When I was down on the FitFarms London Boot Camp I devised a simple but effective lower and upper body circuit for the FitFarms Guests.

Here at FitFarms we have many guests who join us and the London holistic weight loss and fitness boot camp which is popular due to being close to the capital. FitFarms provides a free service where we collect customers from the local train station. However this is soon to be changed to a more central collection point being London’s Heathrow Airport Terminal 4.

London Boot Camp Circuit

A simple circuit involving lower body, upper body and core.

Perform 20 of each exercise in the first circuit, then 18 in the next dropping by 2 each circuit, allow a short rest between circuits if needed.

1.Squats – Muscle areas are quadriceps, hamstrings, calves, abdominal muscles, lower back and glutes.

2.Tricep dips using a chair great for building up triceps and shoulders

3.Dead bugs the main goal of the dead bug is to strengthen the core while minimizing the pressure on the lower back

4.Treadmills on the floor for a great all round lower body workout

5. Glute bridge concentrates on the glutes but also targets the hamstrings and abs

6.Round the world Lunges concentrating on the thighs and strengthening the hips

7.Press ups increasing functional upper body strength

8.Bird dog strengthening the core muscles and stabilizes the spine especially the lumbar area

9.Jacks great for raising the heart rate

The first recipe is Jen’s healthy chicken soup which she kindly shared with FitFarms whilst on the Summer holistic boot camp in London

To serve 4 people

Ingredients

2 teaspoons coconut oil

4 pints of water

8 carrots

3 leeks

3 large onions

1 stick of celery

3 chicken breasts cut into strips.

1 inch of ginger

1 whole chili without the seeds or if you like really hot food include the seeds

2 tablespoons of double cream or half a tin of coconut milk. If you would like it really rich and creamy you can add both.

Small shake of rock salt

Method

Chop the celery, carrots and leeks into cubes and put into a pan of boiling water (4 pints). Cook for 30 minutes until all the ingredients are soft.

Put the coconut oil, onions, ginger and chili into a saucepan and fry for 5 minutes on a medium heat. Then add to the other ingredients in the pan.

Mix in the coconut milk or the cream or both for a fuller flavour.

Using a hand blender blend together.

Add the chicken strips and carry on cooking for 20 minutes at a medium heat. Cut one strip in half before serving to make sure the chicken is cooked through. It should be very hot and white in the centre.

Poor into a bowl and add salt and coriander.

Chocolate Truffles

To serve 20 mini truffles

Ingredients

100 ml coconut oil

1 avocado

1 banana

2 teaspoons of Chia Seeds

50 grams of dark chocolate (over 70% cocoa)

Method

Put the coconut oil into a pan and melt.

Place a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water and melt and then add to the coconut oil.

Chop the avocado and banana and add to the pan with the chia seeds.

Blend all the ingredients together and pour into an ice cube tray.

Place in a freezer for 2 hrs. Take out and pop the truffles by pushing on the bottom of the ice cube tray.

Having had a discussion on the last weight loss and fitness boot camp in Norfolk about Indian takeaways, I ventured that I was given a new slow cooker for Christmas & had been making vegetable balti that comes out that tasty takeaways are no longer even thought about! Ok so that may be a slight exaggeration but I did promise to pass the recipe on & as I seem to have already deviated off my usual rails this week I’m staying on that train & throwing a food recipe on the tracks!

Vegetable Balti

1 Onion

2 Garlic cloves (chopped)

3 tbsp balti paste

2 tomato puree

1 tin tomatoes

300ml vegetable stock

Butternut squash

Cauliflower florets

Courgette

Carrot

Fine beans

If you would like some more wonderful cooking recipes Stephen suggests Jamie Oliver Healthy Recipes

I have put no quantities for the veg as I tend to see what I have & fill the pot from there, I don’t like wasting food so similarly I’ve added other veg if it needs using (I currently have one on the go with broccoli in it). If you’ve the time & inclination pan fry the onion & garlic first, then add the puree, paste & tomatoes & add to the slow cooker, though it works fine if you just throw everything in! Last note: ideally make it up the day before you want it & switch it on to low the next day for about 6 hours (or about 4 hours on high). Bon appetite!  Oh and a quick announcement – If you live in the London area and looking for the London FitFarms holistic weight loss boot camp we will soon be collecting from London Heathrow and taking you straight to the fabulous Norfolk Retreat which is close to Holkham beach.

The last FitFarms fitness and weight loss camp in the UK was an interesting one for me as I got to have a stab at delivering the fitness workshop which isn’t usually my domain.

We began by discussing what fitness is & what makes someone fit and it struck me that there seems to be a perception of what it means to be fit or even an image of it that is over simplistic & doesn’t incorporate fitness in a holistic sense.

We broke down physical aspects of fitness into cardiovascular, endurance, strength, mobility, flexibility & proprioception, & discussed how each aspect is incorporated into exercise & it took me back a little to when studying rehabilitation & the goals of a rehab programme -maintaining/improving cardiovascular function, strength, core stability, gait, range of movement & proprioception to ultimately get someone back to full fitness & hopefully prevent future injury. All of these aspects are important & to me add up to what makes a person fit (as I read a while ago ‘the only difference between rehab & training is the starting point’).

I often mention about compensatory movements, how if one area of the body is restricted in movement it will cause another area to take over to try & fulfill a movement – the body gets there but not in the best or most efficient way which may then cause problems, but if we can work on those deficits to begin with we put ourselves in a much healthier position; similarly we may be fit in the cardiovascular sense but if we have poor proprioception (balance/co ordination for simplicity!) our control over movements is going to be poor & again less efficient & potentially injurious.

Ultimately fitness sits on a scale & the demands of a task/exercise/sport will dictate the level of fitness needed, but regardless of the task/exercise/sport a degree of all those aspects discussed will be needed, & in the absence of a professional assessing those fitness points it’s down to the individual to recognise where their deficits lie -the things you’re not good at & then tend not to enjoy & subsequently don’t do, annoyingly are often the things you should be doing!

The third fitness and weight loss program I wrote at the FitFarms London Fitness Camp for one of our clients after my request on Facebook as as you can see based on improving stamina for walking. A slight spanner in the works in terms of exercise program planning was that to train for improving stamina with only around 10 minutes to play with is not a typical request.  However my aim with these weight loss and fitness plans was not to prove I could write an effective plan for the goal but to write one for the client. 10 minutes is what would work for them and consistency trumps perfection every time. So below i have given 4 different 10 minute weight loss and fitness workouts spread ideally evenly throughout the week, I have picked simple exercises again because it is easier for the client to adapt an exercise they understand than one they need constant coaching on and I feel I have left plenty of room for progression which will be the key to the success of the weight losss and fitness program for the client. Whether you are interested in improving your stamina or not give this session a go and let us know how you feel about it..

Timeline: 1 year

Goals: improve stamina start cycling to and from work 7 miles each way

Likes: long walks
Forward focus:

A progressive plan for improving overall stamina and fitness for the long walks planned next year

Provide more healthy option ideas around diet..

Concentrate on core area

Wants to train for around 10 minutes in the morning as it is the most likely time available

Has resistance bands but no other equipment and short on space.
Target areas: legs and core

Frequency: 4 times a week

Time: 10-15 minutes
Day 1

Legs focussed

Static squat

Forward and backward lunges

Rock climbers

Ascending reps.. start 5 reps/pulses each increase it by one rep each time and try to continually cycle without breaks in between these exercises should fatigue your legs quite quickly so improving how long you can go without stopping would suggest your muscular endurance is improving

Day 2

Core focussed

Plank

Side plank

Log lift

Side plank

10 seconds per position then rest 20 seconds, repeat (once you can’t comfortably manage the exercises I.e. Back ache take a longer rest but try to build up the time per position as well as how many circuits during the 10-15 minute routine

Day 3

Legs focussed

Burpees

Squat jumps

Skaters

2 minutes each as Many reps as possible 1 minute rest between exercises as this improves think about increasing the time limit and decreasing the rest period.. it’s overall improvement is just as important as improvement in the individual challenges..

Day 4

Core focussed

Renegade (press up position)

Butt ups into lateral mountain climber ( bringing the knee up to the elbow on the same side of the body)

Walk outs/roll outs (fitball or rolling device required)

Supermans (weighted or resistance band progression is available but a ruck sack with additional weight would work better)

Side to side touches

Aim for 2 minutes per exercise.. my reason for picking these exercises is that holding the press up or renegade position by itself is a challenge to incorporate movements like these will increase the effort whilst still adding a level of core control. I don’t expect you’ll manage 2 minutes of each exercise certainly not straight away so take note of time spent on each exercise and try to improve as time goes by to see how your core strength and stamina improve.
On top of this building up time on your bike at weekends will add to both your overall fitness and as a way of seeing your strength and stamina improve.

As I’ve mentioned before I’m of the opinion that the exercise you choose to do should be fun and enjoyable; and if necessary chop, change and try something new to keep it that way. I think those are good words of advice, which makes me wonder why I hadn’t listened to them myself for a while! I like to exercise and do so pretty much daily, I like and need variation, mixing exercise up a bit to keep it interesting; but for a little while I’d found myself thinking that actually I hadn’t really tried anything new or attended any classes which I used to enjoy for some time and that my own exercise was feeling a bit stagnant. I’ve a long list of both valid reasons and poor excuses as to why but I won’t get into that now! At FitFarms camping in London  I kept promising myself that I would give hula hooping a go as it looked like fun, but I never got round to it (that list again). Anyway this has been niggling at me for a while, and this weeks course was one of those serendipitous weeks where you feel like there’s a master plan unfolding somewhere in this universe. I was aware that I hadn’t done a good yoga session for a while and as much as I could have gone and practiced at several points I didn’t (curse that list); however come Thursday morning there was a yoga session with Rosie which I’d promised myself I’d join in with -and I did (albeit 5 minutes late and tiptoeing in!) I can honestly say I loved it, a change of style to how I usually practice, a fantastic group of people to practice alongside, and it must be said, an amazing instructor. I left virtually floating, fully recharged with a newly rebooted desire to improve my practice, and the sense that my niggle was right – I need a change, to try something new. I’m not quite sure where that niggle is going to take me as I’ve quite an extensive list of things I’d like to try and or go back to, but I do know that the first thing I need to do is look at that list and separate the reasons from the excuses before I can plan what’s feasible, focus, and move onto a new exercise or discipline with the passion both it and I deserve

So here I am back home from another week in beautiful Spain, though it was significantly cooler than September when we were last there! (the best way of dealing with cold, move faster, right?!) Anyway temperature drop aside, it was for the most part beautifully sunny & with a fantastic group of positive people we had the elements to create the great weight loss retreat week it was. Now I feel adaptability is something of a second nature to us which is fortunate as this time around no one wanted to make use of the pool & we certainly weren’t going to the beach! What we did do however is discover another beautiful walk, along the reservoir & hire bikes for a cycle which is perfect for our FitFarms Spain Weight Loss Boot Camp, both which offered some great photo opportunities & the latter which we did on the morning of my birthday! The afternoon session was my choice & it wouldn’t be a birthday celebration without a bit of a dance so that’s what I went with; dancing in the pool was out, but dancing in the hall was in & it seemed to go down well; it was put together a while back using music & moves from films, & so I described the session as a cross between ‘watches too much T.V’& ‘dances round the living room’! As I keep saying whatever you do make it fun, and yes, dancing round the living room counts as exercise (fortunately for me!) I had a few of the ‘poor you, working on your birthday’comments, but in all honesty I got to go for a cycle & dance around; as someone once said to me ‘if you can make a living doing what you enjoy, it won’t feel like work’& they were right. To top it off for a giggle, on my request I got to listen to the groans of Andy & Stephen attempting the baby shark abs challenge (sadly I don’t have the evidence, just the memory), & I also received a Spanish birthday card which I waited until I was home to open to make me smile & remind me of a brilliant week with lovely people, I’m going to sign off now finishing with a sincere Thank you to all (you know who you are) who were at ‘work’with me.

It occurred to me the other day that while we spend a lot of time at FitFarms holistic weight loss boot camp moving and discussing movement along with the ills of sedentary lifestyles, we rarely talk specifically about the main component responsible for it! Probably because it’s quite a vast topic and not the simplest, but I thought I’d follow that train and have an attempt at briefly explaining muscles.

There are three types of muscles in the body, which can be divided into striated (striped) smooth and cardiac; cardiac unsurprisingly relates to the muscle forming the wall of the heart, smooth to involuntary /not consciously controlled muscles i.e. peristaltic movement of the intestines, and striated to what we consider skeletal muscle which primarily produce force and thereafter create movement. All muscles within the body share certain characteristics: the ability to contract thereby either shortening or producing tension; the ability to relax returning to resting following contraction; elasticity allowing muscle to elongate and return to rest; distensibility allowing muscle to elongate by external force without damage so long as it’s not forced beyond its limits; the ability to transmit an action potential / nerve impulse and the ability to react when stimulated.

If you’ve ever looked at a picture of skeletal muscles you may have noticed the striations on the muscles, which can give an indication as to the direction of movement that muscle moves in, some perform quite simple singular movements others multiple. The size and thickness of a muscle can also give an indication as to their particular role, those that are larger and thicker are much more capable of producing large amounts of force (i.e. legs) for greater movements, whereas long thin or very tendinous muscles may act better as pulleys (i.e. fingers). Muscles that produce movement are known as phasic and can only produce movement by pull not push, they contain mostly fast twitch fibres which are more easily fatiguable than postural muscles which mostly contain more slow twitch fibres that cope better under the sustained demand of keeping the body upright.

Movement of the body can be considered in terms of levers where the muscle dictates the direction of force, the limb moved being the load and the fulcrum altering and dictating the type of lever depending on the area of the body, but for example a bicep curl would use the biceps brachii to produce force, the load movement would be the arm flexing /bending and in this instance the fulcrum would be the elbow. Muscles producing movement are known as agonists and each agonist has an antagonist, an opposing muscle that produces an opposing movement and can prevent an agonist overproducing a movement. If anyone is interested in understanding a bit more in depth about how muscles produce movement I would recommend having a look at some of the videos on you tube on ‘sliding filament theory’.