I spent a recent camping trip being pretty healthy – sticking to my usual healthy eating with a few little extras sprinkled in here and there, along with plenty of activity windsurfing and surfing – but I still came back a couple of kilos heavier than when I left!

Some of this is fluid retention that usually goes in a couple of days (which is why I know it’s fluid as fat won’t shift that quickly!) but I think a kilo I can attribute to fat weight – and this was by no-means an indulgent trip!

Most of us experience this with every major holiday or even long weekend.

Despite being ‘good’ most of the time, the cumulative effect of these indulgent periods will really make a huge impact on the waistline if some action is not taken to immediately get back on track. This is one of the big reasons why people gain weight each year – without getting back to where you were previously you can easily keep gaining and gaining weight without even realising it.

It’s a good idea to develop healthier holiday habits: a holiday is a treat in itself but all too often we think we need to eat loads of the wrong things in order to enjoy ourselves! But if you can make the healthier choices while on holiday you can actually enjoy the treats all the more.

How many times have you looked through your holiday snaps to see photographic evidence of the weight gain?

Some tips:

- Drink plenty of water: You will dehydrate much quicker in the heat and we often mistake thirst for hunger.

- Avoid liquid calories: That ‘virgin’ cocktail is still choc-full of sugar! Juices may seem tempting but you are better off having a glass of water and a piece of fruit.

- Set yourself a ‘beer o’clock’ time: Alcohol does massively impact weight loss and will cause weight gain very quickly. If you skip lunchtime drinking you can save a load of calories, plus you will feel much better for it. Keep the alcohol to a pre-dinner drink and then while you are eating.

- Alternate water with alcoholic drinks: You will thank me for it when you wake up feeling fresh and able to enjoy your precious vacation! Plus you will halve the calories you take in.

And we haven’t even got to the food!

- Choose lean protein and fruit and veg first: If you have access to a buffet breakfast you are onto a winner: fill up on the good stuff first then if you must add the starchy carbs keep them to a small treat afterwards. You will still enjoy the taste but won’t need as much. If you don’t have time to make omelette and veggies at home you can ‘treat’ yourself to this when someone else is cooking!

- Enjoy new foods: Try a new fruit and vegetable each day!

- Have healthy snacks to hand: Buy fruit and unsalted, unroasted nuts to have as snacks throughout the day. If you are unprepared you will be more tempted to eat the treats that are everywhere.

- Enjoy the treats: Savour every last mouthful of the things you wouldn’t normally have: there’s no need to eat ice cream all day but make sure you fully appreciate it when you do!

- Think of it as ‘damage limitation’ so you can enjoy yourself without feeling deprived whilst also coming back from your holiday looking even better than when you left.

- Make sure you get straight back on track as soon as you get home, too. Consider a few weeks of extra-focussed nutrition and training to reverse any weight gain, or even to boost your results even further.

You often find that after a week off, or a period of ‘maintenance’ (holidays are usually a little over maintenance) you actually lose at a faster rate, so make the most of this turbo-charged window of opportunity!

If it’s good enough for them, surely it’s good enough for you?

If you think you can’t possibly use something that is for such elite athletes, then you are in for a surprise, as you can use the kettlebell for fantastic results, even if you are a complete beginner to fitness.

So regardless of who you are, there are many reasons why a kettlebell is well worth adding to your workout arsenal:

The unique way you hold a kettlebell compared to a dumbbell means you challenge your core and stabilising muscles a lot more – so you get strong from the inside out. The kettlebell achieves this as it has an offset centre of gravity. You will become truly strong and balanced, not bulky, and reduce your risk of injury.

The ‘classic’ kettlebell exercises are dynamic and have a cardio effect – in fact, with a kettlebell in your possession, you will never need to use another piece of cardio equipment again!

Any dumbbell exercise you can do with a kettlebell – some exercises that feel awkward with a dumbbell feel much more comfortable with a kettlebell (so you can perform them more effectively) and others are more challenging with a kettlebell (so you get much better results).

There are so many exercises and methods of training available that you can’t possibly get bored – this means motivation to exercise is no longer an issue. The workouts are fun and varied, so you will be looking forward to your next workout, not dreading it.

You can exercise at home – you only need one kettlebell to get started and although you will probably want a collection you can adapt exercises to make them harder without having to increase the size of the kettlebell.

This means you no longer have to pay gym membership or waste time driving to the gym, or waiting in the gym for equipment to become available.

The dynamic kettlebell exercises are perfect for tightening the classic trouble spot – your butt! The exercises, such as the swing and snatch, require explosive power in the hips and therefore emphasise all the neglected muscles of the back of your body, shaping things up that you thought were beyond repair. Even cellulite will be reduced.

You will get flexibility, balance, strength, endurance and co-ordination, as well as a hot body!

What’s So Good About Kettlebells, Anyway?

This is what I asked myself for quite a long time before I ‘saw the light’! I was based in a gym and saw one of the other trainers using kettlebells with his clients and to be perfectly honest I thought it was all a bit of hype. The exercises looked dangerous and the clients were all getting bruised! I was sceptical at best…

Even when I finally got him to give me a ‘taster’ session I wasn’t completely convinced, I had a decent enough workout but just didn’t get what the big deal was.

I can’t even remember what sparked the mental shift from cynic to evangelist. One minute I’m happy with my dumbbells, the next I’m raving to all who would listen about a shiny round chunk of iron!

I bought a few DVDs and a couple of kettlebells and the addiction came pretty quick – the sheer versatility of the kettlebell intrigued me. I always thought ‘anything you can do with a kettlebell you can do with a dumbbell’ but how wrong I was!

The shape of the kettlebell and the way the weight is held means that performing what would be a simple dumbbell exercise becomes a whole new experience as there is an additional stability factor to consider.

The fact that the bell is designed to be swung is what really makes it stand out from the crowd, though. As soon as you add in the classic kettlebell exercises, like the swing and the snatch, the power of the kettlebell to transform your body and workouts becomes clear. You can get a killer cardio workout, while loading all your ‘behind’ muscles (back, butt, hamstrings…) that are usually underworked in most people. The era of the cross trainer was clearly over – cardio was just never going to be the same again…

Any exercise you can do with a dumbbell you can do with a kettlebell, sometimes feeling more comfortable and sometimes being a lot harder. You can use your kettlebell as a piece of cardio equipment or as an extreme strength tool. You can use a kettlebell to increase mobility and stability and even rehabilitate.

And they look so good, all in a line in the garage, smugly reminding you that you never need to pay gym membership again!

If you are feeling a bit ‘worse for wear’ after a weekend that was heavy on the calories and light on the exercise then make sure you remember this feeling – and try to invoke the memory next weekend! You don’t need to deprive yourself to enjoy a weekend – you just need to improve your choices. Use this feeling to refocus and make sure you get straight back on track with clean eating and good quality exercise.

But this is of course another classic scenario – why are gyms so busy on Monday and Tuesday? 5 days of hard work and good nutrition will likely mean you feel great again by Friday, or at the very least you feel like you have ‘earnt’ some let up. But do you really want to start the whole cycle again? Or do you want to actually get the results you deserve due to all the hard work you are putting in all week? A ‘treat’ meal is usually a good idea, but a ‘cheat weekend’ will just destroy your results.

It is far better to have strategies and habits that come into action regardless of the situation – if you have given up wheat then don’t make an exception for the weekend. You’ll feel great for sticking to your goal behaviour and can still indulge on other things – but ones that won’t take you off the plan. It is a good idea to focus on a few small changes at a time, so give yourself a 6 week time frame and write down a few goals – specific behaviours you will stick to for 6 weeks no matter what, even at the weekend or at parties! Ultimately you will get quickest results by changing more but the really important thing is to build habits that you will stick to for good, and when you have done something regularly for 6 weeks it has had a good chance to embed itself in your life and become second nature.

I like to encourage people to use these 6 week chunks of time and keep the goals rolling – some 6 week chunks will be really strict to get through a plateau or boost results for a specific event and others will be more relaxed, but still ‘no excuses’. The little things really do add up – in whichever direction. So make the savings where you can and watch the results follow!

1lb of muscle burns 30-50 calories per day, while 1lb of fat only burns about 9 calories per day. The more muscle your body contains the more calories you burn each day. This is one of the reasons that resistance training is such a vital part of any successful fat-loss programme – it supercharges your metabolism both in the short term (by making the muscles you already have burn even more calories) and in the long term (by increasing the amount of muscle you have).

Long duration cardio, on the other hand, can actually reduce your muscle tissue and therefore reduces your metabolism! We need to think about the bigger picture when we exercise (and when we eat). It’s not about what happens at that one moment that counts, but how we are becoming fat-burning machines!

Steady, slow, long duration cardio only burns calories while you are doing it, whereas resistance training causes you to burn calories for hours after the session has finished(this is called EPOC: Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) and is the ‘magic’ behind resistance-based training methods, as well as interval training. As you become more efficient at the steady cardio, you will burn fewer calories, too, so you can easily think you are burning more than you actually are.

Resistance training, correctly applied, will ensure you have a balanced, strong and functional body. Repetitive cardio activities can actually worsen or create imbalances, so if you are a regular runner / cyclist etc. you need resistance training to balance everything out!

Resistance training has been called ‘the fountain of youth’ – and it really is. A recent study showed that when subjects engaged in resistance training their strength increased by over 20% and their genes literally ‘reverted back’ to the same markers as ‘younger’ genes after only six months! Also, when the older folks in the study began, they were almost 60% weaker than the younger members of the study. In just six months, they were only 38% weaker.

For maximum effect, perform compound exercises that use the largest muscles and more than one muscle group at a time (squats, deadlifts, lunges, rows, push ups and pull ups). This works your body as a unit which is more functional than isolating specific muscles, and also means you burn more calories in less time!

You can’t ‘spot reduce’ fat – no amount of crunches will show the 6 pack beneath the flab – so the more of your body you work, the more fat you burn all over: the real secret to revealing those abs!

1lb of muscle burns 30-50 calories per day, while 1lb of fat only burns about 9 calories per day. The more muscle your body contains the more calories you burn each day. This is one of the reasons that resistance training is such a vital part of any successful fat-loss programme – it supercharges your metabolism both in the short term (by making the muscles you already have burn even more calories) and in the long term (by increasing the amount of muscle you have).

Long duration cardio, on the other hand, can actually reduce your muscle tissue and therefore reduces your metabolism! We need to think about the bigger picture when we exercise (and when we eat). It’s not about what happens at that one moment that counts, but how we are becoming fat-burning machines!

Steady, slow, long duration cardio only burns calories while you are doing it, whereas resistance training causes you to burn calories for hours after the session has finished(this is called EPOC: Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) and is the ‘magic’ behind resistance-based training methods, as well as interval training. As you become more efficient at the steady cardio, you will burn fewer calories, too, so you can easily think you are burning more than you actually are.

Resistance training, correctly applied, will ensure you have a balanced, strong and functional body. Repetitive cardio activities can actually worsen or create imbalances, so if you are a regular runner / cyclist etc. you need resistance training to balance everything out!

Resistance training has been called ‘the fountain of youth’ – and it really is. A recent study showed that when subjects engaged in resistance training their strength increased by over 20% and their genes literally ‘reverted back’ to the same markers as ‘younger’ genes after only six months! Also, when the older folks in the study began, they were almost 60% weaker than the younger members of the study. In just six months, they were only 38% weaker.

For maximum effect, perform compound exercises that use the largest muscles and more than one muscle group at a time (squats, deadlifts, lunges, rows, push ups and pull ups). This works your body as a unit which is more functional than isolating specific muscles, and also means you burn more calories in less time!

You can’t ‘spot reduce’ fat – no amount of crunches will show the 6 pack beneath the flab – so the more of your body you work, the more fat you burn all over: the real secret to revealing those abs!

Take some time to plan what you are going to do, how you are going to approach losing fat, before you start. It amazes me how many people haven’t even considered this step. When I ask them what they plan to do, the answer is something along the lines of ‘oh, you know, just eat better and do some exercise…’.

What is eating better? What do you eat now? What exercise is going to get you to your goals? What are your goals in the first place?

So firstly, you need to write down what you want, and ideally, why. You need a strong reason to stick to a plan, so the ‘why’ is worth thinking about. When we see fat loss as a purely aesthetic endeavour we may feel it’s a bit selfish, but as soon as you realise it will mean you have more energy to be more successful at work and spend quality time with the family you realise just how important it is to you and your loved ones.

Then look into each goal in more detail and determine what you actually need to do in order to be successful. You may realise at this point that you have bitten off more than you can chew – so prioritise. Better to focus on one or two more important goals and actually achieve success, than to spread yourself too thinly and not make a real go of any.

Drill down into each goal and work out the steps you need to take in order to achieve them. If you want to lose a dress size, you will need to exercise regularly and follow some kind of nutrition plan. Re-phrase your goal to include these steps: “I will lose a dress size by Valentine’s Day. I will accomplish this by exercising 3 times per week, keeping my activity levels high in by walking and taking the stairs and I will follow a specific nutrition plan.” You are in control of the behaviours, not the outcome, so focus on what you can change, and have faith that they will lead to the results you are after.

You need to plan your approach: what you are going to eat, how and when you are going to exercise etc. You also need to plan the finer details – such as creating menu plans for the week’s meals that feeds into a shopping list that you stick to (try ordering online to remove impulse buys even further).

You should also plan what you are going to choose when you go out for a meal, looking online for menus if you can so you can make healthy choices in advance. Of course, this might change, but at least you know what to expect when you get there. And if there is nothing you can eat on the menu, plan to go somewhere else instead!

On the exercise side, you need to decide which activities you want to take part in and schedule them into your diary – if you wait for a free 30 minutes you are never going to find it! Schedule it in and commit to your appointment. For some people the single most important reason for having a Personal Trainer is that they have booked and paid for a session so they absolutely have to turn up – the cost becomes the benefit!

Preparation means ensuring you have the tools you need – such as equipment or clothing for exercise. Nutritionally it means preparing foods to take to work or on the road so you always have healthy options to hand.

If you have planned all the details in advance, you make the implementation a whole lot easier – you just roll with it as it’s all laid out for you. You won’t end up staring into the fridge when you are really hungry, wondering what you can eat. You’ll have a healthy, supportive snack or meal available, to combat the hunger and keep you on track.

So don’t miss out this vital part of your fat loss success.

‘I want to lose weight’ is a common phrase, but the reality is, we need to lose body fat and preserve our precious lean body mass (LBM – consisting of muscle, bone, blood etc.). Muscle burns calories for a start – the more muscle we have the more calories we require to do nothing! If you add muscle and lose body fat, the scales may not budge quite as much as you might have expected, but you will look thinner, as well as more fit and toned!

Many ‘weight loss’ plans do result in significant muscle loss – if you severely restrict calories, consume insufficient protein and do a lot of steady cardio you may lose weight on the scales, but you will also be losing muscle. This is a major factor in regaining lost weight after a ‘diet’ – you have lowered your daily calorie requirements quite significantly, so what was once seen as a maintenance intake will now cause weight gain. The ‘yo-yo’ effect can be explained by this happening on a regular basis – every time you diet you lose more and more of the muscle that you need to keep your weight off in the long run! This is exacerbated by the fact that we lose muscle mass throughout adulthood unless we take action (especially resistance training) to keep it!

There are several methods to find out your body fat percentage, including skin fold tests with calipers, electrical impedance tests and the highly accurate, but highly impractical, hydrostatic (underwater) weighing method.

My personal favourite method that you can easily do at home is to use a software programme, where you take body measurements and plug them in to a form that calculates your body fat – you can find links to these by searching Google or through the links page of my website. They are usually accurate to between 1-3% and are a very simple way of testing.

Using this information, you can set yourself realistic fat loss targets based on the amount of fat you have to lose (rather than a random number you think might be nice to see on the scales!), and you can monitor your progress over time.

Caroline Radway’s Daily Top Tip – give it a go today and improve your life – and stop wasting so much of it! For more advice and resources join: http://carolineradway.ning.com

weight? But does your ongoing dissatisfaction with your body linger on, despite all these efforts?

Well, perhaps your ‘perfect’ diet is to blame!

I recently had a client who was so committed to eating perfectly, she wouldn’t dream of polluting her body with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and on the surface you would think her diet was perfect. But she was struggling to see the results she wanted.

On the other hand, I had another client who was equally dedicated and committed, but who also gave herself some slack. She’d allow the occasional treat then simply move on and be extra good for a while to balance things out.

She lost 20lb in 6 weeks, despite it being the end of her university year, involving a few parties. She even lost another pound while enjoying her holiday the next week!

So, what’s going on?

Firstly, the ‘perfect’ client actually looks fantastic. But she has not always had that body and is still mentally and emotionally stuck in fear of regaining her previous, somewhat larger, physique. Her self-image is shockingly low and totally inaccurate! She is living in a state of fear and to her, ‘imperfect’ food is the enemy.

As in life, if you can’t be happy where you are now, you are unlikely to be happy when you reach whatever destination you are going to, unless you address the root of the problem. If you are like this client, you may get to your goal weight, celebrate momentarily, then immediately get right back to square one, dissatisfied with where you are at now, looking for a new goal. I’m sure you know of people who’ve decided that living in a different city or even country will make everything better – but we take our issues with us. It’s the issues that need resolution first.

The second client did not suffer from that lingering low self-esteem. She could have a cocktail or two at the weekend and it wouldn’t send her into a guilt-fuelled pit of self-hatred. She managed her nights out by not drinking too much and not having sugary drinks or mixers, made sure she had as much fun as possible and danced as much as possible, and didn’t succumb to temptations the next morning, instead squeezing a workout in. Her positive mindset made all the difference to her experience of life, her stress levels, and her results.

The other problem for the first client was that by focussing on ‘clean’ and ‘perfect’ foods, she often overlooked other aspects of her behaviour. She would make up for the fact that she couldn’t indulge in her favourite things by over-doing the so-called ‘good’ stuff.

Despite what many diet books insist, calories do count, and you can very easily overeat (especially as a woman), even when your diet is only ‘healthy’ foods. If you are hungry, and choices limited, the body and mind will find a way to satisfy!

On the other hand, you can be over vigilant on counting every calorie which can then send you into a rebellious mode, resulting in giant binges that are triggered by such excessive restriction and control.

If you stick to the nutritious, healthy foods we should all be focussing on, but also allow yourself the odd treat, you will still get great results, so long as the overall calorie level is right.

Rather than externally controlling either quality or quantity, why not make every calorie count? By being eating slowly and mindfully, enjoying every morsel, you’re less likely to overeat.

Another reason for being more forgiving: we actually benefit from occasional higher calorie days, as you boost the hormone leptin. Low levels of leptin, as seen in those who diet excessively, mean you are constantly hungry which makes sticking to your diet even harder. Your less restrictive meals or your odd indulgence is not only psychologically helpful, it is advantageous on a hormonal level too!

There is another hormone that is relevant here: cortisol. It’s the stress hormone, and who isn’t a little stressed these days? But unmanaged stress is one of the biggest blocking factors when it comes to fat loss. Some degree of ‘stress’ is necessary, but when our cortisol levels become chronically elevated, the body is unable to function optimally.

The first client is stressed about her body and her diet and stressed if she ‘breaks’ her perfect diet…. If she lightened up a little, enjoyed the odd indulgence and relaxed about it (without going overboard) then she would notice a significant difference in her overall wellbeing, as well as her results.

Over-restricting calories or types of foods leads to an ‘all or nothing’ mindset which is actually the enemy of long term results, as it can result in ‘blow outs’ or binges. Rather than being able to indulge sensibly, these ‘off-diet’ moments become a license to splurge on everything you’ve been missing.

If the first client does ever let herself go a little, she’s in fear that she’ll let herself go a lot, which will hinder her results (and ironically she will use this to prove her point that imperfect foods are the enemy!). By being more permissive all the time, the fear of totally overdoing it is lost, and you can begin to indulge sensibly.

Are you stuck in the neverending cycle of perfectionism and self-hatred? Are you chronically dissatisfied with your body? Are you suffering from ongoing low self-esteem and sabotaging self talk? If so, this will be blocking your progress as well as meaning that when you reach your goals you are likely to be no better off. So you must address these things now!

What can you do? Some mindful techniques such as meditation or yoga can help. Yoga is especially helpful as it enables you to see just how incredible your body truly is! You accept your body whilst also seeing that you want a healthy, slim body out of respect for your body and you want it to be as fit and healthy as possible! This helps you make positive choices all the time.

Also, try writing some positive affirmations. Write down the things you are grateful for: by celebrating what we have to be thankful for, we realise just how much there is to be thankful for. Write your goals positively too: you want to be healthy so you can enjoy life more and have more energy. When our mindset and our goals are positive, and we focus on things in a positive way, miracles can happen.

For a new way of thinking and behaving to become automatic takes time, which is why writing things down really helps. Use index cards and make sure they are to hand at all times. Whenever you ‘catch’ a self-sabotaging thought pop into your head, make sure you notice it, and then consciously replace it with one of your affirmations. Trust yourself to make the right choices, believe in yourself, and give yourself a little slack.

Diet-wise, make sure you are building in some flexibility and are not aiming to be perfect. This is certainly not an invitation not to take diet and nutrition seriously, but being a little less stressed and rigid about it all will help you get things into balance. You are eating healthy food out of self-respect, not out of self-hatred, and when there are occasions that invite you to make less-than-perfect choices, you can enjoy these indulgences too! In fact, the more you enjoy the treats the more they will be worth – and without the added guilt you are less likely to go into a binge spiral. You will enjoy every calorie even more, and find that compulsive negative eating patterns dissolve.

So, get writing those positive affirmations now! And take stock of your diet rules – what are you feeling like you are missing? Plan it in, and work around it, so your overall picture is one of health and happiness!

It really is possible to break the diet cycle. As the Buddist proverb goes: If we are facing the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking. If you feel like you are running round in diet circles then this is one thing you need to work on, right now.