What you do after your workout is an important part of yielding results, such as muscle gain and weight loss, while reducing muscle soreness. A post-workout routine also helps to maintain optimum energy levels as you restore your vitality, making it easier to stick to your fitness plan.

This article explores the steps to take after a workout to maximize your results. Read on to learn how you can design an effective plan to start the recovery process after you exercise.

Rehydration is essential, especially if youve exercised intensely or broken a sweat. Replenishing your fluid levels improves muscle flexibility, builds strength, and prevents muscle soreness.

Drink at least 16 ounces of water or healthy drinks, such as coconut water, green or black tea, and chocolate milk. Or you can choose a low-sugar sports drink. These drinks contain electrolytes, such as potassium and sodium, that can prevent and relieve muscle cramping.

Avoid overly sugary, caffeinated, and alcoholic drinks, which may cause dehydration.

Plan to eat a healthy snack or meal within 45 minutes of completing your workout. This will help replenish muscle energy stores and start the recovery process. Eat foods that contain carbohydrates and protein.

Carbs help to restore glycogen levels so you can recharge your energy levels. Protein aids in muscle recovery and provides amino acids that help to repair and rebuild muscles.

While your muscles need time to recover after an intense workout, you can still do light exercise on recovery days, such as walking, swimming, or yoga. Engaging in active recovery may help to prevent lactic acid buildup, remove toxins, and boost circulation. Varying your workouts can also help you target different muscle groups and use your muscles in different ways.

Always finish your workout with a cooldown, which allows your heart rate to gradually return to its normal rate. It also helps to stop blood pooling in the lower extremities, which may make you feel lightheaded or dizzy.

A proper cooldown can also help to relieve stress, prevent muscle soreness, and prevent injury. Consider wrapping it up with a 5-minute savasana to promote overall wellbeing.

To repair and rebuild muscle, choose meals that contain healthy carbohydrates and high-quality proteins. Protein options that help to build muscle include:

Carbs help your muscles to recover while proteins support muscle growth. Carbohydrates to eat after a workout include:

You can enrich your diet with a protein shake or supplements. Supplements that support muscle growth include:

Eat regularly and avoid skipping meals, which may hinder the benefits of your workout by causing muscle loss. Building muscle helps to speed up your metabolism, which helps with weight loss.

To burn fat, select foods that promote weight loss. This includes low-fat dairy products, hot peppers, and whole grains. Protein options include fish high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as salmon, mackerel, and tuna. Or opt for lean meats such as turkey, pork tenderloin, or chicken breast.

Include a stretching routine after your workout while your muscles are still warm. This helps to elongate muscles, relieve tension, and enhance flexibility. Stretching also helps prevent muscle soreness, relieve tension, and increase your range of motion. This improves mobility, promotes good posture, and enhances muscle relaxation.

Take a cool or cold shower to encourage healing, prevent inflammation, and ease muscular tension. You can even try out an ice bath, which may relieve muscle soreness and inflammation. It may also help you to experience a night of peaceful slumber.

Other options to alleviate or prevent sore muscles include taking an Epsom salt bath, having a massage, or foam rolling. If you feel tired, experience pain, or have any type of injury, rest completely until you feel better.

Strike a balance with your food choices. Make sure you fuel your body without taking in too many calories. Its not necessary to deprive yourself of anything. Avoid skimping on calories or cutting out meals altogether. Its also important to stay away from eating too much or getting your calories from unhealthy, processed foods.

Resist the urge to overexert yourself by pushing yourself too quickly or past your current level. This can lead to strains and injuries. It can also cause nausea, especially if you do an intense, bouncy, or heated workout. Or if you end your workout abruptly.

Restricting your breath or forgetting to breathe during and after exercise can lead to dizziness or lightheadedness. This is due to a lack of oxygen to the brain. Practice deep breathing exercises at rest before incorporating them into your workouts. This will help to develop healthy breathing patterns and breath awareness.

To get the most benefits from your workout, its important to honor and nourish your body by following a post-workout routine and nutrition plan. This allows you to stay healthy physically and mentally. If you dont follow a post-workout routine, you run the risk of injury or burnout. Plus, it may be more difficult for you to stick to an exercise plan or have the energy to complete your daily tasks.

You may occasionally deviate from your post-fitness routine due to lack of time or other commitments, but overall you should follow the appropriate steps as often as possible.

Its also vital that you listen to your body and take a break if you are feeling ill, tired, or in pain after you exercise. To perform at your optimum level that next time you work out, you must ensure your body is restored and revitalized. This allows your body to function at its maximum capacity, making it easier to go about your daily activities with greater ease.

Youll feel better physically and improve your overall wellbeing, which can have a positive effect on all areas of your life.

Consider working with a trainer if you are new to fitness or have underlying health conditions, including injuries. A fitness pro can create an individual program thats tailored to your needs and goals. Theyll also show you the path to take post-workout. As you progress, a trainer can make adjustments to your routine so you can continue to improve.

A dietician can assess your individual needs by looking at your current eating habits, workout routine, and intended outcomes. They will design an optimal eating plan that complements your fitness program, dietary restrictions, or health concerns. Checking in with a dietician can also help you to feel motivated and supported as you work toward long-term improvements.

You must utilize the recovery process after a workout to gain the most benefits and give your muscles a chance to heal. In addition to these suggested steps, get plenty of sleep, which will help to boost your performance and the recovery process. Give yourself the chance to fully rest anytime you feel you need it.

Create a post-workout recovery routine that allows you to safely restore energy levels and rebuild muscles. If you find yourself being either too laissez-faire or rigid about your post-workout routine, adjust accordingly.

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What to Do After Working Out: 11 Tips to Try Post-Workout - Healthline

Before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered New York in March, I had a pretty good exercise routine going: I walked briskly in New York City every day and attended spin classes at the gym three or four times a week.

But after my gym closed and I started working from home, my activity level slumped. While everyone on my Instagram feed was taking exercise classes in their living room, I just wasn't interested. I started to feel lethargic and it was getting harder to fall asleep.

The US Department of Health and Human Services recommends adults complete at least 150 minutes of "moderate-intensity aerobic activity" a week. Doing so can lead to health benefits including reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes, anxiety, depression, and dementia.

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The faster you walk, the more benefits you'll see, but I maintained a consistent, brisk pace without overly exerting myself or getting too out of breath. I knew I couldn't punish myself on these walks if I wanted to keep them up.

At first, I anticipated walking before work. I'm an early riser so a 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. start felt feasible. I loved how quiet the streets were, and I liked the feeling that I'd already achieved my goal when I sat down to start work for the day. Some days, I even took a flask of coffee with me.

But a week later, I woke up and the thought of taking a walk made me groan. That was exactly what I didn't want: to be put off when I'd barely begun. So I loosened up my strict schedule and started walking after work instead. At weekends, I'd simply take a walk whenever I felt like it. If the weather was particularly bad, I could work around that, too.

This relaxed attitude to scheduling meant I didn't feel guilty for not waking up early enough or stressed about when I was going to fit it in during my day. It remained something enjoyable that I didn't dread or resent.

After I had completed about two weeks of daily walks, I suddenly realized something: I felt so much better, physically. There had been no sudden increases to my resting heart rate, and my physical health felt strong and consistent. For me, this feeling was incredibly significant. It was both something I could have assumed yet really didn't expect to feel so accutely.

I weighed myself before I started my daily walks and again after a month, just in case there was a change, but there wasn't. That said, weight loss was never my goal: feeling healthy and committing to staying active was.

Like everyone else, I have upped my snack intake since working from home, so while I haven't lost weight from walking, it has perhaps allowed me to maintain my weight while eating whatever is in my cupboards.

Walking has also been found to have significant impacts on mental health. A study by Harvard University and other institutions showed that three hours of exercise a week could decrease the risks of depression. This risk decreased a further 17% with each added 30 minutes or so of daily activity.

While I do not have depression, I can experience anxiety, which also affects my sleep. For me, separating my home life from my non-home life is essential, but that has been hard in lockdown.

My reading hasn't suffered, either. Rather than reading a book, I've listened to them on headphones thanks to free audiobooks from my library.

Some evenings and weekends, I've driven somewhere new for my walks. I've taken (socially distant) strolls on my local beach's boardwalk, around a lake at a nearby state park, and through the woods. These walks have gotten me away from the environs of my home during the lockdown a welcome change.

A wealth of studies has shown contact with nature is linked to psychological well-being and has positive impact on memory, attention, imagination, and a feeling of purpose, among other things. One 2019 study found that people who spend at least two hours in nature each week "are significantly more likely to report good health and higher psychological well-being" than those who do not.

One thing that organizations such as the American Heart Association indicate is that walking will lead to a "better quality of life and sense of overall well-being," which sums up my feelings perfectly.

Why not? It's easy, free, and is helping me in more ways than I expected.

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I forced myself to walk for an hour every day during the pandemic, and I was surprised by how much it improved - Business Insider India

From Delish

There is nothing more magical than a day spent eating through theme parks. The most magical of these parks, one might argue, is the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, nestled within Universal Orlando Resorts. So, one might further deduce, the most magical way to spend a day is eating your way through Universal.

All this is to say that a few weeks ago, I tried my hand at recreating some of Universal's most iconic recipes from self-quarantine in my parents' home in New Jersey. It was...not easy. But it was fun.

I started with the Green Eggs & Ham tots you can only find at Green Eggs and Ham Caf in Islands of Adventure. It was the easiest of the three recipes I attempted, as it essentially amounted to queso-drenched tater tots being covered in pesto-y eggs and ham, and I cannot recommend more that you attempt to make it, too.

From there, we tried to make pumpkin pasties and that was...harder. Granted, I did not try to make dough from scratch, I could not find any pumpkin, and I was flustered and sweating by that point, but stilldelicious!

Thirdly, there was the butterbeer. Ohhhh, the butterbeer. So, so good. So, so sweet. So, so not what it tastes like in the park (for no reason other than that I could not find butterscotch syrup, and also I am bad at whisking things).

Anyway. Follow along with my magical journey above. And have a magical day, or whatever.

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I Tried Making The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter's Most Popular Menu Items At Home - Yahoo Lifestyle

Companies made more than 150,000 queries regarding safe distancing measures and guidelines between April 3 and Monday, government agency Enterprise Singapore (ESG) said yesterday.

Of these, 110,000 were phone calls to ESG's information hotline, while about 45,000 were made through e-mail.

Speaking to reporters after a visit to ESG's dedicated call centre in Tai Seng yesterday, Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing said that the centre's operations will now focus on helping businesses reopen safely in phase two, which begins on Friday.

The centre previously focused on helping businesses understand if they could operate safely or at all, he added.

As a next step, the centre will help companies adapt and transform some of their business models to serve new customers, Mr Chan said, noting that the centre is expected to continue operating in the coming months.

The agents at the call centre do not just address companies' problems and queries, but also facilitate a "two-way" communication between businesses and government agencies, the minister added.

"From the questions that businesses ask, we also get a good sense of the pulse (on the ground), the pain points, the opportunities, and it helps us refine some of the rules that we implement," said Mr Chan.

The call centre was set up in April when circuit breaker measures were announced, with close to 800 volunteers from 48 government agencies manning the Enterprise Infoline during the period of heightened safe distancing measures. Currently, around 50 to 60 call centre agents answer phone queries daily.

Agents at the ESG call centre include workers who have been redeployed from companies badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic, operators hired through recruitment agencies, volunteers from other government agencies and ESG staff.

Among those manning the lines is Mr Louis Loo, 70, who worked as a tour guide and a part-timer doing customer service at the Singapore Tourism Board's visitor centre after retiring in 2017.

As tourism suffered massively from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, he joined the centre as his "interest is in meeting and talking to people".

Several businesses were frustrated when calling in, as their registered primary activities were not on the list of essential services allowed to operate, he said, but such instances were where "soft-skills training kicked in".

"Subsequently, after listening to them and... letting them throw out their frustrations, they would eventually cool down and accept what you're telling them," Mr Loo said.

Mr Chan said that trade associations and chambers have also played an active role in designing and developing measures for particular industries.

The Singapore Business Federation's CovidBiz Helpline, which helps businesses navigate government advisories and updates, received about 960 inquiries from more than 600 companies between April 6 and Monday.

In addition, the Singapore Malay Chamber of Commerce and Industry has engaged more than 1,100 companies through means such as industry group discussions and webinars, while the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has negotiated preferential interest rates with banks and private financial institutions for its members and Singaporean Indian businesses to address cash flow concerns.

Said Mr Chan: "We hope that in many of the industries, we will be able to set new benchmarks on how we can do (things), not just for ourselves, but also to demonstrate to the... regional market how we can resume activities in a sustainable way."

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Firms made over 150000 queries on safe distancing to call centre - The Straits Times

If you are on your weight loss journey, you must be realizing that it is not an easy thing to do. There are so many diets and so many exercise regimens that promise quick weight loss, that you are bound to be totally confused. The worst thing is that losing weight requires really hard work. You have to stick to restrictive diets and strenuous workout routines. No wonder so many people give up when they are not even halfway through. Most diets leave you with a sense of deprivation and more often than not you are always hungry. But yet you need to cut down on your food intake if you want to lose weight. So what do you do? Apparently, the plate you eat from can decide how much you eat and if you will lose weight. Also Read - Want to lose weight fast? Eat dinner early

Some colours can make you lose your appetite. If you choose your dinner plate according to this logic, you may lose weight faster. It will prevent you from overeating by curbing your appetite. Here are a few facts that you must consider when taking out your dinner plate. Experts say that yellow, orange and red makes you eat more. This is because these colours can increase your blood pressure and heart rate. This triggers hunger in you. But if your dinner plate is gray, black, brown and purple, you are less likely to overeat. These colours prevent you from overeating and make you feel full sooner. The same science applies to ambience too. Avoid eating in a room with yellow, orange and red coloured walls and lights if you want to lose weight. Also Read - Want to lose weight fast? Try the 5:2 intermittent fasting diet

According to experts, if you eat from a plate with a wide-colored rim, you are likely to overeat. A study in the International Journal of Obesity says people overestimate the amount of food on a wide rimmed plate by almost 10 per cent. Researchers saw that when people looked at food served on a plate with a colored rim, they thought that the amount of food is 1.5 to 3 per cent more as compared to meals served on plates with uncolored rims. So, now you know what you must look for when shopping for your dinner plate. Also Read - Lose weight as you sleep: These tips will do the trick

The colour of your dinner plate can help you lose weight without any side-effects. But along with choosing the right colour plate, you also need to do a few other things to ensure that you lose weight fast. Have a lot of vegetables and fruits. In fact, half your plat must contain fresh fruits and veggies. Carbs and proteins can occupy a fourth of the plate for each. Choose foods that are low in calorie, and nutrient-rich. One important thing to do when trying to lose weight is to never ever eat out of a box or takeaway package. Always take the food out on a plate before eating. This will also help you lose weight.

Published : June 18, 2020 10:12 pm

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Weight loss: Can the colour of your plate influence the numbers on your scale? - TheHealthSite

Its been reported that Adele used the Sirtfood Diet to shed the pounds, a diet formulated by two celebrity nutritionists.

The diet plan relies on the idea of turning on your skinny gene by focusing on foods that increase levels of a specific protein in the body that helps to regulate metabolism.

The proteins are called sirtuins (SIRTs), and so the founders named the foods containing them sirtfoods as part of their revolutionary plan.

The successful diet plan has been outlined in the founders book, and promises that you can lose as much as seven pounds in seven days.

READ MORE:Weight loss: How matcha green tea helps burn fat

The best snack according to the Sirtfood pros is a portion of nuts, which have plenty of health benefits.

Nuts are high in healthy fats, as well as being a source of protein, fibre, magnesium and vitamin E.

In fact, some studies have even shown that they can help you to live longer, as they can help to lower cholesterol and blood pressure.

The Sirtfood Diet shared the advice on their Instagram page, with the caption:

The health benefits of nuts? Where do you even start? A true champion food linked to reduced body weight and for slashing the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

They then shared a recipe to add a bit more flavour to walnuts, pecans and cashews for those who are following the healthy diet plan.

And the ultimate snack food? Its hard to argue with that. So to bring a bit of a flavour kick, why not give these tasty Cajun spiced nuts a try?

250g mix of walnuts, pecans and cashews

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp chilli powder

Heat the oven to 160 degrees centigrade/gas mark three.

Mix all the spices together and combine with the nuts and oil. Place the nuts in a single layer on a roasting tray and roast for 25-30 mins.

Tip the toasted nuts into a bowl to cool."

The account regularly posts new recipes to its page for dieters to make at home.

The previous post talked about vegan recipes, saying: While you don't need to be vegan to follow The Sirtfood Diet, it is a celebration of plant foods and their unmatched health benefits.

Plant-based meals are not only great for us but for the health of the planet too. This is why we encourage that people should include some vegan meals in their weekly diet.

The post included an easy chickpea curry recipe from the founders Sirtfood recipe book.

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Weight loss: Experts behind Adeles weight loss diet share the ultimate healthy snack - Express

Age: 53Occupation: Assistant ProfessorHometown: PittsburghStart Weight: 230 poundsEnd Weight: 175 poundsTime Cycling: 12 years

I used to be a fitness instructor when I was in my 20s. Then in 1990, I moved from Sacramento, California to Pittsburgh, where I focused on my advanced educationa masters degree in rehab counseling and later a Ph.D. in counseling psychology. I married in 1994, and we had children in 99 and 2003.

Basically I was focused on other areas of life, and exercise and fitness became an afterthought. After we had our first child, I weighed around 230 pounds (fat not muscle), my cholesterol was high, and I had a bad back and knee pain.

There was a brief period around 1995 or so when I went on Weight Watchers and lost about 40 pounds, but I gained that back fairly quickly. Eating too much combined inconsistent exercise at minimal intensity kept the pounds on. I never challenged myself beyond 60 to 70 percent of my target heart rate.

Around 2008 I was having health issues with high cholesterol and severe back pain. I weighed around 220 pounds. That same year, I had a career change with a new office space. I decided that enough was enough with my unhealthy lifestyle and decided to start riding an old Trek bike that I had for many years. I began riding to work regularly which helped with a great deal of weight loss.

In 2010, a friend introduced me to mountain biking and took me into a local park (Frick Park) which has some great mountain bike trails. I loved it immediately and bought my first real mountain bike that year. Around 2013, another friend suggested riding with a cycling team. I gave it a try and entered my first race in 2013a mountain bike short track race.

I thought I was in good shape having ridden to work the last few years, but after the race I thought I would have a heart attack from the exertion! I was not in race shape. I tried some cyclocross races which further reinforced to me that I was not in race shape. I ended up joining a team in 2013 and began riding with other riders to get into race shape. From that point on Ive raced mountain bikes and cyclocross every year.

I now weigh 175 pounds and rarely go above 180. Additionally, cycling has been a blessing on my lower lumbar back problems. Just as an example, one time while in grad school when I was overweight, had a back flare up after just sitting down on a chair. The pain was so bad my fellow students had to call EMS to have me taken to the emergency room, and my wife drove from Pittsburgh to West Virginia to pick me up. Since Ive been consistently cycling at a competitive level, my back has not flared up like that again.

As for my eating habits, at first I was on a very low-fat diet with limited calorie intake because of my tendency toward high cholesterol. Since Ive been racing and riding at high levels, Ive been able to cheat a little more and still maintain my weight. I still do not eat fast food or fried food, I limit eating fats like butter, I mostly eat egg whites with only a small bit of yolk, and I maintain a good level of protein especially now that Im in my 50s.

Though exercise has helped me with most health problems, I still have joint arthritis, but it rarely bothers me. Its mostly mountain biking that affected my arthritis because of the constant tension and jarring of the legs and arms. My arthritis is advanced in my left knee and I also have right shoulder arthritis. However, the most I do is take Advil after a long or intense mountain bike ride. Casual mountain biking (two hours at a moderate pace) doesnt bother me that much.

[Download the All Out Studio App for more amazing at-home workouts!]

Now, I average 80 to 100 miles a week, sometimes more. To get my miles in, I road ride to work. On weekends (sometimes during the week) I gravel or mountain bike ride. I occasionally do off-road and mountain bike races. I also work in strength training twice a week and play tennis a few times a month. And, I participate in about 12 to 16 mountain bike and cyclocross races a year.

In the future, Id like to go on more mountain bike rides in new and interesting places. I would like to be a mountain bike instructor to help people in my age range, and maybe younger, learn the fitness benefits of cycling.

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A Career Change Helped This Cyclist Lose 55 Pounds | Cycling Weight Loss - Bicycling

You may have put on a pound or two or 19 during the quarantine (hey, we all can relate to finding comfort in a chocolate babka or a chewy loaf of homemade sourdough!). But now that some states are starting to open up and people are emerging, bleary-eyed, from their lockdowns hoping to get back into shape, new diets are starting to bounce around social media again. And one of the buzziest is the lazy keto diet.

Both lazy keto and its sloppier cousin dirty keto have been trending, and it may be because while many people are interested in losing their quarantine weight, they've also lost patience with the strict keto, which can feel like it requires more math than an AP calculus class.

"During the quarantine, I didn't hear anyone ask about any fad diets," points out Bonnie Taub-Dix, RDN, author of Read It Before You Eat It: Taking You from Label to Table. "I'm not a fan of any keto diet, but that doesnt mean it doesnt work for some people who are doing it with the guidance of a dietitian."

With a standard keto diet, you have to pay very close attention to every gram of food you eat, in an attempt to take in roughly 70 to 75% of your calories from fat, 20% from protein, and as little as 5 to 10% from carbs, which puts your body into a state of ketosis, where it starts burning fat for energy. This means a whole lot of meat, butter, cream, and avocado, but precious few fruits and vegetables.

But with lazy keto, you only need to focus on one number: your daily intake of carbs, which according to the buzz, should be about 20 to 50 grams per day. The rest? As long as you generally try to eat more fats than proteins and you stick to relatively healthy food choices, the percentages dont matter and you can put away your calculator. (But focus on whole foodsif you want to try to lose weight eating greasy fast food, youre looking at dirty keto, which no dietitian we know would ever recommend.)

Though the name is new, the idea of lazy keto has been around for a while, says nutritionist DJ Blatner, RDN, the author of The Superfood Swap.This is actually what many people do when they say they are following a 'keto' diet, she explains. Most people arent counting all their macros, theyre just trying to eat low carb/high fat. They hear about the keto plan from a friend and create their own version.

Well, sure, says Blatner, but thats more likely due to the fact that youll be paying closer attention to what you eat rather than any keto magic (without paying attention to the fat/protein ratio, you will not likely achieve ketosis). You can lose weight this way if the portions of protein are moderate and there are low-carb veggies included for nutrition, fiber, and fullness, she says. But truthfully, once people start paying attention to what they're eating, no matter what type of diet they follow, they tend to lose weight compared to when they werent paying attention at all. Plus, if you're cooking more at home rather than eating out in restaurants or chowing down processed food, you'll likely experience some weight loss.

Lazy or not, slashing your intake of carbs to as little as 20g a day (say, a cup of blueberries or a small green salad) is always a risk, says Blatner. "Carbohydrates are important to the health of our gut because they feed the good bacteria," she explains. "When you limit carbs and eat excess protein and fat, you potentially throw off gut bacteria, which can be linked to everything from digestive problems to immunity impairments to mood fluctuations. It's also a challenge to get enough phytonutrients to help keep cells healthy, strong, and disease-free.

Taub-Dix agrees that keeping carbs to such a tiny percent of your diet is problematic. "You have to think of the value of the vitamins, minerals, and fiber you get from healthy carbs, not to mention the emotional satiety," she says.

Americans do tend to overeat simple carbs, especially the refined, white, processed carbs of breads, wraps, buns, pasta, rice, crackers, pretzels, pizza, cakes, and cookies, says Blatner. Swapping those out for whole-food versions, including fruits, vegetables, and small portions of whole grains such as oatmeal, quinoa, wild rice, and bulgar, is a great way start. It might not technically be "lazy," but achieving a healthy lifestyle rarely is.

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What Is the Lazy Keto Diet? - Can You Lose Weight on the Lazy Keto Diet? - GoodHousekeeping.com

Ever wondered why some people can eat to their hearts content while others agonise over every calorie and still struggle to shed those stubborn kilos?

A study published in the journal Nature Food might offer some consolation for the battlers.

It adds to mounting evidence that people have uniquely individual responses to diets, showing some bodies are better at expelling calories than others, regardless of what theyve eaten.

Healthy volunteers were given four different diets in random order over three days under supervision so they couldnt cheat and daily urinary chemical metabolites were measured using molecular profiling.

The diets had varying levels of adherence to the World Health Organisations dietary recommendations for eating lots of fruit, vegetables and fibre, ranging from high to low compliance (low being equivalent to a fast food diet).

Each diet triggered different metabolic responses within and between individuals, and these were related to blood glucose levels, says co-author Jeremy Nicholson from from the Australian National Phenome Centre at Murdoch University.

Perhaps not surprisingly, they found that our microscopic friends played a role.

Several of the chemicals that changed in the urine were generated by the gut bacteria, says Nicholson, which is consistent with the fact that people have different gut bacteria and that these bacteria can use different foods as fuel.

Interestingly, volunteers metabolic profiles following the healthiest diet corresponded to those seen in lean people, while the junk food diet profiles aligned more closely with that of obese people.

So, on balance, eating healthier food is clearly better; but its not so black and white.

Developing a dietary metabolic score from their results, the team found that 12 out of 19 participants increased their score positively in response to the healthy diet while 13 individuals scores went down after the fast food diet.

The difference between the least and most calories excreted in peoples urine was four percent, equating to four calories a day. That might not sound like much, but it adds up to 1500 calories a year, or 215 grams of fat difference.

As many people would attest, such small changes can creep up over time. The researchers explain that adults gain an average of 500 grams per year, which is about 3500 calories an excess of less than 10 calories per day.

The study adds to the growing field of precision medicine, which could help health professionals tailor peoples diets to individual metabolic profiles, helping to boost weight loss and mitigate risk of chronic diseases.

This is a real paradigm shift in personalised nutrition research, says co-author Gary Frost from Imperial College, UK.

[F]or the first time we have tools that can rapidly evaluate the diet-microbiome interactions that affect individual responses to complex diet patterns in the real world.

It might also help inspire people to change dietary habits, a notoriously difficult feat. As Nicholson suggests, knowing something is specifically good for you is more motivating, making it more likely that youll do something about it.

Obesity researchers would argue this still doesnt let the fast food industry off the hook for its pervasive influence on diet, disease and health inequalities.

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Why some people find it easier to lose weight - Cosmos