#29 Keep off the winter fatThis is a featured page


Firstly, thanks for all the feedback on last months tip. It is great to hear that my tip on counting down instead of up has had a positive influence on your training. It also appears that my “Get Married” tip caused a bit of buzz at the water cooler, congratulations to all the newlyweds.

However, I am afraid my tips may be working too well, simply due to how crowded my gym is getting. On Wednesday last week, the gym was so packed that I kept bumping dumbbells with the people training next to me. First tip...don’t make Chris angry when he has dumbbell in his hand.

I am glad that people are out there training, but if you could just tell your friends to avoid the Market St Fitness First between 6.30pm – 8.00pm Monday through Thursday that would be much appreciated. Moving on.

Since I started writing these tips, I have had a lot of questions about nutrition. To be totally honest nutrition isn’t my favourite part of being a personal trainer, because it can be depressing thinking about all the tasty stuff you aren’t supposed to be eating.

However I do think nutrition it is very important, I estimate it accounts for about 60% of any results you get from a training program.

But before I give you my top six fitness nutrition tips, I would like to talk about Coke.

Some of you already know that my day job is in marketing, and Coca Cola are one of the best marketing companies in the universe.

Coke Zero is their latest successful product, but most people don’t realize the actual reason why. Yes, Coke Zero tastes a lot more like real Coke than Diet Coke does, but that is not why it is successful.

Coke Zero is successful because the majority of red blooded males will never ever ever drink or eat a product with the word “diet” on the packaging…no matter how much they actually want to lose weight.

Coke knows this…hence Coke Zero. Next time you see a Coke Zero ad…notice that there are never any women shown drinking the product?

Anyway back to the top six tips to keep off the Winter Fat

1. Eat smaller more frequent meals

Not only is your metabolism boosted every time you eat something, your body can more efficiently process smaller meals. Instead of having 3 large meals in a day, try to break them up into 5 or 6 smaller meals.

This strategy also stops you from letting yourself get hungry. When your body goes into “starvation mode”, it is more likely to store what you give it as fat.

2. Drink more water

Regular water intake helps to flush away waste products in the body. It also makes you feel full so you don’t want to eat as much.

Get at least 2L per day. An easy way to do this is to keep a water bottle handy and drink from it frequently.

3. Eat more protein

Sources of protein include foods such as chicken, fish, eggs, dairy, beans, lean red meats, etc. Your body burns more energy processing protein than either carbohydrates or fats. Protein also helps to build your muscle tissue, which burns energy all day long!

The standard recommendation for athletes is between 1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day. This means if you weigh 80kg, you should try to eat between 96 and 136 grams of protein per day.

The best time to take in protein (20 to 30 grams) is immediately after a workout, as your body needs raw materials to rebuild and recover with. If you don't supply the raw materials through eating, your body will break down muscle from elsewhere in your body in order to rebuild the damaged areas. This is very counterproductive.

I remember when we were trying to pack on muscle during the off season of football training, our coach used to tell us to have a protein shake in the middle of the night. As much as this strategy works for muscle growth, I believe it is counterproductive to break up a deep sleep.

4. Don’t eat right before your workout

If you eat something before you exercise in order to get energy, your body will burn that for energy rather than body fat. Also blood that should be going to working muscles gets sent to the digestive system to try and digest it, so you can’t train as hard.

When training to lose fat, always eat your last meal at least 2 to 3 hours or more before training to ensure the food has been digested.

5. Wait 20 minutes between courses

Your brain takes at least 20 minutes to register that you're full. By waiting that long, you'll give your brain a chance to realize that you don't really need any more food.

6. Cheat on your diet

One thing I always make my clients promise is that they will cheat on their diet. The only thing I ask that they do is to cheat ONLY when they have planned to cheat. By planning when you are going to eat the foods you crave, you take back control of your eating habits.

Fitness Funny

Before I go, I always think you need to have a little fun to break up the monotony of training. So here are a few tips on how to mess with people’s minds in the gym.
  1. Fill a vodka bottle with water and use it during a workout. People will wonder if that's "your secret weapon" to great results!
  2. Wear a helmet. I think you'll find that people will give you a lot more room when you're lifting weights if you walk in with head protection.
  3. Pick up the smallest dumbbells on the rack and proceed to lift them like you're doing the hardest set in your life. Scream and strain like you're pushing it to the limit. The larger you are, the more effective this one will be.
  4. At the end of your set on a weights machine, move the pin to the highest setting on the machine. The next person who sits on the machine will wonder who the freak was who was there before them.
  5. Duct tape an extension cord to your waist. Plug yourself in before each set.
  6. Have your workout partner bring a remote control from home. When they press a button, do a rep. When they hit "fast forward" go faster. When they his "pause" hold the weight where it is. Just make sure they don't hit the "eject" button.
  7. Count your reps out loud starting from 100, e.g. your first rep, say "101", then "102", etc.

Til next month,

Chris

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malonchr 		Latest page update: made by malonchr , Nov 5 2008, 3:10 AM EST (about this update About This Update malonchr Edited by malonchr


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