22 January 2010 (Fitness)

Keep Those New Year Resolutions With 1escape Health Club located in Dublin's Smithfield. Words by Ciara Lefroy

Each January sees numerous resolutions being made - the most popular being to get fit and lose that Christmas flab. While the month is always started with good intentions, these resolutions can soon lose momentum as we try to juggle our busy lifestyles. However, the professional training team at 1escape, state of the art health club in Smithfield, offer their top tips on how to plan and carry out your new fitness regime successfully.
 

We are often asked for a step by step guide to helping someone get fit, and the request usually wants the answer in one neat little email. Unfortunately it’s not that simple. Health and fitness programs should be step by step guides tailored to the individual and not quick little tidbits that we can click and send.
It's important to note that one of the flaws with "one size fits all" diet programs or exercise regimens is . . . we're dealing with individuals with individual schedules, food preferences, lifestyles, metabolisms, travel schedules, habits, etc. Tailored programmes gives you the opportunity to learn about your individual fitness and teaches you how to train effectively so you can make your own decisions with the confidence that you understand how to get to the desired results. That's why, more than anything else, we like to create programs that empower people.
 

In order to get people started in the right direction, we’ve outlined a few fundamentals that may offer some tips and examples for integrating these fundamentals into your life.
The key to getting any positive physical result is a concept we’ve called Synergy. It's the combination of three synergistic elements, Eating Right, Incorporating Moderate Aerobic Exercise, and a Maintaining a Concern For Muscle. Let's look at them one at a time.
 

1. Eating Right - you want to try to eat frequently throughout the day, ideally every 3 - 3 1/2 hours. Your three main meals should have visually equal servings of a lean protein, a starchy carbohydrate, and a fibrous carbohydrate. Snacking or grazing between meals can help digestion but obviously make sure you enjoy healthy snacks and not confectionery/crisps/chocolate. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables and drink more fluid than you think you need. As a tip, aim to drink a glass or cup of fluid every hour while you are at work, every day.
2. Moderate Aerobic Exercise - you want to perform some sort of aerobic exercise, which can be biking, walking, jogging, skipping, stairclimbing, roller blading, or anything you can think of that might elevate your heart rate moderately for a period of time
3. Resistance Exercise - While strength training with resistance is known to build muscle strength, it is also beneficial for improving range of motion, flexibility, posture, and tendon strength. In addition, it can reduce the risk of injuries like back problems. Remember these key phrases: ‘Muscle burns fat’ and ‘If you don't use them -you lose them! The more muscle you have the more fat your body will burn 24hours a day! How fast does one lose muscle tone then? Within 48 hours of inactivity and when you lose muscle and your metabolism starts to slow down again. So how can we prevent this muscle loss? With 3 sessions a week (preferably every other day). Women who fear resembling the Hulk should immediately put that anxiety to rest. It just won’t happen. For a simple reason: hormones. The only way you will ever tone up is with weight bearing exercises

OK, now, in answer to many of your questions:
 

What can you buy at the Supermarket?
Buy lean proteins in the meat, dairy, and seafood departments. Consider flank steak, chicken breast, turkey breast, ground turkey breast, eggs, egg whites (in containers), fat free cottage cheese, fat free natural yogurt.
 

Buy starchy carbs and fibrous carbs in the produce department. Fibrous carbs include all of those green veggies as well as cauliflower, carrots, red cabbage, onions, and mushrooms. Starches include potatoes, tomatoes, corn, and peas. Then you can sneak over to the rice aisle and pick up some brown rice, and next, over to the cereal aisle and grab some oatmeal.
 

Finally, after picking up some bottled water, as you want to drink 0.55 ounces of water for every pound of bodyweight (82 ounces for a 150 pound individual), for convenience, head over to the frozen foods and pick up some frozen hash brown potatoes (0 fat), frozen shrimp, and frozen mixed veggies.
 

What can you eat for breakfast?
Consider an egg white omelet with green peppers and tomatoes, or if time is an issue, maybe some oatmeal.
 

What might a good workout routine be?
 

After a brief warm up consisting of a brisk 5-15 minutes of cardio, perform the following exercises on alternate days (i.e. Monday, Wednesday, Friday):
• Squats
• Lunges
• Chest Press (or Push ups)
• Dumbbell row or Lat Pull down (or Pull ups)
• Shoulder Press
• Tricep Dips
• Lower back extension on the mat
• Abdominal crunch
• Oblique crunch
• Plank (core stability hold 10-20s 3times)
• Stretch

(See One Escape's Emy videos below) 

 

Use a weight that allows you 10-12 repetitions (last three repetitions should feel challenged) and perform 2-3 sets of each movement with a 60-90 second rest period between sets.
On the non-weight training days (i.e. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) perform 20-35 minutes at a moderate intensity (you should be able to carry on a conversation, but if you can sing you're not working hard enough) of your favorite aerobic exercise (or if you don't have a favorite, opt for the one you hate the least).
 

 

What do you have to buy?
Not a whole lot. You can actually develop your body any way you want by just investing in nothing more than a good pair of running or crosstraining shoes. But if you are an untreatable shopaholic you can spend lots and lots of money on expensive exercise clothes as a reward to your hard training instead of that piece of chocolate cake .

 

Be Specific
Don’t make plans that are vague or that are likely to be unsuccessful. For example if you’ve decided to merely ‘get fit’, you need to be more specific: you could plan to go jogging once a week, join a health club by the end of January or take up yoga classes.

Make Your Goal Achievable
Everyone wants to see great results soon and when that doesn’t happen straight away we become de-motivated and lose interest. As a general rule, losing weight will take approximately half the length of time it took to gain it in the first place. The good news is that with a sensible and realistic change in your lifestyle, you will gradually lose the excess weight and should keep it off permanently.

Break Down Activity
Many of our goals will take months to achieve, so we need to break them down into smaller, achievable chunks. Each mini-goal should be achievable within 4 to 8 weeks, to provide clear focus, regular progress and motivation to keep going.

Get a Partner
By enlisting a partner with similar goals you will be compelled to follow through with your plans – two people training together will motivate and challenge each other along the way and it makes it a lot tougher to quit.

Write it Down
Once a goal is written down, it has a higher likelihood of been achieved. Think about how confident you will be and how happy you will be with yourself for achieving these goals. This somehow makes it more official and of course acts as a written reminder of what you want to achieve. Stick your goal somewhere that you will see it each day – be it on the fridge or on top of the TV.

Measure your Success
Finally, all goals should be measurable in some form so that you can plot your progress and celebrate your final goal when you reach it. Planning how you will reach your goal ensures that you have thought about the journey as well as the final destination. It could be the number of weekly workouts, weight loss targets or total minutes of exercise each month.

Is this enough to get you into the next Olympic games? Probably not, but is it enough to get you started in the right direction? Absolutely!

 

To enter a competition to win a three month pass to 1escape just hit our competitions section.
 

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