Guilt

I'm writing this post based on my own views, we all have guilt in all aspects of our lives, from going to the gym and not seeing loved ones, to not going to the gym, to eating that bad meal to turning nice food down, I could keep going on.

For me guilt comes in the form of my children. I have always worked I can't remember a time I haven't worked, but I have always worked shifts, and most of my shifts started at 6pm when the children were getting ready for bed or weekends when they would be home with their dad so to me it was my free time my times to escape and also their time to bond with their dad who works long hard hours for us all.

However we moved and I had to find a job closer to home so I had to then put he children into nursery in preparation for work, that worked well it gave them some times to play with other children and me 4 hours to clean and cook.. I then got my job and the kids nursery hours had to change, my oldest child is at pre school so he's good as being left, my youngest she is a cuddly little thing that isn't so sure at being left, so for me to walk away from her screaming mummy is heart breaking, I know I am doing it for all of us as it means Iam happier as I get to spend time with adults, they get to play sigh children and do things they necessarily can't do at home.

I do feel guilty about my exercise as well, but I try remember I don't go out partying, I spend all the time I can with my children and when I go to the gym its when they are at nursery or when they are in bed, I do exercise with them to show them exercise is good, but I make sure the time I spend with them is all about them, they choose what we do and I follow.. 

But my point is guilt is good it shows we are human, but don't let it consume your life, if you want to eat food that's a bit naughty then do, one meal will not make you fat, one day of bad food won't make you fat, it will probably make you feel bloated and terrible the next day, in the sense of tummy ache, but then you just drink lots of water and eat healthily again, and realise life is for living so eat the chocolate every now and again, go out and have a burger etc.

Guilty about exercising, remember we all need our own time, how you spend it is up to you, so if you rather go to he gym then hit the pubs then good for you, but your kids won't hate you, your partner won't hate you and your friends will understand you are doing it for you, a release a bit of time that is just you, you don't have to cook clean, be needed etc.. Enjoy every minute of it and remember we all deserve it  

German interval training beginner program

Day 1 chest and back
Decline dumbbell press  10 sets 10 reps 40x0temp 90sec rest
Chin ups 10 sets 10 reps 40x0 tempo 90sec rest
Incline dumbbell flys 3 sets 10-12 reps 3020 tempo 60sec rest
One arm dumbbell row 3 sets 10-12 reps 3020tempo 60sec rest

Day 2 legs and abs
Back squats 10sets 10 reps 40x0tempo 90sec rest
Leg curls 10sets 10 reps 40x0tempo 90sec rest
Low cable pull ins* 3sets 15-20 reps 2020tempo 60secs rest
Calf raises 3 sets 15-20 reps 2030 tempo 60secs rest
*attach a bet to cable machine lie on floor put feet in belt and pull knees to chest

Day 3 off

Day 4 arms and shoulders
Bar dips 10 sets 10 reps 40x0 tempo 90sec rest
Hammer curls 10 sets 10 reps 40x0 tempo 90 sec rest
Bent over dumbbell raises 3 sets 10-12 reps 20x0 tempo 60 secs rest
Seated dumbbell raises 3 sets 10-12 reps 20x0 tempo 60 secs rest

Day 5 off

Phase 2
After 6 of the 5 day cycles do a 3 we recovery period of 6-8 reps and only 4-6 body parts, after 3 weeks return to programme doing 20 sets of 6

Day 1 chest and back
Dumbbell press 10 sets 6 reps 50x0 tempo 90sec rest
Pullups 20 sets 6 reps 50x0 tempo 90sec rest
Flat dumbbell flys 3 sets 6 reps 30x10 tempo 60 sec rest
Bent over rows with E-Z bar 3 sets 6 reps 30x20 60 sec rest

Day 2 legs and abs
Deadlift 10 sets 6 reps 50x0 tempo 90sec rest
Leg curls 10 sets 6 reps 50x0 tempo 90 sec rest
Twisting crunches 3 sets 12-25 reps 30x30 60 sec rest
Calf raises 3 sets 12-15 reps 30x30 60 sec rest

Day 3 off

Day 4 shoulders and arms
Bench press 10 sets 6 reps 50x0 tempo 90 sec rest
E-Z bar curls 10 sets 6 reps 50x0 tempo 90 sec rest
Seated external rotations 3 sets 10-12 rep 30x10 tempo 60 secs rest
Lateral raises 3 sets 10-12 reps 20x10 tempo 60 secs rest

Day 5 off

German interval training

This type of training is done to build maximum muscle quickly.. it was the base programme of Canadian weight lifter Jacques Demes, a silver medalist in the la Olympic games.

It works because it targets a group of motor units, exposing them to an extensive volume of repeated efforts,10 sets of a single exercise. The body adapts by hypertrophying the targeted fibres.

The goal of the GVT is to complete 10 sets of 10 reps with the same weight for th entire exercise. You want to begin with a weight you could lift for 20 reps to failure, 60 percent of 1RM load. Therefore if you could bench press 300lbs for 1 rep, then you would need to use 180lbs for this exercise.

New lifters follow this body split: chest and back, legs and abs, day off arms and shoulders, day off.

There is miminal rest between sets, 60 seconds for sequence 90-120 for supersetting.

For long range movements such as squats and dips use 40x0 temp, this means for the eccentric portion of the exercise is 4 seconds and the concentric part is done rapidly as possible. For curls and triceps extensions use a 3020 tempo.

Perform one and only one exercise per body part, select a part that recruits as many muscles as possible. Tricep kickbacks and leg extension is out, however squat and bench press is in.

Once you are able to perform 10 sets of 10 reps with constant rest intervals, up the weight by 4 or 5 percent and repeat the process. Refrain from performing forced reps or negatives reps.

Exercise during pregnancy

Here is a list of benefits of exerting during pregnancy:

Lower risk of developing gestational diabetes
Weight control
Reduced postpartum depression
Less water retention
Larger placenta and more nutrients for your baby
Decreased likelihood of varicose veins
Less likely to require a caesarian delivery
More rapid return to pre-pregnancy weight
Leaner children up to 5 years after delivery
Increased fitness for delivery & for toting around your new baby stroller and diaper bag

When you find out your pregnant you worry is it safe to exercise or is it safe to start exercising? The anewer is as long as there is no complications and your mw has giving you the go ahead, then its very safe to continue and start exercising.

Remember you are exercising to stay fit and healthy, not to loose weight or to break any records, as long as there is no complication than you can continue where you left off, once you reach third trimester you will naturally slow it down because of how you feel.

You need to really listen to your body, do not over do it, make sure that after exercising you feel the baby move, if your tired stop, if you don't feel well stop. Keep hydrated make sure your body temperature doesn't rise to much and you can still talk properly during the exercise. heart rate shouldn’t climb higher than 70-75% of maximum (HR maximum = 220-age) and body temp should get no higher than 38 degrees.

Beginners don't suddenly start sprinting or lifting weights, pick a dental exercise such as swimming or cycling, don't suddenly expect to do spin or cross fit, you are building a new life which takes it out of you, so do things slowly.

Do not do floor ab workouts such as sit ups and crunches, do standing ab workouts, such as draw your belly into spine like you would if your doing a tight pair of jeans up. Plank is excellent, and also standing crunches, lean to one side when stood up straight, then stand back up, then lean to other side.

Weight training is proven to be very beneficial whilst pregnant, just use lower weights and higher reps, don't do any exercise which means lying flat on the bench.

Glute exercises

Everyone wants a nice bum, to achieve that the following exercises will help:

Squat

Lunges

One-Legged Cable Kickback

Physioball Hip Bridge

Single Leg Glute Bridge
 
Step-up with Knee Raise

Ankle On The Knee

Barbell Glute Bridge

Barbell Hip Thrust
 
Butt Lift (Bridge)

Flutter Kicks

Glute Kickback
 
Hip Extension with Bands

Hip Lift with Band

Knee Across The Body

Kneeling Jump Squat

Kneeling Squat

Leg Lift
 
One Knee To Chest

Food

As diets go people think eating 1500 calories or less is the way to go and will help with weightloss. Wrong, you are putting your body into starvation mode which means if you do lose weight, you will actually gain more when you put it back on, your making your body burn muscle and getting your body to fling on to the fat.

People who are serious about exercise, especially weight lifting are eating 2000+ calories a day, and normally have to keep upping the calories the more muscle they have built.

That seems a scary amount to some people and they think oh my I will get fat. Wrong, you need to fuel your body, you cannot build muscle on nothing, you need to gain weight to help build the muscle.

I am not tellin you to go eat 2000 calories and as long as your doing exercise you will loose weight, or gain mass amount of muscle. You need to take it slow, so if your on 1200 calories you will need to build up slowly, so increase your calories slowly and up your carbs slowly, that way you can monitor your weight and if it stalls or you gain then to lower the calories a little bit till you start loosing weight again.

If you follow iifym than this is known as reverse dieting,basically in lamen terms you are re training your metabolism and speeding it back up, or re tuning your body.

Remember fuel your body, like a car with no petrol it will not go any were, your body is exactly the same thing.

Meal plan and clean eating website

A basic meal plan:

Breakfast: 3 egg omelette now if you fancy saving your fat then have egg white omelette, have it with onions peppers and tomatoes to get in all the important micronutrients and maybe some bacon

Snack: a fruit smoothie mixed with protein powder and maybe oats if you want some extra healthy carbs

Lunch: lean grilled meat or fish, a sweet potato, salad and maybe some cheese, for healthy fats protein and carbs, the meat could be marinated

Snack: rice cakes, with nut butter/ veg stick with humous/ dried fruit

Dinner: sweet potato chips, steak and mixed veg,

Now you can make anything as long as it includes healthy fats protein and carbs and has plenty of veg or salad to bulk up your meal with free calories really

For me I love Kitchen shed this website is a clean eating website in the uk, it has lots of recipes and also gives sample meal plans which are a lot more exciting than the one I have given, so go give it a look

Abdominal exercises

To get abs you really need to shred the fat that is covering, then you need to do a variation of exercise to strengthen all the abs

Plank
Get into the press up position, keep your back flat and bum down, hold that position for 30-60 seconds.

There are other variations, such as on your elbows, one leg up, side plank, side plank with one leg and arm up

Plank with oblique twists, plank position and move knee to elbow and back again, then repeat on other side

Swiss ball Jack knife

Begin in a press-up position with your feet resting on a Swiss ball, Your body should form a straight line from feet to head.

Without rounding your lower back, contract your abs and use your feet to pull the ball toward your chest by bending your knees, return to starting position

V ups

Lie on your back with arms and legs outstretched.

Keeping them straight, bring your arms and legs together by crunching up from the abs.

Hands and feet should meet in the middle.

Slowly return to the starting position ensuring there is constant tension on the abs

Reverse crunch
Lie on the floor, lift your legs up in the air, keypads beside you, lift bottom off the floor then back down, keep legs as straight as you can ad when lifting aim for the ceiling

Russian twists
Sit on the floor, for easy version keep feet planted, for harder raise your feet, tilt your back back, then put your arms in front of you, twist your upper body to the side then back to centre than to the other side, to make it harder hold a weight

Leg lifts
Lie on through floor legs straight in front of you, slowly raise your legs off the floor, up to the ceiling then back down again, keep everything else on the floor and contract (pull abs to spine) when lifting legs

Bicycle crunches
When you crunch up, bring opposite knee to elbow and repeat, getting faster as you get more used to it

Scissor kicks
Lie on the floor, raise legs up and the cross es over each other as you lower and raise your legs

Where i started

I wont sit here and tell you I have always been fit and healthy, that would be a lie, I will also not sit here and tell you I loved exercise, I used to try everything to get out of p.e at school, rounder's, netball, not my cup of tea in the slightest.

I have never been fat but maybe a chubby teenager where your puppy fat clings on till your hormones have sorted themselves out then I lost all my puppy fat and became the slim me that I am now, I was skinny back then, maybe to skinny.

I loved football and used to play all the time, the reason I stopped was a foot injury, this was around the time i found my love of theory side of sport, I was still not healthy food wise though, still ate what I wanted.

I fell pregnant in 2010 and carried on eating what I wanted, I was working around 40 hours a week so certainly wasn't exercising, I didn't have the healthiest of pregnancies, with kidney infections and then pre eclampsia and gained 2 stone with Dylan, It did hit me what i was eating was going to him so my eating habits changed.

After he was born i snapped back very quickly, I however then realised how soft I was and that was when I started exercising, I did Zumba, and some exercise DVD's I became a cardio junkie really, my eating habits had long changed, in with healthy meals and healthy snacks.

I fell pregnant in 2013 with my second child and really learnt about how to exercise safely during pregnancy with body temp and heart rate, i carried on eating healthy and had a better pregnancy had complications and kidney infections but i knew that was down to pot luck rather than me.

After she was born I carried on exercising but started to add weights so I could tone up, get stronger and fitter as looking at pictures I realised how skinny I was and that it really wasn't nice and I wanted my children to see me as strong not skinny.

I joined a gym in 2014, and then in 2015 I got a job working in that gym, it has been only recently that I have stopped half heartedly doing things in the gym but started to properly follow a programme which will hopefully change my body and mind set

Cardiovascular v weights

There are loads of posts on this, and it's slowly starting to hit that weights isn't bad especially for women, now I will not sit here and tell you not to do cardio as it is excellent for your heart and a lot of people generally enjoy it, such as going for a long walk, a run, swimming etc..

People are not educated properly about weighs, women think using weights will make them huge, wrong, it is not easy to build muscle as many body builders will tell you, it takes a lot of training and lots of effort.

Women do not have as much testosterone as men and that is needed to build big muscles, using weights will build muscle, it will tone your body and it will speed up your metabolism, it will make you look and feel better about yourself.

Doing cardio will make you burn lots of calories in a session, but the afterburner isn't that amazing, you stop buying calories afterwards, where as weights may not burn that many calories during a session, but the after burn is great, you carry on burning calories after working out and your metabolism is sped up so what you eat will be burnt off quicker.

How to stay motivated

How to stay motivated? Now this is a qood question... For example I joined a gym in September two years ago with all good intentions of going 3-5 times a week and I had my dream body in my head...

Reality hit very quickly... I didn't manage to go 3-5 times every week, I lost focus I couldn't be bothered to leave my house, watching tv on the sofa was a better idea, I then carried on looking at pictures on Instagram and seeing how these people were digging deep and going to the gym..

After Christmas I started going to the gym again, I then got a job in my local gym which then put going to gym on the back seat!

However fast forward to this year and after Christmas I started going to the gym in the evenings when I wasn't working, I have however been ill on and off since Feb which has made it really hard but I have dug deep and carried on going to the gym, I started a programme which has helped me because if I miss a day due to work I then carry on where I left off, so if it takes me two extra weeks to complete so what I will complete this programme

My motivation is my children 

 

I also take pictures of my self so I can see where I am and then I can compare them to where I was so then I can carry on motivating my self,

This is where I was last year, when I look at them to now I can see how I have improved so much and this helps me carry on going.

So my advise to you is to find something that you want and keep going, whe there it is to fit in to clothes that used to fit you or an outfit that is a size smaller or bigger, keep trying it on and keep going.. Remember a few weeks off won't hurt you just need to pick your self up and keep going.

Promise yourself a little reward, take it day by day and to make little changes, keep telling yourself how you are worth it and also do things with people as that way you can motivate each other.

If you don't feel like going to the gym one day then don't go, relax rest and fuel your body, the next day I promis you, you will go to the gym and you will smash it, you will feel amazing because you have listened to your body and feel so much better because you will realise the world didn't end because you didn't go, but also because you managed to go the next day 

Have intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, internal and external, new fitness clothes, new outfit, spa day etc.. Measurements pictures etc have pictures of you before you began and get them out when you feel bad so you can then see how far you have come and why you did it! Write it all down in a journal so you can get it out and re read when you feel down and remember you are changing your life for the better

Mental fitness and health

People always say I want to loose weight, gain weight, join a gym etc, but do they actually want to do it or are they just saying it because they think they need to?

With anything you cannot loose weight, stay motivated at a gym if you really don't want to do it.

The thing that annoys me the most is how people set un realistic goals don't listen to any one when they say they are unrealistic and then throw in the towel at the first hurdle, its like come on what is the point...

If you really want to loose weight then you need a reason why, something that will make you want to stick to it no matter what, even when people are waving bags of chips and chocolate bars in your face and you are thinking oh what ever let me eat them, even when you step on the scales and it tells you, you have gained a 1lb...

Once you have that reason be it family, be it because you are so disgusted with your body, want to run a marathon etc.. then you need to set your self little realistic goals and to change things, out go the rubbish in your cupboards, fruit bowl is filled with multi coloured fruit, salad box full, chicken and fish in fridge and freezer.. rice cakes dried fruit in your cupboard, you are set and ready..

This all sounds so easy doesn't it? but the hard part is you, in your head, your mentality, mental health is one of the main areas that will let you down in life because we all want the easy way out, all have the ability to quit when the going gets tough, throw in the towel.

So to try and get over this, set external and internal goals, like for example find an outfit in a size smaller than you are and buy it and use it as your goal to get into it, with every 1lb you loose put a 1lb in a pot and when you have reached your first target go and buy your self something nice, or have a pamper session, hair, make up, a spa, etc things that will make you feel better about your self.

Once you get going you can set fitness targets, I want to run a 5k in 30 minutes etc, and keep setting targets to get stronger, to get fitter, things that help you keep going, take pictures, that way if you do slip up or feel like throwing the towel in, take the pictures out and look at how far you have come, and remember why you have started this in the first place.

Another is to talk to people, write it down, set up a blog, ways to help you, and remember if you cant love your self than how can you expect others too

I went to a talk with Jillian Michaels and she said you need to find your why and then your how will follow, you cannot have your how without your why, and it is very true, most people do a job they hate just because they have got themselves in a rut, bills need to be paid, they count down e seconds the minute they walk through the door.. Now that's like the gym for some people they do it because they feel they have to, however there is so much exercise to do, find a class you really enjoy, an activity, what is the point in doing something you hate? 

Cheat meal v 80/20

Cheat meal, most people know what they are, most people have one or two a week, however are they everything they are cracked up to be? You eat clean very healthy food all week, stick to foods such as rice, fish and veg really looking forward to the weekend where you are going to enjoy pizza, chips, maybe a burger and ice cream, now can you see what is wrong with this scenario?

If you were to track your cheat meal you would probably realise it's turned into a cheat day, maybe cheat weekend with the view on Monday i will eat clean again. Now also whilst tracking you have probably realised you have actually eaten a good 2000 calories + which means you have prob un done all of your hard work in one day, now if you are trying to loose weight and each week the scale isn't moving and you are getting discouraged, maybe this is why?

So this leads to the other scenario eating 80/20 meaning eating healthily for 80% of the time and the other 20 you have what you want, be it a slice of cake, a slice of pizza or even an ice cream.. This means you can have a few treats a day and it won't do any damage to your diet because you haven't gone stupid and everything is counted into your diet

Which one of the two sounds better to you? Me I would personally do the 80/20 rule because I'd rather eat cake and not feel guilty about it, now I am not saying it's wrong to have a cheat meal, or weekend, we are human and what's the point of things if we can't enjoy it?

However we all need to be accountable for our actions and realise where we are going wrong, so if you are having cheat weekends and struggling with weight loss maybe this is the reason why!