Posted on

Monday Feb 28th 2011

This is an interesting email from one of our serving soldiers in Iraq, and a female friend he has over there, i will not broadcast his name but would like to say we are all proud of our fighting forces out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here it is Soldier-“this is for my female friend who isnt really fat she just has a wide bum and big thighs.
Area wise, nope no hills, all flat-the compound that is.

I/we usually train every other day
Diet wise, ive tried to get her to cut down on the size of meals and eat when she feels “full” rather than finish the plate.
She has a weight goal but again ive stressed its not about weight loss but how well your clothes fit/tightness of jeans etc.
Keri-too right, the weighing scales can spoil many people’s progress, the way your clothes feel is ultra important!!

For myself im carrying a gut its not huge but its big enough to be annoying, my goal is 2 fold, one is to get my fitness levels improved and two to gain muscle size again.

Keri-this can totally be done, and you need to incorporate resistance work in your programme 3 times a week, but a minimum twice, the more lean muscle tissue you build, the more your metabolism burns calories 24 hours a day.
Soldier-For me losing weight is pretty straight forward my metabolic rate is very quick and once i start training im constantly hungry(which probably means eating more often but eating the same quantities through the day), but diet wise, I either have cereal for brekkie with 2 pieces of toast or scrambled eggs and bacon and hash browns, dinner and tea its mainly chicken and salad depending on how I feel, my diet is pretty good it aint great but good enough for what I want.

Keri-The evening sounds great and try to keep it to great protein choices such as the chicken, fish, lean beef etc with plenty of veggies if possible. The bacon needs to go for breakfast, keep it once a week only as well as the hash browns, they are not going to help you one bit, and carry enough salt and saturated fat to sink a battleship, pardon the pun!!!

Soldier-Going back to my friend, all i really require is a little bit of advice on whether this regime will work for her to drop a few sizes and build fitness levels up, Im thinking ive probably overdone the weight side of things for her, but thats no problem as I could lose 2 exercises from that. The exercises for her will obviously be light weight high rep as its for toning and for fat burning.

The basketball court routine i will be doing as well as I know that will get me fit.

   cheers for the reply, heres the routine I was on about, I dont think its too bad, it would certainly test me if I was doing it.

20 mins Elliptical machine: consisting of:-
5 mins warm up
2 mins going hard
2 mins cool off
2 mins hard
2 mins cool
2 mins hard
5 mins warm down.

Stretching

Squats 2-3 sets 15-20 reps
Bi cep curl to shoulder press 2-3 sets 15-20 reps
Lunges sets and reps as above
Bench press/flat flys sets and reps as above
Clean and jerks sets and reps as above
ab work

20 mins of rowing following the same pattern as elliptical machine-keri try and cut the rower work down from 20 mins to around 10 to start, in fact set her a target of 2500 metres and see how quick she can go, this is a lung capacity buster and will test the best of us. Also, give her a 15 minute target, see how many metres can she do? let me know where she is on these and i will tell you how good she is.

For circuit work on the basketball court
gonna make that about 30-45 mins long 
3 laps of court
stretching
3 laps of court steady pace
the next few laps Im not sure how much is too much in terms of sprinting/jogging/running/walking as its been a few years since i did fitness work like this?
followed by some high speed work with press ups and sit ups at the end of each sprint:-
sprint one 10 press ups 10 sit ups
sprint two 9 press ups 9 sit ups etc etc to 
sprint ten 1 press up 1 sit up.

Keri-build the basketball court stuff up, and aim to do sprints rather than just running around it, so up and down the court once then the press ups, then you go and she rests, then she goes you rest until you’re both tired, you will improve each week for sure!

For myself I used to use a routine which i call the “2 set routine” which involves a series of weight lifting exercises on which you lift to about 90% maximum lifting capacity for 10 reps and aim for 10 reps second set. with this one once you find 2 sets of ten easy you increase the weight for your second set so you feel that your going to fail at rep 8 maybe 9. I did this and because of my body I found i grew in size really quick and had some of my biggest gains doing it. I can send you this one if you want to run your professional eye over it Smile this usually takes no more than 45 mins but leaves you shattered at the end of it and hurting, but in a good way.

Keri-this sounds like a great workout and you have been working hard. The only concern i have is the last paragraph for your friend, she is not going to benefit from the 90% of max method, but you will. I would stick to all the stuff you did before that, and the key is to work up gently?

So she doesnt really get into it too quickly, and needs to build herself up week by week or two things could happen. She could either get injured and lose motivation, and the schedule will initially be too tough? Everyone needs to start off lighter and build their way up, no matter how fit they are, and your friends sounds a little out of shape, so i would set up more realistic goals, and aim to improve by the week, rather than by the workout, small gains can end up huge gains in just 6 weeks, and especially 12 weeks!!!

Let me know how you get on and please look in the diet/food section for plenty of meal ideas as well as snacks!!

Keri

Twitt
Posted on

February 25th 2011

You have around 5 weeks until the clocks go forward and the already lighter nights become even longer and  the weather becomes warmer hopefully. You then have around 11 weeks until its may, when it definitely should be warmer and light until at least 8pm.

This all means that its the best time of year to be in shape. You cannot hide in big jumpers at this time of year. You cant wear big coats and the colour black can make anyone look slimmer, but it can’t make miracles!!!!

Being in shape by may will be a great challenge for you, and having the confidence to wear anything you want will and should be a huge incentive for you. If you’re in shape, then anything will look good on you, you don’t have to be so fussy because you’re in shape, your body fat is low and all of that strength work, resistance work has paid off throughout the winter!!!

May will also be a good time for you to get compliments too. Your hard work in the rain right now may seem unrewarded right now, but another 11 weeks of effort will bring a raft of compliments for sure, especially from those people who don’t see you so often. Theres nothing better than that feeling of being told you’re in shape, you’re looking so much younger because you’ve lost the weight, you’re looking in so much better shape because you’ve been workout out with weights etc etc!!!!!

Every day now you should be telling yourself that you’re getting better and better, your food is getting even better in terms of quality and you are setting new records in your training. Theres no alcohol in the week any more and health may have gone from bottom to top in your life!!!

Once your priorities involve health, being fit and energetic, and looking and feeling your best, then good things should be about to happen in your life!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

February 24th 2011

We have discovered that a calorie is not a calorie certainly. We know there is a difference between a doughnut and an apple, at least i think we do and we have really ditched the 1000 calorie a day workouts haven’t we? Those days of beverley callard in the paper advising people to do her exercise videos and eat cardboard all day are surely at an end arent they?

The difference between now and then is we have even more knowledge than we did back then, perhaps 15-20 years ago, but somehow the obesity levels are still going up, alarmingly so in fact!! So how does that happen?!!

It happens most of the time because we eat too much refined sugar and too much saturated fat.

Then we go on a diet, and then severely restrict our calories, lose some weight, get fed up with it all and pile the weight back on again, and we miss the point every single time.

We talked about it yesterday, not once do we care about the quality of our food, its all about calories, calories, calories, calories and thats why a lot of us become unstuck and lose the plot………….once again.

I have said it a million times, how about concentrating on what we actually put in our mouths, rather than the calories. The food can be full of chemicals designed to destroy your insides over time, give you high blood pressure, put strain on your heart, clog your arteries up, yet we still eat those foods because they are ONLY 100 CALORIES!!!!! This is absolutely no reason to eat rubbish, because its always going to be destined to fail.

Lets get this one straight, PROCESSED FOOD IS NO GOOD FOR YOUR BODY AND NO GOOD FOR YOUR LONG TERM WEIGHT LOSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So this wonder theory i have about asking yourself every time you eat food, “is this food really going to do my insides good?”, isnt this a valid question to ask? If you can answer yes very much most of the time, THEN YOU WILL LOOK AND FEEL GOOD!!!

Hows that for a straight answer, simplifying everything and getting fired up for your fat loss efforts, keep it simple and you get very simple but powerful results!!!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

February 23rd

The issue with calories intake associated with diet and weight loss/weight gain has been around for a long time.

There have been 2000, 3000 and all the way down to 800 calorie a day diets.

Most people think, especially when they are in the mood to diet, that less is always best.

They are right partly but only to a degree. A calorie is not always a calorie.

Look at the difference between an apple which is approximately 50 calories and a doughnut which is a good couple of hundred calories.

If you used the logic of a calorie is a calorie, then you could class an apple the same as a quarter of an apple? A lot of people would consider this a fair trade off and take the doughnut every single time.

So what should you do?

If you take the doughnut every time, you will get the following.

An increased sugar rush, followed by a sugar low, leading to a craving for you guessed it, yet more sugar!!!!

If done regularly, you will heighten your chances of becoming diabetic, which can lead to a change in your life that you definitely wont enjoy!!

Your skin wont have a glow, in fact increased refined sugar like this is likely to lead to skin problems such as acne, rashes, redness and speeds up the ageing process.

Like we said at the start, there is absolutely no way you will be able to stop at one doughnut, especially a quarter of a doughnut!!! Once you have a craving for sugar, its very difficult to stop and will lead to a diet rich in sugary and fatty snacks, studies have shown this time after time.

If you consumer the apple every day and focus on natural, nutrient giving foods, you are likely to stabilise your blood sugar levels, which means more regular and constant energy levels.

You are likely to fend off serious disease, as most fruit and vegetables contain cancer fighter anti-oxidants, as well as a host of other vitamins and minerals vital for good health.

Any time your diet is healthy, your skin in healthy and you WILL have a glow about you, try it and see if im right.

Once you get used to good healthy food, you wont want to go back to the sugary foods, not only for their downside but because you simply wont feel good when you eat them.

Time to change your life!

Twitt
Posted on

February 22nd

So you have got a huge Monday in, the type of workout that makes you a little tight the next day, or even very stiff for some people.

Let me get this thing straight first of all. A couple of so called “trainers” in a magazine I saw once said that if you weren’t very stiff the next day from a workout, then that workout wasn’t done properly.

What an absolute joke that comments was and still is!! These people in fact are a joke and ought to get some experience under their belt before they utter such rubbish. They may have passed a couple of piddly exams done on a weekend but you can tell they don’t have much “experience” in the field so to speak!!!

Of course you will get stiff after the occasional workout, when you’ve pushed it harder than you’ve done for a while, or done a new exercise or an old routine you haven’t for a while, that DOES happen occasionally but the stiff after every workout part is absolute rubbish and shows the amount of “cowboys” in this game!!

Your body DOES get used to a certain intensity, and can handle surprisingly impressive workloads. Many of you who have been or are in now an intensive period of training will have become used to levels you never thought possible.

The great thing about the human body is that once you get used to one level, it craves going a bit further again and testing itself out. There is no inner satisfaction like the knowing that you are advancing your physical performance every week, month and year of year life, just as people on average your own age, are sadly declining in theirs according to latest government statistics.

The body ages for sure, but if you exercise correctly and with real purpose, eat small and often foods that are packed with nutrients, drinking enough water throughout the day, sleep well, and stay positive in most situations life throw at you, then you are likely to defy that damaging ageing process and halt the most serious damaging effects that attack your body and its internal system every day.

The great news is that if you look after your insides, your outsides will take care of themselves so lets keep giving it your best shot!!!

Twitt