Knowing how many minutes of activity we’d need to do to burn off the calories in menu items prompts us to order less food and choose healthier options, according to new research presented at the Experimental Biology meeting in Boston on Tuesday 23^rd April.

Researchers at Texas Christian University studied the food choices of 300 men and women aged 18-30 who were randomly assigned one of three menus – one with no added information, one detailing calorie content of the food and another with the minutes of brisk walking needed to burn off the calories. All three menus contained the same options including burgers, chicken sandwiches, salad, chips, and desserts.

Those shown the menu with the activity information ordered 15% fewer calories compared to those given no additional information. What was also interesting was that simply showing the calories in the dishes did not affect the participants’ choices.

The idea is right. By linking calories consumed with calories burned people can manage their calorie balance to manage their weight, but the simple fact remains not everyone burns the same number of calories even if they are doing exactly the same activity. It’s not true that people of same age, gender, weight, and body composition (i.e. the amount of fat and muscle we have) burn the same number of calories during the same activity either. We are all unique and so is our calorie burn.

The researchers chose to use brisk walking as they believe that it’s “something nearly everyone can relate to”, which is perhaps true, but it is likely that we all have our own interpretation of what brisk walking means and the speed we choose to be brisk will definitely affect the number of calories we burn. Of course, walking is not everyone’s activity of choice, so people might want to burn off the calories playing football, going cycling or even doing the housework.

Luckily the Ki System gives you all the information you need to burn off the calories you consume doing whatever activity you choose. What’s more, the data is accurate for you.

 

Using the sliders under your Calories Burned graph in your Activity Manager you can see exactly how many calories you burn doing different activities. Just move the left-hand slider to the start of the activity period and the right-hand slider to the end.

So, next time you’re trying to decide whether to treat yourself to a take-a-away or a slice of cake you can work out how long you would need to walk, run, cycle, vacuum, or indeed do any activity to burn off the calories, safe in the knowledge that whatever choice you make is right for you.

 

It’s worth noting that these findings are only preliminary. Whilst they are interesting and could prove important, more research is needed to confirm the results. The researchers themselves acknowledge that the results can’t be generalised to people who were not represented by the participants in this study, so that’s anyone over the age of 30. More research is needed in an older and more diverse group.

 

Yet more research confirms that you don’t need to sweat it out in a gym or follow the latest fad diet to maintain a healthy body weight.

Research published in the American Journal of Public Health found that compared with female non-gardeners, female gardeners were 46% less likely to be overweight or obese. This was even higher in men, with male gardeners being 62% less likely to be overweight or obese than their non-gardener counterparts.

Whilst gardeners were slimmer than both their same-sex neighbours and siblings, when compared with their spouse, there were no differences in BMI or the odds of being overweight or obese. So, it seems that their spouses benefitted from eating the food produced, or maybe even helping out in the garden or allotment.

Not only does gardening provide a form of regular physical activity, the researchers suggest that growing your own fruit and vegetables may encourage you to eat more healthily if you eat the food you grow. Georgie Willock, from the National Allotment Society suggests there are numerous benefits from gardening including aerobic exercise from digging and carrying, flexible joints from bending, and vitamin D from the sun.

These results seemed obvious to us. It’s simple maths. Gardening is a physical activity so you’ll burn more calories than you would sitting on the sofa. In comparison, their neighbours and siblings are likely to be more sedentary, so burn fewer calories.

If gardeners then choose to eat the food they produce, they could also be consuming fewer calories than their neighbours and siblings as fruit and vegetables tend to be less energy dense (contain fewer calories for the same weight of food) than other food groups. This would mean the gardener’s calories consumed is lower.

It’s simple maths – higher calorie burn plus lower calories consumed equals a lower body weight.

Professor Cathleen Zick, who led the study, does acknowledge that all the participants “were drawn from a single community organisation in Salt Lake City and may not apply broadly until more research is done”, but Georgie Willock suggests that “if a similar study was done in the UK, the results would be similar.”

 

If you are lucky enough to have a vegetable patch in your garden or allotment then you may already be reaping the benefits of the healthier lifestyle choices gardening can inspire. As a Ki member you will also be able to measure and monitor these benefits using your own data. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people now have access to a garden or allotment, but not having a garden doesn’t mean you can’t make the beneficial lifestyle choices of eating healthier and being more active – you could always leave the car at home and walk to a farmers market, greengrocer or supermarket to buy your fresh fruit and vegetables.

 

Baroness Margaret Thatcher died on Monday after suffering a stroke.

Strokes are the third largest cause of death in the UK, killing around 45,000 people every year.

There are two main types of stroke, but all strokes result in damage to the brain. Ischaemic strokes account for more than 80% of all strokes & happen when the blood supply to part of the brain is blocked, often due to a blood clot.  Whereas haemorrhagic strokes occur when a weakened blood vessel bursts & bleeds into the brain.

Around 150,000 people in the UK have a stroke. Although your risk of stroke increases significantly with age, according to the Stroke Association more than 20,000 people under 65 suffer a stroke each year. What’s more, the resulting brain damage means that strokes are the largest cause of adult disability in the UK.

According to the Stroke Association we can all recognise a stroke using the FAST test:

Facial weakness: can the person smile? Has their mouth or eye drooped?

Arm Weakness: can the person raise both arms?

Speech problems: can the person speak clearly and understand what you say?

Time: to call 999 immediately for an ambulance if the person fails any one of these tests.

 

A number of the risk factors associated with stroke are avoidable lifestyle behaviours, so we would also urge everyone to look at their own lifestyle & make sure it is not increasing their risk of stroke. You can decrease your risk of suffering a stroke by:

 

Being Physically Active

Achieving a minimum of 150-minutes of moderate activity, 75-minutes of vigorous activity, or 150-mins of moderate plus vigorous activity each week will help lower your blood pressure, balance fats in your body & improve your ability to handle insulin. It can also help you lose weight by increasing your calories burned.

 

Maintaining a healthy body weight

Being overweight or obese can increase your risk of high blood pressure, diabetes & high cholesterol, all of which increase your risk of stroke.

 

Being a non-smoker

You are twice as likely to suffer a stroke if you smoke as smoking can result in furring of your blood vessels as well as increasing the risk of blood clots forming.

 

Limiting your alcohol intake

In particular, binge drinking (more than 6 units of alcohol within 6 hours) can cause a rapid increase in blood pressure, greatly increasing your risk of stroke, but you should try not to drink every day or exceed the recommended limits.

 

Eating your 5-a-day

According to the Stroke Association eating 5 or more portions of fruit or vegetables can significantly reduce your risk of stroke. What’s more, each additional portion may reduce your risk by around a further 5%.

One portion of either fruit or vegetables weighs 80g, which could be an apple, 2 plums, or 3 tablespoons of sweetcorn or peas.

 

Eating enough fibre

Achieving the recommended minimum of 18g of fibre each day can help lower cholesterol, which can decrease your risk of stroke.

 

Limiting your salt intake

A high salt intake has been linked to causing high blood pressure, which is the single biggest risk factor for stroke. Try to limit your salt intake to a maximum of 6g per day.

 

Limiting your saturated fat intake

A high saturated fat intake has been shown to increase furring of arteries. Try to limit your intake of saturated fat to less than 11% of your total calorie intake each day.

 

Your Ki System gives you all the information you need to change your lifestyle & reduce your risk of stroke. However, you may want to consider having a Ki Lifestyle Audit. It highlights the impact of your lifestyle choices in relation to your health, wellbeing, or weight management goal, as well as your risk of lifestyle diseases.

The Audit is created by the Ki Scientists from the data you collect over 5-days & is designed to empower you & give you the knowledge to meet your goals. It will act as a kick-start to changing your behaviour & the Ki System will help you stay on track by measuring and monitoring the changes you make to your lifestyle.

Register here for your Ki Lifestyle Audit.

April is bowel cancer awareness month and worrying new figures from Cancer Research UK suggest that rates of the disease among men in the UK have risen by a huge 29% in the last 35 years, while women have seen a smaller increase of 6% in this time.

The release of these new statistics coincide with the launch of the Make Bobby Proud campaign by The Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK, aimed at increasing awareness of the disease.

Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK, but many of these bowel cancer deaths could be prevented by simple lifestyle changes. You can reduce your risk of bowel cancer by:

• Maintaining a healthy body weight
• Achieving a minimum of 150-minutes of moderate activity, 75-minutes of vigorous activity, or 150-mins of moderate plus vigorous activity each week
• Limit your intake of red and processed meat
• Aim to consume 23g of fibre each day, primarily from wholegrains
• Limit your alcohol intake to 4 units a day or less for a man or 3 units a day or less for a women
• Being a non-smoker

The good news is the Ki Armband will provide you with highly accurate body data to help you understand the impact your lifestyle is having on your risk of diseases like bowel cancer. Your unique body data will reveal exactly how much activity you do each day and what you need to do to achieve the recommendations. Logging your meals in the Activity Manager will help you keep track of not only the number of calories you are consuming every day, but also the amount of fibre and alcohol, as well as red and processed meat in your diet. The Ki System will help you measure and monitor the success of the decisions you are making to reduce your risk of developing lifestyle diseases.

 

With the Easter bank holiday upon us, many of us will be celebrating the joy of time spent with family, friends and chocolate. But for many, this annual choc-fest can feel like a nightmare.

As a Ki member, you will probably be able to wax lyrical about the number of calories you burn doing the different activities that make up your day. By knowing which activities you will be doing over the Easter weekend; whether you’re planning a long country hike or a relaxing afternoon on the sofa watching a movie, you can work out what you expect to burn on each of the four days. You can then set yourself a calorie intake budget for each day that will help ensure you achieve your target calorie deficit whilst still enjoying all the tasty traditions of Easter.

 

Start your day on an egg

Not all the eggs you eat at Easter need to be made of chocolate. Stick with the Easter theme and fill yourself up with a healthy egg-themed breakfast. Enjoy a boiled egg and soldiers (made from whole-grain toast of course) or a tasty vegetable-packed omelette!

A nutritious breakfast is the best way to start any day. Not only will it boost your metabolism, breakfast can help regulate your blood sugar levels and appetite for the rest of the day.

 

Join the dark side

You don’t need to avoid chocolate altogether to have a healthy Easter – where’s the fun in that? In fact, banishing all chocolate will only leave you feeling deprived and craving for it!

Instead of milk chocolate eggs, opt for dark chocolate ones. Dark chocolate tends to have about half of the sugar compared with milk chocolate and is also a source of minerals such as magnesium and copper.

And, of course, you can always add the benefits of fruit to the mix by melting your dark chocolate egg to make a chocolate dip and dunk strawberries or apple, pear and orange slices.

 

Munch on rabbit food

The Easter bunny is as much part of the Easter festivities as chocolate eggs. So why not follow his example and munch on carrots as part of a healthy snack!

Try snacking on vegetable crudités with hummus, and you don’t have to limit yourself to carrots – try celery, cucumber, peppers, and broccoli florets.

Also, make sure you have hearty servings of vegetables with lean meat for your roast dinner. Choose vegetables that are deep in colour such as broccoli, carrots, peppers, tomatoes and spinach. For your starch, you could try roasted butternut or sweet potato instead of creamy mashed potatoes.

 

Join the hunt

An Easter egg hunt is the perfect opportunity for both adults and children to add activity to what can often be a rather slothful day. To make it more energetic, spread fewer eggs over a wider area. This will mean everyone will spend longer searching, burning more calories in the process, and the fewer treats there are to be found, the lower the calories consumed!

If you prefer something slightly gentler, try going for a walk around the park with your friends and family.

 

 

However you spend your Easter weekend and whatever you choose to consume, make sure you’re wearing your Ki Armband, uploading your data and logging your food and drink. Only then can you see the impact your choices are having on your lifestyle and make any changes needed to ensure you have a happy, healthy Easter!

Yet more evidence has emerged to support our belief that small lifestyle changes can have a big impact on your health.

New research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Circulation, has shown that adhering to at least six of the Life’s Simple 7 reduced the overall risk of cancer by 51% compared to people who met none. The benefits are cumulative, so the more factors you meet the lower your risk of cancer. Meeting four of the seven factors led to a 33% risk reduction, and even meeting only 1 or 2 factors reduced risk by 21%.

Life’s Simple 7 forms part of the American Heart Association’s My Life Check and details seven lifestyle changes any person can make to improve their health.

• Get Active
• Eat better
• Lose weight
• Stop smoking
• Control cholesterol
• Manage blood pressure
• Reduce blood sugar

As this new research shows, although these seven risk factors were chosen because of their strong associations with Cardiovascular Disease (CVD), they are also established risk factors for numerous lifestyle diseases including cancer. Importantly, they also feature heavily in the list of the UK’s leading health risk factors and are contributing to the country’s poor premature death rates that we reported on earlier this month.

The study followed 13,253 white and African-American men and women in the ongoing Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, launched in four U.S. communities. The participants were interviewed and examined at start of the study to determine which health factors they met or followed. After 17 to 19 years of follow-up, the researchers reviewed cancer registries and hospital records to determine that 2,880 of the participants ended up with cancer (primarily lung, colon or rectum, prostate, and breast).

We agree with Laura Rasmussen-Torvik, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, when she says that “this adds to the strong body of literature suggesting that it’s never too late to change, and that if you make changes like quitting smoking and improving your diet, you can reduce your risk for both CVD and cancer.”

Simply by getting active and eating better, you can achieve two of the seven factors. What’s more, by being sufficiently active and consuming a healthy diet you will likely achieve and maintain a healthy body weight, as well as positively influence your cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar levels. That adds up to six of the Life’s Simple 7 and a potential 51% risk reduction of cancer.

The Ki Lifestyle Audit is a unique and unrivalled insight into your calorie balance, physical activity, sleep, and nutrition created by the Ki Scientists from the data you collect over 5-days. It highlights the impact of your lifestyle choices in relation to your health, wellbeing, or weight management goal, as well as your risk of lifestyle diseases.

The Audit is designed to empower you and give you the knowledge to meet your goals. It will act as a kick-start to changing your behaviour and the Ki System will help you stay on track by measuring and monitoring the changes you make to your lifestyle.

To purchase your Ki Lifestyle Audit visit our website: http://www.kiperformance.co.uk

Over the past few months the media have written a lot about what time you should be eating to lose the most weight. “It’s not what you eat, it’s when you eat”, claimed The Independent, whilst Huffington Post explain “Why a late lunch could prevent weight loss” and The Daily Mail said that “Eating lunch too late may make you fat”.

All these media stories were reporting the results of a Spanish study, in which the researchers followed 420 overweight and obese adults throughout a 20-week weight-loss programme. They found that those who ate their lunch before 3pm lost an average of 2.2kg more that those eating lunch after 3pm. The timing of breakfast or dinner did not appear to influence weight loss. It’s important to remember that in Spain lunch is the main meal of the day and is often eaten in the mid to late afternoon. This is different to the UK, where our biggest meal of the day tends to be in the evening, so it’s worth questioning how applicable these results are different to meal patterns.

As Ki members will know, weight loss is about calorie balance. If you eat fewer calories than you burn over a reasonable period of time, you will lose weight. Interestingly, calorie intake and calorie burn were similar between the early and late lunchers in this study, so neither factor could explain the difference in weight loss.

But before you start taking an early lunch, it’s worth remembering that both groups were following a weight-loss programme, so the claims that “it’s not what you eat” are simply untrue. This study only suggests that the timing of your lunch might be related to weight loss in some way, and future research will hopefully try to confirm if this link exists (after all this is just one study in one population) and find out what the link is.

More recently this issue got more attention when The Daily Mail claimed that “Lunching like a prince and dining like a pauper really is the key to keeping trim”. Unfortunately, the research doesn’t really support this claim. What the study did show was that mice were less ‘sensitive’ to insulin later in their day; this was also when the mice were least active.

Insulin is the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels. When insulin sensitivity is lower, less sugar is needed to maintain normal blood sugar levels. In theory, the mice would need less food at the end of their day when their insulin sensitivity and activity levels were lowest. Mice genetically engineered to have no body clock, didn’t show the same pattern of insulin sensitivity seen in normal mice. In fact, they gained more body fat than normal mice when fed an identical high fat diet. What The Daily Mail failed to mention was that the mice with no body clock were less active overall. So, they ate the same amount, but burned fewer calories than normal mice – wouldn’t this go some way to explaining the extra body fat gained by the genetically engineered mice?

As is so often the case with media reports, both these claims were based on single studies. A single study does not provide enough evidence to make such strong claims. Before we can say for certain what the ideal meal size or timing is, more research is needed. In fact, more research in humans is really important – just because it happens in mice, doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen in us!

Your Ki System gives you access to all the information you need to decide how you spread your calorie intake across the day. By logging all your meals and snacks, you can try out different meal patterns to see what works for you. You might even find that different meal patterns work better on some days than other. Just remember that achieving a calorie deficit is the key to losing weight, so make sure, whatever meal pattern you choose, your calorie intake is less than your calories burned.

UK health data compiled between 1990 and 2010 has been compared with figures from 14 other European Union and 4 other high-income countries in research published in The Lancet today and the results are definitely a call to action!

Despite an increase in average life expectancy of 4.2 years the UK is severely lagging behind progress made by similar countries on many indicators for ill-health and only ranks 12 out of the 19 countries in The Lancet study.

Worryingly, the premature death rate in the UK hardly changed for either men or women aged 20-54 years in the 20-years of the study. In the UK there are five big killers of under-75’s – heart disease, cancer, stroke, lung disease, and liver disease – all of which are linked to avoidable risk factors. In fact, according to the Department of Health, 20% of deaths from the five big killers are entirely preventable. In the UK, the leading (avoidable) health risk factors are:

• Tobacco smoke (including second hand smoke)
• High blood pressure
• Obesity
• Too little physical activity
• Alcohol use
• Poor diet

Whilst the Government is obviously being encouraged to take “bold action”, isn’t it time we all take responsibility for our own health?

Improving your health doesn’t have to mean drastic changes – making small, sustainable changes to your lifestyle really can make a big difference to your health and wellbeing, as well as reducing your risk of numerous diseases.

The first step is to find out exactly what your lifestyle currently looks like, only then can you decide what changes you need to make and monitor if those changes are successful. The Ki Armband will provide you the most accurate body data in the world to help you understand your life and provide the kick-start for change. The Ki system will then help you measure and monitor the success of the decisions you are making in pursuit of your goals.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)60355-4/abstract

We’ve said for a long time that Body Mass Index, or BMI, is flawed. Now Oxford University mathematician, Nick Trefethen has developed a new calculation which he claims better accounts for the relationship between height and weight.

This new calculation still only uses height and weight to estimate how fat or thin someone is which just leaves us wondering if all his work was really worth it when it’s still just an estimate and not accurately measuring body composition. After all, if you don’t know exactly what you’re body is made of now, how can you know what changes you need to make?

Some of you may have heard Dr Mark Porter discussing this topic on BBC Radio 4’s Inside Health this week. He talked to members of the British public who not only thought that BMI was meaningless to them, but also had no idea where it comes from, how to calculate it or how to read the BMI chart in their GP surgery. For those of you who are interested, BMI is calculated by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in metres squared (weight/height2).

This out-dated formula was devised over 100 years ago by Belgian scientist Adolphe Quetele, but according to Professor Trefethen it is over-simplistic. He believes it is incorrect because “it divides the weight by too large a number for short people, and too small a number for tall people. So short people are misled into thinking they are thinner than they are, and tall people are misled into thinking they are fatter than they are.” He believes his new calculation goes some way to correcting these problems. Professor Trefethen calculates BMI by multiplying your weight in kilograms by 1.3 then dividing this number by your height in metres to the power of 2.5 (1.3xweight/height2.5). You can use interactive calculator on The Telegraph to find out what this change would mean for you.

But even Professor Trefethen agrees that “BMI is only one of many factors and inevitably not everyone with fit the standard pattern.” He also acknowledged that BMI is “not always a good indicator at an individual level.”

We’ve recently come across A Body Shape Index (ABSI). This is another new measure looking at how our body shape predicts mortality risk. ABSI is just as simple to calculate as both versions of BMI, and takes into account not only weight and height but also looks at where any excess fat is stored using waist circumference (WC). It is well known that fat stored around the stomach area is particularly bad for our health, but any excess weight for our given height also carries greater health risks. Even though it’s still an estimate, by combining these measures the ABSI is a better predictor of an increased risk of premature mortality than either BMI or WC alone. The ABSI equation divides WC by BMI to the power of two thirds (BMI^2/3) multiplied by height to the power of a half (height^1/2).

We know that accuracy really does matter. If BMI is known to be flawed why is it still used so widely within the NHS? Yes it’s simple to calculate, but so is ABSI which is a better predictor of health risks. Whatever estimate is used, if it’s inaccurate then you may not be getting the advice you need. Obesity is defined as having too much body fat NOT as weighing too much for your height. So, do we really need a new way to estimate body fat when we can accurately measure it?

Reporting on new research from the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health earlier this week, The Daily Mail stated that “Twitter can speed up the rate at which we shed the pounds”. Unfortunately, this report significantly overstated the study’s results.

The study followed 96 overweight and obese mean and women, divided into two groups, over a 6-month period. All participants received two 15-minute podcasts per week for three months and two 5-minute podcasts per week during the third to sixth months. Half the participants also logged on to Twitter daily to read and post messages.

Importantly, this main study found no difference in weight loss at the end of the 6-months between people who had access to Twitter and those who didn’t.

The most interesting results were found when the researchers looked again at those who used Twitter. People who tweeted the most were more likely to lose weight than participants who only read messages but rarely, or never, posted tweets themselves. Every 10 tweets was associated with about 0.5% weight loss.

It’s definitely worth noting that Twitter didn’t work for everyone. Some people weren’t engaged, tweeting only a few times or not at all, and most of the participants stopped using Twitter after three months.

 

If you follow us on Facebook or Twitter you may have seen our post at the end of last year commenting on how using a Smartphone app can help boost your weight loss. So, although the current study doesn’t prove conclusively that using social media helps you lose weight, it does add to the growing evidence showing the potential of technology and social media for weight loss.

Here at Ki we’ve been aware of this potential for a number of years. The technology behind the Ki system has been shown to help people lose over 7 times more weight when used alongside a group weight loss programme compared with those attempting to lose weight alone. Even those using the Ki System alone lost more 4 times more weight!

So, if you’re already using the Ki System, why not follow us on Twitter and Facebook and see just how much more weight you could lose!