• Sugar-filled beverages like pop, sweet coffee drinks or sweetened tea
• Packaged snack foods, like crisps, crackers or popcorn
• Baked goods containing gluten and/or sugar
• Sweets or chocolate made with sugar or corn syrup
• Food from a fast food chain
• Food that’s been fried

The post Raise Your Standards appeared first on Clapham Gym.

The sad truth is that over 90 percent of gym goers fail to achieve the results they want — even after a full year of faithfully going through their routine.

Maybe you can relate.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We believe that you deserve to get the highest level of results possible from that valuable time you invest in exercise.

The simple concept below has the power to dramatically accelerate your fitness results…

The results you achieve are equal to the intensity of your workout.

In other words, you get what you give when it comes to exercise and results.

If you simply go through the motions, while staying in your comfort zone, then results will always be a hope for tomorrow and not today’s reality.

So what exactly do we mean when we say intensity?

Intensity is a measure of how much energy you’re expending while exercising. The harder you push yourself, the higher your intensity. When you’re simply going through the motions of a routine, without digging down and giving it your all, the workout lacks intensity and your results will disappoint.

During your workout pay attention to how you feel. Could you be working harder? If the honest answer is yes, then step it up a notch. It’s worth it.

In addition to seeing awesome results quickly, there are two more benefits to bringing up your exercise intensity.

The first benefit is that when you bring the intensity you’re able to shorten exercise time. This means less time spent sweating away in the gym and more time doing the things you really love. All while getting even better results than with longer, low intensity workouts.

The second benefit is the after burn that you’ll experience after an intense workout. Simply put, this means that your body will continue to burn extra calories long after you have finished exercising. Talk about supercharging your results! Just imagine how quickly your body could transform when you begin to harness the power of exercise intensity.

One thing to remember – it’s important that you never sacrifice proper form in favour of intensity. As soon as your form starts to be compromised, reduce your intensity to where proper form is achieved.

We’re here to help you transform your body (and your whole life!) through the power of fitness.

Email us today to get started on a fitness plan that will bring the intensity and deliver the results.

The post The only fitness tip you’ll ever need appeared first on Clapham Gym.

This is because every time you exercise your body increases its production of endorphins, which are responsible for that feel-good euphoria you get after a great workout or while chomping down on a piece of chocolate.

BUT, before you turn to chocolate and skip the gym, remember the end result of each and choose which one will help you reduce stress in the long run. (Hint: It’s not the chocolate!)

The post Got Stress? Get Moving! appeared first on Clapham Gym.

Because fitness is hard.

Want to know just how hard? Here’s a glimpse into the Fit Life:

Fit Life Truth #1: Exercise Counts
Lace up your shoes and hit the gym instead of getting extra sleep, watching TV or doing whatever else it is that you’d rather be doing. Do this 3-5 times each for 30-60 minutes.

Fit Life Truth #2: Nutrition Counts
Choose your meals based on the nutritional makeup rather than following your taste buds. Limit your intake of simple carbohydrates and get lots of protein and fiber in each meal.

Fit Life Truth #3: No Room For Junk
Turn down your favourite junk foods –even when you really, really want it. Cut simple sugars and harmful, processed fats out of your diet completely.

Fit Life Truth #4: Push Harder
Push your body to be stronger, faster and better during each workout. Don’t simply go through the motions in your routine – consistently challenge your muscles to do more each day.

Fit Life Truth #5: Calories Count
Limit your total calories to within an appropriate range for your size and goals. Remember, even healthy calories can add up to weight gain when you’re not careful.

That’s just the basics on what it takes to enjoy a fit and healthy body. Pretty hard, right? Now let’s take a look at with the NOT-Fit life looks like…

NOT-Fit Life Truth #1: Be Sedentary
Spend your spare time being as sedentary as possible. The less that you use your muscles, the more aches, pains and mobility limitations you’ll experience. Oh, and if you’re consuming more calories than your natural metabolism burns then you’ll steadily gain weight.

NOT-Fit Life Truth #2: Eat For Taste
Eat whatever sounds and tastes good. The human palate is naturally drawn to items that are high in sugar, salt and fat. Your eat-whatever-diet will be filled with these fattening foods and will be lacking in protein and fiber. You’ll find your weight increases, and your energy levels plummet, accordingly.

NOT-Fit Life Truth #3: Just Say Yes
To your favourite junk food, that is. As mentioned above, your favourite foods are likely high in sugar, salt and fat. Or, more likely, your faves are high in all three! Your indulgent eating is going to raise the number on your scale higher, and higher, and higher.

NOT-Fit Life Truth #4: Get Comfortable
Your goal is to be comfy. This means use as little muscular strength as you can on a daily basis. When you don’t use your muscles they begin to atrophy (shrink!), leaving you with less lean tissue. Since lean tissue raises your metabolism, a drop in lean tissue means you’ll be burning fewer calories at rest than ever before.

NOT-Fit Life Truth #5: More Is Better
There’s no limit on how much you eat – in fact more is better. As a result you often feel sluggish from your overloaded digestive system. And your motivation to exercise and turn your NOT-Fit Life into a Fit Life gets dimmer and dimmer.

So which life is harder? The Fit Life? Or the NOT-Fit Life?

The truth is that both of these lifestyles are hard. Just depends on which hard you’d rather deal with.

The Fit Life’s hard has to do with discipline, motivation and determination. It’s about doing the right thing rather than the easy thing. Most of all, the Fit-Life is about constantly striving forward.

The NOT-Fit Life’s hard has to do with excess fat, aches, pains and physical limitations. It’s about avoiding doing the hard thing now and ending up with a body that’s just plain hard to live in. Most of all, the NOT-Fit Life is about NOT taking action.

Which hard do you choose?

If you’d like the Fit Life then take action now by calling or emailing us today to get started on a fitness program that’s going to be hard.

The best kind of hard.

The post Two Choices For You appeared first on Clapham Gym.

Back in March of 1998 Jared was a college student with a problem. He weighed a staggering 425 pounds. That was a lot of weight for anyone to handle, let alone a busy college student. So one day Jared made the decision to change his life.

He knew that his diet would need to change drastically but also wanted to keep things simple so he could stick with it. A Subway restaurant near his home caught his eye. Sandwiches were healthier than burgers, right?

His simple plan was to eat the same thing everyday:
• Breakfast – coffee
• Lunch – “I ate the 6-inch turkey, tons of vegetables, including hot peppers and a bit of spicy mustard.” He left off the mayonnaise and cheese and had a bag of Baked crisps and a diet soft drink
• Dinner – Footlong veggie sub – again no mayonnaise or cheese.

You probably know the rest of the story. His Subway diet, along with exercise, got Jared to drop over 200 pounds. He then became a spokesperson for Subway, sharing his story and inspiring millions of people.

And suddenly Subway became synonymous with healthy eating.

Have you looked at a Subway menu? It lists 7 of their lighter sandwiches. Then at the bottom it compares these sandwiches to the Big Mac and the Whopper, burgers that hold 31 and 40 grams of fat, respectively.

The Subway meal is much healthier, right? Well, yes and no.

Go back to your menu and read the small print. The 7 sandwiches listed are calculated with only bread, veggies and meat. So if you add cheese, mayonnaise, or oil (as most people do) then you need to recalculate the numbers.

We’ve done the math for you, with a 6″ Roasted Chicken Breast sandwich.
Menu Item Fat Calories
6″ Sandwich (bread, veggies and meat) 6 342
Cheddar Cheese (2 slices) 5 60
1 Tbl Mayonnaise 12 110
1 Tbl Oil 15 135
Totals: 38g Fat 647 Cal

Let’s not forget the side items that most people add to their meal…
Menu Item Fat Calories
Wild Rice with Chicken Soup 11 210
1oz Bag of SunChips 6 140
Chocolate Chip cookie 10 210
Totals: 65g Fat 1,207 Cal

Wow, just like that your ‘healthy’ Subway meal has 1,200 calories and 65 grams of fat!

Sure, you probably don’t get all of the extras when you eat at Subway but that’s not the point.

The point that we’d like you to take away from this is that you shouldn’t classify any restaurant as ‘healthy’.

You could gain weight eating anywhere, just like you could lose weight eating anywhere.

Jared’s weight loss happened when he drastically cut calories and started to exercise. He could have done this at any restaurant. In fact, last year a woman from Virginia claimed to have lost 75 pounds by eating exclusively at Starbucks.

Your weight loss success all comes down to choices.

Each day you make choices that directly influence your weight. Do you get mayonnaise on your sandwich? Will one cookie hurt? Will one missed workout really make a difference?

You decide.

At some point you reach your breaking point. For Jared it was 425 pounds. For you it might be when you buy the next size up. Or when you feel new aches and pains. Or when your doctor sits you down to have the talk.

Sooner or later you will decide that you are worth it. You’ll decide that your health is important. You’ll decide that you deserve to look great. And you’ll dig down deep to do what it takes to achieve amazing results.

The post How To Gain Weight Eating at Subway appeared first on Clapham Gym.

Here’s what you need…
• 2 lbs ground pork
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground fennel
• 1/4 teaspoon ground sage
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• dash of pepper
• 2 teaspoons coconut oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 2 celery stalks, finely chopped
• 2 carrots, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup pecans, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

1.Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
2.In a medium bowl combine the ground pork with all of the spices. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty!
3.Place a skillet over medium heat and warm the coconut oil. Add the garlic, onion, celery, carrots, pecans
and parsley. Cook for about 3 minutes, until soft. Set the mixture aside to cool.
4.Add the vegetable mixture into the ground pork and combine well. Use your hands to form golf ball sized meatballs.
5.Place the meatballs in an oven-safe baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes, or until cooked all the way through.

Nutritional Analysis: 77 calories, 4g fat, 76mg sodium, 1g carbohydrate, .5g fiber, and 8g protein

The post Easy Baked Meatballs appeared first on Clapham Gym.

• Cucumber
• Avocado
• Beetroot
• Asparagus
• Cabbage
• Blueberries
• Celery
• Grapefruit
• Kale
• Lemon

The post Cleansing Snacks appeared first on Clapham Gym.

Maybe you are feeling that way right now.

We’ve outlined the 5 steps below to get you back on the fitness fast track.

Step One: Get Focused.
Your crazy weekend happened. You ate things from your “never eat these” list, you drank more that you should have, but now it’s over.

Draw a line in the sand. The bad eating stops now.

If you’re serious about your fitness goals, then this weekend was the exception, and not the rule. Maybe it was your birthday, or your friends and family were gathered for a celebration, and the peer pressure to partake in unhealthy food was too much for you to resist.

Don’t beat yourself up for falling off the fitness wagon this once. Simply get back up, dust yourself off and get re-focused. Leave the past, and your slip-ups, in the past.

Step Two: Get Hydrated.
While bad eating can take on many forms, the end result is most often dehydration and water retention. The only way to restore balance is to get hydrated.

Your first priority in getting back on track is to drink plenty of water throughout your day. Start with a tall glass of water in the morning, and carry a water bottle with you.

Don’t add artificial sweeteners or stimulants to your water – these will work against your hydration efforts. To add flavor, slice fresh fruit, herbs or vegetables to place in your water, just like at the spa.

Step Three: Get Picky.
For the next few days be extra picky about what you eat. Stick with only whole, real foods like fruits, vegetables and some lean meat. Whole, real foods will quickly help to restore balance.

Don’t eat packaged foods for the next few days. This means saying no to snack foods, processed meat slices, dairy, baked goods and alcohol.

Try the recipe for roasted broccoli below – this is a wonderful, whole food dish.

Step Four: Get Juicing.
Making your own juice can be beneficial when recovering from a weekend of bad eating. The key is to use ingredients that will hydrate and nourish your body and to avoid ingredients that are high in sugar.

These ingredients are fantastic for your recovery juice: fresh ginger, spinach, cucumber, kale, green apple, lemon, and celery.

These ingredients should be used sparingly, due to high sugar content: carrots, oranges, red apples, melons or pineapple.

Step Five: Get Moving.
So you’ve put an end to the eating madness, you’ve hydrated, you’ve eaten only whole foods and you’ve enjoyed a recovery juice…it’s now time to sweat it out.

Lace up your gym shoes and put on your favorite gym clothes. When you start your workout, ease in slowly. Take the time to warm up and stretch your muscles before powering up to a solid 30-minute exercise routine.

We have just the exercise plan for you – one that will not only help you recover from your wild weekend, but will help keep you motivated and going strong in the future.

If you haven’t joined yet, now is the perfect time to start. Together we will get you focused on your goals with my results-driven method.

Simply call or email today to set up your first workout.

The post Recover From Your Crazy Weekend appeared first on Clapham Gym.

1. Drink LOTS of water. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
2. Don’t skip your workouts, regardless of how busy you are. Make it a priority.
3. Buy a gorgeous new bathing suit and hang it up where you’ll see it everyday. Talk about motivating!

The post 3 More Flat Ab Tips appeared first on Clapham Gym.

You know what happens when the sun is out and the weather warms up? People put on their skimpy summer clothes and swim suits (well, maybe if you’re off on holiday).

Are you ready to bare it all on the beach? If not don’t worry, there is still time. Follow these 12 steps to get your abs beach ready:

Step One: Do Some Burpees. Can burpees really help flatten your abs? You bet. Incorporate a few minutes of burpees into your workouts to burn extra calories and tighten your core.

Here’s how to do a burpee: 1) Stand with feet shoulder width apart. 2) Drop to a squat with your hands on a bench / deck. 3) Kick feet back while lowering into a push-up. 4) Return to squat position. 5) Jump up with arms overhead.

Step Two: Reduce Sodium. Did you know that salt causes water retention? Puffy skin is not going to make your abs look great in a bathing suit!

Take the time to pay attention to the sodium content of your food. Limit salt intake by not eating packaged foods and by putting down the salt shaker. Your six pack will thank you.

Step Three: Pick Up A Medicine Ball. Challenging the muscles of your core with resistance is a proven way to create a tighter midsection. The medicine ball is a wonderful tool to provide such resistance.

Do a sit-up holding a medicine ball at your chest then throw it to a partner as you raise your chest toward your knees; or hold a medicine ball with arms straight up in the air as you do crunches.

Step Four: Load Up On Fiber. Wonder how fiber could help you shed pounds and look great on the beach? It’s actually quite simple.

High fiber foods are nutrient dense and low in calories. This means that you’ll feel full from fewer calories, encouraging weight loss. Try these high fiber favourites: spinach, raspberries, pear (with skin), artichoke, peas, apples (with skin), broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and carrots. Check out the high-fiber recipe for pasta salad below.

Step Five: Crank Out Some V-Sits. One of the most problematic areas for women, when it comes to baring it all in a bathing suit, are the sides of your waist, or obliques. This is partly because the sides of your abs are not challenged with traditional crunches and sit-ups.

Enter the oblique V-Sits. Target that problematic, muffin-top area with this effective move. 1) Lie on your side with legs straight and hands behind your head. 2) Raise your arms and legs simultaneously, while exhaling and squeezing your obliques. 3) Repeat on the other side.

Step Six: Eat Lots Of Lean Protein. Don’t be afraid to eat when you are on the get-great-abs-quickly plan. It is really important that you are nourishing your body with quality, lean protein in order to develop that six-pack.

Lean protein helps support muscle growth while controlling blood sugar – all important factors when it come to washboard abs. Good sources of protein include: chicken breast, ground turkey, egg whites, and grilled fish.

Step Seven: Do Some Hanging Leg Raises. Now it’s time to target your lower abs, which are also a problem area for most. Traditional crunches and sit-ups neglect to strengthen and tighten the lower part of your abs, so a focused effort is required.

Hanging Leg Raises are one of the most effective ways to strengthen your abdominals. 1) Hang from pull-up bar with legs fully extended. 2) Exhale and drive your knees up toward your chest. 3) Inhale as you slowly lower your legs back down.

Step Eight: Stop Eating Sugar. If you only did this step, and skipped all the rest, your abs would look significantly flatter by summer. I can’t emphasize enough how quickly sugar will cover your hard earned stomach muscles with a soft layer of fat.

Yes, sugar tastes good, but indulging in it causes your body to store layers of fat. Enjoy fresh fruit, rather than refined sugar. Once you stop eating sugar your body will no longer crave it, so don’t give in to the initial cravings.

Step Nine: Do Some Mountain Climbers. Here’s an exercise that is intensely cardiovascular while also working your core. Add these to your routine to really whittle down your waistline.

Here’s how to do a Mountain Climber: 1) Get into push-up position. 2) Exhale as you alternately drive your knees in toward your chest, keeping your back flat.

Step Ten: Pass On The Grains. Sure, whole grains are being touted as essential to a healthy diet, but the truth is that you’ll do just fine without them for a while. Even the heartiest wholegrain bread will encourage fat storage, so put down the breadbasket as you prepare for beach season.

Grains are full of insulin-spiking carbohydrates – the perfect combination for fattening you up. Learn to love grain-free meals that center around lean meats and vegetables.

Step Eleven: Do Some Sprints. High intensity bursts of cardio are a proven way to burn away layers of fat, so incorporate sprints into your exercise routine. If you haven’t run for a while, take it easy as you start, and gradually increase the intensity of your sprints.

Run 60-90 second sprints in between resistance training sets to really kick your fat burning mechanism into high gear.

Step Twelve: Start A Professional Fitness Program. You wouldn’t try to file corporate tax returns without the assistance of your CPA, so why would you attempt to transform your body without the help of a professional? We’re here to get you into your ideal, fit body in the shortest amount of time possible. It’s what we do, and we’re good at it.

The post 12 Easy Steps For Beach Ready Abs appeared first on Clapham Gym.