Kira Lightfoot - Fitness Coach

03/01/2022

The most common issue I see with clients when they first come to me is not eating enough protein! Protein is the most important macronutrient for any goal and for health.

Typically you should aim for anywhere between 1.5-2.2g per kg of body weight but this depends on your goal.

Protein is good for:
- muscle growth & repair
- recovery
- keeping you fuller for longer
- has a higher thermic effect meaning your burn more calories to digest it
- vital for bodily processes such as hormone production, enzyme function and cell function
- reduces muscle loss
- energy
- the list goes on!

Swipe through to see simple ways to increase your protein intake!

Need help?
Link in bio ✨

30/09/2021

3 myths that may be sabotaging your results 👇🏼

1. “When it comes to exercise more is always better”

2. “You have to be sore and sweaty for it to be a good workout”

3. “You have to earn what you want to eat”

FALSE

Too much exercise can lead to overtraining, injury & burnout. Sometimes less is better and being more efficient with your time! Recovery is just as important as your training. My clients training days vary from 2-5 days per week, 30-60 mins each, maximum.

There is little positive physiological carryover between feeling sore/sweaty & having a “good” workout or determine how hard you worked. They aren’t necessary for results.

Exercise should not be used to earn food. 1. Creates a negative relationship with food & exercise 2. It’s almost impossible to know exactly how much you’ve burnt unless you are in lab conditions. Sorry but your fitness tracker & HR monitor are not accurate for calories burnt.

20/09/2021

Say no to meal plans and restrictive ‘challenges’ if you want SUSTAINABLE results.

They don’t help at all with habit change or teach you how to keep your results!

When you are restricted for periods of time on something like a meal plan, this often leads to a binge cycle as you restrict then crave then blow out and repeat.

If you want lasting progress you need to take a more flexible approach and learn how to implement it into your lifestyle for lasting results!

I can show you how to still enjoy your favourite foods while getting ‘summer ready’ 🥰 Link in bio!

09/09/2021

24/07/2021

Why set yourself out to train 5 days a week when you haven’t even been able to stick to 3?

Why set yourself lower calories when you haven’t been consistent with what you’re already on?

Doesn’t really make sense does it? Yet so many people do this to try and fast track their results, feel disappointed when they can’t stick to what they’ve set out to do and then stop everything all together sending their progress backwards.

With my clients there’s a long term plan in place, they need to be consistent with what I’ve set for them based on their lifestyle and prior activity level - making it easy to stick to, before I think of taking them to the next step, smaller achievable goals that we build on over time is what keeps them on track & actually keeping their results 💪🏼

Stacking good habits overtime is what leads to long term results and celebrating the small wins. With my clients it’s not all or nothing.

Need help?
Link in bio or message me! 🤍

09/07/2021

WHY YOU NEED TO STOP FREAKING OUT WHEN THE SCALES FLUCTUATE ⚖️

Most people allow the scales to determine how they feel about themselves or to determine progress, basing this number on their self-worth.

The scales ONLY ever shows you how much your ENITRE body weighs as a whole. It does not take into account how much of this number is fat, muscle 💪🏼, water💧, bone 🦴etc.

There are many factors that can influence this number you see, especially with it going up👆🏼or down👇🏼constantly or not budging at all – and guess what? Almost all of these factors have NO impact on your body fat. ❌

Two people can weigh the exact same but look completely different. It comes down to body composition.

Commonly, clients will find their scale weight increasing or not moving at all yet cm’s from body measurements will decrease and they will see improvements in progress photos.

An example: you’re feeling really good about yourself and how you look, your confidence is through the roof, you decide to weigh yourself, you see a number you weren’t expecting – which could be due to many factors as stated above, but your immediate response is to freak out and think its FAT.. 🙅🏼‍♀️ so now you have self-sabotaged and no longer feel great about yourself like you did before regardless of perhaps looking amazing ✨ but we decide to eliminate that self-perception and base our feelings around the number on the scales when this could have been avoided! 🤦🏼‍♀️ by either ditching the scales and not weighing yourself or by understanding this.

It’s time to stop freaking out about what the scales say, it’s just another tool that people give too much credit. You are a person not a number 🤍

04/07/2021

Swipe across to see the premium training app my clients use to track their progress in the gym & hit PB’s!

Interested? Want to learn more? Dm me or click the link in bio to book a consult I’d love to help you break through your plateaus - now is the time to start for summer 🥰

02/07/2021

ONE THING YOU NEED TO BE CONSTANTLY DOING TO SEE RESULTS 👇🏼

Tracking your weights/reps/sets in your workouts every time! 🏋🏼‍♀️

Why? So you can ensure you are applying progressive overload which is the key to getting results in the gym, without doing this you won’t progress. Your body requires stimulus to improve, it adapts to the stimulus so then you need to be continuously making it harder each week!

If you are just winging it week to week how do you know if you are progressing? I doubt you will be able to remember what you lifted the week before then it becomes a guessing game & wasting your time not seeing results. This is why a structured program is so important to allow you to track your session & improve over a set time period!

So HOW do you do this? 🤔

A common question I get is: if I’m using dumbbells do I log the single DB weight or combine it?

The answer is you can do it either way as long as you always do it that way! Personally if I’m using 10kg DB’s I will just write 10kg because that’s how I remember which one I used and will always do it that was but it’s totally up to you!

But - When it comes to machines & barbells add the weight to the starting weight. e.g. let’s say I put a 10kg plate on each side of the barbell I would write 40kg as the bar alone is 20kg!

So it might look something like this: 3 (sets) x 12 (reps) and then aim to increase either the reps, load or sets to progress 😊

Share & save if this helped you! 🤍

30/06/2021

HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT WEIGHT TO USE IN THE GYM? 🏋🏻‍♀

Want to start strength training but don’t know what weights to use? 🤔

Let’s go with this example: Your program says to do 10 reps for a certain exercise.

You need to pick a weight that is challenging, with the last 2-4 reps feeling the hardest while still maintaining good technique. You should feel close to FAILURE by the 10th rep. A general guide is by the end of your set you should ONLY have about 2 reps left in the tank! (This is called reps in reserve, we aim for 2 RIR, any more than 4 RIR then you’ll need to increase the weight)

As you progress, if you are completing 10 reps and not finding it hard at all and feel like you could keep doing more reps, you need to INCREASE the weight to make it hard again!

Alternatively, if you are finding it so hard that you can’t hit the 10 reps with good technique then you may need to decrease the weight so you can still hit the target reps with good form.

Often we underestimate ourselves, if you have the thought of ‘should I go up in weight’ just try it because most of the time you can! Your capabilities may surprise you. If you’re just cruising through and not finding the workout even somewhat hard then you need to lift heavier!

Don’t be afraid to lift heavy! 💪🏼