After my recent posts on how sugar is making you fat and sick, I had a lot of people asking me what they should eat, if they are trying to eliminate sugar from their diet. It sounded like some people may be taking it to the extremes, so I am going to give you some sensible advice about how to minimise the affects of insulin on your body. These points below are easy to follow ways to help reduce the sugar in your diet.

1) Eliminate as much refined sugar form your diet as possible.

What does that mean? Don’t eat any cakes, lollies, jellies, ice-cream, chocolate, etc, etc, etc. If you simply must eat this garbage then limit it to once per week. That is somewhat acceptable.

2) When eating carbohydrates, choose low glycemic carbohydrates. 

What does that mean? Low glycemic carbohydrates will not cause the sudden rise in blood sugar levels thus triggering the release of insulin. To find out whether a food is low or high glycemic, try this link, they have a fairly substantial database of foods,www.glycemicindex.com

3) Limit fruit to 2 pieces per day and when you eat a piece of fruit, eat some nuts with it.

The fat and protein in the nuts will help to mellow out the affects of the sugar.

4) Try to base your lunch and dinner around salad and/or veggies with protein.

Most people base their lunch and dinner around starch such as pasta, rince, potato etc. It doesn’t take long to change your habits to eat more veggies and salad. Not only is this beneficial in reducing the amount of starch you are eating, but it drmatically increases your vitamin and mineral intake form the veggies and we all know how beneficial it is to be getting all those natural vitamins and minerals!

5) Don’t think of sweetened yogurt as a health food.

Sweetened yogurt contains on average 15g sugar per 100g, some more, some slightly less. Not much different from ice cream! Natural yogurt is a different story, with around 5 or 6 grams of sugar per 100g.

6) If you are really craving a dessert and you must have it, choose ice cream.

As mentioned above, it can have anywhere from 15 to 30g sugar per 100g. A typical block of chocolate will have 60g sugar per 100g.

7) If you are having dairy, choose full fat.

Why? 2 reasons;

a) Most low fat products have has more sugar added to make up for the lack of flavour when fat is removed.

b) When you don’t have any fat present, the affects of the sugar on you rblood sugar is more dramatic. Fat will help to mellow out the spike in the blood sugar.

8 ) Don’t have sugar in your coffee or tea.

Add up how much sugar you put in your caffeine and you’ll be surprised.

9) Never ever drink soft drinks.

They are just empty sugar calories. 

It really doesn’t take that long to change your tastebuds and reduce the amount of sugar in your diet. Try it for 30 days and see how you feel. Other than being thinner and healthier, I bet you won’t crave it as much either!

Is Sugar making you fat?

ABSOLUTELY!

There are so may reasons not to eat sugar that I am going to break this down into 2 entries. This first one will talk about weight loss. The next one about how sugar is responsible for a whole range of health problems. To view this article, enter here.

Firstly, let me ask you this question:

Are you overweight or at the very least, can’t shift the muffin tops?

Now let me ask you:

Do you eat a high fat diet?

or

Do you eat a high carbohydrate diet?

I personally don’t know anyone who eats a high fat diet. It is so hard these days with half the supermarket filled with low fat everything.

I personally do know lots of people who eat high sugar diets and this is why people are fat! If eating a low fat diet made you lose weight, then why so many fat people? Am I wrong? Think about your own diet.

When we eat/drink sugar or a food that turns into sugar, that sugar is delivered into our blood stream. This results in high blood sugar levels. Your body does not like high blood sugar levels, so it releases insulin from the pancreas. The insulin pulls the sugar out of the blood stream and delivers it to your muscles and liver and anything left over is stored as fat. There’s one more critical factor here. When there is insulin circulating in your system, your fat cells are immobilized. So when you eat sugar, you can bet that you won’t be burning any fat for up to 6 hours.

How does that sound? Eat sugar and don’t burn any fat for hours. Does that sound like something you want happening in your body?

I think it is funny when somebody tells me they love eating sweets and that it isn’t a big deal. They feel that so long as they are not eating loads of fat then they are fine. What a mistake. That sugar is converted to fat very quickly!

I do however understand that sugar is highly addictive and so should you.

Here are a few questions to determine whether you might be addicted to sugar:

Do you use sweets as a reward?

Do you eat sweets when you feel down or stressed?

Do you eat sweets even when you’re not hungry?

Have you said you are going to give up sweets but find yourself eating them a few days later?

Do you make jokes about how you just love eating sweets and don’t have an interest in cutting back?

Do you take a small bite of something sweet and then can’t resist eating the whole thing?

Do you ever binge on sweets?

What do you think, are you possibly addicted to the sweet stuff?

There are a whole range of problems that sugar can cause in the body and I will go through that soon, but for now, I only have one very, very important thing to say to all of you;

STOP EATING SUGAR OR FOODS THAT TURN INTO SUGAR AND START LOSING WEIGHT NOW!

What do I mean by foods that turn into sugar?

I am basically referring to the glycemic index. The glycemic index refers to how quickly a food turns into sugar in your body. The higher the ranking, the quicker it turns into sugar. Eating low glycemic foods are the best. Bear in mind that only carbohydrates are on the glycemic index because they are what turn into sugar. By carbohydrates, I am referring to anything from chocolate cake to carrots, weetbix to grapes, lollipops to strawberries. They all have different rankings and turn into sugar at different rates. You might be surprised at some of the findings. I recommend buying a glycemic book with charts or find a good webpage with charts on it to help you make wise choices.

Here is a little tip; When eating carbohydrates, try eating some fat and protein with them. This will slow the affect on the blood sugar levels as the body has to process everything together and isn’t just converting the carbs to sugar. Combining the fat and protein with the sugar dulls out the affect to some degree.

For example, combine your fruit with nuts, choose whole fruit over fruit juice, have protein on whole grain sandwiches.

Lastly, I just want to say again STOP EATING SUGAR OR FOODS THAT TURN INTO SUGAR AND START LOSING WEIGHT NOW!

If you think I may be wrong then I encourage you to stop eating sugar or foods that turn into sugar for 30 days and see what happens. What have you got to lose other than your gut?

To view my article on how sugar could be making you sick, enter here.

Last month I spent 2 days at the State Sports Centre weight lifting facility getting certified as a kettlebell instructor. What this means is that I am one of only a handful of fully certified and insured Kettlebell instructors in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney.

So what is the Kettlebell is why is it such an awesome tool for strength, fitness and my client’s focus – weight loss.

What:

A traditional kettlebell looks something like a cannonball with a thick handle.

They traditionally come in weight increments of 4kg or 1/4 pood. A pood is 16kg. The kettlebells were originally used to weigh grain in Russia, which is where the pood measurement and the handle comes from. One day someone decided this heavy ball would be good to lift and so kettlebell training was born.

Kettlebells have been in use for centuries in Russia and have been used in the past by western strongmen and athletes.

But…

As the body building gym mentality took over, kettlebells faded from popularity.

But, But…

A new breed of fitness enthusiasts have enjoyed the revival of Kettlebells which was initiated by an Ex-Russian Special Forces Trainer Pavel Tsatsouline.

This little bit of history sounds good, but what does it mean to us???

Well, My Focus;

With obesity at an all time high, some fitness professional have decided to shun all the fancy machines and the gyms that house them to take on a more fundamental and effective style of training, using whole body movements and simple fitness tools.

I read an article the other day by Don Stevenson of Octogen Fitness and he articulated the scenario perfectly. I quote exactly;

“Functionality is the guiding principle of all Kettlebell training.

Despite what the over-tanned pump’n'toned trainers at your local gym think, functional training is not doing one armed bicep curls with 3kg while standing on a wobble board.

Real functional training is about preparing the body for the demands of sport, work and day to day life. The reality is that in most real life situations you will be called upon to manipulate an unevenly weighted object in three dimensions.

Kettlebell training is supremely functional. The kettlebell itself is unevenly weightled and even the simple act of picking it up off the ground forces the body’s stabilizer muscles to kick in.”

So there you go, kettlebell exercises work the whole body, great for weight loss and great for the core.

So forget all the weird and wonderful machines at your local gym, the most effective tools are often the simplest.

Your in Fitness

Troy Shipsey

Randwick, Centennial Park Personal Trainer

With all of the info around at the moment, I thought I would give you a brief explanation of why it is that we do certain things if we want to lose weight.

I hope with this understanding, you will be able to make better choices and not follow fads or be sucked in by headlines in magazines.

What is the most effective weight loss mechanism? Our metabolism! The calories that are burnt while our body carries out it’s own internal functions.

Why do we train at all then? We want to burn more calories. calories are a unit of energy that we receive when we eat food or drink beverages other than water. If that energy is not used, it will be stored as fat.

Why do we train aerobically? Aerobic training increases fitness levels, helps our health and most importantly for a lot of people, it burns calories. It burns calories at the time of training and during the recovery hours after the training. With the chronic changes that effect our blood and organs, we will speed our metabolism.

Why do we train weights? Weight lifting gives us more muscle tone and being stronger helps us in everyday life. We burn calories during a weights workout and in the recovery time after the workout, but the most important reason is that more lean muscle mass createsa faster metabolism by needing to use more energy to support the newly created muscle mass.

Why do we walk? Most of us don’t move enough! We wake up, drive to work, sit at our desk and then drive home to have dinner and go to bed. We NEED more movement in our lives! Don’t you wonder why we are a population that is getting bigger and bigger?

Why do we eat regularly? When we eat regularly, our bodies need to process the food, thus speeding our metabolism. If we leave large gaps in between meals, our body may think it is starving and it will hold onto the food we put in, not knowing when the next meal may come. By adding food regularly, we eliminate this problem.

Why do we eat more protein and less carbohydrates? Protein is the building block of the body, our growth and repair rely on the amino acids that are found in protein. 

Carbohydrates give us energy. If you consume too much energy without burning it away, it will be stored as fat. High glyceamic carbohydrates will spike your blood sugar levels causing insulin to be released into your blood supply which will immobilise your fat cells. Putting it simply, don’t expect to use any fat as energy for the couple of hours after eating high glyceamic carbohydrates.

Most of the population eat far too little protein and far too much bad carbohydrates!

Why do we train our abdominals? Our abdominal wall gives support to our spine. If you can strengthen your abdominals, you will have less chance of back injury.

If you are very lean, training your external abdominals will give you a six pack look.

Why do we stretch? Tight muscles can cause injuries not only to the muscle itself, but to the joint that the muscle crosses and/or affects.

Why do we rest? Our bodies need rest to avoid over-training. With too much exercise, our body may start to panic and go into survival mode and hold onto fat as an insurance for itself as it doesn’t know how much more exercise is around the corner.

Our muscles need rest to recover from the workout that we have put them through, so that they can repair themselves and grow stronger to accomodate the overload that we put them through with each workout.

Troy Shipsey

Centennial Park Group Fitness Trainer

Once you have decided to take action to achieve your goals, you must determine where it is you want to be and realise where it is you are starting from. From there, it is a certain amount of “positive steps” you need to take to achieve that goal.

Everybody has to take a different amount of “steps”, as everybody is different.

The variables that determine the amount of “steps” you need to take may include:

• Your fitness level when starting out
• Your goal at the end
• Age
• Gender
• Your hormones
• Your lifestyle
• Your metabolism

All of these things and many more must be considered when making your action plan for success.

You have to be taking constant steps forward to reach your goals.

The more steps backward you take, the longer it will take to reach your goals.

Examples of “steps” forward are:

• Eating breakfast
• Eating regularly
• Eating healthy nutritious meals with a balance of low GI carbs, protein and salad or vegetables
• Thinking positively
• Training correctly
• Training regularly to your appointed schedule
• Opting for water rather than alcohol or soft drink
• Sleeping 8 hours per night
• Drinking 3 litres of water per day

Examples or “steps” backward;

• Skipping meals
• Eating incorrectly such as high GI carbs and high fat, high sugar meals
• Not incorporating enough protein into your diet
• Drinking alcohol
• Drinking soft drinks
• Skipping workouts
• Training incorrectly
• Thinking negatively
• Not sleeping enough
• Not drinking enough water

Remember that taking a step backward does not leave you level, it leaves you back one step from achieving your goals, because if you had taken that step forward you would have been one step closer, now you are 2 steps further away because you passed up the opportunity to be one step closer.

So every time you take a step backward, remember it takes 2 steps forward to advance you along the way to achieving your goals. Try to think of how many steps forward you took this week and how many steps backward you took. Did you advance, stay level or go backward?

Does this make it a little clearer as to how diligent you have to be to reach your goals?

Fat doesn’t lose itself!

Yours in Fitness

Troy Shipsey

Ok, so in Let’s get fit for summer Part 1, we discussed how many calories you could be burning off if you turn up to all your workouts. 

Now we will look at how what you put into your mouth has just as much if not more affect on your body than exercise.

Let me firsty say that yes, food should be enjoyable! But no, it should not be detrimental to our health!

Food is the fuel that keeps our bodies functioning day to day. We need to be feeding our bodies with healthy food to function properly.

Healthy food is not only good for long term health, but it is great for us in regards to weight loss, because healthy food generally has less calories. We all know that we need to burn more calories than we are consuming in order to lose weight. 

For more information on caloires, please refer to Calories Part 1 & Calories Part 2. You will be able to calculate just how many calories you should be eating.

Now, let’s say you want to lose 1 kg of fat. As mentioned in part 1, this is 7700 calories. I recommend creating a diet defecit of approx 500 calories a day in order to safely and effectively lose weight.

Easy to say, not so easy to do! The fact is, most people eat way more than they should every day. Then they exercise and wonder why they are not losing weight. If you exercise 5 days a week and burn off roughly 3000 caloires in the week, but you eat 600 calories a day more than you need to, you won’t lose any weight! This is not taking into account the weekend where you probably eat more!

So, you decide to eat well… You do this for a week, maybe 2, you start to feel better in yourself. You feel lighter, you feel less bloated, you notice a difference in your waistline. But then the takeaway food sneaks back in. The dessert after dinner sneaks back in. You start to skip breakfast again and before you know it, you are back into your old habits.

Maybe something far worse happens… you decide to go on a diet. I am not sure which one, I don’t really care which one, they are all as bad as each other. The fact is, when eventually you go off the diet, you will gain back all of the weight you lost and then some. I have the proof, hundreds of people I have spoken to who all tell me about the diet they are on or have been on and who all without a doubt, put all of the weight back on, regardless of their training because they haven’t created any good eating habits and when they aren’t on some sort of diet, they just eat badly!

Eating well is a life long habit you need to create. Weight loss should be slow and steady and acheived through a change in diet, exercise and lifestyle habits.

So we’ve looked at exercise and food, what about liquid… Next week we will look at all of those empty calories in alcohol in Let’s get fit for Summer Part 3.

Yours in fitness

Troy Shipsey

Well its that time of year again. Everybody is scrambling to get in shape for their swim suits and those lazy summer days on the beach. Or maybe it’s just for the lack of clothing that we wear as the weather heats up.

Whatever the reason, this is definitely the season to get in shape.

So here are my series of tips to get in shape for summer (life). They may sound like common sense, that is because they are, but I guess everybody just needs a little kick up the butt and a reminder now and then, or we’d all be in great shape all year round. It’s not that hard, just eat sensibly and move regulary.

So my first tip to you: Don’t skip your workouts!

Every person and every workout is different, but as a general rule of thumb, you would burn approximately 600 calories in 1 hour of my training.

So lets use this average figure of 600 calories per workout for my calculations.

I recommend training 5 days per week. This = 3000 calories burned per week.

If you want to burn 1 kg of fat, you have to burn approximately 7700 calories.

So without looking at nutrition in this tip, it would take 2 1/2 weeks to burn off 1 kg of fat without skipping any workouts.

Lets say you train 3 days per week, it will now take you 1 month to lose that kilo of fat.

Train 2 days per week and we are now looking at 6 weeks to lose that 1 kilo of fat.

This may sound silly, but some people only train once a week. They are looking at 3 months to lose 1 kg of fat.

So here’s your first tip to getting that body you want; Train regularly and don’t skip your workouts!

Now this tip is taking into consideration movement only, but I think we all know that it is what goes into our mouths that is critical to weight loss, so we will look at this in next week’s tip: Let’s get fit for summer Part 2.

Your in Fitness

Troy Shipsey

To join our group training classes, simply visit Group Training

To join our group training classes, simply visit Group Training

As I have mentioned earlier, food is of the utmost importance in our lives.

Food is our fuel and without the correct fuel, we cannot expect to live long, fullfilling and diease free lives.

Food and water are the essence for survival, so the next time you think you don’t have time to prepare a healthy meal because other things are more important, remember this, food supplies the fuel to power your body, with the wrong fuel, you will get sick. Be it obesity, diabetes, A.D.D, irritable bowel syndrome, heart disease, cancer or something else, a weakened immune system through poor nutrition will result in something bad. Oh and on that note, let’s just remember that cancer is not caused through bad luck, contrary to popular belief.

But, despite all the information out there about how important food is, it just doesn’t sink in for the majority of people. In actual fact, most people take better care of their car than their body. So I have prepared a couple of little analogies which I use on my clients.

“Would you set out on a road trip up the coast without any fuel, oil or water in your car? NO?
Then why do you set out to take on the day’s challenges without putting the correct fuel and water into your body?”

“Perfume smells great, but put it in your petrol tank instead of petrol and your car won’t run properly.
Junk food tastes great, but put it in your mouth and your body won’t run properly!”
When you wake up feeling crap, thank about what you ate yesterday.

“Would you take your car to the mechanic for regular servicing and then pour methylated spirits into the fuel tank? NO?
Then why do you visit the gym regularly or even see your personal trainer but then put crappy food in your mouth?”

I think you get the message, please be aware of what goes in your mouth. I am not saying to eat alfalfa sprouts all day long, but it is really so easy to make healthy, tasty, nutritious food and just limit your junk food to weekends and takeaway dinners to once a week.

Troy Shispey

Fitta Bodies Personal Training

Group Training Centennial Park, Sydney