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