Putting the FORCE back into your LIFE through group fitness programs

• Prepare ¼ cup each of lentils, mungbeans & split peas,

• Coat 1 kilo of diced chicken (or any other meat) in plain flour (optional),

• Fry;

2 brown diced onions,

2 cloves of garlic,

Teaspoon of ginger,

Diced chicken,

• Then add the;

Lentils, mungbeans & split peas,

2 tins of diced tomatoes,

2 cups of stock,

¼ teaspoon of chilli,

1 teaspoon of cumin,

1 teaspoon of coriander,

1 teaspoon of tumeric,

1 teaspoon of mustard or curry powder,

• Simmer to cook through.

What is it about you that make you who you are? It’s your Values, Principals & your Beliefs….It’s your Character. Personality is how you present yourself to the world; Character is what you actually do in the world. So if you want to become a ‘better person’, then it pays to look into what makes up your Character & to see if your Self Image (hold an internal mirror up to yourself to see what you look like to yourself) is close to Your Self Ideal (how you would ideally like to see yourself & have others see you). How close those two images are, will determine your Self Esteem or happiness within yourself.

If you’re like 98% of the rest of the world, you are likely to want to improve on your Self Image (at least a little). So how do you do that?

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If you woke up tomorrow & you life was ‘perfect’ in every single area of your life, what would be different? Would you

-          Be at your ideal bodyweight

-          Be fit enough to run a marathon

-          Be strong enough to lift your own bodyweight

-          Be healthy enough to live a hundred years with ease

Whatever is on your list, you can’t do all of them all at once, but you can focus on one of them.

So the question to ask yourself then is……

which one thing, if I could change it today, would make the greatest positive impact on my life?

Whatever you answer to that question, that is the one thing that you should dedicate your energies towards changing.

Sometimes one area of your life will impact on another. In order to lose weight you may need to increase your fitness. Well then your only focus should be to increase your fitness. Do that first & then once you have a fitness level under your belt, and then look at decreasing your weight. But set your goal on fitness first & don’t expect any results in weight loss. If you lose weight at the same time, then that is a bonus, but don’t try to do two things at once.

Once you have succeeded in that area, ask yourself again….

which one thing, if I could change it today, would make the greatest positive impact on my life?

A survey in 2007-08, revealed that 61.4% of the Australian population are either overweight or obese  www.health.gov.au

So it’s fair to say then that the vast majority of you reading this would like to lose weight. Or even if you are currently within the healthy weight range, it’s still likely that you probably struggle to maintain that level. And when the average person decides to lose weight, they generally start a heavy running &/or weights regime whilst putting themselves on the strictest diet they can find. Unfortunately this is just another popular myth in the community for losing weight, for the long term.

In order to lose body fat initially, you’re better off eating approximately 2000kj fewer than you burn per day. However in order to keep that weight off, you need to maintain your activity levels. Combining the two is then even better!

So if you have decided to change your eating habits, how do you know what changes are required? Well, before you know how to get to where you want to go, you first need to know where you are. This is where a ‘Food Diary’ can be the most valuable tool for you. Is it so simple yet highly effective.

All you have to do is simply write down anything & everything that you swallow in a week. However there are a few guidelines that will help you to get the most out of this process.

1. Be honest. Don’t change anything that you normally do.

The idea is to see where you can make improvements; if you aren’t honest with yourself it makes it so much more difficult to know what needs change.

2. Be as specific as possible.

Without going overboard, the more detail you put in, the more information you will see after.

3. Put in other relevant information.

Your metabolism is affected by sleep, work & exercise. Putting in these factors may show a pattern develop in conjunction with your eating.

Once you have done this, look through & see if you can find a pattern of things like;

• Large gaps between meals followed by ‘binge eating’
• Times of the day that trigger ‘bad eating habits’
• Is there a particular food group not included
• Is there a particular food group included too much
• Is there a physical activity that is triggering ‘bad eating habits’

Until you look at your weekly eating at a glance like this, you are not likely to see patters that may span days. They have most likely been developed over years & you probably didn’t even realise they occurred. But now that you are aware of what you are doing, you are so much more likely to be able to do something about it.

To download &/or Print your Free Food Diary Table, click here

Good luck!

Food Diary Table

The Oil Billionaire H.L. Hunt once said

There are only two real requirements for success in life. The first requirement is deciding exactly what you want. Most people never get to that point. They never decide exactly what they want in life, and because of this they simply go around in circles. The second requirement, after a person has decided what he wants, is determining the price he’s going to have to pay to get it and then resolving to pay that price.

So if you want to have a new car, it is obviously going to cost physical money, but that may also mean working more overtime, not being able to go out to dinner as often, giving up a holiday or having to take a position with greater responsibility &/or commitments  etc in order to be able to afford that car. You can have just about anything you want, as long as you are able to and are willing to pay that price. And remember, nature always demands that you both pay the price in full & that you pay it in advance.

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Has anyone ever heard of the model ‘Energy In = Energy Out’ for weight loss or Strength gain? Simply put, it means that if your energy intake (what you eat) is balanced with your energy expenditure (how much you move), then you will remain the weight you are now.

-          However, if you want to lose weight, you need to either decrease your energy intake &/or increase your energy expenditure. Not too much either way or you may end up actually gaining weight. Sounds contradictory I know, but it can actually affect your metabolism in negative ways when gone to the extreme.

-          To gain weight (for putting on muscle mass for Strength & Fitness) you need to increase your energy intake & decrease your energy expenditure. That may sound like a good formula for putting on body fat. However with the correct type/amount of nutrition for muscle building (combined with the correct type/amount of efficient Strength & Fitness training of course), with the correct type/amount of adequate rest it will actually stimulate the need for muscle growth. Just eating more & moving less will just make you fat L Muscle building will still require you to work for it; you just need to make sure you eat more of the good stuff to tip the scales in the direction of weight (muscle, not fat) gain.

Either way, you’re trying to get your body to burn fat or build muscle & that means changing your body structure through chemical reactions. That is what your metabolism is. Basically it is a measure of how fast you are either breaking down fat cells, or building muscle cells. So the faster you can do this the quicker you’re going to get the Strength & Fitness goals you are after right?

There are many tricks that can be used to increase your metabolism.

• Eat more frequently;

o   Without increasing your overall daily energy intake too much. Know how much you should be eating in a 24 hour period & divide that into 3 main meals & 2 or even 3 other smaller snacks. Buy just ensure that the overall daily energy intake is correct for your needs. http://lifeforcetraining.com.au/category/nutrition-recipes/

• Eat enough;

o   If you eat too little, your body has to slow down it’s metabolism to conserve what little energy you do have. The trick is to eat just under/over what your body requires to burn fat/build muscle. Your body doesn’t want to change, so when you make little changes, your body doesn’t realise what’s happening & is happy to burn away.

• Drink Water;

o   Keeping your fluid levels up will keep your body running efficiently. You can lose up to 30% loss of performance, with only a 2% dehydration level. Maintain your hydration & your body will perform at its peak, which means burning energy.

• Get proper Sleep;

o   You want to burn the most amount of energy when you’re awake, so you need to be completely refreshed when you wake. 6 to 7 hours of DEEP sleep is much better than 8 to 9 hours of light sleep. If you are not rested from sleeping, your body will slow down when you’re awake.

• Eat early;

o   Your metabolism is at its lowest while you’ve been sleeping for the last 6 or 7 hours, you need to get it going as much as possible as fast as possible. Give it something to start burning.

• Eat Protein/Fibre rich food;

o   These Low G.I. foods make the body work harder to break down in the digestive system than High G.I. foods like processed & sugary foods. That means your body is working harder internally for longer, regardless of what you’re doing externally.

• Increase Muscle Mass;

o   You need money to make money – you need muscle to make muscle; why, because you need muscle to burn energy. You burn energy & you’re going to burn fat, & it also takes energy to build more muscle.

o   Legs are the largest muscle group of the body, so if you work your legs you’re going to build the greatest amount of muscle with each & every workout.

• High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT);

o   When you work at a high intensity (immediate increase in energy) for a short amount of time, then rest before repeating the process, your body’s metabolism goes up & down many times within your training session. When you stop training, your body doesn’t know what to expect, so it is at the ready & will keep burning energy for hours after you actually finish. Also known as Exercise Post Oxygen Consumption (EPOC Training)

• Incidental Training

o   Increase Your Metabolism Through Incidental Training

When we develop our Strength & Fitness programs and activities, we always consider what effect it will have on your metabolic rate. When there are only 45 or 60 minutes in each session (out of the 1,440 minutes in a 24 hour period), we obviously want to burn the most amount of energy possible. Although there are actually many ways that our programs can increase your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) for long after you have finished with us, there is still more you can do to keep that BMR going strong all day, every day.

After all, you can burn more energy in your 18 waking hours than you can ever do in a 1 hour/45 minute workout. So doesn’t it make sense to think of your waking hours as a workout in itself? Read the rest of this entry »

To calculate your resting metabolic rate:

Women:

[655.1+(9.56 x weight in kg)+(1.85 x height in cm)-(4.68 x age in years)] x 4.2

Men:

[66.47+(13.75 x weight in kg)+(5 x height in cm)-(6.76 x age in years)] x 4.2

Once you know your resting metabolic rate you will need to multiply it by your activity factor number to know your total daily energy output needs.

ACTIVITY LEVEL	DESCRIPTION	ACTIVITY FACTOR
Sedentary	Little or no exercise, desk job	1.2
Lightly active	Light exercise or sports 1-3 days a week	1.375
Moderately active	Moderate exercise or sports 3-5 days a week	1.55
Very active	Hard exercise or sports 6-7 days a week	1.725
Extremely active	Hard daily exercise or sports or physical job or hard training      (for marathon, triathlon etc.)	1.9

Example:

Amanda is 30 years old, 170 cm tall & weighs 70 kg. Her resting metabolic rate is

[655.1+(9.56 x 70)+(1.85 x 170)-(4.68 x 30)] x 4.2

=[655.1+669.2+314.5-140.4] x 4.2

=6293 kj per day

If Amanda is relatively inactive, her total kj output would be 6293 x 1.2=7552 kj per day.

However if she was training for a marathon, her output would be 6293x1.9=11,957 kj per day.

The safest & most effective way to reduce kilojoule intake for weight loss is to consume

2000 to 4000 kj fewer than your body uses per day. This produces a minimum weight loss of 0.5 to 1 kg per week.

This may sound like a slow process, however you may need to ask yourself how long it took for your body to gain its weight & ask yourself if it’s realistic to expect your body to lose the same amount of weight in a much quicker time frame.

Don’t forget losing weight, even if it’s a slow process, is better than keeping the weight on or continuing to gain more.

For anyone wanting to lose weight it must be said that modifying your diet is the best way to initially lose the weight (Personal Trainers who make their living out of the physical side of the equation don’t generally admit this. If I say this to you, please believe me), physical activity is the ONLY way to KEEP it off & combining the two is obviously getting the best of both worlds.

Therefore, I encourage everyone to go on a ‘weight loss diet’. “But hang on, isn’t there a lot of contradictions within the weight loss industry of whether a diet is good for you or not?” I hear you say. Yes & No. First, understand that you are already on a diet, a diet is “the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group”. So you need to also understand that the current diet (& activity level) is 100% responsible for your current weight (& Strength/Fitness level). If you are to change your weight (& Strength/Fitness), you must change your habits.

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