Firstly I have to say that this post is for people who struggle to eat healthy. If you eat healthy and don’t feel the need to eat any “cheat meals” then I commend you, but this post is for the other approximately 95% of the population and if you do fall into this minority group, please don’t pass judgement on those who don’t possess the same discipline that you do.

Eating healthy seems to be a problem for almost everyone I meet. Food usually poses a bit of an issue for a huge proportion of the population, not just the people I encounter in my job, but people I encounter socially as well.

There is no doubt that we need to eat healthy. Food choices control your health and your weight. I know there are people out there who eat whatever they want whenever they want and make out like they don’t care about health or weight, but deep down, they are living a lie and the proof of that is that almost every one of those people will have a turnaround at some point in their lives. They will change from the person who is completely “happy” with themselves to the person who can’t believe they lived like that and wants to change. The only variable is when in these people’s lives will it happen.

But, as usual, I digress….

What I want to do in this post is drill into you that eating healthy food should just be a natural thing and shouldn’t consume your every thought!

Who’s ever done a 30 day challenge? I have.

Some challenges are very good, some are very bad. Good would be a strict 30 day challenge to remove all bad food from your diet ( Paleo or no sugar) or a strict 30 days of zone eating.

Bad would be lemon detox diet or soup diet or basically anything that is not leading you to a better way of eating. Something that is designed to be a quick fix and not sustainable or healthy.

Let’s focus on good 30 day challenges like Paleo or zone. These 30 day challenges are meant to set you up to continue eating like this for the long term. They are not designed to be used repeatedly. There is nothing healthy about a 30 day paleo challenge, then eat what you want for as long as you want, then feel bad and do another 30 day challenge and continue this cycle. Do one challenge, experience how you felt and continue to eat healthy for the long term.

But, I digress again…

So you’ve read “The Paleo Answer” and “A week in the Zone” and now you understand that eating healthy involves eating natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, proteins and good fats. In approximate ratios of 40% carbs, 30% protein and 30% fat.

But, it is no fun to go to a party and pass on the wine and canapés because they’re not zone paleo or put on the kids birthday party and not serve up any treats.

Realistically, the majority of people will soon fall off the healthy eating wagon if this is they way they are trying to live.

Eating healthy needs to be a balance and something that does not require too much thought.

If there is no occasion to consider eating non healthy eating, then don’t! The default is to eat healthy, but if there is a call for non healthy eating, you don’t over think it. You enjoy it and that way you’ll feel fine with the system you have developed for yourself.

Your cupboards and fridge should be loaded with healthy food so you never need to consider other options under normal circumstances.

An example may help;

Monday: Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner all healthy. You feel great.

Tuesday: Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner all healthy. You feel great.

Wednesday: Breakfast, morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea all healthy. Dinner is a friends birthday at a restaurant that serves fairly unhealthy food that you love. Enjoy it!!!

Thursday: Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner all healthy. You feel great.

Friday: Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner all healthy. You feel great.

Saturday: Breakfast, morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea all healthy. Dinner you feel like takeaway and some alcohol, go for it and enjoy it, you’ve had a very quiet week on the junk food front.

Sunday: Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner all healthy. You feel great.

The main points here are;

* Just because you had some cheat meals, it didn’t affect any other meals. A lot of people focus so much on food that as soon as they have a cheat meal, they feel like they have fallen off the wagon and follow one cheat meal up with a few more before if they are lucky, they pull them selves into line again.

* There’s 42 meals in a week, you only had 2 cheat meals this week. If you are pushing too many cheat meals too often, maybe you need to tighten the reigns a little, but if you’re being too strict, you’re possibly going to “fall off the wagon” ( by being too strict you’ve created a wagon to fall off!)

* Do not feel guilty when you have the occasional cheat meal!

* Make your healthy eating things that you enjoy so it is not a chore!

Please, don’t over think it. Eat healthy all the time except for the exceptions…Enjoy the exceptions for what they are and the next meal is healthy again. It’s a great cycle and it works!

If you have “fallen off the wagon” then leave the wagon on the side of the road and eat healthy at the next meal. There is no wagon, there is only healthy eating and a cheat meal here and there to keep you sane.

As a side thought… How do most parents manage their kids eating? They feed them healthy food and allow them junk here and there. Parents on the other hand are either all or nothing or worried about food or trialing a diet or defending their unhealthy habits. Maybe they could learn from how they feed their kids…

It’s a new year and I think what better time to knuckle down on your technique. Also, the discussion we had after this morning’s class might have something to do with this post.

So this morning’s class was simple, pull ups, push ups and squats. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

Pull up – Get your chin over the bar. Straighten your arms at the bottom.

Push ups – Touch your chin or chest on the ground. A push up starts at the top, not at the bottom. Move your chest and your hips to the same height at the top and bottom.

Squats – Keep your back straight, keep your knees out and get the crease of your hips below the top of the knees.

Now I’m not going to apologise for being a “Buzz Kill” after this morning’s workout, regardless of how hard you pushed. I will however repeat what I said and that is your score is not valid if your form is wrong. I write the score on the board that you tell me, but how can you justify it if you didn’t actually do it correctly? Why not just do it correctly and then see what sort of a score you get?

The WOD’s at CFK are not a competition. The WOD’s at a competition are a competition. The WOD’s at CFK are training. How can you train for something incorrectly? What happens when the open is on and I’m no-repping you because have bad form because you’ve trained with bad form? Do you then have to change your form for a competition? Does that sound silly? Good, because it is!

I’m fairly sure you’re all adults. I’m fairly sure that when you teach a child something new, you need to be very encouraging and keep their spirits and interest high. I’m fairly sure that everyone knows what good form and proper technique is, but makes a conscious decision not to adhere to it. So, what should I do? Say good work guys, you smashed those bad reps just to keep spirits high? You’re not learning something new, you took something you new perfectly well how to do and you chose not to do it correctly, so you should be reprimanded!

I am not sure why I need to walk around the gym telling people to squat deeper and push up lower etc etc etc. Does someone follow you around all day and tell you how to do everything correctly that you already know how to do? This is basic stuff!

If you are learning something new, it is a totally different story!

If anyone is not sure of the technique of something, can you please ask me before the WOD starts. If I pull you up on your technique once in a class, that should be the only time I need to tell you. After that, you are just ignoring proper form and being an ass. For what? So you can get an awesome fake score!

If something is too heavy for you, don’t lift it!

I don’t want a mentality in my gym that says lift heavy regardless of how your form is. You progress at the rate that your strength and technique will allow.

There is a reason why a lot of people hate CrossFit and that is usually because of bad form that can be seen on many a you tube video . Do you want to be that guy or girl? I am assuming everyone is saying “no” and that’s great, so don’t be that guy or girl!

Community is one of the greatest things about CrossFit and certainly at my box. I love the awesome community we have!!!!!!!! But, don’t start to foster bad habits and ideas in that community.

If you are sore after a big comp, take a rest day! It’s great to push each other, but don’t be silly about it. No-one needs an injury!

If you’re not ready to lift a heavy weight, then don’t! It’s very simple.

If you cannot Rx a WOD without perfect technique then don’t!

I’m just going to finish with a few movement tips;

Dips – get your chest, bicep and shoulder onto the ring then extend to a locked out elbow

Box jumps – get your entire foot on the box and extend your knees and hips before your heel passes below the top of the box

KB swings – keep your back straight. Keep your arms straight and get full extension overhead with your head in between your arms. When you put it down, don’t round your back!

Overhead barbell extension (thruster, push press, jerk etc) – straighten your arms and put your head in between your arms

Burpees – chest to ground whether it is a hand release or not then jump up to an upright position with full extension of hips, spine, shoulders and elbows

Oly lifts – don’t ever round your back! The rest of the technique we go can through together!

If you need to modify any of these movements for a particular competition, it is very easy to make something shorter, easier and worse. It is very hard to make something longer, harder and better!

Looking forward to seeing some perfect form tonight!

P.S The new individual chalk boards are in the pigeon holes, so no more writing on the floor please. After your workout, use the wet towels in the bucket to wipe your board down ready for the next class.

Thanks !

Bootcamp or Group Personal Training in Centennial Park? The lines have been blurred between what used to be 2 very different forms of training.

When I kicked off my group personal training in Centennial Park in 2007, it was exactly that – group personal training.

At that point in time there were a couple of bootcamps in Centennial Park that dealt in bootcamp style training. Typically heaving heavy objects, getting down and dirty and using military style drills to get fit.

Nowadays, anything that involves more than 2 people in a park seems to be a Bootcamp.

So if you are confused at to whether or not my training is in fact outdoor group personal training or bootcamp, don’t worry, because I’m just as confused!

At the end of the day I provide professionally programmed, well structured group fitness in Centennial Park at 6am Monday to Friday and it gets people to the fittest level of their lives. So if that sounds like what you need, then head on over to my website – www.groupfitnesssydney.com.au and check it out. If you like what you see, you can get started with a 3 week trial for only $50!

Happy fitness training!

The strength component of our classes – why do we do it and how important is it?

I am sure that some of you would argue that  the met-con component of our workout is the most important component and you should save your energy for it.

I personally would disagree.

Let me ask you a few questions;

What is it that stops you from doing benchmark WOD’s as Rx?

Is it the fact that you cannot go fast enough to do it?

Or is it the fact that you cannot lift the weight to do it?

Are you starting to catch on?

What is it that stops you from doing a pull up workout as Rx?

It is the fact that you get too puffed?

Or is it the fact that you don’t have the strength to do a pull up?

Or is it the fact that you haven’t mastered the skill of the kipping?

Or is it both?

I think you might be catching on now!

Which of the following statements makes more sense? “Going faster makes you stronger” or “Getting stronger makes you go faster”

I allocate 15 minutes almost every session to developing strength and skill. Do you utilise that time or waste it?

If you are serious about being a better crossfitter then you need to be skilful and strong, not just fast.

When you test your 1Rm, you are effectively seeing the maximum amount of weight you can correctly lift in that particular modality. Be it snatch, clean and jerk, front squat, back squat, deadlift etc

When you test, you want to test accurately. You want to know that max weight, not say “that’s enough for today”

Now that you have your 1RM, we use it to take percentages of and smash out those lifts day in and day out for the next 6 weeks or so that it takes to plough through the program.

Then, you test that 1RM again and will increase that weight from what your old 1RM was. Low and behold, you are now stronger than you were 6 weeks ago. It’s not rocket science, it is just science

But, as we have seen, this is not always the case. Far too many people cruise through the strength section.

Here are the main problems

Not lifting with any intensity as they are trying to save themselves for the “main workout and get that killer score on the blackboard”

Never remembering the technique of the lifts and as such never getting to test the max weight they can lift because they are always “just trying to get the correct technique”

Not recording their weights and then not knowing where they are on the program, which lifts they have tested and how much weight they can lift.

Not reaching a true 1RM as they are scared to lift a heavy weight.

Not focussing on the program at all.

Spending that time to catch up for a good old chat.

Here’s what needs to happen

Get your technique perfect and never let any lifts deviate from perfect form.

Test your 1RM and make it a true maximal lift

Write it on the sheet.

When that sheet is full, move onto the next one at the required weight, reps and sets.

Focus on getting all of your sets completed at the correct weight with perfect technique.

Retest as soon as possible by completing the program as soon as possible by focussing on lifting as per the program everyday you can make it.

Retest with focus and intensity.

Don’t accept less on the retest. You are stronger, you know you are, so prove it.

Retest at the end of every program stronger than at the start.

Cycle after cycle add weight to your lifts. It may be 2.5kg it may be 5kg, it may be 10kg. It just needs to be more. It will only happen if you focus on it. It will only happen if you lift with focus and intensity day in and day out.

Warm up properly

There seems to be a little confusion about the need to warm up properly. Our warmup is general. It increases heart rate, body temperature and gets your joints mobile and loose. It does not prepare you to lift heavy weights. You must warm into those weights. I notice that the favourite lift you like to do an accelerated warm up on is the deadlift. You think that because you lift such big weights that the warm up should be heavy straight away. Not true!

If there is any lift you need to warm up properly, it is the deadlift. It is the lift that puts your back in the most compromised position and you lift very heavy weights. Now when you read that, doesn’t it sink in that you need to warm it up properly?

Don’t bludge through the warm up.

Get some reps with the bar, some light weight, some more weight, some more weight and you might be ready to lift or you might need another set with some more weight. Start with moderate reps and get less everytime you add some weight. It should only take a few minutes and will vary on the amount of weight and the lift you are performing on that day.

Here’s 2 tips;

When you carry your bar to where you are going to lift, do you bar reps before you put it down.

Every warm up set should be with perfect technique. Not some vague form while you think about something else.

Now to the Burgener warmup, I’m going to let this video do the talking – The Burgener warmup video

Pull ups and chin ups

Our pull ups and chin ups days are good for 3 reasons;

1) A day off the lifts every couple of days is good for your body

2) Everybody should be able to lift their own bodyweight. Everybody should be able to do strict pull/chin ups in case it is ever in a WOD.

3) The more strict pulls you can do, the better and more fluent your kips will be.

Remember that every time you hit that pull/chin up workout, you should increase your total reps by atleast 1. That means atleast 1 set has to have more reps than last time.

CrossFit is a good mix of strength and cardio, not a good mix of light weights and cardio. The weight should be a real challenge as well!

So if you’re serious about being a good CrossFitter and especially if you are serious about being a competitive CrossFitter then get stronger and more skilful as well as faster.

And remember, if you want to lose weight, lean muscle burns more calories while you are resting.

Last weekend we had a members only games day at the gym and I made a great feed for everyone after the comp.

The food was delicious, everyone thoroughly enjoyed it and really didn’t even take note that what they were eating would be classified as Paleo food.

I have been inundated with requests for the recipes, so here they are for all to share.

The menu was;

Roast pork loin. I covered that in my special seasoning. The recipe for the special seasoning is below.

Roast beef with special seasoning.

Roast chicken – shop bought.

Green salad leaves with balsamic roasted cherry tomatoes and spanish onions.

Roast veggies with special seasoning.

Brocoli, carrot, egg and bacon salad with T-Roy’s famous mayonnaise.

Date balls.

Special seasoning

T = tablespoon

1 T Salt

1/2 T white pepper

1 T garlic powder

1 T Onion powder

1 T mustard powder

2 T sweet paprika

Mix it all together and use it to season anything you like. It is a great way to add flavour and reduce salt intake.

T-Roy’s famous mayonnaise

2 eggs

1 teaspoon dijon mustad

salt

pepper

approx 50ml white vinegar

approx 250ml extra light olive oil ( if you use the virgin, it will be too overpowering in flavour)

Mix the eggs, salt & pepper to taste and vinegar in a long narrow container, then using a stick blender, slowly drizzle the oil in as you emulsify it into the egg mixture. The oil must mix into the eggs as soon as it hits the eggs, otherwise it will split the mixture.

If the mayo gets too thick, add a dash of cold water. If it is too thin, slowly add more oil until it reaches the consistency you want.

Check the flavour and see if it needs more seasoning or vinegar.

Brocoli salad

I make up the quantities as I go, so you can put it together as you see fit. I like about equal quantities of all ingredients.

Cut the brocoli into small flowerettes then steam for 4 mins exactly.

Roast some carrots in the oven, covered in foil, so they don’t brown too much.

Saute sliced bacon and onion.

Boil eggs

Mix all ingredients together with the famous mayonnaise. Season to taste.

It should look like everything is balanced in the bowl and you are not just consuming a large bowl of brocoli. Adjust the quantities to your taste.

Roasted cherry tomatoes and spanish onions

Toss cherry tomatoes and thickly sliced spanish onions in a bowl with olive oil, salt & pepper and balsamic vinegar. Not too much, just enough to coat the tomatoes and onions.

Roast at about 170 degrees for about 15 – 20 mins.

Check them to make sure they don’t burn.

These are fantastic added to mixed green leaves!

Balsamic dressing

100m balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

Slowly drizzle in extra light olive oil and blend using your stick blender until it reaches a thick consistency and has the flavour you like with just the right amount of bite from the vinegar. Salt and pepper to taste.

Date balls

1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1 cup chopped dates

1/4 teaspoon cinamon

1 cup mixed raw nuts, cashews, almonds, macadamias, brazil nuts – all ground to crumbs

Sesame seeds – toasted in a fry pan

Simmer dates in juice with cinamon for 10 mins, covered with a lid

Allow to cool.

Mix in ground nuts

Roll into balls and roll in the toasted sesame seeds

Place in fridge to cool.

Enjoy everyone!

As I begin to write this blog, I am not sure how I am going to say it, but I know the point I want to make, so if it is a bit hit and miss, atleast you can take away the main point and ponder it and see if it is applicable to you.

Last week I took a break and headed up to QLD to relax and as usual, when I am away from work and I have a few minutes to myself, I usually observe all the people around me. It got me thinking about something and everywhere I looked, I had my theory cemented.

“Everybody can change their life with just a few changes of thinking and a few changes of action.”

I see so many people who’s life is heading in one direction and you just know that they are not happy, but maybe they just don’t know how to change it.

I also know so many people who have been on that unhappy road and they have made changes and their life has changed for the better.

I am not just talking about being overweight, but this would be the main one that comes to mind due to my occupation. I am also talking about being in bad relationships or bad jobs, having bad habits, having no hobbies or interests etc etc, anything that is bringing you down.

When I was away, I got up early each morning and did a workout down by the beach. I did this because I enjoy it and rarely get the luxury of exercising in the early morning when I am working. When I got in the lift each day to head out, there was usually at least 1 person in the lift and believe it or not, they were usually overweight. But not just overweight, they looked generally miserable. They also looked somewhat embarrassed when Hannah I got into the lift.

Now maybe they feel stuck. Staying the same is easy, but it is sucking the life out of them. Making a change is hard, often very hard, but the rewards can be huge.

I also went to a water park and as you know, there is no easy way to cover up there. But what I found was that so many people were embarrassed by their own skin, that they would wear a shirt or even more clothes than just a shirt over the top of their swimmers.

Again, I am sure these people feel stuck. I mean honestly, who is happy and comfortable being overweight, feeling sluggish and embarrassed by their own skin?

I just want to say that it is never too late to make a change. Sometimes making the smallest change can have a domino effect and you will make another change without even thinking about it and then another and yet another until 12 months later, you stop and think and realise that you are not the same person you were. Things in your life are better. Things are more enjoyable etc etc.

I am not saying being thinner is the be all and end all, even though it may lengthen your life and improve your quality of life whilst you are here, but what I am saying is that making one change, usually leads to another.

I’d like to give you some examples. Totally random of course

You’re stuck in a job you hate which doesn’t allow any time for the gym or to eat correctly and you’re in a relationship that is just not right and you’re hanging out because you are comfortable, even though you are unhappy. So one day, you say thats it, I’m done. You quit your job and start looking for a new one that is in a new industry. Something that will bring a spark back to your life. Something you are passionate about. You end your relationship. Let’s face it, it wasn’t going anywhere anyway. You were only hanging out until something better came along, but with the state of mind you were in, nothing better was ever going to come along. You get right into your fitness and eat healthily. All of a sudden you have less burdens. You may be lonely for a while, but now that you are a happier person, working in an industry you enjoy, looking better than ever because you are so fit and healthy and then you find a person who is equally fit and healthy and happy. You are now in a happy relationship because you feel good about your self. 2 years later, you can’t even remember that person who was unhappy in both work, relationship & life and unhealthy and embarrassed to look in the mirror. But, had you not made those couple of changes, 2 years later you could be even deeper stuck in the unhappiness… you would be a totally different person…

or

Maybe you’ve been overweight and unfit for as long as you can remember. Everyone around you is unfit, so why change. But then one day, you say enough is enough. It may be hard and you are going to make a change. You start exercising regularly. You start eating healthy. The weight falls off. You gain self confidence. You start to help others around you because you realise it was not as hard as you had once thought. You want  others to know it is just a few small changes and the domino’s roll. Does losing the weight along make you more confident? The answer is probably YES, but let’s just say no for the sake of argument. So what does make you more confident? Could it be that you now have gym buddies? You’re stronger? You have a hobby? Your social circle has expanded? You can now take up other hobbies because you feel able to do it, where once you felt physically inadequate. How about this…Now that you are happier with your own skin, even though you were in what you thought was a good relationship already, you and your partner are now happier than ever! If you love yourself more, you can love others more too! You don’t always need a new relationship, you may just need to be a happier person to be a better partner!

Does any part of either of those examples sound familiar? I have loads more stories, but I think you get it.

On my way home in the car, I heard a segment on the radio about how much weight you have lost when your partner dumped you. Most of the callers were female whose partners had cheated on them and they all had lost anywhere from 15 to 40kg’s and they all said how amazing they felt and how they rubbed it into their partners faces whenever they saw them. they made comments like now he realises what he lost. My immediate thoughts were “why didn’t you lose the weight when you were together so that he was still physically attracted to you and didn’t even consider cheating on you?”  ”Why is it better to rub it into his face that you have lost weight now that you have broken up instead trying to look after yourself while you were together?

During this same segment, a guy rang up who had been dumped when he was 19 years old. After the breakup, he lost 40kg’s. He said it was a turning point in his life and he was so grateful that she dumped him. He said he is a totally different person now. I want to imagine where he might be if she hadn’t dumped him, because at 19, weighing 117kg’s is not good and I am sure he had some pretty bad habits that may or may not have led to an unhealthy and unhappy adult. In this case, it is the may not! Awesome!

I got told today of a very successful businessman who constantly ate business lunches and dinners always containing alcohol. He recently had a little change of heart and decide he needed to lose weight. By changing what he eats on the business lunches and dinners and by cutting alcohol out of his diet and exercising regularly, he has lost 40kg’s. Do you think he might inspire others around him to do the same. It’s not rocket science!

I saw a guy on the news the other night who was a former skinhead. He had tattoos all over his face. He has recently had a change of heart and is no longer a racist and had decided to have all of the tattoos removed form his face. $35,000 later, he looks like a new man. Could his life have become any different? All he did was change his way of thinking!

So if you are unhappy, for any reason, it is never too hard to make a change, and remember, once you make one change, other things will start to happen! No one needs to be unhappy. Life is short, you better make the most of it. Sooner rather than later!

So many of my clients have made changes in their health and fitness and in turn they have changed many other parts of their personalities and their lives so please help someone else out and let them know it is never too late to make a change!

And please be honest. It is very easy to pretend to be happy with what you have got because it may seem difficult to change, but you can only lie to yourself for so long before the truth needs to come out.

Most of you will know Finn form the morning group who runs Stepping Stone House. I also train the kids from Stepping Stone House once a month to help give them some fitness in their lives. They are having a fund raising event this weekend, so please have a read of the details below and come along!

Just a quick note to let you all know that Stepping Stone House is having another fundraising event at Gazebo Building this year.

Last year – we had the casino theme – this year its a Halloween theme – and one may choose to “dress up” or go in “black tie” or “cocktail” each to their own really! Glamour Versus Halloween!

Please feel free to pass around to friends – family – work colleagues!

Its a cracker of a venue – the views are amazing!     The venue is a 360 degree round pent house – with once again amazing views!

Its great value – finger food – all you can drink ( alcohol and non alcoholic – alcohol is generally beer / wine / bubbles) – Halloween Candy Bar – and we are still hopeful for some kind of “entertainment” such as Tarot readings etc – BUT most importantly a good ole laugh with your friends!    Not to mention that it is all for a great cause – and its Tax Deductible.

More information on Stepping Stone House can be found on www.steppingstonehouse.com <http://www.steppingstonehouse.com>  - which will list and detail all the Aims and Purpose of Stepping Stone House.     It is an amazing charity – that receives no government funding or support – and relies heavily on the generosity and kindness of People!    Stepping Stone House continuously seek corporate sponsorship – this could be in the form of “charity of the Year’ or maybe a coffee morning donation to assist with purchase of school uniforms / books / dental fees etc – not to mention that Christmas is coming and all young people will need to receive from Santa! / attendance at fundraising events – organisation of fundraising events – personal donations – or maybe you have a skill that when volunteered to Stepping Stone House would be so beneficial.

Note:     Stepping Stone House has been in existence for 22 years!
Maybe this fundraising party – is the ideal way to celebrate a birthday – a celebration – celrbation of life and freindships  - have a girls night out – have a boys night out – have a “parents” night out – have an office party – get your work place donation / charity board to come along with employees – and the list goes on!
Thanking you

Cheers

Finn

PALEO

Over the past year or so I have posted a bit of info about Paleo eating and we have had a 30 day challenge which went well and everybody saw the benefits.
Here is a link to some of the feedback I received after the challenge. It is all very inspiring to others to try it and even though a lot of people didn’t continue to eat 100% Paleo, they all got something out of it and most of them eat predominantly Paleo foods most of the time.

But, I know that Paleo eating is not for everybody. It can be a little restrictive, so I thought I would tell you about the way of eating I am recommending if Paleo is not your thing. Having said that, if Paleo is your thing then eating in Zone ratios with Paleo food is the best!!

I recommend you buy “The Paleo Solution” by Robb Wolf which will help you with food choices. You will benefit from eating predominantly Paleo foods.

SUGAR

We have also run several “no sugar” challenges which are fantastic. I believe it is in everybody’s best interest to cut as much sugar from your diet as possible, both for weight loss and health.

Here is a link to a couple of my older articles about sugar. Please read these before reading on with this article;

Is sugar making you sick?

Is sugar making you fat?

Now, there is nothing amazingly bad about sugar, it has the same calorie content as any other carb or protein, so it is not going to make you fatter than eating anything else based on the food (sugar) itself alone or the calories it contains, but the problem with sugar is what it does to your hormones. When your blood sugar levels rise, your body pumps out insulin to bring the blood sugar levels back to normal. Insulin is a storage hormone and it is necessary to our survival, hence why we have it in our body, but what is bad for us is the levels we produce when we have sugar and cause rises in blood sugar. Insulin is related to a whole range of health issues, number 1 being type 2 diabetes, but I am not going into here, I am going to focus mainly on its effect on weight loss.

As I said, insulin is a storage hormone, so when it is present in your body, you will store fat. Eat sugar, store more fat. That’s the simplest way of putting it and really all you need to know. Once you know that, you realistically should be saying “ far out, how can I have less insulin pumping through my body?”

Well, don’t eat any carbs and you won’t, but that’s not possible. Our body needs carbs. Carbs fuel our muscles and most importantly, our brain.

So what to do?

EAT BALANCED MEALS!

I know what you’re thinking, I already eat balanced meals. I have weetbix, fruit, yogurt and coffee for breakfast. Then I have a wholegrain sandwich with salad, a piece of fruit and another coffee for lunch. At night I eat pasta, but with a tomato sauce, no creamy sauces for me, they make you fat. I also have a 200g steak and some veggies. Sometimes for dessert I will just have a piece of fruit or some yogurt. If I’m feeling naughty I’ll have a piece of chocolate. See, all balanced! I just don’t understand why I can’t lose weight…

A balanced meal will consist of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. The ideal balance shown to exhibit weight loss is 40:30:30

This means 40% of your calories will come from Carbohydrates

30% will come from Protein

30% will come from fat

That doesn’t mean you eat as much fat as what you do protein, because fat has more than twice as many calories per gram that protein has. There are 9 calories per gram of fat and 4 calories per gram of protein.

So if I wanted a meal that would be 300 calories, I would get 120 cals from carbs, 90 from protein and 90 from fat

Translate this to calories and you get 30g carbs, 22g protein and 10g fat. Simple!

What you will also notice is that this is an almost perfect 3,2,1.

Now looking at your current diet above, you only ate protein at night and it was way too much. The rest of the day was carbs, balanced with more carbs and topped off with more carbs.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking again. This is one of those high protein diets right?

Wrong! Just to reiterate, 40:30:30. Or a 300 calorie meal would be 30g carbs, 22g protein and 10g fat. Doesn’t sound too high protein to me…

WHY EAT BALANCED MEALS?

Because food affects your hormones and weight loss is dependant upon your hormones!

When you eat carbs, your blood sugar levels will rise. The rise will depend on how good or bad the carbs were, or how high or low they were on the glycemic index. The higher and more bad they are, the more insulin will be released.

A lot of research over the past few years is showing that abdominal fat is related to insulin. Some people are more sensitive to it than others.

It is not only carbs that will increase insulin, but too many calories at each meal can stimulate insulin too.

Insulin is a storage hormone, it stores fat and our body needs it, it just doesn’t need that much of it!

When you increase your insulin your levels, you will not burn fat for hours after that. Any workout will burn carbohydrates, which will help them not to be stored as fat, but it doesn’t do much for the fat that is already there.

There is a hormone in protein called glucagon. Glucagon is a mobilisation hormone. It tells the body to release carbohydrate to the liver to make blood sugar to feed the brain.

This is why we need to balance the carbs and protein, so that the hormones are also balanced.

Fat has a couple of uses, it helps to slow the entry rate of carbs to the blood stream helping to reduce the impact on insulin levels and it contains a hormone called eicosanoids. Eicosanoids are a master hormone that help keep other hormones under control.

So that is why we eat balanced meals!

ARE YOU SURE THIS IS NOT HIGH PROTEIN?

This is not high protein, it is moderate protein, don’t be confused that this is high protein just because I want you to eat protein at every meal.

Most people eat high carbs, low protein. This is helping to balance it out a little.

How much protein would you eat at night?

An average female would need approximately 90g. The average male would need 120g, maybe 150g depending on size and goals.

Now if your current protein portion size at night is 200 – 250g, you now have 100 – 150g of protein up your sleeve to spread throughout the day. Make sense?

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FATS?

Fats are actually the trickiest thing, because we need to get fat at every meal, but there are limited good fats. You’ve got avocado, nuts, olive oil, flaxseed oil. So you need to plan accordingly, maybe you have olive oil on all your salads, maybe you have avocado with meats, maybe you have nuts with a snack or if you have a meal that lacked the other fats. Remember to count the fat you cook with if you are cooking a stirfry etc. but, cooking fat should be kept to a minimum.

Lets look at nuts as a very common snack food. How many nuts do you eat as a snack? Honestly!

Well, I need you to eat 6 for the average female and 9 – 12 for the average male. So if you have 20 once a day, I am asking you to eat 6 nuts 3 times a day. Get it? Can you also see from this that you may be consuming too many nuts at the moment?

BUT WHAT CARBS SHOULD I EAT

Realistically on Zone, you can eat any carbs you want, but the worse the quality of the carb, the less you can have of it. So if you want a filling meal, you should be choosing good quality carbs.

The main thing we are looking at with the carbs is the glycemic index and the impact that food will have on insulin levels. So, something like bread or potato or rice that is high on the glycemic index, you can only have a small amount. Example, an average females portion of pasta would be ½ cup with a tomato sauce. No other carbs. Lets think about how that would look on the plate and how filling it would be. Not very appealing to the eyes and not very filling.

Lets think of something like stir fried vegetable with oyster sauce. An average female could have 1 cup broccoli, 1 cup cauliflower, 1 cup green beans, 1 cup capsicum.

Now put that on a plate with your protein and see how satisfying and appetising that meal is.

OK, OK, SO NOW WHAT?

Well I think this rant has gone on for long enough, I have given you the why’s, I will give you the how’s in the next post. Here it is – Eating balanced meals for weight loss Part 2

Please go and buy “A week in the Zone” by Dr Barry Sears. This book will lay it all out for you and is a very informative easy read.

Any questions at all, please post in the comments section because your question is probably the same as what somebody else is thinking and I can answer everyone together.

Many of you already know that I have been eating in Zone ratios for about 2 years now. Originally with any food I liked and in the past 12 months using mainly Paleo foods (which I also like).

Recently I have been receiving regular updates from the Health blog of Dr Barry Sears, the founder of the Zone diet. I call it the Zone diet, but I prefer to think of it as eating in the Zone, the word diet has so many stigmas attached to it, and rightly so!

The Zone diet simply means balancing your protein, carbs and fats at every meal. It also shows you how big or small your portions should be at each meal. It has easy to read charts to reference portions sizes for protein, carbs and fat.

It is by no means a fad diet and by no means a high protein diet. The proportions that zone recommends are 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 30% fat. It is basically structured balanced eating. Something most of us don’t do (regardless of what we think we do).

Eating in the Zone simply means eating within a zone that keeps your blood sugar levels stable without spikes, thus reducing the amount of insulin circulating in the body and keeping inflammation in the body to a minimum. Inflammation is responsible for most health issues in our bodies along with increased weight gain.

It is a much easier approach to weight loss and inflammation reduction than Paleo eating, but when you get a handle on portion control, you should look to switch the majority of your eating to Paleo foods to get the best results for your health and weight loss.

So anyway, the reason for this post is to share with you some of the better updates I have received from Dr Sears Health blog.

I have been posting them regularly on the Fitta Bodies facebook page, but here they are for all of you to read through at your leisure. They are quite short and concise with loads of relevant info.

Enjoy!

Click on these links to read the full article;

Eat like our paleolithic ancestors
No excuses, eat your breakfast
The secret of blueberries
Coffee and diabetes
Polyphenols make probiotics work better
Blame weight gain on the brain
What’s the story on chocolate
New food trends may be dysfunctional
The latest useless fad diet
Gastric banding – admitting failure
Mythologies in treating childhood obesity
Good and Bad carbohydrates
Fish oil and fat loss
Where does fat go
The demise of the mediterranean diet

To stay up to date the easiest with all of my updates, simply join the facebook page here.

The Fitta Bodies clothing range is finally ready to go.

I have designed a whole bunch of clothes through a website called Spreadshirt. This is the best option for my clothing because we can have a wide variety as opposed to me getting one design printed at a graphic designer and not knowing what size or styles anyone actually wants.

On this website, you can browse all the items, choose the colour you like and the size you like. Perfect.

There are some great quotes that I got from all of you months ago and I am excited to see you all wearing some new Fitta Bodies gear next time I see you.

Here are a  few instructions that will help you have a smooth ride through the clothing store, so follow the step by step instructions below.

1. Follow this link to the clothing store http://266984.spreadshirt.com

2. You can either scroll through all of the clothes, or select a category to refine your search

3. When you find an article you like, click on “details”

4. In the “details” section you can select the colour you like. Almost every article of clothing has been set in either white or black. White clothes only come in white. Black clothes can be changed to any colour they have available  except white. This is why I set a white and black version of each item.

5. In the “details” section, you can select your size. There is a sizing chart which will help you decide which size to choose.

6. Order your product.

I have no affiliation with the company Spreadshirt. I have simply used their website as it is a great way to give you all access to loads of great designs of Fitta Bodies clothes. If there are any problems with your order, I cannot accept any responsibility, as I have no communication with them except for using their platform for clothing design. All printing, invoicing and delivery are completely out of my control and are in no way associated with Fitta Bodies personal Training.

Thanks everyone!