C-Life E-News

July/August 2013 Edition

CELEBRATING 11 YEARS!

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11 YE

EARS

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Let’s get fit!

1 MONTH FREE NO JOINING FEE $500 PRIZE DRAW CELEBRATING 11 YEARS!

From Saturday 17th August

There’s never been a better time to join

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11 YEARS OF HEALTH AND FITNESS AT CANTERBURY

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We believe everyBODY wants to feel good and C-Life Health Club knows what it takes to get you there. With personalised exercise programs, cutting edge equipment and 24 hour convenience, there has never been a better time to join with our 11th Birthday special.

Come to the FREE open day to learn how C-Life Health Club can help you achieve your health & fitness goals.

Launching 8am Saturday 17th August until 9pm Friday 31st August Try us - Open Day Saturday 17th August 8 am - 5 pm

• • • • • •

FREE entry 8:30am - Group fitness triple play: BOXING - LIFT - PILATES 10:30am - Yoga Sumo wrestling competition - instructor vs member battle Creche - children 6 mths to 6 yrs Offers and giveaways

Join Us - 8am Saturday 17th until 9pm Friday 31st August • $0 joining fee* • 1 month free* • Open 24/7 • Free programs and health checks* • Ladies only area • Membership options to suit everyBODY

PLUS ...J 17th oin on Sa Augu t st fo urday chan r ce to your WI CASH N $500 !

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS Already a full C-life Member? Refer a friend to join on a full C-Life membership and be rewarded with 2 months FREE membership!* PLUS...refer a friend on Saturday 17th August and you also go in the draw to win $500 cash!* *Conditions apply. For full terms and conditions go to www.clifehealth.com.au.

Authorised under NSW Permit Number LTPM/12/00969

30 Days to change your life!

COMMITTED

How often do we comment about how quickly a month has flown by? Also, common practice is to promise ourselves that we will start or change something ‘tomorrow’, only for that day to never come. But what if you could change your life 30 days at a time? We’re going to give it a go. Starting the 1st August, we are asking you to commit to something, anything, for 30 days. It could be as simple as commiting to drinking 2 litres of water a day, walking for 10 minutes in your lunch break or giving your loved one a hug. Anything.

Just commit to it, or another 30 days will pass you by that you could have or should have!

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TEAM CANTERBURY 2013 OUR BIGGEST YET!

The Sun Herald City 2 Surf is more than just a fun run, with the iconic Sydney event is in it’s 43rd year.

There is something to be said about being amongst 85,000 people, all there for different reasons but with one common goal - to cross that finish line at Bondi Beach.

Whether you are an experienced runner or first time walker, the atmospher at the start line is enough to push you along through on the 14km route through some of our city’s most picturesque suburbs.

It’s not too late to join Team Canterbury and become part of this great event. Register @ www.city2surf. com.au and email us healthclub@canterbury.com. au with your details and registration number. A bus has been organised to transport Team Canterbury from Belmore to the event and back but numbers are limited so don’t delay, register TODAY!

R ESULTS IN NUMBERS

So the saying goes, those that play together, stay together. Well training with friends really does have it’s benefits.

C-Life Personal Training offers Group PT sessions which not only allow you to get the personal attention you need to get the results you want, but keep you motivated because nobody likes to let a friend down. Plus you’ll have spare change in your pocket with the great rate.

Check out http://clifehealth.com.au/personaltraining-0 and recruit your wolf pack. Once you get started, there’s no turning back!

FREE 3 DAY TRIAL PASS

Bring in a friend to train with you on us! Click here for more details.

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Canterburykids

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Thanks to all the kids who participated in the July CanterburyKids program (and parents for bringing them!) We are already planning our activities for the next school holidays and we hope to be bringing in new elements with sports, gymnastics, active play and all day fun! Stay tuned!

FACT - Obesity is the most common chronic health problem in Australia Spending more than 2 hours a day in front of a screen - TV, iPad, computer - is a risk factor for becoming overweight or obese.

Get your kids UP and get ACTIVE!

MEMBER OF THE MONTH

Congratulations to the following members for their well earned title of C-Life Member of the Month.

They will be rewarded with 1 month free membership and a 1 hour personal training session with trainer of their choice!

July Sara Camporeale Good luck in your first City 2 Surf Sara!

August Giulio Corsi Well done in acheiving your PB!

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SQUAT!

Have you ever watched an infant pick something up off the floor? Back straight, bum to the floor, they squat down effortlessly. So what goes so wrong by the time we need to schedule time to do ‘exercise’? Unfortunately, our activities of daily living aren’t doing our bodies any favours. Desk bound jobs, endless hours driving, ‘time’ saving devices have all left us with weak, poor postures and tight muscles in the wrong places.

The squat is a foundational movement which requires coordination and dedication to get everything moving correctly, but the effort is well worth it.

• Sit back and down • Bottom of the squat is below parallel (hip crease below the top of kneecap) • Knees track out over toes • To complete movement, return to full hip extension (stand up straight) What to watch out for • Maintain lumbar curve • Keep weight on heels • Ensure full range of movement • Knees track in alignment with toes

Start off with the air squat - basicaly bending at the hips and the knees with no resistance.

Here are some tips to get you on your way: Sets, repetitions and rest Beginner: complete 3 sets of 15 repetitions with a 90second rest between sets.

Advanced: 5 sets of max reps, rest 1 minute.

Set up • Feet shoulder width apart • Weight on heels • Full extension at hip and knees • Head in neutral position (chin in, eyes directly ahead) Execution • Chest up

Bar position ultimately determines back angle, as seen in this comparison of the front squat, the high-bar squat and the low-bar squat. Note that the bar remains balanced over the mid foot in each case, and this requires the back angle to accomodate to the barposition. This is the primary factor in the differences in technique between the three styles of bar loaded squatting.

From Hamill, B. “Relative Safeety of Weightlifting and Weight Training” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 8(1):53-57, 1994

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Is there really a science behind exercise?

T

o be able to exercise we must coordinate many different processes within the body.

These include setting the mind to do it, telling the muscles what to move, when to move, how fast to move and when to stop moving. At the same time, making sure there is enough blood going to the muscles to supply oxygen to convert stored energy into action, shutting down systems that the body does not need during exercise, and then opening up systems that get rid of heat generated from the exercising muscles.

Meanwhile, the bones respond to the impact of the exercise and get stronger, the heart

gets stronger to pump more blood, and the muscles become more efficient (after all, who wants to work hard when you can adapt to do the same for less cost?).

Special hormones called endorphins are also released to make you feel that the exercise is good – both now and when you finish. So yes, you sweat and grunt, but you sure turn on a lot of integrated circuits to make it all happen.

Stay tuned to upcoming issues of C-Life News where we will be featuring the the latest in exercise science for you to apply to your exercise routine!

When was your last Health Check?

Have you ever had a program tailored to your health and fitness goals?

C-Life exercise specialists are available to get you on track to acheive your fitness goals for FREE! All our upfront and direct debit memberships include regular health check and program reviews every 6 weeks.

What are you waiting for?!

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The 5:2 revolution - Living life in the FAST lane

The newest kid on the diet block is the FASTing diet or the 5:2. Over the coming issues, we will explain the science behind it and follow a few members on their experience with putting it to the test.

Check out this reporters experience with the diet and it’s creater, medical journalist Michael Mosley (courtesy of The Telegraph, London)...

Was this how the young David Cameron felt when he first met Thatcher? Or Stanley when he encountered Livingstone? I’m cooking lunch for Michael Mosley, the medical journalist behind the 5:2 diet, which became a bestselling book – and changed my life.

Melodramatic, yes, but true. In the past five months on the 5:2 diet I have lost almost 10 kilograms, reducing my body mass index (BMI) from a lumberingly 27 to a healthy, if admittedly hardly Kate Mosslike, 23. I still have three kilos to go, but already I can fit into clothes I bought years ago, no longer feel self-loathing about occasionally ordering cake with my coffee, and have a positively Tiggerish spring in my step.

I’m not the only one to have jumped on the 5:2 wagon. Mosley’s diet book has been reprinted 13 times, selling more than 340,000 copies and e-books and topping the Amazon charts for weeks. Half my friends (including both food writers and doctors) are either on the diet or seriously considering it. Saying “I’m on a fast day” when turning down a biscuit garners sympathetic, rather than confused, looks.

5:2 - The Fast Diet

Mosley himself arrives promptly for lunch. He is youthful looking for his 56 years and, encouragingly, slim but not scrawny.

He makes frequent references to expert advocates of various forms of “intermittent fasting” – experts such as Dr Krista Varady in the US and Dr Michelle Harvie in Britain, who, he is keen to point out, have done the serious scientific research, while he has merely collated the information and presented it in a way he feels is accessible.

And – crucially – he has tried it himself. Self-experimentation is a theme of much of his work. He has gone to some bizarre lengths in the name of research – swallowing a camera for the program Inside the Human Body, which turns out to have been even more gruesome in reality than those riveting inner-space shots suggest. “The really unpleasant part was that the night before I had to drink four litres of laxative. I was meant to be going to dinner with the director general of the BBC and the gastroenterologist said, ‘Not a good idea.’ “ Mosley’s interest in intermittent fasting is highly personal. His father died aged 73 of complications related to type 2 diabetes, a disease inextricably linked with being overweight. “He’s been both a role model but also a sort of a threat going forward, because I see myself in him,” Mosley remarks ruefully, sipping mineral water.

So when he was diagnosed as pre-diabetic last June he tried out various intermittent fasting diets, having heard about their potential beneficial effects on insulin levels. Not that these are the only positive aspects being investigated. Harvie and Varady have focused on the cancer preventive benefits of fasting, and other researchers are looking into how it may slow Alzheimer’s. There is, however, no conclusive proof yet. “Critics reasonably say it’s early days, you need to have proper long-term trials, which is absolutely valid.”

Mosley’s life has been varied, not to say experimental. Like his father, he worked as a banker after leaving Oxford, where he had studied philosophy, politics and economics. But it didn’t appeal and after a couple of years he enrolled in a graduate medical training scheme,

intent on becoming a psychiatrist. But shortly after qualifying, he became disillusioned with “how little could really be done for people with mental illness” and left medicine. He became a trainee producer with the BBC and spent 20 years behind the camera working on shows such as the award-winning Pompeii: The Last Day, before moving into presenting.

But there was one lasting benefit of his five years of medical training.

“The first day at medical college the dean looked around at us – there were about 100 of us – and said that statistically four of us would marry.” Sure enough, Mosley’s future wife, Clare Bailey, now a GP and parenting expert, was among them. They now live in Buckinghamshire with their four children, aged 14 to 23.

Lunch is ready and as it’s a fast day, I dish up shiitake mushroom, lemon grass and ginger broth, laced with low-carb Japanese shirataki noodles, one of the ingredients that have kept me on the straight and narrow over the past five months of dieting.

Mosley is delighted, or at least very polite, about being served up less than 200 calories. But will it hit the mark nutritionally? I worry about satiating hunger on fast days and bulk up with loads of veg rather than worrying about vitamins.

Mosley, however, disagrees. “I think nutritional content is absolutely key. If you are going to eat less food it should be as good as possible.

You need high protein because while you store carbohydrate and fat, your body doesn’t store protein.” If it runs out of protein, it’ll break down muscle.

My loads-of-veg policy is fine, too, as it has lots of fibre – as long as I have some high-quality protein such as chicken or fish, too. I quickly add some poached chicken to our bowls. Mosley looks approving.

“Fibre and protein, those are the things that fill you up. But it turns out that those are the things that are pretty good for you as well.”

At home, Mosley fasts alone. “My kids and my wife are all slim, so although supportive they don’t really do fasting days.” There are other positive benefits to having a slimmer husband, he says. “My neck went from 17 to 15 inches and that meant I stopped snoring.

It’s to do with the visceral fat in your neck. There are times when I overindulge and my weight creeps up a bit. And she says, ‘You’re snoring again!’ And I go and lose weight.”

Rather than working out BMI, Mosley recommends measuring your waist around the belly button, now considered by some health professionals to be a better indicator of a healthy weight. “Your waist measurement should be no more than half your height. Men tend to go by their trouser size, which is wrong – it’s generally smaller than your actual waist.”

To keep his svelte figure, favourite dishes on fast days include mushroom and spinach frittata and marinated steak and Asian cabbage salad, both recipes from his literary collaborator Mimi Spencer’s recipe book. He has, he says, learnt to love vegetables. “I like using the griddle for things like courgette, touches of lemon and orange juice jazz up salad leaves.”

The family have had to be on side in the battle to lose weight. “I’ve told my wife that if she ever has any chocolate in the house she has to hide it or I will eat it. It’s completely stupid. And even as you eat it you’re thinking, ‘This is a really, really stupid thing to do. And I’m going to regret it 10 minutes later. And I’m still doing it.’ “ Mosley muses on that for a moment. “That’s what I find interesting. Such contradiction as human beings.”

C-Life News (soup-TAH pod-ang-goosh-TAHS-anna) supta = lying down, reclining pada = foot angusta = big toe

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Supta Padangusthasana Reclining Big Toe Pose

Step by Step 1. Lie supine on the floor, legs strongly extended. If your head doesn’t rest comfortably on the floor, support it on a folded blanket. Exhale, bend the left knee, and draw the thigh into your torso.

Hug the thigh to your belly. Press the front of the right thigh heavily to the floor, and push actively through the right heel.

2. Loop a strap around the arch of the left foot and hold the strap in both hands. Inhale and straighten the knee, pressing the left heel up toward the ceiling. Walk your hands up the strap until the elbows are fully extended. Broaden the shoulder blades across your back. Keeping the hands as high on the strap as possible, press the shoulder blades lightly into the floor. Widen the collarbones away from the sternum.

3. Extend up first through the back of the left heel, and once the back of the leg between the heel and sitting bone is fully lengthened, lift through the ball of the big toe. Begin with the raised leg perpendicular to the floor. Release the head of the thigh bone more deeply into the pelvis and, as you do, draw the foot a little closer to your head, increasing the stretch on the back of the leg.

4. You can stay here in this stretch, or turn the leg outward from the hip joint, so the knee and toes look to the left. Pinning the top of the right thigh to the floor, exhale and swing the left leg out to the left and hold it a few inches off the floor. Continue rotating the leg. As you feel the outer thigh move away from the left side of the torso, try to bring the left foot in line with the left shoulder joint. Inhale to bring the leg back to vertical. Lighten your grip on the strap as you do, so that you challenge the muscles of the inner thigh and hip to do the work.

5. Hold the vertical position of the leg anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes, and the side position for an equal length of time. Once you have returned to vertical release the strap, hold the leg in place for 30 seconds or so, then slowly release as you exhale. Repeat on the right for the same length of time. …Beginner’s Tip If you are especially stiff, do this pose with the bottom-leg heel pressed against a wall. It’s also useful to position a block just outside the raised-leg hip. Then when you swing the leg to the side, rest it on the block. The support under the thigh will help you soften the inner groin.

Courtesy of Yoga Journal.