Tag Archives: fitness

It’s not just me then…

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As you probably know, I’m forever going on about the benefits those aged 50+ will get from taking up exercise and adopting a more pro-fitness lifestyle. So, firstly, apologies to those who’ve heard enough of this from me over the past few years!

It pleases me to report others agree with my views. A recent study, results of which were recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine and reported by the BBC in the words that follow, agrees with me. Since that august journal is quite possibly not on your reading list, allow me to pass on the key facts.

The study followed 3,500 healthy people at or around retirement age. The conclusion was that those who took up exercise were three times more likely to remain healthy over the next eight years than those inactive. Amongst other problems alleviated by exercise, according to the study, were rheart disease, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and obesity. Those who took up exercise in their middle age and behind were also less likely to struggle with day-to-day activities such as washing and dressing.

After eight years of follow-up, a fifth of the participants were defined as healthy – not suffering from any major chronic mental or physical illness. This group was largely made up of people who always exercised and relative newcomers to exercise. Few of this healthy group were people who did no exercise at all.

Doing regular exercise throughout your life is ideal, say the researchers, but there are health benefits to be had even if you are a late starter.

Lead investigator Dr Mark Hamer, from University College London, said: “The take-home message really is to keep moving when you are elderly. It’s a cliche, but it’s a case of use it or lose it. You do lose the benefits if you don’t remain active.”

In the study, those who had regularly indulged in moderate or vigorous physical activity at least once a week were three to four times more likely to be healthy agers than those who had remained inactive, even after taking into account factors such as smoking. Dr Hamer says physical activity does not necessarily mean going to the gym or going for a run – gardening or walking to the shops also counts.

The Department of Health recommends all adults, including those over 65, do a minimum of 150 minutes of physical activity a week.

Doireann Maddock, of the British Heart Foundation, said: “It’s well worth getting into the habit of keeping active, as we know it can help reduce the risk of heart disease along with many other conditions.

“Every 10 minutes counts, so even hopping off the bus a couple of stops early or taking a brisk walk on your lunch break will help.”

It’s great to see my views endorsed through a scientific study. I’d like to add that some progression is good – if you start doing a bit more walking, then try walking further. If you’re able, them try jogging a bit and progress from there. And if you really want to keep mobile and independently active into your old age, then some resistance exercise is ideal – look at the 20:20 Workout on my website to see one of the the best ways to use 20 minutes of home time each day. It’s on the ‘Workouts – Without A Gym’ tab of www.FitnessOverFifty.co.uk

Does this mean I will now stop seeing it as my job to tell people of my age group how great it is to live a healthy life by dropping the fatness levels and increasing the fitness levels? No chance!

Have a fit and healthy weekend!

Fat v Sugar on TV

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There was an interesting programme on TV last night. One of the Horizon documentaries, the one-hour BBC2 programme contrasted the ‘fat is evil ‘ and the ‘sugar is evil’ schools of body-fat loss. It did this by taking two identical twins – same genetic makeup – and putting one on a zero sugar diet, and the other on a zero fat diet, both for a month. The two brothers were mildly overweight at the start, so they both had some body fat they wanted to lose.

At the end of the month, both guys had lost weight, but they had become substantially less healthy in doing so. Levels of triglycerides, LDL cholesterol and pancreas and liver function were causes for concern, as was the news that one had blood sugar levels that made him pre-diabetic (and that was actually the fat-eating guy).

I have a couple of concerns on the programme:

Firstly, they didn’t address protein at all. Without doubt the fat-eating guy would have consumed substantially more protein than the sugar-eating guy. So the effect of this protein difference on their systems wasn’t considered – the sugar guy didn’t just miss out on his fats, he also missed out on the protein with his diet. As protein is, of course, one of the three macronutrients – alongside fat and carbs (ie: sugar) – this was a huge factor to ignore.

Secondly, the two brothers didn’t do any resistance or weight training in the entire month – and yet they were surprised at the end that they both had lost muscle mass from their bodies. In fact, the only exercise shown was a single cycle ride, and even though this included hills, this was not a significant muscle-building activity.

Moving away from these concerns, I was happier with their conclusions. These were that body-fat reduction isn’t as simple as cutting out one of these nutrients from the diet – there’s a whole lot more going on. Key recommendations they made are (1) eat less of everything – basically, consume fewer calories overall; within this, (2) make especially big reductions in BOTH sugar and saturated fats – but not to zero; (3) eat natural produce – nothing processed; and (4) exercise more.

These four recommendations have been some of the principles of my approach which helped me lose six stone of fat, healthily, over the course of a few years since turning 50. I would add two more to give my own full recipe for success – the things they missed out on the programme – (5) within the reduced overall calories, ensure that the protein levels are kept up – replace some (not all) of the calories that have been displaced from sat fat and sugar reduction by more protein, and (6) the phrase ‘more exercise’ isn’t enough on its own – there needs to be a properly structured plan of both cardiovascular work and progressive resistance training.

Put those six principles together, and I believe you have the key to success. To put it brutally, I have the body to show that this approach worked for me. They got four out of six of those principles on the programme, which is better than most TV programmes manage!

As a post-script, on programmes such as this you will usually see leading anti-sugar researcher from California, Dr Robert Lustig and he was indeed there on this one. I have a good measure of support for his views, but I feel that if he has the right answers, how come he is so, err, portly? He’s always seen in overly-large suits (clever optical trick, and one I used to use) which I suspect conceals a trouser size of maybe 38 inches – or 36 on a good day. If he knows all the right answers, how come he isn’t as lean as a rake then?

Have a healthy, fit, fun and low-sugar, low-sat fat weekend!

Supplement time

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I recently received an email from Kay, one of the readers of my regular articles in ultra-FIT magazine.

Kay asked me: I need answers to question about the role of Testosterone and Growth Hormone supplements efficacy in older people, what is your view? I am a doctor and the Internet publications on the subject are inconclusive. Would adequate protein intake and weight training be sufficient in stopping the muscle wasting of old age?

My response to Kay was:

Firstly on supplements: I’ll say up-front that that I’m not a fan of too many supplements, I believe that most people should concentrate on getting their diet right first. Supplements are only a valid supplement to a good diet. I wouldn’t touch Testosterone or Growth Hormone, ones you mention. Having said that, I do take three supplements on a regular basis. I choose the ones from True Performance Nutrition, as I am an Ambassador for the brand – I’ve found their products to be the highest quality and generate results, and I am a 100% believer in the people involved in the brand and development of their products.

I take BCAA 4:1:1 capsules which I take before and after training to supply specific proteins to help build and repair muscle. The three BCAA’s are the most fundamental amino acids used by the body for muscle repair and growth, and the numbers 4:1:1 refer to these tablets delivering a four-fold amount of Leucine compared to the amounts of the other two BCAA’s, Isoleucine and Valine. This is the ratio that I believe has found to be the best to promote delivery to muscle cells.

My second supplement is Tri-Creatine Malate which helps the body to deliver energy to the muscles, further assists muscle growth, and also helps control muscular fatigue and pain. The name here refers to the structure of three Creatine molecules linked to one molecule of Malic Acid – a combination determined by the company to be the optimum for delivering results.

Finally on supplements, I like and use the RIPPED product, and use it pretty much daily to help keep body-fat levels under control. I’ve used RIPPED since pre-launch, as I was in the trial group as the over 50′s representative back in September 2012. I now use it most days of the week as my only consumed item before morning cardio – so that’s usually 4 or 5 days per week. In the two-month run-up to my World Championship contest in April 2013, I used it every single day – and am convinced I would not have achieved my lowest ever levels of body-fat that I had at that time without my pre-cardio RIPPED. And even though I’m not heading for another contest at present, I still take it on morning cardio days – and as always come home to a great high-protein, high-carb breakfast afterwards.

I also use Whey Protein Shakes from True Performance Nutrition as part of my regular diet, including that breakfast I mentioned. I don’t really call whey protein a supplement, as such, to me it is basic nutrition, as without protein shakes I couldn’t make the levels of protein that I want to consume daily (delivering 40% of my calories). My favourite flavour is Chocolate Mint, and two scoops stirred into my 60g of breakfast oats, nuts and fruits gives me the protein I need to add to the carbs from the oats and fruits to get my preferred macronutrient split for breakfast. An extra benefit is that it turns the oats into a delicious chocolatey flavour! Another favourite of shakes is Banoffee, which is my preferred post-workout flavour and I take a couple of scoops at that time with an apple and the BCAA’s I mentioned before.

Secondly, on exercise: I’m a massive fan of stopping muscle wastage/atrophy in old age through 40 minutes of cardio and 5 minutes on an Abs:100 set pre-breakfast, then an afternoon or evening resistance training bodypart split workout – cycling around days for Arms, Back, Chest, Delts and Elevators (that’s legs!). For each of those body-parts, on the appropriate day, I do 3 sets of 6 exercises, plus a final set of a seventh exercise on more of an endurance basis. So, for example, that’s 19 sets (spread across 7 exercises) for back in workout B, the same for chest on workout C, and covering all body-parts cycling through A-E, then back to A on day six. All done on an incremental progressive overload basis, where every time I do an exercise I make it that tiniest bit harder than the previous time. Much more on all this on my website.

Thirdly, nutrition: You don’t ask about this subject, Kay, but – in one sentence, keep the protein, healthy fats, natural products and fibre up – and keep the calories down, especially those from processed food, sat fats and sugar.

In summary, I’m a massive fan of stopping muscle wastage/atrophy in old age through good nutrition, daily cardio and challenging resistance training – adding (if you like) reasonable amounts of quality supplements. This forms my recipe for keeping fit into one’s old age.

Thanks to Kay for her question, and everyone please keep those questions coming to Chris@FitnessOverFifty.co.uk – including if anything in the above needs a bit more detail. Have a fit and healthy weekend!

A bit of re-resolving

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The first blog of 2014 and so, of course, the first thing to do is wish you a happy, healthy and fit new year! I’m not a big fan of the word ‘resolutions’ – they get broken far too easily – but I hope that you have taken a few minutes to think of your fitness priorities for the year.

I’ve a bit of ‘catch-up’ work to do on the fitness front myself. The family Christmas and other celebrations have led to me being less fit than I’d like to be – for example, I’m up to 12% body fat today, and I like to be under 10% for most of the year, coming down to a lower number for contests. Additionally, I have a number of fun events coming up (some holidays in Feb, a TV series in March, and the Miami Pro Fitness Model World Championships in April) so its definitely time to get back into shape.

I’ve decided to commit to my fitness objectives for the year, and here are the highlights. It’s nothing new, just a re-commitment to last years approach. I hope it’s of interest, and if you need some inspiration in setting your own priorities, maybe there’s something in here that can help.

Keeping fitness levels up and fatness levels down is a blend of nutrition and movement. My view is it’s 50% nutrition, 30% cardio and 20% resistance training, and since there are three components, I’ve re-committed to objectives in all three.

On the nutrition side, my ideal day has seven meals. That’s made up of three smallish main meals per day – breakfast, lunch and dinner – with a smaller snack in between each, plus a shake after resistance training, and finally a late night snack. I don’t count calories accurately, but I do make a rough eyeball estimate of each meal; the three mains should typically be about 500 calories each, with the snacks and shake each at 250 – that comes in at about 2500 for the day. I make sure that each of those seven meals has a substantial protein element, and I keep the sugar and saturated fats down. And it’s definitely time to put the Christmas booze away.

For cardio, I’d like to get my 40 minutes pre-breakfast cardio back up to five days per week. I keep my cardio effort at around 65% of my maximum heart rate, which works out to be 120bpm – this ensures I keep in the aerobic activity zone with the main fuel source being fat. Nothing eaten beforehand, only black coffee or my RIPPED fat burner from True Performance Nutrition. On Saturdays, I replace the cardio with a 5k ParkRun – and I’m sure I can keep to the Sunday goal of a lie-in!

On the resistance side, my aim is to get back up to five days per week in the afternoons or evenings – cycling round ABCDE body parts, one part per day (arms, back, chest, delts and elevators). That’s a 50 minute per day trip, which is now back to being a high priority, as Christmas is done. Elevators are legs by the way, in case you don’t know my strange use of the alphabet!

There’s nothing new in the above, it’s what I was doing pre-Christmas for 2013. So my resolution – if we are going to use that word – is to get back to business as usual!

I hope there’s something in the above that helps you. There’s more about everything on my website www.FitnessOverFifty.co.uk – and I’d be happy to answer any questions or comments on Chris@FitnessOverFifty.co.uk

And as I said, a happy, healthy and fit new year to you!