Weight loss and energy balance

 The energy balance equation refers to energy intake and energy output.

Energy In

Energy is available from the food and liquids we consume.

Energy is described in kilojoules or calories.

Energy Out

Energy out is the amount of energy we expend.

Energy required for maintenance at rest, physical activity, and for food digestion. 

Weight Loss

In order to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume. If you keep using more energy than you put in overtime you will lose weight. Some of the strategies you can apply to  lose weight is to exercise regularly and eat high quality food that is low in calories and high in nutrients.

Weight loss still needs to be controlled. Severe weight loss can lead to a declined metabolism, decreased bone mass, an inability to concentrate and reduced energy levels. 

The relationship between the amount of food we eat and the amount of energy we use determines our body weight and overall health.

Sizwe Gumede is a full time Personal trainer and a yoga teacher with over 15 years of experience. He works virtually with males and females over 50 who want to manage stress, stay fit as they age, have less or no musculoskeletal pain, have good quality sleep, improve the quality of their lives and feel great about themselves 

Proven Strategies for Weight Reduction

Last month I studied a continuing professional development course about proven strategies for weight reduction

One of the strategies that have consistently proven to be effective in losing weight and maintaining the loss is to self-weigh often and record your progress.

When self-weighing often and keeping record of your weight you reduce the overall effort associated with losing weight.

" WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS ACCOMPLISHED"

Studies investigating self-weighing as a weight control strategy have demonstrated that the more you weigh yourself the greater the weight loss, maintenance of the loss and prevention of weight gain.

Research also validate the reverse: the less frequently subjects weighed in, the lower their chance of success.

Presumably by the time they would weigh themselves, if ever, It was too late to undo the damage without a significant lifestyle change, hence they continued to gain weight.

Figure 1 captures the significant results of regular weighing.
More significant is the fact that as time went on the subject who consistently weighed themselves continued to reduce their body max index (BMI)

Subjects weighing multiple times a week reported that any time weight was not trending in a desired direction they would make a simple adjustment. Sometimes eating slightly less or an alteration in exercise would allow them to maintain an easy, steady course to the goal. Additionally, the fact that one has to weigh most days influenced people to think twice about consuming something that might give them an undesirable weigh in.



So weigh yourself often if you want to lose weight, maintain the loss and prevent weight gain.

Sizwe Gumede is a full time Personal trainer, yoga teacher and a health coach with over 15 years of experience. He works with males and females over 50 who want to manage stress, stay fit as they age, have less or no musculoskeletal pain, have good quality sleep, improve the quality of their lives and feel great about themselves 

How to keep fit during lockdown

This week I got a question bout how to keep fit during lockdown?

The first thing one needs to do in order to keep fit during lockdown is to set  fitness goals.

Write down your fitness goals, read them daily and work towards achieving them.

You can use house work as part of your strategy for keeping fit during lockdown. Clean your house and wash your own car for example.  Next thing you need to do is to find fitness programs that are in line with your goals that you can do at home during lockdown. You can have  look at my youtube channel for more exercise you can do at home.UCy2z6Te4Y8fhqiPujHbiqGw

You need to shop for food and drinks that are going to support your goal of keeping fit during lockdown. So stock up your house with healthy high quality foods and do not keep unhealthy food at home. 

Find a virtual fitness community that you can belong to, this will help support and keep you accountable with your fitness goals as you are not able to go to a gym or fitness clubs during lock down.

Take some time off to rest and recover between your house work and training.

Enjoy spending time with family and stay positive. This is my advice for keeping fit during lockdown.

Remember lockdown is only a season, it will pass 

Sizwe Gumede is a full time Personal trainer and a yoga teacher with over 15 years of experience. He works with males and females over 50 who want to manage stress, stay fit as they age, have less or no musculoskeletal pain, have good quality sleep, improve the quality of their lives and feel great about themselves 

Body transformation

Today I want to talk about body transformation and the approach that I follow when helping a client with a body transformation goal.

I started my career as certified Personal Trainer with basic nutrition education that I learned as part of my personal training qualification. So when ever I helped a client with body transformation  I would focus on training a client  and just talk with a client casually about making healthy food choice when we were busy training. 

I never really followed up if the client was making healthy eating choices on a regular basis or not. I had no structure of supporting clients  and keeping them accountable when I came to their eating habits. 

All I did was keeping clients accountable when it came to their training appointments and supported them while we were training.

When it came to assessments which is what I do to track  progress some clients were progressing towards their body transformation goals other were not.

So I knew this method of helping clients transform their bodies was not the best approach because of its success rate.

I started investigating why some clients are not getting the results.

What I discovered is that lack of support when it came to nutrition, stress , not enough accountability and lack of rest and recovery was what was lacking from my body transformation approach.

This is how I discovered the 100 % method.

What is a 100 % method?

A 100 %  method is an integrated system of 5 disciplines which are:

20 % what we put in our bodies ( food and drinks)

20 % movement ( physical activities and exercise)

20 % stress management 

20 % accountability and support 

20 % rest and recovery 

I will be explaining the 100 % method in more details in future blogs 
you can also visit my youtube channel UCy2z6Te4Y8fhqiPujHbiqGw

Sizwe Gumede is a full time Personal trainer and a yoga teacher with over 15 years of experience. He works with males and females over 50 who want to manage stress, stay fit as they age, have less or no musculoskeletal pain, have good quality sleep, improve the quality of their lives and feel great about themselves 

How to lose weight

Should I Stop Eating Carbohydrates?

I got a question from a client who wants to lose weight. The question was should I stop eating carbohydrates if I want to lose excess body fat? My answer is no. You don't have to stop eating carbohydrate in order to lose weight. If you want to lose weight and maintain your ideal body weight for the rest of your life you have to incorporate all the macro nutrients in your eating plan. Macro nutrients are carbohydrates, protein and heathy fats. The reason why we need carbohydrates in our eating plan is because carbohydrates provides our body with energy. So if you want to live a healthy active lifestyle you should be eating healthy carbohydrates to fuel your body so that you always have energy and feel great all the time. Sizwe Gumede is a full time Personal trainer and a yoga teacher with over 15 years of experience. He works with males and females over 50 who want to manage stress, stay fit as they age, have less or no musculoskeletal pain, have good quality sleep, improve the quality of their lives and feel great about themselves

Manage office stress