Why being strong will increase your quality of life

Top 10 reasons strong is the new skinny, Part 4:

Over the last 30 years the amount of daily activity adults get has significantly reduced, much of our employment now means working at a desk 😬

Gone are the days when we built ships, farmed the land and did physical GRAFT for a living.

 With much of the U.K now working in service based industries, we are now expending less and less energy in our daily lives. Few of us shop in the High Street, going between shops looking for the best deals. I remember the days of spending all day, with my parents in town searching for the best way to spend money. Society is engineered to take the physical element out of our lives completely. Now everything can be done at the touch of a button, with vast amounts of choice. In short we are conditioned to be lazy.

Check out this list of apps for lazy people, INCREDIBLE!💁https://www.greenbot.com/article/3104195/android/the-list-10-apps-for-ridiculously-lazy-people.html

-Soon there will be an app to wipe your butt, after using the loo! 😹

On a serious note..........
The NHS guidance suggests that to stay healthy, adults aged 19-64 should try to be active daily and should get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity such as cycling or brisk walking every week, with additional strength exercises on two or more days a week that work all the major muscles: legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms (moderate exercise is completed at an intensity where you struggle to hold a conversation and exercise).

So what's the beef?

“Humans now have a choice not to be physically active. Conclusive and overwhelming scientific evidence, largely ignored and prioritized as low, exists for physical inactivity as a primary and actual cause of most chronic diseases.” –National Centre for biotechnology information.
Further reading can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4241367/Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for global deaths. 

Being overweight is the fifth leading risk for global deaths meaning that, 2.8 million adults die each year as a result of being overweight or obese. Statistics show that being overweight is also attributable to:

44% of the diabetes burden

23% of the ischaemic heart disease burden

7% to 41% of certain cancer burdens

Take home: Being strong, fit and healthy, is not about vanity, insta selfies or even self acceptance. It's about doing everything you can to prolong a healthy and happy life. Of  course, nobody can say that by being "healthy" you won't be struck by disease or illness, but I sure know that anything which can help deter disease is important for both myself and my clients. 

Thanks for reading,


Andy

Andy Payne is a Personal Trainer, based near Brighton in East Sussex, and founder of Three Pillars of Fitness, Exercise : Diet : Mind. You can follow him on Facebook and twitter 

If you have any questions or would like to talk to me about how you can improve your own, diet and lifestyle without depravation and increase strength, then why not get in touch? Call me on 01273 258212

The right mindset to build strength

Top 10 reasons strong is the new skinny Part 3:

There's more to it than physical strength.......

When I talk about being strong, I don't mean looking like you're an over filled, over grilled sausage who's spent too long on the barbeque. I'm talking about having the strength to live a healthy fulfilled life and being functional or able to do all activities of daily life, without burning out.

To increase strength, is not (necessarily) a ticket on the vanity train, but developing physical strength will require hard work, an investment of time and money plus a wholesome, healthy relationship with food. In addition an increase in strength will empower you to understand that anything you desire is possible, if you are prepared to work for it and be consistent!

Getting stronger and stronger is great for your health, and is a goal which can almost always be progressed.........

Try this for size: 

"I originally started with a goal of a 20kg chest press, when I achieved that I went on to 25kg, now I can lift 75kg no problem!! (insert your own strength goals 💪).

Investing in your physical strength will help create mental strength and resilience. In a world, which is often shallow and judges purely based on looks. As Arthur Ashe once said:

“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” 

Arthur's quote hits the nail on the head, you can spend the rest go your life getting stronger, you can't do that with weight loss. 

Matters of the mind(fulness):

In some cases of anxiety, the brain is stuck thinking about the past and things that have gone wrong, our brain becomes lazy and assumes that things will go wrong in the future this amounts to a fear of the future (anxiety). Being mindful is all about living in the current moment, concentrating on what's happening in this very moment- Exercise is a perfect way to practice Mindfulness: E.g: You've done 6 push ups, you're beginning to tire. YOU ARE LIVING IN THE MOMENT and push on to the 7th, you have no time to worry about what's happening in the next few minutes never mind the next few months or years. All that matters is the push up!

Take home: Having a goal to become stronger will mean resistance based exercise. As you focus on movement you will be in the moment which is great for your mindset, progression through a challenging workout will develop a "can do attitude" which has the power to change your outlook forever 💪.

If you have any questions or would like to talk to me about how you can improve your own, diet and lifestyle without depravation and increase strength, then why not get in touch? Call me on 01273 258212

Thanks for reading,

Andy

Andy Payne is a Personal Trainer, based near Brighton in East Sussex, and founder of Three Pillars of Fitness, Exercise : Diet : Mind. You can follow him on Facebook and twitter 

Eat the right diet to support strength

Top 10 reasons strong is the new skinny Part 2:

The goal is skinny...... the cost is variety in the DIEt and volume of food= Restriction and FAILURE, something which the health and fitness industry has profited from for far too long!

The very fact that you are here reading this is nothing short of a miracle, from the moment you are conceived until you shuffle off in a box, you / your body is burning energy.
With every breath, every heartbeat, every thought, movement, frustration and celebration you ARE burning energy, nutrients and vitamins.

✋Raise a hand if you've ever been on a calorie controlled diet and failed to stick to it for more than a short period of time. The chances are, the new diet, lifestyle or exercise regime is too far away from your old habits. Put simply you are asking too much of yourself, both physically and mentally.

You've heard the saying "Rome wasn't built in a day" healthy lifestyles are the same, it takes time to build a healthier lifestyle. The foundation of successful change in your lifestyle is a minimum amount of disruption. 

Conversations with clients often sound like this:
Client: "But Andy, I have lots of things that need to change!"
Me: "That's cool, lets change one thing at a time, lets prove we can do that one thing before moving onto another!" 

Psychologically, those who enrol in a restrictive diet experience significant changes in their cognitions concerning eating: subjects become more preoccupied with thoughts about food!

Take home.........

Trends will come and go, remember Atkins? Rosemary Connelly? Herbal life? etc etc.....All sought to sell a miracle cure, none of them created an education in food, a platform for long term change, a process of personal growth and empowerment. Shifting your goal away from being skinny to becoming strong will require a lot of energy/food and variety/ from lots of nutrients, meaning those feelings of depravation will disappear instantly.

At Three Pillars of Fitness, this is exactly what I do with my clients:

Stage 1: 
Continue current relationship with food, whilst logging exactly what's consumed.
Stage 2:
Swap sub optimum foods, with better options (same volume/ calories)
Stage 3:
Reduce calories to desired amount (total calories needed with a small deficit where appropriate-depending on goal)
Stage 4:
Maintain stage 3 and return to tracking and goal setting every 3-6 months

If you have any questions or would like to talk to me about how you can improve your own, diet and lifestyle without depravation and increase strength, then why not get in touch? Call me on 01273 258212

Thanks for reading,

Andy

Andy Payne is a Personal Trainer, based near Brighton in East Sussex, and founder of Three Pillars of Fitness, Exercise : Diet : Mind. You can follow him on Facebook and twitter 

Top 10 Reasons strong is the new skinny Part 1:

So, you've been to the docs, they've measured your weight and your height.
Then, BAM! They tell you..... Mr Smith, according to the BMI scale you are obese!

• You spend the next 6 months, starving. Desperately trying to get rid of this STUPID LABEL. 
• You drop your calorie intake to 1200, per day for 6 months and hit the gym!
• You're exhausted, life is no longer enjoyable and you are irritable (with headaches to boot!)

Cardio and starvation will work, RIGHT? 
Wrong (Well, at least it's not a long term solution!)

For many years the NHS and other health care professionals have used BMI as a single measure of health......

This is too simple, because your total weight is more than that, contained within your total body weight is a number of other measures, which make up your composition:

• Body fat percentage (visceral and subcutaneous fat)
• Bone mass/ weight
• Intracellular and extracellular hydration
• Muscle weight/ percentage

According to the national centre of biotechnology information “Caution should be observed when using the BMI as a measure for interpreting overweight and obesity as body composition can be highly variable yet have the same BMI. Therefore, BMI is not a reliable measurement of body composition in individuals particularly in older and younger people.”

More here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15615272

So what should I concentrate on? 

In order to be truly healthy I recommend that you shift your focus away from your weight and the DREADED SCALES and focus your workouts on a combination of cardio vascular exercise such as fast walking or running (anything that increases heart rate) and strength exercises. Strength exercises could be: working with a resistance band, resistance machines in the gym or hand/ free weights (other strength exercises exist!).

Take home........

Having strength and health will allow you to live a fulfilling, happy life, activities of daily life are much easier when we have a strong body and muscles (queue ARNIE!). 

If you have any questions or would like to talk to me about how you can improve your own strength and lifestyle, then why not get in touch? Call me on 01273 258212
Andy

Andy Payne is a Personal Trainer, based near Brighton in East Sussex, and founder of Three Pillars of Fitness, Exercise : Diet : Mind. You can follow him on Facebook and twitter