FORMER Derry footballer Paul McFlynn is an exceptional human being. He’s exceptional because he has managed to lose weight during the lockdown.
Paul is a regular at the Train Station Fitness Academy.
He trains with me twice a week. Since the gym closed, he has managed to keep doing his two or three sessions at home.
He also runs. But when it comes to weight loss, Paul’s trump card lies elsewhere. He has four all action, live-wire sons.
When I bumped into Paul at 1:30pm last Sunday, he had already clocked up 10,000 steps – that was the morning session.
It’s not uncommon for him to hit 20,000 steps in a day.
In Paul’s case, he’s literally ‘chasing’ after his boys.
When attending a talk by the nutritionist Martin MacDonald last year, he made a very salient point about the calories many parents fool themselves into thinking they are burning.
‘How often have you heard a mother say wearily that she spends the day chasing after her children?” said MacDonald.
He went on: “But mothers don’t chase after their children. They shout at them. They stand and they shout and that doesn’t burn many calories.”
MacDonald could have taken the observation further by noting that most modern children don’t require any chasing at all because they’re sitting on their backsides.
Moreover, any exercise they do is supervised by another adult.
In my experience, people tend to over-estimate how many calories they are burning from exercise and under-estimate how many calories they are eating and drinking.
I use the example of a bag of a well-known brand of popcorn. It feels so light.
The packaging proclaims there are only 94 calories per 20g.
But when you work out the maths, this means the bag carries 470 calories. That’s more than two bars of Wispa.
Yet people will eat bowls of popcorn and think they are doing no harm.
The biggest misconception of all lies with the association of exercise and weight loss.
To lose weight, we think we have to be engaged in a serious exercise regime. That’s not true.
To illustrate this point, let me tell you the story of The Hungry Cyclist (yours truly) and his Disciplined Wife (Sian Heaney).
Last September I went on a cycling holiday with a squad of friends to Majorca. Sian was at home holding the fort with our three children.
At this time Sian was in a weight loss regime, but she wasn’t doing any training – she couldn’t.
She was trying to eat around 1500 calories per day.
Meanwhile, in Majorca, we were having a mini Tour de France.
We arrived on the island on a Thursday afternoon and left on Monday morning. In that time, we clocked up 22 hours on the saddle, riding more than 300 miles with a total of 23,700ft of climbing.
But if we were riding like pros, we were eating like slobs. Our hotel deal provided an all-inclusive breakfast and dinner.
My breakfast was usually a 40-minute affair featuring pancakes, bacon, honey, churros, Nutella and coffee.
I always started with porridge, of course - to be healthy.
Despite the fact that we were burning more than 5,000 calories per day on the bike, every man on the holiday put on weight – the average was three to four pounds.
In contrast, Sian lost two pounds without jogging a single step. Enough said.
So, if you have been piling on the pounds, don’t blame the fact that you’re stuck indoors.
Weight loss is about what you eat.
In lockdown, the key to burning body fat doesn’t lie with walking around the town. It’s about locking down the biscuit tin!
TIPS FOR WEIGHT LOSS
Avoid processed foods
Try to cut out or reduce biscuits, cakes, crisps, pastries and sweets. Whole foods are best.
Before eating anything, ask yourself two questions: did it have a face?
Did it grow? Your diet should consist mainly of meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables.
Create a calorie deficit.
Forget about finding the magic diet. Weight loss is governed by the amount of calories you consume. If a woman burns 2000 calories a day and she eats 1500 calories every day – she has created a calorie deficit of 500 calories. With time, she will lose weight – guaranteed.
Calculate your calories
Weight loss is an individual affair. Your gender, age, height, weight and level of activity will have a bearing on the amount of calories you can eat every day. Online calculators can provide a useful and fairly accurate guide. I recommend caloriecalculator.net
It has to be sustainable
Diets work because they put you in a calorie deficit. Diets fail because they’re not sustainable. To lose weight – and keep it off - you need to create a sustainable diet.
In last week’s column, we featured Noel Johnston who has lost more than two-and-a-half stones since before Christmas.
When working with clients like Noel, I calculate how many calories they should eat per day.
While I provide a few template meal plans, clients are encouraged to develop a diet which suits them.
When I first worked with Noel, his meal plan included tuna wraps.
Noel ate so much tuna he can no longer stomach it!
It reached the stage where he even avoided the aisle in the shop which stocked tuna fish.
Noel has since developed his own eating plan.
Know what you’re putting in your mouth
An example of Noel’s typical day is shown below. Note how he knows exactly what he’s putting in his mouth.
6:00am: Four Ryvita protein slices. Total: 148kcal
8:00am: Huge bowl of porridge. Total: 900kcal
1:00pm: Chicken and cranberry sauce sandwich – three slices of Hovis granary (88kcal per slice), chicken fillet (164kcal) with cranberry sauce. Total: 424kcal
6:30pm: Eat Naked ready meal. Total: 480kcal
8:00pm: 200g 0% Fat Free Fage Greek Yoghurt (110kcal), 70g frozen blueberries (36kcal), 25g granola (100kcal). Total: 246kcal
Daily Total: 2198kcal and about eight cups of black coffee per day!
