The truth about herbalife

Chris Tomlinson explains all :

Lets clear a few things up about the new herbalife craze. Firstly it is complete BULLSHIT. Heres why :

I think its around £120 for a starter kit. In that kit you get 'slimming tea' which you could get green tea for £1. Mulitivitamins, again £1 from anywere. 2 x 1kg protein shakes, you could buy for around £20 each & protein bars, could buy for around £12-£15. All in all your paying £120 for products that you can buy for £57.00. Herbalife use mass advertising and sales reps to increase there product price so you pay for the name and the cost of there advertising. Herbalife reps are trained salemen to convince you they have the best product. But ask yourself this, are are they completely impartial? Its really nice of them to give you this information free of charge? if you just answered yes to any of those questions, you are a FOOL! Herbalife works on the same way any reps work, through COMMISION! Yes, they make money from selling there product to you! The herbalife diet consists of 1 meal per day, 1 shake per day and 1 protein bar which totals to around a max of 1000 calories. As an example, for super rapid weight loss i could recommend a water diet! You drink 2 litres of water per day, I charge you £10 for this water ( even though you can buy it from the supermarket for 50p ) but your paying for the 'water diet', you consume NO food or calories per day! Due to your body consuming no calories it has no choice but to eat itself which leads to rapid weight loss. Amazing right? WRONG! When the average man needs up to 2000 calories and woman around 1500 for body functions to work (lungs,heart ect) this is massively unhealthy! When you stop the herbalife 'diet' (or any sort of huge calorie restricting diet) your weight will rapidly increase and often go higher than it was before. Good clean eating and hard exercise is the key, its healthy to lose 2/3lb of weight per week and be able to keep it off. Hope this clears a few things up guys! Rant over :)

Training Myths

Ok let's dispell a few myths.

Pilates gives you long lean muscles FALSE, you cannot lengthen a muscle through exercise it's insertion points are determined at birth via your genetics and leaness comes via a calorie deficit diet.

I want to "tone up" the word tone is derived from the word tonus which is Greek for non flaccid, you want to improve your muscle tone, then you need to Strength train with weights this applys for men and women. 
I want to reduce the fat on my stomach I'll do lots of sit ups to burn off the fat. WRONG! You cannot spot reduce fat stores as how they are deposited and stored is purely genetic. Fat loss is about eating less then you will begin to tap into your fat stores, exercise burns little in the way of calories. The abdominal muscles should be trained the same as any other muscle (if at all) and that's with low force high intensity weight training.

I like to do cardio for fitness. Firstly health and fitness are not connected you can both healthy but not fit and the other way round. Cardio is simply short for cardiovascular which means your heart and lungs, whenever you engage in a form of cardio exercise your muscles are performing mechanical work which then engages the metabolic process of your heart and lungs, however high intensity low force weight training will also force your muscles to perform mechanical work but at a much higher level and therefore your heart and lungs will become engaged and forced to work that much harder, therefore you will derive all the neccesary cardiovascular benefit from it without the need to perform additional exercise which is simply counterproductive.

 

Paul Marsland

Womens Weight Training

Hi guys,

I've spoken to a few of  my clients and members over the past week about starting a Womens Strength & Conditioning class, so i thought i would give you a  bit of information about the benefits and the myths that come with it.

Heres a couple of quick points.
- Doing weights WILL NOT turn you into the incredible hulk! Bodybuilders work for years to get where they are with a high calorie diet and bodies full of testosterone.
- Regular weight training will help to gain strength and tone muscles to get that beach body you have always wanted.
- Weight training will help to improve posture for people who have mainly lower back problems for example an inward curve on the lower part of your back known as Lordosis.

Now heres a couple of questions I get asked regularly with some easy to understand answers
 

"I only exercise to lose weight” and "I only exercise to get thinner. I can burn far more calories doing light cardiovascular work than heavy lifting, shouldn't I just stick to the treadmill?"

While cardiovascular exercise is a great way of burning fat, adding a little strength training to workouts will earn you extra calories every day. You’ll even be burning extra calories while you’re sleeping or sat on the couch watching eastenders.

Research has shown that regular resistance training can increase your Basal metabolic rate by up to 15%. So for someone burning 2000 calories per day, that’s a potential 300 extra calories (more than a mars bar), burned every day.

 Do not be dishearten if at first you do not lose a great amount of weight or gain slightly.

Muscle weighs more per square inch than fat, so whilst your weight might not be dropping off very quickly, your clothes will be feeling baggier, you are feeling healthier, more energetic and looking slimmer in the mirror.

                                                                                   

"Is weight training right for women? I loved Terminator, but being 5ft6 and female I'm not sure Arnie's muscles would suit me."

 

Right, this is a big myth I would like to clear up! A lot of women are under the idea that if they use weights they will become muscularly or manly. This is defiantly not the case! Weight training is just as suitable for women as it is for men. Testosterone is a very important factor in the development of muscle growth, so as women have very very low levels of this hormone their muscles develop differently, meaning resistance training will not lead to a bulky, butch physique!

"How can weight training make me healthier?"

 Recent research has shown that weight (resistance) training can greatly reduce a number of health risks.

It has been proven to have a positive effect on insulin, resting metabolism, blood pressure, body fat and gastrointestinal transit time, factors that are linked to illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this clears up a few things for all the women out there! The womens S&C will be starting at Bodytorque Gym on Wednesday 23rd January! First class is completely FREE, so what have you got to lose?

 

 Written by: Emma Rushton