Tip 2: Do Get A Balanced Fat Intake
To get a balanced fat intake you want to get a large quantity of omega-3 fats that are balanced with omega-6 fats. Ideally, you’ll get a near equal ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats. Most people get way to many omega-6 fats because they are abundantly found in our diets in the form of the most commonly used vegetable oils (corn, sesame, safflower, peanut, etc.). Omega-3 fatty acids are those that commonly come from fish oil (often referred to as DHA, EPA and ALA), but they also can be gotten from grass-fed beef and wild meats. This is why I suggest two things you can do for better insulin health and body composition are to take a high dose of omega-3s and eat meats and fish that have a high concentration of these fats.

Tip 3: Get Rid of Stress and Lower Cortisol Levels
To lose fat, it’s essential that you minimize stress to lower your cortisol levels. It is well established that chronically high cortisol results in fat gain, particularly around the middle. This means that no matter how much you exercise or eat healthy, you won’t lose weight if your cortisol is elevated because of how cortisol makes the body insensitive to insulin.

Tip 4: Fix Your Gut With a Probiotic
Fix your gut health and support digestion by taking a probiotic to lose fat, have more energy, and feel better. Probiotics are the tiny bacteria that naturally occur in the gastrointestinal tract and are commonly found in dairy products such as yogurt.

It’s very difficult to lose weight if you don’t have a healthy gut for two interrelated reasons. First, more than half of the neurotransmitters that send messages from the brain to cells and hormone receptors throughout the body are made in the gastrointestinal lining. If your gut is not healthy, it will negatively affect the production of the neurotransmitters, leading to poor cognitive function, low mood, feelings of depression, and low motivation.

Tip 5: Eat Breakfast with Protein in It: No Cereal Allowed
Skipping breakfast and missing meals will set you up to fail to lose weight. Eating breakfast is one of the simplest, healthiest things you can do to feel better and have more energy, but there’s one catch. You have to eat protein at breakfast. Eating cereal for breakfast is a common pitfall that is often not addressed by the media or mainstream health professionals.

If you set your neurotransmitters up with a high-carb cereal, orange juice, and a banana, you’ll trigger a big insulin response, elevate serotonin and end up feeling low energy and foggy in the brain soon after. It’s very difficult to reverse the poor brain function and sluggishness that goes with a high-carb breakfast, and people tend to counter these feelings of tiredness and with caffeine, which raises cortisol and causes a new round of problems such as anxiety, an excited sympathetic nervous system, and poor energy production.

Tip 6: Don’t Forget To Strength Train. Be As Active As Possible
There’s no reason you should not be doing some sort of strength training if you are trying to lose weight. In fact, there’s no reason that anyone should not be doing strength training. There’s nothing bad about training as long as you learn proper form and have a reasonable plan of progression.

Strength training is essential for weight loss because it will burn fat, burn calories, improve insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake, and make you stronger. Strength training is preferred over aerobic training that is done on cardio machines such as a treadmill because it will produce a more favourable muscle building response and burn more fat.

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These 6 tips were taken from an article by Charles Poliquin.  Check out the Full article by Charles Poliquin here

Hi everyone,

We all struggle with food choices every now and then (some more than others) for different reasons (laziness, will power, etc). So what I have done for you today is compile a list of the most nutrient rich foods that are available for you to consume.

The following list is taken from Dr Johnny Bowden (nutritionist) and it rates food on their nutritional.

If you use this as you shopping list there is no excuse not to be eating healthy and have plenty of foods available to you.

Download the list here ‘150 Healthiest foods on earth‘

Guys want the abs, Girls just want their guys to look Ryan Gosling (according to the wife)

It would have to be the universal goal for every bloke out there and for ladies it would high up on the list.

The mysterious 6 pack abs or flat stomach (for the females out there)

So how do you get them?

It’s simple, in theory.

Difficult in practice;

It will take time, but here 5 steps to take you there.

1.  Cut the crap out of the diet.

• Your diet will need to be spot on, there is no cheating here.
• All natural. Meat, fruit, vegetables and water
• A lot of excess calories come from fluids (coffee, soft drinks, fruit juices)

2.  Hit the weights

• You will need to increase your lean muscle mass
• Females, this doesn’t mean getting bulky so relax
• The more lean muscle tissue, the more energy you burn at rest

3.  HIIT – High Intensity Interval Training

• High intensity sprinting, can be either running, cycling, rowing
• Must be to the point where you absolutely stuffed to get best results

4.  Sleep

• Massive step in getting abs.
• Majority of recovery is done while at rest
• 6-8 hours minimum

5. Drink lots of water

• Staying hydrated allows the body to perform optimally

It is not an easy journey to a flat stomach, but like everything if you want to achieve it you are going to have to get uncomfortable and just do it.

Want it, start now.

If you need help trying to get there, personal training, boot camp and at home programs can be done by Strenua PT. Contact us to find out more

So, who has made a new years resolution?

I have.

I try to keep mine simple and pick only a few that I can focus on.  The reason I do this is because I have the attention span of a 2 year old and i find it easier to achieve them if they are short and sharp.  I think others may be in the same boat as me.

When it comes to exercise and resolutions everybody looks long term, why don’t we break them down in to more achievable weekly or monthly goals instead.

Here are some simple sample goals that may help you, modify them according to what you want to achieve.

1.  Exercise 5 times this week

2.  Be alcohol free Monday to Friday

3.  Get 8 hours sleep at least 3 days this week

4.  Prepare your meals for the week.

5.  Exercise 20 times for the month

Try them, modify them, ignore them and replace them with your own.  Either way, your goals have nothing to do with anyone else but you.  The only one who will lose out if they aren’t achieved, is YOU.

The choice is yours, happy exercising.

This series of posts are going to be short and sharp, straight to the point, no holding back, (* insert any other cliches you like here*) pockets of goodness for you to think about.

So here it goes …  Reality check time

1.     The ‘universe’ doesn’t give a fat rats clacker about you.
2.    Life is not fair or unfair. Life is life. Deal with it
3.    Things don’t work themselves out. You do
4.    Anything isn’t possible. It sounds nice though.
5.    Knowing what to do is not enough. You must act on what you know

You can look at the above and take it which ever way you like

• some will act on it and make good use of it
• others will get offended
• some won’t give a crap and ignore it

Fell free to add you own ‘reality check’ in the comments section below, the best one will get a free personal training session or a free week of boot camp

Have an awesome week everyone.

What a load of crap!

It seems that the majority of people associate Christmas with drinking copious amounts of booze, eating too much junk and fatty foods and being lazy.  But why?

If anything we should be able to exercise more and eat just as healthy over the break than any other time of the year.

Most people are on holidays so the old work excuse doesn’t fly, you have more time to get to the supermarket and buy healthy food and you have more time to prepare your delicious healthy meals.

There are no excuses, just lazy people.

There is just under 4 weeks to Christmas, if you apply yourself, treat your body with respect and feed it the proper foods there is no reason why you cannot lose 500g per week and 2kg before Christmas.

So here is the plan to drop those unwanted kilos before Christmas.

1.  Stop eating crap.

Only consume natural foods (meat, fruit, vegetable and water),  you will feel the difference over night

2.  Move your lazy arse.

It’s daylight savings people, there is light till 8pm.  Get outside do some sprint training, take the kids to the park and run around.  Push ups, squats, burpees, step ups, lunges, do 50 of each of those and that should burn a few calories.

I hope you weren’t expecting some miracle advice there that would make the kilos fall off.  Weight loss is simple.  Eat properly and move your body more.

]]> http://www.strenuapt.com.au/4-week-pre-christmas-fat-blasting-plan/feed 0 http://www.strenuapt.com.au/are-you-getting-enough-protein-in-your-diet http://www.strenuapt.com.au/are-you-getting-enough-protein-in-your-diet#comments Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:34:17 +0000 http://www.strenuapt.com.au/?p=703 mmm, Steak for breakfast.  Delicious

Ok, so I know that’s not everyone’s reaction, but for those that have spoke to me know that I am a fan of steak for breakfast. It’s high in protein and keeps me full for most of the morning.

This leads me to Protein.

Protein is an essential nutrient that your body needs in relatively large quantities to keep the body functioning optimally, without it our bodies cannot repair properly, produce essential amino acids or maintain muscle mass.

I hate reading long winded spiels, so here are some short info dot points you should know about protein

1.  Protein is classified as either complete or incomplete, complete sources come from animal foods and contain all nine essential amino acids.  Incomplete proteins are missing one or more amino acids,  incomplete protein foods include grains, beans, seeds, peas and nuts.  Soybeans are the only non-animal food that is a complete protein.

2.  Protein helps in your body’s maintenance functions, including the formation of blood cells, production of antibodies that protect against disease, tissue repair and cellular maintenance, such as transporting molecules and breaking down toxins. Your skin, hair, eyes and body organs are made of protein.

3.  Due to the slower breakdown of protein, consumption or protein will leave you with the sensation of feeling fuller for longer and curb your appitite.

4.  You don’t need to eat meat to get enough protein in your diet.  Great sources of protein can be found in beans, nuts and seeds.

5.  Protein aides in maintaining and building muscle mass.  It also helps with exercise recovery and should be consumed directly after a workout (it will help with reducing the soreness)

6.  Too much protein and not enough fibre in your diet will leaving you constipated and shitting bricks.  Eat plenty of fruit and veg to get your fibre fix

If you find you are struggling to get protein into your diet, you may have to look at consuming some sort of protein supplements. There are huge amounts of supplements out there and all claiming to do different things, my best advice is to read the back of the label and see how much sugar (carbohydrates) is listed and pick the one with the least amount in it.  If it has a high level of sugar in it, it is trying to make it taste better because it is crap.

But in saying all that, if you are eating a balanced diet with plenty of meat, vegetables, fruits and water and planning your meals so that you get a good mix of these you shouldn’t have any trouble getting your daily protein intake.

If you have any questions or there is a particular topic you would like to know more info on, let me know

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