Inside Out Personal Training

ICEMAN - 19th November

2011-10-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

Recruiting again!
Choose from 11km, 16km or duathlon - for what promises to be a tough and uncomprimising off-road event. Events start from 9am on Saturday 19th November in Frimley, Surrey. For full race details see www.humanrace.co.uk

For more information and training visit www.insideouttraining.co.uk

Major Series 10K

2011-10-10T01:53:00.000-07:00

Well done to all those that took part in the Major Series 10K this weekend! This one took 'undulating' and 'muddy' to new heights! Great morning though with everyone making it through the finish line in good time and with a smile on thier face! After everyone's legs have recovered I'll be recruiting for the next event so watch out!

For more information please visit
www.insideouttraining.co.uk

What to Eat Before Training?

2010-07-20T01:41:00.000-07:00

What to eat prior to training is a common area of concern, particularly with those new to exercise. We have all experienced nausea, bloating, cramping and lethargy during a session, something which is often blamed on eating too soon before exercise. This can of course be the case, however more often than not it’s the type and time that food is consumed that is key.

The body’s preferred source of fuel is carbohydrate, as it is readily available unlike protein and fat which must be broken down in order for them to be utilised by the body. Complex carbohydrates (wholemeal pasta, bread, rice, potatoes) take longer than simple carbohydrates (cane sugar, jam, sports drinks, biscuits) to break down but are the ideal source of food energy for training. Their energy is released at a more sustained rate, keeping blood glucose levels stable and keeping fatigue at bay. However due to their complex nature, they need to be eaten at least 3-4 hours prior to exercise to ensure adequate digestion and reduce any discomfort.

Simple carbohydrates are absorbed quicker and can therefore be consumed closer (up to one hour) to an event to top up fuel stores. They are also recommended during endurance activities that last >90 minutes as they cause limited stomach discomfort and can reduce the onset of fatigue. It should be noted however that simple carbohydrates (often known as high glycaemic index foods) raise blood sugar levels rapidly, which can also cause blood sugar slumps if not utilised soon after consumption. It is therefore essential that the timing of such foods are correctly built into your dietary plan. Suggested pre-exercise foods:

Less than one hour before exercise
1. Fresh fruit such as apples, peaches, grapes, watermelon or oranges
2. Sports drinks / gels
3. Fruit or vegetable juice such as orange or tomato

Two to three hours before exercise
1. Smoothies / fresh fruit
2. One-two slices of bread or a bagel
3. Medium pot of low-fat yoghurt
4. Breakfast cereal with low-fat milk (not high fibre varieties)
5. Sports drink
6. Banana

Three to four hours before exercise
1. Lean meat / chicken salad
2. Pasta with tomato sauce
3. Baked potato with tuna / beans
4. Toast or bread with a small amount of peanut butter, lean meat or low-fat cheese

Early morning exercise
Eating a meal two to three hours before training may not be possible when training early. Fluids can be used as an alternative at these times, as they can provide both fuel and fluid, with milkshakes and sports drinks being popular choices. Small amounts of fruit salad and cereal bars can also be incorporated if time allows.

Foods to Avoid Before Exercise
Any foods with a lot of fat can be difficult and slow to digest, remaining in the stomach for a long time. They also will pull blood into the stomach to aid in digestion, which can cause cramping and discomfort. Meats, fries, crisps, and cereal bars should be avoided in a pre-exercise meal.

It’s important to remember that everyone is different and what works for one person may not work for another, even when undergoing the same training programme. Find and practise with what works for you!

For more information please visit http://www.insideouttraining.co.uk/

Events 2010

2010-04-13T06:19:00.000-07:00

As usual I’m recruiting people for a range of walks, rides and races!
Below are those that are coming up in the next few months:

Wimbledon Park Run (5K / 3 miles) – May 8th @ 9am
FREE EVENT (SIGN UP THE NIGHT BEFORE)

For all ability levels Parkruns are fantastic non-commercial, free, feel-good, community events. You sign up on the website once http://parkrun.com then simply turn up and run at any event in the country! Results are emailed the same day and posted on the website with historical results and stats including age group records and age-graded performances. Races take place all over the country at 9am on Saturdays and are fantastic as training runs as you have that added motivation of running with others. If you’d like to join on May 8th starting at the windmill on Wimbledon Park simply sign up for free on the site and I’ll look forward to seeing you there!

London to Brighton Bike Ride (54 miles) – June 20th

THIS IS NOT A RACE! If you fancy stopping for lunch or a few drinks (Lucozade that is) along the way then you’ll be joining most of the other riders who participate for fun, not to set any records! Any bike will do, there’s everything from £5,000 race bikes to mountain bikes that look like they’ve not been out the shed in the last 10 years! It really is a race open to any type of rider and ability level. Places are alocated on a first come first served basis! http://www.bhf.org.uk/events-and-volunteering/events/bike-rides/london-to-Brighton-2010.aspx

ADVANCED NOTICE FOR THE MORE ADVENTUROUS…..

GRIM 8 – (8 miles) – December 4th
IF YOU DON’T MIND MUD, WATER, AND MORE MUD!

GRIM is held over the Army’s vehicle testing tracks so expect it to be wet, undulating, muddy, and given it’s in December, also very cold! A yearly favourite of mine, the event is so popular they now run it twice over the weekend. For more information on this event visit the website http://original.grimchallenge.co.uk. This race gets 10 out of 10 on the fun factor, anyone that can run 4/5 miles comfortably will be more than capable of finishing, and smile as they do so!

Tough Guy 2011 – (8 miles) – January 30th
NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED

Probably the hardest 8 miles you’ll ever encounter, a few of us are taking part in this rather mad event next year! Advanced warning given for this event as it’s not one to be taken lightly, you will need to train hard to survive Tough Guy! The event is hard to describe so I will let the video do the talking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IWT2qeNVTQ. For more information on this event visit the website http://www.toughguy.co.uk.

For information on training please visit www.insideouttraining.co.uk

Food Rules

2010-01-15T01:42:00.001-08:00

I read a brilliant article this weekend in the Daily Mail called 'Food Rules' - I thought I'd share some of the highlights! Many of them are common sense, but then that's all healthy eating really is!

1. Avoid food grandma wouldn't recognise
There are now thousands of food products in the supermarket that our ancestors wouldn't recognise. They are processed in ways specifically designed to get us to buy and eat more by pushing our evolutionary buttons (such as our inborn preferences for sugar, fat and salt). These tastes are difficult to find in nature, but cheap and easy for scientists to deploy, with the result that food processing induces us to consume more of these products than is good for us.

2. It's NOT food if it has the same name in all languages
Think 'Big Mac' or 'Pringles'!

3. Avoid ingredients you don't recognise
Enhoxylated diglycerides? Cellulose? Xanthan gum? Calcium propionate? Ammonium sulfate? If you wouldn't cook with these additives yourself, why let others use these ingredients to cook for you? Foods scientists use these to extend shelf life and make old food look fresher and more appetising than it really is. Many of these additives haven't been eaten by humans for very long, so it's questionable whether they prove a health risk or not.

4. Question food labelled 'low-fat'
Removing fat from foods doesn't necessarily make them non-fattening. Carbohydrates can also make you fat, many low-fat and non-fat foods are more sugary to make up for the loss of flavour. You're better off eating the real thing in moderation than bingeing on 'lite' food products packed with sugars and salt.

5. 'The whiter the bread, the sooner you'll be dead'
This blunt advise is a reminder of the health risks of white flour. As far as our body is concerned, white flour is not much differnt from sugar.

6. Eat your colours
The colours of many vegetables reflect the different antioxidant phytochemicals they contain. Many of these chemicals help to protect against chronic diseases, but each in a slightly different way, so the best protection comes from a diet containing as many different phytochemicals as possible.

7. Eat slowly
Eat slowly enough to savour your food, you'll need less of it and you'll feel satisfied.

8. Avoid long lists of ingredients
Again, the more ingredients in a food, the more highly processed it probably is. (A long list of ingredients in a recipe is not the same; that's fine).

9. Eat when you're hungry, not when you're bored
For many, eating has surprisingly little to do with hunger. We eat out of boredom, for entertainment, to comfort or reward ourselves. One old wives test: if you're not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you're not hungry!

10. Only eat food that rot
The more processed a food is, the longer the shelf life, and the less nutritious it typically is. Real food is alive - and therefore should eventually die. (One of the exceptions is honey, which has a shelf life measured in centuries).

11. Don't refuel at petrol stations
Food sold at petrol stations is all highly processed - imperishable snack foods and extravagantly sweetened drinks.

12. Treats treats and treats
There's nothing wrong with special occasion foods, as long as every day isn't a special occasion. Chips, pastries and ice-cream offer some of the greatest pleasure in life, so we shouldn't deprive ourselves of them, but our sense of occasion needs to be restored.

For more help and advise with your nutrition visit www.insideouttrraining.co.uk

Why diets don't work!

2009-12-22T00:22:00.000-08:00

As Christmas looms the inevitable drinks parties, dinners, mince pie and wine do's (and any other social gathering involving overindulgence) are in full swing! But before you go too mad, concluding that ''you'll start your diet in January'' have a read of the below!

Why diets don't work....
Get thin fast remedies are on every page of every magazine it seems, there are a whole host of “pain free fixes” on the market. On top of this you could add any number of fad diets and the unlimited supply of slimming products, just waiting to take your cash! Slimming products and 'diets' are big business, however sadly they don’t work, and often there’s a hefty price to pay.

“Lose 10 pounds in a week”
Next time you see one of these claims, just ask yourself ‘ten pounds of what?’ It’s only physically possible to lose between 1.5 - 2 pounds of fat in a week, and you don’t want to lose anything else, as it’s your lean tissues that give you a great shape! If you adopt a crash diet, and suddenly cut your food intake dramatically, your body may assume there’s a famine on the way and start saving your fat stores by burning muscle instead.

Avoid muscle loss
The reason that this is bad news is simple: you only want to lose fat! Since your muscles are the most efficient fat burning machine in the body, why would you want to shrink them? During crash dieting you are likely to lose 1lb of muscle for every 1lb of fat.

Metabolism
Your body is smarter than you think and in times of potential famine, it will slow down metabolism in order to avoid starvation. Now that your lean mass is considerably reduced, so is your basal metabolic rate (BMR - the energy required to simply make you tick over) and you can survive on less food than before. Therefore the body has successfully adapted itself to require fewer calories, allowing it to maintain its stores of fat and avoid potential starvation for longer. The more calories that are restricted, the more the body will cling to its fat stores, and metabolism will slow further. As metabolism slows, so does your ability to operate at normal levels. Exercise becomes difficult and general lethargy sets in.

Normal eating
The diet will inevitably come to an end, and you will begin to eat normally once again. But, because you have considerably reduced your BMR, your calorie requirement is less than before. Returning to your previous eating habits will now create a larger energy surplus than before you started the diet. For this reason people pile on the pounds very quickly. It’s the start of the damaging cycle that is symptomatic of crash dieting.

The moral of the story?

Take it easy on the roast potatoes this Christmas,

And get back to your normal dietary and exercise habits ASAP!

For more help with your nutrition find us at www.insideoutraining.co.uk

RACE REPORT... Grim 8 - 2009

2009-12-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

Anyone who was up early this Sunday would have seen the torrential rain that hit throughout the morning, a nice top up for the huge pools of water and muddy bog that comprise the Grim 8 race! Lucky for us blue skies and sun broke through to accompany us at the start-line for what was set to be a brilliant Grim 8 race! As my fourth year at this event, I can say with certainty that it was the muddiest and wettest I have ever seen! A brilliant excuse for teams of runners to initiate mud flights, start sumo tackling each other, refine their diving skills and generally do anything that involved getting as muddy as humanly possible!

The first 5 miles was the most fun, for those who made it through without spraining their ankles en-route that is! There were definitely unfortunately a fair few unlucky ones this year! As usual spectators lined the 4 mile point, waiting with baited breath to catch a glimpse of the next victim to fall head first into the orange mud. For the majority of the last three miles, we were spared anymore pools of water, and had to simply make it along with our heavy legs and mud filled trainers in tow.

Personal trainer or not I won't pretend that I wasn't happy to see the finish line! So much so that I barely noticed the last waist deep pit of water which was strategically positioned 100 meters from the end! I'm sure it was just to ensure that we'd all have to drive home absolutely soaked!

The good news however is that we survived and got the t-shirt to prove it! Well done to Anthony Speelman and Ezme Moyse who came along this year, I'm pretty sure that they'll be back next year for more sadistic fun at the Grim 8 event! As usual, I will keep you posted for next years entry, so for those who are keen, keep your eyes open early next year for news!

To join us on up-coming races and events contact us through our website at www.insideouttraining.co.uk

New Year Charity Challenge Anyone?

2009-12-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

As ever I'll be encouraging (nagging perhaps) people to put their fitness to the test and get involved in some charity sporting event in the New Year! We already have teams set to go to the following, the more the merrier though so please contact me (sam@insideouttraining.co.uk) if you or someone you know wants to join us:

FOR ANY FITNESS LEVEL....

SPARKS 5K RUN - 24th January 2010

This is a short picturesque fun run that anyone can do, 'plodders' to 'sprinters' are all welcome. Being at the end of January it's also a brilliant time to snap out of 'Christmas mode' and get serious about your fitness again! The race starts at 1.30pm at Eton College Rowing Centre, Dorney Lake, Windsor.
http://www.tri247.com/event_7714.html

FOR THE MORE 'SEASONED' RUNNER....

READING HALF-MARATHON - 21st March 2010

This is a massively popular half marathon event which always gets full quickly. The run is completely flat and finishes in the Madejski stadium to a huge show of support and applause. It's a brilliant race for anyone who wants a big challenge for next year. You will need to train hard for this one, but the good news is you've got plenty of time!
http://www.readinghalfmarathon.com/index.htm

To sponsor:
http://www.justgiving.com/Sammy-Wilson

If you'd like to be added to our race mailing list please contact us through www.insideouttraining.co.uk and we will keep you posted on all our events!

A Low Fat Christmas

2009-11-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

Mince pies are our favourite festive staple, containing approximately 475 caolries per supermarket version. But before you use Christmas as an excuse to chomp through one a day - take a look below to see how much exercise you'll have to do to work it off!

Running.... 40 minutes
Spinning... 40 minutes
Walking.... 1 hour 50 minutes
Boxing...... 40 minutes
Rowing..... 55 minutes
Pilates....... 1 hour 15 minutes
Resistance training.... 55 minutes

''Britains Most Gruelling Exercise Session''

2009-11-27T06:45:00.000-08:00

For more information about these sessions see www.insideouttraining.co.uk

NEWS 'Britain's Most Gruelling Exercise'

2009-11-23T09:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.insideouttraining.co.uk/britains-most-gruelling-exercise.php

Healthy Snack Ideas

2009-11-19T04:07:00.000-08:00

As ''Queen Snacker'' I wanted to write a post to dispel this myth I often hear about avoiding 'snacking between meals'. One of the key factors in any healthy diet is to accept that you'll need to snack and to prepare for it - problems only arise when you're not prepared. Planning is critical! It's no use trying to avoid eating if you're hungry, you may manage to go without once or twice, but its simply not a pattern that you want to set for the rest of your life!

Instead know that its okay to snack and to have snacks that fit with your daily plan to hand. The best piece of advice I can give anyone is to buy yourself some Tupperware so that you can prepare portions of healthy snacks in advance!

Shopping List
Fresh fruit (any type)
Strawberries / blueberries / raspberries + Elmlea low fat cream (makes a great dessert!)
Dried fruit i.e. raisins, crunchy bananas
Nuts (natural, not roasted or salted)
Cereal bars
High fibre breakfast cereal with low fat milk
Yoghurt
Yoghurt + muesli
2 plain biscuits (rich tea, garibaldi etc), or Jaffa cakes
Fruit milkshake using low fat milk and fresh fruit
Smoothies
Tinned fruit (in natural juices)
Oat biscuits / Wheat biscuits
Wholemeal crackers + jam / low-fat cheese spread
Ryvita snack packs – numerous flavours
Rice cakes / Rice cake snack packs – numerous flavours
Dark chocolate
Raw vegetables i.e. celery and carrot sticks + low-fat dip
Popcorn
Pretzels

Challenge for Charity 2010?

2009-11-12T01:55:00.000-08:00

There's no better incentive to get fit over these dark Winter months than knowing you have a big chairty event looming in the New Year! The Royal London Society for the Blind have race spots available for some fantastic running events in 2010. As a small charity they don't get the same level of coverage as some of the larger ones, but need your help just as much!

Brighton Marathon – 18 Apr 2010 (sponsorship £500)
Sevenoaks Triathlon – 18 Apr 2010 and Sept 2010 (sponsorship £250)
Virgin London Marathon – 25 Apr 2010 (sponsorship £1500)
British 10k – 11 Jul 2010 (sponsorship £300)

If you are interested in or would like more information about any of the above contact Penny at penny.wedesweiler@rlsb.org.uk she'd love to hear from you! Good luck to those of you who take on a challenge for this wonderful charity! You know where to come for any training hints and tips!

Diet Myths

2009-11-11T01:53:00.000-08:00

There is so much misinformation today about nutrition, it can be impossible to know what’s true and what’s not! Factor in the additional challenges faced by those people trying to lose weight, and you can see why so many fail. Just for fun read the following statements and decide which are true.
a. Eating more than the recommended daily allowance of protein will help build muscle.
b. White spots on your fingernails indicate a calcium deficiency.
c. If you have an upper-respiratory-tract infection, you should consume less milk in order to reduce mucous production.
d. None of the above.
For those of you who answered ‘d’ well done! But don’t feel bad if you failed the test, these are just some of the misconceptions I hear from people day in day out. Here is a few other common diet myths that you can help debunk.

MYTH: Skipping breakfast helps promote weight loss by reducing total calorie intake.
FACT: This couldn’t be further from the truth, skipping meals is a big mistake. In fact, research has shown that going without breakfast is associated with a higher risk of obesity, whereas people who eat four or more times a day experience a 45% lower risk of being obese (Ma et al. 2003). Simply put, those people who regularly eat breakfast tend to be thinner than those who don’t! Try whole-grain cereal, yoghurt or fruit as a great start to the day.

MYTH: Carbohydrates are the bad guy.
FACT: A diet rich in carbohydrates – particularly high fibre foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole-grains – is essential. Carbohydrates are the body’s favourable fuel source, you require adequate amounts to ensure sufficient energy for daily activity, metabolic function and repair. Aim for 50-60% of total calories from carbohydrate as part of a well balanced diet.

MYTH: In order to burn fat you should exercise on an empty stomach.
FACT: You are likely to fatigue more quickly when training on an empty stomach, resulting in suboptimal performance! You should aim to eat a small meal or snack containing both protein and carbohydrate, such as wholemeal cereal topped with low fat milk before heading to the gym.

MYTH: Fats should be completely avoided in order to lose weight.
FACT: Fat is an essential macro-nutrient for good health. Among other roles, it helps maintain proper body temperature, provides essential nutrients, protects vital organs and is a dense energy source that helps us feel satiated for longer periods of time (essential for all dieters!).
It is the type and amount of fat that one should monitor. Limit ‘bad’ fats (meaning saturated and trans fats) and replace them with ‘good’ fats such as nuts, seeds and olive oil. Our daily intake of fat should be around 30% of total calories.

MYTH: Eating after 6pm makes you gain weight.
FACT: There is no magic hour at which everything suddenly turns to body fat! There is nothing wrong with having supper and a light snack at night as long as you don’t overindulge by eating more than your recommended daily calorie allowance. The truth is that many people eat too much in the evening during sedentary activities such as watching television. Make sure you are eating in response to hunger and not boredom!