Dear readers,

Welcome to Week 1 of our series on Trim and Tone with Pleasure – S²ER²: The secret to lose weight and keep it. Sorry for posting one day late. As promised, for the next 8 weeks, we are going to inform you and give you useful tips on nutrition and how best to consume food. Not only that, but we are also here to help you lose weight and keep it – without going hungry, without giving up on any nutrients. Yes, you can lose weight on a full and saturated stomach. Last week, we had some basics on the necessary tools for weight loss. Today, we will delve a step deeper and discuss some of the reasons why we gain weight and the errors we make while dieting. These are necessities to know in the process to your perfect body size.

Dieting: Why we gain weight

Calories Intake: If you eat more calories than you burn, you gain weight. This is a popular knowledge for being the number one factor why we gain weight. While this is true, there are many other factors that contribute in our piling up the kilo. Just keep in mind that, to maintain your weight, you need ca. 2360 kcal/day. To lose 0.5 kg/week you need an intake of ca. 1,860 kcal/day. To lose 1 kg/week, you need an intake of ca. 1,360 kcal/day. Minimum calories intake for weight loss for women is 1200 kcal/day and 1500 kcal/day for men.

Multiple Diets: Actually, diets are supposed to make you lose weight. But if one diet follows the other, they tend to make you fat instead. This is so because, when you start a new diet, your body realizes this and it goes into an automatic “saving” mood. It uses less energy so as to get along with the tight supply. When you end your diet, your body continues in its saving mood and saves up the increased calories (for rainy days). What happens is a jo-jo effect. Your weight climbs up. This is especially true with crash diets.

Fats: No other food nutrient has as much calories as fat. Fats contain more calories than proteins and carbs put together. While our body easily absorbs fats, it uses up carbs for energy. Thus consuming carb rich foods such as bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, vegetables and fruits, will not only fill you up, but you will take in fewer calories as well. How much fat you should consume and its health benefits/damages will be the topic of our next week issue.

Stress and Heartache: For some people, when they are stressed up, when they want to calm down their nerves maybe after a stressful day at work or a stressful presentation, or they just want to feel good after a stressful situation, they turn to food. Eating comforts them. For others, they turn to food because of boredom or heartache, making you eat erratically, most often the wrong things, gaining more weight.

Age: as you grow older, your metabolic process slows down and the muscle percentage in your body drops. Already at the age of 25, your calorie intake should reduce. If you keep eating as usual and also do not exercise, you start gaining weight slowly but continuously.

CWT Chicken stew (4 pers.) 

• Warm up oil and add chicken, brown up chicken for 3mins
• Add all pureed spices incl. njangsa, let it simmer for 5 mins
• Add chopped tomatoes and 1 bouillon cube, turn heat on medium and  let simmer for 30mins
• Add peas, let simmer for another 3mins
• Add orange and yellow peppers and simmer for 1min
• serve with Quinoa, brown rice, black rice or plantains…enjoy!!

2lbs Chicken
4-6 Roma tomatoes chopped
1-2 tablespoons njangsa
2 habanero pepper (optional)
3-4 tablespoons olive or canola oil
1 large yellow pepper cut in squares
1 large orange pepper cut in squares
Pinch of salt to taste
1 bouillon cube aka maggi
1 medium onion pureed
1 cup peas, maybe substitute with carrots
2 table spoon leeks pureed
2 tablespoons celery pureed
1 tablespoon ginger pureed

Some Errors we make while dieting:

Low carb: Eating less carbs will make you lose weight yes, but it can be harmful to your health. For one thing, such diets are only successful for a short while. With low-carbs diet, you do not eat to saturation. You get hungry quickly and sooner enough, you get frustrated and go back to old habits. Result:  Jo-jo effect. If you want to lose weight and keep it, you need carbs. They keep you full and they have fewer calories compared to fat. Eating less carbs will also more likely result in a lack of nutrients that are essential to life. Eat carbs, and eat enough.

Zero fat: Another fatal error, as there are some “essential” fatty acids that our bodies cannot do without eg. vegetable oils or nuts. Thus even when losing weight, some fat is necessary. How much, will be discussed next week.

Avoid breakfast: please don’t. If you skip breakfast and drag on your next meal, you are only asking for a ravenous appetite. A ravenous appetite demands for more food and more food than is required is more calories and more calories than is required results to an increase in weight.

Many meals are better than a few: That is not always true. If you find it difficult to eat just a bite between meals, then you should by all means stick to three solid meals. Multiple meals by no means equivalent “continuous” snacking.

Fatburners: Enzymes from pineapple or papaya, caffeine, carnitine, green tea, pu-erh tea, vitamin C, choline and co are often said to stimulate fat loss. Mere wishful thinking, this has not been proven.

Weight loss supplements and Appetite suppressant: What these primarily reduce is the weight of your purse/wallet and they are above all seriously detrimental to your health.

Massage: You only make the masseur richer

To lose weight is a conscious decision; you must recognize the eating habits that makes you fat (a daily meal dairy will help), seek figure friendly healthy alternatives and train yourself to use them. This is a step by step process and cannot be achieved overnight. Remember S2ER2 – Slow and Steady, Eat Right, Exercise Right.

Log in on Monday 14^th for our lecture on: All about Fats – Trim and Tone with Pleasure (S²ER²)

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