10 hours ago
Midlife men, here's how to get in shape for summer
I was 33 when I took over the editorship of Men's Health back in 1997, it was a very different magazine then and a very different world. The male bodies we presented on the cover were specially imported from foreign parts and they may as well have been beamed down from Mars – no one looked as lean and muscular on the UK high street then. My own body was also a very different machine.
The intervening years and many, many interviews with experts have taught me a lot – what follows are some of my favourite summer shape up tips for men, and by men I don't mean Californian gym gods or even fresh-faced magazine editors. These are aimed solidly at mature individuals with better things to do than work out all day.
Learn calorie maths
What I've learnt above all other lessons, is that the latest miracle diet is either useless or simply an old diet in disguise. The man who revealed the underlying, unbreakable, eternal mathematics of energy consumption changed my entire outlook.
Missing meals, giving up bread, the cabbage soup diet (if you insist) are all routes to one simple goal: calorie deficit. If you want to lose fat you have to be using more calories than you are consuming. We all instinctively know this – if you run a mile to the bakery and eat a dozen doughnuts that run is unlikely to help you lose fat. Calorie deficit has to be done steadily, or it is unhealthy and unsustainable.
Samuel Quinn, personal training lead at the Nuffield Health chain of gyms, has transformed many bodies. He recommends dropping 500 calories per day across the week, losing half from your diet and burning half through movement. 'The smart watches and trackers are really useful, so you can track whether you are using those 250 calories and you can swap an espresso for your latte, choose protein and salad at the barbecue over white rolls.'
Jonathan Cooke, trainer at JC Fitness in Edinburgh, says research shows that losing between one per cent and half a per cent of bodyweight per week is realistic, 'We look at the timescale our clients have available, and we set an achievable goal.' Anyone can adopt this system once you master the simple biological sums – between now and that wedding anniversary, there will be a weight loss path.
Know your walks
The Nineties workouts were hard and fast. Men's Health used to shout 'Lose Your Gut!' from the news stand. When I discovered the power of non-exercise movement to churn through calories, it was like a curtain being pulled aside. I lived through many cardio booms – Fartlek anyone? – all fun, but for these purposes a walk may be the answer.
High intensity interval training (HIIT) burns a lot of calories very quickly but if you're more of a high-intensity Netflix viewer, daily steps can provide a more accessible route. Cooke says, '10,000 steps will burn around 300-500 calories. What I recommend is making steps systematic. I have a short walking route, a medium walking route and a long route and I know exactly to the step what each walk will net me.'
This means that if steps are below target one day you can undertake the precise walk needed to fill the shortfall. He recommends increasing your steps in attainable increments. If you are currently walking very little, lurching into 10,000 steps a day programme will feel extremely hard and may well fail.
Eat protein
The protein industry has grown from a few shelves in Holland and Barratt to a multi-million pound money spinner. The cover models we used feature in Men's Health were so muscular they could barely make it across the studio floor without a steak. Since then, I learnt that most of us don't need a protein shake, we need to watch our meals and eat frequently. If you want a shake as a cheering prop, we all do that, but chicken, fish, meat, beans all work just as well.
Samuel Quinn says, 'As a rule of thumb it's 1.1 to 1.5 grams of protein per kg of body weight per day. (This is 3-4 large skinless chicken breasts for an 85kg man). That's going to maintain muscle mass and support your muscle if you're in a calorie deficit – it's a manageable amount. In my experience, that is enough to sustain a very lean and healthy body composition.'
Think about calories per gram
Most of us know the basics – cakes are bad, carrots good but when an expert trainer explained the science of hunger, I was able to spread the word to all the men who'd expanded over the years. Putting a lot of vegetables on your plate, then pausing and putting on even more, could change your body shape forever.
Some foods are filling but not packed with calories – the simplest way to navigate this is to think of foods in terms of energy density. 'Think about calories per gram,' says Jonathan Cooke, 'If I take an apple and a Reese's peanut butter cup they will weigh the same but the calories will be completely different.'
Cooke says the number one reason people leave diets is hunger. Eating more fruit and vegetables (all mainly fibre and water) and will make you feel full. 'The body has sensors, they are sensitive to distention (the physical stretch of your stomach) but not calories,' he says. So being full of low calorie-dense foods consisting of fibre and water will stop hunger but not stop your weight loss. This includes, by the way, cabbage soup.
Prioritise sleep
I've always been a horrible sleeper, but what when I was younger I'd coffee my way through the crisis and assume my brain may be less able but my body was unconnected. Sleep experts revealed to me that along with an inability to focus or remember anything, appetite and sleep were intimately connected.
London nutritionist Lily Soutter says, 'Sleep can have a massive impact on the way we eat. On average, people eat three to four hundred calories more after sleep deprivation. You're also more likely to reach for quick-fix sugary foods.'
Samuel Quinn emphasises that a lack of sleep will rob you of your exercise benefits. 'You don't benefit from the exercise while you're exercising – the exercise is stress – the benefits come while we sleep, we recover and become stronger.'
Pressure your muscles
The first gym I ever went to was in a smelly side room of a sports centre and full of men with huge chests and gigantic legs – weights were exotic, lifting them was eccentric and somewhat outsider. Now my 84-year-old mother works out with bands. Like most things in fitness, for the beginner or returner, complex regimes are a waste of time. Weights are for everyone and the results come with the simplest approach.
Cooke says, 'The majority of our clients work out twice a week. This is a terrifying area for most people. They don't know what they are doing, they hate the gym, so I keep it simple.' He prescribes two to three challenging sets, anywhere between six and 30 repetitions on the muscle groups they care about most. 'Muscles respond to tension: if it's not challenging, it won't work.'
He recommends that beginners only use machines rather than free weights, easier and safer – the muscle will not know the difference.
Measure all your progress
There weren't any wrist worn body data devices when I was at Men's Health, we had notebooks with exercises scrawled in them. Motivation is hard for many – people start and then they stop. That distant dream is too rosy and vague to keep you going. When I learnt about the power of feedback as a motivator, I was able celebrate even the smallest of micro victories. It's the daily work that counts, the yearly work will emerge naturally.
Cooke says, 'You don't know if you're making progress toward your goal unless it's specific and you are self-monitoring. Set a weight loss goal, a calorie goal, a protein intake goal, and activity goals.' Cooke monitors body weight five out of seven days a week to supply a rolling average, this joins all the other measures. 'I also recommend transformation photos taken at home with the same light and the same camera.'
All these precise progress measures allow you to tick off walks completed, healthy meals consumed, weight lost, remain excited about what you are doing and stay with the programme. A cabbage soup target could be included...
