Topshop x Adidas Originals Collection

If you're anything like me and you spend a lot of money on training gear, then this is music to the ears.

Topshop and Adidas Originals have announced their first collaboration.

This is definitely an example of where fitness meets fashion. The full collection has 20 pieces and items range between £25 and £90-which is quite reasonable.

From the looks of things, Topshop have given Adidas originals an urban makeover which blurs the line between fitness and fashion, meaning you can wear the clothing for either purposes.

The collection will be released on March 20th 2014 online and in store. I know I will definitely be purchasing a few things, will you?

G

Portion Control

So my mum always tells me I eat too much. My excuse and response is that I’m active so I need to eat a lot in order to keep me going. However, she might actually be right. I’ve been a serious lover of food from when I was a child and on reflection; I can honestly say that I’m quite greedy.

However, that’s all soon to change, because I’ve bought something that will help me adjust my portions.

Meet the Meal Measure …

This brilliant gadget is a plastic portion control guide that fits right over your plate. You can measure your protein, starch, vegetables and fruit for perfect portions. Each hole of the meal measurer has a 1 cup and 1/2-cup mark so you can adjust portions for your individual dietary needs.

What I really like about the Meal Measure, is the fact that you don't have to use measuring cups or scales to figure out just the right food portions for your meals. All you need is your Meal Measure, which will fit in most standard sized dinner plates. It’s easy to use, easy to clean and a handy alternative to an individual portion plate as you can use it to measure more than one meal at once.

The only thing I would say is that it is a bit over priced. I paid £15 for mine on eBay. Also, the product doesn’t come with any guidelines as to whether you should have half a cup or a full cup, but for me, a full cup is less than what I usually consume anyway, so it’s still been a massive help.
I ordered mine from eBay; however they also sell it on Amazon as well.

Using the Meal Measure has shown me how much I’ve been over eating over the years and although it’s a bit pricey, I think it’s a very good investment.  It definitely gets Just Geen’s stamp of approval.

G

Fitness Myths

Since it’s the beginning of the year, and a lot of people have taken their first steps to a healthy lifestyle, I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the exercise myths; I first faced when I began working out.












Myth 1: Women who lift weights become masculine




Fact: In regards to muscle size, testosterone is a key ingredient. Men have 20 to 30 times more testosterone than women, which is why they bulk up so easily. However, for a woman to reach a masculine physique, she would need to do far more weight-lifting than the average woman, and also have some sort of hormone imbalance (either genetic or induced with steroids). To be honest, weight training helps burn fat and tones the muscles, so it should be incorporated in your routine.










Myth 2: Only doing ab workouts will give you abs




Fact: The truth is you can do as many crunches as you like, but unless you get rid of the fat on top of your abs, your abs will never show through. The more reps you do, just increases muscle memory, rather than burning fat. For your abs to be visible, you would need to reduce your overall body fat because unfortunately you cannot spot- train and pick and choose areas where you’d like to burn fat. By doing cardio eating clean, and accompanying this with core workouts, your body fat should decrease, allowing your abs to eventually show.












Myth 3: You're not working hard enough if you are not sweating




Fact: Sweating does not necessarily mean you are working hard. Some people, like me, have high sweat glands so they sweat easily. I mean I get sweaty just by walking from my house to the station. Sweating does not mean you are actually burning fat. Sweating is a way of your body cooling itself whilst you’re working out. You initially loose water weight after an intense workout, but as soon as you drink fluids, you will replenish the water weight lost.












Myth 4: More hours spent in the gym leads to better results




Fact: Overtraining stops muscle growth. Instead of your body rebuilding its muscle tissues, it'll continue to break it down, which means you'll actually start to lose muscle. The key is to train smarter and not harder.












Myth 5: If you're not sore or in pain, you're not working out hard enough




Soreness can come from many different factors that have nothing to do with the quality of your workout. For example, the type of workout you're doing, what you eat before and after your workouts or whether you stretched after your workouts. A good way to judge the quality of your workout is by wearing a heart rate monitor and working at 60 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate.












Myth 6: Muscle turns into fat




Fact: You can’t turn muscle into fat, the same way you can’t turn fat into muscle. Building muscle and losing body fat are two completely different processes and while this can be done at the same time, it is very rare. Most of the time, you need to focus on one objective before you can focus on another. This is because, in order to gain muscle, you must consume more calories than you burn and, in order to lose body fat, you must burn more calories than you consume so your body will find it difficult to do both at the same time. 












There are too many myths to mention, but these are the most common 'myths' I hear when I'm in the gym, so with that said I will leave it here for now.




I hope this helps.




G

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

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

The Number Game

Ever stepped on a scale and freaked out because the number has increased by half a pound? Or do you weigh yourself everyday or multiple times a week to ‘keep an eye’ on weight gain? Well this post is definitely for you …

This happened to me this week. I’ve gained three pounds within the last four weeks.  But Im not upset about it *shrugs*, I’m actually quite happy. Why? Because I don’t let the scales define me and neither should you.

I think sometimes as females, we place too much emphasis on how much we weigh, to determine how healthy we are. We get so caught up on what the scales tell us but to be fair, the scales don’t really tell you anything other than your relationship with gravity.

If you starved yourself for 24 hours or went from a full head of braids to natural hair, you would definitively weigh less, but this doesn’t mean you’ve ACTUALLY made any progress. You could step on a scale and see a weight loss of several pounds, but this may not even be from fat and could be from water.

I used to chase an ideal weight I thought I would be happy with once I reached it. But to be honest, I was just chasing a magical number. Once I reached my ideal weight I still wasn’t happy and I just found other things that I wanted to fix or improve-so it just became a never ending cycle.

However, my mindset has completely changed. I’ve stopped focusing on how much the scale tells me I weigh and I’ve started to measure my progress in other ways. For example, I’m currently tracking my progress by monitoring my body fat percentage. 

Body fat percentage is the amount of stored fatty tissue compared to the amount of lean tissue in/on/and around your body. This number can be high or low; regardless of whether your skinny, fat, or in between. Remember, not all 5’5 women who weigh 10 look the same or have the same body type.

As you can see, she weighs the same in both pictures, but due to her dropping body fat and increasing muscle mass, she appears slimmer and more toned in the picture on the right.

I’m currently going through a shredding phase and the aim is to MAINTAIN and BUILD as much muscle as possible and focus on fat loss. I’m one month into my phase and within these four weeks I've managed to drop my body fat by 1% but I've gained three pounds. The extra three pounds doesn't bother me at all because it just means I've managed to lose body fat and build muscle-which means I’m on the right track to reaching my goals J.  As my aim is to get leaner, tracking my body fat percentage is the most accurate way for me to do this, but this may not necessarily be the case for everyone.

There are many other ways to track your progress such as progress pictures, how you fit in your clothes, how you’re feeling or even taking measurements. These methods will give you more of an accurate picture and won’t fluctuate as much as your body weight will on a scale.

So let’s stop obsessing over the scales and how much we weigh and focus on the bigger picture. If you feel good and are happy with how you look then playing the number game is pointless as numbers should not define you.

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

R.E.S.T

 

So it’s ‘wellbeing’ month at work and my company have quite a few seminars and workshops going on. This week I completed something called a ‘Boomerang Life Balance Questionnaire’ which measures your mental and physical health. I scored highest on my diet and exercise and lowest on my body, sleep and relaxation.

You would think that my lifestyle would mean that I am taking good care of my body, and to be fair I am, but the one thing I am really neglecting is recovery and sleep- which is paramount when it comes to exercise as this is the ONLY opportunity where your body is at complete rest and is able to fully recover and repair itself.

R-ecover E-nergise S-leep T-rain

Recover - Allow your body to adequately refresh itself in order to deliver the same output (if not more) for its required use.

Energise: You will see a MAJOR difference in your physical and mental wellbeing. A renewed energy will allow you to avoid burning out and should help maintain your enthusiasm and fitness goals.

Sleep: Sleep aids recovery and can enhance exercise performance.  Taking at least one day to catch up on sleep will benefit your training more than pushing your body for another workout with a lack of sleep. The majority of your Growth Hormone, which is a highly anabolic substance, is released during sleep. Getting enough sleep provides you with the energy and focus you need to see you through an intense workout. It also provides the optimum anabolic environment for your muscles to recover and grow.

Train: Training is what we all strive for so why not prep your body to train at its best, by simply giving it what it demands...REST!!!

 

So I’m going to take my own advice and get some more rest and I suggest you do too.

G