Russ asked: I need some advice on trying to build up my abs. I’m on holiday in 8 weeks and my aim is to have a six pack. I currently go to the gym 3 evenings a week and do a variety of crunches. I also run 3 times a weeks for about 30 to 40 minutes.

Answer…

Abdominal definition will only really show if you have a body fat percentage of less than 12%. No amount of crunches will ’spot reduce’ on your abdominal area if this is not the case. 

Assuming you have a low body fat percentage then 8 weeks in enough time to sculpt visible abs. My major advice when training your abdominals is not to treat it differently from any other muscle in the body. When most people work their biceps they lift a heavy resistance for a maximum of 15 reps but when it comes to crunches they do 100’s of reps.

They will grow like any other muscle in the body by following the principle of progressive overload.  Add resistance to your ab exercises and if you can do more the 15 reps, it’s too easy so make it harder! 

Try also to get away from crunches, they are easy and boring. Look into using a pull up bar for leg raises & twists and use a kettlebell to challenge your abs with some more demanding exercises. 

Good luck!

Alan Cook is a REPs level 3 personal trainer, triathlete and endurance expert.  Alan became an ‘Ironman’ in August 09 and is now training for the China Ironman in March and French Ironman in June 2010.

Ask Alan about: Cardio Fitness, Endurance Training, Core Training, Sports Conditioning, Agility Training, Muscle Growth, Weight Loss.

Got a fitness, nutrition or weight loss question? Ask it here!

Nicola asked: I was interested to read that Hannah Waterman did only 10 minutes a day of exercise along with a diet plan and lost a considerable amount of weight. Would you say 10 minutes a day is enough to achieve that kind of result?

Answer…

Weight loss comes down to a simple equation of calories consumed against calories burnt.  Therefore a calorie deficit could be created through the right diet and just 10 minutes of exercise! 

In my personal opinion the lifestyle benefits of taking part in regular exercise are equal or greater than any calorie burning benefit, which 10 minutes of exercise wouldn’t give you. 

From what I know of Hannah Waterman’s training she actually did some pretty serious interval training in her workouts.  Now, interval training is definitely something I can believe helped her to achieve her weight loss.

Alan Cook is a REPs level 3 personal trainer, triathlete and endurance expert.  Alan became an ‘Ironman’ in August 09 and is now training for the China Ironman in March and French Ironman in June 2010.

Ask Alan about: Cardio Fitness, Endurance Training, Core Training, Sports Conditioning, Agility Training, Muscle Growth, Weight Loss.

Got a fitness, nutrition or weight loss question? Ask it here!

Guest Blog Post: Pat Phillips-Jones from SureSlim Wellness Clinic explains why we should look after our liver…

The Liver is our second largest organ. It is situated at the top right hand corner of the abdomen with the stomach to the left, the right kidney below and the large intestine across the front. The liver is an important part of your body for many reasons. It produces bile necessary for fat breakdown and detoxifies pollutants that enter our bloodstream. The liver is the cleanser and filter of the blood stream and its role is to remove toxic matter such as dead cells, micro-organisms, chemicals (including supplements), drugs and particulate debris from the blood stream.

As we are exposed to more and more pollutants via the air, the food we eat (pesticides, damaged fats, artificial sweeteners, chemically altered supplements), ‘medicines’ we take (pain relievers, birth control pills, etc), the liver must work harder and harder. This is why you need to look after your liver so that it remains in good working order and can break down these chemicals. If the liver is not working properly and filtration doesn’t occur the toxins will remain in the blood and cause many problems ranging from acne, headaches, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, chronic fatigue to cancer.

Did you know?

The liver is the main fat burning organ in the body and regulates fat and carbohydrate metabolism. A healthy liver will remove fat in the form of cholesterol and pump it into the intestines where it will be carried away by the bowel, provided the diet is high in fibre. Thus a healthy liver is essential for those who want to lose weight.

Pat – SureSlim Wellness Clinic near Hitchin

In exactly 3 years the 2012 London Olympics will commence.  For London and Great Britain, July 27th 2012 marks the day when 10,500 athletes will arrive to compete, thousands of international spectators will visit to cheer and billions worldwide will tune in to watch.  The WHOLE planet will turn it’s eyes to London… 

So we don’t want to look like a bunch of FATTIES do we?!

London 2012 is likely to be one of the greatest spectacles of our lifetime. If you’re overweight right now, wouldn’t you like to think that by then you could be as fit, slim and healthy as you could possibly be? You really can!

It’s time to get inspired, get motivated and get MOVING towards the goal of getting Britain Slim for 2012!  To help you on your way I’ve put together a list of the 10 best slimming habits…

Start building these 10 habits into your lifestyle from today and you will become slimmer, healthier and happier… without dieting and without having to give up our wonderful British social life!

The 10 Habits To Slim For 2012…

1. Cut down on sugary snacks and drinks.
- sugar is addictive… and fattening.  Try to cut down on high-sugar foods: sweets biscuits, chocolate, cakes, refined bread, potato and pasta.  If you cut these foods out completely for 5 out of 7 days a week, you will see a huge difference!

2. Eat a substantial breakfast within 30 minutes of waking
-  skip breakfast and you will spend the day on a blood sugar roller-coaster.  Balance your blood sugar by starting your day with a good breakfast: wholegrain cereals / eggs on wholemeal bread /  mixed fruit + yogurt. 

3. Eat a filling lunch that combines carbohydrate and protein
- you don’t have to eat rabbit food to be slim!  The best lunch options: jacket potato + beans or tuna / wholemeal bread sandwich + meat filling / brown pitta bread + scrambled egg filling / wholegrain rice + fish + mixed veg.

4. Eat a high protein, low carb dinner, packed with veg
- unless you’re training to compete in the 2012 Olympics, you don’t need carbs after 6pm!  Choose low carb dinners:  lean meat + veg / seafood stirfry / chicken or fish salad / lean steak + veg / pork or lamb chops + veg.

5. Fill up with at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day.
- fruit and veg is good for you and reduces sugar cravings.  Getting more into your diet is easy!  Bulk out your evening meal with at least 3 portions of veg / finish each meal with a piece of fruit / snack on fruit through the day.

6. Keep the takeaway meal to one night a week.
- For all it’s deliciousness, the good old British takeaway is easily 2000+ calories!  Treat yourself to a takeaway just once a week.  Not only will you really look forward to it, you’ll enjoy it more, feel healthier and lose weight.

7. Keep the alcohol to two days per week.
- nothing delivers calories and sugar to the body quicker than alcohol.  Drinking is a big part of the British lifestyle, so cutting it out isn’t an option!  Cutting down to 2 days per week is realistic and will really help to shed pounds!

6. Challenge yourself to do 90 minutes of activity a week.
- busy Brits are struggling to do our “30 minutes a day”, so why not aim for a more realistic  90 minutes a week in total.  It’s better than nothing!  Try 2 x 45 min or 3 x 30 min or 6 x 15 min, of any activity that gets you a bit out of puff!

9. Build more physical activity into your daily life
- there are so many easy ways to burn more calories without even having to think about it.  Start walking to work / using the stairs at work / going for a stroll during your lunch break / walking to your local shops.

10. Weigh yourself once a week and once a week only!
- weighing yourself daily can sap your motivation.  Get into the habit of weighing yourself on a Monday morning and be prepared to see natural fluctuations. 

Good luck! 

And finally… Let’s hope the London 2012 Olympics don’t look like this!…

Liam – everythingZing.com

When we think of sugar the first image that comes to mind is the sweet, white granules we put in our tea or on top of our cereal.  Few people think of it as an addictive drug and perhaps even fewer think of it as the underlying cause of their weight gain.  The truth is that sugar addiction is rife and if you have a weight problem the chances are it is sugar in your diet – not fat – that is the real cause…

How is sugar addictive?

Research carried out by Nicole Avena, a behavioral neuroscientist, has gone a long way to proving that sugar affects certain chemicals in the brain (opioids and dopamine) in the same way that other addictive substances do.  In short, her research suggests that a diet high in sugar results in cravings, withdrawal and bingeing – the classic symptoms of addiction.  Add to this the fact that high levels of sugar in the blood trigger the fat storing hormone insulin and you’ve got yourself a binge eating, weight gain nightmare.

The scary truth is that sugar is found in all carbohydrates, not just table sugar.  Whether it’s an apple or a biscuit, a tomato or a slice of bread, once it has been chewed, swallowed and digested it is released into the bloodstream as sugar.  This means that all carbohydrates have the potential to be addictive, depending on how quickly they enter the bloodstream as sugar.  

Whilst some carbohydrates break down into sugar and enter the blood very slowly (low glycaemic carbs), other carbohydrates break down into sugar and enter the blood very quickly (high glycaemic carbs).  You won’t be surprised to find out that the carbohydrates that have the fastest and biggest impact on blood sugar levels are refined pasta, bread, potato, alcohol and ‘empty foods’ (sweets, biscuits and cakes) – all the foods we turn to when we’re feeling low, stressed or in need of a pick me up.  Food companies have also been spending years researching ways to make these foods deliver the sugar even quicker, making them hyper-addictive and ultimately more profitable.

David Kessler, former head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), claims that manufacturers seek to trigger a ‘bliss point’ when people eat certain products.

It is time to stop blaming individuals for being overweight or obese. The real problem is we have created a world where food is always available and where that food is designed to make you want to eat more of it. For millions of people, modern food is simply impossible to resist – Junk food triggers our ‘bliss point’, The Sunday Times, June 28th 2009

Signs and symptoms you’re a sugar addict…

• Up to 60% or more of your diet is made up of high glycaemic carbs.
• You have strong cravings for sweet, sugary foods throughout the day.
• You struggle to give up bread, chocolate, alcohol and sugary drinks.
• You often finish whole packets of sweets or biscuits in one sitting.
• You serve yourself extra portions of rice or pasta even when you’re full.
• You finish leftover bread, rice or pasta from other people’s plates.
• You buy chocolate or sweets for your family but eat them yourself.
• When you are denied access to sugary foods you become irritable and low.
• When you eat sugary foods after withdrawal just one piece triggers a binge.
• The moment you eat sugary foods after withdrawal you feel an instant rush.

How to overcome sugar addiction…

There is only one way to overcome sugar addiction and that is the same way you overcome any addiction.  You go ‘cold turkey’ on the addictive substance until you are weaned off it.  It’s not easy, but it’s something you’re going to have to commit to… or you better start praying elasticated waistbands come back into fashion.

This doesn’t mean you have to out all carbohydrate as some diets suggest.  It just means you have to go ‘cold turkey’ on high glycaemic carbs to prevent the sugar rush and re-balance your blood sugar levels.  Here are ten simple steps to achieve this, without dieting and without having to give up your social life…

1. Remove all refined sugar from your diet – sweets / cakes / biscuits.
2. Moderate your alcohol intake to just one or two nights a week.
3. Eat a good breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.
4. Increase your fibre intake from wholegrain cereals, fruit and veg.
5. Fill yourself up with good quality, low glycaemic carbs.
6. Choose wholegrain bread, brown rice and wholewheat pasta.
7. Avoid eating carbs on their own, always combine them with proteins.
8. Avoid large gaps between meals that cause blood sugar lows.
9. Snack on fruit, full-fat yogurt and high protein snacks if you have cravings.
10. Do at least 15 minutes of exercise a day to balance your blood sugar.

For the first week you will have cravings.  For the second week they won’t be as bad.  By the end of the third week you won’t even miss your high sugar diet.  Best of all you will be healthier, slimmer and free from your cravings!

And finally… you just gotta love the 80’s…

Liam – everythingZing.com

For millions of slimmers their first ever diet was just to lose a few pounds, maybe for a holiday or even their wedding.  Little did they realise that it would be the start of a one way roller-coaster trip to obesity, binge eating and long term ill health.  So why are slimmers getting fatter, not slimmer? What can long term yo-yo dieters do to end the weight loss / weight regain cycle?  Read on to find out…

The statistics for long-term weight loss are poor.  Worse than poor, shocking even.  Research studies consistently show that up to and over 90% of slimmers regain their weight within 2 to 5 years, with most putting on even more with each weight rebound.  Over the years this “yo-yo” effect subtly accumulates:  start diet… lose weight… end diet… regain more weight… try another diet… and so on.  It should really be called “yo-YO dieting”, because the weight regain is always larger than the initial weight loss.

So what is it that separates the 90% of failed slimmers from the 10% of successful slimmers?  Have they discovered some kind of miracle weight loss cure, a pill, or new diet?  No.  The answer lies in the two very different approaches to losing weight – training and lifestyle.  Understanding the difference between these approaches is vital if you’re goal is to lose weight long term.

A training approach

Athletes and sports people “train” for an event, whether it be a match, a marathon or even the Olympics.  To achieve their optimum level of fitness they have to train for a number of weeks before the event, avoiding distractions and committing everything to their fitness plan.  Once the event is over their training stops and the fitness they gained is slowly lost, until they start training for the next event. 

All diets are a “training approach” to weight loss.  Like the athlete in training, the dieter puts themselves in a bubble, takes themselves away from normal life and focuses purely on their weight loss target.  Social events are put on hold.  Friends are avoided.  Meals out are postponed.  The dieter’s eating habits are forced into something very unnatural, often experiencing hunger and feelings of deprivation.  There are an ever increasing number of detox diets, meal replacement plans, very low calorie diets (VLCDs) and even fat camps, all designed to put the dieter into a period of “weight loss training” over a number of weeks.  Once the target weight is reached, the training stops and the dieter returns to their normal lifestyle.

This is the defining point of the training approach – it is temporary.

A lifestyle approach

If the training approach is about putting yourself in a bubble and cutting yourself off from the world until your goal is met, the lifestyle approach is about redesigning the world you live in day to day and building habits that fit into your every day life.  For example, a training approach to exercise would involve exercising every day for an hour over a 4 week period, whereas a lifestyle approach to exercise would involve being more active in general, taking the stairs at work and walking more often as a long term habit.

The same is true when it comes to nutrition and weight loss.  Whilst a training approach to weight loss would involve a low intake of calories (often 1000 or less a day) for a set period of time, a lifestyle approach would look at how much you actually need to eat and then form a healthy eating plan that is enjoyable, flexible and allows you to have a social life.  Rather than the restrictive nutrition of the training approach, lifestyle weight loss means eating a good breakfast, lunch and dinner, cutting down on sugar and fats and breaking bad snacking habits.  Unlike the training approach there is no end point to a lifestyle approach, you live it permanently, it is your life-style.

This is the defining point of the lifestyle approach - it is sustainable. 

Choosing the right approach

Whilst both approaches result in weight loss, there is one very appealing difference – you lose weight faster with a training approach.  Most quick-fix diets offer the prospect of losing 2 to 3lbs a week on average, compared to maybe 1lb per week with a lifestyle approach.  This makes the training approach very attractive, especially in the fast paced modern world where everyone expects things right here, right now.

Nevertheless, before starting a diet slimmers should note that this training approach has two significant long term effects - (1) it damages the metabolism and (2) it increases the appetite – a phenomenon known as “the starvation response”.  This means that after each diet the body burns less calories and it craves more high energy foods.  Do enough diets over the years and this damage accumulates – a slower and slower metabolism with more and more food addictions.  You don’t need to be a scientist to realise that if you mix a slow metabolism with a big appetite you’ve got the perfect cocktail for obesity.

A training approach to exercise, not nutrition, certainly has it’s place.  If you are a healthy weight and want to get very lean, then a lifestyle approach to exercise just isn’t going to cut it.  You will need to train to lose those last pounds of fat, as the body resists fat loss the slimmer you are.  This makes the training approach to exercise ideal if you’re looking to get extra trim for an event such as a holiday, but expect to see those few pounds back by the time you’re on the plane home.  By exercising rather than crash dieting you also prevent the slow down in metabolism and increase in appetite that leads to the holiday binging, weight rebound nightmare that so many dieters never recover from.

So why are 90% of slimmers getting fatter, not slimmer? 

Because those 90% of slimmers are taking a training approach to weight loss, when they should really be taking lifestyle one.  Think of the obese person who crash diets (a training approach) when really they need to find a healthy and sustainable nutrition plan (a lifestyle approach).  If you are overweight or obese, then you have no choice but to take a lifestyle approach to both exercise and nutrition  if you want to achieve lasting weight loss.  Celebrities are guilty of this just as much as anyone else.  Natalie Cassidy from Eastenders famously trained to get her weight down for the release of her “Then and Now” fitness DVD but couldn’t sustain it.  Her exercise and nutrition regime worked perfectly as a training approach – exercising for 50 minutes five times a week and cutting out all junk food – but the result was a huge rebound weight gain.

The real problem lies in the attraction of fast results offered by quick-fix diets and the failure of the slimming companies to warn their customers about both the temporary nature of their diets and the inevitable weight regain.  If they carried a warning about the long term damage they cause to to the metabolism and appetite, slimmers might think twice before living on 500 calories a day for 6 months.

Liam – everythingZing.com

slimming in stevenage

Picture the scene. You’ve spent the last week eating like a sparrow, killing yourself at your local spinning class and saying no to that extra portion of chips that you’d usually gobble up in a second. You even said no to the tray of doughnuts being offered around the office and watched everyone else chomp away as you nibbled on the fruit bowl you spent way too long preparing that morning… So it’s time to step on the bathroom scales and see if all your hard work has paid off!

Surely you’ve lost half a stone this week, or at the worst about 4lbs. You take a long, deep breath… one foot on… the other foot on… and the result… half a pound!! Half a bleeding pound?! After two or three “re-weighs” and a “tactical wee” your weight still hasn’t budged! What’s that all about?! You’ve probably heard experts say that hair loss is one of the side effects of crash dieting… what they forget to mention is that it’s usually because it’s been pulled out when your scales don’t tell you what you want to see!

These 3 golden rules for lasting weight loss will not only save you from pulling your hair out, but will help to manage your expectations and keep you motivated long enough to reach your weight loss target.

1) Aim for 1lb of weight loss per week on average.

Most people give up at slimming clubs because they expect too much too soon. You may have seen people lose 7lbs a week on celebrity fit club or in your glossy magazine, but they will have been on a seriously strict diet and done 4 to 5 hours exercise a day… not exactly realistic! If you’ve got a job, a family and a social life, then the most you should expect to lose is 1lb per week on average, which equates to burning off 500 calories a day. Add up all the weeks in the last year you’ve spent dieting, giving up, dieting again then giving up again, then work out how much you’d have lost if you were losing 1lb per week consistently.

2) Don’t expect to lose weight every week.

Our bodyweight naturally fluctuates 3 – 4lbs a day. Long term weight loss isn’t like a leisurely stroll down a hill, it’s like a really frustrating rollercoaster! If you expect to lose weight every week you’re going to be disappointed… and bald! As a realistic target aim to lose 4lbs every 4 weeks (1lb per week on average). That means you might lose 1lb in the first week, stay the same in the second week, lose half a pound in the third week, then lose 3.5lbs in the fourth week (-1lb, -0lb, -0.5lbs, -3.5lbs = -4lbs over 4 weeks, -1lb per week on average). Or you might lose 2lbs in the first week, gain 1lb in the second week, lose 3lbs in the third week, then stay the same in the fourth week (-2lbs, +1lb, -3lbs, -0lbs = -4lbs over 4 weeks, – 1lb per week average).

3) Track your weight loss over time.

Although weight bounces up and down week by week, due to glycogen (stored sugar) and water levels, if you look at your weight over time you can see the trend, which tells you how much you are losing on average. Good weight loss should look like a downward zig-zage. If you use a weight tracker you can see the trend of your weight over time, which is far more motivating that just looking at your weight bobbing up and down week by week. The winners in the weight loss game aren’t the people who crash diet, lose 7lbs a week over two weeks, give up and put it all back on again. It’s the people who lose on average 1lb a week over several weeks and keep it off.

Liam – EverythingZing.com

slimming in letchworth

There is an old saying…  “If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that it is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long!”

Now eating a frog is near enough as bad as it gets, so just imagine if you absolutely had to eat that frog to get where you’re trying to be…

You wouldn’t want to nibble on it through the day, nor would you want put it off until the evening.  As the hours passed, you’d have spent the day wasting a lot of valuable time and energy worrying about facing the inevitable – you have to eat that frog!  The best plan of action?  First thing in the morning, psych yourself up, shove it in your mouth and get chewing, ‘I’m A Celebrity’ style!

The moral of the story…

“When facing an unpleasant task, get it done quickly and get it done early, without thinking too much about it!”  Our “frog” is that one unpleasant task in our day that we fear, procrastinate on and cannot seem to find the motivation to get done.  Frustratingly enough, our daily “frog” is also more than likely to be the one task that we really cannot avoid if we want to make progress and achieve our goals. 

So what is your ”Weight Loss Frog”?

When it comes to tasks we’d rather put off until later, weight loss is riddled with “frogs”.  Think of your daily workout, your shopping trip to stock up on healthy food, or preparing your lunch to take into work.  You know deep down that if you put off these frogs not only will your metabolism slow down because you’re not moving enough, you’ll also fall quickly into the habit of eating high calorie convenience food. 

You might have put off the frogs for another day, but as the weight piles on you’re inevitably going to have to face a mountain of frogs at some point in the future… usually when airlines start turning you down because you’re too big to fit in the toilet!

Eat That Frog!

Successful slimmers don’t just eat frogs.  They enjoy eating frogs! Each morning they launch themselves head first into their weight loss tasks and revel in the challenge of getting them done.  Walking to work first thing.  Making their sandwich to take into work.  Heading to the shops on their lunch break to stock up on healthy food. 

So the next time you’re staring a “weight loss frog” in the face tell yourself,  “If I get this done now, I’m going to feel great once it’s over and even better when I’ve lost my first stone!”  Once you start to get into the habit of eating your frogs it soon gets easier, the momentum builds up and you’ll realise that it is a small price to pay for a healthy, slim and great looking body!

Liam – everythingZing.com

slimming in Letchworth

Do you feel like your diets never work?  Are you convinced that you are destined to be overweight? Do you spend your life questioning why you aren’t losing weight on your diets?!  The chances are that for all your hard work you’re probably still making one or more of the 10 most common mistakes of failed slimmers.  Here’s a count down from 10 to 1, with advice on how to avoid them…

10. Forgetting the foods they’ve eaten.

So many slimmers think they’re eating well when actually they’ve forgotten how much they’ve really eaten each day.  This phenomenon, known as ‘caloric amnesia’, is why so many slimmers convince themselves they’re eating very little when actually they’re eating enough to fuel a front row rugby player!
Avoid this mistake – keep a food diary and update it every time you eat / drink something to prevent  ‘invisible calories’ slipping into your diet. 

9. Not seeing how ’smidgens’ add up.

A biscuit here (80), a left over kiddies fish finger there (100), a slice of bread and butter as a ‘just got home snack’ (120).  This kind of casual snacking may not seem like much, but over a day (80 + 100 + 120) is 300 calories, a week (300 x 7) is 2100 calories and a year (1400 x 52) is 109,200 calories.   
Avoid this mistake – be concious of even the smallest snacks you have and where possible cut them out or swap them for lower calorie alternatives.

8.  Forgetting that drinks contain calories.

A milky cup of coffee is 50 calories, so having 6 in a day quickly adds up to 300 calories.  Lattes are 300 calories just for one!  Another classic is orange juice, which contains the same amount of calories as beer.  And lets not forget alcohol.  Your ‘quiet’ 5 pints on a Friday night is a cool 1250 calories.
Avoid this mistake -  Learn the calorie values of the drinks you have regularly and either cut them down or figure them into your daily calorie allowance. 

7. Thinking exercise burns more than it does.

Exercise is a crucial weapon in the fight against flab, but going for a 20 minute walk doesn’t mean you can get away with eating a takeaway as a reward!  A 20 minute brisk walk will burn roughly 150 calories.  Your average takeaway curry is 10 times that at 1500 calories, which is over 3 hours brisk walking.
Avoid this mistake - be realistic about how much you burn through exercise.  For every minute of moderate intensity cardio you burn about 10 calories. 

6. Not being able to say no to food when it is offered.

‘Push calories’ are calories that are pushed on us by other people, like the doughnut offered to us in the office, or the desert offered to us by our mother.  Many slimmers make the mistake of thinking the world is going to explode if they say no to food.  The good news is that people aren’t actually bothered!
Avoid this mistake – learn to say ‘no’ without actually saying ‘no’ – “I’m full” / “I’ve just eaten” / “I don’t actually like those” / “I’ll try one later”.

5. Eating too little and exercising too much.

The advice to “eat less, exercise more“ is a tried and tested recipe for slimming success.  But how many slimmers corrupt this advice and turn it into “eat next to nothing… kill yourself in the gym for a week… give up… scoff”.  The missing link for many slimmers is sustainablility. 
Avoid this mistake -  long term weight loss is a marathon not a sprint, so stop the ‘quick fix’ approach and find a realistic and sustainable slimming plan.

4. Undereating in the day, overeating at night.

Many slimmers skip breakfast, have a tiny lunch and manage to get through until their evening meal having had less than 500 calories.  This does nothing more than lower their blood sugar levels, increase their appetite and prep their body for fat storage and late night bingeing on bowls of cereal.
Avoid this mistake – eat a breakfast, lunch and dinner, with healthy snacks in between.  Fill up on the good stuff and they will  be no room left for the bad.

3. Undereating in the week, overeating at the weekend.

An average sized woman burns 2000 calories a day, which is 14,000 a week.  A calorie is a calorie, and her body couldn’t care less whether it’s consumed on a Monday, Wednesday, Saturday or Sunday – if she eats more than 14,000 a week, she’s going to put on weight, even if she starved Monday to Friday.
Avoid this mistake - use your everythingZing.com nutrition tracker to track your weekly calorie intake rather than just looking at your intake day to day. 

2. Focusing too much on fat and not on carbohydrate.

For years slimming clubs have bombarded us with the message that fat in the food we eat is what makes us fat.  Yes, dietary fat is very calorific, but for most people the real cause of their weight gain  is over-sized portions carbohydrate in the form of bread, pasta, potatos, alcohol, sweets and biscuits. 
Avoid this mistake – try cutting down on these beige foods.  You’ll soon feel more energetic, have less cravings and best of all the weight will fall off.

1. Being a perfectionist.

Thinking one biscuit has ruined their diet, so they scoff the whole pack.  Thinking they’ve ruined their diet because they ate a chocolate bar on a Wednesday, so they binge for the rest of the week until Monday.  Neither the biscuit nor the chocolate bar did the damage.  It was the aftermath.
Avoid this mistake – slim people don’t think “I’ve had a chocolate bar, I’ve runied my diet”, they think “That was nice, now back on track”. 

Liam – everythingZing.com

find local… weight loss in Stevenage

Most people think they have a slow one.  We all wish ours was a lot faster.  The slimming industry has made a fortune selling pills that supposedly boost it… Even my local curry house is claiming that eating spicy food will make it sky rocket! 

But what exactly is ‘metabolism‘?  Why is it important for weight loss? And how can it help us in our quest to fit back into our favourite jeans? 

Your body is a made up of trillions of cells.  Within each of those cells are chemical reactions that burn up the calories in the food you eat.  The name given to all of these calorie burning reactions is ‘metabolism’, and the speed at which this process happens is called your ‘metabolic rate’.  The faster a person’s metabolic rate, the more calories they burn each day.

Try to think of your metabolism like an engine burning up the fuel you consume.  Put in more fuel than your metabolism can burn, and the excess gets stored as fat.  Put in less fuel than your metabolism burns and you will burn off your fat stores to make up for the shortage.  Long term fat loss only occurs when you eat less calories than your metabolism burns.

So if your metabolism is like an engine, how much fuel do you need each day to run it? The government recommends 2000 calories a day for women and 2500 for men, but this is guesswork.  To find the real figure we need to look at the three factors that make up your metabolism -  Resting metabolism, Movement and Digestion. 

• Resting metabolism is the amount of calories your body burns at rest.  It is the energy required to sustain your organs and muscle tissue, even while you are sleeping.  The bigger you are, and the more active muscle you have, the more calories your body burns at rest. Someone with lots of muscle will have a faster resting metabolism than a skinny person.

• Movement metabolism is the amount of calories your muscles burn when they are working, that is if they are working at all!  The more you move the more calories your body burns, so even chewing gum or fidgeting is proven to increase the amount of calories you burn each day, albeit not much! Someone who exercises daily will have a faster movement metabolism than someone who is sedentary.

• Digestion metabolism is the amount of calories it takes for the food you eat to be broken down and pushed from your mouth to your backside.  High protein, unrefined foods require more energy to digest than high sugar, refined carbs.  Someone who eats healthy food little and often will have a faster digestion metabolism than someone who binges on junk food.

The internet is swamped with slimming and weight loss pills that claim to speed up metabolism.  I’ll make this simple.  There are only three ways to speed up your metabolism - increase your resting metabolism, increase your movement metabolism, or increase your digestion metabolism.  If you want a faster metabolic rate, you have to either 1) build more muscle to increase your resting metabolism, 2) exercise more to increase your movement metabolism, 3) eat better quality meals to increase your digestion metabolism.

No slimming or diet pills can do this for you, so it’s time to put an end to that little fantasy!  To boost your metabolism you have to start eating healthier and moving more, but you knew that already.

Liam – everythingZing.com

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