Toronto Lifestyle Fitness

“Diet” is not a four letter word. Unfortunately modern connotations of diet are negative and incorrect. We do not go off and on a diet or break a diet. Diet is in fact the amount and type of food we consume on a daily basis that should provide the calories and nutrients our body needs to meet its demands. Let’s get it out there right now, the whole crux of lifestyle fitness is “our body’s demands” differ from person to person. We will explore what works for each of us, individually based on numerous factors.

Simply put temporary diets do not work. Most of us, starting from a young age, have been on the diet roller coaster or major competitors in the yo yo dieting competition. Just an FYI, professionally this is what we call weight cycling. Besides the obvious personal experience, there have been numerous scientific studies on weight cycling. Studies on diets confirm that 83% of people who do lose weight on a diet regain that weight within 2 years, usually with an added 10%.

UCLA studies have gone even further and stated their findings that weight loss on diets can actually be a predictor of future weight gain! The people in the control groups were often better off than the people who participated in the weight loss groups!  OUCH!!!!! These studies consistently concluded that eating a clean healthy diet with regular exercise was the only reliable way of keeping the weight off.

Consumer reports published a “stay thin strategy” study in February 2009. Three groups were studied and compared: always thin, successful losers (lost weight and kept it off more than 3 years) and failed dieters (weight cycling group). No shockers here. The always thin & successful losers had almost identical lifestyle habits, whereas the failed dieters had completely different diet and exercise practices. We can get into these practices much more in depth in future blogs but just to sum up the always thin & successful losers:
-strength trained at least once per week
-did vigorous exercise at least 4 times per week
-ate fruits and vegetables at least 5 times per day
-ate whole grains
-observed portion control

We have briefly touched on a number of lifestyle habits. In upcoming blogs, we will go into much more depth on all of these, plus more.
Some of our upcoming topics: what is fitness; metabolism and fad diets; emotional eating; what you should expect from your fitness professional; water!; emotional eating; Effective workplace wellness includes nutrition and exercise programs; We are always a work in progress.

I welcome your ideas for future blogs!

May you get at least 60 minutes of exercise today!

Shira Litwack
LWMC, CNS, PT
Toronto Fitness & Nutrition Consultant

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