6 Foods That Might Change Your Life...or Might Not

   

   It's important not to get too bogged down in the minutiae of your diet. Worrying about whether your meal contains enough selenium or niacin makes for a troubled existence. However, the odd fleeting glance over some supported and insupportable dietary facts does make for interesting reading. Luckily for you, all of the below are founded in solid research, often Danish research. So, if you harbour any xenophobic feelings towards the Danes, their medical research centres or are just plain fed-up with reading subtitles, because your partner finds 'The Killing' “absolutely enthralling” (incidentally you now despise the word 'enthralling' – it's ridiculous), then please look away now...

The following foods should be incorporated into your diet for their ability to aid in weight loss:

• Red Onions – contain 'chromium' which removes sugar from the blood, therefore less is turned into fat.
  
  
• White Vinegar – inhibits the breakdown of starch, which stabilises blood sugar levels.
  
  
• Cinnamon – proven to lower your blood sugar levels. Penn State University showed that it can reduce the fat in your blood by up to 30%. Sprinkle on porridge or in a curry, not on a bun.
  
  
• Mackerel – high in 'taurine', which is an amino acid that has been found to inhibit fat growth.
  
  
• Sweet Potato – the more talented and considerably better loved sibling of the white potato. Why? It's lower GI (slower release of energy) and filled to the brim with carotenoids. Carotenoids are powerful antioxidants that boost your immune system, have been shown to prevent against cancer and heart disease...do I have to carry on? Bueller?
  
  
• Chilli – the capsaicin in the chillies cause 'thermogenesis' (the process by which the body produces heat) thus having a profound effect on the metabolism. Furthermore, capsaicin lowers caloric intake. Be warned: do not get carried away, decide every meal warrants a sprinkle of chilli and turn in Gwyneth Paltrow; her infection of the Sunday supplements is loathsome.

So, there we go. It's a fairly modest list, plucked from a sea of often ambiguous nutritional information, but I feel it sufficient for now; more will follow.

6 Things I Have Learnt This Winter

1. Wear Lycra. Whether they're Skins, Nike or Anne Summers, wear them. You heard the man on BBC Breakfast, “It's -1^oc but...feels like -6^oc”. Surrey-Kent border has become Stalingrad, a far cry from the land of midday spin classes, silver Range-Rovers and lazily sipped glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. So, for the foreseeable future, slide into those bottoms and don't take them off until Spring arrives.

2. Don't buy fancy gloves with 'iPod sensitive' fingertips. The man in the shop will insist this is the path to being a 21^st century mother, touch-screen goddess and fitness guru, but he is lying to you. The fingertip material wears away; you then take them back to the store; they then ask you, “have you only run in these?”; you feel the weight of their omnipotent, retail hardened eyes bearing down on you; you crack and admit to actually having used them to mix up concrete....with your hands, and to wearing them during sculpture classes because the clay was cold; you shuffle out of the shop, looking like a hobo with an iPod, adorned in Lycra.

3. Don't talk about “winter tyres” - very few are interested in what you are driving, absolutely no one cares about what tyres you have attached to whatever it is you are driving.

4. Babies, no matter how young, can be left outside for at least one hour. The legions of mothers that bless the hallowed grounds of bootcamp can vouch for this: baby + pram + blanket + Russian winter = temporarily dormant, content baby.

5. Blackberry’s, cased or otherwise, are a waste of time. There are those who say: “Like, I just find they're the best for emails so, like, you know mate, it's the Blackberry for me” - congratulations, 'mate', you are currently in a job that requires you to check your emails on a regular but most likely, semi-regular basis. This does not endorse buying or being given – in exchange for the best part of your twenties and your soul – a Blackberry. They break frequently enough to bring a grown man to tears and long for simpler times.

6. The Griffin Survivor iPad case works. Snow, rain, foot of toddler, you name it, the Griffin case just brushed them off.

For Women With 'Toning' in Their Vocabulary

Seventy-five percent of women in the UK do not like their upper arms. Men, however, remain indifferent, preferring bums instead. Asides from this being a subjective statement, it is  in fact a surveyed, national truth; I would be surprised if it wasn't a global one. Today's session looked at finding a half-way house: Aniston's arms for the soul; and rear attention for ours. 

Now, before I start scribbling out sets, it's important to understand one or two fundamental facts when it comes to getting any part of your body to look “good”. If you read anything today, read the following three points:

You Are Not Putty:

You can not burn fat from just one specific part of your body. You can strengthen muscle, increase it's density and thus “firm up” an area but unfortunately, unlike a scalpel, 'spot reduction' is fictional.

Maths:

Sixty percent of your muscle mass is in your lower body. Therefore, neglect your legs and you ignore the vast majority of your fat burning potential. Pay lavish attention to what to lies below and your resting metabolic rate WILL increase. In short: don't get caught up in a tide of isolation exercises and lose sight of the bigger picture.

Lower Reps and Larger Weights Lead to Better Bodies:

Put down that plastic dumbbell, stop your hundredth bicep curl and dare to lift more. “Some science, please”, I hear you cry? Right, well..basically, contractions in the higher repetition range trigger an increase in sarcoplasm. Sarcoplasm is a protein liquid substance that saturates and surrounds everything in a muscle cell with nutrients. Just doing high reps means your muscles have plenty of fluid in them. On the other hand, if you want a harder, denser muscle then you ought to play around with lower repetitions as you will increase the volume and density of your myofibrils (the stringy fibres that constitute muscle), leading to a much firmer looking muscle. Hence why tiny female Olympic weightlifters are exactly that: “tiny...female...and a weightlifter”, not the fire breathing, testosterone dripping, Birkenstock wearing, cat owning, father hating persona you've got pictured.

Formalities aside, let the workout begin...

Warm Up:

• 5 minutes of cardio
• Dynamic Stretches: air squats, leg swings, lunges, half press ups, arm rotations etc.
• Glute Activation (if you want to lose weight, better your posture, reduce back pain and get an arse that brings all the boys to the yard, then please, please do this!): 2 x 30 seconds holding the plank, 3 x 10 seconds holding the bridge and perform 'the clam' 20 times for each leg...look it up and you'll know what I mean, sister.

The Workout:

The following routine will be working with lower repetitions but can easily be done outside of the hormone filled confines of a consumerist gym. Please make each exercise as hard as possible for yourselves, apathy kills 'n' all that. Don't do this routine more than once a week.

Lower Body Attention: Perform 6 reps, on each leg, of the first exercise, followed immediately by 10 reps of the second exercise. Rest for a minute, then repeat another 3-4 times.

1. Single Leg Bench Get-ups – sit down on a surface that is just below knee height, lift one leg in the air, tense your stomach and stand up, squeezing your bum at the top of the movement, now try and lower yourself - still standing on one leg - back down onto the bench....as slowly as possibly (eccentric movements are better for muscle strengthening).

2. Box Jumps – Jump up onto a surface that is a challenging height above the ground (knee height). When you land, make sure you stand up straight, squeeze your bum before getting down again; we want full extension at the hips.

Upper Body Acceptance: We want to really pre-exhaust your muscles here, so make sure you perform the first exercise until you can't do another repetition. Then move straight onto the second exercise and do as many as you can with PROPER form. Rest for 2 minutes, then repeat another 3-4 times.

1. Changing Press Ups (or half) – start with your hands as close as possible together and as you start to fatigue, bring them wider and wider. Take 1 second to push up and 5 seconds to lower.

2. Dips – on a bench, chair or dip bar; keep the lifting tempo: 1 second up, 5 down. Don't let your upper arms go below parallel to the ground.

For Balance: Perform both these exercises back-to-back, rest a minute, then repeat 2-3 times. The same lifting tempo applies. Also, if you haven't yet noticed, this last section is in order to iron out imbalances – you can't train your anterior chain and then neglect your posterior.

1. Single-leg, Romanian, Bodyweight Deadlift – keep your back straight, shoulders back and drive up through your heel. 8 reps/leg.

2. Superman Back Extensions – squeeze shoulder blades together at the top of the movement. 10 reps.

Warm Down:

• 5 minutes cardio
• Extensive stretching -stretched muscles look better than tight ones, contrary to popular belief; i.e. the belief of the male population in Essex on a Friday night.

Now go eat something substantial. You need to repair your muscles or risk failing to capitalise, fully, on the last forty-five minutes.

A Lack of Time: Vacation Problems

Easter is fast approaching. Kids are breaking up for the holidays; the talk is of 'good snow' and 'fresh powder' - damn the drug problem in the youth today. People appear to be trotting off to greener grasses and increasingly I am asked what can be done with no time at all. Unfortunately celestial foresight and witty retort fail me, instead try and suffice with mind blowing brevity and new-world efficiency. You can take it anywhere: the Alps, Majorca, your bedroom floor...or anyone else's. You won't need a timer, watch or Ikea wall clock - we're embracing instinct on this one. Time can mutter in the corner. You will, however, require a weight (six-pack of Evian water; 'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel; pillow case filled with conveniently heavy objects) and a touch of space. This is what you can do with no time at all...in a hotel...on holiday.

The Warm-up:

• 20 of the following: squats, lunges, reverse crunches (pushing your lower back firmly into the ground to switch on the transverse abdominus – the muscle belt around your waist), arm rotations and leg swings.

The Workout:

Perform 50 of each exercise as quickly as you can. Between each exercise you must complete 10 bastardos (burpees with a press up). Your chest must touch the ground with each repetition - think of it as getting up and down off the ground as fast as possible. Also, make sure you start and finish with 10 bastardos. So, turn up 'Hall & Oats - Out of Touch', draw back the curtains and get moving (cue whip crack).

• Russian Twists – use the weight and touch it to each side for one repetition; look ahead; lean back. (By pre-exhausting your core, you'll find the rest of the workout a lot harder)
• Air Squats – try to bring your hips below your knees; tense your stomach; keep your chest up; keep knees tracking over or outside of your toes; squeeze bum at top of movement.
• V-sits (basically an elaborate sit up, please look up) – try not to use arms for momentum.
• Reverse Lunge With Overhead Press – lunge back whilst pressing the weight above your head; keep your chest up; bend the back leg properly; each lunge is a repetition.
• Superman Back Extensions – try to squeeze your shoulder blades at the top, bringing your arms back and into a sky-dive position.

Warm Down:

• Jump up and down gently -your feet should barely leave the floor - with your arms completely relaxed by your sides. Yes, like a Salmon floating upstream. Do this until the novelty wears off, or, alternatively, 30 times.
• Stretch.
• Make resolution - to actually read 'Wolf Hall'.
• Listen to The Chemical Brothers and shake your body some more.   

Coffee Before Exercise: Just Do IT.

Too many people appear to be under the impression that coffee is bad for you; to you I say, “listen not to what the naysayers preach, put down your sparkling waters and come to the dark side. After all, once you've had black, you just can't go back...or something like that.”

In keeping with my lifelong love of bullet points and blatant literary lethargy, I give you a couple of reasons to have a little bit of the good stuff before you lace up your boots. I will try my utmost not to ramble. If your concentration does start to wane, skip to the bottom bullet points.

Harder & Longer

• Caffeine ingestion before a workout improves performance, fact. You can read the 74 studies on this or you can just accept that one's athletic performance ameliorates (my word of the day) by as much as 12.4%. This is seen predominantly in endurance sports - professional cyclists are among caffeine's biggest admirers, fact.

Nurofen in a cup

• You don't feel so tired. Exercise is perceived as being around 6% less painful after a double espresso.

How does this work?

• Caffeine is thought to slow down the muscles' consumption of glycogen (muscle fatigue kicks in once you exhaust glycogen stores). It does this by releasing fatty acids into your blood stream, thus using both fat and glycogen as energy sources, which means you now burn through your glycogen stores a little slower. This is know as “glycogen sparing”.
• You don't feel the effects of lactic acid as much: not only because you've started “glycogen sparing” but also because the pain receptors are receiving caffeine molecules in place of actual pain stimuli...basically blocking the pain receptors. All this science is starting to slip away from us, I know, back to innuendos and camp humour I say.

How much should I enjoy before exercise?

• The studies on this are numerous and varying, some say 150 mg of caffeine, others 250 mg and I believe the blurb that comes with your sturdy London Marathon Runner's Pack states you can take as much as 500 mg before feeling effects of dehydration.
• They say the optimal dose is around 2-3mg of caffeine per kilogram you weigh. So, if I weigh 83kg....OK, fine, 85kg.....all right, that's enough! 87kg...I'm a little stressed these days, what with no responsibility and a general laissez faire attitude to life...anyway, I should aim at 261mg, which equates to a double espresso, roughly.

Hit me with high street statistics...

• A cup from Starbucks has only 51 mg of caffeine; Starbucks is to coffee what non-alcoholic beer is to, well, beer.
• An espresso from Costa has 157 mg, which is why, after a double, I feel the urge to fight Charlie Sheen, naked, then wrestle a mountain lion.
• Most independent sellers, put their regular cups (not espressos) at a around 200mg.

Again, but this time in English, please...

Drink an espresso 45 minutes to an hour before exercise and the following WILL happen:

• You'll feel less pain during exercise.
• You'll see an improvement in performance (sporting and otherwise).
• You'll burn more calories.
• You'll burn more fat.
• You'll shake ever so slightly.

If you haven't cottoned on to this yet, it ought to be made clear that I do not endorse half-fat frappuccinos...that only use ice flown from Lapland...and vanilla harvested by domesticated jungle Lemurs - you are not a coffee drinker; you are the equivalent of the person at the bar ordering Bacardi Breezers, because they think “it tastes like lemonade”.

Looking Good Naked Part II: The Commandments

   I apologise for the brief hiatus, I had man flu. Although a heady concoction of Boots' best has kept me ticking over, I do not trust what literary 'revelations' it would have brought forth. Anyway, today was sunny. Yesterday was sunny. Tomorrow, however will not be sunny. Nonetheless, the sun spells summer and the with that comes a chorus of body-conscious groans. For those not squirreled away this winter, I salute you, but for those that tentatively poke faces out of tree, cheeks brimming with acorn, I merely say, “gather round, Brothers and Sisters, 'cos we're heading to the land of full-fat milk, eggs and no honey.”

   Each fortnight, I will release tablets laden with ballpoint commandments for looking even better naked. Here are the first three:

1."What NOT to eat for breakfast".

• Cereal – any form of it. Yes, even muesli. You've been fooled into thinking that the carbohydrates and “fuller for longer” ingredients in cereal is healthy for you...well, Tony the Tiger can go drown himself in a puddle of skimmed lesbian milk. He was lying to you - shame on him. You've been consuming sugar. Even Bran Flakes, the bringer of all things constitutional, has 6 grams per 30 gram serving. Considering a 30 gram serving is enough to feed a anorexic field mouse, you're probably likely to take on a fair bit more than that. Just avoid all cereal, you really don't need it. I will allow organic oats, cold-pressed but go easy on the honey and stick to full fat milk.
• Bread – only farmers and the French have bread for breakfast. Unless you also digest a Gauloises cigarette and half a nibble of brioche for breakfast, then bread will not work for you. You are from Britain and thus contain absolutely no willpower. Bread, brown or white, is a waste of time – it's not real food but manufactured and essentially pure carbohydrates, which you'll struggle to digest, store as fat and wander the rest of your days a bloated, Hovis filled Francophile.
• Fruit – I know, the tune grows weary, but the pure fructose (sugar) is really needless right now. Save it for after a workout, or before, if needs be.
• Just egg whites – KEEP THE YOLKS. They contain essential fatty acids and basically all of the vitamins and minerals in an egg. The fat is GOOD for you. Read a book, again. This is also a nice opportunity for me to tell you WHAT TO EAT: WELL SOURCED PROTEIN, whether that's scrambled eggs (no toast), a scoop of organic peanut butter, full fat yoghurt with plenty of nuts and seeds, or even steak and veg (as professional boxers do, and it works, believe me), I really don't mind.
  
  

2. "Step up the HIIT".

• First take a look at http://justbootcamp.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/i-think-we-need-to-talk-abouthiit.html.
• Now try: 3 rounds of 30 seconds 5 RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) and 30 seconds 10 RPE (flat out), followed by 3 rounds of 40 seconds 5 RPE, 20 seconds 10RPE, and then to really drive you into oxygen debt and get your metabolism through the roof, 3 rounds of 30 seconds 5 RPE, 20 seconds 7 RPE and 10 seconds 10 RPE. I wouldn't try this on a treadmill, stick to a bike, rower, track, cross trainer, skipping, boxing or even running on the spot. Good luck.

3. "Stop doing crunches".

• They address only a very small and rather insignificant area of your core; you won't get a flat stomach nor shed visceral fat by going through this most clichéd of motions.
• Stick to activating your core before working out (plank and bridge holds for 2 x 30 seconds, each) - your posture will improve and you'll get more from your workout.
• Try these on for size: Russian Twists, 2 sets of 16 reps. Keep looking ahead (the nice man below is not but not to worry) and don't sit up too much.

...and Lying Windmills. Keep your stomach tensed at all times. Try 2 sets of 10 reps and build from there.