If you want to lose weight, all you have to do is up your activity levels, right?  You can carry on eating the same, if you just exercise more?  Right?  

Sooooooooo wrong!  Here's why!

So, a couple of my very lovely Nutrition Management clients came for coffee today and we discussed what had gone well and what had gone awry and how they can move from conscious competence to unconscious competence etc. and I'm thinking perhaps I need to get myself a little booth to sit in as sometimes Nutrition Management sessions are a little like confessions!

This week, one of my clients 'fessed up to having had...a McDonalds at the weekend!

Once I had fully recovered, she explained why this had not been her fault!  She was talked into nipping out to get her husband a handy burger meal and as he had been hard at work in the garden all day, she felt obliged to acquiesce.   The smell, I have been assured, was overwhelming and my client was forced to purchase an additional burger for herself.

Now, the interesting part.

Firstly, I do not like scales or calorie counting at all but both can be useful once in a while to check on progress and to highlight some surprising facts about the foods we consume.

So, my client had a look at the calories that she had consumed in a rather unassuming cheeseburger meal with a coke zero (shudder).  That's a burger, fries and a diet coke, so no calories in the drink.

874 calories.  
That's 874 calories on a burger and some fries!

Add on the apple pie she had as well:

1124 calories!  

That's nearly enough calories for a person to live off in ONE DAY!
This was ONE MEAL!

Now let's have a look at what my husband might have consumed at McDonalds a couple of years ago - before his lifestyle change!

A McDonalds Big Mac Meal with coke comes in at:

1160 calories.

Already nearly enough for a whole day's calories.

Add onto that the chicken sandwich he might also have had:

385, brings it to:  1545 calories.

And it's not complete without a portion of onion rings:

190 calories

Bringing that to a total of 1735 calories.  
That's 1735 calories in one meal!

If you then add on breakfast, lunch and snacks, sugars in tea, there's no way there are enough hours in the day to work off that amount of calories in the gym or running.  No way!

Not only have you consumed way more calories than necessary in one meal, the calories are such poor quality that your body is going to tell you it's hungry again much more quickly than had you had the same calories but higher quality sources.

Think you could just work this off, perhaps an hour in the gym or go for a little jog?  

You would need to run for nearly 4 hours to burn this off!

It may seem extreme to say, in the 21st century, when we have access to fast food 24/7/365, but really, McDonalds has NO place in a healthy, balanced diet!  It really doesn't.  These sorts of calories are not going to do you any favours.  they will not nourish you, they will not boost your daily energy levels, they will not make you feel good.

They will make you fat, sluggish, lethargic and unwell. 

Next time your husband asks for a McDonalds, hand him the car keys and make yourself something much nicer!

After speaking at length (and at supersonic speed) all day Friday and more on Sunday, with my dear friend, Jane, I have a few thoughts on the process of change.

There are distinct phases in any person's journey to changing behaviour and these manifest as:

1. Denial - you don't think anything is wrong and nothing needs changing or addressing.  You are happy with the status quo
2. Contemplation - you think there may be some areas that could do with a little improvement, you're open to the idea of change
3. Preparation - you are liking the idea of change more and more and are taking steps to plan how you might go about it
4. Action - you are ready to make the change and you are putting your plans into action,  possibly tentatively at first
5. Relapse - you have hit a stumbling block and messed up.  You have not undone all your good work, you have just slipped up
6. Living it - you have made the change permanent and relapses are rare - if they do occur they are totally conscious and under your control

Now, it is really important to understand that stage 6 does not shunt you straight back to stage 1.  

If you relapse, it only shoves you back 1 stage.  You don't have to start climbing the mountain again just because you fell off the wagon.  You just have to jump up, dust yourself down and keep on from where you left off. 

As I have said before, it isn't all or nothing.  One chocolate bar doesn't mean you've ruined everything.  One missed workout doesn't mean you shouldn't ever bother again.  

Learn from what made you slip and move on!

Jane gave me some alternative versions of change which I love!  they go something like this:

1. Unconscious incompetence - similar to denial - you don't know what you're doing wrong, or even that there is anything wrong
2. Conscious Incompetence - similar to contemplation - you are aware that something isn't working and that something could be done about it
3. Conscious Competence - similar to action - you have planned and prepared and you are making a change - it takes your concentration and awareness to do it
4. Unconscious Competence - similar to living it - you have made the change and it has become second nature to live like this

The difficulty most people have, when trying to make a change of any type is going from contemplation and preparation to action and not giving up when they hit relapse.

In other words, people find it easy to slip between Conscious Incompetence and Conscious Competence but it is hard to move into Unconscious Competence.

For example, someone who goes regularly to a weight loss group will rely on the rules and support that group gives them to achieve their goals.  They will be in the Action stage or the Conscious Competence stage.  If they slip up, they will have hit Relapse and may give up.  They will have moved back to Conscious Incompetence - aware they have messed up but finding it hard to recover.

They are finding it hard to move onto the Living it stage - the Unconscious Competence stage - because they are reliant on the rules that the group gives them, unable to think for themselves.

The only way to get yourself into the Unconscious Competence, where you are Living it, where your new behaviour has become second nature, is to get there yourself, without help!

This is my aim with KLossMyRules.  I gve you a set of starter rules that get you going.  Along your path to success, you discuss regularly with someone what is working and going well and what you are finding tricky (these are the KLossMyRules Laws).  These insights allow you to adapt the starter rules to fit your life so that you become in charge of your own personal journey to change.

After all, you're not like anyone else.  

You are you.  

You are unique and what works for one person will not work for another.  

So you adapt the starter rules and make them your own, thus weaning yourself off support from an external source - becoming reliant on your own skills and strength!

Voila!  Living it!  Unconscious Competence!

Thanks, Jane, for a monster chat!  Great to see you!

Krish x

Adele's workout

Adele first came to see me in January and I pushed her hard from day 1.  She comes to see me either for one hour and two half hours a week or for two individual hour sessions, depending on her workload.  Adele will agree with me in saying that she is a bit of a workaholic, so coming for a regular workout is a great stress reliever for her.

Adele is a very successful businesswoman (she owns and runs the very excellent Magnet magazine - check out the Active Health articles - you may recognise the author...) and so is pretty empowered already but it is fabulous to see what weight training has done for her, both physically and mentally.

We do a combination of body-weight, free-weight, machine and TRX exercises.

Here is the last workout we did.

We always begin with warmups of either jump squats, burpees or mountain climbers to warm up the muscles and get the heart pumping, followed by dynamic stretches to mobilise and lubricate the joints. 

Chest and back exercises 3 sets

Bar Bell Chest Press

8 reps with 30kg (in January she was lifting 10kg)

superset with

Machine Lat Pull Down

8 reps with 15kg (in January she was pulling 6.5kg)

Active Rest between each superset 

30 seconds - TRX Jack Knives


Leg exercises 3 sets


Bar Bell Front Squat

8 reps with 30kg (in January she was squatting 10kg)

superset with

Bar bell Romanian Deadlift

8 reps with 30kg (in January she was deadlifting 20kg)

Active Rest between each superset 
30 seconds - pressups











Leg exercises 3 sets

Bar Bell Back Squat

10 reps with 45kg (in January she was squatting 20kg)

superset with

TRX Pistol Squats

10 reps each leg (in January she couldn't do these)

Active Rest between each superset 
30 seconds - decline bench twisted sit ups











Shoulder (and leg again) exercises 3 sets

 

Bar Bell Thrusters

20 reps with 20kg (in January she couldn't do these)

We always end with a variety of static and developmental stretches

Well done, Adele.  You always give it your all!

Fidgeting

It is of great interest to me why some people find it harder to lose weight than others.  Some people seem to be able to eat what they like and never put on weight and others only have to look at a cream cake and they have put on three pounds.

In my quest for answers, a recent trip to the Apple store threw up some interesting ideas, stemming from the not totally necessary purchase of two Nike fule bands for my husband and me.  They are a fun way of tracking your movements throughout the day and encouraging you to hit your activity targets you set yourself.  And when you win, you get a RAINBOW!


The Nike fuel bands give you a daily graph of your movements.  Interestingly, my husband's and mine varied remarkably during a normal working day.

My husband's graph goes up suddenly when he walks to the station and then drops back to virtually nothing while he's on the hour and a quarter train journey to work and then spikes again when he walks from the station to his work and then drops when he sits down at his desk.  There are further spikes when he walks at lunch time and walking to and from the station on his way home and when he hits the gym when he gets home, apart from that, it's pretty flat line.

Mine, on the other hand goes up, not as high as his, when I get up in the morning and hovers around the same point throughout the day as I rarely sit down.  I'm either up and down the satirs, doing housework, shopping, in the gym or with a client in the gym.  My activity level, as a result, generally don't hit the highs that ny husband's do, as I rarely do cardio but it stays consistently high meaning that over a day, I burn as much Nike fule, sometimes more than him.

The most interesting thing, though, is what happens when we kept the bands on all night.  Between midnight and 6.30 am, I had burned 654 Nike fuels.  By the same time in the morning, my husband had burned...

wait for it...

4!

I'm thinking this could shed some light on why my husband finds it harder to shift weight and keep it off than I do.

Of course, masses of research has been done into how 'naturally' slim people seems to manage to stay 'naturally' slim and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that fidgety people (of whom I am annoyingly one) can burn up to ten times more calories a day than their more laid back counterparts!

Fidgeting: toe tapping, finger drumming, wriggling, jiggling, shifting position, all these things are known as NEAT or non-exercise activity thermogenesis, where we burn calories unconsciously.  Lots of tiny movements carried out consistently regularly can add up to as much as rigorous exercise done less frequently.

Unfortunately, people are either fidgets or they're not - it's very difficult to turn a non-fidgeter into a relentless toe-tapper.  Neurotic, anxious and stressed individuals are more likely to be fidgety as fidgeting can act as a soother.  Relaxed, laid-back, calm people are less likely to be wrigglers!

So, if you discover you are not one of the fidgeters but you still want your Nike rainbow, you are going to have to hit the gym a little harder!

ADDENDUM:

Actually, I've been thinking about this and if you are not naturally fidgety then you can fake it!  You can fake it by never sitting in the comfy seat, literally!

Never sit when you can stand.   
Never park close to where you are going.  
Never get off the bus at your stop.
Never take the lift when you can take the stairs.  
Never drive when you can walk, never walk when you can jog and never jog when you can sprint.

Add all this extra activity into your day really easily and you will soon be burning calories like the most hyperactive of us!

How not to feel hungry!

Research suggests that a diet high in macronutrients - i.e. unprocessed, fresh, 'real' food, enables you to deal with feelings of hunger much more easily than the SAD (Standard American Diet).  It also enables you to feel much less hungry beween meals, meaning if you are cutting calories, it's much easier to do with fresh fruit, veg and meat than it is with cakes, pizza, booze and crisps.  



Calorie-counting isn't all it's cracked up to be, it is much more about the quality of the calories than their numerical value. 

So if you want to lose weight and keep it off, it's better to change what you're eating than how much.

Krish x

What happens in my gym?

Here is a collection of pictures taken in our little garage gym.

Our little garage gym

Katie gets ready to deadlift 40kg and does inverted push ups

 Chrissie squats 45kg - 3kg off her body weight!

Katie and Gemma discuss how tough they are.

Most of the time it's hard work but occasionally you have to break out the stability ball for a bit of a laugh!  Katherine does Romanian deadlifts, while Katie does pistol squats with the TRX and Gemma does burpees!

Handstands are the order of the day at the moment - we are working towards handstand push ups!

 

It's not just grown ups in the gym either.  One of my youngest clients, 11 year-old Sienna, did 100 5kg Dragan presses the other day!  You don't mess with her, if you know what's good for you!  And 11 year-old Zackary did 300 TRX mountain climbers in one go without stopping, while Liv did 5 minutes of burpees without stopping.  They set the bar high!

Zack gets ready to join the circus!

Russ after a particularly strenuous 3 bars of death workout!

Normally, I find it hard to motivate myself in my own gym and so I go to the gym up the road to workout. But during the school holidays, as I can't leave the kids, I don't get to workout at my local gym.  Usually, that means I do a few half-hearted workouts in the garage and end up miserable by the end of the holidays.  So this Easter, I enlisted the support of a friend of mine who used to be a PT.  She has come round a couple of times so far and forced me to do way more than I ever can motivate myself to do in the garage!

We made up a little metabolic workout that I would have got half way through before abandoning and she made me do three sets!

It was tough.

I hated her.  But I'm so glad she came over!

Happy rest of the Easter holidays, everyone!

KLossMyRules

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You follow my rules initially and then you tweak them to come up with your own set of non-negotiable rules by which you can live, which you can then share with everyone.

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