- Define your priorities
- Exercise
- Food
- Rest and sleep
Define our priorities
- Physically it may be to be fitter, add muscle, lose body fat, have more energy or just feel more at ease in everyday movement and activity.
- Mentally we may want better concentration, more focus, a greater ability to relax and reduced stress levels.
Exercise
- Remember that resistance training, movement and mobility are the foundations of any training routine - even with an objective is to lose body-fat. Terri Siabi's great blog article explains why compound resistance exercises, particularly for the legs, are so good for many things including fat loss.
- For those of you wanting to focus on your stomach area, our nutritionist Nick Owen reminds us firstly that it's a consistent nutritious eating regime that will have the best results. Nick also says to avoid adding more ab exercises in the pursuit of that defined mid-section – it will make so little difference as we use our abs far more effectively in our big compound lifts, or in unilateral exercises such as single arm shoulder press and chest press, or even a forwards and backwards lunge routine.
Food
- Real foods give us our nutrients, including vitamins and minerals in their natural state - the state in which our body has been designed deal with them – as these are far better than convenience foods or supplements. Try to avoid:
- Anything processed, packaged or marketed as low-fat or diet etc.
- Anything that talks about calories or calorie restriction
- Anything with traffic light labelling – this usually means it is processed, and often a green or amber light is achieved by a ridiculously small portion size.
- And remember too that we can never out-train a bad diet - our food and lifestyle choices will always have more of an impact than our exercise routine.
-
It is important to eat a balance across all food groups (including carbohydrate and fat), primarily utilising plant sources, and including plenty of different coloured vegetables.
- Carbohydrate is essential for our energy to power both our training routines and our brains.
- Fat is essential for many things including our ability to utilise fat soluble vitamins ADEK effectively.
-
If we aim to eat healthily for 85% of our diet, most of us will progress towards the results we are looking for. Remember that we are all different, so it is also our responsibility to listen to our body, and if we aren't achieving the results we want, to review our regime.
-
If you are in the habit of snacking, or buying the latest health bar, question its purpose. Do think – is it helping you achieve your goals? If your goal is fat loss, you might be surprised how quickly cutting this out can make a difference.
Rest and sleep
Historically we have often over-looked the importance of rest and sleep.
Both are fundamental to our mental and physical well-being. Sleep is where the body and mind are repaired, re-ordered and readied for the next day. The optimum recommendation for sleep is between 7-9 hours per night. Gone is the view that we are some exceptional human-being if we say we can manage on four hours per night.
Research is enabling us to understand significantly more about sleep, the different phases and what happens in each, and we will cover this over the coming months. Here is a great overview from InBody looking at the effect of sleep on your body composition.
Remember, too little or too much sleep on a regular basis can have significant negative health implications beyond just your ability to exercise effectively.
And finally...
- Wednesday 20th June, 7am to 7pm and,
- Saturday 23rd June, 10am to 1pm