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Week 6

Welcome to the sixth week of the BTF weight loss and wellbeing programme.

To read the advice, tips and suggestions from our experts please follow the links to this week’s articles below. The other resources you can use are:

  • Expert advice - learn more about thyroid disease and weight management from our medical experts
  • Patient stories – find out about how other thyroid patients have managed to successfully lose weight and improve their wellbeing
  • Community - share your weight loss journey with other people who are taking part in this programme by joining our closed Facebook group

The environment

"Oh, I do hope it doesn’t rain today. Fingers crossed it doesn’t."

How often have you heard or made remarks like this yourself? The weather is not something you can control, but it can still preoccupy our thoughts. And just like people might worry about the weather, I often come across people who worry and focus on things that are out of their control when they’re trying to lose weight.

We all live in an environment in which there are things we can and cannot control. The things we can control, for example, are the choices we make at supermarkets (to a certain extent), what to cook tonight, portion size and whether to exercise today. However, there are many things that are outside our control that affect our weight loss attempts. Take a few moments to think about the environment where you live; in your home, down your street, the places you visit, work, where you shop etc. Can you name anything about those places that will make it hard for you when you’re trying to lose weight?

In your home, for example, you may have a partner that makes their own unhealthy food choices which hinder your ability to stick to your heathy ones, or perhaps you don’t have space for that exercise bike you want. Where you live there may be multiple food outlets with their offers of quick convenient food and tempting smells wafting from their premises. Or maybe there’s no safe place to lock your bike and the closest leisure facility is 45 minutes away. Perhaps when you visit a friend, they insist on offering you food, despite your protestations that you’re on a diet (peer pressure). Or are there lots of tempting treats at the self-service checkout? Is your journey to work bicycle unfriendly making it harder for you to be more active daily? And one problem that many of us have is a sedentary job surrounded by treats temptingly positioned right next to the kettle.

As these examples show, there are many things that get in the way of us eating more healthily and many of them can’t be changed. So we can spend our energy worrying about things we can’t change, or we can choose to focus on the ones we can.

Barriers

Think of barriers as something that prevents us from what we want to do. I like to picture it as a brick wall that we need to find a way around, over, under or through. Here are some examples:

  • Medications – steroids are just one type of medication that increase our appetite and can lead to weight gain.
  • Mental health – someone with depression may feel less like going out to an exercise class.
  • Support network – without a good support network it’s harder to make the right choices and stick to them.
  • Pain/injury – injuries prevent us from keeping up with physical activity. Long term chronic pain might make it harder to exercise.
  • Time – we have such busy lives that we don’t find the time to prioritise and make these healthy changes.
  • Finance – we might not be able to afford the gym or we cannot get to the bigger supermarkets so we shop at smaller local ones where the choices are limited and more expensive.
  • Skills – we might lack the cooking skills to cook more of our own meals.
  • Confidence/self-esteem – this might be low so we’re less likely to try new activities or go swimming even though we know it might be an activity we enjoy.

When we know what our barriers are, we can look at ways to overcome them. Let’s take one of the barriers and put it in a case study so you can see what I mean:

Sue works full time, has a family of two children and commutes, by car, to work about 30 minutes each way. She has a desk-based 9 to 5 job. Her husband also works full time, often finishing later. On her way back from work she picks up the children from afterschool club. Some days the children might have after school activities which Sue and her husband take turns to take the children to.

Once home, Sue cooks the children's dinner and then starts on the meal for her and her husband, so cooking two separate meals. When her husband comes home he helps put the children to bed whilst she finishes off a bit of admin and serves dinner. Tired after a long day, Sue and her husband settle down on the sofa in front of the TV, whilst looking at social media, news, sending/receiving messages on their phones. Soon it’s time to go to bed to start over the next day.

Sue would like to be more active, but she says she doesn’t have any time. Can you think of how she could build in more activity to her day? Here are some ideas…

  • She could cycle instead of drive to work: the 30 minutes is mainly spent in traffic.
  • Could the children cycle or walk back from school? A cargo bike might be an option and even if a new one is expensive there may be a second hand one available plus the financial savings made from not using the car would cover this. Walking or cycling encourages the children to be more active so she would be a role model to them.
  • To create more free time in the evenings, Sue could plan to cook one meal for everyone or perhaps make meals in bulk at the weekend and freeze them. This would create an environment where it’s easier for Sue to stick to her healthy changes with all the family on board.
  • On days she takes the kids to their activities are there ones she could do at the same time e.g. swimming? If this means it’s a bit later when she gets back for dinner, could her husband have dinner ready? Or could she use one of her go to quick meals on those days? Based on her goals of being more active three times per week this could be two evenings a week and on one day off.
  • Finally, they could do activities together as a family at the weekend that are more active.

You are the experts in your own lives. Have a look at the things you can and can’t control. Focus on the things you can control. These will help you identify areas to work on. Then look at your goals and identify any barriers which make it harder for you to achieve them. Remember it’s okay if you can’t come up with solutions to everything. Focus on another barrier instead and in time you should find other solutions.

Portion sizes

We don’t all have the skills to cook, budget or even the time, however. A halfway house could be to buy the base, add your own toppings, get the portion size right and serve it with a side salad to make it a more balanced meal. Alternatively have the takeaway version, but less often. You choose. A portion size of pizza is about two slices whereas how many of us would think it’s not that big and have all 6 slices? Just because it’s there? Or because we’ve paid for it we want our money’s worth? Why not save leftover slices for lunch the next day?

Portion sizes have increased over the years as have glasses and crockery whilst our activity levels have reduced. These are just some of the factors that have contributed to weight gain. When focusing on portion sizes, planning your meals can also help, as does aiming to be consistent, i.e. don’t just make your healthy changes a few days a week.

The following are guideline portion sizes for each food group:

  • Carbohydrates – one closed hand. For example, two Weetabix, two slices of bread (but think about the loaf you’re having as the nutrient content and slice size will vary), one baked potato.
  • Fruits and vegetables – two open hands of vegetables and one open hand of fruits. The ratio should be more vegetable portions than fruit, i.e. for five a day have three portions of vegetables and two of fruit.
  • Protein – size of one palm for red meat/processed meat, slightly bigger for chicken/fish.
  • Dairy – thumb size
  • Fats – thumb size

Further information on portion size

www.bhf.org.uk
www.carbsandcals.com/
www.bda.uk.com

Sleep, rest and recovery: Why is it important?

It is well-recognised that healthy sleeping patterns are important for our physical, mental, and emotional health. The amount of sleep we need to feel healthy varies from person to person. As we become more physically active, it is vital to ensure we get the right amount of sleep and rest as this will aide good recovery.

When we exercise or perform more physical activity, the body is stimulated to recover. This response is stronger after physical activity than before. Examples of this include strengthened heart due to cardiovascular exercise and strengthened skeletal muscles due to resistance exercise. There are many forms of physical activity, that are suitable for people of all ages and abilities, and they will all help our bodies to become fitter and stronger. We just need to find the ones that work for us and that we enjoy.

There is a cyclic relationship between health, physical activity and sleep. The healthier our sleep pattern is, the better our health is. So if we increase the amount of physical activity we do, we are more likely to sleep well and so are more likely to improve our health all the more.

Recommended sleep levels are around six and a half to eight hours per night. Getting this much sleep enables us to recover properly from both our daily activity and any additional stresses that have been placed on our body by exercise, sport, or physical activity. We know that as we get fitter and stronger through increased activity and allowing our bodies to recover, we can start to gain many health benefits . And this may further reduce the risk of complications such as cardiovascular disease by lowering blood pressure and cholesterol.

Listen to your body to guide activity and rest needs

If you have trouble getting to sleep, or have already been diagnosed with a sleep disorder, then please seek medical advice as you begin to undertake more physical activity. If you are very active and do not get sufficient sleep then this may cause your health to suffer later on. It could also mean you no longer have the energy to do sport or physical activity.

We are all different, however, and whereas one person may feel well on seven hours of sleep, another may only feel well when they have had nine hours’ sleep each night. It is therefore important to listen to our bodies. Thyroid disease can unfortunately cause symptoms, such as lethargy and fatigue and, frustratingly, fatigue is often not alleviated even after we have had ample sleep. So, it’s important to listen to your body and only conduct activity where you feel well enough to do so.

If you have recently managed to get your thyroid disorder under control, then now is the ideal time to begin a new sporting or physical activity programme. You will notice the drastic benefits to your health, not only from your improved thyroid hormone levels but also from moving more!

Watch

Chartered psychologist, Dr Sue Jackson, discusses the challenges of long-term health conditions, including:

  • Managing the psychological impact of being diagnosed with a long-term health condition
  • Getting used to changes in your appearance and how you’re perceived
  • How to manage when friends try to tempt you away from your healthy eating plan
  • Developing resistance and knowing you have self-worth: it’s OK to say no!
Week 5 info Week 7 info