I probably am the best person you know to talk about weight loss and how to stay fit.
Simply because I have tried to lose weight several times in my life, with various methods (including FAD diet). The major endeavors happened in my late childhood and early adulthood.
I was a FAT child from the age of 7 till 12. (6 years of being fat! Very detrimental to a kid's self-esteem)
And I was a FAT teenager/young adult between 17 and 19.
If you don't believe me that I was once fat (Well, overweight), check it out yourself.
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| When I was in Primary 6, I was bigger than my class teacher |
Yeah, that's me.
Not cool at all.All school kids boycotted me and allegedly said "FAT" was contagious.
Verbal violence.
Can you imagine right now I am as heavy as I was in Primary 5 (11 years old)? (That picture of me in yellow t-shirt. At times I was mistaken to be a boy)
Then in the summer before Secondary 2 (so I was 12-ish), I started running once every two days.
And I managed to lose about 15 pounds and stayed at a normal size first time in my life.
The second time I became overweight was when I went to the UK for A-Levels.
I was so adapted to the British lifestyle especially when it comes to the cheap junk food diet.
(Cakes and Muffins, Cheap chocolate and crisps, sugary biscuits, cheap frozen pizzas/chips/fishfingers etc, and NO EXERCISE due to the relatively cold weather)
And people there in Yorkshire are bigger than me anyway so putting a few pounds on still ddidn't make me appear to be big among others.
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| Leeds, where I spent two life-changing years. Also when I piled up pounds. |
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| I walked through this avenue every day for college. From http://www.yorkshiredailyphoto.com/ |
And the disaster became a catastrophe when I spent Christmas in Athens in 2010 when I did nothing but "fooding".
Proof here:
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| Posted on my FB page before - www.facebook.com/ElektraYu |
That's when my weight peaked (picture on the right).
The worst things could ever happen were, people offered their seats on the train and my malicious father said that I was pregnant.
And when I started university again in Hong Kong in Jan 2011 after Christmas, the city where everybody is super skinny, I was determined to lose the monstrous weight.
I have asked you guys on Facebook how much I lost and the answer is....................
I spent about 6 months to lose a whopping 15 kgs and trimmed down a bit further later the year.
So yup, I lost about 20 kgs / 44 pounds / 3 stones ish. Tolerably remarkable.
I can be an endorser of Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig (LOL)!
OK, the end of my story.
First question,
Do Models Diet?
To be frank, YES and NO.
For models who have the naturally thin body type with both little muscle and fat (the so-called ectomorph e.g. Sheena Liam on AsNTM2), they NEVER diet simply because they never get fat by eating. It could be due to they have very high metabolism.
In the model house, most of us ate rubbish. Our favourite things were peanut butter toast (with optional Nutella) and Tom Yum cup noodle. And look how skinny some of us are (me excluded please).
This body type is surely a gift for female high fashion models.
For me, I'm mesomorphic. I carry more muscles on my body than other girls and can gain/loss both fat and muscles easily (as proven in the above pictures!).
And, yes, I have to diet as well as exercise to stay fit.
And you probably have heard of some horrendous model diets like cotton ball in orange juice diet, or toilet paper diet. These are just extremely cases.
Most models adopt a healthy eating routine as a lifestyle instead of calling it a diet.
Candice Swanepoel, South-African Victoria's Secret Supermodel reportedly said
"We take care of ourselves for a living" #
And let's take notes from Dutch supermodel Doutzen Kroes' diet confession:
Red Carpet Confidential: Victoria’s Secret Model Doutzen Kroes Reveals Her Diet Secrets. PS: She Eats French Fries!
Models eat healthy, eat clean in order to stay fit in the long run.
There isn't such a thing called quick fix. Take my words, it doesn't work.
HOW to BE "model thin",
or I like this term better, "model FIT", and more importantly, in a sustainable way?
Obviously, a lot of determination is required but I'm not giving you a lesson on this again.
The formula is so simple:
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| From Twitter: Fit Tea @fatlosstea |
1. Eat Healthy
2. Drink Water
3/4. Workout/Sleep Well
I will talk about the rest in the next post. For now, I'm going to just concentrate on "Eat Healthy".
And believe me, I can go on FOREVER just on this. So please bear with my lengthy tips but I promise you, they are useful.
EAT HEALTHY
"You are what you eat". - a popular weight loss mantra.
If you eat junk, your body would look like junk.
Yes workout does matter, but I would say about 25%, the rest has to do with your eating habit.
When you have been working out for a while and haven't lost weight, then it's probably you didn't eat the right food or the right AMOUNT of food.
Everyone knows what is healthy food, what is bad food. The problem really is if you are going to be determined to make a change and cut back on bad food. REMEMBER: take baby steps. Don't try to starve yourself or quit carbs totally at once and think you're going to lose 10 pounds in a week. most likely, you're going to quit soon and rebound.
Moderation is the key. Stability is the key.
Here are my top tips on successful healthy eating:
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| That's the only department where you should get your food from in a supermarket. Don't go to the package food department! Source: http://www.tumby.com.au/?attachment_id=1072  |
NO processed meat - luncheon meat, sausage, burger, ham, fish fingers
NO processed carbohydrates - anything with WHITE sugar, anything with white/processed flour. Chocolate, sweets, cakes, cookies, Soda (even diet version), white bread, white pasta
NO canned food, ready to eat frozen food
NO fast food - McDonald's/Burger King, Most food from your school's canteen/eatery
NO baked goods - bread, cake, cookies, biscuits
So basically quit eating out, quit ready-made food, take-away. And you're pretty much safe.
YES fresh (lean) meat - skinless chicken breast, turkey fillet, seafood (fish fillet, sashimi, prawn etc)
YES fresh veggies, fresh fruit
YES complex carbohydrates - rolled oat, brown rice, whole meal food, flax seed
YES home-made food
2. Cook by yourself - so that you know what exactly goes into your food. It's definitely worth the effort. And, it's fun!
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| From http://smellslikefoodinhere.blogspot.hk/2012/06/dannon-plain-yogurt.html |
3. Study the nutrition table and ingredients before you buy the products - unless it's fresh so it doesn't have any labels. Don't be mesmerised by the marketing stance: LOW FAT? Businesses try to sell their products, steal money from your pockets and make you fat, don't fall for it. They try to trick you into thinking low fat means healthy and hence you will buy it. And you might not notice how much sugar they put to compensate the flavour and consistency of the product. It usually happens in dairy products like milk beverage and yogurt, as well as baked breakfast cereal. You'll be surprised by how much sugar they add.
3. Quit processed sugar - I have to stress this again as I have a huge sweet tooth. And you have no idea how cutting back on sugar has helped me lose weight drastically. Anything that has processed sugar, don't eat it. It has other fancy names - High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Sugar, Cane Sugar, White Sugar. Anything with it, better not eat it. What can I eat then? You can opt for things that are naturally sweet. Don't eat sweets but fresh fruit. Natural fructose in fruits does no harm and it's a part of balanced diet. You can also go for natural sweetener like honey, maple syrup, agave or stevia etc if you're so keen on sugar in your cuppa. But as you eat cleaner, your palate changes and you don't crave for sugar. Then slowly you don't need any sugar in your tea or coffee.
4. Eat good fat - Don't be afraid of the word FAT. The fat stored in your body doesn't necessarily mean the fat that is written on the nutrition table. But of course, if you eat bad fat (food with high saturated fat, like McDonald's, deep fried food), it will turn into body fat eventually. The paradox is, the good fat in food helps you lose fat in your body. Food that has good fat: fatty fish like salmon, olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds.
What you can do:
Substitute your cooking oil with olive oil.
Replace your regular butter/Margarine with Canola/Sunflower/Olive butter.
Snack on nuts (ideally almond) instead of sugary chocolate.
5. Eat breakfast - you kick start your metabolism and wake your body's "mechanism" with breakfast. If the time of the day you can eat as much as you want and don't get fat easily. If you skip breakfast, you tend to eat more and make bad choices of food in the rest of the day. Don't sacrifice your breakfast for an extra 15 minutes of sleep!
6. Stability - I found that at times when I managed to lose weight, I was eating on a regular basis. Meaning I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner more or less at the same time every day. So set a timetable for yourself. This stablises insulin level (which controls your weight) so you lose weight. Don't only eat when you're starving!
7. Snack smartly - Between meals, you're allowed to snack, but only on healthy snacks.
What I usually snack for: a banana, an apple, a bar of very dark chocolate, a handful of nuts etc.
8. Lower starchy carbohydrates intake - if you're Asian like me, you probably eat rice two or three times a day. Try to replace your bowl of rice or whatever starchy food you have (bread, potato, pasta etc) with more vegetables. It cuts down the calories too. And excessive carbs intake make you put weight on.
9. Replace your regular white carbs with complex carbs with high fibre - white rice, white pasta, white bread...bye! Now, brown/mixed rice, whole grain pasta, whole meal bread. The extra fibre is what makes you fuller longer and lowers your insulin level.
10. Eat only LEAN protein - like fibre, protein keeps you full longer. But no fatty meat like pork belly or lamb chop or beef steak. Seafood is always a safe choice. If you're vegetarian, eggs, milk/soy milk (unsweetened), tofu, legumes and beans, and nuts.
11. Eat dark chocolate every day in moderation - its main ingredient COCOA is a good fat itself, very good for fat loss. But of course the sugar in chocolate isn't very ideal for diet purpose so you'd better opt for very dark chocolate that has little sugar in it. I like to have chocolate that has 72% or 86% cocoa in it. Anything higher than this is too bitter for me! I also drink hot cocoa (that kind for baking) and sweeten it (with stevia, which has zero sugar and calorie) by myself. And I carry around a bar of dark chocolate with me when I go out so that I can eat anytime when I'm hungry and won't be tempted to buy junk food outside.
And a fringe benefit is, you won't go crazy and start binge eating as having chocolate in moderation keeps you satisfied in some extents. And it keeps you from being depressed during diet.
(SO YES, you can eat chocolate even when you're on diet. But strictly DARK CHOCOLATE ONLY)
12. Prepare your own lunch/food - if you know you'll be out for school/work where you can only get bad food. Then I recommend you prepare your own food beforehand. As a model, if I have a photoshoot, I always prepare snacks for myself like nuts in a zip bag, an apple, a boiled egg, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes etc.
13. Don't eat after 6pm - I usually will have finished my dinner by 6 and won't eat anything after that. It allows me more time to digest and I won't have excessive energy and a bloated gut for bed. If I do get hungry after that point, I drink liquids like unsweetened soymilk or milk. Something that can fill me up a little bit but doesn't give me too many calories.
14. Keep a food diary - it may sound too crazy to many people. But it's good to know how many calories you eat especially nowadays the scientific way to lose weight is
Energy Intake < Energy Spent = Weight loss
Portion control is essential too - if you're working out and eating right and still don't lose weight. It could be eating too much, even if you eat clean and healthy.In this case, you can either decrease your calories intake, or increase the level of your output which is exercise. And again, keeping a food diary is important.
For somebody my age and build (5'9), my BMR basal metabolic rate is something 1430, which is the amount of calories my body needs to function normally (by doing nothing additional). So I can simply lose weight if I eat less than this amount of calories and even without working out at all.
To find out yours, see http://www.mydr.com.au/tools/basal-energy-calculator
And I do all my food logging on MyFitnessPal on my phone, which allows my to input the amount of food, look up any generic food's calories and other nutrients easily. (And it's free!)
It would look something like this:
15. Give yourself fewer choices and keep things simple - I eat more or less the same things every day. Limit your choices so that you won't have any chance to make a bad choice. I have only two kinds of breakfast. But I love them and am very happy to stick to them.
16. Make it a lifestyle not a diet - as I have said. Make long-term changes instead of a quick fix. Make changes that you can truly stick to. And aim for bigger changes later on.
YouTube Fitness Guru: Cassey Ho; VS supermodels Candice Swanepoel and Doutzen Kroes
17. Get "Thinspirations" from fitness gurus and supermodels - I watch a hell loads of YouTube videos about fitness (and workout along!). I follow Cassey Ho (@blogilates) who posts workout videos and healthy food ideas regularly. Being constantly reminded, you're going to workout and eat clean too.
Stick posters of your favourite supermodels around your room, on your schedule, use their pictures as your phone wallpaper.
I also follow accounts that post fitness mantra and tips on Twitter and Instagram too.
18. Coffee - Oops, forgot this. I am a big coffee drinker as some of you have already known. I find coffee or caffeine in general useful for curbing hunger pangs, but don't do it too much. I drink a cup of coffee a day in the morning and my tummy will be satisfied for a long time. And it helps stimulate metabolism too. But be careful of the sugar you put.
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| Source: http://adage.com/article/news/sugary-drink-ban-trim-restaurants-bottom-lines/235147/ |
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| Bubble milk tea is very popular in Hong Kong. I used to drink 2 a day. Now I quit it. |
Plus, drinks that are considered to be healthy can have a daunting amount of sugar, especially fruit juice. So always go for freshly squeezed juice with no added sugar.
20. Get educated - watch and read more. My daily entertainment is to watch documentaries about obesity on YouTube. There are a lot good tips as well as abundant knowledge on nutrition.
They will also keep you motivated.
In particular, I highly recommend a health programme called "Supersize Vs Superskinny".
(My new crush - Dr Christian Jessen!)
And I learnt a lot from "Truth About Food" by BBC, "Men Who Made Us Fat" and "Men Who Made Us Thin".
Others are "Fat Doctors", programmes about anorexia and bulimia, Jamie Oliver, anything you can search, watch them and they can benefit you.
Look them up on Youtube!
Here are the ones I've watched and found useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxf5V3lwCro
The Men Who Made Us Fat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6nGlLUBkOQ
I have too many tips to share!
So do stay tuned for more tips and sharing.
That's it for now and I will talk about sleep, exercise and drink water later on in the next post.
For now, stay well and feel free to ask me questions.
You may follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube @elektrayu
Source:
# http://okmagazine.com/get-scoop/candice-swanepoel-victorias-secret-fantasy-bra/
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