Roll on the lipids

Lipids, guys and girls is another word for fats if you didn’t know already. There are a few different types of fats such as phospholipids, sterols and triglycerides. Structurally they differ between each other and this in turn has different effects in the body.

So when we exercise what macro nutrient do you think gets metabolised? Carbohydrates, fats or proteins? Go on think …

They actually all play a part in metabolism! However, we are actually talking today about fats/lipids being metabolised! There are many people out there who still think that fat is bad for you, it causes this disease and that one and oh yes….makes you fat! Well fortunately that isn’t the truth about fat at all as fat is the second most abundant property in our body after water. Fat is a vital component of cell membranes, it helps with biochemical reactions and also acts as an energy source. It also acts as subcutaneous insulation too which helps us keep body temperature regulated.

During exercise, again lots of us think that only carbohydrates are the source of energy used for energy metabolism. However, there is a hell of a lot more fat stores than carbs. On average in an adult body there is something like 100,000 Kcal of fat stores which is around 50 times fore than carb stores! Guess we are all fat then ! But we know now that it doesn’t work like that – FAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU FAT! So now that’s cleared up, back to what I was going on about…if we have that many Kcal of fat then there is no way on this planet that we will not be using that for metabolism! There are different ways of achieving lipolysis. During exercise IMTG (intramuscular triglycerides) which are located within the muscle itself gets utilised. Type 1 fibers have more stores than type 2 which makes sense as these fibers are more fatigue resistant than type 2 bad boys!

Depending on intensity of exercise the body uses different amounts of fats and carbohydrates. During exercise our body can use up to 70% of IMTG to fuel our workouts. These IMTG stores have been proven to be important even during rest after exercise bouts to restore ATP sources and the structural integrity of our system. During rest and low intense exercise in trained and untrained individuals, fat is the most used source of fuel and as intensity increases the body switches to carbohydrate usage. This is why Forest Gump could run for 3 years at a slow pace because he was using his fat stores. If he was sprinting then that would mean carbs would be his main source and we already know now that our body doesn’t store that much of carbs, he would have burned out probably after 6 months! All I am getting at people is that if you want to do exercise at a low intensity then you will be using fat, mainly IMTG to fuel our workouts.

However fat stores are still  used during higher intensity workouts as well! Fat utilisation is a great way of extending workouts and producing ATP for energy. People only think of carbs and high sugar digestion prior to a workout but there have been studies and from personal experience that having a fatty meal a few hours before a workout can actually generate the same amount of energy as opposed to eating high sugary foods before a workout. The body uses short and medium chain fatty acids a lot quicker than long chain fatty acids, so having foods such as coconut and milk can benefit you in your workouts. The good thing with short chain fats are that they don’t need that much time being broken down in the intestines, they get absorbed by albumin and gets down straight to the job no messing about. If you are looking for more examples then look for foods high in butyric and caprilic acid and they’ll do the job! So guys and girls if you want to stuff your gob with good fats prior to a workout then that is fine. You will still perform well at your workouts. Howevverrrrr, remember people these are fats not sugary carbohydrates so that means it will still take the body a bit longer to digest so give it at least an hour or so prior to a workout. An example would be to have a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter and a glass of milk, now you could get away with having that 45 minutes before a workout just for a bit of energy as the body will store that in your muscles and use that essentially as energy for a BIG SESSION!

The rate of lipolysis increases significantly during mild to moderate intensity exercise meaning that the amount of fat used for energy increases exponentially. Usually when carrying out weight training sessions, VO2 max levels won’t really go up past 70% obviously depending on what you are doing  but in general VO2 max is between 55% – 75% which is prime time for fat utilisation. This is why lots of gym goers now have switched to fatty foods to improve their muscle tone, body composition and even strength! There have been times when even carrying out high intensity sessions such as boxing or cross fit, eating a fat meal 2 hours before can seriously benefit your energy levels in sustaining ATP sources for a prolonged period of time! Now guys before you bash me with things like carbs are the main source for high intense workouts, let me just reiterate – carbs are definitely beneficial for high intensity workouts and they will always be like that, that is just the way our body works. But I am offering an alternative especially for those who are looking for reducing body fat and maintaining muscle tone – eating fats especially short and medium chain fatty acids will definitely benefit your workouts!

So there above is a little about fat metabolism and why it can be beneficial for your workouts without going too much in to the sciency part which would bore you all! Have a read of this blog and it might some of you find other alternatives for fuel. Because let’s be honest how many of us are bored of eating the same foods? Probably most of us and this is why it is important to try new things and what better than trying other foods which will still benefit your workouts and metabolism. So get going and get some FAT!

 

Myth Buster – Carbohydrates are fattening

No the answer is they are not! Is there a point or writing anymore? Since I love to talk why not…

There are 3 types of macronutrients which our body makes use of: Carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Now these nutrients are primarily used for different roles in our body. You’ve heard the gym hunk talking about eating protein for muscle growth, due to the massive avocado craze these days people are talking more about eating healthy fats for fat loss and also people go on about eating bananas and drinking lucozade for energy for workouts. So in general, nowadays we kind of know what proteins, fats and carbs are used for within the body and they all have their importance. So why are carbohydrates fattening then?

Years ago in the Western world we moaned and groaned about fat being the culprit for the obesity epidemic and carbohydrates being our savior.  But now due to research and looking at other diets from across the World, predominantly the East, we now know that eating the right types of fats are extremely beneficial for our body and leads to fat LOSS. Now we have turned our attention to slating carbohydrates as being our enemy and causing us to turn round. Let’s try and sort this out shall we?

Now before we carry on I must stress that anything eaten or drank in excess will lead to extra calories and therefore you will gain more mass. A simple equation: Calories in should be less than calories burnt to shred fat.  People don’t realise that there are different types of carbohydrates: 1 being your simple sugars, 2^nd your complex carbohydrates or starches and 3^rd are your fibers. Your body uses these 3 in different ways again depending on the need. They all have their importance in their own way. When we workout, our body wants sugar to convert to energy as sugar is our primary source of fuel for exercise – so naturally you would want to opt for a banana or mixed berries, or honey or even a couple of squares or dark chocolate. Only reason is that they are sugar dense and your body will use it immediately for energy conversion for activity. Now our complex carbohydrates such as potatoes, yams and other grains are actually used for energy too but at a lower intensity level. They are also used for topping up our glycogen levels in the liver and muscles for future exercise. Now this is an important one especially for those who carry out a lot of exercise. Keeping glycogen levels stocked up is vital for future exercise bouts as your body will be able to utilize these stores. A good example is an early morning spin session or run, some people consume a potato the night before or a bowl of oats or even brown rice just because they might not have time to eat in the morning but at least their liver and muscles have stocked up on glycogen to use as glucose for when they workout. Also some people physically cannot eat in the mornings as they don’t feel hungry! I mean you can’t force someone to eat can you! Last of all, we have our fiber which is used primarily in the gastrointestinal tract or mostly in the intestines to keep your digestive tract strong and healthy and to break down any waste. This fiber also helps the body absorb vitamins such as K to be used in the body. This fiber helps get rid of excess cholesterol out of your body and helps waste bind to water to be excreted properly. Yeah not the best topic if you’re eating whilst reading this…

So you can see the importance of the different types of carbohydrates and how efficiently the body uses them.  So why are carbohydrates fattening then?

Nowhere in there is there evidence that carbohydrates are fattening, but like I said before, it’s the balance which has gone off on a tangent. People have succumbed to quantity as opposed to quality and this is the reason why we are gaining more weight. Remember one thing, whatever calories are left over after reactions have taken place will simply bind to a fatty acid molecule and become a triglyceride which will then with a little help from enzymes be transferred to our fat cells and chill there until our calorie balance has been restored! These days it’s so easy to over load on foods simply due to our busy lifestyles, we eat more fast foods, packet based foods and snacks and even eat on the run, never to sit down and actually appreciate the flavours.  It’s all about ‘go go go sonic’ these days and the faster you eat the more you will tend to eat too. Don’t get me wrong, I do it too, I am always running around, training people, studying, advertising, annoying others etc etc so I even sometimes don’t sit down and eat slowwwwlllyyyyy. However, what I do eat are the healthier options rather than the quick foods you see being advertised. Also, my work entails a lot of movement so it is a lot easier for me to burn off the calories as opposed to Joe Bloggs sitting at his desk playing pacman.

So again, being on a carbohydrate diet is not bad at all. Everyone out there just think what you are eating, vegetables are carbs, fruits are carbs and grains are carbs and they all come in different forms of carbohydrates. I know for a fact that South Koreans eat purple potatoes as a way for fat loss simply because of the high fiber and antioxidant content in them. Also lots of South East Asian people eat white rice with proteins and fats…eh white rice???  But look at how much they eat of it and again look at their whole diet as a whole too with their activity levels. Carbohydrates are not our enemy; it’s rather the fact that we have alienated ourselves from eating carbs due to our lifestyle and choices!  Carbohydrates are our primary fuel source then comes fats and then proteins, so if it is this order then why would carbs be fattening? It’s what we do with the carbs is the important aspect, are we eating potatoes or toast with honey and then having a siesta? Or are we blasting out a bootcamp or gym session after?

Our amazing planet has given us delicious ingredients to play around with and make the most amazing foods we can think off. But blaming carbohydrates being fattening is a very naive and gullible way of thinking.

It’s us who needs reevaluating and it’s our choices which ultimately decide our end goal.

Myth Busters – Can you have too much water?

You may have heard somewhere that you must drink plenty of water throughout the day and that it is really good for you bla bla bla. Hang on, before we move on don’t think that I am bashing water, I actually love the element! So just as we are clear on that let’s move on….

Water is actually a vital component of our body as we store a large % of water within our body. The Earth as well is mostly water too so it clearly must be a very important factor for sustaining life. Life without water will not occur, the beautiful fruits, vegetables, mountains, hills, animals and we will all eventually die leaving the planet as a barren inhospitable planet. Our atmosphere will be affected too; changing our surroundings, clouding everything with articulates and could potentially set off chemical reactions which aren’t too nice! Anyway enough of high school physics, let’s get back to fitness!

Now you may think ‘is this blog about the lack of water or too much?’ But wait there I am getting there. I needed to explain a little bit about the lack of it, now to the other extreme…too much! Now we have seen national disasters caused by natural causes such as flooding, tsunamis and extreme thunder storms which all are composed of water! This causes drastic effects to human nature and the same applies within our bodies too. Just like flooding can breach people’s houses without knocking on their doors, too much water within our system can also cause drastic effects! Too much water can be very detrimental to health and can dilute important minerals such as sodium. Yes you may think sodium is bad for us but it’s really not, it’s just too much of it is bad. However, if you drink too much water you will actually dilute sodium causing a sudden drop in blood pressure causing symptoms such as dizziness, depression, low blood pressure, headaches, fatigue, abdominal cramps, muscular weakness, vomiting etc etc! This is called hyponatremia and if gets too severe can lead to organ failure, seizures and even death! Now this is all from an overdose of water. Not only that but too much of water can also flood in to organs and cause serious conditions such as kidney problems, liver disease, congestive heart failure and other ridiculous diseases!

Now on another note, if any of you are on medications then remember they all have side effects and some can be a false perception of thirst so please be aware of this and also you guys out there with diabetes can cause increased thirst perceptions so please be aware of this and consult your doctors! Anybody on medication, have existing issues such as diabetes or kidney problems, an urge to drink excessively before and after exercise then please DO NOT take this lightly and consult your doctor! There are plenty of treatments and help out there for over hydration and it is best that you start sooner than later!

Now for you guys who do not suffer from any diseases or on any medication or anything like that and are generally healthy, please do take caution and not to drink lots and lots of water! You have to remember too that there is a lot of water stored in foods that you chomp on through the day. I mean let’s be honest a cucumber isn’t just all green is it, I mean you can literally see a swimming pool in the middle of one! I wonder why apples are so juicy! Yes granted they do have other properties like malate and citrate but they store a hell of a lot of water too. So if you guys are eating an apple, 2 oranges, half a cucumber, a bowl of soup, 2 glasses of fruit and vegetable smoothie a day then your water levels in your body should be quite reasonable. So don’t buy in to this ‘you need to stick your head in 4 gallons of water a day’. It’s more of a guideline to follow stating that you need to keep reasonably hydrated so you don’t suffer.

Now what are good ways of knowing you are relatively hydrated you ask? Well I shall tell you! A good indicator is actually looking at the colour of your urine as blunt as it sounds. I don’t mean you have to stare at it and check with a magnifying glass as to what shade of colour it is! Just check, it should normally be a pale straw coloured yellow. If it’s white then you’re over hydrated or it if’s a darker yellow then you may need to drink a glass or 2. However, if it’s red or brown then you need to definitely go to the doctors as that’s more of a kidney or liver problem! So remember guys and girls – if your pee is a light yellow that’s good! Now another indicator is how you are actually feeling throughout the day; are you feeling healthy, lively, fresh and energetic and can focus on what you are doing? Or do you feel lethargic, hungry, tired or irritable? Remember hunger doesn’t mean that you need food but it can also mean that you are dehydrated so keep that in mind and think when did you last have a big meal and when did you last have a big glass of water?

If you are still finding it hard to monitor your water levels, then try and keep a diary with you at all times recording the amount of water you are consuming and times that you are too. By keeping a log you have proof as to how much you are consuming and from here you can make the tweaks here and there. Alternatively, if any of you are still finding it difficult then speak to somebody in this industry, I don’t mean a hydroelectric engineer I mean somebody like a dietician who specialises in peak performance and they can help you. There are many tests that are available out there to monitor and regulate your hydration levels and to keep your body in correct levels.

 

So remember everybody out there, drinking water is definitely good for you but too much of it as bad as not enough of it. If anybody out there is experiencing any of the above symptoms or other symptoms related to over hydration then please do control your hydration levels or if you need more support then please do contact your health practitioner for advice and support. This is a serious matter and to stay fit and active don’t OVERDOSE … on water I mean!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!

It’s that time of year again where everyone is winding down their fitness regime and enjoying indulging without feeling guilty! This is the time to really appreciate all the hard work you have put in whilst munching on cake, sweets and anything else whilst washing it down with the finest beer!

However, I know that in some people’s conscience even when doing well all year round, they feel guilty when indulging at this time of year. But don’t worry! I am literally sitting down, writing this whilst drinking a straffe hendrik beer from Bruges! It won’t harm you at all and that’s me saying it, a person who literally eats healthy and delicious meals all year round and trains twice a day on most weeks! So give up this conscience and enjoy it while it lasts because you still have the whole year ahead to train!

‘But drinking and eating junk means that you’re losing muscle’ Yeah if I had a pound for every time I heard that I’d be on the forbes list! You do not some how miraculously lose all of your muscle and look like humpty dumpty after eating and drinking for a few days! Fortunately the body doesn’t work like that and if that was the case then every time you had a cheat meal you would be going backwards and never achieve a better body. Sorry guys and girls – doesn’t happen like that. It’s all about having a balance, that 80/20 rule where 20% you can eat and drink what you want and this time of year is the best to embrace that (except for birthdays) and maybe a cheeky holiday every now and then….

Thanks to muscle being a very metabolic tissue, the more you have the more calories they need to eat and therefore your body composition even with junk foods won’t change that much! Now I’m not saying that you need not to exercise throughout this time – yeah why not you can work out too but do it because you want to not need to! Also even if you do exercise, don’t neglect the beers and foods which you have been looking forward to all year. The exercise part for me this time of year is important yes but that’s because I simply want to do it and I enjoy it to keep active but that doesn’t mean I am not going to have a beer …. or 5! Once this time of year is over then you head back to your routine and be disciplined again, at least psychologically you have fed your need and you won’t crave it through the year then.

But whatever you guys want to do this time of year, please enjoy yourselves and make the most of it as time doesn’t wait around! Whatever it is all of you are doing, enjoy it, take up any opportunity which comes your way, take all the free drinks people offer, eat as much as you can, if there’s mistletoe .. crack on !

This time of year is to enjoy everything and enjoy with everyone around you too! I also want to thank everybody who took the time out to read my blog. I am very passionate about this industry and try to share as much as I can on here without making it too boring (I hope)! I also want to thank everyone who has been on my facebook page, twitter and instagram pages and have liked and shared my comments/videos etc. It means a lot that you guys are supporting me and I do sincerely hope you can support me and one another in the following year too! This blog is for anybody and everybody from all walks of life so please feel free to join in and read a few articles if you have spare time. Also please feel free to leave any comments and suggestions and I will do my best to take every comment and suggestion on board and act on it!

Anyway enough of me now – go enjoy your new years with friends and family and hope you all had a great Christmas!

Once again …

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

😀

Peanut butter – Friend or foe?

Who here loves peanut butter on toast? I do! I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who slaps peanut butter on toast and chucks it in their gob. It is amazing! But waittttttt! It’s fattening right?

There are a lot of people out there who are completely against peanut butter and thinks that eating it will turn you in to Augustus Gloop. WRONGGG!

Peanut butter is fattening correct, but consuming it in balanced quantities will improve your health in the long run. Yes you may think that eating fat turns you fat but that is a complete and utter misconception! If I told you to go munch on salmon or avocado or coconut or even beef then you will by all means go to your nearest supermarket, buy some of these and have a meal out of it. What you don’t realise is that you are consuming a lot of fat here. Quality over anything my friends out there! It is the quality of the fat that you need to think about. Peanut butter is made of peanuts ….. obviously. But peanuts contain excellent amounts of monounsaturated fats, protein, energy and iron. It also contains a few vitamins and minerals such as vitamin E, folate, magnesium and vitamin K. Yes granted it is high on calories but it is a fat and fat in the body keeps your appetite at bay a lot more than carbohydrates so therefore you will stay fuller for longer resulting in not consuming too many calories in the long run! Now let’s just track back to that fat – monounsaturated. Peanuts contain plenty of mono and polyunsaturated fats. These types are excellent for your heart and cardiovascular system. They are protective fats and reduce your chances of high cholesterol, diabetes, strokes and obesity, diseases which all stem from what you are chucking in to your body. Now these fats do miraculous things within your adipose tissues (fat cells). You would think that eating fat means storing fat but no no no, they actually encourage our enzymes to release fats from these cells to be used as energy. It’s like reverse psychology eh! These fats are then used for protection, energy usage and in general maintenance of your body and mind. See so peanut butter isn’t sounding so bad after all is it?

Another factor and advantage of peanut butter is that it isn’t that expensive to buy. I know that healthy foods are extremely expensive and personally over priced, however, a jar of peanut butter isn’t extortionate. I mean you buy a couple of pieces of salmon and you’ll be selling yourself on the street to pay for it! However, peanut butter is financially more beneficial and it comes with the same quality of fats as salmon!

Peanut butter is an excellent source of energy, you will literally run like the flash after a couple of spoons of this! Due to the release of long lasting fats, your body can metabolise this whilst preserving the protein. Peanut butter is widely used as an energy food as it is very effective! It keeps you fuller for longer, energised and you know that it will keep protein levels topped up!

So when people bad mouth this food, please before judging, just look at the content of nutrition and see what it has to bring to the table. This fat business of fat is bad for you is absolutely wrong and a massive misconception! Remember my good readers, every cell in your entire body needs fats to stay healthy! As long as you aren’t consuming a litre of peanut butter in the day then this can be very effective for your health and gym performance. A couple of tablespoons in the day with a banana or on toast will go a long way and I can vouch for that as that is something I do. In fact I have it with my boiled eggs most mornings 😀

The best sort of recipes are the random ones!

Who here likes cooking? Well if you are one who enjoys this art then keep on reading, if you’re not then send this blog to somebody you know who will cook for you 😀

To date there are thousands of recipe books and they come in all sorts. You may buy a recipe book from some famous chef, or a book dedicating to healthy meal plans, or books to do with sports nutrition or even books full of recipes from around the World. Or you could even be living in the 21st century and look on the internet for recipes! (I rather books though)

Whichever option you choose, there are tonnes of recipes from breakfasts, to lunches, to dinners to snacks to this to that bla bla and the list goes on. You have the list in front of you and follow it step by step and create this amazing looking dish. You sit down and take the first bite and realise that ‘mmm this could have had more lemon in it or maybe some more dark soy sauce than the recipe told me to do’. Grr that’s annoying eh! Slaved over however long to prepare this bad boy recipe and it’s not to your liking! So what do you do? Do you completely avoid that recipe in the book/net and move on….or do you tweak it with your own …. SENSES!

The world we live in now has made life so much easier, so much more accessible and convenient. Now that is all brilliant to think it out loud but what is it lacking? It lacks the ability for us to utilise our gifts – Our senses! When things get more convenient we get lazy and this hinders the ability for us to exercise our senses. Because everything is done for us eg. You need like a thousand wet floor signs to show somebody is mopping a floor or packets of nuts say ‘may contain nuts’ – wahh is all that about! Because of all these silly things we lack the ability to exercise our special gifts. Think of it this way, if your first car was a manual 5 speed gearbox and you’d only had it for like 2 years before changing to an automatic for the next 20 years you would have probably forgotten how to drive a manual car properly. You’ll forget that adrenaline and excitement of revving it, the speed and the extra oomph when speeding – just things that an automatic hasn’t got! But I’m not talking from experience or anything here mind just stuff that I have heard….

So this principle is the same with recipes, automatic gearboxes are fixed gear changes keeping the car in control and not you, the same with recipes, they are fixed and so people follow them monotonously without sometimes realising what they are even putting in! As they are fixed, it prevents you from altering it yourself and tweaking the meal for your taste buds. I absolutely hate fixed recipes! I think if you should follow a recipe do it in a way that you look at the actual ingredients they are putting in but the measurements should be all yours. Everybody’s taste buds are different, some are more sensitive to sweet, some more to sour, some more to bitter etc. So following a fixed recipe list will not bode well with the population as a whole. This is where the use of your senses come in play. You want to make food look amazing, you want it to smell so mouth watering that families living 20 doors down want to make friends with you just to eat your food and you want it to taste like something you’ve never made before! This can only be achieved by sight, smell, taste, sound and even the texture of the food. People out there, all you foodies you need to cook with these gifts of ours to benefit the most from your cooking. Cooking is a form of art and you want to paint the best picture possible! Caution don’t be putting paint in your wok!

So next time you get a recipe, you learn from it, you adapt it to your liking and most importantly you evolve that same recipe to make it your own. This is done by utilising your human senses and instincts. This is one reason why I love Asian cooking. They just plonk a lot of ingredients in and see the outcome! I have always cooked like that, sometimes if I only have a set amount of time, I’ll make a Thai curry say but just add as I go along. But I’m not adding blindly, no no no, I’m looking at what I’m making, I’m tasting – does it need more spice or citrus, shall I put more coconut milk in, is the texture of the veg al dente or soft or hard? Do I chuck in more water to make a thinner sauce? Play 21 questions with yourself but lucky for you you’ll be answering them to benefit your own meal!

Cooking should be fun, exciting, nutritious and most importantly delicious! Yes by all means get a recipe book but you don’t need to follow the step by step instructions, noooo get off the beaten track and make it your own even if you are a beginner to this! That’s actually the best because you have no idea what flavours go with what so you’ll need to experiment. Doing this will improve your senses and practising every time you cook will make you a better chef. You’ll get so good that the smell of cinnamon and ground coriander will be stuck in your head for a looooong time! Believe me it will 😀

So there we have it, making your own out of others are simply the best sort of recipes out there, because they are fun and most importantly they are personalised!

A clearance

How many of you have had ingredients chilling at the back of the fridge for ages? I know I have! If you are one who loves to buy food so frequently that you tend to neglect those poor foods left at the back then I have a great solution for you!!!!

Firstly before we even go in to the methods let’s just talk about one thing – ‘Best before’.  Ladies, gentlemen and any others out there do not take this statement too seriously! Just because a food item as a best before date on it does not mean it has gone bad! Say if your milk was best before the 6th of June it does not necessarily mean that it has gone bad (by the way today is the 7th so that’s why I am picking that date). You need to take this statement with a pinch of salt and test the food items with something much more valuable than a bored person typing these dates on items…..Go with your senses! Look at the item, smell it and you can even ‘prod’ it for evidence. For other extremists you can even taste a bit of it and come to a decision! So remember people, the best before date is only an assumption and shouldn’t be taken as a strict code of conduct in which you have to abide to.

So that has been settled now let’s get to clearing out the fridge! Now if you do have items which you feel are going a bit sour and ugly then please make use of them and do not throw them away! This is good for 2 reasons: 1) You are saving money by not needing to buy extra meals and throwing food away in to landfill sites and 2) It’s nutrition for your body provided you are cooking the healthy things you know like veg, fish, chicken etc and not flapjacks and chocolate cakes!

If you do have lots of food left over then there are plenty of ways to cook them. Depending on what ingredients you have you can try different methods. Some are as follows:

1) A soup with lots of different vegetables and seasoning
2) Try different types of stews with what you have left and see what you can conjure up
3) Smoothies – You guys must think I am in love with these but they are so versatile
4) A steaming hot curry!! Yes the big one! But home made curries with your own home made sauces are much healthier
5) Stir fries – Again make them at home with your own sauces
6) Cold salads – Again nice and simple, cut your veg, fruits, proteins and anything else you can find at the back of the fridge and make your own salads
7) Make the amazing meals and then freeze them for later meals! This way is so efficient and does come in handy if you have made lots of food or if you want to organise the meals according to the week ahead.  Freezing foods will increase their ‘best before’ date by a looooooong time. But again remember don’t just keep making foods and freezing them because this sort of defeats the point of this blog! Freeze some but the main point here is to GET RID OF FOOD!

See there are no excuses that you can give me, or yourself! I have just provided you 6 different ways of making good use of the foods left out. The good thing about doing it this way is that you use your senses to make things. It forces you to think outside a recipe list given by Gary Rhodes or the other million chefs and to use your own initiative to make things. Who knows you might even create something amazing that you never thought you could!  

Go get clearing and see what ingredients you have and what you might be able to make and once you have send me some through the post 😀  

Munchies before or after a workout ?

A lot of people ask the same question – ‘To lose fat do I eat before a workout or after?’  Now the most probable thing you guys must think is ‘Surely after a workout!’  But why think that?  Is it because you are consuming less ‘calories’ and working out on an empty stomach will shift more fat?  Well let’s find out 😀

I’ll get straight in to it … It does not matter if you eat before a workout or save it for after to lose fat.  So that should ideally answer your question but I will elaborate more, please don’t get bored…

Let’s look at both sides of the coin; Heads – Eating before and Tails – Eating after only

Heads – Now eating before a workout can have many advantages such as you stock up on more energy for your workout and therefore are able to workout for a greater intensity or a longer period of time. Also eating a snack consisting of fat such as coconut water will actually stimulate your fat cells from releasing glycerol in to your bloodstream to use as a fuel source. It’s great isn’t it – Eating fat to BURN fat! Saying that, even if you munch on a banana or a few dried raisins prior to a beasty session, the amazing sugar formulas within these foods will help not only stimulate the release of sugars in to your blood stream but also act as an alarm clock for your brain! Ever wondered that when you are tired you crave sugars?  Yea that is because your brain wants sugars to give it some energy, it may also need minerals such as chromium to help stimulate the organ. Chromium is extremely important for glucose metabolism, growth, insulin and cholesterol regulation.

Also if you are feeling hungry and thinking to yourself that you have a workout in an hour or so, please do eat something! Don’t think that starving yourself and then working out will make you lose fat as your body is more inclined to hold on to it as a safety mechanism. So this is a good time to eat so make sure you have a nice little snack, yea it can be a small bowl of oats, or a pot of Greek yoghurt, or even a scrumptious smoothie which I keep raving about. Remember people, when you are hungry it is your body telling you that you need food for energy, so listen to it and feed it. Just like a baby – You wouldn’t starve a baby (I hope not!) then why should you do it to yourselves. Go grab a snack and enjoy it and you will find that your workouts will not only be a lot more intense but more enjoyable too.

Tails – Eating after a workout can be as affective as eating before a workout. I find that if you don’t eat before a workout provided you have had a sufficient meal a couple of hours before you should have enough energy to fuel yourself through the workout. Advantages of eating after a workout is that if you are heading for an early morning class and just don’t feel hungry or haven’t got time to eat something then you can always drink a glass of water to help that feeling of fullness and then carry out your class. This way of working out is very common for the early risers or people who exercise in their lunch times as they don’t have time to eat prior to a session. Having a munch after a workout can be still as important as before because it’s this time period that you are actually feeding your muscles to make them grow and promoting fat stores to be used for this process. Ideally because you haven’t gobbled up any snacks prior to a workout, you would want to focus on sugars and protein. The protein is for obvious reasons and the sugars act as protein transporters and glucose storage in the liver and muscles for future bombardments!!

So from the 2 sides of the coin, we can see that it doesn’t really matter when you eat for fat loss. Think of it more of what you are eating on a general bases because that is what will really count for fat loss and not whether you eat before or not! You need to remember that muscles and the liver stores energy, vitamins and minerals. The liver can store more than 4 months of vitamin D and can house a lot of glycogen which can be utilised as energy. Also triglyceride within adipose tissues are present for another source of energy. Protein turnover and fat metabolism is dependent on the quality and quantity of your foods throughout the day. You need to eat clean before and after a workout to feel the effects so don’t feel pressurised and think which one works the best. Your body is like a skip – you keep chucking stuff in there like old carpets, bottles. computers, your siblings and then you call the skip people and they take it away to empty it, and then you can have it back to throw some more family members in there. Well your body is just like that except you can’t store family in there – You give it the right stuff throughout the day, week, month and year and your liver and muscles will store the essential ingredients for your workouts. That’s the beauty of your body, it is a storage system and it is this energy which will be used time and again.

So the answer to your question guys and girls – No it doesn’t matter whether you eat before or only after for fat loss, what matters is what are you eating throughout the rest of the day. Ooo one more thing to add for fat loss….

EXERCISE!!

Feel fresh, Look better

The majority of us want to look good, whether we are going to work, going out for dinner, skydiving (for selfies) or even trying to impress someone!  Being self conscious is a big part of everyday life for many of us because of all of these and more reasons. We want to feel and look good and most of all look apart, which is fine. If you look like a younger Brad Pitt or a present day Mila kunis then good on you…but just don’t be smug about it! Now if I ask you a simple question – ‘To look fresh and clean what must you do?’  Well the majority of us would say take a shower/wash our hands and face. Yes obviously you will do that to look clean, help flush out those toxins,sort your hair out and put make up on. Does this really improve the quality of your skin, or does it simply mask it?

All of the above are great and daily things that we need to do, however if you wonder throughout the day how often you need to wash your face, put make up on, touch up the hair then you’d probably do this 3 – 4 times even which is quite a lot! Although they are great but it’s simply just not enough to help revitalise your skin, and this my fellow readers is what we are going to elaborate on today!

The skin is the largest organ in the body, it is very much alive and cookin’! It has many fundamental roles such as maintaining a certain body temperature, blocking out harmful pathogens and bacteria, being elastic to allow us to move, contains many receptors to help us feel stimuli such as temperature, pain and other sensations (we won’t go there) and even allows our body to utilise vitamin D by absorbing its precursor! So as you can see the skin has lots of functions! Because of this, just like every other organ in our body we must look after it, and I don’t mean by buying clinique products or tea tree and lathering your face with them! I mean by eating the right foods and drinking the correct fluids to maintain, repair and rebuild our skin to maintain its elasticity and function!

If we take the example of acne which many teenagers suffer. Now acne is basically when the pores of the skin gets blocked by a substance called sebum and then bacteria attaches to these pores and causes spots to appear. From here you can get white heads too and if these burst then this leads to further inflammation. This is the simplest way of describing the acne issue. Yes granted that this is not just down to nutrition, at this stage of growing especially for guys they secrete lots of sex hormones which promote more acne, oily skin, contraceptives and even hormonal imbalances but all of these issues stem from what you put inside your body! Acne is just 1 skin problem which arises from what you digest.

Now we have all heard of vitamin A, B, C all the way down to K. Yes they help with lots of biological functions within our body such as maintaining circulation, respiration, kidney function, liver bla bla bla! But one of the most important organs we don’t really think about is how are these vitamins helping your skin? Vitamins such as A, B, C, D and E are all anabolic vitamins meaning that they will help restore and rebuild your body especially your skin. If you read up on these vitamins, they will all play a part in energy levels, and immunity and as we know that when you do suffer from body issues there is usually inflammation going on and the same applies with the skin. As these vitamins are immune friendly they will help regenerate your skin. Now you guys must think ‘Waa vitamin D? That ain’t no skin vitamin it’s for bones’ Yes you are right but vitamin D has many functions in the body, one important one is that it acts as a hormone too! It helps balance out hormones especially for women. Now we all know that acne is caused by hormone imbalances and therefore, our super vitamin D comes to the rescue by helping to restore hormone balances! Remember vitamins, minerals, antioxidants all work synergestically to solve problems! I know that I have only talked about vitamins here but if I went on about antioxidants, caretanoids, minerals, phytosterols etc then we’d be here for days ignoring the beautiful spring sun (however long we have it in the UK!).

So we have spoken a bit about the vitamins and their friends but what foods will help strengthen the skin? Simple super ingredients such as avocados, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, tomatoes, carrots, peaches, nectarines, berries and even dandelions will all help to make you feel and look better! These are all high in vitamins, antioxidants, minerals and fats! Yes I said FATS! Do not be alarmed my confused readers, these are the good fats which are actually absorbed within the deeper layers of the skin and play their role in maintaining the structure of the skin and surrounding tissues and getting rid of impurities. Even foods such as rocket, coriander, watercress are full of sulphur which is a cell builder and blood purifier! Seeds such as pumpkin, sesame, sunflower and hemp seeds are all full of healthy fats, zinc and plant hormones which improve your skin! Try to add some coconut oils in your cooking too for added benefit and eat more fish! Avoid too much fatty and fried foods and don’t eat too much red meat or frequently eating foods high in saturated fats!

If you implement some of those foods above then you will notice changes to your skin; you will look and feel greater even before putting all of those man made products on! Do me a favour, next time you buy your face wash or whatever, just look at the ingredients at the back of the bottle, most of them will be a type of vitamin, plant hormone, mineral or antioxidant. So it’s no different to the foods we eat! Remember what you eat is what you are, obviously except for when you do number 1 and 2! So whatever you are putting in to your body will have an effect whether for the good or bad. Just remember to eat foods high in those vitamins and minerals such as sulphur, selenium, zinc, molybdenum and iron and you should be good to go! Also, one more thing and one very important thing to remember – Stay calm, don’t get stressed, keep a positive and relaxed mind frame for as long as you can! You may not believe that a positive personality works but it does!

It won’t happen over night, we are not witches and wizards! You need to give yourselves time but slowly, maturely you will look better and feel fresh!

Feed the brain

If you didn’t already know that the brain controls virtually every function in your body then you know now!  This amazing organ has a massive capacity to learn and retain information to put to good use.  The brain releases neurotransmitters (hormones which travel through the neural system) which influence other organs to secrete their hormones through the blood stream or neurotransmitters via the nervous system.  All our emotions such as excitement, hunger, anger, pain etc is released in the form of neurotransmitters.  I can jibba jabba for a year about the brain and tell you the amazing things it can do for us, and still not graze the surface….

Doctors and scientists are constantly finding out new things about the brain and what its capabilities are.  It is one of the oldest studied organs and our brain has developed from single celled micro organisms millions of years ago.  However, this article is not about the history of the brain and what Matilda can do with it but it’s about nourishing it!  So let’s dive in …

For our brain to function properly and avoid any inconsistencies in function and structure we need to feed it the proper stuff.  Yes we all get older unfortunately, but what we don’t realise is that our brain can age faster than our physical image.  Now to prevent this ageing we need to fuel it with healthy foods so we can still maintain a sharp mind.

MCI – Mild Cognitive impairment is the first step to memory changes in the brain and I’m not going in to too much detail with that.  However, this can be reversed simply by eating healthy foods.  Foods such as eggs, blueberries, hemp seeds and herbs such as sage will do you good!  Blueberries increase levels of a neurotransmitter called dopamine which is involved in memory and learning.  Higher levels of dopamine will keep you alert and active with improved memory.  Eggs provide a great source of B vitamins and choline which is again very important for memory and foods such as sage and cinnamon have antioxidant properties that improve cognitive function.  Hemp seed oil contains valuable omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids which are extremely important for brain function, structure and cognitive abilities!

The brain constantly builds and repairs its neurons via cells such as oligodendrocytes and astrocytes…yes these are real words not made up!  Now although these dudes do their job, they still need vital nutrients to provide them the energy to pick up their tools and sort the neurons out.  Without healthy nerves, our everyday life would become slower and sloowwerrrrrr.  We won’t be able to function as fast as we potentially could, forget where we put stuff, forget to write amazing blogs, reactions become less responsive and even experience mood swings.  This is all down to our neurotransmitters not being able to travel to their designated locations or at a much slower pace!  Again this erosion is reversible by eating foods such as rhubarb, turmeric, berries and blackcurrants. The antioxidants such as anthocyanins and proanthocyanins in berries and currants prevent the onset of diseases such as alzheimer’s which can originate from MCI!  Rhubarb contains useful vitamins such as vitamin K which again builds brain tissue and improves neurogenesis. Turmeric contains massive amounts of antioxidants, one being curcumin which has great healing properties for the brain!

The above are just a few foods which can seriously improve the function of the brain.  Coconut is another brilliant food to have, with its medium chain triglcerides (MCT) and healthy fats it can improve brain function and be metabolised to prevent harmful diseases.  Even milk with its good dose of vitamin B12 can improve brain function.  B12 and B6 are extremely important for the body and does improve cognitive function.  Vitamin B12 and folic acid work well together to build and repair nerve tissue and helps increase the transfer of neurotransmitters.  Other foods such as spinach and kale contain great amounts of antioxidants.  Celery and celeriac contain high amounts of phosphorus which benefits the nervous system.  Avocados bring in a massive dose of fatty acids and with its high potassium levels can reduce excess cholesterol which can lead to harmful diseases such as strokes or ischemic attacks!

So there you have it, I have just listed lots and lots of foods for you to try to improve brain function!  Trust me by the time you improve your daily lifestyle and eat good foods you’ll be able to recite these blogs in your sleep!  But seriously all of you guys and girls out there, this organ is highly important to our everyday life.  We take it for granted but every action we carry out is triggered by our brains, we don’t look at it like that because we take it for granted.  Unfortunately, most of us just look at the physical, when somebody turns 24 they think they’re old for some God knows reason, but what they don’t understand is that our mental age can age a lot quicker than our ‘physical’ presence.  We all need to think outside the box and look what’s going on inside our body because at the end of the day our internal systems influences our physical and overtime if we do not take care of it then we will feel the effects on the external.

Now enough of the serious chatter and preaching, go get your shopping list ready and start downing some coconut water!