Balham and Wandsworth outdoor exercise

The latest trend in the fitness industry is outdoor exercise such as PeakXVfitness

Balham and Wandsworth outdoor exercise. These camps are popping up in

every park in every city in the UK. Balham and Wandsworth outdoor exercise

offers you a great alternative to the plush health clubs and their joining fees,

expensive monthly payments, 1 year tie in contracts and aggressive 3 months

cancellation notice periods.  You see, when you join a gym you may be getting

classes, the latest gym equipment, towels and soap in the showers, but that is it.

You are paying to walk through the door and use the facilities – nothing more.

If you want any further expertise such as a personal trainer then you have to pay

more money. Nor do you get any nutrition advice (although many unqualified and

poorly regulated personal trainers will claim that they provide nutrition advice),

nor will you get any regular goal assessment and monitoring, motivation or

accountability. You are basically left to your own devices to use the gym as the

club’s sales team peruse the elusive targets of securing more sales and generating

more members.

We also know for a fact that over 80% of gym members don’t get the result they’ve

signed up for and the health club industry knows this too. What’s also astonishing

is that 50% of a gym’s membership base is inactive at any one time! That means

these people are paying for nothing. So it’s no wonder why people are leaving the

gyms in droves and looking for better, more reliable and financially more viable

options.

So if you are looking for great workouts that produce results in a fun and sociable

environment then Balham and Wandsworth outdoor exercise might be for you.

There are many different types of outdoor exercise groups on the market; military

style camps where the instructors shout and run you in to the ground, camps that

specialise in kettle bell training, boxing camps, running camps or even women only

camps. So why not find a camp that can provide all of these types of specialities?

Also why not find a camp that prides itself on having expert staff, such as leading

personal trainers, registered nutritional therapists and chartered physiotherapists

who can assure that you get the safest, most effective workout, the most reliable

and scientifically accurate nutrition advice and support you to reach your health

and fitness goals?

However, before you sign up to one of these camps do your homework – ask your

self – who runs the camp you want to join? What are their qualifications? You need

to make sure your bootcamp organisers are the real deal; qualified, insured and

most of all – produce results. If your bootcamp organisers can’t provide social

proof and testimonials that they produce results – look elsewhere.

To get results you need to train hard and you need to train often. On a quality

camp like PeakXVfitness Balham and Wandsworth outdoor exercise group

you’re guaranteed both. You should be able to attend “CAMP” anywhere from 2-4

times a week with motivated instructors who will push you to the limits of your

current levels of fitness. Research shows that simply training 4 times a week can

produce far greater results than training 3 times a week – a fact many gyms and gym

goers don’t know. Also the type of exercise you do can cause dramatic results.

Consider this – walk in to any gym and walk over the cardio equipment where there

will inevitable be a group of people plodding along on a treadmill or bike watching

the TV doing steady state cardio, look at their body shape. These people are often

the most out of shape both in physique and fitness. There may be a rare bread on

the cardio equipment who are beasting themselves doing interval training, which

is much more effective for fat loss than steady state cardio.

Then walk over to the weight section and you will see people working hard pumping

the weights and dripping with sweat. Take a look at their body shape, these people

will often have a much better physique. That is because resistance training (be it

body weight or with things like dumbbells and kettle bells) are essential for fat loss.

On a quality camp like PeakXVfitness Balham and Wandsworth outdoor exercise

group there is no steady state cardio and obviously no TV to watch, just hard work

doing interval training such as repeated runs and sprints. Then there are resistance

circuits using body weight, kettle bells, resistance bands and medicine balls to

sculpt and tone those muscles. Throw in some boxing and you are sure to get a

great workout every time.

Why choose PeakXVfitness Balham and

Wandsworth outdoor exercise?

With over 30 years combined experience in the Health and Fitness industry, you

can be sure the Peak XV Fitness team know what they are talking about.

Our programme GUARANTEES that you will:

• Tone your thighs
• Lose at least half a stone
• Flatten your tummy
• Slim down your hips
• Firm up your butt
• Feel sexy and confident

Our bootcamps are outdoors and run in all weathers. We are open to all ages and all

abilities.

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness

Do You Want To Win Rear of the Year?

Most of you going to the gym are training because you want to lose a little bit of

weight and to tone up, especially those problem areas such as the bum and thighs.

However, very few of you will know how to train the legs effectively to lift and tone

these areas and win rear of the year. Nor will many of you know the environmental

and lifestyle factors that can cause fat storage on the hips and thighs.

Training the legs to win rear of the year is an art and a science and first I’m going to

lift the lid on some of the secrets that the fitness models use to have the perfectly

tone thighs and round pert butt. Then I will talk about how to eat to drop fat in the

dreaded saddle bag area.

When you are training your legs you need a periodised and progressive plan

targeting different muscles of the legs such as the glutes, the quads, the hamstring

and the calves. Your first stage of leg training should focus on unilateral exercises

to correct any imbalances in tone and shape between the legs. This is perfect if you

have one butt cheek that is slightly less pert than the other, or if the cut of the

hamstrings isn’t quite right between sides. Start by focussing on one exercise for

the quads and one for the hamstrings, like so:

A1. Dumbbell step up on 30cm box, 3 sets of 15-20 reps, tempo 1010, rest 60 seconds.

A2. Seated hamstring curl, 3 sets of 8-10 reps, tempo 40X0, rest 60 seconds.

(The tempo prescription 1010 means to execute the up movement in 1 second with

no pause at the top and then the down movement in 1 second with no pause at the

bottom. An X in the tempo prescription means you need to execute the movement

as fast as possible with good form.)

Next you want to perform an exercise that focuses on developing tone throughout

the entire quadriceps, whilst performing an exercise that develops the glutes and

hamstring together. You might choose the following exercises:

B1. Dumbbell split squat 3 sets of 10-12 reps, tempo 3010, rest 60 seconds.

B2. Romanian dead lift with bar 3 sets of 10-12 reps, tempo 3010, rest 60 seconds.

Your final pair of exercises can target the calves and abdominals to help give your

legs that slender look when you are in heels and to flatten your tummy. These

exercises could include:

C1. Single leg calf raise 3 sets of 12-15 reps, tempo 2010, rest 60 seconds.

C2. Abs crunch 3 sets of 12 reps, tempo 2010, rest 60 seconds.

Winning Rear of the Year

Hopefully you will now see that training these muscles will help, but there are no

specific exercises that are going to burn the fat off the hips and thighs. Most people

don’t realise that the deposition of fat in those areas is hormonally mediated.

Basically the more oestrogen you have in your body (either in total – or unopposed

by other hormones such as progesterone) – the more fat you will store on the lower

body. This doesn’t need to be the oestrogen that your ovaries produce (as many

menopausal women have saddle bags as well) but the oestrogen that is made in your

fat cells and the oestrogen you come in to contact with through your environment.

The best way to lose fat off the bum and thighs is to eat a Palaeolithic style diet.

The basic premise of this is so easy it’s insane. Before you eat a food ask yourself –

“was this food around 10,000 years ago?” if you answer “yes” then eat it, if you

answer “No” don’t eat it! For example was a chicken, nuts, carrots or an apple

around 10,000 years ago – yes, so eat them. Was a doughnut, snickers, pasta or

bread and jam around 10,000 years ago – no, so don’t eat them. Eating Paleo

means you basically eat protein in the way of meat, fish, seafood or poultry with

lots of vegetables and snack on nuts, seeds and fruits.

The liver’s job is to detoxify chemicals that we come into contact with, and it also

has to detoxify steroid hormones such as oestrogen. The liver has 3 ways to do

this – through methylation, glucuronidation and sulphation. So eat foods that

provide you with a host of B vitamins (this is not grains – the best source of B

vitamins is animal protein and vegetables), foods that contain sulphur (which is

eggs, onions, leeks, garlic) and foods that contain glucuronic acid which is broccoli,

apples and grapefruit.

There is another group of foods that are “super foods” for the liver packed full of

indoles, sulphur and other nutrients that help oestrogen detoxification –

cruciferous vegetables. These include broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, radishes

and chard. Watercress is also particularly good and is packed full on these nutrients.

Another area where women constantly fall down with their diet is that they don’t

eat enough protein. Women MUST eat enough protein, especially vegetarians, as

liver detoxification is also determined by amino acids not just vitamins, minerals

and phytochemicals. Once again meat, fish, seafood and poultry provide amino

acids – so doing things like juice fasts as a detox is a bad idea as juice does not

contain any protein.

In this short article we’ve covered the main ways to get the toned, sculpted bottom

often seen on the catwalk runways of Milan and Paris. As you can see there are no

magic pills or secret workouts that bring about these results. Simply focus your

workouts on the areas involved namely the bottom, thighs and hips while eating a

clean diet of animal protein, fish, vegetables, fruit and nuts. If you’re new to any of

this it may take a couple of months before you see substantial changes to your body

but keep at it. If you’re doing a lot of these things but just need to tweak one or two

key areas then your gorgeous glutes and the Rear of the Year award may be just

around the corner.

For more information about our 6 week fat loss programme which takes you

through a whole body fat loss plan go to our website at

http://www.peakxvfitness.com/products

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness

Reading Fitness Classes

Many women join Reading fitness classes in Berkshire for different reasons but the most

common one is to lose weight. Other reasons may exist such as toning, fitness and social

benefits but weight loss is often the driving factor. Many of our clients at our weight loss

 Reading fitness classes have enjoyed amazing results in as little as six weeks in the

classes.

In this blog post we are going to look at the important factors in how women specifically

 lose weight and how you too can maximise your fat burning efforts. In some ways, women’s

fat loss may be very different from that of men. Women have less muscle mass than men,

which means that they also have a slower metabolism. We try to increase our clients’

metabolism through intense exercise on our Reading fitness classes. What is more,

women have a different hormonal system that puts them at a disadvantage when it comes

to burning fat. To address these issues and maximize your fat loss potential, it would be

very helpful to take the following steps:

Firstly, exercise regularly. Ladies that attend our exercise Reading fitness classes burn on

average over 500 calories in a single hour. This is dramatically more than you would

burn in most other forms of exercise. We use running drills, body weight exercises and

circuit exercises to ramp up the client’s metabolism and maximise the fat burning effect.

Secondly, eat enough protein. This is something we always have to tell our female Boot

campers in Reading. Protein is essential for fat loss. Even though people think that simply

creating a calorie deficit is enough to lose weight, it’s not at all true if you want to maximize

fat loss. Protein will help you preserve your muscle mass and make sure that your body will

get the energy it needs from your fat reserves, instead of breaking down your muscles. Try

 to eat at least 0.5 – 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight every day. Additionally,

there are many more advantages in increasing your protein intake. According to a study

 published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, including more protein in your

 diet can reduce hunger and increase satiety. The mechanism behind this phenomenon is

 to do with the fact that protein decreases the levels of appetite-stimulating hormones in the brain.

Finally, you need to include some resistance training into your routine. Anyone who

attends our Reading fitness classes will automatically be exposed to some serious

resistance training usually in the form of kettle bell exercises or band exercises.

Weight training is the key to women’s fat loss. Unfortunately, it seems that the majority

of women are afraid of strength training, because they think that it can make them

 bulky and masculine. The truth is that as a woman it would be almost impossible to

build huge muscles, through weight training. This happens because women don’t

produce enough testosterone and growth hormone, which are very important

hormones for building muscles. Don’t be fooled by the appearance of female body

builders. These women usually take anabolic steroids and other drugs to look the

way they do.

If you follow the weight training we show you in our Reading Exercise Classes, you

will simply get a toned and firmer body. There is no reason to be afraid that you are

going to end up looking like a man! By engaging in strength training while you are losing

weight, you will be able to maintain your muscle mass and change your body composition.

This means that you will decrease your body fat percentage, lose inches off your waist

and even get a cellulite-free looking body!

If you’re not sure about doing this by yourself and want the help and support of a

qualified team of instructors then come down as our guest to Peak XV Fitness Bootcamps.

Sign up at www.peakxvfitness.com/bootcamps and get your free week guest pass to our

Reading exercise classes.

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness

Wandsworth Common outdoor fitness

PeakXVfitness run Wandsworth Common outdoor fitness for groups of women

wanting to lose weight and tone up.

At PeakXVfitness we often get asked about the best way to exercise to lose weight.

We get some raised eyebrows from the answer we give as it’s not the normal

perception of what people think they need to do.

You see the concept of calories in versus calories out still seems to predominate in

the diet and exercise circles. When you think about calories out – it’s all about the

calories you can burn while doing steady state cardio. Many gym goers and personal

trainers will tell you that there is an optimum “fat burning zone” which is roughly

65% of you maximum heart rate, which is the zone where your body uses fat as a

fuel most efficiently. If you exercise for as long as you can in this zone such as

running on a treadmill for an hour you will burn more fat.

However at PeakXVfitness Wandsworth Common outdoor fitness classes

we DON’T DO THIS!. This theory is flawed. Yes it will work for a while if you are very

overweight or haven’t exercised in a long time – sure you are going to burn some fat.

But your body is a highly tuned machine and it will adapt to that imposed demand

quite quickly (in as little as 3-8 weeks) after which you will start to see diminishing

returns.

This is the point at which you plateau and need to change your programme. I’m sure

you’ve all either experienced this or seen it first hand in the gym. Just look at the

people plodding along on the treadmill or on the bike in their “fat burning zone”,

are they all lean and ripped? Probably not!

A much better way to go about doing “cardio” to optimise weight loss and a tactic

we employ at PeakXVfitness Wandsworth Common outdoor fitness groups

for women wanting to lose weight and tone up is to do high intensity interval

training, otherwise known as HIIT.

This is where you do period of very high intensity work, such as 20-60 seconds of

all out maximal effort running or sprinting or whatever else you like, interspersed

with periods of rest of between 30-120 seconds. These types of workouts have been

proven to be much better for weight loss and muscle gain compared to steady state

cardio and they can be completed in as little as 15-20 minutes. In fact one protocol

called Tabata training can be done in 4 minutes. We do this quite often on out

bootcamps on Wandsworth Common and it is really effective for getting your

heart rate up, getting you out of breath and burning fat.

Here are some examples:

Wandsworth Common outdoor fitness lactate intervals

Set up a 20-30 metre track with cones which you can run between.

30 seconds on (maximal speed shuttle running between the cones)

50-60 seconds off (active rest – walk / stay on your feet)

Repeat this 6-10 times. As you get fitter start to reduce the rest periods down to

30-40 seconds. Do this for a maximum of 4-6 weeks, after that you’ll need to change

something to continue to adapt and either lose weight or gain muscle such as using

Tabata (described below) or doing some aerobic intervals (longer working time

60-70 seconds on 60-70 seconds off). The secret to effective weight lose with type

of exercise is to change things up every few weeks, shock your body in to adapting

and burning more fat.

Wandsworth Common outdoor fitness Tabata circuit

Kettle bell swing or skipping, do an all out maximal effort for 20 seconds, then rest

for 10 seconds. Repeat this 8 times. In just 4 minutes you’ll be green and ready to

crawl home.

This type of training raises you EPOC above and beyond what any steady state cardio

can do in your “fat burning zone”. Without getting too technical all this means is

that it raises your metabolism for hours after you have finished training, whereas

the steady state cardio may only raise your metabolism for a little while. Now this

isn’t an excuse to eat more crap food, but if you eat well AND you have a raised

metabolism from HIIT, voilà you have great fat loss results.

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness

What are your vitamin D levels?

Nutritional therapist Steve Hines tells you why you need to get your vitamin D level

checked. Getting a simple and cheap blood test can protect you from cancer,

osteoporosis, rickets, autoimmune diseases and muscle injuries.

Speak to your doctor as up to 90% of the population are deficient. If your doctor

wont test it get it done yourself, you can order a home test kit from here. It is only

£45, money well spent considering it can significantly improve your health. My only

criticism of this company is that the norms are set too low. Ideally your blood

vitamin D levels should be 80nmol/L (32ng/mL), anything less than this is deficient

regardless of what language is used (sufficient, insufficient, deficient for e.g.).

Once you know your levels you can use a supplement of 1000-5000IU per day.

You can order vitamin D from here. Call them and quote 3030003 as a reference to

order.

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness

but also helping to maximise their time spent in the kitchen and bringing in meals

on budget. One way to do this is on a Sunday by using the meat and veg that you

have cooked to make a delicious and quick evening meal or even for Monday’s lunch.

Here are 4 quick and easy suggestions nutritional therapist Steve Hines 

for Sunday roast left overs:

Chicken soup

Once you have cooked your roast chicken set aside a little bit of the meat that

normally doesn’t get eat, such as off the spine and shoulder blades, the wings and a

little breast meat. Then make a stock from the chicken carcass, put the bones in a

stock pan and half fill with water. Place on a low heat for 2-3 hours. Adding some

carrots, celery and onions to the stock is optional. After 2-3 hours decant the bones

and add some fresh vegetables such as pak choy, leeks, peppers, add salt and pepper

and some left over chicken meat. Cook off for 15-20 minutes until the veg is tender.

Put though a bender to make a delicious soup or eat it as it is for a chunky stew.

Left over pork

Place some left over new potatoes and fennel in a frying pan and heat through in

some organic butter and garlic. Add in the strips of left over pork until hot. Finish

with a garnish of grated apple, parsley, salt and pepper.

Moroccan lamb

Cook some quinoa. At the same time cook some chopped dried apricots with diced

onion, parsley and lemon juice, toast some almonds and mix it all together. Finally

add in some cold lamb and heat it through. Serve it topped with a spoon full of

yoghurt and chopped mint.

Roast beef salad

Simple toss together some salad leave out of a ready to eat mixed herb or rocket,

spinach and watercress salad (this really does take less than 30 seconds), throw in

some chopped salad veg like tomatoes, cucumber, olives, sun dried tomatoes,

beetroot etc… and throw on some strips of the roast beef. Mix a dressing of 3 parts

olive oil to 1 part mustard or horseradish and season. Pour over the salad and devour.

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness

to you?

Many people going to the gym either find it boring or don’t get any results. Unless you

hire a personal trainer which can be very expensive the chances are you won’t really

know what to in the gym do to make your workouts fun and effective.

The other problem with joining a gym is the joining fees, expensive monthly payments,

one year contracts and aggressive 3 month cancellation policy.  You see, when you join

a gym you may be getting classes, the latest gym equipment, towels and soap in the

showers, but that is it. You are paying to walk through the door and use the facilities –

nothing more. If you want any further expertise such as a personal trainer then you have

to pay more money, sometimes up to £50 an hour!

Nor do you get any nutrition advice (although many unqualified and unregulated personal

trainers will claim that they provide nutrition advice), nor will you get any regular goal

assessment and monitoring, motivation or accountability. You are basically left to your

own devices to use the gym as the club’s sales team peruse the elusive targets of

securing more sales and generating more members.

We also know for a fact that over 80% of gym members don’t get the result they’ve

signed up for and the health club industry knows this too. What’s also astonishing is

that 50% of a gym’s membership base is inactive at any one time! That means these

people are paying for nothing. So it’s no wonder why people are leaving the gyms in

droves and looking for better, more reliable and financially more viable options.

So what is the answer?  If you are looking for great workouts that produce results in a

fun and sociable environment then outdoor group personal training in Balham South

West London might be for you.

Secrets that the gym goers don’t know

Manipulating hormones during exercise is one of the key elements to successful fat loss.

Research has shown that doing resistance training, particularly when performed in a

circuit as performed on an outdoor group personal training On Wandswoth Common

in South West London, increases certain hormones such as testosterone, cortisol and

growth hormone. The goal with this type of weight training circuit is to produce as much

lactate as possible in the working muscles. When lactate builds up in your muscles you

get that burning sensation as they quiver under the strain of hard exercise.

Lactate production is directly correlated to growth hormone production – so training hard

to produce as much lactate as possible is a great way to burn fat. Here’s how it works.

Lactate is an acid and as the lactate builds up in your muscles and blood your blood pH

goes down (becoming more acidic). This causes your growth hormone production to go

up. In the liver growth hormone is converted to a substance called insulin growth like

factor 1 (IGF1) and this causes more fat to be burnt during exercise thus making you

lose more body fat.

Blood lactate concentration is correlated to the amount and size of the muscles used

during an exercise. Therefore using exercises that target a large group of muscles such

as squats, kettle bell swings, walking lunges and many of the other exercises used in

outdoor group personal training in South West London is much more effective for

building up lactate than using an exercise that only uses a small amount of muscle mass

such as wrist curls.

This type of resistance training is also much more effective than doing cardio for weight

loss. Long slow cardio, like spending half an hour walking up hill on a treadmill (which

may be effective for initial weight loss if you are extremely over weight, but that weight

loss will soon plateau unless you change to another type of exercise) just taps in to your

type 1 muscle fibres, these muscle fibres respond to this type of exercise by getting

smaller and reducing androgen receptors. This also leaves your type 2 muscle fibres

(that can be anything up to and above 50% of your muscle mass) completely unused.

This is a disaster for weight loss! Imagine trying to fight a battle with only 50% of your

army active – you are going to lose that battle. The same is true for weight loss.

Also consider this, go into any gym in the world and you will see most of the fat unfit

people plodding along on the treadmill watching the TV of riding a bike whilst reading a

magazine. If you can watch the TV or read whilst you are training you are wasting your

time, you will not get any results, you do not belong in the gym and should go home and

park your arse on your sofa and watch TV or read there!

What you need to do is resistance training as your primary form of exercise. Resistance

exercise increases your muscle mass which will mean you burn more fat 24/7. It helps

increase your bone mineral density. It improves your immune system. It improves your

insulin sensitivity. And most importantly it helps you lose weight.

So if you want to weight loss results you should try the exercises in video link below.

Also consider joining an outdoor group personal training in South West London

class such as that offered by PeakXVfitness. At a fraction of the price of gym membership

and additional personal training we guarantee results.

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness

4 Sneaky Hormones That Are Ruining Your Fat Burning! Much has been spoken

recently about the importance of hormones in fat burning and there are all sorts of

pills and potions that claim to be able to manipulate hormones to improve fat

burning but in this article we want to look into the four key hormones that

influence fat burning and weight loss. This will give you all the information you

need to make informed choices when it comes to food and activity. Whether you’re

on a diet or are taking part in vigorous exercise this information will be critical to

your success. The two main hormones we’ll look at first are insulin and cortisol and

we’ll show you how they synergistically work to mess up your weight loss efforts.

After that we’re going to describe the functions of two little known hormones –

leptin and grehlin.

Insulin

Many of you will have heard of the hormone insulin, perhaps some of you know a

person with type 1 diabetes who has to inject insulin many times a day to keep their

blood sugar stable, or perhaps you may be or know a person with type 2 diabetes

who has been told they have high levels of insulin or that they have insulin resistance.

But what actually is insulin and what does it do?

Insulin is a peptide hormone released from the pancreas in response to food being

eaten. Insulin’s job is to carry the breakdown products of carbohydrate digestion

– namely glucose – into the cells to be used for energy. Insulin also carries the

breakdown products of protein digestion – namely amino acids – into the cells for

a number of functions including protein synthesis. It seems that the breakdown

product of fats in the diet – namely free fatty acids – do not have an effect on

insulin. Insulin can communicate with all manner of cells in the body; muscle cells,

brain cells, liver cells and fat cells telling them to take in glucose and amino acids.

This mechanism works perfectly if there is a good balance of protein, fats and

carbohydrates in the diet. The problem arises when there is excess carbohydrate

in the diet, especially carbohydrates that release their glucose very quickly, which

leads to sharp rises in blood glucose levels. Once the liver and muscle cells are full

of the sugar they need insulin can no longer have an effect, however the fat cells

happily take up the remaining sugar from the blood stream and an interesting

thing happens. The glucose in the fats cells is metabolised to a substance called

glycerol 3 phosphate, which in turn can be converted to triglycerides, essentially

turning sugar in to fat.

When there is insulin floating around in the blood stream you body shuts off

lipolysis – the signals to burn fat. You see you can’t burn fat and store sugar at the

same time; you can only do one or the other. So keep your insulin low and your fat

burning turned on. This is vitally important for anyone who wants to reduce their

body fat to understand as without dietary modification fat loss will be futile.

Seek a nutrition consultation.

Cortisol

 
Stress is a major cause of weight gain. We tend to eat more when we are stressed

and use food as comfort, particularly sweet sugary foods. Stress comes in many

forms – food intolerances, alcohol consumption, financial stress, relationship

stress, mental emotional stress, poor blood sugar regulation etc… When you are

stressed you release the stress hormone cortisol. One job of cortisol is to raise

blood sugar by releasing fats and protein that are sent to the liver and converted to

glucose, however if this glucose is not used (as most of us are inactive when we are

stressed such as at work or sitting in traffic) it gets re-stored as fat – particularly

visceral fat that accumulates around the organs. Research has shown that stress

leads to the accumulation of fat stored on the tummy area. So if you want to lose

some weight, you are going to need to de-stress. As you can see both insulin and

cortisol work together to keep you fat particularly if you’re stressed and eat poorly.

This is why it’s vitally important to eat right, exercise and reduce the stress in your

life to get these sneaky hormones on your team.

Leptin and grehlin

Two hormones called leptin and grehlin are important in weight control. Leptin is

produced from white adipose tissue and from cells in the stomach. As you eat leptin

rises and tells the brain that you are full and you stop eating. However, with

conditions such as over eating and obesity leptin levels can become extremely

high leading to leptin resistance, a condition much like insulin resistance, where

lots of leptin is in the blood but your brain doesn’t respond to it any more. Therefore

you don’t feel full and carry on over eating. Increased leptin also causes increased

insulin production and can exacerbate insulin resistance, high blood sugar and the

accumulation of more fat.

Grehlin on the other hand stimulates hunger, increases food intake and increases

fat mass. It is produced in the stomach, the pancreas and hypothalamic arcuate

nucleus in the brain. We know from research that inadequate sleep is associated

with high levels of grehlin and leads to increased appetite and overeating, thus

getting adequate sleep is essential for weight control. So get plenty of sleep and

don’t over eat to control leptin and grehlin. These two hormones can in the right

environment (poor diet, insomnia and stress) team up to halt your fat loss plan.

In summary, to offset the downside of these very powerful hormones you need to

eat a good mixture of foods from protein, carbohydrate and fat sources. Taking up

a good fat burning exercise programme that decreases insulin resistance coupled

with good stress reduction measures should allow your body to effectively shed

body fat at a safe and sensible rate. If you’re interested in finding out precisely how

to do this check out this great online resource from our website:

www.peakxvfitness.com/products.

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness

Expert Nutritional Therapist Steve Hines shares how he gets fish into his diet.

As an island nation surrounded by the sea and it’s rich produce you would think we

would be a nation of seafood lovers, however the palate of the British nation doesn’t

extend much beyond fish fingers, cod and chips and tinned tuna. This may in part

be due to the lost art of preparing and cooking seafood or to the fact that people

claim they don’t like fish. But it needn’t be this way. With a little bit of imagination

you can make fish and seafood taste delicious and it takes no time at all to cook.

If you take a trip down to your local fish monger you will see a whole host of

different produce and expanding your horizons beyond cod and tuna can reignite

your interest in this delicious food.

Look out for oily fish such as mackerel, sardines, trout, pilchards, herring as well as

salmon. Mackerel for instance is quite cheap, and trout is a cheaper alternative to

salmon. For white fish look out for pollock, sea bass, sea bream, gurnard as well as

cod and haddock. Some other types of fish such as pangasius, snapper, tilapia are

also becoming popular and can be bought at the fish monger. Then of course there

is seafood such as mussels, prawns, crab and cockles.

Fresh fish is always better but eating some tinned fish now and then is also a good

way to get more of this food into your diet. For instance as well as tinned tuna

tinned mackerel, sardines, pilchards and salmon can also be bought quite cheaply

in the supermarket

If you don’t know what to do with fish just try one of these simple recipes.

Mackerel pate

Drain then empty a tin of mackerel into a bowel; add a dash of olive oil, some

smoked paprika, salt and pepper and blend together with a hand held food

processor (or mush together with a fork). Spread over two rice cakes for a delicious

snack.

Baked salmon with roasted vegetables

Cover the salmon fillet in sesame seeds and set aside. Chop up some Mediterranean

vegetables such as courgette, aubergine, peppers and onions and roast them in

olive oil, garlic, chilli and thyme for 30 minutes or so. For the last 12-15 minutes of

the vegetables cooking throw the salmon in the oven and serve the salmon on a bed

of the vegetables.

Fish parcels

Use Pollock, sea bream, gurnard or mackerel. For a Mediterranean flavour place

the fish on a base of fennel in tin foil, add a dash of olive oil, some thyme and oregano

and some lemon juice. Fold up the parcel and place in the oven for 15 minutes at

180 degrees Celsius. Serve with a garden salad, chopped tomatoes and olives. For an

oriental flavour add the fish to a base of chopped chillies, ginger, garlic and lemon

grass, add a dash of sesame oil and tamari sauce and cook. Serve with whole grain

rice and some steamed bok choy.

Fish and chips

Dice up some potato or sweet potato into wedges (leave the skin on) and par boil

for 10 minutes, then toss them in oil or butter and place in a hot oven for 20-30

minutes until cooked and crisp on the outside. In the mean time take some white

fish like sea bass or pangasius, season with salt and pepper, bay leaves and a sprig

of thyme and steam bake (place some water in the bottom of the baking tray and

cover with foil) for 15-20 minutes. Serve with the potatoes and some tinned mushy

peas.

Welsh mussels

Dice up an onion and a leek and sweat down in some butter. Chop up some smoked

bacon back and add to the onion and leeks. Finally throw in your mussels and cover

until the mussels open and then serve. Throw away any mussels that have not

opened.

Squid salad

Chop up some squid and fry it off in some olive oil with chilli flakes, garlic, salt and

pepper. Serve on a bed of mixed salad.

There you go, quick simple and delicious seafood in less than 30 minutes

(often times 15-20 minutes). See below why nutritional therapist Steve Hines believes

we should be eating more protein like fish.

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness

Peak XV Fitness holds regular outdoor workouts and is

considered the premier outfit for Women’s fitness in

Reading. The sessions take place in Christchurch

Meadows in Caversham in a beautiful setting down by

the river. The sessions are an hour long and are

attended by women in search of fitness from all over

the Reading and West Berkshire area. The intense

sessions are split into four sections each focusing on

different aspects of women’s fitness. Reading is not

well served by outdoor fitness providers and Peak

XV Fitness have only been operating their outdoor

Fitness Bootcamps for 18 months.

The first section of the Reading women’s workout

is the often overlooked dynamic flexibility. It is

often wrongly thought that slow static stretching is

good at the start of the workout but nothing could

be further from the truth. Research into women’s fitness

has consistently showed that static stretching pre

workout can often lead to muscle and tendon injury.

It is much more sensible to begin the workout with a

structured progressive dynamic warm up where the

movements expected in the workouts are replicated

at ever increasing intensity. This not only decreases

the likelihood of injury amongst participants but also

prepares the muscles, joints and nervous system for the

rigours of the session ahead.

The next section of the women’s fitness class is the

circuit training portion. The coaches at Peak XV Fitness

particularly focus on body weight exercises which are

great for sculpting the female body without adding bulk.

Functional exercises like squats, push ups, lunges and rows

are common and are often supplemented with band exercises

and kettle bell drills to maximise the calorie burn effect.

Next High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) running drills are

used by the instructors both to burn maximum fat but also to

improve the cardiovascular fitness of the ladies. Popular drills

include repeated 40 metre sprints with short rest periods. Ten

 minutes of this high intensity work is followed by a controlled

cool down and static stretch. This is the time to do the static

stretches, according to the team of coaches, where Reading

women’s fitness participants are encouraged to hold the

stretches for up to 30 seconds in order to restore muscle

length and alleviate some of the next day’s muscle soreness.

All members of the Reading women’s workout group also get

full nutritional support in the form of a monthly meal plan and

shopping list, courtesy of in house Nutritional Therapist Steve

Hines. Steve encourages the girls to eat regularly to keep their

energy up and to base their main meals around healthy protein sources

such as meat and fish and supplement this with plenty of fruit and vegetables.

He encourages them not to be fat phobic and to get healthy fats in the form of

 Omega 3 oils which are great for weight loss.

Anyone wishing to benefit from the expertise of the team

at Peak XV Fitness and is specifically looking for a women’s workout

 in Reading should go to www.peakxvfitness.com/bootcamps and

request an information pack. They have several successstories on

their website that show the results that can beachieved with a little hard

work and dedication.

A post from: womensoutdoorfitness