The 5 rules of weight loss.

You've seen all those links on the web, right? 5 rules, 5 things never to eat, 5 things never to do. Whatever.

I thought I'd run through a list of the most often cited myths pushed by people who should know better, and my response. Here we go!

1. Don't eat carbs late at night.
   
   Actually it's 10pm here and I just had a bowl of weet bix + muesli.
   
2. Don't eat grains, breads and cereals.
   
   Actually, I just had a bowl of weet bix + muesli.
   And I'll have french toast for breakfast.
   
3. Don't eat carbs.
   
   Actually, I just had a bowl of weet bix + muesli.
   And I'll have french toast for breakfast.
   
4. Limit fruit, because of the sugars, which are carbs.
   
   Actually I kinda lied above. The french toast is SECOND breakfast.
   First breakfast is a massive bowl of fruits.
   
5. Only eat clean, the minute you touch processed foods it is all over.
   
   Yeah. See all of the above. Also I'm partial to those packaged indian style vegetable curries. Those are delish with a chickpea burger.

Actually there's big news today that they've now decided carbs are important after all, and low carb diets will shorten your life expectancy by 30%. It's just like I predicted, only I thought it would take another 5 or 10 years to happen. History repeats... first it was fats that were killing people, and then they decided fats were ok and carbs were bad. Then depending on who you talk to, they either softened on carbs except grains were bad, OR they got absolutely carb phobic and started telling people lettuce has too much sugar in it. I swear to god there are people out there telling each other carrots and lettuce have too much sugar. And a shitload say the same things about fruits. Morons.

People need to forget all this crap. Ignore it. People need a varied diet that includes carbs, protein, fats, fibre, vitamins and minerals. There was a few hundred thousand years of human evolution without trying to avoid one or the other, and obesity is only a recent problem. 

The right amount, not too much and not too little. That's the bottom line.

Did you guys see my Review of The Fast Diet, a few weeks back? I think it makes my views quite clear!

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Got me some new training shoes

Could they possibly be any more fabulous? I am thinking the red ones will go with my black training gear / "uniform" and the green ones with my grey gear. I think the blue ones will be for if I'm wearing jeans to the shops or something.

OH they're Dunlop Volleys btw which is an Australian brand, although apparently now made in China which is a bit of a bummer. I like them because they are SO low tech, which is really what you want for lifting shoes. Also they're so inexpensive you can buy 3 pairs at a time! Usually I like the high top version but I had a little trouble finding those.

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Push Ups At FitX

Smashing out some push ups in the contest at FitX.

   

This was bloody hard work! I'm not used to trying to race the clock, at all.

Always nice to be told "that's the best form I have seen all day", as well! Actually I heard that at the bench press contest as well. Shame I did not get footage of that.

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Should personal trainers recommend supplements?

Since I've been doing supplement reviews all week this is an appropriate entry.

I like to use training supplements myself, and I've been reviewing the samples I've been trying out this week...  but they should only be recommended to clients under certain conditions.

Protein Supplements.

First up, remember what the word "supplement" means. If you want results, you need the right training plan and the right nutrition plan. A protein supplement is a tool you can use to help hit your calorie and macronutrition targets a little easier, but it is really only useful under those circumstances. I've known some seriously overweight dudes who thought adding a protein shake would give them a muscular physique, when in actual fact all it would be doing is putting them further into calorific surplus, aka making them more fat.

Similarly a lot of women are told that adding a protein supplement will make them lose weight or body fat. That's not exactly true either. You achieve these goals through appropriate macronutrition (as well as training, of course), and supplementing can be a great way to ensure that you arrive at the desired balance of macronutrients. Just taking it outside of an appropriate nutrition plan is pointless though, in my opinion.

So, there's your best example. Pushing a protein supplement in the same way as any other "magical solution" is misleading and unethical. Recommending it as an option that may assist in meeting a client's macronutritional requirements would be completely fine though.

There's a post on the No Bullshit blog about how they market Protein Supplements For Women's Weightloss that expands further on what I've said here.

Fat Burning Supplements

These ones... geez I don't know man. If they come from a company that I consider reputable, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. But it is a lot like I would tell people when I was running the supplement store at the old gym; at best they're going to give you that extra 1 or 2% of results IF your training and nutrition plan is SPOT ON. If you're not even following a nutrition plan at all, how incredible would it have to be to make up for that? Unlike most people trying to sell these products as if taking them means you don't have to pay attention to your nutrition, I'd put the signs up in the gym to create the opportunity to talk to people about getting on to a decent IIFYM plan for better results.

Branch Chain Amino Acids, Creatine etc

I like to sip on some BCAAs in water to keep my energy levels up during the latter 2/3s of my workouts. BCAAs are something you need for good health, and you get them from food if you have a balanced diet. A lot like taking a multivitamin supplement, at best your body is going to be able to use the extra nutrients, at worst you're going to piss it out and you've spent a few bucks for nothing. BCAAs are relatively inexpensive though, and recently there have been studies showing that their use is beneficial in treating children with autism, ADHD and behavioural problems. It seems to me that these are a pretty safe and perhaps logical supplement to recommend.

Pre-workouts, stimulants etc.

Stimulants are where I draw the line as far as stuff that I think is ok to recommend to people. That is to say, I use pre-workout supplements with stimulants myself... and they get me fired up and ready to do a good hard training session. Telling other people they NEED or SHOULD be taking these things though... it's a bit of a stretch. Of course, some of the pre-workout supplements are stim free, which probably puts them more in line with my thoughts on BCAAs above... which come to think of it, that's probably what they consist of anyway.

It's a bit of a strange thing that even I don't feel that recommending pre training stimulants is appropriate, but we do have energy drinks for sale in every convenience store. Then again, these supplements would be like chugging several of those energy drinks at once.

These ones I put in a category of "make up your own mind, just because I use them doesn't necessarily mean that you should".

Glucosamine.

Glucosamine is often recommended to keep joints healthy and help in managing arthritis. My friend Cat Smiley has done her own Research On Glucosamine and written it up on her blog.

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Thursday Supplement Roadtest

Here's today's stash.

I went with the Amino Energy again, this time before training. About 15 minutes later, I laced up my Dunlop Volleys and thought to myself "yeah, this is some good stuff! Let's GO DO IT".

I was nicely energised and raring to go. Once in the gym I felt very strong and was pushing pretty close to my best numbers in the POWER section of my routine... which was barbell incline press today.

I actually screwed up a little here and did 4 sets of standing cable flies when I should have moved straight on to side lateral raises. Sometime in the middle of all this I started sipping on my trusty green water bottle with the Build HD supplement mixed in. I moved on to the legs section of today's routine which was PUMP sets of hack squat and leg extension. I suck pretty badly at hack squat but I was pleased with the amount of reps I got out with a decent amount of weight on leg extension.

Back to upper body and since I'd already done cable flies earlier I decided to jump back on the pec dec machine and I did a few sets of ... sevens? or 21s? as a bit of a re-warm up / prefatigue before I moved on to some pump sets on the Hammerstrength flat bench press.

Finally I finished off with a massive pump / drop set on tricep push down.

Throughout the session I felt like I had a great pump going on, plenty of energy, and I did a LOT of stuff today, more than I'm supposed to. The change in weather certainly helped a lot but some credit has to go to the supplements for maintaining energy and focus for so long.

Once I got home it was the Horley's protein. I've had Horley's before and they make a damn fine chocolate shake.

That's all for today!

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