Another tip for weight loss I use is to replace chocolate sprinkles on my morning cappuccino with cinnamon. Why? here’s the science – chocolate sprinkles are packed with sugar and this gives you a spike of insulin, which as you’ll know if you’ve read my other blog posts is not what you want as this can lead to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, one of the most awful diseases to suffer with. Cinnamon, on the other hand, has no sugar in it and has been shown in some studies to induce thermogenesis, this is where some of the compounds found in the cinnamon act on fat cells to make them start burning fat. Now the amount you sprinkle on your coffee won’t make you into Kate Moss overnight but it’s a step in the right direction! It was one of the things in combination with a ton of others that help me on the Myleene Klass MyBody Challenge to lose 1.5 stone in 12 weeks. Weight loss which I have maintained by following a menopause friendly lifestyle since.
Fitness has been good this week and I have swum another 3 miles, this makes me 19 miles in on the Aspire Channel Swim Challenge – only another 3 miles to go and I will have swum the distance of the channel. Adding a Wednesday night swim at ladies only night at Hitchin Pool has really helped. I found out this week that the Aspire Charity is helping one of my niece’s school friends who broke his back while jumping into a lake on holiday and is now at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital being rehabilitated so you never know when someone’s life will change and they will need this kind of support. There is still time if you want to donate, please go to my just giving page Fundraising Page for Aspire Charity and donate whatever you can.
I have managed to get along to Annie Farrow’s Zumba twice this week, which is a minor miracle. Zumba is a great way to get fit and stay fit because there is none of this getting up and down all the time that you get with HIT training. HIT is all very well but it is not great as you get older as I found by the time I was down on the floor to do an exercise it was time to get up again and it just didn’t work for me. Annie’s class is great, we do about 6-8000 steps per class (I measure it on my FitBit Charge 2) and she makes it so much fun I ache all over at the end but I never want the class to stop because we’re all having such a good time.
Time to go and write a report on cell therapy, with my lovely cinnamon topped coffee to power me up.
Dr Sue Pearson 