A good week

A pretty good week this week: down two pounds. Actually, it’s been around 3 for the last couple of days but today is the official weigh day so two pounds it is. I’ve rejigged my blubber reduction journey in the side bar to start from when I came back from my holiday, which is when I was at my highest and also when I started Weight Watchers. The little scale has moved down far enough that you can actually see my start weight now!

I’ll be away for the next couple of days but will be posting again on Wednesday. Ciao.

Nutrition Tip of the Week no. 4

From now on, I will be posting one of these tips each week, courtesy of Dr John Berardi, the brains (and brawn) behind Precision Nutrition. Enjoy, and click on the link below for more info on PN.

Tip #4
Revving Up Metabolism
by Dr. John Berardi

I recommend more calories than most do. That’s because there’s no such thing as a stagnant metabolic set-point. Instead, metabolism chases intake. So, if you want a bigger metabolism, you need a bigger food intake. And if you’re worried about fat gain with this approach, just use outcome-based decision making and adjust energy (calorie) intake every two weeks based on your results. Not much ‘damage’ can take place in only two weeks. So if you end up boosting your metabolism, you’ll be thanking me eternally. And if it turns out you’re consuming too much, you can just adjust down.

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Look out for another nutrition tip next week.

Interval Training

Well, I’ve said I’d write about my interval training programme. Intervals are a method of cardio training where you work at a hard(er) rate for short intervals, interspersed with equal or longer ‘rest’ intervals at a lower level of intensity. These high-intensity workouts burn loads of calories, but they also raise your metabolism after you finish working out, a phenomenon called ‘afterburn’. Interval training also boosts your aerobic fitness much quicker than exercising at a steady state does. The key, though, is to work hard enough in your ‘hard’ intervals, and easy enough in your ‘recovery’ intervals.

So how hard should you work? There are a couple of ways of measuring exertion. The more scientific and less subjective way is to use a heart rate monitor and work at a percentage of your maximum. If you are going to do this, it is vital that you correctly calculate your maximum heart rate. If you’re sedentary, the old formula of (220 minus your age) would give you a rough estimation. If you’re quite fit though, a better formula is (205 minus half your age). However, both of these can give wildly inaccurate results and if at all possible, you should arrange a proper test. Once you have your maximum it is worth taking into account your resting heart rate so that you don’t under- or over-estimate your actual work thresholds. So if you wanted to work at 70%, for example, rather than use Max HR x 70%, you would use:

(Max HR – Resting HR) x 70% + Resting HR.

An excellent book on heart rate training that teaches you how to do all of this is “Heart Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot”. See the review on my book page for more information.

The other, more simple way to guage effort is to use the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale. The scale looks like this:

• RPE 1–2: Very easy; you can converse with no effort
• RPE 3: Easy; you can converse with almost no effort
• RPE 4: Moderately easy; you can converse comfortably with little effort
• RPE 5: Moderate; conversation requires some effort
• RPE 6: Moderately hard; conversation requires quite a bit of effort
• RPE 7: Difficult; conversation requires a lot of effort
• RPE 8: Very difficult; conversation requires maximum effort
• RPE 9–10: Peak effort; conversation not possible

In a completely non-scientific observation, I have found that the RPE scale equates quite well with my heart rate, so RPE 3 is at around 30% of my maximum heart rate and RPE 8 is at around 80% of my maximum heart rate. But I don’t know if this applies to other people with varying levels of fitness. If you’re using RPE and don’t have someone to talk to, try talking to yourself, reciting the alphabet, counting in Spanish, or singing along to your iPod until you get a feel for what the different rates of exertion feel like.

So what kind of intervals should you be doing. The length of time at the hard interval will depend on the intensity. So for example, you could do 30 seconds at RPE 9, but not 3 minutes! And you could keep that up for a while provided you have a decent recovery, between two and three times as long as the hard interval. If you’re going to have shorter recovery times, you may need to bring the hard intensity down a bit. The number of intervals will also depend on your general fitness levels. As you get fitter, you may want to add a couple of intervals, for example, or reduce your recovery time. Personally, I get bored easily so I like to mix it up. It also challenges your body in new ways which tends to produce greater gains. I do four different interval programmes, taken from The Metabolism Advantage (see book page for review and more information). These are:

Interval Workout A:

Warm up: 1 minute @ RPE 3; 2 minutes @ RPE 4; 2 minutes @ RPE 5

Intervals: [30 seconds @ RPE 9; 90 seconds @ RPE 3] x 6

Cool down: 3 minutes @ RPE 3

Total time: 20 minutes

Interval Workout B:

Warm up: 1 minute @ RPE 3; 2 minutes @ RPE 4; 2 minutes @ RPE 5

Intervals: [1 minute @ RPE 8; 1 minute @ RPE 3] x 6

Cool down: 3 minutes @ RPE 3

Total time: 20 minutes

Interval Workout C:

Warm up: 1 minute @ RPE 3; 2 minutes @ RPE 4; 2 minutes @ RPE 5

Intervals: [90 seconds @ RPE 7; 3 minutes @ RPE 3] x 4

Cool down: 5 minutes @ RPE 3

Total time: 25 minutes

Interval workout D:

Warm up: 1 minute @ RPE 3; 2 minutes @ RPE 4; 2 minutes @ RPE 5

Intervals: [30 seconds @ RPE 8; 30 seconds @ RPE 3] x 15

Cool down: 5 minutes @ RPE 3

Total time: 25 minutes

Anyhow, that’s about it for interval training unless you have any questions. Nutrition Tip of the Week tomorrow. ‘night all.

Workout B

I’ve just noticed that although I posted workout A from my intermediate Turbulence Training programme, I haven’t posted workout B, which I did last night. So here it is:

Superset 1:

• Dumbell squat, 3×8
• Stability ball ab crunch, 3×15

Superset 2:

• DB reverse lunge, 3×8
• DB row, 3×8

Superset 3:

• Back extension on stability ball, 3×10
• Side plank, 3×20 seconds

This is then followed by high-intensity interval training – 25 minutes last night, for a total of 45 minutes for a whole kick-ass workout. Not bad. I’ll write about my intervals in another post. For more information about Turbulence Training, click here.

Plodding Along

Down another pound at my Weight Watchers meeting today, so that’s 6.5 lbs now in 5 weeks. I enjoyed following core plan last week and am going to give it another week. Also, I’m going away with my mum for a couple of days on Sunday and it will be easier to just stick to core foods than to calculate the points in stuff that I haven’t prepared. At least the hotel has a gym.

Last night I was up all night working on an assignment so my eating has been a bit shaky today and I just don’t feel like exercising. Will try and make it up later in the week. Otherwise, not much news today really. Am going to have an early night tonight. ‘night all.

Answering Your Questions 1

This post is a little different to usual. On my blog statistics page, I get to see the search engine words and phrases that people have typed in to bring them to my blog, and I often think, ooh, they won’t have found the answer on my posts so far but I could have helped them with that. So from time to time, I’m going to address the questions that people seem to be asking. I hope this is some help.

1. So, for the person who wanted to “check my BMI using stones”, Tesco, a British supermarket chain, has a healthy living website that will do this for you. You can check it out here.




2. To convert stones and pounds into pounds, just multiply the number of stones by 14 (there are 14 pounds in a stone). So, for example, 15 stone 6 pounds would be (15×14) pounds plus the 6 pounds, or 210 + 6 = 216 pounds. Simple. To convert pounds into kilos, divide by 2.2 (there are 2.2 pounds in a kilo). So 216 pounds would be 216/2.2 = 98.1 kilos.




3. For “workouts with minimal equipment”, try one of the Turbulence Training body weight workout. Turbulence Training is a high-intensity training programme that helps you to burn loads of fat, build tons of muscle and feel fantastic in 3 workouts per week, each lasting under 45 minutes. It’s in e-book form and comes with loads of workouts suitable for different fitness levels, different goals, for men and women, and so on. Even the workouts that do use equipment only use the type of stuff you might have at home, dumbells, fitballs, that kind of thing. You don’t need to belong to a gym to do TT. Alternatively, for less intensive workouts that are good all-over toners, try Self magazine. Every month, you get great new workouts, most of which use no equipment whatsoever, on pull out cards that you can take with you when you travel, etc. One of my favourite fitness mags for this reason – I don’t belong to a gym either and workouts I can do at home are always a plus. You don’t even need to buy the magazine. It’s all available for free on their website, with printable versions, and videos of how the moves should be performed. A great resource.




4. A couple of people have typed in “Nutrition Tip of the Week”. I was putting these up weekly when I was doing Precision Nutrition and stopped when I came off the PN plan. But the nutrition tips are widely applicable, so I’m going to start running those again, from this week.




5. And finally, for the person who typed in “Lose four stone in four weeks”, which would be 56 pounds, or 25.5 kilos, I suggest you try amputating a limb. Or two. Otherwise, get real hon!

Down a Little More

Not much to tell you today. Everything is going well and I’ve dropped 0.8 lbs and 0.2% body fat this week. Quite happy with that.

Core Plan Cuisine

This is my fourth day following the Weight Watchers Core Plan, and I’m eating really well. I’ve listed some examples of meals I’ve been eating below, and also put two of the recipes onto my recipe page. Enjoy.

Breakfast 1: Kipper with scrambled eggs, spinach, mushroom and tomatoes; persimmon

Breakfast 2: Bran flakes with skim milk and fresh blueberries, skinny latte

Breakfast 3: Peach and raspberry smoothie, cup of chai

Breakfast 4: Multigrain ryvitas spread with Quark (O% soft cheese), parma ham, and roast figs; diced melon

Lunch 1: Harvest gold soup (see recipe page), pear

Lunch 2: Caribbean rice, low fat fromage frais

Lunch 3: Corn cob with chili oil; strawberries with 0% Greek yogurt

Lunch 4: Pasta primavera, fresh pineapple with low fat vanilla yogurt

Dinner 1: Pan fried sea bass with sweet potato chips and steamed asparagus; exotic fruit salad

Dinner 2: Stir fried beef noodles; WW strawberry cheesecake

Dinner 3: Aubergine dhansak (see recipe page), glass of rosé (not on core, 2 points); roast pear and mango fool

Dinner 4: Saffron seafood risotto, frozen citrus yogurt

Apart from the glass of wine, all these are core foods and can be eaten freely, within reason. Needless to say, I’m quite enjoying core! Weigh day tomorrow.

Turbulence Training Revisited

This month, I am following Craig Ballantyne’s Turbulence Training programme. This is a high-intensity training programme that allows you burn loads of fat, build tons of muscle and feel fantastic in 3 workouts per week, each lasting under 45 minutes. It’s in e-book form and comes with loads of workouts suitable for different fitness levels, different goals, for men and women, and so on. There are also equipment free workouts, in case you don’t belong to a gym, and lots of other support and information. And with so much content, the whole thing costs less than a meal out at a nice restaurant. And for us Brits, yet again, “GO STERLING!”, it’s practically for nothing. Click here for more information about TT. For more information on my workout, read on.

Each programme is 4 weeks long. I did the beginner workout back in July, and started on the intermediate workout. I was about half way through when hubby and I went on holiday and was finding it really tough – I was struggling, and not making major gains. For the last month, I’ve been doing a less intense workout but quite high volume exercise, focussing more on endurance than strength. I’m going to alternate strength and endurance periods from now. Anyhow, this month is strength.

Today was my first of 12 intermediate-level workouts over the next four weeks. There are two 2 alternating workouts, imaginatively called workout A and workout B. Each is made up of six exercises, grouped into 3 supersets, followed by 20 minutes of cardio intervals. Each superset is performed three times, with a minute’s rest between supersets.

For the uninitiated, a superset is where you do two exercises back to back, without a break, then rest before repeating. There are different reasons for doing this. For example you might use one of the exercises in a superset to pre-tire a muscle, then do the second exercise to take it to complete fatigue. But the TT supersets are created with a different goal. They are comprised of upper body/lower body exercises. This means that one body part rests while you work the other. This means that your workout takes less time overall. The other advantage of this is something called peripheral heart action (PHA). This means your heart has to work extra hard to shunt extra blood to the exercising muscles at opposite ends of your body. This makes your weight workout into a mini-cardio workout too, upping the calorie burn. You sweat a lot more than you’d imagine during a PHA workout!

Today was workout A:

Superset 1:

• Dumbell split squat, 3×8
• Dumbell incline press, 3×8

Superset 2:

• Stability ball leg curl, 3×15
• Push-up or kneeling push up, 3×15

Superset 3:

• Stability ball jack knife, 3×10
• Dumbell rear-delt raise, 3×10

And that’s it for the resistance portion. It doesn’t seem much, but the PHA nature means you’re working hard and see gains quickly. The whole lot took just 20 minutes. This was followed by 20 minutes interval training.

Interval workout A involves 5 minutes warm-up, 6 sets of 30 seconds hard (RPE 9) and 90 seconds easy (RPE 3) intervals, then 3 minutes cool down. Interestingly, having had around 6 weeks off from doing this very high intensity interval training, my hard intervals were at a much higher speed than I was using previously, my easy intervals were at a slightly higher speed, and my heart rate recovery rate was much faster. Last time around, I’d get up to around 80% of my maximum heart rate on the hard intervals, but my heart rate would stay elevated, often not falling much below around 65% on the easy sections, even on days when the easy sections were even longer than 90 seconds. Today, I was down to around 35% in the recovery period. This is amazing. It means I am much more cardiovascularly fit than I was. What a strong argument for periodisation (alternating workout periods with different goals) and cross training (mixing it up). I feel fantastic, and next time I do interval workout A, I will try and add an extra interval or two onto the length. I’m actually looking forward to it!

Anyhow, that’s all for today. Tomorrow I’ll write a bit about eating on the weight watchers’ core plan. ‘night all.

2.5 and the Core Plan

Down 2.5 pounds at my meeting today, or 5.5 in four weeks. I’m also down half a pound on my scales at home: 7.5 pounds in 5 weeks. Yay! Also today, I am switching to the core plan. No, this doesn’t involve lots of crunches and jack knifes. It’s Weight Watchers’ other eating plan.

For the last four weeks I’ve been following the points plan where you get a daily allowance and can eat anything you like so long as you don’t go over it. The core plan is different. You get a list of approved foods and you can eat anything you want off the approved list, no weighing or measuring, just learning to listen to your body’s satiety signals. The approved list is made up of wholesome natural foods – all fruit and veg, meat, fish, pulses, whole grains and low-fat dairy, amongst a few other things. You also have to eat 3 meals a day and nothing in between except fresh fruit and veg, and Fruities, WW’s low-cal chewy sweet. It’s basically a GI diet (glycemic index, let me know if you’d like me to explain GI in a later post) that aims to keep your blood sugar normalised throughout the day and stop it peaking and troughing.

In addition, you are allowed 21 WW points over a whole week for treats, things not on the list, recipe ingredients, that kind of thing. I’m going to try and limit these, as one of my main reasons for switching to core was the amount of rubbish I was eating to make up my points allowance some days. If I came out, say, 6 points under, I’d make myself an ice-cream sundae to make up the discrepancy. Anyway, we’ll see how I get on this week and whether or not I’m going to carry on with Core next week or switch back to points. I do like those ice-cream sundaes! That’s no doubt what got me into this mess in the first place!

Anyhow, my exercise plan for this week looks like this:

Wednesday:

• 30 minute walk
• 45 min pilates

Thursday:

• Turbulence Training Intermediate Workout A + Intervals A

Friday:

• Tae Bo

Saturday:

• TT Workout B + Intervals B

Sunday:

• 60 min pilates
• 30 min steady-state cardio

Monday:

• TT Workout A + Intervals C

Tuesday:

• 30 min steady-state cardio

As you can see, I am back on Turbulence Training this month. I am going to do the intermediate workout plan, as I was halfway through it before I went on holiday. But I have created two additional interval training plans so I have four in total, just for variety. I’ll write more about TT and interval training as I do the workouts.

I’ve also reduced my pilates practice to two sessions a week, to account for the heavier, more intense lifting during TT, and split my steady-state cardio into two 30-minute sessions, which will act as active recovery. And there’s one ‘fun’ cardio workout each week, just for, well, just for fun, obviously.

Actually, that’s pretty much my plan for the next four weeks. The fun workout will change each week, and the TT and interval workouts will alternate, but otherwise, this is the same plan I’m going to follow for the month. Anyhow, that’s all for now. ‘night all.