BLOG

Building and maintaining muscle is very important because the stronger you are the harder you are to kill. Not just by other people, animals and natural disasters but by disease, complications from old age like falling, osteoporosis, high levels of cholesterol and blood pressure.


For Weight Loss


Another reason is the increased calorie needs of the body to maintain muscle mass. At rest muscle burns around 16kcal per Kg and a whole lot more whilst exercising (varies by what exercise you are doing). Thats over 3 times the amount of calories burned at rest than a Kilogram of body fat and many many times more whilst exercising as muscles are used to move the body and fat is just a burden.


If you are looking to lose weight having more muscle helps you burn more calories. Also the type of training needed to build and maintain muscle and strength levels burns more calories in a time efficient manner compared to steady state walking or other low impact forms of exercise.


For Life


Being strong and powerful allows you to do all the things in life that are meaningful to you; even if your activity doesn’t necessarily rely on absolute strength it guarantees you will be able to do it for longer and more often. When life throws you a surprise you will be better equipped to handle it as you will be stronger mentally and physically if you have trained for strength previously.


How To Obtain Muscle


Use mechanical tension. Which is moving through an exercise in a controlled manner, always under tension mean always under control.


When squatting most beginners release tension in their gluten and quads dropping them to the bottom of a squat, switching those muscles back on to catch them at the bottom. In 90% of the movement there is no control so increase the chance of injury and at the bottom of the squat the muscles have to work maximally to stop and reverse the movement. This will lead to greater muscle soreness than usual that can be shocking in the beginner and decreased results for building muscle and strength.


Instead beginners should squat with tension on the way down by descending slowly and allowing the whole muscle to be worked.
For building muscle with the squat I recommend a 3 seconds descent (eccentric phase, meaning lengthening muscle contraction), one second pause at the bottom and 1 second to return to standing (concentric phase, meaning muscle shortening contraction)


You can apply this methodology to press ups, lunges and many other exercises and if you would like to know more please send a message through the site.


Conclusions


Move with tension throughout your workout and your day to become stronger, more toned and increase muscle mass. This will increase your quality of life and reduce the chances of developing the following diseases and ailments.

• stroke,
• congestive heart failure,
• Accelerated biological aging/premature death,
• type 2 diabetes,
• coronary heart disease,
• sarcopenia,
• metabolic syndrome,
• obesity,
• insulin resistance,
• non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,
• peripheral artery disease,
• hypertension,
• endothelial dysfunction,
• arterial dyslipidemia,
• hemostasis,
• deep vein thrombosis,
• cognitive dysfunction,
• depression and anxiety,
• osteoporosis,
• osteoarthritis,
• bone fracture/falls,
• rheumatoid arthritis,
• colon cancer,
• breast cancer,
• endometrial cancer,
• gestational diabetes,
• preeclampsia,
• polycystic ovary syndrome,
• erectile dysfunction,
• diverticulitis,
• constipation,
• gallbladder diseases

To learn how to lift weights correctly and safely please contact me through this websites contact form https://www.gradybpt.com/contact.html

I have been training people for 10+ years now for weight loss and people are still stumped as to why they can destroy themselves in their workout and pay a premium for “the best gym in Edinburgh” but still get no results


The answer to the blank in the title is “controlling your nutrition”


You can be doing everything right during your workouts and lifestyle but if they are only 15% of the equation, results will be hard to come by. Don’t believe me? Then how do those FAD diets work?


Usually they only work in the short term as.

1. People that want a quick fix can’t stick to a diet for long (if it’s too restrictive it won’t be stuck to by anyone.)
2. Their hormones are all out of whack by following an extreme diet their body is not ready and prepped for.

Hormones effect weight loss


After a little research we will all know that if we eat carbohydrates then insulin is released. Insulin is one of the bodies most powerful and fast acting growth hormones. It will sure help you grow muscle but it will help fat cells increase fat storage too.


Thats why one of the most popular ways of losing weight is to cut out carbohydrates completely from the diet. This only works for a short while for the majority of people. See below for why.


With a drop of leptin levels from severely restricting carbs you will get a decrease in fat burning and this usually is partnered with decreases in physical activity as the hormones created by the thyroid are reduced also as a result to no carbohydrate input.


This explains how you can be on a severely restricted diet and see great results for the first few weeks and then stagnate later on.


Your body has many mechanisms of burning or storing fat and most of them are food related.


Even overconsumption of some of the more modern health foods can cause change in hormone profiles that have a negative impact on weight loss. These are Organic crisps, gluten free products (especially sausages), most vegan deserts and soy products.


How much food and what kind can dictate if fat is going to fall off you or accumulate.


How to eat and how to workout for weight loss


Diet:


Eat as close to natural and as diverse as possible inside your calorific window. Have a cheat meal once per week but make sure you don’t go over your daily calories. I personally stick to Paleo as much as possible as it guarantees no processed foods and contains some carbs in the form of fruit and potatoes that helps me fuel my workouts.

​
​Workout:


Find the best personal trainer in Edinburgh you can for your circumstances. I am a weight loss specialist and this is the kind of programme that my clients follow and succeed with over and over again.


Learn to lift HEAVY


Under the careful eye of a personal trainer it is perfectly safe for a complete beginner to start learning to lift heavy (relative to your current strength levels)


Why? It will improve your glucose and insulin sensitivity levels which is very common in overweight individuals. This means your body is more efficient at using blood sugar for exercise and daily movement so there is less chance at turning it into fat, and it makes your body more likely to break down fat, turn it to sugar and put it back in the bloodstream for use during exercise.


Working on diet and lifting heavy can help reverse type 2 diabetes, it’s that effective. Not to mention from losing weight and getting stronger and more toned you will feel an increase in confidence and wellbeing.

If you truly want to heal from something you must remove yourself from the environment harming you. If you are still in the same environment that is causing you stress, mental or physical harm or plain unhappiness you must leave it or change it.


If you are still in the same environment that previously caused you harm and now the effects have diminished with no change to the environment, you are learning to cope better. However this is only a short term solution.


Clients of psychologists, therapists and life coaches can often get frustrated as while we pass on knowledge of coping mechanisms they are not meant to be used every day for long periods of time.


If breathing exercises and self affirmations help you cope with a tough week or month then you should pass through to the other side of a set timeframe. If you know your stressor you need to change something so you interact with it less often, or eliminate it completely.


This requires a huge effort and hard choices made outside therapy or coaching sessions, like moving apartments, not meeting certain people or, most often, changing careers.


If you are trying to lose weight because you recently gained, stop and look at your habits in daily life. Most habits form around the way we make income. For example a job that doesn’t allow meal prep/gym time, supplies unhealthy food for snacks, an expectation you will eat at your desk and the only way to socialise is in the pub is more than likely to lead to weight gain or health issues over time.


The best way to lose weight would first remove yourself from that environment or reduce your exposure to it. Ask for healthier snacks, take a lunch break, take time to prep food. If your job doesn’t allow for these things you need to start considering long term if it’s the right fit.


If you stay in the unchanged environment you are “coping”.


If you leave or radically change the environment you are getting better.

There are several ways that lockdowns are an advantage for weight loss especially after the initial shock and emergency carb eating phase passes.


More control over your calendar and time


When you are not in the office you have a great opportunity to take back control of your time. You can block out time for eating, exercise, meditation or just a walk.


Try it tomorrow, just book a 15 minute slot off and see if you get interrupted, you could do something really useful with that 15 minutes. You could prep food for your dinner or catch up on the news after making yourself a healthy snack.


If you set your calendar to work from 8am-12pm and 2pm-6pm you’ve got your 8 hours work and 2 hours to exercise, shower, cook and eat during the middle of the day when you are your strongest and will get the most out of exercise.


Obviously there will be days where you might need to take a conference call at those times but if you make that and exception rather than the rule you will OWN the lockdown.

• Top tip: Set up an autoresponder that kicks in at the exact time of your ideal end of day. Mention you are now out of office from 6pm until 8am tomorrow and you will get to your emails then. Then offer an alternative way for them to contact you if it is VITAL. Make it a phone number they have to call and not text; very rarely will someone want to call you and will accept that you will get back to them in the morning.

More control over your food


With more free time you will have more time to cook, and even if you don’t want to do that you have enough time to plan what microwave meals you can eat and still hit target.


During lockdown its a lot harder to go to the shops so if you have a weakness such as drumstick squishies sweet or Pringles don’t buy them in the main shop so they are not in the house. They aren’t banned or off limits, just a walk, queue, shop, queue for the tills, walk home away.


“I fancy an oreo, I would have to go to the shop, I'll have a piece of fruit instead” is much better than opening a pack of something you know you won’t stop eating until its all gone.

• Top tip: Remove pages and unfollow people from social media that post recipes or cake creations that remind you of what you are trying to cut out. On some sites like twitter you can even mute individual words.

Chance of gaining MOMENTUM


When trying to lose weight momentum is the most important thing. Momentum leads to consistency. Momentum leads to willpower. Momentum pushes you towards your desired result in a way that’s harder to stop.
​

Lots of people trying to lose weight are stuck in a weekly cycle of exposing themselves to toxic environments (in the sense of poisoning their goals). Take for example a weekly trip to the pub or club, consuming empty calories in the form of alcoholic/sugary drinks and getting a greasy fried meal on the way home. That has now been removed as well as other situations like friends that lead us astray into getting takeaways or the office cakes and biscuits.


Gain the momentum now and when these situations arise again you won’t want to waste the hard work and sacrifice you have built up over several months. Momentum is the currency of success, the more you have the richer in results you are.

• Top Tip: Your friends on a boozy zoom call don’t know that you’ve only had one beer and then switched to the 0% stuff. And have something healthy ready to go in the oven before the call, when they order takeaway pop it in and you can eat together.

Here's a hack that works really well for me and for people I've shared it with in the past.


*Training in the middle of the day*

This isn't practical for the schedules of a lot of people during normal times, but during lockdown you can use this technique that normally is reserved for the privileged who can take time off work when they want.


...it can get you past a fat loss sticking point.


It works best, in my opinion if you set it up like this.

1. Get 3-4 hours of good work done after you wake up.
2. Don't eat food during this time.
3. Get your 30-45min workout in after 3-4 hours work.
4. Take your daily shower.
5. Eat when you feel hungry

​What you will find is that you will feel physically fresh and invigorated in the afternoon after your shower. Also the shower is a nice mental reset, so you will be mentally fresh and ready for another 2-4 hours good quality work.


(I train several people with diabetes and always recommend carrying glucose tablets while working out and will extend it to anyone training fasted like I recommend above. So if you feel your blood sugar getting low you’ve got a solution close at hand.)


Here is also a summery of why training during the middle of the day is beneficial.

• Pain tolerance is highest.
• Late afternoon, adrenalin and body temperature has a rising trend.

With your body reporting less pain (as in burning/fatigue of muscles not injury) and adrenaline being raised and your workout should fly by and  compared to other times of day.


When you are fasting your sympathetic nervous system becomes more active.


This triggers more fat mobilisation as well as the burning of fats…


When you stack that with training you can increase the rate of fat loss.


BOOM
Now you have a more efficient workout that burns more fat than usual, you can do this every day and lose weight and get lean.

1. Spring cleaning with a 2 year rule.



Set aside some time to have a good clear out of your cupboards and wardrobes. With a strong rule that if something hasn’t been used or worn in two or more years donate it to charity or sell it. We cleared half of our kitchen worktops of unused appliances and a big chunk of our wardrobes.


We often accumulate material things. Think of how much money you would have saved if you didn’t buy those that are just sitting in your house now collecting dust.


As a side note, once you get rid of clutter, invest your money in experiences, as opposed to buying more things.


2. Don’t make too many commitments to yourself or others.


When you chase too many goals and say “yes” to too many things, you end up not accomplishing many of them. As a result, you end up feeling like you failed, when in reality you just spread yourself too thin like too little butter over too much bread. (Yes that’s a Bilbo Baggins quote)


If you try to do too many things, you end up overwhelmed and stressed out because nothing will have your undivided attention and focus. We all have 24 hours in the day, of which 8 are for sleeping and 8 are for working (if you work 8 hours a day). Therefore, you only have 8 hours each day to chase your goals. So, make those remaining 8 hours count.


3. Finish what you started.


Now that you have reduced your future commitments you have opened a whole lot of time to work on things you have promised yourself you would do. Paint that hallway, call that friend, fix that thing you promised your significant other you would fix. The more times you quit things, the more likely you are to accept quitting as normal.


This helps you gain momentum and “YOU WONT WANT TO WASTE MOMENTUM! It makes you value yourself and improve your standards” - Grady B PT 2020


4. Decrease social media time.


I’ll be the firs to admit that I spend too much time on my phone, and I’ve recently taken steps to limit that. There are apps/extensions that block social sites on your computer and phone during certain hours of the day.


Personally I have deleted my personal twitter account and can only access Facebook on desktop as I don’t have the app on my phone. Ive also moved all my chat apps to an old blackberry in the spare room so I don’t have them with me and can check in once a day to see if I’ve missed anything important. But most of the time, if it’s important, they will call you.


5. Exercise 30 minutes per day.


Having good health is the starting point for being able to pursue all your other goals.


The great strongmen at the turn of the century have some great quotes on health but I think the best is from Eugen Sandow, worlds strongest man and father of modern bodybuilding.


“Life is movement. Once you stop moving, you're dead. Choose life.”


All experiences that you might want to have in the future require you to be there and able to participate. The best experiences are the rare ones that a scarcely seen because they are either hard to get to or require perseverance. You don’t want to miss out on a once in a lifetime opportunity because there are too many stairs or you must move quickly and can’t.


If you are healthy, fit and strong you are less likely to need help throughout life and you are in a better position to help others.


6. Make time for hobbies.


If you love to do something, you should keep doing it. Whether it’s knitting, painting, decorating, running, making music, taking pictures, do it.


Hobbies can help you achieve the work-life balance you see everyone talking about and enable you to make connections with like-minded people.


Also, if you get good enough at your hobby, you may be able to make a side-hustle out of it for some extra cash. Imagine being one of those people that earns money from doing something they love.


Hobbies also inspire creativity within you and clearly make your life more enjoyable.


7. Sunday Pages.


Three pages of longhand, stream of writing, done first thing on Sunday morning.


There is no wrong way to do Sunday Pages. They are not art. They are not even “writing.” They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes only.


Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, and prioritise the day at hand. Do not over-think Morning Pages: just put three pages of anything. I like to review my week and start thinking about next week (including “maybe I will do this”) and it turns into a loose to-do list or I might write about  the week from my dogs perspective and draw a terrible picture of my dog.


Just sit and create three pages of something. Keep it until the next Sunday, read over it and keep it if you want or throw it out. Humans are creative by nature and we feel better after we make something.


8. Learn how to learn.


Learn something new this year. Yes its open ended and doesn’t have a strict timeframe but take some steps to learning something. Recently I completed a coursera course on Philosophy and have now registered to audit a Harvard university course in the same subject.


Its something that interests me, doesn’t directly effect my work but it exercises my mind the same way my favourite sports exercise my body.


Because I am fighting to learn more about something I am passionate about I am discovering how I like to learn. How my desk should be set up, is it best to study before or after exercise, what distracts me, how to reduce activation energy. I can then use that in the future to learn other things, maybe a short development course needed for my job, a language crash course or studying for a business MBA.


“You must learn how to learn” - Billy Robinson


9. Don’t say negative things about other people or hold grudges.


When you constantly blame or talk about who did you wrong, you are choosing to relive that negative experience over and over again.


You should see your negative experience with someone as something that you overcame and that you learned from.


Complaining about all the people who have treated you badly is counter productive. Two quotes from Marcus Aurelius fit together perfectly


“Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticise?”


And


"The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”


Basically see the thing in yourself that you most hate about the other person and eliminate it. Counter the badness in others with goodness in you. You will feel better.


10. Improve your nutrition.


If we rate how high our nutrition standards are out of 10 and you decide you rate it at 7 but admit you have been operating at around a 5 you can only exist between 5 and 7 in the future. Until you raise your standards.


Are you happy, willing and able to go to a 10?


When you go to a 10 you will start eating different food and choosing healthier options in the rest of your life.


I recommend finding a healthy food diet with no hard cuts on food types like the Atkins diet cutting out carbs. I usually do Paleo as it has all the food groups but you basically can’t eat anything from a pack, fried, processed or with refined sugars. You can only eat fresh food and the snacks are mostly fruit and nuts. I do this for about 2 weeks to build momentum and then like I said before. You won’t want to waste momentum.

Intuitive eating or mindful eating has taken a front seat in more people's lives through the pandemic as many people are  eating whilst consuming media more (like eating in front of the tv).

Usually breakfast and lunch are consumed away from the Tv or phone as you have your breakfast on the table and lunch at work, with dinner the only meal with a high probability of being consumed in front of the Tv. 

Most people working from home set up shop at the dinner table as a desk, so will choose to eat elsewhere, like on the sofa in front of the Tv, for every meal. 

Here, we need to differentiate between homeostatic hunger, which is related only to balancing our energy reserves in the immediate future (an internal report from the body) and hedonic hunger which is registered from what our eyes see (a cupcake you will enjoy even if you were not hungry before you saw it)


If you hedonistically motivate yourself to eat by looking at pictures ordering online or simply cooking, you need to give the brain the feedback in the same way, to tell the brain that you are consuming what motivated you. Otherwise you overeat without noticing and will go back for seconds, or feel the need to snack after a full meal. Simply because your eyes and brain were distracted by something other than food.

When you consume food while distracted you don't register how much you are having and it's harder for the body to know when it's satiated.

As a person you have standards for every aspect of your life

- Relationships (Swipe left or swipe right?)
- Career (What job should you apply for)
- Safety (This situation doesn’t feel right, I’ll leave)

What about health?

If we rate how high our standards are out of 10 and you decide you rate it at 7 but admit you have been operating at around a 5 you can only exist between 5 and 7 in the future. Until you raise your standards.

Are you happy, willing and able to go to a 10?

When you go to a 10 you will start eating different food and going to the gym even though you’re tired. I will show you how.

When people ask me why I don’t drink or go to workout classes while on holiday its because I make certain decisions around my health with the bar set to 10

If something is not helping me towards or maintaining a goal its not up to standard 

VALUE YOURSELF MORE! Why are your standards so low?

You have to create an environment in which you can succeed. You cannot heal in the environment that is causing you harm. If you need to segregate yourself for a short while to gain momentum. YOU WONT WANT TO WASTE MOMENTUM! It makes you value yourself and improve your standards.

At what time of day or in what situations do your nutritional and health standards slip? Is it a person or a group? Avoid them until you gain momentum.

One of the biggest drivers of bad diets is working in a job you hate and doesn’t give you enough time (environment not letting you heal). If you live to 80, that’s 30,000 days and if you’ve worked 3 years in a job you hate you have spent 1000+ of those days doing something you don’t enjoy and has a negative impact on the rest of your life. You need a change long term, that’s a given.

You will learn to deal with characters and situations differently when you have momentum behind you.

1. Does exercise help you burn the sugars you eat? How?

The body of an average person likes to maintain about 1 teaspoon of sugar in the blood at any one time. If there is too much it is either withdrawn to the muscles that need it or turned to fat. Both of these processes use insulin to transport the sugar to the correct place. If you exercise more your muscles will withdraw sugar from the blood until it is almost depleted, then your body will start producing its own sugar to put back into the blood for your muscles to use by burning fat.

2. Can you speed up the rate at which your body burns off stored sugar by exercising more?

Absolutely. Sugar is stored as fat and once your muscles have depleted their energy sources they turn to fat stores as the next thing to burn. Studies have shown that kettlebell circuits and repeated bike sprints (short bursts of exercise followed by a short rest, like a spin class) burn more fat than any other exercises. But any exercise is better than doing nothing. So even if you do something sub-optimal for burning fat like Pilates but do it 4 times per week compared to doing a perfect workout once every two weeks Pilates wins every time.

3. Will eliminating sugar help with belly fat?

Yes! Eliminate sugar over a couple of weeks, especially if you have a vary high intake reduce it over time. If you personally put on weight easily on the stomach reducing calories from sugar helps massively. Some people lose weight faster from other areas than the stomach but don’t be discouraged!

4. How long does it take to see results from cutting sugar?

You will see results in mood, motivation and energy levels within a few days (the first few days you can become irritable). If you are in a calorie deficit and have no sugar or carbs in your diet you should start seeing results on the scales within  two weeks and visible results soon after.

 # Poor Sleep Is a Major Risk Factor for Weight Gain and Obesity
A Huge review found that short sleep duration increased the chances of obesity by 89% in children and 55% in adults. That’s just in people averaging around 5h of sleep per night and its scaleable, the further you get from optimum levels of sleep the more likely you are to gain weight.  
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2398753/)

# Poor Sleep Can Increase Your Appetite
Many studies have found that people who are sleep-deprived report having an increased appetite
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535701/)

When you do not get adequate sleep, the body makes more ghrelin (hunger causing) and less leptin (tells your body you are full), leaving you hungry and increasing your appetite.

A study of over 1,000 people found that those who slept for short durations had 14.9% higher ghrelin levels and 15.5% lower leptin levels than those who got at least 7h sleep. The short sleepers also had higher BMIs 
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535701/)

# Sleep Helps You Fight Cravings and Make Healthy Choices
Reduced sleep actually alters the way your brain works. This may make it harder to make healthy choices and resist tempting foods. The reward centres of the brain are more stimulated by food when you are sleep deprived.

A study of 12 men observed the effects of sleep deprivation on food intake.
When participants were only allowed four hours of sleep, their calorie intake increased by almost a quarter, and their fat intake almost doubled, compared to when they were allowed eight hours of sleep.
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20357041/)

# Lack Of Sleep Can Reduce Physical Activity
A lack of sleep can cause daytime fatigue, making you less likely and less motivated to participate in exercise or sport.
In addition, you’re more likely to get tired earlier during physical activity.

Getting more sleep may even help improve performance. No studies for this one. You will have felt it yourself. I know I have