Tag: tuesdaytip

Tuesday Tip: Targeted Fat loss 🎯

Almost all of us struggle with localized areas of stubborn fat that just won’t seem to shift. We often have a desire to eliminate those areas for either aesthetic or health reasons – this is known as spot reduction.

Sadly there is no such thing as spot reduction – or losing fat in specific chosen areas e.g. you can’t target only belly fat, or just thigh fat. The only way to lose fat in those areas is to lose fat overall, via a calorie deficit. Those areas will eventually lose fat but it may take much longer and requires greater overall fat loss.

Various studies in 2017, 2018 and 2019 review concluded that spot reduction is not possible, that abdominal exercises for example do not significantly reduce belly fat, and that HIIT doesn’t lead to a reduction in leg or belly fat. All it does is work the muscles underneath (which means if you do lose fat they’ll look more ‘toned’ but it doesn’t reduce the fat itself).

Fat distribution is largely determined by genetics (and hormones to a degree) and cannot be changed through exercise or diet alone. This means that individuals with uneven fat distribution will struggle to lose fat in specific areas. So, if you feel you are already at a fat level/bodyweight you’re happy with overall but just want to get rid of stubborn areas of fat, you will need to lose more body fat. This however will require a greater effort, work and greater sacrifices and sometimes this may not be worth the trade off. So you have to decide – is having a slightly smaller belly, thighs, arms etc worth the sacrifice you’ll have to make in calories? If the answer is yes then go for it! If the answer is no then stop trying to target those areas with exercise as it’s not achieving anything and instead just embrace those areas!

Happy Tuesday 🤗xx

Tuesday Tip: Don’t exercise to earn food 🍫

With the recent Easter weekend there will undoubtedly be a lot of talk of exercising to ‘burn off’ those Easter eggs. In fact the media usually produces a list of activities and the equivalent amount of Easter chocolate it would burn. This is actually totally misguided and a really bad way to approach food and weight loss. Aside from the fact that it’s almost impossible to out exercise diet (mainly because we grossly over estimate the amount of calories we burn exercising) it’s also an extremely unhealthy relationship to foster between food and exercise.

If you are choosing to eat something you enjoy, that you want to eat and that fits into a balanced, flexible diet then eat it! You do not need to earn or burn your food with exercise. Food and exercise do not exist in an exchange-based system.

Choose exercise that you enjoy – if running isn’t your thing then walk, if you hate spin classes then try a different class etc. Eat to
nourish and fuel your body, it will then use that fuel as needed on a daily basis. So don’t skip lunch because you missed a workout that day or avoid dessert because you skipped the gym. Remember that your body still needs fuel to function – to fuel the brain, to fuel your muscles to get you from a to b, to fuel all your bodily functions. And remember that you won’t have actually burned as many calories exercising as you think anyway so it’s a futile effort.

So the next time you workout think to yourself – why am I exercising? Is it to feel good? Is it to relieve stress? Is it to move your body in a way that feels good? Or is it punishment or to earn/burn food?

Eat to fuel your body, and exercise because you enjoy it. In regards to that Easter chocolate you may have eaten – view it as fuel to help you workout IF you want to – not something you have to exercise to burn off!

Happy Tuesday 🤗xx

Tuesday Tip: Habit prompts ✅

Part of losing weight is about creating new habits around food and activity. Building new habits is hard though! So how can you make it easier?

Environmental cues play an important role in building habits and your environment is extremely influential in decision making. So setting up your environment in a way which reminds you of the habits/behaviours you want to start incorporating will help.

The main idea is having something visible which reminds you to do that specific habit or which makes that the easiest choice. Do this by putting a cue in a spot where you can’t miss it and won’t forget. Conversely you make the habits you want to ditch harder by making things associated with them less visible.

For example for habits you want to encourage you could;

⁃ Place hand weights next to the sofa to remind you to do 5-10 mins of exercises each evening in the advert breaks,

⁃ Have a snack box on the kitchen side containing lower calorie snack options and fruit for the day.

⁃ Have a bottle of water on your desk to encourage you to stay hydrated.

⁃ Pop a post it note on the bathroom mirror reminding you to stretch your calves while you brush your teeth.

⁃ Ensure when you open the fridge the first thing you see are easy lower calorie snacks – vegetables sticks, mini light babybel, yoghurts, berries and other fruit etc .

⁃ Move the calorie tracking app on your phone to the home page next to WhatsApp or a frequently used app to remind you to track.

For habits you want to break make it harder to do them;

⁃ Store chocolate in a sealed tub at then back of the cupboard.

⁃ Keep the bottle opener upstairs so it’s more of an effort to ‘just open a bottle’ after a stressful day.

⁃ Leave your phone in another room/place when working so you’re forced to get up to get it regularly to avoid sitting for long periods.

Try setting up your environment for success today!

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx

Tuesday tip: Exercise Snacks 🏃🏼‍♂️

Following on from last week’s tip about thinking outside the gym here’s a practical way to do that – exercise snacks!

Studies show that spending over 6 hours a day sitting increases the risk of death by 40% and can actually almost cancel out any health benefits from a daily workout. Studies show that prolonged sitting/inactivity during the day substantially reduces muscles’ ability to absorb and use amino acids. Without sufficient amino acids, muscles cannot effectively repair and build themselves. However when participants broke up sitting with two min walks/chair squats every half-hour their muscles were better able to absorb and incorporate amino acids from their bloodstreams.

These ‘exercise snacks’ (brief 1-2 mins of exercise repeated throughout the day) can be extremely effective. Another study showed that incorporating exercise snacks (stair climbing in this case) every day for 6 weeks resulted in significant increases in aerobic fitness and leg strength, comparable to traditional longer workouts.

Now I’m not saying you should abandon your workouts but in the same way you include food snacks outside mealtimes, it’s worth including exercise snacks outside your workouts. These are a really feasible, time efficient way to improve fitness and health and well-being. They’re also a great way to get exercise in if you’re injured or recovering from illness/surgery etc and can’t workout.

Exercise Snacks require no gym membership, special clothing or footwear or equipment and very minimal time commitment. You can choose a variety of flavours – stair climbs, chair squats (sit to standing on tiptoes then repeat), quick walk around the office, desk push ups, a minute of jump jacks etc. Ideally, the activity should briefly raise your heart rate and breathing, last a minute or two, and happen often, preferably every half-hour. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing or where you are – anytime is a good exercise snack time!

Happy Snacking! 🤗

Xx

Tuesday tip: Think outside the gym 🏋🏼‍♂️

Whilst you can’t out-exercise your diet and diet is undoubtedly king when it comes to fat loss it’s obviously still important to be active and to exercise for lots of reasons – not least of which is health and well being.

It’s very hard to create a meaningful calorie deficit via exercise and activity alone. You have to work extremely hard to burn more than a few hundred calories in a workout. Studies show we usually over estimate cals burnt and how active we are. Even if you’re working out every day you may not be as active as you think if you spend the rest of the day sat down. So we are likely to perceive a workout as burning more calories than it actually does. There’s also a tendency after a tough workout to eat more- either because we reward ourselves for the perceived effort or because we’re hungry. There’s also a tendency to be generally less active too if you’re exhausting yourself in workouts.

The end result is that by being focused on workouts as the only source of calorie expenditure we can end up moving less generally and eating more.

So as well as workouts try to think beyond the gym. The calories you burn in a 45 min workout will be considerably fewer than what you burn being generally active for the rest of the day. So think about how you spend the rest of your day. Do you find yourself sitting more than perhaps you need to? Do you amble instead of walking with purpose? Do you take the lift instead of the stairs. Think beyond the gym and focus instead on making yourself more active – get up, stand instead of sit, walk faster, walk more!

Also don’t be tempted to eat exercise calories back – just treat them as bonus cals rather than something to eat back.

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx