Blog Me Schkinny

Once you get to Easter break, your calorie count can creep up without your realizing it - chocolate bunnies anyone, yes please!!

So save yourself that nasty after-the-easter-holidays bathroom-scale jolt by not letting a single day slip by without drinking lots of water. Doing so could save you from consuming an extra 200 calories a day!

Douse Yourself for Fewer Daily Calories

Turns out people who regularly quench their thirsts with water consume a whopping 9 percent fewer daily calories than non-water drinkers. Not only do water drinkers seem to drink fewer sugary and calorie-heavy beverages (like soft drinks, sugary preserved juices, beer, wine, and champagne), but they also have healthier eating habits overall, according to a recent study. So tip the balance in your favor by sipping water throughout the day.

One of the easiest ways to use water is to drink water when you think you feel hungry.  Those pangs in your belly are not necessarily hunger, they could be easily appeased through a glass of H2O.  Plus, another way to stop overeating (a big factor for me!) is to drink water with your meal.  I remember an old wives tale when I was at school that said “drinking with your meal is bad”.  I haven’t a clue why, I actually think it is beneficial.  It is like having a noodle soup or stew for dinner.  The liquid makes you feel fuller even though you may not have eaten comparitively as much food.  So try having a glass of water with your meal, and if you are like me, sometimes once you  inhale your food and it doesn’t even feel like it touched the sides, then have a glass of water after meal too.  When your food is wolfed down it takes a little while for your brain to register your belly is full, so the extra glass of water helps to register the full feeling.

Stay Schkinny!!

We all love our lives, and love our food (well, I adore it, eating is awesome).  I I try to be careful with the calories I am eating, but I am not a nazi. My homework does NOT involve brushing up on input and output alegbra and making sure my own little energy equation measures up at the end of the day.  So, it is pretty important to make sure I have a little built in burner to help me skip my homework.  Muscle mass is that little fire, toss on a log and it’ll burn up pretty quickly. Ditto with putting some calories in a toned body and they’ll burn up, too.Muscle is a major energy consumer for your body: If you add more muscle, you’ll use more energy (calories) and store less fat. By regularly doing weights and strenght training, you create more muscle mass — muscle mass that can help you burn fat.  It is not all bunny rabbits and rainbows though, because the more weights that you do, the hungrier you will be.  So weights aren’t the answer you have always been searching for, so the food you eat will be burnt quicker than if you didn’t have the muscle mass.  Plus, you can get away with higher calorie naughtiness…  I think that is a nice trade off!

Don’t get obsessed with joining the boys pumping your biceps in the mirror, but the best calorie burners are the big muscles in your body– your legs; your chest, shoulders, and back; and your abs. They’re your foundation muscles — the ones that tighten your belly, shrink your waist, improve your posture, and make you fit into your clothes better.

So, yes, we have all noticed that the “swelling” that happens during winter, the constant question “why am I so hungry?” and the craving for yummy filling comfort foods…  But there is a bit of trick to curbing that appetite during winter (well, just curbing your appetite in general really).   It is not a clever little drug, or special diet, it is more about how you work out! 

Seems that the right combo of physical activity may have the power to make you eat less. The magic “drug”? Doing both cardio and strength training. Doing just one or the other doesn’t really curb your calorie intake as much, if at all.

A journal article published in the USA showed that when men in one small study combined aerobic exercise with weight training for 16 weeks, they ate significantly fewer calories compared with the men who did either aerobics or weight training alone or who did no exercise at all. The researchers suspect that the combo of cardio and strength exercises had the most favorable effect on blood levels of fats, glucose, amino acids, and satiety hormones — producing a powerful combination of hunger-controlling physiological changes.

 It is actually pretty easy to combine your weights and cardio (and it is actually one of the more efficient ways to burn fat too - Woo hoo!!).  Try this:

10-15kg Squat this weight 40-50 times

Then jump down to the floor and do 20 push ups

Jump back up and do the squats again (40-50 reps)

Back to the floor - push ups (20)

Last set of squats (40-50 reps)

Last set of push ups (20)

Ok, now with the lunges:

Using 5-10kgs of weights, do 20 reps on each leg

Drop the weights, then run on the spot lifting your knees up really high for 60 secs.

Pick up weights again, do 20 lunges on each leg.

Drop them again, high knee run for 60 secs.

Back to the lunges, 20 reps on each leg

Last high knee run for 60 secs.

Try to combine your weights with cardio bursts, I like to do sets of 3.  Star jumps, skipping roles, burpies, running up and down steps are all really awesome cardio bursts too.