At Last...

Week   4 Results:

1st - Sophie T 1.55%
2nd - Kerry L : 1.37%
3rd - Kel D: 1.3%

Week 4 - Overall:
1st: Kel D: 11.35%
2nd: Julie R 6.76%
3rd:  Deb S - 6.68%


Week 5 Results:

1st: Maree C - 1.75%
2nd: Sophie T - 1.55%
3rd: Kel D - 1.12%

Week 5 Overall:
1st Kel D: 12.47%
2nd: Deb S: 7.55
3rd: Sophie T 6.88%

Ahh  - congratulations to you all - some new faces on the leaderboard too, and quite a few just missing out by fractions of percentages - so no-one is safe!  Work hard to keep your positions

Defeat, Success and New Challenges

Well I have to admit defeat on analysing your results this week.  You will get a double wammy of results on Sunday, plus two weeks worth of leader boards to impress you!

On the other hand, I have successfully edited the post about exercise so that its readable.  If you spend a lot of time doing cardio as your main form of exercise, or you hate cardio and think that you will never lose weight without being miserable, this is for you.  Scroll down and have a read of it now.

The most successful body transformations are actually centred around weight training.  Pick up any fitness magazine, look at the girls with the gorgeous bodies and read what they do to achieve their shape.  Its all about weight training, and not just once a week.

In line with this, I read a great easy Oxygen magazine the other week with 15 minute weight workouts.  Its available electronically on your iPad, or its a 2013 release so I'm guessing its in the stores

The photos below give you some ideas of what's in there.  Basically, if you've got time to go on facebook - you've got time to do a 15 minute workout.  Couple 1, 2 or 3 of the different body part workouts together, and you've got a comprehensive weights workout. Most of them only require dumbells.  One suggestion here - if you are ever looking to buy dumbells for home, I recommend saving up and buying a 20kg adjustable set (available in most sports stores) for about $80.  Once you train regularly, 2 and 3 kg weights become a bit useless, and you need  a variety of different weights for different muscle groups.  It will prove to be a great investment.

I plan to post soon on Chia Seeds  - my new love - but I promise to focus on your results first!  I'm off for a run, look forward to hearing all the email "pings" as your results come in tomorrow!

Do You Need to Do Cardio to Lose Weight?

Here's an article from CoachCalorie about the role exercise plays in weight loss,  that I think is rather accurate.

Except for one point.  As someone who has worked in health for 30 years, and is the director of a community health service, I am compelled to point out that this article was written from the perspective how to lose weight, improve body composition and look great.
The National Activity Guidelines for adults state that you need to exercise for a minimum of 30 mins/day most days of the week in some form of exercise that makes you huff and puff, for cardiovascular (heart) health.  Different goals, different exercise needs.  Just keep this in mind.

Is Cardio Necessary to Lose Weight?

Written by Tony Schober ·

When most people embark on a weight loss program, one of the first things they think about is cardio. How much should they do? How often? How long should you do it for? These are all great questions, but the real question should be – is cardio necessary to lose weight?
What is Required for Weight Loss?
In order to lose weight, you need to do one very important thing – you need to eat fewer calories than you burn. All these minute details don’t matter if you aren’t creating a calorie deficit. You could be lifting weights 3 times a week, doing HIIT cardio on your non weight training days, eating whole foods, and managing your stress levels, but none of that matters if you aren’t creating a calorie deficit.

Sure, you can still lose fat while maintaining your weight or even increasing it. Weight and fat are not always one in the same. However, if you want to get lighter, the calories that you are storing on your body need to be burned off. You can’t do that with a calorie surplus.
How Can You Create a Calorie Deficit?
There are a few different ways for you to create a calorie deficit. They will all give you very different results in body composition. For example, you could:

• Create it Through Diet Alone – Yes, you can lose weight without any exercise. You will also lose quite a bit of muscle in the process. However, by simply eating fewer calories than you burn, you can lose weight. If you eat 2,000 calories a day to maintain your weight, reducing your calories to 1,500/day will theoretically net you 1 pound of weight loss per week.
• Create it Through Exercise Alone – Let’s say that without any exercise, you can eat 2,000 calories a day and maintain your weight. To lose weight, you could keep your calories at 2,000/day and create a calorie deficit through exercise. If you burn 500 calories per day through exercise, you can lose 1 pound per week.
• Create it Through Diet and Exercise – You can also create a calorie deficit through a combination of diet and exercise. For example, you could reduce your 2,000 calorie diet by 500 calories through diet, and then another 500 calories through exercise – netting you a daily 1,000 calorie deficit, resulting in 2 pounds of weight loss per week.

While these 3 methods for creating a calorie deficit will all help you lose weight, only the ones that include exercise will provide a stimulus to your muscles to keep them from wasting away while dieting. Your ratio of fat loss to muscle loss will be much greater if you include exercise. Muscle boosts your metabolism and helps keep fat loss humming right along.

Is Cardio Necessary to Lose Weight?

OK, so back to the question at hand – is cardio necessary to lose weight? Based on the above facts – no, it is not necessary to lose weight. Will it help you lose weight? Yes it can if you’re using it to create a calorie deficit. However, if you’re doing cardio without a calorie deficit, you can obviously forget about any kind of weight loss.

Of all the methods for creating a calorie deficit, I’m the biggest fan of creating it through exercise alone. This method will allow you to eat the most food, get in the most nutrients, while at the same time building and maintaining the most muscle – all while dropping a high percentage of body fat.

What Kind of Exercise is Best?

Plain and simple, resistance exercise is going to give you the biggest return on your time. Cardio is nice, but if you are strength training a few times a week at a high intensity, then dedicated cardio sessions aren’t even necessary to lose weight. Cardiovascular training is great, and you should do it, but separating cardio and strength training, or even prioritizing cardio sessions as your primary means to weight loss can be a waste of time.

My point in this article is not to demonize cardiovascular training. What I’m trying to do is show you that the idea of dedicated cardio sessions, like so many people do on the treadmill, stationary bike, or elliptical, are totally unnecessary or possibly even counterproductive. Prioritize strength training, and if you want to do cardiovascular training, find ways to increase the intensity of your strength training workouts.

Keep your diet spot on, and create a calorie deficit through high-intensity strength training, and you will begin to notice that you don’t have to labor day in and day out on the treadmill to get results. Be smart about your food choices and how much you eat, and push yourself in the gym when you do go, be active, and you will begin to see great improvements in your body composition.

The Key to success is....

....Perseverance

At the moment I am struggling to find the time to calculate your results.  Yes, I have them, no I havent done them.  Life is a bit of a rollercoaster for me at the moment, and if i dont do them Sunday morning (and this was messed up by the long weekend), I really struggle to find another block of time to do them.  Very sorry, but I will persevere, hopefully tomorrow.

But thats not an excuse for you to slacken off!  Ive spoken about and seen a few people's results this week, and there are a few who havent had a good week.  This is my message to you.  This is the point at which unsuccessful people give up....successful people dig their heels in and work harder!  DONT GIVE UP WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH!

Just like my last post, that Ive just seen did not display correctly, I WILL get it right eventually, and you WILL transform your body, just never give up!

When a Kg is more than a Kg...

The other day I posted about whether a calorie is a just a calorie and today another conundrum....

If someone came to see me for advice about "losing weight" 12 months ago, and at the end of those 12 months had lost 1 kg on the scales, you'd be guessing they were not too happy about their results.  Right?

But what about if in the 12 months, the before and after photos looked like this:

This is Matt, a facebook friend of mine from Adelaide.  And its not my work, its his (obviously) and his trainer's Philip Ward from PumpedUp Personal Training.  Before photo - 80kgs, After photo 79kgs.

You see, once again its fantastic evidence of why scales don't tell the story that you are looking for.  Matt is certainly not disappointed with his 1kg loss weight loss - he described as the best investment he ever made.  In fact he lost about 9% body fat and gained a lot of lean muscle mass.  Think about the figures I send you each week - if you are doing things right your lean muscle mass should be going up, and your body fat going down.

Many of you are making great gains that lead to these sort of results - regardless of what the scales tell you. In fact two people on the leaderboard at the moment haven't lost more than a kg or so - but their measurements and changing bodies tell a different story don't they?

Next post is about whether you need to exercise to lose weight, and if you do, what sort of exercise should it be.  What are your thoughts?

Its a Protest Flag Kinda Day....

...well not a protest really, but true to my prediction of not being perfect - I did miss somone's measurements AND they had really good results which requires adjustments to the leader board ...
As follows:


Week 3 Revised Results:
1st Place - Kels D - 2.69%
2nd Place - Soph T  -2.13%
3rd Place - Sonya I - 1.74%
4th  Place - Andrea B - 1.43%

Overall
1st Place - Kels D - 10.05 %
2nd Place   Julie R -  6.3%
3rd Place - Deb S - 5.84%

Well done Sophie - and I'm sorry I missed you out!

But it does give me the opportunity to make one more comment.

As I enter the results into the database each week, I can only see one person's results at a time.  So I keep an updating chart next to me of who currently holds the top three spots, for the week and overall.  I enter the first three results into the chart, and with every new result I look to see if they knock anyone off the current top spots, and if they do, I replace their name. I do them in order of receiving them (first in first done)  Get the idea?  But what I've noticed over the last two weeks - and it could be purely coincidence  - but its interesting to think about - is that I am rarely knocking anyone off list as time goes on.  The leaders usually are the ones who have their stats in the earliest

Have a look:
Kel D - Sat 8:36am
Soph T - Sat 6:22 am
Sonya I - Sat 9.15 am
Andrea B - Sat 9.59 am
Julie R - Sat 7:24 am
Deb S - Sat 9:54 am

I received results right through until Sunday at 8:44pm -

Interesting huh? is it because those that send them in early are more motivated, or more confident that they have done well, or up earlier exercising (LoL), or more desperate to see how they have done?

I have no idea really - but I'm a very reflective person and found this quite interesting!

Week 3 Results....

At the beginning of week 4 - its easy to lose some motivation - but pushing through now will cement good habits and then you wont need motivation so much, the newer fitter you will be ingrained in your psyche!
A few measurements are missing this week - if you've dropped off over the last week or two - don't give up - just pick up where you left off and send 'em in again.

But here they are - some people are just awesome!

This week
1st Place - Kels D - 2.69%
2nd Place - Sonya I - 1.74%
3rd Place - Andrea B - 1.43%

Overall
1st Place - Kels D - 10.05 %
2nd Place   Julie R -  6.3%
3rd Place - Deb S - 5.84%

Now some of these people are bound to run out of steam soon - will you be there next week to knock them off their perch?

If you have not received your results as yet,(it means I have missed them)  or I have made a mistake  - please let me know - I try to be perfect but occasionally its possible I might fail!

Also - just  a reminder to keep the email subject exactly the same as the first email you received, so that your results filter into my special magical folder! I'm also expecting 2 more people to introduce themselves - perhaps it should be you?

Hoping to post this week about challenging perceptions and exercise, so keep an eye out for them,  and here's to another great week!

My Clean Eating Kitchen

Well, whilst the results of this week are flooding in, I thought I might take the time to comment on Clean Eating, after my post about Macronutritients.

Macronutrients are about what classification or broad category of food we put in our bodies, but you will hear a lot of talking about Clean Eating. 
"Clean Eating means to eat foods that are as close to their natural state as possible, and avoid foods that are highly processed and loaded with preservatives.  This unclean way of eating overloads the liver and digestive system making it difficult for the body to function to the best of its abilty."  (Clean Eating Recipes App)
So clean eating helps to cover the Micronutrient aspects of nutrition - ensuring that you don't clog your body with preservatives, refined flours, sugar etc, and focusses on raw, fresh, whole foods.

I've been trying to eat this way for some time - and above is a photo of a typical lunch for me (well not so typical if you know me as I don't usually eat much red meat, but today I just happened to).  And this year I've really been trying to tighten up on it further by cutting out sugar, and eating more raw food/whole grains with the help of my new Vitamix.

So this year, I cleaned up my pantry to turn it into a "clean eating" pantry. There is a Clean Eating Recipe App available for your phone - and it also has a list of foods that would be found in a clean eating pantry - so I followed this to fine tune what I already had.  So here's what my pantry and fridge look like now:

 

Yes, I have a lot of tupperware!  The top couple of shelves are devoted to grains and flours: quinoa, barley, rye, oats, wheat flours, spelt flour, coconut flour, quinoa flour etc, and then polenta, cous, cous,chick peas, broad beans, rice, etc. Then there are shelves stocked with dried fruit, nuts and seeds

Then canned foods, and condiments, and on the bottom shelf the big container is my concession to Tessa, where she keeps her "snacks" for school, and my coffee pods for the Nespresso.

The fridge has dairy and some leftovers on the top two shelves, and then its brimming with fruit and veg which I have trouble keeping up a sufficient supply.  And yes, in the bottom corner there is a box of Favourites that was given to us and I've been harping at my hubby to finish off!

 

So what's in your fridge and pantry - but more importantly, what's in yours that doesn't feature in mine?  Should it be there if you want to eat healthily?  One of the things we look for at the health service is the percentage of unhealthy foods displayed in our kiosks and vending machines. The rule of thumb is no more than 20%  What percentage of space is consumed by things that are not the best choices and vice versa - can you change this and help both yourself and your family?

 

Just some "food for thought" on a Saturday morning.  If you don't see the results you want this morning - perhaps a stocktake is in order?



Is a Calorie Just a Calorie

The Answer:

Yes, and no

If you have a lot of weight to lose, then yes, a calorie is a calorie, it doesn't matter what type of food that calorie comes from.  From a health perspective you just need to get that weight off.  So a sensible eating plan (ie no fad diets like just eating grapeful ,or one meal a day or anything that is not nutritionally sound) monitored using a program like My Fitness Pal, or the Calorie King, regular exercise and a resultant calorie deficit or between 500 = 1000 calories  (ie more calories burned per day than consumed) is pretty much all you need to worry about.  Eat what you need to and when you need to, to be able to stick to the calorie plan, because the health risks of obesity far outweigh any fine tuning that I'm going to talk about below.

However, if you're not so far from a goal weight eg in the overweight or the lower end of the obese scale perhaps, then let me tell you that not all calories are the same.

You will benefit from understanding about Macronutrients and Micronutrients, and about the timing of when you eat.

Macronutrients

All food can be broken down into a type of Macronutrient: Fat, Protein or Carbohydrate,
Every gram of these macronutrients has a different calorie value

Fat -     1 gm = 9 calories
Foods like butter, cream, oil are pure fat, its also found in most foods but high in  nuts, avocado,  and then lower but significant amounts in meat and animal products, dairy

Protein 1 gm = 4 calories
Most pure forms in Whey and Egg whites, and high in meats fish  and dairy

Carb     1 bm = 4 calories
Vegetables, fruit, grains (like oats, wheat etc=bread, dry biscuits) sugar

So you can see that if you choose to consume 10 grams of fat (eg oil) you are eating 90 calories, versus 10 grams of protein (say egg white) you are eating 40 calories.  So same quantity of food, but one is much more calorie dense (the fat) than the other.  On a basic calories in/calories out scale, eating foods that are less calorie dense (eg protein and carbs) allows you to eat a greater quantity for the same amount of calories. 

That's pretty easy to visualise - just compare one of those snack size potato chip packs (supposedly good for school lunches) 100 cals, versus a plate heaped with vegetables worth a 100 calories.

But the point about macronutrients is not about calories, its about what they do for your body.

Protein is used to maintain and rebuild muscles. Of interest after eating it you only have about 3-4 hours to use it.  You can't store it for long periods of time.  So having all your protein in the evening meal is a waste and what is not used will be converted to fat.

Carboydrates provide you with the fuel for exercise in terms of blood sugar levels. Once again, what's not used is converted to fat for storage.  You will have heard about Low GI foods - these are the ones that provide a slow release of sugar into the blood stream, which is preferable to high GI foods (like chocolate bars, but also items like potatos) that give it to you fast.  They all have a differing impact on insulin levels and the way your body stores and handles fat.

Fats - provide essential nutrients to the body that can't be produced internally.  And I know you would have heard about good fats and bad fats. and the truth is some fat is essential.

ANY excess food consumption that can't be used will be stored as fat, but you can help your body out by giving it the right type of nutrients at the right time

Eg

•  Carbohydrates before exercise,
•  Protein and/or a mix of Carbs/Protein after exercise
• A steady stream of protein throughout the day rather than one big hit
• Keeping complex carbohydrates (bread, pasta etc) to a minimum in the latter parts of the day when they are less likely to be used to fuel activity (the exception to this is if you exercise in the evening)
• Avoiding high GI foods (especially refined sugar) which spike insulin levels and reduce fat metabolism

Learning what you are putting in your body and when, (on top of "how much") is the key to changing the composition of your body.  Remember the photos of people at the same weight but looking a different size? A higher body fat at the same weight as some one else results in a bigger looking, flabbier body.  A body builder weighs a lot but has very little fat.  The body chooses to retain and build muscle, and drop fat - when we feed it with the right macronutrients at the right time to achieve this.

Micronutrients are what nutritional value a food has for normal bodily functions.  So if I said to eat carbohydrates before exercise and you could choose a chocolate bar, versus and yoghurt and some fruit, you can guess that the chocolate bar would be a poor choice as it offers very little nutritionally.  If there are a limited number of calories that we should eat each day - we should be choosing a variety of foods from all of the food groups to ensure we get all of the vitamins and minerals that we need.  Eg are you getting enough fibre, Vitamin C, magnesium etc.  If you are on a very low calorie diet (eg 1200 cals/day) it can be difficult to get a full range, so it is worthwhile taking a multivitamin to be sure.

Thats a very brief summary - but I will refer you to this great book by Coach Calorie - that explains it in more detail The Definitive Guide to Lose Weight. Its an excellent guide to macronutrients and more.

Beat Me

The Ton Up Circuit Challenge
I Dare You....!

The Ton Up Circuit Challenge

I've pulled this challenge from the latest issue of Ultra Fit, because it gives you a routine that can be done anywhere, any time.  Its important to have these in your repetoire so that you can maintain a regime of regular exercise - exercising regularly is probably far more important than what you actually do - at least as far as weight loss is concerned.  If you can't read the fine print, basically you have to do 100 of each exercise, in any order or any grouping that you choose, but keep marking them off until you have 100 (a ton) of each

I'm going to do versions of this in my personal training sessions this week, but my challenge to you is to actually do this once this week.

Can you, will you?
Post below
(PS - click on the photo to make it bigger)

Week 2 Results

Now if I said the results were at the bottom of this post, does this mean that you wouldn't read anything else - just skip straight to the bottom?  Maybe.  Hence why the results are here, and there is a separate post about this weeks challenge - just don't forget to read it.

Well Kel D had another huge week and I can see already she's gonna be hard to beat - unless of course you work harder than she does.....

Week 2
1st Position - Kel D  - 3.95%
2nd Place - Jane H - 3.05%
3rd Place - Kellie B- 2.57%

Overall
1st Place - Kel D - 7.36%
2nd Place - Julie R - 5.39%
3rd Place - Sarah U - 4.01%


Congratulations to all of you.  I (and others) would love to hear from you though,if you think your results came from anything in particular.  Eg if you looked back and thought - well that week I thinkI really nailed my nutrition, or I made sure I ate more not less, or I introduced a new exercise, or I stopped doing x.  If you have any thoughts like these, please share them as they may helpand motivate others.

Never Fear - the results are coming...

... Ive been away and computer software access has been a bit limited.  if you havent got your individual results, it will be sometime tomorrow...

Why Putting Something Off Until You Are Skinny is Not a Good Option

Why, because that day may never come.

That's not saying that you can't and wont lose weight and be in wonderful shape, I'm just  saying that from personal experience and sharing with other people who have struggled with weight that everyone has "fat days". You know, the ones where you look in the mirror and feel fat and frumpy; (and the news flash here is) it happens regardless of your actual size.  Think that through - thin people have fat days too.  Even people who I know are in top condition for body building have parts of their bodies that they are not happy with, because we all just keep shifting the goal posts.

The trick here is to be happy with, and reflect on what you have achieved, and know that you are doing everything you can to achieve your goals.  If you're not doing everything  - then you have something to discuss with yourself!  Use external measures rather than perception to challenge the way you think - I use clothing sizes - self talk like - "well if you are really big how come you are wearing a size###".  Or if your sizes are still bigger than you would like, think about what size you were, and what size you are now.  And nothing replaces photographs, as much as we hate to take them, you will be so grateful at the end.  We see our bodies every day, so its impossible to see the small changes as they happen.  Take weekly photos and watch the changes, you wont believe what stares back at you.

So if you are putting off wearing sleeveless shirts untill your arms are "thinner" or wearing shorts until your legs are thinner, or a tight fitting top until your tummy shrinks - chances are you may never do this, because they will never be "thin enough" for your liking- the only way to get over it is to embrace who you are now, and how the new you will look tomorrow, and the day after and so on.  Same goes for putting off doing things like taking a gym class, going running, cycling etc.  And its so counter productive - these body image issues are actually stopping you from improving your body!

Be Bold, Be Brave - you'd be surprised how many people around you will support you.  And better still, every brave step you take, will make it easier for everyone else who is challenged with the same issues.

Week One Done and Dusted!

Well, we've survived the first week!  Individual results are all on their way back to you, and everyone lost!  Woohoo.
And who were our champions this week?  Week One always see a few ups and downs and minor measurement discrepancies affect the results and then fade into insignificance as the weeks go on and we see the consistent results. But these three people below showed outstanding results.
Congratulations to:

1st Place:  Kels D - 3.4%
2nd Place: Julie R - 3.19%
3rd Place: Sarah U - 2.65%


An awesome effort I'm sure you will agree.  But your challenge this week is to replace their name with your own.
A couple of things to note: there are always swings and roundabouts in results, thats why from next week you will also see Overall Leader Lists.  Don't fret over a small loss - it could be a measurement error, too much salt the day before, hormonal changes, or just one of those days. Its the results over time that count  = hence my photo today.  You must set your sight on your goals and not give up.  If you get results you don't like, then dig deeper and change them.  And I'm always happy to cast an eye over your food diary on My Fitness Pal and see if I can identify some improvements.  This week I will post about macronutrients and give you some direction about what foods are good to eat when - look out for this.

From a process perspective - can you try and keep the subject heading of your emails the same as the one I used on the first week?  I have set them up to automatically filter to a separate folder and if you change the heading it doesn't work!.  Secondly its good if you can reply to the last email I sent you, so that you have all of your measurements in place.  I will need this from next week when I need to count BF loss from the beginning.  Ta

So how's your week been?  Mine's been "interesting" with some good results and a fair bit of pain!  I taught Pump on Tuesday night for the first time in over 3 months, and even though I thought I was taking it easy - I was sore for days!  My butt has only just recovered!  And I had to run the next day and it was not fun! Reorganised my rest day to Thursday to help recover, but it still wasn't quite enough.  Spent three days in Adelaide in a hotel and still managed to stick to my plans and nutrition but it was an interesting challenge.  Long run this morning turned into a short one (just 6kms) due to the extreme heat - but at least I got out there. Off to do my next pushups practice - $6 in the jar for me - how about you?

Keep the introductions coming - if you are having trouble posting - you can always email me and I will put them up for you.

See you all soon
Lisa