Continue reading »]]> It’s that time of the year again. Have you made your New Year’s resolutions yet? Is losing weight on your agenda for the New Year?

Making a New Year’s resolution to lose weight and get lean might sound cliché, but it’s a fitting way to start a new year. For many people a new year means a fresh start and so it’s no wonder that weight loss has become one of the most common resolutions today. The tragic cliché is that far too often you hear statements such as “Oh well, I’ve broken my New Year’s resolution already!” However, this can be avoided with a little self-discipline and some pre-planning.

The important thing in making resolutions is to ensure that they are achievable. By all means challenge yourself to change your lifestyle but ensure that the goals you set for yourself are realistic. For example, chances are you spent New Year’s Eve indulging in alcohol and fatty food, so maybe starting a diet the morning after should be avoided until that hangover has passed. Instead, why not spend the first few days of the New Year figuring out exactly what it is you want to achieve with your resolution and what steps you need to take to get you started?

Begin by determining your long-term goal, e.g. to drop three dress sizes, then consider the time scale and a realistic weight or dress size to work towards. Once you have this in place, break this up into smaller goals that can work as benchmarks throughout the time scale you have proposed for yourself. For instance, if your goal is to lose 40 pounds over six months, then your monthly goal could be to lose seven pounds per month.

Once you have this down, find a gym or a personal trainer you feel comfortable working with, because you’ll need to develop an exercise programme that inspires you to keep active for the long term so that your resolutions are kept for this year and your new body maintained for the years that follow!

Continue reading »]]> Nitric oxide is frequently mistaken for both nitrous oxide and nitrogen dioxide, which is hardly surprisingly considering how similar they all sound; but seeing as nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas and nitrogen dioxide an air pollutant, they are definitely of no use to us on our quest to improve our bodies and overall health! Now that we have made that distinction, let’s get down to the facts.

Nitric oxide is an important signalling molecule that acts in many of our body tissues as a regulator of various pathological and physiological processes. It has an antianginal effect on your system by causing vasodilatation, leading to a decrease in cardiac workload. By dilating your veins, nitric oxide lowers both arterial pressure and left ventricular filling pressure. This vasodilatation does not decrease the volume of blood the heart pumps, but instead it decreases the force the heart muscle must exert to pump the same volume of blood.

In plain English, this is a good thing for your body as it can assist the immune system when it is called to fight off harmful bacteria and it works to regulate blood pressure. Furthermore, nitric oxide does the following…

• Helps memory and behaviour by transmitting information between nerve cells in the brain
• Defends against tumours
• Reduces inflammation
• Improves sleep quality
• Increases recognition of sense (e.g. smell)
• Increases endurance and strength
• Assists gastric motility

In regards to fitness, an increase in nitric oxide in the body equates to more blood being in the muscles, leading to a greater pump effect and better nutrient delivery. The most common way to achieve this increase is through exercise. When doing any form of exercise, your muscles will require more oxygen, which is delivered through your blood stream. As your heart pumps with more pressure to supply the muscles with blood, the lining in your arteries releases nitric oxide into the blood. This relaxes and widens the vessel wall, allowing for more blood to pass though.

To supplement your exercise, you can increase nitric oxide through diet, by consuming the amino acids L-arginine and L-citrulline. Necessary for the production of protein, L-arginine also helps rid the body of ammonia (a waste product), stimulates the release of insulin and is used to make nitric oxide. When you combine L-arginine with citrulline, nitric oxide production is increased. Citrulline is created in the body as an intermediate in the conversion of the amino acid ornithine to arginine in a metabolic pathway called the urea cycle. As a precursor to nitric oxide, it supports cardiovascular health, sexual function, and physical energy. L-citrulline also helps detoxify the liver through its role in converting ammonia into urea.

Foods rich in L-arginine and L-citrulline include:

• Meat and vegetable proteins: Arginine is found in varying degrees in all protein sources. Good sources include: tuna, chicken, beef, pork, almonds, walnuts, peanuts.
• Watermellon: The main dietary source of citrulline. To get the most citrulline from watermelon, make sure you eat the rind as well.
• Dairy: Some cheeses offer more arginine per gram than meats such as chicken. Dry Parmesan, skimmed milk mozzarella, Swiss, Edam and Gouda are high in arginine. Surprisingly, milk has very little arginine; one whole fried egg has 12 times the arginine per gram than an equal weight of milk.

Nitric oxide only lasts a few seconds in the body, but can be sustained for longer periods with the consumption of antioxidants as part of a balanced diet. Antioxidants can be found in tea, fruit, garlic, soy, vitamins C and E, to name but a few. The more antioxidant protection you provide your body, the more stable the nitric oxide levels will be and the longer its benefits will be present in your system.

Nitric oxide deficiencies occur with aging, sedentary behaviour, smoking, high cholesterol and poor diet, but by increasing your nitric oxide you can sustain decent energy levels and improve your overall vitality and wellness.

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Choose organic meat for a healthier body!

Protein, muscles and organic meat.

If your goal is to bulk up or tone your body, you would be right in thinking that you need to increase the amount of protein in your diet. Protein alone will not make you lean or buff, because its actual role is to aid muscular repair and to help your muscles function properly. With exercise, protein, when accompanied with the correct amount of nutrients, can help you sculpt your body and achieve your desired weight mass.

Muscles are most noticeably built when you exercise through weight training, the intensity of which leads to the process whereby your muscle fibres are damaged and torn down. In order for this to occur properly, your body must be allowed to repair following the exercise session. If your protein intake is inadequate (as in, poor choices of protein) or deficient (as in, not enough), the body draws on red blood cells, haemoglobin, and plasma proteins as a source for muscular repair. If this happens on a regular basis, sports anaemia can transpire and the results can leave you feeling exhausted and looking unfit.

How much protein do I need to consume to aid in my muscle building endeavours?

The RDA (recommended daily allowance) is 55.5g for men and for women the RDA is 45g. Whilst this may be ok for the sedentary individual as soon as you start training in any way this amount needs to go up.

Many studies have been done on larger amounts during training using anything from 2-4 grams of protein per kg of body weight. The problem being everybody is different so it would be no help for me to put on here exact amounts of protein for everyone to follow but the following is a good starting point for your own experimentation.

Men should start out at 1.5g up to 2g per kg of body weight meaning that a 80kg man should try for 120g to 160g.

Women do not need as much so 1g up to 1.5g per kg of bodyweight would be a good range.

Remember to look on the nutritional info to find out how much protein is in your food choices, for instance chicken has around 20g of protein per 100g. So a weight training male would need to eat up to 800g of chicken in 1 day.

This is allot of meat, so this is where whey protein can come in to help you get you desired amounts up without breaking the bank and spending all day cooking.

This post from Livestrong.com, describes perfectly what you should be aiming for as an individual seeking to improve body mass without having to weigh all your protein:

“If you’re a weight lifter — especially if you’re trying to bulk up your muscles — you need about 80g of protein for every 100 lbs. of your body weight, which is about twice as much protein as an inactive person… To translate your daily protein requirements into servings of food, it can help to conceptualise protein servings in the size of decks of cards, according to the University of California at Berkeley. For example, one serving of chicken with about 20g of protein looks about the same size as a deck of cards. The same approximate formula applies to beef. Therefore, if you weigh 200 lbs. and you need 160g of protein per day, you’ll need to consume about four card deck-sized servings of chicken or beef.”

As you calculate your daily protein needs, keep in mind that other foods such as dairy products, spinach, beans, lentils etc. have a protein quantity in them too, in addition to including valuable nutrients such as calcium, fibre, etc. that are not found in meat. Therefore, make sure you mix up your protein sources and ensure you get a balanced diet everyday.

Whilst getting the protein quantity in your diet correct is important, the quality of your source is equally critical, meaning, go organic! By going organic in your food choices, you are protecting your body from potentially harmful chemicals that are often found in non-organic foods. Protein is particularly vulnerable to having unwanted contaminants added to it. Over the past fifty years, food production companies have sought to extend the life of perishable foods by adding preservatives to them. In meat such as chicken and beef, growth hormones and antibiotics are frequently given to animals before they are processed, so that the meat produced has an appearance or smell that is deemed commercially pleasing by its manufacturer for its extended shelf life, but that it is not particularly good for you.

What is organic farming?

The Food Standards Agency of the United Kingdom (The independent government body that works to protect the public’s health and consumer interests in regards to food) classifies organic farming as “…a holistic approach to food production, making use of crop rotation, environmental management and good animal husbandry to control pests and diseases. Processed organic foods use ingredients that were produced organically and organic ingredients must make up at least 95% of the food. There are only a limited number of additives used in organic food production.” (See website for more information.)

Some key aspects of organic farming and food are:

Restricted use of artificial fertilisers or pesticides.

• Emphasis on animal welfare, and prevention of ill health, including stocking densities, free range, choice of suitable breeds.
• Use of conventional veterinary medicines is focussed on treating sick animals.
• Emphasis on soil health and maintaining this through application of manure, compost and crop rotation.
• Processors of organic foods have a restricted set of additives to use
• No use of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) or their products allowed.

What organic options would be ideal for my diet?

Healthy Animal Products

Game meats (venison, pheasant, quail)

Organic beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, ostrich and buffalo

Organic eggs from free range chickens

Farmed fish that have scales and fins

Organic raw goat or cow milk (if available)

Organic, pasteurized milk

Organic soured milk product (yogurt)

Organic cheese

Organic butter

Animal Products to Avoid

Lunch meats (frankfurters, pepperoni, cold cuts)

Non-organic beef, chicken and pork products

Non-organic eggs

Non-organic milk and milk products

Shellfish (crab, lobster, shrimp, prawns, scallops)

Bay water fish

Shark meat

Catfish and other scavenger fish

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Get great weight loss results with a cheat day

Understanding what the leptin hormone is will help you achieve your desired body weight. Why? Because leptin causes your body to burn stored fat.

Named after leptos, the Greek term for “thin,” leptin is a hormone released by your fat cells. Although it has a number of functions, one of leptin’s main roles is to let your brain know how fat you are. Leptin is produced by fat tissue and is secreted into the bloodstream where it travels to the brain and other tissues. Leptin causes fat loss and decreased appetite and plays an important role in calorie intake and calorie burning.

In general, the leaner you are, the lower your standard levels of leptin are. Under regular circumstances, leptin is plentiful, but when on a low calorie diet for an extended period, your body will begin to slow its metabolic functions in an effort to adjust to the decreased amount of energy that it has been given. If this happens it can mean little to no weight loss, which can be upsetting to any dieter who has played by the rules and followed their plan without deviating.

As leptin levels fall, the greater your cravings will become for those foods that you used to eat when you weren’t dieting. If you experience more intense cravings on a daily basis, take relief in knowing that this is your body responding to a physiological signal and your mind playing tricks on you. Always remember that our bodies want to adapt to change and that is a good thing usually, but an annoyance when trying to lose body fat.

How do we increase the amount of leptin in our bodies, so that it is enough to kick-start the fat loss in our diet? Simply put, the answer lies in cheating, or rather by employing a cheat day into your weekly diet where you ‘overfeed’ on double the amount of calories. Numerous studies have shown that if you significantly increase your food intake once per week, you can boost the fat loss process by ensuring that your metabolism doesn’t slow down.

Researchers have identified a process that ‘senses’ nutrient fluctuation through both fat and muscle cells. When dieting, more calories are leaving the fat cells than are going in. This nutrient sensing system,  ‘senses’ this and affects many developments in the body, one of which is decreasing leptin production, causing that all important fat hormone to drop. Conversely, when overfeeding, more calories are entering the fat cells than are leaving, causing the system to increase leptin production.

You might be thinking: “Why don’t I just spread out my calories over the week?” If only we could! Sadly, this does not work because it fails to stimulate the leptin production needed to help your body burn fat.

All this explains why a cheat day is so important, but what exactly does a cheat day entail? It means you should allow yourself to eat more carbohydrates, protein and fat, much more so than you would during the other days of the week.

Here are a few of my tips for a successful cheat day…

> Ensure you drink plenty of water and if you can, try working out on your cheat day.

Indulge in some whole grain foods such as oatmeal, whole-wheat bread and brown rice. Their increased fiber content will help control hunger pangs and aide in fat loss.

> Leptin is highly responsive to glucose metabolism therefore, you will benefit much more if the majority of your excess calories are coming from good sources of carbohydrates that will turn into glucose, such as bread, potato, pasta, etc.

> Keep your fruit intake to no more than 3-4 servings, as you don’t want to overload your liver with excess sugar. If your liver is unable to convert fructose to glycogen, it becomes fat.

> See your cheat day as a reprieve from the diet you’ve stuck to over the past few days, but remember that hitting your system too hard with things like sugar and alcohol is never a good thing, therefore be sensible about what you eat. By all means, enjoy a desert, add a few more carbs to each meal and savour a few alcoholic drinks if you feel like it, but do not binge!