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We are now offering Circuit Training / Boot Camp every Saturday in Bournemouth.

This is a superb way to get in shape, aimed at all levels and abilities.

Circuit training still remains  the best all rounder fitness session available.  Most exercise can be very specific and targets certain areas of fitness or isolated areas of the body.  Running for example improves lower body endurance and overall fitness, but a limited amount of upper body work, strength or core stability.

Circuit training offers such a range of exercises that it is more complete, and therefore suitable for both novices training once or twice a week but also advanced exercisers who need to cross train or compliment existing exisiting programs.

We meet at the entrance to The Miramar Hotel, Bournemouth. 9am-10am.   Cost is £6 per person.

Contact us if you need more info, or simply turn up on the day.  Hope to see you there!…

boost metabolism with exercise

Metabolism can basically be described as how efficient your body is at burning calories.  There are 2 types of metabolic rate, resting metabolic rate and active metabolic rate.

Basal metabolic rate

This is simply the number of calories you burn if you simply lay on the couch all day without moving.  This amounts to around 60-75% of your total daily expenditure and is required to keep the body functioning as normal.  This is a surprisingly high percentage and would explain why some people do little or no activity and still stay slim.

Active metabolic rate

This includes the calories we burn during every day activity and exercise, making up the remaining 25-40% of calories.

Boosting metabolism

There are a number of ways to boost metabolism.  Every time we eat we burn calories purely to digest the food. Yet another reason to eat little and often. Exercise will boost metabolism in two main ways.

Aerobic activity increases the active metabolic rate by burning extra calories as well as making our fat burning potential more efficient.  Following aerobic activity there is an `afterburn` effect where we burn calories at a higher rate for up to 24 hours afterwards.

Weight training will maintain lean muscle tissue which is metabolically active and has a greater impact on basal metabolism.  Essentially the more muscle tissue we have the higher the basal metabolism (which accounts for 60-75% remember!).

Yet more reasons to eat little and often and exercise regularly.

This approach really works

Eating large meals is a sure fire way to gaining weight, but many of us partake in the activity regularly. A big hungry man plate piled high with all the best food, devoured in 10 minutes flat, then onto dessert hmmmm chocolate cake. New belt notches are made this way. As well as being an obvious strain on the digestive system, any calories not used by the body are stored around the belly (or the hips!)

Eating little and often works for a number of reasons.

• It stops us overeating
• It helps us regulate appetite
• It boosts metabolism every time we eat
• Energy levels are improved
• Portions always tend to be smaller

Simon Lesser works as  a full time Personal Trainer and Sports Therapist.  He works with a range of clients from a private  gym in Bournemouth, Dorset – for more information call 07748 914368 or visit simonlesser.co.uk

How heavy should I be?

A simple, yet commonly asked question. We all want to know what our ‘ideal’ weight is and how much we need to change to get there. There are a number of ways to work this out.

Measuring your BMI

If you go to your GP or clinic they will measure your BMI which stand for Body Mass Index. This is basically a score based on your height and weight and it is calculated by using the following simple equation;

Weight (in KG) divided by Height (in Metres) squared ²

So for example let’s say someone is 1.75 metres tall and weighs 80kg. The equation becomes

80 divided by (1.75 x 1.75) which becomes, 80 divided by 3.06 = 26.1 (too easy huh?)

This person would have a Body Masss Index of 26.1. Now we need to work out what the score means. The chart below shows the meaning behind BMI scores.

Considerations

Due to different body types, changes in muscle and water, and various other factors the BMI is not always 100 percent accurate. A BMI of 30 is likely to tell a story but 25.5 or 26 is no cause for concern.

Simon Lesser works as  a full time Personal Trainer and Sports Therapist.  He works with a range of clients from a private  gym in Bournemouth, Dorset – for more information call 07748 914368 or visit simonlesser.co.uk

Specifically we run 12 week weight loss courses covering nutrition, exercise and behaviour.

Glycaemic index or `GI` as it is commonly known measures the speed that a specific food releases it’s energy. GI has been around for many years but only more recently has it had such good coverage.

The Glycaemic Index works on a scale of 0-100 with a high score indicating a faster release of energy. Pure glucose or something like table sugar would get a score of 100. Foods are often rated high, medium or low GI depending on their rating and it’s the low GI foods that help us lose weight.

Why GI works

Slow releasing foods are more likely to be utilized as energy, keeping energy levels steady and reducing hunger levels. Conversely high GI foods release quickly, sending energy levels into a rollercoaster effect and if we don’t use these calories then they are stored as body fat.

Slowing the release of foods

There are numerous resourse that give you the GI of particular foods and these are a good guide. Adding protein to meals is one of the best ways to slow the release of the meal. Food that are high in fibre like fruit and vegetables also tend to be low GI.

Ask anyone about their eating habits and they will tell you their diet is better than it really is. We tend to have misconceptions about what we really eat, not being mindful of the amount of processed food we eat or the units of alcohol we drink. This is when a food diary is helpful as a reality check.

Reasons for keeping a food diary

The main reason is mentioned above – it’s a reality check and it’s not until you keep a food diary that this hits home. If you are totally honest then you will probably look back over a few days with your head in your hands. People often tend to change eating habits once staring a food diary and this has obvious benefits.

How to keep a food diary

This is the easy bit. You can just scribble it all down on a sheet of paper or be more organized and use a computer spreadsheet. Simply write everything you eat for a period of at least 3 days including one work day and one none work day (ie thursday, friday, saturday). There is no reason why you can’t keep a food diary for a whole month if you feel you are eating better as a result. Be sure to include all the following information;

• The day of the week
• The time of day
• The food (of course!)
• Any further details – tinned/ready meal/fresh etc
• Add all fluids including water, alcohol, tea, coffee, soft drinks..
• Be completely honest!!

Do this for a few days and it will change your perspective on food!

Simon Lesser works as  a full time Personal Trainer and Sports Therapist.  He works with a range of clients from a private  gym in Bournemouth, Dorset – for more information call 07748 914368 or visit simonlesser.co.uk

From a weight loss perspective all exercise is good. The current guidelines are that we should do something on most days of the week and this could be anything from gardening to a walk in the forest. This can have a massive impact on weight loss as well as our health.

Exercise works well for a number of reasons

• It burns calories and therefore body fat
• It boost metabolism
• Exercise helps to reset hunger
• It promotes healthier living

Aerobic activity burns calories

Burning calories directly clearly helps weight loss or more importantly fat loss. An average workout burns 500 calories and this is a significant amount when you look at exercsing 3-4 times per week, every week of the year.

Resistance training boosts metabolism

When we perform resistance exercises wit even the lightest weights we increase muscle density. Muscle is a very metabolically active tissue as opposed to fat which just sits there doing nothing. So the more muscle we tone, the higher our metabolism. No there’s a way to lose weight!

High-carbohydrate sports drinks can boost athletic performance, and their effects may begin as soon as they hit the mouth, a new study suggests.

The researchers had endurance athletes rinse their mouths with either of two carb-containing drinks, the athletes’ exercise performance improved. The same was not true when the athletes were given water flavored with an artificial sweetener.

What’s more, brain scans showed that simply swishing the carbohydrate drinks around the mouth activated particular areas of the brain associated with pleasure and reward. Again, the artificially sweetened water did not have the same effects.

The findings, reported in the Journal of Physiology, suggest that sports drinks may help boost performance via receptors in the mouth that send signals to the brain.

“Our study has shown that during intense exercise lasting around one hour, performance can be improved by simply rinsing a carbohydrate solution in the mouth,” lead researcher Dr. Ed S. Chambers, of the University of Birmingham in the UK, told Reuters Health.

However, that does not mean that hard-working exercisers should simply rinse and spit, according to Chambers. Sports drinks also help keep the body hydrated and supply electrolytes and other nutrients.

The current findings, Chambers explained, show that in addition to their well-known metabolic effects, sports drinks may also act on the brain.

The results are based on two studies, each involving eight trained cyclists. All of the athletes underwent exercise testing on a stationary bike, once at the start of the study and again on separate visits to the exercise lab.

During those later tests, the study participants were given one of the two carbohydrate drinks — containing glucose, maltodextrin or water sweetened with saccharin.

In general, the study found, the athletes improved upon their initial performance when they rinsed their mouths with either one of the carbohydrate drinks, but not when they used water.

Using a brain imaging technique called fMRI, Chambers and his colleagues found that the carb drinks sparked activity in brain areas related to both movement control and pleasure.

The researchers speculate that the brain activation allowed the athletes to work harder without feeling like they were.

During a long exercise bout, Chambers explained, the brain receives “negative” messages from the body, like elevated temperature and joint pain. The brain reacts by reducing the “central drive” to working muscles, curbing their power output.

“We propose that when an oral carbohydrate stimulus is present during exercise,” Chambers said, “this ‘positive’ signal to the brain maintains the central drive to the exercising muscle, thus improving performance.”

Cholesterol, a wax like substance found in human cells gets plenty of bad press, linked to fat clogged arteries, heart attacks and strokes. A certain amount is needed for good health – essential in the formation of cell membranes, to help sex hormones work properly, in digesting fats and for the production of vitamin D. As always you can have too much of a bad thing, and too much choesterol is certainly a bad thing!

Good v Evil

Special carriers made from proteins transport cholesterol around the body – when combined with cholesterol they are known as lipoproteins. There are two types of lipoproteins; Low density lipoprotein (LDLs) carry cholesterol from the liver to the cells of the body, literally dumping it in the arteries. LDLs are therefore undesirable and often referred to as bad cholesterol. High density lipoproteins (HDLs) do exactly the opposite. They carry excess cholesterol back to the liver in order to break it down and remove it from the body – they are referred to as good cholesterol.

The figures

When cholesterol is measured, the reading normally given is `total` cholesterol, the sum of HDL & LDL added together. The ratio of LDL to HDL is far more important. A high total cholesterol may not be a bad thing as long as there are high levels of good HDLs in relation to bad LDLs. A qualified hospital blood test available through your GP will show the individual cholesterol measured.

As a guide, ideal levels are – Total Cholesterol Less than 5.2, HDL Cholesterol greater than 0.9, LDL Cholesterol Less than 3.4

Ways to reduce your cholesterol

Around 75% of cholesterol is actually produced by the liver with only 25% actually coming from the diet. This figure is surprisingly low, but we can clearly have a positive impact on cholesterol through diet and lifestyle.

• Eat fruit & oats – as these foods contain pectin, one of the only substances to actually reduce cholesterol. Have a bowl of porridge for breakfast and snack on fruit during the day, particularly apples.
• Take regular exercise – as it increases HDL good cholesterol and also keeps weight in check.
• Stress, smoking and saturated fats – are well known baddies which will all have a negative effect on cholesterol so reduce them as much as possible. Saturated fats are high in many animal products including meat and dairy products. Also, cooking methods and food choices may need to be radically adapted.
• Eat plenty of fibre – as cholesterol is removed via stools!! No fibre in the diet means that up to 94% of cholesterol is reabsorbed.
• Fruit and vegetables – These foods are cholesterol beaters containing antioxidants to disarm free radicals and help prevent heart disease.
• Vitamin B3 & Lecithin – This vitamin and protein are found in many foods including eggs,or can be supplemented to increase HDL and actually break down cholesterol to be removed from the body.

Calorie burning

When it comes to exercise, calories burned is definitely an issue. An hour of hard work in the gym needs to be worthwhile so here are some average calories burned by a 70kg person shown by the type of moderate to intense activity: