Friday's Nutrition Tip 02/04/2010

Fad diets “v” Healthy Eating

I can pretty much guarantee that anybody who has wanted to lose weight has tried a Faddy diet at some point, they’ve lost the weight, been really happy, then once the diet has ended put the weight back on, and perhaps a little more!! There’s allot of diets on the market, and if your not sure about how the body works or which one is correct for you they could be doing you more harm than good in the long run. The problem is that most of these diets starve the body of something or another for a shorter or greater period of time, they have too in order to get you to lose the weight fast so you think it’s a miracle cure, then when the weight goes back on you go back to what you’ve seen work, thus continuing their revenue cycle.The word itself “diet” in modern society prepares you mentally to starve yourself in some form or another, then we enter the feast and fast routine, the thing is we all have a diet! From the obese to the athlete, the only difference is, how healthy?From the first meal of the day, that should be breakfast, to the last snack at night all you need to do is eat at the right times, eat healthily and in the right proportion, if the balance is correct then the body will find stasis and the excess weight that is surplus to requirements will shed, slower maybe for some, but combine that with a little extra activity and your on a winning streak, and once it’s the norm, it’s for life!

Now over the Weeks, Months & Years I will elaborate on healthy eating a whole lot more, but the biggest tip I can give anybody is this, if it's in a packet or contains more than one ingredient, its more than likely been tampered with and maybe not so good after all!

PT Fitness

Exercise of the Day Thursday 01/04/2010

Dumbbell Thrusters.

This exercise hits three things at once, Lower Body, Upper Body and Cardio output, the lower body is hit by performing the first stage of the exercise, the Squat, then as you come up from the squat you use a little of the kinetic energy to thrust the dumbbells up above the head into a shoulder press, its this rapid changeover that gets the heart working, first your using the large muscles of the legs to do the squat, so blood transportation down towards them, then straight up and above the head you go with the shoulder press, blood pumping that way too.

It can be made harder by increasing the load caused by the dumbbells, but don't exceed what you are capable of, and always remember your posture.

Chris Nash

Personal Trainer

PT Fitness

Exercise of the day Wednesday 31/03/2010

T-Push-up

This is a great variation of the original classic, as before I've covered the push-up, but this style really brings in the core.

Start in the down part of the push-up position and perform a push-up as normal, however, when you get to the top rotate your body and lift one arm toward the ceiling, return to the start and repeat with the other arm.

I know these are simple at the moment, but they'll get harder!

Chris Nash

Personal Trainer

PT Fitness

Exercise of the Day Tuesday 30/03/2010

The Burpee:

The Burpee is an intense yet fantastic exercise to perform, targeting not only strength but cardio as well, the exercise consists of a Squat, Push-up and a Vertical Jump, the more you do in a row the harder in gets!

Starting from the stood position, squat down, place your hands flat on the floor, kick both legs back so your nearly horizontal, do the push-up, spring your legs back in toward the body so you end in the bottom of the squat, then spring upwards using legs and arms to go into the Vertical Jump.

This whole process should be fluid, not jumpy between the different exercise components.

You can make this beauty harder or easier depending on your abilities, to make it easier you can perform the exercise without the push-up or the vertical jump, or both if your new to this kind of thing.

To make it harder you could do a tuck jump, so bring your knees to the chest during the vertical jump, just think how you would make each component harder and see if you can adapt it to the Burpee, take a look at the wickapedia link I've added here!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burpee_(exercise)

Enjoy

Chris Nash

Personal Trainer

PT Fitness

Weekly Workout Monday 29/03/2010

This weeks workout can be a bit of a toughie, however I will write up alternatives for those exercises which are difficult.

As normal make sure you warm up suitably, 5 - 7 minutes making sure all muscle groups are warm and ready.

Main Set:

10 x Dead-lifts

10 x Push-ups

10 x Chins (or 20 x Body Rows)

10 x Dips (or 15 x Bench Dips)

10 x crunches

Do as many rounds as you can within 20 minutes.

Cool-down and stretch, the overall time to complete this session including warm-up and cool-down shouldn't take much longer than 30 minutes.

Try to do this session 3 times this week and see how you get on?

Chris Nash

Personal Trainer

PT Fitness