Abs are made in the kitchen not the gym

A lot of gym goers, keep fitters make the mistake of thinking that all it takes to get a flat stomach is a bit of exercise in the gym a few times a week and hey presto your stomach will be rippling. I'm always telling my clients that is not the case, there’s a lot more to it. It has to be more of a conscious lifestyle change meaning eating healthier, drinking more water, sleeping more and monitoring alcohol consumption. When it comes to getting fit, toned, losing weight or gaining muscle it is 70% nutrition and 30% exercise, hence the title “Abs are made in the kitchen not the gym floor”. You could be one of those people who train relatively hard on a regular basis who seeing great transformation is a challenge for and all it could take is tweaking the way in which you eat, which will end up making a huge difference. Even the best workout programme in the world can be undone by unhealthy eating.The improvements can be so much more efficient and better with a correct nutritional plan.
Takeaways are very convenient and fast food but are saturated in fat. Eating healthy requires a little bit of preparation, a good idea is to cook before the start of the week, package and store your meals.

Other useful tips are snacking on raw nuts, seeds and fruit in between meals. Measure out your portion sizes to avoid over eating, carbohydrates should be measured by what you can cup in your hands, proteins is measured by the palm of your hand.
Basic issues like the regularity of your eating, the portion sizes you consume, the time of day you eat, your hydration levels and obviously what you are eating all play a role in how your body burns or stores the food. The common thought is the less you eat the more weight you lose or the less frequent you eat the better but that is not the case. Our body is so clever that our metabolic rate decreases if we go long periods without eating to avoid burning too much calories and basically falling into starvation. It is at this point when the body begins to store food as fat which is slower releasing of its energy.  If you think of your body as a burning furnace, you don’t wait for the fire to go out before adding more coal you continually add to the fire to keep the flame going. Our body is the same, rather than waiting till you are really hungry before eating with your metabolism slowing down, eat regularly (every 2-3hrs) and eat smaller portions to keep the metabolic furnace burning.

Those are just the basic aspects of nutrition which I have studied and touched upon but to really get to grips with nutrition, making sure you’re receiving the right nutrients for the body acquire the expertise of a specialist ie a dietician. Your nutrition will be the difference between great results and mediocre ones and I like my clients to be the best they can be.

For nutritional tips from STONEiMAGE Dietician Patricia Caprice @Vitalamine on twitter

Written by

Erron Dussard
STONEiMAGE Management LTD
@Stoneimage