Full body workouts are ideal for those with limited time available because they can be completed in a shorter amount of time compared to split routines that focus on specific muscle groups on different days. This is because full body workouts require less time in the gym and less rest between exercises, allowing for a more efficient use of time.
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Full body workouts involve exercises that target multiple muscle groups and movement patterns in one session, allowing for a total body workout in a single session. This can be beneficial for beginners and intermediates because it allows them to learn and practice a variety of exercises and movement patterns in one workout, helping to build a solid foundation of strength and fitness.
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Overall, full body exercise routines are a great option for beginners, intermediates gym goers, and those with LIMITED TIME available because they can provide a comprehensive workout that targets multiple muscle groups and movement patterns in a shorter amount of time, while also helping to build a solid foundation.

Intermittent Fasting:
Pros:
Can promote weight loss by reducing calorie intake without requiring strict food restrictions or counting calories
Can improve insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes
May have anti-inflammatory effects and promote cell repair.
Cons:
May lead to increased hunger, irritability, and difficulty concentrating during fasting periods
Can be challenging to maintain long-term, especially for people with irregular schedules or social obligations
May not be suitable for people with certain medical conditions, such as diabetes or eating disorders

Keto Diet:
Pros:
Can promote weight loss by inducing a state of ketosis, where the body burns fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates
Can improve blood sugar control and reduce insulin resistance, reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes
May have anti-inflammatory effects
Cons:
Can be difficult to maintain, especially in social situations or when eating out
Can cause unpleasant side effects such as constipation, bad breath, and fatigue during the initial adjustment period
May not be suitable for people with certain medical conditions, such as liver or pancreatic disease

Calorie Deficit:
Pros:
Can promote weight loss by creating a negative energy balance, where the body burns more calories than it consumes
Can be personalized to individual needs and preferences, allowing for a more flexible approach to weight loss
Can be combined with other dietary approaches, such as intermittent fasting or a balanced macronutrient distribution, for additional health benefits
Cons:
May lead to increased hunger and cravings. However, this would be expected as you are introducing your body to a calorie deficit.
Can result in a loss of muscle mass and a slowed metabolism if not done properly, leading to weight regain
May not be suitable for people with certain medical conditions, such as eating disorders or thyroid problems.
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It is important to note that the effectiveness and suitability of these dietary approaches can vary widely depending on individual factors such as lifestyle, health status, and personal preferences.
#diets #pros #cons #nutrition #macros

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Here's why a calorie deficit is typically recommended for losing body fat:
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The balancing act: The body stores excess calories from food in the form of fat. By consuming fewer calories than your body needs, you force it to tap into its fat stores to make up the energy deficit. This leads to a reduction in body fat over time.
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Fat storage: When you consume more calories than your body requires, the extra calories are converted into triglycerides and stored as body fat. By creating a calorie deficit, you decrease the supply of readily available calories, encouraging the body to utilize stored fat for energy.
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Metabolism: When you consistently consume fewer calories, your body adjusts its metabolic rate to some extent to conserve energy. However, this adjustment is not significant enough to have no effect on the calorie deficit, and weight loss can still happen.
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While a calorie deficit is an effective strategy for losing body fat.
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It is so important to do it in a balanced and sustainable way. I recommended that you combine a moderate calorie deficit with a well balanced diet and to not fall into the trap of heavily relying on supplements or liquid diets, use real foods. Incorporate regular exercise with a combination of weights and some form of cardio based exercise i.e. hiking, walking crosstrainer.

This is why!
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👇👇👇👇
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Muscle loss: Severely restricting calories can lead to muscle loss along with fat loss. When your body doesn't take in sufficient calories, it may break down muscle tissue to meet your calorie needs. This can result in a slower metabolism, decreased strength, and a less toned appearance. 
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Nutrient deficiencies: When drastically reducing your calorie intake, it may limit the variety and quantity of foods you consume. This restriction can make it challenging to meet your nutrient requirements, including essential vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients. Nutrient deficiencies can negatively impact your energy levels, overall health, and ability to take part in physical activity effectively.
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Metabolic slowdown: Prolonged calorie restriction can signal to your body that it is in a state of famine, triggering adaptive responses aimed at conserving energy. This can lead to a slowdown in your metabolism, making it harder to continue losing fat. Your body becomes more efficient at utilizing the available energy, which can reduce the rate at which you burn calories.
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Sustainability: Extremely low-calorie diets can be difficult to sustain in the long term due to them being too restrictive. Severe hunger and feelings of deprivation can lead to binge eating episodes or worse... you giving up on your diet altogether. Consistency along with commitment is key to any nutritional plan. When aiming to achieving your fat loss goals.
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Negative health effects: Extremely low-calorie diets can have adverse effects on your health, including hormonal imbalances, weakened immune function, impaired cognitive function, and increased risk of nutrient deficiencies. Your body requires a range of nutrients to function optimally, and severe calorie restriction can compromise your overall well being.
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Lastly guys, it is important to set realistic fat loss targets in a realistic time frame. Not the usual nonsense of "my holidays in 3 weeks, I need to drop a stone" 
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Rather than setting excessively low calorie targets, aim for a moderate calorie deficit that allows for gradual and consistent weight loss.

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.