weight loss – Page 13 – Never Give Up PT

A Safe Ship Hides Away From It’s Full Potential

It helps having a past full of ‘what ifs’ as a PT. I can draw from my own experiences and, 9 times out of 10, instantly connect with a new trainee because they have the same ‘what ifs’ as me.

Most of the subject matters might be different of course. For me it’s my lack of traveling when I was younger or not saving money when I had the chance. I chose to spend my money on nights out in Leeds and clothes that I didn’t need. One night out in Leeds, even 15 years ago, would easily cost £100. Most weeks I’d go out clubbing twice a week. That’s a lot of the world I could have seen. Instead, I got no further than Majestic’s in Quebec Street, Leeds 1.

I had fun. Regrets don’t weigh too heavily on me. But there is often a ‘what if’ moment as I look back.

Another of those moments and this I can guarantee is something that is identifiable with my trainees is the feeling of unlocking my fitness potential. What if I’d have done this sooner, or done it properly first time round?

Fitter than I’ve ever been now at 43, had I had this knowledge and application 25 years ago could I have saved years of physical pain and mental anguish? I think I know the answer, but it will forever remain a ‘what if’.

I am convinced that, as human beings, we were meant to climb, lift, run, squat, throw and jump. And yet we became so clever that we practically abolished these great human traits and replaced them with lifts, cars, trams, supermarkets, takeaways, online ordering and anything else that required us to do as little as possible in order to get what we wanted. We wanted convenience.

Physically we can still do all of these things that we were designed (or evolved) to do but mentally we are becoming so tied up in the notion that we don’t have to do it.

Our society is becoming fatter and more depressed. We know what we should do. We have a history of millions of years telling us what we should do, but the comfort of convenience takes over.

And it’s not about how many miles you can run or how much weight you can lift. Unlocking your full potential begins by moving. That’s it. That’s the first part and it’s a huge step for lots of people.

But fear engulfs us. We feel safer in doing what we know, even if it niggles away at us as we complain on Facebook about our weight or our latest ailment. We want the replies of ‘You ok Hun?’. We get the rant off of our chest to anyone who will listen for another week or two.

A ship is always safe a shore but it is not what it is built for. No matter how slow it needs to go, a ship is built to move. In doing so it heads into dangerous waters with unprecedented conditions, but it is built to deal with it and reach it’s destination. With a captain and a map the journey is less treacherous too.

We must realise our full potential and set sail ourselves. Another day a shore is another wondering.

My trainees become their own captain. That is the deal, that one day they can train without me. They create an active lifestyle that involves consistent training and a diet that they can enjoy guilt free. Because I know how they felt in the very first day they approached me. And I know how to manage the ‘what if’.

A Husband…

Workout Supplements?

I used to go to the likes of Holland & Barrets and gym bro supplement shops regularly. The mindset of many gyms that I frequented was ‘what is the point of putting in the hard work without supplementing your gainz?!’

It became just as important to me to take the pre workout, creatine, taurine, ZMA, BCAA and protein powder as it was to do my workout. With a short spell of injecting dianobol too, I could be found crawling the gym ceiling more often than achieving anything on the gym floor. We live and learn.

And I guess a moment of change for me was meeting my wife. Not only did she clean up my lifestyle but she could cook. And I’m talking using ingredients that I didn’t even know existed! Ingredients that had all of the natural benefits of what I was trying to find from a capsule or a powder. Fifteen years on and with me exploring my own culinary skills it has been life changing to find that I don’t need all of the supplements in my diet. Eating food will always be the best way to fuel my body.

Back in the gym floor rather than the ceiling.

However, I wouldn’t discredit the supplements I listed above as they can be useful tools depending on your goals and your training period. You need to know how and when to take them and importantly you must realise that there is still the hard work to do in the gym.

Today I was asked twice about protein powder and if it is worth them taking it. Its a common question in my job and yet my answer cannot always be the same. It depends on the person asking. But I have a general rule in protein shakes. Only drink it if you have been unable to eat a decent meal with good a portion of protein. Perhaps you got stuck at work or you’d prefer not to pay a tenner for a dry sandwich at a motorway garage. Then it’s a good time to open up your car boot with your emergency protein powder and shaker bottle inside.

A protein drink shouldn’t be shoe horned into a diet unless you want to gain size. Then you might want to add the calories. Sure, there are low calorie versions, but if you’re being careful with your calories then adding any extra calories from a protein shake seems pointless. Surely when you limit your daily calories your meals become even more important. You need the nutrients, the vitamins and the almost full feeling from real food, not a drink.

For anybody going into training in the gym properly then I would advise a good training program and a sensible nutritional approach. Both of which escaped me for years and is why I became desperate with my supplements hoping for something magical to happen.

At 43 my drive comes from getting stronger and remaining ‘in good shape’. This would see me well as I get older. And the only things that can keep me on the right path is consistent training and nutrition. Not pills and potions.

So be cautious about your supplementation. Speak to a fit pro who you know and trust, I find this much more helpful than asking Gloria from Holland & Barrets. And the gym bro supplement shops are likely to sell you any crap anyway, especially if you come across as a novice.

Foraging In The Happy Place

I’ll admit it right from the off. I’m no Ray Mears.

However, I do like a spot of foraging with my family. Showing my kids how to develop a healthy relationship with food has to be one of the most rewarding of parenting jobs. And turning to nature is the best place to begin.

Mindful eating doesn’t have to start at the dinner table, or indeed in the kitchen. Hunting for food should be one of the most natural things we can do. Mindful eating can start by searching, feeling and smelling for our food.

We are Homo Sapiens. We are meant to hunt. I am convinced that a reason our society is at a critical stage with depression and obesity is that everything we are as humans is slowly getting stripped away. And men, the once titled hunter gatherer, has a much higher suicide rate than females in the western world.

What sense of achievement or satisfaction does a man get from bringing home a KFC bucket to his children? His skills, bravery, creativity and masculinity stripped away from him because humans were too clever for their own good. They invented the convenience of fast food shops and supermarkets. They no longer needed to hunt.

Now I’m not saying that progression and development of societies aren’t useful. But for all of our knowledge, technology and convenience we should still remain grounded in remembering what we are and what makes us tick.

My family and I are lucky enough to live by the sea. Its a 5 minute walk to the cliff edge and the wildlife is fantastic. During lockdown it became our happy place and it soon became a venue for foraging. Today, we were hunting for nettles.

Marigold at the ready to pick the nettles

Once washed and blanched, nettles make great tasting soups, pesto and hummus. Not exactly high on our boy’s list of favourite foods, but we’ve been foraging for a while now and still haven’t come across pizza or fish fingers, so we’ll keep working on their range of favourite meals.

What our kids did discover today though, even if their reactions will look more like a bush tucker trial when it comes to feeding them it, is where the food comes from. They found it and picked it from the land. Their attitude to food, I hope, will be a positive one. One that can find food from the cliff edge as easily as finding the freezer section at Sainsbury’s.

The UK media talk about the possibility of taxing junk food to put consumers off of buying it. But this will only hit the poorest in our society. What we need to do is educate our children if we are to break the cycle regarding our attitude to food.

Our two hours foraging today was, the kids agreed, their highlight of the weekend. That makes me very happy. In a society where competing against the Xbox for the kid’s attention, I’ll settle for that right now.

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.

The Greatest Teacher, Failure Is.

Am I going to start getting hate mail if I admitted to you that I have never seen a Star Wars movie? Add James Bond, Lord Of The Rings, Game Of Thrones and Harry Potter and you have the full set of movies or series that the rest of the world seem to have watched that I haven’t. I fear a perma ban imminent.

My kids, however, love Star Wars. But not enough to have an attention span to watch a full movie. Hence my ability to boast such a statistic.

My youngest loves Baby Yoda. He has a Baby Yoda teddy. I know that he is a character in Star Wars but I’m not sure where Baby Yoda came from. Anyway, Yoda seems pretty cool.

And I know from the amount of books and annuals that my boys have that Yoda has a few wise words to give. My favourite happens to be ‘The Greatest Teacher, Failure Is’.

Failure can teach us so much about ourselves. How we react from it can mould our personalities. I might be the only dad on the touchline who wants his kid’s team to lose sometimes. They are by far the most superior team in the under 8’s league so I know how my eldest reacts through victory, but I like to see his response to defeat. He will realise as he grows up that there are far more disappointments in life than there are successes. So having the emotional grounding to deal with that will help him embrace the victories.

You can only become a good winner if you are first a good loser.

Competition was always something that I excelled in as a kid, at least in a sporting context. I was very average at my academic work and my motivation at school was a case of doing what I had to until the bell rang. In the football field however, I’d give my all. And it was the same in every sport. These days I only run for a bus or if I am chased by a zombie. I tend to miss a lot of buses and I’m concerned about my ability to survive a zombie holocaust if it would ever happen. Yet at school I was a champion runner. I wanted to win, but even then, I realized that failure was a part of the game. It hurt, but it made me better at my sport. Any sport.

Due to sciatica affecting my performances and my recovery I stopped playing many sports. Contact sport were out of the question. I was a keen kickboxer in my early twenties but kicking became painful as the sharp shooting pain ran down my leg. My opponents never hurt me but my injuries did.

Before my passion for sports disappeared altogether and the pull of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll totally gripped me I had to make a decision. How could I still feel a part of a sport and experience success and failure? I took up darts, snooker and chess but they could all be played whilst eating a pizza and drinking beer.

I was introduced to the gym by a friend at a vital time in my life. For me, the gym is my sport now. It cured my injuries as I learned the correct form. And I could have my buzz of failure and success again. There are so many failures involved with a fitness regime. Much much more that there are successes. In fact, blink and you might miss the success. In the gym I climb a hill just to discover a bigger hill. And I like that. Sport doesn’t have to mean me competing against an opponent, it can mean competing against myself.

Today I will compete against my yesterday’s self. Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose. Either way, I will have been taught something.

Perhaps I should watch Star Wars just for Yoda. He seems like a real dude. But that Vader bloke? He needs to take a leaf out of my book, quit the ciggies and get to the gym.

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.

Two Covered Eyes…

I have spoken lots on the need for progression in my talks, in my Personal Training and through blogs and social media and this is because, undoubtedly, it is the most important factor in opening the soul to the countless opportunities that we can give ourselves.

Developing the tools to equip those who desire to find their progression is my job. Standing next to someone and counting reps is what I let other PT’s do. But it goes beyond the gym floor. Indeed it has to extend to the world beyond the gym floor for successful progression to take place. I have not encountered one person yet who has fulfilled their fitness goals when the rest of their lives have been in chaos.

Progressive Overload is a term used to describe a training program that takes us through a number of challenges such as weight load, rep counts, how many sets and rest periods. In fact the progression one can develop in a fitness regime is infinite as there are so many factors attributed to fitness. Strength, speed, stamina, even life longevity all fit into this category. And without personal progression outside of your training program the progressive overload that we seek within our program is stumped.

But we must be open to change and this is where we fail. It is said that caged birds think that flying is a crime. We invest so much time in our surroundings that it becomes a part of us, etched firmly into our mind disabling us from spreading our wings and flying away.

We are so afraid of change that we criticize and often ostracise those who do change or who challenge the need for change.

We have been caged. In the gym we use the Adductor machine every session because the gym put it there and the instructor gave a vague explanation of what it does. A gym member asked me once what the Adductor machine does and I replied ‘Nothing unless you incorporate it into a full body routine including squats and deadlifts’. I gave them my card. I never heard from them again. For them to call me and ask for a full body routine would require them changing their own routine.

I was also asked recently what equipment is good for the belly. ‘Honestly?’ I replied, ‘None of them.’ I gave a few tips on core strengthening in which she replied ‘But I can do them at home’. And there she had her answer.

A gym membership is only useful if you know what to do in a gym. But moving regularly and mindful eating can be done outside of a gym and is great for the belly. It saves a few quid too. That can be classed as progression, but as I have outlined in two examples, if we haven’t got the right tools to progress or refuse the tools in the first place then progression is so much harder to find. Moving is great, but how we move can be better and more progressive.

We are animals that work within our comfort zones. If we applied a heat map to our movement in a gym the same areas would be covered. A part of my childhood was going to the local Working Men’s Club on Friday and Saturday evenings. If anybody sat out of place their name would be mud for the evening and if a newcomer ever won the bingo the shock around the room would be palpable. Something different had happened to the regulars of the club and they were unsettled by the change. Their Saturday night was ruined.

“I’ve never seen them in ere before Mavis”

How many of us go to the same treadmill if it is available? In a fitness class, who stands in the same place waiting for the instructor to begin? And when we go home after our workout, do you sit in the same chair? I know that I do.

But these little quirks don’t hinder our progress. Its the big ones that do. Staying in a job you hate. Going back to a toxic relationship. Looking in the mirror and hating what you see. These are the things that we need to change and it is only you who can change your own progression when you allow yourself to. Two covered eyes can be taught how to see, but a blind mind cannot.