Hi all

Friday again, hope you had a great week.  This week I wanted to discuss the importance of a balanced exercise program.  Now I think most of you
will be thinking that I mean balanced in the way that you are not doing the same thing everyday.  Yes OFCOURSE this is true, but we all already know this and I won't waste you time by writing about it. 

What I am taking about is.....

Is you workout balanced and are you training your body in all the body's PLANES (not aeroplanes)?

I imagine that if you are not working in the fitness industry you might not have a clue what I mean.... which is great as hopefully by the end you will.

OK so I will cover


Introduction
What are the Planes of the body
Importance of training in all Planes
How a balanced workout might look like.

Introduction- 

When we work out we want to make sure that the program we carry out is safe,
efficient and balanced in orde to prevent injuries.  You may wonder how do we do this. 

Warming up
Cooling down
Strecthing

All basic stuff but as a Personal trainer I also strongly recommend training in all three planes of motion.  When I train  my clients and prepare their workouts I ensure that each workout is balanced and there is no dominent plane being utilised where possible. 

So what are the Planes called?
FRONTAL
PLANE
SAGGITAL PLANE
TRANSVERSE- HORIZONTAL PLANE.



What are the planes of the body

OK so we know there names but lets look at how moving in a particular plane may look like.   I want you visualise two panes of glass.  For each Plane they will allow movement in one way.

FRONTAL PLANE- imagine one pane at your front and one at the back
of the body.  No forward movement or rotational movement would happen, therefore all movement would be from side to side.

EG- Lateral lunges, Lateral raises, side steps shuffles etc

SAGGITAL PLANE- imagine two panes of glass by your side only allowing movement forward.  This typically is the most dominant plane that people move in.

E.G- Squats, Forward lunges, Bicep curls, Running etc.

TRANSVERSE- HORIZONTAL PLANE-  OK for this one imagine one pane of glass splitting you body at the belly button and the only movemnts involve twisting.

E.G Russian twist, think or any swinging action, hitting a tennis ball etc
 

Importance of training in all planes.

So hopefully now you have a better understanding of the three planes and the movements that happen. 

So you might wonder why do we need to train in all three?

Well I ask the question, what do you think will happen if you repeatedly do the same movement over and over again?


Not only will the body get used to it, but also think about the stress that
is constantly going through the same muscles in the same plane, over time this
could potentially lead to injury.  Not the ideal situation!  However if your
program utilises all planes this will allow for other assisting muscles to be
recruited leading to an all over balance and decreased risk of injury.
 
Question

So how many peoples Leg workout looks like this?

Squats
Deadlifts
Lunges
Leg Curls
Leg Extensions


Question

What do they all have in common?

Movement in the Saggital Plane :)

So how would  and should a balanced leg workout look like

Lets use the fantastic TRX as our training tool

Workout
TRX Squats- Movement in the Saggital Plane
TRX Lateral Lunges-
Movement in the Frontal Plane
TRX Curtsie Lunge with Knee over Movement in
the Transverse Plane

Easy!!!!   Hopefully

I hope that this short article made a little sense and that you can put some of it into pratice and maybe even make you evaluate your own program and get creative with some new moves.

If you have any questions please do not hestitate to contact me.

Well Thats it for the next TWO WEEKS :o

I will be travelling to do some more training, one of which I will wsrite about on my return :)

Until then

Stay Healthy

Jill

Hi all

Friday again.  Hope that you had a great week.

I am sure you have all heard of the Paleo, Patholigical Diet craze.  Some of you may know what it is some of you may heard of it but don't really understand it and some of you may think it is some kind of mental illness lol.... Well this week I decided to dedicate my blog to it.

I will cover,

What is the Paleo Diet, its concept and types?
Benefits,
How your diet might look.


The word Paleo refers to the Paleolithic era, or the cave man era as some people call it. This is the era of the hunter-gatherer.  Men hunted wild animals and gathered plants for their food. During this era there was no such thing as artificial colourings addictives, sweeteners, Trans Fats etc.  Everything was fresh and natural.  Grains and dairy where also not
around then ( a few thousand years later).  Therefore to put it simply  if it wasn't around over 10000 years ago then technically it shouldn't be in your diet!!!!  

Now you might be thinking this is quite restrictive and to a certain extent it is however there are different ways of adapting it into you life.  There are a number of variations, some extreme and some not so.  

Lets have a look at some


Less Restrictive options

Allowed dairy products 
Allowed Legumes
Allow Fruit juices
Allowed supplements such as protein shakes

 
More Restrictive

No cooked food
Intermittentent fasting
Blood Letting- Paleos believe that our ancestors had an increased risk of injury and blood loss during their daily activities so to recreate this occasional blood loss, this Paleo sub-tribe schedules regular blood donations.
No Night Shade foods -Potatoes, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, tamarios, pepinos,, paprika, cayenne, and Tabasco sauce are classified as nightshade foods.
Reduced Salt
No Starchy vegetables-potatoes, carrots, beets, peas & yams
No Sweeteners- except honey
No New world foods- such as potatoes, tomatoes, avocado, quinoa, bananas grapefruit, strawberry, cashews, turkey.  This is just a few.  


Benefits

Studies have shown that following a paleo diet rapidly completely changes in inner working of the body and as such has a positive change to exterior appearance.   Here are a few of the benefits 

Loss of excess body fat.
An enhancement of general happiness.
Improved sleep.
Improved hair and nails
Lower blood pressure
Normalisation of blood sugars
Increased Energy
 

How your diet might look.
 

Now as I mentioned before there are more restrictive versions than others.....  Some still drink tea and coffee and eat dairy.  below I have outlined a less
restrictive daily menu...
 

Breakfast
- Omelette
- 2 Omega 3 enriched eggs
- Frozen broccoli
- Chopped mushrooms
- Coconut Oil
- Seasoning
 
Lunch

- 1 Chicken Breast
- Large green salad
- Flaxseed
- Orange
 
Dinner
- 6oz Fillet Steak
- Asparagus
- Mashed sweet potato
 
Snacks
- Organic natural Yogurt
- Mixed nuts
- Fruit
- Raw Vegetables



So in summary. 

In my opinion the best way to approach paleo is to start slowly with the basic rule of opting for natural products where possible. As time goes by and your body gets used to it you will naturally start to eliminate foods you feel uncomfortable with.   Once you experience the incredible change in well-being paleo eatng brings, it becomes hard to imagine ever going back to eating so unnaturally.
 
On a personal note I have been following this lifestyle nearly 5
months now.  Now I follow a less restrictive one, I still consume  a little dairy and take supplements .  I can honestly say that at first I thought it was hard.  Eliminating
grains was actually not as hard as I thought.  My biggest downfall would have
been cereals and ketchup however now I do not miss or crave them.  I feel that
my energy levels are consistent I don't tend to get a slump, what I will say is now that if I do have grains or indulge in something that I shouldn't my body
doesn't feel that good the next day, which I guess is a good thing.
 
Well that's its for this week. If you want any further information please don't hesitate to contact me.
 
Until next week stay healthy.
 
Jill 
 

Hi all

Friday again and I hope you had a healthy
week :)

OK this week I wanted to write about something that I am sure is
of interest to all.

Food Labels.  Nowadays it is required by all food producing companies to provide the nutritional information for their products detailing macro-nutrients and ingredients.  Now for many people, reading these labels may be like reading double dutch, and where you might think that something might be "good" "healthy"  you may be surprised.  So with this in mind I decided to explain a few things and simplify a few terms in hope that reading 
labels become a little clearer.

What I will cover

Ingredients
Marco-nutrient breakdown
Terminology
Health
Claims
Other info


INGREDIENTS

First of all, what makes up your food are the materials used to make it.... It is required by law that Food Manufacturers list the ingredients used in descending order by weight (from the most to the least). So what this means is that the ingredient used most will be listed first.

Macro- Nutrients

Listed on the food label will be a breakdown of the energy in the food or the calories or sometimes listed as kilo-calories which can further add to confusion.  Normally nutritional values will be listed per 100g or total serving.  This is were most people get confused, as how much is a serving? Or is that the dry weight? or cooked weight? You need to look carefully at label.

The Daily Values section shows how a food fits into your overall daily  diet. The value of the nutrient is given in percentages. The Percent  Daily Value gives the food's nutritional content normally based on a  2,000-calorie diet. You can use this to quickly compare foods and see  how the amount of a nutrient in a serving of food fits into a  2,000-calorie diet.  
 
 
Lets have a look at a food label above and break it down.  From my previous blog you will remember (hopefully) that 1g of Carbohydrate and Protein equal 4 calories and 1g of fat equals 9 calories. 


Ok you can see that this label gives the serving size as 115g and there are 4 servings so the total weight is 460g.   The calories and breakdown is given for one serving.
 
In total there are 250 Calories and this is made up from
 
Total Carbohydrate= 26g (x4=104 calories from carbs and all from sugar)
Total Protein = 4g (x4=16 calories from protein)
Total Fat= 14g (x9= 126 calories from fat of which 9g is saturated
fat 81 calories)  The saturated fat makes up 32 percent of the
calories!!
 
Hopefully this makes sense!!!


Terminology
 
You will often see foods that declare they are fat free, light, lite sugar free!!!! how do they determine this.  I have listed below what some mean!

NUTRIENT CONTENT CLAIMS
These terms are called a nutrient content claims and they are  words or phrases  on a food package that makes a comment about the nutritional value of  the food. The claim will mean the same for every product. The following  are some approved nutrient claims.

 
Calorie terms:

Low-calorie =40 calories or less per serving
Reduced-calorie = at least 25% fewer calories per serving when compared with a similar food

Light, Lite = One-third fewer calories or 50% less fat per
serving; if more than half the  calories are from fat, fat content must be
reduced by 50% or more
 

Sugar terms:

Sugar-free =Less than 1/2 gram sugar per serving
Reduced sugar= At least 25% less sugar per serving when compared
with a similar food.



Fat terms:

Fat-free =Less than 1/2 gram fat per serving
100% fat free =Meets requirements for fat free
Low-fat =3 grams fat or less per serving
Reduced-fat = At least 25% less fat when compared with a similar food



Cholesterol terms:
Cholesterol-free= Less than 2
milligrams cholesterol per serving and 2 grams or less saturated fat per
serving.
Low-Cholesterol =20 milligrams or less
cholesterol per serving and 2 grams or less saturated fat per
serving


Sodium terms
Sodium-free = Less than 5 milligrams sodium per serving
Salt-free = Meets requirements for
sodium-free


HEALTH CLAIMS

These can also be found on food labels and again they have to meet a certain criteria in order to put them on!!! 
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves and regulates health claim phrases. A health claim is a food label message that describes the relationship between a food or food component, such as fat, calcium, or fibre, and a disease or health-related condition.

The government allows health claims for these seven diet and health relationships that are backed by extensive scientific evidence:
1. Calcium and osteoporosis
2. Fat and cancer
3. Fibre-containing grain products, fruits, vegetables and cancer
4. Fibre-containing fruits, vegetables, and grain products and (coronary heart disease)
5. Fruits, vegetables and cancer
6. Saturated fat and cholesterol and coronary heart disease
7. Sodium and high blood pressure
(hypertension)



Other Information

You come across food that have no food labels and there are
foods that are exempt
These include:
 

• Airline foods


• Bulk food that is not resold


• Food service vendors (such as mall cookie vendors,
  sidewalk vendors, and vending machines)


• Hospital cafeterias


• Medical foods


• Flavour
  extracts


• Food colours


• Food produced by small businesses


• Other foods that contain no significant amounts of any
  nutrients


• Plain coffee and tea


• Ready-to-eat food prepared primarily on the
  site


• Restaurant foods


• Spices

Well I hope that you enjoyed reading this blog and labels make a little more sense!

Until next week keep healthy!

Jill

Hi all

I hope that you all had a great week.
 
Today I decided to put together a workout that you can do with no equipment at all.  I did this workout the other day however, used a treadmill for
the cardio part instead of stairs, you can also use a jump rope as well or any other type of cardiovascular exercise.   It was challenging and lasted around 35-40 minutes including cool down and stretch.
 
So here it is,
 
Warm up jog on spot, climb stairs, or use a jump rope 5 mins

100 repetition circuit complete it 3 times
 
Squat Jumps 20
Push Ups 20
Walking Lunges with twist 20 steps
Tricep Dips 20
Walking Burpee 20

Use stairs for Tabata training 20 secs all out effort then 10 sec recovery x 8 set.  Do this in between each circuit.  So you will complete it 2x.  A gymboss timer is great to use during this. 

Core finisher
 
Plank to Side Plank to Back Extension x 3 rounds of 30-45 seconds each hold.
 
Its always fun to try something a little different.  So give it a go and add some variety to your workout!
 
Until next week. 
 
Stay Healthy
 
Jillx

 

Hi all Friday again

I hope that you are all having a great week so far.  I have been asked by a client to post a few snack ideas that you can use to spice up the use of your protein shake so here goes. I have given options for low carb as well I hope you enjoy.


Protein Pancake - makes 1-2


Low Carb
 1x scoop whey protein powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder  Pinch salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon oil
2 teaspoons  water, optional 

Per Pancake: 179 Calories; 10g Fat; 18g Protein; 3g Carbohydrate;

*High Carb option 20g*  Revised calories 250

To make it a little higher in carbs after above ingredients are mixed together add 1/2 banana (mashed)- mash first, then add!!

Or add 1/4cup steel cut oats.

Directions

Mix all ingredients together.
Heat pan with small amount of oil and cooked each side for 2-3mins until brown and enjoy.



Homemade Protein bar

Low Carb Vanilla or Chocolate Protein Bar
1x scoop vanilla or chocolate whey protein powder
1/2 ounce almonds, finely ground or *1/2 cup steel cut oats * Higher carb option
2 teaspoons coconut flour
2 teaspoons granular Splenda
3 teaspoons  water

To increase the carb count and reduce the fat you can add 1/2 cup of steel cut oats and mix in with the batter and incrase the carb count by around 30g.  Remove the 1/2 once of almonds

Low Carb
Per Serving: 250 Calories; 10g Fat; 30g Protein; 8g Carbohydrate;
Higher
Carb-Per Serving: 250 Calories; 4g Fat; 30g Protein; 30g Carbohydrate;
 
Directions

Mix the first 3 ingredients in a small bowl.
Add the granular Splenda
Add 2 teaspoons of the  water mix as well mixed  Add
up to 1 more teaspoon of water if  necessary and work this in with your hands.

The dough will eventually come  together when you firmly knead it by
squeezing it into a ball in your hand. The  consistency will be very stiff like modelling clay. Shape into a bar. and pop into the fridge

My Protein "Ice-cream"

Very Very Simple

1x Low fat natural yogurt
1x scoop of protein- flavour you choose
1x tbsspoon of flaxseed

Per Serving 250 Calories: 6g Fat: 35g Protein: 10g Carbs

Directions
Mix and freeze all ingredients
I also like to add in froxen strawberry's as well!!!!
 
Hope you enjoy these if you decide to try them :)
 
Until next week stay healthy.
 
Jill