Consistency is King!

I've trained a large number of individuals now, and over forums/email probably given advice to hundreds more. Over this time, I think I've worked out the vital component that has meant some people have succeeded in their goals, and some haven't - consistency.

I have yet to meet anyone who has had success training once a week. Of course, as a personal trainer I do take on and work with some clients once a week, but I stress from the start that they will NOT make progress if they only train when I'm there. They need to put in the work in between our sessions. Make no mistake, I can tell who has put the work in over the week, and who hasn't.

Many people say they've been training 'on and off' for years. Well, sorry to break it to you, but if you train for a couple of months, then have a month off, then start again, then take another break - well, you may as well not bother. Exercise isn't for you. You don't have the focus, willpower or desire to make differences to your body. I appreciate that may sound harsh, but it's true. Just give up and find something else you enjoy, because stop-start training and yo-yo healthy eating is pointless. In fact, it probably does you more harm than good, certainly psychologically, because of the constant re-enforcing of the fact you've failed again.

Within reason, ANY half-decent training plan or dietary approach will get you results, if you stick to it. I've seen people get great results from training plans I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole, but the fact is the person stuck to it, put in 100% effort, and didn't give up after 4 weeks.

This may put some people off before even starting, but to make significant changes to your body, that people around you will notice, will take at least six months of hard and consistent work and effort. Not one month of hard work and then two weeks of nothing because 'work was busy' or 'I had a lot on' or 'there were lots of Xmas parties I had to go to'. If that sounds familiar to you, then you need to recognise how much of your time and effort you are wasting.

Unfortunately, the phrase 'use it or lose it' is 100% applicable to strength and fitness. In particular, you can lose your CV fitness almost as quickly as you gain it. In other words, a hard months worth of effort increasing your ability to run for half an hour can be entirely wiped out by a month of making excuses and doing nothing. You'll end up back at square one. What a waste of effort, eh?

Stop-start training and stop-start attention to nutrition does not work. It's as simple as that. If you want success, be consistent in what you do. It's the only way to make a difference.

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will." - Vincent T. Lombardi

Carbs are not the enemy!

I've come across a lot of this kind of thinking recently; that to lose any weight, the only approach that will work is low carb. This post will hopefully show you some of why that is a common knee-jerk reaction, and why it's often misguided.

Carbs are necessary to function. They provide the most accessible source of energy for your body - in other words, it doesn't have to make much effort to generate usable energy from most carb sources. Proteins and fats require a little more of your body. Side effects of 'going low carb' (typically meaning having less than 50g of carbs per day) include headaches, bad breath and dizziness. If that doesn't show you how much your body needs carbs for adequate function, then what does?!

There is a process known as 'ketosis', which many low carb diets aim for and extol as being the holy grail of fat loss. Done properly, by a knowledgeable person who is already in control of their eating habits and is insanely disciplined, it can work. Chances are, though, that YOU aren't that person.

So why is low-carb such a popular approach?

Mainly because in the Western world we've got our food balance all out of whack. We've gone way too far in favour of carbs, in most cases, and some people's diets consist of 80% carbs. Put simply, they're too prevalent and too more-ish, and are the key constituent of too many foods that are truly awful for you - most cereals, cakes, chocolates, crisps etc.

You can probably see that not all carbs are created equal. Maybe the distinction should be made between foods that are decent nutritionally (potatoes, vegetables, fruit) and foods that aren't (crisps, cakes, cereals).

Carbs tend to form a huge part of our diets - bread as an accompaniment to meals, pasta and potatoes taking up half a plate with no green veg to be seen. This is the real problem, and why the low(er) carb approach can work - it removes some nutritionally defunct calories from a diet.

Aim to get your carbs from good sources - sweet and normal potatoes, vegetables, some (not an excess of) fruit, pasta and wholegrain bagels. Unless you're heavily into your training, and need the excess energy, try to keep the servings of potatoes and pastas down to fist-size, and not the whole plate!

Don't treat carbs as some kind of pariah. Simply cutting carbs out of your diet alone will not make you lose fat. Ultimately, it's a calorie deficit that will do that. Removing the nutritionally-barren carbs (chocolate, crisps, cereals, white breads) from your diet, and replacing them with good fats and proteins, however, will always lead to positive mental and physical results.

Me, Myself and I - Rebecca Conlin, PT @ RWF

When I took my first steps towards health and fitness I expected all kinds of encouragement from family, friends and relationships. After all, most of my family are overweight (as was I) and we were all constantly on and off fad diets. 

To begin with I had all sorts of support, but then I started to actually lose weight, tone up and enjoy my new lifestyle and it became obvious that I was changing my lifestyle permanently. The family dynamics were upset as I started to eat completely different meals to them. I trained instead of watching the T.V on DVD and take away nights. As for my 'friends', well, they became judgemental and made hurtful comments claiming that I looked ill, pasty and that I looked better with more weight on me. My then boyfriend became so insecure of my weight loss and new found confidence, that we eventually split. Collegues were the worst and instead of being happy for me, I was confronted with a hostile enviroment and negative snide comments shunning my hard work and disipline. I'm sure that any women reading this that have lost a significant amount of weight can relate similar comments.

Three house moves, one job, a new boyfriend and many friends later I have surrounded myself with people who have the same ethos as myself. Health and fitness being priority to us all. Instead of nights out in town drinking myself into what can only be described as a coma after bingeing on cheesy chips and kebabs, I do something better. I have often caught myself on Friday and Saturday nights emailing my collegue with articles, ideas and plans for PT clients, bootcamp classes and many other ideas we plan to launch in the future. That may sound dull to some, but I love it. I look forward to training both myself and others. My BIG nights out now often include participating or running a bootcamp. To relax I read and write articles about nutrition, exercise and general health. If I want to de-stress, me and my collegue sprint up hills to let off steam... ;-) (It really works)!

In retrospect, the hostility I recieved in my first years of making health and fitness my priority was a combination of resentment and jealousy. Some people don't like to see you do well in life because it highlights insecurities in their own. When people tell me that I look ill, I've lost too much weight and that they preferred me bigger what their really saying is, I wish I had your disipline, I wish I could lose some weight and I wish I was fitter. You're always going to get people in your life that try and turn positives into negatives and I am convinced that it is fear that you're going to suceed and leave them behind.

To conclude: if you are experiencing the same negative experience as I did, read between the lines. What people say and what they mean are two different things. All you need is security within yourself, you have to be happy with how you look and feel. Try not to take hurtful off-hand comments to heart because its just negative people making themselves feel better about their own insecurities. Definitely dont let others ruin your new lifestyle and experiences. Surround yourself with positive people :-)

Additional note from Derran:

I can identify with a lot of what Rebecca says. Whilst I've never been overweight, I used to be very skinny and unfit in my late teens/early twenties. When I first started training, I always got comments about 'living in the gym' or 'being obsessed with food'. Trouble is, these comments often came from people who would spend 10+ hours a week watching TV, and often would pass judgement on my food whilst digging into a Gregg's pasty. I doubt I've ever spent more than 5 hours in a week training, so the next time someone tells you you're gym obsessed, ask them to add up how many hours of soaps and reality TV they watch each week. It tends to shut people up!

It's a great point that these negative comments tend to come from people who aren't happy with themselves. I have never had stupid comments from other people that train, that understand what it is to work hard in the gym and to follow a reasonably decent diet, and to do that consistently for years. 

The most ridiculous comments - including the steroid ones - tend to come from people who would prefer to dismiss my hard work and put it down to chemical assistance, or my superior genetics, or the fact that I'm a PT and 'it's easy for me'. Let's dismiss those straight away - I haven't and would never touch steroids. It's not a moral objection, it's just that I have no interest in using things I know very little about. My genetics - well, I was about ten stone wet through at University, so I was never a big guy in the making. The fact I'm a PT? OK, I have more knowledge than most, but books don't lift the weights for you. In fact, I probably have LESS time to train than most 9-5 people - I often work 12-14hr days, and weekends don't really exist.

So, to echo Rebecca, try and ignore the daft comments and see them for what they are. Excuse making by people that can't or won't make the effort themselves, and want to transfer that angst onto you. Ignore - work harder - get stronger!

5 Reasons to be wary of online advice...

We all do it these days - we have a problem, we often turn to the internet. Most of the time, someone else has had the same problem. Not only that, but they've written about it, and written about the solution to it. Most of the time, that's great. Loads of problems have basic solutions that are maybe just a step beyond common sense.

But what happens on the more complicated stuff? How about that rumbling you hear under the car bonnet? A quick Google brings up hundreds of solutions, with each person being certain that their answer is the answer.

Fitness, training and nutrition advice online is no different. There are a wealth of amazing sources of information out there, from people who really know what they're talking about. They've been there, done it, often countless times. But, unfortunately, you also have a lot of armchair experts. They've read every book, seen every study, argued every point - but never actually set food in a gym. Never trained anyone. Never been responsible for making someone stick to a nutrition plan. Often, they've barely ever trained themselves.

Here's a few warning signs to look out for if you're buying advice on the internet:

1. Websites, or forum posts, full of typos and spelling mistakes. Seriously, it's not that hard to spellcheck. If someone is that casual with the presentation of information they want you to follow, it's likely they don't know enough or care enough to get the information right either.

2. Advice offered with no bio/photos of the person offering it. This is an industry dominated by vanity and aesthetics. If the person offering advice isn't willing to show themselves, or at least detail their achievements, it's likely they don't practice what they preach (and yes, RWF bios and photos are on the main website).

3. People who are far too insistent that their way is the ONLY way. It's rubbish - almost every fitness, strength, fat loss or sports goal has more than one method that can be used to get success. If someone is adamant that their way is the only way, they're probably either (a) ignorant of the variety of training and nutrition methods available or (b) trying to sell you something. Or maybe both :)

4. I touched on it earlier. The internet has allowed everyone to become an unaccountable expert. I can recall a number of situations where the self-appointed 'guru' on a forum has turned out to be a 17yr old with no training experience, or an overweight guy who has rarely trained in their life. If the information seems to be written too rigidly, or in text-book speak, it's probably because it's copied and pasted from somewhere else.

5. People who claim that a certain method 'worked for them, so it'll work for you'. Not necessarily true. Granted, we aren't all as unique as we'd like to think we are, but to imagine that the routine that Big Dave in the gym uses is somehow the exact same routine that you, with no experience of training, should do is absurd. Realise that what YOU need to do, may not be what experienced people currently do. People giving advice often forget where they started, and are too quick to get new trainees to move away from the basics. If you're being encouraged to do something complicated, back away. Training, especially at first, is not complicated.

There are probably a million and one other things to look out for. These five are the ones that routinely come up over and over again, and do a lot of damage to new trainers.

Advice is great, but it's up to you to weed out the helpful bits and discard the rest. Remember the 'Wear Sunscreen' song from a few years back?

"Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth"

Fitness for Fat Loss - Rebecca Conlin, PT @ RWF

A subject I am very passionate about! You don’t have to spend long arduous hours on the bike or treadmill! It has been proven in recent research that a combination of high intensity interval training (HITT) and a specific weight training programme yields the greatest results for losing body fat and weight. By working at a higher intensity for shorter periods you will not only burn more calories you'll also benefit from the ‘afterburn effect’, a boost to your metabolism meaning you burn calories at a faster rate for the rest of the day, even after you've finished your work out.

Why stop there? An effective weight training programme aiming to gain lean muscle will permanently increase your resting metabolism. More muscle means you burn more calories whilst doing…NOTHING! 

For all the ladies worried about bulking up, STOP! It is almost physically impossible for you to bulk up because women don’t produce enough of the hormone responsible for muscle growth, testosterone. Putting muscle on for ladies will only achieve that long, lean and athletic look most women strive for.

Finally, diet and nutrition are of vital importance and half the battle. Fad diets aside, now is the time to change to a permanent, new healthier lifestyle that is sustainable over long periods. Real World Fitness personal trainers are experts in diet and nutrition and would be happy to advise you on the perfect nutrition specific to your body’s needs.

Failure is only a fact when you give up. Everyone gets knocked down, the question is: Will you get back up?

What's hiding in your kitchen? - by Derran Langston, Owner and PT @ RWF

I think I've probably lost track of the amount of times a client has told me they eat a certain food, and I've told them it's full of sugar/trans-fats/additives and they've replied with 'really? I didn't know!'.

It's a bit of a sad indictment of society that we simply believe what the packaging WANTS us to believe, and what the adverts WANT us to believe, rather than taking five seconds to double check the claims.

Low fat? Less than 5% fat? Lower fat than the standard brand? All are simple tricks to make you think a food is good for you. 99 times out of 100, low-fat foods are awful. They've taken out the fat (and fat doesn't make you fat, but we'll get on to that some other time) and replaced it with sugar. Why? Because fat tastes good. Remove it, and you've got to replace it with something else. Most of the time, sugar. Check the nutrition labels on low fat foods. You're looking for the 'carbohydrates, of which sugars' bit. Bear in mind a teaspoon of sugar weighs about 5g, and that low-fat yoghurt or bowl of Special K suddenly looks a bit ropey doesn't it? In a 50g serving of Special K, you've got nearly two heaped teaspoons of sugar. Branflakes (the healthy option, right?) are even worse.

The answer is simple. Don't believe what you are told. Read the labels for yourself. Anything ending in '-ose' is a sugar. Smart manufacturers will bank on people not knowing that, and instead of sugar will write 'dextrose', or 'glucose', or 'fructose'. It's all still sugar.

Have a rummage through your cupboards now. That innocent looking Dolmio pasta sauce, the Muller Lites, the SunPat peanut butter. How about your WeightWatchers low fat cereal bars? None of them will have sugar in, surely?

You'll be surprised what is hiding in your kitchen, cleverly disguised as something 'healthy'. Take a stand, take responsibility, and change your buying habits. People are often amazed at the huge changes they can make just by being more aware of what they are eating.

The Yo-Yo Dieter - by Rebecca Conlin, PT @ RWF

Looking at what I have achieved now it’s hard to believe that only a few years ago I was overweight, unfit and extremely shy. In fact growing up in a family who put health and fitness last I was uneducated on what being healthy meant.

It was a visit to the doctors aged 13 which led to me being in the career I love today. Walking into the surgery with a knee injury, the doctor examined me and then to my horror weighed me…13 stone! I weighed the same in stone as the years I had been alive. The diagnosis was childhood obesity; my growing bones were being put under too much stress making my knee joints painful.

Firstly, I want to put an end to the excuses. You are not overweight because you have the fat gene. You are not overweight because you have big bones. You are overweight because you eat too much and/or you don’t move enough. I know this because if anyone should be using these excuses, it is me. All my family are overweight, I myself was overweight, I was ‘big boned’ and it was ‘genetic’… it made me feel a little better, but I was lying to myself. 

Immediately disgusted that I weighed so much I cut out all junk, did not eat after 6pm and if my weight loss wasn’t going as planned I wouldn’t eat at all. This is where my yoyo dieting and disordered eating began. I lost and I gained, I went up and I went down, I had good days and I had bad days. The amount of diets I have tried and ultimately failed, I would need more fingers and toes to count on.  The heaviest I have weighed is 15 stone.

So why do people yoyo? How many times have you heard, or said, 'I did lose weight but I put it all on again'? First of all the word ‘diet’ has a certain stigma to it.  The word ‘diet’ automatically makes people defensive.  Diets typically give you a set of strict rules to what you are or are not allowed to eat, and if you deviate from the plan you have jeopardised it all. What happens when you follow the diet word for word, you step on the scales and… nothing, zero weight loss, despite all your efforts? Reducing the amount of food you have eat so much so that you can’t possibly reduce it anymore?

What if I told you to lose weight you needed to eat more?

Almost 15 years later I am a stable size 10 weighing 10 and a half stone. I eat more often, I have a constant supply of energy AND I’m happy and confident.

Why?

1.      Eating smaller meals more often is believed to keep your metabolism running at the optimum level. After 3 hours your body detects that you haven’t eaten for a while and responds by slowing the metabolism to make your energy last longer. Eating every 3 hours can help prevent this.

2.      The main bulk of my diet comes from unprocessed foods, lean meat and fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, herbs and spices, nuts and most importantly lots of water. Keeping your diet as close to nature as possible, the way we were built to eat.

3.      My diet fuels my workouts making me perform at my best in every session. In addition to diet, combining high intensity interval training with a specific weight training programme will allow you to sculpt your body into your ideal physique.

My advice is to ditch the excuses, ignore fad diets, break the chain passed down from parent to child and get educated to what healthy actually means. I have given some basic guidelines based on personal experience and my work with clients but by no means is this a comprehensive guide.