Hopefully you’ll have seen my blog post last week about the Skinny Bitch Collective workshop, if not check it out here. Russell Bateman is the founder of Skinny Bitch Collective (SBC), THE new fitness & nutrition regime for women. Russ trains the likes of Millie Mackintosh, Daisy Lowe, Zara Martin and a long list of beautiful models! After last week’s workshop, Russ and I sat down and had a good chat over a mug of green tea. Here are a few things I learnt…
1. The first thing you do in the morning should be to eat. Forget jumping in the shower, cleaning your teeth or checking the Mail Online for pictures of a naked Kate Middleton sharing a Tesco’s burger with Justin Bieber taken by the Pope on a camera bought from HMV – get up and eat protein straight away.
“It’s 6am, stop looking at my face and eat your f**king chicken & veg.”
2. In my Early Morning Smoothie blog post I mentioned that a banana is part of my recipe. Turns out this is the wrong thing to have, as bananas are way too high in sugar for the morning. Try using half an avocado or just adding more berries instead, as berries have a low Glycemic Index (GI).
3. The Skinny Bitch Collective Magic potion is made up of coconut water, L Carnitine and macha green tea. This is a small shot drink that is ideal before a workout. It’s good for hydration, has fat burning potential and also contains beautifying agents.
4. According to Russ, porridge isn’t actually all that great. I’ve found it hard to remove from my diet, but I definitely feel better for doing so. Russ suggests taking away grains altogether from your diet; that means no oats or rice or anything like that. Instead, make quinoa flakes porridge. Throw in a bit of cinnamon, some blueberries and coconut oil for extra taste!
I may look like something thrown up after a night out at Inferno’s, but I assure you, I’m ALL of the health.
5. Eat like a caveman, think like a caveman. Apply this to your diet and you’ll be well on your way to being lean and clean. An average day in the home of SBC reads something like this: Salmon & sweet potato for breakfast, cooked the night before, but eaten cold. Then have a handful of nuts as a mid-morning snack, moving on to a workout. The workout should be followed by a shake containing a carbohydrate source – Whey Protein would work well here. In the evening a standard meal would be some quinoa or chicken with vegetables.
TOWIE’s casting director has gone for a slightly new look for this season’s show finale.
6. It’s ok to have cheat meal/sugar splurge once a week, but make sure you either have lemon squeezed over your meal or have a glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice after the sugar. Lemons contain vitamin C, rutin and limonene which can lower the glycemic index of a meal considerably, which will negate the impact of sugar and the bad hormonal response it triggers. Lemon works as an alkaline and will help with your digestion.
It was pretty harsh after 12 years of marriage, but Banana just had to go.
7. So here’s a random fact/tip that I found out. It doesn’t really tie in to any of the others, but I found it really interesting…
Body piercings mess with hormone levels; if you take out your piercings you’ll lose bodyfat. Russ learnt this from Charles Poliquin, the man behind the Bio Signature (see next tip), and here it is explained in more detail:
Body piercings alter hormone levels, and increase toxicity in the body. In simple terms, having metal permanently inserted into the body over stimulates the pierced area, resulting in increased stress hormone production. The body pumps out cortisol and fatigues the adrenals in response to the piercing, leading to fat gain and an all-around unhealthy state. In addition to raising hormones like cortisol, a piercing may overstress the immune system and other organs—it won’t kill you right away, but it will keep you from reaping the benefits of training, decrease energy levels, can impede reproduction, and may result in poorer health. Plus, because piercings alter the body’s homeostasis, they make it harder for your body to detoxify and having metal inserted into the body for long periods has been shown to increase toxicity.
Certain piercing sites on the body such as navel piercings are particularly stressful on your system because they directly disrupt the body’s energy flow. The navel is the center of the body’s central meridian in Chinese medicine, and in acupuncture, it is forbidden to put a needle in the navel because doing so would impede energy flow. By piercing the navel or other key energy sites on the body, you are directly impeding the life-force energies that keep you healthy, lean, and energised.
8. A person could do the perfect type and amount of exercise and their diet could be spot on, but might still find it hard to perfect certain areas of their body. This is because they might be lacking in something (hormones, vitamins, iron etc), therefore stopping them losing weight. SBC outsource a BioSignature service for clients to help them work out exactly what each person needs to get into the best shape possible.
I’m glad he’s not my gynaecologist.
9. I’ve been looking through Charles Poliquin’s website and am hooked on the daily tip section. Here’s the low down on the three seeds you MUST have in your diet.
10. I couldn’t end on 9 tips, it just feels so wrong. It’s like having the volume on the TV turned up to an odd number. So here’s another one from Charles. Get those bums down low when you’re squatting to build stronger and leaner muscles and to also improve the balance between your leg muscles. More SQUAT info here.
Oi Mary, Napoleon Dynamite wants his skate ramp back.
A big thanks to Russ at SBC for taking the time to chat to me and nearly kill me in the workshop! I’ll be back again very soon.
