It’s getting to that time of year again. The time of the dreaded ‘bikini diet’. This is no longer a phenonemen restricted to women – even men and teenagers feel the pressure to have a swimsuit worthy body for a summer in the sun.
This of course leads to an explosion of crash diets. Everywhere you look there are magazines and DVDs promising to help you lose a stone in two weeks or be bikini ready in one.
While there is nothing wrong with adjusting your diet to ensure you’re totally confident by the pool, these diets are not sustainable in the long term. Our Nutritional Therapist, Julie Deeks says that these crash diets end up creating the phenomenon known as ‘yo-yo dieting’. When we diet or lose weight quickly, we tend to lose lean muscle along with some of the fat. This leads to weight gain when you begin your normal eating habits. This is because muscle burns fat, the more muscle we have the more fat we burn. Unfortunately, the older we get less the muscle we have. After the age of 30, muscle starts to reduce and the majority of us slowly start to gain weight.
So one of the most important lessons in weight loss is to gain muscle at the same time as you reduce your calories. Don’t starve yourself! Eat plenty of healthy proteins and vegetables, hydrate and smile! Julie highly recommends yoga, as you use your own body weight during the different postures, helping you to gain muscle and not hurt yourself. Yoga also helps focus and calm the mind, removing anxiety – which is partly to blame for erratic eating.
If you would like to see Julie for more nutritional advice, please contact the clinic on 020 8332 6184 or info@theforgeclinic.com to find out her availability.
