​How to calculate your own calories
 
This blog post will be quite unusual and if there is anything you want to know or need my explanation on please write a question the comments box below.

So, first thing you need to do is work out how many calories you need everyday to maintain your life the calculation for this is;
 
Adults male: 66 + (6.3 x body weight in Lbs) + (12.9 x heights in inches) -(6.8 x age in years) = BMR

Adult Female 655 + (4.3 x weight in Lbs) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 age in years) = BMR
 
So that roughly calculates what you need to keep you alive, then from that number you can work out your maintenance calories
 
If you are;

• very sedentary (little or No exercise): BMR x 1.2
• Lightly active (light exercise/sport 1-3 days) BMR x 1.375
• Moderate activity (moderate exercise 3/5 days) BMR x 1.55
• Very active (hard exercise 6/7 days) BMR x 1.725
• Extremely active (very hard exercise & physical job or 2 a day training) BMR x 1.9

 
Once you work this out you need to know how much weight you want to lose if you want 10kgs, you need to know the Lbs version for 10 its 22 Lbs. (1kg x 2.2lbs)

There are roughly 3500 calories in one pound of fat, so then it’s 22 x 3500 = 77,000

Your holiday is in 15 weeks – it’s then 77,000 / 15 = 5,133
5,133 / 7(days) = 733 that’s a 733-calorie deficit per day which is seems like quite a lot however,
 
That’s 1.46 Lbs loss a week (5133 / 3500 = 1.46) which is a pretty decent rate of weight loss.
 
From there you need to work out your protein per days which is your body weight in Kg x 1.8-2.2 if you're try to lose weight I prefer the higher end, so 2.2g per kg.
 
So, for example 70kg x 2.2 = 154g per day of protein which is (154 x 4(calories per gram) = 616 calories per day of protein
 
Now you have your daily calories, you know how many of them are taken from protein it’s now completely up to you where your other calories come from, whether it’s high fat/low carb, low fat high carb, moderate fat/moderate carb whatever mix, make sure it makes you feel good, in a calorie deficit there is only so good you can feel and also you can stick to it through the duration of your diet.
 
Once you have all this information you need to implement it, you need to work out where to gets those calories from and build your own plan, it can change week to week but if you know what to eat and have a proper plan, that you have created, you’re less likely to buy random things in the store.

Do you want the results enough?

As part of the job I get to speak to a lot of people who all want the same goal – weight loss, however everyone is in a different place mentally, some just after a breakup, some are dangerously obese and are at risk from heart failure and other serious health issues, some in a new relationship and want to look good for their partner, holiday coming up etc, whatever the reason the desperation and desire to change are all at different levels.

One thing I want to make extremely clear is this; YOU ARE WORTH IT, you aren’t too ugly, you aren’t too horrible, too fat,, you are good enough to change, to become better no matter who says you can’t, won’t, aren’t good enough, You are! If they’re telling you you aren’t, get them out your life.

Some people will let themselves get to the point where they have gone way too far mentally, so much so they are depressed with how they look, they have no confidence but desperate to change, I could tell them anything, like for example, they have to become a ‘breatharian’ for 4 weeks and they would think it’s a good idea, for context a ‘breatharian’ is someone that doesn’t eat or drink for days even weeks, they claim they get all their nutrients from the air they breathe, it’s absolute insane, the most ridiculous diet ever, some just say they want to lose weight but mentally they just don’t care if they do or not, you need to find out if you do actually care or not.

If you are happy with the way you look, then that’s fantastic! Don’t ever lose that self confidence.

The thing with this is why let yourself get to the point where becoming a Breatharian seems like a good idea, why get to the point where you’re so desperate and depressed about the way you look and feel you’ll do anything to change?

Before you start your journey you need to consider where you’re at now? Where you want to be? Is it realistic? And is it realistic in the time you want?
Need to find your why, your reason to change and push yourself, the reason why sacrificing a tub of ice cream on a Sunday doesn’t affect you, mental well-being.

What are you willing to sacrifice to reach your goals, yeah you don’t have to cut out all chocolate, wine, ice cream, cheese and your other favourites but you have to sacrifice some of it, to reach any goal there HAS to be sacrifice, so be realistic with yourself, how much are you willing to give up to reach your goals?

In the last stages of your diet where the weight just doesn’t seem to come off what are you to do to get your results? You might have to rip up your old method and try a new method to keep you in a deficit.

If you want a bigger bum or quicker weight loss are you willing to do the extra session on the gym? Or extra walking etc.

There will be times where motivation drops and it’s important you keep your goals in mind, keep your reason why, pick something to aim towards like a photo shoot with your family, a holiday.

So if you want to make sure you reach your goals, get a coach and make sure they keep you accountable.

Why compound lifts are important for weight loss.

As with all my blogs we will start with explaining with compound lifts are – compound lifts are exercises that require more than one joint movement an example of this is Squats, deadlifts, these require your hip joint and knee joints to move.

The opposite to these are isolation exercises, they require only 1 joint, these are things like bicep curls and leg extensions.

As compound exercises need more joints and thus more muscle you use more energy to do the movement than an isolation exercise, because you use more muscle energy stores you then need more energy to recover and repair the muscle. If you’re in a Calorie deficit then some of that energy will come from your fat stores being broken down.

This means if you’re 200 calories under your maintenance per day, with training compound exercises for an hour you might end up 500-600 calories under maintenance on training day.

Another plus to this is because your using more muscles, the lactic acid build up(burn) shouldn’t be as great and DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) won’t be as great, meaning your day-to-day activity should go unhindered, which then means through NEAT (Non activity exercise thermogenesis- the amount of energy you use go through your day, walking, carrying things etc that isn’t planned exercise) you can still burn the same/slightly less than if you weren’t dieting.

As you can tell there is a quite large snowball effect of these: so to make it as clear as I can;
- Compound movements won’t or very little give muscle soreness
- Day-to-day movement shouldn’t be effected
- Recovery needs more energy as more muscles were used
- Compound movements will put you in a larger deficit than isolation exercise meaning you get more bang for your buck

So if your trying to lose weight – full body sessions with loads of compound movements, stop doing body weight Glute kick backs, they are just making your bum hurt and not helping you achieve your weight goal any quicker. Squat, Glute bridge, deadlift.

Below will be 2 pictures of my client's current results, one measuring her body weight the other doing circumferences, 

From the pictures you'll see her body circumferences staying pretty similar apart from the waist but you'll see her body weight drop by 3kg!

Now the drop isn't a straight line, it goes up and down slight and up and down drastically, it stays the same, and its only been 7 weeks, imagine how that would now look over a 3-6 month period.

The reason it goes up and down is because of periods, salt, a wedding, a birthday, carb quantities, stress, sleep quality, movement restrictions all these things, but the trend and you get the sense it's always going down.

So when you step on the scales and it's gone up think about the possible reasons above? have you had a stressful few days? have you slept well? what is it? if everything's the same then that's the reason why you you do take measurements of you arms, thighs, waist and hips so you can see, if you have lost size on those places? don't worry if 1 week nothing changes, if the 2nd week nothing changes again, then think what SMALL adjustment you can make? are you drinking enough water? can you take out 1 pack of crisps? don't go and change everything, just 1 small change. 

Some weight loss results for women might stall for up to 4 weeks, so don't panic.

Just measure what you can and if results stop then maybe it's time to ask for help, if you have a PT and haven't seen any changes in a month or 2 then it's time to speak to your PT or get a new one who will get results!

I saw an Instagram post the other day and remembered a blog post I wrote but never published,

I’ll talk about the instagram story first and then you can read an inspirational story about a lady I met during my time at a different gym,

So the Instagram post said something along the line of ‘there are 2 types of people when it come to the coach saying ‘10 seconds left’
There are those that hear that and start to slow down, already ended in there mind they want to give up and looking for an early rest’

Or people who hear that and think ‘10 seconds - I need to finish strong and power through, give the last 10 everything I have and keep pushing until the final whistle’

From a young age I have fortunately had the mindset of ‘last 100m - SPRINT’ my earliest memory of this is being forced to do the 1500m run for sports day in which I came 2nd or 3rd from last however in the last 100m of that I gave everything not to finish last in which I over took 2 or 3 people and because of that final sprint every year I was given the 1500m.

I hate that event so I never practised I always came almost last or last.

After speaking to a lady who has had pneumonia I felt like it’s important that you guys here what she had to say about getting back into the gym.

She was cured of pneumonia by October/November time but came up with excuses as to why she now couldn’t get back to doing something in the gym, for 2 months she came up with excuses to herself.

Then once New Years hit, she stopped lying to herself and got back into the gym, she knew she wouldn’t be able to do what she used to so she said she’ll just do the classes, the 30 minute circuit ones.

She came to one I was covering and I’m glad she did, my circuits are hard but you take them at your own pace, all I ask is that no matter how tired you are, you push that to the back of your mind and you just keep moving, even if it’s slowly, I don’t care, but you just can NOT stop.

I will count down and say 10 seconds left, only 2 more stations etc so people know and can say ‘come on myself only this left’ and she said that is the biggest thing that helped her through, that she just wasn’t allowed to stop, she had to move.

She has set 2 main goals this year, Sutton Fun run and a half marathon in October.
As long as she makes these small wins of not giving up when it gets hard, of her pushing her self through it then she will absolute smash those goals!

But the moral of the story is that no matter how shit you feel, no matter how tired, no matter how overwhelming you feel, the only way forward... is forward, so go forward with purpose and do not stop, never doubt yourself or you ability as long as you are doing something to better yourself you are winning!

I wish her all the best and I know she will get her goals.

This is a little sneak peak of a part of the carbohydrate e-book.

Effects on the body:
The only carbs you can absorb through the gut glucose, galactose and fructose. They are the only ones that hit a vein called the portal vein on the way to the liver, where those 3 are processed.
The others which are sucrose, lactose and galactose are broken down into their monosaccharides glucose and fructose, maltodextrin, starches are broken down into their single molecular glucose.
 
From the liver, glucose generally goes directly into the bloodstream as that’s the source most things use and prefer, fructose can either be converted into glucose where again it will be sent and stored as muscle glycogen, the body stores about 300-400 grams, however Carb loading and keto diets will increase or decrease this amount respectively, it could also be turned into liver glycogen (which is stored in the liver approx. 50-100 grams) or converted into lactate, please note that more than 50 grams of lactose can be converted into fatty acid however this is very unlikely unless you eat A LOT of fruit, and I don’t think anyone reading this is eating double maybe triple figures of apples and pears.
 
Basically this means that whatever carb you eat it will mostly get turned into glucose, fructose and galactose and even then it’s only glucose that makes it back out the liver and into the blood, this does not mean all your carbs can come from snickers and bounty’s - still eat a variety of fruit and veg to get more than enough vitamins and minerals, be smart with your food choices but does it mean you can be more free with your diet? bloody hell yes,  if you’re eating enough vitamins and minerals does that mean you can fit in some of the good stuff you love eating? yes, as long as you are still in a calorie deficit or at calorie maintenance you will still lose weight or stay at the same weight.
 
The only difference then between the different carbohydrate types is the speed they are digested and the added health bonuses of vitamins and minerals.
 
There are two other Digestive carbohydrates we will talk about oligosaccharides and polysaccharides, we will tackle Polysaccharides first.
 
Polysaccharides – Poly means ‘many’ and as we know saccharides means ‘sugar’ – this chain of carbohydrates is hundreds sometimes thousands of glucose molecules long, for us this almost always means starch - amylose (a straight chain of glucose) or amylopectin (a branched tree like
chain of glucose molecules).
 
Amylose starts digestion in the mouth and if you don’t believe me pop a piece of bread in your mouth and chew a tiny bit to start it breaking down just let it sit there, you will then start to taste a very sweet taste which is the Alpha-amylase breaking down the starch into free-glucose.
 
But I hear you cry, if glucose is stored in the muscle and animal meat is muscle then why doesn’t my juicy steaks have any carbs? then this is mother nature’s way of making sure the animal can decompose, so if you want glucose in your meat go and grab your sharpest knife, hunting gear and probably some Imodium, because the second you kill the animal, it's body will start to breakdown and will get rid of as much of the glucose as it can as quickly as it can.

If you want to know more then the link to sign up to get access to more ebooks, recipe packs etc then click below to find out more!

​Listening to the Joe Rogan podcast as usual, He was talking about having games on his phone and becoming ‘addicted’ to them and wasting time on them.
 
I have deleted the games on my phone.
 
The reason is because you never really realise how much time per day you waste on the games.
 
I hear it all the time! I just don’t have time to exercise, I don’t have time to meal prep, I don’t have time to go for a walk – yes you do! The only person that doesn’t have time, is single parents with kids of different age groups, if they are the same age group then you still have time because you can take them with you.
 
Stop watching crap TV like EastEnders, coronation street and the rest, people will watch terrible TV that doesn’t positively impact your life every single night, watching the odd show and having a binge is ok, but not every night and then complain you have no time.
 
I give my clients a weekly time tracker, so they can plan their weekly time, and when you plan your time weekly you realise just how much time you have to have to do everything.
 
If you want to lose weight make time to exercise, go for a walk, meal prep.
 
If you’re unhappy in your job, then do a course, do a blog, create YouTube videos about stuff you’re interested.
 
If you want the time tracker I can send it to you, just email me and I’ll be happy too.
 
Make sure you prioritise what you want, have a think and list stuff 1-5, make sure you spend at least 5 hours per week on number 1 and you will achieve it. It’s up to you, to make things happen, opportunities very rarely just happen unless you get lucky so work hard make them happen.
 
Work hard and you can achieve your goals, just stay focused, make time for what’s important to you.

Short blog this week but hopefully you enjoy! 

Comment with any questions and I’ll answer them the best I can!

Firstly, what do I mean by liquid calories?

Any calories that’s are in fizzy drinks, coffees, any liquid drink that has calories.
 
I think they should be minimised, what’s the point in wasting your daily/weekly limit on drinks?
 
If you have 3 teas a day that’s 198 ish calories per day but then you have a coke at lunch, and you have a special Caramel latte for lunch – this could very easily get to over 600 calories, from what?
 
You would have drunk all that and not feel any more hydrated, for 400 calories, you could have 2 large cookies and still have your tea.

When your dieting, especially if your dieting on lower calories ever calorie has to be used to maximize not only satiety but also your cravings for your favourite foods, its essential to a sustained deficit that you have something that you like in your diet, and if you’re wasting calories on a caramel latte, it’s just a stupid idea.

For some people by just cutting out or minimize liquid calories you can get into quite a large deficit, take the above for example, if someone has the 3 teas, 2 special coffees, and 3 cokes throughout the day that can reach over 1000 calories,

Now you can keep the teas as that would be habitual so stacking another habit on to the tea making process would be a good idea.

But swap the cokes for coke zero, diet coke, pepsi max etc so zero calorie versions of them, and completely cut the coffees or again swap them for lower calories options.

Eventually you want to try and minimize the fizzy drinks, just think about your teeth!

So, this week take a few days to log everything you drink, workout the calories, comment below with what you drink and the calories and lets try and workout what alternatives you could have.

I will write another blog about habit stacking next week, it’s an absolutely incredible tool for weight loss, muscle gain, health and general life success to be honest!

Overcoming emotional eating and having that ‘oh shit – I need to change moment’
 
Do you eat and then think, ‘fuck it I’m fat and ugly might as well just eat another cake’.
I hope not but you might do, it’s surprisingly common which is why 55% of the UK is obese, which is a very scary stat.
 
This ‘fuck it effect’ has been studied by psychologists, it’s a powerful effect and it becomes more powerful with low self esteem, low confidence and low self-worth, it’s a vicious downward cycle.
 
The chances are you know you do this, but you feel so terrible about yourself that you think ‘stuff it’, which is obviously very dangerous, especially in terms of weight gain or negative health activities, it can quite easily be that you end up putting on 20 kgs or more and not even really noticing – side Note : You’ll be very surprised that most overweight/obese clients I have had, just didn’t realise the extent of their size, they knew were carrying a bit more fat than before but just didn’t realise they were obese, it’s like the brain switches off the power to realise, and then when you do notice, guess what happens? ‘fuck it I’m fat now anyway so what’s the point in changing?’ and the vicious cycle gets a little bit more vicious and hurtful.
 
Once you get into this vicious cycle there is very little you can do until 2 things happen; One, you have that moment where you pull out that old dress you like, the old suit you would wear, you see yourself in an old photo, a shop window that you haven’t been in a while, you read a blog like this, something happens where your brain suddenly clicks and ‘wow I need to change’ comes to mind, without that moment it’s very difficult to find the necessity to change, I know several people who are/were obese and tried to force the diet, tried to start something and have fallen off it even harder and ended more overweight than before.
Two; Someone gets you help and you ACCEPT it – people really don’t like accepting help, it hurts their pride, it makes them feel like they’re doing something wrong, EVERYONE needs help, EVERYONE needs accountability, I don’t care who you are or what you do, you need a coach/mentor, every single person on this planet needs help from someone. It isn’t a bad thing help if you accept it, believe it or not is helpful!
 
That ‘I need to change’ moment can be subtle but once you feel it once you need to pounce then! If you say it to a friend/family member then they have to take responsibility and make you realise what you just said, get you to seek help, help you as much as possible, make them or you see the potential damage you are doing to your body, so you can get the professional help, if you can’t afford it, then support you with finding a sustainable, diet that doesn’t tell you to limit your Sins or doesn’t give food points and makes you feel guilty for eating something, something you enjoy and something that makes you feel better.
 
There has to be a level of bluntness to the conversation, you can’t beat around the bush and try to make it as cuddly and warm as possible, there has to be a level of ‘you’re obese, you need help, I will help you as much as possible, you just said you want to change so let’s do this, what can I do to help?’ whether that’s you saying it, your friend, family.
 
It isn’t nice to say or hear but you or they will hear and listen to it, what won’t help is if they/you say ‘I think you're slightly overweight, I love you the way you are I just want the best for you, why don’t you do something, your still beautiful to me’ – All your brain hears is ‘you love me, I’m beautiful, okay cool so I’m obese but I’m still loved and I still ‘belong’ so no need to change’
 
If you are going through this now, continue to speak to people, have open and free conversations about your journey, if anyone is negative about it then leave them behind, unfriend them, stay in contact with as many positive and supportive people as you can, DO NOT isolate yourself, no matter how crap you feel inside you need to keep and stay around people, they will honestly be the foundations for you to grow from.
 
You need to rediscover your food, stop doing yo yo or fad diets, stop looking for quick fixes and magic pills, you need to get in the gym, change 1 thing with your diet this week, that’s all just 1 thing. Then week 2 change something and week 3 change another, and keep going until your day-to-day diet is full of fruit and veg, high protein still has some foods you like so you don’t lose your mind and you are in a calorie deficit, that’s the most important thing.
 
Then you have to set yourself weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly and yearly goals, very specific with the reason why you want to achieve then, it has to the be something that means something to YOU, for example ‘I want to look good for the ‘Gram’ isn’t a goal,

‘I want to be able to walk down the beach when I go to Egypt in a year’s time in a bikini. I want to do and feel confident, sexy and strong’ - now that is a goal!
 
It is time specific, it has your emotions.
 
There will be a time when the ‘Fuck it effect’ will come and kick you in arse but you need to accept that that day was ‘bad’ the sun has got up the next day so do you, it’s a new day and that requires new effort, you make today better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today, and you just keep going.
 
One massive thing you can do is fail at something – go and find something you are terrible at! I’ve just started to try to learn the harmonica! I sound terrible, but I keep going, I learn new lifts, I fail I keep going and learning, embrace failing, look at why you failed and go again, and again and again, just keep learning and failing and once you succeed hold on to that feeling or pride, of confidence and use it to again make tomorrow better than today!!
 
I really hope this helps you or your friend, I know this is a paid blog but please if you think this would help someone, then please just ask and I’ll be more than happy to send it to them, just ask!

Also please comment, if you like this or you want to ask something, please drop a comment!
 
Have a great today and better tomorrow!
Dan