Nutrition – The 5 Pillars For Successful Weight Loss Part 3
Slow burners (also called carbohydrate types) generally have weak appetites and a high tolerance for sweets, as well as problems controlling their weight. They require a higher percentage of carbohydrates to speed metabolism and give them energy.
Mixed types generally have average appetites and moderate cravings for sweets and salty foods. The ideal diet for this metabolic type is a balance between protein and carbohydrates.A simple way to find out what metabolic type you are is to search metabolic typing on google, there are various sites which have the test available, one such as proprofs.com has a simple multi choice questionnaire. The key thing to keep in mind is that finding out your metabolic type is a starting point, your ratio of protein carbs and fats will often change day to day depending on energy levels, stress, how much sleep you had, your gender, age, body shape and physical activity.When you start to eat according to your metabolic type your body will start to regulate itself, your blood sugar levels will become more balanced throughout the day, this will in turn give you more sustained energy levels and above all else drop those unwanted pounds!One final word on diet is to do with intermittent fasting.When you eat a meal, your body spends a few hours processing that food, burning what it can from what you just consumed. Because it has all of this readily-available, easy to burn energy (thanks to the food you ate), your body will choose to use that as energy rather than the fat you have stored.This is especially true if you just consumed carbohydrates/sugar, as your body prefers to burn sugar as energy before any other source.
During the “fasted state,” your body doesn’t have a recently consumed meal to use as energy, so it is more likely to pull from the fat stored in your body as it is the only energy source readily available.
Burning fat = win.
The same goes for working out in a “fasted” state.Without a ready supply of glucose and glycogen to pull from (which has been depleted over the course of your fasted state, and hasn’t yet been replenished with a pre-workout meal), your body is forced to adapt and pull from the only source of energy available to it: the fat stored in your cells.Not only that, but growth hormone is increased during fasted states (both during sleep and after a period of fasting). Combine this increased growth hormone secretion, the decrease in insulin production (and thus increase in insulin sensitivity), and you’re essentially priming your body for muscle growth and fat loss with intermittent fasting.
From my personal experience the easiest way to start with intermittent fasting is starting with the 16/8 method once a week. This is as simple as having an evening meal at say 6pm and not eating till 11am the next morning which equals 16 hours. Once you have adjusted to this length of fasting you can choose to increase the time period of the fast.One word of caution is for pregnant women or anyone who has a history of physical or physiological conditions linked with eating – you would be best to avoid intermittent fasting. Fasting is a simple tool to practice weekly, and with perseverance you will find that it actually becomes quite enjoyable and you will value the food you consume a great deal more!
Here are some helpful tips to start off with nutrition:
• Do the metabolic typing questionnaire on the proprofs.com website to find out your starting point
• Use the crowding out method which is introducing nutrient dense foods into your existing diet, foods such as dark leafy green vegetables such as kale, spinach and chard.
• Try introducing whole grains into the diet such as quinoa, buckwheat and brown basmati rice
• Try changing your portions around so that twice a week you are having dinner for breakfast, a good size lunch and smaller dinner
• Increase water consumption throughout the day, flavour the water with citrus, berries or fruit if you do not like the taste
