Monday 30 November 2015

Metabolic Balance diet: day 12

I had a brilliant day today.

I woke up pretty early but also totally refreshed so I made the most of this time to do some Christmas shopping online and I managed to get all of my husband's presents plus lots of bits and pieces for the family; I'm officially almost done with my Christmas shopping! Smug.

Going back to my sleep pattern, I've noticed that I'm a lot less tired than I used to and I generally don't seem to need quite as much sleep. I go to bed at the same time, sleep really well and either wake up before my alarm or when my alarm goes but, either way I'm always ready to go and face the day. I've always been a good sleeper but you'd think that you'd be tired on a diet and that you would yearn for your bed. But no, I've got lots of energy and I'm getting tons done during the day - hence why this year's Christmas is pretty much sorted. Still smug.

No cravings at all, today I felt brilliant, everything seemed to fall into place: the food was good, nutritious, filling enough and warm.

I had my usual breakfast and turned my egg salad into scrambled eggs with vegetables, accompanied by some lovely rye bread my husband got me from Waitrose - Schneider Brot, made in Germany so the real deal of rye bread.

I got a bit hungry before lunch but isn't that the point? I always tell my clients that if they're not hungry before a meal it's because they have eaten too much at the previous meal. Hunger is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as "a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat". 

I don't totally agree with "coupled with the desire to eat", as you can be hungry and really not want to eat, when you're ill for example and that you haven't eaten for a long time. But my point is that if hunger is caused by lack of food, if you're not "hungry" before a meal then you should not be eating. I often get people telling me they snack when they get home/ when they're preparing their meal "to get the edge off", but that's missing the point of hunger: if you eat as soon as you feel a twinge of hunger, automatically you won't really be hungry by the time your dinner is ready and so, by definition, you shouldn't be eating. Can you see that our snacking culture is messing with our body's cues and our metabolism? Allow yourself to be hungry, don't fear it, you're not going to die. Embrace hunger, it's a very normal physiological response. It doesn't mean you need to starve yourself and fast but it means you need to learn not to constantly eat between meals, there's no need, it'll only mess with you metabolism. Fast between meals is my new motto.

I think we need to stop being so bloody humans really, only we disregard our body's cues and eat not because we're hungry but because we're sad, happy, bored, angry etc. Animals don't do that, I mean wild animals. When a lion is hungry it'll hunt a gazelle, run to catch it, eat it until satiated, sleep and do it all again next time. A lion doesn't go nibbling on a gazelle because it's bored and that's why you'll never see an obese lion in the wild.





Sunday 29 November 2015

Metabolic Balance diet: day 11

Today was by far the hardest. Apparently, it's quite common mid way into the second week, the equivalent of the marital 7 year glitch, but I didn't see it coming.

With hindsight it's not surprising, I almost told you yesterday that it was going to be hard, I committed the fatal mistake of being negative and concentrating on the hurdles I was going to have to jump over instead of thinking of the finishing line. The irony is that I've warned my clients of this many times: don't focalise on the short term sacrifices but on the long term gain. Don't tell yourself it's going to be hard, dreadful, boring, bland etc., if you're tell yourself this is going to be the outcome, the outcome is likely to be this. Set yourself up for success not failure.

So in my head in went a bit like thing: another sunday of having to weigh my food and not sharing breakfast with everyone, boohoo, another tuna salad, boohoo, I really want some nuts, boohoo! Poor me! Part of me wanted to tantrum and tell everyone it wasn't fair, not fair at all!

When I finally managed to turn those whingy feelings into some rational thoughts, I did ask myself why today was really so hard, apart from the fact that I had told myself it would be. After all it's not that I was hungry, it's not that I didn't enjoy the food, I wasn't tired and on top of that I can feel that my trousers are getting looser so surely this should be a good incentive. So what the hell was wrong with me?!!

And then as lunch approached I realised what was wrong: I was cold.

I was cold and the prospect of a cold salad (not just a cold meal but a meal, most of the ingredients of which would be coming from the fridge) made me want to scream, run and burry myself in a baked potato.

I'm always cold, especially in the winter months but the diet is making me even colder and I'm finding this hard. I guess it's to be expected, I'm losing fat and fat is very good insulation - just think penguins. I guess it would have been easier in the summer but that's a bit late now, I'm almost done and I'm not going to cheat - if you do, you have to start all over again so keep that thought.

So what I've decided instead is to accept my weaknesses (when I'm cold, I would do anything to warm up again) and work around it. I think for the few remaining days, it's really important that all my meals are hot, no more salads. I'm still going to lose insulation/fat but a warm meal 3 times a day will really help to avoid being freezing, wanting to throw the towel in and feeling sorry for myself.

We all have weaknesses but the key is to identify them and find a way to bypass them - it's bit like a wave, if you're in the water and see a big wave coming, swim towards it and you might get a chance to avoid it, if you swim away you can be sure it'll crash in your face.

What's your weakness?

Saturday 28 November 2015

Metabolic Balance diet: day 10

Day 10 on the diet and my second weekend, which I was approaching with a certain apprehension as today's plan was to meet up with some friends (German again, can you spot a theme?) and go to the Christmas market in Exeter.

It has become a bit of a tradition that each year we go there with the kids, chat and drink mulled wine.
Mulled wine that this year I wasn't going to be able to have...

Was it going to be the same without the warmth and spice of the mulled wine? Was I going to be miserable and cranky? Was I also going to be super hungry and tempted among all that christmassy food, the French stalls with the delicacies from home, the crepes etc.

So, like a good girl, I prepared my lunch last night and brought it with me in case it might become all too unbearable and I braced myself for the cravings.

Our friends arrived a bit late, not actually really late but 15 mins standing in the cold wind is enough to freeze me all over. So I was cold and dreading the "want some?" - I'm getting a bit bored about telling friends I'm on a diet but explaining to them when they look at me in shock that, no it's not to lose weight but for the greater good.

The men almost immediately decided they "needed" a sausage - it was 11am!! That I wasn't tempted by and actually was grateful to finally be sheltered somewhere vaguely warm. Then we walked through the market and all the smells were pleasant but I didn't feel a particular the urge to eat anything - it looked good but you know what, it'll still be there when I'm finished with the diet and next year too, so no big deal.

Then mulled wine time arrived and it was fine, my friends being my friends didn't insist "go on, just a small one; it won't matter". They had some, I didn't and that was that. I often warn people of friends who, consciously or not, try to sabotage your diet. Women are particularly good at that it seems and I wonder if because it is somewhat threatening in our society to see someone taking control of their life, does that expose your own lack of control?

So all was well apart that I got uber cold and that had to crank up the heating in the car all the way back home to regain the feel of my fingers and toes.

I ate my salad at home, as it was the right time and didn't particularly want to rush it in the car before leaving Exeter with my tired 3 year old nattering at me. The salad was good, surprisingly I'm not missing the fat that much, and the coffee after even better - at last something warm!

Tomorrow is Sunday and I'm aware that keeping busy is going to be the key: if you're on a diet, being bored and wondering into the kitchen can mess with your head and make you confuse boredom and habit for actual hunger.. so pay attention folks!

Friday 27 November 2015

Metabolic Balance diet: day 9

Today was a super easy day and I have no doubt that the results from yesterday helped. I mean, at the start of week I was excited but, really, completely in the dark as to what the results were going to be and, frankly at the start when you're hungry and have to get your head round your new diet, it's easy to lose faith and think "what's the point?"

Now I know that the point is that you fat and quite fast too.

Today was also easy because I felt I was eating plenty and that I really enjoyed my food. I'm loving my porridge and surprisingly, given the quantity and the fact that I've never found porridge filling, it does keep me going until lunch.

What tends to happen every day is that around 10.30am, I feel hungry and think "Oh my Goodness, I'm already hungry and will never last until lunch!". And yet the hunger soon dissipates and I feel totally fine, as if I had had some food - I don't feel full but I don't feel hungry nor lightheaded like I used to.

The same doesn't happen in the afternoon and I think this is because my lunch is bigger than my breakfast and contains way more protein so it keeps me going for longer.

The reason I feel hungry mid-morning is simply because my breakfast contains more carbohydrates than protein and so my blood sugar drops more quickly ("quickly" is all relative of course, it would drop a whole lot quicker had I had a bowl of Crunch Nuts!). If we think about it 10.30am is exactly 3h after my breakfast, which corresponds to my when my blood sugar is starting to dip. The normal response would be to have a snack and logic would have it that if you don't, you're going to get more and more hungry and yet the opposite happens. Why? Because the body is amazing! Your body won't  let you starve if it can help it: if your blood sugar is low, your body will release some stored energy i.e., sugar and/or fat. And because on the Metabolic Balance, you eat the right foods for you, your body gradually becomes more efficient at burning fat. So between 10.30am and my lunch, I'm most likely burning fat.

Isn't that amazing?!

Thursday 26 November 2015

Metabolic Balance diet: day 8

Today marks the completion on my first week on the diet: 2 days of detox (phase 1) and 5 days on phase 2, during which I'm allowed only very specific foods tailored according to my blood results and absolutely no added fat whatsoever.

I've got another 8 days worth of phase 2 before I can enter phase 3, a more relaxed phase during which I will be able to introduce more foods and in bigger quantities, as well as a cheat meal a week!

For the sake of the experiment, I thought it'd be good to do a little stop check to see where we were at the half way point so I weighed myself and took all my measurements again this morning and here are the results:

Weight: -1.2kg (2.6lbs)
Waist: -4cm
Hips: -1cm
Thighs: -1cm

Now some of you might say, "is that all?", but remember that I'm only doing this as an experiment, I don't really need to lose weight as I'm already at the lower end of a healthy BMI so I can't be expected to shed lots and lots of pounds. From talking to other Metabolic Balance coaches, some people who are truly overweight can lose quite a bit more.

Also, I normally view a weight loss of 1lb a week totally reasonable so 2.6lbs is pretty good I think. Remember that this isn't a crash diet, this program isn't your bog standard "drop down two dress sizes in a week" kind of thing.

The most amazing thing about the results were the stats on my scales. My scales measure not just your weight but also your body fat percentage, your metabolic rate, your visceral fat, your level of hydration, your muscle mass and more. After taking my readings I had to look at them for a while to comprehend it all because at first it didn't make sense or didn't seem possible. My weight had dropped by a bit and so my BMI, normal, my hydration level and muscle mass were pretty unchanged, but my metabolic rate was higher and my body fat had reduced dramatically.

It's common when you diet for your metabolism to slow down, hence why people yo-yo - you starve yourself, your metabolism slows down, you get bored with the diet, go back to eating "like a normal person", as one of my clients told me recently, but then you put weight on because your body doesn't burn quite as many calories. Not fair? Maybe not but your body is trying to protect itself in case you decide to starve again...

So, often on diets your metabolism slows down but here my metabolism is higher than it was, my body is becoming more efficient at burning calories. Isn't that cool? And I didn't even exercise one bit (you're not allowed on phase 2).

What really floored me was my body fat though and at first I thought I had got it wrong or that perhaps my scales needed recalibrating but no, my body fat percentage went from 26.5% (i.e., between ideal and average for a woman of my age) to 18%3 (lean). 18.3%?!! That's mad, in the space of a week my body fat percentage has dropped by 8.2%! My visceral fat has also gone from 2.5 to 1.

That pretty much means that this seemingly measly 1.2kg or 2.6lbs that I lost is pure fat.

In a week it's pretty incredible I think, especially considering I haven't had to drink disgusting shakes or fast or exercise.

I can't wait to see what happens at the end of next week, bring on the next 8 days!

Wednesday 25 November 2015

Metabolic Balance diet: day 7

Today was going swimmingly well until I made one fatal mistake: I didn't have all of my lunch.

It's not a rule that you have to abide to, you don't have to eat everything on your plan but today I probably should have stuck to my menu. I was supposed to have a chicken salad for lunch and, as part of my plan, I'm also allowed 4 slices of rye bread a day and normally have one with my lunch but today I wasn't that hungry and I guess I wanted to see whether I was eating it because "I could" or because I really needed it.

Turns out I needed it.

By 5.30pm I was really hungry but I didn't want to break the 5h rule so I was becoming more and more ratty as I was handing out lovely plates of food to my boys. Between 5.30pm and 7.30pm when I had my dinner was hard and I properly felt like I was on a diet. In my head I was like a 3 year old having a tantrum: I'm hungry, I'm hungry! It's not fair, they get to eat and I don't! This is rubbish, I don't even want to lose weight!

I "cheated" I suppose and had a cup of chicken stock, which to be fair I had skimmed of most of the fat. I just needed something warm to carry me to dinner and prevent me from shouting at everyone (well, I may have shouted, a bit).

I guess it was especially hard because I wasn't at all looking forward to my dinner: cod and vegetables en papillotte. I would normally like that but without any butter?! Dull, dull, dull, my head said. Yet this is what I had and guess what? It was delicious, absolutely lovely, so much so that I'm definitely having the same tomorrow for lunch. It was just perfect and the absence of butter was almost a good thing, it tasted fresh and clean. Lovely.

I can't wait for tomorrow's lunch, although I think I'll have some rye bread with that...

Tuesday 24 November 2015

Metabolic Balance Diet: day 6

What to say about today?

Well, Tuesdays are super manic days for me: a bit of work at the crack of dawn before everyone wakes up, getting everyone ready (could you put your shoes on darling, have you put your shoes on yet?, please put your shoes on now, SHOES!!!), school run, 3h to myself to do work, DIY, housework, prepare stuff for dinner etc., pre-school pick up, play date with youngest son, school pick up, 45min drive to go to french school, 1.5h french school, 45min drive to go home, bath, stories, cuddles, more cuddles.. and FINALLY sit down for dinner.

A normal Tuesday then, except that I only slept 5h last night because of the kids, and that really I'm on a diet. A full on day when tired and on a diet is quite hard it turns out.

I knew it was going to be manic so I was organised and boiled some eggs while in the shower, then  made my lunch while preparing my youngest son's packed lunch. Organisation is key on any diet. Set yourself up for success not failure.

So that part was easy but what was difficult was timing. You're supposed to leave 5h minimum between your meals and you also need to fast for 12h overnight. Not too hard once you get the hang of it but today eating before pre-school would have meant breaking the 5h rule and eating at the right time (around 1pm) was tricky because we were off on a play date. My option were: 1) eat quickly in the car between pick up and play date (not really in keeping with my philosophy of mindful eating), 2) eat at the play date (a bit awkward as, although the mum is super nice, I don't really know her that well so I didn't feel comfortable turning up with my egg salad), c) eat later. I chose option c and that meant remembering to take my salad in the car before doing the pre-school pick up and then eating it in the car in the school car park, in peace while my son was asleep, waiting for my eldest son to finish school. It worked but I was pretty hungry by then as it was 2.30pm.

I was really hungry but interestingly it wasn't particularly difficult to go 7h without eating even though my breakfast was quite small. I was hungry but not crankily desperate for food; it's almost as if my body has been re-setting itself.

The afternoon was pretty plain sailing, just a bit tired but I think it's to do with the last of sleep rather than the food. I'm looking forward to going to bed now and also to reaching the last day of my first week on the Metabolic Balance diet. Almost a week already! It's a lot easier than I thought.

Monday 23 November 2015

Metabolic balance diet: day 5

This morning we woke up to find that a sparkly dust of frost had been sprinkled over all, it was beautiful but my Goodness it was cold!

Like the perfectionist that I am, I was very organised at the start of it all and designed myself a menu plan for the two weeks ahead so that I would be prepared and wouldn't end up messing the program with rushed decisions. So on the menu this morning was yoghurt and blueberries and I made the mistake of actually sticking to my plan... I don't buy fresh blueberries in the colder months (i.e., most of the year, part from 2 weeks when the sun does make an apparition), it's just not worth it: they're extortionate, tasteless and probably devoid of nutrients since they've come from the other side of the world. Instead I buy frozen blueberries and this was my downfall today.

I suffer from Raynaud's syndrome, which means I'm pretty intolerant to the cold and so the combination of the temperature having suddenly dropped overnight and eating yoghurt from the fridge and blueberries barely defrosted was enough to tip me over the edge. I was shivering for hours, my fingers and toes were completely numb and even my attempt at warming my hands with the hairdryer miserably failed.

Tomorrow, I'm having porridge, I don't care what the menu says!

This morning I also woke up to find that my face had been adorned with a few spots - I know Christmas is lurking but I could really do without that type of decorations, thanks. It was to be expected though and it probably shows that the "diet" is working. I'm quite possibly releasing toxins as a result of fat loss. Did you know that toxins loved fat? Although we do excrete toxins via our urine and faeces but don't get rid of them all and because toxins are lipophilic, when we lose fat we also open the gates to toxins. Nothing to worry about, it'll soon pass.

Got to go, a baked apple is waiting for me...

Sunday 22 November 2015

Metabolic Balance diet: day 4

Today's breakfast was porridge made with just oats and almond milk. Although I don't normally have any sugar or honey I would add a mashed banana to porridge to sweetened it a bit, so I was approaching this breakfast with a pinch of skepticism (that's allowed...).

To my surprise it was perfectly fine and actually quite sweet, it's funny how when you remove sweetness entirely you get to discover the real sweetness of food. Of course porridge on its own is sweet, it's a bowl of starch! Starch is a molecule that plants make in order to store sugar and it's made of long chains of glucose. Try it at home and chew some bread for a bit, instead of gobbling it like most of us do, and you'll start tasting a certain sweetness: that's glucose that results from the starch molecules having been broken down into pieces by the enzyme amylase.

So breakfast was good, even though I was drooling a bit when I handed hot buttered bagels to the kids. A nutritionist who admits to liking bagels?! Shock horror! I'm sure I'll go to nutritionist hell for that but hey ho, I'll probably end up in hell anyway. The only thing about this breakfast is that it crucially lacked protein for my liking, hence why I don't tend to have porridge for breakfast, so by midday I was pretty hungry.

Lunch at our friends' was lovely, despite me lonely eating my soup while the others tucked into tarragon chicken and chocolate cloud cake, courtesy of Nigella. It just made me realise how much of our social life revolves around food and that actually the food should be secondary to the event, not the event itself. Today was great, not because of the soup, not even inspire of the soup, it was great because I got to spend some time with lovely people, because I got to laugh and rest and because all of that gave me a real sense of fulfilment. Friendship, family and love can also be very nourishing.

I wonder: how much of the overeating we do is linked to a sense of emptiness brought on by our hectic lifestyle?


Saturday 21 November 2015

Metabolic balance: the start of the journey

No new recipe today, even though I have lots to post, just rambling...

Over the years, I have seen many clients and, as they said at college, after a while you realise that you end up seeing more of a certain type of clients and that you end up "specialising" in that area. For me, despite what I initially planned, that area has been weight loss.

I didn't particularly want to do weight loss, I wanted to do more technical stuff like sports nutrition but it's almost as if I was kidding myself, almost as if I was always meant to deal with weight problem. After all, isn't that how I got into nutrition? I struggled with my weight, then lost weight and struggled with my body in general, then got better (I make it sound easy here but it really wasn't) and decided to help others - that's 20 years of my life summarised, just like that.

My calling was to help people with their weight, either losing it or putting it on, so it's only natural that without even trying, the bulk of my clients come to see me with weight problems. And over the years, I've grown to like it: it's both the easiest and the hardest thing to tackle. It's easy because when you know about physiology, you know what it takes to make people lose weight and yet it's hard because you're not dealing with machines but humans and that humans are super twisted and complex and that they generally don't do what they're expected to do!

Anyway, I've seen my fair share of weight loss clients and usually it goes pretty smoothly but now and again I encounter cases that just stump me. You know, people who are quite big and you just don't know why. Most people are big because they eat too much (why they eat too much is for another post) but some people come to see me and floor me with their diets, they hardly eat anything!

I can already hear some of you, sniggering that those people just lie on the food diary and that in reality they spent their days munching on crisps and chocolate bars, but I'm skeptical. I see these people, I see the desperation in their eyes and I believe them. What do I do with them? How can I help, I ask myself? They're already doing what they're supposed to do and yet they're way bigger than they should be. Could it be their genes? Is it that they have big bones? Their hormones? Perhaps, but I've always suspected that the problem was to do with their metabolism. That they have a much slower metabolism than they ought to have, perhaps brought on by years of yo-yo dieting. And so my question was of course, how (apart from telling them to do more exercise, which they often hate or can't do because they're too big) do I change their metabolism? How to kick start a slow metabolism?

This is what brought me to Metabolic Balance, a programme for healthy weight management, which was developed by doctors and nutritionists in Germany.

It’s a tailor made programme that uses blood analysis to generate an eating plan designed especially for you. And before you ask, no it's not a blood type diet, it’s not based on your blood type but on an analysis of your own blood.

It is not a fad diet; it is nutritionally sound and uses real food no shakes, creams or bars. You eat three nutritious meals every day and choose the foods from your personal food list. With the help of the right foods and a few simple rules you establish a new regime that enables you to achieve and maintain your perfect weight.

It works by promoting hormone balancing (so it is do with our hormones after all!) and primarily by regulating the amount of insulin your body produces. Fat burning and weight loss occur almost as a side effect of restored hormone balance.

Sounds good, doesn't it?

So off I went to London a few weeks ago to learn about the program and how it could help my clients and there I became a Metabolic Balance coach.

The science behind the concept is makes sense and the results of the program sound amazing but I really felt like I had to try it on myself before being a true convert.  So I had my blood taken, which was interesting in itself (all good but signs of being a bit frazzled - for the mums who know me, you'll know why!), and from there I got my plan, my bible of what I should and shouldn't be eating.

What first struck me was that a lot of the food I'm supposed to be eating are foods that I normally eat, would that be why I'm "naturally" slim? 

My second thought was that I was going to have to reschedule my social life for the first 2 weeks!

The programme starts with a gentle 2 days detox, which I was dreading but actually was pretty easy. Then you move on to the second phase, which I won't lie is pretty strict at first sight (remember it's German) but not nearly that bad. 

Today is day 1 (out of 14) of phase 2 and I've eaten pretty well, I had a wobble at lunch time because I was sooooo cold and really wanted something hot and comforting but had planned and already made a tuna salad. I wasn't what I wanted but it was still nice and amazingly it filled me up until dinner time without a mere hunger twinge.

Tomorrow we're going to see some friends but I warned them that I would be bringing my lunch... I wouldn't normally do that but for the sake of the experiment it has to be done (plus they're German so they'll understand!). It was that or re-scheduling but that meant not seeing them before Xmas and as you all know, Xmas is that very important deadline by which everything has to be done!

Off to fast for 12h now...