cycling – Page 42 – Keri McKibbin Personal Training

March 16, 2012

Friday, 16th March 2012

Like analysing your food, analysing the way you exercise is just as important and results giving.

One of the most startling realisations I had was when I discovered that if you were on the same moderate programme for years and years, and you do the same thing day in day out, at the same speed using the same resistance, for the same number of times, then your fitness levels hadn’t really gone anywhere for years.

This statement can be upsetting for a lot of people because the truth can hurt, and an enormous amount of individuals and groups even will do things this way. Change is deeply uncomfortable for most people I have found.

The positives you should take out would be that simply changing things around will almost improve you overnight!! There IS a new world out there waiting for you.

If you simply change your programme regularly, then your body will have to keep adapting to change, and this will usually keep bringing you progress too, which is a benefit many have forgotten about unfortunately!

For example, if you have never done any balance or instability work on an unsteady surface, then you are missing out in a big way.

If you have become totally dependent on machines for your workouts, then I guarantee you that you are missing out on the huge benefits of free weights, and that you are really NOT getting the best out of yourself. Your body needs natural movements as much as possible, for all sorts of reasons and many machines do not come close to providing this!

Training is moving away from machines and has been for some time, there are far more inventive and beneficial ways to train, and you need to explore them and ultimately test your body under brand new conditions.

Freshening everything up is usually a massive positive in every other area of life, time to do the same with your exercise!

Put your trust in RESULTS, instead of machines that are already dinosaurs!

March 14, 2012

Wednesday, 14th March

After seeing the need to write things down, lets analyse what you are writing down!

Start off with breakfast, do you realise that most cereals contain too much refined sugars?

Most of the ones that actually come in cereal boxes are definitely too much on marketing, and contain very poor nutritional value. The worst of both worlds so you need to stop falling for it all!

Stick to porridge, shredded wheat or weetabix, the best examples of plain no added ingredients cereal that guarantee you a fine start to the day!!

Alpen type mueslis are another potential bad start for you. The no added sugar/no added salt variety can work well for you, but the normal regular variety cannot be classed as healthy!

If you fall for the “protein only” diets, and go for the bacon and eggs choice, then you’re not going to last very long being healthy, and you know this short termism is not really going to last for you!!! Plus, as i mentioned yesterday, bacon is on the worst list when it comes to saturated fat and meat that could possibly cause health problems for you in the future. A bad situation all round!

Breakfast should be a key start to the day, and will dicate usually how you eat the rest of the day?!! Start off well and you become more powerful and more focused, miss breakfast and you play catch up for the rest of the day.

Simply eating breakfast will be a very powerful start for you!!! If you do not eat breakfast, you will be keeping your metabolism in the slow lane, be likely to make poor food choices, and generally have a lack of structure in your day.

When i give an eating diary out and then filled in after seven days, seeing the breakfast part “missing” is a tell tale sign for me that the individual is not yet serious about their programme and we need to re-evaluate straight away!!!

Lets get serious and talk about the rest of the day tomorrow!!!

March 8, 2012March 8, 2012

Thursday, 8th March

Following on with the family food advice, you need to keep considering why you are doing this whole thing, and this will keep you strong in your times of doubt and uncertainty.

Eating often is fun and good for you!

– This day’s eating is all about eating every 3 hours or so, raising the rate our bodies burn calories so we burn more fat, feeling full throughout the day so we don’t feel the need to binge at certain time, and actually feel about hundred times better than we have before.

Positive trade off’s

– You CAN keep this way of eating up if you really try and all it takes sometimes is 5 minutes preparation the night before making a packed lunch.

– Plus, all that money you will have spent on junk food can go on something worthwhile, like a new dvd or some new clothes!

Summing up

– changing your lifestyle to a rewarding healthy one starts with what you put into your body. Make it a priority when you go to a supermarket to influence your parents on what you want to eat. As a parent, you can inspire your kids to eat well too. They will listen if you tell then you want good food (and vice-versa) and soon it will become second nature.

– Make sure you try and work up to 5 servings of fruit and veg a day

– Try and get 2 servings of protein such as fish, chicken, eggs, lean beef, nuts, lentils etc per day.

– Choose 2 portions of milk, yoghurt, cheese etc for calcium and extra protein

– Use whole meal/wholegrain versions of pasta, bread, rice, cereals, potatoes to give you lots of energy every day.

– Try to limit these in your diet using them more as a treat-Crisps, cakes, biscuits, pastries, chips, mayo, salad cream, margarine, cooking oil, pop/fizzy drinks

You have had a pretty good overview on how you should be making your healthy lifestyle count, and its benefits.

If you adopt all or most of these guidelines, then you and your family’s quality of life in terms of health will be enhanced out of all recognition.

Once you do it this way, you won’t fall for the next “big” diet, those slimming classes that never ever worked long term (scientific studies back all of this up), or any of the faddy ways to lose weight.

Trust in your own instincts of what is right, is sensible and likely to work for you over a lifetime!

February 27, 2012February 27, 2012

Monday, February 26th

To maximise your gains in fitness, i cannot stress enough how vital your eating is, and what eating CLEAN really means.

To me, eating clean means eating food as much as possible in its natural state, and keeping refined sugars to an absolute minimum.

All the foods we always talk about will always bear fruit for you if you pardon the pun!

Porridge is a natural food that gives you long term energy, and stops you snacking.

Any oat based products or porridge with added “apple pie” type flavourings, WILL NOT DO YOU ANY GOOD.

Wholemeal bread in moderation is a sign of good clean eating, White bread is the equivalent of a disaster zone, full of refined sugar, bleaching agents and lots of chemicals and rubbish designed to put weight on you, it will be really unhealthy on all sorts of level for your body, and you have to avoid this rubbish if you are to be successful in weight/fat loss.

The margarine and butter on top should be avoided, this is saturated fat and can never be any good. Saying that, butter is the natural product and helps your body more than margarine, which can be horrid for your body and contains needless calories.

White meats are very welcome, fish is fantastic (no batter or any fatty sauce on it), cottage cheese is great, lean cuts of red meat are fine once a week.

White pasta is not acceptable when you can eat “clean” and have wholegrain and wholewheat pasta.

New potatoes and sweet potatoes are great examples of potatoes with a nice low sugar release, and offer a lot of nutrition.

White potatoes wont work as well, more refined sugar.

Fruit is fine in moderation, although classed as refined sugar, is a food in its natural state and offers far more than any negatives.

Fruit juice should be dilluted, and this will will give you far less refined sugar per glass.

All vegetables are classed as eating clean, and offer an abundance of nutrients and is nature’s way of making you healthy and helping your body to function properly.

Eating clean means trying to be as natural as possible in your food choices, this will automatically cut down on your refined sugars, and give you dramatic changes in bringing your body fat down!!

February 24, 2012

Friday, 24th February

With the big game in Twickenham tomorrow, on show will be the biggest collection of professional rugby players ever assembled.

If you compare these players to the 70’s, then you will be comparing chalk and cheese. The physical development of the players now would make mincemeat of the players back then.

I have to qualify this statement by stating that the players back then didn’t have the access to the training knowledge these days, the nutrition strategies that are commonplace these days, the different mindsets these days, the recovery advances that are very visible now.

We also have to realise that the players back in the 70’s were strictly amateurs, working a full time job and showing up for training a couple of times a week.

Weight training was often viewed negatively.

Eating a lot of protein was thought of as mad.

Training methods were very behind the times, and very unlikely to develop champion athletes.

Make shift gyms (if they had them in the first place) were remarkably poor and often unsafe, and nobody really knew what they were doing!!!

So it would be safe today to say that the likes of Gareth Edwards would likely still be fantastic players today, allowing for the fact that they would be right in the midst of all this training and eating knowledge, they would just be bigger, faster and stronger versions of what they were around 40 years ago!

The exciting thing is now that i really believe that any youngster can be developed into a professional athlete or at least semi-pro athlete given the right access to training, eating well, resting well and someone believing in them.

Many people don’t get as far as they could because they do not get enough professional help, i see many potential athletes every day coming through, and all they need is some encouragement, tried and tested advice based on science, and belief in themselves!!