up and start drinking it right away

1 cup every hour = 250 ml/h
3 litres = 3.000 ml

3.000/250 = 12

it will take you 12h to drink all the water that you need

if you start peeing clear more than once every 30 min you stop drinking

It may take a few weeks for your body to get used to being properly hydrated. And the results are worth it!

This may not make you richer, but for sure your skin, hair, muscles and joints will thank you big time!