It’s time to step off the scales

April 28, 2024 / No Comments

We’re a nation of scale-obsessed weight watchers and I’m saying that it’s time to stop.

From a young age I’ve also been scale-obsessed and I’ve seen the numbers on the scale going up and down as a direct contributor to my happiness. At the start of my fitness journey I jumped on those scales every Monday morning without fail and recorded the numbers. Every week for over a year. I even took photos.

Until I realised that it’s not about those numbers. It’s about how you look and feel.

I know that I’m getting stronger, fitter and leaner but I was getting frustrated that the numbers on the scales weren’t going down. And then my belt reached the last hole. And my abs started to pop out again. What was happening? Continue Reading…

Summer Kit Lust List

April 20, 2024 / No Comments

With the warmer weather and that lovely sun starting to make an appearance my mind has turned to summer workout gear so that I can work on that runtan (because everyone loves sports bra tan marks right?)

Continue Reading…

A love letter to my stretch marks

April 16, 2024 / No Comments

Dear stretch marks,

Firstly, I’m sorry. For as long as I can remember you’ve been in my life and for most of that time I’ve hated you. You used to remind me of how much weight I put on going through puberty and how uncomfortable I was in my own body. I used to slather on cocoa butter and starve myself to try and get rid of you but nothing worked.

I always thought that if I lost loads of weight and turned myself into one of those willowy girls then you would disappear and I would look like a model. That’s how warped my brain was back then. Think about it: my brain was telling me that if I lost weight then I would magically have a body shape that was so far away from what I naturally might have. And then I would be happy. Um… really?

Continue Reading…

The danger of low-calorie diets

April 13, 2024 / No Comments

Hands up who has been on a low-calorie diet
to lose weight?

Yep me too.

And who has lost weight pretty quickly
while on it and then put it all on again afterwards?

And again, me too.

Having been through every fad diet out
there I’m now preaching the benefits of doing a bit more research and learning
what your body needs before you start depriving it of anything. Continue Reading…

Review of ClassPass London

April 7, 2024 / No Comments

My name is Sophie and I’m a ClassPass addict.

Rewind back a month to the launch of ClassPass in London and I was a bit ambivalent to what they were offering. For a monthly fee you can go to unlimited classes at nearly 200 studios around London. The only limitation that I could see was that you’re restricted to 3 visits per studio each month (visits to different locations of the same studio, like Boom Cycle,all count as one studio). It sounded alright and I thought at best it would be worth a try for a month.

And now here I am at the end of the month and I’ve loved it. Here’s why:

- I get bored if I take the same classes every week so variety helps me to stay motivated

- I enjoy group classes for the social aspect and they push me more than I might if I was working out by myself

- Even though I’m a Personal Trainer I still sometimes like to let someone else do the thinking for me and put together a workout

- I work from home 2 days each week so I can squeeze in lunchtime classes on those days which widens the choices of classes

- I’ve tried new studios and classes that I wouldn’t go to before because the price put me off

- It’s ridiculous value…

Putting the work in at Moreno Boxing, Dalston

To put it into numbers:

Number of classes I did: 14

Cost of classes if I’d paid individually for each one: £176*

Cost for 1 month of ClassPass: £89/month

Cost for 3 months of ClassPass: £69/month

Cost for 6 months of ClassPass: £59/month

*This is the worst-case scenario i.e. not taking into account membership discounts at the studios (which I don’t have anyway) or introductory offers

So if you sign up for the 6 month ClassPass membership you’re effectively getting over 30% off every class if you use it very regularly.

The torture chamber Pilates studio at Tempo Pilates, Netil house

There are a couple of things that would improve ClassPass in my opinion:

- More early-morning classes that aren’t yoga

- A wider geographical spread of studios because as an East London-ite there aren’t a huge choice of places out in Hackney

- Not being limited to 3 classes per studio each month (although I understand why they’ve done this)

- Not having to pay for all 6 months up front when you choose this option, it’s a lot of money to stump up all at once

- Being able to choose spin bikes when booking a class - I have to spin without my glasses on and if I’m not in the first couple of rows then I can’t really see the instructor!

This was the sweaty pain at the end of a boxing class, i’m loving it really.

I’m planning on signing up for the full 6 months because I can see the value in it and I really enjoy the classes that are on offer. Who’s signing up with me?

I was given a month’s free trial of ClassPass but all views are my own

Keeping The Family Balance

April 6, 2024 / No Comments

This year the Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover) and Easter fell on the same weekend meaning that there was even more emphasis on eating over the long weekend. For the first 2 nights of Pesach (it lasts 8 days) we have a big meal with lots of family and friends and I can safely say that I’ve eaten enough to last me a week…

Now that I’m sitting on the sofa the day after in a bit of a food coma I’ve been thinking about some rules to maintain the balance when you have family functions, religious days or celebrations.

3 generations of women in red

Rule 1) Someone will have spent days preparing all of the food you’re about to eat so unless you’re REALLY allergic, be respectful and polite. One bite of something that’s made with love isn’t going to ruin your progress

Rule 2) Don’t get preachy about your approach to nutrition or exercise unless someone specifically asks you about it. It’s not a ‘look how strong my quads are looking’ party, it’s a time for family

Rule 3) Prepare your body so that you can make the most of all of the food that’s about to come your way. An interval cardio session followed by some heavy work on your legs will mean that your body will use some of what you’re eating to repair muscles and replenish energy stores

Rule 4) Don’t starve yourself the following day to ‘make up’ for eating a lot. Just go back to your normal schedule for eating and exercise, chances are your body won’t even register the big meal and it won’t have an effect on your progress

Rule 5) Don’t feel guilty because food is something to be enjoyed, not to regret, especially if you’re making special memories with friends or family

Now, where’s that last remaining Easter egg…

Things Personal Trainers say

April 3, 2024 / No Comments

So you’ve taken the big step and got a
personal trainer. Congratulations! You’ve booked in your first session, you’ve
told everyone how hot you’re going to be in approximately 2.5 weeks time and
you bought a load of expensive lycra that will DEFINITELY mean you can bench
press like 100lbs.

It’s time for that first session and your
trainer is about to send lots and lots of buzzwords and jargon your way. The
problem is how do you know
you’ve found a good trainer? Well, I’m glad you asked.

Things PTs will/should never say:

-
‘Yes, it’s a really good idea
to do a juice cleanse and then come for a session. A little bit of dizziness is
fine’

-
‘No problem we can take it easy
today and have 5 minute rests between each rep because you’re a bit tired’

-
‘Just do everything as fast as
you can it doesn’t matter that your form is all over the place’

-
‘Oh well if it’s tough we
better stop, let’s just do things that are easy and won’t make you sweat’

-
‘I can make you lose 10lbs in a
week. Easy’

-
‘It’s totally true, just by
signing up to the gym you’ll get fitter, you don’t ever actually have to go’

-
‘Oh you’ve got a cold? That’s
ok, come for your session anyway and spread your germs all over the equipment’

-
‘I love your new Nike Air Max,
they’re perfect for running and lifting’

-
‘Definitely go for an
extra-large stuffed crust with double pepperoni after your session, you’ve
deserved it’

-
‘Our 1 hour each week will
make all the difference. Eat whatever you want and sit around for the rest of
the week, we’ll have you bikini-body ready in no time at all’

-
‘The 15 minutes that we spend
chatting at the beginning of every session counts towards getting those abs’

Can I suggest that if you hear your trainer
say any of these you get the hell out of there and find a professional?

HIIT vs LISS cardio

April 1, 2024 / No Comments

You might have seen a previous post that I did about the benefits of cardiovascular training which is a great place to start because anything that raises your heart rate is going to be beneficial to your cardiovascular system.

There’s so much more to cardiovascular training however and I’m going to discuss the biggest 2 right here for you, you lucky people.

You might have heard people talking about HIIT (high intensity interval training) but have you heard about LISS (low intensity steady state)?

Chances are you might not have heard about it but you’ve more than likely done it before. When you’ve decided that the 3 doughnuts you’ve eaten today were a bit much and you’re going to go to the gym and jog on a treadmill? LISS. When you dare to bare your pale skin for a gentle session at the pool for the first time this year? LISS. When you decide that you’re going to be healthy and go for a long walk ending up in a not-so-healthy pub lunch? LISS. Basically, if you can hold a conversation whilst training, you’re doing LISS.

The benefits of this kind of training is that because you’re normally working at 60-80% of your maximum heart rate, you’re comfortably within the ‘fat-burning zone’ which means that you’re burning a higher percentage of fat within the energy that you’re using.

Think of it like a cake. At this stage, the energy that you’re burning is the size of a cupcake (stick with me, don’t get distracted by the thought of cupcakes) and a majority of that is fat.

LISS is therefore good for:

- Unfit or elderly people who want to lose weight but need a low-impact form of exercise to protect their bodies

- People who have the time to go out walking for a couple of hours or jog for an hour, it’s pretty time-consuming!

- Endurance athletes (marathon runners, triathletes etc.) who need to get their bodies used to working at low-intesity for long periods of time

- Anyone who wants to unplug for a while, force themselves to not look at a screen and enjoy the great outdoors

There’s one big flaw with LISS though. Whatever your goals are your body will need to keep adapting otherwise your progress will plateau. If you just do LISS you will reach that plateau quite quickly as the body finds it easy to adapt to and then gets very comfortable.

Have you heard that story about the person who went to the gym 3 times a week, did the same workout each time including a 20 minute run on the treadmill and 15 minutes on the stationary bike? Do you remember when they stopped going after a few months because they stopped losing weight? They should have done some HIIT.

Which bring us to HIIT (funnily enough). HIIT covers any kind of cardio exercise that combines periods of near-maximum work with periods of recovery. It can be applied to most forms of cardio including running, cycling, swimming, skipping, boxing etc. and includes things like tabata and circuit training. For example, you could warm up, then sprint for 30 seconds followed by a recovery period at a jog for 1 minute and then you could repeat that as many times as you like before you cool down/pass out.

HIIT will bring your heart rate up into the moderate/intense training zone meaning that you’ll be improving your aerobic fitness and overall performance. In these zones you’ll be burning a higher proportion of carbohydrates than fat but don’t be fooled, you’re still burning plenty of fat.

Let’s go back to the cake idea (focus now…). With HIIT the cake is now Bruce Bogtrotter-sized (if you don’t get this reference then shame on you, go and read Matilda right now).

The amount of calories from burning carbohydrates and fat is much higher than what you’ll burn through LISS meaning that you’ll probably burn more fat overall. It’s a smaller percentage of the cake but the cake is so much bigger with HIIT. Makes sense?

Here are some of the benefits of HIIT:

- Great for time-poor people, you can squeeze a brilliant workout into whatever time you have available, even as little as 7 minutes if necessary, and keep your heart rate up

- It keeps the body adapting because your heart rate is going up and down with periods of work and recovery and your body doesn’t know what’s coming next

- The ‘after burn’ effect or excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) from HIIT keeps your metabolism high after exercise meaning that you continue to burn calories when you’re lying in your post-gym bubble bath. Result

- HIIT allows you to keep any muscle mass (within reason) as it uses muscles to their maximum capacity, keeping them working. Think about a sprinter’s physique vs a marathon runner

- The explosive nature of HIIT will help you to increase the strength in your muscles which in turn could improve your endurance performance - a good point to remind endurance athletes of the importance of cross-training

It might seem like I’m leaning towards HIIT as the preferable form of cardio but actually, I believe that both LISS and HIIT have their roles in fitness depending on the individual and their goal. Ideally, a combination of both would help to improve overall cardiovascular fitness and health and to reach personal goals.

Try including a few sprints next time you go running and reap the benefits!