Hello Everybody,
Winter weight loss is not as easy as losing weight in the summer and for those of us in the Northern hemisphere winter is just round the corner. We are more active in good weather and unless we enjoy skiing or chasing flocks of wild geese most of us prefer to stay home in the winter. Some say putting on weight in winter is a natural phenomenon. Our hunter gatherer ancestors did well in the autumn, gathering nuts and berries and hunting young easy to kill animals. So they built up fat to see them through the lean months ahead. This may be the case, but now that we do our hunter gathering in superstores we need to keep to our weight loss program or our weight will get out of hand.
But there are problems associated with the colder months. As the days get shorter there is less sunlight. Vitamin D is a well known requirement for healthy bones and general physical and mental wellbeing and is partly provided by sunlight. This lack of vitamin D may trigger the switch to winter metabolism and the deposit of fat. We are probably getting less vitamin D from sunlight today anyway, as we are encouraged to cover our bodies as much as possible during the summer. Fortunately vitamin D is also obtained from such things as omega-3 fats and oily fish. Oily fish is included in the Mediterranean diet, which I always recommend as part of a weight loss program. So make sure you top up your vitamin D level in the winter months.
One more problem is Seasonal Affective Disorder - one person in a hundred suffers from it and it is a form of depression that occurs between September and April. Do not confuse the usual winter blues with Seasonal Affective Disorder. If you spend ten minutes starting your car in the morning, skid on an icy drive and run over the cat you are unlikely to be cheerful when you get to the office. But if you have Seasonal Affective Disorder you will be too depressed to get out of bed in the first place.
It is possible that lack of light affects the brain and, as a result of this, we can feel tired depressed and hungry. So it is easy to comfort eat on high calorie, high fat, high sugar foods to cheer us up. Be aware of what may be happening and try to keep to your weight loss program.
Of course, if you have full blown Seasonal Affective Disorder and suffer from clinical depression you will need the help of your doctor, who will offer medication and maybe counselling.
Try not to stay indoors all winter. Exercise is important to keep muscles in trim. As we get older, and that means over 30 years old, our muscles begin to weaken. Without exercise this process of muscle wastage continues, our metabolism slows and we begin to deposit fat. So we need to keep up regular exercise as part of a weight loss program.
Put all this together and you stand a good chance of having increased you weight by December and we all know what happens in December. But you could lose 8-10 pounds before Christmas. You have the time. Just swap your junk food for a Mediterranean diet (Google it for recipes), spend 30 minutes a day taking a brisk walk and make sure you eat oily fish or omega-3 capsules if you don’t like oily fish. Try to avoid the winter blues if you can and, even if you don’t like skiing or wild geese, make an effort to get out more. That is all a weight loss program consists of. It’s easy, start losing weight now and you will be able to enjoy your food and still weigh less on 1 January than you do today. It must be worth a try.
See you soon,
Peter Stockwell
16 October 2010
Photo. Cherington (Flickr)
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