10 EASY STEPS TO BECOMING A CLEAN EATING GURU!

Making your way in the fitness and nutrition industry is a tough task, especially if you’re a stickler for science and insist on giving evidence-based advice.

Luckily for you, you don’t have to. Here is my 10-step guide to becoming a clean eating guru, which if you’re lucky, may culminate in a book deal, a TV deal or even a chain of restaurants!

NOTE: This article is written with my tongue placed firmly in my cheek and I urge you not to follow this advice. However, if you do, unfortunately you’ll probably make a shed load more money than your average professor who dedicates their life to advancing our knowledge of nutrition!

Step 1: HAVE A SOB STORY

Now this isn’t a pre-requisite but it sure helps. Choose some sort of ailment to suffer from, this can range from the rather mild such as headaches or stomach cramps to the more extreme, such as a life limiting illness. You’re probably better off opting for the more severe here as this will add weight to your future claims (and profits).

Not keen on putting a personal slant on your story? No problem, simply claim that we are all collectively in the grips of an epidemic, or even better a pandemic!

Step 2: CHOOSE A GOODY OR BADDY

You’ve got your ailment, now you must choose option A or B: A, a SUPER BAD foodstuff for which you can pin all the blame on for causing your ailment. Or B, a SUPER GOOD foodstuff which will defeat your evil ailment.

You can opt for a combination of both A and B but I don’t advise this because this could all get a little too nuanced for your consumers. Remember you want to start a social media movement here and there isn’t space for areas of grey, it’s strictly black or white.

Step 3: SHOW A COMPLETE DISREGARD FOR THE SCIENCE

This is probably the most important of all the steps. You must show a complete disregard for what the overwhelming scientific consensus is telling you. You must disregard the experts almost as much as TOWIE star Gemma Collins disregards the need to use manners…well almost!

However, if you want to have the slightest whiff of credibility you can cherry pick the odd study which kind of substantiates your claims!

Step 4: FAUX SCEPTICISM

That’s right you must claim to be a sceptic. Whatever you opted for, option A or B you must at least claim to have been initially very sceptical about it. This is a must because it builds a rapport with your customers. Initially, when they hear about the claims you’ll be making, they will probably be very sceptical, but if you claim that you were as well way back in the beginning, it builds a certain affinity with them.

Step 5: AMAZING RESULTS

If you go for option A, you must claim that abstaining from eating that super bad food stuff has left you feeling AM-AZ-ING. Similarly, if you prefer option B you must also claim to feel AM-AZ-ING but not because you’ve cut something out of your diet but because you’ve added in some food item with mythical super powers!

Step 6: DISCOUNT OTHER (MORE RATIONAL) REASONS WHY YOU FEEL AMAZING

That’s right you must discount other reasons as to why you’re feeling better. Often when people begin to alter their diet they make other lifestyle changes too such as: they exercise more, sleep better, eat more appropriate portion sizes, drink more water etc. etc. and it’s the cumulative effects of these which combine to make someone feel better.

But you can’t let this possibility enter your thoughts. Don’t even entertain it for the most fleeting of moments. You must believe, or at least claim to believe that this improved feeling of self-worth is brought about purely because of the dietary changes you’ve made. Remember, soon you’ve got a restaurant to open and after all you do want to send your kids to private school, don’t you?

Step 7: POST YOUR STORY ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Join Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or whatever and endlessly post about your ‘journey’. It’s a tough task here but you must post more pics of your grub, than the average parent posts of their new-born. This will be extraordinarily tough but you can do it. Oh, and always be sure to include the hashtags #cleaneating or #eatingclean

Step 8: KEEP POSTING ON SOCIAL MEDIA

That’s right post, post and post some more, oh and when you think you’ve posted too much, just like Postman Pat, keep posting. For particular kudos, you could also begin including hashtags #traindirty, #vegan or #glutenfree (but these are optional).

Step 9: INFORM PEOPLE THAT YOU HAVE NO QUALIFICATIONS WHATSOEVER IN SCIENCE OR NUTRITION

You must come clean at this point and inform your social media followers that you have no qualifications in the field you are incessantly talking about. But don’t worry, this won’t affect your chances of getting that future book deal whatsoever, after all social media ‘likes’ trump science any day of the week!

But as a slight word of warning don’t bang on about your lack of qualifications too much, we wouldn’t want any of your more free-thinking followers thinking you’re a complete fraud and charlatan would we!

Step 10: BE ATTRACTIVE

This isn’t written in stone anywhere (unlike Ed Milliband’s election pledges) but I must stress that the more attractive you are the more likely you are to achieve clean eating guru status.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at the gurus who’ve had books published, to say they’re easy on the eye is an understatement! Many of them look like they’ve just stepped off a catwalk.

Still, as a former model myself (mainly of gloves and balaclavas) there’s hope for me yet!

IN CONCLUSION…

If I need the electrics altered in my house I seek the expertise of an electrician not a window cleaner. Similarly, if you’re having trouble altering your health seek the expertise of just that, an expert in the form of a doctor or dietician not someone who is more interested in collecting likes and followers rather than collecting letters after their name.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

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

    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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STRICTLY COME DANCING WEIGHT LOSS: DON'T BE FOOLED

As the weeks went by and the competition progressed, fans of Strictly Come Dancing quite rightly grew more impressed with the ever- improving dance skills of the sequin-clad, perma-happy celebrities. No doubt they were equally impressed by the celebrities ever-decreasing waist-lines too. None more so than that of the eventual winner Ore Oduba who posted this selfie just days after winning the much coveted glitter ball...

As the lifts, jumps and pirouettes got bigger, the celebrities got thinner so to speak.

And as a personal trainer, this is great news for me because it vindicates the idea that if you exercise loads you’ll shed a ton of weight.

However, can the same be true for us mere mortals?

The short and simple answer is YES'ish'. You see the theory behind weight loss is very simple. To lose weight you must create a calorie imbalance and this can be done in 3 ways: 1, by burning more calories than you eat through exercise or activity. 2, by consuming fewer calories through eating less or 3, a combination of 1 and 2.

In the case of the Strictly celebrities, their weight loss comes about largely due to option 1. Because they are training for upward of five hours per day, five to six days per week they are able to burn calories like a pyromaniac burns down schools.

But how realistic is this for us mere mortals?

Not very, after all how many of us can afford to give up work and train like a professional athlete to lose weight? Very few, if any of us. That’s why for most of us we’d be better off focusing more of your attention on option 2. That is, to lose weight, reduce the number of calories we consume.

Don’t believe me?

Well, think about this, according to the Readers Digest to burn off just one slice of a 210 calorie Dominos cheese pizza, it would take 22 minutes of cycling. That’s over 20 minutes for just one slice, and how many of us can stop at just the one slice? So, you can already see just how difficult and time consuming it would be to burn off at least 4 slices of pizza, and this is the case for many other calorie dense foods too.

At best, we simply do not have the time or motivation to out-run, out-cycle or out-swim a poor diet. At worst, we simply CAN’T out-train a bad diet because we aren’t fit enough to be able to train long enough or hard enough for it to happen. Our bodies simply can’t handle it (I've written more about this here in a previous post). Sadly, the irony is that the people most able to train for anywhere near long enough or hard enough to out-train your average poor diet are professional athletes, who by and large, need not worry about their weight in the first place!

So exercise isn’t important then?

No, as your average wannabe gangster rapper from leafy, suburban Essex would say ‘Don’t get this twisted’. Exercise is important, it’s important for a number of reasons, none more so (when it comes to weight loss) than the preservation of muscle mass. You see when people lose weight, they lose a hell of a lot of muscle mass in the process, which isn’t a good thing because muscle helps to burn calories which in turn helps to keep the fat off long term. Exercise, particularly resistance training and an increased protein intake can help prevent this from happening quite so drastically.

So although the average unconditioned person may not be able to burn a shed load of calories within a single session, they should regard exercises as an extremely important way of helping them maintain their weight once they get to be the size they'd like to be.

The take home message… 

When it comes to weight loss the most sensible and sustainable approach is to go for option 3 (a combination of exercising more and eating less calories) with (especially if you have a lot of weight to shift) a particular focus on eating less.

Thanks for reading.

Matt

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

    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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THE MOST AMAZING DIET EVER!

Don’t you feel the term ‘A-MAZ-ING’ is just too overused? I certainly do.

It’s so commonly used that when I hear it uttered in a sentence I immediately switch off knowing full well that what I’m going to hear won’t be amazing at all. It may be mildly surprising, or even moderately amusing but almost certainly not A-MAZ-ING!

And this brings me to the actual point of my article, recently a new client told me she had begun the most AMAZING diet ever and had literally lost 4lbs overnight. Obviously, I was intrigued, so just like a determined metal detectorist I dug a little deeper. It turns out she had literally cut out all carbohydrates from her diet. And as you’ve probably guessed from the tenant of my article so far, this initial weight loss was not AMAZING at all; and let me explain why...

LOSE FAT, NOT WATER

When trying to lose weight, ideally, what you really want to do is change the composition of your body. You want to lose body fat, and the way you do this is by creating a calorie deficit. This can be done by eating less (consuming less calories) or by burning more calories (increasing your activity levels) or ideally, by a combination of the two. (As I've written about in more depth here The Strictly Come Dancing Approach To Weight Loss).

TIME FOR ME TO GET ALL RACHEL RILEY ON YOU...   

And by that I don't mean that I'm going on Strictly, leaving my spouse and shacking up with an attractive Russian dance partner, I mean it's time for some maths... 

If we accept the commonly held notion that 1lb of fat is the equivalent to 3500 calories, 4lbs of fat would equal 14000 calories (4 x 3500 = 14000).

Now in the case of my client, for her to have lost 4lbs of FAT overnight it would have meant her somehow creating a deficit of 14000 calories. Which is near impossible when you consider that 14000 calories is the equivalent of 1 weeks’ worth of calories for the average women (the NHS recommends the average women should consume 2000 calories per day).

I’m sure you’ll agree this isn’t likely to happen.

SO WHERE IS THE WEIGHT LOSS COMING FROM IF IT’S NOT FROM FAT?

The likely answer is water. When you eat carbohydrate, it is stored in your body with water (1 gram of carbohydrate can store 3-4grams of water). Once you stop eating carbohydrates and your body uses all of the carbohydrate that it has stored, the water which was stored with it simply gets excreted from the body, thus giving dramatic weight loss results!

To keep things simple, think of water's relationship with carbohydrate in the same way as a 'hangers on' relationship is with a famous person: When a person is famous there are plenty of 'hangers on' around clinging to that fame. When there is carbohydrate in the body there is plenty water hanging around clinging onto to that too. When the carbs get used up and go, so does the water. When the famous person has a fall from grace and the fame goes, so do the hangers on! 

So, although this initial weight loss looks A-MAZ-ING on the scales, it does nothing for your fat loss. You are simply LOSING WATER, NOT FAT!

HEY PRESTO THE WEIGHT RETURNS!

In my experience, most people find it difficult to stick to a no, or very low carbohydrate diet for long. So, once they eat carbs again the water comes back and hey presto so does the weight!

LOW OR NO CARBOHYDRATE DIETS ARE A CON THEN?

No, low or no carbohydrate diets can, and do work for people who can sustain them beyond the initial few days of water loss and into the phase where the body uses fat and even protein to provide energy. 

However, whether the weight loss comes about because the diet controls the body's insulin levels better, or simply because it's restrictive nature limits the types of foods which most people generally overeat is open to debate. 

What is not open to debate is that, for many people, a low or no carbohydrate diet proves very difficult to sustain; and that the dramatic, initial weight loss is due to water loss not fat loss!

IN CONCLUSION...

Low or no carb diets can work for some people (as do many other types of diet) provided they can stick with it. However, such diets do not come without their pro's and con's and I urge you to do further research as to what these are and how they could possibly effect you.

But if you do opt to go for such a diet please don't fall into the trap that many ill-informed people fall into:

In a bid to lose weight, they cut their carbs drastically. For the first few days they are really impressed with their weight loss (believing it to be fat loss, not water loss). As the days progress and the weight loss slows (as a result of the final remnants of carbohydrate and its associated water leaving the body) their compulsion to chomp on some carbs is higher than the wage demands of your average Premier League footballer. They give in, and wolf down lots of bread, pasta, potatoes, in fact they eat more or less anything beige (watch out Essex boys, you'd better hide those beige, tailored chino shorts that your so fond of or they'll have them too!). At this point, as the carbs are reintroduced to the diet, the water comes back and so does the weight.

Depressed at this, they revert to their old eating habits (pre, the low carb diet) until eventually, some point in the future, they decide to lose some weight again. Surprise, surprise they opt to go on a low or no carb diet again (which they are unable to stick to) and so the cycle continues!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

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

    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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NEW YEAR, NEW YOU In 5 Simple Steps

So, the New Year is upon us and you’ve decided that this is the year that you're really going to get fit and lose the weight.

So how are you going to go about doing it?

There are numerous ways, many of which have proved very successful with lots of my clients, but on balance, the following method has proved to be the most fruitful and therefore the reason I want to share it with you.

1.  Set yourself a target.

Just as a game of archery without a target proves futile, for many people (not all) so does trying to lose weight without having a calorie target.

So how do you set yourself a target? Some experts recommend you base it on your current weight, others recommend you base it on your target weight, that is the weight you’d like to be in future.
Either way there are numerous apps out there that will do the maths for you! But if you do fancy yourself as a bit of a Carol Vorderman (minus the Botox) a relatively quick and easy ESTIMATE as recommended by leading nutrition expert Lyle McDonald is 10-12 calories, per 1lb of body weight per day. Note that I highlighted the word estimate because it is just that, and will likely have to be adjusted.

As with all methods of calorie estimation be they done using an app or the method used above or something similar, they will probably have to be adjusted based on how you respond to the diet. For example, if you are extremely active you may have to increase the total, if you are really inactive or drastically overweight you’ll probably have to reduce the total. But at the very least it’s a starting point from which you can work from.

At this point, I would also recommend setting a macronutrient target, that is working out what percentage of the total daily calories should come from fats, proteins and carbohydrates, but I realise this may be a little to detailed so please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you’d like some help with this. But at the very least, try to get plenty of your calories from protein (the reasons for which I've written about HERE previously). 

2. Act like your nosy, curtain twitching neighbour and track everything.

Now that you’ve got a calorie target, spend the next few weeks tracking what you eat. Inspect food labels, weigh your food, work out portion sizes, in fact do whatever you can to make sure you become more aware of how many calories you are consuming and exactly where those calories are coming from.

Now I know this may seem about as much fun as a night out with Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg (don’t know who this fella is? Google him, he makes Michael Owen look like Keith Richards) but you won’t have to do it for long, just for a few weeks. From then on you can begin to guestimate things based on your new-found knowledge rather than measuring all the time.    

3. Train like an Olympian (well kind of).

In an ideal world, you’d have the physical capacity, as well as the time to begin training like an Olympian, that is, be able to do plenty of weight training and plenty of cardio without any repercussions to your health. But we don’t live in an ideal world (if we did, I’d be Brad Pitt rather than just an exceptionally good lookalike) and many of us simply can’t train at the same level of intensity as an Olympian (as I've written about HERE previously). So at the very least try to find some form physical or sporting activity which you enjoy doing and aim to do it roughly 2-3 times per week and if you could throw in some form of weight training too that would be a real bonus!

4. Be like Madonna and holiday (not fall over at the Brit Awards, or wear a cone-shaped bra).

As Madonna famously sung ‘If we took a holiday…it would be so nice’ and as we all know, a holiday is nice. But don’t worry I’m not suggesting that you book 2 weeks in Barbados but I do recommend that 6 – 8 weeks into your diet you should book yourself a 1 week break away from it.

And in that diet break don’t treat it as an ‘all-inclusive’ where you shovel food and drink down your old Gregory Peck (neck) with reckless abandon, but approach it as time where you can relax a little and treat yourself to, well a few extra treats here and there! Now I know this may seem counterintuitive to some, but taking a diet break allows you to relax and ready yourself psychologically for the further dieting that is to come. 

5. Go back to the start and repeat the process.

After your diet break, revaluate your calorie target and get straight back on with your diet and training. After all, by virtue of the fact that you have been on a diet for at least the previous month and a half, there should be less of you i.e. you should have lost weight and now be smaller in size than you were at the start of the diet, meaning you now require less calories each day.

Once you’ve set yourself a new calorie target revaluate your exercise too. Could you increase this a little? And of course, don’t forget to plan yourself another diet break somewhere in the forthcoming weeks.

Thanks for reading.

If you’re interested in finding out more about other methods of weight loss which have worked well with my clients please get in touch.

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

Matt

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

IF, it’ll leave your stomach emptier than Katie Hopkins’ heart, but does it work?

Before I talk about if it works or not, first I must explain what IF actually is.

IF is short for Intermittent Fasting, which in simple terms is the act of eating nothing at all, or very little for varying degrees of time and then eating normally for the remainder of time. Probably the most popular form of this is the 5:2 diet, where by you eat normally for 5 days per week and for the other 2 days you drastically reduce your calorie intake in the hope of losing weight.

The 5:2 diet was popularized by celebrity doctor, Dr Michael Mosely in his BBC infomercial, sorry I mean documentary (I’m sure it was purely coincidence that Dr Mosley released his number one selling book ‘The Fast Diet’ just after the documentary aired). 

But there are many other forms of IF too. Such as alternate day fasting, where by you eat normally for one day then restrict your calorie intake the next and then repeat this throughout the week. And yet another form is daily fasting whereby you are allowed to eat for certain periods throughout the day and then fast for the remainder of the 24 hours.

As you’ve probably already realised, the term intermittent fasting is a deliberately convoluted one with many different protocols to choose from, but essentially they are all just variations of a theme.

So, does IF work for weight loss?

The simple answer is yes, but only if you manage not to overeat during the periods when you are not fasting and by and large the research shows that most people are able to do this.

It is also pretty good at maintaining muscle mass too!

A major concern of mine when clients lose weight is that they don’t lose loads of muscle in the process. Luckily the research shows that IF is pretty good at not allowing this to happen too drastically (unlike many of the fad diets out there) which is great because muscle mass if the key to long term fat loss.

Great sign me up, when can I start IF?

Whoa there, hold your horses, just because the science has demonstrated that IF can help you lose weight it doesn’t necessarily mean that is the best option for you. It’ll probably work for you if you hate counting calories or if you prefer eating larger meals (rather than the smaller portion sizes seen with traditional diets). However, for some people especially sports people with performance goals, should remember that IF may interfere with their training and levels of performance.

In summary…

IF represents a good way of losing weight for those who it suits, however it has no superior metabolic advantage over more traditional diets. If you don't think the IF approach is for you, why not try this more detailed approach to weight loss.

Thanks for reading.

Matt

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

    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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3 WAYS TO DEAL WITH WEIGHT GAIN DURING THE DECEMBER BENDER!

As we navigate our way through the month-long drinking and party odyssey known as the Christmas period AKA the December Bender there are a number things that we must accept will happen:

1. We will all have at least one friend with the same level of sincerity as Boris Johnson, inform us that ‘I’m not sending cards this year as I’m going to donate the money to charity instead’ when you know full well they aren’t. They simply can’t be bothered to send you a card and they use the charity bit as a way of softening the blow.

2. Facebook friends will continue to post soppy pictures of their Christmas trees as if they’re the first, last and only person to have ever thought of wrapping some lights around a flippin’ tree. (Only joking Facebook friends, I love your trees really).

3. After attending numerous parties, festivals and functions, some happily and some with the enthusiasm of a World War II conscript, one thing is for sure, many of us will gain some weight.

And here are my top 3 tips on how to deal with this weight gain...

1. Train like your half deaf Gran trying to watch telly and increase the volume!

With all the festivities, undoubtedly extra calories will be consumed and you’ve got to find somewhere to put them if you don’t want to pile on the pounds. And what better excuse is there to get away from watching another crappy rerun of a Christmas special first shown in circa 1970 than getting out and doing a bit of training?

If you’re used to running for 5 miles consider going for 6 or even 7, if you’re used to lifting weights for 3 sets of 10 try to do 4 or even 5 sets. Basically, treat your training like your half deaf Gran trying to watch the TV and increase the volume of it, after all these excess calories need somewhere to go and they may as well fuel your training rather than you’re spare tyre!

Think of it as a win-win, not only do you get out of the house over the Christmas period (which can seem like a boring eternity for many) but you also get to spend some time away from your visiting uncle knob-head, whom you only see once a year…for a reason…as my mum would say ‘You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family’.

2. Act like a girl desperate to fit into a particularly tight dress and DON’T eat.

Before I got into personal training I was blissfully unaware of the lengths women would go to, to ensure they fitted into their favourite tight dress. Having heard countless testimonies from clients the most common and preferred method appears to be starving oneself throughout the entire day thus ensuring they are able fit into the dress come the evening. Now I am not condoning this practice as it is often supported by ridiculous amounts of cigarettes and other unhealthy lifestyle choices all in the name of fitting into a dress.

However, if you are planning on highly calorific feast in the evening, the premise of reducing your calorie intake in the daytime in readiness for the impending excess calorie consumption is not necessarily a bad idea. Think of it as saving your calories till later in the day, which can simply be done by skipping breakfast or lunch or even both. In essence it is a form intermittent fasting which is gaining traction amongst the scientific literature as an effective method of weight loss and I've written about it previously HERE.    

3. Behave like a newbie at an alcoholics anonymous meeting and accept it.

As regular readers’ will know, often my advice runs counter to some of the advice you see spouted about by other fitness ‘experts’ and once again I am not going to disappoint with my final tip.

The third and most important tip is to accept that weight gain is probably going to happen.

At any time of year let alone Christmas, there is nothing worse than when you’re out out, as a certain cockney comedian would put it, than having some fun-sponge friend sitting next to you saying ‘oh I can’t eat that, it’ll make me fat’. So rather than boring your friends with the macronutrient content of your desired meal, sod it and opt for whatever you like and accept that yes, it may not help with your weight loss, but it does dam taste good and it is Christmas after all!

Of course, don’t approach every meal over the festive period with this mindset or you’ll end up piling on the pounds quicker than Donald Trump collects wedding rings but a little excess here and there certainly won’t be the end of the world! After all you’ve got January and beyond to burn it off!   

Thanks for reading.

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

Matt

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

Yet another thing to blame your parents for!

I know it’s tough but for a moment do a John Lennon, and by ‘do a John Lennon’ I don’t mean sod off to India and study transcendental meditation, I mean imagine. Imagine a just and fair world where each of us are born equal with the exact same potential for achieving whatever we wanted to. In this just and fair world the only barrier to us achieving success would be the amount of hard work we were prepared to put in.

The trouble is we don’t live in a such a world. It would be great if we could all look like Arnold Schwarzenegger provided we trained hard enough but we can’t and there’s no point pretending we can. Some people are simply high responders to exercise, some are not.

It comes as no coincidence that myself and my two brothers barely need to train at all before appearing noticeably more muscular and athletic. And who do we have to thank for this? A large amount of gratitude must go to our parents. Old pictures of my dad show he had biceps that most bodybuilders would die for despite him never actually going to the gym, and to this very day many people still marvel at the strength my mum displays when helping us out with the odd DIY construction project.

My brothers and I were obviously very lucky to have inherited those strong genes from our parents, but some people are not so lucky…  

In one study which looked at muscle growth in people following the exact same resistance training programme, the high responders increased their muscle size by 50% with some of the low responders increasing their muscle size by a depressing 0%.

This type of response isn’t just limited to muscle growth. A study of 1000 people looking into the effects of training on stamina and endurance found that roughly the top 10% of the participants were super responders and made dramatic improvements, whereas the bottom 10% were low responders who made very little improvement at all (with the remaining 80% of people falling somewhere between the two extremes).

Not only does genetics play a large role in determining how much muscle you can build or how long and far you can run for, it also (amongst other things) plays a role in regulating how much fat you have, and where about on the body you store it.  

Now before you hold up the white flag and surrender on your plans of getting fitter because you think your parents dealt you a bad gene-hand, bear this in mind, genetics do not account for 100% of a person’s physique, there are a number of other factors involved which you can control and just because your body maybe genetically predisposed to store more body fat, it is not an excuse to deliberately let it do so. It just means you have to work harder than other people to overcome that problem, yet at the same time remain realistic about the limitations that our bodies impose.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

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

    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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