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One of our awesome Fitmates has lost a huge amount of weight and looks absolutely amazing.  So much so that she was quizzed at Singapore airport when being processed by immigration because they didn’t believe she was the person represented in her passport.

Passports are valid for 10 years and this picture was now 7 years old.  When she was  asked to produce her drivers license it provoked a similar reaction was encountered as, yes, the photo was also 7 years old.

After being interviewed and assessed by numerous officers, she was finally given the all clear.

The incident has prompted her to renew her passport photo before going to the US – immigration there is very unforgiving.

For some people the change in your looks can be quite significant and this case dramatic.  The one part of losing weight that we often don’t consider is for some people the change to your appearance, so much so that often people that you haven’t seen for over 5 years may not recognise you. It’s a great problem to have but an unexpected situation that you often don’t think about.

For those people who have lost significant weight, this may lead to excess skin around the abdomen and under the arms which may require cosmetic surgery to remove the excess folds of skin.

Written by Andrew Talati

One of the biggest keys to weight loss is managing your portion size. While a lot of people are careful to monitor the type of food they consume and maintain a regular exercise regime, the often forgotten element is the physical quantity of food you consume at anyone siting.

As children we are often told to eat everything on our plate and this behavior often translates into the adulthood. We fill the plate with food and not finish until we have consumed its entire contents. Similarly the size of the plates has grown over the past century, and particularly in the past 20 years, increasing from 23 cm to 28 cm.

Add to this the growing package size of processed foods over the years. With the sales pitch of getting better value for money, food manufacturers are selling the notion that we can receive an extra 10% to 20% more for the same price. This leads to the consumer’s perception that the larger packaged quantity of food is a normal portion size.

Everything is becoming gargantuan, from your average humble muffin through to even your coffee (a takeaway small coffee now is the size of a can of soft drink). This gradual increase has lead to people recalibrating what they think is the normal size of a snack or meal.

While you may be eating a well-balanced healthy diet, consuming excessive calories translates to an unused energy surplus. This storage of excessive energy ends up around the usual parts of the body being the tummy, butt, thighs and arms.

Adam who has been with Fitstyler for two years is extremely active, as well as going to the gym Tuesday and Thursday nights and playing hockey he attends our boot camps twice a week. He has seen fantastic improvements in his fitness level, including now having a resting heart rate of 45 bpm. As a funny side story, when Adam was recently having his blood pressure taken the nurse was concerned that his resting heart rate was so low.

Despite this Adam noticed that the extra padding around his waistline would not disappear, no matter how much exercise he did. So Adam introduced some minor changes to his portion size, without any dietary changes, that showed amazing results. It made a massive difference to his weight loss and he lost 2cm from around lower stomach.

What is An acceptable portion size.
Harking back to the old measurements you can use your hand as a rough guide to finding the right food proportions.

Rice, pasta, fruit & vegetables: 2 x cupped hands
Meat, fish & poultry: The flat section of your hand (excluding fingers
Carbohydrates: A clenched fist
Nuts: A cupped hand

When is enough?
Try restricting your portion size to a smaller plate and resist the temptation to get second or third helpings.
The biggest trick is to learn when you have had sufficient food as opposed to eating to the point where your stomach feels uncomfortable.

Another way to successfully downsize from the current consumption levels is to slow down when you are eating. This will give your digestive system time to process the food and to send the signal to your brain that you are full.
If you do feel hungry top up with another serve of vegetables rather than more meat or carbohydrates such as pasta or rice.
Written by Andrew Talati

The junk Food advertising ban gathers momentum with The Obesity Policy Coalition releasing a national blueprint backed by health groups including Australian Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance, Cancer Council Australia, Diabetes Australia, AMA and the National Heart foundation. The report will be submitted Nicola Roxon, the Federal Health minister.

The proposal tackles all the contact points that children have with various advertising channels.

The current situation of self regulation has been being woefully inadequate With the medical Journal of Australia found that little has changed in the frequency of fast food ads.

Like the Tobacco industry who threatened that if the government introduced plan packaging of cigarette packets, it would lead to higher consumption of unbranded products (actually stupidly demonstrating to the government that their advertising works) the Australian Food and Grocery Council also fears that introducing advertising bans will drastically effect the consumption of fat, sugary and highly salty foods and therefore effects it’s members that include some of the biggest junk food manufacturers.
In simple terms if the advertising didn’t work why would there be so much resistance?

The proposal by The Obesity Policy Coalition looks to restrict unhealthy food advertising on free to air TV between the hours of 8:54 AM and 8:56 PM weekdays and 6 AM to 12 PM and 4-9PM on the weekends. This will also extend to a TV and the Internet, ie Facebook and online games.

This blueprint is very comprehensive as it also extends to all direct marketing initiatives including e-mail and SMS messages as well as advertising in magazines and movies.

The restriction will also extend to schools banning unhealthy food advertising as well as children’s sports with regard to advertising and promotion or any association with the sporting activities such as sponsorship fundraising.

Public places such as transport will also have restrictions in regard to billboards and posters that are targeted to children.

Unhealthy foods will be based on the definition applied from Food Standards Australia and New Zealand of food and beverages that failed to meet their nutritional criteria.

The report has been sent to Federal health minister Nicola Roxon.

Similar self-regulation by the Australian Quick Service Restaurant Industry for Responsible Advertising and Marketing to Children was also shown that the industry that included McDonald’s KFC and Pizza Hut made little difference to the frequency of advertisements during peak periods of children’s advertising. Our research was conducted by the medical Journal of Australia that found that the frequency of ads remained unchanged since its introduction.
Written by Andrew Talati

These antique weight loss machines that supposedly reduces stomach fat by attaching a belt vibrator machine has been relegated to the back of an antique shop. Definitely one form of unusual exercise from the past.

These days vibration training is used to do everything from improving muscle density, toning and weight loss. This form of fitness training has come of age with highly sophisticated vibration machines with different studies showing varying results as to how effective this form of training is. They use varying frequencies to generate g forces that create a greater neurological response to muscle engagement and recruitment.

While the origin of this technique harks back to the Russian space program when the effects of zero gravity and the deterioration of bone density density and muscle mass had to be counteracted, a whole new industry was born.

Unfortunately there isn’t any quick fix for removing any unwanted body fat around the stomach, you can’t pop a pill and hope that all the fat dissolves away or subject the fat to electrical currents such as Zap fat.
Similarly standing upright while having a belt shake the stomach about not only brings you discomfort but has no scientific grounding to reducing body fat.

There is only one thing that reduces body fat, apart from sucking it out with lypo suction and that is hard work. The body doesn’t discriminate where it deposits fat and the most common areas for storing excess energy are either on the thighs, butt, tummy and arms.
It’s a simple equation, high energy expenditure over energy intake that involves moderating the food consumption and aiming for 30 minutes of intensive exercise 3 to 5 times per week.

Fast forward 50 years and we may see the current crop of Abdominal Exercise machines such as the Ab Master and all the various other contraptions that purport to isolate the abdominal muscles and give you an instant six pack sitting in the antique shop as well.

With the world experiencing an of obesity epidemic and a society with our significant portion of overweight people, unfortunately there some apathy regarding the cost to your health.

Australia is officially the most overweight nation in the world, this officially happened a few years ago and it’s one statistic that we don’t want to be proud of.

According to the World Health Organization, globally there are over one billion overweight and more disturbingly 300 million people that are obese.

The universally accepted measurement for determining an overweight person is having our BMI of over 25 and an obese person has a BMI Of over 30. [BMI is calculated by dividing the person's body weight in kilograms by the square of the height in meters–KG/in]

The seven major risks of being over weight/fat are;

1. Dying early, men and women respectively have been 81%, hundred 115% risk of early death between the ages of 40 to 70

2.Diabetes, it is universally excepted that having a waist circumference of 100 cm for men and 90 cm for women increases the risk of getting type II diabetes.

3.Heart disease, having a large waist circumference as mentioned above increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

4.Reduced Lifespan, Being 10 Kg Overweight Will Cut Three Years Off Your Life Span and 70s if you are 20 kg overweight.

5.infertility and pregnancy risks; women who have a BMI of over 28 have approximately 2 1/2 times more risk of infertility. They can also be complications during the pregnancy such as premature delivery gestational diabetes and cesarean delivery.

6.Illnesses and disease; fatty liver disease, can lead to diabetes and heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver,
sleep apnea, being overweight or obese can also lead to sleep disturbances whereby personal stop breathing numerous times per minute which can leave to heart attacks
if other illnesses include cataracts, stroke, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, gallbladder disease and osteoarthritis.

Ultimately it comes down to adopting a healthier lifestyle with healthy eating and increasing energy expenditure.