I have recently come across an interesting theory - In that we can easily optimise our bodies function via exercise. In recent articles we have looked at a bunch of different types of training and ways to integrate training into lifestyle as well as methods for short and effective workouts.

What I want to have a look into is how to optimise how your body runs through simple activity, this includes things like building muscle, improving flexibility, and generating heat -- Therefore providing better circulation and wellbeing throughout the body. It also includes priming our body to use the food we eat effectively to repair the body and supply nutrients rather than wasting the food and potentially storing it as fat.

Ideally it would be great to lay out a simple plan that we could all follow throughout the week without the need to hit the gym or do anything too strenuous. I am not advocating leaving gym workouts out but rather wanted to write something that everyone could use or would be applicable to those without access to certain facilities -- Something we could all do within the walks of everyday life when we simply don’t have time for conventional exercise.

So in essence this is the minimum you would want to be doing each week to improve your health and benefit from exercise.

What to Expect?

• Improved Nutrient Partitioning (basically meaning more of the food you eat will go into building muscle and being used as energy)
• Better Body Composition
• Fewer Aches and Pains
• Improved Mood
• Increased Flexibility

To me Improved Nutrient Partitioning is the most important thing and the main reason we should be exercising. The very fact that doing something so simple can have a profound effect on how our body deals with what we put in it is amazing, people with efficient nutrient partitioning will either store their food in muscle tissue or they will generate extra heat and increase activity to burn off any excess food eaten. This is how we can maintain a healthy weight with a less strict/regimented diet as our bodies should always have the correct mechanisms maintain homeostasis.

The Plan

1- Walk. This is the first thing that we can all implement into our daily lives, somehow find a way to walk for about 20 minutes a day. This could be spread throughout the day or done in one go it doesn’t really matter.

Walking your way to Health and Fitness

If you check out the article above you can see exactly why walking is so good. It is the linchpin upon which you can build a more healthy life and allow your body function more efficiently. Walking is low stress and has a great impact on your health.

2- Resistance. Starting some kind of resistance exercise plan is often the hardest thing as many people do not know how or where to start. Short and intense is the best way to get started, in as little as 5-10 minutes three times a week.

Tabata Training -- Short and Effective

Tabata is a basic premise of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest done 8 times -- This totals 4 minutes. It can be done with any bodyweight exercise the most basic probably being jumping jacks. THe above link even includes a timer you can download for free.

3- Stretch. This is another hugely important component that many people fail to do, stretching can not only help with nutrient partitioning but also in the relaxation of muscles. A daily stretch routine first thing in the morning and last thing at night is a great thing to implement.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7P6dzVf0ug

I find it is best to start from the top of the body and work down. By doing this you make certain all the muscles are covered. Investing in a yoga mat can help a lot with this as the extra grip will allow you to stretch deeper and more safely.

4- Be Active. Take every opportunity you can to keep active, ideally we should be moving round throughout the week. This can be anything from playing sports with friends to cycling around instead of driving all the time. It is also great to re-kindle old passions especially those that keep you active, possibly sports you used to enjoy…..

So take this as a guide to starting out on a Healthy and Active lifestyle -- These are 4 aspects that anyone can and should be doing. The fact that these four simple lifestyle changes or implementations can have a huge benefit on how your body functions is more than enough reason to get started.

Chris is the author of A Simple Guide to Eating Well and writes about staying fit while living life. You also can follow me on Twitter.

When the well is dry, we know the worth of water. – Benjamin Franklin

Drinking water regularly and throughout the day is something we hear no end of in todays main stream health writing. Water helps us flush out toxins, keep our organs hydrated, prevents fatigue and boosts energy as well as helping a host of other symptoms.

Now while I do believe that drinking a good amount of water each day can have a positive effect on the body in general, it seems we maybe missing out on the best reason to “stay hydrated”…..

Could it be possible that drinking enough water at the right times is a long held secret of the slim and healthy due to its appetite regulating properties. There is old knowledge about the body mistaking hunger for thirst, We have all experienced eating a large meal but then being struck by a hunger pang 2-3 hours later, surely our body could not have burnt through the food that quickly? Often a hunger pang is just a cry for water, having a glass or two will quickly get rid of the hunger and restore satiety……

We are told to take note that 2% dehydration in the body can have a huge impact on our wellbeing, while this is probably true it is pretty hard to get our bodies dehydrated by a full 2% which would require having no water and sweating a large amount – In which case our thirst would ramp up and make us want to down some water pretty quickly.

The most sneaky way that dehydration is caused is through eating large meals. This is because the food goes into your stomach and soaks up water from the body which it uses to digest, this can leave us pretty dehydrated but not in the conventional sense making the thirst switch less likely to be triggered. All this leaves the body pretty confused and hence the hunger strikes an hour or two after eating a heavy meal.

Here is a little quote I dug up on a recent study done involving hydration before eating:

“We found in earlier studies that middle aged and older people who drank two cups of water right before eating a meal ate between 75 and 90 fewer calories during that meal. In this recent study, we found that over the course of 12 weeks, dieters who drank water before meals, three times per day, lost about 5 pounds more than dieters who did not increase their water intake.”

It can be all too tempting to get back home from work or the gym and just start eating, the smarter option if you can manage is to down some water first thing when you enter the house. 1-2 large glasses will do, let it sit and absorb for 5-10 minutes before eating and you will avoid not only over-eating but also dehydration.

This has led me to believe the most important times to drink water are:

• Before main meals (on an empty stomach)
• After exercise (with a pinch of sea salt inside)
• Upon Waking (again with a pinch of sea salt)

These are all times where the body needs water, to help with digestion or replenish the body and get things flowing. Apart from these times I think it is safe to rely on your thirst as a gauge for how much to drink. I personally like to hydrate using herbal tea throughout the day – things like peppermint are great for regulating digestion and soothing the stomach, nettle tea is a great way to start the day as it detoxifies the body of impurities.

So it really comes down to drinking water at the right times to help your body function properly, rather than just drinking water for the sake of it. With the right hydration strategy you can help regulate appetite and weight for years to come…..

We all know that eating fruit is good right. Well that is what we have been led to believe and for good reason -- Fruit is packed with anti-oxidants and vitamins as well as satiating fibre.

Fruit is a mix of fructose and glucose. Two different type of carbohydrates which work slightly differently — Glucose is available immediately in the body and therefore can be used as energy and to replenish muscle glycogen. Fructose on the other hand needs to pass through the liver in order to be used for energy by the body (and is usually used to fuel the brain). The problem comes when we overload the liver with fructose not giving it enough time to utilise the fuel and we effectively overburden the liver forcing it to convert the liver glycogen into fatty acids and be released into the blood stream which will either be stored as fat or if you are in a calorie deficit used as fuel….

The problem does to arise through conventional fruit consumption(as it would be pretty hard to consume damaging amounts of fructose while eating whole fruit) rather through the fructose in high doses that are found in most modern day processed foods. So many products these days have High Fructose Corn Syrup in them which is a cheap alternative to sugar which is basically a chemically engineered sweetener that hugely sweet and has a high ratio of fructose to glucose. Apart from HFCS we need to look out for the ever growing fruit juice market which again has a huge amount of concentrated fructose and while it is 100% natural sugar it has been stripped of the fiber and vitamins which slow the absorption of fructose.

Both High Fructose Corn Syrup and conventional sugar (sucrose) have high levels of fructose in them and most importantly they are extremely easy to over consume. A single serving of a soft drink or fruit juice will have 30-40 grams of sugar with no fiber and a diminished content of vitamins and minerals meaning the sugar is rapidly absorbed and shunted into the bloodstream. This single serving is not a large glass but a small cup of juice of soft drink basically 200-300ml.

To get 40 grams of sugar from real food you would need to consume 2 large apples which would give you 8 grams of fiber which helps to slow absorption plus an abundance of vitamins and minerals.

Add to this recent evidence linking fructose to cancerous growths and we have some pretty scary stuff on our hands. It seems that the human body has a problem dealing with a high carbohydrate load from processed foods which can lead to a host of problems with our health such as a fatty liver, diabetes, cancer, dementia to name a few….

“The bottom line is the modern diet contains a lot of refined sugar including fructose and it’s a hidden danger implicated in a lot of modern diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and fatty liver,” said Heaney, who also serves as director of the Pituitary Tumour and Neuroendocrine Program at UCLA. “In this study, we show that cancers can use fructose just as readily as glucose to fuel their growth.”

It goes without saying that one of the first and best steps to improving health and longevity is to drastically cut down our refined sugar intake and more importantly processed carbohydrate intake which not only includes fructose but processed glucose from foods like white bread or other refined starch based items (cakes, cookies etc)

Some things to keep an eye out for in your diet include:

This to me is one of the most important steps that you can take in improving your health and getting on route to a healthy and sustainable diet, which you can read about in my e-book.

I myself eat a lot of fruit - things like Apples, Bananas and Berries usually on there own or as snacks (yoghurt or cottage cheese with fruit) which seems like an ideal combination for a snack in terms of being easy to prepare and providing good satiety. Intake of fruit seems to vary from day to day, it really seems to depend on what I am craving and how I feel. Naturally we tend to eat/crave fruit or sweet things at the following times:

• First thing in the morning
• A few hours after a large/salty meal
• After a hard workout
• When it is hot (usually summertime)
• In the evening before bed time as a snack

Well those are the most common to want some fruit. I came across this video recently and it seems to put across some pretty compelling evidence that eating some fruit before bed could be a little trick to lower stress hormones and tickle fat loss into action while sleeping….

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq-aHwfKNSg

So with all the buzz going around the internet right now about fruit intake it seemed appropriate to write something up. Fruit is a very useful tool as part of a healthy diet but should be eaten in its whole form when possible, and eaten according to cravings and desire. Not because you must eat it, a lot of people force themselves to eat fruit when they really don’t want it (like after meals).

So listen to your body and adjust your fruit intake accordingly…..

The topic of Thyroid is hugely interesting and it seems to be cropping up everywhere now. The thyroid is one of the largest endocrine glands in the body and lies in the front of your neck, around the “adam’s apple” that being said it is a tiny gland, but holds huge importance to the bodies function.

The thyroid produces its own thyroid hormones T3, T4 and Calcitonin which help regulate the Metabolism which is so important not only in terms of weight regulation, but also things like Digestion, Skin health and Energy Regulation as well as Calcium absorption.

I wrote this post not for people looking to cure a severe thyroid problems (for this see a doctor or naturopath) but rather as a guide on how to keep your thyroid healthy and functioning well, in other words on regulating your thyroid function. At the end of the day we could all do with a more optimised endocrine system.

1- Keep your adrenals healthy. This is because the adrenals have a direct link to the function of your thyroid glands. When adrenals are burnt out they cannot produce enough of their own hormones and this in turn impairs the thyroids function. The fascinating thing is that all of the endocrine system is linked, leading to a knock on effect. To keep adrenals in good shape, consider –

• Avoiding excess exercise – Especially too much High Intensity work which can be extremely stressful on the body, use it smartly once or twice a week. Also avoid doing too much morning fasted exercise – this seems to have a even harsher effect on the endocrine system than exercise with a bit of fuel in the tank.
• Don’t cut Calories – When we cut calories too low, the body reacts with a stress response. This sends the adrenals firing hormones around the body to deal with what it deems as a threatening situation. Anyone who has been on a low calorie diet will know about the ups and downs you can feel due to the excess adrenaline being pumped around the body. Even having the occasional binge and ramping up the calories can have a thyroid boosting effect.
• Reduce Stress – In this modern day and age many of us spend the majority of our time with a sympathetic nervous system firing, basically in a stress response. This again taxes the bodies endocrine system and promotes the need for some down time everyday. Things like Napping, deep breathing, and just relaxing get the parasympathetic nervous system going and reduce stress levels.
• Supplements – Firstly use sea salt liberally in your cooking, the adrenals thrive on salt and need it to function well. Also consider starting the day with 1tsp of sea salt in warm water. The adrenals also have a very high content of Absorbic Acid (Vitamin C) and therefore taking a good dose can help support the adrenals. I like to take a few grams when feeling run down or after a stressful situation. It is a cheap supplement and something to be kept on hand at all times.
• Limit Caffeine - Caffeine can be a good thing even boosting thyroid function, so if it treats you well don’t ditch your daily brew just yet. Saying that, many of us overdo it in the caffeine department — relying on cup after cup to get through the day. Too much caffeine is certainly not a good thing and again puts excess stress on the body. Try and cut down to 1-2 cups per day.

2 – Cook with the right Oils. One of the main things that can regulate your thyroid function is what fats you use. This is because some fats have been shown to impair the Thyroid’s function whereas others have been shown to give it a significant boost. Firstly you want to avoid excess Omega 6 fatty acids which easily turn rancid and toxic to the human body, this includes all vegetable oils (corn, canola, sunflower, rapeseed, flaxseed etc) that you may be cooking with or using in your food.

The treatment? Dump the vegetable oil, wheat, soy, sugar and processed food in favor of the things the human body is equipped to handle: animal fats, root vegetables, vegetables, fruit, meats, organs, seafood, eggs, nuts and soaked or fermented non-gluten grains and legumes. Throw in some bugs if you’re feeling adventurous. -Stephan Guyenet

In place start using Coconut Oil which is a proven thyroid stimulator. Coconut oil is stable at very high heat as it is a tropical oil, therefore it is great for cooking and frying at high heat.

In the l940s, farmers attempted to use cheap coconut oil for fattening their animals, but they found that it made them lean, active and hungry. – Ray Peat

The benefits of coconut can be attributed to its rich content of  Lauric acid, Capric acid and Caprylic acid which are very unique and work as anti-bacterials, Antifungals and Antimicrobals. As well as this it contains Medium Chain Fatty Acids which are processed by the liver and used directly as energy, these fatty acids serve to nourish and regulate the thyroid.

Plus food cooked with coconut just tastes better. If you don’t want the coconut flavour to come through in your food then purchase a refined coconut oil which retains the benefits but is taste and scentless.

These Simple Things can help you keep your thyroid and endocrine system in good working order. If you are lucky enough to have good thyroid and adrenal health then make sure you stick to these points to keep your body running well. If you suspect a thyroid problem these tips can certainly help out a great deal as most thyroid issues can be delt with using natural methods.

Chris is the author of A Simple Guide to Eating Well and writes about staying fit while living life. You also can follow me on Twitter.

It a no brainer in the gym these days that you need to lift heavy to gain size. Light weights simply won’t cut it right? I have written about this in the past, there is even research showing that muscle tone comes with heavy weight…..

Light weights and high reps or bodyweight movements with high reps mean you are training in an Anaerobic/Aerobic crossover zone which is great for metabolic efficiency but not so great when it comes to building lean, hard muscle….

Not 100% true – New research has come to light indicating that muscle can be build just as efficiently using lighter weights and the important thing is getting a good muscle pump and reaching fatigue.

“Rather than grunting and straining to lift heavy weights, you can grab something much lighter but you have to lift it until you can’t lift it anymore,” says Stuart Phillips, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University. “We’re convinced that growing muscle means stimulating your muscle to make new muscle proteins, a process in the body that over time accumulates into bigger muscles.”

This makes a lot of sense, imagine you were new to strength training and had a “beginners mind” so to speak, how would you go about building your chest or biceps? I am willing to bet you would hit the muscle real hard doing loads of pushups or bicep curls until the muscle just fails. Sort of like the workouts we all did when first going to the gym or getting a set of dumbbells at home……

Also explains why Matthew McConaughey claims to have built his body just running and doing a ridiculous amount of pushups and other bodyweight stuff. I think I read an interview once saying he does 200 pushups per day when training….

Doing high reps and just working a muscle to failure just makes sense. Surely the muscle fibers breakdown and grow back stronger and bigger regardless of how we break them down. Although the scientific proof still indicated more towards lower reps and heavy weights for efficient muscle growth, I think real life shows us that muscle can be built via high reps and getting a good pump. We just need to look at all the great bodies built without the use of heavy weights.

Here’s a Plan

This is great news if you do not have access to a gym or want to go for more a minimal muscle route just using your bodyweight and maybe a light set of dumbbells or kettlebell.

1. Stick to the basics. Master the core bodyweight movements, things like squats, pushups and pullups. I have linked to Mark’s Daily Apple who put in a great tutorial for all of these in the last week. Get these perfected and they can be the staple of a bodyweight resistance plan.

2. Work to Burn. Don’t expect to get a good workout from using long rest times. Try to keep the reps high working towards a burn in the muscle targeted — If you keep rest times down you can also make bodyweight workouts into amazing interval training sessions which cross the line between an aerobic and anaerobic workout, triggering both metabolic pathways.

3. Use High Frequency. I like to do some body weight stuff throughout the day and on a regular basis, this can mean spreading say 100 pushups throughout a day — Randomly getting down and pushing out 20. Or simply throwing in 100 bodyweight squats before you go to work in the morning. These little changes can make a big difference revving up your muscle building and fat burning hormones.

4. Use Metabolic Circuit Training. If you want to try out these methods in the gym I would recommend some circuit training. Simply pick 4-5 of your favourite exercises and go at them hard for 10-15 minutes using high reps and low weight with little rest. For instance:

• Overhead Squats
• DB Chest Press
• Bent Over Row
• Lateral Raises
• Ab Curls

Those 5 exercises make for a great full body workout. Keep reps between 20-30 and rest times at about 1 minute between circuits for best results.

By human nature we can tend to see things long term, how they will look and feel at the end of the journey when we fail to realise the biggest benefits and feelings of joy come in the moment and can be discovered right away.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future.  I live now.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take for instance losing weight or gaining muscle. Both of these things require a healthy diet and usually some sort of exercise which can have huge benefits as of right now, so instead of eating a certain way in search of your dream body which is a distant picture realise that being healthy has immediate effects.

Let’s start with diet. If you start eating well today you will start to get pretty much immediate effects, for instance:

Try to make a list of things eating healthfully makes you feel within a few days, the way you feel after a healthy nutritious meal as oppose to how you feel after a load of junk.

The same goes for exercising. Many people are put off exercising as they see it as something long term, something that needs to get rolling before results come in. This could not be further from the truth as exercise provides pretty much instant benefits. You will feel:

These things will come instantly, well as soon as you have finished some kind of physical activity and usually they will stay with you for the rest of the day. Sure you will not get instant 10lbs fat loss or huge muscles from a single workout or even a weeks worth of workouts but the effects will soon accumulate.

Focus on Immediate Benefits

And you will be more likely to not only start something but continue with it. I am not a fan of having long term set in stone goals as I feel they put unnecessary pressure on ourselves and can sometimes be unattainable. Better is to have a rough idea of what you want to achieve and go about doing what needs to be done.

There are always variables when achieving something – Health, life circumstances, social events, financial situation, time, work etc… the list goes on. What I am trying to say is that life crops up with all kinds of surprises, some good and some bad. Either way they have to be dealt with or enjoyed in spite of what goals you may have set yourself.

Focusing on the Now - overcomes this problem right away, as you are doing things with not only a long term vision but also appreciating the immediate and short terms benefits of your actions. It is fact that we are usually motivated by the long term benefits of our actions, this is great but it often leads us to forgetting what cool stuff comes in the short term.

It is too easy to overlook what we gain from our actions right away. At the end of the day our motivation will never stick if it is always in search of something distant.

With the examples above I have applied this to diet and exercise but I think it can be applied to pretty much anything in life – Think of relationships or work, when you stop to appreciate the what you get instantly out of taking positive steps and putting in consistent effort in these parts of your life, it is easy to see that the effort pays off with the feelings generated and appreciation from others. Try and see things for what they will give you right now as opposed to a path to a distant goal…….

I wanted to write this article as I have seen too many people recently who can’t get on the bandwagon with eating well or exercising as they fail to appreciate that it will make them feel good in a matter of days. People tell me that they don’t want to start something as their goal seems so far away and out of reach. This is all perspective that needs to be switched. The goal is to look at what “instant gratification” so to speak that will come from taking positive steps in life…..

1- Cravings are not always psychological - Sometimes we crave things because our body wants a certain nutrient. Take for example a sugar craving, it is probably your body asking for some fruit as it knows on a deep level that it is full of vitamins and minerals. Cravings can also be down to faulty eating habits -- Like being programmed to want dessert after dinner every night, this is up to you to break and choose a better option.

2- Exercising cannot make up for bad eating - You cannot out run or out exercise a bad diet. Something you can eat in 5 bites could have enough calories to take a 40 minute run to burn off….. The video below sais it all.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQbuzsY_34Q

3- We need calories - Dieting for any prolonged period can take its toll on your body, hair gets dry, mood plummets, we feel cold, sex drive disappears and we just feel bad. The truth is we need sufficient calories to function, basically we need enough food. This will keep our metabolism high and our hormones flowing. I highly recommend this free e-book if you have struggled with adopting this mindset and need more information on amping up your diet.

4- Looking and feeling good is mainly nutrition - Well at least 70-80% nutrition the rest comes from keeping active and having a healthy social life. Poor nutrition can make us feel terrible, the problem is sometimes we do not realise how bad we feel until we start to feel better. Good solid nutrition is the linchpin on which you should base your health…..

5- Strength training is essential - A solid strength training workout every couple of days is enough to capture the benefits. This could be a body weight circuit, plyometrics or some weight training in the gym, it is up to you. Stretching should be the foundation with additional strength training to supplement, stretching can go a long way to improve protein synthesis as well as depleting muscle glycogen and getting rid of fat stores. This combination will increase your metabolism and improve your bone density, plus you will look a lot better…..

6- Movement is essential - The healthiest people are those who move, this doesn’t have to mean sport and regular “exercise” but just moving. Things like walking, biking around or gardening, anything that will get you up and about which will signal your body that you are a healthy active person…..

7- Food is best unprocessed and in its natural state - Think wholefoods rather than a specific style of eating. So long as what you eat is unprocessed and in its original form you cannot go far wrong. Eat more fresh and local produce when you can…..

8- From time to time break the rules - We cannot stick to a perfect diet all the time. In fact it is good to sway from eating “healthy” every now and then firstly for our sanity and secondly because it can also work in boosting leptin and keeping your metabolism healthy. So sometimes just eat whatever you like…..

9- Spend time with people you like - Health and Fitness is not all eating healthy and working out, having a good social life is also hugely important. Surround yourself with people who you like and feel comfortable around.

A good friend is a connection to life – a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. - Lois Wys

This also counts with family, the stronger the social support network you have the better. This does not always mean quantity, usually it is better to have 1-2 close friends than a pool of distant one’s……

10- Listen to your body - With age I think we all eventually learn to listen to our bodies. You will probably start to pickup on little things that make you feel better, whether it is eating a certain type of food, getting 7 hours sleep or working out at a specific time of day. Just be patient and try to read your bodies signals of what feels right.

We hear so much about fiber and its effects on our general health, digestion and keeping our bowels healthy. What we don’t hear too much about are the ways that fiber can improve our health in other aspects like reducing fat gain and regulating appetite. To me this is a hugely interesting topic as there seem to be certain types of fiber that can accelerate fat loss, stop fat gain and even lowering our body weight set point while improving our satiety when eating.

Fiber is pretty much indigestible starch, it is a form of carbohydrate that our bodies cannot break down. Therefore it passes through our digestive tract without being absorbed by the body and used as energy. Foods rich in fiber are things like:

• Pulses and Legumes
• Unprocessed Grains
• Fruit and Vegetables

And the things with little or no fiber are meat and fat based products. This post is not another call to eat high fiber foods to gain the conventional benefits that I am sure you have all read about before, but rather to show some of the different ways you can use the unique sources of fiber that nature provides for sustainable health benefits……

So how can we use fiber to our benefit and which types of fiber should we be aiming to eat on a regular basis to gain these benefits?

Resistant Starch - This is the first thing that I came across when reading about this topic and by far the most interesting. Resistant starch is basically another soluble fiber, but the interesting thing is that their are 4 levels of this type of fiber and each one provides a different benefit.

The most interesting of the bunch is what is called Resistant Starch Type 3 which was coined to describe starchy foods which need to be cooked to be edible to humans (legumes, grains, potatoes etc..) the secret to this type of resistant starch is the benefit when cooled down as the properties change and the benefits are amplified. The unique undigestible element in these foods has been shown in numerous studies to:

• Lower our body weight set point
• Improve blood glucose management
• Improve energy
• Benefit digestive health

These are some pretty astounding beenfits from simply eating whole unprocessed carbohydrates and goes to show why ancient cultures thrived eating these foods regularly. It even leads towards why one of the leading causes of bad health and obesity around the world is probably due to the rising consumption of processed grains and other carbohydrates that have been stripped of their fiber and nutrients – Therefore stripping people of the benefits mentioned above, which could go a long way to improving health and stopping excess weight gain.

Oligo-Fructose - This weird sounding fiber is a slightly different animal to resistant starch in that it is found in other foods and works slightly differently all be it to give simular benefits. Oligo-Fructose os cointed as a “pre-biotic” which Unlike “pro-biotics”, ‘live’ bacteria products which add healthy flora to the gut, prebiotics don’t replace bacteria but help feed up the ‘good’ bacteria in the digestive tract.

These to improve the guts general health. It has been shown that regular consumption of oligofructose whether from supplementation or diet works towards fat loss without any other changes in diet. It seems to work by improving out guts health which also leads to better glucose tolerance and satiety when eating. These will leads to a natural desire to eat less food.

Pectin - Apple pectin is the best source and one of the main reasons I recommend an apple a day. Pectin is a sort of soluble fiber which works in simular way to the two fibers mentioned above, it is the reason apple’s make for such a satisfying snack and can provide fullness and satiety for hours. Apple pectin is contained in the skin of the apple (so no peeling) and works to create a gel like substance in our guts which is not only soothing to the gut lining but provides benefits again in blood glucose management.

Using this knowledge to our benefit….

So the big question is how exactly can we best apply this theory to practice? Well thankfully the answer is pretty simple, in that we should get the vast majority of our carbohydrates from unprocessed, unrefined foods which will supply resistant starch and pre-biotics in abundance. Another option is to buy some oligofructose powder which is pretty cheap and actually tastes pretty nice and sweet. This can be sprinkled on foods or into things like soup to get the benefits (don’t use too much though as it has the tendency to cause gas when used in excess)

Apart from supplements the foods you should focus on are the following:

• Potatoes
• Beans and Lentils
• Bananas which are not overly ripened (more resistant starch)
• Apples
• Artichokes
• Chicory root
• Onions
• Leeks
• Jicama

These foods contain resistant starch, oligofructose and pectin. To get the most benefits of resistant starch try to eat a few meals a week which consist of root vegetables or legumes which have been cooled to room temperature. Cooking things like potato salad or lentil salads, this allows the starch to reach its most effective stage and provide the most benefits compared to when these foods are hot.

There you have it, another piece of nutrition knowledge to use in your quest to improved health and vitality…….

If you enjoyed this article, please checkout my book A Simple Guide to Eating Well and you also can follow me on Twitter.

I am in love with the idea and practice of living a simpler life. It allows me to avoid much of the superfluous distractions that surrounds me and allows me to focus more on the things in life that are most important to me; Health and Fitness being towards the top of that list.

In my last 10 years of Strength and Conditioning I have done Bodybuilding, got a degree in Kinesiology, currently compete in Crossfit and Olympic Lifting, and over the last 3 years have maintained 7-8 percent bodyfat. The most important thing I have learned from these experiences is that simpler is almost always better.

Instead of adding complexity to the way you manage your Heath and Fitness here are 5 ways to make it simpler.

1 – Think Long Term. The underlying purpose of why we train is so that we can maintain able bodies and minds for as long as possible. The sports we play, exercise methods we us, and dietary advice we adhere to are habits we form so that can live longer and be happy. When deciding how to eat and how to train take into consideration the long term feasibility, economics, and benefits by doing your due diligence by researching before partaking. This will make things simpler by being able to sift through the plethora of bull shit that is all to prevalent in the Health and Fitness industry.

2 – What you put in your pie hole. You know exactly what you should be eating. Food that is as close to its most natural state as possible. Meat, Vegetables, Fruits, Nuts, and Seeds. If you can dig it from the ground, pick it from a tree, or kill it with a stick then its likely a healthy choice. it gets increasingly complex with you start introducing supplements and processed food to your diet while attempting to maintain a certain level of well-being. Focus on developing habits and a lifestyle that makes it easy to eat natural foods. Only keep natural foods in the house, go to farmers markets, and only drink water, black coffee, and tea.

3 – Maintain your Strength. Remember, we train so keep able mind and bodies as long as possible. A very important tool we have for accomplishing that is to develop and preserve as much strength for as long as we can. There is a myriad of different protocols to build strength and a good program will at the very least have a good portion of these core exercises.

• Weightlifting: Squats, pressing, and deadifts.
• Gymnastics: Pull ups, Push ups, and maybe air squats.
• Endurance: Swim, Bike, Run, or Row.

This is a overly simplistic way to evaluate a exercise program, even for this article, but that’s the point I’m advocating. Simplicity! A simple routine is more manageable in the long term than perpetually compounding it with complexity. You should aim to be able to do this activities for your entire life.

4 – Remove temptations from the Kitchen. Here are a few rules I follow that help me stay paleo.

• Only keep Paleo food in the house.
• When I want a treat i’ll go out, eat it, but wont bring it home.
• Always keep cooked meat or marinated meat in the fridge. I find that having protein around and easy to get to keeps me eating clean.
• Go to the farmers market once a week and get what ever is in season.

5 – Enjoy it. You are lucky to be a healthy, athletic, vigorous person. Your health is one of the great joys of being alive. Do fun things like taking adult gymnastic classes, dance lessons, hiking, swimming, rock climbing, paddling, and just learning new sports and skills in general.

Thanks to Chris for writing this post, I love his blog redesign and the new content is amazing! I just got back from Holiday and have some cool stuff to blog about, so keep checking back….

Plyometrics (also known as “plyos”) is a type of exercise training designed to produce fast, powerful movements, and improve the functions of the nervous system, generally for the purpose of improving performance in sports.

Recently I have been keeping tabs on all the people I know of who are in either great shape or are superb athletes. They all have one thing in common -- The consistent use of Plyometrics when working out. They may not do regular heavy weight lifting or work out like crazy everyday but they all throw in some sorts of plyometrics into their workout routines…..

Think about the athletes with the most impressive bodies -- Sprinters, Gymnasts, Rugby Players, Swimmers they are all doing sports that not only naturally integrate some sort of plyometric movement but they also train using explosive, powerful exercises.

When it comes to the core plymoetrics they really consist of “Jumping Movements” and were first used in the eastern block to train athletes. The interesting thing is many of these movements were copied from children who were seen playing and jumping around.

If you want to see the real kings of plyometric training, go to any playground and watch children play.

The best thing about plyometrics is not the balance and power that are achieved but how fun they are. I use a few plyometrics with my clients on a regular basis and although they are hard people seem to enjoy them, It probably comes down to how natural and exhilarating the movements feel….

For and exercise to qualify as a real plyometric it needs to be something explosive and “jumping” done several times in a row while maintaining a stretch reflex. When you see people do box jumps and stop for a break between reps this is not a plyometric but rather a power exercise, These are great but not the same. It is kind of hard to explain so I have stuck in a few videos below for you to get the idea….

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN85qVxlnvQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=90xhaI8TNgA

Try Plyometrics Once a Week - At first try plyometrics once a week, either in place of one of your workouts or as an additional workout.

Start Slow and Warmup -- Don’t forget plyometrics are very strenuous and should not be used before a through warmup, this is because by their nature plyometrics recruit more muscle fibres than standard exercises. So make sure you warmup well and start slowly.

Use with Caution -- Explosive movements make for a hard workout not only for your muscles but for your nervous system in general. You will probably find that after 3 sets of a few different plyometric exercises your muscles will be toasted and you may feel a bit shaky. So be sure to rest up and recover with lots of deep sleep and good eating.

Aim to Improve -- Little improvements will make a huge difference when it comes to your performance at sport and your body composition. Adding a few more plyometric reps or jumping a little higher each week or month is a good way to improve and progress with your routine.

Perfect with Sport -- Even if you are not a gym type of person, a solid workout of plyometrics once a week coupled with your normal activity of sports, walking, biking etc can have an amazing effect. I have a friend who is a swimmer and only does plyometrics in terms of resistance training, he has a great physique with good athletic muscle tone. This showed me that we don’t always need to be lifting weights to achieve a muscular and athletic body.

Do a Maximum - Of 3 sets of 4 exercises in anyone workout. This is even for the most advanced people, if you are  a beginner scale that down to about 2 sets of 2 exercises using a rep range of 10-15 repetitions. This will save you from sacrificing form and stop you getting injured.

If you enjoyed this article, please checkout my book A Simple Guide to Eating Well and you also can follow me on Twitter.