I used to go to a gym (a bit), but had a few problems with it. The main thing being that I found that it took time out to get there and back in the first place. My time was precious and I wanted my exercise to be as time and cost effective as possible. So, I found it difficult to stick to the regime.

Incidentally, apart from the people who are REAL gym people, the ones that seem to spend all their time there, the rest seemed to be just about as sporadic as me!

I have to say, that looking at some of the females down there was more than a bit of an incentive to go back. But, I thought, do I really want to use this as a social Mecca (even if I could), particularly as the object was to get in shape in order to feel comfortable about myself and being around people in the first place – I was not in a position to go to the gym in order to pose to the opposite sex, or the same one for that matter, even if I had wanted to!

Now, I won’t go back over the boredom issue I have documented before, but it still occurs to me that there are an awful lot of people out there who just want to look and feel good without spending ages doing it, want to do their exercise in private and have a degree of spontaneity about the timing of their exercising. Ie. “I want to exercise now, but by the time I have got myself ready to go to the gym and have got there I might not want to anymore!“.

Notice that I have not already hit on how much gym membership costs. I wonder how many people have spent money on gym membership and then felt that they have not used it to the extent that made the investment worthwhile?

So, if your visit to the gym IS a social event, that ‘s fine. If your visit to the gym is both a social and fitness event, that is even better. But if you are like me with Easy Fitness and want to get fit in private and in your own time and then go out and socialise (I love it!) then save your money and look at other alternatives.

Gyms are great, but there ARE those alternatives!

All the best – Phil

Hannah Sutter says that the government is wrong (based on various researches) to advise us to eat lots of starchy foods like rice, pasta, bread etc., because our lifestyles tend to be sedentary these days. This advice to eat starchy foods is flawed because starches (rice, pasta, bread, cereals etc) readily turn to glucose, which in turn triggers the release of insulin, which triggers the storage of excess insulin as fat.

As usual, I expect, this is “horses for courses”. If you ARE doing a lot of exercise, then you probably need it. If not, then maybe don’t overload on it. In other words I’d say, balance the amount of starch you are taking in against the amount of energy you are expending in exercise.

I think I have already said in a previous post, that you can get away with pretty much anything food wise providing that it is soon after your “workout”.

SO, she is right! – Except that she says (if my understanding is right) that the amount of exercise to offset this is so great that it is not sustainable by the average person – And there, I believe she is wrong – watch this space!

Hannah says, as we saw in the first Big Fat Lies post, that the government is telling us to EAT LESS and EXERCISE MORE! She goes on to say that despite (from 1997 to 2004) a reduction in calorific intake; an increase in consumption of (recommended) fruit and vegetables, and an increase in (recommended) exercise levels – that not only are our waist lines not decreasing, that they are actually increasing.

Well, I’m not going to get embroiled in statistics and researches here, other than my own observations about myself.

My conclusions are, that no matter what people try to say about eat or don’t eat this and that (I agree with Hannah here! – see my blog about “Diets – words of wisdom?“), that if you DO eat less and DO do more, YOU WILL shape up (I’m not going to say lose weight, because you might replace fat with muscle).

I can’t say that I lost weight (although I am pretty certain I did!) because I don’t weigh myself, but I certainly lost inches of flab, simply by just eating a little less (of everything) and exercising a little more! – Easy Fitness – Train For Shape.

One thing is absolutely certain is that if you exercise enough, you will lose weight. Otherwise marathon runners would be no leaner or fatter than the rest of us.

I read an article in a newspaper recently (Daily Mail – “The Big Fat Lies about Britain’s obesity epidemic” – by Hannah Sutter) – the title speaks for itself.

Hannah Sutter is lawyer by training yet has obviously spent a lot of time researching, and has concluded that the Government’s guidance on this issue is just plain wrong. I’m not going to reproduce the article here, but she has written a book on the subject “Big Fat Lies”.

She said that there were three main problem areas with government advice.

1. Starch (recommended by government) – is it really good for you in this day and age when we are mostly sedentary? – NO says Hannah
2. Fats (a real no-no by government, especially saturated fats) – are they really so bad? – NO says Hannah
3. Exercise (yeah, just do it, government says, and recommends 60 – 90 minutes light exercise a day) – does it really help with weight loss? – NO (sort of) says Hannah, she’s not exactly very clear on this

There is an awful lot of content in this essay, some of which I agree with and some I don’t. So, to give it the respect it deserves, I will be going into more detail in more blogs to follow – watch this space!

Anyway, what’s your take on this?

You can buy Hannah’s book here -

One aspect of muscle control exercise is the concentration on contraction of the specific muscle being exercised.

If the intensity of the contraction on any muscle causes that muscle to shake, then you have gone too far – back off, perform the exercise with less intensity.

If the muscle shakes even with very low intensity then that muscle has done enough – relax it, rest it and move on.

I was in my car driving through the park to the place where I wanted to start my run (yes I mostly drive to the park – living in the city, I prefer to run surrounded by greenery rather than exhaust pipes when I can), when I saw something strange – someone (an attractive blond lady) running in the rain, carrying an umbrella.

My initial thought was that this was just someone who was late for something, but what was strange was that on closer inspection, the lady was dressed in all the running gear and running “properly” if you know what I mean. She was obviously someone who ran frequently.

I suppose it’s not unusual for people in training to carry light weights while running for a bit of an upper body workout, but I would have thought that in this case if that was the purpose then maybe 2 umbrellas would be better (or alternate the 1 umbrella from hand to hand).

No, I guess she just didn’t like the rain! Maybe she doesn’t have a waterproof with a hood.

While I’m on the subject of carrying things while running, maybe someone with knowledge of physiology can help me out here.

When I see someone running with a pack on their back it worries me! My initial reaction is “that can’t be good for the spine”. Now I know that sometimes people run from place to place (say from work to home) and need to carry their clothes, but some seem to just want to carry more weight for an extra workout.

As I said – it worries me – and my gut feel is that it has a high potential for damage – more than just getting wet!

Don’t do Rope Skipping myself (I stick to a bit of running and my Easy Fitness exercises – don’t have time for everything!), but I feel sure that it is great exercise.

But what about skipping without a rope. You know the sort of skipping along that kids do – looks a bit like the middle section of the Hop Step and Jump – perpetually alternating legs and usually waving the arms around gaily and laughing a lot.

Well, I don’t do this either, I suspect it would be bad for the image. But, again, I think that it must be great exercise, and there is one other potential benefit.

A few years ago I heard a guy interviewed on the radio who said that he lived in a particularly rough area of town and that he had been mugged several times. That is until he took up skipping to get around – he hadn’t been touched since (I think I can understand that – but how did he start?).

Wouldn’t it be great to see a load of skippers gleefully cavorting in our parks instead all those dour faced runners (like me) – and none of them getting mugged!

PS – Oh well, off for a run now rather than a skip. Can’t quite handle the image problem. I’ll think about it in the pub later.

Saw a thing in a newspaper today that said “Get in shape and shed the pounds with this…….pedometer”. It also said that “10,000 steps a day is recommended by many health experts” – are there any health experts out there who could reinforce this for me?

I would think that any incentive to move about is great to encourage the seriously inactive, but is not the quality of the steps at least as important as the number?

The reason I ask this is the few people I know that wear pedometers seem to me to believe that the mere act of wearing one is making them fitter. I haven’t noticed any change in their lifestyle and they don’t look any better to me.

One person in particular occasionally provides an account of the number of steps achieved. But on observation these steps appear extremely slow and are often propelling the said individual from one social event to the next. Nothing wrong with that (I like a good dose of daily socialising myself).

But, if I remember rightly, he always did propel himself from one social event to the next – so has he increased the number of steps he takes, or is it just that now he can count them?

I also remember that his original object was to lose weight (from the stomach area I would suggest). Well that certainly has not happened.

I don’t want to put anyone off, but would not a little concentration on spending a small amount of time on something just a little more strenuous be of significantly more benefit all round than simply counting how many times you put one foot in front of the other? – Answers on a postcard please!

PS. All the pedometer can do is count! – It can’t assess how you are going about it. It’s up to you to design a regime that will increase your fitness levels and/or help you lose weight if that’s what you want.

There was a bit on TV the other day which was about the pros and cons of men (only men!?) aspiring to have a “six pack”.

The presenters seemed to be prepared to be neutral, a Personal Trainer argued for and a journalist argued against. The Trainer’s stance (we’ll call him Mike) was that whether or not it was possible for someone to attain a six pack it was a worthwhile aim to have – better than doing nothing and letting things drift.

When the male presenter asked the Journalist (we’ll call him Pete) whether he had a six pack, he pointed at his slightly thickening stomach and proudly said no, there wasn’t one hiding under his layer of fat. And he followed that with the “fact” that women didn’t go for men who cared about their physique.

“Are you sure about that?” asked the female presenter in such a way that you could not be in doubt that she would prefer a man to want to look okay.

Mike chipped in saying he couldn’t see why a goal such as aspiring to have a six pack with likely good side effects like feeling better, looking better and being more healthy was a bad thing. Neither, from their overall body language, could the presenters.

Pete then went on to justify his claim because an obsession with looks in men could well be hiding other woeful inadequacies. He also mentioned that he personally had no chance of getting a six pack because he was 40 “well 43 actually” – the implication here that it would be much too hard – not even possible.

Now maybe we’re getting to the crux of Pete’s stance and the fact that it’s probably telling me a lot more about him than the women he purports to talk for…

I have a lot of sympathy for his position with regard to an over obsession about looks.

However his thing about women not going for men who cared about their looks smacks of chauvinism (when challenged by the female presenter as to whether he had any evidence of this being so – he hadn’t). It was like he was totally convinced that the women in his life didn’t or shouldn’t care about such things as how he looked, but he didn’t go out of his way to say that he didn’t care what they looked like.

Now I think that neither men nor women are particularly turned on by any potential companion who excessively preens, but my observation is that people who feel good about themselves are attracted to others who do, too. Feeling they look okay is part of the whole deal. And most people (if they are really honest with themselves) want to be the best looking they can.

I don’t advocate trying to alter nature, but you can look after yourself. It’s nowhere near as hard as Pete seemed to think.

And that brings me on to Mike’s case. He said that not everybody could get a six pack, but that it was still a good aim. Well, I don’t know about you, but I most certainly would not like to be persisting with a goal I had no chance of achieving – how demotivating!

Anyway, I don’t believe it. I am sure that pretty damn near everybody (excluding any specific disabilities) of any age (I am in my sixties) could build up the necessary muscle, but I do accept that getting the surface fat off so that they can be shown off might be more difficult.

So here I am disagreeing with both Mike and Pete. My position being:-

• Set yourself reasonable (achievable) goals
• Take your natural physical attributes into account when selecting your goals
• Give yourself a reasonable amount of time – don’t rush
• Don’t get obsessed and work too hard on it, you won’t like it and you won’t stick to it
• Don’t use your age as an excuse
• Stay focused and perform

YES, NOW YOU ARE ATTRACTIVE (not that you weren’t before of course, but I reckon that you are more so now because you feel better about yourself and are more confident!)

AFTERNOTE:
Though Pete isn’t prepared to make the effort, it really isn’t that difficult or hard to get fit enough to look and feel good – Easy Fitness. I know the people I like to be around, they do look after themselves, they are not obsessed with their looks, but they do look after themselves (and a lot of them – not all – are over 43).

What’s your take on all this?

Been reading a lot about this lately in order to try and see if there is a consensus. Not really, a lot of “scientific”? (not being rude here, but who knows how genuine they are?) articles do come up with the same sort of stuff liberally laced with all sorts of scientific sounding words. But some experts (I guess), say that metabolism has little effect on weight loss, so where are we now?

Let’s have a look at those wonderful sites that say “eat this” or “drink that” – boost your metabolism and you will lose 5 tons of flab in 30 seconds! – Well do you really believe that? Think about it. If just one of these really worked and any weight loss was attributed totally to this then there would be very few fat people around (only the ones that wanted to be fat – bless them) and they would not need to shout about it.

You know what I think about excessive concentration on dieting – see my post Diet – words of wisdom – and you also know what I think about being obsessed about weight – see Train for shape.

As far as the consensus on exercise goes, strip out all the scientific bits and you get “do cardio and build muscle”.

Oh, all right – I’ll give you the earth shattering monumental insight into THE BIGGEST SECRET OF WEIGHT LOSS – what you really must do – I’ll let you into this secret which will TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE – all you have to do is go to my website at……. Oh, I’ve changed my mind, must have spent too long at the pub, I’ll give it to you now!

EAT LESS, MOVE MORE

Fantastic, isn’t it. Now you’re set up for life.

Given my lifestyle, I was nearly seduced by the words “Drink yourself healthy”, but then I found out that the drink in question was Actimel and my enthusiasm waned. Think I’ll get back to the pub and enjoy myself. I may well walk there (and back) – will probably have a short run first and will undoubtedly do my Easy Fitness muscle control and stretching exercises. Seems to work for me.