Posted on

Thursday, 13th October

A story in the newspapers yesterday has brought many questions and may be needlessly so, but they must be answered so here goes.

RUNNING MAKES YOU FAT! Was the headline in at least The Independent and probably the daily mail (the most sensationalist paper of the lot! And interesting to know that they supported the nazi party before world war 2!).

The bottom line of the article was that many people been interviewed were complaining that they never lost weight for years despite their running efforts.

They developed bad knees and backs, sometimes weak ankles and the results were never worth it!!!!

The stories kept on coming in like people obsessed with distorting the truth.

If you carry too much weight, you WILL be putting a strain on by running on hard surfaces and longer distances. This will affect your joints and back and the pain will be magnified that much more if you wear poor trainers.

A 200 pound runner will put 600 pounds of pressure through their joints because of the pounds, so its important to do everything right.

The biggest thing I haven’t mentioned here is FOOD INTAKE.

What was common throughout these stories was that none of them had really changed their diet. They were still eating lots of sugar and lots of saturated fat.

Another common factor was that they would have a big “treat” if they did well on a run, and that often included a trip to a fast food outlet, or to the cake shop!!!

It could be an excuse to drink more alcohol or to eat a fried breakfast.

The story continued to run and this was the recurring theme. People really thought that they could run off anything, and they deserved to be in shape despite eating badly.

The fact is you cannot “run off” a bad diet, the calories will be too overwhelming. Say you have a great run and you burn 400-600 calories, that can easily be outdone by a couple of beers of glasses of wine, you can easily eat 1000 calories at McDonalds!!!! Or more!!

Unless you change your diet to good fresh natural foods, you’re always going to be one of those who may complain that “running makes you fat”!!!!

Change today and get the results  you really deserve!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday 30th September

Seems a few of you are finding the food information helpful, and thats what im here for, for YOU to be successful and firing on cylinders and i sincerely mean that.

Okay, where were we? Dinner, evening meal or whatever you want to call it!!

If you have followed the advice so far, and eaten every 3-4 hours, then you shouldn’t be absolutely starving by 6-7pm and your hunger should at least be controllable!

The great news is that the patterns you have got used to previously in the day conclude nicely with your evening meal.

I’m talking about keeping your portion sizes moderate, and this means in particular your carb selection. I’m talking about pasta, potatoes, rice, bread etc. If you overeat these foods you WILL struggle with your weight especially if they are the white refined varieties of these foods.

These foods can be fantastic for you in their more natural state, and in the right quantities!!

Whoever said remove them from your diet is usually not qualified in nutrition or anything else. More like a fly by night character who knows nothing about the whole picture when it comes to balanced diets.

Besides, the group i have just mentioned is a good group on  its own, and to remove food groups entirely is complete madness!!!

SO what are we talking about here for a typical evening meal?

A piece of healthy protein such as white meats or fish, baked or cooked with olive oil, no normal cooking oils please!

Then we have the carbs such as brown rice, wholegrain/wholewheat pasta/new or sweet potatoes etc, in a portion size the same as your fist.

Then vegetables have to be in there, and the greater the variety the better so lets make sure we make it happen every evening meal. We all know the benefits of vegetables and theres many we don’t even know about yet!!!

So there we have it, if you finish off with a meal of this quality, you’re going to get and stay lean and healthy. Accept no substitutes and tryly look after your body!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday 29th September

We talked about about the unmissable meal of the day yesterday, and its importance in every area of your life, and especially for being in shape and staying there.

I have talked about this so much over the years that many of you may be sick of it by now, but if you did pick this habit up and now consume breakfast every day without fail,  maybe all of that keeping on was worth it in the end!!!

Another meal i like to talk about and force the point home is lunch. Compliance on this one is not so popular, and is the major reason why the individuals i see at 3pm onwards don’t perform as well as they could, IF they have missed lunch or had a very low nutrient, low energy lunch!

Since i like to get the best out everyone i train, its either going to be your eating or sleeping that explains a bad workout!

Its great to see in llanelli for instance, that even the cafe’s now are making fresh nutritious food for lunch.

Of course they still do the “all day breakfasts” but the healthy eating generation is slowly overcoming the fried bread boys!

You should be able to have fresh cooked chicken in any good cafe these days, if not find somewhere else!

You should be able to have fresh fish and vegetables too, there’s no excuse for it.

If you’re having a sandwich even, ask for it to be freshly made without butter, margarine or mayo and of course NO WHITE BREAD, trust me this is NOT too much to ask and will show you are committed to healthy eating. If they refuse, then they dont have a very good business as they are ignoring your repeat custom.

I wouldn’t have thought you would be reading this if you werent committed to healthy eating, so please consider your lunch time options if you are working out tea time, i see a massive difference in the same individual all the time depending on they have had lunch.

Your choice of course but you are interested in getting into shape?!!!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday 28th September

If you have tried missing breakfast in the mistaken belief that you will lose weight, you will soon be in for a big surprise!!

The theory some people use is that they never feel up for breakfast anyway, so may as well save those calories and use them for mid-morning, or even start eating lunch time. Then they eat sometimes sparingly during the afternoon and then usually get home, and then it all goes off!

The person doing this kind of eating programme is usually so ravenous by evening time as they haven’t eaten all day, they usually go mad at 6-7pm!!!

If you’re making food yourself, you will be so hungry you will grab a cheese sandwich or something while you’re cooking!

Then you will always overeat when it comes to the food you are cooking, this is because your blood sugars are so low and you are desperate to get them up again, but probably too desperate and you want to eat a massive portion. Very rarely will you be satisfied with that first portion!! Your body can only handle a certain amount of food per meal, and any over the top portion will get deposited as body fat every time!!!

So the missing breakfast technique is complete folly, and will never work long term, you may have realised that by now!

There are scientific reasons for eating breakfast anyway!

Eating breakfast counts when you eat food within one hour of getting up.

This boosts your metabolism because you’re sending your body a message that it had better assimilate that food ASAP and this gets the fat burning process going nice and early!

This helps your metabolism (the rate your body burns calories) get into overdrive early on.

There have been a massive amount of studies that show that those people who eat breakfast daily always lose more body fat and are able to MAINTAIN a healthy level of body fat for the rest of their lives.

Your choice but you know common sense works!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday 23rd September

Everyone wants to have things yesterday and fitness is definitely no different!!!

Everyone wants to cut corners too, and do things in the quickest possible time.

The great news is that i have been working in that world a long time now, and i try constantly to come up with new methods to meet ever increasing demands. If you want to stay in business, you WILL have to move with the times and more often than not, stay ahead of the curve and not behind it!!

So lets quickly cut to the chase!!!

Bear in mind its definitely not 1970, 1980 or even 1999 anymore and a lot has changed.

Weight training is still in for sure, and works every time. I have had numerous arguements about it before i start with someone, especially with women, but i always stick to my guns on this one!!!

Fads have come and gone, then come back again but most of them are exactly that “fads” have no place on a proper exercise programme and won’t work long term, and can often be dangerous.

You have a dangerous fad like cross fit out there right now, the basic concept is to combine really tough exercises together, and work over a very short period of time, half killing yourself and some people think its a great workout. The bad news is that you are likely to put your back out very quickly, your knees, ankles and just about everything else, BECAUSE OF THE ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS FORM/TECHNIQUE you use in this crazy system. Body mechanics go out the window and i strongly advise you to re-consider what you are doing if you’re involved in it!

Its called “cheating” in weight training circles, just to get a few more reps done, and its a cardinal sin. Youtube it and you will see how dangerous it is and i rest my case.

Circuit training is out completely too, moving around in a circle is another way of getting used to exercises (you’re going round and round doing the same exercises all the time), if not changed regularly. Circuit training is a fancy way of giving the instructor an easier time especially if he doesnt change the exercises regularly. Circuit training died in the 90’s so RIP and i used to do it myself but time moves on!

If you want to get in serious shape, try swiss ball’s used aggressively i mean, medicine balls, bosu balls, roller’s and many other non-conventional ways to get the job done, all done at a high tempo.

This should be underpinned by some good weight training and shorter duration interval cardio, but the options now are vast, and safer and more productive than all the fads of the last 3 decades that have come and gone!!!

Twitt