Losing weight definitely isn’t easy – but it can be more of a struggle if you’re a woman.
According to Dr Nick Fuller from the University of Sydney, there are countless reasons women gain weight – from previous dieting attempts to being on the pill, pregnancy and menopause.
And his latest book is turning everything you know about beating the bulge on its head – with Fuller arguing that eating more can actually help you shed the kilos and keep them off.
“When it comes to the prevalence of obesity, men are the ones who have the biggest problems,” Fuller said.
“75 per cent of us are overweight, but only 60 per cent of women are. But women are unfairly targeted through marketing, and they are the first to put up their hands and say they have a problem.
“But what do they do? They react through diets. And we know that accelerates weight gain.
“The best example comes from this large dataset looking at twins – more than 4,000 twins – and they followed up with them over 25 years, every five years. They found that the twin that had dieted was always heavier than the one that didn’t.
“The other big issue is significant life events that they go through that men never have to worry about: the transition into adulthood and going on the contraceptive pill, and also pregnancy and menopause, and the challenges and hormonal changes that need to be considered during these times.”
When your biology works against you
Fuller says there are six steps to sustainable weight loss – and understanding our biology is the key to that.
“For decades, we have been told that the reason we are failing is due to that lack of willpower,” Fuller said.
“But there is something else much bigger going on, and that is our biology. The minute you sign up to a diet, you are doomed for failure.
“Your biology is preventing you from succeeding, and what I mean by that is, when you lose a bit of weight, it reacts by getting rid of that stress, which is dieting and weight loss. Your metabolism will lower, your appetite hormones will go up, telling you to eat more.
“You basically go back to your starting point, and that’s when your body is happy again.”
Weight loss principles
“Some of the common problems we’re dealing with is our inability to say no to foods,” Fuller said.
“Everyone has that challenge with emotional and comfort eating, so it’s about retraining the brain to overcome that food addiction.
“It’s also telling a person what to be eating – so eating more, not less, and finishing the day with chopsticks, so we slow down our eating habits and actually appreciate what we’re putting into our body.
“Also including exercise in a way that it is sustainable, and improving our sleep quality, plays an important role.
“The best analogy I like to use with the interval weight loss program is a scuba diver preventing the bends. You can’t just come to the top straight away. You have to slowly come up, stabilise and stop, and go again.
“It’s the same with the interval weight loss program. You lose a small amount of weight, you then maintain your weight, and then you lose weight again.
“As you’re imposing those weight maintenance breaks, your body is welcoming the weight loss. You don’t get the decrease in metabolism, the increase in appetite hormones that you typically get with the traditional diets that we would follow.”
“The best analogy I like to use with the interval weight loss program is a scuba diver preventing the bends. You can’t just come to the top straight away. You have to slowly come up, stabilise and stop, and go again.
“It’s the same with the interval weight loss program. You lose a small amount of weight, you then maintain your weight, and then you lose weight again.
“As you’re imposing those weight maintenance breaks, your body is welcoming the weight loss. You don’t get the decrease in metabolism, the increase in appetite hormones that you typically get with the traditional diets that we would follow.”
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