To achieve optimal health and fitness, one must find balance in every aspect of your life.
Now as you all know from training with me, I’m all for training hard, pushing you to the limit, challenging your both physically and mentally during your training sessions. And you all know how much I love your effort and commitment. But today I am going to talk about ways that will compliment and improve other aspects of your life outside of training with me.
These tips on diet, sleep and relaxation you may already know and some of you probably couldn’t care less about any of it, but hopefully some of you will take at least one thing and be able to apply it to your everyday life.

DIET:
First and foremost with diet everyone is different and all people are programmed with different dietary needs, metabolic rates (the amount of energy being burned at rest, faster is better) and intolerances.
My 3 tips today for dietary requirements are:

1. Eat breakfast!!

- Breakfast eaters will be less likely to binge through the day and overeat at later meals.
- You will boost your sensitivity to insulin resulting blood sugar levels remaining stable and minimising sugar cravings.
- Breakfast eaters are more likely to get enough micronutrients such as calcium, zinc, iron, and vitamins in their diets. They also get a better proportion of protein than breakfast skippers

2. 80/20 protein/carbs split for weight management/loss.

This number can be even a higher split like 90/10 for greater weight loss. But as a general rule 80% of food that goes into your mouth should be protein based – eggs, fish, shellfish, meats, poultry, nuts, seeds and legumes. With the remaining 20% carbohydrate based

3. Get into good habits.

After everything you eat make a mental note of how you feel in the hours after you eat. Ideally you want to feel a steady rise in energy levels continuing until your next meal. If you feel this after eating a particular food then this food is good for you and you metabolic type.
You don’t want to feel: Tired, bloated, restless, angry, instant energy – these will generally lead to cravings and create in-balances in your digestive system.

SLEEP:
Sleep is as important to achieving your health and fitness goals as training and diet. Fact!
Why?
•    Poor sleep is linked to increased inflammation in the body
•    Sleep deprivation lowers testosterone, DHEA and growth hormone, all important hormones involved in repairing tissue (recovery)
•    Lack of sleep increases both insulin (the bodies response to blood sugar levels) and cortisol (stress), leading to increased mid-section fat deposits, and insulin resistance
•    Poor sleep increases breast cancer risk
•    Poor sleepers receive fewer promotions, earn less, miss more days of work, and have decreased productivity

Here is a list a things that will improve your quality and quantity of sleep:
1. Avoid late snacks high in sugar and eating meals 90mins before bed
2. Sleep in complete darkness
3. Put your alarm clock out of sight – watching the clock makes it harder to sleep and makes you in a constant state of stress about the time.
4. Remove all electrical items from close to your bed. Phones especially due to radiation levels. Please do this!!!!

(source of above points on sleep, charles poliquin – http://www.charlespoliquin.com/Blog/tabid/130/EntryId/115/My-Top-10-Tips-on-Increasing-Quantity-and-Quality-of-Sleep.aspx)

If you are a bad sleeper stretching at night helps relax your mind and body, also you can try taking supplements that help calm the body, like magnesium which helps relax the muscles.

RELAXATION:
Shouldn’t be seen as a reward after a hard time of work, it should be a vital part of your everyday life.
Most of you, work long hours, overtime, spend too much time on the roads dealing with the stress of traffic just to name a few of the daily grind. All these things lead to higher levels of the stress hormone Cortisol being produced by the body. Cortisol increases blood sugar levels (increasing insulin secretion), increases blood pressure, and suppresses the immune system, which is part of the body’s fight-or-flight response that is essential for survival.
If you are nearly always in constant state of stress (and be honest with yourself) you are more likely to find it difficult to move that unwanted fat due to the high insulin secretion blocking your natural fat burning capabilities, even when you are training hard.

You need to be able to switch off and relax and you need to it every day.
To reduce high cortisol levels and decrease stress try the following:
1.    Try Yoga or meditation, I really recommend meditation!!!
2.    Low intense exercise – walking is perfect!
3.    Book in for a regular massage
4.    Go on a holiday to take yourself out of “your” everyday stress for a while
5.    Work out an action plan to decrease stress in your life. It could be saving more money, make more sacrifices, taking the train to work, changing jobs, getting hard decisions out of the way..

Optimal health and fitness is achieved by being centred and finding inner peace and balance with all aspects of your life. You need to be comfortable knowing what you are doing makes you happy and healthy.
It’s a juggling act trying to create perfect synergy within your mind and body and sometimes the best intentions and plans don’t always occur but if you can create regular good habits in your life  finding balance wont seem so far away.

Until next time train smart ☺

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