by Rebecca Prade | Jan 22, 2018 | FITNESS
Physical Strength – The most common health issues that we suffer from today (obesity, diabetes, mobility issues) come from our modern-day lifestyle, which includes inactivity and too much overconsumption. The advice that we hear most often is to increase our cardio activity (e.g. go for a run or walk). Whilst there are many health benefits to going for a run, there is evidence that it does not increase a person’s metabolic rate (the rate at which you burn calories when at rest). Read below to find out why we think strength training is the most important and effective way to prevent these health issues.
OVERCOMING OUR SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE
Strength training forces your body and muscles to adapt in four main ways. Firstly, your central nervous system adapts by forcing your muscles to work in an effective way. For example, the more deadlifts you do, the better you get at doing them, and so you become stronger and improve your physical strength. Secondly, as you increase muscle mass, they need more energy, and your muscles get this energy from burning glycogen (sugar), so they consume more calories. That is what speeds up your metabolism. Finally, using your muscles in this way promotes better posture. By sitting all day, we are weakening key muscle areas, such as the glutes, hamstrings and lower back. Strengthening these areas allows for good posture and mobility as we get older.
IMPROVED HEALTH & MOBILITY IN OLD AGE
As we age, our physical strength becomes compromised, and we seem to get hit with more and more health problems. You should see exercise as an investment – the more time you spend on your body now, the better off you will be in the future. After the age of 50, there were complaints about having aches and pains go through the roof. All this can be caused by a lack of mobility. For example, osteoporosis is a major indirect cause of death. An elderly person who breaks a bone may end up in a hospital bed for enough time to contract an infection. Pneumonia is an obvious example. People who lift weights in older age are independent for longer; they don’t tend to hurt themselves, and even if they do, they recover much faster. The good news is that it only takes small changes to make large improvements, and a little resistance training goes a long way. A walk or cycle to work every other day, along with a couple of strength sessions a week, will make a huge difference to your physical well-being, health and longevity.
IMPROVED HORMONE BALANCE
From a cosmetic point of view, there is nothing more effective at changing how your body looks than resistance training. The burning of calories combined with better posture and firmer muscles will transform the shape of your body. But more crucially, this type of training can balance hormones, whereas other forms of exercise, such as cardio, can actually disrupt hormones, and this is true for both men and women.
If you are very stressed or fatigued, for example, doing a lot of cardio can actually make the situation worse. For men with low testosterone, nothing is going to raise testosterone like strength training, but doing a lot of cardio, on the other hand, may actually start to do the opposite and start to depress those anabolic hormones. In men, studies have shown that resistance exercise balances growth hormone and testosterone. In women, it balances oestrogen and progesterone (See our blog on resistance weight loss for more on this topic). Also, the release of chemicals that you get from working out is proven to make you feel great.
BE CONSISTENT!
I have spoken about this in a previous blog post, but it is so important. At the end of the day, the most important thing is to learn to enjoy the process of exercise. Don’t be fixated on an end goal. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t enjoy taking some time out for themselves. And it doesn’t matter how busy you are, it’s important, especially if you’re busy. Especially if you have kids and you feel like you’re frazzled because you have no time or you’re spread too thin.
Taking 20 or 30 minutes to yourself will make you feel good and everybody wants and deserves to feel good. This is how you should approach fitness. If you like something, do it. And do it because you’re enjoying it at the time that you’re doing it. Then what you’ll find is, you will become consistent at doing it. I know this blog has been about strength training, but really, at the end of the day, anything done consistently is going to be better than even the best program done inconsistently. So learn to enjoy the process, and you’ll never have to worry about this I’m-on-the-wagon-off-the-wagon idea. Start to realise there is no wagon. It’s just the way you live.
For delicious recipes, visit our website. Or you can check out Bexology’s nutrition, fitness & wellbeing pages for advice you can trust
by Rebecca Prade | Jan 9, 2018 | FITNESS, WELLBEING
Despite what we’ve long been told, and the tendency to food- and fat-shame in our culture, the number on the scale isn’t always a simple reflection of the number of calories we consume vs. the number we burn. In fact, the stress brought on by extreme diets and exercise can undermine them entirely and actually cause weight gain. So why is it that sometimes diet and efforts at the gym just don’t pay off on the scale? Often the real key to losing unwanted belly fat, and gaining energy, clarity, and a better mood lies with your hormones. Weight loss resistance is often hormonally based in women and these imbalances not only have an effect on our weight, but also on our mood and happiness. Here I’m going to talk about what to do if hormones are out of whack and the most important things we all should know about hormones, regardless of what we may weigh.
There is a common misconception that weight-loss is just a case of simple maths: eat less, exercise more and et voilà, you’ve lost weight! This hypothesis has been widely disproven and remains the greatest misconception people have about diet and weight loss. Calories matter, more to some people than others, but hormones matter more. Almost anyone who struggles with weight also battles a hormone imbalance and there are many hormonal imbalances that will have an effect on your weight:
High cortisol causes belly fat deposits, PMS, disrupts other hormones and not to mention gives you a short fuse.
High insulin increases blood sugar.
Leptin can be blocked causing you to be continually hungry.
A slow thyroid can cause hair loss and fluid retention.
Problems with the HPA (hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal) control system.
The list goes on. Addressing these imbalances will not only help you lose weight more easily, but your mood will improve, your energy will increase and your daily outlook will no longer be determined by the bathroom scale and your battle of the bulge. Let’s take a look at these imbalances and how they affect us more closely.
The root cause of cortisol imbalance is usually a dysregulated HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis, which is the boss of all of your hormones. When the HPA axis is up-regulated, you churn out too much cortisol resulting in excess belly fat, feeling like you’re constantly racing from task to task, feeling wired but tired, quickness to anger and irritability, and rapid weight gain. Since the root cause is usually the HPA axis, the key is to reset it, starting with cortisol. Any other attempts at fixing the hormones will likely fail in the long-term if the wayward HPA axis is not addressed. Here is my (simplified) protocol for becoming more objective about your stressors and balancing cortisol in women (all suggestions that are proven in randomized trials, the best evidence we have):
- Talk through what’s stressing you with a girlfriend.
- Practice some form of meditation or yoga regularly.
- Add B vitamins and omega-3s to your diet if deficient.
- Take phosphatidyl serine until you perceive less stress.
- Get a massage once or twice per month.
- Limit alcohol and coffee, or ideally switch to green tea, which contains L-theanine, an amino acid that reduces stress without sedation.
- Increase your greens especially cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, kale and cauliflower to aid detoxification of hormones.
- Eat extra dark chocolate (80% cacao or higher).
- Try an adaptogenic herb such as ashwagandha. This one of my favourite adaptogens. It helps to reset cortisol, so it’s not too high or too low during the day.
Here is a breakdown of the other hormones that are often problematic:
INSULIN: Insulin is a fat-storage hormone. Insulin resistance means your cells can’t absorb the extra blood glucose your body generates from the food you eat, when that happens, your liver converts the glucose into fat. Insulin resistance usually causes weight gain and sugar addiction.
LEPTIN: High leptin causes weight gain and excessive hunger. Leptin is nature’s appetite suppressant. When you’ve had enough to eat, leptin signals your brain to stop eating. When you are overweight, your fat cells produce excess leptin. When your brain gets bombarded with leptin signals from too many fat cells, it shuts down; leptin levels keep rising, receptors stop functioning, your body doesn’t get the leptin signal, and you don’t feel full. You keep eating the wrong foods in an addictive pattern, and you keep gaining weight.
OESTROGEN: Oestrogen dominance is when you have too much oestrogen compared with its counter-hormone, progesterone. Having too much oestrogen in the body causes a number of symptoms, including weight loss resistance, moodiness, PMS, and heavy periods.
THYROID: Your thyroid acts as the gas pedal of your metabolism, managing how fast or slow you burn calories. When the thyroid is sluggish, it can cause weight gain, fluid retention, hair loss or thinning, depression, and constipation, among other problems.
It is also important to remember that emotional, mental, social, and spiritual factors can also affect your hormones. “Stress” is often a catchall for emotions, and it is the over-activated stress response that can often lead to weight loss resistance. Mental and emotional obstacles, beliefs, and attitudes can sabotage weight loss. Also, unprocessed and/or troublesome emotions can lead to overeating, drinking too much alcohol or binge-watching TV for example, to self-medicate. Even worse, the drill-sergeant approach of restricted eating and harsh exercise can escalate hormonal and emotional problems.
The best way to get your hormones back on track and reinstate a healthy weight is to correct hormonal imbalances with changes to the way you eat, move, think, and supplement.
CHANGE THE WAY YOU EAT AND DRINK. Remove processed foods, refined carbohydrates, sugars and sugar substitutes from your diet. Eliminate alcohol for 21 days (even a single serving can reduce a woman’s metabolism by more than 70%! It’s a temporary effect, but can add up over time if you drink most nights).
TARGETED EXERCISE. Make sure to keep moving, and choose forms of movement that you love, but exercise smart. Avoid chronic cardio as it places so much stress on the body that cortisol shoots sky-high. Interval training and more gentle exercise such as Pilates or yoga are more likely to stabilize cortisol than running a half marathon. Interval training involves short periods of high intensity exercise with moderate-level exercise as recovery. It is incredibly efficient and comes without the cortisol-raising side effect of a long run. Not only that, but it is extremely effective at raising growth hormone, the growth-and-repair hormone that maintains your lean body mass, a crucial indicator of how your body is biologically aging. Other excellent forms of exercise include lifting weights twice a week at a minimum to prevent osteoporosis, walk or hike briskly at an effort level of 9 to 10 (out of 10) for 3 minutes, alternating with an effort level of 6 to 7 for 3 minutes, for a total of 30 minutes, a protocol shown to foster weight loss.
SUPPLEMENTS. Here are a few of my favourites to help balance hormones:
MAGNESIUM is required for over 300 different processes in the body and deficiency can result in sleep disorders and anxiety, which in turn affect your hormones. Today, due to farming practices our soil has been depleted of magnesium and the percentage present in food has fallen drastically so supplementing is your best option. Take 400mg-600mg of Magnesium Glycinate a day in the evening.
BERBERINE is the most proven supplement to reset insulin and support weight loss in women. It activates an important enzyme called adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase, or AMP, nicknamed the “metabolic master switch.” Take 300 to 500 milligrams one to three times per day. It works better when combined with milk thistle.
DI-INDOLE METHANE (DIM): This supplement is akin to eating 25 pounds of steamed broccoli. Many women with weight loss resistance have oestrogen dominance, a problem that affects 75 to 80% of women over thirty-five. Specifically, DIM reduces 2-hydroxy-estrone and 2-hydroxy-estradiol, so that you have more protective oestrogens and fewer bad oestrogens. Dose is typically 200 mg/day but must be adjusted to the individual. Alternatively: Eat more lightly steamed cruciferous vegetables, which can improve your good-to-bad oestrogen ratio by 30%.
CONSIDER GENETIC TESTING. It can guide the best ways for you to eat, move, think, and supplement for hormonal harmony and weight loss. For example, changing your food strategy can reset the way certain genes are expressed: You can reduce your carbohydrate intake to reset the ADRB2 gene, which controls your weight changes in response to exercise.
If you think hormones are playing a role in your inability to lose weight get in touch with us to book a consultation so we can discuss testing options and provide you with a fully tailored plan to help you get control over your hormones again and get back control of your weight.
For delicious recipes visit our website. Or you can check out Bexology’s nutrition, fitness & wellbeing pages for advice you can trust
by Rebecca Prade | Jan 1, 2018 | WELLBEING
Let’s be honest with ourselves…how long does `dry January’ really last? One bad hangover may have you loosely throwing around the phrase ‘I am never drinking again’ and as much as you may have tried to add extra emphasis on the ‘never’ part to convince yourself this is true, we all know the likelihood of being swayed by an ice cool glass of bubbly, is pretty high…so much for dry January. Even though many of us start January at the gym every day, having sworn off alcohol and promising to eat more vegetables many of us are spectacularly inclined to fall off the wagon come February 1st, never to look at our trainers, water, or a vegetable again until the prospect of summer approaching throws us into a panicked frenzy of achieving our ideal bikini bod. Instead, why not create a new routine this `dry January’ that keeps you looking good and feeling great for the whole year.
As you’ve heard, seen and probably read a multitude of times, consistency is key. Stable and balanced nutrition and training as well as enjoying brunch and the odd boozy night out is what keeps you both looking great and staying sane. So instead of going full-force this dry January and setting yourself up to fail, go in slow and start a new routine that you can consistently maintain for the rest of the year. Here are a few suggestions to try out this January to keep you glowing and healthy all year round.
- Use this month to get into the habit of having 3 or 4 days off alcohol in a row every week to allow your body time to fully detoxify itself. I also recommend to my clients that they have 2 weeks completely off alcohol twice a year to give your body time to fully reset and so January is as good a month as any to give this a go.
- Exercise is undeniably good for you. It’s a stress reliever, that maintains heart health, improves self-confidence, maintains a healthy body composition, and releases endorphins. But when starting a new workout routine it is easy to be like, “I’m on a health kick and going to work out every single day, no matter how tired I am!” This leads to people injuring themselves and getting exhausted. Your body needs rest days. Exercise should always be something you do because you love your body, not because you want to punish it!! So ease into it with a level you can maintain and listen to your body.
- Get Cute Workout Clothes. I’m not saying go out and spend a million pounds on designer workout duds, but if you look cute at the gym, it can help you feel confident and own your workout. If you look the part, you’ll be more motivated to go and be the part.
- Take advantage of offers at your local gym this month and sign up for a package of personal training sessions or classes. The fact you’ll be charged for being a no-show should be impetus enough to turn up, kick-starting a new exercise routine. Having time each week dedicated to your personal fitness goals is a great way to learn everything you can from your trainer so that once your sessions are up you are armed with all the knowledge you need to continue training yourself. Set an achievable goal. Write it down. Show up. Work out.
- Find healthy alternatives for things you like to eat and focus on smaller portion sizes and regular meals to keep your blood sugar balanced throughout the day. Try this basic smoothie recipe for an easy-to-digest, nutrient-dense breakfast that is satiating, blood sugar balancing, and super quick and easy:
Milk: 200mls nut milk
Water: 200mls of filtered water
Greens: handful of frozen or fresh greens like spinach or kale
Fruit: a handful of frozen or fresh berries or half a banana
Fat: 1 tablespoon of nut butter, coconut oil, or ½ an avocado
Protein: 1-2 scoops of a plant-based protein powder (as directed on the label)
Optional add-ins: a scoop of greens powder, ½ a cup of oats, 1 tsp of anti-inflammatory turmeric, or 1 tsp of cinnamon to help with sugar cravings.
Add all ingredients to a high-speed blender and blitz for 20 seconds to blend. Enjoy!
Supplements to help you get your glow back:
- Consider supplementing with vitamin D. For most it’ll be at least 3 months since we have seen some decent sun and it is around this time that your levels can be low. Better You offer a simple pinprick test for £28 so you can check your levels at home before you start supplementing. It is thought that about one in five adults in the UK are Vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D enhances muscle strength, builds bone, has anti-inflammatory effects, and bolsters the immune system. Signs of vitamin D deficiency include feeling tired, muscle pain, hair loss, bone loss, depression, and getting ill often, so it is well worth checking if you are deficient.
- Powdered greens – try adding a greens powder into your daily routine like Terranova’s Green PH Alkaline Super Blend powder. It is a powerfully active and intensely synergistic freeze-dried formulation that helps maintain a healthy acid-alkaline balance in the body. Ingredients include botanicals and superfoods such as kale, stinging nettle, spinach, parsley, endive, dandelion leaf, watercress, wheatgrass juice, broccoli sprouts, and celery making it the ideal supplement to help your body with its natural detox processes.
- Omega 3 fish oil – Fish oil supplements are rich in the essential omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, which are vital to good health. They support your body’s ability to prevent chronic diseases and help protect it against inflammation. They also promote a stronger immune system; they support cardiovascular, joint, and vision health; they strengthen skin, hair, and nails; they enhance nutrient absorption and metabolic function; and they help with attention, mood, and memory skills. In short, fish oil is seriously good stuff. As with Vitamin D, you can’t make your own omega-3 fatty acids, so you’ve got to get it from outside sources. Fatty fish and fish oil supplements are your best bets.
For delicious recipes visit our website. Or you can check out Bexology’s nutrition, fitness & wellbeing pages for advice you can trust
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