5 Tips for helping you stay on track with your diet.

Pre-plan your meals

Plan your meals in advance to give you a weekly structure to follow. You could also consider weekly menus. For those who think eating healthy is way too expensive, think again; this will also help you save money. Meal planning can save you money when done effectively, because you can buy items in bulk and take advantage of your freezer. When you set aside time to prep your food, think big in terms of volume.

Meal Prep

Prep full meals or individual sources for easy meal planning. Pre-made protein sources help ensure you eat adequate protein & meal prepping is great for busy individuals. Once you get the gist of it, meal prepping becomes such an essential part of your weeks structure. Rather than cooking dinner and cleaning up, and then having to get everything out again to make something for lunch you have already pre-made the lunch meals. This helps you cut so much time in the kitchen and you will have the great feeling of being much more organised.

Don’t buy tempting foods

Keep foods that temp you out of the house. If you are unable to avoid having these foods, put them out of sight to avoid easy snacking. Having a list of weekly meals and mass bulk buys will help you to avoid buying those tempting foods.

Pump up the nutrients

Increase the volume of nutritious and low-calorie foods such as vegetables to help increase the feeling of being full, without having to add a lot of calories into your meals. This will also help you gain a better understanding of portion control and it will allow you to spread your eating throughout the day better, rather than having 1 or 2 big meals a day.

Don’t worry if you slip up, just get back on track

No one is perfect! Not even those Instagram famous fitness fanatics. Don’t beat yourself up if you occasionally go off your dieting plan. Remember, you don’t have to wait until the next day to get back on track, you can get back on track with your next meal. It’s good to relax every now and gain to have a treat to keep you interested in your diet.

If you want to find out more about how to put a tailored meal plan together for your own individual gaols, (click the picture below) to head over to our website and send us an email. Our nutrition guide has everything you need to get started!

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Why group training is the key to health in under 500 words.

Group training is becoming an increasingly popular way to workout. Classes included in your gym membership, a bootcamp or semi-private PT session all provide people with the opportunity to follow a coach led session at a fraction of the cost of a 1-on-1 session. Here’s a quick post on the main benefits of group training and why you should start today.

Blueprint for success

Everything about group training is designed for your success; the fun, social environment created by working out as a group is a major component of this. Everyone attending the session has the same goal in mind so you can all push each other to succeed and, make a few new friends whilst you’re at it.

Accountability

Not only do you have your amazing coach, you’ve also got a group of like-minded people who want you to achieve incredible results. You’ve learnt new workouts, pushed and supported each other so everyone gets it done. Group training offers comradery and a support network so you can count on your peers to keep you accountable.

Lifestyle

Group sessions are normally 30-45 minute classes which have a specific outcome such as fat loss, conditioning, and core strength. The shorter, more intense classes are a lot easier to fit around a busy lifestyle and can help you stay on track with your fitness goals. More and more people are sticking to group fitness classes and are reaping the rewards for doing so.

Beginners welcome

Group exercise is great for people who want to start but aren’t quite sure where to begin. We can’t all be ‘fitness fanatics’ and finding a good coach will really empower you to better yourself. A good coach will understand your goals, take the time to teach you new exercises and make you feel comfortable exercising so you can get the best out of their expertise.

Yeah! Science b****

Any good exercise program is based on key scientific principles, without that, we’re just getting out of breath and not really doing anything useful. The science doesn’t just stop there; it’s the music, the warm-up/cool down, the exercise selection and more. Exercise science is an innovating subject and any coach worth their salt will have a solid grasp of what’s current.

 

And the one everyone loves the most…

Group training is incredibly cost effective so you can exercise more for less. Where else can you get coach led structured exercise designed for your success for a fraction of the price of a 1-on-1 PT session. As long as your coach prioritizes safe and effective practice within their sessions then you are onto a winner!

 

To try group training for FREE today, click the picture above and just send us an email! Alternatively, just drop us a message on our Facebook page and we’ll get you booked in today!

 

For exercise demonstrations, check out our FREE app (click the picture below) to view videos, pictures and exercise cues for over 250 exercises!

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Why consistency isn’t the key when it comes to fitness training.

The Problem(s)

   If you’ve been following fitness blogs for a while, you’ve probably heard the saying “consistency is key”. When it comes to setting goals and smashing them, its pretty good advice for the most part, however, it’s not strictly true. Now this isn’t to say you can kick back and take it easy and still achieve some incredible results, far from it, but you just have to be a bit smart about it.

   The problem with consistency is that people try to obliterate themselves day in day out, for weeks, and months on end with high intensity training sessions. This coupled with little to no recovery strategies will inevitably lead people down 2 paths; path number 1 is injury and path number 2 is overtraining & burnout (potentially leading to injury).

Injuries

   Injuries aren’t uncommon when it comes to physical exercise and there’s always a risk that you could pick up an injury at any given time. This can be a freak accident, or something that could be avoided. Where there are risks, there are risk factors and the job of a coach is to minimize these so that you can train in the safest environment possible; another great reason to hire a coach for your training sessions.

   When it comes to training, a major risk factor is that the body hasn’t fully recovered from the last session or even a block/period of training you’ve completed. This means that the body isn’t ready to exercise and as a result you could be exposing yourself to a higher risk of injury. Now most of the time this is something minor like a slight muscle pull, however injuries like muscle tears or snapped ligaments aren’t uncommon and can cause some long-term problems for your exercise goals.

Overtraining & Burnout

Overtraining & burnout can actually be a hell of a lot harder to overcome than an injury. When you’re injured you can at least focus on your recovery to get back into it, however, when you’re over-trained you probably couldn’t think of anything worse. Battling your mind is a lot harder than just simply saying “I’m going to get motivated now”, it’s a condition which has built up over a long period of time as a result of training too hard for the recovery strategies you employ.

When you’re over-trained you feel tired, lethargic and often dread going to the gym. This is your body’s way of telling you to take it easy and not listening can lead to burnout or injuries. Now, overtraining isn’t what you experienced when you simply “can’t be bothered” this is a chronic state in which you really struggle to motivate yourself when normally you’re fine and enjoy exercising.

The trick is knowing when to take a step back and let your body have a bit of a rest and not beat yourself up about it. If you imagine your body as a car engine, if you drive constantly at 100 mph it is going to break down eventually and cause more problems than if you just ease off the throttle for a little bit.

The solution

So, you may ask, if not consistency, what should I be aiming for in my training? Well, that is what I would call sustainability. If your goal is to run a marathon, you don’t want to burn out half way through because you sprinted at the start and progressively got slower as the race goes on. No, you’ll want to keep a good average speed, potentially with periods of higher intensity and lower intensity running.

Taking the example of a marathon, this is what we look for with fitness training. Overall we want to maintain a certain level of intensity, however this doesn’t mean it always has to be high. Sustaining an effort is as much about managing your energy and time as it is about putting yourself through grueling workouts. Allow your body a bit of time off and it will reward you with the results you desire.

A great way to visualize this is your bank account. If you spend more than you have coming in, then eventually you will end up with no money. To have a positive bank balance you will need to regulate your income/outcome balance over the course of the year. This may mean that you have periods of higher expenditure, but then you will compensate this by having periods of lower spending.

In Practice

It should go without saying that not being able to train due to injury or not wanting to train due to burnout are probably the two things you definitely don’t want to be doing, so how do we avoid them? The answer lies in a well structured, periodized program including proper recovery and nutrition strategies.

This is when we take your goals, and make a systematic plan of how we will hit them in the next year, 6 months, month week and even individual sessions. With a periodized program, a coach can effectively monitor and track your workouts, prescribe adequate loads and intensities, whilst also being able to plan appropriate ‘de-load’ periods. Monitoring can range from just assessing your mood/ability to train intensely to the super advanced tracking systems used in elite sport like GPS trackers, sleep tracking and psychological assessments.

So in short, if you’re feeling run down and dread training but fear not going, give yourself a week off, or a week of planned lower intensity sessions. Your body will thank you so much and will be ready to smash it when you back to it. Sustainability is the key.

 

For training programs, success stories and online coaching, click our website here 👈

For exercise demonstrations, check out our FREE app (click the picture below) to view videos, pictures and exercise cues for over 250 exercises!

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