Kat & Tshepi

Hi There, Welcome back to the blog. We hope your week is going as expected.

This week, we started the 2024 weight loss challenge to help those who would like to lose weight in 2024 to kick start their own journey. If you have not started but would like to give it a go, here are the actions to be completed this week.

WEEK 1 – SETTING UP

How do we gain/lose weight? We gain weight when the energy we get from food exceed the energy we use, the excess energy is stored as fat by our own bodies. We lose weight when the energy we get from food is less than the energy we use, the extra energy required is drawn from our fat cells. Therefore, to lose weight we need to eat less than we normally do and we need to do so for a sufficient period of time for change to be visible to the eye.

To eat less than we normally do, we need a system. A system that will enable us to consistently eat less to a point where our bodies start to retrieve energy from our fat cells. The actions for this week are meant to help you develop that system, this system is aimed at introducing small dietary and lifestyle changes. It is an incremental approach whereby you start with small, manageable changes but over time these becomes significant, this is to avoid being overwhelmed by taking on too much too early (one of our human weakness 😦 ) which can lead to failure . To complete this week’s actions, follow the steps below (you can click the hyperlinks for more details on the step) :

1. Step 1 – Measure you current weight and record your targeted weight loss goal.

CURRENT WEIGHT	DESIRED WEIGHT
e.g 80kg	e.g 70kg

If you do not have a scale available at the moment, you can leave the “current weight” field empty and populate it when you have a scale available. For more details on this step click here.

2. Step 2 – The aim of this step is to start cleaning your diet, choose four food items you will reduce in the next 4 weeks, then choose 4 food items you will increase in the next 4 week. This list can be helpful in identifying some of the healthy and not so healthy foods, but your choice of foods should be specific to you. For more details on this step click here.

Foods to reduce/eliminate	Foods to include or increase
1. e.g Biscuits, cookies, cake	1. e.g Fruits (Apple, Banana)
2. Sugar in tea/coffee	2. Lemon & Cucumber water
3.Fried chicken	3.Grilled Chicken
4. Chips	4. Vegetables (spinach, broccoli)

3. Step 3 – Decide which physical activities you will do in the next 4 weeks. For more details on this step click here.

Physical activities	Duration
e.g Walking	15 mins per day

4. Step 4 – Measure your weight at the end of each week and update your progress. For more details on this step click here.

WEEK	WEIGHT	FOOD (reduced/eliminated)	FOOD (increased/introduced)	EXERCISE
WK 1	80kg	Biscuits	Apples	15 mins per day
WK 2	80kg	Sugar	Spinach	20 mins per day
WK 3	79.5kg	Soda	Water (with Lemon & Cucumber)	20 mins per day
WK 4	79.2kg	Fried chicken	Grilled chicken	30 mins per day

At the end of each week, step 4 allows you to review your progress, to determine whether you accomplished what you committed to regarding food choices and physical activities, as well as determining your weight gain or loss for the week. Change can be difficult, and more so building a new habit, therefore if you have failed on some of your commitments, recommit in the next weeks. Remember it took a while to gain some weight, it is only fair that it will take some time to undo, therefore patience and repetition is recommended.

Until the next action points, stay blessed.

Kat & Tshepi