Have A Cheat Day!

For those of you who eat healthy and exercise regularly, have you considered giving yourself a “cheat” day?

This is a day where you throw caution to the wind to your normal regime and allow yourself to cheat with your diet and exercise.

More and more experts believe that taking a leave from your daily routine is even better for you to keep you in good shape and mind in the long run.

So how do we take this health-cation and why do it?

Recovery – If your workout schedule includes lots of intense cardio or weight training, a rest day gives your muscles a chance to recover and recuperate, preparing your body for another week of workouts. Go for a massage, or treat yourself to a sauna.

Treat Yourself – Indulging with a sweet treat, a couple of glasses of wine (pints in my case J ), or your favourite meal here and there isn’t going to throw you off the wellness wagon.

In fact factoring in cheat days into your lifestyle keep you from feeling deprived and give you something to look forward to.

Go Wild and All Out– Some people even go for a full on blow session once a week – mostly Saturdays.

They like to gorge on all of their vices one day a week so that the other six days they don’t even miss them.

Some experts believe that by dramatically spiking your caloric intake, you can increase fat loss by ensuring your body’s metabolic rate is kept fired up.

This is the same principle I talked about in my post about keeping the body moving.

But only have this full blow day if you want to, don’t feel you have to.

If one day of total indulgence is too much for you, have some cake and eat it too.

R & R – Sleeping in and staying in your pj’s once a week is good for the mind, body and soul. I can’t stress enough on how important sleep is.

Alternatively you can try going to bed earlier on a Friday and Saturday and awake feeling refreshed.

That may be a better option if the weather like this is to continue!

So yes go ahead and schedule in a cheat day if you want.

Who says keeping fit was tough eh?!

Unplanned Binge – How To Rescue It

We’ve all had a blow out on one occasion or another and it’s fine to do that. Sometimes they are planned binges, for example when we know we are off to a birthday celebration, a night out or another event. We can plan our meals and drinks around it. But on other occasions, we’ve got all stressed out during that mid morning meeting or the mid afternoon slump and we throw caution to the wind and start bingeing. The key is to keep binges like that in check and make sure it doesn’t spill into days on end or even for the rest of the day if you began your day with over eating. There are a number of ways to get straight back on eating normally so that you don’t undo all the hard work or fall into unhealthy eating patterns on a longer term basis. Here’s some ways you can rescue the unplanned binge.

Drink Water

The more water we drink the less likely we are to feel bloated and we can flush out the toxins. It will also help dilute the rich food we ate.

Get Clean

Eating clean (non processed foods) will help your body recover quickly. We may even use it as a way of eating like that for as long as possible without eating any other junk for a while. If you make a mess of your diet, your body expects you to clean it up. So give it some good fuel.

Don’t Give Up

Just because you messed up in one sitting, it should not be an excuse to carry on eating like that for the rest of the day or the week. Go for a walk if you can or go to the gym and make sure that your next meal is healthy.

Let It Go And Move Forward

Okay, so you may think the damage is done and let it bother you over and over again. But this serves no purpose to you mentally. Instead of focusing on what has already happened, focus on how you’re going to move forward from the situation and get yourself in a positive mindset.

Remember The Experience

After you binge think about how you feel emotionally and physically. Do you feel bloated? Do your clothes feel tighter? Are you uncomfortable? Lock those emotions up into your memory and think about that the next time you fancy over indulging. It really can help stop you in your tracks from reaching that 15th chocolate biscuit!

Just a bit of food for thought when it comes to binging so that you can still keep in control after such an aftermath!

Keep Your Body Guessing

If you go to the gym and put in the same workout everyday, week in, week out, your body will basically stop working as hard. You see, when we start an exercise routine and do it over and over again, your body gets complacent and is no longer being pushed to work hard. What you need to do is constantly change your routine so the body is kept guessing. So if you normally lift the same amount of weights during a workout session, why not increase the weights and decrease the reps. Alternatively if you go for a run three times a week, why not change one of those runs for a class, or do interval training during those runs. Constantly bringing in new moves and routines will not only help your body to burn fat more efficiently, it will also help alleviate boredom setting in which is one of the reasons most people quit the gym or their exercise sessions. Also if you find that your weight has plateaued, chances are that you’ve got so used to your exercise routine, knowing exactly how long it will take, that it will stay looking the same. So do yourself a favour and mix it up. Confuse your muscles and keep your body guessing. The measuring tape and the scales will both thank you for it!

Don’t Run Before You Can Walk

Finally the sun is shining (well in my town at least!) and it’s the time of year when people actually start thinking about getting fitter for the summer. Yesterday I ventured out in my car to do a spot of DIY shopping, and was stunned and pleased to say that I saw so many joggers out there. It was so encouraging and lovely to see people making the most of the good weather. But the forecast is that the weather may not stay like that for the rest of the week, and I wondered how enthusiastic some of these joggers would be in the rain. You see a lot of people try to run before they can walk. They take on so much on board when committing to exercise that after a while, they just give up. So pause for thought here.

Start off slow. Don’t go throwing yourself into the deep end as this will not only result in you getting fatigued and demotivated  but it could also result in a higher risk of injury. So instead, build up your exercise levels slowly. Perhaps start with doing some form of activity once a week for 20-30 minutes. After three weeks, do the same activity for the same duration twice a week. By doing this you’re much more likely to stick to your regime and make it a lifestyle. Sometimes it really is good to take it slow, and this is one of them.

 

Scales?…..they are waaaay off the dial!

The scales don’t always tell you the truth. They may help you to tell you what you weigh but I want you to know that they don’t tell you the whole truth. You see, it is very possible that you may be losing body fat,    but not body weight. So if the scales are your only measure of progress, it looks like you aren’t making any, when in reality you are slimming down, getting healthier and making great progress!

You see when you build lean muscle tissue, you are becoming healthier. This will no doubt affect the scales and depending on your body proportions that you started off with, as you lose weigth, you may not see any shift on the scale dial if at all.

There are other ways of measuring your progress. Here’s some top ones as recommended by Tim Drummond, of Sex In The City bootcamps. I echo all of these top tips so I didn’t really have to change anything that Tim suggests.

Clothes – How do they fit? If they are suddenly too big and you are going down sizes, great! You’ve lost significant body fat.

Girth measurements – A simple tape measure around the bellybutton, hips, and mid thigh will prove you are in fact slimming down and it is not your clothes that are growing after all! Before & after photos – This is probably the best measure of progress. Take a photo at the start, and then retake every couple of weeks. Put them next to each other and when you see the difference it really does bring it home.          Photos may be uncomfortable at first and you probably don’t want to get your kit off, but trust me when you see your new, slim self next to the old you it  will blow your mind and is so motivating!

How do you feel? – This journey is not just about weight loss it is about health and overall well being.

Oh and it’s recommend you take measurements every 2 – 4 weeks, to ensure that you are making progress in the right direction. Anything more than this is overkill and you will be caught out by natural daily fluctuations.

So thats food for though eh? (pun intended ) don’t let the scales rule you
          .

Lift Baby Lift

So many women are afraid of lifting weights because they think they will “bulk up.”

Unfortunately, thanks to this mindset, a lot of women avoid weight training and are missing out on the benefits of lifting weights.

But consider this ladies. Do you think the men that lift weights gain those muscles with ease?

No they don’t. They lift much heavier weights on a regular basis and they just about get there.

So you lifting 5kg or so is hardly going to make you look like incredible hulk!

Weight training keeps your internal furnace burning for days after you complete your last rep.

According to National Center of Health Statistics, just three sessions a week of strength training can reduce your body fat by 3 percent in just 10 weeks—even if you don’t change anything in your diet.

It might not seem like much, but that can translate to 3 inches off your hips and waist!

Weight training also gives you that tone and definition that we desire.

Too often people concentrate their training on cardiovascular alone and when they lose weight wonder why they are left with saggy skin.

So incorporate some weight training into your fitness regime and I promise you , you will look and feel in a much better shape.

I’m not talking about lifting100 kilos above your head or chest pressing the weight of your car.

Start slowly and gradually work your way up. Using ankle weights or bottles of water as makeshift dumbbells is a good start.

But whatever you do, lift baby lift! Your body will thank you for it J

Great Abs Are Made In The Kitchen

Some of you may have heard the saying “Abs are made in the kitchen” and it’s one that has cropped up with me a lot of late.

It’s actually a bodybuilding adage. Similar to that of a cliché and basically contains truth in it.

In simple terms what it actually means is that there is no point busting your gut doing 100s of sit ups when your diet is bad.

I’ve seen people at my gym coming for years who religiously attend classes and yet they look the same as they did last year.

Unfortunately it’s because people think they can exercise out their bad diet.

But the fact of the matter is that roughly (experts differ in the exact percentage give or take a couple of figures)  80% of your body composition is down to your diet and 20% exercise..

So get your diet right, you’re wellway over half way there! (take note those of you who hate exercising )

Also we’ve all got a six-pack. It’s just hidden under the layers of fat.

No amount of crunches is going to melt that fat away unless we take a look into our fridges.

I know it doesn’t help when we hear of celebrities banging on about the latest abdominal machine they are using or a new ab exercise they are doing which has attributed to their ripped abs.

The fact is that they will have done those exercises together with eating a sensible diet.

Now, I’m not dismissing the huge benefits of abdominal exercises here. They all have a place in creating the body you want.

I just want you to consider the importance of food the next time you beg your instructor to spend an extra five minutes on  ab work or contemplate on buying some fad ab machine .

Press pause and remember that great abs really are made in the kitchen!