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Nutrition

Nov 22
0
Lose wheat to lose weight

Lose Wheat To Lose Weight

By | Nutrition, Weight Loss Articles | No Comments

It was one of my clients birthday’s last week and she invited me and my lovely fiance Rachel out to dinner at Chili Banana in Wilmslow, which is a great Thai Restaurant. As with these sort of events there are always new people to meet and introduce yourself to and the question that you always get asked when someone meets you for the 1st time. “So what do you do then”Lose wheat to lose weight

Now as most of my clients know I don’t like using the term personal trainer because I don’t see myself as a trainer. I like to say I’m a health and fitness coach but before I had a chance to answer my client introduced me as her personal trainer. Now when this happens I tend to get asked questions about what I do and what is the best exercise for this and what is the best way to get fit, build muscle and so on.

But by far and away the most common question is:

“What is the best way to lose weight?”

This usually takes a variety of answers but I’ve been doing a bit of reading this week and wanted to address it in this weeks blog post. If you wanted one sure fire way to lose weight (body fat) quickly and effectively without exercising or going on a diet, I would say that it is to eliminate wheat from your diet.

Did you know that the wheat that we currently eat in our breads, breakfast cereals, pastas and soups (yes even in soups) has been genetically modified and as a result what we think we are eating is not the same as what we are actually eating. And to top that off it is also very addictive and generally makes you crave more and more of it.

Traditional wheat has been replaced with a stunted, bulging, highly productive dwarf variety and this has been achieved by moving around a few genes, and the scientists of the day assumed there would be no harmful side effects in humans. This reality is that the genetic changes in the wheat triggered a shift in the range of proteins (especially gluten) our wheat contains, with so far unknown effects on health. Also, wheat contains gluten (80% of the total protein content in wheat) which can cause a whole pile of nasty diseases, even in those of you who don’t have symptoms of gluten buy xenical generic intolerance.

Then there also is the little matter of the glycemic index (GI) Did you know that two slices of “healthy” whole wheat bread can raise blood sugar higher and faster than two tablespoons of sugar. The glycemic index (GI) of a slice of wholegrain brown bread is 59 which is pretty much the same as table sugar in any case and your body cant tell the difference between wheat and sugar.

This is true of anything with wheat in it, not just bread. Basically the wheat that we are told is “heart healthy” turns out to be heavily implicated in causing problems like obesity, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and even diabetes.

Yet if you go to your doctor they will tell you if you want to lose weight to eat more wholegrain foods, and try and lower your cholesterol which is just adding to the problem.

The belief that cholesterol causes obesity, heart disease, and cancer has long been dis-proven and we now know know that wheat is far more culpable in all of the above conditions.

If you have breakfast cereal for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and then pasta for your dinner than you are pretty much eating wheat with every meal, which will be playing havoc with your blood sugar levels, your metabolisms and your body fat.

Then there are all the examples of foods that contain hidden wheat, like soups that have thickeners, breadcrumbs on fried food, biscuits and many savoury snacks.

Now I’m not wanting to go into conspiracy theories but, why is it that grains and cereals are being recommended by the government agencies that are responsible for our health and nutrition. To work out why you need to understand the following:

If we no longer used wheat as our main food choice, then there would be a global worldwide food shortage and he price of food would sky-rocket, especially meat, dairy and fruit and veg. This would have a massive affect on the economy not to mention the companies that make billions of pounds a year from wheat containing products.

Basically to reiterate the point, if you want to lose weight and get healthier you need to look at removing wheat (and gluten) from your diet.

Food for thought.

Liam

If you want to learn a bit more about this I would highly recommend that you check out the excellent book Wheat Belly by William Davis

Oct 31
0

Northwest Fit Camp Pumpkin Recipe Book

By | Nutrition | No Comments

As its Halloween tonight we are doing a fancy dress workout and trying to raise some money for charity at our weight losss boot camp in Manchester.

All our members are bringing along some pumpking so we can do some scary pumpkin workouts but what are we going to do with the pumpkins once we have buy cheap orlistat finished with them.

Well fear no more, we have put together a free pumpkin healthy fat loss recipe cookbook which includes pumpkin muffins ans well as spicy pumpkin curries for everyone to use. You can download your copy by clickingon the link below.

Northwest Fit Camp Pumpkin Recipes

Happy Halloween

 

Liam

Northwest Fit Camp / Northwest Personal Training

 

 

 

Oct 03
0

Fit Camp Friendly Chips

By | Nutrition, Weight Loss Articles | No Comments

Here is a recipe for some Northwest Fit Camp friendly chips, made using sweet potato. Nutrition is one of the most important aspects of losing weight but it doesn’t have to be boring all the time.

Manchester Boot Camp Friendly Chips

 

Ingredients

  • 1 large sweet potato
  • Olive oil in an oil sprayer
  • Garlic powder or paprika
  • Sea Salt to taste

 

 

Directions

  • Step 1 – Clean and cut your potatoes into chunky sizes.
  • Step 2 – Lay them out in a single layer on a baking tray
  • Step 3 – Spray with a very light coat of extra virgin olive oil.
  • Step 4 – Sprinkle a generous amount of garlic buy xenical tablets powder or paprika powder over the sweet potatoes.
  • Step 5 – Bake at 200 degrees in a preheated oven for approximately 30 – 40 minutes.
  • Step 6 – Sprinkle with a VERY light coat of sea salt. This is just enough to bring out the flavours but not to make them taste salty. About 1/4 tsp. for the entire batch.
  • Step 7 – Let cool slightly and serve.

OK, make sure you reserve this for after a fit camp session and serve with some green vegetables and a protein source such as chicken or fish

 

Sep 27
0

7 Tips For Sticking To Your Diet When Eating Out

By | Nutrition, Weight Loss Articles | No Comments

If you find that you eat out a lot or go to a lot of family get togethers in restuarants, then this can be a serious challenge to your weight loss efforts. There are literally loads of things that you can do to make sure you eat healthier and keep to your weight loss goals, without feeling that you are missing out on social occasions.

So to make sure you stay on track with your weight loss plan, follow these 7 easy rules and safely navigate the danger zones

Eating out on a diet should not be hard, so here are our 7 Top Tips For Sticking To Your Diet When Eating Out

  1. DO NOT ever pick a menu option that has Crispy, Creamy, Fried, Battered, Smothered, Kingsize, Jumbo, Combo or Feast in the title or description or has pastry or loads of cheese. Where possible go for Steamed, Baked, Poached or Grilled.
  2. When you’re being asked if you want Chips, Cheesy Mash or potato as a side to your meal, in most cases you could ask for either extra salad or some veg on the side instead.
  3. Avoid all pasta dishes. We all know that pasta makes us feel stodgy and gives us cramps, to be avoided when eating out, especially as loads of pasta dishes come buy orlistat diet pills with creamy sauces.
  4. Skip the bread at the start. When the waiter sets down bread at the start of your meal, resist the temptation to pick away at it.
  5. Always ask for your sauce on the side. This means that you can be in 100% compete control of how much goes on and in turn you can save yourself a load of calories in the process.
  6. Dont be aftraid to modify the menu. Many restaurants will take your dietary needs into account so you will be a happy customer and comeback in the future.
  7. If you really need to have dessert then always try to go for for a fruit salad or sorbet instead of cheesecake, cup cakes or ice cream.

If you follow these simple rules then you’ll walk out of the restaurant with a much better feeling than that horrible feeling you get when you eat too much stodgy food and all you want to do is go for a sleep, wishing that you had worn bigger jeans

Losing weight does not have to be hard as long as you are smart and make the right choices at the right times.

 

If you would like help or advice with your weight loss in manchester you can get in touch by using the contact us form.

Aug 30
0

Calories: Are they created equally?

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Since the calorie was discovered by Nicolas Clément in 1824 we have been conditioned to believe that calories are the be all and end all when it comes to losing weight and body fat.

Calores: Are they created equalSlimming and diet clubs base their points systems on calories and food packaging display the calories per serving (or per 100g) and diet or light products are so called because they are lower calorie and in many cases lower in fat. Food companies like to promote low calorie this and low calories that to try and convince us that their food will help us lose weight.

A calorie by the way for those of you who don’t know is a unit of energy that is produced when food is burned in a special oven. It is basically the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of weather by 1 degree Celsius.

So what’s the score with calories when it comes to weight loss or more importantly fat loss?

Now I’m not saying that low calorie is a bad thing when it comes to weight loss but what a lot of popular weight loss plans and diets fail to take into account is how different types of food affect hormones that control all sorts of things from appetite to fat storage to the type of fuel your body is using at any given time and that’s before we even look at what nutrients are in the food.

Lets say we were to take 2 different people and put them on calorie controlled diets. We give 1 of them (lets call her Jill) 1500 calories per day of cereal bars and the other (lets call her Jane) 1500 calories of a mixture of protein and fats. Who is going to lose more body fat? Obviously Jane because Jill’s blood sugar levels will be all over the place, not to mention the cravings she would get for more sugar as well as the problems with Insulin resistance.

At its most basic level carbohydrate foods cause the hormone insulin to rise. The job of insulin is to help your body keep blood sugar at regulated levels, clear it quickly from your bloods after a carbohydrate meal, and move those excess carbs to be stored in muscle tissue as glycogen for istant energy instead of fat.

If the muscle tissues are already full then insulin sends the excess carbs to the liver and where it is basically buy xenical in usa store or turned into fat to be stored, which is what happens to most of us.

In addition to this, because most of us eat diet full of processed carbohydrates in any case and because of the amount of insulin in our blood a lot of people in the western world have pretty much become insensitive to it. This is known as insulin resistance, a condition in which insulin is no longer able to efficiently remove blood sugar from the blood stream. The result of this insulin resistance is a dramatically reduced fat burning and increased fat storage and it is also 1 step away from Type 2 diabetes.

This insulin rise by the way only happens when you consume carbs, this does not happened when you eat fats or proteins, which is why a low carbohydrate diet wins every time when it comes to fat loss.

Imagine your body had a fat burning switch, well as soon as you consume carbs you are basically setting it to off.

So back to the calorie. If all calories were created equally then both subjects above would be expected to get the same results but this isn’t the case and people on lower carb diets are always going to lose more body fat plus they are also going to find it easier to stick to the nutrition because protein and fat make you feel fuller for longer, and stop you from feeling hungry.

Calories are obviously an important part of fat loss but they do have to be controlled in the right way.

Even though your body does not need carbs to function they do have a place in our diet but you can minimise the effect of them by timing them correctly.

Some tips for carb lovers who want to lose body fat at the same time

  • Avoid Processed Carbs and sugars including fruit juice
  • If you want to have starchy carbs in your diet like rice and potato, keep the portion sizes to a minimum and only have after vigorous exercise when your glycogen levels are depleted.
  • Eat more fibrous carbs and green vegetables like broccoli and spinach because the fibre will not affect blood sugar levels and it will also help to keep you fuller for longer.
  • Have protein and fat with every meal

Article is by Liam Thompson of Northwest Personal Training and Northwest Fit Camp.

To contact Liam regarding personal training or his Weight Loss Fit Camp use the Contact Us page

Jul 16
0
Don't Fall For The Low Fat Food Myth

Are You Falling For The Low Fat Food Myth?

By | Nutrition, Weight Loss Articles | No Comments

Even though most of us know these days that dietary fats are not the main cause of increased weight that they were made out to be in the past, many people who want to lose weight still seem to go for low fat meals and products. This is probably because the mainstream media haven’t caught up yet although this does seem to be changing.

Don't Fall For The Low Fat Food Myth

Don’t Fall For The Low Fat Food Myth

Low Fat = Low Taste

One of the things that tend to happen when food manufacturers remove fat from their ingredients is that this has a significant affect on the flavour. As a result of this many companies replace the fat with sugar or ingredients such as powdered cellulose made from minuscule pieces of wood pulp. Powdered cellulose can very often be found in low fat cheese and low fat ice cream.

As was highlighted in the BBC series “The Men Who Made Us Fat” the label is very often used as a clever smoke screen to give an otherwise unhealthy food such as breakfast cereals or fruit flavoured soft drinks a perception of being healthy.

No we all know that breakfast cereals have never been made with fat and anyway as they are mostly refined carbohydrates, in other words pretty buy xenical china much pure sugar. You may be saving on some calories short term by eating these products but long term you are setting yourself up for imbalances in blood sugar, weight gain and potentially even diabetes.

There is a breakfast cereal in the UK that markets itself as a weight loss product, but what the manufactures don’t tell you is that it is pretty much just sugar with the main ingredients being rice, wheat, sugar, wheat gluten and defatted wheat germ. No protein or fat to slow down the absorption of sugars into you r blood stream meaning a quick rise in blood sugar levels and basically switching off any fat burning that might be happening in your body.

Advice

My advice is to not get sucked in by the marketing claims of these companies and certainly don’t be scared to get more healthy fats into your diet.

Even some saturated fats like those found in coconut oil and nuts have significant health benefits and will actually help you to shift some excess weight. Coconut Oil is one of our secret weapons for fat loss at our fitness camp and its great for cooking with as well as a health replacement for low fat spreads, which can also contain dangerous levels of trans fats which in turn can lead to heart disease.

Another great reason for getting more fat into your diet is because fat is actually satiating so in the end, meaning that it will fill you up quicker and you will eat less and enjoy it more. Low fat foods can actually trick you into overeating as they don’t offer the same satiety as full fat versions. Some studies have even found that you may eat as much as 50% more if you perceive a food to be healthier.

Always make sure that you read the labels on whatever you are eating and try and avoid processed foods as much as possible and foods where you have no way of knowing what might be in them.

Apr 19
0

Can Breakfast Cereal Make Your Fat?

By | Nutrition, Weight Loss Articles | No Comments

The humble breakfast cereal is a type of food that in most cases has as much sugar as your average doughnut yet people every day are having these as their first meal of the day and causing all sorts of problems with insulin levels and fat storage as a result.

Breakfast CerealSo why do we have cereals for breakfast in the UK and Ireland. Most of this is down to very clever marketing from the companies that make these products. In fact breakfast cereals in the UK have only been around since 1902 and most are so processed that any goodness has been removed and vitamins have to be re-added to the cereals. (this is what fortified means)

We are constantly bombarded with adverts for breakfast cereals and breakfast biscuits with some brands even championing their products as being great for weight loss. This appeals to the general public because the majority of the population still associate low fat products as being the key to fat loss when in fact it’s these very same low fat products that are contributing heavily the current obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemics in the western world.

We as fitness professionals working in the field know that the main cause of people getting fatter is due to the rise in insulin which promotes fat storage (especially in the belly region) and this is usually cause by a rise in blood sugar levels.

Well these so called healthy cereals are made from grains which are pretty much 100% carbohydrate and are also highly processed which means that the carbohydrate (or sugar) gets into your bloodstream a lot quicker because the processing in the factory has already done the job of breaking down the sugars in the grain that your body would normally do.

This causes a rise in insulin which then promoted the sugar in your blood to be stored in the muscle for later use or sent to the liver to be transformed into body fat. As if that wasn’t bad your body will then sense that your blood sugar levels have significantly lowered and you will feel tired. (this is one of the reasons you get a mid morning lull and also a mid afternoon lull after your lunch).

The result of the lowering of blood sugar levels means that your will be craving sweet foods to get your levels up to normal again and the viscous circle will continue. Keep this up and you be increasing your risk of type 2 diabetes which is caused because the pancreas is basically being asked to make insulin way more than it should be. We are basically overworking our pancreas into submission. Overwork your pancreas and sooner or later it will get tired and stop working or at the very least it will be manufacturing poor quality insulin that does not work.

Our advice here is to take a look at some different breakfast options such as scrambled eggs and spinach or even meat and nuts. You could even make any number of different combinations of omlette using chicken or vegetables. I know these may not sound like conventional breakfasts but these foods will keep your blood sugar levels in check and will also help you to manage any food craving you might normally get during the day. If you are allergic to nuts then we would recommend some good quality fish oil capsules instead.

If you want a bit of help with chosing healthy breakfasts you can check out my 30 days of Maximum Fat Loss Cook Book

This article is by Liam Thompson, personal trainer and fat loss expert in Manchester

Jun 16
0

Unscrambling the myth regarding eggs and cholesterol

By | Nutrition | No Comments

The humble egg seems to always get a bad rap from the cholesterol police. “Don’t eat so many eggs” they say, “you’ll raise your cholesterol levels” they claim, “too many eggs are bad for you”, they shout.

Now me personally I usually start my day with a 3 egg omelette or scrambled eggs if I can. In a normal week I probably go through at least 18 eggs which if the cholesterol police are to be believed then I’m really risking my health. But am i really?

Yes its true that the advice from Health Eggsperts (sic) was that too many eggs were indeed bad for you because they were high in cholesterol so it was thought that they must raise your blood cholesterol levels. Now at the time this was the best information available so it stands to reason that this was sound advice based on common sense. The scenario has changed however and we know that eggs do not significantly raise blood cholesterol levels as there have been numerous scientific studies done to prove this.

Even the British Heart Foundations website states

“There is currently no limit on the number of eggs where to buy xenical in malaysia that you can eat in a week. However, because the recommendation has changed over the years, it’s often a common source of confusion……as research in this area has developed, so has our understanding of how foods that contain cholesterol affect people’s heart health.”

Eggs should be a staple part of your diet especially if you are trying to lose weight. They are easy and fast to cook and are packed with nutrition. They also weigh in at only 100 calories each and are an excellent source of protein. Also most of the fat contained in the egg is polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat (which can help to lower cholesterol levels). Eggs are also an excellent source of the antioxidant lutein which can reduce some inflammatory responses in the body.

There are also recent scientific studies concluding that eating two eggs for breakfast every day can help you shift 2lbs of body fat a month.

So what are you waiting for get cracking!

This weight loss and nutrition article is by Liam Thompson Personal Trainer Manchester ,Liam is one of the North Wests Leading Fat Loss Experts.

Jun 08
0

Are Diet Drinks Damaging Your Health

By | Nutrition | No Comments

Many artificial sweeteners on the market in the UK today contain ingredients that may be quite harmful to your health. Our advice here at NorthWest Personal Training in Manchester is to check out your “diet drink”  or sugar free product for the following potentially harmful ingredients:

Aspartame (E951) – has been know to produce the toxin methanol, which your body can process only in small amounts, and this has been shown to cause headaches and menstrual problems

Saccharin (E954) – another common sweetner has also been linked with bladder cancer and Acesulfame K (E950) which is found in many of the popular diet colas has also been linked with cancer, while sorbitol (E420) which is normally found in toothpase and mannitol (E421) have been associated with stomach bloating.

If you insist on having a Cola or a Fizzy orange we would recommend going for the “full fat” version as its likely to be healthier for you in the long run and if you need to sweeten up your coffee or tea, it’s best to go for brown sugar rather than white refined or try and cut it out gradually.

Also because diet drinks are usually sweet your body is expecting sugar and will start an insulin response. This will cause any fat burning to be switched off and your body will go into fat storing mode. This is one of the reasons why many people who consume diet drinks tend to be overweight.

We think that they shouldn’t be allowed to be called diet drinks because it give people the impression that they can help thm lose weight and that they are healthier than other versions.

Update: Just found an excellent article on this subject on another site:
Aspartame is poison

Jul 11
0

Why Missing Out On Breakfast Is Bad

By | Nutrition, Weight Loss Articles | No Comments

Many of my personal training clients regularly tell me that they miss out on breakfast either because they don’t feel like eating as soon as they wake up or because they don’t have the time to make breakfast before they go to work.

However the truth of the matter is that scientific study after scientific study shows that people who eat a breakfast that includes a healthy balance of carbs, protein, and good fats lose more weight than those who skip this meal altogether.

This is because after a night of fasting and inactivity when you are asleep, your metabolism has slowed down to a crawl. We need to think of breakfast as the action that switches on your body’s metabolism, allowing you up to burn calories for the whole day. In fact think of the name breakfast, it is so called as it is designed to break the fast from the previous 12 hours since your last evening meal. Some order xenical online pharmacy people skip breakfast altogether and dont eat until mid morning or even luch time and if they haven’t eaten since 7pm the night before this can mean a fast of over 16 hours.

The human body is not designed to go without food for that long and this can cause us to go into starvation mode and hold onto body fat rather that burn it. As a result of this our body will use up valuable muscle tissue as fuel and in turn this will decrease the amount of calories we need on a daily basis and make it harder for us to shift unwanted body fat and lose weight.

Studies have also shown another reason why having a nutrient-dense, satisfying breakfast is important hen weight loss is your goal is that it prevents us from overeating later on in the day.

What to eat for breakfast?

We recommend a high protein breakfast like scrambled eggs, salmon and spinach. Yummy.