Christmas Socialising Survival Guide

Christmas Socialising

1. Meals Out! Will there be food? Find out what’s on offer beforehand so you can pick (if there’s the option to pick) or plan the calories into your week to stay on track

2. If you know you’ll eat a lot later maybe having brunch or skipping breakfast will help you stay within your calorie goal for the day

3. Drinks! If you’ve lots of parties and are worried about the calories in all the alcohol consider favouring a gin and tonic / Vodka and lime over creamy cocktails which tend to be higher in calories

4. Consider volunteering to be the designated driver on a couple of nights out to reduce your calories and also have a the smugness of a clear head in the morning!

5. The hangover. Often it’s the next day where you really go overboard on your calories. If you know you go overboard when hungover consider pacing yourself on the night. Perhaps having a glass of water in between each drink and having a glass of water before bed to keep yourself hydrated.

6. Alternatively just have your Uber eat McDonald order at the ready for speed the following morning

7. Suggest some fun activities that don’t involve food or drink – ice skating, walks, Santa Runs … that way you’re moving rather than eating and drinking whilst still seeing friends!

Christmas Coffees

Who doesn’t love a Christmas Coffee?

Now you’d need to have lived in a cave for several years to not know that these Christmas Coffees are pretty high in calories.

So as a plus – they are often delicious

As a minus – If you’re TDEE is around 2000 calories one of these can account for up to 25% of that (FYI that’s a lot – this is a drink ladies and gentlemen not a meal)

So get yourself a CPA (Coffee Plan of Action) & Enjoy them in moderation

– A couple over the festive period won’t hurt the waist line, two a day and you may be asking Santa for a borrow of his trousers

-Know what your drinking. There’s nutritional information available so be aware and factor them into your eating.

-Maybe buy some zero cal syrup and make your own Christmas Coffee at home (black coffee and a bit of syrup

Christmas Markets

Christmas Markets And Your Diet

There everywhere now meaning a trip to the Christmas Markets is pretty much as mandatory as eating Brussels Sprouts on Christmas Day.

Things to be mindful of if your trying to watch you calorie intake this December…

1 / You will feel like a kid in a sweet shop – so many options. Have a look around all the stalls before you buy anything so you don’t end up eating three different burgers and four types of waffle because you keep coming across something you really must try!

2/ There’s lots of meat available (hog roast yum) so you could skip the bread and go for something meaty to reduce calories

3/ If you buy chocolates as a gift see if they will gift wrap them so you aren’t tempted to break into them on the way home!

4/ In Manchester at least the prices have risen this year! Go with a set budget and stick to it – if you can’t overspend you’ll have to limit your food and drink intake!

5/ Make time to look at the non food and drink stalls to and watch any entertainment – that way you still enjoy the markets without vet more calories

Christmas Shopping

Out for hours shopping in busy shops and streets. Means you’ll get hungry and need to eat and that can mean unexpected calories making it hard to stay on track with all the coffee shops and fast food places as pit stop options in most town centres.

Some ideas to help keep your diet on track when out shopping:

1/ Have a big breakfast before you go out then take some snacks with you (nuts, fruit) so you don’t get hungry and need to stop for a Macy’s

2/ Plan ahead and pick somewhere you can get a lower calorie lunch – coffee shops like Starbucks often do things like egg based meal boxes or you could grab a salad from Subway. Add a black coffee or water and you have a filling lunch whilst keeping within your calorie goal

3/ Allocate yourself enough calories from your weekly balance so you can have that Christmas coffee and huge slab of cake knowing your still on track

4/ Shop online so you can eat at leisure at home!

What other strategies do you have to stay on track?

Project 40- Week 2

Week 2 of Project Fitter at 40 and this week my goal has been to improve consistency with various habits.

Some, like going to the gym, are habits I find easy. Hitting 20,000 steps a day, not drinking too much coffee, daily gratitude journaling are habits I find a bit harder to hit. Whilst I’ve still got room for improvement I have been more consistent with these habits and I feel like I can continue to work on this.

What I’ve definitely identified as my issue this eek though id my diet. Specifically, quite simply, I’m eating too many calories each day. In reality I’m less active than I used to be, simply because I’m teaching fewer classes each week, this is why I’ve put on weight. So what I need to look at next week is planning my meals and sticking to that plan with a view to lowering my intake. I’m looking to make no adjustments to my training, as I feel like if I’m reducing calories a bit I might want to adjust to that before I look at training intensity, although I might do a few classes as a participant just to mix things up a bit.

Honestly I’ve felt fat this week, probably hormonal as I’ve neither gained nor lost any weight in weeks, but to be my face in particular looks fatter in the mirror (not helped by a spot outbreak I don’t think). When this happens it’s natural to feel an urge to do drastic things to feel better (detox, strict diet, up training sort of things) but my new approach is to consciously avoid this kind of self talk ad approach my week in a kind way, a way I’m more likely to stick to and enjoy.

When is a calorie deficit not a calorie deficit?

You might be surprised at how often people say to PTs, I’m barely eating anything and still not losing weight or I’m in a calorie deficit but nothing is happening.

This is when the idea that it must be your metabolism, carbs, the time you’re eating or the lack of random expensive magic juice in your diet that is stopping the weight loss.

Now I’m reality, on the odd week it might simply be water retention, not having a poo recently, your period or hormones affecting your weight.

But if your weight is consistently not coming down week on week even if you are in a calorie deficit here’s the reason for the scale not going down.

You aren’t actually in a calorie deficit.

– Are you actually tracking and if you are are you including EVERYTHING (sauces, coffees, left overs). You need to honest with yourself here.

– Are you consistently in a deficit. If you are Monday to Friday but waaay over calories on the weekend you probably aren’t actually in a real deficit.

– Maybe you are being honest about what you’re eating but overestimating how much your burning each day.

If this is the case you could try dropping your calories by a small amount each day (250 calories to start) and seeing what happens, you might need to drop a bit further but by bit until you start to see movement.

If you are in a calorie deficit consistently you will overtime drop weight so if you aren’t seeing progress you are not in a calorie deficit. Good news here – now you know that’s the issue you can work to change it.

What should you look for in a PT?

There’s lots of ways you can work with a PT now: one on one, small group, online programming, apps. Beyond cost, what do you look for when deciding who to go to?

Maybe it’s location, if you want to train in person that will be a big factor; but it could also be their specialisms, experience, how fit they look, how comfortable they make you feel, the recommendation from people you trust or their client testimonials.

All of these things are valid reasons, ultimately you’re picking someone to work with based on things that are important and relevant to you is key, and here’s where I think the most important factor in looking for someone to work with comes in.

Do they get ‘you’. Specifically can they understand your pain points, identify how they affect your fitness and help you work around them?

We all have some sort of pain points, whether you think it or not, Some may be more obvious than others.

If you deal with depression or anxiety, that’s going to have an effect on how you train. Shift worker, busy mum, student; all these things can affect your training and diet.

Whether your issue is with fitting in gym sessions in the first place, struggling to focus during sessions, struggling to pluck up the courage to go to the gym or anything else in between; what you want is a PT who can understand that issue and help you with that.

Because in reality getting a gym plan is useful. Having someone tell you what to do in the gym gives you focus. A good PT will programme your sessions to incorporate progression and work specifically towards your goals.

All of that is useless though if it doesn’t work around your pain points. A good coach doesn’t just give you the right exercises for you, they understand the obstacles you face and look at how you can overcome them. That has an effect on what they have you do.

That doesn’t mean they have to have lived your experience, of course that can help but it’s not essential, but they need to be willing to listen, pin point the issues their clients faced and think about how to incorporate solutions into workouts.

If you struggle to stick to workouts or get results, a plan and a coach who can help you work around yourself and the things that keep tripping you up might make a difference. It might not make fitness feel easy but it might make a difference to your results.

Weight Loss & Diets … Dirty Words

My latest podcast all about diets and losing weight … how we view it in society and on social media these days and why it’s still ok to want to lose weight along with a bit about why you might be finding it tough to actually reduce the number in the scales

https://anchor.fm/heather-sherwood/episodes/Diets-and-Weight-Loss–Dirty-Words-e1nm3r7

Things that affect weight loss

Our weight can be affected by lots of things and being aware of the things in our life that might have an impact can be helpful, for instance:

Sleep – When you are tired you not only have less energy to move but are also more likely to eat more in an effort to feel more energetic. Lack of sleep can also have an impact on your hormones and this too can affect your appetite and cause you to eat more than you need.
Stress- The more stressed we are the more our cortisol levels increase which has shown to cause weight to be stored around our midsection more easily. Feeling like you are constantly in a state of flight or fight can also affect our hormones and affect our weight.
Age- Our metabolism does slow with age and so (especially for women around menopause where estrogen levels start to decrease) it can feel like it’s harder to maintain our weight as we get older. This is probably heightened by the fact that weight distribution can also change as we age (so we start to notice new ‘problem’ areas we’d never noticed before).
Hydration Levels – Dehydration affects our body functioning properly and can affect amongst other things digestion. Some people will also confuse thirst with hunger, so whilst the old ‘you’re not hungry drink a glass of water’ saying may feel like outdated diet twaddle, if you haven’t drank much that day but have eaten recently you may indeed actually be thirsty.
Genes- Yes how and where we gain weight is affected by genes and also family background, how we were taught to approach food , our families eating habits and so on will likely subconsciously affect how we think about food now and may be the source of some of our misconceptions about diets and certain food groups.
Medication – Everyone reacts differently to medications but for some weight gain can be a side effect from taking medication long term. That may be because they cause carb cravings, water retention, affect your metabolism, increase appetite (some medications do the opposite and supress your appetite). Some medical conditions themselves can have an effect on your weight, be it through appetite changes or being less able to exercise / move, and thyroid conditions for instance have a direct effect on your weight away from food and movement.

All of these things can affect our weight and how easily we might find it to lose weight, of course this is just a selection of a variety of circumstances and factors that can play a part.

But whilst it’s good to be aware of these things (and beyond weight reducing stress, sleeping more, drinking more water are going to have a positive effect on us) let’s not forget that they alone are unlikely (medical conditions aside) to be the sole reason you aren’t losing weight.

If you are eating more calories than you are burning a day that is the reason you are not losing (or even gaining) weight. Your medication might be making it harder, stress and lack of sleep may not be helping, but these things are great things to review either for the other benefits they bring or as additional considerations AFTER you have established whether your energy in versus energy out is where it should be.

Think of it like trying to ice a cake before it’s cooked. You need to get the absolute basics (calories) right before looking into the minute (lifestyle factors, macros, whether your Deadlift on a Monday or Friday) aspects of your life for the results to turn out as you’d like.

Food v Exercise

I don’t know about you but I find it so much harder to keep my nutrition in check compared to training.

People always seem to think that the training is the hardest and most important part of a weight loss goal. In reality though exercise forms a small part of your daily energy expenditure (even if you train everyday) and as it is a calorie deficit that results in weight loss it stands to reason that your energy intake is likely to be a bigger variable each day than expenditure is and therefore more likely to negatively affect weight loss.

Plus in reality, once you get into a habit training regularly isn’t actually that hard.. If you can find something you enjoy doing it will be less hard work getting the training in and more a part of your day you look forward to.

Food on the other hand can be tricky. Trying to eat a balanced diet, stay within a calorie goal and still eat foods you enjoy often enough you don’t end up on a crazy binge is tough. There are far more variables to contend with here and we often have a more emotional relationship with food, which adds to the challenge.

So it’s perhaps unsurprising that although I feel like my training is getting back to a more consistent state and I feel better for that, my nutrition feels much less in check.

For the last few weeks I’ve focused on the training side and let myself feel more comfortable with my routine, this week I’m going to focus on what I’m eating.

To do this I’m trying to eat higher protein and to my calories each day, not trying to go super low with calories, so that I end up getting really hungry and eating a horse (and by horse I mean whole cake). Instead I’m trying to plan in tasty meals and snacks which won’t leave me hungry so I have less urge to grab additional higher calorie snacks.