Seriously I saw this advertised in a local shop today that it will drop a dress size of you in three weeks!

Stuff like this needs to stop in the fitness industry. How these two grinning morons can stand there and sell this rubbish is beyond me. They are taking advantage of the people’s fear of being fat and conning them while smiling. Its almost as bad and stealing from blind people its that sick.

Lets get clear the only way to lose weight is to go use more energy than what you take in ITS THAT SIMPLE, there is no magic bullet or pill. The device in the above video is similar to the vibration plates that are popping up in the gyms all over the UK. While there may be some use for rehabilitation and massage fat loss is not one.

Don’t be conned into thinking there is an easy way out. Rant over.

What is in your cupboard

In today’s article we are going to look at what you should find in your cupboard when trying to lose weight. The following foods will help you lose weight as part of calorie controlled diet.

Pulses and Legumes

Pulses and legumes will offer a source of carbohydrates that will not lead to spikes in insulin levels, they will provide a long lasting source of energy for the body and can be used in all kinds of dishes. They also offer source of fibre which is essential for health and will lower the insulin response to a meal.

Lean Meat

Protein is essential to healthy living and most people do not eat enough of it. Lean sources of protein include chicken, turkey, eggs, leans cuts of beef and pork. Protein will provide the body with building blocks of muscle and is also the most thermagenic of the three macro nutrients

Green Vegetables

Eat your greens your mum always said and she was right! As well as providing essential vitamins and minerals eating your greens will provide fibre, eating high fibre foods will help you feel full and avoid over eating.

Brown Rice

Brown rice is just about the only grain you can eat that wont lead to a spike in insulin levels, it is also full of wholegrain which is part of a healthy diet.

Oily Fish

Oily fish contains omega 3 fatty acids, these acids have been shown to help with insulin control, increase nutrient partitioning (starve fat/feed muscle), increase protein synthesis (more muscle) and reduce inflammation Inflammation leading to just about every chronic disease on the planet. If you cannot stand oily fish a high quality omega 3 supplement will do.

No Sugar jelly

Jelly…. what gives? No sugar jelly is a high volume low calorie food, this means it will help you feel full for little to no gain in calouries, one large bowel of jelly contains as little as 40kcals. Good for when you are feeling hungry in between meals.

Grapefruit

Similar to the above a high volume food that has little calories in it a good alternative at breakfast times.

Leon Mantey Personal Trainer Leeds

• Holding down your partners legs while they do sit ups

Why is this stupid? Everyone does it. The reason why this gym staple is silly, pointless and counter productive is down to bio-mechanics. When you hold your partners legs you are providing the strong muscles of the hip an anchor point, this will put them in the ideal position to help out the abdominals, not what you if optimal abdominal recruitment is your goal. This will also contribute to shortening of the hip flexors and bad posture. In short don’t do it.

• Performing endless amounts of wrist curls when they weigh 140 pounds

This apply to allot more than wrist curls, some people seem so hung up on little things they forget the big picture, the bottom line is you need to have wrists before you need you isolate them. End point gain some mass before you worry about the little things.

• Standing on unstable surfaces because its “functional” and performing exercises

Silly, ill advised and pointless!

The idea of a functional exercise is to have a direct carry over to real life, I’ll be honest I cannot remember the last time I stood on a big red ball and performed bi-cep curls in real life! These exercises are often preached by mis-informed personal trainers trying to be different and cool. Final point avoid the sandal wearing PT in the gym.

Leon Mantey personal trainer Leeds

Do you need better sleep?

Sleep plays an important role in appetite, if you are sleep deprived your appetite will increase, this is caused by two hormones Ghrelin and Leptin. Ghrelin to your body means “go” and Leptin means “stop” to your appetite, when sleep deprived you produce more Ghrelin and less Leptin which leads to increased feeding/weight gain.

Everyone should aim for at least 7-8 hours of quality sleep a night in order to optimise the ratio between these hormones. However what is the point in getting 9 hours sleep if it is not of good quality? Good quality sleep is just as if not more important than how much you sleep, below are some methods for getting better quality sleep,

• Make sure your room is perfectly dark and quiet
• Avoid caffeine and other simulates in after 2pm
• Take a good high quality magnesium supplement half an hour before bed (magnesium will help relax you)
• Do not sit in front of the TV or laptop before bed, this electronic radiation has been shown to effect sleep patterns
• Remove any electrical devices that are near the bed or ensure that they are unplugged
• Invest in a light dimmer device, use this to dim the lights an hour before bed this tricks the body into thinking the sun has gone down
• Get a good natural alarm clock, these are quite expensive but mimic a sun rise meaning you wake up better
• Relax before bed, trying reading or the breathing techniques

You can feel the effects of good sleep almost instantaneously making it a powerful weapon in weight loss.

Leon Mantey

Personal Trainer Leeds

Want to be toned?

I am going to have a rant and if i am honest its mainly aimed at you women! You all want to be “toned” yet when I tell you eat more protein you look at me like I suggest you to take steroids. If you want to be toned you need to build “some” muscle. I am not suggesting you become hench with capped delts however.

What is Toned?

To achieve a toned look you need to build some muscle, lose some body fat or at best both. I hate to break it to you but doing loads of cardio and only eating salads will not build muscle, in fact a lack of protein and lots of cardio is extremely catabolic (muscle wasting). If you want a toned lean physique you need to put your body in an environment where it can build muscle, this is achieved by eating protein and resistance training.

I recommend women start with 100g of protein as a minimum, ideally shooting for around 120g. This should come from lean meats, eggs and dairy. If you combine this with a good resistance programme and a sensible diet you should be on the way to the body of your dreams.

RANT OVER!

Leon Mantey

Personal Trainer Leeds

3 sets 15 reps

To do thus properly you should also hold a pillow or something similar between to lower and upper leg, imagine you are pulling it in tightly towards you, this will activate the hamstrings and dis engage the hip flexors.

2 sets 8 reps

The beauty of these is that they are as hard as you want them to be, the further you walk the harder they are, this suits all types of abilities.

3 sets 30-60′s

Great little finisher to the routine basic and simple, few points to remember you should be able to balance a pole perfectly down your back while doing this exercise including the back of your head.

Leon Mantey

Personal Trainer Leeds

http://bit.ly/9k6eZA

I have played around with nearly every diet, fad and idea when it comes to weight loss (its the bread and butter of the fitness industry). I have tried atkins, south beach, metabolic, paleo, dukan etc… however one simple factor remains king, the calorie.

The above article details a professor of human nutrition who in order to prove that in weight loss pure calorie counting is what matters the most and not the nutritional value of the food.

He ate Twinkie s for 10 whole weeks but never consumed above 1800 kcals daily, during that time he lost 27 pounds! You should be saying now “ok he lost weight but how healthy is that?” Fact is his cholesterol blood profile improved with a drop in bad cholesterol and an increase in good cholesterol, he also saw a drop in triglyceride’s which are a form of fat.

These findings are similar to a woman who ate McDonalds for one whole month, unlike Morgan Spurlock in Supersize Me who ate 5000 kcals daily she did not over consume and saw and improvement in body composition and blood work.

Now the good professor does not advocate this as a practical diet and only did it to prove a point, what it does prove that when it comes to weight loss portion size is the number one factor in success.

Leon Mantey

Personal Trainer Leeds

Sounds familiar? Your weight loss has staled due to your fat burning hormone leptin levels dropping, this is done by your body to keep you alive when food is scare, what your stupid body does not understand is there is no way you are going to starve to death and you want to look good naked!

So what can you do? Go back and buy that doughnut, yes that is right buy him and all his mates and while your there get a Danish or two. Feast on all the foods you want for 12 hours, this will kick start your metabolism and send leptin levels through the roof! However this method is only to be used if you truly have stalled in your weight loss it is not to be done after a day or two dieting. As a general rule of thumb after two weeks of dieting you are entitled to one half day of feasting then every week there after.

Leon Mantey

Personal Trainer Leeds

Here is one for the endurance athletes out there. Traditionally endurance athletes have focused on consuming carbohydrate only sports supplements during their training. It seems to make sense that a sport were the bodies stores of carbohydrate are used that drinking carbohydrates will boost performance. The above study shows that a protein plus carbohydrate drink during exercise is more beneficial than a carbohydrate alone drink. The athletes involved reported lower fatigue levels and showed an increase fat oxidation. They also showed to maintain better time trial times and power output compared to the carbohydrate only group.

I feel a 2/1-3/1 ration carbohydrate/protein would be the most beneficial for athletes looking to increase performance during exercise.

Leon Mantey

Personal Trainer Leeds