Are you sick of being bloated?

Being a female trainer I commonly get concerns with clients whom are continually bloated, sluggish, backed up and feel like lower ab’s are a magical mystical urban legend.

I come across it THAT often I feel I should write about it because not everyone is open about their guts and could be living with a food baby when they don’t need to be!

Working in pharmacy for 7ish years it was extremely common for females to come in and buy movicol, coloxyl and senna, Metamucil and all these other ‘doctor recommended’ products to help with stomach discomfort and relieve.

And if you have been to the doctors then you know exactly what I’m talking about because these items are the ‘quick fix’ answer to all stomach upsets.

It drives me mental.

These products are neither beneficial nor good for your body long term and only mask the problem rather then pin point what is happening and solve the problem.

I’ve also suffered from gut issues and feel like I have tried absolutely everything under the sun – but in doing so it has paid off!

I now longer have ‘food babies’ unless of course I over eat or eat and ‘trigger’ foods.

I’m not bloated, I don’t feel sluggish, backed up or constantly full and even more excitingly my lower abs are FINALLY starting to lean out (don’t expect this to happen with out A LOT of hard work)

So what did I do? Firstly I told the doctor to shove the movicol (okay that didn’t really happen but that’s what I would of liked to do) and focused more on my diet.

I wrote a food diary (you know I love these things!!) and with it at the end of each day writing how my stomach felt and how my movements were going. I would also monitor after meals how my stomach felt e.g bloated, gurgerly, upset or content.

By doing this I was able to notice certain foods that triggered the bloat!

Mine were and common ones can be:
-White carbs such as any form of white bread and potato.
-Things that were high in MSG – sauces, especially take away Chinese!

-Certain nuts (usually because I’d eat a whole bag rather then the handful I should of had)
-Dairy not cheese or yogurt only milk and ice-cream (again because I’d have a massive bowl of ice-cream and a giant chocolate milk shake)
-Dried fruit again for the above reason – which btw if you can stop at 3 dates I applaud you because that shit isn’t easy!
-Whey protein.

By knowing what triggers I was able to limited these foods from my diet and increase foods that will help with my digestive issues.

Foods and supplement I added to help my stomach go back to normal again were:

-Chia seeds/bran (Just a tablespoon mixed with my oats in the morning)

-Apple cider vinegar (in a glass mix a little bit of water and ACV and shot it twice a day before meals)

-Probotic (Inner health plus is a great start)

-Grainy carbs (When or if I eat carbs I always go for extremely grainy version so I get a good dose of fibre)

-Avo (Upping my good fats such as those found in avo to ¼ - ½ daily gave my intestines a nice smooth lining to process my food properly)

-Eating more regular meal. (By eating regular small-portioned meals my body adjusted to this and begun to let go of food it would hold onto around my stomach area.)

-Started fasted walks. (Adding in 4 fasted walks – walking for 20 minutes before eating – really got my digestive system function well, it helps burn fat – catch ya later spare tire – and you get some exercise in!)

-H2O – minimum 2-3L of water EVERYDAY!

These are all things that have personally helped me – remembering my diet is pretty good! If your day-to-day diet is filled with highly processed foods and junk look at adjusting and eliminating these first before you add any good stuff and get help from a specialist in the industry such as a dietician or nutritionist rather then a GP.

Stay Strong & Stretch,
Tel x

6 Weeks out - Training and Diet.

Hit an emotional rock as talked about in my last blog post and instead of giving up I’ve decided to act smarter, work hard and dominate this fitness comp to the best of my ability.

When I started I wanted to do this as ‘healthy’ as possible meaning not obsessing over macros and counting calories – I use to count calories and I’d look at a banana and see 100 calories and 25ish carbs. I hated looking at food as if it were numbers, hence my reasoning not to go back down that track.

I’ve tried the ‘healthy’ approach for 6 weeks and although I’m leaner and stronger I felt I needed to up my game.

I started a keto diet – which was virtually no carbs for roughly 2 weeks – with the purpose to put my body in a fat burning zone - my body didn’t agree with this – my emotions were all over the shop extreme highs and even worse lows due to blood sugar levels, with the amount I was training I needed carbs to fuel my muscles by not having them I found I lost a lot of definition in those 2 weeks.

This is where I decided to make changes to both my diet and training.

My current diet works with Carb Cycling.

What this means is I have high carb days, low carb days and no carb days – with my heavy training session co-ordinating with high carbs and rest days co-ordinating with no carbs.

In order to do this properly I have had to go back on my word and count macros and calories but I feel good about it and completely in control as I’ve simply written out a food plan and just follow that as I go.

High Carb Days:

I get to consume 1700 calories - 246g of carbs – 127g of proteins.

Eating every 3 hours at 6 meals per day. Here is an example of my high carb day:

Meal 1:

1 egg
½ cup oats
½ cup blueberries
teaspoon natural peanut butter
1 medium banana

Meal 2:
1 egg
1 whole grain muffin
spread with avo

Meal 3:
100g Kangaroo
125g Brown rice
Spinach

Meal 4:
100g Chicken
1 cup Broc
100g Sweet spud

Meal 5:

Scoop of protein
1 cup blueberries
1 medium banana

Meal 6:
100g Chicken
1 cup Green Beans
100g Cauliflower

Totals:
Cals- 1670
Carbs- 220.2
Protein- 137.4

As you can see I get to eat heaps! I’ve fallen in love with high carb day hahah – even though I’m getting in a lot of food I’m still not bloated and my energy levels after today have already improved dramatically I trained like a champ! One thing it made me realise how much I was over eating in my portions when it comes to protein – I assumed a breast was a serving – 100g is not even nearly a breast!!! I’m having x2 high carb days a week when I train heavy.

Low Carb Day 1300 calories – 97g carbs – 146g proteins.

Still eating 6 meals a day at roughly 3 hour intervals - each meal ranges calories with the highest at 300 calories and the lowest at 130 calories and protein per meal is again roughly 27-28g. Carbs are lower today but I can still eat 97g throughout the day, which is plenty to keep my body going after an isolated training session – I’ll be playing with low carb days and will be doing them 3-4 times per week.

No Carb Day 1000-1300 calories – 48g carbs – 146g proteins.  

Again still eating 6 meals a day at roughly 3 hour intervals – the carbs are quite low today but I only do no carb days on rest day where I’m either doing yoga or walking or sprints so my body can deal with it – with no carb day I also get to up my fats a little bit so avo is my friend today!

This is my first week of this set up but I’m super confident with how it will work – my body responds well with carbs and by depriving it from them just wasn’t working! I’m finding this whole process super interesting and can’t wait to share what I learn with the awesome athletes at Royale Fitness.

Watch this space,

Stay strong & Stretch,
Tel X

The centre of my own attention

In my job I help people, it is what I do and I effing love it! I would much rather see one of my kickar*e clients succeed and smash their goals then seeing myself do something rad.

It is what my ‘job’ is all about and I guess that’s why I feel I’m good at what I do, where as other ‘trainers’ see a quick buck rather then caring for their clients, they just want to fill silly fad circuits and bootcamps to boost up their bank account and ego, who prey on the new fitness go-ers that last a month or two until they realise they are getting no where with their training and avoid the fitness world entirely because of this bad experience…. (Sorry rant over, just drives me a little crazy sometimes!)

Anyway I’m getting totally off topic….

Like I was saying peoples achievements get me all fired up like a proud Mum, yet during the last 9 weeks mid comp prep I’ve had to focus on myself a little more with setting goals, tracking my progress and holding myself fully accountable in order to compete in an up coming fitness competition.

I’m acting as if I were one of my clients…. Let me explain this a little better:

I’m hearing myself give the same excuses I hear on a daily basis such as – I’m too tired, to sore, I’ll do it tomorrow, I’m doing everything I can and still not seeing results. (although I hit every training session these thoughts still flood my head)

I’m having the same self doubt as my clients such as – That’s too hard, I CAN’T do that, I’m not going to make it, it is too heavy.

And the same emotions as my clients such as – Crying, over thinking the situation rather then keeping it simple, energy levels peaking and dropping and most importantly frustration and disappointment in myself.

I see this ALL the time, it is normal and apart of the process but for me to actually be IN the process as opposing to helping others through it is completely different.

Turns out I’m great at helping others but terrible at putting myself first and I guess believing in myself. I’m stubborn, strong-minded and never half arse anything, which is why I believe I have been so bloody hard on myself.

I took progression photos on Saturday – instead on noticing the positives in my body - like how much smaller my waist and whole body is, how I’m less boated and how much stronger I am - and then adjusting my training and food as need be I cracked it and cried for about 2 hours because it wasn’t ‘good’ enough.

And I’m not even kidding.

Sunday came and my mentor wanted me to take photos in heels and a bikini –Which was all good until I actually looked at the photos and then I cried again.

The exact thoughts in my head were ‘I’ve been training hard daily for the past 8 weeks and eating practically nothing and this is how I look? It isn’t good enough, I can’t do it.’

This is strange for me – I’m never sad, emotional and I usually love my body.

I didn’t like these new habits I was forming when it came to my body – where was the positives and where was the love?

I had to sit back re-focus my self and re-assess – I felt like I was loosing control and slightly loosing my mind!!

And instead of throwing in the towel, as most people will when it all gets too hard I decided to plan my attack – coz I’ll be f*cked to let all my hard work go down the drain now.

I wrote down what I was currently doing – both food and training wise, then researched, read blogs, asked around for all the advice I could.

Turns out (which I already kind of knew) I wasn’t eating enough. My muscles were depleting with my diet program, my blood sugar levels were all over the shop (hence my emotional roller coaster) and by taking the progression pics I was able to see where I need to build more muscle and drop a little fat.

By re-assessing my situation I was able to make smart judgment on what my body needs, what was working for it and what wasn’t. I’ve now changed my diet and training regime completely – which will be in the next blog – and I’m already feeling and looking great!!!

So lesson you can apply from this??

You have a goal - it gets hard – you quit – repeat.

NO

You have a goal – map out how to achieve it – it gets hard – step back and re-access – achieve it.

NEVER GIVE UP.

Stay Strong & Stretch,
Tel

‘You deserve to stay fat’

I was listening to a podcast this morning titled ‘What fat moaners and broke personal trainer’s have in common’

As you can imagine it was a very full frontal 40 minutes, in which I LOVED every second of it I found myself saying yes, yes and yes in my head over and over again.

In a nutshell it was how we over complicate things when it comes to health and fitness when we don’t need to!!

The equation for fat loss is extremely simple:

STOP EATING SH*T AND START LIFTING WEIGHTS.

People know what to do to get in shape.

If I was in a room with 20 people I guarantee you everyone will know that to become healthier they need to eat less sh*t and start training.

EVERYONE knows this.

So why don’t we do it?

I might have said it was simple but it didn’t say it was easy, people want the results but they don’t want to do the work to get it no matter how simple it is!!!

And once we start over to complicate the simple situation this is when our excuses start flooding in.

You NEVER accidentally eat chocolate. That sh*t just doesn’t fly with me, you have full control over YOUR body and as soon as you realise this and leave your excuses at the door you’ll start finding your results.

I give people daily ways to improve their life and if they followed the simple steps they would get to where they want to be – it isn’t a crazy over complicated top-secret plan.

The first step of the plan would be to record what you are eating. If you cannot already follow this first simple step ‘you deserve to stay fat’ as the podcast said.

If this pisses you off there is usually a reason for reacting the way you are and that is because you know it is the truth.

Stop over complicating your ‘diet’ and making all these fancy feasts then go demolish a block of chocolate it doesn’t work like that.

If you eat more calories then you burn you will put on weight. That’s the bottom line. Tracking this teaches you control and moderation, people may argue it becomes obsessive… and refreshing your Facebook every 2 minutes checking your likes and post isn’t??

SIMPLE.

Stay Strong & Stretch,
Tel

Why you can’t shake that FAT.

Let me just lay this on the line for you….

….but before I do if you are a sensitive sally reading just close the tab now because you are not ready to hear the truth.

You want to no why you have excess fat that you can’t get rid of even though you have tried ‘everything’?

Lets start by eliminating the people you like to blame first and narrow it down.

-It is not your mum’s fault you are fat, if you live at home I bet you’re fussy as hell with your mums cooking but more then happy to go through the drive thru on the way home from a binge drinking session every Saturday night.

- It is not your kids fault you are fat, you decide what goes into their mouth and just because they don’t eat it doesn’t mean you need to.

-It is not your partners fault you are fat, you might have shared accounts, children, pets and all that jazz but believe it or not your stomachs are actually two completely different entities and just because your partner likes dessert every night doesn’t mean you do! ***MIND BLOWN***

-It is not your jobs fault you are fat, people like to bring in delicious foods – I get that – but at what point was it your job to eat it? I don’t think that was apart of your contract?

-It is not your trainers fault you are fat, mate I’m here to help ya’ll out but just because you have a membership doesn’t mean you’ll instantly get a killah rig – it is called hard work and actually implementing advice given not missing sessions because it is too wet, too cold, too early, I’m sick, my sisters friends dogs brothers cousin is over. (I’ve heard it all.)

-It is not your friends fault you are fat, hanging with friends is something a lot of us don’t do enough yet it doesn’t mean when we do it that it needs to be revolved around food, brunch, lunch, snack whatever you call the thing where you wear yoga pants and drink lattes whilst downing giant bowls of muesli, sourdough and bacon.

Well I guess that narrows it down a little – if you haven’t figured it out by now it is actually YOUR fault that you can't shake that fat.

You wanna change? Good, AWESOME! Do it, but don’t be the person that starts every Monday and then comes up with stupid reasons as to why you can’t do it because bluntly you’ll never change. YOU CAN DO ANYTHING if you commit yourself fully – So stop making excuses and start seeking results.

Written by a female who is sick of excuses and is also 8 weeks out from a figure comp who is getting little to no sleep, caffeine and carbs.

Do not mess with me.

Stay Strong & Stretch,
Tel X