THE CRONIN NUTRITIONAL EATING PLAN FOR WEIGHT LOSS AND HEALTH

PART TWO

Over the last twelve years I have developed the original eating programme that I designed to help me get fit, into an easy to follow, healthy and effective way to lose weight.  But weight is not just the only issue when we talk about diets.  We as a living organism have a requirement for a specific combination of nutrients.  Our bodies are very sophisticated and employ complex mechanisms to extract, utilise and combine nutrients to achieve optimum health.  Like any good recipe we need to provide our bodies with the basic ingredients and the correct environment for this to happen.  I believe that it is not the one huge change that you make to your lifestyle that creates improvements to your health and weight but the 101 small changes that make the biggest difference.  Even if you are currently following a reasonably healthy lifestyle, you do need to review your strategies on a regular basis as you age or your life changes pace.  What you are able to eat at twenty years old or even thirty-five is different when you get into your 40’s and 50’s.

This plan can be adapted for your age, sex and activity level and by following the basic rules you will find over a period of weeks and months that you are leaner and healthier than you have ever been before. 

At this stage it is more important to get into the good habits and discard your bad habits than it is to count calories.  However it is as important to take in sufficient calories as it is to not take in too many.  If you lose weight too quickly you are in danger of losing muscle.  Your body as we have already stated needs a complex cocktail of nutrients to function and to survive.  If you do not feed your body with the raw ingredients it has to go somewhere to find them and that is your storage system in your muscles and your bones.  Apart from eroding bone and lean muscle mass you will be reducing your body’s requirement for fuel and will therefore affect your metabolism.  Muscle burns fuel more efficiently and if you lose that muscle your body will store any excess as fat.  This is why we tend to put weight back on with extra pounds when we have been on a severely restricted diet.  Starvation levels of dieting below a thousand calories have long term effects on your health and longevity.  Osteoporosis is a very real danger to women and men who have persisted with low calorie and nutrient diets during their early years.  My recommendation is that women do not reduce their calorie intake below 1500 calories and that men stay above 1800 calories per day when trying to lose weight.  Of equal importance is that the food that you take in within that calorie range is nutrient packed and you will this is where the inclusion of nutrient rich superfoods in this programme is so essential.

MORE ABOUT THE “RULES”

The word rules sounds a little dogmatic but I find that unless I have some pretty strong commitment to doing a project, including losing weight the whole thing lacks structure and purpose.  Half the problem with losing weight or getting healthy involves getting your head around willpower.  Willpower is not something we are born with and as children we are not expected to exhibit much particularly when it comes to eating or not eating foods we love.  The important issue here is to focus on what you are going to gain rather than what you are going to have to give up.  To put things into perspective when looking at your current lifestyle you need to review exactly how you feel on a physical, mental and emotional level.  Are you fed up with feeling bloated, overweight, tired, emotional and guilty?  If you follow this healthy eating plan you in fact can eat wonderful food at least six times a day and throw in some exercise and in a few weeks all those negative feelings will have disappeared.  You at least owe it to yourself to follow the programme for at least six weeks and then compare how you feel then with the way you feel today.

It is important to have a start point when you are planning to lose weight so that you have a road map, with a destination that you can follow.  I often hear clients say ‘I would just love to lose 10kilos or 2 stone or 10lbs’. This is based not necessarily on the actual weight they need to lose but an acceptably achievable goal.  To be honest you need to be a little more specific than this.  You may only need to lose 7lbs or 5 kilos or you may need to lose more to reach a healthy weight for your age and activity level.  Most ideal weight profiles are derived from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Ideal Weight table.  This however was produced in 1959 when physically we were shorter and our diet following the war years was still restricted for many people.  I don’t believe that this table is appropriate today and if you take the ideal weights in that table and treat it as the minimum weight for your height then I believe that it is more realistic for this generation.  It is a guideline only and the important factors are the indicators of how healthy you are internally as well as externally.  Of greater importance to me, are your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels.  Are you exercising regularly and have plenty of energy?  To simplify the table so that you can estimate your lowest weight I am including a ready reckoner that you might find useful.   

For medium framed women as a base use 100lbs up to five foot and then 6lbs for every inch over that height. Modify by 5% either way if you have a light frame or heavy frame.

For medium framed men as a base use 106lbs up to five foot and then 7lbs for every inch over that height.  Modify either way if you have a light frame or heavy frame.

For example a woman who is a heavy frame and 5’6” would have an optimal weight of 100lbs + 36lbs = 136lbs x 5% = 6.8lbs giving an optimum weight of 136.8lbs or 62.2Kilos

This is not exact but it gives you an approximate idea of where you should be.  To be honest I have met people who are fantastically healthy, fit and full of energy who are a stone or even two stone heavier.  But there is no doubt that if we are talking about anti-ageing, being a healthy weight for your age and size is important.

Next time we will continue to look at the rules for the healthy eating plan.  In the meantime keep writing in your food diary and start looking at the time you can find during your working week and time off for exercise.

For more information on nutrients and superfoods visit www.justfoodforhealth.com and if you have any questions that you would like included in the Health and Vitality mailbag send them in strict confidence to sally@moyhill.com