FAQs

YES, you have to eat breakfast every day! It is ‘the most important meal’ for numerous reasons!

Firstly; eating breakfast gets calories/fuel into your body so you can have a more energetic day.

Secondly; eating breakfast awakens your body – meaning it kick-starts your fat burning mode as your body increases its metabolic ‘fast’ rate from its ‘slow’ rate when you are sleeping.

Ideally 5-7 weeks should be sufficient time to lose 14lbs of weight (as fat) following a strict exercise and nutrition programme. That means that losing 2-3lb a week will be required. This should be done by reducing your calorie intake by 500 calories and increasing your exercise expenditure by 500 calories every day.

This should equate to 1 hours activity for all and women taking 1500 calories and men 2000 calories of food per day.

If you are eating only 2 meals per day then the chances are that these 2 meals are very big in size and are 7-8 hours apart.

This has 2 negative effects.
1. Too many calories in each meal means our body uses a portion of the meal for the next 3-4 hours and stores the remaining (as Fat).
2. The large gap in eating times gives an indication to our body that we should store the food when we get it. It slows our metabolic fat burning rate down as it is unsure when our next meal will be.

Solution? Eat 5-6 small regular meals!!

The key to any weight gain guide is preparation. Ideal training programme must be in place in order to break down or muscles during training, adequate recovery between exercise days and increased calories and protein- (doesn’t really make sense.)

Calories for a man looking for hypertrophy should be in excess of 3500 with protein making up 450-500 calories of this diet (Based on 70kg man). This means 1.5-1.7g/kg of your bodyweight should be being taken as protein.

The simple answer is NO. Food should only be used as a fuel to get us through our day to day life and the quickest form of fuel comes from our carbohydrates. Celebrity ‘fad’ diets has us all thinking that carbs are bad and are fatty! This is wrong, but what is also wrong is that as a society we eat far too much of EVERYTHING.

We need to balance our diet, go back to basics and include 65% carbohydrates (more for sporting individuals) in our daily intake – made up of some breads, pastas etc and also from fruit and vegetables. This should be balanced with 15% protein and 20% good fats (which are also important).

For maximum calorie burn, hog the treadmill. On average it takes 14 minutes to burn 200 calories on the treadmill compared to 16 on ski machine, 21 on the rower and 29 on the bike.

By supporting your whole bodyweight and working your major muscle groups you expend the most energy.

3x12 -80% max with 48 hours rest. To achieve maximum growth, doing 3 sets of 12 repetitions using 80% of your single repetition max (SRM) with 48 hours rest is the perfect formula.

This brings muscular adoptions, literally by ripping the fibres so they repair and rebuild bigger and 48 hours rest is adequate for the fibres to heal.

Previous thinking was that working slow and steady at 65-70% of maximum heart rate (MHR) was the best way to burn fat. However, the best way to increase fat burning rate, while also increasing fitness is by doing high intense interval sessions.

Begin by finding your MHR (207 – (age x 0.7) = mhr) and working out your heart rate for the programme shown below, then watch the pounds drop off. e.g. a 30 year old man would have MHR of 186 bpm.

Run 45secs @ 65% mhr then..
..run 45secs @ 85% mhr – (Do 4 sets of 8 repetitions with 1 min between sets for maximum burn)

Studies have shown that there are particular times which have been proven to raise your metabolic rate, for example exercising at 9am and/or 3pm for 30minutes 4/5 times per week. However, these are peak working hours for 90% of the population and are therefore rendered unfeasible.

Both from experience and from current results, exercising in the morning has provided better results in the majority of individuals than training in the evening. This is due to committing to a programme and routine and not providing the mind with an option on when to train. i.e. when training early you are motivated and focused (and ‘just do it’- what, are you part of the Nike campaign!?) as opposed to planning training for the evening when the day’s events have often decreased motivational levels, hence you have a ‘ill to it tomorrow’ attitude. Ideally, you have to outline a goal, stick to a time that suits work and family and FIT IT IN.

The stomach area is where most of our fat stores (adipose tissue) are. This is also just stored energy which we need to burn off. Many people get concerned with it, want to lose it and therefore focus training only on it. This is not necessarily beneficial as our body cannot ‘spot reduce,’ meaning working only this area won’t always burn fat off it.

Getting the calorie balance correct is fundamental. In addition, working all of our muscle groups and mixing 30-40 mins of cardio with total body resistance exercises 4 times per week will increase our fat burning potential and reduce the size of all our self-conscious areas.