9th October 2017
Women's fitness

It’s (not) all about the bass

Anyone who knows or follows me on social media will know that I’m a strong proponent of resistance exercise for women (and men). The benefits are numerous, supporting the development of strength for specific sports or core muscles to help prevent injury, reducing age-related muscle loss, improving body and bone composition and reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and later-life cognitive decline. For a fantastic and well referenced review of these benefits that is as relevant to the over 40s as it is for younger people, check out this blog (part 1 and part 2). Given the many and diverse benefits of resistance training, why are the few articles written in support of resistance exercise for women all about […]
17th August 2017
protein

In defence of protein

Lately, I’ve seen a fair few articles raising concerns over the amount of protein in our diets.  In fact, I googled “Are we eating too much…” and the most popular predicted next words were “protein” and “meat”.  Are we really eating too much protein?  How much do we really need?  Do some people need more?  Does it really damage our kidneys and bones and give us cancer?  Here’s the lowdown on all things protein-based.   Quality AND quantity   Protein is one of the three macronutrients (the other two being carbohydrate and fat).  It’s made up of smaller units called amino acids, of which there are around 20, with 9 being essential in the diet as our body cannot make […]
4th August 2017
Diet tracking

Diet trackers: friend or foe?

Diet trackers: friend or foe?   After being asked to fill in a 24 hour food diary for a nutrition conference and discovering I was consuming a lot more (albeit healthy) fat than I thought, I decided to download the diet and exercise tracker My Fitness Pal to monitor my eating and training for a few days.  While I found the process to be enlightening in some ways, I came across several pitfalls of My Fitness Pal in particular but also diet and fitness tracking in general.  Trackers can help you identify areas in which you can improve your diet and lifestyle but as you’ll see in this article, they can be highly misleading and may not be good for […]
3rd July 2017
Body positivity

Beauty and the beach

We’ve hit peak ‘Beach body ready’ in the Northern Hemisphere.  Two months’ worth of diets, exercise plans and tummy smoothing swimsuits have been forced upon us from every angle.  It’s now the height of summer and to those who dare to take their body to the beach with double digit body fat percentage: Tracy Anderson is coming to get you.   Who on earth is Tracy Anderson?  She’s a US-based personal trainer to the stars, who once fell out with Madonna and fell in with Gwyneth Paltrow and the Goopettes.  You can see where this is going already.  Now usually, I tend to ignore these celebrity trainers and self-appointed wellness gurus, but last week my interest was piqued and I […]