The Five Pillars of Good Health

March 22, 2013 By
When we talk about ‘fitness’ or ‘health’ definitions are often blurred. Inwardly the fitness industry tends to focus heavily on body composition, size, and strength, while outwardly our health service and medical industry have real concerns over obesity, diabetes, and the rapidly increasing elderly population.

There is still a major disparity between the two camps, though in reality the two are closely linked. The fitness industry by its nature seems to attract those who are younger and have less interest in the long-term health aspects of exercise and fitness. Through the rise in media surrounding how we look, rather than how we feel, it has become far more trendy to post pictures of six-pack transformations and large muscular physiques than case studies of improved health, daily function, or disease reduction.

Nevertheless, the two need not be mutually exclusive, although it is questionable that we should sacrifice the latter in search of the former. If our clients are truly in search of ‘feeling’ better, we need to take a wider look at their health and know that if they can get those aspects in line, they will not only feel they look better, but also feel better about how they look.

1) Emotional Health:personal trainer liverpool street

The increase in depression, eating disorders, stress-related illness, and dependence on medication is frightening. Our ability to change our habits and improve our health is built on a foundation of being able to emotionally cope with change, and the realisation of the need to do so. Obesity lives at one end of the eating spectrum, while obsessive eating behaviours and eating disorders occupy the other. Both are unhealthy but are all too easily formed. For many who feel a lack of control in other aspects of their life, eating habits can quickly become the anchor to which they attach a need for control. Of course, eating is not the only vice chosen. Alcohol, drugs, smoking, gambling, violence, and promiscuity all form conduits by which people try to find some escape from their unhappiness. For those wanting to make changes to their life, addressing emotional health is the place to begin. Recognising this and then taking steps to improve it is a necessary start to living a life free of unhealthy emotional attachments and destructive habits.

Tip: Many factors affect our emotional health and the reality is that we will all have to deal with difficult and unpleasant situations in our life. Adopting healthy habits and hobbies that bring us pleasure, be that owning a pet or taking up a sport, improve our ability to deal with these situations and minimise their impact on our overall health. Find something you’ve always wanted to try or experience and go do it. Searching out new and exciting experiences is always rewarding. Support this with a diet high in unprocessed foods and vegetables, healthy sleep patterns, and minimising substance/stimulant use that tend to have a depressive effect.

2) Joint Health:personal trainer shoreditch

While working out is often associated with building bigger muscles and improving muscular strength, it is far less trendy or sexy to talk about joint health. However, when our joints start to break down or are injured, the effects are debilitating. This is why we place such a large focus on flexibility when working with our personal training clients. While the benefits of resistance training are plentiful and well-established, it does carry the potential to increase wear and tear on the joints of the body. Of course, this may not manifest itself to some way down the training journey but, when it does, it will be much harder than muscle damage to recover from. Our joint structures turn over far slower than our muscles and once damaged will be hard to repair. Couple this with the effects of age, poor nutrition, and a sedentary lifestyle and the importance of attention to joint health is obvious.

Tip: Bodybuilder Reg Park (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s idol) recognised many decades ago that there was value in taking lay-offs from heavy resistance training loads. While this may be a bitter pill to swallow for those competing in strength sports, it shouldn’t be so hard to swallow for those for whom long-term health is a consideration. Breaks from high volumes of resistance training, coupled with a healthy respect for flexibility and nutrition should provide a recipe that makes weight training a lifelong pursuit. Similarly, so many people ignore the signs of poor joint health and continue to load joints through a fear of ‘letting go’ of their strength training schedule. Stretch tight areas, improve range of movement, and allow rest and recovery when joints start to tell you that they need a break. Activities like yoga, pilates, and tai chi can be a fantastic balance for heavy resistance training.

3) Digestive Health:

The digestive system is a powerful window into our health. Modern research is identifying the role of the various elements of gut health and are even starting to show links between digestive flora and obesity, plus we all know the effects that stress, anxiety, or excitement can have on our stomachs. Our digestion can also suffer when confronted with foods that provide a greater challenge than it was originally designed for. Diets high in wheat, gluten, refined/processed foods, all increase the burden on the gut to effectively break down and absorb nutrients, which can affect everything from our mental health (95% of our serotonin is found in the gut) to simply cramping our social life when suffering from bloating and stomach ache. It isn’t just our diet either that can cause digestive problems. Prescription medication often has detrimental impacts on gut health, ranging from the damage caused by NSAIDS to our stomach lining to the effect of antibiotic use on digestive flora.

Tip: If you suffer from poor gut health, an elimination diet can be a useful way to determine what causes you problems. Taking out key troublemakers such as high wheat foods can often have an immediate impact on improving digestion. Often including foods like pears, nectarines, and prunes can help smooth digestive transit along with a good intake of water. Try to avoid using over the counter medication where possible, in particular known gut irritants like Ibuprofen.

4) Metabolic Health: personal training shoreditch

With so many of our clients attending regular health screenings and operating in high stress environments it would be foolhardy to be ignorant of metabolic markers of health. From aerobic capacity through to blood lipid levels, these tests can provide insights into the possible risk of long-term health problems. It is a shame that these medicals give little attention to measures of inflammation and blood triglycerides, which to me would seem more pertinent as the paradigm surrounding heart disease risk gradually starts to shift. Aside from that debate, blood pressure, waist circumference, and resting blood glucose provide an excellent insight into our clients health and we have consistently seen these drop markedly in our clients with a bit of attention to diet, a reduction in alcohol intake (note total abstinence not required), and the addition of some cardiovascular exercise, which our clients enjoy both the physical and psychological benefits of despite its vilification in recent times by countless fitness experts and personal trainers.

Tip: Metabolic markers of health can often be considerably improved with simple and easily sustained changes to diet, lifestyle, and exercise habits. Reducing alcohol on several days of the week, lowering sugar and starch intake, taking some exercise over the weekend, and managing stress all combine to have a powerful effect on improving health.

5) Dental Health: 

The last part of this little post is to look at dental health and the emerging data linking heart disease and dental health. I won’t get into all the hubbub surrounding fillings and heavy metal poisoning etc; it’s way beyond the scope of this post and I’m way under qualified to comment on it. However, one thing is for sure and that’s that we only get one set of adult teeth so we had better look after them. Many habits that affect our health negatively can also impact on our dental health causing tooth decay, gum disease, discolouration, acid erosion, and bad breath. All equally bad news, but a very quick and easy way to get a window into someone’s overall health is to look inside their mouth. Stress, anxiety, and stimulants can cause teeth grinding (the official name is Bruxism) which also accelerates the wear and tear on our mouth. In a 2010 study, those participants with the worst oral hygiene routine were 70% more likely to develop heart disease compared to those who cleaned their teeth twice a day. Whether it is causative or simply correlation remains in debate, in a similar way to how we should be viewing cholesterol in reality. However, gum disease (gingivitis) is an inflammatory condition and modern health research is showing us that for many years inflammation has been the elephant in the room when it comes to heart disease.

Tip: Brush your teeth twice daily, preferably with a electric toothbrush and careful attention to teeth, tongue, and gums. Get teeth professionally cleaned by a hygienist twice a year, and avoid habits that damage teeth, such as smoking and fizzy drinks.

So, there you have it. Five pillars of health that when combined give an insight into our overall fitness outside of the now more mainstream measures of BMI, Body Composition, or muscularity. What’s more is that very few of these require much effort to monitor or measure, with the exception of some aspects of our metabolic health that can be easily tested with home kits or via private medicals. Address, and in turn improve in, all the above areas and it is highly likely that you’ll see an accompanying improvement in how you look, feel, move, and function as our body remodels itself to the demands placed on it.

Often health improvement is less of a consideration or motivation for many taking up exercise, but for those clients we see at our City of London studios it will often be a high priority as they notice their decreased ability to cope with the stresses of the modern workplace and lifestyle surrounding it. As with much of our work, simple changes can have profound effects. Tackling the ‘big rocks’ within our clients lives, and strengthening them through intelligently applied resistance and cardiovascular training provides a platform for them to continue to enjoy their work, families, and leisure time.

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Intermittent Fasting (IF) and the 5:2 Diets

November 19, 2012 By

lose weight personal training londonDieting dominates the popular media and it seems like every month the glossy magazines find another celebrity diet fad to report on. From Maple syrup to cabbage soup these are mostly ridiculous, unhealthy, impractical, and almost impossible for anyone with a normal life to follow.

Still, people do try, and they hop from diet to diet like a gym room newbie will hop from training plan to training pan in the hope of finding that magic solution. Most people end up depressed, with digestive and metabolic issues, and often worse than they were when they started out. However, in August, the BBC’s Horizon programme covered an approach to weight loss that is regaining popularity, and not without good reason.  The presenter, Dr Michael Mosley, who seemed in a rather poor state of health for a doctor at the outset, put himself forward as a human guinea pig to trial intermittent fasting (IF) with some remarkable results.

What Makes A Successful Diet?

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Chronic voluntary restriction of any sort is difficult if not impossible for most and it is generally only the most obsessive and neurotic that can maintain extended periods of dieting. It is no wonder that in diet studies the drop out rate can often be well over 50%.  This is also the reason that initial weight loss typically occurs over the first three months followed by a steady period of regain. In many ways the success of a diet isn’t really measured by how much lose, but about how little of it you put back on.

When it comes to successful weight loss, compliance is certainly 9/10th’s of the law and, as  a trainer, finding the right eating plan to suit your clientele is part of the biggest challenge. The research is clear that the lower people’s own confidence in sticking to an eating plan, the lower their chances of success, so it always merits looking at new (or not so new) ways to approach this and over the years I have experimented with just about all of them.

Quality Over Quantity?

Over recent years the trend has been more towards the quality of food, rather than the quantity, and ‘Paleo’ diets have been the popular weapon of choice. Caveman eating though presented some real problems for my typical client; traveling, socialising, work and family eating meant it was often difficult to maintain a truly paleo style of eating and lapses were inevitable. Without the need to get ripped for a magazine photoshoot or topless stage appearance it can be hard to maintain rigourous dedication to such diets in the face of corporate hospitality, work drinks or a dinner guest’s lasagne.

What’s The Role Of Psychology?

Another challenge of dieting, whether that is Atkins or Ornish, is the need for every single food choice to become a conscious one, which for most of us is a long way from what really happens. Dieting and weight loss as a process becomes one largely related to our psychology as much as our physiology as it is our thoughts, habits, and behaviours that tend to dictate how we eat.

Jane Ogden’s research at Surrey University discovered that we make most of our choices on food sub-consciously, which would explain why many people simply find dieting itself such a huge cognitive effort. All of a sudden they need to think about every single meal; how many carbs does this have? Is it paleo-compliant? How many calories are in my latte? Does that come with dressing on the side? It gets tiring. Aside from the tedious nature of continuous dieting, recent research suggests that it may be just as beneficial to diet for shorter periods interspersed with periods of maintenance or to first understand the skills needed to maintain weight, before embarking on a long-term diet.

So How Does Intermittent Fasting Differ?

Intermittent fasting (IF) approaches such as the 5:2 diet offer an alternative approach to the typical diet plans that require wholesale changes in how we shop, prepare, and eat our food. IF offers a potentially very simple way to improve our diet and health by introducing periods of low (or in some cases none at all) calorie fasts into the week. Some approaches, such as Fast-5 or Leangains prefer to use a daily format (fasting for 18-19 hours and then eating for the remainder) while others, such as Brad Pillon’s Eat Stop Eat or PhD Researcher Dr Krista Varady’s Alternate Day Fasting (ADF) combine cycles of ‘regular’ days with ‘fasting days’.The 5:2 diet is closer to ADF and E/S/E than the aforementioned methods and uses 5 days of ‘regular’ eating and 2 days of low-calorie ‘fasting’ where calories are limited to around 500-600 per 24 hours (or around 25% of basic daily needs). Eating on regular days is as per normal, and surprisingly early research shows that people don’t tend to binge the day after despite being free to eat as much as they choose. It may well even be that the reduction in ‘need’ to eat healthier means that people choose to eat better options more often without feeling compelled to have to do so at every meal.

More Importantly, What Does The Research Say?

Research is still quite young into these methods (I haven’t been able to find any specifically on the 5:2 format used by Dr Moseley in the BBC programme), with real long-term studies on large groups lacking, but what is there is indeed very encouraging and not just for weight loss but also for a wide range of health parameters including anti-aging and heart health. A thorough literature review and explanation of the science behind IF is well beyond the scope of this blog post although I have posted a few links below where you can find a lot more information if you are so inclined and here is a link to one of the studies authored by Dr Varady herself: http://www.nature.com/oby/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/oby201054a.pdf

However, for the people that I train the real appeal of this style of diet is in the simplicity of it and the ease of application. Fasting days can be set up according to travel, work, and social schedules, and the reduction of emphasis on eating ‘clean’ at every single meal throughout the week increases the client’s belief in succeeding and sticking to the plan.

With many of my clients already eating a good quality of food, the biggest challenge has often been how to get them to eat (and drink) a little less and IF offers a possible solution to that challenge. Like any diet there will be those who try to take it to greater extremes, fasting for longer, eating less, combining it with another diet, etc and while I encourage you to experiment yourself with this I’d advise you stick to the simple 5:2 format to start with, and ensure you eat adequately on your ‘normal’ day. With exercise, it depends on your training goals to some extent although I will always prefer training fasted and aiming for a good meal post-training than the other way around. How and when you train will dictate how you set this up, along with your lifestyle and work etc. The ADF studies all began their fasted days at midnight but you may wish to move these times according to your training times or work shifts, the key is the 24 hour window on an intake of around 25% of your daily base calorie requirement.

In Conclusion

I could have written an epic on this topic and still not done it justice. I haven’t even looked at other cyclical diet methods or addressed the many potential problems and pitfalls surrounding any diet, that is an entire book in and of itself. However, IF offers a real alternative to the conventional approach to dieting that involves continued long-term calorie restriction and for most, as demonstrated by the patterns of weight regain seen, ultimately ends in failure.

IF also offers a range of other benefits in terms of simplicity and ease of compliance and while it may lack the evidence base of more established weight loss approaches, there is good scope for its future use in appropriate populations. Could IF also encourage unhealthy patterns of eating behaviour such as binging or purging? Perhaps, but there is no evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, to suggest this is the case.

There are already many different methods on how IF is used and the best bet is probably to select the one you will find easiest to integrate into your existing schedule and training plan.

Links:

John Berardi of Precision Nutrition put together an excellent ebook on the topic http://www.precisionnutrition.com/intermittent-fasting/summary
LeanGains and the various musings of the vocal Martin Berkhan can be found here http://www.leangains.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html
Get yourself a copy of Eat, Stop, Eat here http://www.eatstopeat.com
Watch the BBC programme on the topic here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lxyzc
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Part 2 – Obesity, Where Do We Even Begin

October 10, 2012 By

In the first part of this series of articles, we took a look at the real extent of the obesity crisis and its worrying implications on the healthcare system. Even as I sat discussing this in my favourite Shoreditch eatery the other night it boggled my brain at the complexity and difficulty in finding a starting point for dealing with it. If nothing else you should hopefully have realised that the expanding waistlines of the UK population are not going to be fixed by any facile advice, no matter how well intended, to ‘eat less’ or ‘take more exercise’. You should also have realised that the standard (they might not like you to think they are standard, but they really are) mantras of the fitness industry probably aren’t going to do a whole lot of good either, again despite their generally good intentions.

If you had the time or the inclination to read the Foresight report you’ll also now have an appreciation of how this topic is at best vastly oversimplified, or at its worst how aspects of it are ignored. So many factors (Foresight identified 108 of them) can contribute to obesity in any given population and can often be entirely different across nations.

One of the paradoxes that we can see globally with obesity is its relationship to income. In developed countries like the UK and the US, obesity still remains highest in the lower socio-economic groups. However, in developing countries such as Brazil obesity is seen to rise as people can start to afford to increase food consumption, particularly of sugary, fatty, processed foods. This is particularly prevalent in kids as shown below, but it isn’t exclusive to them. As Brazil’s GDP increased the poorest women went from being the thinnest to the fattest in just 20 years. The speed of that transition is frightening. This has definite implications for strategies to try and prevent the increase of obesity, which I’ll expand on later.

Even the researching of these issues across populations is difficult. Meaningful numbers requires the use of large self-reporting surveys and it is widely acknowledged that people have a habit of overstating things like activity habits while understating nutritional ones. However, in one European country it does seem they are having some success in at least slowing the seemingly inevitable increase in obesity. If you read my first piece thoroughly then you may have noticed that while every country started moving inexorably upwards in the early 90‘s, Finland didn’t and their success with the North Karelia Project, which was actually aimed at reducing heart disease, shows that there is some hope. So, the question now is how we actually go about dealing with it.

What can we do about junk food?

McDonalds largest restaurant in the world was recently built on the site of the 2012 Olympics, right here in London and the signature golden arches of this global food giant have become a common feature on every high street in the UK. The spread of McDonalds into developing markets may well signal the beginning of a shift in those countries own obesity levels as the convenience, speed, and marketing of fast food becomes within economic reach of the poorer parts of the population.

There is even a ‘Big Mac’ index that can correlate the amount of labour hours required to be able to buy a Big Mac with the levels of obesity in that country. The less work required, the fatter the population. It is an indictment on the brand that only a few years ago attempted to introduce ‘healthier’ options onto its menu and whose latest ‘healthy’ addition is somehow classified as one of your ‘five a day’, despite the fact that a 500ml cup contains almost 50g of sugar. Needless to say, as the convenience food becomes even cheaper and even more convenient, less and less people are eating at home. The concept of a family meal now all too often revolves around a trip to the nearest fast food outlet.

Of course, it isn’t just McDonalds who are producing low-cost, high-margin, energy dense, nutrient poor, food for the population. As global demand for food has grown and consumer competition increased, the giant corporates behind food production and retail have striven to increase margins on their foodstuffs, robbing them of nutrients, driving intensive and non-sustainable agriculture practices, and indulging in all manor of nefarious practices. From loss-leading on known-products to blocking food labelling, the interests of these organisations currently sits at odds with the nations health. The brilliant journalist Felicity Lawrence has written about this in her excellent book Not On The Label; I’d urge you to read it.

The question is though, what can we actually do about it? Well, various options have been raised from increasing taxation on ‘junk’ food to restricting marketing and advertising. The latter is a major challenge, given that the food industry spends a voluminous amount on the marketing and brand positioning of their product. The recent Olympic games was a great example with some even suggesting that the games couldn’t run without the support of McDonalds and Coca Cola (both who contributed around £64m), Cadbury (good for £20m) and Heineken (another £10m) to name but a few.

Compared to the government budget on public food education, who in 2004 spent a grand sum of £7m, it is no wonder that the message of the fast food providers is taking precedent. However, this marketing is insidious and in places many of you may not even know exist. Take for example this website http://www.happymeal.com/en_US/index.html#/Games a blatant advertising site (you can tell by the trite warning to ‘kids’ in the top left corner) that is capturing children at an early age to identify with the fast food brand. This site for the nutritional powerhouse that is Reeses Puffs (http://www.reesespuffs.com) is even worse. Hit Mixer and get audibly assaulted with an incessant rap of ‘Reeses puffs, Reeses puffs..’ all set to a hip hop beat….catchy isn’t it? One area the government could target is junk food marketing aimed at children, yet they remain reluctant to do so.

The government did step up in 2009 launching the Change4Life campaign with a budget of £75m (still only 10% of what the food industry spent in 2004 marketing their products) only to pull the plug on it just a year later, rejecting the notion that children needed education and that instead it was the over-40’s men that was a better target. Originally slated to run through to the 2012 Olympics, the Change4Life campaign only made it a year. It is clear that the politicians prefer to see obesity as a social problem and not a government one that can be solved through legislation or regulation. Even the use of a watershed time for junk food advertising is an unpopular strategy with OFCOM highlighting the lost revenues to the broadcaster from imposing such restrictions.

There is little doubt though that the marketing and advertising of these junk food products to kids is at the heart of our obesity problem. Alvin F. Poussaint, MD of Harvard Medical School gives us a stark warning:

“Egregious advertising to children using toys to lure them to McDonald’s for low-nutrient, high-calorie Happy Meals is damaging to the well-being of children and their families. No doubt, it is one major contributing factor in the current obesity epidemic in the United States.”

Introducing taxes and regulations is one of the first arguments from the health and fitness industry but it is a solution fraught with problems and fundamentally it sits uneasily with me. San Francisco tried it, introducing a city-wide ban on giving away toys with Happy Meals. It attracted criticism from the libertarians who dislike this type of ‘nanny-state’ legislation (even the Mayor declared his desire to veto it) and McDonalds sidestepped it easily anyway, charging a token 10 cents for the toy in the price, an amount they then gave to charity. Clever.

Legislating how we buy our food is though a thorny area and I feel that top-down population wide legislative measures are likely to be as unpopular amongst the public as they would be with the food companies themselves. Handing over responsibility for choice in how we eat seems a radical and rather fascist solution and not one I am comfortable with. That said, some regulation over how such nutritionally poor food is marketed and advertised would seem a good step, still allowing free choice, but with limits on how it can be advertised, to children in particular. Obesity is ingrained into our culture, as are the fast food shops on every high street in the UK. If we are to truly reverse the current growing trend of obesity then we need to work out how we can encourage people to make better choices themselves, starting with our educational system.

Organisations like the School Food Trust http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org are trying to make inroads and in pockets of the UK there is certainly some green shoots, but against the might of the food industry it will be a tough task without some stronger support from the government.

Junk food will not disappear from the UK high street anytime soon; it will likely always be popular and some will always exercise their right to eat at these establishments. We have to tackle it from the bottom up, increasing customer awareness of the true ‘health value’ of something with clear disclosure on nutrient and calorie levels, improving food education so that young people can see what goes into these foods and learn how to cook properly, and we must work on offering alternatives that are as easily accessible and affordable, as the low-cost availability of junk food is one of it’s most alluring features.

Consumers do have the power to change it, simply by not eating there; however without the compelling desire not to, combined with the marketing efforts of these major corporations it is a big ask. More money needs to be spent countering the powerful marketing methods these companies use both through popular media avenues as well as front-line healthcare practices.

 

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Obesity, Where Do We Even Begin?

October 3, 2012 By

Where to start?

PART ONE
In 2007 the Foresight programme run by the Government Office for Science produced a report on tackling obesity. It makes for depressing and disturbing reading yet it seems to be relatively unknown in the fitness industry and to have had little impact on shaping government nutritional policy.

The report itself is captivating reading, for example the fact that of the €38 billion (yes, billion) that is directed through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy the biggest amount, in relation to market value, is awarded to the tobacco industry. If that doesn’t worry you then let’s look at one of the report’s positive recommendations: that school sports fields be preserved and made accessible for communities. This idea was clearly rejected by that annoyingly smug-faced Michael Gove who has driven the recent sell-off of them across the UK, despite coalition ‘promises’ to the opposite. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/aug/17/michael-gove-school-playing-fields).

However, before I get stuck into this blog post, which admittedly could go on a bit, here is a direct link to the report so you can read it for yourself.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/foresight/docs/obesity/06%20part%2002.pdf

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to listen to two of the UK’s leading experts in tackling obesity: Professor David Haslam and Professor Jane Ogden, both who presented very differing viewpoints on the whole calamitous issue. Dr Haslam is a GP and Chair of the National Obesity Forum, while Dr Ogden heads up Health Psychology at the University of Surrey.

Both were entertaining speakers, but it was Dr Ogden’s talk that seemed to resonate best with me. Her compelling research on how and why we over consume food was fascinating. You can read some of her papers here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=jane+ogden.

It got me thinking that it is worth revisiting this topic with at least the hope of providing some kind of dim light at the end of what is looking to be a very deep, dark, and long tunnel.

Granted, you may well be thinking, why should I care? But you should because the financial impact of this alone was described by Prof. Haslam as a ‘ticking time bomb’ that will take up an estimated 17% of the NHS budget in 20 years time (http://www.diabetes.org.uk/About_us/News_Landing_Page/NHS-spending-on-diabetes-to-reach-169-billion-by-2035/).

Obesity is a one-way ticket to serious illness and disease and yet still we are a country in denial about the true extent of the problem. Short-term politics will never address long-term problems that can only be addressed through policies that will surely lead to the rapid ejection of any incumbent government. This is before we even get into whose responsibility it really is to deal with this. Should we even be relying on the government to tell us how and what we should be eating? I’m not so sure, but more on that later.

The fact is that despite all the wisdom and good intentions of the fitness industry, we are getting fatter. The UK is now the fattest country in Europe, with obesity growing here at a rate that will see UK females fatter than American males by the year 2030. Despite this the fitness industry and sadly most the trainers out there writing their sage wisdom on the topic fail to really understand this problem, what is causing it, and how we can deal with it. In fact, all too often those writing on ‘health and fitness’ seem to be creating more problems than they are solving in their ignorance.

The arguments, articles, books, movies, and musings over the drivers behind these rises though are plentiful and far too many to discuss in this post. They range from the most popular: over-consumption of foods (in particular refined carbohydrates), decreases in physical activity, and economic issues to those less discussed: environmental chemicals that can play havoc with our hormones, poorer sleep habits, and pharmaceutical obesogens. Gary Taubes recent book Diet Delusion did a commendable job in making the argument for refined carbohydrates as being the primary cause of the current obesity epidemic, although I can’t help but feel that it is as much effect as it is cause and that the drivers for this are what we need to understand if we are to effectively deal with it.

As part of the Foresight Report, an interactive map of 108 factors was created (of which only 16 are directly related to food consumption), which attempted to do exactly that. If nothing else, this map shows the total complexity of the problem. Check it out in an interactive format here http://www.shiftn.com/obesity/Full-Map.html.

Still with me? If you are then you will probably by now be realising that the advice we give to relatively lean athletes or exercisers looking to enter contests or sporting events is not the same advice we should be prescribing en masse to the overweight and obese population. Simply telling these folks to ‘eat green vegetables and lean meat’, ‘cut out the carbs’ or ‘have a high protein breakfast’ is not going to work. Atkins was giving that advice decades ago in what has become the world’s highest selling diet book and thousands more since have written books on it (including myself).

Just about every diet strategy has been tried, from low-carb to low-fat, points, blood types, food rotation, carb curfews, cabbage soup, maple syrup, and many many more. Still the obesity line climbs on the charts and graphs.

So what can we do? In the next part of this little series I’ll attempt to provide some solutions, along with the complex ethical and moral challenges each of those presents.

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ND Challenge: The Truth About Eating Clean

May 17, 2012 By

What it’s really like, how to do it without taking out a bank loan, and, most importantly, is it worth it?

“So one week into my Nemesis Dress 4-week challenge and it’s been a breeze…..”

That’s what I hoped to be able to say to you (and perhaps I could) but it wouldn’t be the honest truth. It’s been quite hard; I’ve been grumpy, have had to overcome cravings and develop will power, plan my meals and, worst of all, give up my daily flat white.

The Plan

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The Nemesis Dress Challenge

My nutritional plan, set by Sarah Lindsay, sounds simple but in practice, it isn’t as easy as it may appear, especially if you tend to be spontaneous, lack self discipline and have to leave the comfort of your own home where all temptations can otherwise be avoided.

So, this week I have been mostly eating:

  • Fish
  • Meat
  • Green vegetables
  • Nuts
  • Caffeine (OK this isn’t strictly “on” the list but it’s not on the next list!)

The ABSOLUTELY prohibited:

  • Sugars and carbs of any description
  • Cheese
  • Fruit
  • Milk
  • Non-green vegetables

So, What’s It Really Like To Follow?

The first couple of days were OK; probably more to do with the novelty of what to eat, rather than the challenge of the monotony. But by Day 3 or 4 (which was over the long bank holiday weekend), I was struggling… meat, fish, greens…. followed by more meat, fish, greens… followed by a handful of nuts…. and then more meat, fish, and greens…. you get the picture. I found the battle against the desire to snack when bored or the temptation to be lazy when preparing meals is unbearable. In addition, although extremely supportive (having given up alcohol in solidarity and happily eating meat, fish and greens on a daily basis…because that’s the only thing I’m serving), it doesn’t help that my husband can eat whatever he likes because he’s trying to put muscle and size on for the rugby season. The waft of melted cheese throughout the house can sometimes be excruciating.

Preparation is the key to success. I am lucky that I don’t have to rush into work at the crack of dawn and have time to cook a good breakfast and prepare my lunch before I set off. It’s easy to understand why some clients can struggle to fit this in before their early morning starts.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

So, green vegetables… think broccoli, savoy cabbage, spring greens, green beans, pak choi, watercress, rocket. They’re great in small doses but it’s hard to get excited when you’re on Day 5 of nothing else. I dream of once again eating ripe red tomatoes, crispy yellow peppers and sweet beetroot. The key is to eat enough green vegetables to make sure they don’t taste like green vegetables:

  • Stir fry with garlic or chilli or, best of all, both
  • Add a lemon dressing, made up of lemon juice, mustard seeds, olive oil and white wine vinegar to steamed vegetables
  • Add bacon to savoy cabbage or spring greens for an absolutely winning combo
  • Cook with lashings of butter
  • Go crazy with fresh herbs

If you’re on the go, the best lunch I’ve found is at Chop’d: get the mixed leaves base, add green beans, broccoli and spring onions, chicken, mixed herbs and lemon dressing. Delicious.

These Tastes, They Are A-Changing

Since starting the ND challenge, I have developed a penchant for fresh mint tea, fruit tea (I’m assuming minimal frucose seepage into hot water), and sparkling water with lime (yes, amazingly I get excited about the prospect of drinking this with my dinner!). I’m not really missing alcohol and, after a couple of days, black coffee doesn’t seem so bad either. However, eating good quality fresh meat and fish can be very expensive so here are some of my top (money saving) tips to help keep me on track:

  • Watercress is my new found green friend, especially as it’s currently on 3 for 2 at Tesco.
  • A pack of cured meat in the fridge awaits me as a pre dinner snack after cycling home from work.
  • Chicken drumsticks are a handy daytime snack; I roast them with black pepper first thing in the morning while I’m having breakfast.
  • Smoked salmon trimmings may not look as pretty but are miles cheaper than smoked salmon slices and just as tasty.
  • Grilled mackerel is surprisingly good and quick to cook.
  • Roast a joint of meat for dinner and then have the leftovers for lunch the following day. Buy it on the day from the reduced price section of the supermarket and roast it that night to save you a fortune.
  • Avoid spontaneous supermarket trips; use the Click and Collect or home delivery service so you buy exactly what you want and don’t get tempted by those special offers.
  • Grow fresh herbs – in pots, in the garden, on the window sill, wherever. At the cost of just a few pence for the seeds (or for free if you get cut offs from your friends), these add much needed flavour and are so much better than dried herbs.

The Slip Ups

They say “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. That’s not wholly accurate. I’ve never been disciplined with myself nor über competitive therefore, even if I plan, there’s always the temptation of instant gratification in the face of failure.

No one’s perfect, and I certainly don’t claim to be. Despite my best attempts, I did have a couple of slip ups even in my first week:

  1. A sliver of pork pie – Day 4, I was getting grumpy. I needed something, anything, to give me hope and Melton Mowbray’s finest (literally) stepped up to the plate.
  2. A glass of prosecco – out with friends for a celebratory dinner, I chose to avoid the socially awkward conversation as to why I was not drinking and potentially come across as overly neurotic.
  3. Scrambled eggs with a little cheddar – well, why wouldn’t you?

The Good News

There are things I have missed: cheese, fruit (particularly grapes or berries with yoghurt and oats… heavenly), lattes…. but it’s not all bad.

To be honest, I haven’t missed the big No No’s: pizza, pasta or bread. I miss the convenience these foods bring but am enjoying the fact I don’t bloat up or feel heavy in the stomach after eating. My energy levels are more consistent throughout the day, I’ve been sleeping incredibly well and, having been through and come out of the grumpy phase, feel a lot happier than usual.

The Proof Is In The (Non-Existent) Pudding

I was quite nervous and slightly torn as to how I would feel about the results. If they were great, that’s awesome and it’s good to know I’m making progress; if they weren’t, never mind, it was worth a shot and I could go back to my non-green vegetables and fondues.

At the beginning of the challenge, I weighed in at 55kg and an estimated 17.2% body fat. Sarah retook my measurements one week later and I was astounded: a drop of 2kg and 1.8% body fat to 15.4%. The most astonishing part was the measurement on my hamstring (my first priority) which nearly halved! HALVED!!! I mean, that’s just ridiculous.

So, it looks like this nutritional plan is working and I’m on course for my ND challenge. The pork pie and prosecco slip ups weren’t too disastrous but next week will be harder. The biggest gains are often made initially and keeping to the plan and avoiding even more pitfalls won’t be easy.

Pleased with my progress, Sarah has allowed me to celebrate with one cheat meal; ah, decisions decisions… it’s too difficult to choose!!! Let’s just hope it doesn’t knock me completely off the wagon and back to square one.

Finally, for anyone who’s interested in giving this a try, here’s a snapshot of my daily eating plan:

Breakfast: bacon, poached eggs and spinach (alternating bacon with salmon or mackerel)
Mid morning snack: handful of nuts (brazil, pecan and macadamia are my favourites)
Lunch: Chicken and prepared green salads (or salmon or mackerel or roaast pork)
Mid afternoon snack: cured meat e.g. parma ham, bresola
Dinner: Salmon with steamed greens (or chicken, prawns, white fish)
Post dinner snack (if required): handful of nuts

To drink:

Black coffee
Sparkling water (with lemon or lime)
Fresh mint tea
Fruit teas
Water

 

Filed Under: Fitness, Transformations Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Introducing The Nemesis Dress

May 11, 2012 By

As a source of objective proven research-based information, the articles on The Foundry’s blog are incredibly insightful. Unfortunately, as a non-trainer, this leaves my potential contribution somewhat minimal, the knowledge equivalent of a raindrop in a 30 litre butt of water (the impact of the hosepipe ban on my vegetable garden has really been on my mind recently).

However, I do have one weapon in my artillery over and above the rest of the Foundry team… I am just like every other client.

I am not a competitive athlete or personal trainer. I don’t train others for a living. I know how to hide my wobbly bits on “fat days” and there are many pleasures I enjoy (blame my previous years of hedonism in PR) that are contrary to a healthy lifestyle.

Having trained with Fee Pocock over the winter to improve my upper body strength for my aerial circus course (amazing by the way… you MUST do it), my current goal is simple: to look great for the summer season.

fat loss london personal training

ND in all its glory

With a stream of weddings just around the corner, the not inexpensive dress I hastily bought in the winter sales will come into its own… providing I sufficiently streamline my midriff and lower half. Believe me when I say that this beautiful dress, floor length but unforgiving, is my nemesis – to be forever known as Nemesis Dress (ND). There is no room for error… it will either look amazing or damn right awful, and the final result is down to me.

A lesson I recently learned (from Ed Reeves, our recent Men’s Health transformation) if you can’t do it on your own, make yourself accountable to someone else. Knowing I have insufficient willpower, I have put my money where my mouth is and straight into the hands of our experts - Sarah Lindsay and Fee Pocock – who are tasked with keeping me on track.

It’s a killer combination: Sarah will be focusing on body composition – nutrition and twice a week weight training – and Fee will be looking after my metabolic conditioning, rehab (for a recent shoulder injury), flexibility and movement.

To be honest I’ve been lucky in the gene pool and never had serious issues with weight, weighing in at no more than 55kg at my heaviest (those student days of Smirnoff Ice and Dolmio’s stir in pasta seem a lifetime ago). I would certainly not go so far as to say that I’m genetically gifted but I’ve got a good base from which to start. Over the next few weeks, I will talk to you from a purely subjective yet honest point of view on what it is really like to change your lifestyle for that quick body transformation.

Having heard how Sarah and Fee have previously achieved results with clients, I already have an idea of what’s coming my way. Sure… it’s easy to cut carbs, dairy, sugar, alcohol for the short term… what’s the big deal??? Just eat lots of meat, fish, green vegetables and nuts. Well, nothing at all, except I am half Swiss and a cheese-oholic, but more of that later. And what about the cheat meal? That’ll be my saviour… oh I forgot, I’m not entitled to one, I have to earn it first.

My ND programme started on 3rd May. Weighing in at 52kg, my initial 12 site caliper measurements totalled 160mm with an estimated body fat around 17.2%.

D-Day is Saturday 2nd June. So that’s one month to get myself ND ready. Week One objective: to eat clean. My head says “What’s the fuss? It’s just a week”; my belly says “Cheesecake”.

Looks like it’s going to be a long week….

Filed Under: Blog, Fitness, Transformations Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Best Lunches in The City of London – Customise your Orders in the Square Mile

April 27, 2012 By

When it comes to personal trainers, Zack Cahill of Aegis Training and Graeme Marsh of The Foundry are without question the city of London’s most pointy-shoed. But having worked for years helping the city’s high flyers regain their health, they also know a thing or two about eating well in the square mile.

In this article, Graeme and Zack will share their top lunch options, as well as how to customise your order so you can stay lean without resorting to, God forbid, preparing your own food. Because lets face it folks, Tupperware is a pain in the ass.

Zack says try- the GBK Man Burger. synonymous as it is with our golden-arched Olympic sponsors, the burger has a bit of a bad reputation. But as usual it’s all about food quality. Decent beef and fresh ingredients do not a health disaster make. The trouble with burgers is the bun. Two gluten filled patties worth of the baddest carbs in town are enough to make a regular burger a dietary disaster. So we’re going to order this bad boy bunless.

My favourite option here is the bacon avocado burger. It’s a man sized feed with plenty of protein and healthy fats, plus to quote John Travolta, bacon tastes good.

For extra awesomeness order the halloumi bites , not as a starter, as a side. Dump the halloumi on top of your salad. Party in your mouth right there.

Here’s Zack enjoying it…

 

Low carb City of London food

What to order- the bacon avocado burger, with no bun, with halloumi bites on the side. Now, bear in mind no matter how much you stress the fact that you want the halloumi at the same time as your burger rather than as a starter, this will be utterly ignored. They’ll just bring it out when it’s ready. But hey, you can always try.

Graeme says try: The Giraffe Man Salad . If the idea of chowing down on burger, bacon, and halloumi doesn’t sit well with the red meat avoiding, fat-fearing folks out there, then this little number from Giraffe should be a winner. It’s full of healthy green stuff and is certified yoga-friendly. You’ll have to request the grilled chicken and halloumi (can you sense a theme developing?) as an added extra, so it is even suitable for those of the vegetarian persuasion (providing cheese isn’t also on your hit list). You get a decent plate of food for your hard-earned and the service is usually snappy.

Giraffe also do a very nice drop of Pinot Noir, a small glass of which makes the perfect accompaniment to this bowl of goodness. It gets our thumbs up as either a lunch or dinner and costs around £12 with the added chicken.

Zack adds “Giraffe is our go-to venue for a healthy dinner when we can’t be arsed cooking, which for me is about twice a week and for Graeme is every day and twice on a Saturday”.

What to order- the super healthy veggie salad, large, with added chicken and halloumi. And if you’re eating in the Spitalfields branch be sure to tell them the two bald, jacked guys sent you.

Not content with the current fare on offer around town, Zack and Graeme also felt it necessary to design their own lunches to their own nutritional specifications and persuaded some of the city’s finest purveyors of grub knock it up for them. Hence, we have our next few options….

The BLT Aegis Lunch- based on the corner of Great Eastern street and Curtain road , BLT are renowned for their cheery service and gigantic portions , making them an obvious choice for us to collaborate with when we decided to design the best lunch in shoreditch.

The Aegis lunch changes every day, rotating between red meat, white meat and fish. It is , however, always high protein, low carb, organic , cooked with coconut oil and gluten free. Honestly…How many health boxes can you tick??

And for the foundry, Graeme helped design -

The Poncho No.8 Slow carb Box:

“If low -carb/high-fat isn’t up your street then the Foundry designed ‘slo-carb box’ from the burrito boys at Poncho No.8 is the perfect grab ‘n’ go lunch. Poncho’s expanding empire has seen our creation join their menu at the new Soho branch and is a favourite at their Spitalfields location. A blend of chicken, veggies, and beans this little box is not only good value for money but provides more than enough calories to get the average city worker through an afternoon of cognitive effort. It is our recommended post-workout meal for its combination of slower releasing carbohydrate, protein, and healthy fat.”

There you have it. So next time you catch yourself reaching for a miserable white bread sandwich at your local coffee establishment, slap yourself on the hand and get thee to one of the joints we’ve mentioned. You deserve better damn it!

Filed Under: Blog, Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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