Discussions around the dinner table, at work, with relatives and now even with child revolve around ‘how much you weigh / have lost / put on’ etc.

Our subconscious is primed with images of slim celebrities who ‘look fabulous’ and ultimately as a culture we now model ourselves on these body types and images.

Time to take check and propose that all is not what it seems. In fact I would argue that what the scales demonstrate is very little in terms of what state of health, fitness and ‘looks’ you are in.

For example you can be fit but not necessarily very healthy. What do I mean by this? Well, as Barry Sears author of Toxic Fat argues, skinny people may not possess a genetic disposition to store body fat in visible areas (bums, legs and tums). They do however, possess the not-so-good ability to convert fatty acids into excess free radicals that wreak havoc upon us causing us to age early, fall ill, cannibalise muscle to be used as fuel and weaken our bones.

So ‘no’ the skinny bitch can’t eat anything she likes and not put on a pinch. It doesn’t work like that. I mean think of it like this? Do you honestly think that you can-not be effected by a diet of cigarettes, coffee, skipped meals and special K for breakfast? Delusional. Mad. Call it what you want.

So, what do the scales tell us? Ultimately they tell us our weight. But weight of what? We are made up of muscle, fat, water, a connective frame that includes bone, tendons ligaments etc etc.

And what about the skinny work collegue? How much inflammation is she dealing with on a deeper level? ( If you would like to know how then I suggest you take a live blood analysis consultation. You will see first hand how ‘clean’ your blood is and ultimately how healthy you are)

It is disheartening to see so many of us become hung up on our weight and what the scales say. Your weight can fluctuate throughout the day. No one knows the exact why this happens. Some scientists propose that it could be to do with your fluid levels. But imagine hopping on the scales after a gym session and seeing you lost 2lbs. Great. Later on in the day, the scales creep back up 2lbs. Disappointment sets in. You may even think about quitting.

Celebrities lose weight at an astronomical weight. 7lbs in 2 weeks. 4lbs in a day with the new ‘wraps’. 40lbs in 6 weeks was the best one I heard. What is actually happening?

Lean bodies with good levels of health determined by blood tests will possess 10% of their body weight as fat in males and between 14-16% in females. Visible muscle definition will be evident.

Who would you put in this class? Models? Fitness Professionals? Celebrities? The cast of Desperate Housewives?

Well, think again. Models possess very high levels of body fat, up in around the 20% range. How can this be? Their diets that force them to eat skinny i.e. below what they would need in terms of their daily calorific amount to maintain their weight coupled with a diet rich in cigarettes, alcohol, stress and zero exercise will force them to burn fat AND muscle.

They are sick and tired. The scales say one thing, their vicious mood swings, aging skin and lack of muscle tone says another.

What about the BMI and all these Liquid ‘Get Slim Quick Formulas? An Olympic rower around 16 stone and 6 foot 4 is categorised as ‘Obese’ by the BMI. It neglects to look at body a fat level which in all cases is below 10%. Try telling 4 time Olympic Gold Medallist, Steve Redgrave he is obese!

Equally the liquid get slim quick diets are a complete joke. How can sipping away for 2-3 meals a day on a cocktail of artificial colourings, sweeteners devoid of ALL nutrients be good for you?

Fat stores are depleted from our muscles and liver. But our muscles are also depleted as our bodies, like hunger starved dogs, search for their next source of energy – your muscles and the protein that is contained within.

Try and embrace how much body fat you are carrying over what the scales tell you. A skilled exercise physiologist will be able to measure your body fat levels. Better still, just aim to get healthier. Have you ever seen a healthy fat person?

Is it as easy as drinking your food? No. Is it as easy as relying solely on the scales? No. Keep focused on your body fat levels. Have them accurately taken and then set about meeting the challenge. The bikini body is about to be unravelled and the age of the ‘skinny fat’ will be long gone.

John Lark is a personal trainer in dublin.

Compare this to Organic Wild Salmon. It doesn’t even get a mention in Reader’s Digest.
If you are looking to shrink your waistline and reduce your level of body fat then keep things simple and prevent falling victim to the marketing hype.

For example, the ‘low fat’ label that is attached to most, if not all, ‘healthy’ products is misleading and just scandalous.
How can a cereal bar packed full of sugar in its flimsy 100 calorie frame be anything more than a recipe for waistline disaster?

First of all, products like this that are ‘low in fat’ are also low in nutrients. They are devoid of vitamins and minerals that provide with life, vitality and energy.

Compare the Jaffa Cake to the humble Orange.  Both are low in calories. Yet one has more nutrients – can you tell which one?

Yoghurt is healthy enough without an added 2 teaspoons of sugar, masked with all the health benefits of healthy bacteria that is good for your gut.

If you want healthy bacteria then take a supplement. A quick swig on a pot that wouldn’t feed a toddler isn’t going to do it.
The problem with the ‘low fat’ staples is that they are just that – low in fat.

Food manufacturers remove key nutrients from the food to make it taste better. Ever wondered why you just can’t stop at one biscuit?

Biscuits, cakes and other processed ‘low fat items’ are also rich in things like inverted sugar syrup, glucose-fructose syrup and such like. These are as bad, if not worse, than consuming sugar. Take sugar, distort its chemical make-up and bingo you have the main part of what is your cereal bar.

We need fat. Good fats. The fats you find in nuts, seeds, oils such as avocado, walnut, hemp, olive and fish oil.
We even need saturated fat. The fat that comes with good old coconut oil and raw butter.

If you can imagine your body being nothing more than a complex network of cells that make up  our organs, skin, hair and body parts then you will see why.

Each one of these cells has an outer wall called a membrane. This membrane is made up of fat. All sorts of bodily reactions are dependant on this membrane doing its job. It must allow hormones in to allow a reaction to occur inside the cell. It must allow

substances out too, like the release  of body fat from adipose tissue.
A diet that has a sensible mix of fat will ensure that this membrane does its job. Stuff comes in, stuff comes out.

Can you imagine if it didn’t? Hormones, nutrients and fluids would not be allowed in (or find it very tough) and other substances would find it hard to get in too.
Becoming a fat-phobic will do nothing for your waistline or your health.
However, the devil is always in the detail.

If you are on a calorie controlled nutrition plan then you would be wise to ensure that you don’t use this to splurge on your favourite double cream.

Instead work it into your calorie budget. If you know that you can maintain your weight on 1800 calories then think before you use these up in one feast of steak and raw butter.
Rest assured you will get fat if you eat over your calorie allowance, even if it is considered ‘healthy’.

It is, however, not surprising that once you remove all the processed and packaged foods from your calorie budget how much you have room for the foods that provide you with all the tools necessary to reach your health and fitness goals.

Fish, good quality meats, vegetables and good old-fashioned healthy fats.

John Lark is a personal trainer in maynooth. Contact us now for your no obligation assessment.

I love the calorie debate.

Eat less (consume less calories than you need to run the engine) and do more exercise.

Simple. How many times have we been told this?
The truth is we DO eat too much and we DO very little exercise.

But what if you are careful about what you eat. You know you never eat to excess, drink a few glasses of wine a week, exercise by taking walks etc etc.

You know who you are. At least you may have a friend who seems to fit the above.

Yet still the fat loss efforts are stuck.

The calorie control approach to weight loss does have some merit. If you have the attention to detail of an accountant and actually enjoy counting calories then this approach may work.

It is the first step that we ask our clients to do. Tedious – yes. Necessary – absolutely. Without it you will be guessing your nutrition. You will be guessing how much you eat, when you eat it and what you unconsciously do with food.

Grab a pen and a pad and start to jot down everything you eat and drink for a minimum of 7-10 days.
Suddenly those half-a-dozen biscuits with your tea at 9pm suddenly appear as less appealing when they are in pen and ink.

Weight loss, however, is habit forming not calorie counting.

Why are we so fat?

Because we have chosen foods that work against us in the grand evolutionary scale.

We have acquired the habit of consuming too much sugar in our diets, too much grain, wheat and starches.

In essence our genetic code hasn’t changed on 50,000 years since our Paleolithic Ancestors. So why is it we consume foods that are at best 10,000 years old?

In fact the process of refining grain and our widespread access to it is not even this old. Some may argue that this has happened globally since the 1950s.

In Ireland we consume too much Alcohol.

My time in Europe this year working with some of the best strength coaches in the world was filled with one enlightening observation about Irish Sport.

“Isn’t that 20 sweating alcoholics running around a field with sticks”

I couldn’t disagree with him.

“Ah yeah, isn’t that the country that pours beer on its cornflakes?”

Probably a bit of an exaggeration.

When I question alcohol intake above and beyond the norms, I am looked at like I am from another planet.

Is there an in-built gene in the Irish that thinks that the rest of the world are not party animals if they don’t have 20 pints when they hit the town?

When it comes to fat loss, habit forming takes time. 21 days per habit if you go by the scientific literature.

I don’t think there is anyone one in the world who can seemingly flick a switch and change they way they behave, eat, train and live overnight.

So accept that firstly this will take time. And then set up a plan to change one habit at a time. Review this weekly. Be in a position to measure your progress.

If, for example, I asked you to have meat and nuts for breakfast every morning, a week later how compliant would you be?

7 mornings out of 7 is 100%. Great.

1 morning out of 7 is 14%. Still needs some work.

Until you nail this habit there is little point focusing on another. I like to use the phrase “Chase One Rabbit at a time”.
The skill comes in identifying what habit to change first and then subsequent habits.

I was scratching my head one day to really crack what was going wrong with this client. She was doing everything right. I mean everything.

However, it wasn’t until I saw here out with her child with a can of coke in her hand that the penny dropped.

“How many of those, do you have a day?”

“Only a couple” she said

Those two cans of coke, with 10 teaspoons of sugar in each were shooting her insulin levels up and blunting her fat loss efforts. Take away the coke – take away the fat.

One habit changed was quickly followed by results.

My advice to you would be to write down your ‘bad’ habits, particularly the habits you are conscious of. Then in the opposite column write how you will change them.

Tackle one of these per week and watch the pounds fly off.

John Lark is a personal trainer in Dubin. He can be found at www.john-lark.com

“Never give in. Never. Never. Never. Never.” – Winston Churchill

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.” – Samuel Johnson

These quotes all say the same thing. No matter how many obstacles you run into, what matters is that you’re able to overcome each of them, one at a time.

“Two steps forward, one step back” is usually a negative term to describe someone who is having trouble making progress. But switched around, “1 Step Back, 2 Steps Forward” means that instead of grousing or feeling guilty about a misstep, you can still come out ahead if you put your head down and push forward.

And it is about this time of year that the early New Years enthusiasm begins to really be tested.

Steps back can take many forms: a family vacation, breaks in your routine, personal tragedies, injuries, or that lost weekend in front of the tube.

A big mistake people make when trying to get healthier is that when they fall off a bit or something happens, they think they “have to start over”.

Wrong! When missteps do happen, a better strategy is to simply take two steps forward. You’re still ahead of where you were before, far beyond the starting line.

In tennis, losing one point isn’t the end of the world. It happens to the best of them. In fact, if you can consistently win a few more points that you lose, you may end up in the hall of fame.

With healthy eating and exercising, as long as you’re consistently out-stepping your steps back, you’re ahead of the game. If you expect perfection (and many of us do), you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and guilt.

That is why trying to chase 100 per cent compliance is futile. We have found that 90 per cent is enough. Is that taking a step backwards? No. It is setting yourself up to take a step back allowing you to recharge your batteries and go at the diet train again the following week.

Guilt can be debilitating to your healthy habits. When you mess up (or even when things are messed up for you), it’s natural to feel guilty. At that point, you have a choice: to let that guilt plummet you into a cycle that could spit you out worse off than before, or to accept the step back and say “where do I go from here?”

Of course, consistent success is still something to strive for. You don’t want to roller-coaster up and down.

That’s an “old” habit, remember? And the 1Step/2Step strategy doesn’t lessen the need to do your best. You should still work hard to keep those steps back from happening. But it helps to be prepared with a plan and a positive attitude for when they do happen.

Many times, this means a rededication, a refocusing, and a recommitment. You might want to look at your program and see why it’s allowing those landmines to stick around. Use it as a learning process. Ask how you can keep that misstep from happening again.

* Take a walk in the woods to clear your head and regroup.

* Have a personal “bounce back” motto that will re-energize you. Put it everywhere.

* Take a break if you think you’re trying too hard.

* Return to the basics. Are you making it too complicated and tough on yourself?

* Plan ahead for irregularities in your schedule, call ahead to healthy restaurants, pack healthy snacks.

* Stay aware of what you’re doing. One meal mess up can turn into a one day mess up, a one week mess up if you’re not careful.

* Remind yourself of your success so far when you need a boost.

Unlike people who run 10 miles today because they should have run two yesterday, “2 Steps Forward” doesn’t necessarily mean doing a lot more to make up for a blunder. Just make a commitment to do things as right as possible as much as you can.

Download your free fat loss report, sample workout and menu plan at www.john-lark.com your personal training in dublin team

Is it possible to enjoy one or two pints or glasses of wine within a health and fitness lifestyle? I believe you can. The problem comes when you are looking to lose fat.

You see alcohol is empty or dead calories. And no matter what you say when you are looking to lose fat then totalling up the number of glasses of wine you knocked back at the office night out or your nephew’s christening can seriously damage your daily calorific intake.

Imagine having a daily budget of 1500 calories and consuming 750 of those on wine or beer? That doesn’t leave much to take in fresh veggies, meats and fruits.

It comes back to the central principle of good eating – choose foods dense in nutrients over just the plain old fashioned ‘calories’. Choose an orange over a jaffa cake, a carrot over carrot cake, a cup of herbal tea over a latte or a huge bowl of freshly prepared salad over a plate of pasta.

So yes, in this respect alcohol will seriously frustrate your fat loss efforts. It is devoid of any nutrients and becomes empty calories.

I don’t know what it is with Irish and alcohol. There are several theories floating around from being the most Omega-3 deficient country in the world leading to heightened levels of stress and depression to the ingrained culture that surrounds the Irish and ‘craic’.

When some people are under stress, they resort to alcohol but it is not a solution — it can plunge them into further depths of despair.  Irish people consume more than 37 gallons or 296 pints of alcoholic drinks per person each year. In other words, the average Irish person drinks about 11.4 cups of an alcoholic drink each week.

At a deeper level try and shed those Man-boobs or ‘moobs’ as they are affection ally known with a diet rich in beer. It just won’t happen. The reason being is due to the lowering of male testosterone by alcohol leading to an increase in organ fat accumulation alongside an increase in our bodies’ stress hormones.

Ever seen the alcoholic’s Weight lifting team? No – neither have I.  In fact studies have shown that alcohol abuse will shrink your testosterone levels to that of a castrated rabbit leading to the obvious side effects. Ladies take note.

What’s more – have you ever noticed the munchies? These are direct result of your alcohol consumption and can add an additional 750 calories (Burger and Chips) to your daily intake. Again, a disaster if you are looking to burn fat.

So here are a few tips and tricks with regards to alcohol and burning fat:

1)    Alcohol has no place on a fat loss programme. Put a deadline on your fat loss programme and get ready to pop the cork on a bottle of Moet when you reach your goals. Leave the alcohol during your programme.

2)    Binge drinking has no place anywhere really, not if you want to maintain a fit and healthy lifestyle. The two just don’t sit well together.

3)    Try and avoid the munchies if you do head out at night – this can wreak havoc with your waistline. Fatty foods in particular will cause excessive fat gain.

4)    One or two glasses of red wine can actually be beneficial and included on a healthy maintenance programme once or twice a week. This is due to the high levels of Resveratol – a powerful antioxidant  and anti-cancer substance found in red wine. It goes without saying that under no circumstances should pregnant women drink alcohol. There is plenty of resveratol in dark grapes and boiled peanuts.

If you are able to handle it and are consuming, in particular red wine, in moderation then alcohol can be part of a healthy lifestyle. However, the trick is to know when enough is enough. If you are looking to burn fat then stay away all together.

Alcohol truly is a substance where the God is in the details and the dosage makes the poison.

John Lark is a fat loss specialist combining exercise, nutrition and lifestyle strategies. He is based at The Sphere Fitness Studio , Leinster Clinic, Maynooth.  Download your ‘5 Top Fat Loss Methods’ report at www.spherefitnesstudio.com ]]> http://spherefitnessstudio.com/fat-loss-and-alcohol/feed 0