Category: Fitness

The Vintage Diet: 1953 vs 2013

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I don’t know about you, but I need to get in shape again after a pretty fun couple of months! Luckily, there’s always a new idea or craze to keep you interested in your regime, whatever that may be – but I decided to go back in time for mine and follow the 1953 diet previously posted at the (AMAZING) Tuppence Ha’penny blog! What better way to get in shape than with some old-fashioned, common-sense wisdom, right?

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At first glance, this diet seems to be fairly balanced, but high protein, generally straying under the 1200 calorie mark. Some of the items are a little eccentric, and some of them I’ll definitely substitute (no sliced tongue, thanks!), but generally, I hope to follow this as well as I can!

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I’m skipping Sunday’s all-liquid diet – I might try that at the end, but there’s no way I’m imposing that on myself during deadline week this week… Today is Tuesday, so confusingly I’ll be starting with Monday’s meals. Yes, anything to make life more complicated!

Check back later today for my run-down of Day One on the 1953 diet!

Fitness DVD review: Inch Loss Pilates with Lynne Robinson

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Pilates has definitely been a buzz-word since the Royal wedding, when Pippa Middleton’s famous bum was said to be a result of following this exercise plan. It’s one of those regimes that I’ve been aware of for ages, but never really investigated. I know that it’s something like yoga, was invented by a guy called Pilates, and there’s also some vague notions of it being to do with the war, or soldiers, or something like that. It was always filed in my brain under the heading ‘something to look into at some point’. When I got a press release about the launch of Inch Loss Pilates with Lynne Robinson last month, it became apparent that ‘at some point’ had arrived.

Inch Loss Pilates

This isn’t going to be a proper review of the DVD yet, as after a viewing today I realised that there was a whole post to be written just about my initial observations of the programme, before I’d even tried it out. For the record, I intend to give this a proper trial during January, so keep posted on that!

First of all, Lynne Robinson is something of a Pilates guru – I guess that’s stealing a word from yoga, but hey… It’s nearly Christmas, so I’ll say it was a present. The Times has dubbed her ‘The Queen of Pilates’, and her prolific output on the subject certainly goes some way to proving that. She’s worked with numerous celebs like Sophie Dahl, Holly Willoughby, Liz Hurley – and even the Chelsea football team and England Cricket. Those latter two should help convince you that Pilates isn’t just airy fairy stuff – this is proper, physical work.

However, in the introduction video, Lynne points out that this isn’t a hugely calorie burning endeavour. I guess that’s what had steered me away from exercises like this and yoga over the years. I love high impact cardio workouts – basically pretty much anything that Jillian Michaels has released on DVD. This is the polar opposite to that, really. Whilst Jillian’s 30 Day Shred will have you screaming and pushing your body to its physical limit, Pilates is about really centring yourself, connecting your mind and body together, and sculpting your form through deliberate and mindful movements.

My ears really pricked up when Lynne mentioned that Pilates is really what helped her with her pear-shape – I never realised until I lost a lot of weight for my wedding which shape I was, because when I looked in the mirror, frankly, all I saw was a blob. Since then my self-esteem and exercise regime has allowed me to see my body properly, and the difficulties I’ve had losing weight from my bum and thighs has made it obvious – like many British women, I am in fact a pear-shape. So, I guess I’m the perfect candidate to test Lynne’s theory that Pilates can help with that. She recommends that you do about three hours of Pilates a week – on average, I guess, 30 minutes a day with one day off (that was MENTAL MATHS!). She also suggests you get in some cardio for your overall health, and add in incidental exercise like walking. Of course, you need to watch your diet, as well.

The DVD has four sections, an introduction, a section entitled Fundamentals 1, then two workouts. Workout one is for a top-to-toe exercising, and workout two is shorter, and more targeted to problem areas. This is not an exercise DVD you can pop in and get started on right away – you need to watch the Fundamentals section first (which is around 27 minutes long), so you can understand more about Pilates, what it tries to achieve, and how to do the poses. You also need some equipment – but nothing you might not have lying around the house already, particularly if you’ve done some home exercising before. You’ll need a flat cushion or folded towel for your head, a fatter cushion to hold between your legs and the like, a chair, a stretch band or long scarf, hand weights (no more than 3 kilos) and ankle weights (no more than 1 kilo).

I’ll be challenging myself to do three hours of this DVD every week during January. Why not join me? You can purchase Inch Loss Pilates from www.bodycontrolpilates.com or www.amazon.co.uk – RRP £14.99, due out 31 December. You can also download a digital version for £9.99.

This post is based on a complimentary product supplied to me for the purposes of review in this blog.

How to stave off hunger during a diet

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The two biggest enemies to a restricted diet are boredom, and hunger. There are loads of tips about distracting yourself to stave off boredom, but hunger pangs are harder to ignore. However, there is an easy way to combat them in advance – and that’s with psyllium husks.

Sounds scary and scientific, right? Or like some kind of quack quick-fix? Actually, all it is is indigestible fibre, which bulks out your tummy, filling you up before a meal and making those calories stretch further. The husks are completely harmless – I’ve done some research and can find nothing negative about them whatsoever – provided you take them as per the instructions. These instructions are really simple – take two, 30-60 minutes before a meal, with at least 250ml water. The water is important, because these husks are dried, and expand with the water to create bulk in your tummy.

As I’m a curious bunny, when I got my husks, I decided to break one open into the water to find out what was actually inside them before I put them inside my body! When you crack open the plastic capsule, inside is sand-coloured powder. Drop that powder into a glass of water, and the powder forms a thick gel. That’s what will keep you feeling full, and that’s why these are so handy for dieters who find themselves defeated by hunger, especially at the beginning of a diet.

You can buy these in the UK from Holland and Barrett, and there are very often offers or deals going on for them there. At the moment, you can buy two packs for £12.06, which should last a couple of months.

Whatever you do, don’t use these as a way of skipping meals altogther – you need to eat a meal 30-60 mins after taking these. This is not a meal substitute.

Kickbox Fastfix: A Review

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If you’re a Jillian fan, or have used her 30 Day Shred or Ripped in 30 videos, you’re probably really used to Jillian’s 3, 2, 1 method, where the circuits are all very structured around strength, cardio and core, and involve a set number of each before circling back around for a second set. This structure is one of my favourite aspects of the workouts – because you always know where you are and what you’re supposed to be working on – but it also means that very often, her workouts can seem stale or samey, as they’re based on the same general principles.

Kickbox Fastfix really throws something new into the mix with kickboxing moves and a new approach to the workouts that left me feeling energised and ready to commit to a new workout style – at least, for a while! There’s a fairly hefty introduction, explaining the form for all of the kickboxing moves, which I reckon could be the downfall of quite a few impatient would-be kickboxers. It’s a little frustrating having to work your way through this tutorial – burning no calories, really – before you can get stuck in with your workout, but you really can’t skip this as you’ll have no idea what’s going on when you eventually begin! I’ve only watched it once, but I managed to pick up the moves easily just from this first run through.

The second point is that you need some body co-ordination to be able to pull this off without a lot of practice. I personally do not consider myself to be the most coordinated person in the world, but I can get the hang of workout sequences and rhythms after a few goes – my husband is not so lucky, and spent a good few minutes of his workout staring at the TV in puzzlement. The sequences can be very long, involving multiple styles of punches and kicks before starting back at the beginning, and I also found that some of them could be simplified rather easily, which made me wonder whether there was a reason Jillian had set them up the way she did to start with. For example, it’s much easier to memorise on the fly ‘jab, jab, hook, hook’ than it is ‘jab, hook, hook, jab’ – and if you’re repeating on a loop, there’s no real difference – or is there? Regardless, I reckon anyone can master these eventually, but it might take a little longer for some people.

I definitely enjoyed this new approach from Jillian – it’s nice to have something in my collection that doesn’t fall back on the old 3, 2, 1 approach, which I can bust out if things are feeling stale. Davina’s kickboxing DVD was always a favourite in our house anyway, so I’m glad I’ve got Jillian’s version, too! The workout consists of three levels, each about 25 minutes long, which means there’s a decent amount of variation – and it’s not too taxing to tack one level onto the next to create a longer workout, either.

Let’s face it, nothing makes you feel more bad-ass than a bit of kickboxing – and Jillian is certainly the queen of fitness bad-assery!

Kickbox Fastfix is currently available in region 1 only, from Amazon.co.uk.

Body Revolution comes to the UK!

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Great news for Jillian fans here in the UK – the fitness guru has finally launched her amazing 90 programme here! You can purchase the entire thing here: http://www.hsm.tv/fitness/product/jillian-michaels-body-revolution for £99.99, which is a great price considering what’s included. You get (and I’m quoting from the site here) “15 all-new DVDs, Resistance Cable, Fitness Guide, customizable 90-day Fat-Burning Meal Plan complete with grocery lists, delicious recipes, and daily menus, 90-Day Journal. PLUS, a bonus 7 day Kick Start Your Metabolism diet plan to detox your body and help you curb your food addictions.”

As for me, I’m not able to purchase one of these programmes, but I’m currently working on a variety of Jillian DVDs and a calorie restriction of 1200 daily. I recently purchased Extreme Shed and Shred, so expect a review of that soon!

Anyone out there getting the Body Revolution? Let me know what you think! Or, if you’ve already got one, how did you get on?

French Sole Warehouse Sale!

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I have to admit, I’m a bit of a brand obsessive. I don’t love a lot of brands, but when I get into something, I can be incredibly loyal, even if whatever the product is is squarely out of my price range! French Sole is one of those products that I fell in love with, but couldn’t really afford. I first became really aware of the brand on the lovely Duchess (aka Kate Middleton) very shortly after she got married, as she piroutted around Waitrose’s carpark wearing a pair of their pretty flats. I fell in love because I LOVE ballet flats, and this company was literally the brand to bring them to the masses – beloved of Diana in her day, too. I had a mega crush on their sparkly gold Henriettas last year, but alas, couldn’t really get a size that felt comfortable on me for the price. Then I discovered their limited edition Union Jack shoes at the end of 2011 and stalked them until they were made available in the UK. They were launched in shops only, but I hassled the poor people at the warehouse until they very kindly sent me a pair for the princely sum of £125 – more than I could really afford, but easily justifiable for the beauty of the shoes, in my opinion! (Many thanks to those long suffering warehouse staff for sending them to me before they were really available, I was so grateful I sent them a card!).

Anyway, I was absolutely thrilled when I saw on Facebook that the company was holding a warehouse sale this weekend, so to treat myself after a fairly horrendous deadline, I got up at 6am, so I could get ready and drive an hour to get to the sale. I ended up getting there half an hour early, but they were already letting people in! IMG_5716

This is what the warehouse looked like on a dreary October morning – complete with a food van (that I was too excited to buy anything from!). IMG_5717

This is the sight that greeted me inside – the sides were set up with shoes out on the table corresponding to the sizes, so I immediately ran over to the 40 section. IMG_5718

There were so many beautiful shoes, I just stared for a bit – then I saw people were picking up the shoes and trying them on, so I immediately pulled my socks off to join in! At this point, I had no idea what the prices were, but that wasn’t going to stop me… IMG_5722

They had bargain bins with pairs for £10 each, but I couldn’t find anything in there that I liked, so I began to grab pretty shoes at random, hopping up and down and slavering at the display like some kind of uncontrolled pervert in the red light district. IMG_5720

Honestly, though, can you blame me? IMG_5719

I eventually worked out that the pricing seemed to be £20 or £40 for the boxed pairs, so I went nuts and grabbed about five pairs that were literally so awesome I couldn’t believe it might actually be possible for me to leave without them. I then hobbled over to the corner to try them on… IMG_5723

These are the pairs I came away with, and I love each one. Starting from the top middle, a pair of quilted white flats with a black toe (very Chanel-esque), a pair of gorgeous brown-bronze flats (which you can’t see in the photo, but are actually lined with black fur), another pair of quilted shoes in brown with patent strips on the toes, then possibly my favourite, the brown glitter pair so similar to the ones I coveted last year (except not the same colour, but since then I’ve bought a similar pair in gold and black, so these are perfect!), and finally, a cute pair of plaid flats with a bronze shimmer finish, and more patent strips on the toes. The quilted pairs were £40 each, and the others were £20, which means I got around £600 of shoes for £120. Very. Pleased. The only thing that’s not too good is that it’s been fair too cold to wear these anywhere since I bought them – roll on spring, please!

(Even more amazingly, Vogue featured French Sole four times in their list of 100 best shoes for A/W 2012, and two of those styles – 28 and 53 – are very similar to the ones I picked up at the sale! Dare I say I prefer the shape of the ones I bought, though? Cos I do!  http://www.vogue.co.uk/jewellery/news/2012/10/best-shoes—autumn/winter-2012-13-designer-heels-flats-and-sandals/gallery/59)

Becoming Effie Trinket

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If you’ve seen my recipe for Katniss’ alternative plum stew, you’ll know that I love the Hunger Games. So much so that I’m planning a party (well, it had to be done, right?!) with loads of food, and costumes! Who else to dress up as other than the style queen herself, Effie Trinket?!

Looking at photos of Effie, it seems as though two of her major style signatures are puffy sleeves, and contrasting colours. Looking around on ASOS, I found this great, puffed sleeve coat from Liquorish:

Looks just like the kind of thing that Effie would wear, right? Even more so when you check out the back view and those awesome sleeves!

The item is much pinker in real life (you can check it out here), so I reckon the best colour pairing for this is teal! Something like this, sitting on top of a curly blonde wig!:

30 Day Shred: A Review

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It seems to me that there’s only a very finite amount of ways to exercise. There are hundreds of types, yes, but the way you do exercise is limited to certain scenarios. Obviously, if you’re a builder or do a physical job, that’s your exercise. You can take a class. You can go to the gym. You can go jogging or swimming. You can workout in a home gym. You can do exercise DVDs. You can play games on your computer. I’ve tried most of these things – except the physical job stuff. I think learning a trade so I can fit exercise into my daily routine is taking it a bit far… Of all the methods you can use to get fit, exercise DVDs are by far and away the best method for me. I don’t have to leave the house, adding travel time onto my workout sessions. I don’t have to wait for people to be finished with workout equipment. I don’t have to buy extra equipment. I don’t have to keep to other people’s schedules.

Before I tried Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred, I’d honestly not done a workout DVD before. I had no idea what to expect. I’d done a few months of exercise regimes on the Wii (EA Sports, Wii Fit, etc), and they were fairly hard work, but you usually had to wait in between exercises, and thusly everything took longer. One thing you can say about 30DS is that there is NO waiting around between exercises.

I think I picked the 30DS DVD up at the beginning of January 2010. Not as a ‘New Year Resolution’, but just to keep my routine fresh, as I was losing weight for my wedding that year (August). In the space of a month, I lost 8lbs, by combining the 30DS with a calorie restriction of 1200 calories a day. It was completely amazing, and gave me so much confidence. With results like that, it’s easy to see why I am such a huge fan of Jillian Michaels!

So, that’s the results out of the way (hmm, maybe I should have kept that until the end?), so I’ll talk more about how the workout is structured. There are three 30 minute workouts (she says 20 minutes, but has since admitted this was a little fib to get people motivated – if you include warm ups and cool downs, they’re closer to 30 mins each), and the idea is that you start at level one, do that for 10 days, then level two for 10 days, then level three for 10 days, throughout the month. You can stop and have a break if you want to, obviously! I think the most rewarding aspect of the programme for me was being able to tell that you were getting gradually better with each repetition of the level. When you start level one, you’ll probably feel like you’re going to die. When you’ve finished level three, and go back to level one, you’ll feel like you’re on holiday. The progression you make in just a month is really amazing.

Since trying this DVD, I’ve only bought three other workout DVDs from other trainers or celebrities. One was a joke gift for my husband, which was the workout DVD of a Corrie star, which took about 45 minutes and felt like waiting for the bus – not hard, not tiring, just very, very boring. One was Davina’s workout (love Davina!), which again, I didn’t feel was efficient, but was okay. I liked the kick boxing elements, but other parts just didn’t feel like a real workout. Then I did Tracey Anderson – but the least said about that the better, really… I’ve since given up on other trainers, because I’d rather work my butt off for half an hour and do some real exercise, than fanny about for 45 minutes and not even get a sweat on. I also really like the structure and progression of 30DS. You have a set amount of time to do it in, you can measure your results, you progress through, and you have an end point. With other DVDs, it seems like you continue until you’re bored, or just lose motivation.

Oh, and Jillian also gets bonus points for her hilarious commentary. I know some people don’t like being yelled at from the telly, but I find it actually really motivated me to work harder. I’d rather watch Jillian telling me to kick my own butt than watch a celebrity tell me that the workout was hard and their legs ached.

You can purchase 30 Day Shred from Amazon (currently £4.99): http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jillian-Michaels-Day-Shred-DVD/dp/B002RNOS2Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346329577&sr=8-1. Or, you can download it from iTunes – which is actually really handy. I’ve downloaded it to my phone, so if I go on holiday I can do the workout that way with water bottles or cans as my weights! And, once you’ve completed 30DS, you can move on to Ripped in 30!

GOOD LUCK! – And, let me know if you’ve tried 30 Day Shred, and what you thought of it!

My Holiday to Cornwall: or, How To Put On A Stone in a Week

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So, I went to Cornwall for the first time in my life about two weeks ago. I had a blast, visited some amazing places, ate some amazing food, but in the process I destroyed my bank balance and my waistline! The next month is going to involve some serious recovery… IMG_4005

I Actually Won Something!

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Oh my goodness! I actually won a competition! I can’t believe it, but it’s true!

Hobbs ran a competition which invited people to post their Ascot Ladies’ Day outfits on Twitter using Instagram. I’m not really a Twitter user, but I do have an account, so I Instagrammed a pic, bumbled about trying to make it work – and lo and behold, I won a £200 Hobbs voucher! Here is my winning entry: IMG_3095

I love my Britannia hat even more now! And, I love Hobbs as well! Thank you, Hobbs!