I feel the time is right to concentrate on just one blog and keep the content rich and informative.
Updating six blogs regularly is too time consuming. It makes sense to just have one main blog. The address for this is http://www.barnsleypersonaltrainer.com
I update my blog every other day and there you will find the three main categories I write about which is Exercise, Nutrition & Motivation.
Thanks for your continued support and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Best regards
Anthony
26th March 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
How To Organise Your Kitchen For Diet Success
Make sure you have all the useful appliances in your kitchen to help you with food preparation. Keep work surfaces and cupboards tidy so you can move around quickly without any hassle. Above all stick with basic food prep methods so you don’t feel like a slave to healthy eating.
Store food in glass or ceramic containers, toxins can leach into the food when using plastic or cans.
You may decide to freeze leftovers to be used for a weeknight after work. To make life easier don’t forget to label meals that you do freeze.
Hanging a shopping list on your kitchen wall can be useful and save you money. Fill it in as you use up your supplies. Going shopping with a list will focus your attention on the items on the list and help to prevent compulsive buying.
Memo notes on the freezer door will also prove to be handy when you need to rely on leftovers for dinner.
Finally get into the habit of choosing shopping days so you can keep stocked up with fresh foods.
Store food in glass or ceramic containers, toxins can leach into the food when using plastic or cans.
You may decide to freeze leftovers to be used for a weeknight after work. To make life easier don’t forget to label meals that you do freeze.
Hanging a shopping list on your kitchen wall can be useful and save you money. Fill it in as you use up your supplies. Going shopping with a list will focus your attention on the items on the list and help to prevent compulsive buying.
Memo notes on the freezer door will also prove to be handy when you need to rely on leftovers for dinner.
Finally get into the habit of choosing shopping days so you can keep stocked up with fresh foods.
Friday, March 18, 2011
All About Fat Loss
People often get confused about what results really are. I remind people all the time about how far they have come and how much they have achieved in terms of turning their life around for the better. There’s more to achieving results than just associating success with a number on the scales and how many calories you eat or how much distance you cover each week.
I meet scores of people that have lost a lot of weight but still have a long way to go to be healthy and achieve the look they want because all they have been doing is chasing a number at a cost to their health. Most of the population that want to get fitter or change their appearance prepares the mind to limitations or unachievable lifestyles that eventually leads in failure and disappointment. Believing in excess amounts of exercise and low calorie diets is the right way forward is a misconception and works against the body’s physiology. Also limiting your progress by following the wrong type of plan for your body and your goals is a road to nowhere.
Bypassing the basics in nutrition and lifestyle and rushing straight into an unorganised training schedule is fruitless and has little value to achieving the desired goal. You can’t out train a bad diet. You will be lucky to get the slightest improvements exercising on a whim. Supplementing it with poor nutritional habits will only keep you where you already are.
Results are about making the right food choices and eating a good quality version of that food. It is important to get a wide range of variety in your diet one that’s full of different vegetables, fruits, meats, fish and a little bit of dairy. Cutting out all processed foods and sticking to foods in their natural state in the food group ratio that works with your body will help keep blood sugar levels even and will result in successful weight management and recurring fat loss.
Exercise selection needs to be relevant to your goals and care needs to be taken not to exceed your physical load. If you do too much exercise your body won’t be able to recover properly and it will be permanently in a stressed fight or flight state. This will lead to you having a high percentage of fat storing stress hormones present in the blood.
Look how far you have come and ask yourself if you have achieved real results. Real results are all about eating a clean balanced diet and having a balanced exercise programme that doesn’t drain all your energy. Take a look at yourself and see if you need to go back to go forwards. Making the right steps with your diet will see your results skyrocket to new levels in a fraction of the time it is currently taking you. Use the 80/20 principles to make things bearable especially if you struggle with diet changes. If you are confused about exercise selection enlist the help of a professional who can assess your needs.
I meet scores of people that have lost a lot of weight but still have a long way to go to be healthy and achieve the look they want because all they have been doing is chasing a number at a cost to their health. Most of the population that want to get fitter or change their appearance prepares the mind to limitations or unachievable lifestyles that eventually leads in failure and disappointment. Believing in excess amounts of exercise and low calorie diets is the right way forward is a misconception and works against the body’s physiology. Also limiting your progress by following the wrong type of plan for your body and your goals is a road to nowhere.
Bypassing the basics in nutrition and lifestyle and rushing straight into an unorganised training schedule is fruitless and has little value to achieving the desired goal. You can’t out train a bad diet. You will be lucky to get the slightest improvements exercising on a whim. Supplementing it with poor nutritional habits will only keep you where you already are.
Results are about making the right food choices and eating a good quality version of that food. It is important to get a wide range of variety in your diet one that’s full of different vegetables, fruits, meats, fish and a little bit of dairy. Cutting out all processed foods and sticking to foods in their natural state in the food group ratio that works with your body will help keep blood sugar levels even and will result in successful weight management and recurring fat loss.
Exercise selection needs to be relevant to your goals and care needs to be taken not to exceed your physical load. If you do too much exercise your body won’t be able to recover properly and it will be permanently in a stressed fight or flight state. This will lead to you having a high percentage of fat storing stress hormones present in the blood.
Look how far you have come and ask yourself if you have achieved real results. Real results are all about eating a clean balanced diet and having a balanced exercise programme that doesn’t drain all your energy. Take a look at yourself and see if you need to go back to go forwards. Making the right steps with your diet will see your results skyrocket to new levels in a fraction of the time it is currently taking you. Use the 80/20 principles to make things bearable especially if you struggle with diet changes. If you are confused about exercise selection enlist the help of a professional who can assess your needs.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Big Fat Loss Mistakes
Just spent a week reading about the latest diet crazes where they all recommend cutting calories or fasting. So I decided to join a slimming club where I saw different people that seemed to be wasting their time and effort. They were allowed to continue to eat certain junk food. This sounded appealing at first but the members of the slimming club didn’t look the way I aspired to look like so I was left confused and worried.
And that's really sad. After all, almost everyone goes on a diet to get a flat stomach, but almost everyone never achieves his or her goals!
In fact, most people make the same common mistakes.
Mistake #1 - Routinely getting weighed.
The biggest mistakes a dieter can make is setting their minds to reaching a number on the weighing scales every week or in some crazy cases every day! This repetitive behaviour is heavy on the mind making the participant feel incarcerated. It’s common for them to just focus on numbers without considering health & fitness or the quality of the food they are eating. This behaviour leads to frustration and unnecessary pressure.
Tip: The above system is nothing more than a marketing tool to help sell a diet; it has no benefit whatsoever. Getting weighed regularly doesn’t tell you if you are losing fat or which area of the body is changing shape. The best way to measure progress is using the mirror and/or to take tape measurements around the bum, hips, thigh, waist, chest and arms.
Mistake #2 - Counting calories
Ha! I wish it were as easy as just that. Eating X amount of calories will make you look like so and so. If this was true how come over 90% of dieters never achieve permanent results on calorie controlled diets? I will tell you why, it is because the quality of calories and which food groups these calories come from are missing from the picture. The most valuable piece of information a dieter needs always seems to be conveniently missing so not to upset the recurring revenue stream.
TIP: A basic understanding of food groups needs to be learned for best results, don’t worry because it is simple and quick to learn. There are 3 main food groups, Carbohydrates, Protein and Fat. Once you learn which type of foods comes from each food group it is easy to lose weight and fat. This is because you can begin to use ratios for your meals. The benefits of ratios are to monitor the amounts of carbohydrates you need versus protein to lose weight and fat. Calorie controlled diets fail to recognise this important step, that is why you see overweight people unable to lose weight and fat on low calorie diets.
And that's really sad. After all, almost everyone goes on a diet to get a flat stomach, but almost everyone never achieves his or her goals!
In fact, most people make the same common mistakes.
Mistake #1 - Routinely getting weighed.
The biggest mistakes a dieter can make is setting their minds to reaching a number on the weighing scales every week or in some crazy cases every day! This repetitive behaviour is heavy on the mind making the participant feel incarcerated. It’s common for them to just focus on numbers without considering health & fitness or the quality of the food they are eating. This behaviour leads to frustration and unnecessary pressure.
Tip: The above system is nothing more than a marketing tool to help sell a diet; it has no benefit whatsoever. Getting weighed regularly doesn’t tell you if you are losing fat or which area of the body is changing shape. The best way to measure progress is using the mirror and/or to take tape measurements around the bum, hips, thigh, waist, chest and arms.
Mistake #2 - Counting calories
Ha! I wish it were as easy as just that. Eating X amount of calories will make you look like so and so. If this was true how come over 90% of dieters never achieve permanent results on calorie controlled diets? I will tell you why, it is because the quality of calories and which food groups these calories come from are missing from the picture. The most valuable piece of information a dieter needs always seems to be conveniently missing so not to upset the recurring revenue stream.
TIP: A basic understanding of food groups needs to be learned for best results, don’t worry because it is simple and quick to learn. There are 3 main food groups, Carbohydrates, Protein and Fat. Once you learn which type of foods comes from each food group it is easy to lose weight and fat. This is because you can begin to use ratios for your meals. The benefits of ratios are to monitor the amounts of carbohydrates you need versus protein to lose weight and fat. Calorie controlled diets fail to recognise this important step, that is why you see overweight people unable to lose weight and fat on low calorie diets.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Which Exercise is Best for Fat Loss – Weights or Cardio?
When done a certain way resistance training will create a cardiovascular response, killing two birds with one stone and saving heaps of time. One of the numerous benefits includes the functional benefit, which has a carry over effect to daily living and most sports. More importantly it will shape the body making it more aesthetically pleasing at the same time as building lean muscle tissue and strength.
Traditional cardio exercises don’t have enough resistance to create an increase in lean muscle. Anything that increases lean muscle tissue is good news for both men and women; more muscle means a faster metabolism and a lower body fat percentage. You can get very strong and lean without looking like a bodybuilder. One more thing worth mentioning is that resistance training will elevate the metabolism for longer after a workout compared to traditional cardio exercise.
Traditional cardio exercises don’t have enough resistance to create an increase in lean muscle. Anything that increases lean muscle tissue is good news for both men and women; more muscle means a faster metabolism and a lower body fat percentage. You can get very strong and lean without looking like a bodybuilder. One more thing worth mentioning is that resistance training will elevate the metabolism for longer after a workout compared to traditional cardio exercise.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Weight Loss Solutions – Keep a Food Diary
How to write a food diary for dieting!
The reason for keeping a food diary is to let yourself know what goes in your mouth every day of the week. People adopt unhealthy habits that they become accustomed to and forget how much bad food they actually consume. Its time to be honest with yourself, without keeping a food diary you are likely to miss some vital information about yourself. It may seem like a tedious task but it will only take you a couple of minutes each day at the most.
Doing so will uncover your strengths and weaknesses.
Be patient and fill in your food diary a day at a time. The more accurate it is the more you will get from it.
Carry your food diary around with you everywhere you go for the next seven days and fill it in as you go about your business.
Below are some tips of how to describe how you feel after each meal. The window is from a few minutes to a few hours after each meal.
Different responses
Feel satisfied
Feel full but comfortable
Have renewed energy
If you get any of the above responses and you are progressing with weight loss and reducing fat you are on to a winner.
But on the other hand if you are experiencing any of the descriptions below:
Feel full but still hungry
Have cravings
Feel tired
Feel bloated
You will need to adjust your ratios or eliminate problem foods.
Even if you are progressing with fat loss and your weight is coming down your body obviously is not running at its optimum level.
It is advisable to keep experimenting and see what works best for you. Referring to your food diary for feedback and guidance is the easiest way to tweak your diet for fat loss results and for achieving good health.
How to write a food diary for dieting!
The reason for keeping a food diary is to let yourself know what goes in your mouth every day of the week. People adopt unhealthy habits that they become accustomed to and forget how much bad food they actually consume. Its time to be honest with yourself, without keeping a food diary you are likely to miss some vital information about yourself. It may seem like a tedious task but it will only take you a couple of minutes each day at the most.
Doing so will uncover your strengths and weaknesses.
Be patient and fill in your food diary a day at a time. The more accurate it is the more you will get from it.
Carry your food diary around with you everywhere you go for the next seven days and fill it in as you go about your business.
Below are some tips of how to describe how you feel after each meal. The window is from a few minutes to a few hours after each meal.
Different responses
Feel satisfied
Feel full but comfortable
Have renewed energy
If you get any of the above responses and you are progressing with weight loss and reducing fat you are on to a winner.
But on the other hand if you are experiencing any of the descriptions below:
Feel full but still hungry
Have cravings
Feel tired
Feel bloated
You will need to adjust your ratios or eliminate problem foods.
Even if you are progressing with fat loss and your weight is coming down your body obviously is not running at its optimum level.
It is advisable to keep experimenting and see what works best for you. Referring to your food diary for feedback and guidance is the easiest way to tweak your diet for fat loss results and for achieving good health.
How to write a food diary for dieting!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Get Abs - Make Your Diet Work
Dieters always want the best results imaginable. They typically know which foods harm their progress and the foods that are beneficial to their goals.
With this in mind you would think that every dieter would achieve his or her goal and the success rate would be one hundred percent. But unfortunately this couldn’t be further from the truth.
What can be done to make sure a diet works?
Keep an accurate food diary
This will show you when and where you are going wrong.
Eliminate problem foods
This means junk foods and processed foods. Set a goal; reduce a little at a time.
Replace junk food with real foods
Do this before you reduce portion sizes! It will make it easier to stick to your new eating guidelines.
Listen to your body
Be conscious about what your body is telling you after each meal. If anything doesn’t agree with your digestion stop eating it.
Be patient
Slimming and changing the way you look doesn’t happen overnight. The stricter you are with keeping to your guidelines the quicker you will see changes.
Final thought
It’s normally the people who never fully commit to their diets that are worried about timescales. Work the diet; don’t let the diet work you!
With this in mind you would think that every dieter would achieve his or her goal and the success rate would be one hundred percent. But unfortunately this couldn’t be further from the truth.
What can be done to make sure a diet works?
Keep an accurate food diary
This will show you when and where you are going wrong.
Eliminate problem foods
This means junk foods and processed foods. Set a goal; reduce a little at a time.
Replace junk food with real foods
Do this before you reduce portion sizes! It will make it easier to stick to your new eating guidelines.
Listen to your body
Be conscious about what your body is telling you after each meal. If anything doesn’t agree with your digestion stop eating it.
Be patient
Slimming and changing the way you look doesn’t happen overnight. The stricter you are with keeping to your guidelines the quicker you will see changes.
Final thought
It’s normally the people who never fully commit to their diets that are worried about timescales. Work the diet; don’t let the diet work you!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
