Feel Good Personal Training - Keeping the Fat off this Christmas

Feel Good Personal Training 

Keeping The Fat Off This Christmas

We are all looking forward to the mass amounts of food we eat over the Christmas period, in fact a recent survey shows that the average Christmas dinner contains nearly 2,000 calories! However, a rare benefit of splurging on excess calories is it will actually support muscle growth. As you should all know, muscle is the main variable in your metabolism, more muscle = a higher metabolism. So adding a bit of muscle over Christmas will actually help you stay lean and increase your fat loss efforts in January.

Our body can only store a certain amount of carbohydrates (in the form of glycogen) at any one time. If we train hard before devouring one of our Christmas feasts we will be burning the majority of our bodies glycogen stores, so the high GI carbohydrates found in your roast potatoes and stuffing etc. will mainly be used to replenish your bodies glycogen stores instead of hanging around, waiting to be turned into fat. The proteins contained in your turkey will be used to help repair and grow the muscle fibers you’ve just trained, and all the excess fats that taste so good will have less of an impact on your body as your metabolism is still ramped up. Any type of exercise will be of benefit, however you will benefit mostly by performing a high intensity weight based circuit.

 So there’s no reason to feel guilty about consuming more than normal this Christmas, after all, it’s a time to celebrate and be merry with your loved ones. But with a bit of forward planning and dedication, there’s also no reason for you to put on the British average of a whopping 6lbs between Christmas and New Year. Need any help losing weight in the New Year get in touch for our 12 week transformation programme - Only £49. 

Merry Christmas

The Feel Good Personal Training Team

www.feelgoodpt.co.uk 

Feel Good Personal Training - Introduction to Carb Cycling

Feel Good Personal Training 

Introduction to Carb Cycling 

Ever wondered how much you can change your shape through diet? Feel Good Personal Training trainers Dominic and Neil are going to blog and show you how they transform their body shapes through a hard carb cycling dieting programme with the end goal of being as lean as possible. 

On 7/12/13 we started at;

Neil - 117kg at 21.1% Bodyfat

Dominic - 90kg at 18% Bodyfat

Carb cycling is a very effective form of weight loss. Carb cycling is a low carbohydrate diet with intermittent periods of high, low or no carbs. The carb cycling diet is ideal for maximising fat loss whilst maintaining muscle mass and the ability to perform high intensity exercise. The primary source of calorie intake should come from proteins and fats.

Anyone of any shape or size who wishes to maintain muscle mass and burn body fat can do carb cycling. You tend to find due to the determination you need to follow the diet it tends to be serious amateur and professional athletes compared to yo yo dieters. 

With carb cycling we want to aim for 5-6 meals a day in intervals of 2.5 - 3 hours start at approximately 7am. It is important that you have a high carb day and a cheat meal. During the stage of ketosis your liver and muscles will be depleted of glycogen causing them to convert body fat for energy. What we don’t want to happen is for your muscles to become completely depleted of glycogen because then the body will look at starting to break down muscle tissue for energy, which isn’t what we’re looking for. Therefore it become important to stick to meal times and ensure that on high carb day your eating the correct amount of carbs. 

Follow our blog for more information on carb cycling and how our dieting journal progresses.

www.feelgoodpt.co.uk
www.onlinetransformation.co.uk
07757 345 764 

Feel Good Personal Training - Front and back loading diets

Feel Good Personal Training

Nutritional Tip – Front and back loading diets 

Many studies have shown that front loading your diet is the most affective way of loosing weight, toning and building lean muscle. This means having the majority of your calories at the start of the day. Back loading is when you have the majority of your calories in the evening. Front load by making sure that breakfast is your largest meal. Although it’s important to make sure that this is balanced with a small evening meal. Research demonstrated that a high-calorie breakfast showed an increase in healthy eating compliance and is more beneficial than high-calorie dinner for weight loss, insulin sensitivity, and hunger suppression. Particularly in morning meals that are high fiber and protein.

This is for a few reasons; firstly, eating first thing gets your metabolism working. If you deprive it first thing, the body’s metabolism will often slow down to compensate for the lack of energy. When you then come to eat later on, you are less likely to burn the fuel off and will more likely to store it as body fat.

Secondly, we don’t require a large amount of fuel before bed. If we have a large meal and then aren’t active after, that energy will be taken and stored away as fat. If we are active afterwards, research has shown that our insulin levels (which are responsible for storing energy in the form of fat) stay low, which promotes weight loss.

And thirdly, as we have planned are morning meal we are less likely to make a poor rushed meal decisions early morning or lunch time. 

The NHS recommends for the average female and male to have a calorie intake per day of 2,000 for females and 2,500 for males. If your calorie intake in the morning is low because you’ve skipped breakfast or have a small bite it means you have no possible way of front-loading your diet and therefore are loosing out on all the positive affects of front loading and getting all the negative affects of back loading. I would recommend trying to increase your calorie intake at breakfast to be one roughly third of your daily calorie intake. If you split your recommended daily calorie intake to the following it would be brilliant for toning and health benefits.

Females: Breakfast - 750, Snack - 150, Lunch - 500, Snack - 150, Tea – 450

Males: Breakfast - 850, Snack - 250, Lunch - 600, Snack - 250, Tea – 550

Here are some grab and go breakfast ideas

A veggie omelette and a piece of whole-wheat toast

A whole-wheat English muffin with low-fat cheese, a scrambled egg, and slice of tomato

Smoothie made with fruit and low-fat yogurt

Salmon on 1/2 whole-grain bagel with light cream cheese

Whole-grain cereal with fresh fruit and low-fat milk

Oatmeal made with skim milk, raisins and nuts, with 4 ounces of orange juice

Low-fat yogurt and a piece of fresh fruit

Yogurt Smoothie and breakfast bar

Hard-boiled egg and a banana

Hope you find this information interesting and helpful. For more information about one to one personal training sessions or online training programmes please get in touch. 

www.feelgoodpt.co.uk