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Tips To Stay Consistent With Your Diet

February 2, 2016Foodadmin

Our bodies are bitches.

In an ideal world, we would be able to control our metabolism to decide how many calories you wanted to eat that day, so you could eat as much as you like… but no; our bodies have to be cruel and give us ridiculously low metabolisms (for me anyway) making it stupidly hard to lose weight.

Unfortunately, this is how life works, and we have to find ways to overcome it.
I will share with you the ways which have helped me lose weight.

1. Don’t Buy Crap Food!

This is good for two reasons:

Healthier foods (veg, meat, fish etc.) are generally more filling and satisfying, meaning you need to eat less of it to feel full than with a higher carb meal. This will help you eat less calories without feeling as hungry.

Secondly, if you don’t buy rubbish food you will not eat them in the first place! As soon as I started living by myself I just stopped buying all the sweets and snacks which were in my house; whenever I had cravings I had absolutely nothing to eat, so I ended up having to try and binge eat carrots… I think it’s safe to say that this is a much better option than chocolate.

2. Track EVERYTHING

The best way that I have found is to track my calories. I know it sounds like a bit of a chore, but trust me it really lets you plan your day on what you want to eat and how you could spread this out to not suffer as much.

When I mean track everything, I mean it. Track sauce, oil, mayo, butter, even that bite of your colleague’s sandwich that you have each morning. TRACK IT.

I was not losing weight simply because of oil; a tablespoon of oil has 100 calories. 3 of these each day led to me not losing weight – beware and plan in advance.
Also, track your weight each week. This will let you see how you are progressing, and adjust your calories if you are not losing weight. You should be losing about 1 pound of fat a week.

3. Find a diet that works for you

For most people, going on a strict diet will not work – it just makes us resent the diet. That’s bad. What we want instead is a diet which we don’t mind; one where we can squeeze our favourite foods in there – obviously not in the same quantity.

The way that worked wonders for me is intermittent fasting, which meant I didn’t eat breakfast and ate more at dinner – find out more here.

Also, I prefer gradually decreases in my calorie intake instead of sudden changes; after a while I will rebound and everything will become a disaster.

Whatever you do, just remember that to lose weight you just have to eat less. You don’t have to go on a lemon juice diet, or fast, or stop eating fats (a big no no), you just have to eat a little less each meal, stop drinking calories, and stop eating that donut.

4. 5 Items To Help Keep Hunger At Bay

Just keep everything simple and straightforward; it doesn’t matter what chain of amino acids you have, or whether the glycaemic load of that carb is 2 points too high, just find a way to eat less food without being ridiculous so you can maintain it and make some steady and consistent progress.

-Mike

Got any questions? Email me at mike@unigains.com or @unigains on Twitter!

How To Be Proud Of Your Body

January 30, 2016Bodyadmin

In the world we live in we are always comparing ourselves to someone else; it may be your ex’s new partner, your childhood friend, or just some random guy who you walk past each day who you decided is your rival (or is that just me…)

For some reason we seem to always want to be better than someone else, and a lot of the time this is detrimental to ourselves progressing.
If you look at any fitness magazine, you will see these amazing bodies which we can only dream of getting – for most of us this is enough to stop us trying in the first place.

…Wait a sec… Why?

Just because Chris Evans is a beautiful human being with an outstanding body does not mean that we can’t get a better body than we already have.
It kind of shocks me sometimes how people believe that just because they think that they could never look like a Greek God means that they have to look like a slob and be completely dissatisfied with their looks…

I am miles away from looking like a model; I do not have enough muscle mass and my body fat percentage is too high… but it doesn’t mean I should just give up.

Compared to my former self I look like a god (#modest) and that is all that matters.

Fitness is about yourself; it’s about you becoming better than you. When you start to realize and understand that concept you will really allow yourself to steadily progress and improve, enabling you to become proud of the body you have earnt – there is nothing more satisfying than that.

I am not going to lie to you, I compare myself to almost everyone all the time – and it’s not good. For some reason I judge people a lot and it’s a major flaw that I have (unless you want some coaching).

However, when it comes to fitness I am able to focus on me. Each workout I focus on my goals and what I need to do to end my day that little bit more successful than yesterday – that’s what makes me happy.

Ultimately, you can look as good as you like, but if you’re constantly comparing your body to others you will never be proud of it

Realise the battle is against yourself, and go out and improve on yourself each day.
Doing so will make you confident, proud, and excited about life – and that’s ultimately what we want to achieve – right?

Like my blog? Share it with your homies.

Got any questions? Hit me up @Unigains or email me at mike@unigains.com

Should You Work Out If You Are Tired?

January 7, 2016Bodyadmin

You tend to come across two sorts of opinions around this..

Typical mainstream magazines will definitely say that if you’re feeling under the weather you should have a pause from the gym, in order to let your body recover.

On the other hand, you have Olympic coach John Broz who says you should get to the gym no matter how you’re feeling.
The reason behind going to the gym even if you are feeling ill is because doing something is better than nothing. Even if you go and lift at half of what you are capable of, you are still putting stress on your body – which is definitely better than sitting on your ass and watching Bojack Horseman on Netflix all day (BEST SHOW EVER – surprisingly depressing in Season 2 though…)

However, mainstream fitness argues that if you are already tired/ill, then pushing your body further will simply cause further harm, which will lead to you taking even longer to recover and having less productive workouts.

Now both are valid points, but before I say my opinion there is one thing I would like to address first – why are you getting ill?

The reason I ask this is because if you’re eating right and exercising and getting enough sleep (I know you’re reading this at 4AM right now) you should not be getting too ill too often.

But anyways, I incorporate both lines of reasoning regarding working out whilst being ill/tired:
My UNIGAINS program was designed for you to go gym between 4-6 days a week for a reason – it allows you to auto-regulate your gym sessions depending on how you feel.
Some days I feel stronger than others. Some days I have a lack of sleep because I had to wake up extra-early. The points is that the UNIGAINS program allows you to take mini-breaks and go only 4 days when you’re not at your best, yet allows you to maximize the times when you are feeling like HULK by letting you go 6 days a week.

That being said, you should go at least 4 times a week.

I don’t care how you feel, whether you’re crying because your girlfirend left you, because your assignment is due in tomorrow, or because you had a mad night out on a Wednesday night and had 3 hours sleep – YOU’RE GOING 4 TIMES A WEEK.

This may sound harsh, but it’s for your own good.
Now don’t get me wrong, if you’re feeling like shit I don’t expect you to be smashing PR’S – just getting in the gym and doing some air squats is better than nothing – just be sure to get in that gym and do something.

Remember fitness is just as much a mental battle as a physical one, and just getting up off your bum and going to the gym consistently helps you stay committed and stay on track to reach your goals!

-Mike

Got any questions? Email me at mike@unigains.com

The Simple Way To Fix Muscle Imbalances

January 3, 2016Uncategorizedadmin

Calm down, it’s fine.

When you start off you’re going to have some muscle imbalances – It’s natural.
For me it was because I used to play tennis, which led to my right arm, shoulder, and chest muscles becoming stronger than my left side.
For other this may be due to simply writing in class and other activites which require one muscle more than the other, or having a bit too much alone time..(*cough*)

When you get into lifting you will notice that the problem tends to fix itself to some extent, due to the fact that with most exercises you’re engaging both sides of your body with equal intensity.

One thing to make help resolve the problem is by making sure that when you do exercises such as the bench press or squat, you are not using one arm more than the other; I believe this is partly the reason why people have a slanted bench press and squat when they start off.
When I see people doing dumbell movements, a lot of the time I notice that the motion of one arm is slightly different to the other – this may work one arm more, which may cause further imbalances. Beware of this and make sure the range of motion for both movements are the same.

To help fix the imbalance, what I tend to do for single-armed movements is to always start off with my weaker side, and only do as many reps on my stronger side as I did for my weaker side.
This should help prevent further imbalances. If this is not enough, you may want to try doing 1 or 2 more reps on your weaker arm than your stronger arm for a few sets.

*Or just try swapping hands for a few weeks – the secret that the industry doesn’t want you to know*

-Mike