2 Weeks to go

2 weeks to go until possibly the biggest race of my life. 

Bussleton Ironman. If you don't know what an Ironman is. It involves a 3.8 km swim, 180 km bike ride and a 42.2 km run. Yes that's correct. A marathon after riding the equivalent of Newcastle to Taree. 

I have done big bike races previously that I have held in high regard. But none have been the culmination of a promise I made to myself nearly 25 years ago. "I want to to do an Ironman Triathlon one day". 

Thinking back over this year I can't remember a year that I have crammed so much in to. I went over seas 3 times to learn the most amazing therapy system Amino Neuro Frequency Therapy (ANF). I returned to the sport of triathlon for the first time in 18 years and completed two half Ironman triathlons. Did a half marathon and two epic long distance trail runs over very challenging terrain. This year has been non stop from early on and to look back over the last 11 months to see what I and the business has achieved is nothing short of amazing. To think I have done all the things I have this year and still be getting ready to step up to the start line in 17 days is very cool. Knowing what I have done and knowing me. If I have have know what I was going to be doing this year in the lead up I am fairly sure I would have made some excuse to put it off for another year. But I didn't and so here I am just over 2 weeks to go. 

For the last ten weeks I have been training away at my program faithfully and not thinking much about what is coming up. That has changed over the last week or so and for most of my waking hours I have been doing a lot of thinking about what is coming up. Being my first Ironman I really don't know what to expect. But at the same time the self imposed and external expectations for times and performances have begun plaguing most of my waking thoughts. 

Throw in a shoulder injury that has not wanted to settle. Self doubt and all the old demons have started to rear their ugly heads again and  self doubt has plagued my thought processes for most days. 

I have been doing my own therapy on myself with some success and have started physiotherapy treatment and it seems to have helped a bit. The swim which one my strengths has now become a major stressor as my belief that I can get through 3.8 km swim well has now plummeted as all attempts of swimming has been met with pain and discomfort since the injury occurred. 

My old injury at the start of the year the dreaded Plantar Fasciitis has been great so far and the 50 km of running per week has steadily been getting easier and a little faster. I still regularly use ANF therapy to keep inflammation at bay and this consistent load of running was actually starting to give me some confidence about the race.  

My original goal of going in or around 11:00:00 seems a long way off at the moment and my self doubt  has steadily been eating into the bravado I felt earlier in the year. I don't know what time I will end up with. I don't know what is going to happen. I do know that unless there is some sort of major problem I will cross that finish line. I will do my very best all the way to the finish line and  I will become an Ironman. 

The rest of it. Well who knows. There is always another race. There is always the opportunity to test myself and go outside my self imposed limits. 

If you do read this and think you might like to follow along and see how I go. you can download the Official Ironman Tracker app. My race number is "1304". My ever crazy wife Wendy is also doing the Ironman has race number "1369" and one of Total Performance Centre's regular class participants Anthony Corcoran is backing up after Hawaii Ironman his number is 1210. 

Stay healthy. Stay true to you and follow your dreams. If you do that the rest of it is easy. 

Mick Rand. 

Amino NeuroFrequency Therapy & Me

Pretty fancy name " Amino NeuroFrequency Therapy" . What does it mean? Many of you by now have no doubt jumped on Google and done a search on the name.  

Well in the creator's words " Amino BioFrequency Therapy focuses on repairing weakened frequencies in the body and normalizes the body's functions. Developed based on the knowledge gathered on the impact of antioxidants on the cells and the biochemical reactions in the body." 

So how does it work? "Amino patches are applied directly on the skin, where the infrared body heat activates the patch causing the frequency to begin its work in the body for up to 72 hours"

What drew me to the therapy was the fact that it is not about just treating the muscle. It looks at inflammation and the nervous system. An analogy that I have sort of come up with is, " massaging a sore muscle is like smacking the kid that gets bullied at school for being bullied. It isn't the kids fault. It is the bully that makes his life hell. Massage in many cases is like beating up that bullied muscle that is only sore because of something further up the hierarchy." 

It is lightning quick with palpable results in as little as a minute. On day one of the course I attended in Dubai, Mikel I think sensed my scepticism and asked me if I had any pain. I had just travelled 26 hours on "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". I was sore everywhere. Especially in the lower back and glutes area. Mikel like a pain seeking missile honed in on a sore glute complex and basically made me feel like I was being pinned to the table by a 6 inch roofing nail. I looked over my shoulder he was barely touching me. He then placed three patches on my glutes and rolled me over and placed three more on the front of my hips. I rolled back over and Mikel palpated again. Less than 30 seconds after the last patch was applied. He asked how does that feel. I honestly said "well it doesn't hurt but you obviously aren't pressing as hard". The room erupted with laughter. As I looked over my shoulder I witnessed Mikel boring down with his full 94kg looking like he was trying to find the roofing nail he placed in my hips earlier. Needless to say the pain level had reduced dramatically in under a minute. 

I was gob smacked. I had never seen anything remotely as effective or relatively pain free before. Keep in mind I have done dry needling, Cupping, TENS machine with needles, kinesio Taping and countless other courses helping me to become a better therapist. All great in their own way. None had half of the impact this did in twice the time or with as far reaching effects. 

Later on in the course. I got to treat a lady in her mid fifties with chronic arthritis barely able to get 40 degrees of knee bend and chronic pain 24 hour a day, jog down a hallway with ease and a smile on her face saying she didn't feel and knee pain. I witnessed a young lady with chronic body wide inflammation and swelling gain back her vitality in 5 days to a level she couldn't remember having. 

Amino NeuroFrequency Therapy is new in Australia. It is relatively new world wide. In these early days when you aren't really sure of what this new kid on the block is. It will take a shifting your thought processes as to what you expect from manual therapy as you most likely expect to be in some sort of pain during and after a treatment. I still cringe at remembering having a client comeback to see me in the past maybe a fortnight after their last treatment with fading bruises in the areas I treated. I had caused them and what is worse the client said they thought that was normal. 

My passion is back. My love for Treating people and working with them to help them return to a pain free life is well and truly back. I can't describe the joy it brings in my heart when I hear from clients that I have previously tried to help but failed call or message me at the change they are feeling after only one or two treatments. Previously I would often just stand there after they left shaking my head feeling impotent and like a fraud. 

The light at the end of the tunnel is on. The light is bright. The light is Amino NeuroFrequency Therapy. Total Performance Centre is holding up the light. (A bit corny I know. But I believe and so will you.) 

Changing of the Direction

I was in trouble!

I was meant to be at the peak of my massage career. I had a great business I had awesome clientele I had a good membership base with some great people getting some awesome results. 

But I was in trouble as a therapist.  I knew that what I was doing wasn't what I needed to be doing, but I didn't know what I needed to do but I knew what I was doing wasn't right. 

One fateful morning when I was trying to come up with a way to integrate some new things in to Total Performance Centre I was going through my Facebook feed and up popped an American Chiropractor that I had done a course with 2 years previous wearing a funny looking disc on his temple talking about a treatment protocol called Amino NeuroFrequency Therapy. 

Colour me intrigued but this mentor of mine sprouting on about this treatment as being so awesome that it changed his life. I contacted him to see if he was marketing or a true believer. He believed. I contacted the owners of the treatment and asked if they were going to be coming to Australia. They at that stage had no plans to do so in the next 18 months. 

I had two choices. Keep doing what I was doing and be unhappy with the results and my methods. Or travel to Dubai and see if this was what I was looking for. I decided that I actually had no choice. This was something I had to do. 

6 days later I was on a plane heading to Dubai embarking on an adventure that was soon to change my life and my practice my beliefs and put me on the path I needed to be on that I didn't know existed.    

Now 4 weeks since returning from Dubai even now is a blur. The amount of information I took in and the changing of thought processes and treatment methodologies and the long days left me mentally drained most days but invigorated more than I had since way back when first coming out of my remedial massage course eager to help people. 

I knew I was on the correct path and I knew that the way I treated clients would never be the same again. In the 4 weeks since returning I can't remember ever getting so much satisfaction from treating so many people and giving them such great results time after time after time. 

Amino NeuroFrequency Therapy is the way of the future. It will change the face of manual therapy in Australia and around the world. I feel grateful and lucky to have a my wife though skeptical, brave enough to back my move and say go for it. I am grateful for Perry Nickelston for posting on Facebook at that very moment that I needed some direction. And I am grateful to Mikel Hoff and Sanne kiilerich for letting this Aussie jump on that course in Dubai and rocking my world to it's foundations. 

You want to know what I am going on about? Come on in and try a treatment. I bet I rock your world as well. 

My New Years Resolution

Lets get this straight from the outset. I am not a fan of New Years Resolutions. They are more often than not empty ideas that have no substance or planning to make them a realistic long term goal. 

That being said I vowed at the end of last year that I wanted to make some changes in 2017. 

I have been racing push bikes now for over 12 years. I am happy with what I have achieved so far in my cycling and still love the sport with all my heart. But by the end of 2016 I was starting to realise that my time off the bike and shoulder surgery has left me a long way off the pace in local A grade racing and that I was in no way competitive and for most of the racing I was barely hanging on. That was disappointing for sure. But I did reach my goal of returning to A grade at a local club level.  I had reached my main objective for 2016 even if I was a little disappointed to not be up the pointy end of the grade.

 Last year I also regained my interest in running and completed 2 trail 1/2 marathons. I had a ball doing them and remembered why I used to run on a regular basis. I am a poor runner with zero talent for it but I do relish the challenge to try to improve and learn the skill of running. 

Near the end of 2016 my beautiful wife and one of the members of Total Performance Centre started goading each other in to doing Bussleton Ironman in December 2017. These 2 with their kind hearted jibes and jests woke a latent desire I have had since way back in 1994 I did my first Triathlon. I WANT TO COMPLETE AN IRONMAN TRIATHLON. 

Enter my first holiday in over 3 years to Cambodia and Vietnam. I came home feeling refreshed and ready to chase new goals and challenges. 

So come January this year I decided to give this old goal of mine a dust off and see just what I can do. Straight away I realised that I have 3 hurdles that might derail my efforts before I even start. The first being my shoulder. Surgery 2 years ago have left it unstable and weak beyond what I thought at the time would be likely. The second a persistent case of plantar fascitis in my right foot that had been present since October last year and lastly I am a heavy individual. Someone my weight would be very hard to get ready to do an Ironman Triathlon with out damaging myself in the process of getting ready for it. 

First things first. Will I be able to swim. I hadn't swam in a pool since 1999 whilst training for my last Triathlon " the Territory Tough Triathlon". Since then my shoulder had been dislocated 4 times and I had been babying it for at least a decade. I went down to the Newcastle city baths and gingerly jumped in and did a few cautious laps to gauge if 1 my should could bear the load of swimming and 2 see if it hurt to swim. I came out of that session cautiously optimistic. I was seriously weak in that shoulder. But weakness can be strengthened so it is with in my powers to get to where I want to go. 

The second thing after many months of trying to resolve the plantar fascitis I decide to do the cortisone injection in to the foot. So far so good. The pain has diminished and my rehab is progressing well. I am giving myself 4 weeks more to get the structure of the foot to a stage where I will start to resume some running drills and small runs. 

My last hurdle. I am relatively large when it comes to endurance athletes. Most successful triathletes and cyclists and runners get around low to mid 70 kilogram mark. I live in the mid to high 80 kilogram mark which makes my job that little bit harder. 

Being that this year is a year of change for me I have decide to take the Low Carb High Fat "Primal Lifestyle" that I embarked on last year to the next level. I have decide to embark on living a Ketogenic lifestyle. If you aren't aware of what that is. Basically you restrict the carbohydrates in your diet to such a level that your body switches from using carbohydrates as its main source of energy to fat and ketones. 

Ketosis is a metabolic process that is activated when our body doesn't have enough glycogen (derived from carbs) for our cells to burn for energy. Instead, it starts to convert fat deposits (adipose) to energy. As a part of this process, it makes ketones. Ketone bodies are water-soluble molecules that are produced by our liver from fatty acids. We produce ketones because fatty acids can't cross a blood-brain barrier, and they can't be used by our brain as energy. These are needed because the brain can only burn 2 types of fuel, sugar and keytones. 

The advantage I believe of this diet for me is 3 main reasons. 1 that it is a very effective tool to lose body fat and get to an ideal weight. 2 a fat adapted ketogenic athlete is able to go long distances with less reliance on carbohydrates and 3 using less carbohydrates is proven to cause less oxidative stress on the body and less chronic inflammation. 

These reasons were too compelling to not at least give it a go. 

Next Blog. 

My journey begins. 

Disclaimer

This blog is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this blog or materials linked from this blog is at the user’s own risk. The content of this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard, or delay in obtaining, medical advice for any medical condition they may have, and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions.

Facing my Vulnerabilities

Very few people if any have the perfect life, the perfect/ body/ diet/ training program/ coach. I will freely admit it. I am one of those. I constantly battle self doubt about nearly everything that I do. 

Am I doing the right thing? Will people listen? Am I worth listening to?  Is what I am saying correct? What if I put the weight back on? Am I setting the right example? What if I don't get any better on the bike? Am I a fraud? Do others see me as  a fraud? Will I fail? Again!

Moving to a Primal Lifestyle and then choosing to make that a part of my classes was a massive move for me. Did I know enough about it to try to teach others? Even writing this podcast about my journey I face the fact that I know I am not a literary genius ( a fact my wife reminds me of regularly) and I struggle to not come across sounding conceited or disjointed or inconsistent.

What can I do about it? That after all is the age old question to all us looking to make improvements in our lives, whether it be in business, training, body composition or life. 

Step 1: Stop making excuses! It's up to me. Plain and simple. No one else will change things for me so stop sitting around doing and saying the same old stuff day after day. If I want change, then make a start. 

Step 2: Start with the truth. My truth. Why am I like I am? Why do I need to change? What do I need to do to change? 

Step 3: Starting at the start. Some may start with making a plan. For me I think starting was more important than planning. By starting I was already moving in the right direction. Stopping before I start to make a plan would only delay the building of momentum.  I started moving then worked on my plan as I went. 

Step 4: Acceptance.  Accept that there will be good days and bad days, I will possibly get sick, I might not get the results I want straight away. I needed to let go of needing to control the outcome. 

Step 5: Get some consistency. Missing a day or two through sickness is not a cause for alarm. But when I was missing entire weeks through lack of sleep (self induced) or stress or just plain old laziness. There is little wonder to why I never achieved the heights I constantly said I was striving for. 

My progress in to health has had some road bumps. I have self doubt and moments of shear terror that I am failing those that work with me and trust me. But when I train people and they tell me that they are feeling stronger or losing weight or feeling better with in them selves. It spurs me on and gives me that little bit self belief that I can do this and I am on the right path. 

Facing my vulnerabilities is hard. I have had to look honestly at my self and my failings and self doubts and start to face them. Will I ever get that zen state where I feel everything is falling in to place. Will I get my training performance where I want it? Will I get the body I always say I want? Will the training programs I write spur people on and motivate them to achieve the results that they want?  I don't know. I hope I do but if it doesn't I know I will have fought like hell to get there. Because in the end the result is irrelevant. The journey is the good stuff. It is where the story is. It is where the fun happens. 

The journey begins

So to start going primal the first thing I had to do was dump the bottle of electrolyte drink that I had on my bike and replace it with plain old water. I put a banana in my jersey pocket just in case and left home with a sense of purpose and excitement. Ninety minutes in and I was starting to hit the wall. This was the longest ride I had done with out taking in any external calories and the first time riding in a fasted state for a couple of years. There was self doubt questions and disbelief that what I was doing was going to work. That sense of excitement was fading fast, as were my energy levels. 

Primal Endurance training stresses that you do a minimum eight week block of training where you keep your heart rate in your aerobic zone The easy way you do this for the majority of the population is to take the figure of 180 and deduct your age. For me it is 180 - 45 = 135 BPM. This is the heart rate that I was to keep my heart rate below for ALL my training. That first week was interesting to say the least. My performance on the bike was sub par with my heart rate constantly spiking above 135 BPM. To keep it below I was having to crawl up some small hills,this constant low level exertion felt really easy, almost too easy. 

Primal eating is to eat whole foods with minimal processing, Eat lots of veggies, meat, nuts, seeds and some root vegetables like sweet potato. The aim is to keep total carbohydrate intake below 100 grams per day. After 2 days my craving for carbs and sugar was as intense a need as anything I have ever felt.  The only thing that kept me going this long was the fact that I felt I had nothing to lose. After 4 months of training and racing as I had always done I hadn't seen any improvement. So why not try something different. 

Per chance I was talking to a Pharmacist next door to our shop about the troubles I was having with sugar cravings and the battle I was having with in myself. He explained to me that some stomach bacteria feeds on sugar. If you take that food source away they can actually send very powerful craving signals to your brain. He suggested to me that I try a powerful Pro-Biotic that could help get rid of that bad bacteria from my stomach. I was sceptical but desperate, I was sick of starting healthy eating diets only to derail myself with poor eating choices, often it didn't even feel like it was a choice, it was more like a mindless march to get that sugar fix to keep me going. I started taking them immediately.    

With in 24  hours my sugar cravings were subsiding and I felt my mood and energy levels starting to level out. This for me was a massive turning point. I finally felt like I had some control over what I was putting my mouth. I felt a glimmer of hope that I might be on to something to give me a chance at better health. 

With my sugar cravings under control it was amazing to feel the difference that was starting to happen with my eating and my training. I had dropped my total carb intake to 100 grams per day or less and I was comfortable there. With in 2 weeks I was heading out on 90 and 100 km fasted rides with only water and completing them with ease and getting no post ride energy crash. Around 6 weeks in to the training people started commenting. "Wow you look amazing", "How much weight have you lost?." What diet are you on and have you changed up your training regime?. This felt pretty damn great I must tell you. 

At the eight week mark I jumped on the scales. They read 85 kg, 12.5% Body Fat with 71 kg muscle mass. I had lost 9.6 kg. All fat. I was ecstatic as I really didn't feel like I was being restricted all that much and didn't feel like I had changed all that much. With Primal Training the base phase or endurance phase is where it is hypothesised that you should spend more time there if you have poor endurance at least 8 weeks with only 4 weeks of high intensity phases. After my long lay off I decided to carry on the base phase of Primal Endurance for another 4 weeks. It really didn't bother me as I felt like I was finally on the right path.  

Now entering my 13 th week of Primal living. I feel better than ever. My weight is stable at 85 kg and I have started to implement some interval training in to my riding and I have resumed racing. My first race back was at a course where 4 months earlier I was struggling to keep up, up some of the small hills. This time I was the one pushing the pace and was even able to initiate a break away. The following week during a time trial while not setting the world on fire I got a great indication that my fitness level was definitely heading in the right direction.  

Primal way of life is for me the for me to move forward. Mark Sisson States in his book "The Primal BluePrint" Aim for 100% compliance of the primal way of life and be happy if you achieve 80%. I think this is a great philosophy as it allows a little deviation with out the pressure of felling like you have failed like many diets do. It is a healthy moderate way of life that makes perfect sense to me. 

Next month is what I eat most days and the macro ratio break down. 

Starting with my Why!

Why am I doing this? Why did I feel like I needed to change my diet? Why wasn't my current diet working?  Why did I switch my training?  

So to put things in perspective, I have been a competitive athlete since I was 7 years old. I love to train. It's part of my make up. Working hard and striving to improve my performances makes me feel like I am achieving something. In 2003, after a few years of inactivity, I began my fitness re-incarnation. Cycling was always what I used to drop weight and get fit. It helped me start my journey from a 103 kg depressed, binge drinking alcohol to the 84 kg National Defence Cycling Champion in 2009. Some weeks I would train up to 14 - 15 hours, consisting of both long rides, high intensity intervals and racing

Fast forward 7 years. I'm now 45, married and own and run Total Performance Centre. In those seven years I have gone from a steady Defence job where I new my every working hour and had little stress to a self employed massage therapist still with not a lot of stress and finally to a business owner with staff to manage, classes to organise, a gymnasium to keep clean and tidy, promote the business with in my beliefs, and still continue massaging. Then January last year I had major shoulder surgery that kept me from doing much of anything for six months. 

Stress, excuses and a complete cessation of training for many months and a series of extremely poor eating choices all lead to a slow and gradual weight gain and a massive reduction in fitness. I suppose it would be easy to blame the business and the surgery and a raft of other things for my weight gain. But in the end it came down to me making a series of poor eating choices and trying to justify that "It will be fine once I start training again".

Fast forward to Jan 2016. I had been back training up to three hours a day, three days a week, plus racing on most weekends since October 2015. After 4 months of regular training and racing. I was still 94 kg 22% body fat and feeling like that I was going nowhere. I was no closer to making it back to racing as an A grader. In fact I was flat out calling myself a competitive B grader. I felt like I was treading water and going no where. I felt useless and direction-less and I couldn't remember why I was riding.

While getting ready for one of my Wednesday morning training rides, I still had no clear idea on what I planned to do on that ride. In fact, I even contemplated driving to work. I was listening to "Primal endurance" by Mark Sisson and the narrator was talking about training and diet and common mistakes endurance athletes make. It was like he had been watching my entire adult athletic career and he was standing there in front of me talking about my racing and training. It was a real slap in the face at first. No one really likes to find out that after a decade of dedicated training and racing that they have been doing it wrong in more ways than they are doing it right.  Seriously though, how could anyone think that what they are doing in regards to training and diet is correct as a cyclist when they can't get their weight below 85 kg and 12% body fat when training more than 13 hours a week. A bell seemed to go off in my head while sitting there listening to this stranger talking to me. Everything he said resonated with me and everything he said gave me confidence that I had more to give. It gave me that tingling sensation that I hadn't had in quite a few years. I was excited and I couldn't wait to get out on the bike. I had a purpose.

Why didn't my old style of training shift the weight? My guess is  I rushed going back to racing. I had no endurance base in my legs or lungs. To come back to racing B grade, I was pushing harder than I possibly should have. I was also doing hard training rides 3 days a week. Which were at a level that was causing me to deplete carbohydrate stores. This lead to sugar cravings that would magically pop up the day after my training sessions. Also stress levels were higher than they used to be and of course there is that thing none of us like to admit. I am getting older. 

What am I doing now? 

More on that next time. 

Going Primal

Firstly I would like to say that this is my journey. This is a lifestyle article that I have decided to write. I am not advocating that you do as I am doing or train how I am training. Nor am I making any money from this article. 

As most of you know, in January 2015 I had shoulder surgery. Subsequently I had a series of false starts in attempting to return to training due to continued shoulder pain and the somewhat stressful life of running a small business. As a result I've had a slow but steady weight gain over the past 12 - 15 months. 

In November last year I went to Hunter Imaging and had a DEXA scan to get an accurate measurement of where my body was at. There were no surprises and it confirmed what I already knew. But it gave me a number in black and white. I was 94 kg and 22% body fat i.e. Overweight. I was back racing and training 4 days a week on the bike but for once in my life the training wasn't shifting the body fat. 

After Reading Primal Blue Print by Mark Sisson. I started to change the way I ate and trained. I reduced processed sugar throughout the week to almost zero and began training at a much lower intensity than I used to. I also stopped filling my water bottles with electrolyte drinks and Branch Chain Amino Acid Drinks.  Instead my morning sessions were now being held in a fasted state and I drank plain water. For longer rides, the only external sources of calories were from natural sources and not fruit as most people tend to rely on. My fuel of choice is now a high fat substitute- "Avocado's with a tablespoon of Almond butter". 

The transition to a lower carb lifestyle wasn't difficult this time as I had help from a nearby pharmacist that suggested I try a really good probiotic. He explained to me that some bacteria in the gut is fed by sugar. If you take away that sugar the bacteria can actually trigger cravings (something that I was a major sufferer of). I found my sugar cravings settled after taking these for about 36 hours and didn't have that burning desire to eat every sugary treat in walking distance. 

Training was a challenge as my usual training diet consisted of one bottle of electrolyte drink and one bottle water. During races I would usually pack a gel or two as well to make sure I had the energy to finish. For the first few rides I did struggle, even at low intensity but I adapted pretty quickly with only one near hunger flat on the bike about 30 km from home. Within a week, I could feel my metabolism start to shift and the mid afternoon phase outs and the binging on the occasional sugary treats stopped. Now 6 weeks in and I have regularly completed 3 - 5 hour training sessions on little to no supplementary caloric intake. I no longer get home and feel the need to replenish with a high carb drink. I feel more energetic and have less energy crashes in the afternoon.  

6 weeks in to my new lifestyle choice and I feel completely different. Quite a few people have said I am looking heaps fitter and my skin looks clearer and tighter. I haven't had another Dexa Scan yet. But after recently weighing myself on a set of body composition scales that were reasonably close to my Dexa scan last time, I am now 86 kg and 13% Body Fat.

My wife and I still go out Friday nights for date night and Sundays we have a breakfast in one of our favorite cafes and on the odd occasion, we even go for a walk to the local surf club for a Sunday lunch treat. I never feel overly hungry and I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. Compared to previous attempts at losing body fat and dropping body weight, I am optimistic that this feels right.  

My journey has only just begun. My goals are to be as healthy as I can and maintain a balanced lifestyle.  I am really happy with how I am going.

What am I eating? Why is it working? Can you do it too? I will leave that to another Blog another time. 

Yours in Health & Fitness

Mick Rand

Total Performance Centre

One Year and Counting

Well it's been a while since our last blog. We are planning to rectify that this year with more regular posts of helpful and informative advice on topics that affect us all in our  journey towards living a healthy and happy life. 

This year has seen a change in structure of TPC with a couple of staff moving on and the arrival of Jade Cooper as a permanent part time team member. Jade has come on as a Remedial massage therapist and Personal trainer. Jade is a welcome addition to the team and has become an integral part of TPC.

As we move towards Summer, Christmas and the New Year. We are committed to bringing you continued great value with your memberships and truly great training information advice and exercise prescription. 

If you have any requests for blog topics please don't hesitate  sending an E-mail to TPC and we will try to give you all the information that your after. 

Pre & Post Workout Nutrition by dietician Zoe Steedman

Pre- Workout Nutrition

A pre-workout meal is a whole foods meal that falls within 3 hours of your workout. When you eat the right foods in the right amounts these nutrients can offer a number of benefits, including:

1) More Energy – Filling up your glycogen stores (body’s energy tank) before a workout can help improve your energy levels, strength and endurance during a workout.

2) Protect Your Hard Earned Muscle – When you workout hard, especially with heavy weights, an un-fuelled body may break down muscle tissue to use it as energy. A pre-workout meal can help prevent muscle breakdown and improve muscle recovery and repair.

3) Increased Muscle Growth – Eating protein before exercise can help slowly release amino acids (the building blocks of muscle) into your blood stream, promoting protein synthesis.

To obtain these benefits, a pre workout meal should be:

Low Fat – Because fat takes the longest to digest (6-8 hours), the pre-workout meal should be relatively low in fat, so limit fatty foods and oils.

Moderate Protein – Choose low-fat meat or dairy to provide your body with Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs), which can help increase the rate of protein synthesis and decrease protein breakdown during and after your workout.

Moderate Carbohydrates – Low GI carbohydrates (slower release into blood stream) will provide a steady stream of energy and top - up muscle glycogen stores to help prevent muscle break-down.

The challenge is knowing how much food your body can handle pre-workout: Some people can eat a full meal as little as an hour before a workout, while others may need to wait 3-4 hours. This is based on trial-and-error and your own personal experience.

Exercise, whilst beneficial, is a significant physiological stressor, and may include symptoms such as muscle soreness, the need for extra sleep, and an increased appetite. These symptoms let us know that the exercise has depleted the muscle's energy resources, caused some minor damage, and that the muscle is in need of replenishment and repair. While this sounds like a negative thing, these changes allow the muscle to adapt by getting better at the exercise demands placed on it.

Generally, post-workout nutrition has three specific purposes:

·         Replenish glycogen (energy stores)

·         Decrease protein breakdown

·         Increase protein synthesis to assist with muscle repair and rebuild.

It is your carbohydrate and muscle protein stores that become depleted with high intensity exercises: If you do not replace these nutrients, the remodelling and repletion process will come to a standstill. Therefore, while you may be training harder or lifting more, you may not be seeing the results. Put simply: If you don’t put adequate nutrients in the tank, you cannot expect to get anything out of it. 

As a general rule, 0.8g of carbohydrate per 1 kg of body weight is recommended in assisting the recovery process. This will be lower if your workout intensity is lower. For example: someone doing a moderately intense yoga session will not need nearly as many carbohydrates post workout as someone training for a marathon. The addition of a moderate amount of protein to your post exercise meal is recommended, regardless of intensity. For example: a palm size portion of lean meat, or 1 scoop of protein powder.

 The window of opportunity

This is the period of time after exercise when your muscles are primed to accept nutrients to stimulate muscle repair and growth. This window opens immediately after your workout and starts to close pretty quickly. Research suggests that while protein synthesis persists for at least 48 hours after exercise, it is recommended to eat within 2 hours.

Cardio Training Alone is not enough!!!

Why You Should Strength Train for Fat Loss 

At Total Performance Centre, collectively our staff have worked with thousands of clients who are looking to feel better, improve their health, and recover from injury and, most commonly, to lose weight. However, many people struggle to reach their weight loss goals, despite working very hard, and when we inquire as to what type of training they’ve been doing, we usually get the same answer: “Cardio, of course”. You see many of us, left to our own devices, will naturally gravitate to performing more steady state, low intensity cardiovascular activities like running or cycling and will stay away from strength training. While there is nothing wrong with doing cardiovascular training, there are several benefits to strength training that we feel are important to share with you. Not only will strength training improve your posture, increase bone mineral density (to reduce risk of osteoporosis), and enhance performance of everyday tasks, it will also help to SHED THE FAT!

Below, we would like to clear up a two common myths out there surrounding strength training and hopefully persuade you to pick up those weights.

Myth #1: To lose fat, you need to do more cardio.

This statement might shock you, but doing more cardio will only make you better at doing more cardio, full stop. The fact is, steady state aerobic conditioning, surprisingly, burns fewer calories than interval training. When we say ‘interval training’ we mean short bursts of high intensity activity followed by recovery periods. A perfect example of this is strength training.

So why does interval training burn more calories than steady state cardio? The reason for this called ‘Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption’ or EPOC. Basically after a training session, our metabolic rate remains elevated, however, the amount of calories that you continue to burn after the session depends on the type of activity. Studies have shown that a high intensity strength training workout will burn calories post exercise than most forms of cardiovascular training. So at the end of the day you’re in a greater caloric debt, which is going to help you shed that fat.

Myth #2: Women should stay away from heavy weights because it will make you get “big and bulky”.

This is probably one of the most common myths we hear. The fact is, there are many biological differences between men and women, and one of those differences is the level of testosterone – a hormone which is primarily responsible for muscle gain. Women only have about 5% of the total amount of testosterone men have, meaning that males have 20 times more testosterone than females! Biologically, women are facing quite an uphill battle when it comes to building muscle.

We have also heard from women that the last time they weight trained, consistently, they got bigger. Well, the likely culprit of that would be increased caloric consumption. You see, exercise is a natural appetite stimulant so even though you don’t mean to, you might be eating slightly more calories and, as a result, that “big and bulky” look is likely increased body fat.

If you make sure to watch your nutrition closely while simultaneous performing strength training exercise, we guarantee you will be leaner, tighter and stronger than ever before.

Our top 5 tips for your lunchtime workout

 We know cramming a sweat session into your lunch hour can often seem like an impossible task but with a little planning, leaving your desk at noon won't create stresses of its own. Here are our tips for getting you working out and back to your desk within 60 minutes. 

1. Time your meals and snacks
One to two hours before heading to your workout, have a snack that has a small amount of protein and easily digestible carbohydrates. 
Try a small piece of fruit and a handful of nuts or a few dollops of yoghurt, a protein smoothie using a good quality powder (i.e. 180 Superfood protein-available in TPC), a few slices of left over roast meat on rice thins or even just a squeeze of fresh orange in your water bottle will give you an energy hit without that queasy, full feeling.

2. Multi task like a pro
There are simple ways that even the worst multi-taskers can implement to maximise your workout time. Start by power walking to the gym to jump start your warm up. Use this time to take off any jewellery and watches you don’t want to work out in. Have your workout bag ready to go by your desk so there is no excuses when lunchtime hits.
 
3.Go intense!
Find a class that will keep your heart rate elevated to burn calories and increase fitness but also includes strength training to build muscle. Spin classes can pack a calorie burning workout into 30 minutes. Interval training is your best option with only 30-45 minutes handy, so make sure your workout includes efforts of high intense, heart pumping work followed by an interval of recovery.
If you live or work in the Newcastle CBD, check out one of our lunch time classes. We offer quick and intense, 30 minute workouts at 1.15pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays we offer a spin and strength class called Turbata and Thursday features LunchBox, a mix of high intensity boxing and spin intervals.

4. De-stress!

The purpose of the cool down is not only to stretch out the muscles we have just worked but to reduce our cortisol (stress hormone) levels, get the endorphins pumping and in the right mindset to tackle the rest of your day. I know it’s tempting to skip the cool down and use that extra time in the shower but recovery is just as important as the workout. Ask your trainer at TPC for a take home stretch instructional sheet which outlines the correct way to stretch your core muscle groups. 
 
5. Workout done, showered and dressed! Now what? Refuel!

It pays to pack a nutritious post-workout lunch the night before. This not only saves time (and money), but also ensures that even though you may be rushed you're eating the proper amounts of carbs and protein to recover from your sweat session.
Rehydrate! Fill your water bottle up and aim to finish it before the end of the working day. If you have just finished a TPC lunchtime workout, try a coconut water from the organic fruit and veg stall (located right outside TPC) which will replenish electrolyte levels and provide you with fifteen times more potassium then the traditional sports drink-without the sugar and chemicals! If you’re not heading straight back to your desk, grab a Breaky Bliss Ball to tide you over till your lunch meal. (available from the front counter)  

We hope you can take away a few ideas to help you maximise your lunch time workout and reap the benefits exercising in your lunch break has to offer. 

Welcome to Total Performance Centre (TPC)

Hello and welcome to the first official blog from TPC. 

TPC is a brand new health and fitness facility right in the Heart of the Newcastle CBD. It is comprised of 2 Remedial massage therapist and a choice of 4 personal trainers. 

Mick Rand is the owner of the facility and is qualified as a Remedial Massage therapist, Personal Trainer and is also an accredited Cycling coach. He runs the majority of the Spin classes and utilises his coaching back ground to give a unique experience during the spin classes.  He is passionate about taking a quality product and making it achievable to the every day person and showing them that quality coaching isn't just for elite athletes. 

Brittany Ashman is a Personal Trainer that has knowledge and passion and a desire to help people realise their health and fitness dreams, while making it fun and challenging. Brit comes from a competitive Surf Life saving background and is a former Newcastle Knights Cheerleader.  Brit Is in charge of the Lunch time fitness classes and is the co-ordinator for the corporate fitness program, that TPC specialises in. 

Leanne Manlove is a Personal Trainer and Strength and Conditioning coach with 12 years experience in the health and fitness industry. Leanne is a recent addition to Australia having recently emigrated from Canada, she is a born educator and loves to impart knowledge and integrates that knowledge in to the programs and classes that she takes. 

Scott Kerr is a Remedial massage therapist and personal trainer. Scott has over 20 years experience in the field of remedial massage and has been a personal trainer for over 15 years. He is a valuable asset to TPC with his movement based approach to soft tissue therapy and personal training. 

TPC believes as such a specialised venue they have an obligation to give as many people as possible the best training and treatment advice and knowledge that they can give. Whether it be exercise, rehabilitation or some general tips with dietary concerns, healthy recipes or specific exercises execution blog. Advice that is given is often tainted with the requirement to pay a subscription, buy a product or take out a membership of some description. All information that is provide here on the blog will be free with no hidden agenda.  

If during the following blogs you think of a topic that you would like discussed. Please feel free to contact us and it will put it on the schedule to be explained. 

Up coming topics in the near future will be:

- What to do in your lunch break. 

- How to help your posture at your work.

It all starts here... with our New Blog!

Total Performance Centre has a new BLOG on the website!
Be sure to catch all the latest posts for all elements related to your wellbeing.
If you have any questions at all or would like discuss anything just give us a call or drop into the studio.
We're a pretty friendly bunch and we love to see what we can do to help you reach your goals. - TPC