The Slim Blog

Think of a birthday balloon.  When you blow it up it has to stretch to accommodate all the air, but when you deflate it, it never quite returns to it’s original firmness.  Frustratingly, the human skin is much the same.

When you eat more calories than your body burns, the excess is stored as fat.  The majority of those excess calories are stored in the body’s adipose tissue which is found just underneath the skin.  The more you overeat, the more your skin has to stretch to hold this stored fat.   After a large weight loss people are often left with loose skin on the arms, chest, waist and thighs.  Although the skin will firm up with time, for many the damage is permanent.

Here are the main factors that contribute to loose skin after weight loss:

• your age - the older you are, the more your skin loses it’s elasticity, so someone over 40 is more likely to be left with loose skin than someone in their 20s.
• your size - the bigger you are before you lose the weight, the more your skin is stretched, so the more likely you’ll be left with loose skin after weight loss.
• the timescale you held the weight - the longer you held the excess weight, the more you skin will have stretched to hold the excess weight.
• the speed of your weight loss - if you crash diet and lose the weight very quickly, the skin has less time adapt to your shrinking body.
• the number of times you’ve lost weight - if you have yo-yo dieted then your skin will have gone through many cycles of being stretched.

Sadly there are no simple treatments for loose skin.  If you are over 40, have yo-yo dieted for years and now lost a considerable amount of weight, then surgery is going to be your only option.  It’s probably hard to hear that if this applies to you, but at least you won’t waste time and money on creams and other treatments that claim to tighten loose skin.

For those reading this who are thinking about starting their yo-yo dieting career, there are a few things you can do to prevent loose skin:

1) Don’t gain weight in the first place

It sounds obvious, but so many people fall into the trap of thinking “it doesn’t matter if I gain a bit of weight now, I’ll just lose it when I’m ready”.  This way of thinking usually starts when people are gaining a bit of weight in their 20s and early 30s, but often leads to obesity and a lot of loose skin in their 40s and 50s.

2) Don’t crash diet

If you are overweight then you’ll no doubt be tempted by the range of milkshake diets promising rapid weight loss.  Although the weight loss is fast on these 500 calorie diets, they don’t give the skin a chance to tighten up.  If you want to prevent loose skin then aim for a weight loss of 1 - 2lbs per week.

2) Don’t yo-yo diet

Some people fluctuate between their ‘relaxed weight’ and their ‘ideal weight’.  This is fine if you are fluctuating 6 or 7 lbs in the healthy weight range, but for some people the difference can be 2 to 5 stone.  For example, a woman might relax to 14 stone in the winter and diet to be 11 stone in the summer.  This is guaranteed to cause loose skin. 

Excess weight will cause excess loose skin.  The bottom line is that if you want to prevent loose skin you need to find a lifestyle that keeps you in the healthy weight range.  The safest solution is monitor your weight with a weight tracker and manage your nutrition and exercise habits to keep you within 6 or 7lbs of your ideal weight.

Liam

The Slim Company
personal training and weight management | Baldock | Bedford | Biggleswade | Harpenden | Hatfield | Hertford | Hitchin | Letchworth | Luton | Royston | St Albans | Stevenage | Welwyn

The number you see when you step on your scales is the result of one thing and one thing only - your unique energy balance.  Whenever we talk about diet, nutrition, calories, exercise, fat burning, metabolism and so on, these are all factors that make up our energy balance equation.  If you can understand your energy balance, and how you can influence it, you will become an expert at weight management!

Your body is like a bank account

Think of your bank account.  No I’m not trying to depress you! It’s just that your ”bank balance” makes for a very useful comparison with your “energy balance”.  Your bank account works on a simple equation - money in vs money out, what you earn vs what you spend.  Most people assess their finances on a monthly basis:

• If you earn £2000 and spend £2000, your bank balance remains equal.
• If you earn £2500 and spend £2000, your bank balance increases by £500.
• If you earn £2000 and spend £2500, your bank balance decreases by £500. 

Some days money might come into your account, other days money might be spent from your account, but if you look at your bank balance at the end of the month you get an idea of what’s going on… hopefully without having a nervous breakdown!

Understanding calories

Your body works in the exact same way as a bank account, except the units aren’t money, but calories.  One calorie (kcal) is a unit of energy, in the same way one pound (£) is a unit of currency or one litre (l) is a unit of fluid.  You don’t find calories swimming around in your food!  They aren’t some kind of nasty molecule that make your bum grow bigger!  They are simply a measurement of the energy in the food you eat and burn.

Calories in vs Calories out

The energy balance equation is as follows - calories in vs calories out.  The left side of the equation (calories in) is simply the amount of energy we eat each day, in the form of carbohdydrate, protein and fat.  The right side of the equation (calories out) is simply the amount of energy we burn each day, as a result of our body’s metabolism.  The energy balance equation is usually assessed on a daily basis, rather than a monthly basis:

• If you eat 2000 and burn 2000, your weight will remain equal. 
• If you eat 2500 and burn 2000, your weight will go up by 1lb per week. 
• If you eat 2000 and burn 2500, your weight will go down by 1lb per week. 

Excess calories are stored as fat on your body, causing your weight to go up.  A shortage of calories forces your body to burn off fat, casuing your weight to go down - to understand how calories convert into weight changes read the magic numbers of weight loss.

Your energy balance changes every day!

It is so important to remember that calories in and calories out aren’t constant.  There will be some days when you eat more and some days when you eat less.  Think of those really strict diet days (1000 calories in) compared to those binge days (5000 calories in).  There will be some days when you burn more and some days when you burn less.  Think of those days when you go for it at the gym (3000 calories out) compared to those days when you slob out (1800 calories out).  However, just like your bank account, if you track your weight on a monthly basis you can calculate the exact number of calories your body is burning or storing on average per day.

TAKE NOTE- dieters often look at their weight daily and get upset when it bounces up and down.  These changes are just fluctuations in water levels, and aren’t actually long-term changes in fat weight.  That’s why it is important to track your weight and look at it’s path over longer periods of time.  It would be irrational to check your bank account everyday and start celebrating when money goes in or getting depressed when money goes out!  You assess your bank balance monthly, and you should do the same with your weight.

Liam

The Slim Company
personal training and weight management | Baldock | Bedford | Biggleswade | Harpenden | Hatfield | Hertford | Hitchin | Letchworth | Luton | Royston | St Albans | Stevenage | Welwyn

1) Forget fat… focus on your carbohydrate intake.

So many dieters make the mistake of following a rigidly low-fat diet, but don’t realise that the underlying cause of their weight gain is eating too much carbohydrate - usually in the form of chocolate, bread and alcohol. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?! The real cause of weight gain is raised levels of insulin - a hormone that promotes fat storage and blocks the hormones that trigger fat burning. Your Insulin levels rise the more you eat carbohydrate, so the only way to achieve lower insulin levels is to stop focusing on low-fat, fat-free, or 10% fat foods and start watching your carbohydrate intake.

2) Be realistic about your carbohydrate intake.

As a rule, the more you reduce your carbohydrate intake the faster you’ll lose weight, even with a high fat diet. But before you reach for your Atkins cookbook try to keep in mind that all very low-carb diets (a) ruin your social life, and (b) always result in rebound weight gain. If you’ve got a wedding or a holiday in a month then banishing carbohydrate is great for a quick fix, but be prepared to see your weight fly back on… and more! If you’re looking to lose weight long term then the only sustainable approach is to set goals to improve the quality, quantity and timing of your carbohydrate intake.

3) QUALITY - eat less of the junk food.

When you eat poor quality, refined carbohydrate your blood gets flooded with sugar leading to huge insulin spikes and increased fat storage. The worst offenders are sweets, crisps, biscuits, chocolate, cakes, white bread/pasta/rice, and frustratingly… alcohol! Cutting out all of these foods would make life miserable, so set yourself some realistic nutrition goals. How about keeping your alcohol intake to the weekend? Or only treat yourself to chocolate on a Sunday? Or cut down to one bag of crisps a day instead of three! Whatever your goal, make it realistic, sustainable and reward yourself for sticking at it!

4) QUANTITY - watch your portion sizes.

Portion control is an absolute must for keeping your blood sugar levels down, especially at dinner time when there’s less chance of it being burned off. Low-fat spaghetti bolognese, reduced fat shepherd’s pie, 10% fat sausages and mash… mountains of pasta and potatoes are an insulin nightmare just waiting to happen! Take your Friday night curry with rice, naan bread, a potato dish, a pudding and the usual booze… easily 2000 calories of insulin surging carbohydrate in one meal! Be realistic and have the Friday night curry, but get into the habit of having just two types of carbohydrate, not five!

5) TIMING - eat less and less as the day goes on.

You should breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord, dine like a pauper. The ideal timing of carbohydrate intake is to have a high-carb breakfast, a moderate carb lunch, but a low-carb dinner. Loading your carbohydrate intake before 3pm is important because you need fuel in the morning and daytime, but by 6pm it’s like putting petrol into a car that’s already got a full tank. If you get your carbohydrate balance right you should wake up feeling ravenous, your appetite should lessen as the day goes on and you should head to bed on an empty stomach - forcing your body to burn fat as you sleep.

Liam

The Slim Company
personal training and weight management | Baldock | Bedford | Biggleswade | Harpenden | Hatfield | Hertford | Hitchin | Letchworth | Luton | Royston | St Albans | Stevenage | Welwyn

Yes I know I had five skinny muffins… but the people who make them used the latest ‘calorie compression techniques’ so I won’t gain an ounce! - anonymous

I work with a lot of veteran dieters who have been through the slimming clubs and back again more times than they can remember.  They all share the same confusion as to how they’ve gained weight, but when I look at their nutrition there is no mystery.  Usually it is filled with so-called ‘diet and slimming foods’ - low fat biscuits, low calorie desserts, healthy option cereals and bars, diet ready meals and skinny muffins!

Slimming club members have been taught to follow a low-fat diet.  What they’re not told is that these high carbohydrate diet foods are often the underlying cause of their weight gain.

I noticed a certain healthy option yogurt that kept popping up in the nutrition diary of one of my new clients.  She showed me the yogurt and to be fair the label looked great! 

• Low in fat
• Full of calcium to help stengthen your bones
• Contains friendly bacteria to aid digestion

…all with big tick symbols just to remind you that you’re making the right choice!  Sadly for her, what they forgot to mention is the incredibly inhospitable, unfriendly, chin multiplying calories it contains - just over 600, which is about the same as a Big-Mac!

Some of the most well advertised diet foods do actually contain a large number of calories, even the ones that say ‘only 199 calories per pack’.  That’s like saying, ‘you’ll only have to run for 20 minutes to burn this off!’.  Doesn’t sound quite so appealing though does it?!

So next time you see a diet or weight loss food advertised on TV keep in mind -

• Diet foods are often full of poor quality carbohydrate.
• Slimming desserts are full of chemicals and sugar.
• Low in fat doesn’t mean low in calories.

My advice? Learn how to read the nutrition info (conveniently for the food manufacturers this is tucked away on the back) and ignore all the fibs plastered on the front!

Liam

The Slim Company
personal training and weight management | Baldock | Bedford | Biggleswade | Harpenden | Hatfield | Hertford | Hitchin | Letchworth | Luton | Royston | St Albans | Stevenage | Welwyn

I’ve often thought about where all the fat goes when I diet.  One thing is for sure…. it doesn’t go far cos it keeps finding me whenever I lose it! I think it hides around the corner and jumps back on board when i’m not concentrating! - anonymous

That lady has neatly summed up the problem faced by all serial dieters - keeping the weight off.  Slimming clubs all over the world have made their fortunes from the weight rebound effect.  Start a diet… lose the weight… give up the diet… regain the weight…. and so on.  Sounds familiar doesn’t it?!

I remember one of my first ever clients telling me how, despite her being 16 stone, she was a ‘weight loss expert’.  True, she had been slimmer of the year.  Yes, she knew every diet inside out.  And fair enough, she had lost an incredible amount of weight at slimming clubs over the years - in total over 30 stone.  But for all her weight loss and diet expertise, she continually struggled to keep the weight off. 

Dieters repeatedly approach weight loss like the washing up.  The more it piles up, the less they want to deal with it.  When it does pile up too high they ignore it.  And when enough is enough they’ll find a massive burst of motivation, clean it all up, wipe their brow when the job’s done… and then sit back and let it pile up all over again! 

So what’s the big secret? How is it that some people lose the weight and keep it off while others see their weight rebound in a matter of weeks?  The secret is… sustainability.  Whatever you do to lose the weight, you have to sustain to keep the weight off.

If you’ve got 7lbs to lose for a holiday, then diet.  But diet in the knowledge it’ll all be back by the flight home!  If you’re looking to achieve a healthy weight long-term, dieting is not an option.  You have to change you’re nutritional habits so that you always eat the right amount for your metabolism.  There is no other way to sustain your weight loss.

So if you’re thinking about starting a diet or joining a slimming club, just remember one thing.  If you can’t eat like that for life, then you won’t keep the weight off for life.

Liam

The Slim Company
personal training and weight management | Baldock | Bedford | Biggleswade | Harpenden | Hatfield | Hertford | Hitchin | Letchworth | Luton | Royston | St Albans | Stevenage | Welwyn