I often have people ask me “Marc if I take this pill or drink this shake will I be able to lose weight?”

In short the answer is no and I’ll go on to explain why in a moment but first I want to talk about the diet companies who make millions praying on desperate people looking for a quick fix to their weight problem. These companies employ the best marketing minds in the world whose job it is to convince people that this new pill or potion is the answer to their weight loss dreams. Using clever adds they pull at the heart strings of our dieter (who has probably tried fad diet after fad diet only to end up back where they started or worse bigger than they where to begin with!) that this new pill or shake can make all the difference in your weight loss plan. Don’t be fooled by sensational claims made by these companies. Now that I’ve got that off my chest I’m going to give you The Truth about Fat Loss…..

There is no special pill, potion or exercise gadget when it comes to fat loss and achieving the toned and sculpted body that you desire.

There is only one way to achieve permanent results and that is to follow an integrated fitness and nutrition plan which focuses on a change in body composition (lean muscle vs. body fat) and not just weight loss according to the bathroom scales. It is lean muscle that plays a key part in any fat loss program.

Calories In vs. Calories Out.

It’s a question of balance. To reduce body fat and increase lean muscle and therefore positively change your body composition you have to play a game of numbers. If you burn more calories than you take in each day you will lose weight. This is called a calories deficit and is the only way to lose fat. Even though this is a simple concept the calorie deficit must be kept small so you don’t lose lean muscle while you burn fat. This will allow you to keep your metabolism high while at the same time transforming the shape of your body. However if calories are severely reduced your body goes into what is known as starvation mode and begins storing fat and breaking muscle down which in turn slows the metabolism. Which is why when people go on strict diets they lose a lot of weight which is mainly muscle tissue. Once they have reached their desired weight they often bounce back to the weight they were before the diet or worse they end up heavier. This is due to the slower metabolism caused by a loss of lean muscle tissue.

Muscle Drives Your Metabolism.

The amount of lean muscle you have directly affects your metabolism and it’s your metabolism that affects the shape of your body. Your metabolism is simply the rate at which your body burns calories. The higher your metabolism the more calories you burn and the more lean muscle you have the higher your metabolism. Muscle is in essence your fat burning machinery as it burns calories even at rest whereas fat does not.

Resistance/ Weight Training.

Resistance training is by far the best way to exercise to reshape your body and increase your metabolism. By using weights, machines and even your own body weight to effectively work your muscles you can progressively overload them so they grow stronger.

As you increase your lean body mass you will increase your metabolism enabling you to burn fat faster even while you are sleeping. This will in turn allow you to eat more and thus preventing your body from going into starvation mode.

There are many more benefits to resistance training than just burning fat. As resistance training strengthens muscles it also strengthens the supporting structures around the joint helping to protect our joints from the stresses and strains of an active lifestyle. Resistance training also decreases the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, helps to lower blood pressure and decreases the risk of degenerative diseases such as arthritis. Other benefits include improved posture, improved mood and enhanced self esteem.

Cardio Training.

Cardio exercise is the type of exercise performed to train the heart, lungs and circulatory systems and usually involves the use of the large muscle groups over an extended period of time. Running, cycling, swimming, rowing and walking are all great cardio exercises. Cardio exercise is great for burning calories but due to the fact that the body quickly adapts to cardio exercises cardio lovers have to continually increase the time they exercise for in order to burn the same amount of calories, increasing the odds that the body will start to burn muscle for energy instead of fat and therefore lower your metabolic rate. The way to overcome this problem is to increase the intensity of the activity. So instead of training for longer, train harder for the same period of time.

The many benefits of cardio respiratory exercise include increased lung volume, lowered resting heart rate and increased bone mineral density which lowers the risk of osteoporosis.

Nutrition.

Nutrition has the greatest impact on fat loss. A balanced and supportive eating plan will not only help to improve your health it will also provide the optimal environment in which to burn fat. If your goal is to reduce body fat you must eat slightly fewer calories than you burn each day.

There are currently thousands of diet books available today each claiming to be the answer to fat loss but the vary fact that there are so many proves that not one of them works. If there was a magic diet then everyone would be on it and know one would be overweight. Diets simply don’t work in the long term due to improper nutrition and a failure to change exercise and eating habits for life.

A healthy nutrition plan doesn’t need to be complicated, keep things simple by eating a wide variety of nutritious foods including plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meats, fish and poultry and a variety of whole grains such as whole grain rice, whole wheat pasta and whole wheat bread.

Try to reduce your intake of alcohol, junk food and saturated fat by trimming all visible fat from meats. Also try to avoid deep frying food, instead bake, steam, dry roast and stir fry.

Keeping the body hydrated will enable you to burn fat faster and help the body to flush out stored toxins. Try to drink 1.5-2 litres of fresh clean water per day.

There you have it, the truth about fat loss. By eating slightly less calories than you burn each day coupled with resistance training and intense cardio workouts will help you reach your goals faster, safer and the results will be lasting.

Train Hard, Eat Smart!

Marc

There will be days (everyday?) when you don’t feel like doing your workout.

Some days you won’t want to get out of bed early.

Sometimes you don’t want to leave your office because you feel like you have too much left to do (but this is when you need a workout the most!).

Then there’ll be times you don’t want to end of play time with the kids to have to make time for your workout.

This even happens to me.

But I how great I feel after my daily workout.

And at the end of the day I make my living by being in shape and I have to lead by example.

If you are set on achieving a fitness goal, then when its workout time, come hell or high water you’ve got to knuckle down and do the job done.

So I’m giving you 7 tips to get you motivated for your workout and to keep you inspired to get you through your workout.

1) Reward yourself. After you finish your workout treat yourself to a relaxing bath, an episode of your favourite TV show or some time with the family.

2) Why not set up a punishment for missing workouts. If you skip the workout, put £10 into a jar to spend on DIY, think of it like a swear jar for missing your exercise appointment. Make sure your spouse controls the jar.

3) Write your goals down Until you put your goals down into black and white they are not goals. If they are only in your head then they are merely dreams. Commit them to paper and read them everyday and night. By constantly keeping your goals fresh in your mind it will help you to stay on track.

4) Realize that the hardest part of the workout is often travelling to the gym after you have been home for a few hours. Make the effort to go to the gym even if you don’t feel like it. Once you get to the gym you will be less likely to skip a workout. Once you get there tell yourself, “I’ll just go in and do 1 set of the first 2 exercises, then I can go”. Next thing you know, you’ll have done the entire workout.

5) Visualize yourself once you have achieved your goals. Be visualizing your new body you will feel inspired to workout. Think of your workouts as a step in the right direction to a new fitter, healthier you. Conversely every time you miss a workout is a step in the wrong direction.

6) Take your MP3 player with you. Seriously, nothing motivates you more than working out to some upbeat music. Some of my friends swear by the Rocky soundtrack!

7) Get social support. If you have a workout partner, chances are you’ll feel bad if you let them down. Or let me hold you accountable by signing up for online personal training.

Train Hard, Eat Smart!

Marc

Summer is finally here and its time to head down the beach and show off that body you have been working hard on all through the winter. You have been exercising through the winter haven’t you?

Well if not now’s the time to take action and stop putting it off with excuses such as “oh, I’ll start tomorrow” or “just one more biscuit, slice of cake, vodka etc wont hurt”

So to help you get a beach ready body that you can be proud of I’m going to give you my top five tips to give you the best results in the next two weeks.

Now I’m not saying it’s going to be easy but then nothing truly worth having is ever easy. So here are my top five tips…

1, Stop working your abs in the hope that if you do thousands of sit ups/ crunches you will be able to burn loads off fat and get that toned midsection that you desire. It just doesn’t work like that. The body burns fat from genetically determined places which you nor I have control of and doing sit ups/ crunches won’t burn anywhere near enough calories to elicit a fat burning effect.

2, Exercise! Come on, you didn’t honestly think you could get ready for the beach without putting in a little effort did you? You don’t need to live in the gym but what you do need is a 20-25 minute whole body workout done 3-4 times per week using compound exercises that use the largest muscle groups in the body, (check out some of my videos for ideas). By using compound exercises that use more than one muscle group at a time you will not only stimulate muscle growth and burn calories, you will also rev up your metabolism which will allow you to burn more fat all day long. Stay away from shaping exercises as they don’t burn anywhere near as many calories.

3, Follow your 20-25 minute workout with 15-20 minutes of interval cardio. Interval s can be done on any of the traditional cardio machines or out side. After a five minute warm up on your chosen exercise to get the blood pumping you then go as fast as you can for 30-60 seconds and then rest for the same amount of time. Repeat this for a total of 15-20 minutes for a great fat blasting workout. If you’re up for it try hill sprints or try skipping as fast as you can for a minute then slower to catch your breath then repeat. Interval training will help you to burn more calories post workout than slow steady cardio. Forget the fat burning zone; you want to burn as many calories as you can!

4, Nutrition. Fuel your body with real food. Try to eat as much fresh natural food as possible staying away from processed packaged food which is generally high in fat, salt and sugar. Try to reduce you consumption of caffeine which dehydrates the body and alcohol which is a useless nutrient that the body has to deal with before it can burn any of the calories that you’ve eaten from food. Basically if it wasn’t around when the cavemen where then don’t eat it. Technology may have moved on since then but the body still works on the same principles as it did thousands of years ago.

5, Be sure to drink at least 2 litres of fresh water per day. Did you know that the body is over two thirds water? Water is used by the body for transporting and carrying nutrients between cells, exchanging oxygen in the air we breathe with the carbon dioxide produced in or cells which must be excreted from the lungs. Water helps flush the body of toxins and waste products through urine, sweat and tears. Water helps to keep the skin healthy, helps to reduce wrinkles and helps reduce your chances of getting headaches. Need I say any more about water?

There you have it, my top five tips for getting a beach ready body in two weeks but will you act on them?

Train Hard, Eat Smart!

Marc

I thought I’d share a quick 4 exercise circuit I did today using two kettlebells. After a quick dynamic warm up I did the following:

Double Kettlebell Swings x 20 reps

Kettlebell Lunge x 20

Double Kettlebell Swings x 20

Alternate Kettlebell Shoulder Press x 16

I then had 1 minutes rest and repeated the circuit 2 more times.

Watch the video and then give it a go.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsGbQjgzFns[/youtube]

Train Hard, Eat Smart!

Marc

As a personal trainer I’m constantly warning people that the scales are an evil contraption designed to make us feel bad about ourselves and so “diet clubs” can look down on you and say “have you been cheating” to make you feel even  worse!

I constantly tell people over and over again that daily weighing is unnecessary, yet how many of you cannot break the ritual of hoping on the scales every day. Do your self a favour and throw the scales in the bin or my favorite, give them to someone you don’t like! If you can’t bring yourself to do either of those then you should definitely familiarize yourself with the factors that can influence its readings. When you factor in things like water retention, glycogen storage and changes in lean body mass, fluctuations in your body weight is normal. The bathroom scale should not be looked upon as your sole guide of success or failure. Once you understand more about how the body works, you can free yourself from the daily battle with the bathroom scale.

Your body is made up of approximately 60% water. Daily fluctuations in the body’s water content can send scale-watchers into a panic if they don’t understand what’s happening. Two things that can influence water retention are water consumption and salt intake. As strange as it may sound, the less water that you drink, the more of it your body retains! If you are even slightly dehydrated your body will hang onto its water supplies, possibly causing the number on the scale to creep upward. So if you are thirsty, drink up as you are already dehydrated!

Excessive amounts of salt (sodium) in our diet can also play a big role in water retention. A single teaspoon of salt contains over 2,000 mg of sodium. As a guide, we should only eating between 1,000 and 3,000 mg of sodium per day, so it can be easy to go overboard. Sodium is a sneaky substance, its in nearly everything you eat and drink. The more highly processed a food is, the more likely it is to have a high sodium content. That is why, when it comes to nutrition I recommend sticking to the basics: fruits, vegetables, lean meat, beans, and whole grains. Be sure to read the labels on canned foods, frozen meals and anything that comes packaged in a box.

Women may also retain several pounds of water prior to menstruation. This is very common and the weight will likely disappear as quickly as it arrives. As with general water retention, pre-menstrual water-weight gain can be minimized by drinking lots of water, maintaining an exercise program, and keeping high-sodium processed foods to a minimum.

The body stores carbohydrates as glycogen. Think of glycogen as the fuel tank for daily living. Some of this glycogen is stored in the liver and some is stored the muscles themselves. This energy reserve weighs more than a pound and for every gram of glycogen stored the body stores approximately 4 grams of water. This can add up to 3-4 pounds of water weight when its stored. Your glycogen supplies, along with the stored water, will shrink during the day if you fail to take in enough carbohydrates. When this happens our weight will drop on the scales but its only temporarily because as soon as we eat a meal containing carbohydrates the body will fill the glycogen fuel tank along with storing water. It’s normal to experience glycogen and water weight fluctuations of up to 2 pounds per day even with no changes in your calorie intake or activity level. These fluctuations have nothing to do with fat loss, however I can imagine they would make the weekly weigh-in at the diet club frustrating, something I’m sure they don’t tell you about!

People also tend to forget the actual weight of the food that we eat on a daily basis will affect the number on the scale. So eating a big meal along with any drinks before hopping on the scale is only going to result in a higher reading. The 5 pounds you put on right after eating a huge meal with drinks is not fat, it’s the weight of the food and will be gone in several hours when the body has finished digesting it. For this reason, it’s a good idea to weigh yourself first thing in the morning before you’ve had anything to eat or drink.

In order to store one pound of fat we need to eat 3500 calories above our daily caloric needs. So if you take the above example, to actually store the above dinner as 5 pounds of fat, you would have to eat a massive 17,500 calories. This is highly unlikely, and in fact it’s probably not humanly possible(but please don’t try to prove me wrong!). So if the scale goes up 3 or 4 pounds overnight, relax, as it’s most likely increased water weight, glycogen, and the weight of your dinner. Bear in mind that the 3,500 calorie rule also works in reverse. If our goal is to lose one pound of fat you will need to burn an extra 3,500 calories more than you take eat. Generally, it’s only possible to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week. So when you follow a severely low calorie diet that causes your weight to drop 10 pounds in 7 days, it’s physically impossible for all of that to be fat. What you’re really losing is water, glycogen, and muscle.

This brings me to the scale’s sneakiest lie. The scale doesn’t just weigh fat; in fact it only tells you how heavy you are under gravity at that moment. So when you hope on the scale what it collectively weighs your muscles, bones, water, internal organs, in fact everything that is you. Losing weight and losing fat are two different things and in fact, the scale has no way of telling you what you’ve lost (or gained). With that in mind, if you have been on a restrictive diet and lost a lot of weight in a short period of time then you have probably lost a lot of muscle tissue. Losing muscle is nothing to celebrate. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, the more muscle you have the more calories your body burns on a daily basis, even while you are sat reading this. That’s one of the reasons why a fit, active person is able to eat considerably more food than the dieter who is painfully counting points and who is unwittingly destroying muscle tissue. Also if you are losing a lot of weight by crash dieting and not exercising and therefore by sacrificing muscle tissue you will not get the body transformation results you desire. You will just end up a smaller version of yourself. Or as one of my clients recently put it, a smaller fat person!

If you were to compare your muscles and fat to gold and feathers with one pound of fat being a big lumpy bag of feathers, and one pound of muscle as a small but extremely valuable piece of gold. Our goal would then be to get rid of the lumpy feathers and replace it with as much gold as possible. So in effect we would weigh exactly the same the only problem with the scale is that it doesn’t differentiate between the two. It can’t tell you how much of your total body weight is lean tissue (gold) and how much is fat (feathers).

Skin-fold calipers, hydrostatic (or underwater) weighing and bioelectrical impedance are all methods we can use to measure our body composition to discern whether we are losing (or gaining) fat and muscle and while none of these methods are 100% accurate, they offer a better way of measuring our bodies changes than the scale.

Now if the thought of being pinched, dunked, or gently electrocuted doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry, one of the best measurement tool of all is a simple tape measure and your very own eyes. If the tape is showing that you have lost inches, your clothes fit better and the person looking back at you in the mirror is a leaner, fitter more confident person who isn’t bound by different coloured days then surly that is a better judge of your success than the lies from the bathroom scale.

Do yourself a favour and buy yourself a big hammer and introduce it to the springy, beady eyed lying menace, not only will you release a lot of built up tension but you will feel better for it, (just be sure to wear the correct safety clothing)!

Train Hard, Eat Smart!

Marc