Thoughtful Tuesday - 27

Hey all so I'm in to the start of my second week of the carb cycling and so far so good I am pleased to report. So far this week I have managed to lose 1.5lbs, which probably doesn't sound a lot but it is just perfect for what I want. Losing around 1lb a week would be great as then I'm pretty sure it will all be coming from my fat stores. If I had more to lose in the first place I would hope for slightly larger losses week on week but I don't so this is perfect. So last Tuesday I was 87.3kg and I am down to 86.6kg. If by next Tuesday I could be around 86kg then I would be very happy indeed. I took my measurements on Thursday so I will take them again this Thursday and give you the results next week. I'm hoping for some good results!

So the actual diet, how is it going? Surprisingly enough not too bad at the moment. The main thing I'm struggling with is to make sure I get everything in. I'm making it so far but it's still a little tough. Need to get more organised me thinks. Things should be better this week though. As for my workouts, this time I have changed things round a little bit to incorporate two more circuit based sessions. These are still weight based but designed more to ramp my heart rate up and have very little rest. I really don't like them! I mean I think I would almost prefer to grab a spoon and dig a hole in my leg than do them, but I know they will do me good so I'll keep up with them! With that I'm still keeping in 3-4 more strength orientated days to make sure I keep hold of my muscle, I want as little wasted as possible. So I'm still lifting heavy and regularly for the majority of my sessions.

So first week done and things are going well, they will get harder as the diet gets tougher but at the moment I'm happy. I might not be so next week!

J

Joslyn's Blog Spot - Peanut Butter and Chocolate Power Balls!!

Lots of clients ask for suggestions on healthy snacks to eat on the go! And courtesy of a client who has a six-pack and two young boys (just in case anyone had any excuses stored up), I've managed to get hold of a handy little recipe book from Solgar Vitamins. It's called 'Whey of Life' and has tons of great recipes including, breakfast, smoothies, savoury dishes, savoury dishes, and sweet treats, all made with protein, and free from bad fats, sugar, and lots of other nasties. (It does recommend soya as an alternative to milk, but they can't be perfect)

Anyway, I thought I'd share one of the fab recipes with you, the perfect snack...are you ready!!

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Power Balls:

2 tbsp organic, salt-free Crunchy Peanut Butter
1 tbsp runny organic honey
3 scoops of plain or chocolate flavour protein powder
1 tbsp of ground flaxseeds
1tbsp of Solgar Omega Advanced Blend (or any oil with the ratio 2:1:1 - omega 3:6:9 respectively)
1 tbsp organic cocoa powder
1-2 tbsp chopped nuts
apple juice or rice milk, 1-2 tbsp if needed to bind the mixture

Combine all of the ingredients, excepting the apple juice and chopped nuts in a bowl. Work together with your hands to form a firm paste similar to the consistency of marzipan. Add a few drops of the apple juice or rice milk if necessary to bind. Form into 8 round balls the size of a walnut. Roll the balls in the chopped up nuts, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. DE-LIC-IOUS!!

14 Week Transformation

Hello to all, the sun is out and I'm currently finishing my 3rd week at 'One' and I'm ashamed to say I haven't trained since the 15th Feb!..
From Monday I will have exactly 14 weeks till my brothers wedding in Italy and there you have it - My motivation.
I will be training 5 days a week with 2-rest days In-between. My goals are varied between Sports Conditioning (back onto cricket again) and looking to put on some lean muscle mass.

My current weaknesses are my legs from numerous injuries and Arthroscopies so I will be looking to incorporate legs into at least 2 days of training including 1 strength day.

For added motivation I will be adding a Blog with my progression throughout these 14 weeks to keep you all updated with my progression including my measurements and skin folds changes.

My weeks training will look like the following:

Monday - Legs & Back (6-8 Reps)
Tuesday - Chest (6-8 Reps)
Wednesday - Legs Conditioning (12-15 Reps and Dynamic Stretching)
Thursday - Shoulders and Arms (6-8 Reps)
Friday - "The 300 Workout" which consists of the following.
- 25 pull-ups
- 50 deadlifts at 135 pounds
- 50 push-ups
- 50 box jumps with a 24-inch box
- 50 "floor wipers" (a core and shoulders exercise at 135 pounds)
- 50 "clean and press" at 36 pounds (a weight-lifting exercise)
- 25 more pull ups for a total of 300 reps

The idea behind the 300 Circuit is to complete the 7 exercises at your quickest time possible whilst maintaining good form. Throughout the 14 weeks I will be able to perform each exercise more efficiently with less rest times, and there you have it - Progression!

Wish me luck!

Scott

InTake vitamins - eat food!!!

I was on my way to work, people watching and listening to music and read the title over someone's shoulder ... I know, I know I should not be reading over the shoulder, not very nice is it?

"Stored vitamins go off in a week" the Metro says, talking about how all the supplements can turn into candy if stored in bathroom or kitchen cupboards. Researchers say how the moisture gets into the vitamin and supplement bottles and destroys them.

Before we think about that, it may be worth having a closer look at what vitamins are and how they work and whether supplements actually do what it says on the tin in the first place.

In the late 19th century a German scientist Justus von Liebig thinking he cracked the mystery of human nutrition, discovered macronutrients existed (protein, carbohydrate and fats) and also created a meat extract in a form of bouillon and the first baby formula based on cow's milk, wheat flour, malted flour and potassium bicarbonate - both of which were meant to be meal replacements or substitutes. According to Liebig probably even a better option to real, natural food. Soon after doctors started noticing that babies fed solely on that formula were not developing as well as those fed proper food, which therefore led to a conclusion that there was something missing in Liebig's formula. As a result in 1912 the vitamins were discovered. They were the first set of micronutrients to be discovered by the Polish biochemist Kazimierz Funk (what a man!). The name comes from 'vita' for life and 'amines' for organic compounds organised around nitrogen.

Vitamins were firstly separated from foods and then synthesised artificially in laboratories. Soon they became the magic molecules able to cure diseases, promoting growth in children and long life in adults. The research has even gone as far as claiming that vitamin C in citrus fruits and beta carotene in some vegetables prevent cancer. The research was based on people eating fruit and veg. Scientists knew that there is vitamin C and beta carotenes in those decided that it must be them actually preventing cancer. But knowing that citrus fruits are not purely made of vitamin C molecules and veg are not purely beta carotenes, there comes a question of whether it is vitamin C or beta carotene on its own or a combination of different chemicals that deserve all those claims?

Scientists insist on testing nutrients rather than foods. Fair enough it will be hard to test a fruit or a veg, however that's what we - human beings eat. We do not eat nutrients ... unless we take supplements - artificially made synthetic equivalents of what we find in fruit and vegetables. Which have also been proved to have little effect. Okay they may support, but they will not replace healthy, balanced diet! An important thing to realise and remember that there are hundreds of other chemicals and compounds in each fruit or vegetable rather than just carbohydrate or a specific vitamin. They all interact and work together to have a specific effect on human body. For example Michael Pollan in his 'In Defence of Food' (which I quoted a few times before) gives an example of garden thyme, which has at least 35 different chemicals in it. So imagine ingesting all that every time you eat foods flavoured with thyme. Supplements never come in the same composition of actual fruit and vegetables. Therefore cutting long story short, make sure you eat a good variety of foods (not nutrients!!) and you will be good to go!

On another note, there are also fortified foods like spreads and margarines with added vitamin D for example. The fact that most of population lacks in vitamin D, made scientists add its synthetically created substitute to loads of foods. To start with, stuff like margarine is no good for us as it's man made not natural and our bodies do not really recognise its structure. Secondly how do we know whether we solely need vitamin D for proper bone growth and repair or whether it is vitamin D combined with other chemicals. We do not ... And here we come back to Liebig's formula and macronutrients, then Funk's vitamins which were thought to have solved nutritional mysteries. Now we have antioxidants, carotenes, flavonoids and all sorts of other chemicals which are not fully known yet. And whether we will ever actually know how all the chemical reactions and correlations work for us I am not sure! We may be discovering them step by step but the main thing is to make sure we take in enough goodness through real tasty food and then worry about supplementing as and when needed!

Happy Friday and till next time :)

Marta

My Ideal Training Week...

For the first time in years I'm happy with my training and the progress I'm making with it. I've finally found the consistency and time to be able to do what I want and more importantly what I need to do to progress towards achieving my goals.

I have a Kettlebell Sport Competition in just under 3 weeks, so I currently need to specialise for that. But as soon as that's finished I've worked out my perfect training template. I've chosen activities that I believe will compliment and balance each other well. The plan is to be able to move as well and as efficiently and athletically as I can.

All the activities that I've chosen are things that I've already been participating in this year. My training week will look like this:
Mondays-
i)Weightlifting session including Snatches and Clean & Jerks
ii) Parkour (Free Running) session
Tuesday's-
Rest
Wednesdays-
Weightlifting with some Kettlebell Sport Lifting;
Thursdays-
i)Metabolic conditioning
ii)Trojans Kettlebell Session
Fridays
- Weightlifting
Saturdays
Metabolic Conditioning

The aim as alluded to above is to be as athletic and all round fit as possible. Now 'Fitness' is very specific, marathon runners are fit for running marathons, weightlifters are fit for lifting weights, sprinters for sprinting, however most of these athletes are so specifically fit that they can't do many other things outside of the their discpiline. I want to be at a certain level of conditioning whereby I should be able to do anything at short notice.

A decent test of fitness (conditioning is a more appropriate term) that I've come across is a 3 part test. The three parts are the dead lift, the pull up and the 5minute snatch test.
The dead lift tests maximal strength
The pull up tests relative test
The snatch test tests strength endurance.

I have a Kettlebell Sport Comp in a couple of weeks. As soon as that is done with, the plan is to test the above 3 and then commence my ideal training week. From her eI should be able to with a few weeks of specialisation compete in anything whether it be Olympic Weightlifting, Kettlebell Sport or saving the world!

Thoughtful Tuesday - 26

Okay so having got rid of whatever was affecting my kidneys and have now finished my 2 month bulking (which lasted 4) it is now probably time to concentrate on my food and start to shed a couple more pounds.

So with that goal in mind I am going back on my carb cycling. Now I should probably say that I almost naturally carb cycle anyway but with not much accuracy in what I'm getting in so basically I'm going to be stricter in what I'm eating. Oh joy!

So this is going to work by having a high, medium, low and very low days during my week, probably on an 8 day rotation so no week is the same. Also I will only have 1 high carb day every 8 days in order to really restore my glycogen levels. Plus on that high day I'll only be getting in protein and carbs, I will keep the fat to a minimum. So this can also be seen as a bit of a "cheat" day, now I won't go crazy, probably one or two meals on that day will be more indulgence type foods :-)

I think this style of eating is a generally good way to go, this is because it's not quite as tough as a proper low carb diet plus you are constantly getting in differing amounts of calories and different types of calories too. Your body should never be 100% comfortable with the amount of food it's getting in because it is constantly fluctuating. The only norm will be the amount of protein and the rough timings of the meals. Now the meals, the majority of my carbs are going to be consumed in and around my training, from more starchy sources, most of the others will be from fruit. I'll also be getting plenty of green vegetables but they won't count towards anything so I can eat as much of that as I like. This really comes in handy when the calories start to drop! So typically there will be 3 protein and carb based meals, the other 3 meals will be protein and fat based meals. When I say fat I mainly mean oils, like olive, fish and coconut oils, plus nuts and fish in general.

That's about it, I weighed myself this morning and I was 87.3kg. I haven't taken my measurements yet but I will and will have to keep an eye on everything and change things accordingly.

Wish me luck!

J

What are you thinking ... ?

Probably one of the most intimate questions you can ask another person...

Was sitting on the tube on my way home yesterday sipping on a lovely latte (yes I was drinking coffee! - my first one in a week though, not number 5 in a day, will explain why later) people watching as usual and thinking to myself ... 'what are they all thinking?'

I generally tend to people watch quite a lot and think quite a lot at the same time too. As if you didn't know that yet ;) Any time I get a chance to do it whether on the tube, doing my shopping, walking down the street or even training you. It's absolutely unbelievable how many out there look deep in misery ... Why don't you just go and jump off the bridge if life really is so unbearable? Ok, ok I know it's a bit harsh but really ... be honest with yourselves! Are all the problems and worries bothering us real issues that have the right to affect our lives and way of thinking that much?

I overheard Jos talking to one of you yesterday about far East cultures and people generally being happy with what they have. Have you noticed that the more we have the more we want and the more we worry about everything and nothing ... the vicious circle starts here...

So, going back to my lovely coffee yesterday. I walked out of the studio heading home and popped into pret for a little snack to stop me from chewing off my arm before getting a chance to cook my dinner. Smiley as usual started chatting to the guy there who at the end offered me a coffee, and all that just for being that tiny bit more positive than the usual pret customer. From then on even though the weather was unbearable, people on the tube started smiling back at me (well those that I managed to get to look into my eyes ... another well forgotten thing in this world) and my mood, even though I was absolutely shattered after another busy day just sky rocketed. Had a wicked evening and now I feel even better as it's FRIDAAAAAY :)!

Now ask yourself 3 questions:

Till next time.

Marta :)