- Manage Your Stress – Stress is a killer and as you get older and have more commitments with for and family life you tend to build a lot more stress. Aim for 7-9 hours sleep; try taking a magnesium salt bath to relax you and help you sleep. Watch your caffeine and alcohol intake as this can keep you awake. Also, some yoga and meditation techniques will help relax you and clear the brain clutter.
- Do Some Weight Training – The more muscle you have the more fat you burn! As you age the muscles will start to shrink and postures will start to sag. So a combination of strength and hypertrophy training will help you burn more fat, straighten your posture and combat stress.
- Find Training Partners – Find friends or colleagues that you can train with. If you make someone else accountable for your sessions you are more likely to turn up, rather than listen to the little voice in your head of excuses not to. The sessions can be more fun; you will work harder and often bring in the element of competition. It also can help you push out the extra reps and if doing weights help you to train more safely.
- Prepare Your Food – Fail to prepare prepare to fail! Be careful of eating as you go, sandwiches, fast food and soft drinks are not going to keep you lean Be aware of some simple rules, don’t skip breakfast and try to have a protein/ SMART fat based breakfast. This is better for your energy and sets you up for the day e.g. scrambled eggs with salmon and avocado. Eat 3-4 meals a day with a good source of low fat protein, lots of green vegetables and moderate carbohydrate. Avoid processed foods and hidden sugars. Always read the label.
- Drink Water – Water is often forgotten about or traded for coffee and tea, but our body is 65% water.For it to work efficiently we must drink to stay hydrated. Aim for 2-3 litres a day just slow down after 6pm so you don’t have to get up in the night. This can help increase your energy, relieve fatigue and help you concentrate better.
- Set High Stake Goals – set goals that are relevant to you and linked to what you want to achieve. This is best way to keep you focused, motivated and get the best results. This could be training for an event or a competition to losing 2 dress sizes or fitting in a pair of trousers you wore 5 years ago. Make sure they are important to you, write them down and plan what you need to do to achieve them.
- Fasted Cardio – Doing some cardio before breakfast is a great way to torch body fat, because you have an empty stomach you use more fat for fuel. I like to use steady-state cardio here, black coffee to kick start the metabolism then 20-30 minutes speed walk or light jog. You could also use HIIT training if you prefer.
- HIIT Training – High-intensity intervals are a great fat burner. The workouts are short but hard so you may have to build up to them if you haven’t done much exercise. The key is to spike your heat rate to 85-90% of your MHR then rest for the low interval. My favourite example is TABATA training so 20 seconds of exercise followed by 10 seconds rest you do this 8 times then rest for 60 seconds, this can then be repeated up to 4 times. So the interval sessions are 4-20 minutes long. Because of the nature of the intervals and something called the EPOC (excess post oxygen consumption) Your body will not just burn calories for the session but will carry on burning calories for hours afterwards as it fights to restore your body to homeostasis.
- Watch The Booze – A pint of beer has 200 calories a Mojito has 240 calories a Vodka or Gin and tonic has 110 calories. So if you are drinking be aware of your drink choice. Just remember to lose 1lb of body fat in a week you have to consume 500 calories a day less than your maintenance-eating plan.So depending owns your goals, 4 or 5 beers (1000 extra calories) on a Friday could be your downfall.
- Yoga – Not the first thing for fighting fat but you will burn calories plus its a very important addition to your program as an over 40. Muscles get short and tight especially the hip flexors and pectorals and back. It’s time to lengthen shortened muscles and improve your range and posture. Yoga will help your flexibility your strength, posture and help combat stress.
Gong Baths
What is a gong bath?Gong meditation could be thought of as just another fad activity but it is not. Gongs have been used as shamanic
