The Thermic Plan...

Reading through some old drafts, I have just realised, that despite regularly mentioning the Thermic Plan, I have never actually explained what it is.

The Thermic Plan

Or eating by the celery principle

Some foods require many calories for the body to digest them, if you eat those foods you can eat relatively freely, never feel hungry AND lose weight.

That’s it, I’ve never been one for drawing out the punchline, so cutting straight to the chase, the statement above is the guiding principle for this whole way of approaching food. 

We all know the old adage that you use more calories eating celery than is in the food itself.  I had always thought that it referred to the physical chewing, but it doesn't,  it's to the energy required by the body to actually digest the celery.  The same is true of many other foods and indeed we can increase the Thermic effect of low Thermic foods by combining them.  Later I'll do a post on the science bit that explains it all in more detail.

Every nutritionist accepts that all calories are not equal, you can cut your calorie intake dramatically but some foods simply will not produce the desired results as quickly and more importantly as permanently as other foods.  The Thermic index of food has a lot to do with this fact. So rather than fight against this truth, let's embrace is and make it work for us.

For me trying to lose weight is still eating and eating should always be a pleasure.  Following any regime long term must be about so much more than ‘burn more calories than you consume’, how depressing to base meal choices solely on calories rather than what you want to eat. We need delicious recipes, beautiful inspiring pictures, illustrations and funny anecdotes, let's concentrate on everything that we have, not the few things that we are trying to avoid.

Like many of my friends my weight has yo-yoed dramatically over the last 20 years (for me the variance is 9 stone to 15 stone and most months I used to drop or gain at least a stone). When I think about it, my closest friends are all like me, we are bigger when we are miserable and thinner when we are happy.

For many of us emotions have more to do with eating patterns than hunger and in later posts there are some tricks and tips to help to deal with this, they will never be fool proof, but if even one idea works for you it could stop a balloon moment from occurring.

I am a dog, I like a lot of comfort food and will always accept titbits. I just can’t go to bed hungry at night, it is so depressing. At the prospect of a lifetime of rumbling tummies, I would rather accept my inner fattie and invest in elasticated trousers and tent dresses.   Find out how it is possible to eat and feel satisfied, without piling on the pounds.  Discover what it is to eat 'normally'.  Some of us spend so much of our life in the cycle of 'feast' and 'famine' that we have lost touch with what is is just to be normal.

And finally the elephant, in the room; EXERCISE, I know it is predictable, but the above (ie never feeling hungry whilst still losing weight) and more importantly, maintaining it FOREVER only works if it is combined with moving your body.  You might be surprised about how easy this is.  As true as it is that all foods are not equal the same  is true of exercise.  You don’t need a gym membership or hours of training and cardio each day, rather short bursts of high intensity muscle building movement that constantly challenge the body in balanced and natural ways.  There'll be some posts about 'RockSculpt', a series of exercises that can be done any time, any where and by any one and will deliver better results than hours pounding a treadmill.

It is not just the act of exercising and burning calories that is the secret, much more important is the long term effect that exercise has in increasing the metabolic rate.  A faster metabolic rate is what allows anyone to eat more or less whatever they like and not gain a pound, this is what we are aiming for and it can be true whatever your age.  

All of the above is evidence-based from Pub-Med papers, the Thermic Plan was developed with a Nutritionist looking specifically at the Thermic Effect of Food at Oxford University.