Update on life and weight! 5th December 2013

Hi guys,
Updated you a little bit earlier via Instagram on everything but wanted to a bigger one here. As I posted earlier, this week I've been allowing myself to lie in a bit longer because I have exams next week but I feel pretty shit about it! Slacking on the workouts and exam work and focusing on social life right now making me feel a bit crap. I have soooo many nights out coming up it's actually unreal and I'm glad because this time last year I had none and was so unhappy but I'm trying to stay positive. I'm still staying healthy eating wise just wish I had time to fit everything in!!!
I definitely feel like my main focus is my health but right now I'm enjoying earning some money and going out with friends, even if that means having a beer or two a few nights a week, if I still eat clean and workout when I can I know I'll be fine.

The main focus of this blog is to tell you my weight! I did a post after my holiday in America about wanting to be 139lbs by Christmas. I did a whole post on the fact that I was the same weight I was when I started my fitness journey but I still look a hell of a lot different. Anyways, I know that some of that extra weight was fat, especially because I'd just been on holiday. So, I weighed myself when I went home on the 28th of November and I'm done 5.8lbs from my holiday!! I know this is a bad picture but I'm almost half way to my goal for Christmas already.
In just two weeks, of keeping up my cardio (haven't had time to do my weight training because of exams and I knew cardio was my main focus) and keeping it clean in the kitchen I've managed to lose 5lbs! Obviously, it just shows that this is mainly water weight and extra fat I was holding from my holiday but it just goes to show what hard work can do.
Up to Christmas is always a hard time because there's lots of nights out and exams and all that but I'm going to try my HARDEST to get to the 139lbs I want to be. I have 20 days so every day counts. And hopefully, on Christmas day I can relax about what I eat/drink and enjoy my Christmas and get right back to it because I know how badly I want to lose the extra fat from my holidays!
Anyway, thanks for reading again and just wanted to update you guys on that :) I'm very happy with what I've been doing and how hard I've been working.

How do I even start?

Hi guys,
So I got a question from one of my followers that basically asked me to make her a workout regime as she didn't really know what she should be doing for cardio and weight lifting. She does not have access to any classes at her gym but has access to a gym so here was my response. Thought this might help any others in the same situation :)

Hi :) thanks for trusting me with it!

Well I presume you are trying to lose weight so I suppose I'll just take it from there.

First of all, as you probably know, cardio is the way to lose weight. A lot of research has been done on fasted cardio which is the only cardio I do now. Dunno if you know what that is but basically when you wake up, work out (literally anything, running, elliptical or bike - I really like doing the bike for 30 minutes in the morning) but don't eat before hand. Literally make it the first thing you do in the morning. Also don't push it too hard in the morning, obviously you need to be sweating but not to the point where you get sick. I did a whole blog post on fasted morning cardio and it's one of the things I swear by!!

Another thing with cardio might be setting yourself a goal. For example, train to run a 10k (not necessarily a race, just by yourself) by the end of the year, which might encourage you to go out for runs. If you don't have a goal, you really have no real reason to push yourself!

Next, weight lifting. There are so many beginner articles and I live from bodybuilding.com haha, it's where I took my first strength training regime from. For you, you can do a two or three day split. With the two day, it's split into upper and lower body day and is more cardio based, obviously you're working a hell of a lot of muscles on the upper body day haha.

I prefer to do a three day split (did a two day for a couple of months and didn't see strength gains/results as much as I would've liked). There are soooooooo many options so I'm not even going to give you a set regime. Sometimes I even go to the gym with my base exercises (on my blog I've posted tons on this, link is in my bio of my instagram btw haha) and then I just end up googling back exercises for example and just do some extra sets! Then some days I only do like three different exercises but tons of sets on each. There is honestly such a wide variety of stuff you can do I cannot give you a set regime.

To start, have a look at this: http://muscleandbrawn.com/3-day-beginner-muscle-gaining-workout/

I think starting a new weight lifting regime is daunting because when you go in to the gym, you don't really know where everything is and you're kind of walking around like a headless chicken. But half the battle is starting. You HAVE to start somewhere to get somewhere!!!! so please don't be scared to do it, just fricking do it ;)

Also, I think that 80% of losing weight is through your diet. If 80% was exercise, I'd be a fitness model hahaha so keep that in mind. I post literally everything I eat and so do tons of other instagrams so there's tons of information! I don't have a completely strict diet because I see this as a lifestyle and I need to bear in mind that this is a long-term thing and not push myself to a breaking point when I binge. But I base my diet around high protein/high fats and fill the rest with carbs. I find I'm much fuller on energy and just generally feel healthier when I eat less carbs! I have the worst body type for storing fat though so my body can't really tolerate carbs.

I would just take this as a basis for moving forward but not y'know swear by it. At least once a day, I find myself googling something/reading a book/reading an article about the science behind it all and my knowledge has grown so much over the past two years. What you just need to do is gradually educate yourself and learn what works best for your body. It does take time but you should think of changing your lifestyle instead of trying to lose weight for the short term. I made that mistake and lost all the weight I wanted to, and found I put it back on when I actually started eating normally because I was eating so little. So please learn from my mistakes, do not starve yourself. It is true that as soon as you go back to just normal eating, I never went crazy but I still put the weight back on!

Sorry if this is a bit all over the place, just trying to get as much information for you as I can in :) keep reading articles etc and get a good idea of what might work, try it and if it doesn't, try something else.

With your limitations on cardio classes etc I would do more outside activities like running/long walks (I'm doing a 52 mile walk next year which should help the fat shed off hahah!!) and make sure to SET YOURSELF GOALS. It's so important to do that otherwise you don't have a clear idea of what you actually want from what you're doing.

I hope you don't mind me putting this on my blog.

Hopefully this helped,

xxx

My Weight.

Hi guys,

I wanted to make a blog post because I weighed myself for the first time in a long time today. The above two pictures are taken two years apart and there is no weight difference.

In February 2013, I reached my goal weight and surpassed this and got down to about 120lbs. At this point, I was doing about two hours of cardio a day and eating around 1300 calories - basically a lot of carbs and no protein. Then, when I moved home for summer, I started doing less cardio and more weight lifting and eating more and I have put on the weight that I lost.

I am genuinely okay with this. I sometimes look back at old photos and think about how skinny I was but I remember being unhappy with my body even at that point and I wasn't content. There is definitely a large difference between the two pictures despite the fact I weigh the same, however I have definitely gained some fatty weight.

I've just come back from a ten day holiday in New York and despite eating clean 60% of the time and working out, I definitely had some amazing cheats so I reckon I'm holding 3-4lbs of water weight that I can get rid of over the next couple of weeks and I have definitely gained some muscle. I reckon over the two years I've gained AT LEAST 10lbs of muscle, so therefore only a small part of it is fat gain. I suppose you could call it a badly designed bulk ;)

Despite this, I just wanted to show that the scales do not entirely matter. I am much much healthier and fitter than I was in the first picture despite being the same weight.

I am happy with my body right now but I definitely want to lose some of this extra fat I'm holding from my holiday and things so my goal for Christmas is to be 139lbs, I don't want to lose any muscle that I've gained and I don't want to lose that much weight, just this extra fluff hehe.

I just wanted to be honest with you guys and admit that I have gained weight over the summer and I am not going to be as skinny as I was before. There is no way I am going back to eating less than 1500 calories again a day, it's not healthy for me and I don't need to be super skinny to be happy. I want to be strong and fit and I'd rather be these two than be skinny and be low on energy all the time because I don't eat enough.

I'm happy and I hope this helps anyone who is feeling down about their weight. Just remember that every single decision you make towards a healthy life, for example ordering a salad when eating out, it all helps. Every little thing you do does something and remember that :)

Cardio Conditioning Circuit 2!

Hi guys,

Was going to do the same circuit I've already posted about but decided to switch it up a little bit so here is the workout I done today. Do each set three times. For the last set on the second set of exercises, I did each exercise for 20 seconds with no break between each exercise as a kind of 'burnout' and it certainly burned me out. I'm dead. 

17th October HIIT:

Warm up:

5 minute bike

40 seconds work, 20 seconds rest

Set 1:

1. Lunge jumps

2. Bicep curls with overhead press with 6kg dumbbells

3. Squat press with log

4. Hot hands

5. Mountain climbers

Set 2:

1. Box jumps

2. Press ups

3. Squat jumps with medicine ball

4. Plank to push up

5. Mountain climbers

Want to get 'toned'? Want to start weight lifting but don't know where to start?

Hi guys,
So I get comments quite often from people asking how to even begin weight training, because there is so much information out there, it can be really, really daunting. So, I thought I'd take the time to just give you some basic tips on how to get started.
How I got interested in 'weight lifting' was through the Les Mills Body Pump class. If you're not sure what Les Mills is, it's basically a company who offer a variety of different cardio/weights/abs classes. Google it to check if your nearby gym has it, I love the cardio classes for my morning cardio!
The reason why I put weight lifting in the speech marks is because it's not really weight training, it focuses on high reps and low weights which I think was a really good way for me to start.
The workout incorporates all the basic (compound) movements that are really important when starting weight training; deadlifts, squats, rows, presses etc. I definitely feel like Body Pump helped improve my form and has definitely helped me to start weight training.
I then was interested in it as I liked the feeling of getting stronger and adding extra weight so I looked it up myself and basically just googled a beginner's weight training schedule and that was me sorted for a while. It's good to start with basic exercises so you can get your form correct and properly work your muscles out.
I've found one on bodybuilding.com which is really simple and I think would be a great place to start (also I love bodybuilding.com, I'm constantly reading their articles);
http://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/3day-beginners-workout.html
I think 3 days would be enough so that you can fit it in to your schedule and get used to weight lifting every week.

The key things you HAVE to remember when starting weight training:
1. You have to work out each body part once a week, you can't skip one of the days and expect to get proper results.
2. In order to get the results you want (more toned and lean) you have to push yourself hard. If you're doing a weight that you can go higher than 12 reps on, your weight is too low!!
3. You need to have proper nutrition to support your weight training. You can't expect to lift weights, eat 1200 calories and do cardio every day to see results. When you're weight lifting, you need to give your body enough rest from cardio and eat a good amount of calories a day (this depends on your personal goals etc hence why I am not giving a number).
4. You need to be consistent. You can't do it for a few weeks and then stop and expect to see results.
5. As mentioned in a previous point, remember to REST. Your body can be overtrained and this severely effects strength gains. If you want to build strength, you need to go in to every workout with a ton of energy and push yourself to the limit.

Okay, hopefully these tips have helped you understand about how to get in to weight training a little more. You should know the masses and masses of benefits of weight training by now (and if you don't, google it) and women, noooooooooooo it will not make you bulky!!! How many times do people have to tell you that weight training will help you get your ideal body, it is practically impossible to get as big as men due to testosterone levels and such sciency things.
One last thing, your diet needs to be fresh and clean, lots of healthy proteins and good fats in order for you to see results. You cannot eat a McDonald's after your workout claiming it has lots of protein.

Now get to it!!

Conditioning Cardio Circuit

Hi guys,
Want to switch it up from just running on a treadmill? This cardio circuit absolutely killed me today so I thought I'd share since you're always asking for what I do for cardio. I just found a spot in the gym, gathered all the things I needed and started! It does involve a lot of equipment you'd only probably get in the gym so it's not really an at-home workout. If your gym doesn't have one of the items, simply substitute the exercise that uses it for another i.e. if you don't have a medecine ball, hold a kettle bell or dumbbells.

Warm-up, two sets each with five exercises.
30 seconds on exercise
10 seconds rest
Do each set 3 times
Works out at around a half hour workout :)

Things you will need:
- dumbbells (I used 6kg)
- medecine ball (I used 8kg)
- 8kg log (if your gym doesn't have this, you can use dumbbells)
- a box of some sort (the one I used was about half a metre tall)
- 8kg kettlebell

Warm up:
5 minutes on the bike, go fast and hard and you should be sweating by the end of the warm up.

Set 1:
1. Push-ups (I managed to do 5 full ones before I had to go on my knees hehe)
2. Crunch stand-ups (basically do a crunch, and then stand up, then lie back down)
3. Box steps with 8kg medecine ball
4. Squat and press with 8kg log
5. Mountain climbers
**Remember to do this three times before moving on to the next set of exercises**
Also by the end of the first time through this, I was sweating!


Set 2:
1. Squat jumps with 8kg medecine ball
2. Curl press with 6kg dumbbells (basically do a bicep curl, then an overhead shoulder press, then squat and then do it again! Really good and works lots of muscles. Thanks ShayCarl!)
3. Lunges holding dumbbells
4. Kettlebell swings
5. Crunches (sit fully up, none of your pussy crunches haha)

So hope you enjoy. As I said at the beginning, if you find you don't know one of these exercises, simply switch it for another one. If you're doing this, try to switch it for an exercise that also works that part of the body. For example, not much point in switching crunches for more squats because the point is you work out your whole body!

LOVE YOU xoxo

14th October 2013 - Q and A

So I sent out an Instagram post asking if you would like me to answer any of your questions to which I got some replies. So here goes;

1. How many calories did you eat and how much did you exercise when you first started losing weight? by @ladyleahlincoln
Okay, gonna be honest and say I did way too much cardio and ate way too little. When I was really serious about it, I was eating about 1200-1400 calories a day and doing over an hour of cardio a day, with maybe a rest day a week. I was pushing myself way too hard and it really didn't do me any good. As soon as I stopped doing that, I put about 5lbs back on.
Now, I'm doing weights, eating 1700-2000 calories and doing HIIT cardio 2-3 times a week and feeling much healthier and stronger.

2.What's been the hardest part to get rid of? I've also lost 25lbs and I am at my dream weight but I can't get rid of my stomach which always makes me feel like I'm still fat! by @amara_s
I totally know how you feel. Around my midriff or my stomach is definitely the last place to lose it for me too. The problem is, you can't spot reduce areas of fat on your body, you have to just lower your body fat percentage overall and that's why it's so important to eat clean to get rid of these problem areas. Remember ABS ARE MADE IN THE KITCHEN!

3. Sometimes you don't seem to eat a lot of food, would you be interested in doing a collage of what you eat in a day? by @choosingclean
You're right, it looks like I don't eat a lot because I don't post everything I eat. I post my main meals but I'm basically always snacking on nuts, grapes etc. I also take way too many teaspoons of peanut butter during the day hehe. But my metabolism stays up this way, I don't think people would be interested in a handful of nuts every couple of hours though, I try to keep Instagram as interesting as possible.

4. How much and what do you have on a cheat day? I want to know how much is too much. by @the_pledge
Okay this has changed a lot over the past couple of years for me. More recently, when planning my cheats to one night a week, I don't limit myself. The point of it is that I know during the week I can have what I want that one night so I think limiting myself would defeat the purpose of the idea of cheating (my personal opinion anyway). Even more recently, I've been having healthy 'cheats' where I basically eat as much of the healthy foods as I like. For example, natural popcorn, natural peanut butter, bananas, dates etc. And I much much prefer this type of cheat because I know I'm getting the goodness in but I'm still getting the refeed kind of feeling you get from cheating.

5. I work out and I have a balanced diet although I don't lose weight, what can I do? by @maria_delelec
Well this is a bit of a broad question to be honest! What you need to do is educate yourself on proper eating and nutrition and incorporate effective workouts in to your routine, not just running on a treadmill for an hour, that will not do much in the long run. Honestly I can't answer this question, it's way too broad and it depends on yourself personally, everyone is different. I'd google proper nutrition and perhaps a beginners weight training scheme to start :)

6. I have an eating disorder and haven't worked out for three weeks! I'm going nuts that I can't work out and am being treated in a hospital soon due to my eating and excessive workouts. I'm only on 600 calories and under a day because I'm under strict orders not to move around. What can I eat that will help my stomach be flatter? Any tips on what you think I should do? by @francescapetropoulos
Thanks for confiding in me of your ED and I'm really sorry to hear you're struggling. I know my advice is not very loud compared to others but you need to focus on overcoming your ED and getting healthy. Having a flat stomach does not mean the whole world and there's much more benefits of living a healthy, active lifestyle, eating lots of nutritious, high calorie foods than restricting yourself. You only get one body and you're malnourishing it and mistreating it by eating so little and working out so much. I know I'm probably not the first to tell you and I know you might not listen but if there's anything I can do to try and punch it in to your head that having an ED and eating that little a day is not good for you then I will. Please realise healthy is sexy, fit is sexy. Super skinny is not. I hope you recover and I send love to you.

7. Do you have any ideas for what I can eat for lunch? Because I can't find anything interesting to eat and then I start to binge eat. by @tinap0408
I get you. Lunch is a difficult one for me too, I much prefer breakfast and dinner. Honestly, recently I've not been having lunch and just eating smaller portions of food every hour or so inbetween breakfast and dinner like bananas, nuts etc. But if you want to have a meal, try making a nice pasta (spinach and pine nut pasta is so good and different) or make your sandwiches more adventurous with different types of meat. Also, try new things like hummus if you haven't or lamb/duck meat etc. I try to think of lunch as just another dinner and try to get lots of protein in!

8. What are some exercises to get ride of or tone love handles? by @mikastuckey
Well I kind of touched on this above on one of the other questions. Unfortunately, you cannot pick an area and reduce the amount of fat from that area even if you did 1000 different variations of crunches a day. What you have to do is lower your body fat percentage which is done by eating right (lots of good proteins and fats) and doing effective cardio workouts (like HIIT, weight training etc). Unfortunately, you need to keep eating right and working out, you cannot pick and choose where you would like to lose the weight sadly.

9. I love to eat healthy but I always seem to steer in the direction of binge eating unhealthy foods! How do you cope with this? by @daniwenger10
Again, touched on this in one of the other questions but I found that making one day a week where I could cheat and eat what I wanted allowed me to focus on eating healthy the rest of the week and I knew that I'd have 6/7 days completely clean. As we all know, it's about eating clean 80%-90% of the time, noone expects you to eat clean 100% of the time, it's pretty impossible, there's gonna be slip ups. I've also recently, for my cheat days, allowed myself as much healthy 'cheats' as I like. This involves lots of banana and granola eating and lots of popcorn haha! You just need to push through the temptation.

10. Is it absolutely essential that I keep track of how much kcal I burn per day, hence buying a new HRM? by @syarinahabd
I think yes and no to this question. I think in cardio terms, it's not important. The amount of calories you burn is not really important, it's about the quality of the cardio. For example, doing 20 minutes of high intensity interval training has shown to be much much more effective than spending an hour doing a fitness class/running on a treadmill. Obviously, you burn more calories in the hour but with the 20 minute HIIT session, your body continues to burn calories for 24-48 hours later and your metabolism is high at that time so it's much better.
But, in terms of weight training, I prefer to have my HRM because I can see how well I'm performing. I can tell when I'm slacking and when I've pushed myself so it helps me in that term.


So guys, thanks if you read that all it's just a tad lengthy haha. I will say this on my Instagram but if you have any other questions you would like me to answer just let me know and I will. I know it's always good to have someone who has been through it answer so just comment on my instagram post about this and I will answer in another blog post.
Thanks to @ladyleahlincoln, @amara_s, @choosingclean, @the_pledge, @maria_delelec, @francescapetropoulos, @tinap0408, @mikastuckey, @daniwenger10 and @syarinahabd for the questions :)

Fasted Cardio Truths and How to Maximise Benefits from doing it!

Hi guys,
Been saying I want to do this post for a while so here goes.
First of all, for you people that don't know what fasted cardio is I'll quickly explain. Basically, it is doing cardio exercise without eating before. The ideal time to do this is in the morning, which I will explain later. Anyway, I'm probably going to get really sciency in this article just to prove my points.

First of all, it's a very important part of my workout routine. I try to do it 4-5 times per week and now that I'm back in to a routine with University, I've found it a really good way to start my day and get my head focused to do some University work and I really want to share the benefits of it. A lot of what I'm writing has been taken/adapted from articles online which have provided scientific evidence behind what they're saying, I will cite these below.

A lot of bodybuilders add in fasted morning cardio in to their routine in order to 'cut' which is essentially cutting fat (also in most cases whilst trying not to lose muscle mass). Fasted morning cardio is extremely well known for dropping fat fast.

**Science behind this**
"When you wake up your glycogen stores are very low so your muscles have to tap into it’s fat stores for energy. Insulin levels are also very low so this facilitates fat oxidation. Keep in mind that your body will also resort to burning amino acids (muscle) for fuel." 

The last part is important there, that you will also go in to muscle, which is why it's REALLY important to not go too intense.
Everyone knows the benefits of HIIT and your heart rate going above 85%-90% of your maximum heart rate but not fasted. If you're going that high, your eating in to your muscle mass, not your fat mass. So classes that involve HIIT like metafit, spin classes and really intense classes are a no-no for a morning.
I would even consider body attack a little high, I'll probably eat a handful of nuts if I was doing body attack in the morning just to give myself a little boost but I would never do HIIT or spin without eating because I don't want to lose my gains.
So keeping your heart rate within the 50% - 75% range is the most beneficial for fat burn. 
Personally, for my morning cardio, I like to jog to the gym then walk on a high incline for 20 minutes then jog back to my flat, or body combat is a good choice (especially this release as it's not too hard) or using the rowing machine etc. Something that's going to get you sweating and breathless but not to the point where you're pushing your body to the limit and can't speak because you're probably eating in to muscle mass. 

Now, I'm not an idiot, I've read up quite a bit on this and there's a lot of articles that go against this type of cardio and say it makes no difference but I see a much larger difference in my own body personally. Sure you could have breakfasted then workout an hour and a half to two hours later and THEN get on with your day but I mean who really wants to wait just for your breakfast to settle, I'd rather get active from the get-go and start my day in a good way. I literally feel 20x better during the day when I start my day with a workout, I feel so refreshed and when I'm eating my banana on my way home, I feel healthy and happy and just good because of the endorphins swimming around me.
You don't have to follow or listen to my advice but I just want to share what I've found helps me burn fat and start my day off well. Also, I've find that I am still making gains with my weight training and I've increased my weights/reps at a good rate whilst still doing fasted morning cardio, so personally, because I'm not doing it too intense, it's definitely working for me!

In conclusion, in order to get the maximum benefit from fasted morning cardio, comply with the following (which is what I've found helps me):

• Exercise as soon as you get up before breakfast (as in start 10/20 minutes from waking up)
• Drink a lot of water - with this one, I find I'm so much thirstier if I haven't eaten and go through a good litre during a 45-60 minute workout.
• Do steady state cardio, don't let your heart rate go too high as this eats in to your muscles a lot more.
• Personally, I wouldn't exercise for longer than 60 minutes on an empty stomach.
• As soon as I'm finished with the cardio, eat a balanced meal of protein and fats and include a reasonable amount of carbs to replenish glycogen.

Love you guys!!

Websites quoted:
http://extremebodyfit.com/fat-loss/is-fasted-morning-cardio-really-more-effective-than-normal-cardio

p.s. I'm not a nutritionist or fitness expert in any form, I am simply sharing what has worked for me.

It gets easier.

Hi guys,

For those who've been stalking my Instagram over the past three weeks, you know there has been some bumps but I haven't been completely honest; there were lots and lots of bumps.

In February this year, I surpassed my goal weight of 129lbs and over summer I slowly put on about 5lbs just from it being summer, putting me back to my goal weight of 129lbs which is still okay.

I was at my happiest and skinniest in about February time this year and felt okay over summer, still working out and eating clean as much as possible.

At the beginning of September, a week before I went to university for my second year, something bad happened which got my head spinning and every night I would binge out. When I went to university, I felt okay, I felt like my body was rewarding me and not letting me put the weight on.

For the two weeks after that, I was a freshers helper at my university which involved me getting drunk every night and getting free pizza every day.

The binges were not as bad as they could have been because I was still health concious and there were days when I said no to pizza and no to alcohol and ate well but the majority of the time I was enjoying myself, and I now understand that is okay. I was expecting this and I was expecting to put a little weight back on so that was okay but as I sat, a week ago, three weeks in to pizza, alcohol and chocolate I felt and saw the weight. There are times when I just sat and cried because I felt like I'd wasted two years of my life in two weeks.

Now, as I sit a week later, I've drunk over 4 litres of water every day, ate clean and worked out (not as much as I could have as I'm still a little bit lazy hehe) I feel a lot better.

At the beginning of this week I literally felt hopeless and lonely and helpless, it was a disgusting, disgusting feeling. For the first couple of days of getting back to clean, I struggled a lot and was so so so so close to reaching for cereal or picking up chocolate in Tesco but I didn't, and because I didn't, I sit now fifty times happier than I was.

I'm writing this blog post to say that if at this moment you feel helpless, you feel like you are never going to get skinny, you feel like no guy will ever look at you, you feel lonely, you feel like nothing good will ever happen, you feel like you will never make progress, you feel like people stare at you at the gym because you're too fat to be there, I AM HERE TO TELL YOU I WAS THERE, I FELT THAT WAY AND I AM HERE TO TELL YOU THAT IT GET'S BETTER, ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE IN YOUR HEAD AND YOU WILL MAKE PROGRESS, YOU WILL GET BETTER, YOU JUST NEED TO WORK FOR IT TODAY.

You need to put down the chocolate TODAY, you need to pick up fruit and vegetables instead.

You need to go and workout TODAY, NOT tomorrow, you are only one workout away from a good mood, I promise you.

That week when I felt down my stomach kept saying start tomorrow but I knew in my head that I needed to start TODAY in order to get progress and I did.

I'm going to be honest and say last week I weighed myself and I was back at 140lbs, I am going to weigh myself every two weeks to see my progress and I AM going to get back down to 125lbs, when I was at my happiest and I know it will not take me as long as I might think.

You must think postively. You must start today. You must believe in yourself.

You need to trust the process and know that it might take some time, BUT IT WILL BE WORTH IT.

Carbs after lunch? A travesty!

Hi guys,
Haven't posted in a while and I always say I'm going to on my Instagram but end up not doing it, but here I am anyway (procrastinating from studying French verb conjugations).  Just before I begin I am not a nutritionist in any way and I don't know if all if this is 100% correct (and please correct me if any of this information is wrong) but this is what I've taken from the articles and things I've read (reliable sources FYI).

Today I'm going to write about something I'm going to try over the next couple of weeks/months to see how it works for me. Recently, I've been reading a lot on carb-back loading (google it, too hard to explain but basically eating all carbs for and after dinner) and the way our body actually works instead of listening to things written in fashion magazines.

There's a lot of evidence to show when our body stores the macronutrients as fat. What I've taken from it is that carbs are needed after lifting heavily to restore muscles (and many other things) and whilst your insulin levels are high, your body does not store carbohydrates as fat.
Basically, eating carbs after working out is a good thing, and the prime time to do this workout is late afternoon/early evenings, so eat carbs after that.
Your body does not actually need carbs before your workout, you get as much energy (if not more, I feel) from protein and fats and I feel I perform better if I don't eat carbs before working out.

It's seriously seriously hard for my head to comprehend the fact that I shouldn't eat carbs in the morning but actually at night and the idea really scares me. The media has punched it in to my head to not eat them after lunch but science shows this is bullshit and I think it's worth trying.

Another thing I've taken from it is the difference between low-glycemic food (brown rice, sweet potato, avacado, certain fruits, 'good carbs' etc) and high-glycemic food (white potatoes, white rice etc) and when they should be taken. After working out, it is actually beneficial for your body to eat high glycemic foods and in the carb-back loading diet, you are allowed anything you want; cakes, pastries, ANYTHING.

Really good article which is the basis of the diet/workout regime I'm going to follow over the next few months:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/kelly3.htm

Example of the stupidest article of all time:
http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/does-carbohydrate-become-body-fat
She has no scientific basis on what she is saying and it's bullshit, please don't listen to this shit.
And I know, why should you listen to me? To be honest, you shouldn't really, but this is scientific information I'm basing this on, I have read up on this with actual scientific articles and studies behind the information, I amen't making it up. If you're still unsure, please please read up on it. The media are giving us this information which is so so wrong and it's the reason why I'm not where I should be.

I just wanted to let you guys know what I'm up to and the stuff I've learned recently. Hopefully I'll write an update post about it soon and hopefully it gets results!

If you're a beginner here's some tips to get started! 1. I don't believe in drinking your calories anyway, but if you're going to have a fresh smoothie or something like that. ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS spike your insulin, causing you to store fat, just because its zero calories DOES NOT mean its good for you! 2. What's on your plate should consist of meats and veggies and its that simple. These have healthy carbs, proteins and fats so why eat anything else? 3. THE NUMBER ON THE SCALE DOES NOT MATTER it's about how you feel, how your clothes fit. Remember muscle weighs more than fat, you might stay the same weight but be gaining muscle, and that is not a bad thing. The more muscles you have, the more calories you burn on a day to day basis. 4. Squat properly! Squats incorporate a lot of the muscles in your body and should be done regularly. So get squatting

Steam rooms!

I've been wanting to write a post on steam rooms for the past few days to explain the benefits of it and how it has helped me! The past few workouts I've done, I've been going in to the steam room for 20-30 minutes. I feel the benefits for me are:

- much much much softer and clearer skin

- helps me relax and my muscles relax

- helps me recover faster so I can work out sooner 

- just in general a really good addition at the end of any workout

So I can actually see and feel benefits from it already after only a few times of doing it, if I make it part of my routine I know how much it's going to benefit me! 

There's also toooooons of scientific research on how it benefits you after exercise and including some of the above, it helps you lose water weight so you can actually lose weight from doing it (because you sweat so much) and its a natural form of detox, sweating away the toxins from your body.

So it's relaxing, helps you lose weight and clears your skin? There's literally no reason why I shouldn't be doing it and I really wanted to share this with you guys so you can feel the benefits too! 

I truly believe this is gonna push me towards my goals even further now and I wanna share that with you guys :) SO GO TO A STEAM ROOM!! It's soooo nice

LEEEEEGS

LEEEEEEEEEEEEEGS!!!

A few people are asking me what leg workout I do so here is the leg training I do. I only do this once a week at the moment, my strength training is split in to three days and the rest of the days I do cardio classes because I fucking love cardio. Also, as you can see I super set some of my exercises (doing exercises in between sets) and this is aimed to make it a cardio workout as well as strength, keeping the heart rate up!  Anyway, here is my legs and abs workout I did today:

Leg press: 4 sets, 12 reps, 280lbs

Squat: 4 sets, 12 reps, 12kg kettle bell; in between each set, 12 squat jumps with 4kg dumb bell

Lunge: 4 sets, 12 reps, 4kg kettle bell; extend kettle bell above head as you lunge. In between each set, 12 pulse lunges with 4kg kettle bell each side

Donkey kicks: 4 sets, 12 reps. In between each set, 30 mountain climbers

Abs:

Crunches: 4 sets, 12 reps with 8kg medicine ball. In between each set, 4 reps of crossover crunches also with medicine ball.

2nd set of crunches; for my second set of abs I do a consistent workout, slowly lowering my reps each set. So here's what I did:

20 crunches, 20 pulse crunches then 20 second hold (no rest in between each exercise on each set)

15 crunches, 15 pulse crunches then 15 sec hold

10 crunches, 10 pulse crunches then 10 sec hold

5 crunches, 5 pulse crunches then 5 sec hold!

And there you have it, my legs and abs day!! This has been posted on my blog so click the link in my bio to copy this regime if you wanna use it 😘 hope this helps! 

August goals!

AUGUST!

- 100g of protein every day!

- 1500 calories on no workout days

- 1700 calories on workout days (extra 200 calories from fruit/carbs)

- a cheat meal every two weeks with 500 calorie deficit two days within the two weeks

- all good fats. No sats or trans fats.

- cardio 4-5 times a week (SWITCH IT UP!!)

- strength twice a week

- 1-2 body pump a week

- two days 1000 calorie burn

TONING STRENGTH TRAINING PROGRAMME

This programme is made for toning and lowering body fat percentage whilst increasing your strength. It is split into two days; upper and lower body with some abs on each day. My trainer made this specifically for me so make sure you tailor it to your needs if you want to try it. This is not for the faint hearted, I’ve done it and it’s tough and you will have to push yourself to finish the full 12 reps.

DAY 1 (Upper body):

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Weight	Comment
Bicep Curl	3	12	6kg dumbbell	1 full then 1 half way = 1 rep
Tricep Overhead	5	5 and then 5 sec hold	8kg kettlebell	10 secs in between each rep
Chest Press	3	12	7.5kg (machine)	SUPERSET: In between each set, upright row with 8kg kettle bell for 30 secs each side
Incline Chest Press	3	12	5kg (machine)	SUPERSET: In between each set, a 2 handled 8kg kettle bell swing
Lateral Raise	5	5 and then 5 sec hold	4kg kettlebell	10 secs in between each rep
Front Raises	5	5 and then 5 sec hold	4kg kettlebell	10 secs in between each rep
Shoulder Press	5	5 and then 5 sec hold	4kg kettlebell	10 secs in between each rep
Reverse Fly’s	3	12	4kg dumbbell	Standing
Dumbbell Row	3	12	8kg dumbbell	As if you’re holding a bar

Abs – do 3 sets of each exercise with 15 reps in each holding a 6kg dumbbell for each exercise:

·      Basic crunches

·      Crunch crossover

·      Dead bug

·      Russian twists

DAY 2 (lower body):

Exercise	Sets	Reps	Weight	Comment
Leg Press	3	12	25kg (machine)	SUPERSET: In between each set, 12 full range lunges and 12 bottom ½ pulses right and left holding two 8kg kettle bells.
Squat	3	12	4kg	SUPERSET: In between each set, 12 squat jumps with 4kg kettle bell
Lunge	3	12	4kg kettle bell	Extend kettle bell above head as you lunge

Abs – do 3 sets of each exercise with 15 reps:

·      Side bends

·      Plank on medicine ball

·      Plank jumps on medicine ball

·      Plank runs (mountain climbers) on medicine ball