*all measurement are obviously subject to different clothes designers discretion and therefore may not be entirely accurate, but at least it gives us an idea.

Remember to checkout upcoming events for the next scheduled weigh in

Did you know that regularly missing meals can scupper your weight loss results?

Most people think and the press would have you believe that weight loss is a simple process of calories in and calories out but this is simply not true. If it were half of my client base would never have called or emailed me or even looked for my services.

I know lots of people who miss meals to lose weight and others who miss meals due to busy schedules or bad planning. I know all of these people because they are trying to lose weight, but most are struggling and many are moving in the wrong direction.

But why?

Why are they putting on weight or at best staying stable?

This is a question that I’m asked by these people all the time?

I want to share with you the reasons why, why people starve themselves and missing meal only to find that the scales are not showing them what they want to see.

To explore why calorie restriction does not work we have to look at our position on the planet and our evolutionary path to it.

We are the most dominant species on the planet, we are number 1 the top of the food chain. To get to this point we have under gone millions of years of evolution. During this time our ancestors have been through some real hard times such as ice ages, droughts and famines. To allow us to survive the trials and tribulations that nature throws at us we have evolved mechanisms to help us to cope.

When it comes to a lack of food the body has the ability to reduce its metabolic rate which means it can reduce the amount of calories that it uses for the various functions that are required for you to survive.

Your body also looks to store food so that you have reserves in case the famine is going to be prolonged due to seasonal conditions or natural disasters.

Missing meals and or dramatically reducing your calorie consumption leads to your body thinking that food is scarce and that you are in a period of famine.

So it slows down your metabolism and stores the food that you eat for later.

The next problem that you are going to face on low calorie diets or he regular missing of meals is the resumption of your normal eating pattern.

It will take a couple of days for your body to realise that you are no longer in a state of famine and food is now readily available again. During this time your body is going to store everything that you consume, especially as your metabolism is slow and you do not need the extra calories that you are now consuming. You therefore pile the pounds back on often becoming heavier then you were to start with!

It’s important for you to eat 3 meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner to make sure that your metabolism is running well and you are supplying it with all the nutrients that it needs.

Over the next couple of posts I’m going to talk more about the problems of low calorie diets or missing meal and I’m going to give you strategies to overcome your problems with meals.

The regular problems that clients bring to me are;

• I don’t feel like breakfast in the morning / it makes me feel sick / I’m not hungry
• I don’t have time for meal X because Y

So, eat 3 meal a day!

And I’ll be back with some more pitfalls and solutions for you.

Committed to your success

Keith

It’s the sprinter, did you get it right?

On average a sprinter is between 5 and 6% body fat and the marathon runner is about 14%.

Now this gives you some clues as to the best way to train to reduce your body fat %, decreasing your weight and giving you a toned, strong body.

Knowing this also means that you don’t need to run/walk for mega long periods of time each day to get your desired body shape. Short sharp explosive work is far more effective as stripping the fat off you then long slow (boring) endurance based exercise. You could be in and out in 40 minutes having had the most effective work out of your life.

But how do you do this?

Well one way is to use a professional fitness team such as us the Absolute Training team and train one on one doing short 30/40 minutes cost effective workouts, saving you time and money but getting you the results that you want.

If one on one is too daunting or you have budgetary concerns, than your best bet is the Fit Body Bootcamp. You will still be working with qualified personal trainers and they will guide you through the exercises that are required to get you the figure that you need.

If you can’t get to either of these you need to ask you gym team about the correct exercises - exercises such as mat flipping/ running, single leg press, dead lift, clean and press etc. If this is not an option you could try the killer workout that we have videoed for you, which you can find featured just on the right hand side of this page.

Committed to your success

Keith

P.S well done to Bruce for doing the Killer work out the other evening! Awesome!

Have you ever noticed how doing sit ups or crunches never seem to give people a six pack no matter how many they do. You may be one of the people who are experiencing this problem.

For most people it makes sense to them that if they exercise a specific muscle surely they should lose the fat from that area….. They are often surprised to find that 1 year of doing sit ups later they can do 1000, have a bad back but still have not shifted the extra weight on their stomach that they were hoping to.

You CAN’T spot tone!

I know, it’s a complete bugger but your body just doesn’t work like that. I want you to think about it in a different way. Think of your muscle as engines and your fat cells as the fuel tanks. For good consistent weight loss you need to make all of your engine work so that they all have increased fuel demands…. Let me explain;

If your arm is working hard and requires more fuel to keep working, fat will be broken down from where ever you store it, let’s say for instance round your waist. The fat is transported by the blood to the liver the liver turns it into glycogen and transports the fuel to the arm where it is used to keep the arm moving.

If all your muscle require more energy the fuel (fat) is taken from your reserves to feed them.

Working one muscle or muscle group like you abdominals is not going to use up enough calories to make a difference to the fat reserves around your body. Your body will also choose which fuel (fat) site to take the fuel from, therefore no spot toning.

The best exercises to use to burn the fat from your body are those that require your whole body to do them. Exercises such as dead lifts, cleans, walking lunges, lunges with dumbbell presses, pulls and raises. These exercises burn up tones of calories and require you body access its fuel stores.

At the fit body boot camp we use exercises that get some increasable results. This is because they are full body, full on, fully committed exercises. This is not to say that they are only for fit people, they aren’t. In your free body diagnostic we will identify your level of fitness and injury risk so that in every boot camp session you can work to your maximum potential with the exercises that are right for you.

The fit body boot camps combination of full body movement and interval training we will get you the results that you are looking for.

To see a video of the Sunday boot campers then click on the link below

www.fitbodybootcamp.co.uk

And then sign up and join in the fun!

Committed to your success

Keith, Clare and the Team

What is The Fit Body boot camp?

The fit body boot camp is a group exercise class with a difference.

It is group exercise that is based around your results not around the instructor’s ego or around the latest faddy piece of fitness equipment.

At the fit body boot camp you will be responsible for getting results as you will be weighed, measured and fitness tested to make sure that you are moving in the right directions. Subsequent test will occur every 6 weeks.

The fit body session happen 6 times per week, 6.30am and 10.00am and 7.00pm Monday to Friday and then Sunday at 9. You are required to attend the boot camp sessions 3 times a week, although we understand that life sometimes gets in the way and occasionally you will not be able to attend, if you want though you can attend a session everyday meaning that you could do 6 six sessions in a week.

The more sessions that you attend, the quicker and better your results will be!

How do we get the results?

By doing full body exercises that engage all the muscle of the body making you fit and strong, increasing your metabolism and burn massive amounts of calories.

Fit body boot camp training is also based around interval training taking the heart rate up and down, making the heart stronger and increasing the metabolism for prolonged periods after the workout. This type of training will also raise the metabolism for long periods of time, enabling you to burn massive amounts of extra calories even when you are sitting, sleeping or at work.

The fit body boot camp has other components that will help you to achieve your goals. These are critical to your success!

The Jump start nutrition programme!

This nutrition programme is designed to supercharge your results helping your weight loss and toning by provide your body with the correct nutrients which will help your body detoxify and lose weight.

The programme has been designed with your lifestyle in mind. You will NOT need to count calories or points or limit you self to just cabbage or something silly like that. It is a programme built on good wholesome foods with options for you to do more to improve your health.

The Coach Approach

We all have barriers that get in our way or sabotage our results. By identifying behaviours or beliefs within yourself that are stopping you from gaining the results that you want. Our coach approach will help you to identify these problems and find way to overcome them.

So, what is the fit body boot camp?

The fit body boot camp is a 4 pronged approach to your health and weight loss results;

1.       Cutting edge exercises to increase your metabolism and burn fat

2.       Top nutritional information to melt fat from your frame

3.       A coach approach to break self sabotaging behaviours and beliefs

4.       Motivation and support

I look forward to see you at the camp

Keith

Some of you will be training early morning, others mid morning, lunch time or evening. Whenever your bootcamp session is be sure to get as many of these things right and you’ll see the weight loss, body shaping and tone and health results that you desire and deserve.

1.Nutrition

Make sure that you eat 2 hours or more before your bootcamp session. If you eat too close to the training session, you may find that your food gives you a stitch, makes you feel sick or you may even be sick if you’re not careful.

Spare some though to what you are eating! Burger and chips with a beer at lunchtime is not going to give you a great  boot camp session! (I have watched more than one person being sick form a burger, chips and beer lunch! Not pretty!), sandwich, crisps and a coke also is not the way forwards.

A better meal would be cold meat with salad sticks and 2 or 3 spoonfuls of cuscus or cold meat, salad with a banana or other fruit to finish.
I understand that you may not feel like eating early in the morning before a 6 or 7 am bootcamp, but you must promise me that you will have a good meal before bed the night before and take fruit with you or make a protein shake to have straight after your boot camp session. Do I sound like your mother????!!!

I’ll have to give you some recipes for protein shake or 2 in a blog post soon.

Nutrition is of critical importance to your results, if you are looking to get the best from your diet then you need to go here down load the course information and then book yourself a place; http://absolute-training.org/personal-nutrition/. Many people tell me that they know what they should be eating, but are often SO wrong when pressed on the subject. Lean the real power of food here! http://absolute-training.org/personal-nutrition/

2. Hydration

Make sure that you are well hydrated, sip water throughout the day, but stop sipping about an hour before your boot camp session. This is to stop it from sloshing around in your stomach or giving you a stitch.

If you are attending an early morning bootcamp have some water before you go to bed and sip some when you get up before the bootcamp session.

Drink water during the bootcamp session, but make sure that it’s room temperature and not too cold. Cold water can cause you problems with absorbtion, it can bring digestion to a halt and cause your gut to shiver sending it into spasm.
3. Get yourself a Heart Rate monitor!

Go to your local Sports shop or to Argos and pick yourself up a heart rate monitor so that you can see how hard you and your heart are working. Most watches also let you see how many calories you have burned up. In a  bootcamp session you are looking to get you heart rate as close to your maximum as possible and burn as many calories as you can. In the 45ish mins that you’ll be working out you want to try and do at least 300 calories, push hard and see if you can increase it to 500!

The higher the heart rate the more total calories will be burnt, both in the session and after. High intensity workouts are far better for fat burning then long slow ones. I’ll give you the where’s and whys about this really soon.

4. What’s on your feet

You don’t need to spend a fortune, but make sure that you are not wearing months or years old trainers. If you use your trainer nearly every day and do some high intensity work in them, they will be good for about 3 months. After this they may cause you problems, such as ankle, knee and back pain.

If you use your trainers rarely they could last you up to a year. Check your trainers if they are worn and scruffy then it definitely time to get some new ones. If you intend to do bootcamp and work hard then I’d spend a little money on them and make sure that you get the best ones that your budget allows. It also important to get the best ones for your feet and walking/running style. To find out which trainers would be the best for you, I suggest that you go to a shop called the Sweat shop. There staff and trained to look at the way you walk or run and then suggest trainers for you depending on this information. To find your nearest 2 stores are Milton Keynes and Hatfield. Although you’ll pay more for the trainers you’ll get some great advice about which trainers to buy and why.

Ok, so let’s have those key points;

1. Good quality, well timed food, not beer and burger! (If you wish to know more about the right diet go here http://absolute-training.org/personal-nutrition/

2. Hydration! Water, water everywhere so make sure that you have a drink!
3. Heart rate monitor. Know how hard you are working and what your calorie consumption is.
4. The right foot wear. Important for reducing injury risk, comfort and keep away the blisters! www.thesweatshop.co.uk/storefinder.cfm

Other areas that I need I’ll give you information on for getting the best out of your bootcamp are; sleep, goals setting, measuring and accountability but I think that we can cover these another day.

Committed to your success

Keith Tucker

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