Posted on

Wednesday, 27th June

Heart strength has got to be your most vital reading whether you exercise regularly or not.

If you do not exercise in any way, your heart rate and strength is likely to be weaker than it could be and this is a negative factor when it comes to assessing overall health.

If you DO exercise, then you should know all about the massive benefits of having a strong and healthy heart.

Your heart is a muscle that needs to be trained and conditioned like every other muscle on your body.

If you do exercises that require larger amounts of oxygen, this is called “aerobic” types of exercise, or “cardio” as is often mentioned by people who go to the gym.

Aerobic by definition is defined as “with oxygen”, which shows how important this type of work is.

Running, power walking, swimming, cycling just to name a few could be described as the best examples of aerobic training or cardio as is much more trendy a term to use these days.

These types of exercises should be included prominently in anyone’s programme, and are highly beneficial.

Most people are unaware that you can achieve this state of training that requires high amounts of oxygen by weight training/strength training.

The trick is to keep the tempo of the workout quite high and this will get you working harder and you will need to take in deep gulps of oxygen throughout.

This is achieved usually through cutting your rest periods in between sets right down. For example, if you usually rest 3-5 minutes in between everything you do, then cutting it down to one minute would be a start and immediately get you working harder.

When you get to a decent level of fitness, try getting to a stage of picking 6-8 exercises in a row, and having NO rest in between. You will need to cut your weights down in terms of kilos/poundage, but the effect will be dramatic and terms of heart benefits.

I train most people using this philosophy now, and have done for  many, many years. The benefits across the board are huge, and will make sure your heart will be very strong and in tremendous health ready for anything!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 26th June

We talked about the value of using the height/waist relation in measurement terms yesterday.

The value though gets magnified several times when you start making yourself accountable every four weeks.

Every four weeks is certainly enough time to make some good progress with your body, and your health in general.

If you have this four week timeframe permanently ingrained in your mind, then you will always think that little bit more about what you eat and drink.

You will become a little more guilty about missing workouts, and the effect of not exercising regularly.

Let’s face it, most of  us hate going to the doctor or nurse for a variety of reasons, but if we can get in the habit of self-testing, then this will alleviate some of the nervousness and embarrassment factors for sure.

Your monthly measurement can help you change your programme more regularly too.

If you do a measurement and you do not improve in any area, then either your training programme or eating regime needs to change, or more like both!

By making yourself accountable, the change will likely come a lot sooner and you will be on the road to progress that much sooner.

When you measure regular, you also become more enthusiastic. You will perform better and look for more little ways to improve yourself.

You will end up buing new clothes or at least fitting into your best clothes again because your dress size/waist size will come down considerably if you are on the right mix of good exercise form and excellent eating habits.

This is all about being repititive in a GOOD way!

The more your habits are consistent, the better your results full stop!

Keep measuring or get someone to do it for you, you will not look back trust me!!!

Twitt
Posted on

The Longest day, 21st June

Another situation some of you may have experienced in the past is trying to keep on losing more body fat and weight when you don’t even need to anymore.

For instance, I was training a teenager this week who has literally transformed himself from someone who could be regarded as seriously overweight (he would say that himself), to someone who looks extremely athletic and powerful, and now looks the picture of health.

So he lost all his weight, is now starting to do very well in a few different sports, and is almost unrecognisable in every single area compared to one year ago.

The danger is now that he is tempted to still cut down on his food portions. This can be a common mistake to make, and can be detrimental to his future progress.

I explained to him that the focus now should switch from cutting back, to slightly increasing portion size due to the activity levels he now has in his life.

It makes sense that someone who played very little sport before, and now plays 5-6 times a week requires more energy. The weight and fat loss has put an enormous amount of energy into his life, but the stage has come that he needs even more now to increase his performance.

This is now alien to him, as cutting back has got him to a great situation. This is where relationship with food changes his again.

Seeing food as fuel is ultra-important now to this individual, as opposed to seeing food as something negative because it may put weight back on.

It wont put weight back on because the quality of the food he eats is so much better now.

I explained that one gram of protein and carbs in just under 4 calories, and that one gram of fat is 9 calories. So in theory, he could eat quite a bit more food and still not be eating the calories he was when he was a lot overweight. Overeating is still not advised, and all I meant was an increase to cover his energy requirements.

This individual has changed his life considerably, but should now be using food in a very positive way, seeing it as a very valuable tool in allowing him to perform at the highest level possible at his chosen sports.

Everyone’s relationship with food is different, but keeping it a positive one will allow you to move far more smoothly and productively through different phases in your life.

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 19th June 2012

There is a great programme on at the moment investigating why we get fat, and all the cunning ways that food businesses of all kinds try to fool us into consuming much more fat than we need to, and certain kinds of “dangerous” fats.

The inventor of corn syrup (which is extremely big in the food industry and is in most foods to sweeten it up) was scrutinised and was blamed for bring obesity levels to epidemic levels that are in existence today.

The problem is when you get used to foods with a lot of sugar added, as is mostly the case, it is extremely difficult to “get off” these foods, due to sugar being addictive.

Fats in foods are always given a bad rap, and most of the time deservedly so, you have to remember though of course that there are “good fats” that are vital for our bodies from foods such as fish (eg salmon, mackerel etc), nuts (almonds, cashews etc) and oils such as olive oil, flaxseed oil for example.

So if saturated fat is getting this terrible name, then sugar very much is the “evil twin brother”!

Sugar according to many leading nutritionists is in fact worse, due to its addictive qualities.

You can see it when kids eat, you try giving them a sugary breakfast cereal, and then change it back to something more natural and less sugary, you will have a major job on your hands!!!

Cutting sugar out of your diet is extremely tough, but the sooner you make the big jump, the sooner you will “come off it”, and the urge to eat and drink sugary products will fade sooner than you think.

One instant benefit is you immediately lose weight and body fat, you start performing better and you will be getting more sustainable energy, rather than the up and down type you get from sugar.

The sooner you make the change, the better!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 14th June

Salt is very much in the news today, as the newspapers list quite a lot of well-known high street restaurants who make meals that are very overloaded with salt, which is many times your daily recommended amount!

These are often child friendly restaurants that are advertising themselves as “freshly made”, cooked on premises etc, when the reality is that the salt added to the food often outdoes any of the benefits of the vegetables etc.

Salt is one of the biggest contributors to blood pressure problems, as well as links to heart disease and certain other illnesses.

The reasons why a lot of these restaurants use so much salt is to preserve the food (make it last longer) and make it taste that much nicer again. This is playing right in the hands of children’s food as kids always go by taste first, and never of course worry about the nutritional content, not even on their list of concerns!

So naturally, if there’s far too much salt in the kids food, then the adult meal is likely to be over the top on salt too. This compromises the adult’s health and if done on a regular basis, will lead to ill health at some stage in the future.

Another bad situation developing from this is that kids and adults soon become accustomed to salt-laden food, and this soon becomes the benchmark of taste for future meals out and more importantly at home.

If you’re trying to make healthy snacks and foods for the kids, they will soon complain that the food doesn’t taste anything like when they “go out for food”, and your chances of keeping your child on a healthy diet go quickly downhill.

When your child  wants to go out and eat in these places every day, you know have a problem.

Another serious problem is the likes of Harvester, Nando’s etc who are peddling the myth that they serve healthy food, are getting away with it.

 They say “eat fresh” and “come to us”, when the reality is eat sort of fresh (sometimes), and we will make you much more unhealthy than if you made your own meal from scratch in the house!!

This is why its better to eat out once a week max and choose carefully from the menu, avoiding unnecessary sauces and other cooking methods designed to make your food taste nicer, but really disguises a cheap and poor product in the first place!

Twitt