Posted on

Tuesday, 20th August

The biggest surprise that individuals have when they come home from holidays is their first measurement immediately after returning home.

Depending on what type of holiday they have had, the measurements across the range can vary wildly!

Someone who has drunk alcohol every night on their trip and eaten heavily will be the worst offenders and their first measurement usually shocks them!

Blood pressure is usually way up!

Their resting heart rate is usually way up!

They usually put 2-3 inches on their waist and hips.

They usually add 2-4% body fat which is a significant number!

Their energy levels have vanished and show no signs of returning.

Their motivation is at an all-time low.

Their start back to exercising again is usually delayed by a series of minor excuses.

So you can a two week holiday of this kind of indulgence can have a serious effect on one’s ability to get back to where you were before the holiday!

It’s up to you what kind of holiday you want but beware the consequences of constantly overdoing it EVERY night on holiday. The best advice is to get straight away into it, take your time the first week back especially, and within 2-3 weeks, you will soon be feeling yourself once again!!

This shows the benefits of measurements too! If you weren’t constantly checked, you wouldn’t know the damage caused internally, as well as how you look in the mirror of course compared to when you went away!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 16th July

If you’re struggling with your eating, then you’re only reaching half your potential.

If you’re in a serious training programme, looking to put on some muscle and perform to your capacity, then you had better start getting serious right now about food!

Breakfast will always be your most important meal of the day. Porridge, eggs, Weetabix, shredded wheat always work well.

Mid morning always needs a healthy snack to keep your blood sugar levels steady, keep you energized and stop you being too hungry lunch time! Some people have a protein shake and this can fill you up nicely.

Lunch time is a great time to fill up again, put some energy in as well as some good protein sources such as chicken, turkey, lean beef, tuna, salmon, mackerel, cottage cheese etc. If you get a chance to sit down, have the protein source with a jacket potato with some vegetables.

If you’re on the move a lot or in work, try wholemeal pitta bread or wholemeal bread. Don’t put too much spread on if possible.

Mid afternoon is a vital time to fill up on energy, fruit or a bowl of porridge can work well at this time with everything focused on your evening workout.

Evening meal will be ultra-important after the evening workout as your body needs to repair itself. So you need to make sure your protein source is good, have some good carbs such as brown rice, new potatoes, jacket potatoes, wholegrain pasta etc, these are the very best choices.

Make sure you have some veg with most meals as they are the nutrients that really look after you internally, and help your body function at its top potential. You also have to look at your general health and make sure you get a healthy supply of veg in every day goes a long way to making sure that happens.

Try and make sure you drink at least 1.5 to 2 litres of water a day, sip throughout the day and don’t just leave it to the evening when you train.

Eating every 3-4 hours is critical to you achieving what you want, and performing with the kind of energy that you are going to need for our ever-increasing workouts!

This needs to happen most days, as one good day here and there won’t make hardly any difference. Consistency is the name of the game and getting smaller, more regular meals is the biggest thing you need to get used to so you can start making fresh progress straight away!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 11th July

Eating enough is a problem for some people and for different reasons.

If you need to put on muscle for example, then it can be quite a feat to get used to eating more food, more often in bigger quantities each time. It is not comfortable at the beginning and I remember going through the same thing myself many times.

Eating more food usually goes with your training schedule being upgraded. If you are training a lot harder and for longer, then its absolutely critical to be eating more calories, and more importantly more QUALITY calories!

The secret of success in going through this process is simply sticking with it!

Many people haven’t the patience to go through this, and are forever looking for the “wonder supplement” that will somehow slap a ton of muscle on their frame.

So it’s a simple equation, you need to up your portion size a little bit, and eat every 3-4 hours max to stimulate lean muscle growth in your body.

Then when growth happens (and it will given time), then you will notice your poundages in certain exercises in the gym tend to start going up.

Another vital ingredient would be your sleep. You can be training your guts out, you could be eating a ton of food, but if you’re not getting to bed early every night, you’re not going to experience the growth in your body you should be getting.

If all of this sounds pretty rigorous, and requires a lot of discipline, then you would have guessed right! Putting muscle on is not as easy as those advertisements make it sound or promise you. It can be done though IF you show the consistency required more or less every day of the week. You can have one day off from the relentless nature of the eating, training and eating, but you had better get back on it the very next day.

This is the type of attitude you need and as I said sticking to it no matter what is the true secret to muscle gain!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 27th June

An instant solution to sort your eating problems out is writing down everything you eat and drink.

If for instance, you had a cooked breakfast, then you had a roll for mid-morning bought in a garage, then you grabbed something out for lunch in a shop, then mid-afternoon you had a bar of chocolate and packet of crisps, then to finish off you picked up a takeaway on the way home, just because you had a busy day and you couldn’t be bothered to make your own food when you got home.

If you did this most days, then it wouldn’t take a genius to work out that you will not get in any kind of decent
shape!

Most people though do not realize what they eat, and never have any kind of plan for their day ahead. Its this type of approach that will lead to longer term weight gain, longer term health problems, and a feeling of hopelessness when it comes to how you feel about your health.

To change all of this, I strongly encourage individuals to keep a 7 day eating diary, writing down exactly what they eat for a week and how much too. They will also write down what they drink, again how much is important too.

What this does is immediately recognizes how well you are actually eating, it shows if you are overeating in each meal or not, how much of your calories are coming from drink (studies have shown that obese individuals can consume 40% of their total calories through fizzy drinks, alcohol etc).

Once your awareness goes up, and it definitely will doing this, then you are likely to get a plan developed, have a good healthy shopping list for the first time in a while, and you will be likely to start cooking many meals yourself, as the takeaway, grab something at lunch time option, grab something in the garage option, soon becomes a thing of the past, as long as you prepare more before you leave the house in the morning.

This simple 7 day eating diary will make all the difference!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 25th June

Much controversy has reigned over the last few years what diet you should be on, what time of the year you should adopt a different way of eating, whether protein and carbs are bad for you, is all fat bad for you, should you take supplements, should you take fat burners, are hard spirits such as whisky, vodka etc better for you than wine because of the lesser amount of calories, should you drink energy drinks instead of water, etc etc!!!

The best thing to do is ignore all the faddy diets because they are all out to make a fast buck out of you.

Once you realize how your body works, you will realize how your body works when you put food into your body and how it converts into fuel.

Remember the atkins diet? The one where it was pretty much all protein and you somehow went into “ketosis” and all you burned was fat as an energy source? Of course you would lose weight on it simply because you were eating less calories (protein has 4 calories per gram), and you were avoiding simple sugars, plus protein does make you feel fuller for longer.

The bad part was when people realized you needed carbs for energy, and science tells us that carbs are the body’s preferred energy source, please read any medical journal or paper on that.

Most if not all people who went on the atkins diet fell off it as its unsustainable, and the weight piles back on when you begin to eat normally again that’s for sure!

Most supplements on the market are scams, don’t only take my word for it, the EU is trying to ban 70% of the supplement market, and you should realize all that false advertising promising the earth is really one of the biggest scams so please don’t fall for it.

The alcohol part of hard liquor being better for you is false, wine will go through your system far easier, whiskey etc takes longer to go through and pouts undue stress on your system. The more natural a product or food going through your body, the better full stop!!

Energy drinks are needless unless you exercise over 60 minutes at a higher intensity, most people don’t do that so save your money again and drink natural water which most of the time doesn’t cost anything!

Twitt