Free Recipes!

If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen my stories over the last week, where I’ve recorded what I’ve been eating.

Most of the time I try and eat food I’ve made myself at home and I’ve had lots of messages asking me for the recipes of the meals I’ve been posting.

I love this so if you ever want to know how I made something DM me and I’ll let you know (some of my favourite meals have come from seeing random pictures on Instagram and asking the person posting how they made it!). And if you don’t follow me on Instagram it’s @heather.sherwood

Recently some of my meal ideas have been coming from Chris Ward of Ward Fitness, a Personal trainer from Liverpool, who offers a service where you get 15 new recipe cards emailed to you each month for just £5 per month (a mixture of smoothies, breakfasts, main meals and snacks). Being honest I can easily spend a fiver on chocolate without thinking so for me this is one of my best value purchases each month as it gives me ideas for things I wouldn’t normally try and make and has made me more adventurous in trying out my own ideas too.

Given that I’ve had lots of requests for recipes I thought it might be nice to share a few of the ones I’ve really enjoyed with you here (Chris has given me permission!).

So here are four of my favourites for you to try.

Steak and Chicken Paella

Sticky Chocolate Nut Energy Balls

Pear and Blueberry Smoothie

Pumpkin Chilli

I’m not the best cook but I’ve found all these recipes simple to follow, plus none of them are time consuming (I generally manage to food prep for the week in about 2 hours) so if you are looking for inspiration I can highly recommend giving this a go.

Follow @wardfitnesspt message him any questions and if you want to get your own set of ideas emailed to you every month you can sign up here.

15 Recipes for £5

If you do give any of these recipes a go let me (and Chris) know how it goes!

My Favourite (Fitness) Websites (and why)

My Protein

Affordable protein and supplements with quick delivery times and regular offers.

My favourite product is the Whey Protein Powder in Vanilla which you can use in cakes and smoothies as well as on it’s own. I’m not a huge fan of protein shakes and tend to use them as an addition when I need a quick boost of calories and / or protein but I am a fan of adding protein powder to homemade muffins, energy balls and smoothies so a plain flavour like vanilla works well as it complements most recipes.

Added bonus if you do like drinking them as a stand alone drink and want to experiment this product comes in a wide variety of flavours so you don’t have to get bored.

I also really like their seamless leggings range, which have a gym shark feel without the same price tag- definitely squat proof, look good and are super comfy and long (useful for long legged people like me)!

Check them out here – My Protein

Muscle Food

Good quality meats for an excellent price (and let’s face it meat is expensive).

Buy one of their bulk packs and freeze! I like the chicken in particular because it doesn’t shrink when cooked!

They also do nice protein packed cheat style meals (like protein pizza) – now generally if I’m going to have a pizza I’d prefer to have a full on stuffed crust loaded one, but if you want to get the taste at a fraction of the calorie cost these could be a good alternative.

Check them out here – Muscle Foods

They have also recently started doing a meal prep style offering where they deliver your breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks weekly and also provide you with workout plans and an online support group.

You can opt to get 5,6 or 7 days worth of food.

I haven’t tried this so my opinion on this service i purely based on looking through their website.

I think I would want to add some extra vegetables and fruit to this plan personally (and tend to prefer and recommend homemade / freshly made meals wherever possible) and I haven’t tried the exercise plans so can’t comment on them, but if you are struggling to meal prep and find yourself buying a lot of your meals off the shelf / living off ready meals this could be a possible way of staying in control of your calorie intake that is quite cost effective.

Have a look below. They are currently offering £10 off your first order using the code UNTHINKABLE

Muscle Food Meal Prep

What are your favourite fitness product websites and why?

Good Foods V. Bad Foods

How often do you think about food in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’?

You have a 2,000 calories to eat in a day.

You eat 2,000 calories of pizza and chocolate.

You eat 2,000 calories of oats, chicken, salad, fish, rice, vegetables, fruit and nuts.

Either way you’ve eaten 2,000 calories.

So really there are no good or bad foods.

There are foods.

Now that isn’t to say you’d feel the same after eating nothing but pizza and chocolate than if you’d eaten the same number of calories from a variety of largely unprocessed foods.

Generally your body will probably react more positively to the unprocessed foods.

But sometimes you’ll feel better for picking the pizza!

Overtime a diet of nothing but pizza would probably start to make you feel pretty bloated and lethargic.

There was a man who lost weight by eating nothing but McDonalds for 30 days. He was still in a calorie deficit. Another experiment involving McDonalds, Supersize Me (which had a a different focus and was designed to shine a spotlight on the American Fast Food Industry) highlighted how aside from weight solely eating this type of food affected the participants cholesterol, sex drive, skin, mood and so on.

The point is you aren’t likely to eat nothing but McDonalds.

Nor are you likely to never eat it EVER. AGAIN.

A happy diet isn’t that polarised.

Some days you’ll eat chicken and brocoli from a Tupperware box. Sometimes you’ll eat fried chicken from a bucket.

There’s that saying you’ll see on memes about this being called balance.

Also realistically.

Most people struggle because they haven’t got to grips with energy in v. energy out.

They eat too much or not enough.

It isn’t that they aren’t eating the right sort of foods.

If you have this down 100% then looking at what you eat and the specific nutrients in those foods could enhance how you feel. If you want to compete in a show or top-level sport you perhaps need to do this.

For the rest of us (and I include me in that) just hitting those calorie goals (and protein goals if you want to go one further) will be enough to make us feel pretty good and bring results.

So actually from this logic there are no good or bad foods.

Another One For The Ladies

Following on from my earlier blog this week I thought I’d re post an old blog about foods that may help with PMS and some which you may want to avoid.

Now a) I’m not a nutritionist, this is all from general research I’ve done on a subject that affects me and b) I’m not saying these will stop period pain or that you should never have the things on the avoid list – just that theoretically there may be some foods you want to try and eat and others less so if you suffer from cramps etc.

Here’s the re post…

When I’m on my period I literally crave fatty, sugary, salty foods. When you spend a lot of time trying to eat well this is pretty annoying so I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time looking into why and what I can do to try and make myself feel better (because I suffer from horrible cramps most months and bloat enough to feel like I may actually be pregnant with a baby Elephant) without giving into eating 10,000 calories of pure fat and sugar a day.

Just before and during our periods our Serotonin levels lower (less feel good hormones), our stress hormones spike (not helping in the feeling good department) and our bodies use more calories making us feel hungry more often. It’s therefore not hugely surprising we want to comfort eat- but apart from eating too much of the crap stuff affecting your body shape aims (I won’t say weight!) eating too much sugar will also cause a spike followed by a crash and burn which also doesn’t make you feel good in the long run.

I’ve therefore been making an effort to read up on what foods will help make me feel better without having a negative affect on looking after myself in general to try and implement them more into my diet .

Foods To Eat:

Water – Not really food but hydrating well helps keep skin clear, prevent bloating (the better hydrated you are the less likely you will retain water) and reduce cramps.
Almonds – also sesame seeds / flax seeds- these have calcium in them and calcium (but not dairy) can help reduce cramps.
Dark chocolate – A little dark chocolate can help relax muscles and so reduce cramps, it will also help release some happy hormones.
Celery – Full of water but not full of calories so a good option if you feel the need to constantly graze!
Hummus- This one may be a bit controversial. I have read that chickpea’s can help you sleep better and also help improve mood. I have also read however that they can be classed as a Legume and cause bloating so perhaps eat in moderation.
Pineapple – Help relax muscles (less cramps) and reduce bloating
Bananas – Helps relax muscles (reduce cramping) also contains Vitamin B6 which can help improve your mood. Banana’s are also good at helping to regulate the digestive system, which some women can have problems with during this time.
Tea – Yes it has caffeine in it, but it’s apparently better for you than coffee (which can increase anxiety levels and cause you to and retain water). Other types of tea can also help: Green tea for instance provides a little caffine still, peppermint tea can help soothe an upset stomach, Chamomile tea is relaxing and can help reduce anxiety.
Spinach / Kale- These foods have Calcium in them which assists in alleviating cramps. They are also Iron rich (our iron levels can drop whilst we are on our period hence why we crave iron rich foods).
Salmon – This is full of omega 3 and Vitamin D. If you can eat it the week before you are due on it may have an anti – inflammatory effect.
Oranges – Provide Calcium which can help relax cramping muscles and Vitamin D (can help regulate your mood).
Brocolli – Full of Magnesium, potassium, Calcium, Vitamins A, C, B6, E – Good for improving your general mood and fighting fatigue.

Foods To Avoid:

Fizzy drnks – Can cause bloating.
Processed foods – Tend to be high sodium – can cause bloating. Making food from scratch can reduces salt intake.
Fried foods – Can elevate estrogen levels.
Legumes (I mentioned this before – some things I’ve read say hummus can help, others say avoid) e.g Kidney beans, blackbeans et.c due to their bloating effect.
Refined grains – refined foods can interfere with blood sugar levels and regular control of appetite, so whole grains are a better option than cookies, white bread etc.
High fat foods – Can affect hormone activity and contribute to inflammation (and cramps)
Coffee – Can increase anxiety / stress levels and contribute to water retention.

Really, this list is not too different to the type of foods I’d want to eat more of / avoid at any other time of the month but if you tend to feel a bit rubbish at certain points in your cycle knowing how you can help manage those symptoms (painkillers and hot water bottles aside) thinking about your diet isn’t a bad starting point.

Note- I’m not a trained nutritionists this is simply based on my own research about something that affects me- I would always recommend you see a qualified dietitian should you need advice!

Things I’ve Learnt – Re-Blog

I wrote this six months ago- all still remarkably true and relevant.

You aren’t perfect.

I think I’m like most people in that when I start something new I want to be 100% perfect or I feel like I’ve failed and need to start again. But it’s impossible to never have slip ups on a long term plan. Getting out of the cycle of deciding a whole week was a write off become of a bad day or bad meal was one of the biggest factors to starting to see results.

Day 30 (or 60 or 100 or 200) is harder than day 1.

People always talk about Day 1- and in some ways Day 1 is tough, it’s the starting something new, the first step in making changes. But by the same token, Day 1 is exciting – it’s the start of something new, when you feel all positive and hopeful. Sticking to something once the novelty wear off or once results start to slow is the real challenge.

Consistency and steady progress is boring.

Everyone loves a Facebook status or Instagram post where they can show their before and after pictures demonstrating dramatic results. Realistically though long lasting changes take time and progress isn’t always immediately apparent.

The loudest people in the gym often don’t have a clue.

When I started venturing into the free weight section alone I used to feel so inferior. All these people claiming space and equipment and confidently broadcasting their strengths and opinions on how things should be done. I tend to assume that if someone is loud and forward with their opinion they must know their shit- and yeah, some do. Get comfortable in the environment and take time to look and you will see however that many do not! Go in, do your own thing with confidence and don’t worry about what anyone else is doing in terms of training or weights.

You need to eat more.

I used to try and keep my calorie intake low – the bigger the calorie deficit the better. Really, this makes you tired, makes training harder and will eventually stop you getting results. Stick to a sensible calorie deficit and results will come and will be easier to maintain.

There is no such thing as an ideal diet.

And by ideal I mean those diets you see advertised in magazines- ‘Eat all the cake and still lose weight’ ‘Drink all the Gin and still lose weight’. We would all like that magic diet which would allow us to eat as much of our favourite foods as often as we like and still loose 10lbs per week. Essentially, though, if you look at them, all these diets still involve some form of restriction – eat low calorie meals through the day and allow yourself cake everyday in moderation (i.e. a small slice). You therefore have to accept that you can eat what you want within reason but if you also want to stay within a calorie allowance and hit your Macros you will need to balance that out with sensible options for other meals. I have 4 pretty strict days to allow me the freedom to have 3 pretty relaxed days and stay within my goals. That means for 4 days a week I sometimes have to say no to things I want in return for that relaxed weekend.

Some days will be shit.

Not all training sessions will be fun, not all will bring PBs, sometimes you will feel like you have made no progress. If every session was a great session they would just be your normal sessions. Accept that even a tough session will bring benefits to you and don’t sweat it.

Rest is important

When you start it feels like you will get more results if you keep on going and do as much as you can. Rest allows your body to recover and prevents over training though and in the long term will improve your results.

You can’t do everything.

It’s tempting to try and master as many things as possible. Realistically though unless you are naturally talented at something the chances are you will need to devote time to things to master them. Therefore trying to win a Strongman competition whilst also training for a marathon is probably not going to work. Pick your thing and focus on that. I wanted to run a second marathon but with teaching classes around my full time job I had to accept that finding time to fit the training in would not be possible and as I didn’t want to take a break from teaching I put that aim on the back burner.

Weight is a bad indicator of progress.

Muscle weighs more than fat, your body is full of water blah blah blah. At first you may be able to monitor your weight- eventually you will need to go off clothes size or pictures if you don’t want to feel completely demotivated.

Three Reasons to Ditch the Scales

1) Your weight fluctuates. A lot.

The time of day, time of the month, how much water you have drunk, how much alcohol you have drunk, when you last had a poo, your hormones. They will all affect the number on the scale so it’s not the most effective way to track your progress and using weighing yourself alone can be inaccurate and disheartening.

2) A number on the scales won’t make you happy.

Being comfortable in your body won’t automatically happen when you hit a certain number on the scales. Everybody has some body hand ups regardless of their weight or size. Focusing on feeling strong and healthy will help you feel more positive about yourself in a way a number can’t and help prevent an all or nothing kind of outlook on your fitness journey, where how well you week went depends on one number.

3) Your weight isn’t an indication of your health or fitness level.

Have you ever seen one of those line ups of several women who all weight 60kg. You could weight the same as someone else and have a totally different body shape. Someone who is a size 10 could weigh the same as someone who wears a size 14. Height, muscle, body type – how we ‘wear’ a certain weight is different from person to person, and, unless you are medically obese, how fit or healthy you are has little to do with the number on the scale.

Just a note – muscle doesn’t weight more than fat. A pound of muscle weights a pound and a pound of fat weighs a pound. However muscle is less dense, so if you reduce body fat and build muscle you might not weigh less but you will look leaner.

Good vs. Bad Foods and the Calorie Deficit

If you’ve read my last few blog posts you will by now know that to lose body fat you need to hit a calorie deficit of around 20% by either reducing your calories in increasing your calories out or a mixture of both.

So, where does the notion of healthy and unhealthy foods come from? If you only need to eat a certain number of calories a day to get results can those calories come from anything at all?

As with most things there are simplistic and less simplistic answers to the this.

Simple answer. Yes.

If you are currently overweight with a diet full of processed foods and you do very little activity then simply reducing the number of calories you consume and creating a deficit will work. How you make up those calories at this point isn’t really relevant.

Yet once you get used to eating in a calorie deficit and perhaps exercising regularly perhaps you will want to start looking at what you eat to make up those calories.

BUT.

This is because there are lots of benefits of eating less processed food.

This ISN’T because the calories in a banana are different or better than the calories in a KitKat (in fact the calories in a two finger KitKat are roughly the same as a large banana).

So a 1,000 calories of burger, chips and cake is the same as a 1,000 calories of chicken, salad and fruit but you might feel better eating more of the later as part of that 1,000 calories.

The thing is (and this makes me sad because I’m quite partial to junk food generally) eating more unprocessed foods can mean:

You have better energy levels and fewer slumps throughout the day
You feel less fatigued / bloated after meals
You can eat bigger meals (500 calories of chicken and veg tends to be a bigger portion than 500 calories worth of cake)
You feel more satisfied after meals
Your body composition can change for the better (and remember t’s not all about weight – it’s about how you feel overall)

So …

I’m not advocating living off McDonalds to get that calorie deficit.

I am saying you don’t need to eat ‘clean’ to do it.

You just need to be sensible. If you eat less junk food you will probably feel better and notice positive changes. If some of your calories come from processed food though it isn’t the end of the world.

Note, I’ve not even mentioned Macros here. For some tracking their Macro splits is useful, necessary even – but if you are reading this and thinking about simply switching from ready meals to home cooked food, it’s not the stage where you really need to worry about this.

Ultimately – If you currently live of takeaways then drastically changing that isn’t likely to be sustainable. Reducing the portion sizes (and so the calories) is more manageable. Once that’s a habit you can start to make more changes and look at swapping some of the takeaways out.

Small sensible changes that fit into your life will always work better than drastic ‘eat clean’ diets. Who wants to never have the foods they enjoy!

Ways to Create a Calorie Deficit- Part Five – Move

The Fifth and final blog in my series about different was you could create a calorie deficit.

So far I’ve focused on what you put in your mouth and when you put it there – identifying different systems you could use to eat less than you burn each day.

Another way to create a calorie deficit is via exercise.

Very simply, if you change nothing about your current diet and eat the same amount of calories as you normally do but move more than you currently do you COULD create a deficit.

Now this only works at this most simplest of levels if the number of calories you currently consume is the same as the number of calories you currently burn.

If this is the case by adding extra exercise into your day you will be burning more than you did but consuming the same number of calories as normal which will allow you to create a calorie deficit.

This is probably highly unlikely to be the case (life is rarely that simple!)

If you currently consume more than you burn (you are in a calorie surplus) and wanted to keep your calorie intake the same then you would need to increase the number of calories burnt via exercise in order to both cover the surplus and then create a deficit.

In this situation you may find increasing your activity levels enough to create a deficit difficult and so a mixture of eating a bit less and moving a bit more is a better option.

So how do you set a plan of action for yourself?

Firstly you need to work out your TDEE and deduct 20% – this is the number of calories you need to aim for daily (or weekly). Next work out roughly how many calories you currently eat a day (check my previous blog on calorie counting for how to do all of this). Now work out the difference between these two figures. Can you burn this number of calories per week via exercise? If you can you can continue to eat the same as long as you are willing to move more. If you cannot you will need to work out how much you can burn via exercise and then reduce your calorie allowance to make up the difference.

For instance:

TDEE 2,000 a day (14,000 per week)

Minus 20% to create a deficit = 1,600 a day (11,200 per week)

You currently eat 1,800 calories a day (12,600 per week)

This creates a surplus of 1,400 calories a week

So what could you do?

You could:

= 5 exercise sessions where you burn approx 300 calories per session would allow you to remain in a calorie deficit without eating less.

But perhaps 5 training sessions a week is not practical for you.

So you could

= 3 exercise sessions where you burn approx 300 calories per session, which would burn 900 calories and you would then need to reduce your calories intake by 500 calories a week (about 70 calories a day) to reach a deficit

There are so many ways you can create a calorie deficit. Hopefully the last five blogs have demonstrated that all the various ‘diets’ and ‘plans’ out there effectively do the same thing (create a calorie deficit) just in different ways. How you achieve such a deficit is up to you and it will depend on your lifestyle and personality whats does and doesn’t work for you.

If you have any questions resulting from these blogs please drop me a message or comment and let me know and I will do my best to answer them.

Ways to Create a Calorie Deficit – Part Four- Count Calories

As I explained in my last blog I decided this month I’d cover some ways you can create a calorie deficit. So far I’ve covered Paleo and Intermittent Fasting and The Hand Job Diet.

Today something that in a world full of so many different methods for loosing body fat sounds to obvious and simple to cover.

Calorie Counting.

Obvious really.

But how many times have people decided they need to make changes and looked for some magic method.

Put simply work out your TDEE

Use a TDEE calculator such this TDEE Calculator

Deduct 20% from this figure.

Eat this many calories.

Any foods.

You will have created a calorie deficit.

Just track what you eat.

The easiest way to do this is using My Fitness Pal.

This app is free.

Pros- You can eat what you want when you want as long as you stay within that number of calories

Cons- You have to keep track (at least for a while until you get into a habit).

Calorie deficit level basic.

Basic is often best for success.

Ways to Create a Calorie Deficit- Part Three – The Hand Job Diet

I spent much of December preaching that if you want to lose body fat you need to create a calorie deficit. Then it occurred to me that’s fine as long as you know how to do that. I’ve pretty much always gone by the school of thought that people know what thy should do it’s just hard to actually do it. I have had lots of conversations recently however which have suggested that actually people are confused. There are so many different fads around, plus products advertised like Skinny Coffee, Fat Loss shots, magic fat busing pills, ideas that you should only eat fruit before 11 or not carbs after 6 that a lot of people are genuinely confused.

So I decided this month I’d cover some ways you can create a calorie deficit. So far I’ve covered Paleo and Intermittent Fasting.

Here’s what I see as the difference between a fad and these systems. A fad requires you do things like cut out food groups completely, eat them in silly combinations, supplement what you eat with products that really just tend to act as a laxative. They are plans that are not sustainable and are likely to cause binges at some point.

Paleo and Intermittent Fasting are simple systems of eating that help you control calories (obviously people have other reasons for doing them and they can have additional benefits on top of calorie control but for my purpose here I’m only thinking in terms of calorie deficits). They have rules, yes, and will not suit everyone, but they don’t require cutting out whole food groups, are safe and, if someone finds they suit their lifestyle, are perfectly sustainable long term. They can also be done part time (as I do Paleo just four days a week) and still help create a calorie deficit.

Esssentially, if you want to create a new lifestyle habit the easiest way to do this is create a system that allows you to implement this habit into your life.

Now so far I have covered quite specific methods. You can however create a calorie deficit with much more simple systems and today I want to cover ‘The Hand Job Diet’.

This method invented and named by a coach I’ve worked with a lot over recent years, Ricky Long. Ricky favours training and eating to live, not being overly restrictive and not being a slave to counting calories and tracking macros when you don’t have to.

He recommends to client’s a simple method of having three meals a day consisting of:

One handful of protein
Two handfuls of veg (at least two colours)
Once a day add in one handful of a big carb such as rice, pasta, bread
Add in some snacks each day as need
If you feel hungry you need more food so consider adding in another meal
If you feel tired you have eaten too much

This allows for no restriction, you could snack on low calorie foods such as fruit but also allow some snacks to be your favourite foods (cake, chocolate, crisps).

You can adjust depending on results – so if you aren’t getting the results you want you may need to be honest about how many snacks you are having and how many calories each one contains.

It could also stop you craving certain foods as no food is off limits, thus reducing the urge to binge.

If your diet is not brilliant at the moment, these small changes will probably create a big difference and easily create a calorie deficit.

If you like food though, such relaxed rules may be hard to follow. I’m the kind of person who needs some structure to my daily meals or I could just eat constantly for 8 hours each day, so again this won’t work for everyone but it is a way of creating a calorie deficit with minimal thinking or rules to follow.

I’ll repeat, the fundamental characteristic of all fat loss methods is creating a calorie deficit. The Hand Job Diet is another way to manage portion control thus help keep you within a calorie deficit (without actually counting calories).

I have to credit Ricky Long on this method – if you like the idea and want to have a look into some of his other fitness and nutrition advice check him out on instagram @Rickylong42, Facebook (Ricky Long) or at his website here