Calories in vs calories out

Calories in vs calories out

That's right! We are going back to basics!

But is it that simple?

I recently had a discussion with a gym member regarding this, they said people just need to eat less and move more.

If I'm honest, this is true for some people, but definitely not everyone, in fact most people I come across don't necessarily eat too much, they just eat the wrong foods.

One of my female clients for example is eating between 1580 to 1800 calories per day, when she started at her heaviest she was eating less than 1000 per day. She is eating more food than she's ever eaten and she's still losing body fat.

Now without going too nerdy, let's simplify things, firstly no two people are the same, some people have faster metabolisms and some people not so fast. For those of you who are not gifted with a fast metabolism do not worry! You can turn your body into a fat-burning machine with these three simple steps:

1- Eat foods to optimise your health and performance, not foods that simply satisfy your hunger.

2- Focus on developing lean muscle tissue inside the gym, not just on burning calories. Burning calories is easy, you're burning calories as you're reading this. 
The more muscle you have the more calories will be utilised to fuel that new muscle.

3- Enjoy it! 
Too many people set themselves unrealistic goals and then starve themselves whist performing the most soul destroying cardio workouts ever performed in a gym, and they wonder why they only lasted a month. Remember this is a long term lifestyle choice. Once you start your new programme ask yourself "can I stick to this for longer than a month?" If the answer is "no" you'll need to seriously rethink the programme.

Spongebob's results

Amazing 1 month transformation off my personal training client Spongebob.......

Okay, this is incredible, and he has surpassed all expectations, a true inspiration!

This did have me questioning how he did this, my programming is good, but not that good.

So I asked away "Sponge..... how did you do this?" he then replied with a sparkle in his eyes "It's simple Andy, I trained hard, very hard. I trained 4-6 times a week. I finished most of my resistance sessions with 4 minutes of HIIT. I focused on building lean muscle tissue and not on just losing fat. I didn't listen to people trying to sell me these fad diets, I just ate real food with plenty of protein, healthy fats, and carbs around my workouts. I drank plenty of water and ate fibrous green vegetables with most meals. Tracked my calories so that they didn't go too low or too high, I basically ate to optimise my recovery. I embarrassed every workout, every set and every rep. I actually enjoyed it! Most of all I listened to your advice Andy". 

I replied with "Awesome......great work!"

You see guys it doesn't need to be complicated, it's simple and you know it is! 

You know what works and what doesn't work. 

You know that if you nail the important stuff you'll get the results you seek. 

Generally people just need to take action, get some momentum and embrace their individual journey.

Christmas time! Eat clean and train hard? or relax and get fat?

It seems that my entire news feed has two completely separate opinions, one half is telling me to eat clean and the other half is telling me to relax and get fat.

Both are extremely tempting.

So, at this time of year I do what everyone does, I ask myself the age old questions "WHAT WOULD FATHER CHRISTMAS DO?" Or Santa Claus for my American fans.

Then the answer is obvious, you do a bit of both! You think Santa is going to avoid eating the milk and cookies the children leave out for him? HELL NO! He eats those milk and cookies, jumps on his sleigh and cracks open a nice cold bottle of Coca Cola.

However..... Father Christmas knows that he needs to work on Christmas eve and he needs to be fit for it. He knows that Mrs Claus's parents are coming over and he wants to not look fat, he knows that he needs to set a good example to all the elf's that are grafting for him. Remember if you can't look after yourself, you can't look after everyone else. He knows that last year rudolf gave him an ear full after "dragging his 44% body fat all over the world”. He knows that when he ate total junk food he felt tired and accidentally missed a couple of houses, this explains why I didn't receive Golden Eye for the my Nintendo 64 back in 1997.

Father Christmas knows all this, and that's why this year he is looking better than ever, 1,746 years and only 9% body fat, a true inspiration.

Lets all try and be a bit more like good old Saint Nicholas this year.

Coffee

Coffee.........

Okay, so I just read an article explaining why we should not drink coffee.

I do not agree!

Like all things in the fitness industry, nothing is simply black and white, unlike coffee 😏

I absolutely love coffee, I'm like something off The Walking Dead without my morning coffee (see picture above), but like everything you can always have too much.

My main criticism of caffeine, is if you have high amounts over a sustained period of time it can cause adrenal fatigue, basically, this is a lack of enthusiasm, feeling of lethargy, a weakened immune system, and more. However, if you do feel like you're relying on coffee and showing signs of adrenal fatigue, then simply have a week or two off the stuff, that should generally sort things out.

One of the main reasons coffee makes you feel so incredibly awesome is because caffeine is similar in structure to natural occurring molecules called adenosine. Adenosine is the stuff that tells your brain that you’re tired, and the more adenosine you build up, the more tired you will feel. When you consume caffeine, it prevents adenosine from sending signals to your brain by attaching itself to nerve cells in your brain blocking the adenosine, this will inevitably make you feel more alert because adenosine will not be telling your brain that you're tired.

Also, too much coffee can be stressful on the body and releases cortisol (stress hormone), however this is generally in low doses and unlikely to affect you negatively, saying that, I would still avoid large amounts of coffee if you're already stressed.

I will generally only consume 10 coffees a day!......... actually it's more like two or three, no more than 300mg per day.

Like anything, you need to have a balance and don't just eliminate something as nice as coffee because of one article.

Cheat meals (Video)