Watch out for this calorie catch-out

How many calories did you consume yesterday... no idea? You’re not alone. Many of us eat foods we think are smart choices, but they could be an energy dense calorie catch-out, contributing to weight gain. Avoid these calorie catch-outs and you might find your body shape changing faster than before!

Firstly do you even know what your daily caloric allowance is? A general guide for weight loss is 1200-1500cal/day for women and around 2000 cal/day for men. Determine your personal daily caloric intake for weight loss.

One common catch-out is coffee and tea. A couple of innocent coffee's can end up costing you close to half your daily allowance!

Coffee shop coffee and tea

Here is a list of your favourite drinks, total calories and percentage of your daily allowance:

If you drink one coffee shop coffee per day from Starbucks or similar, you will be consuming close to ¼ of your daily allowance. If you have 2 coffees, there’s almost ½ your day gone! That’s a lot of calories for a little drink!

Solution
1. Drink no more than 1 coffee shop coffee/tea per day
2. Always take the skinny option
3. Never add syrups, whipped cream etc
4. Try herbal teas that don’t require milk
5. Drink more water
6. Order the smallest size

****Read about using a weekly eating scorecard

****5 Simple tips for losing body fat.

Feeling flat? 6.5 ways to spark up your energy

Do you spring out of bed in the morning, ready to face the day, or is life one long struggle and you feel tired all the time? No you’re not just getting old, no it’s not the weather, your hormones, or that bottle of red you downed last night (actually, that may have something to do with it!). Lethargy is a terrible feeling and one that can be drastically improved with some modifications to your lifestyle. Follow these 6.5 ways you can inject some spark back into your life.

1. Get a good night's sleep
For many people, the night is only young at 10:30, but if you need to work normal hours tomorrow, it is imperative to get your sleeping patterns on track. For the night owls out there, you may lay awake the first few times, but if you follow point number 2 as well, it won’t take your body long to adjust to the new time. Reading a book before bed helps, or check out these 33 secrets to a good night's sleep.

2. Wake up between 5:30am and 6:30am.
It has been proven that there are hormones secreted around this time to wake you up, and if you don’t actually wake up at that time, they slow down, meaning it is much harder to wake up between 6:30am and 8am. Try it, you will be amazed!

3. Try to exercise before breakfast.
It’s difficult to say if this is more physiological or psychological. However there is something about exercising first thing in the morning that gives you a pep up for the day. Your metabolism is boosted, you feel proud of your training achievements, your blood sugars have been regulated by the activity. If people are unfit, yes they will feel tired before they feel better, however by modifying your activity to a 6/10 instead of and 8 or 9/10, should leave you feeling great.

4. Increase your cardiovascular fitness .
Your heart’s ability to pump blood around your body and to your brain directly relates to your energy levels. By increasing your fitness, your body will find the same day to day activities easier. This compounds and before you know it, you’ll be bouncing off the walls. Be careful not to overtrain though, the opposite will happen. Running, spinning classes, walking and pretty much anything else where you huff and puff, will do.

5. Eat right for your body type.
Understand your body’s individual metabolic type and eat accordingly. Click here to determine yours. The wrong foods will make your digestive system work harder, making you sleepy. A lack of iron will also bring on fatigue, as will dehydration. Diet plays a huge role in your energy levels. Also, being an adrenaline junkie won't help you either.

6. Hang around bright, positive people.
Even if it’s not physically, watch upbeat programs on TV, read positive publications, listen to an energetic radio station or music. If you can mingle with positive-minded people rather than the naysayers, this can have a drastic effect on your energy.

6.5 Are you ‘happy’?
This is an entire topic in itself, but must be mentioned as it is extremely important. If you were asked right now ‘are you happy?’ What would your answer be? If the answer is no, you’ve got some work to do. And although getting yourself physically fit won’t hurt, sort your head out first, read books, speak to people, work out your life’s goals and desires. When life has a purpose, is balanced and you are growing, it’s amazing how your energy grows too.


Remember that you are in charge of your energy levels. Try a few small changes and you will be feeling great!

Your weekly eating score card

Think your diet is pretty good do you? Maybe you don’t want to know how bad it actually is! Whether you love diets or you love eating, here is a score card to help you determine how close you really are to achieving a healthy eating balance. It asks the eight most important questions on the food you consume each day and you must rate yourself in each category out of 10. Print the score card at the bottom of the page to record one week’s results. The result gives you an indication of how close you will be to achieving your goals, be it weight loss or muscle gain.

Answer these questions each day. Click here to print out your eating score card

1. Did I drink 30ml of water for every kilo I weigh (9oz/1lb)?
Hydration has a massive impact on health and body shape. Many people mistake hunger for thirst so make sure you are drinking at least 30ml for every kilo you weigh (or 9 oz for every pound you weigh) and add another 500ml for every half hour of exercise.

2. Total quantity of food:
An average 80kg man should consume about 2400 calories per day and an average 60kg woman should consume about 1752 calories per day. Most people get a ‘feel’ for what their daily consumption should be, so this section needs to be scored lower if you ended up eating more or less than your daily requirement. Click here to work out your personal daily calorie consumption.

3. Size of my evening meal:
Most of us know the saying, ‘eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper’. Rate how close you stuck to this rule today?

4. How was my protein intake?
Women should eat about 1 gram of protein for every kilo that they weigh and men 1.5g/kg. Remember protein is in things like milk, lentils, legumes, beans, tofu, meat, and eggs. A piece of meat roughly the size of the palm of your hand has about 20-30grams of protein in it. Score yourself on your protein intake.

5. Did I eat 2–4 pieces of fruit today?
Preferably in the morning, and preferably consume different colours. Deep red fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, and blue berries have massive anti –oxidant properties and are known as ‘cancer fighters’. Score yourself on the quality and quantity of fruit eaten.

6. Did I eat (at least) 4-6 different coloured vegetables today?
Similar to fruit, different coloured vegies have different benefits for the body, so variety is the key. It is proven that organic produce has much higher nutritional content, and it tastes better. Eat these at lunch, and dinner.

7. Fat consumption today:
We know we need to eat 40 – 70 g of fat per day so how close were you to that today?
See my article on 5 simple tips for losing body fat.

8. Activity levels:
A 10/10 would be the most active day you could imagine, equating to 3 hrs activity. A 5/10 or lower would indicate no structured exercise but maybe a walk to and from train station. Remember these scores are personal to you, and an active day for you might be a sluggish day for someone else so don’t compare!

Click here to print out your eating score card

Assessing your results:

• If you score a percentage of 70% or higher each day, this indicates you are eating the correct way and will therefore be losing fat, or gaining muscle (depending on your goal). Be sure to be weighing yourself or taking measurements as you will be getting good results after 2-4 weeks.


• If you are not sure of some of the amounts you currently are eating, please ask me! · This exercise is very educational and teaches you to really think about what you put in your mouth. Don’t guess, get some help!

*** Read this article to tell you if you are a protein or carb body type.

*** Try my best treadmill workout ever to help you burn fat!

5 Simple Tips for Losing Body Fat

OK so you’re doing what the doctor/trainer/program instructed but you don’t seem to be losing any body fat. What is going on? Why can someone else lose it so easily but you struggle? First and foremost don’t complicate matters, fat loss is not rocket science and if you do too much research you may get analysis paralysis and get confused. Before you give up, make sure you are following these 5 tips and remember this should be a way of life, not a short term fix:

1. Eat Less, move more
   Sounds too simple? It is! The amount of calories you intake each day must be less than the amount you exert. If you start an exercise program, do not increase your food intake. I repeat, do NOT increase your food intake. Of course veggies are ok.. But a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that a workout gives them licence to eat more. Not true. You will NOT lose weight if you eat more whilst exercising. On the flip side, if you try to lose weight without exercising, you will lose muscle as well as body fat, leaving you smaller, but weaker and still not toned. This can lead to injury and difficulty sustaining weight loss.


2. Exercise in the morning before breakfast or on an empty stomach. What a gem this little tip is! It is scientifically proven that exercising before brekky (on an empty stomach) burns significantly more body fat. How? Because in order for your body to dip into it’s fat stores, it needs to be depleted of all sugars. By training 12hrs after you’ve eaten there is not going to be nearly as much sugar in your system to burn. This means your body taps into it’s fat stores much faster. In addition to that, your metabolism stays boosted for up to 15 hrs after you exercise, turning you into a fuel burning furness. Think about it, this covers breakfast, lunch, and possibly dinner, ensuring you store less fat from each meal.


3. Interval training then LSD
   When exercising, do the hard stuff first. After your warm up, do your interval training, or weight training component first. This will also help to deplete your sugar stores and trigger the body to burn fat. I suggest this takes up about 1/3 of your workout time.
   Then settle in for a steady long, cardio component. This should take up the remaining 2/3 of your workout and should be at about 65-75% of your maximum. This means you should be able to string a few sentences together but still be puffing.


4. Keep your total fat intake between 40g – 70g per day
   You must try to keep your fat intake down to 40-70g fat per day. Read the nutrition labels of your staple foods and add it up. Did you know that according to McDonalds nutrition table, 6 chicken Mcnuggets (15g fat), medium chips (20g fat) and a medium vanilla thick shake (18g fat) adds up to a total of 53 g fat. That’s pretty much your total daily allowance! Also, stay off the cheese/butter/mayonnaise as these are extremely hight fat and tend to creep into the diet.


5. Drink more water
   So many people mistake thirst for hunger. When you feel hungry drink a good 300ml of water (3 glasses). Also your body will find it harder to burn body fat when it is dehydrated. Every day:
   · Drink 30ml for every kilo that you weigh.
   · Drink an extra ½ litre for every 30min of exercise
   · Drink an extra glass of water for every alcoholic/caffeinated drink you have

Remember that there is no secret to weight loss, and any person or product that promises a magic remedy is probably a sham. Follow the steps above and just eat well, sweat hard, and watch it come off.

Click here for more information on reducing your fat intake.

Click here for a cool website to track your weight loss goals.

Or, if you have any questions for me, please submit them below as a comment and I will be happy to answer them.

Eating right for your body type- Metabolic Typing

Have you ever noticed how some people can wake up and inhale sausages, eggs and bacon for breakfast and feel great, whilst a meal like that would make others feel tired and sleepy? Or when you eat that really healthy salad sandwich for lunch, but an hour later you are tired, sleepy and hungry? The fact is that everyone is different, so understanding and eating according to your metabolic type can have a massive effect on your energy levels and overall health.

Metabolic Typing (MT). What is it? MT is based on a theory that people are either oxidative dominant or autonomic dominant which means that some people feel better on higher protein diets and others on higher carbs. Others need an even mix. Your individual MT greatly impacts how the body digests different foods.

How will MT affect you: Improved energy levels, effective weight loss, reduced bloating and improved sleeping patterns are just some of the results recorded after one month of eating right for your type. Another plus is that it can be adapted to fit in with other diets, or if you are not a ‘dieter’ you can simply shift your protein and carbohydrate ratios to match your personal MT.

Take this great test to see what your MT type is. Some of the questions will challenge you and really make you think about how different foods make you feel.

Click here for the Metabolic Typing test...

And I would love to hear your feedback!

Can you reprogram your sweet tooth?

If you are a sweet food addict, well don’t worry, you’re not alone. In fact we are all born with the genetic programming for sweet things, it’s just that some of us get trained out of it, and some us don’t (such as yours truly!).

Paula Goodyer, a food writer for SMH, has written an article outlining the factors that influence the severity of our sweet food cravings, and yes it’s another thing you can blame your parents for! She explains that the more we were exposed to sweet foods as a child, the more likely we are to prefer them. However exposing children to a wide variety of tasting foods reduces their chances of being a sugar fiend. She urges parents not to give up on offering many types of foods, even if they were rejected.

The same approach applies for adults. To curb that sweet tooth we must keep exposing ourselves to a variety of minimally processed foods. We must avoid eating too much of one thing. But then the plot thickens. If you are trying to lose weight, and you deny yourself completely all these sweet foods, then your body can switch on what Goodyer calls ‘craving chemicals’ which makes us want even more sweet things – what a trap! But then the more sweet things you eat, the stronger these craving chemicals become when you deny your body sugar. Behold the birth of binging!

Please, if you are hungry and have a sweet craving, eat something savoury that is more complex like salad, meat, fish and wait 10minutes after you have finished then satisfy your sweet tooth. You might find a cup of tea does the trick, or a little mint. Slowly over time, these cravings will reduce until the only thing you think of after a meal is the copious amounts of alcohol you just consumed!