Eating Clean & Looking Lean: Are Gyms Making Us Fit or Fat?

The "Eating Clean" side of The Wag Doll Protocol has been going well for me over the 2 months since I began the regime. My version of clean eating, which I described here, isn't so strict that I won't indulge, but these are planned events such as a weekend away and meals out, and I can adjust my diet accordingly.

But this weekend it all went belly up...big belly up!

I was at an event all day on Saturday from 10.30am until 11pm, and was appalled at the complete lack of healthy food options. Where was I?....a sports centre filming a martial arts event for goodness sake!

Lovely cafe area selling a tempting array of choca mocha lattes, cheese toasties, muffins and alcohol (!) for the adults, chocolate bars, fizzy drinks and crisps for the kids.....seriously, are they trying to make us fat or fit in these places?

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For the last 5 years or so I've done my workouts at home here, and I also train at Real Fitness Gym in my home town, which I'm happy to say has water for clients and sells protein powders...that's it! I thought things would have changed since I was a small child gazing at the vending machine after swimming lessons.

But over the last few months I've visited numerous local authority and private run gyms, leisure centres and sports facilities while helping Mr Wag Doll film events. And I'm shocked to find that many of them are still selling overpriced junk food, loaded with sugar and processed fats.

These are the places that are supposed to encourage us and our children to become fit and active, what sort of mixed message is that? Surely it must be a purely money making enterprise on the part of the gym, in which case you have to question their motives and should you really be entrusting your health to 'professionals' who think it acceptable to tempt you in this way. 

Childhood obesity is a growing epidemic, so is it morally acceptable for sports centres to be using pester power techniques to make money? When your child is hungry after sports and swimming it's hard to resist the vending machine but bad habits formed as a child are so much harder to break as an adult. 

According to the British Heart Foundation it would take a 7 year old child 88 minutes of swimming to burn off the 200 calories in an average chocolate bar. So all that good work being done by children to combat a sedentary lifestyle is being undone by these places peddling junk food. Schools in England have been banned from selling crisps and chocolates since 2007, it's about time Jamie Oliver had a word with gyms and sports facilities too!

You could say that as adults we can make a choice, only there wasn't a choice at the sports centre I was filming in, there was junk food or nothing. Luckily the promoters wife arrived mid afternoon with sandwiches and I was able to have something more nutritious than a Kit Kat (which I'd already eaten...), but these sandwiches were supplied by the event promoter, not provided by the Sports Centre.

Now the odd blip like this isn't going to kill me, but done regularly when going to the gym...it's not good.  The lesson I've learnt is that I need to be much more prepared, and take my own food unless I know beforehand there will be clean eating options, silly me for assuming there would be healthy food available in a sports centre.

So how do you guys prepare for a day out while trying to stick to a healthy eating regime, and how as parents would you combat the dreaded vending machine? Have you come across any sports facilities & gyms that actually do promote healthy eating?

You would think in addition to providing healthy foods, gyms would use creative advertising concepts for interested clients who use their services. Muscle rage is a good example of a supplement store in the UK that fitness centers could actively promote to add value to their clients’ exercising regimen. Another viable strategy that could be adopted would be to go into partnership with the company and retail a well-known health product. Sports nutrition is a giant industry that any serious-minded entity can study and carve a niche for themselves.

And so onto the Ring Series Kickboxing and K1 event I attended, a great show comprising of an afternoon event giving children and up coming fighters the chance to gain experience in the ring,

...and an evening event of experienced fighters with some spectacular bouts, culminating in the WRSA British Women's Kickboxing title fight between Chloe Taylor & Lucy Horrobin, these girls have some serious skills, going all out for 6 full rounds, great to see a women's fight at the top of the bill. Here are some photos from the main event, and you don't get bodies like these guys by eating dirty!