journeys, principles services. first, we had the journeys shape up build muscle, general health ...

Journeys, principles & Services

First, we had the journeys…Shape up & build muscle, General health & fitness, Weight loss, Sports performance

journey 1:Shape up, build muscle

journey 2:General health and fitness

journey 3:Weight loss

journey 4:Improve sports performance

The 10 principles of nutrition & exerciseFor every journey

Principle 1:Eat your vegetablesWhilst it may pain you to do as your mother told you, it makes absolute sense. Your plate should be around 50% vegetables. Whether you eat them cooked or not doesn’t matter, but try to eat more of the veggies that you could eat raw if you wanted to.

Principle 2:Protein – it’s all about bang for your buck!Protein should be a part of every meal. Whether you are a hardcore meat eater or vegetarian, there are plenty of tasty ways to get protein into your body. The “bang for your buck” refers to nutrients, so ensure that for every gram of protein you consume, there’s lots of other good stuff in there too! A great example is seafood, whilst it’s high in protein, there’s also a shed load of omega3 in there and fish like mackerel is rich in iron too. And did you know that you can double up on the benefits by eating 100g or more? Amazing!

Principle 3:Lay off the starch!Simple.Avoid starchy foods such as potatoes, bread, pasta and rice. All of these have very little value to the body, with low nutrients, water, fibre and protein content. In addition, the enzymes in your body turn starch into sugar. When the body can’t effectively burn the sugar produced, it is stored as fat.

Principle 4:Myth busted: fatFat is good! Well, whole food fat is good. Yes it sounds scary, and goes against most of the bumph you’ll have read in countless women’s magazines and websites, but if you don’t eat fat, how will your body know how to cope with it? By eating the right sort of fats, i.e. the types found naturally in olive, sunflower and sesame oils, nuts, avocadoes, and fish, your body knows how to burn fat in a healthy way and maintains/improves it’s metabolic rate.

Principle 5:Not all fruits are created equalEating fruit has lots of benefits, however if you want to lower your sugar intake then low fructose fruits such as berries and grapes are the way to go. High fructose fruits include apples, pears and bananas.

Principle 6:Hocus pocus focusFocus on exercise – full stop. By focusing on a particular area of your body in your workouts, you actually hinder your progress by not exercising the rest of your body too!

Principle 7:Pièce de résistanceFocus on quality workouts, which include a lot of resistance training. Resistance training plays a huge part in achieving all goals. Without getting too sciencey, by doing series’ of resistance training on several areas of the body, you exercise what are known as the 2b muscle fibres, which play a role in regulating whole-body metabolism.

Principle 8:Lower your weights to lower your weightResistance training isn’t about how much you can lift, it’s about how you lift. It’s all about control. The better you can control your muscles and hold form, the better your workout is for you. Higher weights does not equal better results.

Principle 9:There’s no need to workout for HoursWorking out for ridiculous amounts of time will only put your body under stress. Your body is likely to react a lot more effectively if you exercise regularly in moderation.

Principle 10:Heal, don’t hurt, your bodyLook after your body and your body will look after you. Don’t stress it, strain it or put bad things into it if you can help it. Focus on healing muscles, not tearing them. Fuelling your body, not depriving it. Not only will you get the results you want, you’ll feel much better for it too.

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