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I am a firm believer that you can get a great workout without any fitness equipment whatsoever. With that said, if you don’t have the knowledge of different exercises that you can do, your workouts may be a bit ‘samey’ and boring. On top of that you may end up standing around thinking ‘what should I do next.’ So a piece of cardio fitness kit is still a useful thing to get for a lot of people. Here is my Cardio Machine Buying Guide.

1/ It is just one motion, so you don’t have to master a variety of different techniques for different exercises.

2/ You can use them whilst watching TV so the time passes faster.

3/ It breaks up your circuit training. For example you may do a circuit where you do 15 squats, 15 press ups, 15 sit ups, then 2 minutes on the bike and keep repeating that.

So which machine should you buy and how much should you expect to pay? I will cover the 4 most popular machines; treadmill, bike, cross trainer, rower.

1/ Treadmill

If you love running but perhaps don’t want to get outside in the cold or you just prefer the treadmill where you can control the speed and incline to your desired levels, the treadmill is for you. If you have any lower body injury concerns this may not be the best choice however, as it does put a fair bit of strain through the knees, ankles, etc. Expect to pay around £1000 for a good one.

2/ Bike

Much lower impact than the treadmill, and great for working the lungs and the legs. And a lot safer and easier than riding a bike on the roads. Expect to pay around £500 for a good one.

3/ Cross Trainer

Probably the lowest impact of all 4 bits of kit. Also works the upper body as well as the lower which the treadmill and bike do not. On the negative side it is a bit of an unnatural movement so won’t necessarily strengthen your muscles in a functional way that will benefit you in everyday life. Expect to pay closer to £1500 for a good one.

4/ Rower

This is my personal favourite. Mostly because you work the upper body, core and lower body altogether in a functional movement. If you get lower back pain you need to perfect your technique on this to avoid causing injury. £700 – £900 should get you a top range rower.

Conclusion – Cardio Machine Buying Guide

It is probably a good idea to go into a fitness store and try them all out to decide what machine is best for you. Whatever you buy, make sure you avoid the most common pitfall; NOT USING IT. So many cardio machines end up as clothes racks or stuck in the garage. Make sure you are committed to using it whatever you buy.

Visit the main page of my website here; Personal Trainer Tunbridge Wells – Rob Bowman.

When it gets to this time of year a lot of my clients tell me they want ‘winter warming’ type food and therefore find it harder to eat healthily. I never quite understand this, because healthy doesn’t have to be a boring cold salad. And a classic ‘winter warming’ dish such as am oven bake or a stew does not have to be unhealthy. So with that in mind I thought I would share one of my favourite winter warmer recipes – Healthy Spaghetti Puttanesca.

I’m sure you have had puttanseca or at least seen it in an Italian restaurant before. It’s basically a tomato based sauce with olives, anchovies, capers etc, served with spaghetti. Really tasty, but I adapt the traditional recipe a bit to make it healthier. But I firmly stand by the fact it DOES NOT detract from the taste and flavour.

Changes to the puttanesca recipe;

1/ Traditionally there is no protein in the dish. It’s just spaghetti and sauce. Firstly I am a firm believer that you need to get some lean protein in every meal. And secondly you will end up eating a lot more spaghetti if you don’t, and therefore you end up eating a lot of carbs. So we need to add some protein in.

2/ Less oil. Both in terms of cooking off the onions and garlic and from the anchovies quite a lot of oil goes into a traditional putannscea. A tablespoon of oil is over 100 calories so if you are trying to control the calories of the dish, this is a key change you need to make. And in all honestly, it’s the capers, anchovies and olives that give the dish a great flavour, the oil really doesn’t make much difference to the taste.

3/ More vegetables. Same idea as with adding more protein. Throw some more vegetables into the dish and you will need to less spaghetti to fill you up.

My Healthy Spaghetti Puttanesca Recipe (Serves 2)

Ingredients;
350g firm white fish such as cod.
100g Spaghetti
2 onions
2 carrots
6 anchovy fillets
2 tbsp capers
2 cloves of garlic
Handful of olives – chopped
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tin of passata
Black or cayenne pepper to taste if you like it.

Cooking;

Put the anchovies in a casserole/oven dish on the hob. Dab most of the oil away with kitchen towel, leaving just a little to cook the veg.
Then add the onions, garlic, carrots and cook on low heat for 5 minutes or so.

Add the chopped tomatoes, passata, olives and capers (and cayenne pepper if you like it) and turn the heat up. Pour a bit of water in the tins of tomatoes and put that in as well.
When it comes to the boil out the lid on and put it in the oven at 150 Celsius. How long you leave it in there really doesn’t matter. A minimum of half an hour and no more than 2 hours.
(One change to the recipe you could try is having it with squid. Chop the squid into rings and put it in the tomato sauce just before it goes in the oven. If you do this, cook it for at least 90 mins to make sure the squid goes tender.)

Then just bake the cod in the oven 10-15 minutes before you are ready to eat. All the flavour comes from the sauce so a plain white fish is ideal for this dish.
Same with the spaghetti, cook just before serving. If you are being extra good, have it with ‘courgetti’ rather than spaghetti to save yourself the extra calories and carbs.
Then mix the spaghetti/courgetti with the sauce, fish goes on top and serve!

Calories Breakdown
I worked it out on my fitness pal to make sure it was accurate.
560 calories per person with spaghetti.
410 calories per person with courgette.

Conclusion – Healthy Spaghetti Puttanesca

This is just one example of how you can make winter warming dishes really healthy. So never use the excuse that you ‘need’ to eat more carbs/calories because it is winter ever again!

Visit the main page of my website here; Complete Fitness 4 Life.

Soup is a great, low calorie meal packed full of vitamins and nutrients. Sometimes they can be labelled as boring, but try these 2 soup recipes with a twist. Hopefully it will change you mind if you think soup is boring and only ‘diet food.’

I would suggest having the soup with a piece of lean protein, such as chicken or fish on the side. Firstly because the calories per portion as so low and therefore you have plenty of calories to play with. Secondly because there is very little protein in these 2 soups so you want to get some extra into the meal. Protein with it would be a much better choice than a few big chunks of bread and butter!

1/ Broccoli and Nutmeg Soup
(290 calories)

600 grams (21 oz) broccoli, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
800 ml (3 cups) chicken stock
Sprinkle of nutmeg
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:
Put vegetables in a pan, fry for 5-10 mins, add stock and bring to the boil. Then simmer all the vegetables gently in the stock for 15-20 minutes. Then blend. Serve.

2/ Pumpkin Soup w/ toasted seeds
(180 calories)

2 leeks, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 kg (35 oz) cubed and peeled pumpkin.
1.5 litres (6 cups) vegetable stock

Directions – Vegetables in a pan, fry for 5-10 mins, add stock and bring to the boil. Then simmer all the vegetables gently in the stock for 15-20 minutes, or until the pumpkin is tender. Puree in a blender. Serve.

While doing the above, put the seeds of the pumpkin on a baking tray with a little oil, salt and paprika and bake for 20/30 mins. This adds great flavour and texture to your soup. And they are REALLY good for you as well.

Conclusion – 2 Soup Recipes With A Twist

Don’t just chuck a load of ‘past its best veg’ in a pan and hope to make a delicious soup. It will put you off the idea totally. Try these 2 recipes and find other ways to jazz soups up and make them interesting. Then you enjoy the food, don’t feel like you are eating ‘diet food’ and will find it much easier to stick with it.

Rob Bowman – Personal Trainer Tunbridge Wells

I get asked this question quite a lot. The answer isn’t a simple or straightforward one, because you have to balance you overall goals (in most cases with my clients this is burning calories and weight loss), with fuelling your body in such a way as to optimise your energy and therefore performance during your workout. So what should you eat before and after exercise?

When Should You Eat?

Let’s cover this point first. You don’t want to eat too close to your workout. We have all been in this position when the food hasn’t digested properly and you start feeling sick. You want to give yourself 2 hours after a proper meal before you exercise. Of course you could have a snack such as a banana or apple just before you train if you haven’t eaten for longer than that or if you are exercising first thing in the morning.

FYI – Don’t fall into the trap that exercising on an empty stomach first thing in the morning somehow burns more fat. It’s like trying to start your car without any fuel in it – it just won’t work. Your body is the same, it needs fuel to exercise properly. So have something before you train.

And after your workout, the sooner you eat the better. The body is craving to be refuelled and start its replenish and repair process, so it will use the calories you put in it to do this. I.E. They won’t be stored as fat. However that is not a green light to just eat anything after your finish exercising…

What Should You Eat Before Exercise?

This is where it gets a little complicated. If you were an athlete purely looking at it from an optimal performance perspective, I would say healthy carbs, such as oats, grains, pulses, beans, even potatoes and pasta. The carbs are what will give you the most energy to train.

But if you goal is weight loss you obviously need to amend this slightly. If you load up on carbs too much it is not going to help your weight loss efforts. Before you exercise if definitely the right time to eat your carbs, but I would suggest still balancing them out with protein.

For example, porridge for breakfast if you are training mid-morning. Or have a portion of sweet potato or cous cous or another natural, slow release carb for lunch if you are exercising later in the day.
If you are exercising before a meal time, e.g. 12pm or 6pm I would suggest a snack such as fruit before you exercise to give you an energy boost.

You want to stay away from foods high in fat before you exercise. Even healthy fats such as nuts and oily fish. The reason being, fat takes longer to digest, so you are more likely to feel full/sick even if you don’t exercise for a couple of hours.

What Should You Eat After Exercise?

Protein. After training you want to feed your body protein which will allow your muscles to recover and repair quicker. You don’t need any carbs at this point (again unless you are an athlete) as you have done your workout and don’t have to fuel your body anymore. So a meal high in lean protein such as chicken or fish, and veg/salad is the way to go post exercise.

Of course this all depends slightly when you exercise. Obviously if you are exercising mid-morning or mid-afternoon you will not want a full meal post workout. So in this case a high protein snack such as homemade hummus or cottage cheese would work.

Conclusion – What Should You Eat Before and After Exercise?

In a nutshell, healthy carbs before, lean protein after. Nasty, processed sugar should be nowhere….

Visit the main page of my website here; Complete Fitness 4 Life Personal Training – Rob Bowman.

So many people spend their lives trying to burn fat and lose weight but how much do we really know about how this process actually works? Where does the fat actually go? What is the fat burning process? It’s amazing really that so many people try so hard to achieve fat loss but very few people, even doctors and professionals actually know, how and where the fat goes. It’s all very well eating less calories, eating healthy foods, exercising, etc, but how and where does the fat actually go when you lose weight?

There is a common misconception that fat can be turned into muscle and muscle can be turned into fat, etc. And the big myth with fat burning is that the fat is somehow converted into energy or heat. This isn’t true. A great new study by UNSW explains how the vast majority of the fat is actually breathed out as carbon dioxide.

The study shows how for a 10kg weight loss 8.4kg is exhaled as carbon dioxide. So the lungs are actually the primary excretory organs for weight loss. The remainder becomes water and is excreted through breathing, urine, sweating and other bodily fluids.

The studies shows that in order to lose 10kg or fat, you need to breathe in 29kg of oxygen and that will then produce 28kg or carbon and 11 kg of water. Your body basically has to break to down those compounds and then they are exhaled as carbon dioxide.

Sidenote – Breathing in itself cannot cause weight loss!

What Does This Mean for You?

It means you now understand what is happening when you are losing weight. Which is a good thing, knowledge is power isn’t it? But practically speaking it doesn’t alter the way you should go about trying to achieve weight loss. These findings don’t change the fact that a calorie controlled diet alongside exercise is the best way to lose weight.

Conclusion – Where Does The Fat Actually Go?

Its exhaled as carbon dioxide. Sort of simple when you really think about it. But I bet if you asked 10 people that question you would be lucky to find 1 of them knows the answer. So know you know how it works, get on with achieving it!

Visit the main page of my website here; Complete Fitness 4 Life Personal Training – Rob Bowman.