Great hair or great body, which one would you prefer?

 

Have you ever skipped a workout because you didn’t want to sweat out your hair? If so, then this blog post is definitely for you.  Most males probably don’t understand the importance of hair, in this situation, but when you spend on average about £60 (£200+ for you Brazilian babes) for one hairstyle, you want to make sure you get your money’s worth. 

I often get asked how I manage to maintain my hair and workout as much as I do, and seeing as this is something I used to have trouble with, when I first started working out, it just made sense to share my tips.

There are certain things you can do to make it easier to work out and maintain a healthy hair regime.
 
1.       Clean your hair
 
I’m a sweaty Betty and find that my head sweats a lot so my hair ALWAYS looks like someone’s thrown water over me, after my workout session. If you’re like me and you work out more than 4 times a week, washing your hair that often (with shampoo) is not only a lot of effort but it can also cause damage to your hair. 

Why not try rinsing out the sweat from your hair with warm water. If you don’t feel clean without using shampoo, use a diluted shampoo or leave in conditioner. Only use full shampoo or deep condition your hair when your hair has been severely sweated out or soiled, so only on or around the days you do cardio.
 
2.  Plan your workouts around your hair regimen.
 
Do your more intense, sweat-inducing cardio exercises a day or two before your 'hair wash day'. For example, I normally wash and straighten my hair during the weekend. So, Sunday-Tuesday I do my strength training and low impact workouts that don’t leave my hair as soaked. Then during the rest of the week I do my cardio sessions that will sweat my hair out, just in time for my 'hair wash day'.
 
3.  Wrap your hair whilst you work out
 
Wrap your hair when you workout. You don’t have to cover your entire head; you could just wrap the scarf around your hairline, leaving the crown exposed which will preserve the volume without flattening your hair.
 
4.   Keep heat application on relaxed hair to a minimum.
 
I avoid straightening my hair everyday by just making sure I wrap my hair after a workout. If your hair is wrapped properly, this should allow your hair to dry straight. If you need to straighten you hair, I suggest using a heat protecting syrum or oil.
 
I don’t have many tips, but these methods should allow your workout routine to co-exist with your hair without causing damage because no female should feel that she has to choose between improving her health and having healthy hair;  she can do both.
 
G

How to stay motivated to exercise during the winter

The clocks have been pushed back, the days are shorter, the temperatures are colder and motivation is hard to find. This can only mean one thing- winter is officially upon us *welcomes with open arms*.

Unfortunately, winter can even discourage the most motivated exercisers and it can become really easy to pack away your lycra leggings and dri-fit clothing for some extra moments with your hot water bottle and duvet. Most people dread winter training but strangely enough, I really enjoy it.

I actually prefer winter training to summer training. Why? Well “hot bodies are made in cold conditions”, that’s why.

From past experience, I've found that my body responds to exercise much faster during the winter than in the summer. I haven’t figured out why this is, but knowing that this is the case, I’m making sure that my winter training doesn't go in vain.

I’ll be completely honest though, I do have the odd occasional days where I can’t be bothered and would rather stay at home, but there are certain things I do to stop this from happening which I will list below:

1.    Going to work out straight from work

If you’re like me, then you know that once you get into your house and it’s warm, you’re not going to leave again. So, plan to workout straight after work. This should allow you to avoid the temptation of staying at home. Plus, I always see it as; I didn’t carry my heavy gym bag around me all day to not make use of it.

2.    Dressing appropriately

When you think about it, once you start working out, you actually can’t feel the cold, so the weather shouldn’t really be an excuse. However, you should invest in some thermal clothing, socks and gloves to keep those key areas warm. Also, wear layers that can easily be removed once you start to sweat. You don’t want that chilly feeling once you’re dry and your clothes are still wet because that way you’ll catch a cold.

3.    Home workouts

Why not exercise in the comfort of your own home. If you don’t own any fitness DVD’s YouTube is your best friend. There are tons of fitness workouts online that you could try, which don’t require any equipment. Im currently doing the ‘500 Core Ab Circuit’ at home, which I will upload in a separate post.

4.    Revisiting goals

I use this time to reflect on my progress over the last few months and decide what I want to accomplish before the seasons over. For example, one of my new short term goals, before the end of the year, is to be able to do full chin ups from a dead hang position, because I currently can only do them from a 90 degree angle. By re-evaluating your goals you can analyse how far away from them you are. It may be the case that you realise your short term goals have changed and you want to accomplish something new within the next few months. This should keep you on your toes and see the new season as a new challenge.

5.    Rewards

So once I’ve reached my goal, I plan to treat myself. I haven’t decided on the treat yet but I know the treat will not undermine my efforts. So no, I will not be treating myself to a trip to Hagen Daz lol but you get the idea...

6.    Try something new

I want to take my training to another level so I’m going to join a CrossFit gym and I’ve also started pole. Trying something new doesn’t have to be life changing; it can be as little as changing your fitness regime or trying a new piece of gym equipment. Either way, adding something new might be another way to stay motivated to exercise in winter.

7.    Buddy up

I currently work out with different people. For example, I work out with specific people when I’m doing legs, when I’m doing arms, and when I’m doing cardio. Just make sure whoever you’re working out with, has the same goals as you. Working out with someone else will give you a reason to keep going and to stay motivated as you won’t want to let them down as well as yourself.

There are probably loads more other things you could do, but these are the main ones that have and are currently working for me.

Why not try incorporating a few or all of these into your current regime and see if they help you stay motivated this winter.

G

Transformation Tuesday

So today's ‘Transformation Tuesday’ is dedicated to my mummy. She is my inspiration and living proof that getting into shape has no expiration date. She is 54 and has had four kids. After seeing my progress, she decided to join me on my journey and after a year, she has made this amazing transformation.

Most of her weight loss has been from nutrition rather than exercise as she ditched the oily African foods. Thanks to the help of @bigboatstrainingroom‘s nutrition plan, and my guidance, she has dropped from a size 20 to a size 16 on top, and a size 24 to a size 20 on the bottom.

Although my mum is lucky because she has me at her disposal to meal prep for her, and keep her on the straight and narrow, when it comes to her meals, she has worked really hard and has stayed committed to achieving her goals.

Her exercise routine is quite basic because she suffers from joint problems. She goes for brisk walks most mornings, in our local park, and does Shaun T’s ‘Hip Hop Abs’ and the ‘Brazillian Butt Lift’ DVD, three times a week. Although her exercise routine is not intense and does not consist of your typical cardio, she has managed to loose quite a considerable amount of weight, which to me, emphasises the importance of nutrition.

When they say weight loss is 70% your diet and 30% exercise, they are not lying. If she has managed to lose this much weight and keep it off without much exercise, imagine how much weight she could lose if she was to increase her exercise?

In my mums case, the focus has been on her nutrition and adopting a healthy lifestyle for long term results - which has clearly worked. She still treats herself to the occasional African meal but has adapted the way she cooks these meals. For example, she boils; grills and steams rather than frys her food, and these small changes have given her big results.

My mum is my inspiration and has showed me that it doesn't matter how old you are, if you put your mind to it, you can reach your goals.

So ask yourself this, if at my mum’s age she can do it, then what are you waiting for?

G

Can you lose body fat without losing your curves?

This is something I’ve struggled with since the beginning of my fitness journey and I know a lot of females can relate, so I thought to share my experience and explain how the process works.

So can you lose body fat without losing your curves? My answer is yes and no.

The thing is you cannot determine where you lose fat from. If you do cardio, you can’t only burn the fat off your waist area and keep it on your bum and thighs. Trust me I wish you could but it just doesn’t work like that.

Please bare in mind that your body does burn fat all over, it’s just that sometimes it can burn fat more in specific areas. For example, my fat burns quickly around my chest area (hence my lack of boobs lol) and although I still have a bum and thighs, I have still lost body fat in those areas.

Everyone has stubborn fat cells in specific areas. For me, I’d say my stubborn areas are my bum, thighs and waist, which isn't a bad thing except the waist area- but this, is not within my control. The only way I focused on those stubborn fat cells in my waist was to keep up the cardio until it finally responded and disappeared (it still hasn’t gone yet but its slowly getting there), although I did suffer the risk of losing my curves. So what do I do?

Well I know how my body works and I know it’s a lot easier for me to put on weight than it is for me to lose weight. So I took the risk (and still am taking the risk) in order to give my body the best possible chance of stripping down my body fat. I haven’t lost too much mass in the process as my cardio mainly consists of high intensity workouts (refer to previous blogpost) which has in some way retained my muscle.

But inevitably I was bound to lose fat from my bum, thighs and hips so I also weight trained those specific areas on days where I wasn’t doing cardio. I’ve now incorporated more leg days in my fitness regime focusing more on exercises which target my glutes, thighs and hips (squats, lunges, leg raises, glute bridges etc) in order to compensate for the fat burned in those areas.

I still haven’t replaced all the missing fat from those areas YET but just know I won’t stop until I do. Personally, I'm yet to see the gains of my work because I know this process will probably take a year to master effectively and my body doesn’t respond to muscle training as fast as I would like it to. But everyone’s body is different so it might not even take you that long.

There are two ways to do this, you can either lose the fat first then weight train or do both at the same time. I’ve chosen to do both at the same time because when combined with a good balanced diet, adding muscle mass will increase your metabolism and help burn off any excess body fat, so it’s a win win situation.

The only thing is that muscle takes a lot longer to build than fat takes to burn so this process requires the most amount of patience. My advice to anyone embarking on this part of their journey is to be patient and accept that slow progress is better than no progress.

Remember Rome wasn’t built in a day…and neither are your muscles.

G

Marathon vs Sprinter

The way you exercise is important because it determines the shape your body eventually moulds into. Here we have a marathon runner (left) and a sprinter (right). Can you spot the difference in their physiques?

Although both are runners, the difference in their training is important. Cardio is the most effective way to burn fat and calories. However, it can also burn muscle. Whilst doing long periods of cardio, the body has to find its largest resources of calories, which more often tends to be from the muscles. When your cardio is maintained for long periods of time at low/moderate intensity level, a hormone called Cortisol is released which leads to muscle burning.

However, short intense cardio utilises and uses up your bodies stored sugars more (needed for short bursts of high intensity) and has a greater after burn effect. Cortisol is again released by the body but this is also released alongside growth hormones and testosterone, which enhances fat burning and leads to a higher muscle building state.

You tend to burn more fat during high intensity workouts rather than low/moderate intensity workouts because high intensity has an after burn effect. This is basically where your metabolism has been kicked into overdrive and the body continues to burn off calories after your workout. 



Education is key and to be honest as I was reading this I surprised myself with the knowledge that I did know. Sometimes doing your own research and asking fitness experts in the industry is the only way to truly understand how the body responds to different exercises. This way you will always be pointing your body in the right direction as you’ll know exactly what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

My current goal is to shed body fat without losing too much mass, whilst still maintaining my curves. Although the majority of my training involves high intensity cardio anyway, I will still embark on a few low/moderate intensity workouts to help target my stubborn fat. I will also combat any risk of muscle loss here by ensuring I maintain my weight sessions in the gym.



So next time you decide to do cardio, think about your goals and what you are trying to achieve. If your aim is to achieve lean muscle and get that ‘tight look’ as opposed to just weight loss, think about doing intervals or simply running that much faster so you reduce your time…remember it is NOT about duration, it is about intensity.

G

#MonthsOfShredding

 

So we had #MonthOfMadness and now we have #MonthsOfShredding. I say months because I don’t know realistically how long it will take, but I’m aiming for the end of the year to see some sort of difference.

As usual, me and my squad @bigboatstrainingroom and @jan885 are trying to see how much body fat we can lose in the next couple months  .

Fitness wise, I know I’ve got that area covered. I won’t be making many changes to my regime. I currently do constant steady runs and interval training. The constant steady run helps me stay in my fat burning zone, and the interval training shocks my body and prevents my cardio from being boring. For those that don’t know what interval training is, it is the best and fastest way to lose weight. It’s more about intensity rather than duration. With interval training you alternate periods of high-intensity exercises with low-intensity recovery periods and this increases fitness and burns more calories over a short period of time. I’ll still be doing my constant steady runs alongside my interval training to help me stay in my fat burning zone.

For example of interval training if you’re running outside or on a treadmill is:

• 30 seconds sprint/30 seconds recover

• 1 minute sprint/1 minute recover

• 2 minutes fast jog sprint/2 minutes recover

To make it harder you could make your recovery time lower:

• 30 seconds sprint/20 seconds recover

• 1 minute sprint/30 seconds recover

• 2 minutes fast jog sprint/1 minute recover

This can be done with any type of cardio –even with swimming. There is no hard and fast rule about how long your workout and recovery time should be. However, I always make my recover time less because it makes it that much harder. There are loads of other ways to do interval training and this is just one of them, but either way I hope you get the jist.

My main focus these next couple of months is nutrition! There is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to my eating. I'm aiming to reduce my daily calorie intake and before you get the wrong idea, this does not mean that I will be starving myself and eating less food. It just means that I'm going to be eating the same amount but I’ll be opting for lower calorie foods.

How am I going to do this? Well I'm going to increase my fruit and veg intake, but i'm going to be focusing on increasing my veg more than my fruit. This is because fruits tend to be higher in sugar and too much sugar can turn into fat-which is the opposite of what i'm trying to achieve. 

By opting for lower calorie foods I will be eating the same amount and saving myself some calories- and this is without even changing the quantity of food I've eaten.

Here's a list of some low calorie foods I will be looking to eat more of :

• Asparagus

• Broccoli

• Carrots

• Celery

• Spinach

• Kale

• Mushrooms

• Grapefruit

• Kiwi

• Cabbage

• Olives

• Apple

• Blueberries

• Goji berries

I haven’t set a target of how much body fat I want to lose but i’ll keep you posted every month.

See you in four weeks

G 

Just Geens Fun Day

Hi guys, as you all know I’ve been on this fitness journey for over a year now and to celebrate I’ve teamed up with my good friend Verlonge and present to you…

Just Geen’s Fun day (supporting the British heart foundation)

Date: 11th of August

Venue: Play on Sports, 100 Preston's Road, Wood Wharf Business Park, Wood Wharf, London E14 9SB

Time: 2:00 – 7pm (Football tournament starts at 2:30)

Activities on the day include:

-7 a-side football tournament

-fitness challenges (squats & push ups)

 -dodge ball

-egg & spoon race

-3 legged race

-relay race

-tug of war

…and much more including free prizes and giveaways

THIS IS A TICKET ONLY EVENT

Tickets are priced at £10 whether you’re participating or not and this comes with free food.

The football tournament is £10 per player which also includes free food-those involved in the football tournament do not need to buy an additional ticket. Teams can consist of up to 10 players and teams must register before the event to participate. Please note: No studs or moulds.  Astroturfs and trainers ONLY.

Music on the day will be played by Neptizzle and Jammy D.

For general enquiries, please call 07565723515 or 07903456371

For tickets, please call:

 -South/West London: 07903456371

-East London /Essex: 07565723515 or 07867334274

-North London: 07545066825

Or visit www.shoobs.com 

To enter the football tournament please email: Thepeoplescup@outlook.com  or call 07903456371

More details of the event can be found at:

Facebook: Verlonge

Twitter: Just_Geen

Instagram: just_Gina1

Come and support a good cause and I hope to see you there x

G

#MonthOfMadness

So my birthday present to myself was a trip to New York.

The annoying thing about holidays for me is that I always feel guilty for enjoying my holiday and not working out. So obviously I had to make use of my surroundings and workout whenever and wherever I could lol.

I'm gonna be honest, my diet was a shambles, I threw clean eating out the window and became the old Gina - the 11 stone 11 year old indulging in any and everything I wanted. The worst thing was it felt so good to do it and I didn't care about the repercussions!  You're probably thinking WTF but this was all planned.

Before I left, I had started to lose motivation and the drive to keep going hard-why? Because I didn't have a visual goal. I didn't have a beach holiday coming up or anything short term to work towards so going hard was getting boring, I wanted something to look forward to and I wanted a new challenge. Also, because it was my birthday month I was surrounded by alcohol, restaurants and endless cake.

So I said to myself, you know what, go on holiday, 'YOLO' and get it out of your system. I'm the kind of person where I need to feel before I hear so I knew I needed to see myself put on the weight to get that motivation to go hard again. It may sound silly but that's just how I work, I'm not scared of putting on weight because I know my body and I know how to put weight on just as much as I know how to lose it.

But I've come back, put on weight and have fallen in love with the gym all over again.

Funnily enough some of my other fitness friends are going through the same transition, so we've joined together to start a #MonthOfMadness. We all have individual goals, some are trying to bulk, shred, tone up.... you name it and for the next month we will be going hard like when we first began. If your on Instagram lookout for the #MonthOfMadness hashtag to see all the crazy stuff we will be up to.

I'm excited about the next 28 days and can't wait to share my results. If your up for the challenge, join in and hashtag #MonthOfMadness in your instagram pictures and lets go hard together.

G

Nike & Elle -We Own The Night

 

On Saturday 18th May, me and 3385 women took part in Nike & Elle's 'We Own the Night' women's 10k run in Victoria Park.

 

This was my first ever race and I had never ran 10k before or even trained for the event. Minor I thought- this will be a walk in the park…NOT!!! My knee injury had been holding me back for a while so when I first heard about the race I decided I wasn't going to do it. However, two days before the race I changed my mind.

 

I went to Nike Town to pick up my kit with my good friend Christabel Rose and we took our event photo- it was confirmed- we were running the race.

 

I’ve decided to make this post a little different. You’re probably bored of hearing what I have to say so I’ve asked Christabel to give her version of events and tell you about why she decided to get involved in the race.

 

“Right - so a few months ago the thought of running on concrete was a big NO! Until one day I looked in the mirror and caught a glimpse of myself and thought "Wait! What's that? Where did this come from?" #BingoWings&Tyres. I just thought as time passed it would disappear but denial isn't only a river in Egypt! Gina who goes spartanfam told me to come along but I'm not a fan of circuits, so I made excuses and didn't go.

Then she told me about Run Dem Crew! (RDC), who run around the great city of London exploring hidden places and great bridges. I quickly got on my running gear and joined in April. I did my first run with Food & Lycra (Super Steep Sundays) and nearly passed out but the girls encouraged me throughout - shout out to Laura!

 

18th May Race Day - was close to bottling it because I was so nervous and my anxiety started kicking in but once I saw all the RDC ladies and Gina I was like "ok I can do this - I got this". By 7k I'm sure my mind had shut down and I was just cursing myself but the ladies from RDC kept pushing me to the finish line!

It was a great experience and with the emotional tears I would probably do it again! I'm not a fitness freak nor am I very healthy but I feel so much better than I did in January mentally and physically. Now it’s not even about the running, it's knowing I'm getting away from things that do my head in daily and just meeting the RDC family.

I would like to thank Food & Lyrca, Gina and Run Dem Crew for the constant encouragement!”

I would just like to add that 7k was also the mental mark of where it got tough for me- I literally wanted to slit my wrists!!! But I just kept thinking #NoExcuses #JustKeepOnRunning. At least now I know what to expect when running Race for Life (RFL) in June. I will definitely be training for that event as I can’t deal with the shock again.

 

But anywho…that’s it from me and Christabel for now.

G

Race For Life

This year I'm taking part in race for life. I haven't personally lost anyone  as a result of cancer but I have friends that have, so I've decided to take part to help raise money for cancer research.

On Saturday 22 June 2013 me and some of my girls will be running 10k at Finsbury park.

I'm not a long distance runner, or a runner in general. I'd rather squat or do push ups to be honest, but running 10k will push me out of my comfort zone and take my fitness to new heights.

This is definitely going to be difficult, but with hard work and training I know me and my girls will be able to kill it.

I'm gonna start switching up my training from this weekend. For example, tomorrow me and my girls have aimed to run from Stratford to Oxford Circus. I worked it out to be just under 7 miles and it would take about 2 hours and 10 minutes if walked, so it should take us less than that.

Just thinking about it right now it sounds so long and ambitious... BUT this year is all about breaking boundaries so were going for the kill.

Please show support and sponsor me by clicking here.

Hopefully some of you will also come and show support on the day and watch us run.

Wish us luck and see you at the finish line.

G