Ever hear the advice: “Don’t eat carbs after 6pm because your body will just store them as fat!” Simple right? WRONG. I hear this banded around all the time and to be blunt, it’s getting a bit blooming boring. You don’t need to avoid carbs after 6pm to lose body fat. In fact you don’t necessarily need to avoid carbs at any time of day in order to lose body fat.
I recently posted in our membership site Fitter 365 about the importance of individuality when it comes to your nutrition and training. We can all be guilty at times of constantly comparing ourselves; our physique, our training achievements, the 'cleanness' of our eating regimes, the number of steps we've taken and it can all get a bit out of hand. Changes you once felt proud of suddenly don’t seem enough and you’re racked with guilt about not putting in enough time, effort and energy. You need to try harder!
Most of us are turning to fat loss goals this week. As we lead such busy lifestyles it can be a challenge fitting work, training, family responsibilities, etc into one day! However, the one thing you should NOT skimp on is your nutrition. In fact the worst thing you can do is start reaching for convenient, processed foods. To hit your 2016 fat loss and health goals you just need to get a bit smarter and more organised with your food preparation. These top ten tips will have you whipping up tasty and nutritious meals for you and the family in no time.
It’s that time of year again when many of us renew our resolutions for the year. The easy thing to do here (and most common in our experience) is to come up with a fat loss goal; drop a dress size, get a six pack, fit into my skinny jeans again, blah blah. We always aim to steer people away from these goals as they're based upon a negative relationship with your body for a start, plus it’s no fun weighing and measuring your food and your waistline day in day out. In fact the harder people pursue this goal the more likely they are to fail at it.
Probably one of the most popular questions we come across this time of year is how to have your Xmas cake and eat it without piling on the pounds. This is completely understandable as there's so much more temptation around the festive period, a greater desire to let your hair down, not to mentioned some added stressors to cope with as we tackle the xmas shopping in the gloomy, wet weather etc, etc. One thing to emphasis here is that we are just like you. We have a few more treats than we usually do around December, crave comfort foods with the darker mornings and shorter days and it is Christmas after all!
If you have followed Fitter Food for some time now you'll know that we’ve been going on for years about the essentials of fat loss which include eating nutritious food, moving daily, exercising a few times a week, sleeping soundly and managing stress. All of these support optimal hormone health and the body's natural mechanisms for healthy weight management. Everyone needs to master the basics before they progress to more advanced protocols. However, we also acknowledge that some people's bodies need an extra nudge to get results or maybe your fat loss has stalled a little. The following are just a few simple steps you can implement that can kick your metabolism into action.
Does that title confuse you? I thought it might, so I will explain. You see many people are always looking for the best exercises for fat loss and we have always said that the one you can stick with will always get the best results. When you can find something you really enjoy it almost doesn't feel like “training” because you love it, time flies by but you get a killer workout at the same time. Winning combo, right?
We receive a lot of emails about how to lift your mood in the winter months when it all gets a bit dark and damp. It's incredibly common to experience a dip in mood health in the midst of winter as the miserable weather deprives us of sunshine and time outdoors. There are lots of things you can do from a nutrition and lifestyle perspective to keep levels of feel good brain chemicals topped up and protect yourself against any nutrient deficiencies that might kick in during the winter months.
You've probably gathered by now that we're a massive pair of foodies, but we also love training and something we're huge fans of and include in our own workouts and programs is HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). You've likely heard of it by now but in case you haven’t it involves switching between short bursts of high intensity exercise and periods of rest at a lower intensity. For example, sprinting full pace for 20 seconds followed by walking for 40 seconds and repeating say 8-12 times, that is interval training. HIIT is a great fat loss tool that gets fantastic results, in case you need a little more convincing here are my 4 reasons to get involved in HIIT today.
At our next Fitter Food Academy, we’ll be talking about some of the key hormonal players involved in fat loss and health, with particular attention to those that govern appetite and satiety. Studies suggest there are some highly effective nutritional measures you can implement to improve the communication signals from these hormones in favour of healthy weight management.
Although many of us have become a little 'carb-phobic' these days it's important to remember that in healthy quantities carbohydrates (including glucose and fructose) can be processed effectively by our body, either used for energy or stored in our muscles and liver as glycogen. For this reason one of the best times to consume carbohydrates is following exercise, when our need to replenish glycogen stores is greater.
Fitter Food’s Matt Whitmore offers expert advice about training, nutrition and fat loss.