326kcal All In Salad..

OK so eating well shouldn`t and dosen`t always have to be about eating “rabbit food” but this salad is a good example of maximising the nutrition you can get from raw foods as apposed to cooked…because it is a salad!

I stumbled upon this quick easy yummy salad which most of us will already of made a version of already. It has so much tasty goodness packed into it, I had to share it with you all. 

You could have this with a wholemeal pitta or brown rice to make an ideal recovery meal (within 45-60 minutes of training) or just chow down and enjoy as a low fat full of good stuff  lunch or dinner.   

I am having this for tea tonight, enjoy!

Click link  below for recipe…

326kcal All In Salad

The Realistic Weight Loss Top 10 tips..

I want to lose weight, how do I start?

Is the question I am most frequently asked…

Here goes..

Get moving…30 at least minutes of moderate to strenuous activity exercise every day, you know, walking, swimming, cleaning the car, exercise classes that kind of stuff.

Get hot and sweaty when you do it and drink a lot of water throughout.

Then..

1. Identify a realistic target weight for your height, age, body type and strengths. Talk to your PT or a nutritionist to find a realistic weight for you.

2. Take the amount of weight you want to lose and divide it by the amount of weeks from now until three weeks before your first race. If the amount comes out to more than about a pound a week, you’ll need to cut down the amount of weight you’d like to lose this time.

 3. Define your pros and cons of losing and maintaining a lower weight. Write them down now. Include everything you can think of, no matter how seemingly insignificant. Go back and add to the list as you think of items. The process of weight loss and its eventual maintenance must have a payoff more valuable to you than your current habits or you’ll soon find yourself reverting.

4. Enlist support from your household by declaring your goal and asking for assistance. This includes not only spouses, but roommates and kids as well. It’s a lot easier to avoid treats and alcohol when they aren’t in your immediate environment and easier to stay away from the second helping when it doesn’t exist.

5. Start a food journal today. You can find several free ones online (calorie count is on my website) that will track the calories you consume and burn and graphically display the values, including nutritional makeup. Even if you do this for only several weeks, you’ll begin to learn the calorie values of food amounts, which will help you make wiser choices.

 6. If you have any doubts about reaching your goal on your own or you’ve tried trimming down before and didn’t near your goal, seek the professional help of a nutritionist who can do a diet recall, measure your resting metabolic rate, and provide healthy, accessible menus along with advice. Consistent feedback from someone who can tell you what and how much you need to eat around your workouts takes the guesswork out of the process.

7. Take the word “deserve” out of your vocabulary when it comes to food. As you lose weight you might feel you “deserve” an extra treat, or if you’ve struggled for a day you might even punish yourself the following day because you feel you don’t “deserve” to eat much. Deal with each situation meal by meal. Dieting doesn’t make for long-term weight maintenance; consistency of habit does.

8. When (and that’s “when,” not “if”) you have a day when you overeat, don’t beat yourself up. Getting back on track the next meal will make the difference even in the short run. Giving up temporarily and eating too much again the next day takes you further away from your goals. Even three bad days in a row over a month doesn’t throw the entire plan off, but the loss of morale makes it more difficult to return to more positive habits.

9. Eat less on your next easy or off training day. If you’ve fueled after your workouts on training days, you’ve replaced what you used. Realise it’s okay to go to bed hungry while in the weight-loss phase. Your morning meal or during-ride food will fuel your training.

10. Fill a glass or bottle with water right now and start drinking it. See how easy that was? Drink water with meals instead of juice, soda and all the other empty calorie drinks. Need flavor? Any large supermarket carries those vitamin C packets that provide about 15 calories per serving compared to 100+ calories for most drinks.

You could start doing all this now.

Good Luck

Rachel Benton

Personal Trainer

Bedford, UK

info@rachelbenton.co.uk

http://www.rachelbenton.co.uk

Website development update!

Ok, so I am finally all sorted out with catching up on e mails, voice mails, clients, colleagues, friends and family..so now onto the next stage of my website development.

My clients already can login to their own secure training page and find their periodised training programmes. Very soon a fully interactive page will be available to my clients that will allow them to log their progress, for example:

Workouts completed, Weight loss, Lean muscle gain, Body Fat % loss, Inches lost. This will be visual, bright and simple to use and follow.

My goal is to create an interactive hub for my clients that bridges the gap between our training sessions. Currently along side my clients secure training page, my clients can also keep an on-line food diary and within seconds have any nutritional question answered. This is an essential and useful part of improving our health and fitness lifestyles…think about it…do you know what you are really eating?

The fun part for me right now, is compiling an exercise bank that will give video clip demonstrations of all exercises that may be included in my clients exercise prescriptions. You will see a simple, clear and technically correct demonstration of every exercise in the bank and no doubt..the bank will keep growing as I strive to challenge my clients more and more.

Working with my clients to achieve goals and ambitions is a deep felt passion and way of  live for me, I am continually trying to think of new challenging and exciting ways to educate, clarify and motivate my clients training. I am excited by new projects in the next coming months and look forward to sharing them with you.

Good Training

Rachel      

Training for The Biddenham 10K..

This is a great 8 week training programme for a 10k race. I am going to give The Biddenham 10k a go and hopefully will be able to drag a few clients around with me!!?

The Biddenham 10k is on September the 27th so from next week we have 8 weeks to go…perfect!

If you have any questions about this programme or would like any advice with regards to your running training, technique, how to improve your times or how to get started running..please get in touch.  

This programme is geared toward runners who can run 3 miles comfortably and can run 4 to 5 days per week.

Notes about the schedule:

Mondays and Fridays: Mondays and Fridays are rest days. Don’t ignore rest days — they’re important to your recovery and injury prevention efforts. Your muscles build and repair themselves during your rest days. So if you run every day, you’re not going to gain much strength and you’re increasing your risk of injury.

Tuesdays and Saturdays: After you warm up run at a comfortable pace for the designated mileage.

Wednesdays: Do a cross training or CT activity (such as biking or swimming) at an easy to moderate effort for 45 to 50 minutes.

Thursdays: These distances should be run at your 10K race pace. If you’re not sure what that pace is, run at a speed that you think you could hold for 6.2 miles.

Sundays: Sundays are active recovery days. Run at an easy (EZ), comfortable pace to help loosen up your muscles. Or, you can do a run/walk combination.

Note:
You can switch days to accommodate your programme. So, if you prefer to workout on a Monday or Friday, it’s fine to swap a rest day for a run day.

10K Advanced Beginner Schedule

	Monday	Tuesday	Weds	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
1	Rest	3 m run	CT	2.5 m run (race pace)	Rest	3 m run	30 min EZ
2	Rest	3 m run	CT	3 m run (race pace)	Rest	3.5 m run	35-40 min EZ
3	Rest	3.5 mi run	CT	3.5 m run (race pace)	Rest	4 m run	35-40 min EZ
4	Rest	4 m run	CT	3.5 m run (race pace)	Rest	4.5 m run	40-45 min EZ
5	Rest	3 m run	CT	4 m run (race pace)	Rest	5 m run	40-45 min EZ
6	Rest	3.5 m run	CT	3.5 m run (race pace)	Rest	6 m run	40-45 min EZ
7	Rest	4 m run	CT	4 m run (race pace)	Rest	7 m run	40-45 min EZ
8	Rest	3 m run	CT or Rest	3 m run	Rest	Rest	10K Race!

Exercising in The USA..

I am back now from my jaunt Stateside and although I must admit to feeling  a little jetlagged I am ready to get started training my clients and myself again. I made a very deliberate point of taking a number of exercise classes whilst in Minneapolis all of which inspired, educated and worked me to varying levels. I was so curious to see how classes were promoted, structured and attended and honestly it seems as though the basic recipe for a great group exercise workout is the same as here in Old Blighty. 

We assume our exercises classes are planned and prepared by expert instructors and I think we can usually tell when they are not but this does not seem to be the most important aspect of our class…people go to the exercise classes because of the instructor!

It seems to be all about the instructors personality, delivery, humour, temperament and quite possibly as well.. appearance. I experienced first hand what all of my class participants experience each time they walk into a class with me, it was a pleasure for me to be told what to do, not have to really think about it and to trust that in an hours time I would have done my bit to stave off the effects of the super sized starter portion of onion rings I had had the night before! Oh and did I say I loved every minute of it?

There was a valuable lesson for me in taking these classes as  the class that gave me the best workout was the least well attended and not so much fun, the class that was perceived to be the hardest workout was by far the easiest with moderate attendance and the class that was the most well attended and the most fun and had the best all round “flow” only really gave me an average workout. There is it then folks, getting “the best workout” is totally personal and subjective and probably not the highest on peoples list of priorities when it comes down to what makes a good exercise class, how much fun they have probably is. This class was  fun and entertaining  with a knowledgeable, witty and clever instructor who knew how to drive people through the door and make sure they left happy…I know I did.

Enjoy this vintage Jane Fonda … Jane Fonda Clip  …do not try this at home

Rachel

Finish the job…

 

I am literally about to jump on a plane and head off to Minneapolis (USA) for two weeks… and I can`t wait. I have joined a local gym Stateside and will be having a good delve into how the fitness industry works out there, so you can expect a blog about that when I return. I have been training myself a little bit harder than normal in the last few weeks and also have been extra busy working with my clients, it has been a great fun and rewarding time professionally…but I am exhausted!

To finish off my training job on me, I booked myself into a local salon ”Beauty of Bedford” for a manicure and pedicure as a treat after all the training I`ve been doing…what a wonderful find! I received a friendly  and warm welcome and could see this was a professionally run salon that I will definitely be going back too.

I have been to many beauty rooms and had many treatments and have all too often felt on display, pushed around and not relaxed as I have been worried about the outcome of the treatment I have been about to have. On this occasion I didn`t feel any of this at all. I suppose going to a beauty room is a bit like going out for dinner, you will go back if the food is good, the decor inviting, the prices right and the service attentive but un obtrusive. On the flip side, even if the food is outstanding  it is unlikely that you will go back if the waiter hassles you from start to finish then throws your bill at you whilst seating the next diners! Expect to be looked after by two expert therapists who care.

Keep an eye out for “Beauty of Bedford” when it moves to larger premises on the High St.

Thanks Maria and Selina for making a great start to my holiday.

http://www.beautyofbedford.co.uk