Tag Archives: healthy living

How To Evaluate Your Coach/PT.

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7 Reasons To Fire Your Trainer.

YOU NEED TO COUNT CALORIES.

Calories are an extremely inaccurate measure of a macronutrient because of the way in which the body utilises that macronutrient to produce energy via chemical reactions, especially regarding how a ‘calorific’ measurement of a foodstuff is even achieved.

The measurements on labels can be wildly inaccurate, up to 20% either way. Protein is rarely used directly as a potential fuel source, but rather for growth and maintenance, enzyme catalysis, hormonal messengers, immune defence, transport & storage, structural support, and fluid & pH balance.

Only in starvation will protein be used for energy production, and it is most likely to come from recycled protein from growth & maintenance that occurs all the time, which also includes the remnants of a fat cell when the body is utilising fat as an energy source. Only when the starvation period goes beyond many weeks will protein from lean mass be broken down and used to create energy.

YOU NEED TO GO LOW-FAT.

Fat is an essential nutrient which we require in larger quantities than is currently advised.

It’s involved in hormone production, vitamin absorption, and cellular structure. The brain is over 60% fat and needs essential fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6). Contrary to some, it is the preferred fuel substrate. (Carbs are not an essential nutrient, but are dealt with urgently in a mixed meal, as an overplus concentration of glucose in the blood is deleterious to the body.)

If the body is predominantly using fat in the form of ketones at the time of a mixed carb/fat meal. The body will attempt to bring blood sugar levels down to homeostasis, suppressing ketone levels and stimulating glucose uptake in muscles and other tissues, including fat cells. The homeostatic level of glucose in the blood is about 1 gram per litre.

Some commentators conflate the process of prioritising carbs by arguing that it demonstrates that carbs are a preferred fuel when, in fact, it’s a damage limitation process.

As pointed out earlier, carbohydrates are non-essential exogenously, as we can produce all the carbohydrates we need for normal daily function.

IF IT FITS YOUR MACROS.

‘If it fits your macros’ is an asinine statement. It’s an atrocious approach to nutrition. Because of the absurd variance of what you could consume and what its effect could be.

YOU NEED CARBS TO FUEL YOUR WORKOUT.

This statement is incorrect for the majority of healthy gym goers. As stated earlier, carbs are not essential. If a client’s diet is carb-dominant, it can take many weeks to transition from being carb-dominant to being predominantly a fat-burner. It can take a while for a trainee to be comfortable training while in ketosis as opposed to running on glucose.

MOVE MORE EAT LESS.

Move more than what? Eat less than what? I’ve witnessed gym goers attend class after class and complain they cannot get fat-loss results.

I’ve also heard these same people say they eat next to nothing. It’s quite conceivable that ’moving less’ and ‘eating more’ could achieve the results these trainees are striving for. There is a good reason for this, and it’s about understanding the physiology of the human body.

There is a sweet spot where the right amount of stress on the human system will garner the best results. Too much stress will put the body into a defensive mode. Fat is a protective and valuable resource, and in a stressed state, the body will not easily give up fat, even in a nutritional deficit.

Likewise, working out too hard will not lead to positive results. It will lead to higher inflammation levels and an inability to recover quickly. Just like diet, there is a sweet spot for the amount of exercise one should do to gain the best results. More is not better, in most cases.

CARDIO IS THE BEST WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT.

I have summed up why in the previous paragraph. Cardio is also catabolic, which means all types of tissue break down, not just fat, but also lean mass. Long-term, strength training is by far the better approach for the average gym-goer looking to recomp their body. Muscle tissue is more demanding of energy, the look of muscle is more aesthetic, and muscle is denser, meaning you could look slimmer without the scale changing. A person’s muscle mass is also a predictor of their longevity and general health status.

YOU NEED TO EAT LITTLE AND OFTEN.

Eating is anabolic, which is not all bad. It means the body is building tissue, but not just building muscle; it also means storing fat. When insulin is permanently elevated, the body cannot utilise body fat for creating energy, which also means that the body is in a constant state of low levels of inflammation, as eating causes an inflammatory response. The optimum is two to three meals a day at most. The composition of these meals is also important. They need adequate fat and protein. The amount of protein in a meal needs to be enough to serve the body’s physiological requirements.

Learning Healthy Lifestyle Habits One Step At A Time.

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I’m sure if you are reading this report you would like to be a fitter, healthier version of yourself. The tricky part for most of us with the frenetic lifestyles we lead today, is how we can adopt healthier daily habits and stay consistent.

We make promises to ourselves like joining a gym, going more regularly to the gym, cooking healthier meals, cutting down on alcohol, getting better sleep, the list goes on.

Life seems to get in the way, you planned to cook a healthy meal when you arrived home from work, but something came up to scupper your plans. Now you only have time to grab a snack. The likelihood of you having something healthy already prepared is slim so you turn to the snacks cupboard, or pop to the local drive through.

How many times have you said to yourself at the beginning of the day “I’m going to do that gym class tonight”. You’re full of good intentions, it’s early in the day, you have energy. The day unfolds, work, family, life! Now the energy is low, you’re hungry, tired, your family needs you, you’re stressed. You can’t summon up the motivation to go to the gym or you no longer have time, “ah well perhaps tomorrow I’ll go”.

Does this seem at all familiar to you? How can you change things?

Trying to change everything in one go is not going to work, certainly not in the long run. What you need to do is make small changes, perhaps just one at a time, that you can be consistent with.

Reflect on your own lifestyle and identify behaviours or bad habits that sabotage your attempts to pursue better health.

When people struggle with eating healthily, several important aspects of good health suffer. Regulatory hormone levels become out of whack, the body’s ability to gain all the vital micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) it needs is compromised and sleep can be affected negatively. This means the body cannot achieve optimum daily organ function, brain power and energy levels for normal function let alone exercise. Sleep can affect and be affected by poor eating habits. It can be a vicious cycle.

So, where to start?

When it comes to making changes to your lifestyle that you can ingrain into permanent good daily habits, it’s important to take small steps. Everyone is unique, consequently the process will be different for everyone.

Sleep

If you are someone that gets 8 hours’ worth of quality sleep every night you probably won’t need to read the next section, you lucky person, for the rest of us this is relevant.

There are many factors that can affect sleep. Let’s assume you have a good bed and focus on other reasons you may not get the sleep you need.

Let’s list some negative factors for good sleep,

Not enough time,

Alcohol,

Dehydration,

Too much stimulant (coffee, tea, other caffeine drinks)

Too much light,

Too hot,

TV,

Phone,

General noise,

How many of these factors can you address?

Alcohol-

Contrary to what some people believe, alcohol does not aid sleep. It might induce sleep but the body’s ability to gain the full benefits of the sleep will be compromised by the fact that some organs will be in overdrive having to process the alcohol in the system.

Dehydration-

Dehydration can be a result of alcohol or caffeine consumption but going to bed dehydrated for any reason will influence the body’s ability to process toxins in the blood while sleeping. Dehydration can lead to deficiencies in melatonin which can cause insomnia.

Too Much Stimulant-

Self-explanatory, stimulants influence the central nervous system and will keep you awake or prevent deep sleep.

Too Much Light-

Light has a big impact on our biological clock, too much light at night can delay or advance our “clock” and affect our sleep. You have probably witnessed how you wake so much easier in the summer months when the sun rises as early as 4.00am.

Too Hot-

For optimum sleep, deep REM sleep, the body needs to lower its temperature.

TV-

Watching TV can assist in falling asleep, many of us use it as a tool but it is not a good habit, relying on TV to get to sleep. The subconscious brain will tune in to the sound and light and disturb sleep. If you regularly fall asleep to TV how many times have you woken up from a dream where a program that is on the TV has become part of your dream?

Phone-

Do you find yourself needing to check your phone one last time before you put your head down? Do you keep getting disturbed by notification bells from your various social media accounts? If you use your phone as an alarm, get an alarm clock instead and leave the phone out of the room. There may even be an effect from the Wi-Fi signals but that’s a whole different report.

General Noise-

Some of us are more sensitive to noise than others but noise can have a big effect on quality of sleep.

Some Remedies-

Go to bed earlier, use black out blinds, eye mask, ear plugs, don’t drink caffeinated drinks or alcohol within about 4 hours of bedtime but drink some water, If you have to have TV, set the timer to switch it off, leave your phone out of the bedroom, regulate the temperature for optimum sleep at about 60F degrees and no higher than 68F degrees.

Be as consistent as you can and notice the difference. When you start to feel the benefits and your night time habits are set, it will be time to move on to the next Issue you may need to address.

The next potential issue to deal with is the possible lack of essential vitamins and minerals in the diet if you are someone that struggles with eating healthily on a consistent basis.

Keeping a personal food diary for a week or two would help you to identify vitamins and minerals you may be lacking in your diet.

If overhauling your diet is too much of a challenge at this time, you could consider using supplements containing vitamins and minerals that you have identified that may be missing from your diet.  

This should not be considered a permanent solution but a stop gap solution, until you are ready to move onto the next level of a healthier living strategy.

The benefits of getting your micronutrients from the food that you eat compared to supplementation are many fold. If you eat a varied healthy diet high in complex carbohydrate, fibre, quality fats and protein, all your daily micronutrient requirement should be meet.

As well as this, you will also be more sated.

 Despite being aware of this, many find it difficult to be consistently good at implementing this strategy daily.

There can be many reasons for this, time, lack of culinary skill, culture, intolerance, out and out dislike of many foods or food groups, the list goes on.

Making Time

Time, or lack of it, can negatively impact many aspects of our daily routines including meal preparation and exercise.

When we have a lack of time to prepare healthy meals we tend to make poor replacement choices. We might grab a not so nutritious snack from the larder or fridge or order a “take away”.

This is not to say that snacks or takeaways are always the wrong choice, they just need to be the occasional not the normal choice.

Meal planning and preparation is a skill that needs to be acquired or honed. Before shopping for groceries, plan meals and snacks for the week.

Prepare meals in advance, prepare several meals at one time, pre-cook, freeze.

Make packed lunches, salads, bags of trail mix. Everything that can be done in advance will help prevent making poor choices when under pressure. 

If we find it hard to resist something that we know is not the best choice when in a hurry for a snack, probably best that we don’t purchase that something. We can choose a healthier option. If, in a moment of stress, the choice is healthy only, we are likely to go with it. If the choice is “healthy” or “not so healthy but comforting”, sometimes we will give in to the “not so healthy but comforting”.

Another important part of meal prepping is portion size. Many of us are conditioned from an early age to finish our plates of food. When we eat “out” the portions seem bigger than ever now. When we order takeaways for the family, we always seem to over estimate the quantities we need to go around. Rather than eat until we are nearly full we eat until there is nothing left.

The best way to achieve a healthy satiety is to reduce portion size, always plate up the food, sit and eat at a table when possible, chew slowly, take your time within reason and “listen” to your body. When you feel nearly full stop eating. The ritual of preparing and eating from a plate is much more likely to signal to your body that it has been fed. When we grab a bit of this and a mouthful of that, we never get that satisfied feeling that we have eaten.          

Move More

There are many ways to get some form of exercise in during the day even if we don’t have time to get to a planned gym session. When possible, walk or cycle to a destination. Never take the lift or escalator. Have some equipment around that can be picked up and used whenever there is a spare minute or two. Be creative, any spare time is time that can be used productively to make positive health benefits.

Some examples:-

We spend a lot of time at home idling, like waiting for the kettle to boil, the washing machine to finish or just passing time sitting around.

First, be sure to be sufficiently warmed up though. That doesn’t mean that you must spend 5 minutes going through a gentle stretching movement pattern, although it will always help. If you have been moving around and not sitting around you are good to go, just start off slow and controlled and build up.

Do squats or jumping jacks. Go for 3 or more sets of one minute or 20 reps with 30/60 second rest.

Walking lunges with a weight in your hands (tin of beans), see video demo on group page.

Press ups, Planks, on the spot sprinting, all these activities will have positive benefits on your cardiovascular and anabolic metabolism.

I hope I have given you some ideas on how to perhaps make some lifestyle improvements in your quest to live healthier lives.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have, I’ll do my best to answer them.