Longevity’s Weight Management Guide – Part 1
Weight management is an important consideration in the realm of health and fitness, and a distinction from thinking of embarking on a “weight loss” or “weight gain” goal achieved through strict dieting. Thinking of your weight as an ever changing measure that you have complete control of increasing or decreasing allows for the burden of the scale, that many people face, to be lifted. By using simple lifestyle interventions rather than the latest trend, controlling your weight becomes second nature and simply a part of your life that requires little thought.
WEIGHT AND LONGEVITY
The three leading causes of death in Australia, in order, are ischaemic heart disease, dementia/Alzheimers disease and stroke (ABS 2018). Not so coincidentally, these conditions are correlated with increased BMI (a measure of weight relative to height) and sedentary lifestyles.
RATIONALLY APPROACHING WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
Just like a battery percentage on a phone, a fuel gauge on a car, or the amount in your bank account, the scale is simply another measure in your life. The number that you read when stepping on a scale is simply feedback, nothing more and nothing less.
FLUCTUATIONS IN WEIGHT
Weight is in constant flux and is a highly controllable measure. Every time you breathe out you are expiring Carbon dioxide which must have originated as a fuel source in your body at one point in time. If the burning of these fuel sources exceeds your replenishment of the fuel sources when you eat, you will lose weight.
Every tissue in your body requires energy to survive, and muscle mass is the most metabolically active tissue that we can control through diet and exercise. Increasing your muscle mass will then increase the number of kilojoules you burn throughout the day, which can create the same caloric deficit as “dieting”.
WHY TRAIN WITH LONGEVITY?
At longevity, we have had massive success by instilling simple changes of attitude and basic lifestyle interventions, with our biggest success to date a 66kg weight loss and another client who dropped 24kg in the last 12 months. As you can see in the video we practice what we preach, as Jarrat shares his experience of putting on a few extra kilos after a trip to America and his simple effort to get back to his ideal weight.
Written by Mitchell Hooper.