Posted on

Tuesday, 22nd May

The warm weather is back, or should make that it has actually STARTED after one of the worst April’s and May i can remember.

Please don’t use the excuse of “its too warm now”, please DO NOT use that because you should see this weather and light nights as an INVITATION TO GET FIT AND HEALTHY!!

Compare this with mid-november to mid-march and you are right in the best time of year now to really make a difference to your mind and body. Theres every opportunity now to get your body in great shape by simply enjoying the environment around us.

If you cant get out there on the bike in this sunshine, then you ought to question your commitment to yourself. Besides all of this commitment talk, its actually ENJOYABLE, thats definitely the best way to think about it rather than seeing it as some kind of chore!! Riding a bike in this weather with all the beautiful scenery is one of the best things you can experience full stop.

Get off the roads too when you walk too if possible, and avoid all the pollution. Get up mountains and enjoy the fresh air, and the air that most people don’t get to take in. Its good for you full stop, and the often steep gradients will lift your fitness levels to brand new levels.

There are plenty of people swimming, but i happen to know a few more people now who swim outside, enjoying the different challenges that this brings. Enjoying the more natural route is always a winner for your health and is so demanding that it will often trump your inside swimming sessions! Both are good though it must be said and depends on the individual.

Personally, as you can tell, i love being outside at this time of year, as well as inside sessions. Mix them both up and reap some pretty serious rewards!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 21st May

We talked last week about how all sorts of artificial food,  how artificial sweeteners etc can really mess your body up (some of them have been banned in the states), mess your stomach up and brain up because your body doesn’t know when it is full or not, and how the food industry is continuing to market foods high in sugar and fat, in fact they are fooling us so much that the government knows we are getting fatter and more overweight each year.

This makes the government think that they need to bring a “fat tax” in to make these foods less attractive to people, because they know the way that high numbers of overweight and unhealthy people in this country are crippling the NHS because of the illness and disease related side effects of these foods.

Smoking has become socially unacceptable now, which I think is a wonderful thing. Smoking is the one very worst thing you can do, destroying vital nutrients in your body.

I think in a few years, eating and drinking rubbish and becoming extremely overweight will be seen as a huge burden to the state, this is why they have to act and act now and the government is taking tentative steps.

I am not against anyone as a person and believe everyone has the right to do anything they like within reason, but when they are pressing the self-destruct button every day, then self-responsibility has to be firmly encouraged, or the burden on the whole country gets overwhelming.

Im staying positive on this and im here to help anyone out of a hole they feel they cannot get out of.

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, May 17th

Talking about myths and plain untruth’s about why we do lose body fat, and why we gain body fat, here’s another misunderstood fact about our eating habits.

How many people tell us that we shouldn’t eat carbs if we really want to lose weight? This line of thought reached almost deafening proportions in the early 2000’s when the Atkins diet almost took the world by storm.

Potatoes and pasta were dirty words, and protein was king!

The realities of this diet soon hit home though and once people found out that this way of eating was not sustainable, the atkins empire crumbled quicker than shortbread under a hammer! In fact, its operations in the UK quickly went bankrupt soon after starting up.

People realised that eating bacon and egg for breakfast was not the magical cure for weight loss, and eating a diet higher in saturated fat was not a particularly great idea!

Carbs have had a reprieve since they are still misunderstood.

Refined carbs like white potatoes, white pasta, white rice, a lot of cereal box products, are not particularly good for you due to the much higher sugar content. This is where carbs get a bad name from.

Substitute those for wholegrain pasta, sweet and new potatoes, brown rice, and more natural cereals such as porridge, and you are all of a sudden on to a winning formula. Slow release energy is king in terms of fat loss and physical performance!

Portion control is vital too. You slam a plate full of carbs in front of someone every meal, and you will put on weight. If you control those carb servings to the size of your fist, then you have the perfect combination of energy and weight control. Most people find this hard, but if you balance your meal properly, its not so hard because you will be eating a healthy serving of protein and vegetables too, so your plate will already be bulked out.

Carbs are your friend and not your enemy-in moderation!!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 15th May

Another myth of weight loss is that the more calories you cut, the better and the more weight you will end up losing.

One pound of fat equals 3500 calories, so a good idea would be just to get your daily intake by 500 calories, and over seven days, then you will have your magic 3500 calories (7×500).

The problem though with cutting more than that is that your body ends up in “starvation mode”. This is exactly what you do not want to do, as your body will go totally on the defensive.

This process evolved from the early days of man, when food wasnt so plentiful, and it doesnt take long  for your body to start holding on to body fat in any way it can.

When starvation mode starts, then your gets desperate for calories and will take it out of food and drink in all sorts of ways.

In order to keep functioning, your body will also unfortunaltely start to take calories from your hard-earned ultra-efficient lean muscle tissue, this is bad news because it will slow your metabolism down when lean muscle is reduced.

Muscle loss means a slower metabolic rate, which means slowing or completely stalling weight loss, exactly what you do not want to do!

Losing weight TOO QUICKLY is totally the wrong thing to do for a whole host of reasons, and this is why cutting calories too quick and by too many can help you lose more over the first couple of weeks, but will definitely lead to you piling it pack on and more when you begin to eat properly again.

This is the same old story maybe, but it  doesnt make it any less sad, and the more times i see it, the more angry and determined to get people doing their weight loss plan in the correct manner, and not falling for the totally unhealthy way of slimming clubs etc.

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 14th May

There are a lot of myths being exploded all the time by latest science in terms of losing body fat, and we should keep mentioning them on here.

We all know that drinking pop will put weight on us, especially the full sugar versions. In fact, studies have shown that they can contain up to 40% of total calories in some people!

Then we move on to diet pop such as diet coke or pepsi, or diet just about anything!

These WILL NOT help you lose weight and here’s why.

The problem is not with the one calorie but with the artificial sweetener.

The sweetener has been linked to weight gain because it stimulates your taste receptor than senses sweetness in the stomach, Once the stomach expects energy, it stimulates insulin production from the pancreas, which is a very important hormone for increasing body fat.

At the same time, chemicals are sent to the brain and it becomes confused whether it is having calories or not.

As your body gets tricked into whether it is receiving food or not, then your body tends to want to overeat to make sure you are having the required calories!

You will feel hungrier and less full, so the urge to overeat will always be strong.

Artificial sweeteners are 100 times more sweet than normal table sugar. This is very concerning since this makes natural sugars such as fruit quite bitter to some people who slam back sweeteners and products that contain lots of sweeteners.

The more natural you eat, the better. The same with drink. If you have a glass of water, then slice some lemon in it to give it a natural flavouring.

If you had the diet lemonade, you are conditioning your body to all sorts of negative eating emotions, which can be highly damaging to your long term weight control and performance.

Twitt