Key Industry Terms
Spencer talks about some key industry terms. In this video Spencer explains some key terms that you need to understand when setting up your diet correctly. For example what is your basal metabolic rate (BMR)? And Spencer explains what maintenance calories are. Here is...
Do You Need to Eat More on Training Days
Spencer talks about whether you need to eat more on the days that you workout. In this video Spencer also chats about the difference between a linear diet vs a non-linear diet. Here is the 2 minute 35 second video... To chat to me Spence, or one of the Storm team,...
Grub For Grafters
There’s no denying that most jobs have become less active, which has definitely had a knock-on effect to the average body fat levels of people in the UK. However low activity levels alone are not the problem and it is of course possible to be very active and still...
Is Fasted Cardio Necessary for Fat Loss
Within a few weeks you’ll be bombarded with fat loss solutions, each of which claims their approach is the best. The question you need to be asking is, best for who? Over the next few weeks I’ll post a few pointers to steer you on the right direction and avoid any...
Meal Frequency – Stop stressing about it
There are coaches that still peddle the message that eating 6 meals per day will increase your metabolism and if you don’t eat regularly your metabolism will crash. This dogma has been around for as long as I have been coaching but in my view has been completely...
Never Skip Breakfast… or could you?
Often too much weight has been given to the importance of eating breakfast. In my view meal frequency just isn't worth worrying about for most people. A study by Schlundt 1992 took 52 obese subjects through a 12 week treatment. Their metabolic rate was established at...
Eating to increase fitness – Advanced Nutrition Strategies
It’s pretty well known that training improves your fitness, but did you know your nutrition can also improve your fitness? No not just by dropping weight to make that run easier but by increasing the size and number of your mitochondria (sometimes referred to as the...
Simple Formula for Fat Loss
Fat loss in 3 simple steps Losing body fat relies on creating a calorie deficit. Burning more calories than you eat. That doesn’t mean however, that you absolutely HAVE to weigh, measure and track everything you eat on my fitness pal. Here’s how our coaches achieve...
Letting Your Kids Watch You Die Early
We receive a lot of emails at Storm, but there is one type of email that always stops me in my tracks. The kind that changes the whole course of my day and feels like a punch through the heart. No, not the brown envelope from HMRC. It’s when we receive an email from a...
Trajectory
Whether or not you feel concerned about your weight, being aware of the trajectory of your weight and having the ability to change trajectory is a vital skill. On average, adults gain 0.7g in bodyweight per year beyond 20 years of age. Whilst that might not sound like...
What are Macros?
Most people have a good grasp of what calories are. Calories are a measure of the energy contained in food. In the simplest terms we need calories to run our bodies and if we take in more than what we need to run our body we put on weight and if we eat less than what...
Metabolism: Why Burning Calories isn’t the Answer
Why would I spend time writing about your metabolism? It’s just what we are born with isn’t it? If we have a slow metabolism there’s nothing we can about it is there? The main three aspects that determine how many calories you will burn today are: Your levels...
Protein: Are You Deficient?
When we start working with new clients, whether they are focussed on losing body fat loss or gaining muscle we often find they could benefit from eating a bit more protein. Believe it or not a lot of people don't like the idea of eating more protein and are often...
The Muscle Preservation Mind Set
By Dan Marriot Can I be brutally honest with you? Dieting is tough. When the sole focus of your diet is to reduce scale weight, which it is for a lot of people, dieting becomes even more challenging from a mental perspective. Today I want to offer a different...
Seasonal Affective Disorder & 7 Tips to Brighten Up Your Winter Months
Post by Dan Marriott "I just want to stay indoors, eat food and hibernate, rather than go outside" Why is it, we tend to lay low throughout the winter months? Our energy levels dip, we crave foods that are dense in calories...
Dan’s Top 10 Muscle Building Snacks
When it comes to gaining weight, it can sometimes be tough to get enough calories on board. So Dan has put together his top 10 muscle building snacks to give some quick go-to options when it comes to getting the calories in and fueling the hard work your putting in in...
9 tips for a great nights kip
By Dan Marriott When it comes to sleep, there are many factors that can affect us from getting a decent kip each night. Irregular sleeping patterns, stress, having children and demanding jobs can all play a part. Spence has previously written a corker of a blog on...
Compassion-o-meter
Imagine you find yourself out of shape. You can feel the loose feeling around your waist and the “overhang” on jeans that used to fit. Your energy levels mean you crash to the sofa when you get home and can barely lift a finger. You are so angry with yourself for...
40 Tips for Over 40’s
1. Start! If you haven’t already started, then there’s no time like the present. There are major benefits on cognitive function which will help aspects such as reasoning, memory, thinking and can alleviate symptoms of depression. Not to mention all the more obvious...
Four Factors of Fat loss
Here's an overview of how to build a successful fat loss plan that will work...and keep working. Recently here at Storm Human Behavioural Psychologist Falko Sniehotta shared some data with the team from a nationally representative study by Liz Evans. One of the more...
The Kick Start
Saturday had come and I was finally catching up with my good friend and former partner in crime (not literal crime of course) I could barely wait. I arrived and my pal was sitting down already, he seemed a bit subdued. “Hey Spence, alright?” The choice of restaurant...
Your Instincts are Your Enemy (not your friend)
There seems to be a growing number of people who believe that by following our “natural instincts” with food choices we would arrive at a highly nutritious balanced diet There are many ways to consider how we make food choices, but for the sake of this argument...
Picking the Right Online Personal Trainer for You
"And everywhere, infinite options, infinite possibilities" ~ Haruki Murakami With almost infinite options; here are the top points to consider when selecting the person responsible for improving your health and fitness. Being a good generalist is of course fine and a...
What is Online Personal Training?
Just like every service industry, Personal training is now online and in a big way. Since 2015 the number of searches for online personal training has shot up by nearly 40%! So how does it work and what do we make of it? As is the case with personal training offline,...
The Minimalist Guide to Eating Healthily all Week Long
How to set up your weekly nutrition in 2 hours or less Start by writing a weekly plan for how many meals you’ll need to prepare. If you are looking to make changes to your body shape or performance, it’s not necessarily essential that you prepare every meal in...
Not getting enough D?
"I seem to pick up every bug or cold going around at the moment. I struggle to pull myself out of bed in the morning and I never feel energised." These are words I have heard a lot of lately. There can be a million reasons for low immune function and low energy but...
5 Tips From A Seminar With Christian Thibaudeau
5 awesome take away points from Christian Thibaudeau Last week myself (David) and Jack from #teamstorm had the pleasure of attending a 2 day seminar from Christian Thibaudeau hosted by Spartan Performance. Christian is a man who has trained a vast array of different...
Cant Keep Up Part 2- Simplifying Your Nutrition Updated
“This nutrition plan will revolutionise the way you eat, look, feel and perform!”… How often have you heard something like this on social media or in magazines? The idea of a ‘secret’ or ‘revolutionary’ formula is something I see increasingly and it's something I...
Hunger- Understand hunger and how to manage it
Hunger If you have recently started trying to lose weight there is a good chance that hunger has become a factor and if it hasn't yet it soon will be. Whether you are adhering to a set of macro targets or just reducing your intake there may be times when you feel...
Hydration
You may question why we would bother writing an article on hydration, you just need to drink more water right? Well for as long as that works for you then yes! Where hydration principles like the ones we are about to cover become a factor is when your...
7 tips for the Health Conscious Young Professional
By Jack Curtis Although its cold and it might not feel like it, the first day of summer is only 13 weeks away. Here are my 7 health tips for the busy young professional. Use to get ahead of the game when it comes to getting in shape for the summer season: Photo...
Your Goals Aren’t Helping You Succeed
Achieving your fitness and health goals is lot like climbing stairs. You take a step at a time until you reach the top. A lot of people get put off very early on whilst climbing the stairs. It is a long way up and they can see the hard work ahead. They will be put off...
Running Faster-6 Ways to Improve 10K Speed
When I meet endurance runners and hear their running goals of shaving a minute off their 10K times I want to SHAKE them and tell them they can do a lot better than that! Your progression and improvement can be WAY greater than you think. You just need to know where to...
The Great Muscle Mass Hoax
According to most health stores there are literally hundreds of products that will help you put on muscle mass. According to the scientific literature on the subject it’s a different matter I think there is definitely two and maybe four supplements that will help you...
The Great Muscle Gain Hoax-Part One
Part 1 Background- The problem with supplement testing . “What supplements can I take to put on muscle?” I often get asked this question and to be honest I place very little emphasis on supplements. In many ways this is due to the fact that often people can consider...
6 Simple Tips To Stay Focussed
Here are a few quick tips on how to get more out of training, stay focussed and feel good about doing it. 1. Get things in some kind of order. You may have heard: “A highly varied diet, rich in nutrients is the best way to get healthy, lean and fit.” “You need...
Healthy Muscle
If there’s one misconception that is commonly held by academics I meet It’s that muscle building is for the dumb, or that anyone who has developed lean muscle mass is in some way stupid or obsessive. Now I am not denying that there are some associated psychological...
What Matters Most?
What are the important factors to consider in order to get your training and nutrition absolutely on point? This is exactly what we wanted to know from the clients at Storm in this short video. In this one I get called a geek by a buddhist monk, I am beaten in a core...
“I’ll Just Cut Out Gluten”
"I'll just cut out gluten" Continuing with our Top 5 Nutrition Arguments You'll Hear This Christmas, here is another common solution people take to when they want to get in shape. This short post is just to provide you with the facts to make an informed decision about...
” You Can’t Drop Weight by Exercising”
Top 5 Nutrition Arguments You'll Have this Christmas If you or a member of your family want to lose some body fat, exercise is undoubtedly a good idea. Most body fat is carried under the skin as adipose tissue and when we exercise blood flow to adipose...
“If You Can’t Pronounce It, Don’t Eat It”
Top 5 Nutrition Arguments You'll Have this Christmas I think in many cases the people who put this type of argument forward are well natured, and often, they are just looking for a way to simplify the decision making process when it comes to food choices....
“You Shouldn’t Eat So Much Protein”
Top 5 Nutrition Arguments You'll Have this Christmas Is it just me or is Christmas the time of year where we recieve advice about diet and training from nearly everyone? Maybe you have had a friend or family member tell you that you are doing it all wrong? If you have...
Getting Zeds- A Guide to Your Best Nights Sleep
Background. Our body clock or sometimes referred to as our circadian rhythm runs on a delay of approximately 15 minutes. There are 24 hours in one day but 24 hours and 15 minutes in one complete cycle of our daily rhythm of hormone peaks and troughs if...
Caffeine- Buzz or Bust?
Caffeine is one drug that I definitely can appreciate. Specifically an excellent cuppa’ joe on a cloudy Newcastle morning whilst reading a good blog. However, there are mixed views about the effect of regular caffeine intake that we should consider. Here is the need...
Calorie Tracking… Who Should, Who Should Not?
Counting Calories- Who Should, Who Should Not? Its clear that calories play an important role in weight management but does that mean that everybody needs to weigh the food they have eaten daily and enter it to a calorie tracking app? Here’s how...
Trainer Focus: Can you out train a bad diet?
In the third part of our trainer focus series, Robbie answers a big question: Can you train out a bad diet? Put simply, no. You can’t train out a bad diet. To clarify, when I talk about a bad diet I mean eating too much of the wrong foods and taking in too many...
Are you Deficient?
At the moment there are two main schools of thought when it comes to nutrition in the fitness industry. On the one hand you have those who believe in simply eating whole foods. They focus on eliminating any processed foods and often dairy and gluten. Using this...
Alcohol
By David Ball. Here are some vital tips about how to manage alcohol into your diet. Now don’t get me wrong, regular alcohol consumption will undoubtedly scupper your attempts at improving your health and body composition, so this isn’t a blog telling you it’s ok start...
Biological Ageing vs Innactive Ageing
Often when I speak to people in their 40’s and 50’s and I tell them I am a coach they tell me about all the stuff they can no longer do, or pains they now have, but they say; “Nothing I can do about it because of my age” They could… if they chose to… feel SO...
