The Right Diet for You

I watched  a programme recently on the BBC called 'The Right Diet for You', supposedly the experts in diet and nutrition had come together to test and establish the best diets for individuals.

The majority of the programme was defined by putting people into 3 groups, 'constant cravers', 'feasters' and 'emotional eaters'. At this point I realised that they weren't actually doing individual diets for people. Yes they figured a pattern out for people, with regards to why they eat the way they do, but we don't all fit into one of these groups. Personally I think I fit into all of them at some point during year...!

Picking the right diet for you, is really really really tricky. Trust me I have tried most of the diets out there, most of them cookie cutter diets that people follow and think because it worked for some people it could work for me!

We can all agree, that we are all individual, we aren't all the same - if we all tried on the same t-shirt, we would not look the same and actually some wouldn't even bother trying on the t-shirt, because they know it wouldn't suit them. So in my head, why do we do that with diets....? In fact with diets, shouldn't it be even more individually than what we wear!?

How your body reacts to food is completely different from the person next to you. You need to have a diet that you follow, it may be similar to someone else's, but it can't and shouldn't be the same. I follow a flexible eating dieting, which is specifically programmed for me and what I am personally trying to do - if I gave you my diet and told you to follow it, I guarantee that you wouldn't see the same results that I do.

In the UK there are 11 million people on a diet, 80% of which fail........speaks for itself.

Often people say that they couldn't do what I do, they aren't me and there isn't any way they could do it. I agree it takes a lot to train as much as I do at the gym, 6 times a week is a struggle and I have to dig deep to get there. But and that is a big BUT, that doesn't mean that you can't do something similar to me diet wise. The way my diet is devised is worked out on the activities that I do, so if I wasn't do any training, then my diet would be changed/adjusted to reflect this.

I know that what I have achieved is immense, but I truly believe that if you put your mind to it, you can do it!!

This Week Results

So this week, results time - I have plugged this weeks figures into my table (below)...

	8th Jan	17th Jan	24th Jan
Weight	70.5	70.5	70
Body Fat %	23.85	23.62	21.94
Body Fat KG	16.8	16.6	15.35
Lean LG	53.7	53.8	54.7

I am really happy with this weeks results, when I weighed myself this morning I thought, 'only 0.5kg's, pitiful results and I was really struggling to get my head round it. More than likely it is to do with my water intake. Today I'm experimenting, drinking as much water today as I possibly can, I will weigh myself tomorrow and hopefully will reflect my body fat percentage result this week.

I've dropped 1.68% of body fat, so actually I'm very happy and it is helping me focus!!!

It has been a relatively easy week, no travelling for my job, my sisters birthday meant one day I struggled a tad, but all in all, it was a normal week. Next week will be tricky, I'm travelling a lot for work, got a lot of work to do and fitting in my training is going to take some doing. So right now I'm going to look at next week, what I'm going to eat each day and when & what I'm going to train and when :)

Thanks for reading, please share with your friends and families, any questions please let me know :)

Thanks

Holly

She Believed She Could and So She Did

It is 2015, most people are thinking about (or already decided), what they are going to try and achieve this year. Often goals aren't fully thought through, aren't measurable, unachievable and not with reliable timescales. 

People refer to SMART when setting their goals, I must admit I don't do that myself and mostly just look at what I want to achieve, when and how. But for me writing them down is the best thing to do, it somehow in my brain solidifies the goal, makes it more real.

Christmas Aftermath

It has been 3 weeks since Christmas Day as I write this (15th Jan), I weighed myself on Sat 3rd Jan to see what damage I had done over the Christmas period. I had relaxed over Christmas, been a bit more human (so to speak) and ate nearly constantly on high fats and high carb foods, I also replaced water with alcohol. I put on 3kg, which suffice to say I struggled to get my head round this, but I had to draw a line under it. I clearly needed it and I'm actually feeling more motivated now to achieve my next goals.

I decided the best thing to do, was to focus initially on the first week and getting a good start to the year, to prove that Christmas was a blip and not going to continue.

Getting back to this first week was tough, but I was so determined, I really wanted to get back to losing weight, as I was sure improving my water intake alone would get me back on track. So I really pushed myself, going back to the foods I know help me lose fat, but mainly drank so much water - which yes had the not so nice after effect of seeing my bathroom more often! Here are my first three weekly results since the New Year:

RESULTS

	3rd Jan	8th Jan	17th Jan
Weight	73	70.5	70.5
Body Fat %	24.3	23.85	23.62
Body Fat KG	17.7	16.8	16.6
Lean LG	55.3	53.7	53.8

So pleased with my results so far, I'm not so please with this weeks, but that is due to being away for work, restricting my ability to stick rigidly to my macros. Although doing flexible dieting certainly helped massively.

My personal trainer and I have agreed to put me on a 12 week cutting programme - we will reduce my macros for 12 week, adjusting it each week depending on my results. I will then have a 3 week 'break', where we bring my foods up, to maintain my metabolism. Along side this my training programme is harder than I've had in a long time, if not the hardest I have had to date. The two combined are and will push my body and brain to the limits!!

Because of this programme I have decided to enter myself in Body Power Transformation Challenge, to solidify my goals and enforce what I'm working towards :) It is not about winning the competition at all, for me it is literally the taking part and see how much I can push myself.
http://bodypowerexpo.co.uk/transformation-challenge

Getting Back to Work

I just wanted to talk briefly about the last 2 weeks. Safe to say I have struggled with my energy levels on the floor to say the least. I was worried, especially on Saturday last week when I slept hard and worked feeling even more tried. But I needed to get real, this is what I did in the last two weeks (all in one go), after 2 weeks of no work, reduced training and eating no foods which fuel my body correctly.

• Back to work at LBG, full time (and more hours to catch up following the holidays and project gaining speed).
• 16 hours working at the gym; as part of my Personal Trainer course
• Back to eating against my macros, and actually having a reduction in macros as start of the cut.
• 2 Personal Training sessions and 4 other days of training
• Week of anti-biotics to try and kill an infection

When I write it down like that, no wonder I was shattered. I still am, but my body needs time to adjust back and adjust to the harder training programme I am on. Plus being ill and needing anti-biotics is not helping. I considered having a day or two off sick, but refused, my body and head need to get used to this, my training is only going to get harder.

My brain needs to keep telling my body to keep going and push harder and harder, I'm very determined this year and I will commit to keeping my blog up dated with my progress each week.

This made me think about how, a lot of people will be rushing to the gym after Christmas, to shed the weight they put on, or to start a new years resolution. I've been training for over a year and I have struggled to get back into it, so I can remember back to starting a new years resolution, when I was big and wanted to lose weight.

Heading to the gym is fine, committing yourself to going every day or the week, will ultimately lead to failure (if you haven't done it before). Your body is not used to it and over Christmas has been made worse, by lack of movement and eating lots. Therefore, I can only recommend that you take it slow, I started my journey in July 2013, by doing one training session a week and wasn't focusing on my food.

One Step at a Time!! Let your body adjust and then increase your gym sessions or try and look at your eating. Don't do everything at once.

Hope you are having a great start to the year, get in touch if you have any questions, by commenting on here, tweet my @Berry1284 or Instagram: Gym_Berry.

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Thanks for Reading

CHRISTMAS!!!

We are just under a week from Christmas and I couldn't be more excited... I have spoken to a fair few people who have said 'oh you've done so well, but are you going to have a break over christmas?' This comment is coming more and more, especially since recent progression shots have been published of me on facebook. 

I'm so proud of myself for how well I have done so far, but I'm not at my goal and even if I was, would I want to ruin it by having time 'off' my lifestyle...? The key word is lifestyle, not diet or programme.

My first thought, is how long is the Christmas period? Some people think It is a day, week or month. For me, it tends to be almost all of December! If I decided to eat whatever during that month, my god I would be the size of a house! Even if I decided to do it for a couple of weeks, I could do so much damage, it could basically render the last few months useless.

I currently have a 'flexible diet' way of living, gradually over the last month we have increased my carb and fat levels to get my metabolism as high as possible. Not only to make christmas easier, but also to ensure that from January I can really focus and return to working towards my goals...!

I am in no way going to sit there on Christmas Day and not eat what I want, please don't get me wrong. I will relax, I don't want to think about food all day. But I'm going to train every other day of the week and contain my eating on the other days.

The trick is, don't deny yourself, you will only crave it more... Then when/if you cave, you more than likely will binge on that item of food & more. The best thing to do is except you haven't eaten the best thing, move on, and get back to eating well. I've said it before and I'll say it again, don't let a bad meal, turn into a bad day, turn into a bad week, etc, etc.

My next blog is going to be a reflection on the year and what I'm looking forward to next year, so stay tuned and follow to have my new blogs flagged to you when I post them :)

Enjoy your Christmas, spend time with your family and relax. It is time to rest and enjoy yourself!

Happy Christmas (random picture of my dog Betsy, dressed as a Christmas pudding) x

Water

Last week I was spot on with my food, hitting my carbs, protein and fat levels to the number. I was feeling lean and actually pretty good, but something was missing. I wasn't quite as energetic as I would have liked and the feeling of lean was fleeting from one hour to the next.

On Saturday, I had my regular weekly weigh in and body fat % results, which are part of my personal training package. I weighed myself first thing, before eating or drinking and after going to the toilet (I know you don't need to know that, but it is my routine). I was shocked at the result, putting half a kilo on (1 pound on). 

1 kilo doesn't sound like much and it isn't, but for me I was then wracking my brain to see where I had gone wrong. My food had been great, my training was going very well and I felt leaner (thinner!). So why the increase, I should in theory have lost weight this week.

The only thing I could attribute it to, was water. I had been awful with my water intake that week. Despite eating well, I had probably hardly drunk 1 litre a day, where I should be hitting 3 litres (not including tea/coffee).

My next surprise was at my body fat percentage result, I had dropped about 0.40% body fat, which again doesn't sound like much, but is a fair bit. This was pointing more and more into my water intake not being right and my body was holding/storing the water.

In my naivety in the past (before I started this journey), I was never familiar with the effects water had on the body. Yep maybe I was thick. I was told it was important, but never felt it made me feel any differently. Because in those days, I didn't listen to my body ever, I didn't realise the benefits of water.

I also never really realised that our bodies store and retain water like they do. This week was a prime example of this and let's just say I've been drinking a hell of a lot more water since then. 

For me water is boring, I'd much rather drink a coffee or glass of wine. But I have to change my thoughts about it, drinking water gives you energy, keeps your skin clear, clears your body of toxins and when you drink a sufficient about, you can lose weight!!

Having that week of no water, has really made me realise how much our bodies need it and that most people (including myself), do not drink anywhere near enough! I've never been perfect with my water intake, but I am striving every day to put the effort in and drink enough.

Challenge yourself to drink more water, have a litre bottle of water and see how many you can drink in a day. If you drink glasses of water, every day try and drink a little bit more. Myself I will be setting myself timescales: 7-11; 1 litre 11-4; 1 litre 5-9; 1 litre 

I often tell myself 'you can do this', I can and I will!!

Thanks for reading, please share with your friends and family, comment/like and follow me :)

Timehop

Firstly, thank you so much for the lovely comments I've had so far from this blog. It motivated me to keep going and reinforced my determination to keep blogging :)

Timehop

So I downloaded Timehop in the last week, maybe behind the times I know, but didn't really see the point, but thought I'd give it a go. 

What have I discovered...

Well the analyst in me comes out (as that is my profession), from the posts so far from 2-5 years ago, I was unhappy, clearly. I was ill all the time and hated work. That's not news to me and I have mentioned this is previous posts. 

Nowadays I would consider myself very healthy, I hardly ever get ill, but when I do it hits me like a ton of bricks. I suppose what I have taken from this, is that doing what I have, to get fit and healthy, has amazingly improved my health but I will still get ill. 

This doesn't mean I'm not as healthy as I was a previous week, or I've somehow failed myself by getting ill. It is a way of life and we all get ill. The benefit now is that I continue to train as much as I can, my eating continues healthy (if I can) and if both of those things go out the window, I know I will get back to it when I'm feeling better, or close to better.

The realisation that you are in control of you, is amazing. I never felt in control before, things seemed (in the past) to just happen to me, now I choose (for the most part) what happens to me. I think I'm referring mostly to the eating here, to know you can fall off the wagon, but jump straight back on is key. 

Just because you've had chocolate bar with mid morning cuppa, does not mean you have failed for that day, week, month, year! So what you've had a chocolate bar, don't dwell on it, it happened yes, but that chocolate bar does not control what you eat for the rest of your day, week, etc. It's hard to get in this mindset, but incredibly satisfying and keeps you towards your goals. Flexible dieting is what is says on the tin 'flexible'.

I'm no expert, I'm talking from my experiences and how I feel.

So progress this week, I've dropped half a kilo, doesn't sound much does it. I actually don't think that's representing the change I've felt in my body, I feel leaner. My stomach especially feels smaller. The weight on the scales is one element, yes it is a focus of mine currently, but isn't the be all and end all. 

I'm confident that by following my macros this week and training plan, I will achieve an equal if not better result next week - we shall see :) 

Don't let one day/week of disappointment ruin your motivation, this will not stop me going to the gym on Monday and training. Or stop me eating healthy this week! 

Thanks for reading...

Random Thoughts

First Thought

The other day I went to meet a friend in town, I was early so decided to stand outside her workplace and took to taking in my surroundings. There were a fair few people around, mostly shopping or spending their lunchtimes rushing around. But something struck me as worrying or concerning.

The amount of women that look at other women, not just looking and judging me, but looking at others and judging. Before my health journey (I don’t know what else to call it!), I thought people looked at me because of my size and obvious lack of confidence.

What surprised me, was not only did I notice that I was still in need of an evaluation (to compare how I look to others), but it was all women. I actually didn't see that many men doing the same, watching other men and doing quick analysis', like women do.

What a strange breed we are, not only do the majority of us feel uncomfortable in our skin, but we do the worst thing possible to others! Bizarre and little bit scary I think. Maybe I’m wrong, but this is my perception, this is how it feels to me and how it makes me feel, surely I’m not the only one... I had a tendency in the past to not look at people, I hated looking people in the eye, as I thought in some way that by doing I was inflicting them with having to deal with an over-weight woman, I thought (and hated the thought) of them making all the pre-conceived ideas of over-weight people.

We shouldn't feel this need to compare, but we do, it's such a shame. Judging people isn't fair, you don't know who they are, or what they have been through. Think before you stare or judge. We're all human and have all had our battles to get through.

Second Thought

Whenever I look at my shadow, I see the old me. The bigger me. The fat me. The person I hated!

I like it when my shadow is behind me and I don't need to look at it, but sometimes you need to face your past to focus on the now and progress to the future.

Today sat waiting for the train, I stared at my shadow, hating the size it was portraying, thinking to myself that I'm no longer that person and never want to be again.

Right now my results are halting, stalling slightly if you will. I need my head to stop thinking I'm doing so well and realise the massive hurdles I still need to get over.

The problem with the weight loss/health journey is that you do reach a point where you are looking good, but you aren't at the end, but your head and people around you think you can become easier in yourself from a eating and exercise point of view.

This is not the case and I'm living that right now. My head and those around me think I'm in such a good place that I can eat different things - yes to some degree this is the case. But I would advise you to think again, re-focus, what is your next goal, what do you want, are you really happy with now and surely you don't want to go back, so no way can you start eating like you were (the were for me; 16 months ago)!

For me this isn't the first time I've encountered these thoughts or feelings. At different points in the process/journey you think, wow I'm doing so well. People are noticing and commenting, asking your advice and you look good or better than you did. Your head does weird and strange things, it goes a bit melancholy and you start to slip into old habits or new habits that can be just as bad.

Denial is massive during these stages, the human brain is sly and will start to make you deny the things you are doing. Less training at the gym (making up excuses that you believe), sneaking in extra bits into your diet (saying you deserve it, it won't affect your results)...! Sound familiar??!!   If not, you are lucky, this is my experience either way.

I am now at 67.5kg, my body fat is at 19.05%. I train 6 times a week, sometimes 5 depending on work and have a non training day macros to hit on those days off. My work is complicated, 2 full time jobs on the go, with little or no time for everything. I’ve also started a part time distance learning Personal Training Course, I am to work 16 hours at the Loft Gym, fitted around my hours in my normal job. This leaves little time to relax, see friends and family, but it is a short term situation for a long term gain.

I need to make sure I don’t burn out, or become ill with all this extra stuff going on. My body is becoming more and more used to me pushing past illness’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ill all the time, no-where near where I was in the past (I used to get every illness, cold, virus going around). Now what happens, I get a cold (for example), I push past it, drug myself up and carry on, vary rarely letting my body get the rest it probably needs. This is both from a work and training perspective.

Recently I fell fowl to this, I had a cold, which turned to a cough, which turned to sinusy thing, that then seemed to stop, but then hit me with a chest infection – this nearly floored me, had to admit defeat and took some time off work and training. For all my talk on previous blogs about listening to your body, I’m not doing it, I just carry on and on and don’t let it rest.

In the end my body stops me, it always does. The body is a clever clever machine, it will stop you and make you feel awful, if you won’t listen to it and stop when it needs rest to recover from illness.

Enough of my ranting on here today, hopefully some thoughtful bits and pieces.

Thanks for reading...0

Train Writing & Reflections

I'm writing this on the train, thinking to myself what a long journey I'm on (an hour & it is boiling). Putting things in perspective is an amazing tool, yes right now my train journey feels lengthy & tiring - sounds very familiar to my healthy body journey. Through it's course there have been times that fly by, where I enjoy every second. There are times like now (I have felt this before as well), where things are a struggle, I'm craving things I can't eat (doesn't help that due to reduced macros I'm hungry a lot of the time!). I'm thinking to myself on this train how nice it would be to go home, sit and not get up,, rather than drag myself to the gym! But then my fitness self (so to speak), wakes up and says 'ok do that, but how bad will you feel that you didn't train today, it's 1 hour out of the day - suck it up & bloody well go'. She's a bossy cow sometimes, but she's right. It's not my body's fault I've been up since 5, working for 9 hours, travelling for 3 hours today! There are 24 hours in a day, 1 hour to train more than my body deserves right? My body makes sure I can function all day, so why shouldn't it get a fix of what it needs.... 

I'm not sure if this writing will help or inspire anyone, it is just my story, my struggles and successes. The people around you are key, I wouldn't be here today without my friends and family, but mainly jenny my sister, for not caring what I eat, for not worrying when I'm getting back late from work and going straight to the gym, to then eat and fall into bed.

A body is a building, you need to create the foundations before you can build the house. The foundations are your nutrition and exercise technique. Making sure you know what you put in your body, why and how it makes you feel. The wrong fuel in a car will cause it to break down, your body is the same. If you don't do the exercise in the right way you will break, you can try and jump in all guns blazing, yeah at first you may succeed, but what's the point if you aren't doing it right and hitting the right muscles?

I sound like I know it all, I don't, at this stage of writing I've been doing this for 16 months. My ideal physique will probably take another 6 months of so to develop, that's realistic. Realism is essential, it is not real that everyone will be able to lose their weight, keep it off and maintain a consistent diet and exercise regime. You have to want to do it, dedicate your mind and say no to people sometimes.

I used to hate saying the word 'no', I felt it was such a negative word and in no way could mean anything other than someone wasn't getting what they wanted or needed. At work I would have so much piled in me, because I couldn't say no. Rather me be burned out than someone else. Why, am I not as important as them, should you not be one of the most important if not the most important person in your own life??

Thanks for reading :)