Byron Knows Best- The Real Route to Fat Loss

In today’s instalment of #ByronKnowsBest I want to talk about high intensity interval training (HIIT) and fat loss. Now, I appreciate fat loss is a hugely expansive topic covering many areas, so today I’ll break it down to basics and  leave you with some tips on how, with HIIT, you can become a fat burning machine.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is an enhanced form of interval training, an exercise strategy alternating periods of short intense exercise with less-intense recovery periods. Typically my HIIT sessions vary between 5 and 25 minutes depending on the overall intensity of the session. These short, intense workouts provide greater athletic capacity and condition, more efficient glucose metabolism, and improved fat burning. 

In order for me to explain why HIIT is, in my opinion, superior for fat loss over other options, I need to give you a quick science lesson on why we store excess body fat.

The Science Bit

If you’re a gym goer, statistically, you're not currently exercising at the optimum level for fat loss. I know this from experience. Walk onto any gym floor right now and the vast majority of the clientele are on a treadmill or cross trainer for 45-60 minutes watching those calories tick along on the screen. The reason is, as everybody knows, fat loss is a simple calories in, calories out equation right? It’s common knowledge if you burn more than you eat, you lose tonnes of fat?! I hate to break it to you but it absolutely doesn’t work like that. If you walked on a treadmill for an hour and the dessert you treated yourself to last night was now ‘free’, you’d starve to death walking out of reception – our bodies just aren’t that efficient. (as a side note – when the exercise equipment asks you for your height and weight, it works out your basal metabolic rate, which is the amount of calories you would burn just standing still. It then adds a percentage to that for the work rate throughout the exercise. So when it tells you you’ve burned 500 calories because of the exercise, realistically it’s more like 40. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you!)

So how does it work? It all becomes much clearer when you realise that fat loss depends almost entirely on achieving the right internal hormonal environment and very little to do with calorie restriction. And I can prove it. When people with the same diet and exercise programme go through a hormonal change in their late 40s/early 50s, they find it harder and harder to lose fat. And I’d be a rich man if I had a pound for the amount of times clients have told me they’re on a low calorie diet and they just aren’t losing any weight (or they lose a little then put it all back on again).  Creating this environment is achieved in two ways. Firstly by leaning towards a diet which is permissive for fat loss (coming in the next instalment of #ByronKnowsBest) and with high intensity exercise. 

Why should I choose HIIT?

This adrenaline producing, quick style of training is the polar opposite to what you see 90% of gym goers doing, and I’ll share the secret as to why it works so well.

Your muscle cells burn energy in two ways, aerobically (with oxygen) and anaerobically (without oxygen) and here’s the difference

• Aerobic exercise – Steady state treadmill walking or light resistance training 
• Anaerobic exercise – Flat out sprinting or throwing a heavy weight overhead

Put simply, the fastest and most effective way to deplete the cell of all of its glucose is to train anaerobically. The reason these workouts are short (sometimes only 4 minutes) is you only have a limited amount of glucose present to train at that intensity, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. Taking muscles or muscle groups to depletion is a proven way of directly decreasing insulin resistance, which in turn improves on the way your body deals with calories thereafter. So it’s not so much, how much you eat, rather how your body deals with the energy once you’ve consumed the calories.

As if that’s not enough, HIIT also causes what’s known in the fitness world as the afterburn effect. Put simply it keeps your body releasing energy and burning calories long after you’ve left the gym,  opposed to the steady state alternative where you only use energy when performing the activity. It’s something to think about when you’re watching T.V after a good session!

HIIT training is also an attractive prospect to those of us with a busy schedule. It has revolutionised personal trainers, because now the - “I just haven’t got the time” excuse, just won’t wash. I mean who can’t find 5 minutes?! And within that 5 minutes you’ll get a workout which guarantees fat loss results – something you 

weren't getting before. And come on, who wants to stand on a treadmill for an hour?!

The Truth Behind Diet Drinks

As hard as big business tries, they can’t seem to improve the image of diet or zero calorie beverages, but are they really that bad for you? Let’s find out.

In short, the answer is yes. I’ll explain why these heavily marketed products have no place in your diet, and more so, why they aren’t helping you shed those pounds like many believe they can.

If you think about it they should be a perfect substitute for the ‘full fat’ option right? They’ll satisfy that craving for something sweet while saving you from the extra calories and keep you away from all those sugars…. Wrong! Excessive consumption has links with obesity, cancer, tooth decay and even depression.

Here’s a little crash course of why excessive sugar consumption is so bad for you and steals your weight loss goals. A meal containing simple sugars and carbs causes your body to release insulin. In short, high levels of insulin in the blood predicates fat storage, and over time leads to all those nasty conditions we hear about, including heart attacks and diabetes.

The artificial sugars used in zero calorie soft drinks are far sweeter than actual sugar, leading to an insulin response telling your body to store fat even though no sugars are actually present. From a weight loss stand point, if insulin is present you just aren’t losing fat, even though you haven’t consumed any sugar. That’s just how our body works.


As a side point it’s been long proven that frequent zero calorie consumers have much larger waist lines and overall health problems than those who limit consumption. The point made above is a factor, but psychology also plays a part. Many use diet drinks to justify cheat meal. Come on, we’ve all ordered a diet coke in MacDonald's to make the value meal 'healthier'. Furthermore the addictive properties of sugar are widely played down and ignored, but are very real.


Next, let's take a look at what these products consist of. If you look at the ingredients on the reverse of the can or bottle, you'll notice that most look more like a chemistry experiment rather than a liquid you should be putting into your body. The majority of these chemicals and compounds are toxic in some way or another, but I want to take a look at the most common additive - Apertame.


Aspertame seems to have been crowbarred into absolutely everything in addition to, or as a substitute for sugar as it's widely manufactured and very cheap. In almost one thousand reported studies into Aspertame there has been conclusive proof that the compound causes migraines (most common), increased symptoms of asthma, increased risk of leukaemia, brain tumors and brain cancer, IBS, Parkinsons, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.

Aspertames link to cancer is well proven and cannot be ignored. Research has proven cancer cells, when exposed to Aspertame become more mobile and their mastocytosis (spread) is greatly enhanced. So why is it allowed into our diet if it's so damaging? Global corporations have and will always lean on research companies to ensure they can manufacture products with the highest margins in profit.

If you're looking for a zero calorie drink to supplement your weight loss or just to strive for a healthier you, mother nature knew what she was doing. There's so substitute for plain old water, and in fact I urge all of my clients to drink nothing but the stuff in the first four weeks of training. It takes 21 days to make or break a habit, make the change.

Jacked Fitness personal trainers are experts in physical and nutritional weight loss. We understand how important it is not to sacrifice your health in the pursuit of the perfect body. By using work outs, diet plans and fitness schedules that will create a sustainable platform for you to keep off the weight you lose, you'll never have to settle for a dubious 'quick fix' again. 

Herbalife- The Lie Behind The Brand

For my latest instalment I’m going to throw my two cents in regarding a supplement company sweeping across the UK called Herbalife. Firstly, what is it? Herbalife manufacture and distribute weight loss supplements usually in the form of snack bars and meal replacement shakes. Now these things are magic! They transform flabby couch potatoes into lean, mean athletic machines. A dream opportunity right?! Sadly, like most things in life, the reason this sounds too good to be true, is because it is. I’m going to tell you why.

I want to make my stance on products like this very clear. Fitness professionals who advocate the use of fad, trendy and expensive diets are not focusing on the overall health and well being of their clients, they're more interested in their bank accounts. If your trainer is selling you a diet you can’t buy yourself from the local supermarket, i'd be very cautious taking his or her advice. We all got into this industry to help people but, unfortunately, some of us seem to have lost sight of that.

The fact is, there is no substitute for healthy living and hard work. Whatever your goal, executing a sustainable, rewarding and enjoyable lifestyle change is the only way to fast track you to success. It doesn’t matter how large the task at hand may seem, start moving, eat well and enjoy the journey. No pill, potion or shake will ever give you the mind or body you want, but you can. 

How it works

In my career I’ve met clients who have tried anything and everything to lose weight except the one thing that works, clean living! These fads range from juicing, the 5/2 diet, fruit detox, intermittent fasting and or course Herbalife. I’m yet to find a success story. Those peddling Herbalife products will hit back with before and after photo’s of clients who have achieved commendable weight loss. They’ll also fail to mention the 3 hours of hard exercise they do each week and other positive dietary changes clients usually make when they start an exercise programme. That same client would have had the same results, if not better had they not drank that 'magical cup of sugar'! 

It's also important to mention that weight loss and fat loss aren’t the same thing! It’s been proven time and time again that high carb low calorie diets are excellent at eating away muscle, not so good at burning fat. Then what happens when you revert back to your old eating habits? It all comes back, and fast! What a waste of time, effort and a lot of money.

The Products

The name Herbalife leaves the impression of a natural product. In fact it’s anything but. The bars and shakes are loaded with stimulants to suppress appetites and diuretics to force out water weight. Does that sound like a natural way to lose fat? 

The first ingredient to appear on the nutritional information is what it has most of. In most Herbalife shakes that ingredient is soy protein. Now this is a whole other article on it’s own, but soy protein is largely believed to be not for human consumption. It is a cheap, largely indigestible and problematic protein source. In brief, much of the population has an intolerance to it, it has been proven to cause gastrointestinal problems ranging from discomfort to bleeding, and studies have found a strong link between soy consumption and breast cancer due to its high estrogen content. Supplement companies use it for cost, rather than health reasons.

Many Herbalife meal replacements also contain compounds known as diuretics. Diuretics work by increasing the body’s urine volume, in essence drying you out at the cellular level. To put this into context, mixed martial artists use diuretics to make weight before a fight. And you attribute your new, lighter weight on the scales from the amazing fat burning qualities found in these expensive shakes. Unfortunately that isn’t the case. In fact there isn’t one proven fat burning ingredient in any Herbalife product, and anyone who says there are is lying. Over the years Herbalife has been instructed by courts to remove misleading medical claims from their literature, such as 'Herbalife cures migraines and asthma'. Years of medical research hasn’t been able to cure asthma and bronchitis, yet Herbalife claimed to have cracked it!

In Summary

In just the last few years in the UK Herbalife has become huge. Using sporting superstars like David Beckam and Cristiano Ronaldo shows just how profitable this industry is. The distributors work tirelessly to push these simple yet expensive products. I receive at least a phone call a week trying to churn up interest in their illustrious, money spinning pyramid scheme. It’s not difficult to spot the distributors in and outside of the gym. Clad in the company t-shirts, drinking from Herbalife branded bottles, wearing Herbalife badges and some even having their cars wrapped in the famous green logo. Strike up a conversation with any distributor, about any topic and it always turns into a similar sales pitch. I ask you, would a product this ground breaking and effective need to be pushed that hard if the claims were true? I think not. 

Jacked Fitness personal trainers are experts in physical and nutritional weight loss. We understand how important it is not to sacrifice your health in the pursuit of the perfect body. By using work outs, diet plans and fitness schedules that will create a sustainable platform for you to keep off the weight you lose, you'll never have to settle for a dubious 'quick fix' again. 

Byron Knows Best - FT4- Build Muscle Fast

Building muscle is one of the most heavily talked about topics on fitness posts online and everyone is looking for the magic formula to inflate those biceps. But, what us trainers see all too often is the same people coming into the gym and repeating the same workouts, with the same weight, same reps, same sets, having a good natter with friends and then off for a shower. Just because you have been in the gym for an hour doesn’t mean automatic results. Too many people amble around the free weights either chatting or playing on their phone - if you want to build muscle, you have to earn it! Nearly every muscle building client I’ve ever had skips the number one rule for gaining lean muscle – progressive overload.

Overload basically means to increase the stress on the muscle and central nervous system with every single workout forcing an adaptive response and growth. Unless you’re working hard - you’re not growing! Put simply our bodies respond to new stresses, and most of the workouts trainers see in the gym aren’t intense enough to inspire change. Think about it, if you push a muscle or a group of muscles to the limit and you can lift 50 kilos for ten reps, why would the muscle grow if your lifting anything less than this? They simply don’t need to.  There are several ways to achieve overload. I’ll outline a few examples below. You should be including at least one of these methods during every workout if your goal is to pack on lean muscle…

Weight and Reps

Pretty obvious right?! The more weight a muscle can handle using good form, the higher the adaptive response. For example if you can bench press 60kg for 6 reps one week, aim for 65kg for the same amount of reps the next. Then slowly increase that weight further over time. Your body will simply not change if you continue to bench 60kg. To have the strength to lift an uncomfortable weight for reps is a sure fire way to bulk up those guns.

Time Under Tension

This is a vastly overlooked and yet very effective training method for building muscle quickly. Time under tension is the length of time a muscle is under load. While performing straight reps, the average tempo (or cadence) is one second up, then one second down. Therefore, a set of 8 reps lasts 16 seconds. Slowing down the reps eliminates momentum (swinging) from the lift and burns out every single muscle fibre. During a 16-20 second set you only work the slow twitch muscle, which fatigues very slowly. The intermediate and faster fatiguing fibres, which many believe are responsible for most growth, remain largely untouched. Simply slow down the reps to tap into the full energy available from the muscle, thus forcing the muscle to adapt and grow for the next workout.

Forced Negatives

There are three stages to every lift; 

• Positive stage (lifting up) where the muscle shortens.
• Isometric hold
• Negative stage (lowering down) where the muscle lengthens

Physiologically are muscles are around 40% stronger during the negative phase of a lift than the positive. That’s why pushing the bar away from you when performing a bench press requires so much more effort than lowering it back down. A simple way to get the most out of an exercise is to work towards failure (where you can’t perform one more rep) then continue the set only performing the negative portion of the lift. Pull ups are a good example - Pull yourself up then lower yourself down to failure, then jump up, bypassing the positive phase of the lift, and let yourself down slowly. You may need a spotter, but this technique can be used for any exercise. 

Rest Pause

Now be warned, this  method will show you just how hard, hard work really is! The idea of rest pause is to take you well beyond failure. The theory behind it is simple, the practise is anything but. Simply perform a controlled exercise, using good form, to failure, then take a 5-8 second break and squeeze out another few reps. Then take another 5-8 seconds and do another. When you can’t perform another rep using proper form the set is over. Using methods such as this to overload the muscles beyond their usual capabilities has been proven to break more muscle tissue down, forcing your muscle and central nervous system to adapt to take the increased work load you ask of it.

These are just a few examples on how progressive overload will help squeeze the most out of every workout. Don’t make the mistake of going to the gym just to socialise. If you want to grow, leave your phone in your locker and get to work!

Why not try our online personal training by following this LINK. 

Byron Knows Best- Fitness Tip 3- Is Fruit Making You Fat?

Is Fruit Making You Fat?

An apple a day keeps the doctor away – or does it?

Firstly I want to say there's no denying fruit's health benefits - it's packed with vitamins, fibre and antioxidants, which protect against disease. It's considered so beneficial that the government's five-a-day suggests a minimum amount we should eat.

Its common to eat more fruits and vegetables to achieve a healthier balanced diet. Five portions of fruit and veg a day is what the experts tell us, right? One of the first things I’ll change in a new client’s diet is to moderate overall sugar intake - kill the fruit if you’re looking to burn fat…. And here’s why.

The Science bit

Fat loss and gain isn’t a simple calories in, calories out equation, our bodies just aren’t that simple. A huge contributing factor to why our body stores or burns fat is the hormone insulin. Simply, insulin is released when we consume simple sugars or complex carbohydrates. A gloriously oversimplified way to look at this is the higher and more frequent the insulin, the more fat your body will store over time.

The form of sugar found in fruit is fructose.  Fructose and sucrose (table sugar) are routinely used by the food industry as additives to sweeten foods. Excessive intake of sugar-sweetened foods can increase your blood triglyceride level, increase fat accumulation in your tissues and raise your risk for developing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Thus, intake of fructose (amongst other sugars) can increase fat accumulation in your blood, liver, muscles and tissues. It’s not all bad, though. The absorption of fructose into the blood is slowed down by the fibre in the fruit, making it not as unhealthy as other sugars, but a diet high in carbs with added fruit for ‘health’ reasons is unhealthy. With every client I have ever worked with, eliminating or restricting fruit consumption has always resulted in fat loss.

It’s a controversial topic, and those in the fruit camp always argue the fibre, vitamin and mineral qualities in found in fruit, but there is nothing of nutritional value found in fruit that’s not found in vegetables. Did you know a 150g apple contains 4 teaspoons of sugar? For example if you drank 3 coffees a day with 4 sugars you wouldn’t expect to lose any weight would you?! A punnet of seedless grapes has 75g – around the same as two big bottles of coke – and who just eats one grape?

I also hear people, who disagree, say that fruit is natural, or a natural form of sugar. Strictly speaking that is correct, but our ancestors wouldn’t have had access to fruit all year round. For most ancient cultures it was in small amounts and limited to the season. Now we have fruit flown in and refrigerated so it’s available every month of the year.

Interestingly some animals use fruit to increase fat stores throughout the summer in preparation for leaner winter months. Do I need to say anymore?

Make the Change

Everything in moderation. Just as you make a decision not to eat a multi pack of crisps , you should think about portion control when it comes to fruit. And those of you with diabetes, heart conditions, or who just want to shed some fat, should limit their fruit intake to weekly, rather than daily.

Our expert personal trainers, whether you want to work in person or via our online service know that everyone has their own specific needs, and they take this into account when preparing your diet and fitness plans. If you want to start getting fit and you need a personal trainer then call us today on 07415358528 for a free consultation about our services.

Cardio Fitness

Increasing your cardiovascular fitness improves sleep, vitality and mood as well as having many other health benefits. Men's Health talk about blasting fat without going anywhere near a treadmill, elliptical, or rowing machine. Click here for the article.

Strength & Conditioning

Most people who perform regular workouts assume they are doing their best to build muscle in the gym, yet they have no scientific plan of attack. Training without the right knowledge and direction is like building a house without an engineer's blueprint. Results will be mediocre at best.

Bodybuilding.com have created a 52-week strength and conditioning program to help you look and feel good, plus maintain your active lifestyle: click here for the article

Core Training

To try and avoid injuries that can sometimes occur during day to day activities, it's important to keep the core strong and flexible. Bodybuilding.com talk about why this is so important and offer advice and sample exercises: click here for the article

Muscle Building

If you're just starting out in your training regime or are already an experienced gym user it's important to get the basics right when looking to build mass.

From eating the right foods at the right times to making sure you're getting enough rest and recovery time bodybuilding.com share ten secrets to gaining lean muscle mass quickly: click here for the article