Escape the fat trap

There’s a reason why diets fail. Help your weight-loss plans break free by outwitting the fat saboteurs within your own body

Weight-loss status update: back in January, you said goodbye to (most) Friday-night takeaways.You were still at the gym three times a week. Your belly was retreating and it all seemed worth the effort. Until, that is, everything stopped working. Sound familiar? It may not be down to a lack of willpower.

The grim truth is that your body doesn’t like it when you lose a few pounds. In fact, it fights back. Research at the University of Melbourne found that dieting causes specific chemical changes that make you crave food. It can start when you’ve lost just 5% of your bodyweight. “There is a co-ordinated change in the blood hormones that regulate appetite,” says Professor Joseph Proietto, who ran the study. “This makes you hungry, and these changes are persistent for at least one year.”

This hormonal ambush is one of the big reasons that it’s hard to maintain steady weight loss. The good news is that by finding out what neurological changes are lurking beyond the next plate of grilled chicken and steamed veg, you can be ready. Follow this plan to pre-emptively spring every trap your body has set and you will escape fat for good.

Hunger strike! Ghrelin

Proietto’s study found that levels of the hunger-hormone ghrelin rise by 20% when you diet. Ghrelin is what triggers our urge to eat – useful as a survival mechanism but not when you're trying to shift fat.

To get out of this one, carb-load at breakfast. Research from Tel Aviv University in Israel found this lowers your ghrelin levels for the whole day, avoiding any hunger pangs – even when you reduce your intake to just 1,600 calories. Skip the egg whites and start the day with beans on rye.

After breakfast, the carb embargo should be reinstated, with extra protein brought in to increase satiety. At lunch, you can boost your intake by swapping brown rice for protein-rich quinoa or by adding a portion of Greek yoghurt for dessert.

At dinner, skip the poultry a few nights a week and opt for sushi or a rare steak. The less that meat is cooked the more protein you absorb. A study in the American Journal for Clinical Nutrition found that if 60% of your plate is covered by high-protein foods, ghrelin levels will fall. The fight-back has started.

Empty threats! Leptin

As ghrelin attacks, your hormonal back-up retreats. The Melbourne study found that leptin, the chemical which suppresses your hunger, practically disappears.

To bring leptin back, plan to have a strategic calorie blow-out – but only one. Research at the University of Washington found that after a period of fasting, a ‘re-feed’ can reset levels of the hormone to where they were before you started. Good old fish and chips comes close to being the perfect cheat meal. The carbs in the potato will boost leptin quickly and a study by the Mayo Clinic found that a fish-rich diet increases your leptin sensitivity. This means your body ‘listens’ to its message – ie the one that says you've had enough food.

If you’re still concerned that you’ve had enough food the message is getting lost, try to increase your duvet time. Studies conducted at Chicago University found that sleep deprivation can increase leptin levels by 20%.

The fat hack! Dopamine

This next threat is especially insidious. University of California research found that the moment any fatty food touches your tongue, your brain gives the signal to eat. And eat. And eat some more.

Now’s the time for a nutritional triple-cross. You need to convince your grey matter that the food in your slim-down diet is just as moreish as fat by increasing the tyrosine in your diet – bananas, almonds and avocado are good sources. “Tyrosine is required for dopamine production,” says clinical nutritionist Kim Pearson. “Dopamine controls the brain’s reward centres, so when we increase our tyrosine intake we feel more satisfified by our food.”

Curb compulsive snacking by eating mindfully. This will create a psychological distance between you and your impulses. At mealtimes, concentrate on different aspects of your food in turn. Register the smell, taste and texture. Be as forensic as you can and you’ll learn to recognise when you’re genuinely hungry – and when you just think you are.

The power cut! Metabolism

When you’ve been dieting for a while, your metabolism will slow down drastically: you can end up burning 300kcal less per day. If you were relying on calorie calculators, this practically disables them as your muscles have to work harder to burn off the food you’re eating.

The workout below, created for MH by PT Darren Putt of Motus Training, has been designed specifically to bring your metabolism back online by targeting the largest muscles in your body. The more muscle mass you have, the greater your basal metabolic rate (BMR). “If you perform this routine with 15-rep-max weights then your cardiovascular system will get a challenging workout, too – similar to if you’d been slogging on the treadmill,” Putt says.

Back this up by ensuring you have a minimum of 1.5g of protein for every kilo of your ideal body weight on training days, Pearson says. So if your target weight is 80kg, you need 120g of protein. Trap sprung.

How to escape your plateau

Perform twice a week when your weight loss starts levelling out

Cardio work Keep it short and intense. Try sprint sessions on grass wearing football boots. Warm up, then do 8 x 20m sprints at 75% effort. After each sprint, walk to the start and immediately go again. Rest for 3 minutes then repeat at 100% effort.

Upper body 12 reps of each, 6 circuits
Military press
Lat pull-down
Bench press
Barbell bent-over row
Rest for 2 minutes

Lower body 12 reps of each, 6 circuits
Romanian deadlift
Split squats (12 each leg)
Reverse squats
Rest for 2 minutes

Photography: Daniel Herendi at Studio 33
Model: Mat Biggs
Words: Sophie Robehmed