Genesis Zone

It's a reasonable question, but also one that individuals rarely tend to take the time to think through. To weigh up the pro’s and con’s for their particular, personal situation. There’s no question that carb cycling can work. It can and does. In the right circumstances carb cycling can have a major impact on an individual’s overall diet experience. But so to can linear dieting. For starters, by linear dieting I mean standard dieting: maintaining the same calorie and macronutrient plans each day. Carb cycling is therefore a non-linear strategy. While there is a abundance of anecdotal evidence available, from individuals who have found success with carb cycling, however from my knowledge, there is a severe lack of controlled studies comparing linear dieting to carb or calorie cycling. What this means is that we can only really consider the possibilities, weigh up the pro’s and con’s and then make an educated decision based on your individual situation. To help you guide ...

Now this is an article that I wrote in conjunction with an old business partner, I shan't name who as I need to keep anonymous for obvious reasons but for those of you that are competing or looking to I wanted to share this with you. Some of the words will ****'d out for privacy reasons, but the crux of this will be more than applicable to you all. Hope you enjoy and it offers you some value; 5 Steps To A Succesful Contest Prep 1. START OF GROWING I'm sure you've seen photos of women before who take to the stage looking less than presentable. Whether it be a lack of muscle definition, too much body fat or a lack of muscular development - something just isn't right!  Maybe this was you as well..  Want to know the KEY to preventing this situation? It's not nutrient timing, nor the perfect training program. It's also not intermittent fasting, some secret supplement or hours of daily cardio.  The key is STARTING OFF GROWING Thi...

I'm going to preface this by saying that all situations when it comes to a clients digestive concerns are highly individual and should be treated as such. The GI tract is extremely complex, with many facets that can be affected (or altered) due to a variety of different external or internal factors. When we think of digestive issues; the immediate go-to remedy often preached is an increased intake of dietary fibre and probiotics. To very briefly summarise these two; he role of fibre (inclusive soluble and insoluble) is to absorb water in the GI tract to allow nutrients to pass through efficiently and excrete any waste matter. Probiotics are live strains of bacteria found in the stomach which can to aid in digestive health, however the exact process is currently unknown. It's theorised that larger amounts of probiotics helps to balance out the "bad bacteria" in the stomach which may cause GI disorders such as IBS. What is known however is that it does not matt...

So one of the biggest minefields and one of the areas I have been asked for advice on recently is planning a writing out a nutrition program for people. With all the 'bro-science' out there and poor education material available that contradicts just about everything else that you can find, I thought it best to take things right the way back to basics and start from the ground up. All the diets that we see touted out there all come with fancy names; Intermittent Fasting 5:2 Diet Cambridge Herbalife Cambridge Carb Cycling Paleo Atkins I could go on and on but there is far too many to do so, and I really don't care for them either so back to where we are heading with this short piece of a blog. Nutrition works on a very basic equation, of Calories in -vs- Calories out, or Energy Balance as I like to refer to it. In laymans terms should you want to gain weight you need to eat more calories than what you use during the day, this being your TDEE (Total Daily Ener...

We've all heard about them, we've all read about them and I damn well guarantee that a large proportion of the people reading this has either tried one themselves or have a family member or friend that has. The 'fitness' market is saturated with them, Herbalife, Juice Plus, Forever Living, Clean 9, the list goes on and on and on. Before I go too far into my rant and rave about them and the cold hard facts, let's go to our good friend Google and look at the definition of what a 'fad diet' is - So they promise quick weight loss, through an unhealthy and unbalanced diet. They are targeted at people who do NOT want to exercise, and in actuality the weight that people lose is more often water weight, rather than fat loss. They sound amazing! Where do I sign up?! In these articles and blog pieces I am writing, unlike some I will not try and baffle you all with science and massage my ego, these are designed for every day folk to understand and hopef...

As a qualified PT and someone with multi sport experience that goes back 25 years since I was old enough to run, or kick a ball or catch one I like to think I have a good understanding of most training systems, and ways and means of getting people to their desired goals.  Whether that be weight loss? Well we would look at energy balance, or I would. To lose weight you need to be in a caloric deficit, now dependent on the clients health and situation would I put them in a caloric deficit via less food or would I look at energy output, i.e. What we do in the gym, to create that deficit? Weight gain / muscle gain - Now we are looking at caloric surplus plus training methods. Some stimuli (exercises) work for some due to their biomechanics, some don't. Some people respond to higher rep ranges, some respond better to lower rep ranges. Then when you get to the nutritional side of things, for me I can gain eating at 5% surplus of my maintenance cals due to my training style, and also the ...