Its all about portion control....

Portion Sizes

So, now you have an idea of WHAT food you should be eating, the next step is HOW MUCH?  A pitfall of many, knowing what a portion of the various dietary components should be is vital, whether you are trying to lose weight, build lean muscle mass or even maintain a healthy weight.  Here is a brief guide to the portion sizes of the 3 food groups...

Carbohydrates

This refers to the complex carbohydrates which are the ones you will need to keep an eye on

• three tablespoons of breakfast cereal/40g porridge oats
• one large slice of bread (wholegrain)
• one small baked potato (NB - sweet potatoes are better than white, and delicious!)
• 4/5 small boiled potatoes
• 4 tablespoons of boiled pasta (wholewheat)
• 3 tablespoons of boiled rice (brown)

 

Protein

A portion of protein (lean meat) should  be around 3oz (around 20g protein) which is about the size of a deck of playing cards,  (white fish is 50% more) A few examples of a portion would be a medium chicken breast, 1 tin of tuna/salmon/mackerel, half a tub of cottage cheese (around 150g), 2 whole eggs and 1 white. 

Fruit and Vegetables

Fruit will certainly have its place, but make vegetables your friend!  You will want no more than 2/3 portions of fruit a day, but you can pretty much go for unlimited vegetables!

Fruit – 1 banana, 1 large apple, 1 pear, 1 large orange, 2 satsuma’s, 3 plums, 3 tablespoons of blueberries/raspberries/blackcurrants, 10 strawberries

Vegetables – A nice hearty choice for dinner, but also good at lunch, choose 2/3 of the following – broccoli or cauliflower (5 large florets for each), spinach, kale or green beans (3 heaped cooked tablespoons), aubergine (1/3^rd), mushrooms (4/5) – pretty much anything goes, but aim for the focus to be dark green vegetables, and some white (hence the mushrooms and aubergine – this does not include potatoes!)

A nice alternative to having a side of vegetables is a stir fry – half of one of the ready made bags from the supermarket is ideal, and so quick and easy.  Or make your own, include beansprouts, mushrooms, cabbage, carrots, peppers, and anything dark green!  Instead of using a sauce to flavour the stir fry, add ginger, garlic, chilli flakes and lemon or lime juice!

Salad - a good light and minimal effort choice at lunch times, especially if you eat on the go! Choose 2/3 of the following – spinach (3 cooked tablespoons), or any dark green leaves, beetroot (1 large), tomatoes (2 medium, or 8-10 cherry), peppers (1/2 a pepper), carrots (1 large), green beans (3 heaped tablespoons), celery (2 stalks), mushrooms (5 large)  ) Dress salads with dressing of ½ a lemon or balsamic vinegar and 1tbs of good olive oil, (you can add a herb to it too if you fancy!)– Try and make your lunches bright and colourful with red, orange and purple vegetables!

 

Snacks – 2 a day, spaced between the main meals

10 almonds or 5 brazil nuts and an apple/pear/orange

1 boiled egg and carrot sticks (1 carrot), mange tout (8-10) or 10 olives

½ a tub of cottage cheese and an apple/pear/orange

½ tub cottage cheese with carrot sticks/mange tout

1 small pot of yoghurt or 200g low fat Greek yoghurt and mixed berries (2/3tablespoons)

Banana and protein shake if you choose to use them – 1 scoop (ideal mid morning, or after your workout)

 

Hope ya find this helpful, and any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

SC xx

Nutrition....Back to Basics.

Hi all!

For many this will be far too basic, but its surprising how many people don't have a basic understanding of the main food groups and what we need them for, so for those, here ya go...

 

Dietary components

Food consists of 4 main components.  This first one is water, which I will deal with quickly by saying DRINK LOTS OF IT!!  Aim to build up to 2 litres a day if not more.

The other 3 are Carbohydrates, Protein and Fat.

 

1.    CARBOHYRATES

These are the foods which contain sugars and starches which provide energy, so they are our fuel source.  These would be cereals, bread, rice and potatoes.

For anyone who has tried the high protein, low carbohydrate style diets, you wouldn’t expect your car to work effectively, if at all by filling it with water, so why do a similar thing to your body!

There are 2 types of carbohydrate

1)    Complex Carbohydrate (GOOD)– take longer to be broken down by the body.  It is broken down into a substance called glycogen, which is stored in the liver until your muscles need it for energy. These would be your wholegrain rice, jacket potato, wholemeal bread, oats etc.

 

2)   Simple Carbohydrates (BAD) – These break down extremely quickly and are released into the blood stream really fast – causing blood sugar levels to spike quickly.  This causes your body to release a substance called insulin which takes the sugar out of your bloodstream and, if it’s not used immediately, it will be stored as fat! Sorry, but as you guessed, these would be your sweets, chocolates, white bread, crisps.

So, with carbohydrates, the key to success is getting the correct amount of GOOD Carbohydrates, and eating the majority of them when you know you will need energy (to start off your day, and at regular intervals throughout to keep your energy balanced).

2.   PROTEIN

Where carbohydrates are the fuel, protein are the building blocks. They are essential components of living cells – your muscles/organs are MADE of protein.

During exercise, you cause microscopic tears in your muscle fibres.  With good nutrition and rest, these repair and are able to handle similar, if not more intense exercise with less damage in the future.

Protein is essential to maintaining your muscle mass and repairing muscle fibres following exercise - and as you now know, the more muscle fibres you have/make, the higher your metabolism is!

White meat and white fish are both high protein and low fat.  Red meats and oily fish tend to be higher in fat so are not ideal for daily intake..  However, once a week for red meat, and 2/3 times a week for oily fish is recommended.  Day to day, chicken, tuna, turkey and prawns are great!  Eggs are also good – there is a hell of a lot of good nutrition in the yolk, but you can keep the calorie intake down by only eating 1 yolk per day (the egg yolk is around 60 calories, while the white is only around 15 calories!)

Cheese, while high in protein, is also high in fat so limit the amount you eat.

3.   FATS

Never completely eliminate fats.  It is an essential part of your diet! It is crucial in the body, acting as a fuel source and is needed to break down certain vitamins and minerals essential to daily functions.  However, as you probably already know, too much is not good for your health or your waistline. 

Unsaturated fats/oils are needed to encourage the body to use/metabolise its stored fat for energy. There are numerous healthy oil sources/essential fatty acid supplements available, but trying to incorporate oily fish (salmon, mackerel) a couple of times a week is better- if you can get it from real food, then do so!  Ill touch more on supplements at a later date.

Remember, you can’t out train a bad diet!

SC xx

So, why do you keep banging on about lifting weights and building muscle woman!?

Body Composition

There is a reason why lifting weights and building muscle is beneficial for weight loss, but for most people it isn’t clear why.  I’ll try to explain...

Muscle is a living tissue.  Like all living things it needs energy (in this case calories) to survive.   And this is something I will say only once......

GIRLS WONT GET BIGGER LIFTING WEIGHTS!!!!!!

Unless you are taking some kind of dubious supplements, women aren’t made that way.  Being able to get huge muscles requires testosterone, which is something the boys corner the market on.  However, while we won’t get bigger, we will get stronger.

The stronger a muscle is, the more muscle fibres it has.  A good example would be to imagine you are planning a party.  The room the party is in would be the muscle, and the guests would be the muscle fibres.  If 5 people turn up, the room would stay the same size, but the space available for each person would be less.  If another 10 people turn up, again, the room would stay exactly the same size, but the guests would each have less room/be more compacted.  Also, the more people in the room, the heavier the total weight of the guests in the room!  The same applies to muscle - will become denser, and weigh more, but it will NOT get any bigger.

 The more effort you put in to inviting people, the more people come, (which translates to the more resistance exercise you do, the more muscle fibres you make!)  Now, these people need to be fed – it would take a hell of a lot more food to feed 20 people than 5 – and again, the more muscle fibres you have, the more energy/calories your body will need to maintain itself day to day! – This is how building lean muscle is key to increasing your metabolism. The higher your metabolism, the more fat you will burn over the course of 24hrs.

The above picture shows how focusing on changing overall body composition is far more beneficial than just looking at the number on the scales.

There are 2 types of exercise which are vitally important to changing your body shape and composition.

1.    Cardiovascular exercise (walking, running, swimming – exercises that get you out of breath). This form of exercise will burn fat and raise your metabolism for the rest of the day.

2.   Resistance exercises (push ups, squats, lifting weights) this will increase the amount of muscle fibres you have.  The more muscle fibres you have, the more calories your body needs to survive, so the more calories you will burn over a 24hr period.

By incorporating both forms of exercise, you will gradually decrease the amount of fat on your body, but also increase your metabolism by having more muscle fibres!

That’s the exercise part.  The other vital component of your success is changing how/what you eat.  Both need to happen for you to lose weight and tone up. I’ll cover that next...... J

SC

And so it begins.......

Hi All!

As promised, here is my blog.  I guess I should outline who I am, ya know, just to be polite J  My name is Sara, and I am a former Academic turned Personal Trainer (bit of a curve ball I know, but if you are going to change it up, you may as well do it properly J) I won’t bore anyone with my qualifications, if you are interested they are on the website (www.sc-fitness.co.uk )

This isn’t going to be a personal blog, more a forum to answer the questions that I regularly get thrown at me and also to let those who are interested know what I am up to with my own training/fitness goals.

Ill be aiming to cover some of the basics straight off,  and work through a backlog of commonly raised issues, but if anyone has any suggestions or a question about anything about fitness or nutrition, just fire away and I will do my best to give you the information you desire or point you in the right direction....

Happy reading!

SC