All over the news yesterday was the worrying obesity statistics for the UK. The World Health Organisation (WHO) are predicting that by 2030, 74% of men and 64% of women will be obese.
Worrying statistics. Especially for children who will be growing into this world. I’ll have to get Jack and Lewis to do 50 burpees before school, everyday!
How can we prevent ourselves falling into the obese category?
The first thing that comes to mind is eating well. Limiting the ‘junk food’ to once in a while rather than an everyday event (And I’ve banged on about that enough times). Also, eating fresh veggies, meat, fish, eggs, good fats etc etc etc…..
(On a side note, I went to Costa with a client yesterday, he was hungry and the best thing he could possibly choose was a yoghurt pot. The rest was sugar laden cakes, sandwiches and granola bars. Even the yoghurt pot had 6 teaspoons of sugar in it).
As well as eating ‘healthily’, moving is soooooo important. Little things such as walking using the stairs and not the lift, walking up escalators and not standing still are some good habits to get into.
The benefits of exercising 4 times per week are highlighted in this study.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19826285
People who exercised 4 times per week lost more fat and had a better body composition than those who didn’t.
(Adherence to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Guidelines for frequency of exercising 4 times per week for 30 minutes was effective in reducing subjects’ body fat mass in this study.)
That’s why I reward people with points when they train 4 times per week, in our gym challenges.
Training 4 times a week has a valuable impact on fitness levels, fat loss as well as feeling great. I can’t emphasise this enough.
An example occurred in this morning’s bootcamp. A client smashed her best scores. She said that since she upper her training volume to 5 X per week she is feeling much fitter!