It’s January! time to familiarise ourselves again with the barrage of articles, programmes and social media posts on how to finally shift the weight for 2019. Hooray, here’s another one - is what I imagine this post will be met with, but bear with it as it offers some practical advice.

Having just browsed the national media sites, there’s so much noise and mixed advice when if comes to health and fitness,  it might be less confusing entering Brexit negotiations.

Admittedly the majority of advice is pretty good, but nevertheless it seems to be a time when information outlets are just trying to shout over each other.

The health industry is strange in that everyone has at least a passing interest in their own health, regardless of how much skin you have in the game. with so many differing opinions and options, it's therefore no surprise individual perceptions on both exercise and nutrition vary greatly.

The vast majority seem to focus on how to start introducing exercise into your life. All very well, if there’s one best intervention for your overall health, it’s probably exercise.

From purely a weight loss or fat loss perspective though it’s perhaps a little misguided so here’s our ‘hot take’ to borrow a phrase.

As beneficial as exercise is, if your goal is changing your body composition then what enters your mouth is by far the biggest determinant, and that is largely a game of maths.

We say that not to detract from exercise but if we told you how few calories you expend, especially as a beginner you’d throw in the towel before even starting.

Anecdotally perhaps, this may be a reason people seem to pack in their resolutions after a fortnight. 

Exercise, if you’ve no previous experience (sometimes even if you do) is difficult to instigate, by its very nature it requires effort to start and momentum to continue.

Evenings are dark and chilly and gyms tend to be at their busiest, neither the most inviting of environments at this time of year.

Who’s going to continue with anything if it involves a combination of a.) excessive suffering and b.) a lack of results.

That all sounds pretty depressing so far, but explaining this to our clients is our first step. If you know what to focus on…along with what sort of results to expect then you’re more likely to realise you’re on the correct path when you’d ordinarily ditch it.

So here’s a few things to do (and expect)

Give it time
Everything is moving quicker, everything is on demand but our physiology hasn’t changed. There are very real physical limitations on the amount of fat you can lose in a specific time period. Extreme diets skew this, with the majority of weight you lose on the scales a combination of fat, water, muscle, bulk in the digestive tract etc. rather than all fat.

Fix your sleep (and stress levels)
There’s now plenty of solid evidence regarding the importance of quality sleep, and the implication of its lack. We all know how to improve it, so as a first step to making better health decisions, fix this first.

Focus on strong and healthy rather than just lean
W.H.O. guidelines now include some form of strength training. Learn how to do that safely and effectively and bask in its benefits, both long term and short.
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Make your nutrition approach simple
Eat like an adult. Have an awareness of, or track your caloric intake. Avoid poor food choices, opt for some form of protein at each meal, plenty of fruit and vegetables and try not to drink your calories. Those changes alone will yield you the majority of your results....that will hopefully last longer than January!

​This is the aspect of exercise that’s become more popular and mainstream over the last decade in particular. It used only be in the realm of bodybuilders through the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s before its benefits started to become realised both in terms of changing your body shape and the myriad of other benefits it brings with it.

Aside from ridding you of your bingo wings you can look forward to its preventative effects of diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, joint and back pain along with mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.

This isn’t just for those selfie obsessed gym-goers either, there are substantial benefits in later life too. Diminished muscle function can significantly limit activity and increase the risk of falls and fractures among the elderly, so grab your granny and get to the gym.

It’s hard to give general recommendations as to frequency, intensity or duration as it differs from person to person but here's a few tips. A lot of what we see are those who have been injured in a previous venture into strength training and have neglected it because of this association.

Our advice is to get some instruction or coaching if you’re unsure of where to start. It’s of course possible to learn from youtube videos but sometimes what you think you’re doing and what you're actually doing don't tally. Start light and slow and build up over time.

Learn some compound exercises. These are exercises that require more than one joint movement, such as squats, hinges, lunge variations, pressing and rowing.

If something hurts or just doesn’t feel right then the chances are you’re technique isn’t right, stop and find an alternative or ask someone. If you’ve any questions feel free to post them in the comments.

​Something to consider about exercise is that in order to improve any system through any modality of exercise it's important to stimulate some form of adaptation.

Our bodies are very tightly regulated when it comes to maintaining homeostasis, things like temperature, blood pressure, ph, blood sugar etc. are all closely monitored.

When you exercise you get a temporary disruption of our normal internal environment which then recovers to normal post exercise. Your body adapts to this response by getting 'fitter', such as increasing the ability for your heart to pump the blood so the next time it won't be perceived by such a stress.

This is, presumably why some people don't like exercise, it's essentially another stress on the body and must be performed to a certain 'discomfort' to elicit a response.

This doesn't mean you have to run sled pushes until it changes your religion, but nor is it likely to do much for you if you don't move out of your comfort zone to some degree.

​So how much exercise and of what type do you need to make any sort of meaningful change?

The WHO recommendations, as most commonly heard, suggest 150mins of weekly of moderate intensity or 75mins of vigorous exercise (increasing to 300mins and 150mins respectively for extra benefits)

Their recommendations also include 2 muscle-strengthening sessions involving major muscle groups per week too.

These moderate and intense exercise bouts can be set and completed in a myriad of different ways. Our advice is to pick some form of exercise that you enjoy doing, walking, hillwalking, running, cycling, swimming etc.

If you don’t think you have time for that then there’s also some recent research over the last few years showing similar benefits with HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). We’ll delve deeper into the different types next.

Every single system in the body requires physical activity for normal development, you could therefore argue that physical inactivity is in fact abnormal.

As mentioned in that last post we know what the outward manifestation of a poor diet and lifestyle looks like but there are also serious effects that we can’t see happening visually.

We see ‘mismatched’ diseases...conditions caused by our bodies gene interactions with our environment that we only see in modern life since we’ve engineered activity out of our daily lives.

Diseases that 70% of the healthcare costs here directly relate to. Coronary artery disease, hypertension, some specific cancers and the current ticking time bomb of our generation, type 2 diabetes. 
Here’s the good news though, these are lifestyle mediated diseases, that means it’s entirely in your hands to reduce your risks, and it really doesn’t take as much exercise as you might think.
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Although part of the service industry, personal trainers are probably unique. (aside perhaps from education). Unique in the sense that obtaining results from our services requires more work on you - the customers - part than ours.

This means that your outcome, in this case results, in both quality and time are determined largely by you.

Don’t confuse this with a lack of skill to our job, or that a variation in standards across the industry doesn’t exist, it certainly does.

As an adult the onus will be on you to bear the daily responsibility to make the necessary changes to achieve your objectives.

This, of course means that ‘results will vary’ across even each trainers clientele. This means there are people who don’t get the results they were expecting. 

You likely won’t see that written in many other fitness marketing copy.

According to our website stats, now more than half of you are reading this on your mobile. Technology has fed more information than you could ever hope to consume directly to your hand. 

Blockchains, online banking and shopping, go-cars etc. Technology that all exist to reduce task times. 

In this age of instant gratification, there doesn’t yet exist a shortcut that will substitute hard work and consistency in both nutrition and physical activity to elicit changing body composition.

With all that aside, there are plenty of reasons to hire the services of a trainer or a coach.

We can save you time.
There is as much poor information across all mediums as there is good. This makes it very difficult to discern the good from the bad and ugly. We can help cut through this and get you on the path to making the changes that actually ‘work’.

We can save you potential injuries
Most bad experiences in the gym in terms of injury could probably have been prevented with some guidance on technique. We can also teach and programme around injury and/or restrictions.

We can build your confidence
Gyms are intimidating places, when you arm yourself with knowing what to do and how to do it, you’ll be a step ahead of most gym-goers.

We can provide lasting skills
If a trainer is worth his or her salt they ought to be able to instil nuggets of information on fundamentals that have stood the test of time and that knowing will last you a lifetime, both with regards training and nutrition.

We can provide different solutions
There’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach and there are plenty of ways to skin a cat. It’s our job to find solutions that work for the individual.

We can save you money
We’ve had plenty of clients who have wasted sometimes thousands on crash diets, supplements and other well marketed less than useful solutions.

We can provide flexibility
Some people have plenty of time and desire to train, others have very limited time, space and access to equipment. Though in some cases this may be a limitation it certainly doesn’t mean results aren’t possible.

We can make life easier
Becoming stronger and more mobile means that everyday menial tasks get easier, carrying shopping, playing with your kids. More energy = more productivity.

We can help you set an example
If you’re a parent the best thing you can do is lead by example. We all know the issues we have with obesity here. The statistics all bear out that if you become obese as a child it’s an uphill battle for later life. 

We can help you deal with sickness
There’s an unfortunate reality to life, we’re all going to get sick at some point. Your physical health will be a huge determinant of how well you deal with that. Physical activity is medicine.

We love to see people get results, we are inspired by those who have a willingness of effort and work and accept the responsibilities that are involved.

Exercise for weight loss

We’ll tackle this one first because by a country mile the majority of people who walk through the doors of any gym or start exercising are doing it to primarily look better.

Though we’re going to focus on exercise, we want to make it very clear that you cannot outrun your fork. If you’re overweight and your nutrition isn’t in order then exercise will not help with your weight loss. 
A closer look at some of the studies make it clear that exercise has a depressingly low effectiveness for weight loss, despite some sensationalist headlines.

There’s no doubting that exercise could be described as the single best drug in the world, but it is not a weight loss drug. We say that not to discourage you from exercise but rather to value the unbelievable benefits of exercise regardless of weight.
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​Ok so we’ve gone through a lot of popular diet plans over the last week or so, and if you’ve been reading along the fog should be clearing with regards commonalities.

All of them, put some restriction on your overall intake (and therefore calories). This is dieting 101, if you haven’t managed to get yourself into an energy deficit then no amount of super foods will do the trick. 
The good ones will also put a focus on primarily whole foods and an emphasis on higher daily protein and fat intakes. This is also important from the perspective of regulating both hunger and blood sugar.

There are people who have succeeded on every diet vogue in books and on the internet, you’ll never hear of those that failed, of which you can be sure there are plenty.

Find something that works for you, your lifestyle and tastes. It still won’t be easy, it will still require consistency and discipline, but setting your diet up properly will have a profound effect on your results over the long term.

Need help with this? Just drop us a line or comment below.

The vast array of benefits that exercise offers extends well past weight loss. A lack of it has far reaching negative implications too.

Exercise is possibly the single most important modifiable determinant of your health. 
There’s nothing you could do that would help and benefit your health more than regular exercise. Over the next week we'll take a look at some of the biggest effects along with some practical applications.
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