It’s been a very busy few weeks in the Anna Marsh Nutrition / Ladies that Lift household. There is just a lot going on.
>> I’m working on an exciting new project or actually, couple of projects – all the be revealed soon!
>> There is the continuous day to day work of coaching clients, admin & marketing that comes with my current business
>> I’ll be running my first ever retreat in Tuscany in 10 days time with 10 amazing women who I can’t wait to meet. It has been fully booked since April so if you’d like to attend one of my retreats then keep an eye out for next year.
>> and finally, I travelled to London this weekend to attend a one day training workshop on body image. (I also did a little shopping in Anthropologie – see picture above – with a gift voucher given to me by my clients as a wedding gift – Thank You Ladies as I know many of you will read this! x)
I must admit, I didn’t quite know what to expect from the workshop. I was worried the information might be a bit old fashioned and not relevant to my client base. I don’t know why I created this story that it was potentially going to be a negative experience but all I can say is…
MIND BLOWN!
What an amazing day with so many insights into the mindset behind dieting and weight loss.
There were so many takeaways from the day and I intend to use what I have learnt as part of abody image workshop on my upcoming retreat. It goes above and beyond the scope of a mere email to communicate these learnings to you, but I’d like to share with you a simple gem from the day and maybe another one in a future email…
Don’t let a 5 year old run your life
Within us we all have a parent, a child and an adult. We can be any one of these at any given time although perhaps we may tend towards being more one than the other or, certain situations, or the people who we are with, may influence which one we choose to be.
A good give away to which one we are is the language we use.
I experience this in coaching.
Sometimes I coach women who are “adult”, they use empowering language, they are high vibe and are ready to learn from me but also keen to work things out for themselves and take responsibility for their actions.
A while ago I was really struggling with a few clients and I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong or what I could be doing better to help that person/persons.
I was talking about these challenges with a mentor on a recent Mastermind event I attended. The mentor was actually Mike Savage, one of Tony Robbins team and therefore, probably one of the best coaches in the world!
He said:
“If you ever feel like it is very draining to coach someone, then you are not coaching their higher-self, you are coaching their child. That person, might need to the tools to move from child to adult”.
It completely made sense to me.
We all speak to ourselves every day. In fact, we talk to ourselves more so than anyone else!
How often do you say “I must”, “I should”, “I’ll try”, “I could”, “I ought to…”
Instead off…
“I’d love to…”, “I will”, “I’d really enjoy it if…”
When you use the former terms, you could be talking to yourself in the toddler brain and oftenthe toddler brain might have a different desire to the adult brain.
It’s like your toddler brain is the brain that wants to binge on the chocolate bars when the adult or parent brain would like to lose 10lbs and fit into a bikini.
I also think it’s the toddler brain talking when I get those all too familiar complaints like; it’s too hard, it’s so much work, it takes so much time, I just want to go out and have fun with my friends and not worry about food.
Imagine the toddler who throws a strop at the supermarket because he or she wanted a chocolate bar or an ice cream or a bag of crisps.
Is it possible that your brain does the same thing?
There is nothing wrong with having a toddler brain, children are a lot more carefree and naturally open to fun. This is an element that we all probably would love to have more of in our life.
But what happens if we let our toddler brain make important decisions about food, health and our lives.
We might not get the best possible outcome.
If we allow the adult to take over we get;
It’s tough, but I can do this!
It will take time and effort, but it is worth it!
I can still go out with my friends and have fun as well as reach my health and weight loss goals. I will make a plan to make it work.
So the take away from this is – listen to your language. Not just the things you say to yourself, but how you choose to say it.
That’s all from me today, I hope you have a fabulous week ahead.
PS. If you are interested in working with myself and receiving coaching to accelerate your health and weight loss goals AND create sustainable change – find out more about what I offer and what I do HERE.
One of the questions I often get asked is “how do I lose weight off my legs?”. My top half is leaning off but I always feel that my legs are getting left behind.
To be honest, this is a question I find rather difficult to actually answer. My legs have been the body part that I have battled with most of my life.
Cellulite…
According to my memory, I have had cellulite even before I hit puberty and I still have cellulite today. I was overweight as a younger child and I remember looking enviously at the other girls in my class at school with their petite ankles and nicely shaped calves.
And then…
Last week Friday it was a beautiful day. I’d had enough of work for the day, my head was ready to explode, so I decided to shut down my laptop and head down to the beach for a late afternoon walk. I was walking along the beach looking down to avoid looking into the sun and it suddenly occurred to me…
I don’t dislike my legs anymore, in fact I quite like them!
I will never have fine ankles (thanks mom!), I will always have cellulite on my bum, but they are strong, they are shapely and, to me, it doesn’t matter what size they are, but that they look this way.
I will be honest and say the legs I have today, are not the same legs I had 5 years ago and they are probably not the legs I had 5 years before that. They may not even be the same legs I will have in 5 years time… but I think I know what works for me so that I can continue to love them.
My Oestrogen Body Type
In 2010 I went to Sweden to attend a Biosignature Conference by Charles Poliquin. His assistants measured everyone’s body fat using skin folds in front of the entire class!
Slightly embarrassing when the measurement of the skin sitting just under your bum is called out in front of a whole group of people and later projected on the screen at the front of the room!
Anyway, if you go by the whole Biosignature thing, higher skinfolds on your legs are associated with higher levels of oestrogen.
Biosignature or not, this is called a gynoid body type – pear shaped as opposed to android which is apple shaped – and this body type is associated with increased risk for hormone-related-cancers which are typically oestrogen driven due to oestrogen being associated with growth (e.g. tumour growth).
I definitely do have symptoms associated with higher levels of oestrogen. If you had asked me this before I moved to London in 2008 I don’t know if I would have been able to answer this. Not because I didn’t, but probably because I was less aware.
But now that you mention it, I did have a benign breast lump aspirated when I was only 15.
How our genes express themselves in dependent on the environment in which we bath them.
When I moved to London in 2008 I was hauled head first into an environment which did not suit my genes and by the end of the year I was hospitalised for a laparoscopy to investigated endometriosis – which fortunately came back negative – because of my extreme symptoms come that time of the month.
I still do suffer with monthly symptoms but I have brought these under control using the advice I gave in this video.
Last year I did genetic testing with 23andme and it did reveal a few polymorphisms in the gene’s associated with metabolising oestrogen. This would mean that I don’t necessarily breakdown oestrogen that well and this would make sense in terms of my “gynoid” body type.
The point of all of this background information is to say these are what my genes are doing. Yes genes interact with the environment and I’ve done a lot to improve the environment with food, lifestyle and supplements, but I am never going to have flawless legs. I CAN make a difference to the shape and tone of my legs and if I can (with my genes!) so can you.
These are some things that I do/have done which really help
Resistance training
I train my legs currently 2 times a week, I also use my legs when I do some sprints, yoga and running but even when I’m not doing these things 2 times a week does the trick. This is usually focussing one session on squats, lunges and more quad dominant movements and a second session on glutes, hamstrings and posterior chain.
I don’t mess about, I lift heavy and I push myself. I have a love hate relationship with split squats and I would definitely say that adding split squats as well as some isolation and activation work into my weekly training has made a big difference in the shape of my legs
Eat all the food
Everyone is different and will be at a different stage in their health and fitness journey. I am a massive believer in personalisation. What works for me will not be the exact thing that will work for you, you may need a tailored version or something completely different.I don’t know, it depends where you are at. For me, if I train my legs hard I need to eat.
On these days I will mostly eat an excess of 2000+ calories and 200g+ carbs. Your numbers might be different but if you want to build shape, you will need the building blocks. Low carbs and low cals probably won’t cut it.
Not to mention that restrictive diets increase adrenal stress which can drive oestrogen up (or at least the relative balance between progesterone and oestrogen creating what is known as oestrogen dominance).
Moisturise
I have naturally dry skin. I always have. I’ve noticed in the past couple of years that my skin gets even more dry than what it used to. I’m not sure if it’s an age thing or a sun damage thing but it was becoming a problem.
I’m quite picky about what I put on my skin. Because of the whole oestrogen thing I prefer natural skincare products without parabens or phthalates (chemicals which can look like oestrogen to the body). That said, I am also a little lazy with these kind of self-care practises – I’m not really a make-up done, hair styled, toes painted kind of girl! Lately however, I’ve been working on increasing my patience with it and 2-3 times a week I exfoliate and then do a deep moisturising session using bio-oil.
Speaking of which…. Exfoliate
This has been a life long habit of mine. I use exfoliating gloves several times a week to get rid of dead skin and improve circulation and blood flow.
Eat foods that support detoxification of oestrogen
There are plenty to mention but important ones include
Oestrogen is detoxified an excreted via our bowels. Therefore, you want to make sure you not only have the tools to detoxify oestrogen but you also want to make sure you eliminate it from the body in a timely manner. Fermented foods and a good diet with plenty of fresh foods make sure my digestive system works well.
Manage stress
My life is a continuous journey of stress management. I think everyone’s is. I don’t think we can ever be totally free of stress but we can accept responsibility for the things we can change – I’ve changed many things from where and with whom I live, the relationships I have been in, the way I run my business to who I will or will not spend time with – and change our thoughts to the things which create stress – this is much harder to do!
Stress affects the body in so many ways which I won’t go into the details of here, there will be another blog for that… BUT… what you do need to know is that stress will impact you hormones and your weight.
A little bit of self love…
Self love and compassion is something I aim to teach my clients. It’s not an easy thing to do. However unhelpful it is to berate ourselves, changing this doesn’t come easy as it is often the case of shifting behaviours built over a life time.
I am a MASSIVE fan of giving gratitude. I give gratitude for the amazing things I have in my life and I also have gratitude for the amazing things my body can do (however it looks!).
I love feeling strong.
I love being strong and it is not something I want to sacrifice anytime soon.
I don’t want to be limited in life by being too weak or too unfit. I like my body to be as ready as it can be for anything. So far, it’s serving me well, because I treat it well and I will continue to appreciate this symbiotic relationship we have.
If you follow me regularly on social media you will know that it is not often I would post a picture like this.
It’s not the best set of abs you will see on Instagram and also, posting these sorts of pictures is not what I’m really about.
It does seem to get attention though and you are #winningatinstagram if you can post pictures like this (or better) all the time. I took and posted this picture today because I wanted to say something about this picture…
This pictures is of me (obviously).
It’s my body.
My body hasn’t always looked like this. It won’t always look like this. But it’s what it looks like now.
The most important thing to know about this body is that I’m NOT on a diet.
I’m NOT beating myself up in the gym either.
I’m not trading food for exercise.
e.g. if I eat this it’s okay because I’ll do an extra 30 minutes working out tomorrow.
Food is NOT reward and exercise is NOT punishment for not being “good enough”.
I’m actually doing less weight lifting at the moment and I’m basically eating whatever I want (with sensible moderation)
As I am sitting here and writing this I’ve just ironed a shirt that I’m going to wear because I’m going out to dinner tonight. There will be wine and dessert and I’m going to enjoy it.
On Monday last week it was a beautiful day and I did a later afternoon walk on the beach and afterwards I ate an ice-cream.
On Friday night Ben and I got our regular Thai Take Away and I had red curry with coconut rice and we shared a bag of malteesers afterwards.
Now I’m not saying this to boast or gloat.
Not at all.
That’s not the message I want to get across.
I was chatting with Lorraine who helps me with the coaching on my Ladies that Lift, Women’s Weight Loss coaching program.
She said to me one time; you have great genes!
And I thought about it.
I don’t think I do.
My dad was diagnosed in his 50’s as a type 1 diabetic. My mum, who I love to bits, is overweight with thyroid problems and high blood pressure.
I was overweight as a child and I’ve had cellulite since before puberty.
My weight has gone up and down throughout my teenage years and my 20’s and at times I’ve been quite chubby because of choices I have made (eating too much bad food, drinking too much alcohol and staying up late partying and enjoying myself).
So no, I don’t think I have good genes.
I have just invested a lot of time and effort into finding out what really works for me and making this a habit.
There have been times when I wouldn’t have gone out for dinner and had the wine and the dessert.
There would have been times when I don’t get a take away and eat naughty chocolates everyFriday.
But I can do these things now and maintain my physique for a few reasons and THIS is what I want to share with you…
1. It is always easier to maintain that it is to lose.
You obviously have to put in more work to lose extra weight than you do to maintain where you currently are.
The problem is that a lot of women don’t lose weight in the right way and once they reach their goal weight, they don’t have a structured way to reset their metabolism which means that their only “exit strategy” is to go back to their past behaviours which creates weight gain.
Reverse dieting, is increasing calories and carbohydrates in a slow and structured way to find the threshold at which you gain weight.
In January and February this year I built my daily calorie intake up to about 2500 and 300g of carbohydrate without weight gain.
I stopped the process because I was actually finding it difficult to eat all the food. But basically, now I know that as long as I continue to exercise, I can eat on average 2500 calories a day and I won’t need to worry about weight gain. I mostly eat less than this because of my stomach capacity although I would probably go higher on special occasions when eating out or having a few drinks.
2. Don’t mess with your metabolism.
I meet a lot of women who have done a lot of dumb diets. Very restrictive, low cals or low carbs.
When you do a diet like this you will lose some fat, you will lose some water and you will lose some muscle mass.
The restriction will slow down your metabolism and the muscle loss will reduce your resting metabolic rate.
As you repeat this behaviour in what is commonly know as yo-yo dieting, you will need to restrict more and more to lose weight.
Sensible dieting is about learning how to lose on the most amount of food possible (not the least) and using the hormonal and metabolic impact (not the calorie burning) of exercise to keep your metabolic fire stoked.
This will prevent a loss in muscle mass and reduction in metabolism which will make it difficult to maintain.
3. Build good habits
I’ve mentioned that now I eat whatever I want. This is true, but probably not in the sense that you think.
Yes, I have treats, I have chocolate, I get take away and I have the occasional glass of wine, or three. But I also make smart and sensible choices to balance these out.
Today we went out for breakfast and I had avocado on toast and scrambled egg but decided to finish it off with a, very, rich gluten free brownie.
So for the rest of the day I’ve been having green tea (which I enjoy) and I had white fish and asparagus for lunch which was high in protein and low in fats and carbs so tonight I can go out for dinner.
For dinner tonight I’ll probably get a leaner, lighter protein dish with a side of vegetables so that I can have dessert or I’d get something heavy like steak and chips but then skip dessert.
This would totally depend what I was in the mood for, and you know what, if I was still hungry after the steak and chips I’d get the dessert too BUT I know that is unlikely to be the case because I’m happy to listen to my body that go home overly stuffed with a stomach ache.
4. Put the work in at the gym
I have done it all.
My exercise history started with aerobics step classes and Tae-bo (yep, I even had the tapes at home), I had a bicycle that would get me around when I was in high school and I did spinning at university, I used to run (I’ve done several half marathons), I did CrossFit semi-competitively for about 2 or 3 years and now I lift weights, do yoga, a little running/sprinting in the summer and I’ve just started to learn to windsurf as a hobbie.
Everybody has a different body but I can’t see how women would NOT get results from resistance training.
I weigh almost a stone more now than I did in my running days but my body is tighter, stronger, better shaped and more toned than it was when I was 10 years younger in my early 20’s.
When I was learning to lift I learnt to do it properly. Fortunately working in a gym at the time I had a friend who was a power lifter and a PT and he taught me how to squat, deadlift, press and do proper pull ups.
CrossFit can get a lot of bad press but we had excellent coaches at the gym I went to and I learnt do much about quality movement from my time there.
Even when I didn’t go to class I was honing my technique and putting form before strength and strength before intensity.
A lot of women are keen to jump into high intensity interval training without learning how to move properly and activate the right muscles.
Take the time to learn this stuff, if you move well and apply force properly and establish intensity by working the right muscles in your workouts you will see so much more progress than just burning calories for 45 minutes.
5. Plan
One of the things I notice in my coaching program is that people just don’t plan. I really don’t know why?
If you want to learn new habits and eat better and fit in your training you HAVE TO PLAN AHEAD.
I must admit now I don’t plan my food and I do wing it but that’s also because I have been doing this stuff for so long that I know how.
Each week I do an online shop and I make sure there is enough fresh protein in the house and there are ALWAYS spare chicken and fish portions in the freezer. There is ALWAYS brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat in their dry forms as well as ready to go pouches and tins of beans for when your in a rush or just plane starving. It’s really not that hard, stock up, when something runs out, replace it.
I don’t keep trigger foods in the house and we don’t buy bread or even own a toaster. If I want something sweet it will be a piece of fruit, a bowl of oats with honey or I’ll be walking to the shops.
And yes, there will 100% be times when I do walk to the shop to buy a chocolate. I tend to buy a portion sized bar around about the 30g mark so there is no chance of eating the whole bar – because I will!
6. I ferociously protect my sleep.
Sleep is so important if you want to lose weight. Not only do you need it to build that all important muscle tissue that will keep your metabolism high.
But, I don’t know about you, but I am so much more susceptible to jumping into a pile of comfort food when I am too tired. Not to mention the fact that I am probably a blubbering emotional wreck, completely unproductive at work, will make every excuse not to go to the gym and just not that nice a person to be around.
I aim to get to bed by 10pm at the latest, most of the time it is 9pm and there are times when I go to bed as early as 7. I can wake up any time from 5am to 7am but on average it’s 6am allowing for a minimum of 8 hours sleep per night.
There are some nights when I stay up later, maybe socialising with friends, but I know what my limits are and I take action to ensure that I don’t end up a broken wreck.
I know there are mum who have small children who just won’t be able to get enough enough sleep and that is understandable. It just means you have to be extra disciplined about not eating crap.
Is it in the genes?
The purpose of writing all the above is because a lot of the women I work with and speak to don’t want to sacrifice the fun stuff in their life.
I get it, you want to party with your friends and eat out and enjoy treat foods and sleep in and skip the gym. We all do!
But if you want a goal there has to be a certain amount of sacrifice that needs to happen before you can achieve it.
Achieving the goal will take a lot more from you than maintenance – provided you have the right strategy – but it should be a short term sacrifice for a long term gain.
When Lorraine said to me, I think you just have great genes, I thought to myself – do I?
Our gene’s interact with our environment (this is called epigenetics in case you like to know this stuff).
Genes express themselves depending on the environment that you expose them to.
Did you know that when comparing gene’s the biggest difference is overall genetics is between male and female. A Caucasian European woman has genes which are so similar from a black African women that there is actually no significant difference.
So do I just have “good genes” or have a put in the work and do I continue to do what most people aren’t prepared to?
There is a saying:
“Nothing worth having comes easy”.
You have to put in the work.
And if you are ready to put in the work, then we are ready to work with you and help you achieve your goals. Then please feel free to complete the application below and book in for a complimentary breakthrough call to kick start your health, fitness and weight loss journey.
[I just have to say as I final note that this is no discredit to those people who ARE putting in good work not seeing results. I do have a few clients who struggle with health related issues which affect their ability to lose weight – this is probably due to a long time of bathing their genes in the wrong environment before they had the education to know what to do to help themselves]
It’s not often we have a guest blog on the website. The following was actually written by a client of mine as a Facebook post in our Ladies that Lift VIP Supergroup. Charlotte has hit the nail bang on the head with her tips for surviving the busy London social life while still making progress in her health, fitness and body comp.
I’ve been having a very sociable time recently, and that has resulted in some additional refinements to the “how to survive a hectic social life plan” I developed in December to manage the ever busy Christmas Festivities.
This advice also works for those times when you can’t adhere to usual routine.
Figure out your limits…
How many nights out can you handle?
How can you ensure you get the sleep you need?
How many cheat meals and alcoholic drinks can you have without scuppering your progress?
Do you need to have more realistic goals for a period? – Aim to maintain rather than lose weight, for example.
And are there ways to counterbalance the additional calories, such as walking between meetings?
Once you have this figured out, you can then come up a plan of how to apportion your limited resources.
Here are some tips:
1. Alcohol is one of the biggest challenges. You might, for example, decide to only have three drinks in a week. So then you need to decide when and with whom you will enjoy those drinks. Or you could decide to not drink during the week but to have a couple at the weekend. Or not drink at work dos but to drink with friends. Or you might decide to try something more radical and not drink at all.
2. Avoid crap food. My biggest challenge in this regard is after-work drinks parties replete with carb and fat-laden canapes. To avoid face-planting the finger food, I eat a big portion of protein and a few carbs before the party then eat yoghurt and fruit when I come home. And only drink water.
3. If you are going to formal lunches or dinners, then don’t be afraid to be a diva and ask for special food in advance.
When I’m invited to an awards dinner, for example, I ask for a gluten-free dinner. That way I’ll get a much lighter starter and desert. The other night, for example, I got a vegetable medley rather a deep-fried rice ball and a jelly and fruit rather than a tart.
Don’t be afraid to request a restaurant where they will be lots of high-quality protein to eat. Suggest meeting for breakfast – I now do this a lot – I order poached eggs, grilled bacon and tomato and have a fruit salad. It’s easy to comply with macros for this meal and there is absolutely no question of having to drink alcohol!
When you are going out in the evening, make sure you save up carb and fat macros but eat lots of protein earlier in the day. Protein portions in restaurants tend to be much smaller than but there will be lots of fat and carbs.
4. Practise wafting into parties late and your Cinderella skills. At more formal work occasions there is no need to arrive on time or stay to the bitter end. An hour and a half is ample at a drinks party. You will also create an air of mystique if you leave the office party early. This will guarantee that you are tucked up under your duvet on time and you won’t be the butt of office gossip the next morning!
5. As you are no longer attending these parties to guzzle the free food and drink, find an alternative reason for you to be there. For example, do you want some quality time with your team (before they get too drunk)? Or use the party to network with more senior management? Or flirt with the hot guy in sales? This will allow you to enjoy the occasion rather than focus on the deprivation of staying sober and restrained with food.
6. Value quality over quantity. When you do decide to let your hair down, make sure you go for the best of what you want. So have a really good glass of wine or an excellent cocktail. If you go out for dinner choose high-quality food like crab salad, dry-aged steak or spankingly fresh fish. And enjoy every mouthful!
And finally, remember that to err is human – even with the best plan you will probably stray on the odd occasion and have four drinks instead of two or dessert when you meant to eat fruit. Don’t panic. This will not be great undoing of all your good work. Remember that without the plan you would have drunk and eaten more. So simply shrug it off, ladies, and get on it like a car bonnet the very next day. Or when the hangover subsides…
So if you’ve been following me a while you will know that I love an analogy.
I often come up with ideas for blogs and newsletters at random times of the day when I am doing different things.
The idea for this one came to me this morning while I was doing an early morning run.
I’m not a massive runner. At the moment I am just doing 1 run and some sprints each week to build up some cardiovascular fitness to compliment my weight lifting and yoga.
So, one of the things I often hear is…
“I’m just so sick of having to think about food all the time!”
You’ve been there right?
When you are on a diet you are thinking about what you can eat.
You are thinking about what you can’t eat.
You are thinking about when your next meal is. Or if you do the whole cheat meal thing then you are mentally planning your next cheat meal from one to the next.
This makes dieting really hard.
You are trying not to overeat, yet all you can think about is food!
The more you try not to think about it. The MORE you think about it!
It’s like if I say to you, don’t think of a pink pig. What do you think of?
Let’s talk about planning and meal prep…
One of the things I tell all my clients is that they must plan what their food at least a day in advance and they must do a weekly food shop where they get the right foods in for the week.
This can often be expressed as a massive hurdle and planning, unless you are a natural planner, is something I lot of people don’t do very well.
It takes time. AND, yet again, you have to think about food.
However, let’s face it, you do need to become more mindful of food and be conscious (remember that word because I’ll come back to it later) of your choices as you start to build new habits.
So let’s go back to my run this morning…
It’s mostly a flat route with one pretty big hill in the middle and a nice downhill towards the end.
So when I was on the uphill I had to use a lot of mental energy to stop myself from giving up.
I had to focus on MOTIVATING myself to keep going.
I’d say things to myself like
“you got this!” “keep going!” “one step at a time.” “almost there!”
A little cheesy perhaps but I do this stuff because if I thought…
Gosh this is so hard…. I hate running…. Why am I doing this… it’s fine, just walk….
It would be so easy to give up.
However, what I noticed on the downhill is that it took very little mental effort. Instead of having to self-motivate my mind drifted and I had the freedom to think about all sorts of different things.
So what does this little story have to do with weight loss?
A whole lot!
You see weight loss is all about creating sensible and sustainable habits.
If your weight is stuck right now or you have yo-yo dieted or “started a diet” more times than you have fingers and toes, I am sure you will agree that you probably need to try something different that you haven’t tried before.
Trying or doing something different requires you to get out of your comfort zone, learn something new so that you can grow.
That growth is required to get the result – weight loss!
The beginning of change is your uphill…
You have to be focussed.
You have to think about it a lot more – it will take a lot more mental effort, but you shouldn’t be obsessing about food 24/7 (see note below)
You will need to think positively (you got this! vs why can’t I just eat pizza!?)
You will need to plan and prepare – the planning and preparation should actually help you to think about food LESS (provided you are on the right plan). If you plan each week what you’ll have for your meals and you buy that food in a big shop once a week, all you have to do is follow the plan. And if you need help with planning, that is something else I can blog about – just holla!
Note:
If you are on a diet that requires massive amount of will power or all the time, you might be on the wrong diet!
If you eat each meal and start counting down the hours until the next, unless you are entering a body building show, you are probably on the wrong diet!
If you are on a diet where you feel restricted and continuously think about all the things you can’t have, you are probably on the wrong diet!
But the downhill is when it all clicks into place…
Your repeated behaviours from the mental effort your applied [to the right program] in the beginning, become habits. It is the creation of these habits that move you from being consciously incompetent (thinking about it a lot) to consciously competent (thinking about it a lot) to finally unconsciously competent (where it becomes effortless)
Prepping and planning soon become natural.
You shouldn’t have to obsess over grocery lists and recipe books each week – if you are smart, you’ll probably just do an online shop and click “repeat” when you find what works.
If you learn moderation, not restriction, you won’t need to reply on will power to get you through the week.
If you enjoy a birthday party (and the cake) and not let it become a slippery slope of self berating
Then you can be mentally free. You can then focus on other things that life has to offer (not just getting to the top of the hill), look around and enjoy the view!
So, some questions you might want to ask yourself are…
Am I following the right plan? is my resistance, resistance to learning or is it a warning sign for the wrong plan?
What am I learning from my struggle? if you aren’t learning, you aren’t growing and if you aren’t growing then you probably aren’t doing that something different that we already established you need to be doing to get a result.
Are you relying on will power alone [and then failing miserably]? Then your approach is most likely to wrong one. Losing weight doesn’t have to be restrictive or hard. Having the right tools and guidance to learn moderation is very important.
If you feel that you would like…
more support and accountability
a sensible solution, not a short term fix
top quality coaching from qualified professionals
to lose weight and keep it off
Then take a look and apply for a FREE Break Through Call where we can chat through where you are right now and create a future vision of where you would like to be and how to ACTUALLY get you there.
Happy Hormones is a 12 week online training which you can work through in your own time to teach you everything you need to know to natural balance your hormones, lose weight and achieve better health.
If you would prefer to watch rather than read this information, click here.
Something I often hear from the women who I speak with is;
“I have PCOS, therefore I can’t lose weight”
Or
“I have PCOS, therefore it’s so much harder to lose weight”
I would say the second statement is true. It can be harder to lose weight if you have PCOS, especially if you don’t know what you are doing.
BUT, you CAN lose weight, you just need to get the right information and actually implement it with consistency.
For the most part, there is not a lot of good information immeditaely available to women who are in need of natural solution for hormone balance.
BUT
There is actually a lot of good information out there, you just need to know where to find it.
Many women with PCOS struggle with weight loss because they may be more insulin resistant than some other women.
Yet, this doesn’t mean that you can’t lose weight.
It also doesn’t mean that you can’t eat ANY carbohydrates!
It just means you have to be more mindful of how many you eat and what types.
But this is actually quite normal behaviour for anyone who wants to lose weight; you have to be more sensible than you were before.
I’ve recently finished working with a client suffering with both endometriosis and PCOS who is getting married this month.
In the whole time we have been working together she has still eaten carbohydrates, on average around 100g, if not more, per day. This is the carbohydrate equivalent of ½ a kilogram of sweet potato per day!
Everybody has a different body and this is why I am a fan of personalisation.
What works for one person will not necessarily work for you. Or maybe you need it tweaked so it works as best as it possibly can for you.
That said, there are a few commonalities that I have found to be successful in helping women with PCOS and other hormones imbalances on their weight loss journey…
1. Follow a calorie controlled diet with personalised amounts of proteins, fats and carbohydrates
2. Consume a diet which is high in good fats especially oily fish, avocado, olive oil and nuts/oils high in specific nutrients; pumpkin seeds (zinc), brazil nuts (selenium), walnuts (vitamin E).
3. Ensure good digestion by avoiding common irritants such as gluten and dairy and consuming fermented foods
4. Seed Cycle –
Seed cycling is when certain seeds are eaten at certain times of the month. The beneficial fatty acids in each specific seed works with the female body to promote a healthy cycle. Although there is not much research behind it, anecdotally many clients have found it invaluable.
Consume 1tbsp ground flaxseed and 1 tbsp ground pumpkin seeds from day 1 to day 14 of the cycle. For additional benefits, supplement with fish oil during this time (see recommend supplements on bottom pg).
Consumer 1 tsbp ground sunflower seeds and 1 tbsp tahini/sesame seeds from day 15 to day 28 of the cycle. For additional benefits supplement with evening primrose oil during this time.
5. Exercise, but not too much. With Said client, I actually had to put her on a HIT ban as I had a feeling that too much high intensity training was sabotaging her results – I was right!
6. Manage stress and get enough sleep.
7. Take supplements appropriate to personal needs. Some of the ones I commonly recommend for hormonal balance are zinc, b-complex, curcumin, DIM, fish or krill oil, vitex agnus castuc, milk thistle and maca powder
Although personalisation is a factor, these are some basic tools that produce a significant difference in female hormones, whether you are suffering from PCOS or just PMS all of the above would be a good place to start when looking to achieve a lean and healthy body with balanced hormones.
If you want to learn more about balancing hormones naturally, you may be interested in knowing more about my Happy Hormones 12 Week Program. See here for more details…
This month in the Ladies that Lift Women’s Weight Loss Coaching Program we are doing a “love your gut” challenge.
It is all about digestive health.
The rules are simple, there are 3 teams;
Team A: Keeping it simple aiming to eat 1-2 servings of fermented food per day. This could be raw sauerkraut, kimchee, kombucha, kefir or live yoghurt
Team B: The diversity challenge aiming to eat 100 different foods across a week. You can read more about the importance of diversity for gut health here.
Team C: Are following the elimination challenge focussing on whole foods and eliminating gluten, dairy, sugar and alcohol – definitely the most challenging of the 3.
Members pick a team and then as a team motivate and encourage each other and we give a prize for the member who demonstrates the best personal growth across the month.
You might be thinking that this sounds like a lot of extra work.
I thought this was a weight loss program, where does digestion factor in?
We surveyed every member of our program since it started and 90% of our clients were suffering digestive issues when they joined.
This could be anything like bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, smelly flatulence, heart burn and acid reflux.
So again, what does this have to do with weight loss?
A whole lot actually!
Modern life is stressful, we eat suboptimal foods, we take painkillers and antibiotics not to mention other medications, we drink chlorinated water and alcohol.
All of these things can negatively affect the balance within our digestive system.
When we have a disrupted digestive balance, not only do we experience unpleasant digestive symptoms but it also affects our ability to lose weight – who would have thought!
Its also really important to note that just because you have no obvious gut symptoms, doesn’t mean you don’t have any gut problems. We all have stress, bad food and alcohol from time to time.
Without getting all sciencey on you – to lose weight, simplistically, you want to be burning more calories than you are consuming, however I have met many, many, many women who are doing this and not seeing results.
There are many, many, many reasons why, digestive health is just one of them.
Many women have food sensitivities which they aren’t aware of. It is not until they cut these foods out of their diet with consistency that they realise how these foods are affecting them.
Everything from improved digestive, to better looking skin, to more energy AND…
Weight Loss!
The reason being when are immune system is so busy reacting to the foods we are eating, it creates changes in metabolism which make us more likely to store body fat, especially around the middle.
There are a lot of things we can do about this but the main things are:
Eating a diverse diet of plant based foods
Regular consumption of fermented foods
Avoiding common trigger foods like gluten, dairy and in some cases eggs, corn and soy (although we can react to anything!)
Eat a diet rich in whole and unprocessed foods and eliminate sugar and alcohol which may affect the balance of good bacteria in the gut.
So if you suspect that your digestion might be giving you some problems with your weight loss, why not give our challenge a try OR apply to be part of our coaching program and do it with the guidance and support of a like-minded group of women.
If you’d prefer to watch rather than read this post, click here.
Many women will say:
“I want to lose 10, 20 or 30 pounds and then…
I’ll be happier
Or healthier
Or more confident
Or more loved
Or life will just be better…
And yes, this is very often true.
When you arrive at your weight loss goal it can feel amazing. Your clothes fit really well and you have a new level of confidence and a spring in your step.
But something important to remember is that you don’t fall asleep one nigh 29 pounds lighter and wake up 30 pounds lighter and say
“Hooray! Now I can be that person I wanted to be”
Setting a goal, be it in weight loss, fitness, professionally or personally is never about achieving the goal.
It’s about the person that you become as you change the behaviours you need to change to achieve that goal.
To lose weight you might need to change the way you are eating.
You might need to change the way you are exercising.
You’ll need to start to think differently.
You might have to become the person who is dancing on the tables in the early hours of Saturday morning to
the person who has one drink, some great conversations and call it an early night because you have to get up for your gym session the next day.
You might have to be the person who sets a higher standard for yourself and asks if you can eat at a different restaurant so you can make some healthier choices.
Now this doesn’t mean you have to stop doing everything that you enjoy, but you might have to do some of the things you think you enjoy a little less.
You probably want to be asking yourself:
“If I was the person I think I want to be, what would I do?”
How do I spend my weekends?
What books do I read?
Who do I hang out with?
What restaurants do I go to?
Where do I go on holiday?
Am I the lady you will find at the office vending machine at 3pm and later falling asleep at her desk at 4pm?
Or, are you the lady who is fuelled up on good food, smashing through her work so she can leave the office on time?
You see, weight loss has nothing to do with the numbers on the scale. It’s about the person you want to become.
You can lose a lot of weight in short amount of time but if you don’t give yourself the time to shift your identity and continue to set higher goals, you will quickly find yourself back at square one.
This is the epitome of yo-yo dieting.
Quick fixes just test your will power, they don’t shape you as an individual.
If you want to lose weight so you can have energy, be more confident and feel happier and more loved, then now is the time to embrace these things.
Don’t wait until you reach your goal to have these things in your life. Celebrate every bit of growth every bit of the way because your life is an amazing thing that needs to be celebrated!
This will save you a whole lot of self sabotaging, the downfall of many.
If you eat a cup cake or have a binge mishap, tomorrow you will still have your new identity and all the foundations you have laid. The cake will just be a last minute change in the plot along the way from which you can learn and grow.
The best way to create this identity shift is to find someone who has achieved what you want to achieve, who has what you want and model them.
This essentially means copying.
What do they do?
How do they act?
What books are they reading?
How are they training?
How do THEY spend their weekends?
I do believe that each person is an individual but this is a good place to start and mentoring is an excellent way to achieve results if you want to do it sooner rather than later.
It’s going to take time to make these changes. Sensible and Sustainable change is not a quick fix.
For this reason, as of May we have changed the game in the Ladies that Lift Women’s Weight Loss Coaching
Program.
We used to offer 3, 6 and 12 month memberships.
Not more.
The minimum commitment for anyone who wants to work with myself and my team is 6 months.
We’ve noticed that for many of our clients, after 3 months, we were only scratching the surface of their potential. Not to mention to fact we see them tripping over their own feet and self-sabotaging because they feel the need to rush the process.
It’s taken you how many years to get to this point?
At least give yourself a little time to work through making some changes.
We honestly believe a MINIMUM of 6 months is required to create a long lasting transformation of health and happiness (not to mention weight loss).
If we come back to this idea of identity; what are the women who “have their sh*t together” doing?
It’s not the latest quick fix or 21 day sugar detox.
It’s getting their heads in the right place and being willing to change from the inside out to get a long lasting result and grow as an individual along the way.
What is the most effective way to exercise if you want to drop body fat?
There is and there also isn’t a straight forward answer.
Two things we need to consider:
You cannot out exercise a bad diet. The best way to lose weight is to nail your nutrition. My approach is always Food First!
The most effective exercise is that which you actually do. Therefore, even though there is a “science” to what is more effective at changing body composition, if you don’t do it, it’s not doing you any favours. Moving your body in a way that you enjoy is better than sitting around and eating cake!
So now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at some more “ideal case scenarios”. In a perfect world, what would I recommend and why?
In my online coaching program I divide my clients into two broad categories:
Over-eaters: those people that each too much, probably carbohydrates and don’t do enough exercise
The over-achievers: those people that are into Fitness but take everything to the extreme and probably over-exercise (usually high intensity workouts) and don’t have the right nutritional balance to support what they are doing which results in what I call “stress weight”.
So what are the metabolic consequences?
Over-eaters: exercise has many positive benefits including building muscle mass, increasing metabolism and improving insulin sensitivity. But apart from the inner biochemistry, learning how to move properly, mobilising what is tight and strengthen what is weak improves posture, prevents injury and changes body shape.
It is sadly all too common to see someone who is over-weight thinking they need to start running to lose weight and ending up injured from the large amount of impact and the repetitive movement exacerbating already present musculoskeletal imbalances.
Over-achievers: Just because someone is exercising a lot, doesn’t mean they are exercising effectively. I know very few people who move well. Unless someone has been coached before, I find that most people have tight hip flexors and lower back and weak glutes, hamstrings and abdominal muscles (see picture above). Therefore, even though the typical over-achiever might be training hard, they are ingraining ineffective movement patterns which means that they are likely to get injured and then do that rebound thing when they can’t train and they comfort eat or they continue to exercise but their body shape never really changes for the better.
Additionally, the massive amount of stress created by too much exercise and not enough recovery from a time and nutritional perspective, means that they can be in a constant state of oxidative stress. The biochemical term for internal rust which creates ageing. This causes damage to the part of the cell that burns fat (the mitochondria) and they become ineffective at turning fat into energy, which means that it is more likely to get stored than burned off.
Poor recovery often means there is no muscle development – and remember we need muscle to increase metabolism, change body shape and improve physique with postural changes.
Finally, there is a whole host of other complications, poor sleep, low energy and changes in hormones.
So what do I recommend?
If you have been following me for a while you will know that I support and less is more approach. Less exercise, less food restriction, less orthorexia and more results! I am sure some of you reading this are doing calorie restricted low carb diet and lots of HIT training and getting results. Good on you! But I work with a lot of women who have been there, done that and rebounded. The most effective way to get results is by doing something you honestly could sustain lifelong.
Despite relocation, change in career, holidays, change in relationships, family stress and all the things that life throws at you, I have managed to maintain a stable body weight for years, because my eating and exercise practising are sustainable!
Here is a visual representation for you:
Low Intensity: you should be able to exercise and sing e.g. walking
Moderate Intensity: You should be able to talk but not sing e.g jogging, moderate intensity weight lifting, cycling or aerobics classes
High Intensity: No talking and definitely no singing! e.g. High Intensity Intervals, Sprints, Circuit Classes etc.
Type
I’m a big advocate of resistance training for the reasons that it is progressive, build muscle and therefore increases metabolism across the board, improves posture and changes body shape (provided exercises are performed properly). That said, if you want to run or cycle or do cardio classes I won’t stop you, but understand there is little room for progression in these exercise modalities increasing the likelihood of a plateau.
New health guidelines now recommend 2 resistance training sessions per week. This is obviously beneficial for reasons already discussed in addition to maintaining bone density, balance and to prevent sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass) associated with ageing.
Frequency & Duration
Realistically, you need to look at your schedule and be honest about what you fit in. No point in saying you will exercise 5 days a week and then only end up going 3 times because your life is busy and then beating yourself up and eating a pile of sugar as a result!
Provided your diet is good and you use the time that you do have to exercise effectively, a minimum of 3 sessions a week can still get some great results.
I recommend a maximum for 5 sessions per week, 4 times is a good middle ground, with 2-3 rest days where you could do some walking or yoga. Anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour is plenty! I will spend a maximum of an hour in the gym which includes warming up and some lower intensity core based work at the end.
Intensity
Having variety in the intensity at which you train can be beneficial on many different levels.
From a psychological perspective it can be easier to actually get to the gym if you know it’s not going to kill you every time
Different level of intensity use different energy systems so you can develop your efficiency to burn both fats and sugars.
It can be difficult to progress if you only do high intensity work. When you are always working as hard as you can other aspects of fitness might suffer such as strength and movement quality. Using moderate intensity sessions to really work on body position will go a long way to improving muscle development and body shape.
So what would a typical week look like?
There are many different options. For beginning exerciser we usually recommend whole body workouts using exercises that encourage the use of multiple joints and large muscle groups (think squat, lunge, deadlift, press ups, pull ups or lat pull down).
As you get more advanced you might want to hone in on specific muscle groups or body parts on certain days. Leg training would be more intensive where days that only use the upper body may be more moderate and thereby you create that variety in intensity.
For me personally, I currently do the following:
Monday: Legs (High Intensity)
Tuesday: Chest and Back (Moderate Intensity)
Wednesday: Gymnastic Skills (Moderate Intensity); muscle ups, handstand holds, core work etc.
Thursday: Rest Day: Walking
Friday: Legs (High Intensity)
Saturday: Recovery jog along the beach (Moderate Intensity)
Sunday: Rest Day: Walking or Yoga
Bear in mind that I would be a more advanced exerciser so someone just starting out might do the following:
Monday: Full Body Workout (Moderate Intensity)
Tuesday: Rest walking
Wednesday: Full Body Workout (Moderate Intensity)
Thursday: Rest: walking
Friday: Interval Sprints on the bike or rowing machine (High Intensity)
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Rest Day: Walking or Yoga
In Summary
I hope you have learned the following:
Movement that you enjoy is better than no movement at all
You cannot out-exercise a bad diet
Sometimes doing less exercise can be a more effective tool for fat loss
Exercise between 3 and 5 days a week using a combination of moderate and high intensity
Stay active on rest days with things like yoga or walking
Incorporate a minimum of 2 resistance training days per week into your schedule for muscle development, postural improvement, bone density, improved balance and change in body shape
Beginner lifting should focus on large muscle groups and use the whole body
More advanced trainer can focus on specific muscle groups
Learn to move properly, stretch what is tight and strengthen what is weak!
If you have been following my posts since the beginning of the year you may know I am on a reverse diet.
A reverse diet is what the name says, the reverse if dieting.
If dieting is taking calories away, the reverse dieting is adding them back in. So this is exactly what I have been doing.
It is a strategy I often suggest to many of my weight loss clients. Which you are probably thinking seems kinda weird because if they are “weight loss” clients, then why I am doing the reverse of dieting with them!?
There can be a lot of positive benefits to reverse dieting which can actually be very helpful for weight loss. So I thought I would share a little of the theory and my observations.
In a nutshell, most women believe they that restriction and/or over-exercising is the way to lose weight and many women lack the lifestyle balance and mindset to find a lifelong healthy body weight (not to mention a positive relationship with food and body image).
When we diet, as we restrict calories further and further, our metabolism down-regulates over time (see the image below from the How To Lose 2 Stone Webinar)
This is a good thing, it prevents our skeletal muscle and organs from shrinking as we break down proteins to create sugar in a carbohydrate and calorie depleted state.
Roughly the resting metabolic rate of a woman is 1400 calories (maybe a little more for bigger people and a little less for smaller people)
This means we need 1400 calories, give or take, so that we can function properly before we’ve got out of bed, moved around, maybe done some exercise, run around after our children and done the house work.
I see many women who are stuck eating 800 to 1200 calories a day and wondering why they still have that little bit of fat around their stomach, if not more.
This is because their metabolism has slowed down. Further calorie restriction and adding in more exercise is not going to work with these people.
Adding in more exercise to an already depleted body is an additional stress on top of the stress of calorie restriction. Not to mention the stress of life itself, work, bills, commuting, relationship etc.
Exercise in the right amounts is beneficial for health. But when we exercise without the tools to recover we create what is known as oxidative stress. It’s really a fancy name for biochemical rust which causes ageing.
When we are rusting out bodies from the inside-out, this causes damage to the machinery in our body that burn fats basically meaning our ability to take fat and turn it to energy is negatively affected.
So, not only do we lack energy, sleep badly, feel emotional, lose our hair & struggle with hormones, but we also cannot burn fuels well so we have to store them somewhere. Hello Belly Fat!
So when you can’t take more food away and you can’t add more exercise back in, the only way to go is up!
This can work in 3 ways;
Slowly increase calories
Reduce exercise
Slowly increase calories AND reduce exercise
Now most of my clients as well as myself, are already exercising a sensible amount (which is another blog in itself). So I’m going to spend most of my time looking at the increase in calories.
However, I won’t spend that much time on it because there isn’t that much to say.
What we do is increase calories by around 50kcal-100kcal per day per week. This is usually from carbohydrate but sometimes from fats too.
This means that if you were eating 1200 calories a day this week you are going to eat 1300 calories a day and next week 1400 calories a day.
The goal is to continue with this increase until a point you feel like you are putting on fat weight.
In people who are particularly restricted an increase carbohydrate intake can initially cause an increase in water weight that will settle over time (we store 3g of water for every 1g of muscle glycogen).
As an observation, almost all my clients who have done this with me actually lose weight first before maintaining. I’ve had one client who has lost about 10lbs or 5kg whilst doing this. In case you don’t believe me, see the comment below:
What is the point of maintaining weight if you still have more to lose, you may ask?
If you still have fat to lose you aren’t actually using a reverse diet to lose weight (although this often happens). But what you are doing is rebooting metabolism (not to mention your will power and relationship with food!) so that you can diet again after a period of time.
In other words, if you build calories back up from 1600 to 2200, you could probably drop 50g of carbs and take you to 2000 and start leaning out again.
The problem is that many women when you tell them to eat more freak out and go running for the hills! But every client I have had who has done it and followed through with it consistently has been really pleased with the result.
It gives you an opportunity to know what your body is capable of. I’ve unfortunately had some disruption due to travel but prior to that I was eating an average of 2250 kcals per day, 220g of carbs but up to 280g on hard training days per week.
These are my stats below; I dropped fat as measured by skin-folds in this time although you can see my overall weight on average stayed the same. The red days are day 1 and 2 of my cycles so you can also see how my body changes with that time of the month but returns back to normal within a week (I’m sure yours does too!)
I haven’t completely finished the experiment as of yet but what that information allows me to do is know what my limits are. Lorraine, one of my coaches on The Ladies that Lift Program, followed this process with me after reaching her body comp goal when she was once a client of mine. She got her intake up to 2500 calories every day and got leaner in the process. She was the leanest she had ever been eating the most food she had ever eaten! This means she knows what her body can do. She knows she maintains on 2500 calories and definitely loses on 1800 calories, but there is a whole range in between she can play with.
So what to do with this information?
The main reason for writing this is I meet so many women through my coaching program who have fear of food. Fear to eat more, yet stuck in a rut of eating less.
I really believe in the less is more approach.
Less stress
Less dieting
Less exercise
Less orthorexia and food phobia
= more and better results.
Results that are sustainable because;
You didn’t starve and punish yourself for 6 months trying to achieve them
You spent time building a strong and stable metabolism
You learnt how to nourish your body instead of punish it
It sounds obvious doesn’t it. You train hard, you burn energy (glucose), you refuel so that your mucle glycogen stores top up and the next day you go in feeling STRONG! Yeah!
You would be surprised how many women I speak to who don’t do this. Or they have some carbohydrate but they don’t have enough.
Carbohydrates have been demonised for several years now which has led to many women suffering from “carb phobia”. Carb phobia, defined as the belief that you will immediately gain weight as soon as you introduce carbs into your diet, has been the down fall of many.
Carbohydrates are fantastic when eaten in a balance that is right for you. You recover better, you have more energy throughout the day, your mood is more stable, your hormones more balanced, your stress levels reduced and your sleep levels better.
If someone offered you all these things on a plate you would take it wouldn’t you? But if someone offered you a bowl of rice you might say “No thanks, I’m trying not to eat too many carbs at the moment.”
So what is going on here? What is it all about?
Carbohydrates in excess cause problems. Refined carbohydrates can be particularly damaging to health.
I often show people this graph.
What it shows is that when we exercise we use sugars more as a fuel, especially as intensity increases (Weight Lifting, CrossFit, Bootcamp, Sprints). So if we are inactive, a lower carbohydrate is better as we have a reduced requirement for carbohydrates as a fuel source and an increased requirement for fat, as we prefer this energy system when activity levels are lower in intensity.
So it is not carbohydrates generally that are an issue. It is carbohydrate in excess of our need. When we consume carbohydrates in excess of what our body can use, there is an increased likelihood that we store it as fat (This is also true if we consume calories in excess). This is typically associated with increased insulin resistance, as the body “blocks” carbohydrate entry into the cell for burning and encourages partitioning into fat storage sites.
So when someone who has been in this situation and starts to exercise, their carbohydrate need increases, they may lose some weight. This is one of the reasons some people can lose weight with exercise without changing their diet. Exercise makes us more insulin sensitive and better able to use carbohydrate as a fuel, it also means the we expend more calories each day, so provided we do not eat more, we create a deficit for weight loss.
If we do exercise, we are better able to utilise sugars and burn them off. We don’t need to restrict carbohydrate as much as a sedentary person.
If the sedentary person reduces their carbohydrate intake. They probably will reduce their calorie intake too. A calorie deficit and less carbohydrate “overspill” means that they are able to burn fats, including stored fats, for energy and they lose weight.
But what happens if we increase exercise and restrict carbohydrates at the same time? We create a greater energy deficit and we can lose EVEN MORE WEIGHT? Right?
Well, sort of.
This does work. I have seen it work on many people. But I have also seen it fail miserably.
The problem is when we train at high intensity we ramp up the stress hormone cortisol. When we do this in the absence of carbohydrate, we ramp up cortisol even more and it stays elevated for longer. In the short term this can facilitate fat loss.
In the longer term a low carb diet can down regulate the thyroid, imbalance female sex hormones, lead to water retention and poor sleep. You also put your body at risk for an adrenal imbalance which may compromise the immune system (you get sick all the time), inflammation (you get injured or just ache all the time), mood (you feel depressed) and energy (you struggle to get out of bed in the morning). I am sure you would agree that none of the above makes for an athlete who cannot wait to jump out of bed in the morning and train her little socks off to be an awesome strong machine!
This is an adrenal stress test of a client of mine who was training hard, cycling to work daily and eating a low carb diet. You can see that her adrenal glands were burnt out but it was only exercise (sample 2), that could get any cortisol response (exercise made her feel good but she struggled with energy otherwise). A few months of increased carbs and adrenal support and her test results were normal, she felt better AND she was leaner, especially around her abs. You can see in the figure below that her 2nd and 3rd samples were elevated although morning cortisol and DHEA were normal. This was because she didn’t have carbs after training that day!
So what do we do?
Food is fuel. We are meant to eat carbohydrate. We are meant to eat fat. We are meant to eat protein. We also need to eat enough calories each day so we can fuel our bodies and all it’s functions so that we can remain healthy (including a healthy body weight) and perform to the best of our abilities.
So we need to know what are calorie requirements are. Make sure we meet them. Maybe go a little over if we need some muscle growth, maybe a little under if we want to shed a little extra fat. (But also remember, sometimes increasing calories and carbohydrates can give your body a massive “kick up the *ss” and get your metabolism going).
Then we need to workout what works best for us.
I pretty much say this in every blog post/webinar but WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT. I would never put the ladies below all on the same plan.
Some of us will need more carbs than others, some will need less. This could be because of our gene’s, our body fat percentage (leaner may utilise carbs better than a more voluptuous body type), our current training program (a CrossFitter will probably use more than a yoga bunny) and our goals (what are you training for!?).
To some of my clients I will probably say “you probably need to eat less carbs” but most of them I tell to increase their carbs.
These are a few things they notice…
Better energy
Better hormonal balance (return of periods after years, more regular cycles, fertility) & better skin (See Pictures!)
Fat loss / Weight Loss
Increased strength / PB’s in the gym
Loss of inches
Loss of Belly Fat
Better sleep
Better Mood
Clothes fitting better
Enjoyment of food and less guilt!
I absolutely love the story of my client/good friend aka “the headless lady”. We first met when she was a client of mine and soon became good friends. She had tried many a diet and did not lose any weight on a low carb diet. We did a gut protocol together and she did lose some weight and most importantly, her hormones and gut improved. We spoke a little bit about tracking macro’s and due to a bad experience with weight watchers she was not really up for calorie counting. Over time, she came around to the idea and started tracking her macro’s – 214 days later she sent me this:
“for the past 3 weeks I have been tracking between 1800 -2200 calories, 200g-300g of carbs. I have more energy, I’ve stopped seeing exercise as something I have to do for punishment for overeating and dislike of my body. Now I love food, love moving and I love my body (imperfectly perfect).”
If that doesn’t convince you then I don’t know what will You can also listen to Vanessa’s interview here
Do you want these results!? I would love to hear your story and work with you. Complete the following application form if you would like to have a chat about how to move forward. here.
Most of the women I speak with daily want to lose weight. I like to divide them into categories in terms of their needs.
There is the woman who doesn’t exercise, doesn’t really eat well. She needs to change and that’s why we are speaking. Physiologically this is an easy fix. Fix the diet and fix the exercise. Mentally, this is a tough one as building better habits from the ground up is hard.
There is the woman who is likely an athlete. Keen on her training and her nutrition. She just needs to be pointed in the right direction and there you go.
There is the women who has hit a plateau. She’s convinced she is doing everything, tried everything and failing to see results. This could be the athletic type, self sabotaging by knowing too much and trying to implement everything all at once. Or it could be the lady who has seen some results and now hit a plateau and not sure how to break through.This blog is for person number 3 today (although, person 1 and 2, don’t worry, I will write something for you soon)…
QUESTION 1: What have I been doing?
It seems like a silly question. Surely you know what you have been doing for the past few weeks or months? But you would be surprised by how many people I speak to who know they have been dieting (by their definition) and exercising (by their definition) for weeks, months or even years, but they aren’t tracking their progress. They don’t keep a food diary or write down their workouts.
This can mean a few things.
We can often forget that actually half the month we missed the gym because we had to work late and actually, when we think about it, we only worked out on average twice a week the past month, not the 4 times we thought. Yes, you’ve been eating low carb, but if you add in the wine, the slice of cake and the packet of dates you ate on the weekend, perhaps maybe you are not doing what you actually think you are doing.
Tip: Keep a training log. Write down your workouts, the weights you used, the reps and sets completed and the rest breaks. This will allow you to perform better than you did each week. It will also allow you to see how many times you actually train each week. Keep a food diary. Not forever, but for a little while. It will allow you to see what you REALLY are eating and also you can start to link your food intake to your mood, cravings and physical performance.
QUESTION 2: Have I been consistent?
Is the approach you have chosen consistent? Are you making it a commitment to hit a certain number of exercise sessions each week. Do you have a meal plan or macro plan that you stick to each week? I notice with many clients that the weekends are a struggle. They can be really dedicated Monday to Friday and then from brunch on Saturday it starts to become a slippery slope of a little bit extra here and there.
I am by no means pointing the finger of blame. I struggle with this myself. I’ve noticed that sometimes social events do put temptation in the way, but also there is a much more “relaxed” attitude that comes with the weekend when, even if there is healthy food in the fridge, there is an inclination to just make choices which aren’t as good.
Tip: I find having a structure helps. A structured training plan which is progressive so I know that I have to complete all the workouts within the week so I am ready to move up to the next progression the following week. Identify your weekend dietary weak points and then write down solutions. Maybe it’s a case of having some healthy finger food ready to go in the fridge, dining out with friends at places that serve your type of food and looking at creative ways to cut back on alcohol.
QUESTION 3: Am I doing too much?
For every person who isn’t being consistent and doesn’t know what they are doing there is a person who knows too much and does too much. You might hear something like this:
“I am doing low carb paleo and I’m doing 5 CrossFit sessions a week and I’ve just entered a triathlon so I have just started training for that. Sometimes I throw in intermittent fasting to give me a boost!”
Yes, I am sure you are nodding your head because you are either this person or you probably know someone who is like this.
In the game of fat loss less can be more. Too much exercise, calorie and carb restriction is not a successful or sustainable weight loss strategy.
I like to think of it as a tool box. In your tool box you have many tools of different shapes and sizes, for example:
If you want to hang a picture you use a hammer and a nail. You don’t get all the tools out of your tool box at once. Then you just end up with a mess. In this case, a metabolic mess, where there is so much going on your body doesn’t know what to do. So it does nothing. It just holds on to body fat, maybe adds a bit more (especially around the stomach), it also might mess with your hormones, your mood, your energy and your sleep. You get the idea…
Tip: Keep it simple. Four training sessions a week with decent calorie intake and good sleep is a great place to start. Make little changes and track progress.
QUESTION 4: How long have I been in a calorie deficit?
A sensible calorie deficit (about 10%-15%) may be necessary to bring about fat loss results. But extreme calorie deficits in the long term can slow down thyroid function and reduce metabolic rate. I speak to many women each week who are eating 1500 calories and below, some even as low as 800-1000 calories per day. In addition to this they may be doing at least 4 exercise sessions per week.
In addition to slowing metabolic rate, extreme calorie and carbohydrate restriction also increases the likelihood of binge eating behaviour and disordered eating. It is not sustainable and even if you do reach your weight loss goal, there is no strategy to rebuild metabolism back up to a healthy level so that you are no longer stuck eating 800 calories for the rest of your life.
Tip: A really nice quote I read in a blog once was that if you can’t get any leaner, shift your focus to building muscle. I thought it was excellent. To build muscle we need fuel, if we fuel our body right and it builds muscle, it means we increase our metabolism and enhance body shape. Not only that, but we shift our focus away from calorie control and onto our performance (look what my cool body can do!)
QUESTION 5: How long have I been eating low carb?
Low carbohydrate diets have become increasingly popular over the last 10 years or so. But guess what, not everyone needs to be on a low carb diet to lose weight.
I truly believe that carbohydrate intake should be personalised. There will be some people who (at least in the short term) would benefit from eating 50g to 100g of carbohydrate a day. Most of my clients start between 100g and 150g and still lose weight. You can read this blog about how it works.
Just like calories, if we drop carbohydrate intake too low for too long, this can have a negative impact on thyroid hormone and ultimately suppress metabolic rate.
Additionally, as a compensation for a low carb diet I often see over consumption of fatty foods; butter, cream, whole jars of nut butter, dark chocolate, coconut products and fatty meats like eggs, bacon and oily fish. All these food, although healthy in small amounts, soon sky rocket calories which means that the calorie deficit required for weight loss is longer.
Eating low carb can also be a trigger for carbohydrate binges. I used to eat low carb and then when I exercised I’d get really hungry and then eat a chocolate bar or a cup cake because my sugar cravings were insane. I thought I could get away with it because “I ate low carb” but really I was just kidding myself.
Tip: Find the right balance of macronutrients (proteins, fats and carbohydrates) for your body and exercise levels.
QUESTIION 6: When was the last time I changed my training?
This is a massive one for many. Bootcamps, studio classes and steady state cardio are very often not progressive. You move your body and get your sweat on for 60 minutes and then you go home and you can tick off your 1 hour of exercise for that day. Then the next day you go and do the same thing, again and again and again.
This definitely works in the short term. If you weren’t exercising and now you are doing more, you are burning calories and you are definitely getting the cardiovascular benefits of exercise. It gets easier doesn’t it? As it gets easier, you are essentially not working as hard anymore and the body soon adapts.
At this point it’s time to shake things up and do something new. Maybe try another class or a different approach. But very few people do.
This is one of the reasons why I love weight lifting. There are many variables we can manipulate to keep the body guessing. We have a variety of different exercises, we have the number of reps we do, the number of sets we do, how heavy we go and the rest breaks between each one. There are so many variables that we can play with to keep the body adapting.
Tip: I follow a structured and progressive resistance program 3 to 4 days a week and I change this program every 4 to 6 weeks. Then I add in other skills like yoga (also progressive), swimming, kayaking and running for fun and time outdoors.
QUESTION 7: Am I being honest with myself?
So now you know a little about what could be holding you back. Have you been honest with yourself?
Have you really tried everything? Or are you stuck in a rut or stuck in your ways of doing something. Maybe even thinking your know your body best, you should be able to do this yourself, but actually you just stay in the same place too scared to try something new.
One of the biggest things I aim to get across to my clients is often its not finding the right diet and the exercise plan that holds us back. It’s us. Our mindset. Our ability to take that leap, get uncomfortable and take action to do something different.
If what you are doing isn’t working, change it. Make as many mistakes as possible because you will learn from them.
It can be tough if you have been doing such a good job at controlling your calories (despite no results) and you get told to eat more. It can also be hard when you’ve given up so much time to get your training done and someone says, I want you to train less or train differently. Its scary.
On the flip side, it can be hard being told we need to do more and eat better when we really believe all the stories in our head about why we can’t, won’t or don’t deserve to.
Changing your health for the better is an opportunity. It is not something you do to punish yourself. It is a gift that you give yourself. How amazing is that!?
So sit down, be totally honest. Take action. Make a change.
Intermittent fasting, where one eats all their food within a 8 to 10 hour window meaning that 14 to 16 hours of the day is fasted, has been “on the scene” for several years now. It has become popular due to promising research that it may offer health benefits an event potentially extend lifespan…
Research has shown that animals that eat every other day in a laboratory environment live 30% longer and show resistance against diabetes and neuro-degeneration.
Fasting can also act as a spring clean for cells, cleaning up molecular “garbage” in a process called autophagy. Autophagy may also be important for the maintenance of muscle mass, which means, if done properly, fasting can promote fat loss whilst maintaining muscle mass.
Periods of fasting may reduce inflammation and blood pressure and improve circulating glucose, lipids and immune molecules. Metabolism is altered for greater efficiency and reduced oxidative stress.
It all sounds very convincing and therefore it is not uncommon that I come across clients who have used fasting strategies or I get asked about my views on fasting.
I must admit I have often been pretty “anti-fasting”. I’ve had two experiences with fasting, one bad, and one actually pretty good.
THE GOOD AND THE BAD
The bad one was when I was doing CrossFit as my main weekly activity and I was also pretty run down. Prior to trying it out I had just had mouth ulcers for the first time ever. On reflection it all seems a bit silly now but often its difficult to see these things without an outsiders perspective. It probably not the best time to start adding in the stress of food restriction.
The second time was last year on a 7 day yoga retreat where, by default, we were doing a 14 hour fast. Each morning we did a 2.5 hour yoga practise until about 10am after which we would have breakfast. Dinner was usually around 7:30pm/8ish so it worked out to about 14 hours without food. This fasting experience was the opposite of my previous experiment; each day all I was doing included yoga, meditation, reading, swimming and just relaxing. No intensive exercise and a complete digital detox, so no technology or social media.
THE RESEARCH
Interestingly, before said yoga retreat I had literally just completed my Masters thesis. The thesis was looking at Mitochondrial DNA and Sports Performance, specifically diet and supplements that would upregulate mitochondrial genes to make us more efficient at burning fat as a fuel source.
This is the diagram I produced as part of my research. Probably mumble jumble for anyone without a background in Biochemistry but I thought it would be nice to break up the text ;)
While researching for the project I had to read a lot of papers, papers which looked at what happens in cells, what happens in animals (mice) and what happens in humans.
It is obviously much easier to do experiments on cells in petri dishes and mice in cages than it is on humans. All the same, the animal research especially seemed to produce a pretty convincing argument for the metabolic effects of fasting. It just becomes difficult when you carry it across to humans with the complexity of the lives we lead.
One of my reasons for being anti-fasting was based on my fasting experience number one and also some of the (yet again, animal) research I had read about fasting in female rats. Female mice showed increased food seeking behaviour, disrupted menstrual cycle and increase in stress levels when subjected to every other day feeding.
To be honest, this probably close to what I was probably experiencing the first time I tried fasting. I didn’t give it enough time to experience any disruption to my menstrual cycle. But it just didn’t feel good.
FASTING VS FASTING AND CALORIE RESTRICTION
Much of the research that looks into fasting mostly uses fasting alongside calorie restriction and this is also how it is often applied in practise. So if someone is exercising intensely (like CrossFit) and is perhaps just eating enough calories or not enough (as I often see) and then they introduce fasting, they may naturally restrict calories further, creating a greater energy deficit.
I have seen quite a few clients who are causing negative symptoms by under-eating. Low energy, low food, failure to thrive in the gym, poor sleep, joint aches, stagnant weight. It is amazing how much better one can feel and how quickly one can feel it, when you start to eat appropriately for your needs.
This most likely explaining fasting experience number 1.
When I first tried fasting I wasn’t where I am now, both nutritionally and with my health. I mentioned the mouth ulcers and being run down. I also wasn’t tracking macro’s. I thought I was eating healthy but to be honest, I don’t really think I was. Of course I was eating healthy foods, but I didn’t have my balance right. So I had probably been putting my body under some stress doing high intensity CrossFit and not eating optimally, not to mention this was when I still lived in London, my lifestyle was very different, stress was high and sleep was low.
When I did the yoga retreat fasting, yes, I had been under a lot of stress finishing my Masters Thesis, BUT I had been eating well (tracking macro’s and calories), training well (not too much high intensity) and sleeping well (because I was eating well). This probably gave me the resilience to cope much better with the MSc. stress and not come out the other end a train wreck. It also meant my body, in the nice relaxed environment of the yoga retreat, didn’t even really notice that it was doing intermittent fasting.
WHERE IS THIS GOING?
Well, I am now trialling something similar to fasting. What I am doing is reducing meal frequency to eat just two meals a day. By default this means I am doing IF.
I track my calories and macro’s most of the time. I have written about it a few times (here and here andhere and here) so I won’t go into much detail. But in summary, I know how many calories I need per day. I know how to adjust this when I change my training program. I basically know what my body needs for what I ask it to do.
This means that all I have to do is divide this into 2, eat one half at about 8:30 after I workout in the morning and the other half about 5pm or whatever fits in socially.
I have to be honest and say that I have only just started. So I will probably give another blog update.
So far, so good. Yes if you under-eat you will be hungry and miserable. But if you know what your body needs and you give it what it needs, there is no reason to feel hungry or miserable.
I guess the next question is, why?
THE WHY?
One of the reasons that intermittent fasting became popular was because every time we eat a meal we produce insulin. Insulin is the hormone that controls blood sugar and excessive insulin production is associated with insulin resistance, weight gain and metabolic syndrome.
If you watched my metabolic flexibility video series you will understand that fasting challenges the body to tap into stored fuel (fat) and become more efficient at burning fat as energy. This can produce a whole host of metabolic benefits and is very beneficial in terms of managing the immune system and controlling disease.
If you haven’t already watch this YouTube Video to understand metabolic flexibility better
Additionally, every time we eat we potentially produce what is called a post-prandial inflammatory response. If you are eating 3 times a day and several snacks, or if you follow a body building mentality of eating 6 or 8 meals a day, or every 2-3 hours. This means that essentially you are in a permanent inflammatory state all day. Research is now suggesting that this inflammatory state is linked with metabolic disease.
It is important to note here that something people will consume coffee with cream or coconut oil as part of their fast. Because this is a high fat food it is perceived to be low insulin and then still classified as fasting. Although insulin may be low, it is still possible that large amounts of fat, especially saturated fats, can trigger post-postprandial inflammation.
If you watched my video series on biorythyms you will understand that the immune system should be active at night where it does its “clean up”. Continuous eating throughout the day could be keeping the immune system active, then night time activities keeps the immune system active, which can lead to a permanently active immune system.
We also understand that insulin resistance, diabetes, elevated cholesterol, central weight gain and other metabolic problems are inflammatory in nature, which means that the underlying cause is immune. Fasting not only may increase metabolic flexibility but help to support conditions associated with the immune system and inflammation.
Finally, recent research has also suggested that fasting may create adaptive responses which suppress inflammation, having a beneficial effect within the brain, preserving cognitive impairment.
I just want to be clear that coping with health issues is not as simple as just doing one thing. It is very easy to fall into the trap of thinking one thing is “the answer” to everything.
It’s not.
There are probably several things that one should be doing to optimise health. I also believe that each person is different and we have to tailor our approach for each person. Some things I would recommend getting right which I have blogged about previously are:
To be honest, I always thought I could never do it. I feel like I need to eat a lot all the time and I couldn’t imagine going without food. Since having the light bulb moment that I can still eat the same amount of food, just less meals, it has clicked a bit for me. It has also helped me to realise that my “need to eat” was more of a bad habit than a real need.
Will I do it forever, probably not. Its new at the moment so it is taking more thought and planning.
On the flip side I have some clients who seem to do well on it. I have a client who has a family history of Diabetes on both sides. He prefers to exercise fasted and isn’t that interested in food. We have been working together for almost two months and it has been REALLY tough getting any weight to shift mostly likely due to his metabolic predispositions. He definitely goes down as one of my most “stubborn” clients (in terms of progress) but he has been fantastic in staying persistent and trying different things and not going off the rails and getting frustrated with slow progress.
Recently we tried a “metabolic stress” approach. The idea being to create a massive amount of metabolic stress one day a week. Similar to the way you would maybe train hard for 4 to 6 weeks and then do a deload, just slightly condensed.
We create metabolic stress by training in a fasted state and also inducing calorie restriction by only consuming 1 meal of 500 calories.
I know I have already suggested to maintain adequate calorie intake, but this would be an acute practise, not a daily practise. Similar to the way that we do not do one rep maxes every week but only occasionally.
I tried this with this specific client because I knew that he would cope well. This would not be the case for every client. Interestingly, when I spoke to him about a week later, it had caused a good shift in body weight that he was looking for and we went back to his regular training and nutrition routine the following day.
HAVEN’T YOU JUST DESCRIBED THE 5:2 DIET?
The 5:2 diet is a dietary approach where 2 days of the week you eat 500 calories and the rest of the week you eat “normally”. In light of the above, I do feel that this approach can actually work well. The problem is, that many will do the 500 calories on 2 days and then use it as an excuse to eat whatever they want on the other days.
The other piece of the puzzle is meal frequency. You want to make sure you only have 1 meal of 500 calories and do not graze over low calorie foods all day.
My advice would be, at first learn to eat well for what YOUR body needs. When this comes consistently maybe start with 1 day a week on 500 calories and then try a second.
It is important to listen to your body. If it starts to feel restrictive or stressful, especially if there are many other things going on in your life, maybe it isn’t the right time. It is probably also not a good time to try this approach is you are struggling with any fertility issues.
WHAT DOES MY APPROACH LOOK LIKE AT THE MOMENT?
So how am I conducting this experiment at the moment?
[please bear in mind this approach is specific to me, not a generalised plan]
Depending on the day and my activity levels I eat around 150g protein, 150g carbs and 85g of fats. Sometimes I will eat more carbs and less fats if I’ve trained hard (legs) or done more than one activity that day (swimming or kayaking in addition to weights). This is 1965 calories.
6:00am: wake up and have a coffee
7:00am: Train
8:30/9:00am Eat about 900-1000 calories with approximately half my macros
5:00pm Eat the rest of my calories and macros
That’s it!
[I may have a third meal on a day when I train twice, but this doesn’t happen often]
I’m sure some people will ask how I manage to eat so much in one meal. I know that my clients often complain when I get them to eat this much across several meals. I therefore wouldn’t recommend increasing your calories and trying this at the same time. Maybe make sure you can hit your calories and macros consistently first. I must admit I don’t find it that hard although I am having some 0% Greek yoghurt or protein powder to help with the protein.
BENEFITS FOR ME SO FAR
So the final part of this is mostly anecdotal, but, needs to be said in case it is something that can help you. Let’s just say that I have been having some problems with my digestion over the past month.
I recently had a test done with Cyrex to see if my occasional gluten consumption was to blame. The tests came back normal.
I have a good diet.
I eat my fermented foods every day.
I couldn’t think of what else I could do to improve but each day without fail I was suffering from stomach pains and loose stools [I’m a nutritionist so I can talk about these things 😉 ]
After 1 day of the 2 day meal frequency everything went back to normal and it has stayed that way since. I cannot put it down to anything in specifically but all I can say is I am happy to feel functioning as normal again.
SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT POINTS
The research behind fasting suggests it can be beneficial for rebalancing metabolic health and the immune system, reducing inflammation and neuro-degeneration
Animal studies suggest a negative impact on fertility but this was with calorie restriction
Adequate calorie consumption with reduced meal frequency may have a similar benefit
Understand your diet first before you add fasting
Having cream, butter or coconut butter during periods of “fasting” can still trigger postprandial inflammation
If its a big jump, start by cutting out snacks first (while maintaining calories)
If stress is an issue you may want to deal with adrenal health first and foremost
Reducing meal frequency may benefit digestion
Generating large amounts of metabolic stress occasionally, not daily, may also have health benefits for those who are less committed to a regular fasting regime
It’s not often we have a guest blog on the website. The following was actually written by a client of mine as a Facebook post in our Ladies that Lift VIP Supergroup. Charlotte has hit the nail bang on the head with her tips for surviving the busy London social life while still making progress in her health, fitness and body comp. 
You can also listen to Vanessa’s interview 
