Author Archives: Leanne Rose

April 17, 2019

EXERCISE BURNS FAT – SO WHERE DOES THE FAT GO?

It’s no secret that fat loss is a modern obsession. Most of us have some, most of us want to lose some. Surprisingly, then, one of the most obvious questions raised by all this fat-fixating is never really addressed: when it leaves our bodies, where does the fat actually go?

If you’re unsure, you’re not alone. Some would believe that fat turns into muscle, or that it leaves the body via the colon, both of which are incorrect. Others may believe that fat is converted into energy and lost as heat (no doubt based on the “energy in equals energy out” assumption). Trouble is, this would disobey a fundamental law of chemical reactions, known as the conservation of matter (or mass), which states that the same amount of matter comes out of a reaction as goes into it. It doesn’t simply vanish.

Put simply, fat tissue is full of lipids – compounds that store energy. Even if those compounds are broken down and generate heat, you’re still left with the same number of atoms you started with.

So, where does the fat go?
When you begin to run low on fuel you produce a hormone that, when mixed with oxygen, breaks down fat in order to use its energy. When fat is metabolized, it needs to go somewhere. Once converted to carbon dioxide and water, over 80 percent of each measurement of fat leaves the body as CO2. The rest is released as sweat and urine.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean you can get rid of any unwanted jiggle by simply huffing and puffing on the couch. When you engage in any form of physical activity, however, your body’s metabolic rate is raised significantly. So a higher intensity workout will produce more huffing and puffing – more energy burned, more converted fat expelled.

Knowing that fat is actually leaving your body via your lungs might even make those extra reps a little easier to get through.

April 1, 2019

DOES EXERCISE REALLY IMPROVE BRAIN POWER?

Research suggests regular aerobic exercise can boost the size of the hippocampus, the core of the brain’s learning and memory systems.

When you exercise your body releases a lot of good things, including brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is good for the health of brain cells.

The idea is that when you exercise you’re much more likely to cause the brain to make new brain cells.

This is backed up by a German study that showed how cycling while learning a foreign language helped people remember new words better.

March 18, 2019

HOW TO EAT MORE FRUIT & VEGETABLES.

We all know we should eat more fruit and vegetables… but we don’t. The key to solving this lies in convenience: if we make it convenient to eat more of the healthy food and we will. Here are some practical tips:

Make them ready-to-eat
After buying your fruit and vegetables, wash, prep and package them. Buy lots of apples, grapes, carrots and bell peppers. Wash the apples and the grapes and put them on display where you can see them or in food containers – all ready to eat. Sliced apples taste great with honey and cinnamon or with peanut butter (watch portion size!). Wash the bell peppers and carrots, peel them, and put in the fridge for a quick and easy grab-a-snack.

Make smoothies
Another very convenient way to get your greens in is to blend them in a smoothie. Bananas can mask the taste of spinach and even broccoli and it makes a cost-effective blend. Blend together an apple, a ripe banana, a handful of spinach and two cups of water and you are pretty much set with your 5-a-day. 

Make it a challenge
Adding vegetables to every meal is a challenge but it can be done – give it a go. You can always add some lettuce to your sandwich or a sliced tomato and cucumber salad with a tablespoon of olive oil will be a great edition to any dinner. Whatever you eat has to come with a vegetable in it – these are the rules. Or challenge yourself to a fruit-a-day. Pick a fruit beforehand and make sure you have it with breakfast or lunch on the following day. 

Make your own toppings
Always buy plain yogurt and make your own fruit toppings for them. Dice apples, bananas, peaches and add some honey to the mix.

Don’t hide them away
Very often we have the best of intentions to eat more fruit and veggies and we buy a lot and stuff the fridge and then… don’t eat them. It becomes an out of sight – out of mind kind of situation. To avoid that, keep the fruit that doesn’t need refrigeration on countertops and tables where you can see them and put the rest in the middle of your fridge, not in the bottom compartments where you won’t see them. The more you see them, the more you’ll want one.

Have a meatless day once a week
See if you can make a meal just using some vegetables. You can have a vegetarian bean curry or bake sliced tomatoes with an aubergine and some feta cheese in foil.  A vegetable-based dinner can taste great. Pick a day a week and make it “meatless”. 

Get creative:

  • Use mashed avocado instead of mayonnaise on sandwiches. 
  • Mash cauliflower in with your potatoes.
  • Use lettuce instead of bread: you can make ground pork baskets with lettuce or have it instead of a wrap for your diced grilled chicken. 
  • Frozen vegetables are extremely convenient and will go nicely with pasta and frittatas.
  • Make apple crisps: 1) slice apples thinly 2) spread them out into one layer on a baking sheet 3) sprinkle one side of the apples with cinnamon and honey 4) bake in the oven at 200F (90ºC) degrees for 2.5 hours.
March 4, 2019

WHAT DO PULSES DO THAT FULL-RANGE EXERCISES DON’T?

We’ve long known that when it comes to resistance training it’s fatigue, not load, that generates change within the muscle. 

We also know that maximising fatigue comes down to manipulating range of movement and repetition speed. New insights now clearly show that pulses are a great way to maximise fatigue when lifting light weights for higher repetitions. 

Example 1 – Squats:
Full-range squats, as you’d expect, fire up all the global muscles that drive your body away from the ground. This highlights how full-range squats are great for working the glute max, rectus femoris and the hamstrings.

With squat pulses there is a more isolated activation of the quadriceps muscles closer to the knee. The activation of these muscles is key for stabilisation.

Example 2 – Chest Press:
Full-range chest presses result in activation of the key push pattern muscle groups, the pec major and anterior deltoid. As soon as a pulse action is introduced there is a significant increase in the activation of lat dorsi, again acting as a stabiliser.

In Summary
These findings highlight how combining pulses with full-range exercises changes activation patterns and allows you to engage all the key target muscles. This is the secret to maximising fatigue and driving muscle change

February 18, 2019

WHY ARE WE THROWING AWAY SO MUCH FOOD?

Food wastage is a global problem of epic proportions – but there are things we can do collectively, and as individuals, to reverse this terrible trend.

What can we do to reduce food waste?

  • Buy less, use what you buy, and get creative with your leftovers.
  • Fresh is not always best; frozen food products often retain more nutrients than fresh items, especially “fresh” food that has been shipped from the other side of the world.
  • Avoid deals that encourage you to buy more than you need.
  • Remember what tends to go off before you eat it; a whole lettuce on its stem, for instance, is likely to last longer than a bag of leafy greens.
  • Learn to love and seek out imperfect fruit and vegetables – cut and quartered, you won’t know the difference.
  • Brush up on your storage know-how; why you should keep your bananas out of the fruit bowl, why you shouldn’t store your spuds with the onions, etc. 
February 1, 2019

LOW CARB DIETS & WHY THEY WORK.

Are all carbs bad?
Not all carbs are created equal; just as there are good fats and bad fats, there are good carbs and bad carbs. The trick is not to cut carbs completely, but rather to be choosy about the ones you regularly eat. If you want to try going lower-carb then white bread, white pasta, potatoes and sugars, including maple syrup and agave nectar, are best eaten sparingly, if at all. They are easily digestible carbohydrates, meaning they are rapidly absorbed by the body, creating a big spike in your blood-sugar levels.

Instead, eat carbohydrates that contain lots of fibre. Fibre reduces the blood sugar spike, provides protection against bowel cancer and feeds the ‘good’ bacteria that live in your guts. Examples include vegetables, legumes – chickpeas and lentils – and wholegrains such as barley, oats, buckwheat, and wholegrain and rye.

A sensible approach to a low-carb diet is to cut out sugar and cut down on white (easily digestible) carbs such as bread, pasta and rice. Eat plenty of blueberries, strawberries and raspberries, which are relatively low in fruit sugar, and green vegetables, protein, butter, full-fat yogurt and olive oil to retain fullness.

Second-day pasta can keep off the pounds
One way to reduce blood-sugar spikes after you eat carbs such as pasta, potatoes or rice is to cook, cool and then reheat them. 

Under an experiment it was discovered that cooking, cooling and reheating the pasta had a dramatic effect, cutting the average rise in their blood sugar levels by 50 per cent. That’s because it changes the structure of the starch in the pasta, making it more resistant to digestive enzymes, so you get smaller blood-sugar spikes. Less of this ‘resistant’ starch is digested, leaving more to travel down and feed the ‘good’ bacteria in the large intestine.

January 14, 2019

ARE NON-DAIRY MILKS GOOD FOR US?

Sales of milk alternatives are booming worldwide. Here’s what you need to know about their nutritional value and supposed health benefits.

Alternative milks are popular with those who can’t tolerate the lactose in cow’s milk, as well as those who don’t eat animal products. They’re also gaining popularity with mainstream consumers, perhaps due to a perception that plant-based milk is healthier than dairy. But how much truth is there to this?

In the case of almond milk, we know that almonds are very good for us. They’re packed with vitamin E and calcium, as well as having the same benefits of all other nuts – healthy fats, fibre and protein. However most almond milks are mainly water, with an average almond content of just 2-4%!

The same goes for other milks, such as oat or other nut-based milks; the original ingredient is wholesome, but by the time it’s processed into milk there may be little of that benefit left. Often the benefits, calcium or vitamins for example, are added back in after. Some plant-based milk can also contain added sugar, which we may not immediately know from the packaging.

Although little research has been carried out into the nutritional benefits of plant-based milks, soy milk has proved to be the best alternative to dairy. This is because soy has the highest content of protein among the alterative milks.

For those who can’t tolerate dairy, protein is easily obtainable from other sources, but calcium can be an issue. People who are lactose intolerant should look for non-dairy milks that have added calcium. So, while they are useful, plant-based milks shouldn’t be thought of as an equivalent to dairy, nutritionally they are different foods.

It should also be noted that there is evidence to suggest some real benefits of eating dairy, if we can. Intake of milk and dairy products has been associated with reduced risk of childhood obesity, and in adults, was shown to improve body composition and facilitate weight loss during energy restriction. Other benefits include a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, a beneficial effect on bone mineral density and a reduced risk of some cancers.

As in many areas of nutrition, the take-out message seems to be ‘everything in moderation’. If we like the taste of plank milk, it can be nice to enjoy from time to time. But we should probably try to mix it up with dairy to achieve a healthy balance.

Source: Measuring the Benefits of Non-Dairy Milks by Niki Bezzant

January 1, 2019

FITNESS TRENDS FOR 2019.

1. Wearable Technology:
Wearable technology, such as smart watches, fitness trackers and heart monitors, has ranked in the top three trends every year since 2016. This looks set to stay for 2019 too!

2. Group Training:
Choosing to work out in groups (where ‘group’ is defined by more than five participants) is highly likely to stay at top of the trend list for this year. With the introduction of online group workouts, what could be easier!

3. HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training):
A HIIT workout involves short bursts of high-intensity bouts of exercise followed by a short period of rest. Despite taking a dip in previous years, experts predict this type of training will rank high in the list for 2019.

4. Fitness Programmes for Older Adults:
As the population ages, it’s only natural that fitness offerings would age along with us. These programmes emphasise and cater to the fitness needs of older generations. Which makes sense, considering exercising is a great way for people to maintain bone density and muscle mass as they age, plus reap the numerous other health benefits that come with being active.

December 17, 2018

REST DAYS.

Your muscles need recovery time to be able to repair, change and function properly before your next training session. Overworked muscles, damaged muscles and muscles that have worked hard will need some kind of downtime, but most of the time a good night’s sleep is all that is required.

You can train every day, provided you don’t hyperload the same muscle groups and don’t put the same pressure on them several days in a row. That in fact, is the best and the fastest way to make fitness part of your lifestyle.

The problem with complete rest days, blank days on the calendar where you virtually do no exercise whatsoever, is that your mind wanders and if you are not into fitness already, you have higher chances of dropping out and giving up. One day without training, can potentially be the last day of your entire fitness journey. One day can become two, then three then a week and then a month – once you stop, it is harder to get back into it.

If you’ve ever jogged, you know how much harder it is to start after a complete stop – it is always more preferable to slow down without losing momentum instead of taking a break. It is the same with regular exercise – it is always more preferable to slow down than do nothing for a day. Even if you do stretching, yoga, or a bit of light walking, it will still register in your mind as exercise and keep you tuned.

Whatever you do, don’t stop. There are other ways to rest your muscles and recover: get more sleep, stay hydrated and up your protein intake (before and post-workout). If you don’t overtrain to the point of muscle failure you won’t need to take complete days off so it is important that you stay on the level of training when you push yourself just enough to feel challenged but not so hard that it is painful to move the next day.

Most of us these days simply don’t move enough, we drive everywhere, we sit at our desks all the time and then we rest in front of the TV. Our lives are getting more stationary and it is more important than ever to introduce as much activity on a daily basis as possible and make it the norm.

Exercise becomes fun when it becomes enjoyable, but to get to that point you need to get used to it first. You can’t view it as being a chore you hate coming back to – this will just make you want to quit. Try to think of exercise as something you are slowly integrating into your lifestyle rather than another chore to add to your list of things ‘To Do’.

Everyone struggles in the beginning but those who see it through eventually get to the fun part of it, the enjoyable part when it becomes the way to rest from everyday tasks and feel a little more energised.

December 3, 2018

FITNESS TIP #6.

You can’t outrun a bad diet

Don’t think that you’ll be able to make up for a bad diet through exercise. Vital nutrients are important for your body to deliver its optimal performance – it’s not always just a case of calories in, calories out. You’ll need to change your diet to reap the full benefits of exercise.