It’s without a doubt one of the busiest times a year, between Xmas functions, last minute shopping.... oh crap! That reminds me... 😱😱

Anyway, we get it, it’s busy, but that doesn’t mean your training and nutrition needs to be completely neglected.

Just because it’s holiday season, and you’re taking leave from work doesn’t mean you should be taking leave from a healthy lifestyle.

Before I get into my top 7 strategies to stay on top of your health and fitness I think it’s a good opportunity to remind ourselves that health and fitness is all year round, just because you’ve been putting a little extra in to feel a little more comfortable at that Xmas function this Friday night, doesn’t mean you put your training and nutrition to the bottom of the priority list once the event is over,

Exercise is a daily thing, for life, not just for when you’re motivated or have an event coming up. So let’s all commit to making it a part of your routine this next few weeks.

So now my lecture to you is over, let’s get into my top 7 Strategies for Avoiding the Xmas Blowout.

1. TRAIN FIRST☝🏼

There’s stuff on, you’re gunna be busy, and the last thing you’re wanting to do after a day of shopping or hosting Xmas lunch is head out for a run or do that workout. So get up early get your workout in and then enjoy the rest of the day. Opting for a workout over an extra 45min sleep is going to be far more beneficial. Unless you’re only getting a few hours sleep, then that’s another story altogether. There's plenty of chances to sleep in if you're only training 3-4 days a week anyway.

2. BE EFFICIENT 🐆💪👌

Let’s be honest, between everything that’s going on, who’s got the time to split up their workouts between upper, lower body, cardio and strength?

Let’s be smart, if you’re only going to manage 3 or 4 workouts a week, let’s combine it and get the most out of your training time.

I suggest for 2-3 weeks to do Full Body strength workouts followed by 10-20min of interval training to finish.

You can read this blog here to learn why doing strength first is important:

And to get some sample interval workouts.

3: PAVLOVA IS ESSENTIAL. 🍰🍬🎂

Christmas is not Christmas without a good old fashion pav cooked by the self nominated pavlova expert in your family (c’mon we all have one).

Staying fit and maintaining your body composition over this time does not mean you have to completely restrict yourself from these delicious treats. However some consideration is needed for your overall diet. If you’re planning a bit of a food binge at Christmas lunch, then try and make your meals around this pretty good.

For example, I know I’m going to probably have a serve or 3 of Pav come Christmas Day, so I just aim to make the days leading up to and Breakfast on Xmas morning pretty good.

Because I know if I don’t then my overall calorie intake for the week will be a hell of a lot higher.

One big day is not going to ruin weeks of good nutrition and training, however multiple days and weeks in a row certainly will, so maintaining your physique over this time is really about choosing the times to relax a little on your choices and making the rest of your meal choices healthy ones.

4: BE CAREFUL OF GRANDPA’S EGGNOG 🍷🍼🍾

There’s always one family member who makes a mess of themselves with a few too many eggnogs, and that’s ok, I mean it’s hard to hire good entertainment on Xmas day anyway.

If you’re going to have a drink, go for it, but just be mindful of the premix and sweet alcoholic beverages. These options contain higher calories and will begin to add up over a few days. Opt for lower calorie options to reduce your overall intake. Options like Gin and diet tonic, vodka soda or for those who are a little more seasoned than some, straight spirits on the rocks 😬🥃

5: WAIT FOR SECONDS 🤗🤤

I’m sorry this is not what you were probably hoping for. When it comes to meal times during festive occasions, it’s really easy to overeat as we become easily distracted and therefore disconnected from our bodies subtle cues to being fed or satisfied.

When we eat, our body gives us subtle cues to let us know we’re filling up or are satisfied, however when you’re chatting, having fun, and enjoying moments with family and friends it’s easy to not notice these, and therefore think we’re ready for a second helping of Aunty Judy’s scolloped potatoes when really we’re as full as the recycling bin will be on Tuesday.

So before you jump up for a second helping, just sit on it for 5-10min so you can possibly tune in to your body and then decide if you really need it, nine times out of ten, you probably won’t. And if you do still think you need it, firstly remind yourself how uncomfortable you felt last year after over eating. If after all that you still want another serve, go for it, because it’s likely uncle Joe will steal the last piece if you don’t 😂😏

6: DOUBLE YOUR GREENS🥗🥗

Here’s a great tip to help you feel satisfied and not over indulge on the calorie dense options. Double your servings of greens, salads, veggies etc. the higher fibre content will help you feel more satisfied, as well as provide you with plenty of nutrients. This will help you fill up and less likely to reach for a large serve of Nana’s plumb pudding. 🍮

7: BE KIND TO YOURSELF💁🏼♀️💁🏼♂️😘

Like I said before, one day of indulgence is not going to ruin a consistent year of good training and nutrition habits. Relax, it’s once a year, enjoy this time with your friends and family, don’t over think it, keep it real. Just don’t turn a treat day or 2 into weeks or months, use the strategies above to stay on track and kick off your 2018 in good stead.

If you’re wanting some help getting started on your health and fitness journey in 2018, contact us now by taking up our 14 Day Free Pass and become part of The Fit Shop family today and make 2018 your best year yet!

Merry Christmas from the TFS Team

- Coach Brad

Anxiety Around Training

There’s 2 things I fear in life, and they’re really real..

1.Being in one of those public toilets with the automatic doors, and having them open up after the time out, whilst i’m still doing my business… 😱

2. Changing an infants nappy and they sneeze, (this actually happened with Harper when she was only a few weeks old and has scared me for life). 😷

Aside from these 2 things, I also experience some anxiety around training with other people. It’s been there as long as I can remember, school athletics, swimming carnivals and then more intensely with pre season football training. It’s for this reason I believe I’ve become more inclined to train solo. I find I work just as hard, but without the anxiety.

Every now and then I will participate in one of our Boot Camp sessions here at TFS and I experience plenty of anxiety prior to these sessions.

And after having a few conversations with people this past week I know I’m not alone.

I know for a fact many people experience anxiety around training, particularly when coming back from a big break, training at a different time, new session or with a different group, and some people experience it every time they come to training.

Why?

I’m sure there are many of reasons, but one of the main reasons I have put it down to is;

High expectations of ourselves.

Particularly those that have had a long lay off from regular training, tend to put huge expectation on themselves to be just as fit and strong or still keep up with the same people. Or just trying to meet a perceived expectation that’s been set on them maybe from their coach or peers. This is similar to having a fear of failure, but I believe you wouldn’t have a fear of failing if your expectations weren’t set as high.

I think as a trainer participating there’s an added expectation that you must be fit, faster and stronger than everyone, because you’re the trainer! Right?? however boot camp training is often quite different to what I (or other trainers) may do regularly. And we to have areas for improvement, exercises or movements to work on etc. but there’s certainly more perceived pressure.

So why do we set such high expectations on ourselves? Many reasons, but often it stems back to early childhood and the feeling of needing to meet the expectations of some authority figure, (Mum, Dad, coaches, teachers, older siblings etc) people who we look(ed) up to, craving their attention/love and the need to impress them, or meet their expectations.

Having high expectations of yourself can be a great thing at times to help you push to new levels or perform better, however if it’s too extreme or too often it can be debilitating.

Being in this state is much like a stressed state or flight or fight response. If this is occurring too often, it can put a lot of stress on your adrenals, your stress coping mechanisms and can cause burn out or more specifically metabolic disorders like chronic fatigue.

This is why training at a high intensity, or ‘smashing’ your training day in day out is actually counter productive, particularly for those who don’t have great central nervous systems (a poor ability to deal with too much to stress) to begin with.

So its a matter of lowering those expectations (unless its needed for a specific performance outcome) a little and focus on something less demanding or something that wont encourage that same stress response. Training is always going to create some kind of stress response, but there’s no need to create more of this if it’s not needed.

So just go into your training session with a different focus, like just working on the technique of a particular movement, maybe increasing your weight on 1 exercise or maybe just focus on good quality reps of all your movements.

And remembering you’re there for yourself, you’re doing to for you! Not to please others or meet some unrealistic expectation.

Particularly here at TFS, it doesn’t matter if you’re first or last, so long as you’re focusing on improving on what you did yesterday or last week, that’s all that matters. And the great thing is, many members who have been here for years all know what it’s like to be at the beginning, and that’s why they’re so supportive.

Finally I think it’s important to remember this:

Progress = happiness

Always striving for the big goals and expectations can be draining, so break it down, let it go, focus on what you’re doing right now, focus on your next workout, set, rep, or next meal choice.

Progress is progress no matter how big or small, learn to focus more on this than what you’re not doing and be kind to yourself.

Much Love!

- Coach Brad

Holiday season is almost upon us, and for some lucky people it’s already happening!

This week I was fortunate enough to get away for 5 Days with my little family to beautiful Byron Bay!

Was just perfect, any longer and I start getting a bit fidgety as I have a need to stay busy, hence why I wrote this on my flight home hehe 😂

It’s one of those questions that pops up all the time for us here at TFS.

“What training should I do?”

“How can I maintain my weight and not blow out while away?”

“How can I relax and enjoy myself while staying on track with my goals?”

They’re all legitimate questions, and something I want to discuss further but with the foundational understanding that it’s all about a healthy balance.

What I mean by that is; you should be able to relax a little, enjoy some foods you wouldn’t always have, maybe a few cheeky cocktails by the pool without being concerned, but at the same time understanding that exercise and good nutrition is a habit, a lifestyle and not something that should be pushed completely to the side whilst you’re on a 2 or 3 week holiday. Sure it's a holiday away from your usual day to day life, but not heath..

So here’s my best 9 strategies to ‘keeping it real’ whilst on holiday.

1) Get up early - 🌖 Whether it’s beating the sunrise for an early morning walk along the beach or joining in on something you wouldn’t normally do like a yoga session, it’s a great way to peacefully explore your destination. I’ve had some of my best moments enjoying that peaceful serenity before most people wake. Plus, because you’re up earlier it gives you much more time to do other activities during the day. But I’m sure we can all agree a couple of nice sleep ins or an arvo nap is always great 😴

2) Keep your workouts short and sweet - ⏳⌚️ Whilst I’m away I’ll tend to keep my workouts to 30-45min and opt for a full body strength workout or short interval session - this way I know I’m burning plenty of calories without cutting into my holiday time.

3) Mix it up each day - Do a strength based 🏋🏻session one day then an interval based 🏃🏼♀️session the next. Most hotels and resorts have some basic gym equipment or a treadmill at very least. You can mix up your interval sessions from treadmill, to running outside to a pool session.

4) Choose your ‘relax’ meal for the day - 🥞 Going for entré, main, dessert and all the extras at every meal time will almost guarantee to add a few extra kilos to your carry on for the trip home,(unless you're some kind of genetic freak) however if you are a little more conscious at 2/3 meals each day you should be able to relax and not be worried about stacking on extra holiday kilos.

5) Always choose a side of greens - 🥗 Opting for a side of greens with your meals will ensure you maintain a good intake of vitamins and minerals but the added fibre will also help you fill up without adding too many extra calories to your meals, and not to mention how delicious seasonal greens are, especially if you’re somewhere completely new.

6) Aim to move each day - On top of your more strenuous workouts while away, it’s a great idea to get our for a walking or riding tour, not only is it an awesome way to explore, it’ll increase the amount of calories you’re burning.

7) Choose a lower calorie beverage - 🥂 It’s no secret that many alcoholic drinks are packed with sugars and hidden calories, but who doesn’t like a few pina coladas while on holiday!? (Ok maybe that’s just me 🍹🙋🏼♂️) but if you’re wanting to be a little more conscious maybe opt for a lower cal drink such as Gin and diet tonic, or vodka and soda. Although alcohol still contains plenty of calories, opting for a low cal mixer will help keep the extra calories to a minimum.

8) Relax! - 💆🏼 Get a massage, do some meditation, or just chill out by the pool as much as you can, it’s a fact that being highly stressed effects your ability to burn fat due to the higher levels of cortisol in your system blocking the mobilisation of fat cells, and for many people their day to day life creates plenty of this 😨! so be sure to do what you are on holiday for, and that’s to relax! So Switch it off📲 , kick back 😌 and chill out🤙🏼! And give your system the rest it needs. ☝🏼

9) Try to remove artificial light stimulation at night -💡💻😳 Something we should all be taking on board every day, however it’s probably easier to get into this habit whilst on holiday as you’re away from the normal distractions (work, email, phone etc) so try to get into a good habit of not being glued to the TV, phone, laptop 30-60min prior to bedtime. The artificial blue light that emits from these devices confuses our brains in thinking we’re meant to still be awake and messes with the secretion of melatonin (sleep hormone) thus (over time) effecting our theta waves in our brain, cortisol and overall energy regulation), so why not try winding down by a warm light, candle light or just some good conversation with your holiday companions. 👌

Warning*⚠️ expect to have much better energy and sleep cycles 😉 Get our Free Holiday Workout guide here: www.thefitshop.com.pages.ontraport.net/merryfitmas Enjoy - Coach Brad

Activewear /ˈaktɪvwɛː/ Noun casual, comfortable clothing suitable for sport or exercise. It's great, it's comfortable, versatile and can have many appropriate uses... however, there's many places it probably shouldn't be... but what the heck, it's 2017!! The TFS team put together their top 13 things we've probably all done in our activewear. We know your number is there... 1) Gone for coffee at 3pm.... after a 6am workout ☕️

2) Bent over in front of the mirror in the change Room, to check if you can see your underwear through your tights 🙋

3) Gone for lunch with friends 🥗

4) Gone shopping for active wear... in your active wear

5) Had a wine (or 3)... and it was past 4pm 🍷

6) Parent teacher interviews

7) Dinner with friends 🍲

8) Grocery shopping....on a Sunday afternoon... and you haven’t worked out that day

9) Walked past the mirror in the gym twice, just to see how your butt looks in your new tights 😏

10) Slept in your activewear 😴

11) Been through a Drive thru 😮

12) Movies 🎥 🍿

13) Done the sniff test to see if it’s ok to wear again today... 😷

We hope you enjoyed the read.. Please feel free to share with your friends, just copy the link and post on your socials! If you want to look great out grocery shopping at the movies, or maybe just at the gym, come in and get decked out in the latest TFS Apparel!

Last week my youngest daughter Willow turned 1, it was lovely. The family got together in the park back in our home town and we enjoyed some family time in the sun.

It was a win for us as parents, as we remembered and organised something for her and also managed a photo. #secondchildsyndrome

And no just because we’re 'fitness people’ there wasn’t nothing but fruit skewers and salads, we enjoyed some of your usual birthday celebration favourites.

There was fairy bread (which I spent hours putting together by the way), lollies, chips and of course CAKE!

We had a Unicorn cake, because every 1 year old needs one of these right? 🙄

Sure we had plenty of healthy things to, however I certainly enjoyed indulging in some treats, but did I feel bad about it?

Nope, not one little bit…

And neither should you. ☝🏼

So yes, the personal trainer who preaches health and fitness all day every day spent a good hour hoeing down on some tiny teddies and unicorn cake… hypocritical? Not at all..

You see many of us are beginning to get way too caught up in this ‘clean eating’ fitness perfectionist world and it’s harming the perception of ourselves and our body image.

Too many people are trying to conform to this distorted reality of being healthy and perfect with your nutrition and training every single day, ironically it's not healthy at all…

We have a culture of celebrating with food, which is fine, it only becomes harmful when we hold onto 1 of 2 feelings around these instances.

1. The guilt of indulging

2. The pleasure the food provides us

Feeling guilty about indulging in these sometimes foods can be quite harmful to your emotional and mental wellbeing. I see this often, people have an indulgent weekend (e.g. Grand Final weekend) then hit the gym Monday to punish their bodies with ridiculous amounts of exercise, or they begin some crazy juice cleanse.

Guilting yourself about food, or meticulously counting every calorie every day, just encourages a viscous cycle that leads to nowhere great long term.

The other thing people tend to do is hold onto or continue to search for the pleasurable feeling that food (or alcohol) may provide for them. Alcohol is a good example for this as most instances that involve alcohol tend to be feel good celebrations like Christmas, birthdays etc. So what happens over time is we create an association between alcohol and good feelings.

Then what can happen is any moment that we feel a little down (end of a stressful week at work etc) we may search for a glass of wine or beer. It’s not so much that we enjoy the taste (I’m sure this helps) but because subconsciously we are searching for those good feelings. Finding another more empowering way to create those feelings can be a healthier alternative.

But at the same time, if you want to just sit back and enjoy the experience of having a drink and it’s not conflicting with any specific goal or effecting your health long term then go for it.

Looking at this similar situation around food we can probably all think of a moment where it seems like you just blinked and you’ve inhaled a chocolate bar or something?

This is because we haven’t paid attention to what’s happening, the experience we’re having, what sensations are occurring in our mouths or our bodies, and when any of this dissipates. We feel good once we’ve taken the first bite, and then continue to eat chasing that feeling.

But before we know it, we’ve eaten a whole jumbo kinder surprise…. ok maybe that was just me, but you get my point right?

If you feel like you tend to do this, the key is to become more mindful around meal times, paying attention to the subtle cues of your body and stopping when it feels right.

Here’s a step by step guide to understanding mindfulness around food.

Mindful eating exercise with Chocolate

This should take around 3-4 minutes. You will need a small square of chocolate

Please read and consider each step one at a time. Approach the exercise with an open mind and a gentle curiosity. There are no rights or wrongs.

1. Consider the wrapped chocolate: Does the wrapper make asound? What colour is it? What does it say? Where did it come from?

2. Open the chocolate, slowly: Do you feel a sense of anticipation, or an urge to immediately put the chocolate in your mouth?

3. What physical sensations do you have? What emotions are you feeling?Just note them.

4. Look at the chocolate: Consider its texture, colour, weight… Smell the chocolate - does the smell trigger any other senses? Where do you feel your sense of smell?

5. Place the chocolate in your mouth but DO NOT EAT!! How does it feel as it melts? Where in your mouth can you taste it? What is the consistency? What is happening with your mouth, teeth, tongue, lips as it melts?

6. Move the chocolate around your mouth: Does the area of taste change? Does the taste itself change? What is happening to the chocolate? How do you feel?

7. Swallow the chocolate: Focus on the sensation. Is there a lingering taste? How do you feel physically and emotionally? Take a little while to consider the experience.

My Nutrition Clinic~ Bond Institute of Health and Sport.

The main message here is that if you’re a healthy individual, who exercises regularly and your diet mostly consists of fresh, healthy foods and you enjoy the occasional treat, there’s no need to feel guilty about it and there’s certainly no need to over compensate and punish yourself with a week’s worth of gruelling workouts.

Food is to be mainly used for fuel, but sometimes to be enjoyed and used as part of celebrations, so long as you’re aware of that, not hold onto those feelings and it’s all within moderation there’s no need to get your knickers in a knot.

At the same time let’s not be too naive here, if you’re nutrition isn’t great and your health is being effected, then just ‘having the damn cake’ may not be the right message, some conscious and educated decisions around your nutrition may be needed.

Hope you enjoyed this read, if you did, please share it, tag your friends and pass it on..

- Coach Brad

From an early age were told about goal setting, how important it is and how we should do it. We've all probably heard about SMART goals, but for many of us, we've been doing it completely wrong, missing out some vital pieces that will ensure you actually follow through on what you set out.

Now before you go tearing up the most recent goals you've written down, I want to first emphasise how important it is to write your goals down and follow the usual structure for setting your goals out.

Writing down your goals is such a powerful exercise, as it sets your intentions, your internal compass and gives direction.

In fact writing your goals or intentions down on paper turns on your reticular activating system (RAS) which is a fancy name for a small part of the brain that basically helps you maintain attention on the most important things to you at any given time.

If we didn't have it, we'd struggle to focus on one thing and achieve goals. We have all experienced this working at some point, for example if you've ever bought a new car, you probably noticed it everywhere once you purchased it, or if you plan a holiday to Europe you will all of a sudden start noticing all things associated to that destination (TV ads, conversations, billboards, posts on social media etc.).

When you write you're goals down, you are basically telling your RAS to start attracting those things into your life, which is awesome as it makes you 100 times more likely to achieve the things you've written down.

Now unfortunately this is where many people stop when it comes to goal setting, and although following the SMART model is great, and switching on your RAS will help, there are still some vital steps to follow to greatly enhance your success.

1. Understand What Your Goal Really Means to You.

When people write goals down, they will often write down the superficial stuff like; "I want to lose weight"

If they're following the SMART method they may even write down how much they want to lose, and by when.

However this is still only scratching the surface, you really want to spend some time unearthing WHY it's important to you, WHAT it's going to give you, and HOW you might FEEL when you do achieve it.

If your goal is to lose 10kg you want to write down WHY it's important, this could be:

To have more energy, feel more confident, enhance your performance, give you the courage to go for that promotion or maybe it's just to set a healthy example for your family, these reasons WHY are going to give you much more clarity around your main goal. So when things get tough, when you're not as motivated to train or meal prep you're able to draw on these things and continue to progress.

These things are also very important at the end when you do achieve the goal as it gives you some other methods of measuring your success, if you're only measuring from a physical aspect you may struggle to actually feel successful as you have only set physical or superficial checkpoints, checking in on your emotional and mental progress and having a way of measuring the success of this stuff will ensure you actually 'feel' successful when you get to the end goal.

2: Focus On Habits Not Goals

This final step is something I am always encouraging our members to do and the ones who succeed do it well.

What often happens is that people focus way too much energy and mental space on the end goal, (let's just use that example of 10kg again here) so if 10kg is the end goal, a number of things occur when you're so focused on this number alone

a) When you're checking in weekly it can be somewhat de-motivating when you only see a .5-1kg loss on the scales, because you're so focused on the 10kg loss you don't celebrate or appreciate the huge progress of losing that kilo or half a kilo. Remember progress = happiness, but if you're not focused on the progress you'll struggle to feel happy when you do make progress or even when you finally achieve the end goal.

b) When we're so focused on the bigger picture we forget the small stuff and we don't put enough importance on the small daily habits required to achieving the big goal. People who succeed make a full commitment to the habits and the lifestyle required to succeed.

When you make the commitment to the habits, it doesn't matter if you're feeling motivated or not because you do it anyway, you begin to move past motivation and into a mental space of clarity and purpose.

Daily habits need to be really simple, something you can easily achieve like 'drinking 2 ltrs of water'.

When we achieve something we get a surge of dopamine, which is a feel good hormone that we are highly addicted to, so when you're getting this surge of dopamine every day from achieving your small habits/goals you create an environment for success or basically train your brain to continue working for the reward, thus keeping you on track and achieving the end goal much sooner.

To ensure you really succeed:

What you need to remember is that we continually move the goal posts on ourselves, so often people get to their goal but still don't feel successful as they haven't checked in on their progress and celebrated their wins along the way, instead they're focused on where they are now and how far they are away from where they think they need to be, this is known as the 'horizon syndrome' as we're always chasing a goal we will never actually achieve, hence leaving us feeling unfulfilled and unhappy about where we currently are, this is why your habits and celebrating your progress are so important.

If you want to create meaningful goals and powerful habits, follow these questions:

My main goal is: (be very specific)

It's important to me because?

What will happen if I do achieve this?

What will happen if I don't achieve this?

What won't happen if I don't achieve this?

What won't happen if I do achieve this? You'll notice some confusing questions above, this is on purpose to confuse your brain and allow you to access some deeper more meaningful answers. It’s important you continue writing under each question until you cannot possibly think of anything else to write.

Then you need to write down 1 or 2 simple daily habits for each of these areas:

Mindset

Nutrition

Exercise

Lifestyle/me time

I wish you all the success.

Brad Cunningham

If the headline brought you here, I’m sorry to ruin all hope of you not having to do cardio, this post is certainly not a fight against cardiovascular training (a.k.a cardio), in fact I think you need it just as much as strength training, I actually want to share with you a little insight into why it’s not great for fat loss goals or strength based performance goals to do it before your strength workouts.

I will often get clients asking the question, “Can I do cardio before my strength sessions?” Firstly I think it’s great when people want to step up their training, and in short, there is an effective way to train twice in a day or back to back, and a not so effective way, and in this blog I want to share with you what the most effective method is for Fat Loss based goals.

Before we get into the main reasons why, it's important to understand what's happening on a biological level with your muscles when you train.

First here’s a little sciency snippet to add weight to this post:

[Quote " Due to the intense and short-term nature of individual bouts of resistance training, it would seem likely that this activity would be highly dependent upon muscle glycogen for ATP provision. High-intensity exercise of short duration (&Mac178; 30 seconds) is characterized by a rapid breakdown of phosphocreatine for the production and use of ATP, as well as stimulation of glycogenolysis (breakdown of glycogen) and glycolysis (breakdown of glucose), with a lesser contribution of oxidative metabolism.

In a study by Tesch et al. (1986), nine bodybuilders completed five sets each of front squats, back squats, leg presses, and leg extensions to fatigue, comprising 30 minutes of exercise. Biopsies of muscle samples were obtained from the vastus lateralis before and immediately after exercise. Muscle glycogen concentration was 26% lower post-exercise, a rather modest decline considering the demanding exercise protocol completed. This led the authors to conclude that energy sources in addition to muscle glycogen support heavy resistance training. Data from Essen-Gustavsson and Tesch (1990) with nine bodybuilders performing the same exercise regimen (as above) revealed a 28% decrement in muscle glycogen content as well as a 30% decrease in muscle triglyceride content. This suggests that intramuscular lipolysis (breakdown of triglycerides) may also play a role in energy production during repeated high-intensity exercise. Overall, research suggests that intramuscular glycogen is an important fuel supporting weight training exercise, but not the only substrate.” end quote] Taken from uni.edu

When you train, particularly strength training, your body needs to rapidly use and replenish ATP (Adenosine triphosphate).

The first ten seconds of activity utilizes the ATP readily available in the cytosol of our cells. After that timeframe our body needs to resynthesize ATP from glucose and our stored glycogen.

So while you strength train, your body is utisling stored carbohydrates in the form of glucose, it’s then broken down through glycolysis to assist in resynthesizing of ATP.

So let's for a second imagine how your muscle will function and perform without or with low glycogen levels. Basically your ability to resynthesis ATP, which is the energy your muscle uses to contract, is going to be majorly hindered, therefore effecting your output and overall performance.

And why do we strength train in the first place? It's to increase our strength and lean muscle, to improve our movement, ability to perform day to day to tasks and from a fat loss point of view, remember the more muscle we have the higher our metabolism or fat burning ability is, because muscle tissue requires a lot of energy to maintain.

But if you’re training in a depleted state, it’s going to be hard to train hard enough to cause a training adaptation, and reap the fat loss benefits of strength training.

For those that do a full cardio workout prior to strength training, what you’re doing is creating a depleted state or environment for your muscles to work in. Therefore making your strength training session far less beneficial.

So if you are going to do strength and cardio workouts back to back here’s what you should be doing:

1. Strength train first, utilise your stored glycogen to perform well, lift heavy and create enough stress on your muscles to encourage a training adaptation to occur.

2. Do your cardio after strength training, the goal of cardio is often one of two things, 1) To increase aerobic capacity or 2) to increase fat oxidation. Neither of these 2 things require a huge amount of stored glycogen, it’s more about the rate at which your lungs and heart are working. Therefore it doesn’t matter as much if you are semi depleted from your strength workout prior.

3. Keep the cardio short and sweet 30-45min maximum 60min of High Intensity Interval Training. Interval training is best for Fat loss goals, as it will ensure you don’t begin to breakdown and utilise muscle tissue as energy. If you are going to training for longer than an hour, you may want to supplement with Branch Chain Amino Acid's (BCAA’s) to reduce muscle tissue breakdown. If your cardio goal is endurance based and you need to train for more than an hour, then you should be doing your strength and cardio sessions on seperate days, as you require more energy for both workouts.

I hope you enjoyed today's post, please feel free to share. - Coach Brad

It's well documented that we have 'trouble areas' when it comes to body fat storage.

We know that women tend to store more fat around their hips, bums, thighs and tummy's, while guys tend to store more fat around their stomachs.

I often have conversations with mums and dads around losing "that last 5kg" or "those last few centimetres around their mid section".

And in this blog I plan to share with you the most effective way to lose the stubborn fat.

But before we move on I think it's important to mention that the methods below are related to how to mobilise those last few kilos, or centimetres for someone who is fairly fit, lean and not carrying a lot of excess body fat.

Until you're at that stage, the normal principles for energy balance apply, that is, having a deficit in your calories each week (output V input).

Quick overview of fat loss:

To burn 1kg of body fat you need a deficit of 3,500 calories. A realistic weekly body fat loss would be around .5kg, so you require a 1,750 calorie deficit to achieve this. So if your goal is to lose 10kg, that would be .5kg x 20weeks= 10kg. It's also important to add in some 'contingency weeks' with any goal should you fall ill, be away with travel etc. So let's say 4 weeks for this kind of goal. Therefore if you're consistently in a deficit of 1,750 calories each week you can expect to lose 10kg in about 24 weeks.

I've been doing many nutrition consultations lately and am finding that so often people will under eat most days, but then blow out their calories on 1 or 2 days, or under eat all day then blow out at night with calorie dense foods like sweets and chocolates etc (which don't fill you up, so it's easy to consume a lot of calories).

Having a huge 'treat day' on the weekend is most likely effecting your fat loss results. Sure, relaxing and having a great meal/night out every now and then is Important but for many, it's needs to be a more moderate treat and increase in calories.

Now let's get back to that stubborn fat..

Before we leap into the specifics around stubborn fat I think it's important to break it down and understand what types of fats there are and why we still need some fat in our bodies.

5 types of Fat

1) Essential Fat - used for cushioning organs. This makes up about 3% of total fat for males and 9-12% for females.

2) Brown Fat - Used for thermogenesis (keeping us warm), and is activated when we are cold, originally it was though this was only found in babies as they didn't have the ability to shiver. It's packed full of mitochondria which are like mini engine rooms for our muscles. So they're full of energy and help create heat.

3) Visceral fat - this is the fat surrounding our organs. High levels of visceral fat are associated with chronically high stress/cortisol levels and increases the risk of metabolic diseases and conditions.

Visceral fat is also associated to our insulin resistance/sensitivity.

4) Subcutaneous fat - There's 2 types of subcutaneous fat cells which we will discuss further in this blog.

This is basically the excess fat under our skin, which when most people talk about "losing fat" this is what they're usually referring to.

5) Intramuscular triglycerides- fat stored in muscles, this contributes to muscle volume.

If a bodybuilding athlete is really lean, but completely depleted of this type of fat, they can look really 'flat' which is not ideal for competing, as their muscles won't really 'pop' therefore not as eye catching for judges. but this is probably not that relevant for this article anyway.

The type of fat we are going to explore in this post is subcutaneous fat and the two types of fat cells.

1- Stubborn fat cells

2- Regular fat cells

Within each fat cell there are 2 types of receptors; BETA & ALPHA receptors

The stubborn fat cells have far greater volume of ALPHA receptors, as alpha receptors are much harder to mobilise (breakdown). The regular fat cells have a greater ratio of Beta receptors, which are easier to mobilise.

The reason why women tend to store more fat around their hips, thighs, bum and tummy, is because they have far more alpha receptor type fat cells in these areas, hence why it’s pretty easy to store body fat there, but much harder to breakdown.

Guys tend to have more alpha receptor fat cells around their stomachs (hence the beer belly term).

But there’s good news, you can breakdown these stubborn fat cells/alpha receptors with some smart training and nutrition.

Losing that stubborn fat is largely about increasing your catecholamines. In particular your adrenaline and noradrenaline.

These are created in the adrenal glands, so you do need to be mindful of that if you are already under a lot of stress, you don't want to add to that, so it's best to manage stress first before adding more stress with lots of high intensity training.

Low intensity/steady state exercise increases mainly noradrenaline where as high intensity exercise increases both.

Alpha receptors are inhibitors to fat loss, which means we need to block them to lose fat.

High intensity exercise blocks alpha receptors as it increases your catecholamines.

It's important to know that blood flow is a key part to all of this, if you have poor blood flow it's hard to get catecholamines.

Alpha receptor cites have poor blood flow where as beta receptor cites have good blood flow.

You can increase blood flow through exercise, particularly strength training and HIIT style cardio, massage, hot/cold treatment and through supplementation/stimulants.

This is where the usually labelled evil hormone cortisol comes in handy, cortisol is required for energy and it stimulates lipolysis (break down of fats), it helps mobilise (breakdown) glucose and fatty acids, however we know that Chronic elevation is not great, so it's about using it to your advantage, this is where stimulants prior to training such as coffee can help mobilise fat, however again it's important that your overall stress is managed and you don't suffer from chronic stress/cortisol l as this can add to metabolic damage such as decreased adrenal and thyroid function. (Hence why Chronic dieting is hazardous for your metabolic health)

For many women, long endurance cardio and higher carb diet (particularly post training nutrition) will only enhance the alpha receptors (not so ideal).

As I mentioned above steady state cardio increase noradrenaline, which does help mobiles fat from beta receptor sites, but if followed up by a high carb meal it will move fatty acids to the stubborn areas.

This is why for some women that do mainly steady state cardio training, can lose weight everywhere else on their body but continually put weight on their hips, bum and thighs.

A better approach is to do HIIT training first followed by 10-15min of steady state to help oxidise stored body fat.

Strength training is vital for reducing stubborn body fat, as the high intensity, high loads really help increase blood flow, catecholamines, as well as skin elasticity.

Here’s a basic outline from a training perspective:

1) Strength Training 3 x pw (full body, but a large emphasis on legs) is a great start

2) High intensity interval training 2-3 times per week for 30-45min is the next step, coupling this with some steady state cardio 10-15min after HIIT is even better.

3) Then proper nutrition, with efficient timing of carbohydrates around training, removing toxins and working on your stress management is the next piece to the puzzle.

Lower insulin levels will help inhibit alpha receptors, so adopting somewhat of a lower carb diet initially will help.

Going 2-3 weeks lower carb will help reset your sensitivity to insulin, then re-introducing carbs back into your diet particularly around your lifting sessions will assist in better utilisation of carbohydrates and lipolysis (burning fat).

I hope you enjoyed this post, be sure to share with your friends.

- Coach Brad




If you'd like to book a nutrition and/or training consultation email brad@thefitshop.com.au today!

Are you someone who tends to get so overwhelmed or stressed with things that you feel like throwing in the towel, just crawling up into a ball and isolating yourself until it all blows over?

At times does it feel so hard that it feels like it's not even worth it?

Then keep reading.. I want to share with you some strategies to getting through these times and simplifying things to achieve more.

We’re at the end of the second week with our 28 Day Program here at TFS, and not that this is only relevant for this program, it happens every day.

Often we see this coming into the second and third weeks of a new routine, or when people are trying to implement new changes.

Many of us, just make shit really hard for ourselves, we blow things up to be this massive mountain we have to climb.

We set insanely huge expectations on ourselves, therefore setting us up for failure.

We subconsciously decide that for us to feel like we have succeeded or are ‘happy’ we need to have ticked three thousand things off this imaginary list of difficult tasks .

What if you could feel like you have succeeded or feel like you are ‘healthy’ just by getting up on time in the morning, or for drinking 2 ltrs of water for the day, or for spending 10min of quality time with your loved ones??

It’s really that simple.

We need to learn to break things right down and make it easy for ourselves to ‘win’. You see many of us have set up the game so we never win. That game being your health, your body image, your happiness and more.

For example, people say things like: “I will be happy when I’ve changed this, that and the other about my body”

What if you could feel happy or love your body for just being able to breathe in fresh air today?

Lower the expectations on yourself, achieve more and be happier.

Now, don’t get me wrong i’m not saying that if you just do this you’re going to be healthy, lose weight etc etc. But it’s the momentum that this can build, it’s the successful mindset it can create, it’s the confidence that it can bring you to achieve the next thing and so on.

But if you’re setting a goal like losing 5kg, but are then telling yourself that to achieve it you need to be at the gym 20hrs a week, eat nothing but lettuce, never eat out with friends and 100 other things then it’s going to be very hard to achieve this, and you will feel like throwing in the towel (probably daily). Interestingly a lot of people subconsciously do this, then when it all get’s too much they have a reason or a justification as to why it didn’t work for them and often it’ll all be someone else’s fault, or it’s a time thing.

Achieving things produces dopamine (Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers) so every time you achieve something (and acknowledge it), you get a rush of dopamine, we get addicted to this, it feels good and so it prompts us to do more of what feels good, therefore building momentum to achieve bigger things in the long run.

When things do get hard, break it down, just focus on the next meal, just focus on getting to your next workout, don’t worry about the other 99 things you think you need to do this week or month. Lower the expectation on yourself and continue making progress. And celebrate that progress. Don’t beat yourself up about the gym sessions you missed, celebrate the ones you made it to.

And remember, progress = happiness.

28 Day, 21 Day or 8 week challenges are all the rage, and rightly so..

They're Great! great in the fact that they can give you a surge of motivation, which if harnessed correctly, can transfer into long term habits and consistent progress.

And for someone who hasn't been exercising for a while it can be a great kickstart, it can provide a support network which they may not of had previously and can help people who just don't know what balanced nutrition or training looks like, learn how to eat well to improve their energy, and overall health.

However there's a large percentage (up to 45% in my experience) that either fall off track mid way, or revert back to old habits post challenge.

I wanted to share my 3 reasons as to why this occurs.

1: The intention that losing weight will make everything 'better'.

To often people begin these programs with the intention to achieve the 'perfect body' to 'detox' after Christmas or because they think they aren't happy and they feel that by doing the program they will lose 5kg and magically feel 'happy'.

This could not be further from the truth, if you allow a number on the scales to dictate your feelings, your worth, your confidence or think that by achieving a goal or for some people purchasing something will make you 'happy' you're a little off the mark, and will be unpleasantly surprised when you do achieve the goal and there isn't that instant overwhelming feeling of joy. I see this all too often.

The intention should be to learn something, to add to your life, to enhance your energy and fitness for nothing or no one else other than yourself and to do MORE of what you enjoy and what makes you feel good. (Or for some parents out there, just to get an hour to yourself hehe 😂)

These programs can be great for teaching you some great new exercises, or training strategies, learning good food options or habits for your day to day life or just giving you a healthy outlet from daily stresses.

But they can have a negative effect if your focus is on the minuet details of the nutrition, calories, training times, kilos lost or not lost and what you're going to 'cut out' and so forth.

2: Miss one important step to goal setting.

It’s a simple as this, although setting big goals is vital, it’s not the most important thing. Setting big goals is like dropping a pin on a map, it gives you some kind of direction and purpose. But what really sets those who succeed with achieving their set goals apart from those who don’t is the ability to set really good rituals and then follow through on them.

We wrote a whole blog on this here: READ BLOG

That’s it, if you want to achieve anything, you need to commit to the rituals required to achieving it.

3: Have an unsustainable approach with nutrition

I touched on this before, but what we often see with some people is their instant thought with nutrition when they begin a program is: "What can I cut out?"

Changing this one phrase to: "what can I add" (to improve my Health) will make the world of difference.

We aren't robots, and cutting things out completely is unrealistic, and what's funny is that when we cut things out we actually end up wanting them even more.

So then we focus on it more, and the moment your head space is taken up by the thought of food, what you can/can't have (or think you can/can't) you're slipping down a not so healthy track with regard to your relationship with food.

Sure, some people probably have a little too much junk food, which isn't great on the health of your heart, liver and so forth, so reducing this would probably be a smart idea for increasing your life span and reducing risk of disease, but if you enjoy the experience of going out and having an ice cream with your family or friends, there's no need to stop that, and there's certainly no need to feel guilty about it and then try to punish yourself with training to counteract it.

Instead focus on the 80/20% balance of good food and some treats, it's all fine to eat, and it's fine to enjoy things. Heck, once a week I love a big juicy burger, every now an then I enjoy it twice a week, so what. But I then ensure that majority (80%) of my food comes from nutritious sources.

Enjoy your experiences with food, just try not to hang on to the experience. With all that said, let's be frank, you should love yourself and embrace your body but if you're eating crap food all the time, generally feel like crap, have no energy, or can't walk/jog more than 10mtrs without almost dying, struggle to sleep, are at risk of health problems, and you hardly exercise, you probably should be doing something to improve your health. But if the intention to begin a challenge is to make yourself 'better' or to achieve the 'perfect body' then not so great. The intention for beginning a challenge (of any kind, this could even be a marathon) should be to add more to you life, for enjoyment, overall health and wellbeing and purely for yourself! If this is you, then great, you're in the right place to start!

So here we are again, about to approach that magical day on the calendar where all of a sudden, like as if unicorns just appear, the probability of us achieving anything we say we’re going to do, is multiplied by 100.

It’s the same mindset of only starting something of a Monday.. it’s like, “what the hell’s wrong with Thursday?”

Everybody does it, or has done it before, and unfortunately it often doesn’t work, and it’s because we are forming our strategy on the thought that we’re going to be motivated, and we assume all the stars will be magically aligned on that particular day.

However most people fail to take effective action, and the key to following through on anything you set yourself is taking action within 24hours. Like physically doing something right then and there. Waiting until January 1st to start a new fitness regime that you’re talking about today only removes responsibility, momentum, accountability and for most the chance to actually follow through.

But anyway, I wasn’t writing this blog to drill you about why New years Resolutions don’t work, the reason I share the points above is to show just how good most people are at setting goals.

Most of us know the SMART method, or the fact that your goals need to be rather specific, have some kind of way they can be measured and some kind of end date, that’s the basics right. But even though many of us do this first step really really well why do so some people still struggle to actually achieve what they write down?

It’s a simple as this, although setting big goals is vital, it’s not the most important thing. Setting big goals is like dropping a pin on a map, it gives you some kind of direction and purpose. But what really sets those who succeed apart from those who don’t is the ability to set really good rituals and then follow through on them.

That’s it, if you want to achieve anything, you need to commit to the rituals required to achieving it.

It’s like if you want to run an ultra marathon there’s certain rituals you need to follow day in day out to achieve it right? Or if you want to save to buy a house, you need to commit to the ritual of saving each week, I mean what would happen if you only saved when you felt like it? Or you only ate well, did your recovery, and actually ran when you felt like it? Would you have the house? would you be able to run the ultra marathon?

See we get so caught up on the initial step, and put all our energy into this, vision boards, goal setting sessions, accountability buddies, coaches. Now all these things are vital, and do assist. But if you don’t make the commitment to the daily rituals needed to achieve what you want, you will continue to have challenges and struggles staying on track.

Daily rituals just need to be simple and achievable, because it’s the consistency of achieving these day in day out that help you continue to move forward.

Here’s an example of mine, and I’m happy for you to steal it until you create your own.

Here’s what I aim to do every single day.

1: Get up at the same time, have a 10sec cold shower

2: Get dressed (would be awkward if I missed this step)

3: Have my vitamins and fill up my water bottle

4: Pack my training gear

5: Head out the door, jump into the car and listen to some music on my way to work.

By achieving this in the morning, it puts me into a peak state ready to take on the day. if there’s a morning where I skip this (which happens occasionally) or wake up too late I feel rushed and struggle with focus for most part of the day.

So this year, rather than focusing on setting New year Resolutions and massive goals I urge you to set new year rituals and focus most of your energy on achieving these.

Coach Brad