WEEK 1 OF WEIGHT MANAGEMENT SEMINAR
EXCERPT FROM MATERIALS PROVIDED
The aim of this first session is a general intro to weight management and weight loss, and to your seminar program.
Timings
Start 0.00 mins
0.00 – 0.10 mins Welcome and introduce yourself. Talk about aims of program. Delegates introduce themselves. Be friendly and supportive.
0.10 – 0.30 mins Assessing delegates current position – give them a card each that together they can complete. Explain that you will split up in a moment and record the various measurements. Explain BMI, Body Fat %, Height - Weight, and body measurement, and talk about cholesterol, blood pressure and coronary risk. Also talk about fitness -endurance, flexibility and strength and how we assess each.
Then, get people to get into groups of 2 and fill in some of their information. They should know their height, and together can do the fitness assessments – should be a bit of gentle fun. You can take one at a time to do the weight, body fat and blood pressure.
0.30 – 0.45 mins Weight Management Principles – 15 seminar presentation and discussion using PowerPoint slides.
0.45 – 0.55 mins Physical session of your choice eg show some warm ups and stretches they should do after the daily aerobic session recommended. Make it fun and inclusive.
0.55 – 1.00 Summary of session – tasks for the week ahead. Goodbye.
Materials to take
Computer or slides if using these, Delegate Handouts, Starting Fitness Assessment cards, Materials for taking measurements & doing fitness tests – Scales, height ruler, fat callipers, BP monitor, tape measure, stop watches, mats , Coronary risk sheets to fill in
B. DELEGATE HANDOUTS FOR YOUR CLIENTS WEEK 1
Look better and feel more confident. Wear nicer clothes. Feel younger and happier.
Health – being overweight increases your risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol and cancer.
Endurance - Endurance is an indication of cardiovascular fitness, and so an important gauge of this is your heart rate. Resting Heart Rate (RHR) is typically 70, but this can vary from 60 to 100. Generally, the lower the RHR the better cardiovascular fitness.
Strength - Measuring strength generally means selecting one part of your body to measure and assuming this reflects the general state of your muscular fitness. Although this may not always be true, it is a useful general measure
Flexibility - Flexibility reflects the stretch and bend in your muscles, joints and connectors
Coronary Risk - is influenced by a number of factors including your health, weight and lifestyle.
Metabolism - Metabolism is the total of all the processes by which the body breaks down, converts and uses food. When we eat or drink, the digestive system breaks down food into its components parts. Carbohydrates become the simple sugar glucose, fats are broken down into fatty acids and proteins are broken down into amino acids. All these components go to the liver where they are prepared for use or storage.
Glucose is either used immediately for energy or is stored as glycogen but there is a limit to how much glycogen can be stored. Once enough glycogen is stored for the body’s needs the rest is stored as fat. Amino acids from protein are used to build and repair cells, and again any left other are converted to fat. Fatty acids are used more bodily processes and anything left is converted to fat. So the key – pretty obviously – is eating enough to satisfy all your bodily and energy requirements, but not so much that the excess is converted to fat.
Energy intake is measured in calories and traditional weight-management programs have commonly been involved with counting calories eaten. There are however, many other weight management options today and we will look at these in detail in the next section.
Balancing energy intake and output
If you want to maintain your current weight you must take in neither more nor less energy than your body needs to maintain basic metabolism and fuel any additional activity.
To lose weight you need to balance your energy intake and output such that the output is higher. This means either eating less, taking additional activity to raise your output or ideally both.
To gain weight you need to balance your energy intake and output such that the input is higher. This means either eating more, taking less activity to lower your output or a combination of the two.
The Perils of low energy intake
It may sound from the above paragraph, that the answer is simple. Eat very little and you will lose loads of weight and achieve your target quickly and easily, and then be able to return to a sensible eating routine. Sadly this not only doesn’t work in terms of losing weight, but it also doesn’t allow you to return to sensible eating and can damage you & your weight management efforts forever!
The reasons for include:
Famine mode – our bodies are very cleverly programmed to recognise the signs of famine and react in a way to save us. So if we suddenly start eating very low intakes our body adjusts the metabolism downwards so that our bodily processes can continue fairly effectively on lower intakes. OK, our skin might not be so healthy, hair not so shiny and a million other processes not quite as efficient as before, but we stay alive by this amazing adjustment. We would be glad of it of course in a real famine situation, but not so keen when trying to lose weight. Once the food intake starts to rise again, the body recognises that we’ve had a lean time and so convert’s food intake to fat even more efficiently that before in case the feminine situation returns. So although we might be eating quite sensibly, the amount stored as fat increases. Research has shown that repeated low calorie dieting confuses the body enough to produce a permanent lowering of metabolism, and consequently a permanent tendency for weight gain.
Energy is need to break down fat stores – when we follow a weight management program to lose weight, the aim is to reduce our intake to lower than our output so that stored fat has to be used for our bodily requirements. This process of metabolising fat stores itself need considerable energy. So if you are not eating enough, your body will find it hard to convert stored fat to energy.
Fewer meals take less energy – people on restrictive diets often skip meals. However, one of the processes your body spend energy on is digesting food you’ve eaten. On average 10% of your daily energy is spent on digestion. Therefore, if you are skipping meals and only having very small ones when you do eat, then your energy requirement falls even further. Therefore you should consider eating more frequently as digestive 4-6 small meals a day takes more energy that 1-2 larger ones.
1. Goals - you should have a feel for your current position by now, and know what you are aiming for. Make a written list of goals – what you want to achieve and when.
2. Exercise daily and get a feel for your body as detailed below – keep written notes if this helps.
Forget about obsessing about what you eat, and let’s go back to the basics. Try to get a feel for what your body really wants - when and why you are hungry, how you feel at different points of the day. Eat when you are hungry, and have nutritious snacks like nuts, fruits, olives etc., rather than sweet things. If you are desperate for a biscuit, have one. I also want you to make a commitment to increase your physical activity, and make sure you do something vigorous for at least 30 minutes a day. If you aren’t currently very active, don’t go mad! Have a 30 minute walk each day, do some gardening, have a swim – whatever fits into your life, and can increase your activity levels.
C. EXCERPT FROM SLIDES FOR WEEK 1
