Your 5 in 5 challenge
Christmas was weeks ago, but are you still carrying around the festive cheer?
It is time to get back on track.
Losing one kilogram a week need not involve starving yourself and working out at the gym all day.
But it will take planning, so the first step is to rule out crash dieting, says Kristy Oliver, owner of KO Fitness and Personal Training.
“Weight loss is about calories in versus calories out,” she says. “Restricting your calories to a very low amount is not the way to achieve long-term weight loss. You want to find the right balance between the foods you are consuming and the exercise you are doing.”
When it comes to the exercise element of weight loss, Ms Oliver says a combination of resistance training, high intensity interval training and longer, low intensity cardio sessions are best.
“The magical trick is to get your body moving,” she says. “Use weight bearing exercises to increase muscle mass and help burn more calories and use cardio sessions to improve your fitness so you can train harder for longer and improve your heart health.”
She says a common mistake people make when trying to lose weight as a New Year’s Resolution is going too hard, too fast. “Set a realistic goal,” she advises. “Weight loss is about continued effort over a long period of time as opposed to rapid drastic changes.”
Dietitian and spokesperson for the Dietitians Association of Australia, Simone Austin, says weight loss of between 500 grams to one kilogram per week is recommended. “You can lose one kilo a week safely but it is the maximum we recommend,” she says.
“It is better to lose less and keep it off than to lose a lot and put it back on – long-term changes are always better.”
Ms Austin says to lose up to one kilogram a week, healthy eating in conjunction with exercise is imperative.
“Focus on plenty of vegetables and salad and minimise packaged food,” she says. “Include protein with each meal and foods high in fibre to keep you full. Keep carbs about the size of your fist.”
Ms Oliver agrees. “You simply can’t out-train a poor diet,” she says. “My advice is to eat as clean of a diet as possible.
Avoid crash, fad diets as in the long-run they will only cause more health problems. Aim for plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables and lean meats combined with nuts, seeds and whole grains.”
