Wedding Weight Challenge: Could You Fit in Your Dress Again?

They say that your wedding day is the best day of your life, so surely you want to look the peak of wellness and wellbeing. Many brides choose to lose weight for the big day, if only because knowing that everyone you know is going to be watching you walk down the aisle is great motivation! However, once you say “I do” you relax and start to regain all that weight you made the effort to lose in the first place. If you ever look at your wedding dress and wonder if you’d ever be able to fit back into it again, why not learn from a few success stories from people who have done exactly that? These brides (and one groom) followed a wedding dress weight loss plan that consisted of a diet developed by nutritionist and registered dietician Stephanie Middleberg and weekly exercise videos with dedicated personal trainer, Angela Salveo, to get back down to their wedding-day weight. Let’s see how they got on.

 

1. Rita Cookson: Rita, 43, has been married five years, and managed to lose 29lbs in four months. She asserts, ‘If I can do it, anyone can—I’m a pastry chef! Last year at this time, I felt depressed, tired, and generally gross about myself. I am a completely different person today. I stopped eating all those extra cupcakes and cookies, plus I’ve been doing four fun cardio classes per week at Gold’s Gym, in addition to meeting with a trainer there twice a week. I was afraid of lifting heavy weights because I thought I’d bulk up, but I got leaner and feel amazing.’

 

2. Lindsay & Brendan: Both aged 35, Lindsay Michalcik and Brendan Rineer decided to take up the weight loss challenge together and have been married eight years. ‘Figuring out how to fit in exercise was key,’ says Lindsay, who lost 18lbs. ‘I do a workout DVD before work a few mornings each week, and Brendan and I have a standing gym date on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We completely changed our eating habits too. Now we stick to one serving of protein each and load up on veggies, not carbs. We’ll still take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese’s, but we bring our own snacks or eat from the salad bar.’ Brendan, who lost 23lbs, adds, ‘Lindsay and I were able to learn healthier habits from each other. Before the challenge, I’d drink 32 ounces of Dr Pepper or Coke a day. Once I cut out soda, I immediately had more energy to work out. When I started, I said my goal was to develop a six-pack, but that’s just a bonus. My five-year-old daughter likes to count the “bumps” on my stomach.’

 

3. Jeanell Boomer: 36-year-old Jeanell has been married 10 years. She details, ‘I’m down 14 pounds. I’m not back in my dress because it took me a while to get a handle on my eating habits. For example, I’d tell myself I had to eat things that weren’t good for me because my family expected me to cook and bake certain foods—with no shortage of butter or oil. After I stopped the rationalising, the weight started to come off. And it’s true what they say: Once you lose the first 10 pounds, you really gain momentum. I lost three more the week after this photo was taken.’

 

4. Heather Wells: It’s nine years since Heather walked down the aisle, but the 42-year-old managed to lose six pounds and get back in that dress. She recalls, ‘When I joined the challenge, I knew I needed to start working out, so I walked and did the Wii Fit at home. But my body didn’t begin to change until I upped the intensity. Once I started taking spin classes and following the workout on Jillian Michaels’s 30 Day Shred DVD, I started to see a difference. I lost four inches off my waist and hips, and two and a half inches off my thighs. I’m fitting into clothes that are three sizes smaller, and I’m still going. I never thought I’d say this, but if I skip a workout, I miss it!’

Categories: dress, eating habits, Lose, success stories, wedding, wedding day, wedding dress, weight, Weight Loss, years

Seven Questions Your Fitness Trainer Needs the Answers To

Choosing the right professional fitness trainer is an important step in your wellness programme, but how do you know which one is right for you? As a general rule, the best trainers will – on the first meeting – sit you down and ask you lots of questions so that they can determine exactly what you need to enhance your wellbeing. Before you even touch a weight, your trainer should be able to devise the exercise programme that suits your needs best—and one that will give you the best results. To do that, he or she has to ask you the following questions:

 

1. Have you ever had health problems? There is a broad list of health problems that will affect your exercise programme, so never leave anything out, no matter how small a health concern it may seem. The main players include:

• Cardiovascular problems – Heart attacks, cardiac surgery, chest pains, high blood pressure (over 140/90), high blood cholesterol (more than 200 mg/dl), heart murmurs, arrhythmia, vascular diseases, phlebitis, stroke, and high blood fat levels.


• Breathing problems – Smoking problems, fainting, shortness of breath, bronchitis, asthma, and emphysema.


• Joint and bone problems – Ankle swelling, rheumatic fever, arthritis, and orthopaedic problems.


• Miscellaneous problems – Emotional disorders, recent illnesses or hospitalisations, drug allergies, etc.

 

2. Do you have diabetes? This one deserves a special question all of its own as diabetes is a major health risk factor. Many professional trainers are not qualified to train you if you have such a risk factor, so make sure your trainer is adequately prepared to take you on.

 

3. What is your waist size? As with diabetes and other major health risk factors, many trainers aren’t certified to train obese people. You’re considered to be obese if you’re a man with a girth of 40 inches or greater or a woman with a girth of 35 inches or greater, so make sure you measure yourself before your interview, and choose a trainer who is properly trained to help you lose weight.

 

4. What is your resting heart rate? If you have an abnormal resting heart rate, this is another major risk factor that many trainers aren’t qualified to deal with. Make sure your trainer is certified to train you.

 

5. What are your goals? This is perhaps the most important question your trainer can ask you, as your goals provide a direction for your training programme. With your answer to this question, your trainer will be able to create a diet and exercise regime specifically for you and what you want out of it. In order to do a good job of this, your trainer will need to take into account both your long-term and short-term goals, so come to your interview prepared to answer this question as fully as possible.

 

6. What are your eating habits? If one of your fitness focuses is on your weight – whether you want to bulk up, slim down or maintain the healthy weight you’re at – your trainer will ask about your current eating habits to see how they can be adjusted to help you achieve your weight goals. Go to your interview knowing the number of calories you consume, the types of foods you eat, the timing and size of your meals, your number of meals per day and any supplements you’re taking.

 

7. Have you done resistance exercise before? In order to create a programme that delivers optimum results, trainers will want to know about your resistance exercise past. This means telling your trainer the type of routines you have done, what time of the day you are usually train, how long you work out for, how you target your various muscles, and what kind of exercise you prefer.

Categories: eating habits, Fitness Trainer, health problems, Heart Rate, high blood, Interview, major health, prepare, resistance exercise, risk factor, trainers aren

Warning: Losing Weight too Fast Can be Very Bad for You

When you want to lose weight, the traditional methods such as following a calorie controlled diet and increasing your fitness can seem tedious. What you really want is to shed lot of pounds in the shortest possible amount of time. Advertisements for miracle diets do not help, as they seem to offer this possibility. In truth, though, if you want to lose weight but not lose your grasp on your wellness and wellbeing, the old methods really are the best.

 

Despite what the adverts may claim, it is often not possible and definitely not healthy to lost vast amounts of weight in a short period of time. These claims are often made on the back of marketing for dietary supplements or weight loss magazines, and people jump at the chance of getting rid of fat fast, and with very little effort.

 

Most experts agree, however, that fast weight loss is not healthy weight loss. Instead, they recommend that people should aim for a weight loss of around one or two pounds per week. Although this may not seem like a fast enough rate of weight loss, a steady loss of this size would see you being 24 pounds lighter in just 12 weeks – a far more realistic goal but impressive nevertheless.

 

When you try to lose a lot of weight very quickly, it’s often done through starvation methods. This is not sustainable for a long period of time, and if you try to keep going with it, you may start to regain weight or at least plateau. This can make you rebound into bad eating habits again.

 

Also, weight that is lost quickly very seldom stays off. If you lose weight fast you have not learned to change your long term eating habits and so as soon as you eat normally again, you find that the weight just comes back on even more easily than it went off.

Categories: eating habits, fast, Lose, Lose weight, loss, nbsp, time, weight, Weight Loss

How Can You Encourage Your Wife to Lose Weight?

It can be difficult broaching the subject of weight loss with your partner – you know that they need to lose weight but you don’t want to damage their self confidence or hurt their feelings. The trouble often lies in that asking someone to lose weight, however heartfelt the reasoning, can come across as sexist, unappreciative and demanding. It’s no wonder that men often feel it’s best to keep their mouths closed on the subject. However, there could be downsides to staying silent as well, such as your partner’s quality of life or life span being in jeopardy. So how can you bring up the subject of weight loss with your wife without her feeling as though it is a personal attack on her self esteem? The good news is that there are ways to do it – it simply requires some sensitivity and thought. Firstly, consider your motives and why you want your wife to lose weight – is it through concern for her health, her life span or for more personal reasons to you, such as you wanting her to have a tighter body? Before you begin any conversation about her weight and diet, make sure you know why you’re asking. It could well determine the outcome.

Changing your own eating habits is a great way to encourage someone else to change theirs, particularly if that person is someone you eat with most of the time. Women tend to gain weight more easily when they’re in a long-term relationship, as they follow the eating habits of the person they’re with. So make a few changes of your own – it will benefit both of you to eat better and up your intake to fruit and vegetables. You should try to make your dishes stand out against her choices in restaurants too. Restaurants are easy places to overindulge, so you may want to help your partner to make healthier choices by showing them the pros and cons of what you’re both ordering. You may find it useful to also decrease her level of comfort by cutting back on the lies about her weight. If she asks you if she looks fat, you don’t have to answer with a resounding yes, but you can be honest if she asks if that shirt looks a bit snug.

Try to request healthy selections if she does the shopping, or if you shop then bring home a variety of fruits, vegetables and whole grains so that making healthy meals is easier. You don’t need to throw out every tasty snack in the house, but the more readily available healthy choices are, the more likely you both are to choose something natural and fat-free over that lingering chocolate bar or a packet of crisps. Help out with dinner making, too. If your wife tends to make most of the meals, you could help her out by choosing to make a healthy meal once or twice a week. It will not only help her to eat lower-fat meals, but also gives her a few nights off from cooking. Lastly, be sure to compliment your wife regularly and make her feel good about herself. There’s nothing worse than feeling as though your partner doesn’t find you attractive, so don’t let her self esteem go down simply because you’re not showing attention where’s its due. Be kind when her weight is mentioned so that she doesn’t feel as though you’re against her, and be sure to encourage her when she does lose weight. Losing weight is a difficult thing to do and requires a lot of dedication and effort, so be sure to let her know that you’re behind her the whole way.

Categories: eating habits, Healthy, life span, Lose, Lose weight, partner, Relationships, Tips, weight, Weight Loss, wife

Could Eating Earlier Help You To Lose More Weight?

There are so many weight loss nuggets of wisdom that it’s hard to know which is true for your wellness, and which have been made up to sell diet pills. One of these adages is that late night heavy meals and snacks make you more likely to opt for unhealthy dishes, and your body’s metabolism is slower then. By this logic, eating late at night means that you store more weight instead of burning it off, but a new study has found that there could be wisdom in this advice after all.

For the study, which was published in the International Journal of Obesity, 420 Spanish dieters spent 20 weeks eating their main meal at different times. One group ate before 3pm, the others after, and it was found that even though their overall caloric intake was the same, the group who ate before 3pm lost more weight than those who ate it later. However, the researchers did not find a link between weight loss and the timing of smaller meals.

According to the researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, America, in collaboration with the University of Murcia and Tufts University, the late lunchers lost, on average, 7.7kg, whereas those who ate before 3pm lost an average of 9.9kg. Over the 20 weeks, this is a body weight loss percentage of 9% and 11.3% respectively. The researchers also found that the later eaters were more likely to consume fewer calories at breakfast, and even more likely to skip it altogether. This group’s estimated insulin sensitivity was also lower, and this can lead to diabetes.

‘This is the first large-scale prospective study to demonstrate that the timing of meals predicts weight-loss effectiveness,’ said author of the study Dr Frank Scheer, director of the Medical Chronobiology Programme and associate neuroscientist at BWH and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. ‘Our results indicate that late eaters displayed a slower weight-loss rate and lost significantly less weight than early eaters, suggesting that the timing of large meals could be an important factor in a weight loss program.’

Prof Marta Garaulet, professor of Physiology at the University of Murcia Spain, and lead author of the study, added, ‘This study emphasises that the timing of food intake itself may play a significant role in weight regulation,’ and diet programmes should take timing of meals, as well as content, into account.

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Could Eating Earlier Help You To Lose More Weight?

Categories: eating habits, Research, Weight Loss