When it comes to holiday’s it can be hard to keep control.
Just remember that you can celebrate with food, without going overboard!
Here are a few simple steps which will help you make sure that your nutrition doesn’t suffer….

1. Avoid processed carbohydrates- Foods which contain processed sugar and flour are a big no, no! This includes pasta, breads, cakes, biscuits, crackers etc.

Everything in a package contains sugar and/or sodium as a preservative.

2. Hydration- keeping hydrated will flush out the toxins and keep your energy levels high. You should be drinking at least eight glasses of water a day and avoid sugary drinks, coffee and alcohol.

3.Healthy snacking- To avoid that dreaded hunger dip, make sure that you keep plenty of easy, healthy snacks to hand such as almonds, apples or a good quality whey protein. Having good quality snacks to hand will help you from binging on high sugar treats!

4. Don’t go cold turkey! Make sure that you don’t completely deprive yourself of treats! Sugar free hot chocolate, diet fizzy drinks and sweeteners are all good for curbing a sweet tooth…the key is moderation!

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With the Summer season in full swing, barbeques will often be the number one choice. This is a time when the drinks are flowing and the food is varied and a time where you will be faced with diet demolishing temptations……or clean options. The choice is yours…..

A Few things which could be on the menu…..

When it comes to back garden barbequing, red meats reign as king. However, they can play a detrimental part in clogging up your arteries with unwanted saturated fat, and I’m talking about the type of fat that will take forever to shift at the gym!

Here are a few healthier options which will keep you trim over the season….

Low Fat Meats….

When it comes to meats, try and substitute with some leaner cuts such as pork tenderloin, sirloin steak or beef flank. These meats contain less saturated fat than the likes of hotdogs, sausages and hamburgers whilst offering the vital nutrients that your body needs and heart friendly monounsaturated fats.

Opt for Poultry….

A great way to maintain the delights of the burger-eating experience is to substitute by opting for a turkey burger, but make sure that the turkey is mostly lean, white meat turkey otherwise you will lose the low fat advantages.

Want to come clean? Then choose a skinless chicken or turkey breast, with just 3 grams of fat per portion, these poultry choices will give you a delicious low fat portion of meat that you crave.

Go Fish….

Fish is an excellent high protein, low fat choice for summer barbequing. It offers all of the essential amino acids that your body is incapable of producing on its own, particularly salmon and tuna with its heart-healthy essential Omega-3 fatty acids.

Grill Some Veggies…

Whether skewered, foil-wrapped or placed directly on the grill and seasoned with a bit of spice, these veggies will provide some sizzle to your Barbequed meats, not to mention that they are packed full of vitamins and nutrients!

Happy Grilling!

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Women who lift weights will not develop big and bulky muscles as muscle growth is dependent on the male growth hormone, testosterone, therefore men or most likely to bulk up.

For women, exercising with weights will enhance muscles and give a firmer and shapelier build not to mention speeding up your metabolism (a high intensity strength routine has been shown to increase metabolism by 20% for several hours post workout. So for women who want to lose weight or prevent weight gain, strength training is imperative.

As we reach our mid 30’s, we start to lose 5-10% of muscle strength and muscle burns around 3 times more calories than fat (the more muscle you have, the more you can eat ) and by adding on 2-4 pounds of muscle can equal to an extra 100 calories burned each day.

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Weight lifting is beneficial as it helps the body to get better control of insulin levels which effectively reduce the risk of diabetes.

Other important side effects of weight training are the increase of gastro internal transit time and a better and more stable blood pressure.

In addition to this, weight training also helps to improve balance and coordination, helps with a positive effect on your mood and more importantly improves your immune system allowing you to have a better resistance to combat infections and diseases. Not to mention leaner and more defined muscles. So get lifting those weights!

If you already lifting the weights then you are definitely on the right track.

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Never Under-estimate the Power of Cardio for Muscle Building.

High intensity cardio work can stimulate muscle growth. For example, running sprints can help in kick starting the muscle growth process. However, remember not to do too much of this as it may burn some muscle mass if you train too hard!

Cardio exercise is important because:

• It is an effective way to burn calories

• It helps with a good night’s sleep

• It can help to lower stress levels

• It can help reduce the risk of heart attack, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol

A good way to stick with cardio activity is to choose an activity that you will enjoy, that way it will ensure that you train to your full potential.

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Use every single one! Machines are normally much safer, if you don’t have a spotter and some machines can also help with correct form. At the end of the day, a heavy weight is still a heavy weight!

If you want to bench heavy, then go for the Dumbbells. You can always drop them if you fail and don’t have a spotter.

Points to remember when training with Dumbells:

• Form is just as important as the weight you lift.
• Correct technique is crucial as it is easy to cheat.
• Vary your workouts to prevent boredom.
• LIFT HEAVY! Maximum benefits are when you feel pain!

Stimulation is the key, so just do whatever suits you best! However, there is no such thing as ‘toning’ and ‘shaping’. High reps do not give you ‘shape’ and do not ‘tone’. Aim to lift heavy and intensely and results will come.

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Affordable Supplements have cut back the cost on several reputable sports supplements brands to celebrate this year’s Wimbledon.

As Wimbledon fever grips the nation, the online sports supplements shop, have a unique opportunity to mark the occasion- buy offering knock down prices and triple loyalty points on Reflex Nutrition.

It is common knowledge that tennis players supplement their diet with post recovery drinks such Reflex Progen, to gain full recovery from a gruelling tennis match!

Reflex Progen contains a blend of cold processed, ultra filtered Micellar Casein, Whey Protein and Digezyme, which is beneficial for muscle repair.

Director of Affordable Supplements, Ryan Millar said: “We always do our best to secure great offers on but our Reflex offer has proven to be one of the most popular over the last few years. Not only are we offering cut down prices, but we are offering our customers triple loyalty points, which means they can ultimately get more for their money.”

Even though the tournament set to finish this weekend, Affordable Supplements have given their customers while then end of July to take advantages of this offer.

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With Summer time in full swing, most of you will be hammering the diet and training regime more than usual in a bid to look great on the beach!  Or maybe you just need a little help to get through the plateau stage?

With this in mind, Affordable Supplements is proving their customers with a little help along the way by knocking the price down to £24 and supplying a free tape measure to help you check your progress!

With many different fatburners available on the market, it is difficult to differentiate between the ones that do work from the ones that don’t without spending a fortune.

There are only a few ingredients in fatburners which are effective for mobilising fat through thermo genesis, which acts as a stimulant to help you to train harder, burning fat through metabolic purposes or by curbing your appetite.

The active ingredient in San Tight Xtreme is Yomhimbine which derives from a plant and helps to increase stamina as well as burning fat.

Regular user of San Tight Xtreme and Affordable Supplements customer, Jen Patterson said: “I think this is a fantastic supplement.  I started using San Tight Xtreme last year along with a diet and fitness regime and it helped me to drop two dress sizes over a seven month period.”

She added, “The only supplements I use are San Tight Xtreme which I buy from Affordable Supplements.  I think you only really need to take one per day as it gives you tons of energy and is a  good appetite suppressant.”

written by AS_Jade

With the summer season rapidly approaching and our summer holidays booked, now is the time to really bump up the workout routine and add that extra bit of discipline to your diet, thus combating the dreaded weight plateau!

Most of us will have a cheat day each week, where some of us will practically eat whatever we like… I mean, you have to be able to treat yourself now again, right??

The few remaining weeks coming up to your summer holiday and in order to battle through that weight plateau, you may want to think about turning this into a “clean” cheat day. This means you basically follow the same diet on a Sunday, except you bump up the carbs to at least 2 grams per pound of body weight, or just more than 370 grams. You should keep fat fairly low and focus on replenishing carbs. This will help speed up your metabolism so you burn bodyfat on your low carb days.

Also…for those of you who train just one body part per day, could be limiting your fat-loss efforts. Training one body part per day isn’t enough to boost growth-hormone levels and stimulate fat burning. Why not switch to a two day training split where you train half your body one day and the other half on the second day and repeat this twice a week.

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Some foods are simply better at packing on lean mass than others. If you are serious about gaining muscle, you should seriously consider including the following foods/supplements in your diet on a daily basis…..

EGGS

This means the yolk plus the white, which are vital for muscle growth. Researchers at Texas University found that the people who followed a weight training workout and consumed three whole eggs per day gained roughly double muscle mass and strength than the ones who ate just one whole egg or none per day.

WHEY PROTEIN

This protein is the fastest-digesting protein you can swallow. Its also rich in branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) and provides peptides (small protein fragments) that enhance blood flow. To build muscle, take whey protein every day upon waking, as well as before and after workouts.

CASEIN PROTEIN

Casein, is also critical for gaining mass. Research shows that when subjects add casein to their postworkout whey shakes, they gain more muscle than those who don’t. Another study found that while whey significantly decreases hunger and leads to reduced food intake, casein protein doesn’t. This means casein is good between meals snack to boost muscle growth without compromising your hunger at the next meal. When you are trying to pack on mass you need to eat a lot.

written by AS_Jade