Tag: protein

discipline, exercise, habits, motivation, nutrition, sleep, stress

How to naturally increase your dopamine levels.

Our hormones have a big impact on our emotional state, causing both good and bad mood patterns.

Regulating your hormones significantly improves and balances your emotional health.

There are a lot of things that you are doing throughout the day that have an affect on your hormones. Without you even realising.

Dopamine is a hormone that has a massive effect on us. It’s the chemical messenger in your brain that creates feelings of pleasure and reward. Which motivates you to repeat a specific behaviour.

And modern day temptations are very effective at giving us cheap dopamine hits. They are designed to elicit this ‘feel good’ sensation. It’s at the crux of their design and marketing.

Junk food, Porn, Social media, Booze, Nicotine. All elicit these cheap dopamine hits. And these temporary feel goods are very effective.

They target your weakness and keep you coming back for more.

Alcohol for confidence.

Nicotine anxiety.

Social media for boredom.

Junk food for lethargy.

Porn for arousal.

These acute ‘feel goods’ are so common yet so dangerous. Because use of these cheap dopamine hits results in;

Excessive binge eating,

Poor relationships,

Chronic stress,

High blood pressure,

and poor health.

These cheap dopamine hits are killing you!

And without without discipline, it can be very hard to turn down these temptations because they are so effective and immediate. They offer instant gratification to a problem.

And when you start to depend on them, it’s harder to rid yourself of them.

So rather than going cold turkey – which is incredibly hard. Replace them with natural things that you natural dopamine hits.

Swapping them, so your brain doesn’t really notice.

Imagine yourself as Indiana Jones, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in the tomb swapping that Golden Idol for a bag of sand.

(but much easier and without the tomb kicking off and trying to kill you).

Here are some easy ways to do that!

Eat a high protein diet.

Proteins are made up of smaller building blocks called amino acids. One amino acid, called tyrosine, plays a critical role in the production of dopamine!

Probiotics

The gut and brain are closely linked. Certain species of bacteria that live in your gut are also capable of producing dopamine.

Exercise

Exercise can boost dopamine levels in the brain. Improvements in mood can be seen after as little as 10 minutes of activity but tend to be highest after at least 20 minutes.

Quality sleep

After poor sleep the availability of dopamine receptors in their brains is dramatically reduced by the next morning.

Getting regular, high quality sleep helps keep your dopamine levels balanced. And help you feel more alert and high functioning during the day

Music

Listening to music is an enjoyable way to stimulate dopamine release in your brain.

Listening to music increases activity in the reward and pleasure areas of the brain, rich with dopamine receptors.

Sunlight

Periods of low sunshine exposure can lead to reduced levels of mood-boosting neurotransmitters. Including dopamine. Sunlight exposure can increase them.

Start swapping the unnatural for the natural and I promise you’ll start to feel better.

nutrition

Addition not subtraction!

When it comes to improving our diets so many people go along with the popular trend of cutting things out.

In this hysteria of subtraction, we focus on the wrong thing. When we extract/take out, the problem is exacerbated.

We create restriction. Fear around food. And a very poor relationship with it.

‘is this bad for me?’

‘that’s not healthy’

‘that’s full of chemicals’

‘processed food is terrible for you’

We fail to see the woods for the trees! The bigger problem. In fact the biggest problem with how our diet effects our health.

Nutrient deficiency!

“Having ‘bad food’ in your diet isn’t the problem. Lack of nutrient dense food is!”

We become so obsessed with avoiding ‘the bad’ (not that there is any). We forget to include the ‘good’. The foods that make up these nutrient deficiencies!

Your diet is unique. But typically you could improve it by adding more foods that are:

*Protein dense.

*Minimally-processed “whole foods” (such as fruits and vegetables).

So I implore you. Stop cutting out! Start adding in!

nutrition, stress, weight loss

Emotional Eating

When I first started working with C, his relationship with food was poor to say the least it. When addressing his diet. He told me he kept a stash of chocolate bars in a box in the cupboard.


We established that after a stressful day at work he would find himself going to the box of chocolate. He wasn’t hungry he just recalled that he would be stressed when he would do this. And the chocolate made him feel better, temporarily. Like dragging on a cigarette or getting inebriated does. His chocolate box was a kind of a ‘break in case of emergency’ box.


He wasn’t aware he was doing this until I asked the questions. And unbeknown to him every time he did this he was forming a habit. Get stressed > eat food to feel better (momentarily) and repeat!


Unfortunately after doing so he would experience guilt from eating so much. The stress would be replaced by guilt from lack of self control and he felt gluttonous.
Now, multiply that habit by a few years and it was no wonder his health and fitness was deteriorating.

Plus the other things he was experiencing as a result. Especially at work and presenting. He hated it as he felt uncomfortable talking in front of his peers and work colleagues.


He told me of how he got someone else from his team to present the project he had managed. And as a result he felt someone else was taking the credit for his work.


But he felt trapped from low self-confidence and uncomfortableness when standing in front of people, worried about people looking at him.


This issue had developed over time from the result of his emotional eating.
Emotional eating is a very big problem in society. What makes it particularly dangerous is not only does it work, as an effective acute stress reliever. (Because when you eat fun food, your brain releases dopamine. A neurotransmitter associated with pleasure). But it’s not obvious, compared to other stress coping mechanisms like alcohol or smoking.


Because it’s food! And food is good, we need food. The problem is the reason behind eating. You’re not eating because you’re hungry but because you’re stressed.
So when he and I began working together on the The Limitless Lifestyle Blueprint.

The first step was to create awareness. Listening and identifying the issue and making him aware of what he was doing. A lightbulb moment for him as he realised that he had been using this stress coping mechanism for so long. And it was the cause of his poor state of health.

Then I put in place a plan of action to get him fit and healthy. First was addressing the stress issue. So I put in place tools to alleviate/omit the stressors that were causing the problem. Then we introduced coping mechanisms that would be beneficial to his health. Rather than detrimental.


With other small changes to his lifestyle. This change has permeated through his personal and professional life. He now enjoys presenting his projects thanks to his new confidence and energy.

nutrition, weight loss

The best diet for weight loss

Telling yourself carbs is the reason you’re overweight,
is akin to blaming your council tax instalment for going overdrawn!


The reality is that it’s the total calorie intake that is cause of being overweight. Consuming more calories required for the amount your burn. Through movement and body function (metabolism). And yet so many people think that carbs are to blame.


It’s like cutting any macronutrient or food group from your diet. All you are doing by omitting a macronutrient (protein, fat, carbs) from your diet is cutting hundreds/thousands of calories from your diet.


In doing so you have achieved a calorie deficit! That’s all.


The biggest impact in weight loss (not fat loss) is when people take the carb cutting option i.e. keto/carnivore. This is because for every gram of carbohydrate you store (glycogen in your liver and muscles) with it you hold onto approximately 2.3 grams of water. So you have lost that water weight too along with the drop in body fat from creating a calorie deficit.


Not all that weight lost is from body fat! Which is not the optimal way to lose weight!

Your ideal weight loss would see you lose the majority if not all the weight from body fat. And keep the muscle, glycogen and water.


So what’s the best diet for weight loss you ask?!


Well, I want you to put exercise aside and tackle weight loss from adjusting your diet. Keep your regular exercise going (it would be prudent to do some weight/resistance training as part of it).


When setting up your diet for weight loss (fat loss) your diet needs to start off with a daily or weekly energy target. Download my free guide to work out the target relevant to you.


Then inside that calorie target you want to have a certain amount of calories assigned to protein. This is going to be a high proportion of those calories for several reasons. The most important ones being that high protein diets will aid muscle retention during weight loss. And also you’ll see a reduction in hunger (again very helpful when dieting).


Download my FREE guide to work out how much protein you need during weight loss.


The remaining calories are going to come from carbohydrates and fats. These proportions are going to be personal preference. Although I would try and encourage you to have a higher amount of calories from carbs, which will guard against muscle breakdown, than fats.


The end result will be far better as you will have achieved body recomposition. From reducing your body fat levels and retaining possibly slightly increasing your muscle mass.


There you have it, the optimal way to diet for weight loss. And you get to eat donuts and cake in the process! Which will play a big part in the psychology of dieting as you won’t feel restriction or guilt for breaking erroneous ‘diet rules’.

nutrition

A beautiful mess

As I scan the health and fitness horizon I see that from certain perspectives nutrition is an absolute mess.


Lots of competing theories. One source seems to suggest one thing. The very next day they seem to say the opposite. People interested in health, fitness and wellness are stuck in limbo. Confused.


Another point of view could be, that “mess” demonstrates the beauty of science. Putting all these ideas; good and bad into the ring and letting them fight it out.


This takes place over hundreds of years. And using a particular method to determine the winners. And that’s why nutrition science is so confusing at times. We haven’t yet had the hundreds of years for the best ones to emerge.


Fats, carbs, and protein weren’t even discovered until the 1800s. It’s only in the last 20 years that we’ve begun studying new problems, such as what’s healthy.

In a world full of tasty processed food and very little movement. All scientific disciplines begin with confusion, dead ends, frustration, and silliness.

But what’s young is going to mature. Nutrition science will grow up. Not as fast as we’d like. Yet over time, the scientific method will cut and prune and do its work. Meanwhile, here are some reasons why nutrition science can be so confusing at times. And why (sometimes) the media screws up reporting it.

1. It takes time to master a science – compared to Chemistry, nutrition is in its infancy.

2. Most funding goes to disease prevention, not preventative nutrition. Most researchers would ask ‘how can we prevent this epidemic’ over ‘how can we get abs’.

3. Where funding comes from can affect what studies find. Corporate pressures can influence study design so the results favour what the company want to show!

4. Most nutrition studies are observational. Remember; correlation isn’t causation! Does red meat cause heart disease and cancer?! Or do people with these chronic diseases happen to eat more red meat?!

5. If doing the research is tough, reporting it is going to be even harder! Journalists aren’t usually trained research scientists, which means that they often:

  • misunderstand study conclusions
  • over exaggerate single study findings (intentional or not)

Single studies are interesting but often not important. They only usually provide one piece of a big puzzle that may take hundreds of years to complete! So when you are perusing through the broadsheets. Take an article that’s based on the findings of a single study with a pinch of salt (which is healthy, for now lol).

weight loss

Health and wellbeing talk


Through the sea of raised hands, I could see the food. 

It looked amazing, pigs in blankets, goujons, samosas. All beautifully presented by the waiting staff on silver platters.


I was salivating and I could hear my stomach grumbling. I kept having to swallow before answering a question. And make sure the mic wasn’t picking up my grumbling tummy.


The food had been sat there for some time, it felt like hours. It had to be cold. But that wasn’t going to stop me. As soon as the Q& A session was over I had visions of swan diving into the middle of the banquet.


I couldn’t be the only one who was ready to eat and yet still the questions kept coming;


‘You know the slide where you had the person’s metabolic rate…’


‘What is the most effective way I could calculate…’


‘Which means of tracking do you use…’


‘You know the machines in Boots the pharmacy…’


‘My Fitbit says that I…’


And then it was over. The last question was answered. Yes, food time.


But I had celebrated early I could see a queue forming. People who wanted to ask me a question that they didn’t feel comfortable asking in front of the group.


I get it, they might feel that they are asking a silly question. And don’t want to look silly in from of their work colleagues.


Or it was something personal that they didn’t want to share with the rest of the company.


All manner of weird and wonderful questions I fielded. The hunger sensation was suppressed. I was full of the feeling of satisfaction you get when you help someone to understand something.


The last person in the queue was the company director. “Andrew that was fantastic.” He said with a big smile.


“You kept 50 hungry people so engaged that they didn’t even notice the food come out”.


“You must be hungry yourself, go and grab yourself some food and meet me at the bar”


‘Finally, some food’, said the voice in my head in a Gordon Ramsey accent.


Or so I thought. I stood there overlooking the spread in disbelief. The staff members had ripped through the buffet like locus through a crop field. 


Good job the hunger (Ghrelin wave) had passed. So I headed over to the bar to meet up with the Company Director. 


“Andrew” The Director greeted me. “Let me introduce you to Phil. Phil runs a finance company”.


“That was great, how do I get you to come and deliver that seminar to my staff they would love that”. Phil said.


And that is how it started! That is how I ended up on the circuit (so to speak). A favour for a friend that turned into an opportunity to talk to businesses all over.


And Jesus have I missed it. Webinars have been nice and all but it’s not the same as going into offices and meeting people. Having that connection in a live face-to-face setting.


And I’m excited about this semblance of normality returning. Now that people are going back to the workplace.


Email me for more info on a Health and Well-being talks from yours truly.

weight loss

100kg done!

Well, that’s it. 100 kg done!

‘What are you talking about Andrew?’ You ask.

Over the last 7 years, I have been carrying out some due diligence. Self-experimentation in the form of weight loss and weight gain. Evidence-based practices that I have refined over the years. And this weekend saw me hit 100kg weight loss total.

To give you some specificity, I’ve lost between 10kg and 22kg each year for the last 7. Which has reached a combined total of 100kg.

Why?

Well, I do it to show people how to transform their bodies sensibly. How to lose fat properly. How to actually gain muscle.

Because as you know it’s a minefield out there. A minefield filled with charlatans and zealots preaching their diet and exercise religions.

‘Thou shall not eat carbs’

‘I command you to do fasted cardio’

‘Burn in hell for all eternity when you eat meat’

Diatribe. These people love to create some sensationalism, a new fad to hoodwink people.

I would rather show people and prove that there is a sensible way of going about it. Demonstrating what I do with my diet to lose fat and what exercise I do to gain muscle to be fitter.

I suppose I wanted to back up what I was preaching. Which I don’t see anyone else doing. I see many people talk a great game but no action. They’ll get on their soapbox, but they new back it up with any action. Probably because they know what they are pushing is ridiculous and they would last 5 mins.

I wanted to prove what I was preaching works. And that my blueprint will work for anyone. So here’s a brief synopsis of what I did during my weight loss phases.

Diet
A moderate energy deficit. Going too aggressive in the first years left me very hungry and prone to muscle loss which is bad. So for the last years, I aimed for a 15% deficit.

A weekly target for my calories. This was far more flexible than a daily target. It meant that I could bank some calories for the weekend when my intake would be higher.

I assigned a certain amount of my calorie budget to protein. And kept my daily protein intake high. Most of my meals were focused on protein. This did wonder for my hunger (protein reduces your ghrelin/hunger hormone). And helped with preserving muscle mass.

Exercise
The only cardio I did was walking. This mitigated high hunger periods (common post cardio training).

I found a frequency of workout sessions that worked for me (5). And the focus of those sessions remained the same during weight loss and weight gain periods. Do a little more each week. (This was easier during weight gain phases)

Sleep
This was a tough one because toddlers don’t care about your sleep regime. Yet I would always set myself up for 7 hours of sleep (actual sleep not being in bed). On the days where sleep was poor, hunger was elevated. Food reward heightened and satiety lowered. So I was always aiming for those 7 hours and riding out the storm on days where I didn’t get it.

Tracking
I tracked my energy intake during all 7 years of experimentation/weight change. This was a means to an end. When at a point where I want to maintain my weight. I would track my intake for a week or so then put down the tracker. But during times of change, I had to track. Even as an experienced dieter I would be way out without tracking. And the thought of calculating and storing up a running total every day. Seems exhausting and very inaccurate.

And there you have it. My best tips for dieting. By implementing those things you’ll look and feel better at the end of it.

If you want my blueprint which shows you the specifics you can grab a copy here

weight loss

It’s just data!

After delivering my last health and wellbeing seminar for a company I received a question from one of their members of staff.

Actually, it was more of a concern about the concept of tracking calories (something I touched on in the seminar).

First of all the reason, I advocate that you track calories is to educate yourself.

The person who was concerned said that counting calories can cause eating disorders, create bad habits and be bad for mental health.

People that state this are counting calories for the wrong reasons. You should count calories to educate yourself on what you are eating and how much you are eating.

It is not a permanent thing rather a means to an end.

It is even more important that you track your calories when you start your health and fitness journey. Because a lot of people don’t actually realize how much and what they eat.

How are you supposed to realize where you are going wrong if you don’t collect data?

We collect data to improve, learn, understand and execute a plan of action.

This is why you count calories!

After a period of time, you’ll have an awareness of calories. And you’ll be able to eyeball a meal and know how many calories are in it. You’ll be able to pick up a snack and know how many grams of protein are in it.

And that’s why you count calories.

Counting calories doesn’t create an eating disorder, rather it reveals the disorder.

It’s just data, don’t allow feelings to distract you from what you can achieve.

Uncategorized

Maximising muscle growth rate with diet

At long last and now restrictions have been lifted and you are excited that you have your holiday booked.

Although the thought has dawned on you. That you will be spending a significant amount of time in minimal clothing.


Lockdown living has been unkind to your waistline and there is only several months before you are poolside. Not enamoured with your current physique. you might be feeling uncomfortable with the thought of being poolside.


So with gyms reopening it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get cracking on getting in shape. You have your training program and you have your diet plan in place. [from The Gentleman’s guide to getting in shape). You’re looking forward to feeling ‘beach ready’ when you leave for all-inclusive bliss.


You want to make sure that whilst you are losing body fat and getting trim you are preserving/building muscle in the process. Training is key and making sure you have enough protein – that’s very important too!


Read my previous blog ‘How much protein do I need?‘ for help with understanding how much you need.


You could also maximize our muscle growth through nutrient timing! You know your daily protein target now it’s time to look at spreading that out over the course of the day. Your daily protein target spread over 4 servings is going to be very helpful. To keep you in a net anabolic [muscle building] state.


Refractory period, leucine threshold, MPS, EAAs blah blah, it’s not that important. Know that 4 servings are going to be optimal in novice trainees and 3 is fine for beginners.

Then we want to time our carbohydrates [both simple & complex carbs]. To ensure we are getting the most out of and recovering from our sessions.

After we have all that in place we are looking at introducing performance supplements. Pre-workout, post-workout, and some at various frequencies over the day!


So let’s have a look at what a good day looks like…

If you are looking to get in great shape book in for a FREE consultation call where we can discuss your training and nutrition

Uncategorized

How much protein do I need?

Ever thought to yourself ‘how much protein do I need?

And the answer is…

…it depends

Let’s go through it. The first thing we need to find out is how much lean mass we have; muscle, ligaments, organs, bones, etc. We need only take into account lean mass as these are the structures that need protein, body fat does not.

How do you work out how much lean mass you have? First, you would need to know your body fat percentage. There are a few ways to find this out. One option is skinfold testing, for which, you would need a qualified professional.

Then there is bioelectrical impedance. Machines that passes a small amount of electrical current through your body,

The latter is the least accurate.

From one of these, you will derive your body fat percentage. Again one will be more accurate than the other but it’s a good starting point.

Knowing your body fat percentage we move onto the next part of the puzzle. Subtract your body fat percentage from 100 to get your lean mass percentage.

Here is an example:

100 – 25 percent body fat = 75 percent lean mass.

Divide your lean mass percent by 100 to calculate the decimal for your lean mass percent. Here is an example: 100 / 75 – .75

Multiply your lean mass decimal by your total body weight to calculate your lean mass weight. If you weigh 175 lbs, multiply 175 by .75 for 131.25 lbs. of lean mass.

And there you have your lean mass.

So how much protein do you need for that lean mass? Before we answer that we must ask ourselves what is the goal?!

Are you focusing on fat loss or building muscle and size? I ask because we need different protein amounts in each phase.

Here is where most people get it wrong; when in a fat loss phase you actually need more protein per lb/kg of lean mass! And when in a building size/muscle phase, less.

The reason being as you get leaner and leaner during fat loss muscle breakdown is an issue. So we want to guard against it! More protein will help not only keep and repair muscle but aid hunger reduction. A bonus when dieting for weight loss.

When we are building size and in a calorie surplus there will be more insulin in our system. Which is the anti-muscle breakdown hormone. And we get to have more calories coming from carbs and fats. Which are our energy macronutrients!

This is good because we are more fuelled for our workouts and are in a position to achieve more weight lifted. [More weight/volume equates to getting stronger and ergo more muscle].

In a fat loss phase, you are looking for around 2.5g of protein per kg of lean mass.

In a weight gain phase, you are looking for 1.6g of protein per kg of lean body mass.

Then to optimize muscle growth, you would want to split this total protein intake over the day. 4 equal servings being optimal 3/5 absolutely fine.