Tag Archives: fat loss

Patrick’s comments

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One of my Personal Training clients is Patrick, aged 52 from West London.  He’s taken a break from my personal training at the moment, having achieved his initial set of goals.

Patrick wrote me a very kind note, which he has changed into a reference on me and is happy for me to publish.  I thought I’d share it with you this sunny day, adding more positive vibes to the day!

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I came across Chris Zaremba and his ‘Fitness Over Fifty’ Personal Training and Fitness Consultancy Service via the Community Channel on Sky.

He came across as a dedicated, sincere and yet easy going chap who through his own struggles and life experience – overweight and with ill-health in middle age – indeed much like me – yet unlike me had decided to do something about it and turn his life around and in doing so he had through entirely his own efforts and erudite research become not only healthy and fit but Men’s World Fitness Model champion with several British trophies to add.

Seeing his website gave me the confidence to contact him – as despite all the accolades and accomplishments – he came across as just like a great person to meet. Thankfully Chris took me on and in the space of 6 months (including breaks due to the birth of my son and despite an operation I needed) managed to help me lose over 2 stone and in doing so become a fit and active individual that is looking to lose even more.

I started with Chris on the 14/12/13 weighing 15st 4lb with 30.1% body fat – that was a very scary 64 lb of FAT with a BMI of 29.8.  Yet by the 3/6/14 I was down to an amazing 13st 12lb with 23.8 % fat / that’s way down to 46 lb fat with a BMI of 26.8.

I feel very confident with Chris’s excellent help dedication and generous support that I will soon be the weight I was in my early 20’s at around or just under 12st. I very happily recommend Chris’s Personal Training and Fitness Consultancy Service.

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Many thanks to Patrick for being so kind as to write these words.  I am very happy to have contributed to his success, which was due much more to him following my advice than me doing anything!

Ignorance or worse?

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imageAs I’m a bit into fitness (well, more than a bit), I do tend to think that most other people know at least the basics of what is fit and health-promoting, and what is the opposite. But I may be guilty of making this assumption, so luckily manufacturers and retailers can help those who need a little help. Mr and Mrs Bloggs may not know what healthy food is, but luckily labelling in shops will help them make the right choice.

Or will it? I saw this display in a motorway service area a few days ago. To save the embarrassment of the management there, I’ll not name it – but it was on the M1 north of Leicester and South of Leeds.

If you can’t see the photo well, it has a display labelled ‘Newspapers’ – and underneath it are shelves containing what are pretty obviously Newspapers. So they understand this labelling thing.

Next to it, is a display labelled ‘Healthy Eating’ – so here we’ll find perhaps some chicken or tuna salads, veg snacks, wide selection of fruit, mineral water, packs of nuts maybe. I’ll be generous and throw in some wholemeal sandwiches, a few wraps, and perhaps some low calorie drinks and yogurts.

But the display contained nothing but high sugar, high fat, low protein and low fibre, high-temptation sugar-addiction-fuelling products. Chocolate fingers, Maryland Ciookies, Jammy Dodgers, Oreos in a variety of configurations, packs of Crunchies, Jaffa Cakes and loads of chocolate biscuits varieties.

So what is going on here? Either the store (or multinational corporation that owns or franchises it) is ignorant of healthy eating – which is terrible for a food retailer – or they are trying to mislead, trying to get people to buy things that aren’t good for them hoping to sell more of this stuff as a result. Which is probably worse. Either way, it’s either ignorance (from those who should know better) or deliberate deception.

Mind you, right next to it is a stand for Krispy Kreme. Which adds more temptation to buy some more very unhealthful stuff. As you can tell, I’m not a fan of that particular service area and want a Welcome Break from that unnamed retailer.

By they way, on Krispy Kreme – If you can’t trust a manufacturer to spell even simple words correctly, can you trust them on supplying products of nutritional value? Answer – they don’t.

Have a great week, eating more healthily than at that service area!

Fitness TV time…

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Snapshot - 101Interested in fitness on TV?

The TV documentary about me – ‘Fat To Fit at Fifty’ – is being shown by the Community Channel tomorrow. It tells my fitness transformation story and how I’m helping others down the same road. There’s contributions from some of my Personal Training clients, magazine editors, plus fitness professional Rob Riches – who is my own inspiration and the guy who introduced me to fitness in the first place. There’s also views from top local PT Russell Lee, celebrity fitness photographer Simon Howard, and my workout buddy, fitness model Alex Hughes.

It is being shown at the following times on these channel numbers:

Tuesday 17 June – 11AM

Wednesday 18 June – 5AM

The Community Channel is on Sky 539, Virgin Media 233, Freeview 63 and Freeview-HD 109.

I hope you get the chance to watch!

Hobby, Addiction or Obsession?

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315One of the interesting questions I ponder relating to myself, my clients and professional contacts in the fitness world is how far to take fitness in terms of life’s other priorities. It’s a huge topic, and I think the subject can be opened by considering three questions – how much time should you devote to exercise, how closely should you follow a mega-healthful diet, and how upset do you become if you own objectives on both if those previous points are not met.

Everyone has their own answers to these of course. The fact that the UK has an obesity crisis, with alarming rises in the rates of diabetes and other diseases which have an unhealthful lifestyle as contributory factors, suggests to me that far too many have fitness as too low a priority in their lives.

And there are those at the other extreme. Virtually living at the gym or heath-club, and sacrificing other social activities in order to do so, perhaps creating difficulties with family or friends on the way. The body may be healthy, but maybe the mind is less so. This is a much smaller group than the first – but there are significant numbers, I’ve met a few and there are times when I’ve been guilty of heading towards this route.

If you want to be good at the fitness game, and take it to levels beyond that needed purely for optimal health, the you’re taking it into a sport or competitive activity – even if that competition is only with yourself. To do this requires effort, dedication and time commitment way beyond the amounts most people would put in. But this is the case with any sport, you have to put the effort and time in, and remove or minimise distractions if you’re going to achieve success in your sport. I have t-shirt lurking at the back of my wardrobe somewhere that says ‘Obsession is a word used by the lazy to describe the dedicated’, a true statement but not one I actually choose to wear often these days.

The proper answer for most is somewhere in the middle. Certainly, for most of my Personal Training and Fitness Consultancy clients, they have no plans to follow me to the competition stage and be judged in a fitness, muscle model or physique competition. Most are keen in reducing fatness levels and increasing fitness levels, and to that end, I advise that they follow a decent nutrition regime and adhere to an appropriately designed exercise programme – and would realistically expect them to follow this for maybe 50% of the time. But those that choose to take enthusiasm for fitness activity to beyond the level needed to maintain or regain optimal health will decide to apply more.

Let’s look at my own approach. I try to keep to my nutrition and exercise goals in excess of 75% of the time. But I’m not so fitness-focused that I will turn down a social engagement, or a few pints of decent ale or good restaurant meal. I think this puts me in the ‘Addicted’ camp rather than ‘Obsessed’. But I do monitor my bodyfat amount and percentage, and if I find either creeping up, then I turn up the heat and move the devotion needle a little to the right beyond that notional 75% mark.

Does this make me obsessed? I hope not. I like to be at below 9% bodyfat for contests and professional photo-shoots, and to ensure I’m not too far off that my target is to keep at 12% or below year-round. I only take remedial action and move towards that ‘Obsession’ end once I hit that 12% number – then the pub and restaurant trips have to take a lower priority for a little while.

I mentioned earlier that I’ve been guilty of heading down the route of obsessed in the past. I think I’m good at spotting if commitment to fitness and sporting activities are taking over too much of my life, but it creeps up insidiously on you – well it does in me, anyway. To ensure it’s under control, I’ve given Jenny, my wife, a notional electric circuit with a big red warning light connected to a button under her control. The ‘obsession button’ is rarely pressed by her, but we keep it ready. It doesn’t really exist, of course, other than as an agreed concept between us.

There is an exception to my self-imposed rules. In the final four weeks leading up to a contest or pro photoshoot, by agreement with Jenny I de-wire the obsession button. That t-shirt also probably needs to come out at that time. But that’s only twice a year, and having won my last contest in April, the fictitious circuit is now back enabled for the next few months.

In reality, everyone will have their own levels of priority setting for fitness depending on their own goals and other activities they enjoy. Anyone who has a least a certain level of enthusiasm for fitness either as a hobby, leisure pursuit, sport or competitive activity may find it interesting to ask themselves those three questions I posed at the start, and ensure that the level of priority for this in their lives is where they want it to be.

Have a fitness-building but obsession-reality-checked, sunny weekend!

A fast 12

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In my blogs, I try to pass on various tips that either increase fitness levels, reduce fatness levels or – ideally – a bit of both.  Sometimes these can be a bit complicated (especially when I find myself in the wonderful world of macronutrients ratios and timing), so this week I’ve taken a much more simple approach.

A key way to get the body burning more bodyfat as fuel is to give it no alternative – but without activating the State of Alert or Starvation response.  And the best and easiest way to do this is to maximise what is already the body’s longest fat-burning period, which is overnight, starting from a few hours after your last meal.

The easiest trick I know for this, is to have a 12 hour period every day (overnight) without eating.  So, if your last consumption of food or drink was at 9pm, don’t have anything else until 9am.  If you’re out late and eating or drinking until 11pm, then tomorrow’s breakfast is at 11am.   It’s that simple.

The body will use the fuel from the carbs in your last evening’s meal or drinks for the first part of overnight, then will turn to it’s built-in fuel reserve for the next few hours – until you ingest some food or drink again.  That built-in fuel reserve is your body fat.  So prolonging this second period significantly helps in making the body turn to its fat reserves for fuel.

Don’t be tempted to grow the fasting period to beyond 12 hours, as this can have the opposite effect – a long fast period can put the body into what is known as the State of Alert and elicits the Starvation response – with the body going all unwell on you and clinging on to bodyfat, as it thinks times have gone really tough and no food is coming for goodness-knows how long.   But 12 hours as a fast is fine, and to do it well, you should do this 12 hour gap every day.

To make this more effective, try to have some exercise in the morning before the end of the 12 hours.  Ideally light to moderate cardio – nothing too strenuous that puts you out of breath.  I find 40 minutes on a cross trainer at level 12 or 30 minutes slow jogging does the trick for me.

And if you want another tip, have some black coffee before that exercise session – this opens up the fat cells and encourages the release of fat to the bloodstream for use as fuel. By the way, black coffee is allowed in the 12-hour non-eat period as it has no calories.  Black tea and water are the same, allowed as they have no calories.  So the idea is not really avoiding meal or food in that time, it’s keeping clear of anything with calories.

Of course, what you eat and drink in the other 12 hours of each day is very important too – but outside the scope of this week’s blog.  Talking about that would get me started on macronutrients ratios again, and I’m giving that subject a miss today. So for a simple rule, that really helps in reducing fatness levels, get into that everyday 12 hour fast, quick!

The top question

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Chris at Zone Gym 04I’ve heard many times that it’s impossible to add muscle and burn fat at the same time.  But is this correct?

While I agree this is true for any one instant of time (the body can’t do both at exactly the same micro-second), I don’t think its true over a realistic period – such as a month.  In the past month, I’ve been able to add a little muscle and lose fat through my nutritional and training strategies, heading up to my World Championship bid a couple of weeks ago.  Its a combination of nutrition and exercise, so here are my top 10  recommendations to achieve that magic combo – the key things I did in the two months leading up to the contest:

On the nutrition side:

1. Low calories than most but high protein within it (target 40% of calories from protein)
2. Minimal sugar and other fast carbs
3. Lots of green veg to go with the protein sources of meat, fish and eggs plus some whey shakes to up the protein
4. Low saturated fats
5. As much natural food as possible – avoid processed

On the exercise front:

1. Cardio every morning pre-breakfast but post-black coffee or fat-burner
2. Vary the cardio to be either low-moderate resistance on some days, high/low intensity intervals on the other
3. Spend ten minutes on abs straight after the cardio
4. Daily afternoon resistance training, ideally five days per week, on a bodypart-split basis – ensuring the same bodypart isn’t trained on consecutive days
5. Ensure there’s two days off per week from resistance training – you can do the cardio and abs on those days of course

If you want to go the extra mile, you may want to think about supplementation – I used BCAA’s, Creatine and a morning fat-burner (Ripped) from True Performance Nutrition, the company for whom I am an Ambassador.  That level of detail may not be for everyone, but this next point is – remember that consistency is important; you won’t be able to stick to all of those 10 points every day – but the more days you do, the better and more likely you are to succeed.

Does it work?  I’ve measured the results on myself measured through reducing body-fat percentage measured by my scales, and increasing weights numbers in the gym.  To me, getting results on both of these over two month counts as doing both at the same time, so yes – I’d say it can be done!

Have a great, fat-losing, muscle-building weekend!

Getting the approach right

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For this week’s blog, I thought I’d share an email I received earlier this week from a chap called Kevin and my response.  It’s about medical suitability for exercise, and some overall guidelines on nutrition and activity for someone of 50+.  It’s really about getting the approach right in this fitness-up, fatness-down personal project.

I’m blogging this as I hope my comments will be appropriate for a wider audience, perhaps including your good self…

Any questions or comments welcome, as always, on Chris@FitnessOverFifty.co.uk

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Kevin wrote:

Hi – I’m 52 and l used to smoke heavily but quit 6 years ago. After that l put weight on (4 stone) which was due to a combination of beer, junk food and not doing anything to burn off calories. My job is not physical either. I am now dieting and eating a healthier diet of meat fish veg and salad. I have lost a stone in the past month but l want to lose more and get fit. This is not a fad/new years resolution but a serious attempt to change my lifestyle. The main worry is am l eating enough and will exercising now at my age be dangerous, do l need to take medical advice?

Regards

Kevin

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My response:

Hi Kevin

Many thanks for getting in touch.

If you’ve any doubts about your suitability for exercise, you would always be wise to seek medical advice.  Any personal trainer – such as me – would ask you to sign an industry-standard medical declaration in advance, and that declaration asks you to self-assess your suitability, and asks you to seek your doctor if you’ve any doubt.  In addition, any decent personal trainer will discuss your response to this questionnaire, even if it is perfect (actually, especially it is perfect) to ensure that the trainer is happy with the responses given.  There will once again be the advice given that even though the form indicates nothing of alarm, medical clearance should be sought if there is any concern or doubt.

However, if your underlying health is good, you have no medical conditions, and your blood pressure is in the normal range, then it’s likely that you’ll be fit for exercise.  But start slowly and build up – you aren’t in your twenties any more, and the body doesn’t take as well to adaption to and reaction to stresses at your (and my age) than it does for those half our years and less.  Take any ache seriously and take a day off exercising where it hurts.  I’m a big believer in listening to your body, a skill we all have but sometimes don’t use   But, just to confirm, once again, see the doctor if you’ve any doubts.

It sounds like you have adopted a much healthier diet, which is great, and the foods you mention are indeed the right way to go.  My nutrition advice, in one sentence, is to cut the calories overall, and within that, cut the sugar, other ‘fast’ carbs and saturated fats the most, and fill in some of those calories eliminated by upping the protein.  Beyond that sentence, maybe add some extra protein in the shape of a protein shake.  Meat or fish, both with loads of green veg and/or salad is a winning combination for dinner.

On the exercise front, combining your new diet with moderate cardio exercise is good for losing fat.  And the ideal time to do cardio is first thing in the morning, pre-breakfast, therefore continuing the body’s overnight fat-burning period.  If you do this, some black coffee or a fat burner (I can recommend one) would be ideal to take beforehand, but don’t have anything with calories (such as milk or sugar) prior to the cardio, and of course keep hydrated. Come back to a good breakfast with protein as well as carbs after.

Make sure you are doing some resistance training too (weights or weight-simulating machines) to add back some of the muscle that you will probably lose with the diet and as part of the cardio.  This is best later on in the day, and try to do this at least two or three days per week. If you only do this once or twice per week, do exercises that cover the main muscle groups only across the whole body (chest, back, quads, hamstrings), ideally with compound (multi-joint movement) exercises.  If you can do three or more sessions a week, then something more complex on a body-split basis is appropriate, and you can probably add in dedicated biceps, triceps, shoulders and calf work as well as abs training to those bigger muscle groups, and add some isolation training to the compound moves.

There’s a lot more on all these aspects on my web site – which I encourage you to look at.

Finally, if you’d like something more personally tailored to your needs, I offer a one-to-one Skype consultancy session that may help, or we could meet in Central London for an hour, or longer if you want have a Personal Training or in-gym Fitness Consultancy session.

I hope this is of help to you, please let me know how you get on or if I can help further.

Chris

I want to tell you a story…

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Well, its not any story, its actually my story.

I’ve created a article for a Los Angeles-based web site called MyFitTribe, as they were keen to tell the world about an obscure 57 year old Englishman that they know.

Depending on how well you know me, and how many of those nearly three-score years  I’ve spent in your company, you may already know some of the info in the article.  Whether its all new or not, I hope its of interest.

My thanks, of course, to MyFItTribe for asking me to do this.

Enjoy the article, any questions or comments as always, please, to Chris@FitnessOverFifty.co.uk

I’ll be back with more blogging next Friday (probably…).  And, as usual, have a healthy and fit sunny weekend!

Chris

Its the final countdown…

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My blogs usually take the form of advice or suggestions, based on something I’ve discovered, or answering a question, or another form which I believe is of general interest.  It’s not usually about me, but this one is an exception, its all about me – but I still hope its of interest to others.
The reason for this self-centredness is that its just four weeks to go until my World Championships Fitness Model appearance on stage at the Miami Pro.  As a result, training and nutrition are both stepped a notch from this week.  I came 2nd in my age group in the same World Championship contest last year, and – guess what – I’d like to do one better in 2014!
So here are the key things I’m changing to my fitness routine.  And if you’re looking to step up your performance for a big event too, then maybe this could be of value to you.
Firstly, on exercise.  yes, morning aerobic system exercise every day, if possible.
And afternoon/evening resistance training is now ideally 7 days a week from now on, rather than the 5 days up to this point.  Cycling around Arms, Back, Chest, Delts and Elevators, then back to Arms again.  Elevators?  My word for ‘Legs’ in my alphabet-obsessed brain.
When is a weights rest day, I hear you say?  None are actually scheduled as such: but the upper body gets a rest when I do Elevators!  And the legs get a rest when I do an A-D bodypart.
On the nutrition side, trying to keep the sugars and fast carbs to twice a day – after training and at breakfast.  Overall calories are down, but within that, protein and unsaturated fats are up – can’t go wrong with grilled meat from the table-top grill and green veg!  I’ve not swung totally pro-saturated fats like many have in the fitness field – I still think they make you fat, so I keep off them (as I do sugar) but not to the extent it harms the protein input.
I knew you’d ask about beer and wine – well red wine is good for a couple of glasses a week, and I won’t be restricting that.  Beer is tough, I’ll cut it down some, but an exception is always made if it is of truly superb quality or exceptionally rare… – and combined with a social occasion that really merits it.
As I said, four weeks to go, and bodyfat to come down from 12% to 9% if I’m going to do well on stage on April 6th.  I hope the above steps will all contribute to that.  Wish me well for the final run-in…

The story of Anne and Eric

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It’s Valentine’s Day as I write this, so I thought I would tell you about two good friends of mine, Anne and Eric. Very much in love with each other, they’ve also been just a little bit too much in love with fattening foods over recent years.

Five months ago, they jointly decided to do something about this. 50 year old Eric, at 5 feet 10 inches, weighed in at 260lb (118kg), and had just received a health warning from his doctor. The medic had noticed increasing levels of bodyfat in Eric over the years, and had just seen the LDL cholesterol, blood sugar and triglyceride numbers all outside the recommended levels. Blood sugar indications had put Eric as pre-diabetic.

Anne had recieved no such warning, but at 203lb (92kg) for her 51-year, 5 feet 9 inch frame, she also knew that she had some weight to lose. By both having the same weight loss objectives, and following similar programmes, they knew they could be mutually supportive and increase their chances of success.

So they took on the services of a dietician, and followed the prescribed diet carefully for those five months. Weekly meetings with the dietician ensured they continues to progress, and as Eric now says, they didn’t want to let the dietician down as well as themselves by having unsuccessful weeks.

Their diets were pretty extreme. In summary, they eliminated sugar and other simple carbs from their diets, and kept fats to a low level too. Protein was kept relatively high – but only high relative to the levels of carbs and fats, not high in absolute terms.

The key principle behind the diet uses a body process called ketosis, and here’s a simplified version of the theory. The body employs energy from three reserves created from the food eaten: carbohydrate – stored in the form of glycogen – protein and fats. In activity, first the body uses its glycogen reserves as fuel. Once this supply is exhausted, It turns to using fat and some protein as the fuel source following on from the depleted glycogen. Looked at another way, once there’s no fuel in the normal tank, the body turns to the backup full source to keep the engine running.

If simple carbs, sugar, are consumed again, then all fat burning stops – because you’ve put fuel back in the glycogen tank, and the emergency back-up supply (mainly bodyfat) is no longer needed. This state of depleted glycogen reserves, in order to compel the body into consuming its fat and some protein reserve to provide calories, is known as ketosis.

The majority of people rarely enter this ketogenic state – they eat sufficient simple carbs and sugar so that the body doesn’t need to turn to the fat reserve for fuel. In fact, they usually eat more than sufficient sugar and simple carbs so that their weight increases.

Following ketogenic diets requires a big change in mind-set. You have to start thinking of ketosis not as being the emergency, carb-depleted, short-term back-up plan, but as being the regular and normal state of bodily function. This wouldn’t have been a huge shift for the humans of between 10,000 and 200,000 years ago (who hadn’t discovered sugar), but it is for those of today. This idea that ketosis is the correct state to be in, rather than an emergency back-up, is – as I said – a massive mind-shift.

Away from the glance at science, and back to my chums Anne and Eric. Their prescribed ketogenic diets provided 800 calories per day on average. This was a protein-supplement based breakfast, a small protein bar at mid-morning, then a lunch consisting of green salad items, and a single portion of grilled meat or fish, with green vegetables, for dinner. Most green veg and salad items are high in nutrients, low in calories and zero in sugar – so they could be consumed in big quantities on this diet, including the substantial 7 ounces of lettuce they each had for lunch.

It may not sound wonderful, but it did the trick for them. He is down to 180lb (82kg), and Anne is 158lb (72kg) – a substantial weight loss which has pleased Eric’s doctor and has moved all Eric’s parameters back to the normal zone. Both are massively happy with the results, Eric has now reached his target weight and Anne wants to lose a further 13lb to take her to 145lb (66kg).

And they achieved this without exercise. That’s right, Anne and Eric didn’t do any exercise during the last five months. They discussed it with their dietician, who said any exercise beyond the normal activities in daily living was not part of the plan. Anne even cut down the activity of her twice weekly spinning session, in order to comply. The reason for this given by the dietician is that the low caloric input didn’t allow them enough energy for exercise, so therefore they shouldn’t do any.

What do I think? Well, in a perfect world, I would have made some changes. Both Eric and Anne say they have lost strength on this diet, which doesn’t surprise me – for they have lost weight (being fat and muscle), rather than fat alone. If I’d been advising, I’d have added some exercise, a daily session of light cardio and a progressive weight training programme to add back at least some part of the muscle lost, just a few sets of the key compound weight movements with regular, incremental increases in resistance based in improving performance. To fuel this, I would have upped the calories by adding more protein and introducing good fats, increasing the daily calorific value to probably somewhere around double the amount they consumed, changing the exact amounts over the months depending on progress, and with perhaps more food for Eric than Anne.

Away from my thoughts, and back to reality. Eric and Anne are now committed to maintaining their new slimline selves for the future. Eric is happy at a weight of 180lb, and Anne wants to lose a further 13lb to take her down to 145lb. And seeing the results first hand, I’m not going to criticise Anne and Eric’s resolve, commitment and health gains. They’ve done massively well. And, for this Valentine’s Day, they have just as much love for each other as before but less body mass on each of them, resulting in more love per cubic inch, and that has to be a good thing – as well as a corny way to end this week’s blog.

Have a loving, healthy and fit Valentine’s weekend!