Take The Long View

Most of us don't give much thought to sleeping, eating and exercise each day.
Life is busy and we can easily focus only on what needs to be done, helping other people and meeting deadlines, without a second thought for our own well being.

Our bodies & minds cannot go on indefinitely without care & nourishment, in the form of enough sleep, nutritious food, relaxation and "down time", and if this is lacking for long enough, eventually our system will fail.

If you're going through your days on auto-pilot or only focused on external tasks, schedule some time into your diary each day to take care of YOU!

Not a morning person? - Go to bed an hour earlier

Can't seem to find the time for healthy, nutritious food during the week? - Spend and hour on the weekend making portion controlled meals to freeze for lunch and dinner

Not hungry first thing in the morning and find you skip breakfast? - Get some good quality protein powder for a morning shake to start each day well.

Can't seem to get yourself off the couch to do the exercise you know needs to be done? - Get up and START, tell yourself you can stop after 5 minutes, you'll likely keep going and feel better for it.

Take the long view with your health & fitness, a little each day builds into a week, month, year of new habits that aren't all that new anymore - it's just what you do.

Time passes, we either get healthier & fitter or go backwards, there is no standing still, it's what you do with your time that makes the difference.

GET IT DONE!

:)

How Well Do You Sleep?

Sleep is often our last priority in our busy lives, but it is vital to our health in ways you may not be aware of.

As well as allowing our systems to regenerate and our memories to integrate, getting enough sleep lets bodily processes such as the release of various hormones to take place.

I recently purchased a documentary called Dead Tired which features the latest science from around the world that proves lack of sleep is harmful to the mind and body. It shows evidence that tiredness can cause heart attacks, diabetes, obesity and depression.

It documents a sleep deprivation experiment on an otherwise fit & healthy 25 year old man, and how the experiment had to be cut short as his insulin levels were incredibly high and he was pre-diabetic - the experiment went for a week.

I urge you to watch this DVD and see how sleep disruption and tiredness may be affecting your health, as well as strategies for overcoming this, while still living your life to it's fullest - and it's longest!

*Dead Tired is made by Mindful Media

Body Composition and Fat Loss

Most people who start personal training list one of their goals as "weight loss"; this can be achieved in several ways, not all of them healthy.

You can lose lean muscle, fluid or even lop off a limb to "lose weight", but what you really want to do is lose body fat.

Body composition refers to the amount of body fat you carry versus everything else that isn't fat, like lean muscle, organs & body fluids.

A healthy body fat percentage for women is between 18% and 28%, for men it is 10% - 18% and knowing your body composition allows you eat well to maintain your lean body weight and switch your body to 'fat burning'.

The data below explains the difference between two people who 'weigh' the same, but with different body composition and activity levels:

Person A
Body weight 60kg
Body fat 10%
Fat weight 6kg
Lean weight 54kg
BMR* 1500cal
Activity 1000cal
Total 2500cal

Person B
Body weight 60kg
Body fat% 30%
Fat weight 18kg
Lean weight 42kg
BMR* 1000cal
Activity 200cal
Total 1200cal

*Basal Metabolic Rate (how many calories you burn just keeping your body going) + Activity = Total calories needed to maintain your current weight.

So you can see that despite weighing the same number, the body composition (lean weight vs fat) of Person A allows them to consume more than twice the number of calories as Person B, and given their body fat %, it's a safe bet that more of their intake is nutrient rich food.

I advise all of my clients with fat-loss goals to get their body burning body fat reserves as fuel while building and maintaining lean muscle; the same amount of muscle weighs more than fat, so they may not initially see a drastic reduction on the scales, but you will see and feel your clothes getting larger without feeling deprived of tasty & nutritious foods.

Eating lean protein and as many vegetables as you can with every meal, avoiding processed foods and getting in 30 minutes of cardiovascular work each day, as well as your twice weekly weight sessions will see you gradually and safely reaching your goal.

Happy New Year

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas and New Year break and are looking forward to getting back into the swing of training for 2010.

There are some changes here at ME Time, including a dedicated training room and a great new piece of equipment that means we can work even smarter on your strength and technique.

Some of you have also taken up the offer of an individually tailored fat-loss approach, including body composition analysis, determining your percentage of body fat, and a specific eating plan that gives you maximum nutrition and satisfaction, while having you lose only body fat, not lean muscle.

The end of year celebrations are not always conducive to healthy eating, so thank goodness it's over for another 12 months.

Maintain your focus on your goals, renew your commitment to yourself and get back on track TODAY!

I look forward to seeing you for your first session in 2010 and continuing your GREAT work.

Insulin Response & Weight Gain

Whether or not you are diabetic, you need to understand your body's insulin response to the foods you consume, and how this contributes to weight gain.

Carbohydrates - it doesn't matter whether they are from sugar, bread, pasta, fruit or vegetables - are all the same as far as your body is concerned and they are all ultimately converted into the blood sugar, glucose.

Carbohydrates are digested very quickly - within a few minutes.
This means that within a very short time after a carb-rich 'healthy' meal, the level of glucose in your bloodstream will rise rapidly.

High glucose levels are dangerous and as levels of blood glucose rise, your pancreas will produce a large amount of insulin to take the excess glucose out of your bloodstream.

This is important as insulin is the hormone ultimately responsible for body fat storage. As fats do not elicit an insulin response, they cannot be stored as body fat; it's usually the highly processed wheat for example, that surrounds the saturated fats (eg. a doughnut) that is converted to fat within the body.

Insulin takes the glucose out of the bloodstream. It is converted first into a form of starch called glycogen which is stored in the liver and muscles. The body can only store a limited amount of glycogen in this way, all other excess glucose is stored as body fat. This is the process of putting on weight.

If you are overweight, simply losing "weight" is not the answer; it's not as silly as it first sounds, you can lose weight by lopping off a leg; what you really want to lose is fat.

Reducing your caloric intake to less than your lean body mass requires, essentially starving, encourages your body to hang on to stored fat, as it thinks there is a famine, and this is counter-productive to your fat-loss goals.

To lose fat, your body must use that fat as a fuel, and the best way to force your body to use stored body fat as fuel is to remove your present supply of fuel - the blood sugar, glucose - so that it has no choice in the matter.

Reducing the starches and sugars from which glucose is made means avoiding all processed carbohydrates and replacing them with natural, whole foods - they're called fresh vegetables, people!

Eating protein with each meal will help you feel fuller for longer and including good fats like avocado, olive & flaxseed oils and oily fish in your daily diet will add nutritional value without stimulating an insulin response; your body will stop trying to find glucose and naturally change over to using its own stored fat.

When making your food choices, think about how processed the food is, how much it has been altered from it's natural state and reconsider your options.
It's the little changes over time that bring the big rewards.

Donna Aston Seminar

I attended a seminar on the weekend, presented by Donna Aston, and came away having learned more about the science of losing body fat in one day, than I thought possible.

If you haven't read any of her books, check out your local library or purchase them online, as they're rather difficult to come by in book stores.

The main message of the seminar is no surprise - there is no quick fix and exercise + eating well are key to increased health & vitality.

Losing only your excess body fat, while maintaining lean muscle, keeps your metabolism working for you, avoiding the familiar diet-regain-more-weight cycle that some of you have experienced throughout your lives.

While cardio exercise is an important component of your fitness, you are only using energy while you are doing the cardio. Resistance or weight training builds lean muscle, which uses more energy just existing, thereby raising your resting metabolic rate even after you've stopped lifting the weights.

Healthy eating is not dieting, it is not about deprivation or denial but it is about making better choices for your health and for yourself.

There is no magic trick to losing fat; your results are based on your actions, not your wants, needs or desires.

Over the coming weeks, I will be sharing with you individually the small changes you can make that will see you reaching your goals, based on your willingness to implement them.

Keep taking great care of YOU!

Success is not just on the scales

Links

This is the article I've given to a few of you, from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

And if your back pain has mysteriously disappeared since training, well done!

Remember that all carbs are not created equal, your brain & body need them; eat the whole grain & vegetable kind as part of your balanced plate.

And keep your thinking on the right track with lots of encouraging self-talk