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 

Healthy Treat Brownie.......

You will need: 
 
150g pitted dates

325g raw nuts (I used mixed)

65g raw cacao (or cocoa) powder 

2tsp of vanilla extract (I used a tiny bit of vanilla essence)

-Cover the dates in warm water for 10 minutes

-Use a food processor to blend the nuts and cocoa into a powder (keeping some back for the topping)

-Drain the dates keeping some of the liquor for later

-Mix all ingredients together adding a little of the liquor if required, and press into a small, baking paper lined tray

 

-Add the remaining chopped nuts and put in the fridge for 2-3 hours

Cut into 16pcs and enjoy (180 calories per brownie)

Store in the fridge or freeze for up to 2 weeks

#healthytreats #nonasties #heaven #vegan

Are you getting enough calories?

What are calories? 
Calories (Kcals) are simply an expression of energy in our food, scientifically illustrated it's the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of a litre of water by 1 degree celsius.

Why do you need them?
I often get frustrated when I hear people compare their body to a car. yes, a car requires fuel as does your body BUT (and it's a big BUT!) when you turn off a car engine it stops burning fuel. Your body is different, it's burning fuel from the moment you were conceived until you die, regardless of additional energy expenditure. This means that even if you were to sleep for the next 7 days your body still requires lots of energy to breathe, for your heart to beat, to support restoration and for your organs to function (this basic calorie requirement is known as your basal metabolic rate or BMR).

What is Metabolism?
In simple terms metabolism is the rate at which your body converts fuel into energy for use (metabolic rate).

What influences my metabolic rate?
Many factors influence metabolic rate, including

• Age
• Sex
• Muscle mass
• Illnesses or disease
• Medication
• Level of activity
• Exercise
• Environmental temperature
• Thermic effect of food
• Body composition

The maths, How many calories do I need? 
These days there are many apps and websites which offer calculators, the problem with this is you never know how the figures are generated. I would suggest using the formula below: 

The Schofield Calculation:

Men 
18-29yrs    BMR= 15.1x weight (KGs) + 692     SEE=    156
30-59yrs    BMR= 11.5x weight (KGs) + 873     SEE=    167

Women 
18-29yrs    BMR= 14.8x weight (KGs)+ 487     SEE=     120 
30-59yrs    BMR= 8.3  x weight (KGs)+ 846     SEE=     112 

SEE (Standard error of estimation: The calculation may be too many or too few by this amount). 

BMR x1.4 inactive men and women (this applies to most people in the UK)
BMR x1.6 moderately active women
BMR x1.7 moderately active men
BMR x1.8 very active women
BMR x1.9 very active men     


THE SIMPLE WAY (Bagley 1996; Glynn et al 1999):
 BMR = 25 kcals/kg body weight 

I want to lose weight, can I simply slash my energy consumption and lose weight? 
Energy consumption should not be slashed in order to lose weight it should be reduced in a measured way which will vary from one person to another. Simply eating 500 Kcals per day will not work, this is well below BMR for a human regardless of the variants above (the only people that can recommend this sort of action is a nutritionist, dietitian or suitably qualified health care practitioner). Eating too few calories for a long time will cause a number of issues: 
-Fatigue: Tiredness, No fuel in = unable to expend energy.
-Mood swings: feeling deprived, unable to concentrate, twitchy.
-Hormonal in balances: Not having enough energy from calories causes confusion in homeostasis (your natural chemical seesaw). Particularly Leptin (the hormone that tells you when you are full up) and Ghrelin (which tells you when you are hungry). 
-Reduced metabolic rate: A confused body without fuel has no idea where it's next energy is coming from so stores some energy in case it goes into stress or an adrenal/ shocked state (over time this becomes an issue called adrenal fatigue AKA metabolic damage).
-Undernourished: Eating way below caloric requirement is likely to mean you just aren't eating enough, variety in the diet is lacking, which means you aren't nourishing your body.

So how do I lose weight?
Create a reasonable calorific deficit, generally 10-15% lower than your calorie requirements. This must be done, carefully. Starting a "diet" on Monday and hoping to lose 16lbs by the weekend, simply isn't reasonable. PLEASE NO MORE SETTING YOURSELF UP TO FAIL. 

"PIGEON STEPS WILL CONQUER EVEREST with consistency!!!!"

What should I do if I am currently eating well under my calorie requirements, and trying to lose weight? 
Many of our clients here at Three Pillars of Fitness require help with metabolic repair, this is  a really difficult principle to accept "YOU AREN'T EATING ENOUGH TO LOSE WEIGHT!!" Many clients who fall into this category are also exercising, really hard. In this case we work really closely to coach a new mentality towards health: MIND: DIET: EXERCISE. A plan consisting of 6-8 phases is developed according to the individuals requirements, beginning with reducing exercise and slowly introducing more nourishment, energy and calories.  If you are struggling to understand your energy requirements, reach out and book yourself a FREE CONSULTATION by clicking here.