food – Page 7 – Never Give Up PT

Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption EPOC

When we have performed strenuous activity in our exercise routines we might feel tired and our muscles can become sore (delayed onset of muscle soreness DOMS). I want to describe in layman’s terms what is happening to your body and why it is important to your goals.

You might have heard the expressions ‘after burn’ or ‘oxygen debt’. These both describe the state in which your body goes through after training. Depending on how intense your training was this afterburn can last 48 hours and maybe even more. During your recovery, your muscles requires oxygen due to the oxygen used during your workout.

The recovery includes hormone balance, cell repair and the breaking down of fat stores to act as fuel. This is what is known as Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption EPOC.

Many recent studies show that anaerobic exercise or resistance training creates greater EPOC, which is what burns calories after a workout, whilst aerobic exercise burns more calories during the workout.

This is thought to be because of the amount of muscle used during resistance training especially full body, push/pull or high intensity interval training HIIT programs.

When I design a programme for a trainee, it is important to find the balance between what the person’s goal is, what they enjoy doing and what the best course of action is. But what seems to be a constant based on the research done in the past 30 years tells me that every goal needs a certain amount of residence training.

Expect most of my Programming to be resistance training unless you run marathons.

And for the average person where time plays an important factor in their lives, the quickest route to achieving a successful programme plan is through scheduling weight training.

So why should we be very careful when judging our successes in the gym solely on the scales?

Weight training causes micro tears to the muscle and inflammation. Your body acts to heal this process by retaining water and using glycogen to fuel. Water and glycogen adds weight to your scales.

However, over time your body gets used to the stresses of your resistance routine and realises that it no longer needs to retain the amount of water that is has and so reduces it’s water retention, resulting in weight loss.

But, but, but! If you have a progressive programme you will see a slight fluctuation due to new stresses being put onto your body due to progressive overload, which is something I have documented many times.

So weight gain during resistance training, unless you dramatically change your diet, has nothing to do with how much fat you have on your body (and I have to assume that it is fat that you want to lose in terms of weight loss, not a leg).

The science behind the process can be a bit much for us to understand sometimes. Especially as fad ‘experts’ come along and confuse us even further! But if you are doing it correctly (a trusted professional having your back usually helps) then we must continue to have faith in the process.

I hope that this clears a few bits up. Now off you go, let’s get some deadlifts in!

Nach Dem Spiel Ist Vor Dem Spiel (After The Game Is Before The Game)

The 52k dumbbells sit in the same place in the gym on the rack each day. Apart from the Outhouse, the brave, the stupid or the mixture of the three the 52k dumbbells rarely get picked up to be pressed, pulled or curled.

I’m not in the back street bodybuilder gym. Had these 52’s been in there I’m sure they’d be getting more attention than the occasional tickle with a feather duster from the gym staff. I’m in a mainstream chain gym. The type that pretends to serve it’s members by pulling down a screen and playing a recording of professional dancers from Australia and calling it a Tone Class. But credit where credit is due, the gym area is very good and I’ve been to plenty of gyms where the dumbbell weight doesn’t reach 52k.

At the beginning of this year I began my Hypertrophy Programme. The past two years have been difficult to consistently follow a proper periodized programme. It’s been a bit stop starty with lockdowns, gym closures and my own encounter with Covid. Finally, I’m finding some consistency to my training.

Now, in early March, my training and nutrition has exceeded such expectations that a one rep max with those abandoned 52k dumbbells are a possibility. Two weeks into my strength phase and I’m pushing and lifting heavier and better than ever. Once my Power phase begins the 1-3 rep max will be my focus. Physically I am training to give my body the best chance. Mentally I hope I am ready for it. A Power phase can cause incredible fatigue both physically and mentally and I need to get it right to make the months leading up to it feel worth the time and effort. I know that any time in the gym is worth it, but when fatigue kicks in and the psychological doubts begin, the positives seem harder to come by.

But I’m strong. Physically and mentally I have trained for these moments. Sometimes you win, sometimes you fail. But it’s how you go again that matters. I know this. And my success in my latest programme isn’t one that I will celebrate just yet.

Sepp Herberger was a very successful soccer coach in the early 20th Century. He said”, Nach dem spiel ist vor dem spiel.” Translated as, “After the game is before the game”.

One rep, set, session or phase is always followed by another one. There’s no time to admire your success for too long as you simply have to go again anyway. Begin the focus all over again. Battered and bruised maybe, but there’s another game to prepare for. A quick obligatory progression photo in the gym loo is all I have time for. The 52s are waiting.

But you might be wondering what my great obsession is with my current program or indeed these 52k dumbbells. Why is it so important?

At 43 years of age, if I am able to record a 52k dumbbell press, I will have achieved a physical feat that my 20 or 30 year old self could not do. At 43 my bones are meant to be getting thinner and weaker. My body is supposed to be producing less testosterone. My body, says science, is in regression.

Well, I trust science. My career is based on science and it’s research. But I trust myself even more. I am my own research and, despite what researchers have tested on a hundred men in California, I intend keeping on defying science by testing myself in a gym in Scarborough.

There is no exact science.

And my goal of becoming fitter and stronger than ever before is not an attempt to prolong my life. Christ! Between pandemics, wars and global warming I’ll be fine with not overstaying my welcome. But for as long as I’m at this party I want to have fun and be as happy as I can be and the only true way I can ensure that is by getting stronger, even during the stage of my life that I am statistically expected to get weaker.

But I don’t accept being weak or weakened by age. The Grimm Reaper will catch me one day, but age can fuck right off.

The game isn’t up for me. As long as I continue through my phases of training and I keep getting stronger, this game is just the beginning.

My 10 Top Tips For Fat Loss

Here are my top tips for weight loss…

1. Start calling it Fat loss. Unless you want to lose an arm, muscle,an organ or have 10 shits a day then what you want to lose is fat. What you weigh is just a numerical reflection of your relationship to gravity.

2. Love who you are right now. You wouldn’t say to your best friend “I’m not leaving the house with you because you are fat.” So don’t say it to yourself.

3. Be in a calorie deficit. Calculate your calorie consumption for one average week and then you are able to make smarter choices about your nutrition and training.

4. Eat what you want. I’m a PT but also a realist. We will still have down days. Unless you are an athlete with a strict daily diet then no foods should be banned. If you follow step 3, then you will know how much of anything that you can have.

5. Don’t buy a meal plan. Create your own by listing the foods that you enjoy with your ‘must have’ proteins and veggies. Some guy sitting in his bedroom in Sydney knows jack about your lifestyle, dietary needs and health. He might like chicken and broccoli 10 times a day but you don’t have to.

6. Do have a training schedule and stick to it. Either create one yourself or ask for help from a professional who you trust. It needs to be fun, engaging, consistent and work different muscle groups regularly.

7. Practice ‘mindful eating’. Discover new foods, cook new ingredients, sit at a table to eat rather than a plate on your lap. Make meal times an event when you can.

8. Go for a walk. Not only is this useful to incorporate into a training schedule but it allows you to escape the times and places that you are struggling with. If the cakes regularly come out at work in break times, take a 15 minute walk around the block. If they can get cig breaks, you can go for a walk!

9. Don’t fall into the fad diet trap. Any new book promoting weight loss has one thing in common…it has a calorie deficit. But just saying that would make a very short book and they can’t make money from you.

“Remove these 5 foods from your diet and watch the weight roll off!”

So you are taking away the food that you enjoy out of your diet and you lose weight?! No shit Sherlock.

10. Enjoy the process. It doesn’t need to be army camp training every day. It doesn’t mean giving up the foods that you enjoy. Just celebrate the 1% victories because they soon add up.

Saturday Night

As the Black Eyed Peas once sang ‘Tonight is gonna be a good, good night.’ Over the years I’m sure I will have belted that song out as I got ready to go out to the bars and clubs on Saturday night.

These days, though, I’m happy if I get a few black eyed peas in my curry. Saturday nights with kids and with absolutely no desire to replicate my nights in a club before searching for a taxi at four in the morning means that fun and an appreciation for our relax time comes in a different way.

Tonight is a ‘curry off’ in our house. My wife and I usually make this a quarterly event. We each make a curry and side dishes, sit down with a glass of fizz and compliment each other’s cooking whilst secretly thinking that theirs is the best dish. (My wife is the chef in the house, but my vindaloo is unbeatable).

Once we have finished our meal we will crash on our sitting room sofas. This week has been half term, we’ve continued juggling our work and the kid’s extra curricular stuff and, although there’s an early start tomorrow for my eldest’s football match, crashing on the sofa with a couple of beers after good food and great company means that I am totally unapologetic about it. My week, for the most part, is done.

Once the kids are in bed my only gripe will be how Noel’s Crinkly Bottom was so much better than Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. I have other worries too. Those who frequently read my blogs might have gathered that I am an over-thinker. But I can’t fix wars or the world’s issues tonight. I have to concern myself with my own family. And tonight is a curry off, crap TV and, if I can convince my wife, a horror movie. That’s my Saturday night.

We enjoy cooking together. It doesn’t always happen due to work commitments but even if I know that I am cooking for the both of us I am able to explore recipes and learn something new. Mindful eating is an important part of a balanced lifestyle but that has to start by mindful cooking. The textures, the smells, the tastes and the colours always excite me when I am cooking. Not only is the process quite therapeutic, but knowing what I am putting inside of my body is rather empowering.

Now, in no way can I do this at every meal time! Sometimes a couple of crumpets and a protein shake is about as much as I can manage if time is limited. But when I can get that time to cook, especially together with my wife, it is precious.

And when we get around to making our curries this evening, it might not seem as exciting as a night out in Leeds type of party, an Ant and Dec Takeaway party or as Blobby Blobby as a Mr Blobby party. But it will be OUR house party. Crinkly bottoms and all.

So tonight IS gonna be a good, good night. I can feel it.

The Great British Sausage Off

Comparing my sausages on a Sunday morning and putting a timer on my phone to take a picture of them is not what I imagined doing this Sunday. But my wife is in the bath and my kids are perfecting their Fortnite dances in the living room so I thought I’d make them a breakfast. Out came the sausages.

Meat or vegetarian? Will my kids know the difference?!

For those who have followed my previous posts you might remember that my wife did the whole Vegan-uary thing in January. She totally embraced and enjoyed it. And although I didn’t commit to this, due to living and eating together for most meals, my meals became animal free too.

I eat meat. I like eggs, butter and my one true addiction…cheese. Eggs are a versatile, quick and easy protein source and butter is dolloped onto my crumpets far too often. But I could probably take them out of my diet fairly easily. And I can go days now without eating meat thanks to my wife. But cheese?

We will only have a ‘full english’ breakfast once a month. There are a number of reasons for this. We usually have early activities to do with the kids at the weekend so we opt for quicker meals. Also I can rarely eat as early as the kids wake up times so I will prepare their breakfast way before my wife and I are ready to eat.

But today my eldest has no football match to go to and it has been a casual Sunday morning. A Steve Wright love songs on radio 2 sort of morning. As I lay in bed my thoughts turned to sausages.

My kids are needing a little bit more convincing when it comes to meat free alternatives, but the breakfast I’m cooking this morning will be with Linda McCarney’s vegetarian sausages. I’ve had them before and I’m confident that they will like them…as long as I don’t tell them!

Are we preconditioned to eat meat? Does society sway our young minds to choose meat? At school my kids have options for meat or meat free, but unless they’re happy to eat a jacket potato every day the meat free options are limited. There’s still a stigma to vegetarian meals and certainly to vegan meals that they are boring. Maybe some schools and, for us adults who go to restaurants, this might be the case. The animal free section of the menu might be a little uninspiring.

I’ll be sure to update you on how my vegetarian sausages did with the kids but for now I must sign off as they’ll never eat them if they burn in the oven. A charcoaled sausage in whatever form it arrives onto your plate is never going to be a success.

A Short Update…

Little did I know that this time two years ago I would be about to lose my sanctuary (the gym), I would have to fight to keep hold of my business, I would be home schooling my kids, our bank balance and savings would all but disappear and I would be told that if I left my home for more than an hour at a time I could catch a killer desease.

No. It’s not from a Horror movie. In the UK, Covid lockdown restrictions began in late March.

Just before it happened my business as a PT was strong with happy trainees and new people wanting to join. My own training was pretty good and I had a nutrition plan that I was sticking to. My wife was ready to begin a new business and my kids were thriving at school and in extra curricular activities. Our dream of taking our business ideas to Southern France was taking shape.

But March 2020 happened. Trust me this isnt a sob story. My family and friends have stayed healthy and we’ve all rode the waves of two years of restrictions and uncertainties. We’re lucky.

Below is an illustration of how my fitness journey went over the past two years. Top is from May 2020. The sun was shining. I couldn’t leave the house. The BBQ was cranked up daily and a cold beer or G&T time seemed to get earlier by the day. It was boring and stressful. My fitness suffered. Apart from a few token squats as I tried to encourage my kids to exercise to Joe Wicks I didn’t train myself.

Bottom left is from a year later. So three lockdowns (and gym closures) later. Of course I was keen to train when the gym managed to be open and I could go to work but my diet had suffered and I was still trying to cut my alcohol intake down.

Bottom right is from today, Feb 2022. My Programming and nutritioning has been strict for a few months now and alcohol is limited to weekends. Even then I’ve done a dry October and a dry January and, if I’m being honest, I don’t miss it when I don’t drink. Maybe my habit was out of stress?

My journey is far from finished. Indeed, my journey will never end! I’m not looking for a destination.

So there you go, a short update about me, my last two years and my journey so far. Onwards and upwards so they say!

We Are Always Learning Something New.

One of the qualifications that I wanted once I passed as a Personal Trainer was one enabling me to teach boxing. Those within the industry will know that there are lots of different qualifications associated with boxing and martial arts and the Ricky Hatton boxing instructor certification was a popular choice among my PT friends.

But I wanted to make money from my qualifications. I was about to start my PT career at Pure Gym in Leeds. Most of their members aren’t Ricky Hatton and don’t aspire to be. Why would I want a qualification to spa with Tyson Fury costing three grand when I’m more likely to have Tina from Morley paying me to shift a few pounds? I opted for the Boxing For Exercise qualification at a quarter of the cost and it has served me well. I have trained in boxing and kickboxing previously and, as I gained my knowledge at teaching it on my course, many of my trainees have had success at incorporating kickboxing into their fitness programs. I also teach Boxercise which is a very popular class.

Imagine my surprise when, having just passed my Boxing For Exercise course, a 7 ft night club bouncer wanted to vent by doing some pad work after his shift. Pure Gym in Leeds is open 24/7. I was getting hammered by a raging bouncer at 3:30 in the morning. It wouldn’t have been so bad but I had Tina from Morley booked in at 6 before she started her Tesco shift and all I wanted is my bed after Vinnie Jones had finished with me.

Because of my previous training as a punter at various kickboxing dojo’s and then becoming a PT I had lots of demand for pad work. I’ve trained pro/am boxers since qualifying but I never did bother with the Hatton Boxing Instructor certificate. My bread and butter has always been the regular gym goer, like me, wanting to achieve a few fitness goals.

The job often throws in an interesting case now and again though. The Throwing Event athlete training before his season begins again. The American Footballer looking to get stronger and the aspiring Olympian skier who I helped rehabilitate after she had shattered her knee.

So a conversation I had the other day had me perplexed. A lady in the gym was asking me about a certain exercise. Happy to help I showed her the correct form. I then asked her if she would like to join my coaching platform stating it is free to log in and you might find it useful. She scoffed at this suggestion insisting that she did CrossFit five times a week and is very good with food so she didn’t need to join my platform. I smiled, accepted her answer, and went on my way

But it’s left me quite amused! I have coached athletes that have gone on to be very successful in their sports including a Team GB development squad member. Nobody should feel that joining a fitness platform is a cry for help. It’s actually the opposite. It’s an acknowledgement that you are always learning something new. Whatever our goal and whatever our motivation is to reach them I find fitness blogs, YouTube clips, training articles, new workout ideas and coaching platforms an excellent way to develope ourselves in getting to where we want to be.

Team GB’s Thea The Skier on the road to recovery

It really doesn’t matter if you are Tyson Fury or Tina from Morley. We enter a boxing ring, a gym or a running track with the same goal…to do better than the day before. We want to continue achieving so that we can meet our goals. So whether you’re an athlete, a CrossFit enthusiast or a total newbie in the gym, my coaching platform might be for you.

A Slice Of Life

My initial thoughts on posting about my home made pizza was going to be on how many calories you can save yourself by creating it at home rather than a takeaway pizza. There’s a potential of a 500 calorie reduction by making it yourself. The leading pizza takeaways are around 2000 calories for a 12″ Margherita.

But I thought, nah, if you can eat a whole 12″ pizza like I just have then calorie saving isn’t going to be on the forefront of your mind right now.

So then I thought about the money savings. I made a pizza for less than one pound. To get one the same size and the same toppings delivered to your door is easily close to £15. That is a massive saving. In fact, for the same price, instead of buying in a pizza each week you could subscribe to my online fitness coaching with 24/7 PT support. I’m not hot or spicy but my jokes are always cheesier than a quattro formaggi.

Anyway. I digress.

I want to explain how I feel as I make a chilli con/sin carne, curry, pesto pasta or a pizza. Not only do I know exactly what goes into my dish, which is reassuring in itself, but it makes me feel happy. Sometimes I sing along to the radio. I’ve also been known to dance in the kitchen to my kid’s horror. I’m a cross between Jamie Oliver and Fred Astaire in the kitchen once I get chopping a bit of cucumber.

And it also gives me time to think. I think about my family. I think about what I have to do tomorrow and the week ahead. I think about stuff that I’m unable to think about when I’m busy doing other daily chores. I think about not slipping on the sliced red pepper on the floor as I attempt the moonwalk.

Cooking, for me, gives me some time out. I’m very average at it. I have my set specialities which I listed above and that’s where my culinary skills end. But it doesn’t matter. I enjoy it.

Lots of people that I have worked with regarding their weight control either through not eating enough or eating too much isn’t about them having a lack of knowledge around food. Lots of them can cook better than I. They know roughly the nutritional value of a carrot compared to a chocolate bar. It is their emotional eating habits that have taken over.

Eating isn’t always about when you are hungry. Often the strongest food cravings come at our most vulnerable emotional state. We do it without even thinking about it. Even if we are trying to curb our bingeing urges, there’s alway a McDonald’s advertisement not too far away to keep us on our toes. And that’s where cooking our own food can help.

We need to try to develope a much healthier relationship with our food. No food is ‘bad’. We don’t have to feel guilty all of the time. You don’t blow your fitness goals on a calorific meal and you haven’t got an eating disorder because you miss a meal.

Eating something that you have made can be rewarding, you are able to control your calories (and macro’s) much easier, prepare meals for the week with batch cooking and you get to handle real food. Have fun with it. Try making your favourite dishes. Learn about the qualities of each ingredients. Smile as you do it and, rule number one, move like Jagger.