There’s some new research that would suggest that weight loss is bad for you. You can create more damage than good by deciding to lose weight and become ‘healthy’. Amazing revelations that could just shock the fitness world to it’s very core (sorry, hard to get that in there!).

I’m hoping after reading that little paragraph, you can sense the writing was fried in sarcastic oil at a very high heat. Before you hit the back button though, and think this is an article that’s taking the mick, there is some ‘research’ to suggest this is the case so allow me to elaborate and explain why this kind of rubbish is as bad for you as a 2 hour, mars bar, drip feed!

Bad, Toxins! Bad, Toxins!

Toxins can concentrate within the fat cells of your body. These little toxins are consumed (or taken into your body) via poor nutrition, alcohol, car fumes, even laundry detergent! Your liver is the de-toxifying powerhouse of the body. However, it does have 500+ jobs to do around the house. That’s alot, isn’t it? So what your liver will do, when overloaded, is put the excretion of toxins on it’s do list and has every intention to carry out this task. For now, it needs to store them in a safe place, as far away from your vital organs as possible…your fat cells!

(Just a little side step, for people wanting to lose weight, the toxins push the intracellular water of the cell, out, so it can sit there. The water then coats that fat cell with toxins included, making it hard to burn that fat cell. Trying to burn the fat away with exercise in this instance is like trying to get the peanut out of an M&M, without breaking the shell. Don’t try it, you’ll look silly.)

The ‘research’ that suggests you should remain overweight…

Dr. Huk-Lee, at the Kyungpook National University in Daegu in South Korea and her team, study Persistent Organic Pollutants (affectionately named POPs), which may have a variety of detrimental health effects. According to a study they have carried out, losing weight (obviously) burns fat cells. By burning the fat cell, the toxins are then released into the bloodstream. So, instead of trying to clean up the environment, she tries to scare people into not making positive lifestyle changes and to remain fat, because excreting these toxins are harmful…

“We are living under the strong dogma that weight loss is always beneficial, but weight gain is always harmful…but we think that increased (pollutant) levels (in the blood) due to weight loss can affect human health in a variety of ways.”

Sigh…

In the Duk-Hee study, people who had recently lost weight had higher toxin levels in their blood…but not for long. A healthy liver that isn’t overworked or overloaded will get rid of these through excretion. Since the people in this study had recently lost weight, it is also possible that the liver was still flushing the sytem and therefore had not eradicated all the toxins yet.

All sarcasm aside, what can you do about it?

The key hear is definately nutrition! Eating a clean diet of good, quality produce, will make sure you don’t have to worry about excessive toxin levels in the bloodstream. Even a completely organic-eating person can’t avoid these toxins completely because of the environment we live in. However, we can maintain a healthy body that can deal with these issues without you even realising!

Also, get it right, and you can lose some serious amount of weight, since those toxins aren’t clinging onto the fat cells anymore. Sound good? It should! So, i will gladly point you in the right direction and get you living healthier and looking great before the month is out! All you need to do is fill out the form on the right hand side.

To your health,
Carl

*Information taken from Dr. Cate Shanahan

A kettlebells have exploded in popularity over recent years. I’m pretty hard to convince when it comes to new equipment claiming to get you fit in a shorter amount of time (the shake weight still gives me sleepless nights!). However, the kettlebell is something I’d recommend to anybody wishing to blast the fat off of their frame. It’s extremely challenging and great fun too!

So here, I have given you an incredibly fast and easy circuit used as an introduction to kettlebells. Enjoy!

Warm up thoroughly, then;

10 kb swings
5 one handed swings
5 cleans
5 squats
5 overhead presses
(swing to change hands)
5 one handed swings
5 cleans
5 squats
5 overhead presses
(rest for 1 minute then repeat 3 more times for a grand total of 4 circuits!)

Then all that’s left is to cool down!

To your health,
Carl

That seems really vague and really ambiguous but starting anything that’s worth starting is hard.

It hit me today with one of my own personal goals. It’s taken me a few months to get there (actually, I’m not there yet!) but I’m starting to see the fruits of my labour. It’s been tough, but I’m deep into the forest now so I aren’t going back!

When I talk about what I want to acheive, it may seem trivial to some people. When I say I’ve found something challenging, the nutshell version doesn’t seem that hard to other people. But let’s think about that for a second, it’s not their time spent doing what I’ve been doing so it’s easy for them to dismiss what I want to do as easy.

This is the hard part. You always question whether this is time well spent. People give up on goals because they only see themselves spending time on a project with little to no return on their investment…at the start!

Case in point, trying to get fit. Picture this;

You realise that you’ve put on weight and you’re not happy with the way you look. This could be down to a lot of bad habits over christmas or going away on holiday and coming back from a binge worthy 2 weeks. Whatever the reason may be, you need to drop the weight.

Step 1: Join a gym. You find a gym that has treadmills, crosstrainers, wave machines, rowers and steppers. You’re not bothered about weights because you don’t want to get ‘bulky’. Big plus if they have a sauna!

Okay, you’ve signed up to a gym. Great!

Step 2: Get to the gym! You plan on going to the gym 3 times a week (which days aren’t set in stone) and you plan on warming up on the rower, then 20 minutes on the treadmill, 20 minutes on the cross trainer and finish off on a more serious rowing session, for 20 minutes again (ladies may go on the stepper to target the bum). Okay, all good, right?

Step 2 is where most people quit. You think this is the best way to go about their training and when they see little to know results (you may see small results at the start from just been active), you think ‘why am I spending all this time in the gym and not getting anywhere? I might aswelll be at home or having fun with my friends!’

There’s no plan there. There’s no ‘I’ll get to X by Z date’. There’s no prgression for when your body gets used to the treadmill and there’s no Plan B. It’s a hope for the best routine.

That was just one example. What I’m about to share with you isn’t just a way of setting goals for your fitness, it’s a way of setting goals for EVERYTHING in your life, whether it be financial, health, career, anything!

So apply this to an area of your life and stick to it! Then, taking the amazing final step won’t be so elusive after all.

How to structure goals

There are nine questions you need to ask yourself when working on your goals. When you have thought them through, then your goals will be measurable, acheivable and motivating!

1. Positive: What do you want?

Goals should be expressed in the positive. Positive, when it comes to goals, means ‘directed towards something you want’ rather than ‘away from something you wish to avoid’.

So instead of asking, ‘What do I want to avoid?’, ask yourself ‘What do I want?’

For example, saying ‘I want to lose weight’ is a negative goal. Saying ‘I want to be 10 stone 7lbs’ is a positive goal. Do you see the difference?

How do you turn a positive into a negative? By asking:

‘What do I want instead?’ and ‘What will this do for me?’

2. Evidence: How will you know that you are on the right path or have acheived what you set out to?

It’s important to know that you are on track. You need the right feedback, in the right quantity and it needs to be accurate. When you set a goal, you need to know how to measure your efforts and the results you are getting.

There are 2 kinds of evidence:
1. Feedback as you progress towards your goal. How will you know you are on track?
2. Evidence for having acheived it. How will you know that you have got it?
Ask:
‘How will I know that I am on the right track? What am I going to measure?’
‘How will I know that I have acheived this goal? What will I see, hear and feel?’

3. Specifics: when, where and with whom?

Where do you want the goal to take place? There maybe places or situations where you don’t want it.

When do you want it? You may need to meet a deadline or you might not even want the goal to be acheived before a certain date.
Ask:
‘Where do I want this to happen?’
‘When specifically do I want this to happen?’
‘In what context do I want this?’

4. Resources: What resources do you have?

List the resources at your disposal. They will fall into 5 categories, some more relevant than others, depending on your goals:

5. Control: Can you start and maintain the outcome?

How much is under your direct control? What can you do and what do others have to do to acheive this goal? Who will help you? How can you motivate them to want to help you?
Ask:
‘What can I do directly to acheive this goal?’
‘How can I persuade others to help me? What can I offer them that will make them want to help?’

6. Ecology: What are the consequences?

Here are some wider, systemic questions to consider:

That’s what we all do it for. If someone said to you ‘You can exercise but you won’t see a change’ would you do it? Of course you wouldn’t!

However, despite our wanting, our need to see results, one of the biggest factors in stopping us from doing so is time. People always say they don’t have time to workout, they don’t have time for this and that. But what if I was to tell you that I could give you a fat busting workout in 15 minutes. That’s it. 15 minutes. Would you believe me?

Well, instead of taking my word for it, see for yourself!

I’m showing you a workout that will get your heart pumping and it’s only one set. It took me approximately 4 minutes to do, so you would rest for 1 minute and repeat twice more for a grand total of 15 minutes!

Here’s the workout:

Make sure you warm up thoroughly before hand, then;

20 seconds of squats
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of press ups
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of burpees
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of sprinters block
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of squats
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of press ups
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of burpees
10 seconds of rest
20 seconds of sprinters block

(rest for 1 minute and then repeat twice more)

Cool down and stretch off!

Not bad, right?

To your health,
Carl

You need a pick me up and a can of coke hits the spot. It tastes good aswell, right? You do realise that it’s ridiculously bad for you? A can of coke contains the equivalent of 13 teaspoons of sugar. You knew this though, that’s why you’ve gone for the diet coke, isn’t it?

Except the ‘diet’ version isn’t quite the healthier option. In fact, it can be just as bad, if not worse, than regular coke. How can this be, though? You look on the back of the can and it contains hardly any calories.

Just to set the record straight, here are the top 10 reasons you should kick the habit once and for all!

1. Your diet coke is full to the brim with Aspartame. Aspartame contains ethyl or wood alcohol and is considered to be a carcinogenic. It’s also been known to hinder fetal brain development. Not a good start!

2. Diet drinks are loaded with sodium. When sodium levels rise, there’s an imbalance between sodium and calcium. When this happens, calcium is pulled from your bones to correct the issue and then leads to your bones been weaker and brittle. Osteoporosis then rears it’s ugly head!

3. To make matters worse, diet drinks contain phosphorous, which again, leads to a loss of calcium from the bones. It’s not looking good for your bones is it?

4. Heavy consumption of diet drinks lead to diminished metabolization of iron, leading to poorer nerve impulse transmission. In english, that means more drinks, less productivity in anything, since you feel more fatigued.

5. When stored improperly, Aspartame turns into Methanol. Just sounds like a word but what if I told you it was a poisonous alcohol that was (maybe still is) considered to be a fuel source for motors? Might aswell drink petrol, if you like that kind of thing! Even when stored properly, 10% of the aspartame will enter the bloodstream as methanol.

6. Phosphoric acid can corrode your stomach lining and the liver. Ouch!

7. The sugar from one soft drink can weaken the white blood cells for upto 7 hours.

8. Overconsumption of coke, whether it be regular or diet, can higher your blood pressure significantly.

9. Ladies, consuming one coke a day, whether regular or diet, can lower your monthly chances of conceiveing by upto 50%. No jokes here, that’s pretty serious.

10. Guys, the plastic that the drinks are stored in can lead to increased fat retention, lower muscle mass, decrease libido, other sexual dysfunctions and you’re more likely to develop certain cancers. Why? Well, he plastic contains environmental estrogens that lowers testosterone levels. Estrogen is the opposite of testosterone, just like a woman is the opposite of a man.

That’s just a small list of reasons not to drink any coke! The problems caused with regular consumption of these drinks far outweight the benefit so I urge you to llok for other methods to pick yourself up or just drink something else. Could be as simple as snacking on blueberries to reduce sugar cravings. Drink plenty of water instead and you will find that you have more energy from that instead.

I hope you decide to cut out the poison in a can. It can only help you, right?

To your health,
Carl

People who work with me spend the first 30 days dropping some serious weight whilst spring cleaning the body to be more functional. These 30 days ‘appear’ (notice the quote marks there!) restrictive but with recipes like this, you shouldn’t have to be resricted! Try it and let me know what you think!

Caribbean Chicken Salad

Ingredients

2 cups cooked chicken or turkey, diced
3 cups cooked brown rice, cooled
1 cup celery, finely sliced
¼ cup green pepper, chopped
¾ cup fresh diced pineapple
2 tablespoons pimento, sliced
¾ cup plain, active-culture yoghurt
1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon curry powder
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

Directions
Combine chicken, rice, celery, green pepper, pineapple and pimiento. In a small bowl,
blend remaining ingredients. Stir vigorously or shake to blend. Pour over chicken
mixture. Toss lightly until well mixed. Chill and enjoy this zesty, healthy treat!

Statistics show that nearly 70% of people trying to lose weight struggle in getting those last 10lbs off, if at all. Now that’s pretty high! On top of that, the supplement industry, who sell you protein powders, pills and fat burners, are now worth millions of pounds as a result of peoples efforts to lose that stubborn fat.

The good news is that it’s not as hard as you think to trim a further 10 lbs off of your waistline. Not at all!

What I’ve found is the most fastest, safest and effective way to trim down is to train in intervals, coupled with the proper nutrition. Doesn’t sound like anything new but let me explain.

Training in intervals allows you to increase your metabolism for 2 days after the workout, bringing the biggest return on your investment in the gym. Imagine that, you’re burning more calories whilst at rest because of something you did 2 days ago! Good start!

But what about nutrition? There are tons of diets out there, hundreds in fact! Let’s be right, if diets worked, there wouldn’t be so many books out there. I’m going to call this method the ‘common sense’ diet!

People react differently to different foods so by cutting out allergens and toxins out of your diet for 30 days (dairy, caffeine, alcohol etc.) you are providing your body with the perfect environment to lose that fat, since toxins are stored in the fat. After that, you can monitor which foods you react to and change your diet accordingly. That leaves alot of fish, vegetables, grains and other good foods, so you shouldn’t struggle!

I had a client who was overweight and wanted to drop those lbs. We followed the exact same protocols listed above, worked hard and ate well. Before we knew it, bingo! He dropped a stone in 6 weeks and continued to lose the weight. Pretty great results and this led to his confidence skyrocketing, he looked and felt like a different person!

So, are you looking to drop those last stubborn 10 lbs? All that’s left now is to take action!

To your health,
Carl

People who are lactose intolerant can’t digest the sugar in milk (lactose) because they don’t produce enough, if any, of the enzyme that aids in the digestion of lactose, the enzyme being lactase. Symptoms of lactose intolerance include flatulence, stomach cramps or aches and diarrhea. Quite unpleasant, I think you’d agree!

The thing is, a lot of the milk that we can purchase of the shelf of our supermarkets have been tampered with, mainly through pasteurization.

Chicago was the first state to pass a law that states that milk needs to be pasteurized in 1908. The reasons that law was passed revolved around fears that milk causes tuberculosis, botulism and various other diseases linked to milk. This may have been a massive concern at the time but many health professionals were against it. To be fair, they still are. Even Louis Pasteur, the man who invented pasteurization, later admitted that he was wrong. Oops! So, what is involved in the process of pasteurization and, more importantly, why am I bringing this up?

The pasteurization process involves heating milk for 30 seconds at 63 degrees, for 15 seconds at 72 degrees or 1 second at 89 degrees. As you can imagine, no bacteria that could be present would survive under these circumstances. All good. Except, it’s not. The heat also destroys important enzymes, vitamins, minerals and proteins. In fact, milk is declared pasteurized when all of the enzymes have been destroyed…including the enzyme, lactase!

Many people who are lactose intolerant aren’t allergic (in my opinion!) to milk, they are allergic to the process of pasteurization. Lactose intolerance is still a relatively new problem, in the grand scheme of things, and so is pasteurization. These people can usually consume raw milk and dairy because all of the enzymes that are needed for milks digestion are left intact, including lactase.

Before you take my opinion and go for raw milk, make sure that what you are consuming is, in fact, raw milk. Some milk is declared organic, yet the cows from which the milk comes from aren’t fed properly which can affect the quality of the milk. There are certain companies that you can trust.

To your health,
Carl

*For more information regarding organic produce, you should read Paul Chek’s ‘How to eat, move and be healthy’

So let’s look at what might be a typical day for you. You get up to an alarm clock and your dreary eyes barely read the flashing 6:00 a.m. You manage to pluck up enough energy to reach over and hit the snooze button for a quick 5 minute nap. Beep, beep, beep! When the alarm does go off a second time, you drag yourself out of bed and wake the kids up to get ready for school. You’re too busy focusing on them to worry about yourself and before you know it, you don’t have enough time for breakfast. Not to worry though, you can grab a coffee and some toast at work!

Oh yeah…work. 9-5 in a job you hate, just to pay those bills. Oh yeah…bills.

You get to work to find that one of your co-workers is sick, so you have to cover for their clients/workload. Did not expect that! You’re running around the office like a madman and in the 5 minutes you seem to haven’t managed to squeeze in for yourself, you scran an apple and guzzle another coffee.

You manage to get through the day and now you have to pick up the kids. You manage to get there and on the way back, you’re stuck in traffic when the petrol symbol lights up a dreaded red. Man, you did not expect to be paying out another £20 to fill that tank up! So, after getting through the traffic and getting to the petrol station, you manage to get home. Now, it’s 6:00 p.m. and you have to make the tea. You’re cooking for 4 whilst worrying for the next day at work. Is that co-worker going to cream it and leave you with the work tomorrow? God, this is stressful!

You’ve finished eating tea and now you’re staring at alot of dishes to clean. God!! After scrubbing the pans and dishes, you’re exhausted and flip the switch of the kettle to provide one last caffeine pick me up. After what seems like one hour of you time, it’s time for bed. After the kids are put to bed, you realise you’re exhausted and make the climb into bed…ready to repeat the same cycle again tomorrow.

Does this sound like you? Or maybe you would love a day like that, since that seems like a walk in the park, compared to yours? We all experience stress in some way, shape or form. Some more than others.

What is stress?

When you hear stress, you think bad, right? This isn’t always true, there are good types of stress aswell. We need a certain amount of stress to remain healthy. A complete lack of stress wouldn’t be good for us, believe it or not! There are 6 types of stress, all of them having good forms and bad forms of that stress:

1. Physical stress
2. Chemical stress
3. Electromagnetic stress
4. Mental stress
5. Nutritional stress
6. Thermal stress

There are also what we call external and internal stressors. An example of an external stressor would be an injury or too much sunlight, something that is from the outside. An internal stressor is, therefore, a stressor that comes from within us, although these are a direct reaction to external stressors, such as cancer (Internal) as a reaction to the high level of toxic chemicals (External) you are exposed to.

Steel nerves

As indicated by the title, the nervous system plays a huge role in evaluating the different stresses your body is under.

Your nervous system is made up of 2 systems that work together. The peripheral nervous system focuses on conscious movement and the central nervous system, which contains the autonomic nervous system, controls those actions in the body that you don’t consciously control, suggest as digestion, releasing hormones and sweating etc.

To make things even more complex to yourself, the autonomic nervous system splits into 2 further branches: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic.

When activated, the sympathetic nervous (SNS) produces a fight-or-flight response. In other words, those natural instincts that kick in when threatened. Are you going to stand and fight or run? So what happens?

• Your organs release stress hormones that elevate your heart rate and blood pressure
• Blood is shunted away from your internal organs, towards your muscles and skin, greatly limiting all digestive and elminative processes
• Increased sweating

Cortisol levels are also elevated, a hormone that breaks down muscle tissue to protect itself. When muscle is broken down, your metabolic rate slows down (meaning very slow weight loss…just a heads up!). When one system, works however, the other one is restricted. So with elevated stress hormones limiting your repairing hormones, it’s not good. If the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is shut down, you won’t be able to digest your food properly, lose weight, build muscle etc. So, over stimulation of the SNS is a common cause of chronic fatigue, not to mention emotional imbalances and distress.

So, how does this relate to your typical day?

By missing meals and not eating well, you are effectively launching your SNS and your fight-or-flight response. Therefore, muscle destroying hormones are released. You’ll probably go for a pick me up to battle the lack of energy, usually coffee. Caffeine is a stimulant, which activates the adrenal glands and your SNS, resulting in more of these hormones being released. You’re worried about work, right? Bad thoughts, worries and other bad mental stresses activate the SNS also. To your subconscious, whatever you think of is real. Think it enough times and your head will think it’s in a bad situation and, you’ve guessed it, activate your SNS!

So, how can you manage stress?

1. Identify your primary stressor
Focus on reducing the stress in the area of your life that is causing you the most trouble. Often, alleviating the main stressor will create a domino effect and you’ll find that you are much more relaxed by dealing with this issue.

2. Make a plan
Make a realistic plan to address your biggest stressor and set a series of achievable short-term goals, allowing you to clearly recognize your progress as it is being made. Look for books and other resources on the internet about how to deal with your situation or better still, find someone that has dealt with your situation. There is no better teacher than experience!

3. Eat and drink right
Regardless of what your stressors are, if you are not eating right for you and your body, you won’t be efficient at replacing those stress hormones. Eat good quality produce as much as possible. Alot of farmed food and processed food contain toxins, a bad chemical stress on your body.

Dehydration is also a common cause of internal stress. A reduction of as little as 1% of water content in your central nervous system can cause a significant decrease in your performance. Reducing your intake of coffee, teea and fizzy drinks plus drinking high quality water is an easy way to start reducing the internal stress on your body.

4. Move and exercise
Regular exercise can be a major tool to reduce stress. When performed correctly for your particular needs, exercise in the correct dose stimulates an anabolic (tissue building and repairing) environment.

5. Mental exercise
“What you give out, you receive back. Whatever you give out in life is what you receive back in life. Whatever you give, by the law of attraction, is exactly what you attract back to yourself” (The Power, Rhonda Byrne)

Successful people all have one thing in common, no matter what their field is…they believe in the power of positive thinking. So, try it. Be thankful for what you do have. Don’t curse the fact that you are spending money, be thankful you have money to spend. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this doesn’t work. You can’t keep thinking that continuing to worry about things over and over in your head will bring you different results. So, be thankful for everything that you do have and don’t focus on what you don’t want, focus on what you DO want. What have you got to lose?

To your health,
Carl

It’s here, finally!

I don’t know about you but I’ve been waiting for Christmas 2010 for a while. Last year, I spent the christmas period in the Caribbean. Whilst some of you maybe thinking that I was quite lucky, I missed England and the festive cheer that came with it. Seeing my dog try and rip open his presents, eating christmas lunch with my family, it was all missed. So I’m very excited about this one! It’s true, we don’t know what we have until it’s not there.

Not long after is new year 2011. The start of a new beginning! What do you want the new year to bring? More money? Better relationships? Lose weight?

The latter is one of the most popular new years resolutions ever! We finish the year with a splurge and start the new one repairing the damage caused by the excess of christmas!

It’s not easy. The intent is there, we all want to be in shape. Both me and Excelle magazine would like to help you in your quest. It can be done and it WILL be done! So, what I’ve provided you here is the article in all it’s glory, complete with exercise images and the workouts themselves. I want to see you get the best out of yourselves so follow the guidelines in this article to get there!

right click here and ‘save target as…’ to download the article

Also, remember that nutrition is 80% of the battle, so use this workout in conjunction with an excellent diet (see how many calories you need here) to see the best results.

I hope you guys are going to have a really great Christmas! I’m still like a kid when it comes to Christmas morning! I hope this article helps you, that’s why we have printed this article, so you can have the best end to the year and a great start to the new one.

To your health,
Carl