https://alivepilates.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2.jpg 788 940 Susan Booth https://alivepilates.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Alive-Pilates-white-Logo.png Susan Booth2023-10-24 07:34:352023-10-24 07:39:58Ten Step System to Combat Menobelly
Dieting Myths from the ’90’s
During the 1990s, there were several dieting myths and fads that gained popularity, despite not being backed by scientific evidence or long-term effectiveness. Some of the common dieting myths of that era included:
- Low-fat diet is the key to weight loss: The 1990s saw a surge in low-fat diets as a means to lose weight. Many believed that cutting out fat entirely would lead to rapid weight loss and improved health. However, not all fats are unhealthy, and some fats, like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, are essential for a balanced diet.
- The Atkins diet: The Atkins diet, introduced by Dr. Robert C. Atkins in the early 1990s, promoted a high-protein, low-carbohydrate approach to weight loss. It gained widespread popularity despite concerns about its long-term effects on heart health and other potential health risks.
- Grapefruit diet: The grapefruit diet claimed that eating grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice before or during meals would help burn fat and accelerate weight loss. There was little scientific evidence to support this claim.
- Cabbage soup diet: This diet involved consuming large amounts of cabbage soup for a week to shed pounds quickly. While it might lead to short-term weight loss due to severe calorie restriction, it lacks essential nutrients and is not sustainable in the long run.
- Spot reduction: Many people believed that performing specific exercises targeting certain body parts would reduce fat in those areas. For example, doing countless sit-ups to get rid of belly fat. However, spot reduction is a myth, as fat loss occurs uniformly across the body with overall weight loss and cannot be targeted to specific areas.
- Detox diets: The ’90s saw the rise of detox diets that claimed to cleanse the body of toxins and aid in weight loss. These diets often involved fasting, juicing, or consuming specific detoxifying foods. However, the body has its natural detoxification system, primarily managed by the liver and kidneys, and these extreme detox diets can be harmful and ineffective for long-term weight loss.
- “Fat-free” and “low-fat” labeling as healthy: Many food products labeled as “fat-free” or “low-fat” were believed to be healthier options and encouraged for weight loss. However, these products often compensated for the lack of fat by adding more sugar and unhealthy additives, making them not necessarily healthier than their full-fat counterparts.
It’s important to note that the dieting landscape has evolved significantly since the 1990s, with a greater focus on evidence-based approaches to weight loss. Eating a healthy balanced diet full of nutritious fresh food will serve the menopausal and beyond woman.
5 Tips on How to Stick to a Meal Plan
So, you’ve decided to start afresh, you have got excited about a new menu plan, you have even done all your shopping. It’s all stacked in your fridge. Now, the only thing to do is to cook and eat the said food in the order in which you intended……
- Remember the reason why you wanted to plan your meals in the first place Are you meal planning to save money? To help keep you organized? To avoid food waste? To have better control over your eating habits for losing weight, or eating real healthy foods! When you feel yourself straying from the plan you’ve created, remind yourself why you have a plan in the first place. What was the “goal” you had in mind when you started?It takes time for creating a meal plan for health benefits, and hard work to keep it within your budget. Straying from your meal plan too much will cause you to un-do all the time you put into it in the first place.
- Put all the foods you DON’T want to stray to in a place which is hard to get at I have a special treat bag, in here are all the cakes, biscuits, chocolate, crisps which are for the rest of the family. I will put that bag in a different place this week, so I don’t mindlessly wander to the place it was originally at a moment of weakness.
- Plan to be flexible Your meal plan doesn’t have to be set in stone every single day of the week. If you want the fajitas you have planned on day 3 for dinner tomorrow, make a switcheroo!If you think rice will go better with your dish instead of pasta, go ahead! In fact, some people plan seven meals for the week, and then each night chooses from that list of meals.
- Do your shopping online, so those supermarket end of aisle discounts do not lure you in. Only buy the foods on your planned list and don’t buy any snacks/treats.
- Plan in a treat day. On the treat day you can have anything within a 2 hour window, take away, snacks, chocolate. This will help you to transition to the second week of meal planning. Also, it gives you a target, something to look forward to.
Gut Health In Menopause & Beyond Years
If you asked me the one thing you could do to improve your nutrition in Menopause and beyond, I would say.
Improve your gut health.
Whilst gut health research dates back to as early as 1840, In 1998, Michael Gershon published a popular science book titled The Second Brain, in which the author elaborates a scientific discovery called revolutionary for its time: that the nerve cells in the gut have an independent, not brain-controlled influence on the functions of the intestine. The gut brain connection was discovered. So quite a new phenomena, and the research continues.
Menopause can have several gastrointestinal symptoms, ranging from constipation and diarrhoea to bloating, indigestion, weight loss or gain to heartburn and vomiting. Most people think about changes to the ovaries and the uterus when considering menopause.
Decreasing amounts of oestrogen and progesterone during menopause can slow down the process of food passing through the GI system. When the digestive process takes longer, more water is reabsorbed back into the bloodstream, which can lead to the constipation, increased gas and bloating
Another key finding is that menopause changes the community of bacteria living in the gut, which is called the microbiome. There is a link between certain gut bacteria and better memory.
Probiotics may help ease menopause symptoms and regulate body weight, but their effectiveness remains controversial. More research is needed to explore and support the health benefits associated with probiotic use during the various stages of menopause.
In the meantime the foods I am suggesting you eat regularly here can also help with the following symptoms of ageing:
Skin elasticity
Improves sleep
Improves joint pains
Improves memory
Improves bloating
Improves weight loss
So what should you be eating on a gut healthy diet?
Yogurt
Kefir
Miso
Sauerkraut
Kimchi
Almonds
Kombucha
Peas/beans/lentils
Brussel sprouts
Bananas
Blue cheese
Garlic
Ginger
Some of those foods you probably won’t even recognize their names or even know what they are. Here is a video of me going around the supermarket finding these foods to help you to get them into your life.
Gut health is the future key to optimum health for the meno and beyond woman.
If you would like help to build these foods into your daily/weekly menu come and join me online for the next 7 day Menofit Midsection Meltdown on 12th June 2023. CLICK HERE FOR EARLY BIRD OFFER
Back to basics Weight Loss – Snacking
It all so confusing these days. There’s so much information out there, calorie counting, low fat, fasting, high protein…. where should you start?
As a 50 woman myself, I feel your pain. So, lets take some time to get back to basics and learn about the foundations of nutrition and habit change.
Read more
5 Common Weight loss Mistakes women over 50 make.
Hi friends – today I’m sharing with you five common weight loss mistakes women over 50 make.
The other day I was have a coffee after a dog walk and I overheard two women (over 50) chatting about their weekend and I thought how long will it take before they start to talk about their weight…. Bingo, 5 minutes in after discussing the food they ate they started to make pledges to each other on which diet they were going to try this week.
In the twenty years that I’ve been coaching women, through the 90’s the 2000’s and 2010’s I have noticed how the way we women view ourselves and our weight is always at the forefront of our minds.
One of those women at the cafe was talking about how she did this detox the other day and how she’s going through menopause and she’s like it just feels like nothing is working. I don’t know what’s going wrong. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking the problem isn’t that nothing is working. The problem is you are crash dieting and you’re in menopause.
During menopause the body just says I’m done with you not paying attention to me, I’m done with you eating too few calories, eating too many calories, chronically dieting and you’re not giving me what I need so I’m not going to release this weight.
So today, I’m here to tell you that if you’re feeling frustrating and feeling desperate to lose weight and considering doing something like a detox, a shake program or a meal replacement program or cutting carbs and sugar drastically because you’re so frustrated and want to lose weight as fast as possible, I want to help you understand that one year from now you’re going to have the same problem. You’re still going to be struggling with the same problem.
And I was thinking about this on the way home from the cafe like I think what happens is we get blinded by our desperation to lose weight. We are so frustrated and unhappy with where we are at, that it leads us down the path of taking drastic measures even though logically in our brain we know we could never do that thing for the rest of our life.
That is the other thing I think women are blindsided by. The way you lose your weight is how you have to maintain your weight so if you lose weight doing shakes then you have to do shakes the rest of your life to maintain your weight.
Taking Ownership
What I commonly see with clients as well as women who come to me who are interested in working with me is that they are not good at challenging themselves and their justifications for why they can’t do things. They also don’t set and adhere to boundaries. What do I mean by these things?
Many times women will say they don’t have time to do something or that they can’t do something for another reason like they’re injured, don’t have money, too tired, etc.
I truly believe where there is a will, there is a way. There is always something we CAN do to move us closer to our goals. I think we get caught up though in thinking if it’s not perfect that it’s not worth doing. Then we don’t do anything.
Caught up in the 90’s diet mentality
Many women are still “going ON a diet” and eating too little, starving their bodies of vital nutrients which nourish our now hormone depleted bodies. They are skipping meals and going to weight loos groups which fat shame you after stepping on the scales. Is this you. This whole mindset needs addressing, reassessing and changing. It’s no longer about just calorie deficit and exercising like crazy, it’s about managing emotional and physical stress.
Eating Low Fat
This is soo last century! We need fat to help us to balance our hormones in to longevity. Eat it and eat it every day. Nuts, seeds, avocados, oily fish, olives. Your body will not lose fat without eating these. Believe it.
Drinking too much Alcohol
Many women use a glass of wine as part of their evening relax routine. I’m here to tell you that Alcohol is a poison, your liver has to detox the poison, the liver is also the organ that metabolises your fat (ie: burns fat). If it is busy getting rid of the wine, it will not do its job of burning fat. Alcohol also raises up your stress hormone Cortisol which can make certain Menopausal symptoms worse.
Obsessed with looking like they did when they were 20
As we get older, our bodies don’t respond the same way to weight loss efforts, and science has some explanations to offer. As we age we naturally tend to gain weight, to the tune of 1 to 2 pounds (lb) per year. So if you are 50 now, you are likely to NATURALLY be 2 stone heavier than you were when you were 20. Your skin will be different due to the decline in collogen. These are normal and natural ageing processes. The one thing you can do though is maintain, or even build more lean muscle. Lets celebrate our new shape and form in this new era of our lives. Stop trying to look 20 again!
A quitter’s guide to not quitting
It’s January, many people start manically exercising, and eating well, and going to the gym, every day, and mediating everyday, and eating no meat, and going vegan etc etc, you get the picture. I’ve seen it time and time again, I’ve been in this industry for 23 years now and every January is the same. Don’t get me wrong, it’s brilliant that people want to start to get fitter etc, but many quit. There goals and aspirations do not fit with their lifestyles. If this is you… firstly you are NOT a bad person.
So, you’ve been known to quit in the past. In years gone by, you’ve promised yourself that you’re going to make big, lasting changes to your life, but it hasn’t been long before you’ve given up.
And that’s totally understandable. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a pretty short attention span.
I get excited about something for a while, but I soon run out of steam, or my attention gets grabbed by something else, and before I know it all the plans I’d made have been pushed aside in favour or something else.
That, or I just lose all motivation.
Over these 23 years, though, I’ve come up with a few ways to stop myself from falling off the fitness bandwagon, and actually develop healthy habits that I stick to, permanently.
Does that sound like just what you need?
Then read on for a few tips to help you catch yourself just before you fall off the fitness bandwagon, and keep moving forwards towards all the goals you’ve set.
How can I shift this extra weight around my middle?
Many 40+ women experience unexplained weight gain — especially around the waist and hips — despite their best attempts to diet, exercise like crazy and eating next to nothing.
And suddenly, the usual weight loss tool box is empty.
“Meno-middle” is one of the most common complaints of perimenopausal women. Yet most women have been told that an extra 10–20 pounds is simply a rite of passage at this time of life and they should just accept their “middle-age spread.”
‘Bad’ day? Week? Month? Here’s what to do
It’s been one of those days. You have the best intentions, but you just didn’t manage to live up to them today. Or yesterday. Maybe you’ve been struggling to meet your health and fitness goals at all this week, or maybe you’re looking back on the month just gone and wondering where it all went ‘wrong’.