Nothing ages a person more than a protruding belly. Need weight-loss help? This will make a big belly difference: Start your day with a high-protein breakfast (think eggs). This shifts your appetite into neutral, where it will idle happily till lunch. Add some fiber to the meal, such as whole-wheat toast, and you’ll curb afternoon cravings. Imagine getting halfway through a day of healthy weight loss without needing any willpower! That’s because having plenty of protein and fiber early keeps you fueled and full for hours.
Not an egg lover? Have oatmeal topped with walnuts or smear peanut butter on your whole-wheat toast. Ready to just grab the toast solo as you zoom out the door? Think again. You’ll be elbow-deep in the candy bowl before lunch.
Block Snack Attacks with Protein
If you don’t get a certain amount of protein each day, but especially in the morning, your appetite shifts into snack-attack mode. Not only do you overeat but you eat high-calorie, high-fat, high-sugar snacks – the kinds of foods that go straight to your waistline and make your belly bigger.
Adults usually get plenty of protein, just not in the morning. About half get none because they skip breakfast entirely, which is another reason breakfast skippers tend to put on pounds. They haven’t eaten since the night before, so their bodies get panicky by mid-morning, wondering when/if the next meal is coming. The result? Their bodies start storing calories instead of burning them.
Successful weight loss, which includes not gaining back your hard-lost pounds, is about staying full, not going hungry. Hunger and cravings are your enemies. Feeling full and content are your allies. Morning protein and fiber? They’re your secret weapons.
It’s been a busy week for the aesthetics industry with two launches this week.
The first launch on Tuesday was at ION Sky for new laser machine, Clear & Brilliant Laser. Created by Solta, their new shiny baby attempts to straddle the gap between spa treatments and ablative lasers like the Fraxel (also created by Solta), for people who want all the benefits of a stronger laser without the downtime. It is designed to attract younger patients looking to take control of their ageing process. These consumers would like a more efficacious treatment than their current regimens, but as of yet they do not need the full transformative benefits of a more aggressive laser skin resurfacing procedure. Being one of the first few lucky recipients to try this treatment, I am happy to report that I am now the owner of a refreshed mien with more even skin tone and glow
The second launch was a more intimate affair for UltraShape version 3, hosted by Dr David Loh at Japanese restaurant, Sun With Moon, today. Over a casual lunch, the amicable doctor enlightened us on how his new body sculpting machine uses focused ultrasound to break up stubborn fat desposits accurately, effectively, safely and most importantly, non-invasively. Patients usually report a fat loss of five centimetres after the first treatment. According to Dr Loh, who has years of experience sculpting bodies with liposuction techniques like Vaser, this 3rd generation UltraShape works particularly well on men’s bellies.
To prove his point, we proceeded to his new clinic at Liat Towers, dedicated to UltraShape treatments, to witness the live demo of his treatment on a lucky male attendee of the event. After the 15-minute quickie session, the recipient’s tummy did indeed look flatter!
‘Tis the season to be jolly….and weight gain, with parties galore and lots of festive bingeing. You don’t have to stay at home and be a recluse in order to maintain your hard-won numbers on the weighing scale. Just follow these secrets of successful dieters and you’ll still be able to fit into your skinny jeans.
1. Eat and drink wisely
If you’ve lost weight eating nothing but lettuce and fat-free chips, this may come as a shock but the best weight-loss plan is also the one the healthiest. Most people think of weight management and healthy eating as two separate things. But when you’re managing calories, it’s more important than ever to have a good balance of foods. Fruits and vegetables, lean sources of protein, low-fat dairy and whole-grain, high-fibre foods are the elements of good nutrition and have also shown to help with satiety. You don’t have to reinvent nutrition when you’re trying to manage your weight.
If you want to cut something out, start with the obvious – empty calories. Cut out sugar and soda if you had to get rid of two foods that would sabotage any diet in the stratosphere.
2. Fill up on low calorie foods
People eat a consistent weight or volume of food each day. So you can eat the same amount of food and get fewer calories by choosing foods that are less energy-dense.
Which foods fill you up and provide you with nutrition without a lot of calories? Fruits and vegetables, which are both rich in fibre and high in water content. Fat packs nine calories a gram, water packs none. When fruits and vegetables constitute the bulk of your plate (and I don’t mean French fries), you’ll lose weight and keep it off. It’s virtually impossible to get fat eating fruits and vegetables, there are less than 100 calories in a vat of spinach!
Lean protein (fish, white-meat chicken and lean cuts of pork and red meat) will also help manage hunger. And, it’s important to reduce fat, but not too much, since fats help you absorb vitamins. A drizzle of olive oil, a “good fat”, is okay.
3. Slow and steady wins the race
You can lose weight on any fad diet quickly. The problem is that the human body hasn’t evolved beyond its feast-or-famine origins: When you crash diet, the body thinks it has to store fat to survive this time of famine. The answer is a slow and steady weight loss of no more than one kilogram per week, which doesn’t send up the internal red flags that cause our metabolism to slow down.
You can also apply this concept to the pacing of your meals. First, don’t skip any. Dieters who ate breakfast reported working out more, making them more successful at shedding weight. So get into the routine of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner and two healthy snacks each and every day.
Second, don’t rush. It takes about 20 minutes for your body to register that you’ve had enough, so if you eat quickly, it’s easy to eat too much.
Hereare a more clever suggestions to fight the temptation to polish off jumbo servings:
- Buy small (25ml) plates to use at home.
- Drink out of tall, thin glasses.
- Split food portions with a friend or ask for half of your portion to be wrapped up in a doggie bag at a restaurant before it’s even brought to the table (and save it for lunch the next day).
- To avoid overeating when dining out at a restaurant, order a salad with light dressing on the side, broth-based soup or light appetiser and wait until you’ve eaten that to decide whether you want to order more.
However, if you still managed to pile on the kilos, look out for my next edition of Aesthetics & Beauty Guide, out end January 2011, where I review the latest fat-busting machines as well as the secret workout of Madonna, Kylie and Claudia Schiffer, that keeps them lean and mean, in half the time! Happy holidays!
It looks like a cross between a cocoon and a time-travel machine and is touted as the latest, most technologically-advanced weight loss machine.
The SlimLine POD is a personal spa environment capsule that incorporates heat, oxygen, vibratory massage amd LED light into a powerful system that provides a “Metabolic Solution” to complement your exercise programme to help you lose weight and keep it off.
Regular use of the SlimLine POD is said to:
- Promote weight loss
- Burn excessive calories
- Reduce cellulite
- Increase metabolic rate
- Reduce water retention
Intrigued? So am I. Watch out for my review next week
Treatment process: This is a fairly new procedure using power assisted machine to remove fats. It is under the category of power assisted liposuction where you still need to make 4mm incision to assess fats under the skin for removal. But the downtime and safety margin is much better than traditional liposuction. It reduces fats significantly and can be done for large areas of fats. You also need to do it only once usually.
Duration: 2 to 4 hours
Cost: $5000 onwards
eMax Triniti
ClearSK Aesthetic Centres
Name of treatment: eMax Triniti®
What is it for: A favourite among Hollywood Stars, the eMax Triniti® is the complete aesthetic treatment combining 3 techonologies of the triniti series- feature combined bi-polar radio frequency and light energies which precisely heat tissue within the targeted treatment area to stimulate improvement within the skin. To achieve tight and firm skin appearance, safely treat tiny spider vessels and red and brown spots and also smooth deeper lines around the nose and mouth. A comfortable treatment with minimal down-time, a lunch-time procedure that you can try anytime.
Treatment process: Treatment begins with cleansing and application of numbing cream.
1. Colour correction treats spider weins, age spots, uneven skin tone and sun-damaged skin.
2. Refirme Skin Tightening targets telltale signs of aging, including: jowl and neck laxity, sagginess under the eyes, saggy brow lines, and nasolabial folds.
3. Matrix IR Fractional Wrinkle Treatment resolves wrinkles, and skin texture becomes smoother and more elastic.
Treatment ends with a soothing masque.
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: From $350
Thermage CPT handpiece
Calvin Chan Aesthetic & Laser Clinic
Name if treatment: Thermage CPT which stands for Comfort Pulse Technology
What is it for: This is great for non-surgical face lifting or skin-tightening and was just launched two weeks ago in Singapore. Calvin Chan is the first clinic to offer this treatment. Treatment process: A vibrating hand piece coupled with pulsed radiofrequency energy is used on treatment area. The treatment is also painless.
Duration: The treatment takes one hour and results last for two years.
Cost: $6000 for full face and neck.
Hairloss
Divine Medspa
Name of treatment: XL Hair What is it for: Stimulating hair growth.
Treatment process: Serum is infused into scalp with jet of cmpressed air. This contains 47 active ingredients to stimulate hair growth. The jet also increases microcirculation. This treatment is repeated weekly for 8 sessions. A home care spray used 3x a week helps to enhance & maintain the results. Absolutely no pain or downtime. Can see results within a month.
Duration: 20 minutes x 8 weeks
Cost: $150/session, $1000/8 sessions. Home spray $130. All before GST.
Velashape
NeuGlow
Name of treatment: Velashape
What is it for: Weight loss and cellulite
Treatment process: Using a combination of Bi-Polar radiofrequency, Infrared Light energy, Vacuum and Mechanical Massager, Velashape works on both the upper and deeper layers of the skin matrix, raising the metabolism of stored energy. It also aids lymphatic drainage and shrinks fat cells.
I teach Pilates on the side and I know all women want a nice, flat tummy without any love-handles and pooch. The good news is, this can be done with just a few key exercises. The most important abdominal muscle you want to target for that is the Transverse Abdominal muscle which runs across the abdomen and performs abdominal compression.It draws the belly inward and narrows the waist, getting rid of the dreaded belly ring or belly fat. Fitness trainers refer to this muscle as the body’s “internal girdle.”
Imagine yourself wearing a girdle, that’s what the transverse abdominal muscle does to your tummy. The transverse abdominal muscle is the body’s most important core stabilizer. To do this, you need to train your abs to pull back in toward your spine during exertion.
Here’s a 5-minute exercise specifically developed for this essential skill:
- First, stand up tall, then think about drawing your belly button towards your spine.
- You are not sucking in your breath, you are using your abs to do this. Once your belly button is drawn it, it automatically activates your transverse abdominal muscle.
- Try to keep your belly button in as you breathe normally. Practice a few times until it becomes comfortable.
I use this exercise myself to keep my own tummy flat. The best part about this exercise is that you can do it anytime, everyday. I do it when I am walking, shopping and standing on escalators.
If you are impatient and want quicker results, these weight loss treatments will help you:
Thermage CPT handpiece
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