7 tips to a healthier you! by Tom Hamilton

Here is a guest blog entry by friend and colleague Tom Hamilton of Tom Hamilton Personal Training, Tom is a great trainer from Bristol.

7 Tips to help you achieve your ideal body

1) Make sure you are consuming enough food.  Typical scenario I have come across is when someone wants to lose body fat, the 1^st thing most people tend to do is massively restrict their calorie intake, this is a huge mistake as it places the body into starvation mode & the body will hold on to the fat.

To read more of Toms awesome blog please follow here.

Why Women Need German Volume Training

Simply put: women should be strength training! Here is a program written many years ago that is still one of the most popular training systems used amongst the trainers I associate with. 

I have used it many times for both males and females. Ladies love it, as they feel the muscular build up of lactic acid they crave when going to the gym. Enjoy!

So if you want fat loss, lean arms, toned legs, a flat stomach and the ability to go on and on read the following article!

Why Women Need German Volume Training
by Charles Poliquin

My two most famous workouts are German Volume Training (GVT) and the German Body Comp (GBC) program – GVT is associated with increasing muscle mass and GBC with fat loss. As a result, most women trainees tend to focus on the GBC training. That’s fine, and women who follow the GBC workout principles as written will achieve great results. However, even if the primary goal is fat loss, women should consider doing some German Volume Training. For the remainder of this article click here.

Magnesium- highly important!

So the next in the series of important minerals you should know about is Magnesium:

From the article 'Magnesium Deficiency: A Growing Health Crisis' by Charles Poliquin 

Magnesium is the fourth-most abundant mineral in the body, with approximately 66 percent of it found in bone and 33 percent in skeletal and cardiac muscle. It is absorbed in the small intestine and excreted through the kidneys. Magnesium is involved in 300 essential biochemical reactions in the body, ranging from ATP production to protein synthesis, so it is obviously important for optimal athletic performance and a high quality of life.

To read more on Magnesium follow click here

Top Ten Benefits of Zinc!

Having just returned from my 2nd biosignature course I will try over the next few weeks to highlight some of the important lessons learnt. I found this article extremely useful in understanding the importance of Zinc.

Top Ten Benefits of Zinc

By Charles Poliquin

Improve all aspects of your health and well-being by making sure you get enough zinc in your diet. Many people know about zinc for its immune boosting properties, but this mineral is actually a wonder of health benefits. Researchers write that “zinc is such a critical element in human health that even a small deficiency is a disaster.” 

Zinc is so important because it is found in every tissue in the body and is directly involved in cell division. It is a powerful antioxidant, helping to prevent cancer, but zinc also is directly involved in proper endocrine function and the maintenance of ideal hormone levels. 

Zinc deficiency makes both men and women infertile and causes low libido. Low zinc also exacerbates the effects of stress on the body and accelerates aging.  Additionally, adequate zinc is necessary for optimal physical performance, energy levels, and body composition. Zinc affects protein synthesis and is required for proper function of red and white blood cells. It is highly concentrated in our bones, the pancreas, kidneys, liver, and retina. 

This article will give you the top ten reasons why you should attend to your zinc levels and ensure your loved ones are doing so as well. Be aware that zinc deficiency is not only prevalent in malnourished individuals or developing countries. Rather, it is widespread in the U.S. and the UK, and it is particularly common in areas where the population eats a large amount of cereal and grain proteins. Low zinc is common in men, women, and children, and I’ve found that over 90 percent of my clients and athletes are zinc deficient. For more on zinc please follow this link to the full article.

OC

Why Fish Oils Are The Most Important Supplement

For those of you interested here is some of the reasons why Fish Oil is so important as a supplement to our daily diets according to Charles Poliquin:

Why Fish Oils Are The Most Important Supplement

Fish oils have been promoted as a potential cure for virtually all diseases. Some members of the medical community have inferred that most ailments can be healed by manipulating the ratios between the EPA and the DHA.

For those of us interested in positively and optimally altering body composition and maximizing our training efforts, fish oils offer sixteen possible advantages:

1. Has positive effects on any disease known to man.  According to the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, fish oils have been shown to have medical applications in the treatment of extremely wide variety of ailments including hyperlipidemia, hypertriglyceridemia, coronary heart disease, cardiac arrhythmias hypertension, stroke, bipolar disorder, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, ulcerative colitis, Behcet’s syndrome, and Raynaud’s syndrome. Fish oils are also used orally for weight loss, asthma, cancer, painful menses, lung diseases, hay fever, Crohn’s disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, albuminuria associated with diabetic neuropathy, restenosis after angioplasty, miscarriage, preeclampsia, preterm labor, and intrauterine growth retardation. Fish oils are used for systemic lupus erythematosus, cystic fibrosis, gingivitis, renal impairment associated with cirrhosis, hyperglycemia associated with type 2 diabetes and claudication. Fish oils are also used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyslexia, and dyspraxia.

To read more on this click here:

OC Fitness Top Reads This January 2012

Top Reads of the Week

This just stood out to me:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=341045372591339&set=a.176458255716719.43494.164463900249488&type=1&theater

Commercial gyms are busy this time of year don’t let that ruin your plans, heres a great program for those that requires less space and often less kit:

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/623/On_the_Spot_Mass_Gaing_Program.aspx

A little self help in 2012:

http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/18/30-things-to-start-doing-for-yourself/

For females looking to get lean and not ‘skinny fat’ have a read of this great blog:

http://womanincredible.com/most-popular-woman-incredible-blog-posts-of-2011/

Nice little review of the diet I suggest for most of my clients:

http://www.charlespoliquin.com/ArticlesMultimedia/Articles/Article/776/Poliquins_Bookshelf_The_Paleo_Answer.aspx