Month: September 2023

Proteins are essential for life, they are needed for pretty much all our bodily functions. They help form hair, skin, nails, muscles, hormones and so much more. They are one of the three macronutrients (with carbohydrates and fats being the other two) and are needed in relatively high quantities by the body. Protein plays a vital role in cellular growth as well as development, repair, immunity and cell signalling. With an explosion of protein powders and supplements to the market it’s a great time (and often a confusing one) to think about whether firstly we may need a protein supplement, what the best sources of protein are and whether we should be worrying about a protein deficiency. 

So, how much protein do you need? 

The body actually needs more protein as you get older. As we age we become less efficient at handling and responding to protein so need more of it to function optimally compared to when we are younger. It might not surprise you to find out that this increases further if you are a woman post menopause. The protein requirements officially change when we are over 65 however menopause has such a large hormone shift in a short period (resulting in body changes such as reduced muscle mass and increased body fat) that it might be wise to start upping your protein intake earlier than 65 as a woman. In addition combining that increase with a well-structured strength training plan can offset those menopause changes.

The decline in muscle mass as we get older is exacerbated in women due to the drop in oestrogen levels (find out more about this in my previous blog). Getting enough protein can help offset this muscle mass decline and is crucial for women. Adequate protein intake in midlife and beyond is hugely impactful in maintaining healthy physical functioning and an active lifestyle. Studies have shown that those consuming the greatest amount of protein showed a 30% reduction in the risk of losing physical function. Whilst this doesn’t mean that you need to consume the absolute maximum amount of protein it does suggest that there is an association between higher protein intake and maintaining physical function as we age, especially as women.

The general protein recommendation for adults is to have 0.8 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight with more active women (especially those lifting weights) having 1-1.2 g per kg bodyweight which is 65-78 g of protein for a 65kg woman. It has also been suggested that an additional 0.4 g per kg bodyweight in snacks throughout the day (an additional 26g of protein) for women in midlife and beyond is optimal. 

So, to get all this protein in throughout the day it’s wise to take a look at some of the foods richest in protein. Typically animal-based protein sources are more readily utilised by the body than plant-based protein sources, but that does not mean we should ignore plant sources. 

Healthy animal sources of protein include: 

• Eggs (a large egg has approximately 6 g protein)
• Chicken 
• Turkey 
• Salmon 
• Milk 

Plant based sources include:

• Quinoa
• Soy
• Tofu 
• Lentils 
• Tempeh

Nuts are also a good source of protein but do also contain a high amount of fat alongside other important nutrients which make them a great snack or topping rather than a main protein source. 

Protein powders shouldn’t be overlooked – when mixed with high quality milk such as dairy or soya these can help women boost their protein intake, especially if struggling to get enough in via the diet as appetite can be a limiting factor here! Be sure to have a look and see how much protein per “scoop” on the power you choose so you can keep track. Also these can be very high in sugar so it’s wise to do some research!

So a typical day’s protein intake could look like this:

• Breakfast – eggs and toast with avocado, maybe some feta. Greek yoghurt is also great!
• Snack – either a high quality protein shake or houmous with veggies
• Lunch – chicken salad (quinoa is a great source to add)
• Snack – live natural yoghurt with fresh fruit and sprinkle of nuts 
• Dinner – Salmon fillet stir fry

My top tip is that I try to ensure I have protein at the centre of every meal which also keeps me fuller for longer.

It’s important to remember that upping your protein intake won’t make you bulk up, it will help your body to function optimally as you get older, to build lean muscle to keep you physically active and live a longer healthier life. 

What’s your favourite protein based meal or snack?

Caroline x

In the UK it’s National Fitness Day today! A day which was originally created to break down the barriers around exercise and help more people to get active. You might see heavy use of the #FitnessDay across your social feeds and find more fitness content, challenges and events than usual. But what is it all about? #FitnessDay aims to celebrate what our health and fitness means to us as individuals, emphasising that looking after our mental and physical health means something different to all of us. This year, the theme for National Fitness Day could not be more apt – ‘Your Health is Your Life’. The annual campaign is focussing on recognising and celebrating the life-long mental and physical benefits of being active.

I found that in my 20s and even 30s  there was a real focus on exercise being purely for weight management – a way to burn off the calories with a heavy sway towards cardio. There was always a pressure to stay slim with little to no emphasis on strength or how exercise made you feel and the mental side of training. 

As I have got older this view on why to train, both personally and socially, has changed and there has been a much more holistic approach to exercise from both a mental and physical point of view. Changing my training style and my reason to exercise has made such a fundamental difference to how I feel in myself and my confidence in my body. I really am now future proofing which is why I love the National Fitness Day slogan of ‘Your Health is Your Life’.

So what does this slogan actually mean? For me it’s about the whole 360 degree approach to wellness – it’s your physical, mental and social wellbeing as well as balance. It’s not just about staying physically fit, it’s about our mental awareness too. From an exercise perspective it’s about functional training, training which enables everyday activities to be done with ease, to prevent injuries, training that allows me to be actively there for my family and stay fit and healthy into my 60s, 70s and 80s. Functional training often involves compound moves where we use more than one muscle at a time (for example we squat down to lift something up & then reach to put it away or we rotate to one side as we get out of a car etc) specifically talking about movements which mimic key movements we do in everyday life – think about it as training for life. For example sitting – we sit down and stand up off a chair, off the bed, off the loo many, many times in a day but all too often we don’t actually train that movement. We have slightly fallen into the trap of training like an athlete – for performance, rather than training functionally for the movement patterns we do in everyday life.

Functional exercise can really impact our strength capabilities.  Did you know that more people get injured doing day to day activities e.g. lifting something heavy in the wrong way like dragging the lawnmower out of the garage or getting out of the bath than they do in the gym doing their workout. It will also help you with your strength in other sports or activities that you do – ie your running, football, golf etc as well as housework, gardening….

On top of the physical benefits of functional training which include enhanced bone density, lean muscle mass, reduced risk of falls and fractures and improved heart health there are plenty of benefits on the mental side of things too. Speaking from experience I know I always feel much better after a good workout. It also helps with improved sleep, mood and immunity – what’s not to love! All of these tie together to give an all round mental health boost and set you up for success. The National Fitness Day slogan ‘Your Health is Your Life’ really does encompass both mental and physical wellbeing and I think it is so important we give airtime to both aspects when training.

As National Fitness Day is all about getting active and staying active, I thought I would share my top tips on getting stuck in and sticking with it: 

1. Find your why – Your reason for starting exercise has a huge impact on whether you will sustain it. Vague goals of “I want to get fit” or “I want to lose weight” won’t keep you at it long term – give yourself an achievable goal such as “I want to run 5k by Christmas” or “I want to do 3 workouts a week” You will also be much more successful at sticking with it if you can see or feel tangible, immediate benefits such as positive feelings of stress reduction, increased energy, better sleep etc. The best way to prioritise exercise and be sure it will happen is if it delivers a benefit that is truly compelling and valuable to your life. So you just need to find out what that is for you, and it might be different for everyone. 
2. Be realistic – Don’t set out with unattainable goals such as “I will workout everyday, I will eat healthily, stop drinking and run 5 times per week”, not only will you lose motivation pretty quickly when you can’t do it but you’ll risk injury and leave yourself feeling pretty rubbish. Instead try committing to three workouts per week and have 4/5 alcohol free nights per week – when you achieve this over a period of time you can then build on these goals – set yourself up for success.
3. Plan and prioritise – For many people time is precious, but so is your health. Plan your week on a Sunday, work out exactly where you can definitely fit in your exercise and stick to it. Maybe organise a plan together with a friend. Sometimes it is also helpful to have a contingency plan for if work or family life throws the schedule out of the window! 
4. Keep it short and sweet – you don’t need to exercise for hours – 30 minutes three times per week for strength work is perfect. Often, people think that they need to spend hours and hours at the gym each week to make it worthwhile – this is a myth! 
5. Work out your best time – if you’re not a morning person don’t commit to a 7am workout, if you know you flag in the evenings make sure you get it done before lunchtime. There’s no right time, just the right time for you.

If today is the day that you are thinking about getting started, why not try one of my shorter workouts? My ten minute series could be just the ticket for kickstarting the habit. Don’t forget to use my code picknmix20 if you do which is valid until the end of September.

I do get asked this question a lot by my members and it requires a careful answer. It is safe to exercise every day but it entirely depends on the level you are working at. It is fine to exercise but not at a high impact level every day. You need to think about why you are exercising so much and your motivation behind it. If you find an exercise which you enjoy and it isn’t at too intense a level then that is fine such as walking or yoga. You also want to take into consideration the length of time of each session – ultimately you want to find a routine that optimises your efforts and doesn’t undo them, remember the importance of rest and recovery for fitness gains and to avoid injury.

Regular exercise provides a whole heap of benefits to our overall wellbeing –  it helps protect against many chronic diseases, aids weight management, lowers blood pressure, improves heart health, improves sleep and mental health etc etc.  It improves our muscle and bone strength as well as our memory and brain function. A daily commitment to movement can improve our lives in so many ways and the benefits are as much mental as they are physical.

However…too much exercise also has some very real negative factors – so why do we need rest days? Rest days are vital especially if your fitness routine revolves around high intensity exercise. You need rest days to benefit from your workouts. Why? When you exercise especially at a high intensity you break down muscle tissue. If you do not give your muscles adequate time to repair and are overtraining you put yourself more at risk of injury and illness. Your muscles also need time to refuel and replenish their glycogen stores. 

On top of this if you don’t rest you will lose your motivation and be more at risk of “burnout” and in the long run your fitness levels as well as your performance will suffer. Rest days don’t mean that you have to completely stop all moving! Once again walking, yoga, gentle cycling, swimming are all good – any exercise which isn’t putting your body through undue stress.

If you are worried that your exercising has become obsessive try to take some time away from the gym, decrease the time of your workouts and find other forms of low impact exercise which you enjoy i.e. tennis, swimming, walking, gentle cycling, yoga. Think about why you are exercising too much – is it that you simply enjoy it or is it weight focussed?  Try to build in your rest days and find alternative hobbies alongside your fitness which you enjoy daily so that you really are allowing your body time to recover and repair – it will thank you for it.

A great exercise schedule that I would recommend to my clients would be along these lines – 30-40 minute workouts 4x a week – a mixture of medium to high impact workouts for example on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday interspersed with lower intensity workouts once or twice a week (such as jogging, swimming, cycling, yoga, Pilates) with either a mobility stretch session or long walk on the weekend. The high intensity sessions could be either strength or cardio focussed but I would definitely recommend at least two strength-based sessions a week, you can alternate upper body and lower body sessions.

I do not recommend more than 3 sessions of HIIT workouts per week and would advise one day of complete rest of any high impact exercise. Alongside this routine I advise clients to focus on getting 7/8 hours of sleep per night and eating a balanced diet, drinking lots of water and watching their alcohol levels. Keeping your workouts varied is also key!! And finally enjoy your exercise, see it as enjoyment rather than a chore and if you find something you love you are more likely to stick with it and be consistent. 

I might be biassed but I LOVE a home workout so I have plenty of tips for waving goodbye to busy gyms and expensive fees and getting stuck into some brilliant home workouts. No matter where you are on your fitness journey, a home workout can really benefit your fitness. So what are my top tips for exercising without going to a gym?

1. If possible, find yourself a dedicated area in the home to become your workout space. It doesn’t need to be set up all the time but have a place that you know works, where you can roll your mat out and get started. It can be as simple as the corner of the living room, a space in the garage or if you have the space perhaps in a spare room. You don’t need much room at all, just the size of the mat really.
2. Invest in a couple of pieces of kit – people always ask what they need to get started and it isn’t much at all but they are key to success! My key pieces of equipment are a mat, a short looped resistance band and a set of light (approx. 2kg) dumbbells – you can increase the weight gradually as you build strength over time (you can read my blog on this here). If you’re not ready to start with weights you can start off with bodyweight only and then add in some water bottles until you’re confident to purchase the weights.
3. If you’re new to exercise or want to shake up your routine it’s a great idea to follow an online programme. My platform has 4 live workouts a week as well as an express class series, the In Ten series and a library of on-demand classes. It is always helpful to have someone to guide you through the workouts and exercise and to give you that motivation boost to keep going and keep you accountable. 
4. Plan plan plan – plot out at the start of each week where you can fit your workouts in (remember you don’t have that gym commute now so you’ll be saving some time there!). Try to carve out enough time and then stick to it – tick them off as you go, it’s quite satisfying! You’ll soon find that these workouts become routine and you can’t imagine life when you didn’t do them.
5. Mix it up – if the weather is nice try to get outside to do a few of these workouts. Not only will you get your Vitamin D fix, the fresh air does wonders for the brain and you’ll be riding that post-workout endorphin high for the rest of the day. 

Let me know how you get on and remember you can use code picknmix20 throughout September for 20% off your first month on Caroline’s Circuits.

Caroline x