Why Should You Take The Younger Body Age Challenge Now?...

Ever since I started to see clients on 1-to-1 consultations or group consultations in the Weight-Loss-Challenges (WLC) that I ran, I tried to emphasize that the aim should be a healthier life and a healthier body, not a lower figure on the scales. I have always wondered how successful I have been in getting that message across though. With the biological vs. chronological age comparison, I feel that I get better attention. When I tell a client in her 40s that she lives in a body whose biological age is 60, I feel the effect of the statement. And when we work together on reducing her biological age to the 30s, I can see the enormous satisfaction that achievement makes!

If you feel signs of aging like getting out of breadth and you would like to reverse them, continue reading! If extending your life-span by adding more healthily lived years to your life, you will find this article interesting! 

If you would like younger body, continue reading!

All of us desire a younger-looking, healthier body

The current world we live in expects youth and assumes that we do not age. There is a cheap, easy and a safe way to stay young and that is by exercise. Researchers have stated that by being physically active you could reduce you biological age by anything from 10 to 20 years. Physically active 60 and 70 year olds were found to have the same cardiopulmonary fitness as sedentary 20 year olds. Those active elders were found to be twice as fit as sedentary people of the same age. And what makes this so appealing is how little exercise it takes to realize the benefits. A recreational one hour a day was all it took.

Adding healthy years to your life span

Being biologically younger also means that you may live longer. This is also backed up by research that showed that subjects that burnt 2,000 calories a week (this is equivalent to running or walking 3 miles a day) were up to a third lower than sedentary counterparts. Using innovative analysis of computer data lead researchers to conclude that a healthy lifestyle including regular exercise starting at the age of 30, may potentially add 15 years to life expectancy. Another study showed that when subjects were asked to stay in bed for 3 weeks their aerobic capacity aged by the equivalent of 20 years. Exercising however needs to be regular with a frequency of at least 3 times a week. Such a commitment will make you feel younger, work harder and enjoy life more. Research has demonstrated that aerobic exercises such as swimming, running, cycling and walking are the most effective anti-ageing weapons. This Is because of their demand for more oxygen which fuels the body cells and allows them to perform at their best. It will also allow you to think and move faster.

Wise nutrition choices enhance the anti-aging effect

The anti-aging effects of exercise may be enhanced by other healthy lifestyle changes such as making wise nutrition choices. As we age we lose lean muscle and to rebuild it we need both exercise and nutrition. For exercise to be effective, you need to re-generate your body cells, repair the damaged ones and feed the healthy ones to keep them healthy. All of this should be done at the cellular level and can be achieved by cellular nutrition.  Furthermore more, there are medical indicators for conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol that have a tendency to deteriorate as we age. Reversing such a tendency which effectively means turning the clock back will require a nutritional intervention. Medical advice is paramount in these cases and I can work with you on monitoring progress. As we age, our bodies create higher levels of homocysteine. These raised levels can significantly increase vulnerability to cardiovascular disease, strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis and certain forms of cancer. Again, to reverse this particular ageing effect we need a diet rich in Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12 and folic acid to reverse this particular ageing effect. Also, when cells age their telomeres shorten to reverse this ageing effect, a diet rich in Omega-3 is needed. Cooking choices such as types of cooking oil and cooking method can dramatically improve the nutritional value of your meal. All of these choices and many more are covered in the various topics of the WLC that I run.

To sumarise

Physical activity beats aging and will make you feel younger. It will also add years of quality life so make it part of your life and learn to enjoy it for the good it will do to you. With that you need to make healthy nutrition choices to enhance the benefits of physical activity for a younger looking body and spirit.

Actions available to you

If you are not active yet, my advice to you is to start now and start slow. Do not let the lifestyle change daunt you. Start with a weekly brisk walk then slowly increase the frequency to daily. It is an effective start that will give you anti-aging benefits and puts you in a good condition for more rigorous activities such as swimming and running. Join one of my Younger body challenges in January and join my Fit Club for a healthier younger you!

I have a new challenge starting on January

So why don't you  Join my 12 week Reduce Your Body Age challenge to Turn Your Body Clock Back and Look and Feel Younger. This challenge is designed to help you shed some of your chronological body age and get you to feel younger biologically. 

Take the first step to Fight Body Aging and lose Weight by Joining the Body Age Challenge. You can Fight Your Body Aging simply by feeding your Cells and keeping them Young. We will work on your Metabolic Age, which reflects your Physical Health for example you could be 35 but your metabolic age is 75. The only way to do that is by a Healthy 

Nutrition Program and a Suitable Fitness program that I will tailor make to fit your needs and help your body resist ageing.

Courses are run at the Nutrition & Wellness Centre, London road BA1 6AD. There is Free council parking at the back.

The next Younger Body Challenges start on:

January 2013: 

Tuesday 8th at 6:15pm

Wednesday16th at 6:15pm

Tuesday 22nd at 10.30 am

To book your place please contact the centre on: 01225 571361

Let’s Turn Back The Clock Of Time and Lose Weight..

Let’s Turn Back The Clock Of Time, Fight Body Ageing and Lose Weight by joining our 12 week Younger Body Age Challenge to Look and Feel Younger. 
This challenge is designed to help you shed some of your chronological body age and get you to feel younger biologically.

Take the first step to Fight Body Aging and Loss Weight by Joining the Body Age Challenge. You can Fight Your Body Aging simply by feeding your Cells and keep them Young. We will work on your Metabolic Age, which reflects your Physical Health for example you could be 35 but your metabolic age is 75.  The only way to do that is by a Healthy Nutrition Program and a Suitable Fitness program that I will tailor make to fit your needs and help your body resist aging.

What will it cost?

The cost for the 12 week course is £39.00.

There is nothing else to pay for my time, that’s it.

THE COURSE LASTS FOR 12 WEEKS AND I WILL COVER TOPICS SUCH AS:

• Anti-oxidants and free radicals • vitamins • metabolism • alkalinity & acidity • Water • Fitness • Good carbohydrates • Digestive health • Good fat • protein • Heart health and more

What will I get?

·       A one-to-one session at the start of the challenge to record all your stats and set your personal goals

·       Weekly Fit Session

·       CASH PRIZE for the TOP achiever with the most improvement in BODY AGE

·       A wellness evaluation with all your measurements (height, weight, fat %, muscle %, water %, metabolic age, BMI, Resting Metabolic Rate)

·       Individual support – I’m at the end of a phone and encourage my clients to contact me for advice - day and night (within reason)

·       Free healthy snacks in class

·       A weekly prize for the biggest loser

·       A folder of all the literature and weekly handouts

·       Your before and after photo

·       Great prize for the three winner

      

Where are your courses?

Courses are run at the Nutrition & Wellness Centre, London roadBA1 6AD. There is Free council parking at the back.

The next Younger Body Challenge

January 2013

Tuesday 8th  at 6:15pm

Wedsday16th  at 6:15p

Tuesday 22ed  at 10.30 am

To book your place please contact the centre on:

01225 571361 

Controlling The Festive Season Emotions And Other Temptations!

Now that you have got your weight where you wanted it to be, the holiday season approaches with the speed of light! Delicious, unhealthy, fatty food will be everywhere and they will come with an assortment of family and friends that will add to the emotional pressures on your weight control achievements and what you worked so hard to achieve in weeks or months could be wiped out in days. 

However, and in spite of all of these pressures, you can still limit the damage! And this is going to be my tips for you this Christmas season:

The influence of your emotions

It is not just the delicious food items and the handmade cakes or that favourite dish of yours that are the problems. Research has indicated that emotions play a part. It is those emotions that contribute to overeating at the festive season. A publication concluded that for many of us, our emotions control our desire to overeat. And when that is the case, it was found that, it was harder for those subjects to lose weight and keep it off.

"When it comes to successful weight loss, our research showed that our emotions and our thoughts seem to actually play a bigger role than environmental cues -- we eat in response to feelings -- and for many people, the holidays can drum up a whole treasure chest of feelings, both good and bad," says Niemeier, a researcher with Miriam Hospital's Weight Control & Diabetes Research Center and the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Rhode Island.

The weight control argument is confirmed by psychologists. It is those conversations about holidays and the struggles that we face in our lives and share with family members that can create an atmosphere of sadness which in turn makes us more susceptible to comfort eating. "If we have somewhere in our history an emotional response that we responded to by eating, that's going to get triggered again -- that connection gets built and doesn’t get broken, particularly since we keep reinforcing it over and over, over time," says Katherine Muller, PsyD, director of the Cognitive Behavior Therapy Program Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

To reinforce the emotional influence, another research finding concluded that food may act as an emotional trigger causing even further consumption of food in a vicious circle of indulgence. In a similar way to listening to musical memories, the smells of foods associated with events in your life will result in triggering an emotional response which results in having a much bigger portion and possibly repeat helpings of a dish you would have otherwise only had a modest helping of.

I would advise my clients and friends to realise that there is a link between their emotions and the food they eat. Such a realization will make them conscious and will help break the cycle of overeating.

Planning not to add weight

This is another tactic that will help you stay focused and alert. Make a plan to handle the expected temptations. Otherwise you will end up spending all your time at the buffet table. Researchers concluded that dieters planned to control their food intake using avoidance strategies were less successful than those that prepared plans to cope.  Positive self-talk was identified as the most successful tactic with the help of appetite "flash cards," says Judith Beck, PhD, clinical associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia and author of TheBeck Diet Solution.

"Part of the Beck Solution is to make a list of every good reason why you want to lose weight, and read it to yourself every morning -- and when you are tempted to eat something you hadn't planned, just read it again, so you're constantly reminding yourself why it's worth it to turn down food," she says.

Dr Beck thinks that if you remind yourself of your reasons to lose weight, you will be less likely to succumb to your temptations. "You have to condition yourself and change your mind-set about what food means to you," says Beck. This method would suit the “thinkers” among us. For those that are more spontaneous another method is proposed called “mindful eating”

"So often, overeating is connected to a primitive, emotional place inside us, and we just mindlessly start eating," says Muller. "So one of the strategies would be to cultivate mindfulness: Keep bringing yourself back to the here and now, notice what's in your hand, notice what's on your plate, and pay attention to what you are eating."

You could easily go from a party to a party with a plan for each and you will succeed in limiting the quantity on your plate and your refills. In fact you could decide from the start that you will only eat three of your favourite dishes. Furthermore, you will only eat so much of each and you will be surprised at the success you will have using a simple tactic like “mindful eating”

Know the “food pushers”

Identify the food pushers as those who are hell-bent on spoiling your weight control plans! They could be colleagues from work, friends or family members who would not take “NO” for an answer. They seem to think that the festivities are not complete without reversing your weight control efforts.

The way out here is the “broken-record NO”! Just say NO over and over again. There is no need to explain or give reasons. A simple, polite yet firm NO. Eventually, they will get the message and no more food will be pushed in your direction. Also, you need to think of it as your right. If the pressure becomes too much, accept it then disappear in the room next door and loose it. You do not have to eat anything just because it happens to land on your plate or your hand.

I wish my clients a merry Christmas and a happy prosperous new year and I also wish them the best of luck in fighting the festive season temptations. Remember, it took you weeks to 

get here and it will only take days to take you back to the starting line!

Heba Al-Zuhair | M.Phil in Nutrition, Physical Activity & Public Health