Lisa Champion MSc (exercise science)
Are you a rider who needs to lose weight? If you are, my hope is that this article will give you some useful tools. To successfully lose weight, and keep it off for good, consider trying three things: changing the way you think, changing what you eat, and changing the way you eat. Let’s look at the first point – changing the way you think.
CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK
Losing weight is a daunting task. You have probably been at a weight that’s heavier than you like for quite some time. You know you would feel better if you were a bit lighter, your health would improve, you would look nicer in the saddle and your horse would be happier as well. So, what’s getting in the way? There are heaps of head games involved, then, of course, there is what you put in your mouth and there are some genetic factors as well. Let’s start with the genetic factors.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR BODY TYPE
When God made people, he had three prototypes for body shape; the endomorph, the ectomorph and the mesomorph. A good first step in understanding how genetics is influencing how you look is to identify which body type (or combination of types) you are. The endomorph is a person who is physically quite round. Endomorphs tend to have wider hips and narrower shoulders, quite a lot of fat spread across the body, and can have quite slim ankles and wrists (which only serves to accentuate the larger parts of the body).
The ectomorph is the exact opposite. They are tall and slim with narrow shoulders and hips, a narrow face, thin legs and arms and very little body fat. They can eat and eat and never gain weight. All the true ectomorphs can stop reading now, because this article is not for them!
The mesomorph is the muscular body type. They are neither round nor slim, but have a more muscular body with strong arms and legs, broad shoulders, a narrow waist and very little body fat.
Some people think that these body types can be associated with personality. The endomorph tends to be a ‘barrel of fun’, the ectomorph a bit more introverted and private, and the mesomorph adventurous and assertive. I’m not sure that theory always stands, but I do know of a few people who fit those moulds quite nicely!
What does body type have to do with losing weight and how we think? Well, if you are an endomorph, or an endo/meso combination, you will never look like Elle MacPherson! This is not to say that you won’t look and feel better by losing weight. But, it’s very important not to picture yourself looking totally different, like a picture from a magazine, when that is most likely never going to happen. Understanding your genetic makeup can help you set more realistic goals for how much you should weigh and what you will look like at a more ideal weight. Setting unrealistic goals is one of the most common stumbling blocks to successful weight loss.
GET YOURSELF OUT OF THE DIET BOX
Once you’ve determined how genetics is influencing your body type, it’s time to get yourself out of the Diet Box. The diet box is a funny place people put themselves when they go on a diet. Inside the box are all the foods that you think you should be eating on your diet. Carrots, apples, tiny portions on a huge dinner plate, one lettuce leaf, a glass of water and a bit of tofu. Outside the box is chocolate cake, a lovely big, juicy steak, a nice bottle of red, a bag of potato chips, and every other ‘forbidden’ food you can think of.
Guess what? As soon as you go inside the box, you will only be able to think about what is on the outside! This will drive you mad and lead to cravings and binges as you break out of the box in frustration. This is another example of unrealistic goal setting. You need to step outside the Diet Box and adopt a new way of thinking.
One of the most empowering ways to think when you are on a quest to lose weight is, “I can eat anything I want. But, because losing weight is important to me, I am choosing to eat these foods instead of those foods.” There is no such thing as a bad food. (Well, a Dagwod Dog might be testing that theory!) It’s all about how much of a food you eat, and how often you eat it. If you are making good choices about foods and quantities on your quest to lose weight and you have a craving for chocolate cake, eat a very small piece of chocolate cake to satisfy the craving. Just don’t do it everyday!
Another idea is to eliminate the word diet from your vocabulary. Don’t go “on a diet.” Think about willingly changing to healthier eating habits. If you never go ‘on a diet’, then you won’t ever go ‘off the diet’ and risk regaining all the weight you’ve lost. You will just have a new way of thinking about how you eat for the rest of your life.
And finally, part of changing how you think is understanding how important it is to combine your new, healthier way of eating with some regular exercise. It’s been widely documented by good research that diet alone and exercise alone are not as effective for weight loss as the combination of the two. Exercise will help your body burn fat better, it will make you more healthy, it will give you more energy and strength for life, you’ll look better and it will help you build muscle which will ultimately mean you will burn more kilojoules every day. So, get moving.
CHANGING WHAT YOU EAT
As I said in last month’s article, our quest to be healthier must involve eating smaller quantities of a wide variety of foods that are low in the ‘bad’ fats, have low glycaemic index, are processed as little as possible and have lots of different colours and textures (this means lots of fruits and vegetables). If you missed the last article, have a look at the Horse Magazine website for a bit more information.
Step into the health section of any good bookstore and you will be overwhelmed with the number of diet books promoting so many different diets that it is no wonder most people feel confused about what they should be eating. So, stick with the simplest plan. You know that a banana and a nice glass of cold water is a much better snack than a bag of chips and a coke – so start by making better food choices.
A little nutrition knowledge can go a very long way. Once you understand what is in the foods you eat, you will be able to make better food choices. A classic example is with sweet foods like desserts. If you bake a chocolate mud cake, you get a very good idea of how much fat and sugar goes into making it. But, if you go to a café and choose a slice of chocolate mud cake to eat with your coffee, you often justify away the amount of fat and calories in the food. Are there better alternatives at the local café? Perhaps a piece of toasted fruit loaf with the butter on the side and a bit of jam, so that you can control the amount of extra fat that you eat?
When you eat out, do you tend to go for things like creamy pasta sauces, deep fried foods like calamari, tempura or spring rolls, pizza smothered with cheese, curries that are made with coconut milk (which is very high is saturated ‘bad’ fat), fried rice, dishes in peanut sauce, nachos and then top it off with cake or pastries or cheese for dessert? In every type of cuisine there are better choices and poorer choices and with some nutrition know-how, you can choose the better ones and still eat delicious, special foods.
It’s also important to understand that alcohol has almost the same number of kilojoules per gram as fat! Now, I hate to be a party pooper, but if you are serious about losing weight, you need to carefully watch how much alcohol you drink. It is true that alcohol in moderation can be a healthy part of our diet. But for people trying to lose weight, it can be a ‘hidden’ source of lots of kilojoules. Also, we don’t tend to change how much we eat because we are taking in extra kilojoules from alcohol. In fact, sometimes as we get less inhibited because of the alcohol, we eat more food and make poorer food choices.
When you start making positive changes about the foods you choose to eat you’ll need to do some planning. Eating on the run and grabbing whatever is going during a busy day is sure to mean that your food choices won’t be as good. So, plan ahead! If you are working around horses all day, make sure there is some fresh fruit around to snack on between rides. You’ll need sandwich ingredients like salad, lean meats, tuna, salmon and low fat mayonnaise or avocado so that you can quickly make a healthy lunch. Once a week, make up a big batch of soup, bolognaise sauce (with lean meat, grated carrot and grated zucchini) or Chris’s famous Ratatouille (see recipe below) which can be eaten with low GI rice, on top of pasta, used as a pizza sauce, or on its own. Planning ahead will make healthier eating much easier.
CHANGING THE WAY YOU EAT
The last thing to consider as you are thinking about making some positive changes is the way you eat. Do you always tend to be in a hurry when you eat? Do you often rush to grab food on the run? Are you driving long distances to competitions, fueling yourself with whatever you can find from one petrol station to the next? If so, you aren’t doing your body or your mind any favours.
Try sitting down for each meal you eat. Take time to chew your food more slowly and pause between bites. It takes a little while for our stomachs to register with our brains that we are full, so eating too quickly often leads to over-eating.
Different nutritionists have different philosophies about eating lots of small meals or three square meals in a day. Sometimes eating lots of small meals, or grazing throughout the day, can lead to overeating. Eating three meals with some healthy snacks in between can give you a better idea of how much you are actually eating. Also, in this day and age of super-sizing, be aware of how much is in a correct portion. Portions have become so large that a healthy portion often looks tiny in comparison. Remember to check in with how full you feel, rather than eating everything that is on your plate as a matter of habit.
Plan ahead to make sure you have healthy snacks and meals when you are very busy or on the road. Packing a cooler with water, healthy snacks and nice sandwiches will help you avoid the dreaded moment of feeling hungry at the petrol station and grabbing a bag of chips because there doesn’t seem to be any other choice.
Having said that, remember that you can eat anything you like. So when you have a craving for a treat, have one. Just don’t do it all the time. It’s not what you do occasionally that matters, it’s the habits you form and what you do every day. Like all positive lifestyle changes, changing how you think, what you eat and the way you eat takes commitment. But the rewards will be great. You’ll lose weight, look better, feel more fit, move more easily, have more energy and be healthier. Enjoy!
CHRISTOPHER’S COOKING LESSON
Okay we are all busy people but even horse people have one slack morning a week (okay Heath, not you), and if you use that time creatively, you can really make enough healthy food to last the week in an hour or two.
Ratatouille is a way of cooking vegetables that shows up in most peasant cooking cultures (that’s the good ones) and the ingredients can move around depending on what is good and available. It uses a fair bit of nice monosaturated olive oil so it is okay to maintain weight, but won’t take any off (unless of course it replaces junk food in which case it will greatly reduce the fat load).
Cut up two medium sized aubergines and two zucchini into nice bits sized pieces, toss a couple of handfuls of salt over them and leave them in a colander. The salt will bring out the bitter juices.
Roughly chop a couple of onions and put them in a nice big frying pan (those no stick woks are perfect for this) with a couple of tablespoons of best quality olive oil. Gently stew the onions for 10 minutes, during which time we are going to throw together a stock, which will provide healthy soup, and or superb risotto to go with the ratatouille.
Making stock is really just unpacking stuff into a BIG pot. Toss in a couple of onions cut in half, a couple of turnips or Swedes, half a head of celery, a parsnip, a couple of carrots, and a kilo of chicken wings (please try for organic free-range). Cover all this with water and bring it to the boil, lower the heat and simmer for about 3 hours.
Those onions in the pan should be looking nice a soggy and soft by now, but not burnt brown. Add as much chopped up garlic as you like (for me, 5/6 cloves) and cook for a minute or two. Wash the salt off the aubergine and the zucchini, and pat them dry with a tea towel, toss them in with the onions and garlic and cook for ten minutes. Add some more olive oil if it looks like it needs it. Add a can of chopped tomatoes (make sure you get the no added salt or sugar variety) and cook the whole lot gently for half an hour or so. Garnish with chopped parsley, coriander or basil. This you can use as a pizza topping, as a vegetable with grilled piece of steak or chicken fillet, tossed around as a pasta sauce, or cold as a salad.
After three hours strain your stock and put it in those freezer containers and freeze. When you go to use, put in the microwave for two minutes first and you will be able to lift off the fat that has set on the surface. With this you can become a cook. Toss a few veg and some slices of chicken in and you have a great soup, use it to make fab risotto, or just cook a cup of barley in a couple of cups of stock for a great GI boost vegetable…