Blueberries - The Fight Against CV Disease!

I consume approx 250g of Blueberries each day as they have the highest ranking, more than any other fruit, for antioxidant power, and they taste great! They'll also lower your blood pressure.

INTENT!

I'm training in the gym today and an overweight woman starts training next to me by doing seated dumbbell bicep curls and then seated shoulder lateral raises with a good rest between sets. What is her goal, her intent??? If she wants to lose weight/fat she needs to train so much differently, she's wasting her time. She needs to get as much energy out of her body as possible, and seated exercises with long rest periods is not the right way to go about it.

Focus on your intent during your sessions!

Intermittent Fasting

I am a big believer in IF, but it depends on whether or not it suits you or not and also how you manipulate it. Some of my clients on their rest days for training will fast for the first 13 hours of a new day. If their last meal the evening previous ended at 9pm then this leads to a 16 hour fast. Some people can do 20 hours, just depends on what fits for you, but give it a try for quick weight loss or for stubborn weight loss.

Best Way To Cook Your Veggies?

Microwaving is the best method for cooking your veggies as it retains the greatest percentage of antioxidants. Boiling loses the most amount of antioxidants. Having said that, if boiling lost say 15% of the antioxidants more than microwaving, then just eat a bit more if boiling is your preference! Take home message? Just eat your veggies regardless! :-)

Every time I'm in the gym training I see guys lifting far too heavy with the mindset that the more weight they lift, the bigger they get. Yes you obviously need to lift a sufficient load in order to maximise gains, but the key is developing muscle tissue is the stress you place the muscle under for a given time.

The muscle must be put under tension for a quality period of time, preferably through a full range of motion. If you're using the bench press, there's little point in doing 3-4 reps at a really heavy weight with poor form, and partial ROM. Muscle tissue would be broken down better be a slower lowering phase so each rep lasts 3-4 secs so for a set of 10-12 through full ROM you're talking about the muscle being under quality stress for up to 45 secs.

Focus on tension, stressing the muscle properly, rather than the heavy load, you're gains will be better.