Tough Guy. Yes I am.

This weekend I went off to take on the Tough Guy challenge up in Wolverhampton.

The Tough Guy race is hideous cross-country adventure race in which competitors brave muddy water obstacles, crazy-high 40ft cargo nets, fire, ice, electricity (seriously!) and much more. Words can’t really explain how horrible this race is...

Check it out here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMbmlmaN3XA&feature=fvwrel

You can tell from the video it’s mean.

I’ve done this race a couple of times before and this year I took one of my friends/ enemies/ bootcampers Joe Bakey with me.

It’s fair to say Joe is young and foolish. He’s a bit like me just better looking and a bit slower. Joe has lots of good banter (and lots of bad banter too) which makes him the perfect partner in a race like this.

If there wasn’t already enough stuff for me to take the piss out of Joe for, he also brought his mum along with him (to hold onto his inhaler) and his girlfriend (to keep her company whilst she held onto his inhaler). Fortunately, I know Joe's mum, Claire, and Joe's girlfriend, Chloe, and they were great fun to have on the road trip too.

En route to Wolverhampton we enjoyed a gourmet cooked breakfast and I managed to convince Joe he needed to wear goggles for the race... This made for a great journey.



We arrived in plenty of time to recce the course and for Joe to realise the goggles were not essential. Shame. We kept them on anyway...

Soon enough the race started and Joe through caution to the wind...

(Ala Albert Brennerman throwing the inhaler in the film Hitch... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npy6SXS1LDA (17 seconds in...)

We set about our task with intensity and vigor. It’s difficult to do a race like this together because of the type of obstacles and within the first mile we were separated. So we went our separate ways...

I have done this race several times before, but never has it felt so cold. I’m not sure if I’m getting old or if the water obstacles were a bit deeper or perhaps I’m just a bit ‘softer’ but it was HARD.

The bitter coldness was mega. People were dropping like flies. But not Joe and I. We both ‘manned up’ and made it to the end. Fortunately our support crew (between hot chocolates...) were there to welcome us back with warm clothes and cheer and we were quickly back into a nice warm car and on our way home...

Not so quick that Joe’s mum couldn’t take this great video...



The Tough Guy Challenge is one of the hardest races I’ve ever done (...did I mention I’ve run six marathons in six days and Ironman??) but the satisfaction of finishing the race was AMAZING. Definitely worth the extortionate entry fee, long journey and listening to Joe’s boring stories about the wonders of barefoot running...

Thanks to everyone for the messages of support, Claire and Chloe for the warm clothes immediately after the race and to Joe for surviving. Same time next year? I think so.

The Ultra-Distance Experiment

I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel here, nor am I trying to flick the bird at all the runners out there who regularly train hard every day to shave a second here and a second there off there PB. I don’t doubt the training principle of specificity (i.e. You get good at what you repeatedly do), if you want to get good at running you have to run. All I’m trying to say is there is more than one way to skin a cat.

The Ultra-Distance Experiment was born out of my interest in what is necessary and what is not. I’m working towards a race in June called The Wall. The Wall is a seventy-mile race from Carlisle to Newcastle along the length of The Hadrians Wall. The vast majority of which is off-road, hilly and knowing that part of the world wet and windy.

I suppose I’m an unlikely candidate for this type of race. Up until 18 months ago I hadn’t run a marathon. In fact I hadn’t run anything over 10 miles and I certainly hadn’t trained for a race. My friend pulled up a week before the London Marathon with a calf strain that meant he could not run. With less than a week to go and lots of money raised for charity I stepped in and took his place and the rest they say is history.

Later that year I took part in a race called the Trans-Britain a 156 mile footrace that takes place over six days (the equivalent six marathons in six days off-road) and runs from Gretna in Scotland to Ruthin Castle in North Wales. Since then I have run several marathons (none of which I have trained specifically for) and competed in Ironman France having never owned a bike nor competed in a triathlon before starting training.

I don’t class myself as a runner nor a triathlete. I don’t run regularly. I guess I’m just a broken rugby player with a bit of courage. I suffered a wrist injury and after having it pinned back together didn’t fancy going back to the sport and breaking it again. There is perhaps one factor that might go in my favour - I am of course a personal trainer.

Everyday I work with people to help them achieve there health and fitness goals. Perhaps it is this that has inspired The Ultra-Distance Experiment. I realise that regular runners are often ambivalent about other factors that contribute to fitness and performance. Things like strength, structural integrity, soft-tissue release and mobility, preferring instead to run, run, run instead of utilise other more scientific and intelligent approaches to achieve optimum performance.

Just to reiterate I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here, I just want to help people recognise there is more to running a sub-40 10k than just ‘time on your feet.’ I realise my proposition might cause some athletes to get on there soap box. I mean how dare someone suggest there is another way?! I mean I understand that runners like to run and cling to it like religion. Believing the key to success is hard work and only hard work. How dare someone suggest otherwise?? Especially someone who up until 18 months ago only donned a pair of running shoes once a month to take part in an occasional trail race...

Let me just confirm - I have trained. I followed a sixteen week training plan for my six marathons in six days Trans Britain race and I followed a thirty-six week training plan for my Ironman. Both of which, in comparison to my peers were perceived as relatively time-friendly reduced-volume approaches and both which gave me relatively good success. My experiences up until this point have all eluded to one thing. Training less and more intelligently can often bring about faster performance and fitness improvements than training more.

Wow! Quite a statement, I know. It’s not that I necessarily believe in overtraining, I think under-recovering is more the truth. I believe many people (especially runners) are ignorant to other factors such as rest, good nutrition, strength and mobility can have on performance. And that perhaps if these things were given a little bit more respect people would see a vast improvement in speed, a greater reduction in injury and a lot more joy and satisfaction from there sport.

The Ultra-Distance Experiment is not an absolutist approach. What I am proposing is more of an idea. I want to put myself up as an example. I am planning on racing in a seventy-mile race, running just three or four times per week and supplementing the rest with gym work and recovery (eating better, foam rolling, massage, etc). I also want to raise MASSIVE amount of money for my local charity which supports people with learning difficulties (but I’ll elaborate on that in later posts...)

I’m looking to represent the time-shy athlete who wants to participate in something purely unique. I’m looking to give hope to the guy who feels they ‘don’t have the time’ to train for a marathon. I want to prove low-volume training is a safer, more sophisticated and healthier approach to achieving success in any sport - most noticeably in this example - running.

I’m not trying to challenge the tried and tested approach of getting time on ones feet, you most certainly do get good at what you practice and for optimum running performance you do need to run. But my question is where does it start and where does it stop. I genuinely believe there is some advantage to most runners skipping a training run and having a massage once every fortnight.

Take for example my challenge, I can’t run anywhere near seventy miles in training. The further I go in training the greater the risk of injury. The most I could perhaps do is run between 20-22m on a training run which let’s be honest is a drop in the ocean in comparison. This would be like training for a 100 metre race by doing one 30m sprint each week, right?!

What I’m suggesting is following a 20wk training plan with three or four runs a week. One long run, one fast interval one and one somewhere in between. It will be progressive, structured and periodised. It will utilise aspect such as rest, recovery and cross-training. It will bear in mind important factors such as sleep, stress management, childcare and family life - I too have a wife and twelve week old baby! We could look at nutrition, stretching and fun too.

The lower-volume means I will be able to put forward my best (or most appropriate) effort at every training session. This means when I schedule a hard run it will be that, and when I schedule an easy run it will be that). The lower volume means I will be able to maintain health as I will not burden my body with stress which is so often the case with endurance training programs and I will not become helplessly addicted to unhealthy foods such as chocolate and caffeine which is so often the case with the typical marathon training plans.

I’m gonna write about my experience, impart a bit of knowledge on alternative ways to run quicker. Stuff like how to strength train to improve running and why most so-called sport specific strength training plans are woefully inadequate. I can elaborate on why soft-tissue release leads to far greater performance gains and why when your muscles are softer and more pliable they actually perform better. I will provide examples of the benefits of creating good health with good nutrition will lead to far greater performances. I can highlight how once you have cleaned up your diet supplementing can be helpful and why supplementing with something like magnesium, whilst not an ergogenic aid, reduced my cramps during ironman training.

So here it begins... 21 weeks to go... Wish me luck and stay tuned!!!

A Delicious Healthy Fat Burning Curry

Yesterday on my facebook page I promised those who liked my post a delicious healthy fat-burning curry recipe. I couldn’t find one with all the ingredients but I’ve done the next best thing - I’ve found one with a good amount of spice and several other really healthy ingredients.

As you know I’m a big fan of real food and this recipe is exactly that! From yesterdays post you will recognise it has the metabolic super-power of red chillis, ginger and turmeric in it. It also has red onions which contain quercetin a natural anti-inflammatory that enhances liver function (important for fat loss), jumbo prawns which is good quality protein which is great for balancing blood sugar, and full-fat coconut milk which despite being a saturated fat actually aids fat loss.

If you want to make it even healthier have it with quinoa instead of rice...

This recipe serves 2 and is ready to eat in about 20mins. Enjoy!

Kerala Prawn Curry

Ingredients
2 red chillies split, cut into quarters lengthways and seeded
1 small red onion , chopped
2.5cm piece of fresh root ginger , peeled and chopped
1 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil
1 tsp black mustard seeds
½ tsp fenugreek seeds
14 curry leaves , fresh or dried
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp cracked black peppercorns
250g jumbo prawns , leave some with their tails on if you like
150ml full-fat coconut milk

Method
In a food processor, blitz the chillies, onion and ginger with 3 tbsp water into a smoothish paste - you may need to scrape it down the sides.

Heat the oil in a heavy pan or wok. When hot, toss in the mustard and fenugreek seeds, and curry leaves - they'll crackle and pop - and fry for 10 seconds. Add the onion paste, turn the heat down a tad and cook without colouring for about 5 minutes. Splash in some water if it starts to catch.

Add the turmeric and cracked peppercorns and stir the spices around for a few seconds before tipping in the prawns. Pour in the coconut milk and bring to a simmer, stirring all the time. The milk will take on a yellow colour from the turmeric. Cook for 1 minute until everything's heated through. Squeeze over some lime, sprinkle with fresh coriander and serve with rice.

I’m not so clever to make this up! I adapted from the BBC Good Food website. A great website full of ideas...

Five Spices To Accelerate Fat Loss

If you regularly tune into my blog you will notice I don’t normally get mixed up in nutritionism (the over analysis of food). Many of the so-called benefits of individual nutrients seem massively overstated and I feel with so many variances on the human condition (stress and sleep patterns, digestive function, food quality, etc) life just isn’t that simple.

Whilst my approach to nutrition might seem radical to some (cutting out processed food, sugar and alcohol is ‘radical’ - please note: sarcastic tone) I do understand that some elements of nutrionism might just work when all the other bases are covered.

One area that I cannot find fault in is the use of spices. In my opinion, even if they don’t accelerate fat loss, they make your food taste nicer and that’s a good thing, right?

So here you go... Five Spices To Accelerate Fat Loss (and make your food taste good)

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is great for controlling blood sugar and improving insulin sensitivity. By controlling blood sugar you prevent the fluctuations that cause cravings therefore it naturally suppresses your appetite and prevents you from overeating.

Ginger

Ginger is great for two reasons. Firstly it aids the digestive process which leads to better absorption and consequently better nourishment. This is a much understated element of fat loss. Ginger also has a thermogenic effect which increases the rate you burn calories.

Red Chilli Powder

Like ginger, red chilli powder has a thermogenic effect. You probably feel it if you eat to much and start to sweat! Nutrients within the red chilli also contain potent metabolism boosting ingredients.

Cardamom

Cardamom is another spice thats great for your digestion. It cannot be overstated the benefits of improving your digestion. Your gut is like your second brain. Treat it well.

Turmeric

Turmeric improves your digestion of fats. This is never gonna be a bad thing. It also is a rich source of antioxidants. That’s why some people consider it a super-food.


I could go on and on. Including spice in your foods is great for health and fat loss.

The Story of Fat Loss: The Afterburn Effect

A couple of months ago I wrote an article I called The Tortoise and The Hare. We all know the story, the hare started off fast and ran out of steam and had a nap under a tree whilst the tortoise paced himself, took his time and won the race. My point at the time was about specificity. The tortoise won the race, but the hare looked better in a bikini.

Now, despite my clever and humorous approach to describing what seems to me to be very simple the point seems to of been missed. With thousands of people heading off to gyms to achieve the obligatory ‘New Year, New You’ resolution I can still see the same mistakes being made.

Unfortunately the majority of people will be doing the same lame gym routine, attending the same lame class or following the same lame diet as last year and expecting something other than the same lame results they’ve always got.

I don’t mean to be critical (actually I do) BUT if it didn’t work for you last time, surely it won’t work for you this time, right?

So....... This leads us back to the tortoise and the hare.

My point a couple of month ago was that if your ambition is to win a long distance running race there may be some merit in taking it slow. However, if your ambition is to look smoking hot on the beach, at a party in a little black dress or simply without any clothes on you needn’t take the same approach.

Please don’t misinterpret what I’m about to say. Slow and steady cardiovascular exercise will not make you fat. It might bore you to death, injure you or make you hungry for carbs, but I agree doing something is better than nothing.

When someone comes to me and wants to get fit (more specifically look good in a bikini) unless they enjoy pounding the street or spending 45 minutes on the cross-trainer I’m not gonna get them doing it.

The majority of my clients are hopelessly short of time and any ‘spare’ time they make for exercise they need to use wisely. This is why having a better understanding of EPOC or The Afterburn Effect is essential.

I make no secret of the fact that eating a clean diet is essential to burn fat. BUT hand-in-hand with nutrition is exercise and a double whammy of both is best.

When exercising for fat loss you need to consider EPOC (exercise post oxygen consumption) - the recovery of metabolic rate back to pre-exercise levels.

Many people are fixated with the calorie expenditure during the event (the exercise) and totally overlook what happens afterwards. The truth is once you have finished exercise it can take several minutes for your metabolism to return to pre-exercise rate with light exercise or several hours for something more intense or more vigorous.

Evidence might dispute exactly how big the contribution of EPOC makes to the whole fat loss equation but observation of professional athletes who participate in similar activities can offer a great insight. For example - a football player who for all sense and purpose repeatedly sprints for 90 minutes has a lean and toned physique, a marathon runner such as Paula Radcliffe runs at the similar speed for two and a half hours and whilst lean does not have a similar sort of muscle tone and instead has a kinda skinny fat body shape. Which one would you prefer to look like?



Another important distinction comes when in isocaloric comparisons (meaning the session burnt the same amount of calories during them) resistance training always results in greater fat loss than aerobic training. Like I said the reasons why this is so and to how big or small this effect can be is up for dispute, but the evidence is clear. If you want more fat loss in shorter amount of time doing exercise with a significant afterburn effect is essential.

So what does this mean to you? Well, if you have a limited time for exercise and want to be fit and toned (like the hare or the football player) you MUST work at a higher intensity.

It’s not so much to do with what you do at the time, its the after effects that matter. If you work at a higher intensity with short durations of more intense efforts with short timely recoveries you will experience accelerated fat loss. You can do this in the gym with free weights or on a treadmill or you could do it outside with body weight training or you could just find a big hill and run up and down it several times.

However you choose to do it, if you want to burn fat fast consider EPOC.

The Story of Fat Loss: Fat Mobilisation

So in the last post I elaborated on fat metabolism. There is a ton of stuff we can do to speed up fat metabolism like reducing toxicity, improving digestive function, getting to bed on time - just stuff that improves your biochemistry. The area I chose to focus on was increasing muscle - NOT bodybuilding and not to make you bulky - but to improve you resting metabolic rate. You can read more here.

BUT WAIT!!! Theres more....

Fat metabolism is one thing. Fat mobilization is another.

Burning fat essentially involves 3 steps - mobilization, transportation and oxidation.

Step 1 - Mobilization, involves getting fat out of the fat cells. You need to get it out of the cell and into the muscle to burn it as energy.

You can understand your bodies reluctance to give up fat stores. Evolution designed us to preserve energy. Therefore, because of evolution, our bodies don’t want to burn fat or lose weight. Plus we like food and keep putting sugary easily absorbable energy back in the system so it makes it difficult!

Therefore I’m gonna level with you - to mobilize fat we do actually need a calorie deficit. A shortage of fuel means the body draws on energy stores. This doesn’t mean a 500cal diet, there are smarter ways...

Please first bear this in mind, our body has three energy stores - glycogen (from carbs), lean muscle (from protein) and fat. (this is a really simplistic explanation and perhaps its a little bit more complicated than this, but I like the simple explanation so we’ll go with that for the time being..)

Let’s cut to the chase, glycogen (starches & sugar - carbs) is the easiest place for your body to get energy. Therefore, for the most efficient way to target body fat you will need to keep glycogen low.

To do this you can use a combination of diet and intense exercise. This will use glycogen - this means the body cant do the lazy option and get it from there.

To further support this process and to fully support fat metabolism and increase your resting metabolic rate you will need to develop and/or maintain muscle and keep it active. (ala the last post...)

Therefore a reduced carbohydrate diet and intelligently prescribed strength-based training program will shift the body into a fat burning furnace.

Now for the science...

So how do you get the fat out of the fat cell?

To get the fat out the fat cell or to mobilize fat you need to break down triglycerides in the fat cell into free fatty acids to enter the bloodstream.

This happens by maintaining a lower blood sugar. When you maintain a lower blood sugar the hormone glucagon signals to activate hormone sensitive lipase (HSL) and to convert triglycerides into free fatty acids and to transport them to muscles and the liver where they can be burned.

This whole process is limited by HSL. This is referred to as a rate determining step.

A rate determining step (RDS) is the slowest step in any chemical reaction and is similar to the neck of a funnel. (You could stimulate fat-loss with hard exercise and an energy deficit to get fat into blood stream BUT unless you support the process with good nutrition you will be hampered by these RDS's - Hence the need for a fully integrated approach to fat-loss...) Limiting the effects of the RDS’s is the name of the game if we want fast and sustainable fat-loss.

In simple terms, if HSL is low the fat mobilization will be slow. If HSL is high the fat mobilization will be fast. So you can see why increasing HSL is our goal.

To do this we need to increase catecholamine levels in the blood.

So how do we increase catecholamine levels in the blood? Exercise. The more intense the better. Intense exercise elevates catecholamine levels and HSL levels which equals accelerated fat loss.

But wait... There is one other rate determining step to consider. Your body secretes insulin to remove glucose from the bloodstream. HSL can also be limited by insulin.

To lower insulin you MUST keep blood sugar under control. (do you notice a similar theme occurring here?!)

So, regardless of whatever rate determining step the basic strategy is still the same - managing blood sugar and intense exercise is essential for mobilizing fat.

This will keep insulin low and catecholamines high which will lead to HSL being high which will convert triglycerides into free fatty acids to enter the bloodstream to be burnt as fuel...

So what about the transportation and oxidation of fat?

So HSL is high, fat cells breakdown free fatty acids (FFA) which are transported in the blood to muscles to be used as fuel. But another rate determining step (RDS) occurs...

Everything at this stage becomes dependent on carnitine levels. Carnitine transports FFA’s to mitochondria (the powerhouse of cells) where it is burnt. In simple terms, increased carnitine equals increased fat loss, increased carnitine equals increased mitochondria activity.

How do you increase carnitine levels? ANOTHER RDS! (Do you think our body is looking to hold on to this stubborn body fat... remember your body doesn’t want to lose fat!!) Muscle glycogen levels have to be low for carnitine to be high.

So... for optimal fat oxidation we NEED to deplete muscle glycogen through intense exercise (resistance training/ bootcamp/ intervals) and making better choices with food (low carb).

In essence, high levels of fat mobilisation + high levels oxidation = accelerated fat loss

Just to note: waste products occur during all of these processes and are processed through the kidneys. Your kidneys require water to do there jobs efficiently.

If you don’t drink enough water and are dehydrated the burden passes to the liver. The liver is useful in this process because it processes stored fat for energy.

If the kidney is slow in doing its job (due to dehydration) the liver will help out.

While the liver is processing waste products it is less efficient at mobilizing body fat. So... You NEED to be hydrated to burn fat. (This also supports the notion why eating better quality clean food is important to burn fat (i.e. DETOX)

To cut a long story short... Stabilize blood sugar with a reduced carbohydrate diet and do intense exercise such as resistance training or intervals.

Remember, fat loss is simple. It is simple, not easy.

The Story of Fat Loss: Fat Metabolism

I was gonna call this piece ‘fat metabolism, fat mobilization and why a truly integrated approach to fat loss is necessary.’ Yawn. You can see why I decided to change my mind.

The subject is vast. And believe me - everyone has an opinion!

Day after day I read a facebook updates, blog posts and articles in the paper by so-called intelligent people and can’t help but feel many are missing the point.

Fat loss is a physiological process and I’m sorry to burst your bubble IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT EAT LESS & MOVE MORE!!! Sure, there is an element of truth to it BUT if you want to achieve fast and sustainable results there is a better way.

Fat loss is simple. It is simple, not easy. It does involve a deliberate effort - even if you understand the mechanisms of fat metabolism and fat mobilisation. Therefore I will emphasise from the start that the most important aspect in any fat loss plan is to adopt the fat loss mindset (more on that later).

The first aspect you need to understand is fat metabolism. Or more accurately metabolism.

Your metabolism is in essence how your body burns calories. It is your bodies total energy expenditure. This is the result of all the chemical reactions within your body. This includes the metabolic affects of functions such as breathing, digestion, heart beat, movement, etc.

To give you a dictionary definition ‘metabolism is a set of chemical reactions that occur within the body to maintain life.’

The sum of all these chemical reactions within the body equals metabolic rate.

Quite simply the metabolism or metabolic rate is how much energy (or calories) you burn on a single day.

You NEED to understand that a large percentage of total metabolism (60-70%) is derived from your resting metabolic rate. This is the percentage required to maintain basic function WITHOUT ACTIVITY. So simply put, if you stayed in bed all day and didn’t move (it does happen!) this is your bodies resting metabolic rate. Just to remind you this accounts for 60-70% of your total metabolism. When explained like this you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see why this is important, that being said we will revisit this in a moment to explain why this is relevant. Just to remind you your resting metabolic rate equates for 60-70% of total calorie expenditure.

It is estimated that a measly 20-30% metabolism is activity induced (exercise and movement). Many people will have heard me expose the inadequacy of slow steady cardiovascular exercise for fat burning and understanding how the body burns calories, understanding this aspect of the fat loss process and understanding metabolism highlights exactly why.

If we take a step back, a large contributor to metabolism is resting metabolic rate. Included in this is muscle. Muscle is perhaps the most metabolically active tissue that we can directly affect. Even at rest muscle is metabolically active. Building muscle (I’m NOT talking about body building and doing this will NOT make you bulky girls!!) will increase your resting metabolic rate giving you the ability to burn more calories at rest (without moving!!)

Slow and steady cardio will have a moderate metabolic affect in the short term (i.e. While you do it...) however does not build muscle and will not have a large metabolic effect in the long term. Therefore not only is cardiovascular training slow, boring and have a high incidence of injury (ankle, knee, hip and lower back pain), it is not the most efficient method of fat loss.

For a faster more sustainable way to lose fat, building muscle is the way to go. And I’m sorry guys this doesn’t involve doing 10 repetitions on the bench press and then spending 10 minutes looking at yourself in the mirror! I will elaborate on a better way for both guys and girls to build muscle later in this piece.

The remaining 10% of fat metabolism is dietary induced. Certain foods have a thermic effect and this can have a metabolic demand.

The Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) can vary. For example fat has a very low TEF meaning it doesn’t have a high energy cost to the body to process and store for use. On the other hand protein does and so we could also can also carefully manipulate macronutrients to stimulate fat loss.

Just to remind you, metabolism is the sum of your resting metabolic rate (60-70%), activity induced (20-30%) and dietary induced (10%).

The way most people go about this from this point is to work out there resting metabolic rate and only consume that amount of calories using the any activity and dietary induced energy expenditure to create a energy deficit. This will stimulate weight loss.

Creating an energy deficit to some degree is important for fat loss. We’ve all heard the eat less, move more mantra. However, if you consume too few calories to support basic function, over time, the chemical reactions within the body slow down meaning a slower resting metabolic rate.

In fact, following a reduced calorie diet for an extended period of time can mean your body stops using fat for fuel and starts to use muscle. Of course muscle is a metabolically active tissue and so any reduction in muscle is a bad thing.

If you are reading this and have spent years going from diet to diet and now ‘struggle’ to lose weight consider - perhaps the restricted calorie diet you have followed (sometimes they call it points, red days, green days... It all amounts to the same thing!) might now contribute to your weight loss challenge. You might actually have a sluggish metabolism due to eating less.

Therefore the answer should be clear. Increasing activity levels, increasing muscle and as a consequence increasing resting metabolic rate is the way to go. Calorie counting and slow steady aerobic exercise are not!

Understanding fat metabolism - the way your body burns calories - leads to a far greater understanding of the fat loss process. From this we can create a truly integrated approach to fat loss that includes both exercise and nutrition. One that lends itself to developing or at least maintaing muscle, a metabolically active tissue that will increase our resting metabolic rate and make us look ‘hot’ and ‘toned’.

So you can understand why developing muscle is important to the fat loss process, right?

Resolutions Resolved: 3 Steps To Fitness

You’ve decided this year is the year to lose weigh and get fit. Let me help.

To do this the most efficient way you MUST use a combination of factors...

EAT...
Start by eating best-quality fresh nourishing foods and drinks. Stuff like meat, poultry, fish, vegetables, fruit, beans, peas, legumes, nuts and seeds. Drink a combination of water and herbal teas. Cut the obvious big baddies such as processed food (anything in packaging), sugar and alcohol and you’ll be on your way. This is easier to do than you think.

MOVE...
You need to do something everyday to elevate you metabolism. The shorter and more intense the better. My clients generally start with a simple workout I call Five Alive. Basically do 5 press ups, 5 squats, 5 spidermans (on each leg), 5 lunges (on each leg) and 5 burpees. Repeat this five times and in less than 15 minutes you will have a very effective workout to do in the comfort of your own home. Work at your own speed but when you get better at it shorten the time in between exercises so it looks like this.

REST & RECOVER...
Perhaps the most underrated aspect of a good fitness plan is rest and recovery. Getting to bed a little earlier (10pm-10:30pm), treating yourself to a massage once in a while to loosen tight muscles and managing stress will go a long way to achieving your fat loss and fitness aspirations this year. When you are better rested you have more energy and your body works more efficiently to burn fat.

If all this sounds a little daunting, why not hire a coach. Under expert guidance research suggests you will work 30% harder. This means you will get better results. The accountability will keep you on track too.

For expert guidance why not give me a call. You could come to my fitness camp or do some personal training. Contact me TODAY and let me help.

Steve