The ultimate healthy dessert?

May 22, 2013 by · Leave a Comment

I’m not big into traditional, sugar-riddled, processed desserts, but I do – like most people – have a penchant for the odd something sweet.  Here’s one of my current favourites that I think you’ll like.

Whilst not something most people would want to wade into everyday, all of the ingredients are all ‘good for you’ and and there’s no absolutely no processed crap included.  In fact, there’s probably more reason to eat these than not to.

Note: I pinched these from a guy called Scott Jurek.  Scott has written a couple of books on Ultramarathon running that I would recommend.  You won’t find me competing across 135miles, nor eating a strict vegan diet, but there’s plenty in these about mindset in particular, and indeed nutrition, that is worth reading.

I imaginatively call these ‘Chocolate Balls’.

Put to following into a blender (preferably a small, good quality one):

  • 1/2 cup raw cacao nibs
  • 10 or so medium dates (get decent ones)
  • 1/2 a cup of raw cashews
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon of chilli flakes (a pinch)
  • 1/8 teaspoon of sea salt (a small pinch)
  • 2 teaspoons of coconut oil (in liquid state)

Blend thoroughly.  The blending can be a bind with the dates sticking if your blender is not great but persevere – scoop it from the sides and blend again.  You might need to do this a couple of times.

Roll the blended mix into balls and stick them in the fridge for 15mins or so.  Will make 12-15 balls.  Note: I use two tablespoons to make quenelles – I’m a bit OCD about cleanliness.

Simple, healthy, ridiculously tasty and will last in the fridge for a couple of weeks.  Enjoy.

 

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Marathon Training Tips

April 11, 2013 by ·

Check out our feature in the Telegraphs ’10 Last Minute Marathon Training Tips’…..

Read the full article here>>

Eat for energy

“Nutrition is as important as training. You need adequate nutrients now to optimise both your training and after the race, for your recovery. Many people make the mistake of thinking that they can eat ‘what they want’ because they’re training more, which often leads to poor training, recovery and often weight gain. The fact that you are training hard probably means that you need to eat better, not just ‘more,’ to help the body recover,” says Vacassin.

Find a running buddy

“A good running partner or social group is worth their weight in gold in those long runs when your head is telling that you’ve had enough” says Jean Claude Vacassin, founder of W10 Performance.

Stretch out

“The repetitive nature of long distance running will lead to muscle tightness. Stretching will help keep the system in balance and go some way towards keeping potential injuries in check. Common areas are the calves, quads and adductors. It’s tedious, but worth it,” adds Vacassin.

“A foam roller will work wonders for keeping muscles healthy and joints functioning optimally. Focus on the entire body, but particularly the calves, thighs and the thoracic spine (mid-back region). It will likely be uncomfortable, but it’s worth the effort!” says Vacassin.

Run for fun

“If you’ve stuck to the training you’re good to go. Now just make sure you actually enjoy the very thing you have trained so hard for,” says Vacassin.

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W10 Celebrity Plug

April 9, 2013 by ·

Check out our mention in today’s press on how we’ve helped Ashley Roberts get into shape for her shoot.

“But how oh how does she get her body looking quite so perfect, we hear you cry/whimper. Well, Ashley is a former Doll – and they weren’t exactly known for being flabby – but recently she revealed on Twitter that she’s been getting a bit of fitness guidance from West London personal training gym ‘W10Performance’, saying “Booty officially kicked”.

Read the full article here>>

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Weight Loss vs Fat Loss

April 9, 2013 by ·

It’s traditionally busy times in gym-land over the coming weeks, the clocks have changed which means summer is (reluctantly) on it’s way and people now have an eye on summer and the prospect of having to get semi-naked in public.  The talk across the gym floor will be weight loss, or is it fat loss?  We probably do need to make the distinction, because whilst weight loss is relatively easy, fat loss is a different proposition.

There’s a discernible difference between temporary weight loss and permanent fat loss.  Weight loss is actually pretty easy to achieve (manipulate).  Ask any boxer who’s had to make weight, losing and re-gaining several kilos in as little as twenty-four hours.  Same goes for most women during their cycle, weight fluctuates – perhaps not to the extremes of our boxers, but 2-3kgs is not uncommon.  In both of these cases, it has little to do with losing or gaining fat.

Ever been on a low/no carb ketogenic type of diet where you’ve dropped five to ten pounds in as many days by cutting out carbohydrates, only to regain the weight back is soon as you get back on the your regular diet?  Likewise.  Why?  Pretty simple: you stripped the body of glycogen and the accompanying water and hence lost weight.  You then ate carbs, replenished glycogen and regained the necessary water.  Sure you probably dropped a bit of fat as a result of cutting out some of the crap etcetera, but you lost weight, not fat.

woman hiding eyes on scale

Using weight as the sole marker of progression is a one way ticket to frustrationville.

Too many people are fixated with their weight.  Perhaps understandably so given that in most cases weight is the marker used to measure body composition, but it shouldn’t be used as a standalone measure of progress.   Sure, you probably associate a certain weight with when you were looking your best, and that probably does have some relevance, but you need to switch your thinking away from weight, and towards fat loss and improved body composition.   How much you weigh is less important than what your weight is made up of (fat, muscle, water, other lean tissue), or your body composition.

By body composition we’re essentially referring to the relationship between total bodyweight, muscle mass (total lean mass) and fat mass.  Lets say you weigh 65kg for example, with 25kg of that weight being muscle mass and 15kg of fat mass.   You go on a ‘diet’ and lose 10kg of total weight, all of which is fat, happy days.  But, what if you lost say 4kg of fat and 6kg of lean mass?  You did lose some fat, but you also lost a significant amount of lean mass.  Not good long term.  This second scenario is the reality of what happens with diets.  You lose lots of weight, but relatively little body fat.

And what happens when you return to your regular way of eating and drinking?  Well, being that you can only shrink fat cells – your body has a kind of  ‘fat memory’ and remembers with fondness those fatter times – your are likely to regain most, if not all, of that fat.  Oh, and that lean mass you lost?  Unfortunately, that’s not quite so accommodating, you need to earn that back.

But, focus on improving your body composition – that is losing fat and maintain or better still adding some muscle (lean mass) and you’ll look and feel very different, both acutely and in the longer term.  The example below show’s just this.  This person has only lost 2kg of total weight, but has lost 8.4kg of fat and added 4.2kg of muscle.  So whilst 2kg (broadly 4lbs) of weight loss is nothing of particular note, the change in body composition is hugely significant.

Diptic

Note the change in the shape of the curve from C-shaped to D-shaped. A D-shaped curve indicates a positive relationship between fat and muscle relative to weight.

Focus on fat loss, not weight loss.  It will seem like you’re progressing more slowly (your weight won’t drop so quickly, especially if you add some lean mass), but surely it’s better to get leaner rather than simply smaller?

 

 

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10 Body Myths Debunked

April 8, 2013 by ·

Check out our feature in today’s Telegraph on ’10 Body Myths Debunked’.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE>>

We got a say on seven of the ten…..

“Fat makes you fat”

Not so. “Good quality fats are essential for health and should always make up part of your diet,” explains top trainer and founder of W10 Performance , Jean Claude Vacassin. “Fats have been vilified because they are calorie dense, at nine calories for every gram, but they are essential if you want a better diet, and a better body.”

“You have to do cardio to lose weight”

“It’s lean muscle mass that’s critical for getting and staying lean and excessive cardio neither helps build or maintain muscle mass. A better alternative for many people who are trying to get into shape would be resistance training coupled with a good diet,” explains Vacassin.

“Women shouldn’t lift weights”

Don’t let body builder’s bodies put your off weight training, “when done in extreme amounts and combined with a diet that provides a significant excess of calories (something women very rarely, or never, do!) it does of course trigger muscle gain,” says Vacassin.
“But doing two sets of twelve reps and following it up with healthy eating won’t bulk you up,” advises Vacassin. “You need to train and eat with the specific purpose of gaining muscle for it to happen. Burn fat as you build muscle and you’ll never feel ‘heavy’ or ‘bulky’.”

“Carbs are the enemy”

“Carbs are an important part of the diet and a major player in cognitive function, mood, energy levels and overall wellbeing,” warns Vacassin. “Following a diet that is low in carbs for too long not only negatively impacts your mood, sleep and mental clarity but also your ability to lose weight, and fat. Low carb diets are also often very low in fibre which have massive implications for long term health.”

“I need supplements to be healthy”

“Putting supplements of any kind before a good diet is not going to work. Besides, most people only need take the basics (a multivitamin, probiotic, vitamin D and omega 3 fish oil) anyway,” explains Vacassin, who also recommends getting tested before taking on any extra supplementation

“I can eat as many ‘clean’ foods as I want”

“Watch it. Just because a food is ‘good’ or ‘clean’ doesn’t mean that you should, or can, eat it in unlimited quantities – more is not better. Too much of anything will make you gain weight. Typical offenders here are nuts, avocados and fruit,” explains Vacassin.

“Protein is good, so more must be better”

Getting your RDA of protein is key to health, “but as will all things, we don’t need to consume it in excessive quantities,” explains Vacassin. “Diets very high in protein are a by product of the new carb-phobia trend (we have to replace the calories with something right?). But we reallly shouldn’t consume it in quantities that exceed our requirements if we are following a balanced nutritional programme.”

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My 8wk Transformation

March 20, 2013 by ·

My 8 Week Transformation

I’ve always been someone who has eaten healthily (whilst enjoying a night out!), but I have never previously followed a set nutritional plan that has been specifically counted and laid out. I’ve always eaten ‘well’ and whilst playing rugby I was a lean 106kg and could probably  get away with eating a bit of rubbish on weekends due to the rigours of training.

photo-1

 Photographs taken 6wks apart

That being said I’ve never really had that elusive 6 pack.  You could see the outline of the top but never anymore. During Monday to Friday my nutrition was always on point, but come the weekend I was a bit more lax with a few glasses of wine and the odd dessert. I was happy, but before January I made the decision to start the year with a purpose and abstain from all gastronomy gluttony for 8 weeks.

It really hasn’t been that hard as I took all the guess work out of it. I had my program and nutritional plan written for me by JC and all I had to do was follow it to the letter. 8 weeks later I’m here still around 105kg but I’ve lost over 5.5kg of fat and added roughly 2kg of lean mass. My waistline has come in and my 34′ jeans are loose, wow!

You can see my abs and I’m a lot more vascular. I haven’t really put myself through calorie restriction and I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. Even the 20 rep squats!  I weight trained 3 times a week and did a 20 minute EDT session on a Saturday morning. That was it – a far from extreme training schedule.

photo
Final pictures taken 12th March

What I’ve learned throughout all of this is that eating ‘clean’ will only get you so far.  It’s like telling someone to ‘train hard’.  This basic advice will take someone a long way, but there’s a lot of leeway either side.  If you want fast results and progress, you need to have things tailored for your individual needs.  Yes, measuring your food can become tiresome (I actually didn’t mind this), but if you aimlessly train without an end goal, then you will always do the bare minimum. On the training side I found I pushed myself far harder than I have done previously, and even had to have a little word with myself at the end of leg day!

RowSmall

The reason I did this was to prove to myself for one that I could, plus I needed to after stuffing my face WAY too much over Christmas!  I love food, I always have, and always will.  I don’t really have a sweet tooth but once in a while ill have a little treat. That being said, I was standing testament to the masses out there that train their bollocks off only to see little or no change in body composition. As I’m quite a big man, 6ft 4in and around 105kg I carried my frame well, but on my post Christmas return I felt bloated and wasn’t comfortable.

ShoulderPressSmall

You can overeat on good food, hence why telling someone to eat ‘clean’ won’t really cut it in the long-term.  Initially people will reap the benefits of so called ‘clean’ eating, but further on down the line things will need to be tailored and individual macros worked out. You need to see what works best for you, that is why enlisting the help of a Personal Trainer (who knows what they are doing) will help massively.  It takes all of the guess work out of it for you, and all you need to be is disciplined and focused on the task ahead.

My 8-week transformation worked for me as it had an end date. I had a photographer lined up to come and take the final pictures and there was no chance that I was going to look awful come photoshoot day. I was putting myself out there for all to see that is why I stayed on track. As you can see from the pictures I’ve made massive inroads in a short space of time. March was always going to be the end date for the initial push as I had tickets for Wales v England so there was no chance of me not drinking that day!

You need little goals to hit in your training, otherwise you will stagnate and begin to wonder what the point of it all is. Being someone who has weight trained for a long period of time I need things to be kept fresh. This is what I’m doing and I’m extremely happy and pleased the way things are going!

Hopefully you all found this honest account helpful.  And my apologies for some of the pouts in the photos, I always wanted to be a model!

A thank you mention also to Toby Peyton-Harrison for taking the final pictures, I would thoroughly recommend him.

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W10 in Absolutely Magazine

March 20, 2013 by ·
Check out the latest issue of Absolutely Magazine.  Interview with W10 on pg.54 with us talking nutrition and training.
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Why is W10 Performance so Saturday Night Fever?

March 12, 2013 by ·

“Why are my hamstrings are tight?  I stretch, I train, I stretch again, but my hamstrings are always tight”! Sound familiar? It does to me.

People, often without prompting, walk into my practice and tell me that their hamstring ‘feel tight’.  Whether you play five a side with your work colleagues, hit a weekend spin class or hit the weights a couple of times per week, chances are it will come up in conversation.

But is it because your hamstrings are truly short….?

Hamstrings control movement around the hip and knee. They provide the propulsion of jumping and walking and also act as the break pads when stopping suddenly. They bend your knee at the same time as pulling your leg backwards when you move forward. You can feel them work most as you walk or run down a steep hill, squat, and when trying to stop suddenly from a sprint. They are used even when we don’t move, sitting or standing, as they help to control our pelvic tilt, and respond to the weight of the body above.

Unknown

So what has mades them tight?

The simple answer is, is you have!  Human design is in direct conflict with the majority of our working / lifestyle habits. Too much sitting and not enough exercise has trained our hamstrings to be sluggish, and when something goes wrong they exclaim in a confused voice “I was only following orders!”.

Those orders are a mixture of neuro-musculoskeletal problems; the nerves incorrectly telling the muscles to be tight, and that in turn causes the joints to become stiff. Left for long enough, the problems become more stubborn and it is then more likely to cause recurrent niggles that finally end with a pretty significant injury.

Is stretching the answer?

Over stretching a tight muscle can cause muscle fibres to fray, leaving you vulnerable to recurrent strains. Knock on effects can place stress elsewhere on the skeleton, such as the knees and the low back. I see and treat these injuries daily.

However, I am convinced that with the right awareness and correct preparation anyone who is starting strength and conditioning training or upping their program can focus on some very simple techniques to avoid a hamstring issues and a trip to my office.  How so?  A well designed and progressive strength training programme that focussed any imbalances that exist within the body.

How you perform exercises is important.  The guys at W10 Performance run a very tight ship: strict roller warm-ups, increased awareness of your hips as you train and getting you to recruit your glutes at the end of any leg exercise. It all helps to take the pressure off the hamstrings, and reduce the chance of injury.

There are no guarantees that an injury prevention strategy will work 100% of the time, but good practice goes a long way.  So, get that hip thrust going and get all “Saturday Night Fever”.

Nick Lamond, Portobello Chiropractic Clinic - www.portobellochiropractic.co.uk

sunday-dance

 

 

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W10 Member Success Story

March 2, 2013 by ·

Every so often we like to share some of our members’ success stories, letting people describe their W10 experience in their own words.  Here’s another one of our 6wk programme testimonials.

DH is a typical guy in his mid thirties with the pressures of a demanding working life and a love for the social scene and all the trappings.  Perhaps fair to say that DH isn’t a natural when it comes to the healthy living thing, so it is a journey that many people could probably relate to.  One of those, ‘if he can do it’….

Here’s the journey in his own words:

“I started the W10 6wk program as I wanted a structured and effective way of using the gym, rather than drifting from one thing to another.  I was recommended W10 by friends who train there and who spoke highly of it.  The place is very different to your usual commercial gym – the people are focused but also there’s a relaxed group vibe.

One of the best parts of the program was the tangible markers of progress which the InBody machine gave me, providing weekly readings of fat and muscle composition so I could measure improvements consistently.  if my diet was off it would show and if I followed the plan to the letter the improvements were clear so this helps you to stay on track and motivates you to beat your previous result – on average I was losing 1kg of fat a week.

nick-week-1

nick-after-6

Diet is probably the most important factor of the programme and is the one I usually struggle with. I kept a daily food diary, which I submitted at the end of every week. Though you think you’re eating the right foods, in some cases you’re not, so having Adam barking about what’s right and wrong in your diary helped to change eating habits!

The progressive nature of the training program kept things interesting and I learned more ways of using the gym.  All three of trainers at W10 know your plan and what you’re wanting to get out of it, I liked getting the perspective of three experienced guys and means you’re not tied to the availability/schedule of one trainer.

I would defiantly recommend the 6 week program and W10 to anyone who wants to kick start a more healthy life.  Physically I am stronger and healthier and I lost a significant amount of body fat, but beyond that I also found my energy levels increased.  I was sleeping regularly and getting out of bed more easily in the morning!  Having a more structured post work schedule made me more focused generally.”

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7 Reasons Women Should Strength Train

February 18, 2013 by ·

Article by W10 trainer Rob Coles.  Check out Rob’s blog here>>

One thing we know is that maintaining adequate levels of muscle mass is one of the best ways to keep body fat at bay, particularly as we age. We also know that resistance training is the best way to build and maintain muscle. Yet despite this, far more women opt for a piece of cardio equipment (which we should point out, does the opposite!) instead of hitting the weight room.

So to encourage females who might be hesitant to do so, here are 7 reasons why women should strength train with weights:

You Will Get Stronger

Increasing your strength seems to be somewhat under valued amongst women, but by improving your strength levels you are essentially improving the size of your horsepower. This will make everyday life a little easier with daily tasks and routine exercise far less taxing and less likely to cause injury.

You Will Have Less Body Fat

Yes, you read that one correctly!  Strength training, unlike running and other slow cardio, builds muscle, and muscle burns more calories burned per day (increased basal metabolic rate). For each pound of muscle you gain your body will burn an additional 35-50 calories each day. Studies by Wayne Wescott, PHD, found that the average women who strength trains two to three time a week for two months will gain nearly 2 pounds of muscle and shed 3.5pounds of fat. We’ll leave you to do the math!

You Will Have Better Posture

A balanced strength training program will develop good structural balance, meaning that your muscles will be much better coordinated and balanced, which will result in much better correct posture.

You Will Reduce Your Risk Of Injury, Back Pain And Arthritis

A strength training program will not only make you stronger, it will also address any structural imbalances you may have as well as improving and maintaining mobility and flexibility.  By improving the strength of not only your muscles but also your connective tissues you will improve joint stability and help prevent injury.

You Will Decrease Your Risk Of Osteoporosis

Strength training can increase bone mineral density as well as enhance bone re-modeling. This, when combined with a balanced nutritional programme, can massively reduce the risk of osteoporosis; a very important consideration for females as they age.

You Will Get Sick Less

Strength training improves gene activity and your natural antioxidant network, leaving your immune system ready to tackle any viruses you may be exposed to.

You Will Be More Awesome

By combining all the points above you will not only look a hell of a lot better but you will feel better too! Both of which, in my opinion, will make you a far better (happier!) human being.

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Remember, don’t chase weight loss, chase fat loss.

Stay healthy and embrace those weights!

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