Weight and Image The Benefits of a Healthy Weight I’ve debated whether or not to address this topic, since it is such a hot button. But I decided to anyway as weight is undeniably tied to image. It’s no surprise that diet and fitness books are some of the hottest sellers on the market. Everyone seems to be obsessed with losing weight, staying fit, and looking for the magic pill that will help them achieve “the look”. We bemoan the fact that our genes have betrayed us while our best friend appears to have hit the gene jackpot. “It’s not fair!” we cry. It doesn’t help that the media constantly parades before us images of women and men whose body compositions are only achievable by a small percentage of the population. And for some unknown but discouraging reason, many of the high-end designers use rail-thin and flat-as-a-pancake girls as fit models. Arg! While an obsession with body image should never be encouraged, and while I believe that woman can be beautiful at any size, it certainly pays to put forth an effort to stay at a healthy weight and to be fit. Note I said “healthy” and not “skinny”. For some, healthy may indeed be skinny. For others, genes may have a slightly different agenda. Staying on the slim side has its definite benefits. The most important benefit is that maintaining a healthy weight dramatically lowers your risk factors for disease. Being healthy is so much more valuable than whether or not you can fit into size 0 jeans. So ladies…even before image, always consider health as your primary motivation for keeping your weight down. Moving into the realm of image, the primary benefit of a healthy weight is that slim individuals are perceived differently than their heavier friends. Because of something known as the halo effect, not only are thinner people considered more physically attractive, but more intelligent and socially desirable, as well. Talk about unfair! But wait, there’s more! To add insult to injury, clothing is designed and built using slender fit models. The farther in size you go from the original fit model, the more distorted the garment becomes, and the less it resembles the original design. It ceases to “hang“ in the same way. Which means that the clothes just don’t look “right”. Which means that it is much, much harder to look pulled together! Double arg! So -- health, halo effect and “hang”. Three reasons why a trim figure matters. Yes, everyone should “love themselves” no matter what their size. And yes, everyone should be concerned about their weight and their fitness level. So what’s a girl to do when maintaining a healthy weight is just so darn hard? I suppose that I could just leave this article as an exhortation to maintain a healthy weight for the overall image boost it can provide. But knowing how hard it can be to keep those pounds off, I figured it wouldn’t be fair to wag a finger unless I shared with you how I personally found a solution to the dreaded diet challenge. Like most everyone I know, I have to work at keeping my weight in a healthy zone. I love to eat. I love sweets. I too fight the urge to devour the whole package of <insert something yummy here>. But I also know how terribly important it is to keep weight off. Especially for me as I’m only 4’11”! Every extra pound looks like five on my small frame. For years I studied different diets and followed research in nutrition rather closely. While I managed to keep myself from ballooning to astronomical proportions, I found that I was always hungry and always thinking about food. It didn’t matter whether the meal in question was a vegan affair or a carnivore’s delight. And then about six years ago I encountered some rather astonishing research in the field of diet and longevity that changed how I looked at eating. And once my diet changed, not only was I able to keep weight off very easily, but I completely lost my prior obsession with food. I’m not trying to sell anything. And I’m not an MD. I can only tell you what works for me. And I’d like to pass it on, since research is again and again confirming that there are some serious health benefits to… Intermittent Fasting. What is Intermittent Fasting (IF)? It is a way of eating that focuses on the timing of meals rather than the macronutrient composition of the meals themselves (although that plays a part). There are several different styles of IF, but two are predominant. The first is daily IF, or 20/4. In this style, you fast for 19-20 hours, and then eat during a 4-5 hour window, which usually encompasses dinnertime. This version was popularized by Ori Hofmekler in his Warrior Diet and then later by Bert Herring with Fast-5. The next style of IF is called both Alternate-Day-Fasting (ADF) and Every-Other-Day (EOD) Fasting. This is a 36/12 fasting schedule where one fasts for thirty-six hours and then eats during a twelve-hour window. This version is now being championed by James Johnson in his Alternate-Day Diet. What is so interesting about IF is that you don’t necessarily cut calories. So it’s not a fad diet that requires skipping meals to avoid the calories and it’s not about starving yourself. You eat more during your eating window than you would normally. At first the idea of fasting so regularly seems counter-intuitive. We’ve all been told that you need a good breakfast to start the day, and that you need to eat frequent small meals throughout the day to keep your metabolism stoked. When I first started following a 20/4 plan, my biggest fear was that I was going to permanently damage my metabolism. However, I found the opposite to be true. And as an added bonus, I had a LOT more energy. The really wonderful thing for me about Intermittent Fasting was that after the initial adjustment period, it really was not difficult. I could eat until I was satisfied, and I could eat without guilt. And the hunger during fasting was absolutely manageable. Another benefit I found is that it was not a deadly sin to let go of my fasting schedule for a number of days…I did not suddenly balloon up in weight. Fasting somehow seems to reset your appestat so that if you return to eating ad libitum you will not have the same urge to overeat. Honestly, I have gone for very long periods without doing IF before my weight would begin to climb again. (But it invariably happens, so I always return to IF). Researchers are still studying the mechanism of intermittent fasting and its close cousin, CRON (Caloric Restriction with Optimal Nutrition). If you are interested in learning more about intermittent fasting, I would encourage you to check out these books and online forums. And that, my friends, is my dieting secret.

Also check out:

http://projectfit.org/iflifeblog/

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/fasting/

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/CRsupportgroup/


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