CRUZ BECKHAM’S ROWING ROW!

Meanwhile (as the rest of the world seemingly goes to hell in a handcart) in celeb-world, the Beckham’s received a fair bit of criticism following their 12-year-old son, Cruz posting a video of himself working-out on a rowing machine. This whole storm in a tea-cup left me with 3 main questions:

1. Does every Beckham have an hereditary gene giving them an insatiable appetite for self-promotion?     
2. Why on earth have three hundred thousand people (myself included) wasted 30 seconds of their life watching a kid do nothing more than row at a fair intensity on a rowing machine?
3. Why did some people on social media, wrongfully condemn the Beckham’s for allowing their son to perform some form of semi-serious exercise?   
   

Now, question 1 can probably only truly be answered by doctors; the answer to question 2 is probably that more of us need to ‘get a life’; and as for question 3, I’m going to set about answering that now…

I’m sure any right-minded person would agree that all children should be doing some sort of exercise or activity, whether it be kicking a ball about with friends, playing kiss-chase, climbing trees or whatever; and indeed, the experts corroborate with this too. A quick glance at the NHS activity guidelines pretty much tells us so. They recommend that every child between 5-18 do an hour’s activity each day.

So why have the Beckham’s come in for such grief?

Why I think the Beckham’s have come in for particular criticism, is because of the nature of what their son was doing. If he’d posted a clip of himself having a running race with his friends everything would have been hunky-dory, but some people seem to think that children training in a gym or using gym equipment is inherently more risky or dangerous than other less formal exercise. But are these people right? Let’s see what do the experts say:

According to the world-renowned and more importantly well-respected American College of Sports Medicine, aerobic-type training such as rowing (as Cruz was doing) is not only perfectly acceptable, but should also be vigorously encouraged.

They don’t stop there though, they go even further by saying that strength training (lifting weights), which is often demonised when talking about training children, provided it is done sensibly and under supervision is also a sensible form of exercise for children too; and indeed, our very own NHS also agrees with this sentiment.

Aerobic and strength training

So, there you have it people, leading authorities in the world of health and fitness not only recommend aerobic training, but they are now recommending that children do some form strength training too, given that many of the tales you hear about its negative effects on the growing body have largely been debunked by the science!

But none of this is too revolutionary, if you think about it children have been informally strength training since time immemorial. Whether it be pulling up their entire body weight whilst climbing trees, or carrying the whole weight of another human being whilst playing piggy-backs; or even the more mundane task of carrying a heavy school bag laden with books and PE kit, children have forever inadvertently been strengthening their bodies!

In conclusion…

Exercise is good for children. Traditional aerobic type activities such as running, jumping, swimming, skipping are very beneficial to children and relatively inexpensive. However, if you have the inclination and the equipment don’t be put off from allowing your children to some strength training too. Provided it’s done sensibly it’s a great form of exercise!

And as for those ‘quick to type, slow to think’ type o’ people on social media, perhaps they should check out the facts and seek the advice of experts before giving their opinions. But then again if we can’t expect this from the President of the United States, who can we expect it from? 

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THE GORDON BROWN APPROACH TO WEIGHT LOSS

In recent months the agenda of the big three political parties has turned to how they are going to reduce the 'deficit'. In complete contrast to this, this article is all about how to PRODUCE a deficit…a calorie deficit that is, which is vital if your aim is to lose body fat.

Think of it as the Gordon Brown approach to weight loss. In the sense that he was responsible for creating the financial deficit which we find ourselves in.

This view, of course is largely dependent on your political persuasion. Those to the right will likely agree, those to the left will cite a global banking crisis as the cause of the deficit. For the sake of argument (and If I am being honest to give me a more attention catching headline) I am going to say that Gordon Brown was responsible for the deficit.

Doubtless there are some of you reading this that have read diet books which tell you that calories are not important, that you can lose weight without reducing the amount of calories you consume. Sorry to be the harbinger of bad news but this is simply not true. Granted there are many diets out there which do not blatantly ask you focus on calorie counting, but instead ask you to eat more or less of a certain type of food or ask you to not eat certain foods at certain times of the day, but these are  tricks. They are the David Blaine’s of the diet world.

In a roundabout way all of these diets lead you to consume less calories, hence the weight loss. This ‘tricking’ is not necessarily a bad thing especially when you think how hard it can be psychologically to lose weight. All I am saying is, essentially to lose fat you must use more calories than you consume and there are various ways we can do this.

CREATING THE DEFICIT

We know a fundamental part of any fat loss diet is creating a calorie deficit - we must use more calories than we consume. This can be done in three ways:

1.       You consume fewer calories (you eat less).

2.       You use more calories (you move and exercise more).

3.       You consume fewer calories (by eating less) and use more calories (by doing more physical work).

The most effective option being the 3^rd, as combing exercise along with a diet means you will not lose as much lean tissue as you would if you were to just solely diet alone. This will leave your body feeling and looking 'tighter'.

HOW TO CONSUME FEWER CALORIES

So how do we go about consuming fewer calories? Firstly you do not have to necessarily count every calorie you consume. You can if you like but you do not have to. Simply being mindful of your old eating habits and then altering them appropriately is often suffice to create a calorie deficit.

Below are some of the more popular, least intrusive and easy to follow methods which have worked with my clients. (Please be aware that the list is by no means exhaustive. There are a lot more scientific and accurate methods which I use with some clients to create a more accurate bespoke calorie deficit. For more information on this please drop me an email matt@mlrpt.co.uk).

·         USE A SMALLER PLATE. You do not have to change the types of food you are eating, merely because the plate is smaller, the portions are smaller hence fewer calories.

·         EAT WHEN HUNGRY, NOT STARVING. STOP WHEN FULL, NOT STUFFED. Once again you do not have to change what you are eating just stop eating before you are stuffed – do not be afraid to leave food on your plate.

·         EAT PROTEIN WITH EVERY MEAL. This will involve changing your food choices slightly but it will be worth it. Every time you eat try to include some lean protein in your meal. Protein leaves you feeling fuller for longer meaning less chance of hunger and cravings later in the day.

HOW TO USE MORE CALORIES

Granted, this is stating the obvious but one the easiest ways to burn more calories is to exercise and for my clients this involves training with me where I am able to motivate them; however alongside this I ask them to perform their own independent exercise. Below I am going to share with you some of the methods I have used with my clients to increase their physical activity levels when we are not training together.

·         GET A PEDOMETER. Get yourself a pedometer and record how far you normally walk each day for one week. In the second week try to increase the number steps you done in the previous week by 10%. Continue you this week by week until you get to 8000 – 10000 steps per day.

·         LAY DOWN THE ANCHOR. Get yourself an anchor point which will trigger you to do some physical activity/exercise. For example you may enjoy watching Coronation Street, in this scenario your anchor could be the commercial break. When the adverts start that will be your trigger to do 5 squats. Start small and get bigger, begin with 5 squats and build to 10, 15 until eventually your squatting for the entirety of the whole commercial break. As time goes on try to build in as many anchor points as you can in different parts of your life. For example every time you walk up your stairs at home perform 20 step ups! Sorry if you live in a bungalow!

·         ENTER THE LONDON MARATHON, THE MALDON MUD RUN OR WHATEVER. Well it does not have to be a marathon but enter yourself into some sort of exercise event, that way it will give your training some focus and hopefully motivate you to exercise.

DEALING WITH THE DEFICIT

We know that eating less and doing more creates a calorie deficit and much like the biggest issue facing any Chancellor of the Exchequer of the present or future…how are we going to deal with this deficit?

Ask anyone in society paying the bedroom tax and they will tell you dealing with the deficit is tough. And in many ways dealing with your own calorie deficit is going to be tough too!

At some point on your diet you will be hungry, for some people these feelings will very frequent for others less so, but at some point you will definitely feel hungry. After all a fat loss diet does involve consuming fewer calories than you are using!

THE CARROT OR CHOCOLATE TEST

It is at these times you have to decide whether you are hungry or just craving. One method I use for dealing with this is what I call the ‘Carrot or Chocolate Test’. When you are feeling hungry ask yourself this, could you eat a carrot? (Feel free to substitute the imaginary a carrot with any other vegetable of your choice) If you could eat the carrot you are obviously hungry and not craving, feel free to eat something making a sensible food choice. If you feel you could eat the chocolate but not the carrot you are more than likely just craving. You must do your best to deal with this craving by distracting your thoughts from it. These feelings can last around twenty minutes and ways getting rid of these cravings include reading, going for walk, brushing your teeth and a more novel way is to perhaps tap your forehead. Recently I read a research article on this which said it had some success and who knows it may work for you!

If you really cannot get rid of the cravings and absolutely have to succumb to them, do so but do it sensibly. If it’s a Mars bar your craving have a fun size bar not a normal size bar! But most importantly of all once you have treated yourself to the fun size Mars bar please, please, please do not think all is lost and jack in your diet completely. Once you ‘fall of the horse’ you must get back on straight away and as Marvin Gaye so succinctly put it, you must ‘keep on keeping on’.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this article. For a more individualised approach to fat loss please do not hesitate to get in touch.

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MATT, I’M LEAVING YOU!

Unfortunately, these words were all too familiar to me as youngster when I was playing the dating game; and luckily these words were not uttered to me by my good lady wife. But, unfortunately these words did come from a client of mine.

I’d been training this guy for just over a year and he’d made impressive improvements. Really impressive (see how I’m repeating a word from the end of the previous sentence in a very Trump-esque manner? Heck it worked for him it might work for me). This guy had lost considerable amounts of body fat, gained lots of strength and looked significantly more muscular. He’d also improved his cardiovascular fitness and flexibility to boot.

He decided it was time to leave because his progressed had slowed. Not stopped or even stagnated just merely slowed. He was insistent that his progress should continue unabated at the same rate as when he first began training. 

I tried in vain to explain to him that this was not possible but he was having none of it. So just like your average Angelina Jolie marriage we went our separate ways!

Now, if you’ll allow me a moment of indulgence, I’d like to share with you what I attempted to explain to him before we split.

NEWBIE GAINS...
When you begin a training for the first time, you make phenomenal improvements. Every session you lift heavier and heavier weights. You feel like Superman. Enthused with your progress you get the old calculator out and work out that if you continue along this path you’ll be on world’s strongest man come Christmas.

In preparation, you go out and buy a load of ‘Gold’s Gym’ vests, and even consider shaving your hair and getting a couple of tattoos. You’re cruising along in the fast lane of the hypertrophy highway packing on the muscle quicker than a Jamaican sprinter fails a drugs test, and then what happens?

Suddenly your progress slows and continues to slow. Soon your desires to be a strong man are quashed until eventually you settle on the more realistic and attainable goal of being the most muscular guy in the office!

OH, WHAT’S OCCURING… (as ‘Nessa would say)
You’ve been experiencing newbie gains, which are more pronounced if you truly are, as the Yanks would say, a rookie. (Sometimes, experienced weight lifters can get a similar, but not as conspicuous  an effect if they switch to a new training regime. This is known as ‘novelty effect’).

Whether you’re riding the larger ‘newbie gains’ wave or the slightly less impressive ‘novelty effect’ wave, one thing is for sure: no one can tell you, with certainty, how long it’ll last. Some people will continue improving at great rates for months on end, for others it may be just weeks.

One thing, however, is for certain, your progress will slow with time as you approach your genetic ceiling!

GENETIC CEILING...
You’re genetic ceiling is the point at which genetically you can’t make any further improvements. The closer you get to this, the slower your progress is. Think of it as being on one of those inflatable bungee run thingamajigs. At the start, as you begin running you make great progress but as you get closer to the end your progress slows considerably or even comes to a halt as the resistance on the bungee cord increases!

Take elite, Olympic weight lifters for example who are hovering around their genetic ceiling. Year on year, some of them would be ecstatic with a 1-2% improvement in performance as this could well lead to winning gold. For us mere mortals, nowhere near our genetic ceilings, investing a years’ worth of training to improve by 1-2% would seem very futile!

TAKE HOME MESSAGE…

In this unpredictable life we lead, we can seek solace from a few certainties. One is death, everyone will die (excluding ‘the immortal Hulk Hogan’ of course). Another is that your drunken uncle will make a tit of himself at your next family wedding.  And the final one is that when training for any length of time, your rate of progress will slow. If it didn’t there’d be loads of people strolling around looking ridiculously more muscular than your average steroid abuser already does!

It’s just one of those things we must accept. It’s a bit like watching Good Morning Britain. Most of us only tune-in to get a glimpse of the rather attractive Susannah Reid or the dashingly handsome Ben Sheppard, or even the other lady who was crap on ‘Strictly’, but we must accept that in the process we’ll probably have to put up with getting a glimpse of Piers Morgan too, it’s just one of those things!

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TO BOOK YOUR FREE TRIAL PERSONAL TRAINING SESSION, OR TO BOOK A PLACE AT MY BOOT CAMP CLASS, PLEASE DON’T HESITATE TO GET IN TOUCH.

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WARNING: CELEBRITIES ARE PROBABLY RUINING YOUR HEALTH!

That’s right celebrities are probably ruining your health. Not just because their TV shows cause us to sit on our bums for hours glued to the old goggle box, but because many of them, either implicitly condone or explicitly declare their love of highly questionable health and nutrition practices!

GWYNETH PALTROW...

Probably the biggest culprit of this is Chris Martin’s former wife Gwyneth Paltrow, for she is the brains behind the company GOOP. Just one of the many highly questionable ideas which GOOP pedal are the benefits of vaginal steaming, despite there being little, if any scientific evidence to support it.

Surprisingly, many of her 2 million plus twitter followers vehemently believe in what she says. Personally, how you can trust anyone who refers to the ending of their marriage as a ‘conscious uncoupling’ when the rest of us call it a ‘split’ is beyond me!

BEYONCE…

Old Gwynnie and GOOP may be Champions League level when it comes to spouting claptrap but there’s plenty of other celebrities out there giving it a good go too. Detoxes or cleanses garner lots of support in the celebrity world, with Beyonce being one of their most vocal supporters. The only problem is, there is little, if any evidence that they actually work (you can see a theme emerging here can’t you?). Supporters claim they rid the body of toxins but in reality, the human body does a very good job at this every time you go for a wee!

JUICING…

In a similar vein, you then get the celebrities who are into their ‘juicing’.  They just have to be seen strolling down the street sipping on some sort of coloured juice normally green in colour. These guys may not vocalise their support for it, but the very fact that they get pictured holding a cup of it gives it a hefty nod of approval in the minds of their adoring fans. Granted, juicing may be a way of consuming more fruit and veg but claims that it detoxifies the body are once again largely unfounded.

TOWIE…

Then there’s the good people TOWIE whom I believe began coining the phrase ‘no carbs before Marbs’ which we’re reliably informed by a former cast member Lucy Mecklenburgh caused ‘a lot of young people to stop eating carbs’. Which is a real shame because the much-demonised macronutrient has several benefits. According to the NHS, carbohydrates provide the body with much needed fibre and energy. Anyway, regardless of whether you think carbohydrates are good or a bad, one thing is for sure: cutting them from your diet for the long term is near impossible.

IT’S NOT ALL BAD THOUGH...

Before you cancel your subscription to OK! you must remember that some celebrities use their influence wisely. Michael J. Fox and the late Christopher Reeve have done wonders for increasing research into Parkinson’s disease and spinal injuries.

IN CONCLUSION...

Although this seems like a systematic slagging off celebrities it’s really not meant to be. However misinformed they may be, I’m almost certain that they genuinely believe in the treatments that they advocate. In some ways celebrities are victims themselves. Victims of being under tremendous pressure to look ever-young and stay slim, and in doing so they will happily try anything to remain that way. If anything, perhaps this article is more a of a critique of why many of us allow the ill-informed words and actions of celebrities to trump the overwhelming evidence provided by the significantly more well-informed scientific community! 

If you enjoyed this article I urge you to read the book ‘Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?’ by the excellent Timothy Caulfield.

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HELP, MY 6 PACK IS MAKING ME LOSE MY LIBIDO AND MY FRIENDS!

Nowadays everybody seems to want to improve their appearance, not necessarily their health but certainly their appearance. This is obvious when you consider the alarming regularity in which many women undergo cosmetic procedures. So much so, boob jobs have become as common as cauliflower ears on rugby player!

The male equivalent seems to be attaining the much fabled ‘6 pack’. For some men with large abdominal muscles and reasonably low body fat, this can be not too difficult a task, however for others it can mean losing ridiculous amounts of body fat so as to reveal the abs lying underneath. This, when taken to extreme levels, is known in gym circles as getting ‘shredded’. And with so many ‘shredded’ models appearing on front covers and on social media everywhere this look has become accepted as the new gold-standard in healthy. But is it really? I’ll leave you to decide…

THE PHYSICAL DOWNSIDE TO LOW BODY FAT LEVELS...  

As well as being constantly cold, and having energy levels lower than a sausage dog’s belly, extremely low body fat levels can cause your workouts to be rubbish too. Not only that, but your recovery between workouts can be poor as well. Low body fat levels go hand in hand with low levels of stored carbohydrate in the muscles and liver, and this stored carbohydrate is vital to help you recover from exercise. This leads to almost no improvements in strength or hypertrophy and in all likelihood ,muscle mass and strength will be reduced.

If this weren’t enough, low levels of the hormone leptin causes you to be constantly hungry. And to add insult to injury, extremely low levels of bodyfat can also lead to reduced levels of testosterone which in turn can reduce your sperm count. In some cases, the reproductive system begins shutting down all together so you may end up like a novice boy scout attempting to put up a tent…struggling to get an erection!

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DOWNSIDE TO LOW BODY FAT LEVELS…

If that weren’t bad enough the psychological drawbacks may be even worse. Achieving extremely low body fat levels whilst retaining a muscled physique requires some quite difficult lifestyle changes. For most people, it requires tracking every single calorie that passes your lips. Which may sound easy enough, but in reality, it is much harder than you think (a bit like having to sit through a 1 Direction concert). It often means spending endless hours preparing your own food and stressing over its exact macronutrient composition, almost never eating out with friends or family and almost certainly not drinking any alcohol! Heck you may look ‘good’ but end up becoming a bit of a bore!

And if this social isolation weren’t enough to make you feel bad, the reduced levels of essential fatty acids in the brain will probably make you irritable and prone to severe mood swings anyway! It may also leave you less able to concentrate and suffer from general mental fatigue!  

IN CONCLUSION…

Extremely low levels of body fat combined with relatively large muscles may make for an impressive looking physique, however it’s not without its drawbacks. For the dedicated few who can endure what is required to achieve this, many of them are only able to maintain it for a very short period before they ‘break’ and return to somewhere near normal levels of body fat. And as for those who manage to maintain such well-muscled, low fat physique all year round, they are one of two things: either genetically gifted or, a real pain in the bum to live with!

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THE ‘GOOGLE IT’ APPROACH TO WEIGHT LOSS

Remember your school days when life seemed so joyful and carefree? Yet unburdened with the harsh realities of adulthood, your heart still had space for dreams and aspirations. Everything seemed so simple.

The only major issue, apart from finding out who was the second hardest in the infants; and if Mrs Smith (the popular and attractive music teacher) really was dating Mr Jones (the intellectually brilliant, yet socially awkward science teacher) was getting your homework in on time.

For me, the rigours of homework followed a similar yet effective pattern: 1, ask mum and dad their knowledge on the given topic. 2, Research the topic further utilising the family’s set of encyclopedias (as a family from the aspirational working classes this consisted of consulting the ‘Joy of Knowledge’. For the more middle class amongst you it probably meant using the family’s set of Encyclopedia Britannica, and as for the upper classes it probably didn’t apply. After all, what’s the point of homework when you stand to inherit a sprawling 100-acre estate some day! Anyway, I digress) 3, Assimilate all the information and rewrite it, by hand, using my own thoughts and ideas. 4, (if there was time) include a nice pretty, hand drawn picture to go with it.    

Now as you can imagine this took a considerable amount of time especially whilst simultaneously watching Saved By The Bell (no self-respecting ‘90’s kid dared miss it) or Big Break (man I loved John Virgo’s no dad waist coats).

And this is completely different to today’s kids. Set them homework and they don’t have to go through the same rigmarole. They simply ‘google’ and ‘cut and paste’. Heck if you ask them to print it out they think they’re doing you a favour! And I say this on good authority having been a teacher for well over a decade!

The trouble is this bodge it and cutting corners approach has crept it into the fitness industry too.  Some people might even say that it dominates it!

For example, fad diets grow ever more popular by the day because ‘they work’ as I’m reliably informed by the ill-informed! Of course they blimmin’ work. Any diet which cuts out entire food groups or drastically reduces your food choices will work, because it causes you to eat dramatically less calories and surprise, surprise lose the weight.

And don’t even get me started on the ‘detoxes’ or ‘cleanses’. Heck there seems more of them on the market than a there are Premier League footballers with tattoos!

IF NOTHING ELSE, REMEMBER THIS…

All fad diets, detoxes and cleanses work in the short term but not the long term (a bit like Jennifer Aniston’s relationships) because they simply are unsustainable. People simply can’t handle how restrictive they are and they soon return to their old eating habits. The weight flies off at first (but just like a distant relative trying to get hold of some inheritance) it soon comes back.

I’m left baffled when people bang on about losing incredible amounts of weight in a few days through some sort of cleanse or fad diet only to put it all back on again almost as quick. And then repeat this cycle again in only a few short weeks’ time. Flippin’ ‘eck if these diet products were that good wouldn’t the weight stay off longer?

The cynic in me might say that these weight loss companies deliberately design products that cause dramatic weight loss followed by almost as impressive weight gain as a way of ensuring repeat custom!  

SO WHATS THE ANSWER?

The answer won’t make me rich but it means I can sleep easier at night. The answer is to look at weight loss in a more sustainable way. Make dietary changes that require little effort, but cumulatively have a big impact.  A simple example that has worked well with my clients is eating meals from a smaller plate. You don’t have to change the type of food you eat, or the times of when you eat it. You simply eat smaller portions which in turn ensures less calorie consumption!

For more pragmatic, evidence based advice on weight loss please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If you’re after a silver bullet solution to weight loss don’t bother getting in touch, as I (nor anyone else) will be able to provide it. But who knows, with Easter just around the corner maybe the Easter bunny can! (I presume if you believe in one, you must believe in the other!)

Thanks for reading,

Matt

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CAN YOU GUARANTEE ME I’LL LOSE A STONE? NO!

That was the question posed to me recently by a black cab driver and much to his surprise my response was: NO.

It was a few weeks back. No sooner had I informed him of my destination and he was off putting the world to rights. In less than 5 minutes I knew his life story, the exact number of famous people he’d had in his cab and his unyielding admiration of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. ‘She cut the red tape and let businesses flourish without interfering’ he took great pride in telling me.

Flippin’ ‘eck all I wanted was a quick cab ride and there I was getting a lesson in politics from some third rate STIG/Paxman wannabe.

In a vain attempt to switch his monologue to dialogue I thought I’d broach the ‘elephant in the room’ and garner his thoughts on UBER. ‘They’re a bloody disgrace, they ought to be regulated much more’ was his curt response. Gordon Bennett, one minute he’s a Thatcherite, the next he’s a socialist wanting to regulate things. (That, of course was probably a crass characterisation, and probable denigration of both Thatcherite and socialist policies, but much like the British tabloid press, I haven’t got the inclination to find out the truth!).

Conversation soon turned to me being a personal trainer. ‘If you can guarantee me I’ll lose a stone in 2 months, I’ll train with you’ he said.

I told him I was unable to guarantee such a thing and set about explaining why. Sadly, he had about as much interest in my explanation as Katie Price has in celibacy, so if you’ll allow me a moment of indulgence I’d like to share those reasons with you:

Homeostasis

Homeostasis is basically the term used for the body’s desire to maintain its current state. For the vast majority of overweight people, it didn’t happen overnight. It happened over months and more than likely years. As a result, their bodies have got used to being that way. When trying to alter this by going on a diet, peoples’ bodies react differently. Some people’s body’s (just like  Rod Stewart's stylist) are resistant to change, and weight loss proves a lot harder for them than others.

Training ability

Some people are simply able to train harder than others. Some, can train really hard 5-6 times per week and continue to make rapid improvements in their physique. For others, 2-3 sessions per week may be all that they can physically handle before suffering from injury or illness.

Training response

People respond to training differently. Given the exact same training programme, some people (known as high responders) make terrific improvements whilst others (the low responders) make much slower progress. (As I've written about in more detail here).

Training compliance

No matter how well designed a training programme is, you can never guarantee that an individual will actually do it.  How many people do you know that have expensive gym membership, upwards of 70 squid a month, yet hardly ever step foot in the place?

Training induced food choices

This sounds like a rather grandiose term but what I’m really trying to point out, is that some people find that training really tightens their focus on their diet. It’s as if training acts as a catalyst for them to eat better. For others, affectionately known as ‘compensators’, they seem to overeat as a result of their training. It’s as if they think ‘sod it I’ve trained hard today, I can have Big Mac and chips…thrice! They seem to overestimate the number of calories they burn whilst drastically underestimating the number of calories they consume.

In conclusion…

The moral of this story is to always book an UBER instead! Only messing black cab driving friends I love you really.

What you should really take from this is to never trust the weight loss claims you see on many a diet or exercise product. The human body is such an AM-AZ-ING thing (regular readers will know I don’t use that word lightly) that no-one knows exactly how it’s going to respond to a particular diet or training regime imposed upon it.

And as for those guys in the fitness industry who ‘guarantee’ you’ll lose a stone of fat or gain 10lbs of lean muscle, approach them in the same way you’d approach dogs mess on the pavement – by giving them a wide berth!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

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    matt@mlrpt.co.uk                 www.mlrpt.co.uk                          07939316401 www.twitter.com/mlrpt      www.facebook.com/mlrpt        www.twitter.com/mlrpt

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