My New Job That Runs Alongside My Business

Its been around a month now since i started my new job at Radley College, a public school in Oxfordshire. Recently they have been upgrading their gym and sporting facilities. We now have the newest and frankly the best Real Tennis court in the country. Its a fantastic game and i urge you to come down and have a look at it.

We are also now starting on the new gym, complete overhaul of the gym facilities. A new free weights room, a new cardio and fixed weights suite. Its going to be amazing!!! No expense spared!

I have just ordered 22 Kettlebells and am starting up another new company called Oxfordkettlebell (http://www.oxfordkettlebell.co.uk) with another trainer called Janke who is another Oxford based trainer. We will be putting on workshops and 1-2-1 sessions in the coming months so watch out for us!

The real reason i am writing this today is to tell you about the awesome triathlon we organised for the school boys yesterday. There were around 36 entrants and because of the logistical nightmare of cycling we swapped it for the total body workout that is the rowing machine! Ouch! The format was as follows:
300m swim
2.5km run
2000m row

Kind of a sprint, but it was hard, lactic burning, lung busting hell. The winner was a guy called Fred Bolton who did it in 22 minutes 56 seconds, a pretty resonable time. I would have competed but i have had a bit of a cold in the last few days and need a few days to recover (no point in training when you are ill, you just make yourself worse!) We even had one of the masters come down and have a go, which was great!

I'll be posting more about the future dates for the kettlebell workshops in the next couple of weeks so check back soon!

Always improve, always evolve, never give up!

Here is a stat for you!

70000 yes 70000 deaths in the UK in the last year could have been avoided by having a healthier diet!!!!!!

That is staggering isn't it? 

I'm going to have a guess that you don't want to be one of those in next years review? 

Well.....

Contact me and i'll give you a diet for FREE! 

http://www.ocfitness.co.uk

Weight loss guaranteed and you WILL feel healthier, more full of energy and be buzzing off the wall!

ollie@ocfitness.co.uk

Six reasons why your training isn't going well and what you should do about it!!

Do you know that feeling when you have been training for weeks, months even years and just aren't seeing those results anymore? Well here are six reasons why that could be the case…

Reason 1:
You just not training hard enough!
Here’s the deal, the body adapts; in fact it adapts extremely quickly – on average it takes around twelve weeks for average Joe Blog to adapt to any particular fitness regime. Think back to the first time you set foot in a gym… Remember it? The reason you gained results so quickly was because you were learning a new skill, your body is shocked into action, getting stronger and fitter. Your body adapts to what you're doing and the results begin to plateau. Typically in a gym you'd be told to change your routine use a couple of alternative machines and just get on with it (e.g. use the rowing machine instead of the treadmill, you know that sort of thing.) You see in a gym it is very rare to hear the one change that will really deliver results because they are just to dam scared to tell you. That piece of advice? TRAIN HARDER. If you train in a gym, learn how to lift heavier weights, learn more advanced techniques from a Reps qualified trainer. You could try more intense cardio training, try intervals they burn calories faster so less time on the treadmill, BONUS! You could try timing your sets. Try doing as many quality reps as you can in a minute, then next time try to beat it!

Reason 2:
You are training too much.

On the other hand there are a few people out there that train too dam much!  (One of my old clients from a gym I used to work out fell into this category). It’s called OVERTRAINING. Your more likely to suffer injuries, feel fatigued all the time, you wont be able to train hard and usually people get ill because their immune system cant take it! The best way to see if you are overtraining is a simple one - if you feel rough all the time and you're training a lot then you are probably overdoing it! Take a week off; rest, do yoga go for walks, anything that is not going to push your body. Then plan your next training cycle; start off light, start up again with 15 reps and above. Then build up gradually over twelve weeks; during the last few weeks, push hard to break those personal bests then chill for a week and start over again. Your body will thank you for the time out and you're getting fitter to boot. You won’t end up ill and also you wont hit a wall. Believe me I have been there and done it and it is the most frustrating thing ever!

Reason 3:
You don't get enough sleep.
I love sleep; I could do it all day. Sleep is the only time the body can repair itself, grow and recuperate. Good quality sleep is so so important. You need at least eight hours. Here's something Napping has also been proven to be beneficial for recovery and concentration. Perfect excuse to wheel out next time you're stuck in a Powerpoint presentation about the new marketing campaign!

Reason 4:
You eat before you sleep.

This is a controversial one. Eating in the evening could be the reason you don't see any gains in the gym. I want to be more specific about this one though. Eating foods high in carbohydrates in the evening could be sabotaging your gains in the gym. You see, at night you're going to be resting and sleeping. If your shovelling food into your mouth in the evening your more likely to store the surplus calories, the human body is amazingly efficient at storing surplus calories and its really good at storing fat. Give it a HUGE surplus in the evenings by eating too much and your giving it no reason to rid itself of those fat stores.

Reason 5:
You don't eat before you sleep.
I can hear you say huh? Yes this contradicts the reason above but let me explain it and you will see where i'm coming from. Eating a small meal based on protein in the evening will give your body the amino acid building blocks that your body needs to repair and recharge at night. You may not need to be as dedicated as bodybuilders who notoriously wake in the middle of the night to glug down a protein shake but ensuring you have enough protein in your evening meal will suffice to help rebuild and restore your muscles from your hard training.

Reason 6:

You just don't want it badly enough.
I get asked this all the time; will you get me results? My honest and surprising answer is that no, I wont. You will get the results, with my guidance and expertise. The reason why is that I can train you into the ground, fulfil all your training needs, plan a fantastic training programme for the next 12 weeks. The part I can’t control is when you are not in direct sight of me. In a session with me, one session, you could burn around 800 calories...but then ruin it all by having a mocha-choca-frappa-thingy, filled with fat, sugar and e-numbers. Unfortunately exercise and training takes time and effort; eating a chocolate bar does not. Its simple to negate the benefits; you may put a lot of effort into your training, put equal effort into improving your diet, stress levels and general well being for the ultimate results. I can give you all the support, I can put as many systems in place so that we reduce your chance of slipping up but if you put those extra unnecessary calories in your body your back to square one. I can only tell you the negatives of doing it but you have to commit yourself and front up!

 

Thank you for reading this, any questions just email me: ollie@ocfitness.co.uk. Look forward to hearing from you.

10 Tips To Losing Weight- Simple Honest advice...

1. Eat a Breakfast that’s right for your metabolic type.

Protein and fat for you protein types. Scrambled eggs and a few sausage. Carbo types head down the home made muesli  road with goats milk!

2. Eat more!

Three smaller meals and 3 healthy snacks. But what do you serve during the footy on a Saturday afternoon? Mixed unsalted nuts—especially almonds—they will satisfy your craving for something crunchy and they help to build muscle! Bonus! Chips just give you that gut that’s spilling over your trousers…

3. Just say no to starches.

Foods like pasta, white bread, and potatoes make you fat they are converted to sugar and that means you store your fat. If you must have pasta, make yours whole-wheat. As for bread go granary, and swap white potatoes for sweet potatoes they taste better anyway. Control your portion tho!

4. Lift weights.

You have to hit the gym, and no, lifting beer cans during happy hour doesn't count. The muscles you build will not only improve your performance in your sport, they'll rev up your metabolism meaning you burn calories long after your workout is over. Ladies you have to do this too, you wont get butch, you’ll get lean and toned. DO IT!

5. Think before you eat.

Ask yourself, “do I actually need this” more common than not the answer to that is no, especially when it’s a hydrogenated fat laden brownie that will give you mushroom tops over your jeans.

6. Have a cheat day once in a while—or once a week.

Get rid of those cravings by allowing yourself a treat otherwise you might fall off your new plan forever. Allow yourself two slices of pizza take away but just order one thing not lots.

7. Lower Your Carb Intake

The easiest way to drop weight fats is to control your carbs. The cravings are hard at first, but it gets easier—especially when you see the results. You can still eat your fruit and veg but just cut out the pasta and rice.

8. Do Some Basic Interval Training

It's easier to alternate between hard and easy running instead of going for a long run—especially if you don't like running. Plus, you'll be done faster and burn more fat. Hit the treadmill/bike/ XTrainer for 20 mins 1 min hard one min easy.

9. Never, ever drink sweetened soft drinks. 

But go ahead, have a glass of wine now and then. Lower carb beer is ok if you must but only 4 pints a week! Save them up if you have to. Soft drink contain chemicals that should not be in your body, treat it well and it will last, put those chemicals in and expect the worst.

10. Don’t fear fat you need it

It makes you feel full, helps control your appetite, and your body needs it. Your whole nervous system is made from the stuff, that includes your brain!!!

Feel free to contact me if you want any further knowledge on nutrition, always willing to listen. www.ocfitness.co.uk or email me on ollie@ocfitness.co.uk

Have a good one!!

 

The Dream I Had Last Night!!!

The Dream I Had Last Night!

Bit of an odd title for a weight loss blog I know but bare with me. You see last night I had a dream about someone I had been training. No names will be named! Thing thing with weight loss is that people get such a lift from losing weight especially when the loss is big. You see the dream i had last night was about my most overweight client. I mean truely overweight. Weighing in at 21 stone at approx 5ft 9 means his BMI was well over 30 (the guideline for obese). I tell you thats going some. 

A lovely person, really interesting to talk to and a heart of gold. But the big problem of being overweight means he cant do the one thing he really wants to, play football. Well last night i had a dream, he was playing football!! He looked fantastic, he looked a shadow of his former self. He had lost the weight toned up a lot and there was none of that excess skin that people seem to suffer with. You see in the dream he said to me that the way in which he lost weight was amazing because when he thought of losing weight he imagined this strict calorie controlled diet of rabbit food and feeling hungry and tired all the time. He said that he had not once felt like that in the entire time he was training with me. It was amazing to hear someone say that as that is what OC Fitness is all about!! He said that he actually looked forward to training all the way through the course of the training. He had lost 6 stone! That's huge. That is life changing weight loss!!! Everytime he looks in the mirror he smiles, he feels fantastic and he loves it. He can play footy with his son, something he cant remember doing for 7 years. Well then the dream kind of just ended and I woke up. I realised that it was Monday, weigh in day for him and i had about 6 hours till i trained him that day. 

I could not wait! You see I have only been training this client for 1 week. 

The time came and i could not have got the scales out of the car any quicker and into the sitting room for him to step onto. He had promised not to weigh himself all week so that he would be just as suprised at the result as myself. Well... he tiptoed onto the scaled and we had a look and we were both pretty amazed with the result...

The training we did that week had been pretty intense, he had wanted me to start the training off hard so that he really felt he was going at it 100%. The first session we did we went through some movement assessments to check which muscles in his body were strong and weak. He moved very well especially for someone who had been sedentary for so long. Sure there were some postural issues but who's posture isn't a little off. Forward head posture, rounded shoulders and a slight tilt at the pelvis but with some stretches and specific exercises they will soon be sorted out.

I'll keep you posted on his progress because he is doing so well like all my clients the more i get to know them the more they seem to get so much more from the training. A couple have stopped smoking and everytime they feel like having a cigarette they jump on their treadmills. Or do a couple of exercises to take their minds off it.

P.S The client in my dream.. he lost 6 lbs in his first week! Thats a fiantastic result seeing as we have not even touched his diet yet. That comes next as he has now completed his food and mood diary and there is bits and pieces to change that could have him dropping that much again! But thats not what we want overall we want it to average 1-2 lbs a week over the first 12 weeks of training because that is the sustainable average we are looking for that will bring him the best results in the long run.

Take Care to all you readers

PPS: Anyone out there who is hoping to get into modelling give me a call as i'm looking for a model to do some promotion pictures with and train.

Low Carb- good, bad or ugly?

One of the most famous diets in recent times the Atkin's diet was one of the biggest followed diet of it's time but is a low carb diet a sustainable way to go? A lot of people preach the no carb, low carb diet, and for some people it can do as it says on the tin. It can make you lose weight and it can make you lose weight fast but there are a few questions i would like to put to you....

Is it safe to cut out a whole food group?

Is it a way of eating that you could continue for the rest of your life and not feel bad when you have a 'bad day'?

Is a low carb diet actually right for you?

What are carbs, what's included?

I'll answer each of these in turn...

So is it safe?

Well did anyone see that program superskinny vs supersized last night? On it was young girl who had cut out carbs and the doctor on the program showed her the effects it was having on her body, weak bones which could lead to osteoarthritis, knocked knee's where she didn't have enough muscle to function properly. As well as that here's a few other problems with a low carb diet you are only allowed a very small amount of vegetables and fruit, come on thaat can't be healthy. Ok so here is a list of what you can expect if you went full hog on no carbs.

Vitamin A deficiency- night blindness and keratomalacia ( a dry cornea in the eye)

Vitamin B6 deficiency- Anaemia

Vitamin C deficiency - Scurvy ( not nice)

Vitamin D deficiency - Rickets or osteomalacia

These are just a few to get you thinking, not only that but do you really want to live your life chomping on chunks of meat everyday with hardly any flavour, because your not even allowed much tomato in a day.

Low carb diets have also been linked with heart disease due to the type of diet they have, as inevitably the diet will be too high in bad fats (I am not saying fats are bad, in fact its quiet the opposite fats are fantastic but the right ones and the right amounts).

So in summary no its not healthy to cut out any food group and that includes carbohydrates.

Could you continue the diet for the rest of you life?

I suspect like most people out there your reading this because you have tried diets before and then you gained weight again and so are looking for a new diet.... right?

Well let me tell you that this is going to be another one of those diets that you do then stop after you hit you goal or go on the holiday you have been losing weight for and then before you know it your 1 stone heavier and miserable. It's just not sustainable is it? If you went to someone's house for supper you cant expect them to cater for your low carb diet, they'll cook you a nice meal and all the time you'll be thinking that you shouldn't be eating it, worrying and thinking it's going to ruin your diet. Wouldn't it be better to have a diet that gives you the opportunity to eat a huge range of foods and be able to keep at it for the rest of your life? Well thats the thing there are diets out there that can let you do that, and it doesn't involve ridiculous calorie counting or cutting out food groups. 

So no it is not sustainable and it makes you gain weight in the long run... not a great selling point.

Is a low carb diet right for you?

Well this is where it gets tricky, some people work well off a low carb diet. Some people have loads of energy and feel great BUT they are probably on a diet that is high in protein and allowed to eat vegetables, fruit and allowed to eat certain types of carbohydrates. They wouldn't cut them out altogether, unless you have experienced what optimal health is you wont have lived, seriously its an amazing feeling when you suddenly hit it. You lose weight, you don't feel tired, you don't ache. Find the balance and your away.

Some people on the other hand work really well on carbohydrates, so if your one of these people you'll be chomping on chunks of meat and you wont actually be getting any energy from it, not ideal is it! If your one of these people you can lose weight on a diet rich in carbohydrates and lower in proteins.

So how do you know... read on

So is a low carb diet right for you? Maybe, maybe not! If not then your putting yourself through hell for nothing.

What are carbs?

Well carbohydrates are essentially glucose in another form. They will in essence be broken down into glucose. But are all carbs equal?

No there not! 

There are simple carbs (refined) and complex carbs (unrefined). White bread, pasta and rice are examples of refined carbs, these have a high figure on the GI scale, that means that when you eat them the glucose gets into the blood stream very quickly giving you a spike in energy and then suddenly no energy as the insulin is released very quickly to combat the glucose in the blood. This causes problems and leads to fat storage. On the other hand the unrefined carbs such as vegetables, brown rice, wholemeal or granary bread, wholemeal pasta will create a slower insulin response as the sugars contained within them are released more slowly into the bloodstream leading to prolonged energy and therefore satisfied hunger. Sounds good and all you have to do is just not buy any refined carbs!

So all in all lets sum it up, a low carb will give you...

Disease

Low energy

Its not sustainable

Doesn't sound great when you break it down

So what's the other option

Well you could go on jumping from diet to diet and never really enjoying your food or you could get a free diet which works and guarantees success... Sounds good doesn't it?

Well here it is...

The OC Diet

Just email me and its yours FREE!!

ollie@ocfitness.co.uk

Last diet of you life and your path to health, wellbeing and fitness.

So Why Is It YOU Cant Lose Fat?

1.  Your making the wrong effort!!

What do I mean???

Well its not your fault that your not losing weight, it's due to clever advertising and marketing that makes you believe your heading down the right track when actually they know full well there's more than there telling you.

I'll give you an example.... Loads of shops and supermarkets have their own healthy living range don't they. Well they are simply rubbish!!!

Heres the reason why: Low fat or healthy living does not mean low calorie. You might think that your getting a really healthy meal when actually your getting a product laden with sugar, salt, additives and a whole host of preservatives!! Some of these products have an ingredients list that looks like a chemistry experiment.... in another blog i'll tell you how to read food packaging labels and what E numbers actually mean. Read at the bottom of this blog to get shocked by what E218 is derived from.... seriously its horrible!!!

So what is the solution to the low fat option??? Its simple really, I explain the best way in my FREE diet available to you (email at the bottom of the blog). In essence fresh ingredients cooked by yourself that way you know exactly what is going in your food and it doesn't contain any hidden nasties!!! After all you don't often see low fat bananas. Why? Because its fresh and doesn't need any additives or help with fancy packaging to be healthy. They advertise these healthy ranges because its the best way to make you buy them, its not false because it can be slightly better for you than the full fat laden version but that doesn't mean it will make you drop the pounds.

More to follow on this topic....

Hey there everyone!!

So this is my first blog!!!

Over the course of the next few months I'm going to address a few issues of the fitness and nutrition world.  What i would love though is if you guys could suggest to me what it is your interested in and what questions you want answering!!

Go on ask me anything at all....

Want to know how to lose 9lbs in 14 days, i'll tell ya!

Want to know what foods are right for you, i'll tell ya!

I'll even provide you with a free diet for you to go away with and try out free of charge! I usually charge £60/hr for that service! And you'll get it absolutely free!

Do any of those fitness contraptions actually work?

How many times a week do I need to train to get bigger?

What training should i be doing to improve at my sport?

Over the next few months I will give you an answer to questions like these, with input from professional sportsmen and women. From the worlds leading experts, and myself!!!

I hope you enjoy what they have to say...

Ollie