PROBLEM #7 CARBIE

March 23, 2017

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Gemma Smith

 Ahhhh, the dreaded carbs!!! I love bread, I love pasta, I love cakes, I love every type of carb imaginable AND I eat all of them, just not all the time and probably not the typical ones you’d find. Everyone has this stigma about carbs being bad for you, it’s not that they’re ‘bad’, you’re just probably eating way too much of them. Everything can be ‘bad’ – water can kill you in a too higher an amount!

Overeating carbs is definitely your biggest issue when it comes to weight gain, even the low/moderate carbs, and unfortunately for us girls, too much weight gain can cause a huge amount of hormonal disorders like PCOS and endometriosis which makes weight loss even HARDER.

Carbohydrates spike our blood sugar every time we eat them which causes the pancreas to release insulin to drop it back to baseline. The more times we spike our blood sugar, the quicker we age and the quicker our body becomes desensitized, leading to insulin resistance.

 Prolonged, excessive carbohydrate intake leads to type 2 diabetes which is on the rise and isn’t about to slow down any time soon.

What can you do?

Drop out the carbs as much as you can, start with them all or just start with a small amount, whatever works for you.

For me, I can get rid of them all at the one time, for some of my clients we still need to keep them in at times. Try to make your carb choices based around nutrient dense foods like sweet potato, basmati rice, berries, etc. and save the other carbs like pizza, pasta or alcohol to a meal or two on the weekend. Oh, and don’t be afraid to have your carbs at night, apart from post training, night time is the best time to have carbs.

Why?

They increase serotonin, or our feel good hormone, and drop our cortisol levels which is necessary in order for us to sleep.

To know if you are on the right track, get a blood test to see where your insulin levels are, then have another one after 12 weeks. Have your body fat tested regularly (every two weeks if possible) so you know when to add the carbs back in and what type will work best for you. 

#teamthp

Tags:

nutrition

health

body fat

girlgang

PROBLEM #4 WEIGHTS ARE FOR BOYS

March 1, 2017

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Gemma Smith

Girls belong in the weights room just as much as the boys! Cardio is boring, running on a treadmill everyday or jumping on the stepper (or whatever its called) is such a waste of time. Sure you burn calories but where’s the fun stuff?? How do you know when you're progressing? 

Weights do not make women look like the hulk (a shot of T every now and then might but that’s for another day…….), they make us have some shape, they increase our strength, they build our immune system, and they’re way more enjoyable than the cardio room. They give us something other than body image to focus on. With cardio it's a case of am I leaner or am I not, or did the scale go down? With weights we can focus on lifting heavier and measure our progress that way rather than relying on how we look or what the scale says. 

I think most girls are just hesitant to go in because they think everyone is looking at them waiting for them to fail or they just have no idea how to use the equipment.

What I say to all of my girls is that everyone had to start at some point, and even the most experienced people are still learning and perfecting their technique every day. You just need to start, go in and pick up and dumbbell and swing it around, get the bar on your back and get a feel for it, just give everything a go! Be comfortable in your own skin to go in there and show them how it’s done.

Where do you start?

You can literally Google “how to train in the gym”  or “how to lift weights” and there are thousands of results – training programs, Youtube videos on exercise technique,  nutrition plans, macro recommendations – literally everything. Sure it’s a bit strange that I’m recommending you go and just Google a program and not try to sell you on training with me, but it is literally so easy to learn how to lift weights that you don’t need me (as amazing as I am………….).

The downside to ‘Googling’ all of this info is that there are literally thousands of programs and recommendations, how do you know which one is for you? (This is the part where you pay me to figure it all out).

You just want to keep it simple at the start, split squats, chin ups, push ups, step ups, etc. Keep it interesting and enjoyable so you want to train.

So, if you’re a cardio bunny and you’re reading this then stop the treadmill and go pick up a weight – you can thank me later! 

#teamthp

Tags:

health

strength training

girlgang

training

performance