Not only does this mean that I can keep my life nice and easy, but I also find that simple things make the biggest differences in life. Especially when it comes to food, drink and weight control.
So probably the simplest thing that any of us can do to improve our health and give our bodies the resources they need to perform at a high standard, is follow this healthy eating pyramid:
Healthy Eating Pyramid - Click to see a big copy.
It is a more visual way of showing the 10 simple rules of healthy eating that I try to drum into people. So download a copy of this pyramid, print it off and stick it to your fridge/cupboards etc. I don’t care if you are overweight/underweight, an exercise virgin or an elite athlete…we should all be following these guides for health, life and performance.
Now I know almost everyone of you are thinking
“Its ok, I eat like this anyway.”
If this is so, then you won’t be afraid to do a food diary to prove it!
]]>Click here for the full story.
4 of these 5 slimming pills have no evidence to back up their claims...
The 5 pills are:
- Adios
- Alli
- Biosynergy Hoodia Gordonii
- LIPObind
- Slim Nite
I should say right now that I have no experience with any of these products, so everything I am saying now is based on my own random knowledge.
Only one of them had any actual research to back up their claims. One claimed that it speeded up your bodies metabolic rate. Well, our metabolic rates speed up and slow down all the time throughout the day. If you sit and have a cup of coffee or a can of Red Bull, your metabolism with shift…but that does not mean they can be considered “diet drinks”.
With so many people in this country classed as obese, we certainly need a wide range of effective tools to deal with the problem. But the important word there is “effective”. These tools should actually work. We shouldn’t be cluttering up our tool box with junk that is not going to help, but simply diverts people away from the tools that actually do work.
And the biggest and best tools in our toolbox are:
- Eating/drinking far less processed/man-made foods.
- Eating many colours of vegetable at every main meal.
- Increasing our Background Activity every day.
My favorite quote from the story comes from NHS dietician Ruth Kander…she says:
“People want a quick fix in their life, they want to lose weight really quickly, and they don’t want to give up their favourite foods, they don’t want to work hard at what they’re eating. But that’s not real life”
For more information to help you lose weight, click here, or just contact me by leaving a comment below, or clicking here.
]]>Click here to read the whole news article.
Childhood obesity
Here are the conclusions of the study:
Conclusions Physical inactivity appears to be the result of fatness rather than its cause. This reverse causality may explain why attempts to tackle childhood obesity by promoting Physical Activity have been largely unsuccessful.
In other words, for the children in the study, being fat caused them to be less active, rather than being less active caused them to be fat.
So if in activity was not the cause of obesity in these children, what was? The only other culprit can be the food/drink they ate. As I say to all the people who come in asking for help to lose weight, a couple of times in the gym isn’t going to do it! If you want to lose weight, you need to change your diet…and in some cases, your whole lifestyle!
I’m trying to put together a little article with lots of lovely graphs (God! I love a good graph!) to illustrate the impact that exercise, and changes in your diet, have on your waistline.
Exercise is good, fantastic and everyone should do it for a better life and to make you fitter and stronger. But it is not the ideal tool to lose weight.
It can be used to make you lose weight, just like you can use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail…but its the wrong tool for the job and you are better off using it for something else.
In the meantime, if you are wanting to lose weight, click here for the basics, and if you want/need more help and life in the Skipton area, contact me today!
]]>So he asked how can he be classed as obese if he does so much training?
Well, fitness and fatness are two different things. Here in the UK, they do usually go hand in hand. In other words, most fat people you meet will also be unfit. But this isn’t always the case.
Fat and unfit
Being fat.
Carrying excess fat simply means that in the past, you have been consuming more calories than you have been burning. It says nothing at all about the actual amounts of calories taken in, or the actual amount of calories burned off. Just that the first number is greater than the second number.
Being fit.
Being classically fit just means that over time, your heart, lungs, bones and muscles have become stronger, more efficient and more capable of doing sustained work.
An example of the usual fat and unfit person could be someone who drives to a physically easy office job, never does any physically taxing activity, drives home, sits on the sofa eating a pizza and watching the soaps. They might only burn 2,000 calories, but consume 3,000 calories every day, making an excess of 1,000 calories.
Fat and fit
An example of the more unusual fat and fit person could be someone who has a physically active, manual job, who regularly exercises and plays sports, but who then also goes home and eats a pizza and ice cream every night. They might burn 3,000 calories, but consume 4,000 calories every day, also making an excess of 1,000 calories.
Both these people are going to get very fat very quickly. But the heart, lungs, bones and muscles of the second person will also be very fit and strong! They will be able to sustain a lot of effort.
This last bit is a quick and dirty personality test to see what kind of person you are. You have 4 options.
- Fat and fit
- Lean and fit
- Fat and unfit
- Lean and unfit
Which would you put at number 1 (most important for you), 2, 3 and 4 (least important for you). For me it would be the following:
- Lean and fit (because I could out-perform most people and would be happy about how I look)
- Fat and fit (because I could out-perform most people, and I would have the work capacity to help me lose fat)
- Lean and unfit (although I wouldn’t be able to do the things I enjoy doing and are important to me, at least I wouldn’t have as many health related problems compared to…)
- Fat and unfit (I wouldn’t be able to do things I enjoy and find important, and I would have much higher risks of many chronic health problems associated with obesity)
Remember, there is no right or wrong answer, just your opinion. Leave you answers in the comments section below!
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So here are my 4 priorities for losing bodyfat, starting with the most important (in fact, it is absolutely essential) and finishing with the least important (in fact, 99% of people can ignore it).
Spend more time and effort with things at the top of this list, and worry less about the things lower down the list.
Top priority – Calorie deficit – How much you eat.
This is essential. It doesn’t matter what diet or exercise you do. You will not lose bodyfat without a calorie deficit. And this means
taking in fewer calories than you burn off.
- Calories in – This comes from virtually everything we eat and drink.
- Calories out – Our bodies burn off calories by simply being alive, and also through physical activity. Ranging from walking into the kitchen to make breakfast, to doing vigorous, hard exercise.
If we take in more calories than we need, our body starts storing them and we gain bodyfat. This is a calorie excess.
If we take in fewer calories than we need, our body starts using the calories it had previously stored as bodyfat, and we lose bodyfat. This is a calorie deficit.
It does not matter what diet in the world you are on. If you are not in a calorie deficit, you will not lose bodyfat. In other words, unless you are in a calorie deficit, you can fiddle about with the next 3 priorities all you like…you will still get fatter.
Second priority – Food Composition – What you eat.
Once you know how much you should be eating, you can work out just what you should, or should not, be eating/drinking. Examples of changing your food composition include:
- Cutting out food groups (eg cutting out carbohydrates on the Atkins diet).
- Eating food groups in particular proportions (eg 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein, 30% fats in the Zone diet).
- Eating only a couple of specific foods (eg the cabbage soup diet).
The way I adjust my food composition is simply cutting out man-made, processed foods that are full of simple sugars and saturated fats.
When it comes to losing fat, whatever your food composition, it is less important than a calorie defecit…but it is much more important than the next two priorities, which are…
Third priority – Meal Timing – When you eat.
Only after you have mastered how much and what to eat, should you think about when to eat. Examples of adjusting meal timing include:
- Not eating anything after a certain time.
- Not eating things on certain days.
- Eat when you are hungry, stop eating when you are nearly full.
- Eating carbohydrates only around exercise.
Meal timing does have an effect on fat loss/gain. But compared to the previous 2 priorities, it is very small effect. So don’t bother worrying about this until you have mastered the how much and what you should eat.
However, meal timing is much more important than the final priority…
Fourth Priority – Supplements – Pill and potions you swallow.
There are loads of things out there that claim to be “fat burners”, or “boost your metabolism” etc. The important thing to remember is,
about 99.9% of them are junk.
2 of the more famous supplements are green tea and caffeine. And there is only “some” evidence of a “small” increase in the number of calories burned. Any small calorie burning benefit you might get from these supplements will be more than cancelled out by a single, small chocolate bar.
In every practical sense, these supplements will be either:
- A con.
- Not worth going out of your way for.
So when I help someone alter their weight, this is how I priorities things. The biggest message to take from this is
most of the stuff you read about in magazines is overhyped crap. Just eat less and eat healthily.
I hope this has helped.
And don’t forget, if you live in or around the Skipton area and need help with your eating or training, contact me now!
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- Losing belly/thigh/arm fat
- Getting bigger biceps
- Getting faster
- Improving coordination/balance
- strengthening their back
- etc
In other words, they want to know the single exercise/training drill/food that will give them their goals with the minimum effort and time.
Last week, I was asked this question by a very large man…
“What single exercise can I do to strengthen my back?”
It is a package
Unfortunately, the human body does not work like that. Don’t try to find a “single, best thing” to improve. Instead, have a ”package of many, good things“.
So in the above example, there is no point in the man spending 5 minutes, 2-3 times a week “strengthening his back”. Instead, he needs to implement a “package” of things including:
- A reduced calory, balanced and healthy diet and long term increase in his background activity. This will help reduce his weight so his back (and all other joints) are being put under less stress, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Basic posture correction and rudimentary training in how to actually move both himself and objects in the world around him. This will further reduce the stresses on his back (and all other joints).
With this package in place, there is a very good chance he won’t need to strengthen his back, because it will easily cope with the reduced stresses on it.
Without this package in place, strengthening the back will just involve putting more stress on the back.
So try to avoid the mistake of looking for a single “wonder exercise” that will cure all your ills. The real answer is almost certainly in the package of dull, boring, unsexy exercises/foods that have been around since the stone age.
And in the rare cases when a sexy, exciting and new exercise/food is the answer…it won’t work unless you have the basic fundamental package in place first. Otherwise, you are just papering over the cracks…it might look good, but it’s not going to stop the wall from collapsing.
]]>Obesity: The walking financial time bomb
We are all going to pay more tax to keep bankers in their jobs, and we may need to pay more tax to help keep people out of the pie shops! But there is another way. If a lazy arsed person like me (and trust me, I am lazy!) can control my weight, then anyone can!
The basic rules are very simple…
- Eat less
- Move more
- Repeat until goal is achieved.
If you want more in-depth rules, click here to see the 10 rules of healthy eating.
As I said, the rules are very simple. They may not be easy, but they are simple. But one of the best ways make these simple rules easier to follow, is by working in a group. If there is more than one of you, you can help each other, support each other and basically help keep each other on the bandwagon.
So don’t wait. Do it today. Get one or more mates together and start following the 10 rules to healthy eating, 1 rule at a time.
And don’t forget, if you live in and around the Skipton area, you can contact me for advice or training to help you on your way!
And after a miserable start to this post, hasn’t it ended on a much happier note?
Good luck!
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So chocolaty they turn the milk brown!? - yeah, that's just what we need for breakfast!
But lets be honest. When you look at the names of a couple of the bad examples…
- Coco Pops
- Coco Rocks
- Weetabix Minis Chocolate Crisp
Who the hell is eating chocolate for breakfast?? And worst of all, who the hell is feeding their kids chocolate for breakfast??
Chocolate and sweets are for special occasions only, and then they are for pudding, after your meal consisting of unprocessed, whole foods (ie - foods that have come straight from a farm, not straight from a factory). They are not for eating every day, first thing in the morning.
If you want to see how good or bad our favorite breakfast cereals stack up, click here where I have talked about this subject before. You can download a Which report showing very clearly the sugar, fat and salt content of many cereals. Take a look to see how good yours is, and how you can improve it.
As for improving our diets in general, click here for my 10 simple rules to follow to transform everyones diet into something to be proud of!
]]>But I’m back now with just one story from when I was away. Chatting to an old friend who is very enthusiastic, and always wants to make sure she is doing the “best” thing to help her lose weight. And she showed me this story here, recommending average calorie levels be increased. So she wanted to know if she should now suddenly start eating more.
The answer to this question is of course…it depends.
It depends on:
- What your current weight is
- What your goals are
Your current health/weight/fitness levels are a result of your habits and behaviours. This includes your eating habits. So if you are currently overweight, then you have already been eating too much. And if you want to lose weight, then you must eat fewer calories than before, regardless of what a news story tells you.
To help start you off losing weight, just click here.
Or if you live in or around the Skipton area, you can just contact me for more in depth help!
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Whenever people come to me for help with this, I always try to explain that doing exercise is only a small part of losing weight. It is vitally important to look at their diet and change it for the better. Without doing this, they are making weight loss a MUCH harder task.
Most people refuse to change how they eat/drink, thinking:
“I’m going to the gym twice a week…isn’t that enough? I have to do MORE?”
But I read this report today (click here). It tells how once a group of women were overweight, gentle exercise alone was not enough to control their weight.
“once overweight, it may be too late because physical activity – at least, at levels carried out by study participants – was not associated with less weight gain”
Exercise is vital for everyone. I’m never going to tell people it isn’t. But if your goal truly is to lose weight, exercise is only a part of the answer. You must change your diet for the better if you are to succeed.
Otherwise you run the risk of failing in your goal and giving up on exercise as “not working” for you. And that would be terrible!
But if you are not sure how to improve your diet, just click here.
Good luck!
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