It’s been over 6 years since I radically changed my lifestyle and undertook my own body transformation, but despite the length of time which has past I can still remember the feeling of absolute dread as my summer holiday approached. There is nothing worse than feeling insecure, body conscious and uncomfortable lying on a beach in a swimming costume and knowing you only have yourself to blame.
This photograph in particular brings back vivid memories. Memories of sitting on my sun lounger in a water park, frozen to the spot and feeling isolated. I was so disgusted with myself about how much weight I had gained. There was no chance I was going to join my friends who were racing around the water park to go on all the flumes or playing water polo with my jelly belly and bingo wings. Everyone was having fun but me, and my negativity was of course having an effect on them who in turn felt guilty they were enjoying themselves and I wasn’t. This was one of many very low points for me on holidays and the funny thing is I made the same mistakes year in year out, following short term unsustainable diets instead of tackling the bigger issue: How can I improve my health, lifestyle and self-confidence to ensure long lasting results? When you are in the midst of body hate, it’s very difficult to break the cycle. I know first-hand that gaining weight is easy, losing it is bloody hard and time consuming and it doesn’t happen overnight. Having a goal is a great way to stay motivated, a ‘Beach Body’ goal is as good as any to assist in your lifestyle change. However, you need to think about it rationally. What is the point in changing your lifestyle for a “Beach Body” if that’s all it is? – working hard right up to your holiday so you feel healthy, confident and happy to then leave that beach body behind on the beach after your 2 weeks in the sun and return to your old ways? Committing to a healthier lifestyle is a HUGE commitment and it takes a lot of work, but believe you me it will be well worth it. Only you have the power to change your life by changing your mind-set. For me it was walking out of Perfect Bridal in Aberdeen measured for a Size 18 Bridesmaids Dress for my sister’s wedding which would take place in Cuba 6 months later. Instead of heading home to binge on biscuits and wallow in my own self-pity, I thought enough is enough, and I made a decision there and then to head to the gym and sign up. Six months is a long time and there is no reason why I couldn’t lose weight. I then started to reflect on what caused me to over eat, stress due to workload was a huge trigger for comfort eating. In Aberdeen the winters are long and dark, you go to work in the dark, you come home in the dark and on top of that a stressful job with long hours – it resulted in me raiding the biscuit tin every night. I put a stop to biscuits, sweets, cakes etc. being in the house. If they weren’t there I couldn’t binge. I then scheduled exercise into my life like I would a nail appointment. To start with I only went three times a week and this then increased to 6 times per week as I started to see changes in my physique – the changes motivated me to work harder. In fact through more exercise I found that my mood lifted and I coped with stressful workloads much better being able to think more rationally (which I also contributed to a change in the diet and no more mid-afternoon sugar crashes which made me tired and grumpy). Setting attainable goals was the backbone to my success story, the beach body in Cuba was just a small milestone on a 12 month journey, by the end of that year I had hit many milestones including · 80% of my daily diet being from whole foods · Running a 10k · Cooking more meals from scratch · Being scared of the weights section to resenting the cardio area! Another thing I changed was how I rewarded myself for accomplishments, no more did I reward myself with a cheat meal – why reward yourself with something that got you into the situation you hated in the first place? Instead I rewarded myself with new gym clothes, a pair of shoes, a spa treatment or massage. I failed on diets in the past because I didn’t surround myself with likeminded people, friends or work colleagues and my lack of willpower caused me to deviate. This time round I decided to use my new friends I met at the gym as my support network – after all they were going through or had been through what I was, I could share my achievements with them and they understood what it meant to me, rather than that friend who constantly said “you don’t need to go on a diet your fine as you are” or “Go on just have some more cake it’s not going to kill you”. Creating habits is the difference between another failed diet and lifelong weight loss! We are by nature creatures of habits, just like watching boxsets on Netflix is a habit, having the same colour of lipstick! So I turned exercise into a habit, eating more whole foods as a habit, reducing convenience food as a habit. When you perform these things regularly they become a habit and you will do it automatically without any thought. That’s why through constant education Nemesis clients post plan are able to maintain their results long term, because we embed habits throughout the entire plan. Remember permanent change requires: · A Change of Mind-set · Goals · A Support Network · Building New Habits Nemesis receives around 30 enquiries a month from prospective clients in pursuit of long term lifestyle, weight and fat loss – sick of fad dieting and suffering from low self esteem, out of this number only one or two are ready to embrace change and see it through. Many just go through the motions, they are looking for fast and easy fixes and will spend the rest of their lives caught in this vicious circle.
0 Comments
I thought procrastination would be a great topic for the first blog post of the year.
For our current Nemesis Clients who have had some well-deserved days off between Christmas and New Year from tracking, procrastination is likely to be occurring right now – the struggle to re-ignite motivation levels and get back into a routine. Whereas for those of you who have set New Year resolutions to get fitter and leaner in 2019 its likely you won’t experience procrastination until the end of January, possibly February. Whichever situation you are currently in hopefully this blog post will help you identify the warning signs, triggers and help you overcome the urge to procrastinate. Let’s picture the scene, its 6.30pm you have already worked an hours overtime, your day has involved endless meetings, firefighting, an impossible workload and not enough hours in the day. You make your way towards your car and spot the gym bag in the passenger seat and a sense of dread washes over you. The last thing you can face right now is a gym session. Your mind begins to start racing with reasons why to avoid the gym….
That’s it, your mind is now made up and you have decided to skip the gym and head home…. But it doesn’t just stop there, as you drive home you have decided you are far too tired to cook a meal, the thought of all those dishes, the mess, the tidying up, the time it will take before you actually get to eat…. Nope instead you’re going to leave all that hassle to Pizza Hut and your already phoning in the order to ensure its delivered just in time for you arriving home. There you have it, you have failed on the 2 most important elements of achieving your goal to be leaner and healthier in 2019 and this isn’t likely to be a one off either, it’s a repetitive scenario which is constantly standing between you and your goals. I am sure most people can relate to or have fallen victim to this scenario - blaming fatigue and tiredness as an excuse to skip workouts and cheat on their diet it’s an easy way to pin blame for your own failures caused simply by a lack of self-control. Having coached 100’s of clients over the past 5 years, I am fully aware that every client’s motivation levels are at the highest in the morning and decrease as the day goes on and that stress and lack of self-control (often working hand in hand with one another) are the two main reasons why certain clients do not get the results they desire at the end of their plan – nothing to do with my coaching or the plan I built – purely down to the clients lack of self-control and will power - as a coach this is very frustrating as we put so much effort into building a client’s plan to ensure they achieve their goal and end the plan healthier, confident and proud of their achievements. Unfortunately life will always challenge your will power, but it’s how you approach and handle those unexpected events which will result in you achieving or not achieving your goal. Implementing self-control is all down to the individual, I can give you all the tools, support and advice but the hard work is down to you. A good way to build up self-control is taking baby steps and viewing it as a challenge (we all receive great satisfaction from achieving challenges). Identify your weaknesses first, what food items are a trigger for over food consumption? I once read an article in a university paper that said self-control should be trained like a muscle in the gym. Your muscle only has so much strength to begin with but through perseverance, consistent and ongoing training your muscle will become stronger each time you flex it and challenge it. The same can be said for implementing and building self-control. Before I started my weight loss journey 6 years ago, Jaffa Cakes were my favourite go to my mid evening snack with a cup of tea! We all know how more-ish they can be, you eat one and before you know it you have consumed the entire packet. I often found myself demolishing a whole packet of Jaffa cakes 2 to 3 times per week! I knew that removing Jaffa cakes completely from my diet was the worst thing I could do – it was just setting me up for failure and the chances of binging on them were high. Instead I decided to implement self-control, using the above metaphor and applying it to Jaffa cakes. I lowered the quantity and frequency of eating them instead of removing them completely from my diet. A box contained 20 Jaffa cakes, so my first self-control challenge was be to make the box last 10 days – 2 Jaffa Cakes per day. When this was overcome I moved the goal posts further, 2 Jaffa cakes every 2nd day, eventually I got to 2 Jaffa cakes per week and now I don’t even have Jaffa cakes in my diet at all nor the desire for mid evening treats! Self-control doesn’t happen overnight, you implement self-control in small measures. Interestingly implementing self-control measures is the same approach that psychologists use with patients who struggle with situations they are in and how they respond to it. They call it the ‘the pause and plan approach’, this is where they encourage clients to pause before doing an act, notice and understand their actions and the outcome it may have and then choose a different option to ensure a better outcome. ‘No Pain, No Gain’ it’s as simple as that. Everything you do in life is motivated by two things the desire to achieve something good and to avoid pain at all costs. ‘No Pain, No Gain’ is used all the time in the fitness industry but this statement is applicable to everything in life…. From pain endured in labour to delivering your baby, from sitting school exams to ensure you get a placement on your desired university course, the hardship of university to accomplish your career ambitions, from saving your wages each month and sacrificing social events so you have money to put towards the deposit of your first home. Like these life events, you have to put in a lot of work to receive the benefits and pleasure from it - in regards to training and nutrition if you want to change your lifestyle and achieve the desired physique. Those who do not embrace the ‘no pain no gain’ process will never achieve their goal, and the worst thing about not embracing the pain to achieve your goal, is the further pain you endure knowing you have failed because of your OWN actions. All you have to remember is that by feeling pain it is not something bad, if you endure the pain, survive the pain, you will succeed - leading to pleasure and fulfilment from achieving those goals – pain is a necessity to feel pleasure. The stress factor which causes people to lack self-control in my experience consists of work and/or family life. From a work perspective, unexpected calls and meetings, impossible deadlines and people who don’t work as a team to share the workload or unable to delegate because they think they would be quicker doing it themselves are likely to fall victim to procrastination when changing their lifestyle. When it comes to family perhaps your kids are constantly asking questions or seeking attention, dropping kids off at clubs or having to look after elderly family members eats into the time you have left for yourself, that 2 hours free time you allocated to the gym is now only 1 hour – making you question is it worth heading to the gym? Questioning the value of not going to the gym due to time constraints is the start of procrastination and you will find yourself using this excuse time and time again to justify your reasons. Every bit of effort you put in will lead to you achieving your goal at some point. Maybe you do only have an hour left to go to the gym after hitting that impossible deadline, or perhaps 30 minutes to squeeze in a home workout because Jack needs to go to his Karate class, but by undertaking that workout it’s one step closer than you were if you had skipped it. Let’s return to the scenario at the start of this blog and implement self-control through the pause and plan approach. Your now sitting in your car after that stressful day at the office and you see that gym bag in the passenger seat, instead you pause to think about the situation: if you don’t go to the gym your goal is pushed further away, the guilt of not going will set in and morale and motivation levels will be on a downward spiral – you achieve nothing by not going, only setbacks including potentially making wrong food choices too. If you go to the gym there is the health benefits, improved fitness, mood and stress buster, a step closer towards your goal. Finishing your workout will leave you energised and re motivated and your far less likely to hit the pizza post workout! Even if you only managed 45 minutes and not the intended 90 minutes. So the next time you find yourself questioning if food prep or training is worth it, look at the bigger picture. Why did you choose to work with Nemesis in the first place and invest in yourself? Why did you make that New Year’s Resolution to get leaner and healthier in 2019? If you don’t food prep or hit the gym what is the outcome from this? You are responsible for your own actions and what goes in your mouth, nobody else. Did you know that over 70% of Nemesis clients are female, mid 30’s to late 40s and are working mum’s? Our client ‘Claire’ came to Nemesis because she realised that for years she had been putting her own health and wellbeing at the bottom of her priority list. A single mum of two, she went back to work only 3 months after her second child and dedicated all her free time to her children. She spent every weekend acting as taxi driver taking them to all their sporting activities, and in the evening, she spent her time preparing lunches for the kids, ironing, washing and helping with their homework. I am sure it is a situation all mothers can empathise with. At forty-one years old, Claire felt that she looked the age of someone 10 years older than her, neglecting her own health had left her overweight, tired and eating poorly, she was conscious about the bad example she was setting for her own children. Claire did not just come to Nemesis for a weight and fat loss program; she came to us because she wanted to change her entire lifestyle and those of her family. Any weight and fat loss achieved on plan was just a bonus; her focus was embedding good habits and improving the quality of both her and her children’s lives. The first step is the questionnaire process, it’s the phase where we are also able to identify if the prospective client is ready to embrace change or not. Our questionnaire is extremely detailed and thorough, and if we do not hear back from a prospective client within 3 days of them receiving it, the likelihood is the length of it put them off – its no loss to us, we only want to work with motivated clients! What they fail to realise is the questionnaire is detailed for a reason! the more we understand your current lifestyle and goals, the more accurate your plan is, what level of support you require and your less likely to fail on plan when we know your weaknesses and have already devised a plan to overcome them before they happen! We looked at Claire’s ‘life schedule’, and a fresh set of eyes helped her realise where we could make change to her daily routine, helping her improve her time management skills along the way. Claire never sacrificed anything on plan – neither did her kids, but there was a better way to do things. For example, her son played football on a Saturday morning for 2.5 hours – so did the boy next door. Claire negotiated with her neighbour that they would take turn about each weekend to take the kids to the football. This freed up 2 Saturday mornings per month. Claire would make pack lunches for the kids and herself every morning, getting up an hour earlier each day to do this. We scrapped this completely and showed Claire how to prep healthy lunches on a Sunday night for the entire week, which took less than 30 minutes to do but in turn freed up around 5 hours across the week. These are just some of the examples of the changes Claire made. Claire told us writing down her weekly schedule and seeing it physically as a huge reality check for her. We then realised that Claire couldn’t say “no” to anyone, a great deal of her week was spent looking after other people’s children, running non-important errands for close friends and family which were of no benefit to her – she was even leaving work early because of other people’s needs and losing out on money. Claire said she found this the most difficult and challenging part of being on plan, saying “no” and putting herself first. It was a huge wake up call for her when she realised these people COULD manage without her and in some instances she realised she was being taken advantage of. We then developed a realistic nutrition and fitness plan, which complimented Claire’s busy schedule. The important balance was making sure that her fitness plan was not a chore and that it was seen as her “me time” – something to look forward to, that way she was less likely to skip it. Claire wanted to go to the gym, but she was not able to commit to 4 session’s per week. One of the biggest mistakes people make is over committing themselves, its best to start with the minimal amount of sessions and then work your way up. We decided on 2 gym sessions per week and 2 home workouts. The programs were designed to be progressive, so each week Claire could notice improvement. Through recording, her weights lifted in the gym or exercises at home on her online Nemesis Dashboard it kept her motivated and determined, constantly smashing personal bests every few weeks. As a single mum Claire had no further support at home, meals has had to be quick, easy and most importantly cost effective. A couple of weeks into plan Claire told us she had LESS food wastage and was only doing 1 main food shop every 2 weeks! With just a top up of fruit and vegetables weekly. Claire’s weekly food shops reduced from around £80.00 - £100.00 per week to £35.00 this included evening meals, lunches and snacks for her family of three and with leftover food for the following week. Through batch cooking and freezing meals (we also provided her with tonnes of family friendly recipes) Claire was starting to realise there was more money in her purse each week and her family’s eating habits were significantly improving. It is a false misconception that eating healthy costs more, anyone who thinks this are still clearly shopping wrong and likely buying super market pre-prepped healthy alternatives. Claire said that she was paying £1 for a bag of chopped onions before (to save what 30 seconds?), whereas one onion now cost her 9p and she got an arm workout chopping it at the same time!
Every Nemesis client receives UNLIMITED Whats App, Skype, Face to Face or Email Support throughout their plan. Sometimes I would wake up to a 5am text from Claire telling me how exhausted she was, having undergone my own lifestyle change 5 years ago I know first hand how difficult and challenging it is and I was able to support Claire through the lows and re focus her. It's something we pride ourselves on, we don't just give out plans, we build friendships with our clients. Trust is openness is a key success factor in clients achieving their goals. Claire has reached the end of her four-month plan with us. She has dropped two dress sizes, over 37cm loss from her entire body and 5.8kg in weight (most of the weight loss occurring in the final month of plan). Claire has also informed us last week that she would like to continue her journey with us and has signed up to start her 2nd phase in January taking a well-deserved couple of weeks off plan to enjoy the festivities. Her goal this time is to run the Balmoral Half Marathon in August. Once again weight and fat loss isn't the number one driver for her, its about being a great role model to her kids, and improving their quality of life. She knows by making these changes she will lose weight and body fat. Interestingly she also told us that the thing she was most proud of on plan was the improvement to the quality of her running and how much it had reignited her passion for pulling on the trainers and pounding those pavements. What I find incredible about Claire is that she had everything against her to change her lifestyle – even I was sceptical if she could commit and if the change would be too much to embrace. A demanding job, a huge amount of family and friend commitments, a single parent and the financial perspective. However, by taking the leap she has benefited in so many ways.
Although Claire has asked us to hide her identity, she has allowed us to share her personal dashboard showing her progress and achievements on plan. When you work with Nemesis you will be required to populate an online tracker each week at check in. The data you enter then populates progressively into a dashboard so you can monitor your progress each week. We find it’s a great way to increase our clients motivation levels, keep them on track and give a broader understanding of the achievements they are making not just from the weight and fat loss perspective. If your interested in working with Nemesis, please contact us via our website and complete our questionnaire - remember don't fail at the first hurdle by not returning the completed questionnaire! We respond to every questionnaire with free feedback and advice, so even if you feel that Nemesis isn't right for you, its a win-win situation for you as you walk away with some helpful tips and changes to make. Have a Great Christmas and New Year! This month’s blog post isn’t going to look at nutrition from a weight or fat loss perspective, instead we are going to look at the connection between food and wellbeing such as stress, depression and anxiety.
Picture your favourite child hood meal, how you feel when you eat it, and the happy memories that you perhaps associate with that meal. On the flip side picture a really bad relationship break up that you may have had and the type of food cravings you had because of it. We can all relate to hitting the wine and pizza on a Friday night after work, or the ice cream and cake when things are rough. Food helps comfort us and makes us feel better. What you may even notice is that you start to develop a habit for eating these types of foods in times of stress. Those types of ‘comfort’ foods make us feel good in the moment, but it does not help heal us. Food triggers emotional responses, whether it be positive or a negative. Interestingly, a lack of serotonin has been liked to people who suffer from anxiety and depression. In the past I was myself stuck in the vicious food cycle, I hated how I looked, I was stressed with work, I ate to comfort myself and feel happy, then I hated how I looked and the weight gain those foods were causing, and I know first-hand how difficult it is to break this cycle. Serotonin is essential to your body’s ability to make you feel good mentally and is responsible for your overall mood. When we exercise the body increases its serotonin levels, you may have noticed yourself a rise in your mood or an increased relaxed state after completing a workout? Food does not produce serotonin, but it can increase serotonin in the body due to a chemical called Tryptophan, which is found in certain foods. Tryptophan can be found in both whole foods and convenience foods. The digestive tract produces around 80-90% of your serotonin levels, therefore when we eat a very unhealthy high calorie meal our body uses most of its energy during the digestive phase to ‘clean’ its self, by doing so it can interrupt its ability to produce serotonin, causing dips in our moods and wellbeing. Unfortunately, our bodies find it very difficult to digest processed foods and sugars, and at some point our body will pay the price for over indulgence of these types of foods. Like alcohol consumption, a poor meal choice can set you back a couple of days. Let’s picture the scene, its mid-week, it’s been a stressful week at the office, and the last thing you want is to come home and cook dinner then deal with a mountain of dishes afterwards. You opt for a pizza home delivery. This type of meal is hard to digest and will use up a lot of energy. Most of the digestion work will be done when you’re sleeping and because your body has worked so hard through the night, your likely to be more tired the next day. Which can then lead to you making more poor food choices to try and get an energy boost to fuel you through the next working day – it’s a vicious circle! Wholefoods are food sources which are in their most natural state, they can be absorbed by our bodies very quickly and have a natural relationship with our bodies digestive system. Feeding our bodies more wholefoods allows our bodies to concentrate on all its other duties such as removing old waste, clearing up and improving the condition of our skin, assisting in the absorption of nutrients, improve our sleep patterns, increasing our bodies energy levels and not forgetting boosting our serotonin levels which dramatically increasing our moods and concentration levels. The change you need to make is selecting whole foods that contain tryptophan not the processed ones! Whole foods that contain tryptophan include eggs, salmon, turkey, seeds and nuts. You may also want to increase your intake of foods, which improve and speed up digestion? These include broccoli, apples, pears and fish oils. At Nemesis we get all our clients to follow the minimum 80/20 rule on a daily basis (80% of their daily diet should come from whole foods), it’s one of our core daily habits. In doing so our clients start to feel better with a dramatic boost to their wellbeing. Clients who embrace this rule daily always achieve the best results on plan to those who do not – and we do not just mean from a weight and fat loss perspective. Our clients feel more motivated, they start to perform better at work; they are able to handle situations of stress better through improved concentration levels and their performance in physical activities. It’s important to be clear that food alone will not cure stress, depression or anxiety, but it is possible to find some relief through improved eating habits to help boost your overall mood and sense of wellbeing. Did you know that every Halloween in the UK around 18,000 tonnes of edible #pumpkin is thrown away? Thats the same weight as 1,500 double decker buses - an incredible amount of food waste.
My second pumpkin soup recipe this month has a chilli kick to it - Spicy Pumpkin and Squash Soup. This soup is suitable for vegans and vegetarians however if you don't like the coconut milk swap it for condensed milk (be warned the carb content will increase!) Serves 8 Prep Time: 5 Minutes, cook time 50 Minutes Macro's Per Serving for Vegan Version with Coconut Milk Protein: 2.3g Carbs: 19.1g Fat: 9.2g Fibre: 3.7g Kcals: 156 SLXLM Ingredients 3tbsp Olive Oil 1 Diced Large Red Onion 1 Chopped Diced Chilli Red Pepper 1 table spoon mild chilli powder 1kg Chopped Pumpkin 600g Peeled and Chopped Butternut Squash 1 Litre of water with 2 Vegetable Stock Cubes 200g Light Coconut Milk Method 1. Pre heat over to 200 degrees, and then roast the squash and pumkin for 40 minutes drizzled in olive oil. 2. Add in a pan the onion and fry, stir in the stock, coconut milk, chilli and chilli powder. 3. Add the roasted squash and pumpkin, cover and simmer for 5 minutes 4. Transfer to the blender. 5. Transfer back to the pan and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Did you know that every Halloween in the UK around 18,000 tonnes of edible #pumpkin is thrown away? Thats the same weight as 1,500 double decker buses - an incredible amount of food waste. This evening I carved a pumpkin to rival my 4-year old nephew, but instead of tossing out the contents I decided to make some delicious soup recipes! Interestingly I managed to get 1.2kg of pumpkin without destroying the shell of the pumpkin. Thats the equivalent of 16 portion of soup - or put another way just over 3 weeks of work week lunches! So my first pumpkin soup recipe I will be sharing with all you Nemesis followers is my favourite pumpkin soup recipe of all with a spicy twist! This soup is suitable for vegans and vegetarians by changing out the light condensed milk for light coconut milk - if you are on low carbs then it may be worth following the vegan version. I have popped both sets of macro's in the recipe for which ever one you decide to go with! Serves 8
Prep Time: 10 Minutes, cook time 20 Minutes Macro's Per Serving for Condensed Milk Version Protein: 4.2g Carbs: 28.2g Fat: 1.6g Fibre: 2.3g Kcals:136 Macro's Per Serving for Vegan Version with Coconut Milk Protein: 2g Carbs: 13.9g Fat: 2.2g Fibre: 2.4g Kcals: 72 Ingredients 1tbsp Olive Oil 1 Diced Large Red Onion 2 tbsp Mild Curry Powder 600g Chopped Pumpkin 275g Peeled and Chopped Sweet Potato 1 Litre of water with 2 Vegetable Stock Cubes 200g Light Condensed Milk or Light Coconut Milk Method 1. In a pan add the olive oil and fry the onion until translucent. 2. Add in the sweet potato, curry powder and pumpkin and fry for 2 minutes. 3. Add the vegetable stock and water and simmer with a lid over the pan for 20 minutes. 4. Transfer to the blender and add the condensed milk. 5. Transfer back to the pan and simmer for a further 5 minutes. New Year's resolutions - They're fun to make but extremely difficult to maintain. Many of us will make a healthy New Year's resolution – maybe to lose weight, improve our fitness level, take up a sport, improve our diet or drink less – but what's the best way to stick to it? In our opinion its ‘Motivation’, ‘Accountability’ and ‘Sustainability’. Picture the scene, “You keep glancing at yourself in your mirror, you don’t like what you see, you pick fault at various area’s in your body, your breathe in, you pull at the flabby bits - each day you mutter the words ‘diet starts Monday’ or ‘ I need to hit the gym’. Sometimes you take it a step further, seeing an intriguing post on Facebook guaranteeing you results and you download the questionnaire but end up not completing it because it’s too time consuming. It’s now 6 months later and your still saying the same thing, finding any excuse possible as a reason to keep delaying change”. or “You have actually done something about it and signed up to a plan or PT, the first 3 weeks are amazing – your full of motivation, smashing your macros and training, then you start to feel hungry through not hitting your macros, skipping meals or eating out. Working late a couple of nights at the office has disrupted your routine and the stair master is no longer as appealing as it was. It’s also getting harder to pretend that your protein pancakes taste the same as buttermilk pancakes”. Everyone who has seeked change from weight or fat loss have felt and gone through the exact same thing! Without Motivation and Accountability you will never have the drive to achieve your goals. Self-motivation can be fleeting, especially when you’re stressed, tired or fighting the urge to face plant that jar of Nutella in the top shelf. Accountability keeps you consistent, reporting back to an online coaching with open and honest communication can help you achieve your goals. Reach out to the person who wants to help! don’t isolate yourself, offload those negative feelings and let your coach help motivate and comfort you through those times of doubt or unwillingness to keep going. Accountability is powerful! if you know that there is someone expecting you to report back to them and there is a financial investment you WILL get it done. Remember changing your mental physique is far more harder than changing your eating habits or learning to macro track. There are so many incorrect, preconceived notions pop into people’s mind when they hear the word ‘DIET’. Let’s take a few minutes to clear any notions you have of the word diet up. The definition of the word diet is ‘the kind of food that a person, animal or community habitually eats’. The word actually has nothing to do with how many calories you eat, the macro ratio or how much your sugar intake is. A diet just means what you eat! Altering your diet will by reviewing what you eat, how much you eat and when you eat will bring about positive change in your body, mentally, physically and aesthetically. No matter what your goal is a diet should be SUSTAINABLE long term. At Nemesis we ensure all our clients stick to the daily 80/20 rule. This is where each client ensures their daily diet contains at least 80% whole foods and the remainder 20% can come from convenience foods (jar sauce, microwave rice, pre chopped veg etc.) or small treats. Some of our clients do stick to 100% clean diets Sunday to Thursday then change to the 80/20 rule on a Friday and Saturday. The most important thing to remember is eating healthy doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your favourite foods, it just means you do it in measured moderation. Did you know that healthy foods tend to pack fewer calories than calorie dense junk food? When you eat clean you will actually be eating MORE food than your accustomed too for less calories! Many of our clients struggle to understand this. The example below is a comparison between the typical office diet and an improved office diet! As you can see you could be eating MORE food for fewer calories! What are Nemesis Online Coaching Plans all about?
At Nemesis every single one of our plans are completely bespoke and tailored to the individual. We spend a great deal of time liaising with a client prior to building their plan, providing detailed feedback and advice, recommendations and working as a team with the client to create a plan which is workable and where the client isn’t having to sacrifice everything they love. We don’t churn out plans within an hour of you purchasing it – infact sometimes it can take us up to 10 days to write the plan from scratch. We calculate your calories and macro’s for you to maintain the weight / composition you are -/+ 3lbs, if your goal is weight and fast loss we will apply a deficit and if your goal is size / muscle gains we typically will increase your calories. You follow the same macros for the first 2 weeks allowing us to monitor how your body reacts to the macro calculations and training, after the 2 weeks is complete we begin to adjust your macros weekly based on the statistics and your personal life. The nutrition plans are built in line with your life (if you don’t have time to spend cooking meals from scratch we take that into consideration!), we also keep in a lot of your favourite foods to help with balance. We constantly educate you throughout the plan, giving you educational support packs, access to our recipe blogs and our private FB Client Only Forum is constantly updated with tips, recommendations and advice. Our Training Program ‘s like the nutrition plans are built in with your life. If you can only train 3 days a week then we will create a program that maximises your results with only 3 days of training – whether that’s through home, gym or office gym workouts! Perhaps you fancy running a 10k but haven’t run in years? We can specialise your program to incorporate your sporting goal! Each exercise is linked to a demonstration video, exercises are based on equipment you have access to and also designed to your level of fitness. Each week we expect you to check in with us, updating your weekly stats, send us progress pictures and a roundup of how your week has been, this should take no longer than 15 minutes. We then review your check in and return detailed feedback, with our own assessment of how you got on, recommendations / areas of improvement and a full explanation of why (if any) we are making changes to your plan – knowledge is power! We explain everything we do so you know how to manage your new lifestyle long term and understand your body better. But support doesn’t stop there, we offer unlimited ‘What’s App’ and Email support, you can contact us any day, any time with any questions you have on your plan or perhaps you just lack motivation and need some help from us – often we take on the role naturally as a councillor! We can give you the tools and support you require but at the end of the day it’s you that has to make the changes, if we could do it for you we would! If you’re interested in working with us please contact us to complete our no obligation questionnaire, upon return of the completed form we provide a FREE review with advice, tips and recommendations – we even do face to face consultations absolutely free to demonstrate our software and plans and go through any other issues or queries you have before you make your decision if we are right for you. There’s no hard sale because we only want to work with clients who are 100% committed. Your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life and for most brides and grooms to be, it often comes with a goal of slimming down for that special day. Being confident in your own skin is important but when it comes to your wedding day it will have more significance when all eyes are on you – after all Wedding and Honeymoon photographs are forever. A study undertaken by Cornell University in 2007 found that 70% of 272 women recently engaged wanted to lose weight for their wedding day typically around 20lbs, and that 80% of those women failed to lose anywhere near their original goal by the time of their wedding, procrastinating as soon as the word diet is mentioned. Most Brides turn to crash dieting choosing to leave dieting for their big day to the last minute “I have loads of time” – a recipe for disaster! Weddings are extremely stressful as it is, and the stress only increases the closer it gets to the wedding date. The last thing you want is to be on is low calories, feeling moody, grumpy and having regrets that you left it too late on the lead up to your wedding. The Solution? Plan your diet in the same way you are planning your wedding. Your wedding day body should be seen as a project and properly mapped out with milestones along the way. The ideal time to start your body transformation is 12 months before your wedding, this allows you to coast into your ceremony and down that isle without your diet taking over your life and most importantly without having to remove social events, alcohol and treats completely. Having worked with several brides in the past, the brides who gave themselves 6 to 12 months to prepare all achieved more than they set out to in the beginning, whereas those who gave themselves 4 to 12 weeks struggled due to the pressure with less than 50% achieving their goal. Next year I get married and as an example I have mapped out my entire regime based on similar plans I have designed for my bridal clients in the past. I use to compete on stage so my goal was to try and reduce my muscle mass because I want to look more feminine for my wedding day rather than having everyones attention on the size of my shoulders or how defined my back muscles are! inPhase 1: This is pre wedding dress shopping. There is nothing worse than feeling self-conscious trying on wedding dresses. Making decisions based on your current physique is very difficult. You may find that the dresses which suit you best at the moment are A-Line, but who’s to say that will be the case 9 months down the line if you have lost a lot of weight? – you may now prefer to go for a more figure hugging dress, resulting in over expenditure from purchasing two dresses. Starting your diet 3 to 4 months before wedding shopping can help you make more informed decisions on the style of wedding dress you would like. It also allows you to see how well you can stick to your new lifestyle changes and what a realistic dress size you can order that gown in based on how you have been performing to date. Moreover, shopping for dresses is a fantastic experience and it’s great to go in there feeling confident! During this phase I stuck to pretty much the same macro’s throughout the 4 months on a 20% deficit. On social events I followed my calorie target. I had 4 weekends away during this 4 month period and 2 weeks in America. I was also struck down by a severe kidney infection for a week. I made sure that my daily diet was made up of mainly whole foods (except for the almost daily chocolate bar!). Each day I hit anything from 12,500 to 20,000 steps. I trained 5 days a week for 60 minutes. This consisted of 2 upper body workouts and 2 lower body workouts, with one 60 minute outdoor run. Each resistance workout was made up of HIIT circuits with weights lasting 30 minutes, warm up and cool down cardio was a total of 15 minutes, and I also incorporated 15 minutes of yoga and stretching at the end of each session. At the end of phase 1 I went from a size 10 to a size 6/8 losing a total of 24.8 cm across my entire body. I only lost 7.5 pounds in weight. You can following my weekly progress by clicking here. My goal was to lose 32cm across my entire body in phase 1 but what i achieved given the circumstances was still amazing so I shouldn't be too upset! Phase 2: After the dress fittings you now want to start a new training program and have your macros re calculated. It’s time to start making weekly changes to diet either from habits or macro alterations. A new training program should also be designed, changing your training each week or having no consistency won’t maximise your results. Always try to follow the same program for around 8 to 12 weeks, this will make allow you to see progression in what you’re doing. I plan to switch over to a strength and fat loss program at this point. Heavy compound movements combined with post workout cardio. I still plan to keep my weekly yoga session in and small daily 15 minute practices. Many women are scared to lift heavy thinking they will become big and muscly. Women’s bodies are not designed to hold high levels of muscle, it’s virtually impossible for this to happen unless you are training correctly and eat in a surplus – it can take years of intense training for muscle growth to occur. When training on a calorie deficit for weight and fat loss you want to train heavy and eat correctly around the workout zone. Feed your body a good pre workout meal 1.5 to 3 hours before your workout containing low gi complex carbs, a protein and fat source. This gives your body fuel and will allow you to maximise your performance in the gym thus burning more calories! Did you know that losing fat involves increasing your metabolism? Muscle plays a huge role in increasing your metabolism. A pound of muscle burns around 10-20 calories a day whereas a pound of fat burns only 5 calories! Train hard, lift heavy and eat often throughout the day! Post workout meals should contain a protein and high GI simple carbohydrate. This aids recovery replenishing the depleted muscle glycogen and preventing muscle breakdown. Often people think they have gained muscle mass and look more toned when dieting and training, the truth is all they have done is shed the fat surrounding their muscles, making their natural lean muscle tone become more visible giving a false impression that they have gained. Phase 3: During Phase 2 and 3 is when you want to make the most impact in your diet, before the stress increases as you approach your big day. Ideally you want to achieve your goal by the end of phase 3, this way all the hard work is done, which means the next 3 months is just about maintaining what you have achieved taking the pressure off you. Your dress should be arriving at the end of phase 3 which can also help reduce costs when it comes to dress alterations! At this point in time I plan to switch over to Y3T for 12 weeks, this is a 3-week cycle you repeat 4 times taking you to 12 weeks. On week 1 you do heavy compound movements with low reps and a tempo of 3 to 5 seconds in the lowering phase. In week 2 your lifting moderate weight, in the 14 to 18 rep range a combination of compound and isolation exercises. In week 3 you’re going to failure in each exercises, its built up from supersets, drop sets, giant sets and really pushes you to the limit. Once all 3 weeks are completed you go back to week 1 but you have to lift more weight or do more reps than you did the last time round. I love this system! Phase 4: Your wedding ready 3 months before your big day! It’s time to reverse out of your deficit slightly and have some more calories – you will need the energy! Your already looking fantastic for your henny / stagger, your lifestyle and health has improved and your oozing with confidence. All those good habits you have built up over the past 9 months are now embedded. It’s highly unlikely you will return to your old ways now and you will now be able to make much more informed decisions when it comes to food choices long term, thus maintaining what you have achieved on plan. At this point I plan to switch back to resistance HIIT circuits and increase my yoga and cardio. This will offset the slight increase in my calories. I am going to use Yoga as a stress reliever helping me feel calmer and more relaxed as the wedding day approaches. Of course Yoga will also benefit me physically due to its strengthening and toning qualities.
The media for the past few years is saturated with women empowerment - women fighting against men for equality in all areas of life and work. I try to stay away from writing controversial posts wherever possible but I can't help that think that there is very little evidence to support women empowering women. When I do see women supporting one another its usually for all the wrong reasons - a witch hunt against men.
This post is aimed at women in every day life and how they treat other women around them. I have recently returned to the UK from 9 months travelling, and have started back at work and socialising again amongst new and old groups of friends. What I do notice is that when meeting up with the girls there is very little positive chat on what other women are doing. The chat is what a certain or couple of females are doing wrong that they don't agree with. One of my friends spent over an hour the other day chatting about a girl in the office that her and apparently everyone else in her team doesn't really like. The girl is apparently rude, doesn't dress right and just doesn't measure up against the other girls". As women, we often make superficial judgements of other women too quickly, we then spread this opinion and change the mindset of others close to us on this person and then treat them based on our judgement. I have, in the past been guilty of this too until I was the subject of a group of girls behaving like this towards me. I had previously been someone that was never a threat in the office, I was overweight, didn't take care of my appearance in the way they did, wore frumpy clothes, I was quiet and lacked confidence. When I went through my own transformation my confidence changed. I started taking more pride in my appearance how I dressed, conducted myself and they didn't like it, I then became the victim of their lunchtime gossip and treated like an outsider. A common subject on the Nemesis private client forum, is role models, inspirational people who we aspire to be like. Although there are women in the fitness world that I look up to or whose bodies I admire, my ultimate role model has to be Michelle Mone. I read her autobiography a year ago to this very month, and was so inspired by everything she has achieved in life when the odds were against her. Her book inspired me to read further autobiographies by powerful women (especially entrepreneurs). There are far too many women out there who are unaware that they themselves are inspiring others unknowingly, and in doing so we lack the ability to empower one another. As females we rarely tell one another how fantastic they are, or how we look up to them etc. My friend Sarah inspires me because she runs multiple businesses, she is constantly learning new skills, she gives so much time to other people, she runs a family home and 3 kids. My friend Katrina went through a phenomenal life and body transformation over the past few years and I am in total awe at her dedication and persistence. Every Sunday my clients check in with me with a review of their week on plan, they may have fallen off the wagon on some days, never went to the gym etc but I always look for a positive to motivate and empower them. There is always a positive in every situation. If someone has lost weight – TELL THEM If someone painted a great picture – TELL THEM If someone has a beautiful smile –TELL THEM If someone has beautiful earings on – TELL THEM If you notice any positive however small – TELL THEM. Women need to support other women AND men! We also need to realise that we all have different opinion's and aspirations for our future or how we want to live our life. If someone wants the suburbia family life but you want a career and jet setting, those around you should support you not mock. Positivity starts at home Did you know that if you become a Nemesis PT client you receive access to our recipe blog? We create new recipes every month and even our clients help contribute to the blog! Every so often we like to give non Nemesis Clients a wee taster of what they are missing out on! Like our fantastic simple to make Turkey Pad Thai recipe. We encourage all our clients to ensure their daily diet contains 80% whole foods and the remainder 20% can be from convenience or something naughty like a glass of wine or some chocolate. In this recipe we reached for the pre made sweet chilli sauce because lets face it, after a long day at the office you just want your supper on the table in the least amount of time as possible! If you love Wagamama's Pad Thai dishes you will love our version more! It contains all 3 types of fats essential to the daily diet, over 7g of fibre per portion. If your on low carbs why not remove the noodles? if your on a high protein and fat diet add more turkey steak and instead of using low calorie cooking spray fry the turkey in olive oil.
1. Using low calorie Olive Oil cooking spray, spray your wok or frying pan and pre-heat
2. Brown your Turkey pieces. 3. Add in the onion, zucchini and red peppers and fry for 2 minutes. 4. Add in the sauce, then the remainder of the veg and basil 5. In the final 2 minutes of cooking add the express noodles. This makes 5 portions - ideal for bulk cooking. Per Portion Calories:419 Protein: 40.6 Carbs: 37.4 Fats: 11.5 Fibre: 7.6 |
AuthorsSharon & Lainey are Online PT & Nutrition Advisors with a combined 18 years experience in the Health & Fitness Industry. Archives
August 2018
Categories |