FitClub

From September, FitClub will be run from my own little gym in Uckfield.

Places will be limited to 4 per session - by keeping classes small, we can maximise the positive outcomes of each session.

As places are strictly limited to four, booking in advance is essential.

Classes will be £6 a go or you can buy a block of 10 for £50 to be used at any FitClub session.

Initially, classes will run on:

Monday afternoons at 1.30pm

Tuesday evenings at 7.30pm 

Wednesday mornings at 9am

Friday mornings at 9am

You can come to as few or as many as you like and the block payments cover all classes.

FitClub is a body-weight workout that focuses on functional movement – that is exercises that help everyday life to remain easy or become easier, like getting up from a chair, loading a car, walking up a hill or playing football with your kids. 
We will focus on a few crucial, body-weigh exercises that are fundamental to developing mobility and strength: including the squat, the press up and core exercises, which can help alleviate back pain. 

All these exercises are scaled for your ability; so don’t worry about anything being too hard – they should be just hard enough!

We will combine resistance exercises, to strengthen muscles, with aerobic exercises, to work your heart and lungs and improve stamina and endurance, making everyday tasks easier.

Please contact me for more information or to book places.

FitClub

This week sees the start of K-Loss FitClub, a fitness class that focuses on genuinely effective exercises that use functional movements designed to make everyday life easier.

FitClub is running at Ridgewood Village Hall, Uckfield on Wednesday mornings from 8.50am and on Fridays at Forresters Hall, Uckfield from 9am.


So come along with your friends and have some fun getting fit!
Contact me to book your place!

How much does FitClub cost?

It is £5 a week, drop-in cost or you can make a £10 saving by buying a block of 10 sessions for £40, which can be used for any FitClub sessions on any days for three months after the purchase date.

Why should I come to FitClub?

Because I won’t lie to you.  I’m not going to tell you that coming to my exercise class once or twice a week will make you look like Kylie but I will make sure that the exercises you do are genuinely worthwhile, beneficial, functional and effective!

What will FitClub do for me?

FitClub is all about functional movement – that is exercises that help every day life to remain easy or become easier, like getting up from a chair, loading a car, walking up a hill or playing football with your kids. 

FitClub can help you make significant changes to your flexibility, fitness, stamina, energy levels and health. 

What exercises will we do at FitClub?

We will focus on a few crucial, body-weight exercises that are fundamental to developing mobility and strength: including the squat, the press up and core exercises, which can help alleviate back pain. 

All these exercises are scaled for your ability; so don’t worry about anything being too hard – they should be just hard enough!

We will combine these resistance exercises with aerobic exercises to work your heart and lungs to improve stamina and endurance, further making everyday tasks easier.

What is the homework all about?

Each week, I will set a challenge to be completed before you come to the next session.  This is because doing exercise once a week isn’t really enough.  It’s a start and it’s certainly better than nothing but if you exercise regularly and consistently, you will see better results.  Of course, it’s up to you if you do it or not but the more you do, the better you will feel.

What about nutrition?

Exercise is a great start to either maintaining a healthy lifestyle or to improving your health.  The trouble is, there is no way you can out-train poor nutrition.  This means if you want to get the best from your exercise class, you need to eat well!

Eating clean means avoiding food that comes in packets with lists of ingredients, trying to limit sugar and products that contain sugar and reducing products that contain flour.

I won’t dictate to you what you should and shouldn’t be eating but if you would like more info on nutrition, I can give you some pointers or if you would like focused support, I offer Nutrition Management sessions for £30 a month.

Please make sure you have had a good breakfast before you come.

What should I bring to FitClub?

Bring a positive attitude and enthusiasm; bring a bottle of water and an exercise mat if you have one, oh and all your friends!

Want abs?

Squat.  With or without weights.

Do front squats. back squats, air squats, overhead squats, jump squats, static squats, box jumps and deadlifts...



Want a tight bum?

Squat.  With or without weights.

Do front squats. back squats, air squats, overhead squats, jump squats, static squats, box jumps and deadlifts...

 

Want toned inner thighs?

Squat.  With or without weights.

Do front squats. back squats, air squats, overhead squats, jump squats, static squats, box jumps and deadlifts...

 

 

Smack-you-in-the-face obvious

I have the utmost admiration for doctors.  I am in awe of scientists.  I think the scientific process of trying to disprove a theory through rigorous and randomised testing and peer assessment is terribly important.  Research and results and conclusions are a vital part of progressing human understanding.




But, there are some things that to me just seem screamingly obvious.

1     The least your food has had done to it the better.

A meal cooked from raw ingredients isn't full of all the unnecessary added crap that processed meals - from freezer to microwave - have.  I know what's in every meal I cook.

I don't undertand the purpose of adding sugar to a cooked chicken breast that comes in a packet.  It's not as if we need the sugar as a preservative.  That chicken is kept in the fridge in the supermarket and then either eaten straight away or put in the fridge at home.  It doesn't need sugar at all.

Why is it there?

Is it there to keep you addicted to the stuff, to keep you coming back for more?  I don't think food manufacturers put added sugar into things unnecessarily for no reason at all.

I was going to try to come up with a list of things I feel I intrinsically know without the need for scientific proof, however, that's it really.

You want to live a fit and healthy life?  
Walk.
Cut the crap.  
That's it.

Krish x

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!