Blog - At Home Personal Trainer

The mathematics of weight loss

4/6/2017

What happens to fat as we lose weight? Dave Allen, the Irish comedian, once said that the weight we lose transfers to someone else. Thankfully that isn’t true. If you have a spare 20 minutes and fancy getting in touch with your inner geek, the following video with Ruben Meerman explores the mathematics of weight loss:

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.

Photos of Tilford and Rowledge

16/3/2017

I'm always encouraging my clients to be as active as they can be and what better than a walk in our picturesque countryside and local villages. Here are some recent photos I took whilst romping around Tilford and Rowledge:

David Bowie Personal Trainer

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.

Healthy Smoothie – Drink Your Greens – 180ml, 300 kcals

12/3/2017

Avocado Apricot Cucumber Smoothie

Requires:

A juicer
A blender
½ melon, skinned
100g cucumber
40g dried apricots
1 tablespoon of wheatgerm
Ice cubes

Steps:

Peel and stone the avocado
Juice the cucumber and melon
Put the juice in a blender along with the avocado, apricots, wheatgerm and a couple of ice cubes
Blend until smooth
Pour into glass and enjoy!

David Bowie Personal Trainer

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.

Monday's Motivator

31/10/2016

Motivation Quote George Halas

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.

Healthy Smoothie – Cranberry Boost – 250ml, 200 kcals

3/9/2016

Healthy Smoothie Cranberry Boost

Requires:

A blender
40g dried cranberries
1 large banana
½ lemon
2 tablespoons of Greek yoghurt
150ml semi-skimmed milk
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
Crushed ice

Steps:

Juice the ½ lemon and blend with the cranberries until the berries are finely chopped
Add the banana and sesame seeds and purée
Add the milk and yoghurt and blend until smooth
Pour into glass over a small amount of crushed ice

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.

Switch from Negative to Positive

1/8/2016

Positive and happy

We all have times when we feel stressed, under the weather or just plain miserable. Thankfully our state of mind can quickly be influenced by outside stimuli, which promote a positive chemical change inside us. But you knew that. The tricky bit is having the willpower to beat that negative voice into submission, which is why it’s handy to know what you can turn to in times of grumpiness.

The next time you feel blue try one or more of the following:

Listen to music – something you find uplifting
Exercise – helps to release positive hormones
Listen to some comedy – put a smile on your face
Go outside and get some vitamin D – a shortage of vitamin D has a detrimental impact on our mood. Go for a walk, do some gardening, etc.
Seek out positive people and be sociable – a good way to change your state of mind is to speak to others
Retail therapy – go shopping, either online or on the High Street
Plan a holiday – be it fantasy or real, this can help to transport you to a sunny, happy place
Stroke a pet – proven to be calming, lowers heart rate and blood pressure. Not recommended if the only pets you have are fish or porcupines.

If you’re reading this whilst feeling negative but are unwilling to do any of the above, shout at the screen and tell me what positive thing you want to do that I’ve missed off my list. Then go and do it. Don’t let that negative voice drag you into a debate. Pick something you like and JUST DO IT!

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.

Monday's Motivator

12/7/2016

A simple but succinct quote from Lee Labrada, former professional body builder, published author and CEO of Labrada Nutrition:

Motivational quote Lee Labrada

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.

The Truth About.....Hydration.

13/6/2016

Hydration chart

In the recent BBC programme ‘The Truth About Healthy Eating’ an experiment was undertaken to test the hydration qualities of:

Water
Coffee
Orange Juice
Milk

24 office workers were split into 4 groups of 6. Each group was assigned 1 litre of a different test liquid, which they had to consume over the next 60 minutes. Their hydration levels were then measured over the following 3 hours. The scientist who discussed the results felt that orange juice and coffee had much the same hydration effect as water. The winner, as the graph shows, was milk, either whole, semi-skimmed or skimmed. This was attributed to the additional properties found in milk, which influence the H2O element as the body processes it. These components are:

Glucose - helps improve water absorption in the intestines
Sodium and potassium - help retain the water within the body
Protein - slows the absorption of water into the circulation

One of the office workers testing orange juice said, “I prefer water but it does go through me quite quickly”. She hits the nail on the head because water loses out to milk in the hydration test owing to its purity. It does however have advantages over the other drinks tested such as:

No calories
No sugar
No caffeine
Contains nothing you’re likely to be allergic to
It’s free if you drink tap water

The programme started by saying that we’re told to drink 2 litres of water per day but nobody knows where this information came from. 1 litre is now thought to be enough but there’s no scientific evidence behind the recommendation. There are plenty of people who don’t drink water but don’t suffer from dehydration. The BBC test explains you can hydrate well from other sources and it’s good to know that there are plenty of alternatives to water to keep our fluid levels healthy.

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.

Review: Mi Band Activity Tracker (without HR monitor)

5/6/2016

Mi Band Activity Tracker

Quick list of things worth knowing about the Mi Band:

Tracks steps, distance, calories burned, active/inactive, sleep (including deep sleep)
Needs to connect to a device running Bluetooth 4 and Android 4.4 or above
Requires the installation of the free app ‘Mi Fit’ on your chosen Android & Bluetooth device to track your data
Waterproof in a few feet of water for up to 30 minutes

“More than I expected for the price” says one of the reviews on Amazon for this simple but effective activity tracker. I agree. I spotted the Mi Band in a 'Which?' magazine comparison of fitness wristbands in early 2016 and I was intrigued by its simplicity. Although it came bottom of the pile it wasn't far behind products costing 5 to 10 times the price. At the time of writing you can order the Mi Band for as little as £14 on Amazon and £9.79 on Ebay (from Hong Kong), both with free postage. I purchased mine from Ebay, which was a little daunting when the only instructions were in Chinese. Thankfully there is plenty of help online in English, with several You Tube reviews, one of which I've included below. Once I'd downloaded the app to my phone, enabled Bluetooth and synchronised I was off and running, stepping and dancing like nobody was watching.

As you'll notice from the picture the Mi Band doesn't have a digital display, which I consider one of its strengths not a weakness. The more information an activity tracker has the more we look at it and the quicker the battery runs down. Certain products end up needing to be charged every day, or even more frequently, which can interrupt recording your data. The Mi Band lasted for 2 weeks before I finally gave in and charged it up again. The battery life is claimed to last 30 days, which is astonishing. Admittedly you end up looking at your Smart phone a lot more to check your activity, which runs your phone charge down.

After using the Mi Band for a month I was very impressed with its accuracy monitoring my data. It scores 3.8/5 stars on Amazon from 108 reviews and I'd definitely say it was a 5 out of 5 from me. The step count has been very accurate and the device knew exactly when I fell asleep and woke up.

This version I'm reviewing doesn't come with a heart rate monitor but there is a version of the Mi Band that does, which currently costs £17.48 and free delivery on Amazon. You can also get additional wristbands in different colours to house the Mi Band ‘brains’ making it look funky in addition to being highly functional.

Here's a You Tube review from ‘Techy Agent’ about the Mi Band from May 2015 (just over 8 minutes) where he discusses the fitness tracker's features:

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.

Healthy Smoothie – Banama Bionic – 300ml, 205 kcals

31/5/2016

Healthy Smoothie Banama Bionic

Requires:

A blender
1 small banana
½ ripe mango
75g natural bio yoghurt
150ml pineapple juice

Steps:

Roughly chop the mango flesh and slice the banana, freezing both for at least 2 hours
After freezing put the mango and banana into a blender
Add the pineapple juice and yoghurt
Blend until smooth
Pour into glass

Author

David Bowie, owner of Healthy Fit Life, is a mobile personal trainer and sports massage therapist working in the Farnham and Camberley area.