Wednesday 21 November 2012

DON'T SIT IN THE COMFY SEAT!


Top Ten Fat-Busting Tips

I'm liking the top ten format at the moment - so expect more!

These are my top ten tips for battling the bulge, tricks, tips and techniques for ensuring healthy nutrition.  

1     Never diet!
          Why?  Because diets don't work.  They make you feel like you are denying yourself the things you like.  They are designed for a finite period of time rather than a change of lifestyle and they are generally so ridiculously hard you cannot follow them alone and definitely not maintain them long term.

2     Plan!
          Why?  Fail to plan and you plan to fail!  Make sure you are ready for the day, make sure you have enough time to eat a good breakfast and make time to prepare healthy snacks.

3     Don't let yourself get too hungry!
          Why?  Because that's when your brain runs out of fuel and when your brain runs out of fuel, you can't think straight and you panic and you reach for all the unhealthy stuff.

4     Don't have unhealthy stuff in your house!
          Why?  Because you will eat it.  Don't make excuses - why are you nourishing yourself with healthy food but allowing your kids to still snack regualrly on crsips, biscuits, cakes and chocolate bars?  Get rid of it!

5     Think more about food, not less!
          Why?  Because the more consciously you plan, prepare and eat food, the more you will notice your triggers for unhealthy choices but more importantly, you will see what works for you!  The less you think about food, the more you rely on ready made meals and snacks that are packed full of trans fats, sugar and salt.

6     Cut sugar!
           Why?  Because it is addictive.  It releases the same feel-good chemicals in your brain as cocaine!  It is highly calorific with zero nutritional content and it makes us fat!  It is also hidden in so many things you wouldn't think of - most pre-prepared food contains it, cooked chicken breasts, salad dressings, bottled peppers etc.

7     Cut flour!
          Why?  Because it is mixed with all the stuff that makes us fat.  Generally flour is combined with sugar and trans fats.  Trans fats have been artificially made solid at room temperature and they contribute to atherosclerosis (furring up of your arteries) heart disease and high blood pressure as well as weight gain.  If you cut wheat, you may also experience loads of other health benefits, like no more achey joints, like massively reduced indegestion, like less bloating and stomach aches.

8     Do not cut fat!
          Why?  Because if you have cut flour then you have cut all the bad fat from your diet  What's left is all good.  IT WILL NOT MAKE YOU FAT!  I know this goes against most of what we have all been told but do the research!  Sugar makes you fat, not fat.  Full fat Greek yoghurt fills you up so you don't feel the need to reach for biscuits after.  The fat on your bacon is what makes it fun to eat!  An increase in obesity goes hand in hand with a rise in sugar consumption and also a rise in consumption of LOW FAT products.  They are the work of the devil, keep away from them!

9     Don't have food on display!
          Why?  Because if you can see it, you are more likely to want to eat it.  Put naughty snacks (if you  insist on having them in your house) in the highest cupboard, that is opened the least, in opaque containers.  Conversely, perhaps keeping a bowl of carrots on show will encourage you into better habits!

10   Don't deny yourself!
          Why?  Because it will make you stubborn.  If someone is having cake, have a piece but refer back to number 5.  Be aware of what you are doing.  Have less than you normally would.  Take a small slice and leave some.  After all, you only really want to see what it tastes like.  You don't need the whole thing!  If you are desperate for a bit of pizza, have a slice.  Just be aware of what you are doing and don't make it a habit.  That way, you make your changes sustainable and liveable with.  That's the secret to healthy eating without dieting!



Eating the right diet can  be a difficult challenge and sometimes asking the advice of dietician to put a healthy eating plan together can be useful. 



Tuesday 20 November 2012

Top ten best Exercises

Exercising is hard work, so it better bloody well yield results.  Here are my current top ten favourite exercises for guaranteed results!

1     The deadlift.
          Why?  because it targets all your wobbly bits, inner thighs?  Check.  Bum?  Check.  Abs?  Check.  And it hits your quads and hamstrings, major muscle groups - great for raising your metabolism.

2     Press ups.
          Why?  Because they target the rest of you!  Abs (again? You don't want good abs?)  Chest, arms. and even legs to some extent.  It's also very versatile: progress from knee pressups, to incline, to normal, to decline, feet on a stability ball, toes on a box push ups, handstand push ups!

3     The squat.
          Why?  Because it's so adaptable and works major muscle groups (and your abs - more, I know!) which is great for burning calories.  You can do body weight squats anywhere, isometric squats, bar bell squats, dumb bell squats, kettlebell squats etc.

4     The pull up.
          Why?  It does your back (and abs - brilliant!).  That's what's left after you've done all of these.  It's also versatile, you can do assisted pull ups, chin ups, wide grip, narrow grip...

5     Dumb bell chest press
          Why?  Great for chest and arms - biceps and triceps - and if you do infinite drop sets, you'll really hit these muscles hard!  I like dumb bells because it forces you to even out how hard each arm works.  It's easier with a bar bell to favour your stronger arm.  Versatile as well, incline, flat, decline, straight up, wide, y- shaped...

6     The triceps dip.
          Why?  Good for bingo wings - nuff said.

7     Krishy Krunches. (I worked these specifically for a client who didn't have enough ab strength to do a full sit up - you sit on an ab bench at 45 degrees, so half way between vertical and horizontal and you lie back just until your lower back touches the bench then you come back up to 45 degrees - keeping the tension at the top and bottom of the move and never having to jerk upwards from flat on the bench, thus protecting your lower back form that jerking motion.)
          Why?   Because they don't allow you to ease up on the tension so they really work your abs harder than traditional crunches and they don't put pressure on your lower back like sit ups can.

8     Stability Ball Back extensions
          Why?  Because they are great exercises for your lower back, an often ignored area - good for balancing all that ab work!

9     Dragan Presses
          Why?  Good for shaping, toning and strengthening your biceps and shoulders (oh and your abs, again! Awesome!)

10    Planks.
          Why?  Great for your core muscles - abs and lower back.  Versatile as well, you can do bent or straight arm planks, you can use stable and unstable surfaces and you can do side planks.


Sunday 18 November 2012

Women should lift weights!

For two reasons.

1 - most women (but I appreciate not all) would like to lose a little weight.  Endless hours on cardio machines is never going to help you do this.  Lifting weights, combined with nourishing food, will.  And it will leaving you looking fit and strong rather than just skinny.

If you want to put on weight - muscle's better than fat!

A great deal of the food you eat is turned into glucose and stored as glycogen is in your muscles and liver; the more muscle mass you have, the more scope your body has for storing that glycogen - the less gets turned to fat!


(By the way, those of you saying you can't lift weight becasue they bulk you up are misinformed.  If you genuinely have the secret to how you can bulk up so easily, you are sitting on a fortune; men have been after the secret of bulking up without steroids for years, it just isn't going to happen.)

2 - But most of all, women should lift weights because it makes you feel powerful.  It releases chemicals in your brain that make you feel powerful and in control like you could do anything!

All women should be able to feel powerful, in control and like they could do anything!  

It should be the law. 


It's always someone's birthday

It's become clear to me recently that when people are trying to stick to a certain set of nutritional guidelines, it isn't the day-to-day preparation of meals that is the problem.  

Most people find it relatively easy to make more of an effort to plan and prepare healthy meals and snacks in an effort to lose weight and feel more healthy.  

Reading through my clients' food diaries proves this.  On an ordinary day, they work really well to plan and prepare healthy, nourishing meals and snacks that sustain them throughout the day.  They find it pretty easy, so long as they are doing this, to say no to the less healthy treats that may be placed in their path at home or at work.

It isn't the daily routine that is a problem.  It is the 'special occasions', the birthdays, weddings, funerals, leaving dos, girls' nights out, quiz night, poker nights, reunions...  And while these feel like special occasions and therefore exceptions to the rules, it is just these occasions where it's almost more important to say no to the bad stuff, to stay on track and make sure you are planned and prepared.  There are always going to be birthdays, weddings and funerals.

So while it's important to get yourself into a routine daily where you are making sure you have a good breakfast and don't allow yourself to get too hungry so that you aren't able to make good choices, it's also important to get the special occasions under control.

The pont of a meal out is not to stuff ourselves with as many starchy carbs and sugar-filled treats as we can, the point is to relax as we haven't got to think about planning, preparing or cooking the meal, to relax as we don't have to set or clear the table or wash up pots and pans, fill and empty the dishwasher.  The point of a meal out is to spend time with people you want to spend time with - be it family friends, colleagues or good contacts.

There are always ways to make a seemingly unhealthy choice of establishment work for you.

If you know where you are going in advance, study their menu online or give them a ring to work out what works for you before you get there to avoid rushed, panicked decisions - plan and prepare!

Try to go for a light starter if you have to have one, one that avoids bread or anything deep-fried.  Go for a salad and ask for the dressing on the side, not to avoid the fat but to avoid the sugar that comes in most commercial dressings - or ask for olive oil and vinegar.


Try replacing the chips that seems to come with everything, including pasta dishes, with extra vegetables or salad  - most places are happy to do this for you.


Try to avoid things that come with pasta or pastry and go for fish or chicken dishes.

Try to avoid the deserts at the end of the meal, choose fruit if it's an option or if you have to have a pudding, have one or two bites instead of the whole thing.  That way you don't feel like you're denying yourself but you limit the fallout!

If you are faced with a buffet, avoid anything that is deep-fried or comes with pastry - go for the meat, fish and vegetable options - stack your plate with salad - potato salad does not count!

At the end of the day, the way you approach special occasions should be the same as you approach everyday life - plan, prepare, think.

FOOTNOTE

Having said all this, there are occasions that you can plan and prepare for well in advance.  Perhaps you have been uber strict with yourself for months so that you can have a Christmas day blowout.  In that case, enjoy and for goodness sake don't feel guilty!

Just get back on track as soon as you can and don't let it become a habit - because you know it's always someone's birthday!


Wednesday 14 November 2012

Looking for the perfect gift for someone this Christmas?  
How about Personal Training Vouchers?

Treat someone you love, this Christmas, to a gift of health and fitness, or put it on your own Christmas list for Santa!

Think ahead to that January feeling...help someone start 2013 as they mean to go on with a personalised training session to kick start the new year!


So, take advantage of the Christmas discount and get an hour's personal training voucher for £20 rather than £25!

Children's personal training sessions, with the Christmas discount are £10 for half an hour.

Personal training sessions can be tailored to any ability, for people who are experienced weight lifters or who have never done a stroke of exercise their entire life (just like me 18 months ago!)


Contact me,  Krish, on 01825 761687 or 07795 016982 or email me on klossfitness@gmail.com for more details and to purchase your vouchers!








Sunday 11 November 2012

Sneaky Peek

If we want to be successful in our quest for permanent weight loss then we need to stop relying on diets that hold our hands and literally spoon feed us.

A successful weight loss program has to ensure we can do it on our own, that we understand enough about which foods nourish and protect us and enough about ourselves to know what helps and hinders us to succeed.

That is why weekly discussions (over a cup of tea or coffee, perhaps with a slice of no sugar, no flour, no dairy cake) are so vitally important.

No one is ging to get it right all the time but it's so easy when we hit difficulties to give up, that's why it's so useful to have someone to talk to, to text in an emergency, to bounce ideas off and to work through trouble spots with.

If you are thinking seriously about losing some weight and don't know where to begin, have a think about these questions:


1               What is prompting you to decide to lose weight?
2               How long have you wanted to lose weight?
3               What difference do you hope it will make to your life to lose the weight you want to lose?
4               What do you honestly believe you will achieve?  Is this different to what you hope to achieve?  If so, why do you think this is?
5               What do you dream/fantasise you will be able to do when you have lost the weight that you can’t do now?
6               Why can’t you do those things without losing the weight? 
7               What has prevented you from being successful in the past?
8               What do you think is different this time?
9               Who are you doing this for?  Do you think this will help you?
10            Are you waiting for the weight to go in order to be happy?

If you have been on the K-Loss program for a while and are experiencing a plateau:

1               When you are successful, what have you done and how have you thought to make this to happen?
2               How much do you really want to lose weight?  How important is it to you?
3               How would you feel in a year’s time if you hadn’t lost any weight or had gained weight?
4               How would you feel in a year’s time if you had lost all the weight you wanted to lose?
5               Are you willing to persevere?


If you want to discuss your responses to these questions further, you can sign up to my nutrition management clinic.  Weekly meetings over the phone, by email, online with Skype or FaceTime or in person.

Saturday 10 November 2012

Leading a fit and healthy life for life is not an unachievable dream!  

Losing weight and taking control of our nutrition is so much more than just being strong-willed.

It most certainly isn't about denial, denying ourselves or dieting.

It isn't about making ourselves take up less room, it isn't about becoming smaller or less significant or ill.

It isn't about delaying our happiness or success, that promotion or relationship until we are the weight we feel we ought to be.

Losing weight and taking control of our nutrition and ultimately our life is about:
giving yourself permission to succeed.  

The road to success may be twisty-turny - some bits go up and some bits go down but ultimately, it isn't the final destination that is the joy, it's the route we take and what happens along the way - that's where we find the joy in life!

Becoming the weight we want to be is not the end game, that's isn't the prize.

Becoming stronger, more powerful and brave through a deeper understanding of what makes us tick, that's the prize!  And do you know what?  It isn't magic.  It isn't a miracle and it isn't complex!

It does involve hard work, commitment and dedication but the prize...?  Isn't that worth it?

If you think a little assistance might help you to achieve the strength, courage, determination and power that comes with learning how to take control, then contact me for more details on how I can help you on-line, over the phone, Skype or FaceTime or in person.

The initial consultation is free, so you can get a flavour of my unique approach to nutrition management that is geared totally towards the individual - each program is tailored specifically for you as what works for you is not what works for anyone else.   



klossfitness@gmail.com
01825 761687
07795 016982


Friday 2 November 2012

Think about food!

It's easy to think that in order to control cravings and eat more sensibly you should think less about food but actually the converse is true.

In order to take control of your nutrition, you need to think more about food.  That doesn't mean becoming obsessive but it does mean being organised and doing a bit of planning.

The easiest foods to eat, the foods that take no planning, thought or effort (think things that come in packets...) are precisely the foods that are the worst for us, the foods that do the most damage and that pile on the pounds!

So in order to eat foods that nourish and protect us, foods that keep us feeling full and limit cravings, we need to think more carefully about them and plan.


This is what I do to make sure I'm ready for meal times, so that I'm not so hungry I can't think.  This enables me to make sure I have the ingredients I need to make nutritious, filling, healthy meals.I need to make sure I have taken the time to prepare healthy snacks so that in between meals I don't flag.

So stop trying to push thoughts of food from your mind and make more time to plan your nutrition carefully - it really does make a difference!

Thursday 1 November 2012

CAAAAKE!

Paleo Hummingbird Cake
Cake.  A contentious subject at the best of times.  Paleo cake: more so.

Apparently, it seems to be the opinion of a lot of people in the paleo/health/finess community that making paleo cakes is cheating somehow, that making healthy versions of their nemeses will somehow lead them back along the path to ruin.

My opinion differs.  I would like to explain why.
Paleo chocolate brownies

The cakes, biscuits and sweet treats that I make often (but not always) do mimic, in appearance, texture and taste, their wheat counterparts, that is true but that is where the resemblance ends.

I replace wheat flour with either coconut flour or ground almonds, home made nut butters or ground seeds.  I replace sugar with honey.  I replace butter and nasty trans fats with coconut oil. My cakes are bound together with eggs and often include dried fruit, grated carrots or courgette and sometimes cocoa powder (no added sugar).

Paleo granola bars
The thing is that coconut flour, ground almonds, nut butters and seeds are much more filling and satisfying than wheat flour; they produce a slightly denser cake.  As a result, one slice really is enough.  It really is.  It's satisfying in a way that wheat flour and sugar cakes can never be.  So the first benefit is that it is physically much harder to overeat paleo cakes - you just feel too full.

Another benefit involves the honey that is used instead of sugar.  Having cut sugar completely from our diet, sweet things taste much sweeter than they used to, so as well as having less of a glucose spike than sugar-filled cakes, paleo cakes also use less sweetener.

When you consume normal cakes, filled with sugar, your blood glucose shoots up and your body reacts to this by dumping insulin into your system to mop it up and pack it away.  Then you are left with that all-familiar sugar crash.  So even so you have just consumed a highly calorific 'treat' in the form of a sugary, sweet cake, you want more.  This doesn't happen with paleo cake.  One slice really is enough!

Paleo brakfast muffins
Take my breakfast muffins for example.

The ingredients are as follows:

Coconut flour, eggs, grated carrot, raisins, honey, coconut cream, coconut oil and a little baking soda - in order of quantity used .  There is nothing in that list of ingredients that isn't going to nourish you in some way.

Compare it with the list of ingredients from a blueberry muffin from Tesco:


Sugar,Wheat Flour ,Water ,Vegetable Oil ,Blueberry Jam (11%) ,Blueberries (11%) ,Pasteurised Whole Egg ,Biscuit Crumble ,Dried Egg ,Modified Maize Starch ,Milk Proteins ,Salt ,Dried Skimmed Milk ,Vanilla ,Emulsifiers (Lactic Acid Esters of Mono- and Di-Glycerides of Fatty Acids, Mono- and Di-Glycerides of Fatty Acids, Soya Lecithins) ,Raising Agents (Sodium Aluminium Phosphate, Potassium Bicarbonate) ,Flavouring ,Blueberry Jam contains: Blueberries ,Sugar ,Water ,Dextrose ,Maize ,Gelling Agent (Pectin) ,Concentrated Lemon Juice ,Preservative (Sorbic Acid) ,Biscuit Crumble contains: Sugar ,Wheat Flour ,Cocoa Butter ,Dried Whole Milk ,Cocoa Mass ,Vegetable Fat ,Dried Skimmed Milk ,Glucose Syrup ,Salt ,Raising Agents (Sodium Carbonate, Ammonium Carbonate) ,Emulsifier (Soya Lecithins) ,Vanilla ,Glazing Agent (Guar Gum)

Sugar is the first ingredient!  But look at the lovely little picture of wheat - suggesting this product is good for you in some way!


Paleo double decker fruit cake
Another issue I have is with this view that it is cheating.  How is it cheating?  I haven't actually taken to living in a cave.  I'm not actually a cavegirl!  I do actually live in the 21st century and I'm totally with Nigella in that one of the great things about living in the 21st century is what humans have learnt to do with ingredients!  Cake is nice!  I'm not into self-harm, which is why I don't eat sugar and wheat and in the same vein why I don't continually punish myself and so allow the occasional treat - paleo style!

My nutrition clients come from a lifetime of addictiion - addiction to sugar and sweet treats, addiction to blood glucose, gained primarily from sugary wheat products.  To make them go cold turkey is a ridiculous notion!  It would lead them not only to fall off the wagon entirely but to chop it up for firewood and dance around it naked chanting, 'Death to healthy foods!'  


Paleo fruit tart
Ok, so the analogy may have run away with me at this point but to never eat cake again?  That's simply idiotic!

So if we accept that a realistic, sustainable, healthy eating plan involves some treats and involves living in he 21st century, then what can possibly be wrong with a combination of nutritious ingredients that deliver positive health benefits that just happen to be packaged to resemble a cake?



Krish xx