Why Can’t You Shift That Stubborn Fat

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There is nothing worse than feeling like you are doing everything you can, but that last bit of stubborn fat just won’t shift. However, you could be preventing fat loss from a few bad habits that you have without knowing, or you could have simply reached a plateau in your training routine. I’m not going to go all ‘nanny-state’ on you, but if you are struggling, here are some things that could be getting in your way.

 

Your portion sizes are too big – It’s easy to think that because you are eating something healthy, you can eat as much as you want. However, just because something is healthy doesn’t mean you can over-do it. I’d never advise you to go hungry, but if you are eating high-calorie healthy foods, and not watching your portion sizes, you could easily start to gain weight, and store extra fat. Nuts are the perfect example of this, whilst they are a great source of good fat and protein for the body, they are also extremely calorie dense, and extremely easy to over-eat because they taste so good and you just seem to put them into your mouth, one after another. Make sure you are sticking to sensible portion sizes in all the foods you eat, including the healthy ones.

 

You consume liquid calories – If you are someone who drinks a lot of coffee, tea, juice or even worse fizzy drink, then you could be blowing your daily calorie intake in drinks. A large latte or hot chocolate from a high-street coffee shop could contain the equivalent calories of a meal. Liquid calories are also just empty calories, and unless it’s natural fruit juice they generally provide no nutritional value to the body (although be aware of the calories and sugars, albeit natural sugars in fruit juices). Stick to water, black tea or coffee, without sugar to get the fewest calories out of your drinks.

 

You’ve hit a plateau in your training – Your body will get used to any type of exercise, so if you are continuously doing the same thing day in and day out, then the body won’t respond the way it did when you first started. That’s why it’s important to keep the workouts changing on a constant basis. This is why I like to change the sessions I design for people. Just when your body adapts, the intensity or type of exercise changes – so not only will you find you’re capable of increasingly complex and challenging moves, it will help you break through plateaus and boost motivation because you’re doing something different. It’s also the best way to keep enjoying your exercise.

 

Mindless eating – We seem to be getting so distracted with technology that we don’t pay attention to what we put in our mouths. I’m always amazed at how many people I see in coffee shops, using their phones, whilst eating away. I also know of so many people who will sit at their desk and snack whilst still tapping away on their computer, or eat snacks in front of the television or social media. Mindless eating is when you are eating while doing something else and not concentrating on what you are eating. The problem with mindless eating is that when you aren’t paying attention to the food you often find yourself over-eating. Try and make sure that when you sit down to eat a meal, your focus is on that and that alone (although do not ignore the other people around the table).

 

Want to know more about running, personal training or nutrition?

Contact me today to ask any questions or to book your FREE consultation

Call me on 07815 044521 or email me at martinhulbertpt@gmail.com

Why You Need to Eat Fat.

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There is a common myth in the weight-loss world that eating fat makes you fat. For years, the diet industry (and government) campaigned that it was the fat in foods that made you overweight.

Therefore, most foods and diets for the last 30 years have promoted ‘low fat’ as being good. So why is the world getting fatter then?

New studies are now showing that there is no direct correlation between eating fat and your weight. At this point I will clarify that fat contains around 9 calories per gram compared to 4 calories per gram for carbohydrates and proteins. So eating the same amount of fats as carbs or proteins will result in you taking in more calories. But eating fat in moderation, as is the case with everything, will not make you fat.

Eating fat (the good kind), can actually help with fat loss, boost your metabolism and improve overall health. It is also essential for body cell development and certain brain functions. That’s why you will never see me telling you to cut fat out of your diet.

 

Today I’m telling you that it’s time to ditch the low-fat diet, and start incorporating fats back into your meals.

Low fat does not mean healthy.

Due to the power of advertising and marketing, the many years of low-fat diets being promoted has now made people assume that if a food is packaged as ‘low-fat’ it is good for you. However, in order for them to remove the fat from the food, salts and sugars are usually added, together with various additives and flavourings to make the food taste good.

‘Low-fat’ means that the food must contain no more than 3g of fat per 100g (3%) for solids, or 1.5g of fat per 100ml for liquids (1.5%) or 1.8g of fat per 100ml for semi-skimmed milk.

‘Reduced fat’ is even more ambiguous, being defined as the food must contain at least 25% less fat than the regular product to which it is being compared, and at least 3g less fat per 100g of food.

So a ‘reduced fat’ product may still be 50% fat, it is just not as high as the original product it is being compared to.

My advice is to always read the labels and to make sure you know what the food is made up of. Concentrate more on the calorie content of the food. If you need any advice, please get in touch.

 

Why fat is good? Your body needs the right nutrients to function properly. Fats are essential for your body, brain and organs to function properly.  They also help rebuild cells, give you energy and produce hormones. That’s why it’s an essential nutrient to include in your daily diet. Especially when you are doing extensive exercise and your body requires proper fuel. However, there is a big difference between fats. Most people define good fats as polyunsaturated fat and monounsaturated fat and categorise saturated fats as a bad fat.

 

Polyunsaturated fats: These fats help lower your bad LDL cholesterol, as well as contain your essential omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids are what helps boost brain function, improve your immune system and your mood. You’ll find these fats in your foods like salmon, mackerel, flaxseed, walnuts and chia seeds.

 

Monounsaturated fat: These fats help raise your good HDL cholesterol and lower your bad LDL cholesterol. This helps to reduce the build-up of plaque in your arteries and prevent heart disease. Studies have also shown that these fats also help to reduce belly fat. Foods that contain monounsaturated fats are olive oil, cashews, almonds, peanuts, sesame seeds and avocados.

Coconut oil is another great example of good fat you can eat. It contains medium-chain fatty acid, which are a healthier form of saturated fats. Our body metabolises these fatty acids differently, and immediately converts it to energy for our brain and muscles to function. It’s also great for boosting your immunity, metabolism and helps to improve digestion.

 

Saturated fats: Saturated fats are usually solid at room temperature (animal fats, butter, cheese, etc). These, if eaten in bulk, can raise your cholesterol and increase your risk of heart disease. These fats should make up a lower proportion of your fat intake.

 

Trans fats: Trans fats are the worst, as they are made from unsaturated fat that has been chemically processed to prolong the shelf life of packaged foods. They do not only raise your bad LDL cholesterol, and contribute towards heart disease, but they also increase inflammation in the body. Foods that include these fats are often processed cakes, crackers, crisps, biscuits, butter-type spreads and chips. In packaged foods, look out for the ingredient ‘hydrogenated vegetable oil’ as this is trans fat. You’ll be surprised at how many foods you’ll find that contain these chemically processed trans fats.

 

So, if you want to remove your body fat, it’s not about removing fat from your diet completely. It’s about finding a good balance between eating whole nutrient rich foods like vegetables, fruit, lean meat, nuts, seeds, legumes and fats in moderation. So ditch the low-fat diet and start nourishing your body instead with healthy wholesome foods.

If you want any advice, please contact me using the details below.

Want to know more about running, personal training or nutrition?

Contact me today to ask any questions or to book your FREE consultation

Call me on 07815 044521 or email me at martinhulbertpt@gmail.com

How to Get Away From Emotional Eating

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Emotional eating is probably one of the biggest reasons for people gaining weight and ruining their fitness improvements.

Quite a lot of people over-eat when they experience strong negative emotions, such as depression, anxiety, stress and relationship break-ups. They then feel guilty about overeating and the weight gain that has caused. This causes them to get emotional and over-eat again, causing a spiral that is difficult to break.

If you can learn to control the stress that leads to the emotions, or change your eating habits when you have negative emotions, you can regain control of your eating habits and start to break the habits you have formed.

What is emotional eating? To some extent, we are all emotional eaters. A lot of our social lives are based around food. We socialise or celebrate by going out for a nice dinner or catch up with friends over lunch. Eating only becomes a problem when you are using food to mask negative emotions, or use it to make you feel better. If your eating habits are based on emotions rather than hunger, your waistline and emotional state can suffer.

To find out if you are someone who emotionally eats, you can ask yourself these questions:

Do you mindlessly eat when you are bored, want a distraction and/or watching TV?

Do you reward yourself with food when you are having a good day?

Do you seek comfort in food when you are having a bad day?

Do you eat when you feel overwhelmed with stress and anxiety?

If you answered yes to these questions, then sometimes you eat based on emotions, rather than when you are hungry. It becomes a problem when you are using food to mask a deeper issue, and it’s making you gain weight and have an unhealthy relationship with food.

So how do you break free? The first step is to actually recognise if you are an emotional eater or not. Emotional eating is often just a behaviour or habit we have created ourselves over time. So, as you have created the habit, you can break it. Here are some possible ways to help you break free from emotional eating:

Become aware of your eating patterns In order to remove emotional eating, you need to become aware of your eating patterns and behaviours. Stop and recognise when you are eating out of hunger and when you are eating because of an emotional state. Pause, think before you buy the cake or reach for a pack of biscuits and ask yourself these questions; Am I actually hungry? How am I going to feel after I eat this? This will really make you confront why you are eating in the first place.

Learn the cause Once you determine when you emotionally eat, it’s good to sit down and figure out what is causing you to do so. When you realise what is causing you to overeat you can get to work on stopping it. A good way of doing this is to keep a food diary. Write down everything that you eat and drink in a day and why you have chosen it. Also keep a note of your mood during the day and any good or bad experiences you have had. By writing these things down, it will make you look at the reasons why you are eating and will allow you to make a healthier choice.

Find something apart from eating that makes you feel good Once you have worked out the cause you can then do something about creating a new, healthier, habit. After a stressful day at work you may want to swap the tub of ice cream for a soak in the bath with some relaxing music. It may be that you join a gym and go straight after work to exercise the stress out of your system. Write down a list of activities that you enjoy and make you feel less stressed and happy. Keep the list with you and if you feel the need to eat to make you feel better after a hard day, look at the list instead. Once you get into the habit of using healthier alternatives they will become second nature and you will have ditched the emotional eating.

 Ditch the ‘diets’ While ‘diets’ will work at first for weight-loss, they will not do anything to help with emotional eating. When you restrict yourself with diets it is easy to then want and crave the foods that you have banned yourself from eating. When you eventually cave in to temptation, you will then be left with worse feelings of guilt, anger and disappointment, plus a feeling of failure. This can then result in you falling back into the emotional eating spiral. Instead of restricting yourself to an off-the-shelf diet, try to find some healthy alternatives to foods you previously ate and create your own sustainable food plan. This way you can still eat the foods you previously enjoyed, but in moderation and without the emotions attached to them.

 

Remember, emotional eating is just a habit that has been formed over time and all bad habits can be broken. So if you do find yourself reaching for the ice-cream on a bad day, don’t worry you can break free from the emotional eating pattern.

If you need any specific advice on any area of nutrition or fitness, please get in touch on the details below and I will be more than happy to help you.

 

Want to know more about running, personal training or nutrition?

Contact me today to ask any questions or to book your FREE consultation

Call me on 07815 044521 or email me at martinhulbertpt@gmail.com