Ice creams / Lollies for 100 cals or less … 🍦

Technically it’s summer… despite what the weather thinks.. but nevertheless it’s definitely ice cream and lolly season for me and my clients.
There’s a perception that ice creams / lollies are ‘bad’ and something that is a bit ‘naughty’ so if you’re trying to lose weight you might deny yourself these cooling treats believing them to be ‘bad’ (aka high calorie). However, there’s no reason you have to give up ice creams and ice lollies to lose weight as it ultimately comes down to whether you’re in a calorie deficit.

Obviously there are many frozen desserts out there which are high calorie and some can be 300 cals or more. So if they’re on top of your main meals then you might end up racking up unwanted calories. However in this weather everyone needs a cold snack or dessert right? So if you do fancy an ice cream or lolly, but want to stay within your calories then here are a selection of lower calorie options at 100 cals or less. This list is by no means exhaustive – but it’s just a range of the options out there.

Oppo Salted Caramel balls 20 cals each
Mini milk 32 cals
Rocket lolly 39 cals
Mini twister lolly 39 cals
Fruit pastille lolly 57 cals
Little moons mochi balls 70 cals each
Fab lolly 75 cals
Regular twister lolly 76 cals
Jude mini ice cream tubes 70
Jude mini ice creams 94 cals
Exotic Solero lolly 98 cals
Calipo Lolly 100 cals

So you can fill up on ice lollies to stay cool this summer without worrying it’s going to derail your progress!
Enjoy 🤗
Xx

How to get a flat belly… 💪🏼

Many people want a flat stomach/visible abs and one of the most common things I’m asked is which exercises are best to achieve this. The common myth is that in order to ‘tone’ your stomach and get a flatter belly you need to do lots of abdominal exercises like sit ups or planks, do specific belly blasting workouts (you see so many of these advertised on social media) or do Pilates (or similar workouts), do a tonne of exercise., or even perhaps take some sort of belly fat blasting supplement/ tea or detox product.

The reality is that sadly there’s no quick fix – if you want a flat stomach it’s going to take more than some magic tea or a load of ab exercises. First off, everyone has abs – the muscles may be tiny or weak but that 6 pack is there. They’re just hidden under a layer of fat for most people. Fat does NOT turn into muscle; they are two different things. You could have strong abs, but if they are buried under fat no amount of exercise will give you a flat stomach or a 6 pack, because it doesn’t address the fat on top of your muscles.

A flat stomach only appears when you have a low enough bodyfat percentage. But ab exercises and magic teas are a lot more exciting to market than ‘eat less, move more’ … so it’s not surprising there are so many products out there making these claims.

So if you’re punishing yourself with endless sit ups every day – stop – it’s not going to give you a flat stomach. You can’t target or spot reduce fat from anywhere. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work those muscles, it’s important to work the ab muscles to protect your back etc but it won’t reduce belly fat.

So how can you lose belly fat? Everyone loses fat from certain parts of their body in different orders depending on age, weight, sex, genetics etc. You can’t control where it goes from first. Women will tend to hold more fat in their belly, hips and thighs, whilst men tend to store more in the belly and butt. You may not lose it from those areas first; it may go from your arms or legs etc.

All you can do is aim to lose bodyfat generally and once you lose enough of it you will see it go from everywhere eventually! The only way to do this is to consume fewer calories than you currently are. So track your calories, find out how many you’re currently eating and then reduce it! And stick with it for weeks or months (not just 5 days!). Reduce or plan in the obvious high calorie things like alcohol/meals out etc,stay generally active (walking or exercise you enjoy) and prioritise sleep (it’s very hard to control your appetite when you’re tired). These will all help you maintain that calorie deficit.

If you’re at a calorie deficit you will lose fat and at some point that fat will come off your belly too!

🤗Xx

Stop exercising to burn calories… 🏃🏼‍♂️

Whenever someone wants to lose weight inevitably they place a huge focus on exercising to burn more calories. Exercise appears to be the holy grail of weight loss behaviours. Exercising to burn calories becomes the main goal. And yes, of course it’s important to exercise and yes of course it does increase your energy output but, as I’ve discussed before, you will never ever be able to out-exercise food.

So whilst I wholeheartedly support people exercising more (I’m an instructor so obviously I do!) it’s not with the sole purpose of burning calories. That’s last on my list of reasons for anyone to partake in exercise and it should be last on yours too!

Instead, move your body to improve your mental and physical well being. There are so many reasons to exercise that go beyond burning calories.

• Exercise improves muscle mass and joint health and keeps you functioning independently into old age.

• Whilst excess exercise can down-regulate immune function, regular exercise serves to improve the resiliency and expression/activity of immune cells and mediators so it improves immune function and helps protect against disease.

• It makes you feel stronger and more empowered

• It improves mood, can reduce anxiety and some symptoms of depression and relieves stress.

• It improves cardiovascular health and reduce disease risk

• It increases self confidence

Above all – exercise to celebrate that you can! Not to burn calories!

🤗xx

Anyone for ice cream?.. 🍦

It’s warmed up a bit now so definitely time to crack open the ice cream! I don’t know about you but once I start on a tub it’s gone before I even realise it!

Whilst there’s no problem with including any ice cream you like in your diet, if you are trying to lose weight/fat you may find that fitting a whole tub into your calories quite tricky. So you have two options – either limit the amount you have, or swap from a calorie dense type of ice cream to something that’s similar tasting, but lower calorie. There are the obvious swaps to the low calorie brands like oppo or halo top etc but another option is to switch to something else entirely.

In this example switching from the Häagen-Dazs mango and raspberry ice cream to twisters makes a massive calorie saving. You could have 4 twisters for almost a third of the calories of the Häagen-Dazs. As an added bonus the chances of you eating 4 twisters in a row is considerably less than working your way through a tub anyway. Psychologically it’s much easier to work your way through an open tub than help yourself to 4 lollies in a row.

So if you do want to enjoy some

Ice cream but save some cals try going for the lower cal, higher volume option if you can.

🤗xx

What you tend to focus on… and what you should focus on…? 📉

If you’re trying to lose weight (by which we really mean body fat as that is what actually results in body shape change) then it’s important to find ways to measure progress. We tend to focus on a single goal and most often it’s weight related and it’s the ‘final’ goal. This can be one of the reasons you may self sabotage and struggle to stick to your weight loss journey. The goal is so far away that you don’t feel like you’re making progress and in addition because it’s focused on the scales if that number stays static or goes up that can cause you to give up.

We are all conditioned to use body weight scales. They can be a great tool to assess whether you’re making progress. However, the number the scale shows is JUST a number. It’s merely your relationship to gravity at that particular moment in time. It’s not actually the best way to measure progress. Just because the number on the scale hasn’t gone down in a while, doesn’t mean you’re not improving your overall health.

If you decide to use the scale, you need to overlook the day to day changes you will inevitably experience. Scale weight is affected by lots of factors – amount of food in your system, hydration levels, glycogen levels, hormones, salt content of your diet, recent exercise, type of food you ate yesterday (diff foods can result in more or less temporary water retention) etc. None of which are a reflection of how much fat you’ve lost/gained or how your shape has changed. Think about it – if you had the body you wanted and felt confident to wear anything you liked, would it matter what that scale number was? No!

It’s vital to trust the process and think long term. The reality is your body shape can change without the scale going down – in fact a recent client actually put on weight (muscle and fluid probably) yet has lost body fat and cm’s.

So instead of focusing on the end goal weight try to use other measures and do use on the daily/weekly changes outside weight and the number on the scales. e.g. items of clothing and how they fit, sleeping better, feeling stronger, getting fitter, improving your relationship with food etc. Try to focus on some of these other, arguably more important, measures of progress. If you must step on the scales then look at averages over time rather than daily variations and focus on long term trends.

🤗

Xx