Abu Dhabi Personal Trainer’s all know the importance of eating a nutritional diet. This include planning what meals you are going to eat and more often than not preparing many of these meals in advance. The reason meal prepping in advance is so important is because if we wait until we are hungry to choose what to eat, chances are you will make a poor choice. As a result, Abu Dhabi Personal Trainer’s recommends cooking and preparing in advance, this will not only lead to healthier food choices but will also save yourself time and money during the week! So are you ready to try meal prepping? Here are some easy tips and hacks:

Cook once per week – Pick one day at the start of the week to do most, if not all of your shopping for the coming week. On that same day, although it may sound like a lot, try cook and/or prepare all of your meals for the week. We recommend cooking the same meals in bulk. Most meals will stay fresh in the fridge for about a week so don’t cook too far in advance!

Keep it simple – keep the meals you are going to cook practical and easy. Slow cooker meals are very easy as they require minimal prep and attendance.

Fill up your freezer – fill up your freezer with any left overs you may have, these will make quick and healthy meals for when you have not prepared anything. Just make sure to write the date you have frozen the meal on the container.

Flatter, tighter and more toned tummy – 7 tips

The warmer months of summer are definitely here in Abu Dhabi! Are you feeling beach or pool confident? Regardless of the season, some of us just want a flatter belly and so our personal trainers here in Abu Dhabi have come up with 7 tips to help you achieve the tummy of your dreams!

1. Weights!

It is scientifically proven that strength training and lifting weights can help you to eliminate body fat overall, which will then result in a slimmer more toned tummy and a more trim waistline.

2. HIIT it and quit it!

Studies have shown that high intensity interval training (HIIT) can lead to more weight loss and specifically fat loss. HIIT has been proven to be effective in reducing belly fat. The quick results that one can see from HIIT training is due to the after burn effect which means your body will keep burning calories even when the workout is finished. Where you are running, spinning or doing a circuit workout make sure to incorporate times of high and times of low intensity.

3. De-Stress

Stress increases cortisol, and higher cortisol levels can cause your body to retain belly fat. Abu Dhabi Personal Trainers recommends that you schedule in some you time each week, whether that is a yoga class or a long bath to help de-stress.

4. Cooldown!

Much like stress, exercise can increase your cortisol levels. To avoid a spike in your cortisol level make sure you are properly cooling down after your workouts.

5. Abs are made in the kitchen

Unfortunately, you cannot out exercise a bad diet. Our personal trainers can help you work out for an hour of the day but unfortunately for you to see a trim tummy you will have to make sure what you are putting on your plate for the other 23 hours is healthy! Not all calories are created equal so make sure you speak to your personal trainer about what types of food you should be eating and what types of food you should be avoiding.

6. Fat Fighting Foods

Foods like blueberries, pineapple and papaya have been reported to help fight belly fat so make sure to include these in your daily diet!

7. Be who you are!

Make sure you are trying to change your body for you and that you know that you do not NEED to change your body! These tips can be helpful for living a healthier lifestyle but know that you look great no matter what size you are!

Quick and Unusual Tips on Diet and Health

Below are 7 useful but not commonly known tips on diet and health that we at Abu Dhabi Personal Trainers think you should know!

1. Always try and eat your food freshly cooked or use an oven if possible to re-heat your food. Did you know that a microwave heats your food by oscillating it at about a billion times a second damaging the nutrients, vitamins and minerals in the food.

2. The best time for you to have your post-workout protein shake or supplement is before you stop sweating! This is the best time to ensure that extra protein is used effectively! Abu Dhabi Personal Trainers’ recommends natural protein, not a whey-protein shake.

3. Be positive! Be positive about your workouts, your food and your life in general. Positive people are happier, healthier and achieve more than people who have a view the world in a negative light.

4. Abu Dhabi Personal Trainers’ general moto on diet ie: if it wasn’t here 10,000 years ago, don’t eat it….

5. Get more in tuned with your body and your emotions. This will help you avoid emotional eating which can be disastrous on your health and your waist! Any mind-body exercise will help with this like yoga, breathing exercises, stretching etc.

6. To ensure long term success in any health and fitness goals you need to have 3 things, without these 3 things succeeding will be made either more difficult or impossible. The three things are: 1: Your total movement. 2: The quality of your diet. 3: The quality of your rest/downtime/sleep.

7. Be patient! Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither with your dream body. Don’t be too harsh on yourself, enjoy the journey and have fun!

Good Luck with your health and fitness goals.

If you require any help or you’re looking for a personal trainer in Abu Dhabi then please get in touch. Our personal trainers and health coaches are extremely well qualified and will help you no matter what your goals are!

Why Diets Are A Good Thing & 3 Reasons Why You Might Want To Do One

Article reposted with permission from Liam O’Hagan. Article reposted from https://www.ohagancoaching.com/single-post/Why-Diets-Are-A-Good-Thing-3-Reasons-Why-You-Might-Want-To-Do-One

First off, if you’re one of my fellow personal trainers hear me out. I’m usually one of the trainers that goes against diets but today I had a sudden realization and kind of wanted to challenge my own current thought processes on this topic.

The idea for this came about when I got a notification about someone posting on my free Health & Fitness tips & advice group on Facebook (if you want to join click here). It was someone who was saying that ever since they stopped eating after a certain time they feel less bloated, has less digestive problems and it helps her to lose a little bit of weight/body fat.

Now, this is a myth and has been proven wrong so many times that you don’t have to stop eating at a certain time to lose fat/weight. But, before I replied just saying “this is a myth”, I looked at the bigger picture of what it had done for her and then realized well if it works for her, why would I tell her not do it?

Diets are now often demonized or loved depending on where you read them. (Good) fitness sites usually say that they’re bad and do more harm than good, whereas if you read the latest women’s magazine all they do is go on about the next big diet. And whilst I’d say I’m still against diets (or rather extreme ones), they do have some benefits that people can find valuable.

1. It Teaches Discipline.

One of the main things that people can get from diets is the discipline aspect. Let’s say if you’re on a diet and that diet tells you that you have to restrict something like sweets for it to work, a lot of people follow it for however long that they do the diet. Now, what they may or may not realize is that they now know that they don’t need that one thing and can live without it, so now they can say no to it just that little bit more the next time it’s offered.

I would say that’s a bit of a valuable thing when it comes to losing fat, wouldn’t you?

2. People Become More Aware.

This again kind of goes in line with the restriction thing and having to eat certain things when you’re on a diet. People might start to notice how their body reacts to eating certain things, take for example the ketogenic diet where you severely limit carbohydrates in order for your body to switch the main focus of using glucose (sugar) as energy and into ketones (fat). For some people this might work better for them rather than a normal diet, where they just restrict calories overall, because maybe their body is just better suited to running on fat as the main source of energy rather than sugar.

It’s because people forget when it comes to health, fitness & nutrition we’re all similar but yet so different it’s hard to say what works for everyone.

3. They Give People Guidance.

Most people when it comes to wanting to lose fat or change their body shape feel so confused and lost and I don’t blame them. So if they find something that they’ve seen has worked for other people then I’m sure most of us would try and emulate that for ourselves, right?

I’m not saying all diets give a great guidance but at least people get given some form of a plan to follow and that’s what most people want. Besides, if you follow a plan you’re bound to get some results, after all it’s better than following no plan and getting frustrated and angry about it.

When You Shouldn’t Do a Diet

Now there are certain things you should avoid when looking for when looking for a specific diet to follow to make sure you’re following something that isn’t going to damage your health:

When you feel tired and hungry all the time – whilst you should feel a little hungry on a diet (because you’re now eating less than you’re used to), you shouldn’t feel tired & hungry and you definitely shouldn’t feel it all the time. This would suggest that you’re not getting enough energy to get through the day, so either stop the diet or increase your food intake a little.

When they just sound crazy – think of the “baby food diet”, “the charcoal cleanse”, “the vision diet” (last one you eat with blue sunglasses on – weird I know). These diets are only ever made to get whoever created them famous by coming up with the most ridiculous thing that they can think of to get more publicity, whether it’s good or bad. It’s just common sense.
If they tell you to completely remove one macro-nutrient (carbs, fat, protein) – generally these diets just aren’t good for your health as all of the macro-nutrients serve a purpose in the body and without one of them you’ll struggle with certain functions. Whilst it’s fine to reduce some of them, it’s not a good idea to cut them out completely.
Avoid juice or any other cleanses – not only are they a waste of time and money it’s unnecessary to only consume kale laced smoothies for 3+ days or sticking a coffee enema up your butt (yes, this is a thing). Besides, you have a liver & kidney to do that for you, just feed them good food…

Conclusion

I usually recommend my clients to focus on lifestyle and behaviour change when it comes to food but if you want to get technical about it, then technically that is a diet of some sort. So ultimately we have to sacrifice some of our favourite “bad” foods to get in the shape we want.

Am I saying that all diets are bad? No. Am I saying you should follow a specific diet? No. I am telling you to do what works best for you, even if it’s against what I recommend. If I tell you not to go on a diet but you come to me 4 weeks later and say you achieved the results you wanted then I’m nothing but happy for you.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

If you have every exercised with a personal trainer, chances are they have made you do interval work. It is no secret in the fitness world and among personal fitness trainers that high intensity interval training (HIIT) has been shown to be the most effective form of cardio for fat loss and weight loss. Our personal trainers know that it’s not the only way of performing cardio, but since they usually only have one hour with their clients they know they need to have effective workouts that lead to the best results for their clients.

HIIT consists of short all out bursts of exercise, followed by rest intervals that will last between 1 and 2 minutes in order to recover before performing all out again. HIIT is usually in the form of running sprints (treadmill, outdoor, hills etc.) or sprints on a bike. These high intensity/low intensity intervals should be performed between 10 and 20 minutes. If you are able to perform for longer than this then the intensity was not high enough. Our personal trainers will make sure that you are working at your maximum capacity.

 To achieve the full benefits of a HIIT workout the all out periods should last anywhere between 10 and 30 seconds, if you can perform more than 30 seconds at a time, it means it’s not intense enough. So fire up the intensity and give it your all, you should have nothing left in the tank at the end of the all out period! After you have performed your 30 seconds of high intensity, drop the intensity right down to a slow pace for 1 or 2 minutes to recover. Repeat this process 10 or 20 times per session. Usually 2 or 3 HIIT sessions a week should be enough to help you achieve your fat loss goals if followed with a proper diet. Ask your Abu Dhabi Personal Trainer today about HIIT workouts and incorporating them in to your workout schedule!