Seasonal Affective Disorder: What is it and what can you do about it?

So it’s nearly winter again. It’s dark when we get up (most of us), and dark when we get home.

Alongside the excitement of the holidays, the treats, and the get-togethers with family and friends, comes the cold, wet weather, the stress of the impending holiday and the expense that goes with it.

For anyone who just feels like hiding under the duvet until spring, there could be something else that’s affecting your mood other than stress.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) can affect many people. You may feel fine all through the summer months, but come November, you start to get the winter blues.

Whilst there may be other factors affecting your mood, don’t immediately rule out SAD as it is real, and can have a huge impact on your life. If you find that you struggle throughout the winter months, it could be affecting you too.

So what is it, and what can you do about it?

It’s a form of depression linked to the seasons. The exact cause is still uncertain, but it has been intricately linked to the lack of sunlight during the winter months. It can affect your hormone levels (predominantly melatonin and serotonin – which are involved in mood and sleep patterns) and your body clock to the point that you feel down, lethargic and like curling up in a ball and hiding.

You might feel sad and depressed, like you’re not getting enough sleep, and be struggling to get out of bed in the morning, and also feel tired during the day.

Energy levels may be low and concentration may be a struggle, and you may also crave high carbohydrate foods leading to weight gain over the holidays (compounded by the plethora of indulgent foods around us at this time of year).

On top of that, reading all of this may just push you over the edge!

But don’t panic! There is something you can do about it – and it’s actually simple stuff.

If you feel that you may be suffering from SAD (even mildly), or even if you’re not, it wouldn’t hurt to do some of the following during the winter months:

Try Light Therapy – Since the cause of this seems to be a lack of sunlight, for most people, simply getting out in the sunlight during the day (when it’s still light obviously) or buying a “light box” and placing it on your desk is often enough to counteract many of the symptoms and have you feeling better. Daylight is the best option, but a light box as mentioned, between 2,500 and 10,000 lux will also do the trick (don’t worry too much if you don’t know what that means, just look for those numbers when you search for light boxes). If you arrive at work in the dark, and leave work in the dark, the light box will likely be your best or only option. Just sitting indoors with your lights on won’t do the trick unfortunately.
As a side note, this would also be a useful tool, year-round, for those who work nights.

Get a good vitamin D supplement – Vitamin D, or “the sunshine vitamin” is produced naturally by your body in response to exposure to sunlight. Even just 20-30 minutes exposure will produce more than enough to get you through the day; but in the winter when we don’t get out in the sunlight too much or on gloomy days vitamin D levels drop causing the symptoms described previously. It is actually a hormone, not a vitamin, and like many hormones, is produced from cholesterol – so also be aware that following a low fat diet may also be affecting not just your vitamin D levels, but other hormones too – be sure to get plenty of healthy fats in your diet and skip the low-fat rubbish you see in the supermarkets!

Exercise – It’s a simple solution, but the “feel good” hormones released when you exercise doing something you enjoy can go a long way towards fighting depression and therefore SAD.
Train regularly for at least 30 minutes to keep your endorphin levels up and feel good. An added bonus to this is you’ll probably also feel good about yourself for keeping up with exercising through Christmas – you can give yourself a big high five for that!

Get a Dawn Simulator – One of my favourites! I’ve used one of these for years and it’s great! A dawn simulator is exactly as it sounds – an alarm clock that mimics the sunrise. 30 minutes or so before your alarm is set to wake you up, a dim light comes on. Over the next 30 minutes the light gets brighter and brighter (like a sunrise) until your alarm goes off and you wake up more naturally as your body has recognised the “morning sunrise”. Some SAD sufferers have great success with this, and for those who don’t suffer from SAD, it’s still a good way to wake up, rather than an abrupt alarm waking you up in a dark room and then shielding your eyes as you switch on the light.

You are not alone if you’re starting to feel a bit depressed as the light disappears for the winter. Try some of these options and especially keep exercising. Before you know it the days will start to lengthen again and we can look forward to spring and summer.

I hope this helps and please let me know if you have success with any of these recommendations J

Cardio or Weights for Fat Loss?

Are you wasting your time on the treadmill?

For the most part fat loss is about energy expenditure. Calories are units of energy, fat is made up of stored energy, ergo to burn fat you must use up energy.

I’m going to tell you how you can burn more energy, without spending precious extra time in the gym.

Your muscles are the engines of your fat burning. The harder they work, the more energy [calories] you’ll burn.

Whilst running on a treadmill/outside, cycling, or jumping on the cross-trainer for 40 minutes will burn energy and improve your aerobic fitness, it’s not going to work your muscles particularly hard, especially after a few weeks of doing it when your body becomes accustomed to the workout and more efficient at it (more efficient = less calories burned).

For the most part, the sheer amount of time people spend running is what produces any fat loss results, but also normally comes with a loss of muscle too (picture a typical long-distance runner – not the most muscular people).

If your goal is fat loss, without the accompanying loss of muscle and strength (remember you want to keep hold of your muscle to burn more calories, and I see no reason why anyone would want to get weaker!) then resistance training is your best choice.

Already I can hear the usual response (normally from women): “But I don’t want to get muscly”

You won’t.

Let me explain.

To burn fat, you need to be burning more calories than you consume – should be quite obvious.

To build muscle, you need to be consuming more calories than you burn (you can’t build muscle without adequate fuel – it would be like trying to build a wall without any bricks).

So while there are some slight differences between training protocols, training for fat loss and training for muscle gain are very similar. The difference comes from your nutrition.

By lifting weights (resistance training) you will be burning more of the fuel in your muscles. This fuel then needs replacing, which will come from your food, or if you’re burning more than you’re eating, from your energy (fat) stores.

Enter the next problem: Gyms full of machines.

Machines made to target specific muscles are great for rehabbing an injury or for targeting problem areas for body-building, but for the weight-loss community, they’re using too few muscles to burn any significant amount of energy; and if you spend your hour in the gym going from one machine to the next with your “3 sets of 10” programme, you’re missing out on A LOT of calorie burning.

There’s a reason that squats, deadlifts, lunges, burpees etc. are hated world-wide – because they’re hard work! Hard work means they’re using most of your muscles at the same time, draining your energy (burning it) and getting you out of breath (muscles need oxygen to burn fuel – so the more out of breath from lifting weights you are, the more energy you’re likely burning [as a side note – this also counts as “cardio”]).

THIS is how you should be allocating your gym time. Focussing on large movements with resistance.

Remember, if you’re eating less calories than you burn, you won’t be able to build lots of muscle! For women, you also don’t have the right hormones to build muscle easily, especially without eating enough.

Some people will notice an ‘apparent’ increase in muscle size to begin with. If you’re not used to lifting weights, your muscles will draw in more fluid (water/blood) in order to repair, and they’ll also become more efficient at storing energy (which is a good thing because it’s easier to burn it from here, and it means less will be stored as fat if more can be stored in the muscle).

This is not your muscles growing, just becoming more efficient; and it will not continue unless you are over-eating – don’t panic about your jeans getting a little bit tighter around your thighs initially.

Fat-burning is much, MUCH faster than muscle-building so this will be a non-issue very soon.

Another point to remember is that bodybuilding requires the muscles to grow in size. This means striving for the famed “pump” in the muscle. This shouldn’t really be an issue if you’re using large, full-body movements instead of isolating small muscle groups, but if you’re worried about this, avoid lifting light weights for high reps – a sure-fire way to get a pump in the muscle and a common mistake women make when lifting weights, as people generally believe that this is better for “toning”!

This is a classic trap that women lifting weights fall into – too scared to get big and muscly, so they lift light weights.

If you want a leaner, more toned, firmer look, you need to make your muscles firmer and more toned. 

To do this you need to put tension through your muscles with heavier weights.

“Toning” requires heavy weights, not light weights and high reps.

Please be aware though that as with any training there is risk involved and by “heavy” I mean the heaviest weight you can lift with good technique. If you’re unsure of technique, get a good trainer and make sure your focus is on technique, not going for PB’s (personal best’s) every session.

*Until your technique is near perfect, you should NEVER increase the weight you’re lifting!*

In summary:

● For fat burning you need to lift weights (even just bodyweight exercises are sufficient) as oppose to spending countless hours doing “cardio”.

● Choose large, full body exercises over small isolated ones.

● Technique comes first and foremost, only then can you add more weight.

● As long as you’re burning more fuel than you’re consuming (calories), you CANNOT build masses of muscle, just a small adaptation to begin with as the muscles adjust to the extra work.

● More sets, less reps, heavier weights (with good technique) are preferable.

● Eat a healthy diet full of nutritious foods and avoid over-eating, but don’t drop calories too low; as long as calorie intake is less than expenditure you’ll lose weight, but if you drop calories too low your calorie expenditure will drop to match it and weight loss will stop.

For guys (or girls) wanting to burn fat AND build muscle this becomes quite complicated. Without a good coach I would recommend you focus on just fat burning first – if you’re doing strength training you’re unlikely to lose too much muscle so focus on getting leaner. Then, when you have lost an adequate amount of body fat, change to a muscle building routine (it’s easier to build muscle when you’re leaner as testosterone/oestrogen balance is more favourable for this with lower body fat).

For help with your training and/or nutrition, visit www.DartfordBootcamps.com for more information on Nutrition Coaching, Personal Training, Bootcamp, and other classes.

And follow us on Facebook and Twitter (do it now……) for extra tips, advice and motivation.

Improving your eating and health without “Dieting”

For most people “Diets” are too difficult. The healthy recipe book or diet plan is great for about a week, then compliance drops off and the excitement of trying something new wears off because you haven’t lost 10 lbs in a week.

Gradually the “Diet” goes out the window and old eating habits creep back in.

For some people, the traditional method of following a strict diet for a few weeks, or the points systems or calorie-counting that have been relied on for so long do work, but for most, they don’t quite get the results you’re after.

Enter Habit Based Nutrition.

The reason people fail at dieting is because their new actions go against ingrained habits. It’s your behaviour and habits that need to be addressed rather than a strict plan telling you what you can or can’t eat.

You don’t need to be told what you can or can’t eat as this is the failing point in most diets, and most people know what they should and shouldn’t be eating. You need to be able to enjoy the foods you like, but still eat in a way that works for your body and delivers the results you want.

By addressing your daily habits, you can make small, healthy changes easily; gradually improving your diet over time so it changes for good, not until “the end of your diet”. Every couple of weeks you should introduce a new habit that you can scale up or down to suit your current level – if it’s too hard, make it easier. If it’s too easy, make it more challenging.

By introducing one achievable habit at a time, you’ll build up step by step to a healthier lifestyle.

Progress should be tracked in a number of ways, not just with weight on the scales (which is useful, but not ideal); photos, measurements, compliance and any other specific markers you feel will be helpful are essential in keeping you motivated.

DAILY reminders will help you stay on track; and learning why you’re doing what you’re doing will help you understand and commit to your habit changes more easily. 

Remembering why you’re making the changes (what your goals are) will also keep you motivated.

One of the main reasons slimming clubs work is because you’re making yourself accountable. Tell someone what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and ask for their support (it doesn’t have to be a facebook announcement to the world, but someone you trust who will hold you accountable and give you a hard time if you slack off – like a trainer or coach). 

The aim is not to embarrass you when you fail, but to motivate you to try harder and boost your pride and confidence when you succeed.

Now you can do all of this yourself, but there’s so much nutritional “information” out there that it can be difficult to work out what you need to do next, or even where to begin!

As a Precision Nutrition certified coach, I can now offer you access to ProCoach, a habit-based nutrition coaching program that will help you to easily integrate healthy eating into your lifestyle.

It covers all of the above – teaching you new habits in a structured way to ensure you start at the beginning and build up slowly, one success after the other. While there’s no right or wrong way, certain foundations need to be laid before you can build on them, so getting the right habits under control first will prevent you from falling off the wagon by trying something you’re not ready for.

This is an entirely new approach to dieting for most people, (in fact, for the first couple of weeks we don’t even talk about food!) but it’s effective and it works. By helping you think about and focus on your goals, it will help you make better choices that will ultimately lead to your desired result.

If you’d like more information on ProCoach, visit www.DartfordBootcamps.com/nutrition-coaching where you can watch a video of people who’ve done the program, and contact me with any questions you might have.

If your current efforts aren’t working for you, it’s time to try something new! 

Visit www.DartfordBootcamps.com for more information on Personal Training, Nutrition Coaching, Bootcamp, and other classes.

And follow us on Facebook and Twitter (do it now……) for extra tips, advice and motivation.

What to do if your Diet isn’t working

This time of year is notorious for people starting new and crazy diets; and by February chances are a good proportion of those new-year-dieters have either given up completely or are starting to lose faith in their “it worked for my friend” diets.

As with most things, people are after quick results. “10lbs a week or I’m trying something else.”
Healthy fat loss doesn’t come that quick. Consistency works better than an all-out effort for a week.

So... You started a diet in January (well, after you’d eaten the Christmas leftovers and only had the chocolates that no-one likes left), and you’re already beginning to lose hope and admit defeat. What can you do?

The first thing is reassess your “Diet”. If you cut too many calories you’ll almost certainly have lost some weight, but your body is smart and won’t play ball much longer. You need to increase calories (but to just under what you were eating before), so you’re still eating a bit less, but not starving yourself or your body.

To make up for this increase in calories you can attack the “calories in vs. calories out” equation from both ends. Increase your exercise; not excessively, but increase it, to focus on the “calories out” side.

By doing this you’re not tricking your body and sending it into panic mode. Too few calories and your body will adapt and stop burning so many calories, ditch some much needed muscle tissue and focus on storing fat! The exact opposite of what you’re aiming to achieve!

If you keep calories up, your body feels safe and maintains its usual calorie burn. Add in some exercise and you’ve just tipped the balance into the energy deficit you need for fat loss, but without the loss of muscle tissue or your body “slowing down”.

Once you’ve established a reasonable amount of exercise and regained control over your calories, monitor your progress. Don’t weigh yourself daily and stress out over a pound here and there; just once a week.

If you see weight loss, great! Keep doing what you’re doing and don’t be tempted to change things to try and speed it up. 

If you see no change, either increase your exercise slightly or cut calories by 100cals a day and see what happens next week. 

If your weight goes up (and if you’ve been, honestly, consistent with your diet and exercise) then both increase exercise and decrease calories by 100-200cals a day.

Use this method until you reach your goal weight, but NEVER, ever, EVER cut calories too low. If you’re eating less than 1500 calories a day, training 3-5 days a week (no more), and still not losing weight, find a good trainer and get help – you may be doing something wrong, or could be doing something better, or possibly (in very few cases) you have a more sinister underlying problem.

As a side note, if you’ve been following a low-calorie diet (less than 1500 calories a day) for a while, then you’ve trusted the wrong people and probably done more harm than good. You’ll need to gradually bring calorie intake back up again (before you get ill) and focus on food quality and exercises that don’t take too much out of you while your body repairs itself and recovers from starvation and shut-down. I would also strongly recommend you seek expert help to ensure you do this correctly as you need to undo the damage, ideally without gaining back any fat.

Diet can get extremely complicated, but can also be very simple. Monitor your progress and adjust accordingly, following the simplest of guidelines I just set out, you’ll do fine.

If you need more help, visit www.DartfordBootcamps.com for information on Personal Training, Nutrition Coaching, and Bootcamp classes.

Water for Weight Loss

I’ve mentioned this in previous articles, and preach it to my Bootcampers and Personal Training clients all the time, but I really can’t stress enough the importance of water.

We all know we should be drinking more water. But most people tend to confuse "fluids" with "water".

This confusion keeps them dehydrated, which if left unchecked, can lead to all sorts of problems including asthma, hypertension, diabetes, raised cholesterol, headaches, migraines, arthritis, depression and many more.

It may also interest you to know that you NEED to drink plenty of water to promote fat loss.

Our bodies are made up of about 75% water. It should stand to reason then that we cannot function optimally if we're even a little bit dehydrated.

Bedsides the obvious things (like blood) that are made up of water, all of our cells - that's every single cell that makes up our body, requires water.

When the body maintains its 70% balance point, the acid/alkaline balance of the blood stays closer to its optimum level, the transportation of nutrients around your body is improved, and just about every biological process going on in the body is working well.

Water is also used to flush out toxins and waste products from your system.

Joints (or more precisely, the fluid within your joints) requires hydration, meaning if you're dehydrated, your aches and pains will likely get worse. 

Got back pain? It's estimated that up to 80% of back pain could be caused by a lack of fluid in the intervertebral discs, meaning the "cushioning" in your spine isn't doing its job properly.

And going back to fat loss, you may have read in previous posts of mine that fat is where our bodies store toxins that are overloading the system. Our bodies can cope with a fair bit of abuse and will detox continuously; but they can't do everything! If you're consuming more toxins (from bad foods and drinks) than your body can detoxify, the rest has to go somewhere (because it can't just circulate around your body in your bloodstream), so it gets stored... in your fat cells.

While they're storing these toxins to save your life from over-toxicity, these fat cells cannot go anywhere. You need to detox and consume less toxins than your body can detoxify to allow some of these stored toxins to be released and expelled.

On top of this, you need WATER to flush out the system. Lots of water = better detoxing.

So how much water do we need?

While it varies depending on climate (sweat), exercise, respiration (how much are you breathing?), bodyweight, body composition, what you've eaten, and more; it's generally agreed that you should be drinking at least 1 litre of water per 50lb (about 22kg) bodyweight, per day.

More if you're exercising, doing a manual job, or living in a hot climate.

But not all drinks are made equal. By far the best way to rehydrate your tired body is to drink plain old water.

Just because drinks contain water, doesn't mean they hydrate you well. Tea, coffee, fizzy drinks, alcohol, sugary juices etc – can all help to de-hydrate you. Yes you'll get somewater from them, but half of that will go towards detoxing the sugar etc in them. There is no substitute for plain WATER.

Don't think because you drink a glass of juice and 8 cups of tea a day that you're getting enough water. 

When you start a rehydration program, you may find you have to go to the toilet more - if you're kidneys are doing their job. The more you drink, the more you'll pee. Pretty obvious really.

You could also add a pinch of SEA salt to your water. Not enough to taste, just a pinch, maybe half a teaspoon into a litre of water. This can help with electrolyte balance and stop you from running to the toilet quite so often. There are also other health benefits to this (and no, it won’t raise blood pressure!). Just make sure it’s sea salt, NOT table salt.

And finally...

WATER QUALITY

I highly recommend that you DON'T drink tap water!

Read my post here to find out why that is.

So what do I recommend?

One option is bottled water. Not ideal, but a lot better than tap water as it should be free of many of the chemicals and materials found in tap water. But you do run the risk of the BPA leaching into your water (which has many harmful properties). Basically, the plastic bottles that the water is stored in is not ideal - unless you want to be drinking plastic?!

So... My recommendation is to get yourself a GOOD water filtration system (not a brita water jug or the likes).

My personal recommendation (after looking at many options) is the Virgin Pure Waterbar.

Not as good as some of the expensive reverse osmosis machines available (£1000+!), but a fraction of the cost as you basically lease it, so you don't have to buy outright and the servicing and new filters etc are all included. 

It filters out all of the nasties in your tap water, and provides both hot and cold filtered water on tap (a massive bonus because even bottled water drinkers tend to use tap water for their tea/coffee and cooking!).

Personally this works out cheaper than bottled water anyway. I've got the T7 which is £23 a month - so about £6 a week. Even buying the big 5 litre bottles, drinking 2-3 litres a day like we should would cost £4-5 a week per person. So it's a no-brainer really!

I've spoken to the guys at Virgin Pure and they've given me a code to offer my readers/clients 2 months free when you sign up to their 12-month contract. So that saves you £46 already!

Just use the code PTMB when you order either on their website or by phone.

(Yes, if you're thinking I'm on the payrole here - guilty! If you sign up for your 2 free months, I also get 2 months free! Not exactly going to be retiring, but a nice bonus for me if you do sign up!)

I highly recommend you look into this and sign up for your waterbar - they do have a no-contract option available too, but it's costs a tad more, and what's the point? You'll always need clean drinking water!

Regardless of if you get the water filter though, start drinking more water, and reduce your intake of other drinks.

Aim for your 2-3 litres a day and see how you feel - it may surprise you how much better you feel when you're well hydrated!

Let me know if you feel the difference! :)

What is a Good “Diet”?

These days everyone’s an expert. 

Your over/underweight friend, your mum who’s been to a slimming club, your work colleagues, the magazine you read… But what they’re telling you is often contradictory and conflicting.

The truth is there’s no one, perfect diet that works for everyone. LOTS of these things will work… for some people.

They key things to embrace are not the differences, but the common ground between all successful “Diets”.

For weight loss, yes, you will need to eat less calories than you burn (but that doesn’t necessarily mean eat less!)

All successful, healthy diets (you can have a successful unhealthy diet, but the results are short-term and you’ll feel terrible doing them – think “juice detox”, or powdered meal replacements!!) have a few things in common...

A good diet will address energy balance (calories in vs calories out) without a drastic reduction in calories, but through good nutrition and switching from high-calorie/low nutrient foods, to low-calorie/high nutrient foods. By making this switch you may be surprised at just how much you can eat and remain within your calorie goal, whilst also getting lots of nutrition from what you're eating.

It will look at health, nutrition, hydration, body composition (body fat % vs. lean/fat-free mass) and performance, not just weight.

The healthy diet will not be set, but flexible and constantly changing to meet your needs. This relies on you monitoring your progress and making appropriate adjustments to suit. If weight loss is slow, you’ll need to alter the diet in some way; if you lose weight, but your body fat % increases, you’ll need to immediately re-evaluate and make the necessary changes to make sure you’re losing fat and not muscle. A mistake many calorie-cutting diets make by dropping calories too low.

The point is – you can’t follow an “exact” plan permanently; the diet will change as your body does, and you’ll need to stay on top of this. That’s why your skinny friend can eat junk and not gain weight and you just need to look at a cake… It’s because their dietary requirements are DIFFERENT to yours, and in a year’s time, so will yours be!

The diet needs to be sustainable, not something that ends when you lose x-lbs, or go on holiday; not something that you suffer through for 3 weeks, and then revert to your old ways. You don’t “Go on a diet”, you change your eating habits.

And finally, the “Diet” will look outside of just food! Exercise is a crucial part of the energy balance equation, and if you want to burn more calories than you eat, this should be your first port of call before you start reducing food intake and restricting your nutrient intake. 

The bonus of doing it this way (as long as you don't overtrain) is that you may not even need to restrict your diet or eat less- if you burn more calories, you may be able to carry on as usual and still benefit; although exercise without a healthy diet is not likely to work wonders.

The key here is to change over to healthier foods that nourish your body. By restricting food intake, you also restrict nourishment, leading to ill-health rather than the vital, healthy body you want.

Use diet and exercise together to build a better, stronger you.

If you need more help, visit www.DartfordBootcamps.com for information on Personal Training, Nutrition Coaching, and Bootcamp classes.