Have you decided to give yourself a fitness kickstart?
This time of year see’s many of us get up off the couch and make a decision to take a fitness kickstart. Perhaps there is discussion of the staff xmas party? Or you have an end of year holiday planned? Whatever it is this checklist has been used by the PUSH_coaching team at Viva Fitness for over a decade. It has seen results time and time again but I will say this, “pick one important point and make it habit”…Then move on. What we find is often clients take on too many points at any one time, so instead pick 1-2 things and try to make them a habit before moving on. This means aiming to implement about 1 item per week if your a gun!
So what 2-3 areas will you make a habit by year’s end?
- Eat a rainbow of colours regularly to fulfil the body’s nutrient requirements.
- Eat low fat protein with each meal and be sure to eat protein as first few mouth-fulls to lower the GI of the following foods as well as stimulate anabolic hormones which revv up the metabolism. Check out some recipes here.
- Eat at least 2 serves of fruit and 5 serves of vegetable each day.
- Change habits by setting regular short goals, rather than crash dieting. Keep chasing carrots and keep things interesting. I.e for August reduce bread intake. September experience only high protein and fat breakfasts. Keep things moving on habits rather than goals or cycle between the 2. This way you have high achieving goals coupled with less challenging but doable tasks.
- Exercise regularly (cross train and resistance training) and increase incidental activities. Count steps or simply track how many minutes a day your active.
- Read food labels. Seriously sugar is everywhere!!!!
- Choose low GI carbohydrates more often. Think coloured stach like corn, pumpkin and sweet potato.
- Sleep is underrated!!! Nothing is more uplifting and rejuvenating than sleep. Exercise is the next best thing and then nutrition for fueling the soul and your will. It’s said “you are only a workout away from a better mood”.
- Weigh food once and note it for next time. The biggest tip I can mention is to ‘Take a 7-Day Diet History’ and Mike Robertson from T-Nation has written a great artcile on this here.
- As your calorie budget changes so will the need to re-adjust your portions of macro-nutrients.
- Focus on changing habits for LIFE and fit food and exercise into your lifestyle.
- Eat 4-5 small meals per day, 2-4 hours apart.
- Have you tried fasting? it;s great to improve insulin sensitivity and helpful if your a calmer personality and/or have tendency to overeat.
- Each meal should be 1/3 animal or processed foods (steak/fish) 2/3 out of ground .I.e a fist of a low glycaemic index carbohydrate like sweet potato, pumpkin with 1-2 fist of fibrous vegies).
- Drink 2-4 litres of water per day and cut alcohol intake right down. 1 litre per 25kg of body weight.
- Drink maximum of 2-3 black coffees per day.
- Limit processed salt and sugar out of your diet as much as possible. This means reducing canned foods and packaged foods that are not containing as natural and organic ingredients as possible.
- Beware of all preservatives, anti caking agents, corn syrup, msg, artificial sweeteners and stabilizers. Your body will ‘sing’ instead of ‘squeel’ if you do.
- Beans, nuts, legumes, quinoa, mushrooms are very nutritious and protein loaded meat substitute.
- Eat more fish. No one touches it before you eat it. Nuff said!
- Eat no later than 90 mins pre-exercise and wait a minimum of 30 -60 minutes post- exercise for best fat utilisation. A protein shake post training is the best way to recover and if you are a lean build or train at high intensity use carbohydrates like a banana also. This has shown to reduce muscle breakdown.
- Use supplementation to improve your fitness, performance and recovery. BUT never substitute good ‘organic’ natural foods.
- Add chilli and other herbs and spice for vitamins to ‘rev’ up your metabolism.
- Use apple cider vinegar each day. Try using with any carbohydrate meal to improve insulin sensitivity. Gut health is so important as close to 75% of your immune system is in your stomach. Probiotic foods like apple cider vinegar, kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, fermented vegetables are great foods for health.
- Reduce processed carbohydrates. Limit your intake of breads and pasta. Especially white flour products
- Diets differ but most agree to:
- limit alochol
- exercise
- no bread
- moderate dairy if at all
- organic and natural
- manage stress with movement and social connection rather than self sabotage and a bottle or packet of short lived ‘feel good’ sugar.
Guys if you keep it simple (like the last few points) you be doing ok 🙂
So what 3 things are most pertinent to you?
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