YOU might rethink that chocolate bar or can of softdrink if a new push to display the amount of exercise needed to work off food and drink on labels is successful.

Cancer Council Queensland have voiced their support for the idea which was first suggested in the British Medical Journal and so has fitness experts Sharny and Julius Kieser.

"I like the idea," Julius said.

"It's similar to cigarette packets showing the damage of smoking.

"People often don't realise how much effort it is to burn something off."

Julius said the labels could be particularly helpful in shining a light on foods that are labelled as healthy but aren't really.

"I think it should be on everything because some healthy foods are actually pretend healthy or healthy junk.

"It'd be a good basis for comparison on foods."

Julius was sceptical though on whether it would actually result in people making healthy choices.

"I think people who see that the chocolate bar they want will take 5km they might choose something else but it'd be if they were going to have a Boost Bar that took 5km they might instead choose a Kit Kat that takes 3km. I don't think they'll say I'll go get a cabbage. That'd be ideal but I don't think that'll happen."

• One slice of pepperoni pizza - 272 burpees

• 50g chocolate bar - 27-minute run

• One M&M - walk the length of a footy field

• McDonald's cheeseburger - 26-minute run

• Meat pie - 53-minute run

• Can of Coke - 20-minute run

• Glass of white wine - 28-minute swim

• Pint of beer - 1-hour 4-minute walk

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS IDEA TO DISPLAY THE AMOUNT OF EXERCISE NEEDED TO WORK OFF FOOD AND DRINK ON LABELS?

JOIN OUR DAILY WATERCOOLER BY LEAVING A COMMENT BELOW.

What you're saying on Facebook:

Ash Man Nuske: "In the end, our bodies use a lot of calories merely to function just at rest. This paints the picture that you will need to do this amount of exercise to not get fat if you eat the product. It doesn't take into account the daily intake just to function at rest. It will only breed obsession and an unhealthy relationship with food."

Laura-Lee Stutt:" This made me chuckle. No more pizza for me, 27 burpees kill me

its a good idea though, would work for me!"

Lewis Beckman: "It'd be so impossibly inaccurate, that you may as well tell people to educate themselves about nutrition."

Overtha Hill: "Clever idea but realistically just like cigarettes, it won't alter all peoples consumption behaviours if they aren't willing to make things better."

​

Eleah Jude Cregan: "I don't know.... But that Mc Donald's I had today was totally worth it."

Dan Sullivan: "People who have never done a burpee will not equate the effort of a burpee to calories."

Karen Campbell: "Awesome idea!"

Hsat Ttocallev: "Hell yes. Would make me think twice."

They're commonly used to bake biscuits, but the humble baking tray can actually help you lose weight.

Personal trainers and husband and wife duo Sharny and Julius Kieser have shared a video of a six-minute full-body workout - using two baking trays in place of gym equipment.

Mrs Kieser told Daily Mail Australia if the workout was done everyday it would only a few weeks to start seeing results.

Ab slider: Persona trainers Sharny and Julius Kieser have released a video that shows you how to do a full-body workout using two baking trays

Mountain climbers: The trays are placed under the hands or feet allowing you to slide across the carpet

Lateral slider: The workout shows a series of six exercises, including hamstring sliders, that are performed for one minute each

'You would start seeing results in a few weeks in terms of fitness,' she said.

'By eight weeks time you would have a major difference in body tone.'

And when it comes to working out at home, baking trays are just the beginning.

Hamstring slider: Mrs Kieser said anyone who did the workout everyday would notice a change in their fitness levels after two weeks

Working up a sweat: After eight weeks of doing the workout daily you would see a change in your body tone

Muscle mass: But Sharny says that when working out at home, baking trays are just the beginning

Bath towels, pillows, tins of spaghetti and drink bottles can all be used as workout equipment, saving you time and money on expensive gym memberships or weights.

The baking tray video showed Mr Kieser perform ab sliders, lateral sliders, knee tucks, mountain climbers, hamstring sliders and sliding lunges by placing his hands and feet in the trays and sliding across the carpet.

Each exercise is performed for one minute each.

Fitness duo: Mr and Mrs Kieser share workout videos and fitness tips online and have a number of books

Home workout: Use pillows or towels for an uneven squat (left), or a mop bucket for a bicep curl (right)

The video of the simple workout has since gone viral, with more than 46,000 views since it was uploaded on Monday.

'We have to try these when we are to broke to afford gym membership,' one person wrote.

Others voiced their concerns that a baking tray would scratch their tiles or wooden floors - but Mrs Kieser had a solution.

'People who don’t have carpet, who have wooden floors and tiles, you can use socks on your hands and feet to do the same sort of movements,' she said.

'You could even use hand mops and clean the floor at the same time.'

A common exercise performed at the gym is tossing a medicine ball from side to side.

Mrs Kieser said you could perform this exercise at home using a pillow.

'It's not about the weight ... but about the way you do the movement,' she said.

Body weight training: You can perform a pull up by hanging underneath the table

Training together: 'You don't need expensive gym equipment, you don't need a gym,' Mrs Kieser said

Towels or pillows piled on the floor can be used to perform an uneven squat that allows you to activate your core and leg muscles.

Another trick is to use tins of spaghetti or bottles of water as hand weights or to lay under the table and perform pull up.

'You don't need expensive gym equipment, you don't need a gym,' Mrs Kieser said.

Multi-tasking: Mrs Kieser is known for her fit approach to pregnancy and was pictured exercising while breastfeeding her two-week-old son

Transformation: The Queensland resident is a mother-of-six who previously gained 30 kilograms during pregnancy (left) before taking a fit approach to pregnancy (right)

Mrs Kieser, who is a 35-year-old mother-of-six, is known for her fit approach to pregnancy.

The Queensland resident has previously gained 30 kilograms during pregnancy, and plagued with severe morning sickness and post natal depression, vowed to make a change.

Through what she calls a 'fit pregnancy' - exercising regulalrly and eating well - Mrs Kieser said she had no morning sickness or post natal depression.

Check out the workout video here

I shaved my head and grew a beard. I wore black T-shirts and bigger hoodies. Then I took my first progress photo (I didn't want to). I looked at it for ages, all the while battling with the excuses and denial running through my head. "I'm busy with work" "I'll start next week," "nobody really notices," "it's not THAT bad..."

But it was bad, I was taking your run-of-the-mill, everyday dad issues and eating them. Along with a lot of other calories. I'd eat until I was sufficiently stretched to be satisfied, then be too tired (and full) to exercise. So I'd eat some more. Then I'd decide that I would start tomorrow.

In order to start tomorrow I would have to eat everything that I would miss, just in case I would "feel like it" tomorrow. “Get it out of the system" I'd tell myself. But I couldn't. Because the system is always hungry. Always telling me "one more, and you'll quit junk forever."

One day I put the kids in the car and they screamed the whole way home for an icecream. Or pizza, or bikkies. Because I didn't spend as much time with them as mum did, I had been buying them off with food. Then using them as the excuse for me to eat the pizza, the bikkies or the icecream.

They had become like me. Eating to satisfy an emotional need. I wasn't depressed; just stressed. No time, no energy. Always angry. Always on edge. Food took the edge off… But only temporarily.

Then I took the photo. Looking at it, I realised that I needed to be a better father. I was acting and dressing tough to cover my insecurities. Me, the big patriarch was at the complete mercy of food. I would take a bullet for any of my kids, no question. But I couldn’t put down a chocolate bar for them.

I had become food's bitch. But I denied it vehemently. "I am a man,” I’d argue with myself. “I can't be an emotional eater! Men don't do that! If anything I eat more junk when I'm happy."

But happy is an emotion too. I was stressed, but like every guy, I gloss it with a sheen of playfulness. And my 'fun' side was to eat. A LOT!

Then I said to myself, "It's just not fair to burden my children with my food issues. I created mine through laziness. I can't create theirs through MY laziness. At least give them a chance..."

So I started fresh. I did things differently. I prepared meals. I ate proactively, not reactively. I ate simple food with my kids and spoke about what good it does. I cut down on the bullshit and "flavour," I found simple was easy and easy food beats complex food and variety every time.

I cut out all my "trigger food" and learned everything I could about the mathematics and science of fat loss. I didn't trust 'concepts' or fads. Paleo, vegan, juicing were all concepts I’d tried and failed at. The concepts were too broad; they didn’t account for my appetite.

I needed to know that what I was doing would produce an exact result. I learned to calculate my fat loss in advance so that I would not be living in hope, I'd be living practically, mathematically and logically. I calculated calories and macros and ate the same food every day. I didn’t trust waiting for another Monday. If I messed up, I was back on the wagon the very next day.

I then set about repairing my relationship with my kids. The only times they had seen me happy was when I was in a food coma. I had selfishly linked joy to food for them. I had to show them another way. All children learn more from what their father does than what he says. So I began doing things that made me happy.

It started off simple. Taking them for walks and teaching them things. Growing up, I used to love teaching younger kids. I would spend hours teaching my cousins to tie their laces or to throw a ball. I started doing this with my kids and they flourished. Most dads do this. I knew to do this and I wanted to do this, but in the pursuit of financial security I had forgotten about it.

Not any more.

I started working out in front of my kids. Simple things, like pushups, burpees, squats, sit-ups and lunges. Anything that gave me the endorphin rush. I didn’t have much time, so I just went as fast as I could. I was unfit and fat, so most days I’d only work out for 2-10 minutes before I was on the floor, completely exhausted with a smile from ear to ear as my kids giggled and jumped all over me.

Pretty soon, they wanted to join in, so I started throwing them in the air and swinging them. They climbed on my back while I did pushups and I carried them while I did lunges. I got stronger. I got fitter. And with my pre calculated nutrition, my body changed fast.

It didn’t stop there.

What I thought would take years to repair had only taken a few weeks. I hadn’t heard the kids scream or cry for junk food since I started exercising with them. They did, however begin screaming and crying if I stopped exercising before they were finished having their fun. I didn’t mind. Through their persistence, they pushed me further physically than I had ever done myself. I only stopped working out when I was completely, absolutely exhausted.

Kids are the most amazing personal trainers. They refuse to believe your excuses, they throw tantrums and even try to lift you off the ground by your hair if they think you’re not done.

My kids have saved my life, they’ve showed me what’s important and it is my hope that every dad gets to link joy with exercise for their kids. Be that for their kids. So one day, they grow up and credit you as the reason they find it so easy to be healthy in this messed up world of greed and gluttony.

Since transforming his own life, Julius has launched a global program for dads who want to get fit too.  For more information, visit fitdad.club

The photo on the left was taken at the end of the Fitdad program. I loved every single moment of that program, because it was the first time in my life that I had incorporated my two greatest loves - fitness and family. I lost a whole bunch of weight and ended up in a photo shoot (left).

​FitDad is incredible, I've been blessed and lucky to be the person held responsible for so many dads reconnecting with their kids through fitness.  If you're a fat dad with no time, I urge you to check it out.  I guarantee you'll love it.

​

A history of helping guys gain muscle fast

Until Fitdad, one of the things I loved to do was to help young guys to get bigger.

Wherever I’ve been in the world, it has always been around rugby. Every rugby player wants to get bigger. I have in my time helped a whole bunch of young guys pack on weight so they could play up a grade, or get picked up by a professional team.

My brother from another mother

While I was doing this, I helped older, skinny guys to just put on some decent size. Just so they could fill out their T-shirt or impress their more masculine physique onto their wives.

​Check out this video from way back in 2010...  Yes, our PT studio was called Stripfit.

The problem for me though, was that by the time I had helped each of the guys for the day, I was just plain burnt out, and wanted to play with my kids. I avoided the gym outside of work. Every now and then, I’d slip under the bench press between clients, or do some pull-ups, but mostly I just did nothing.

Then came FitDad, and I basically cut most of the fat off me, and exposed what was underneath.

For someone in the fitness industry, it’s like taking off your clothes and looking at what you really look like. You see, for male “athletes” muscle size determines your shape, once all the fat has come off.

While I didn’t have tiny muscles, I could certainly pick some areas that I wanted to improve on. (notice in the above photos how I never showed my legs?)

This, combined with a whole bunch of once-fat-now-skinny FitDads who had reached the end of the FitDad fairytale, prompted me to document what I’d learnt over the past 20 years of helping men get bigger.

​

I didn't want to do it

Initially I was just going to “tell” the skinny dads what to do, I worked so hard to get lighter, and enjoyed running at such a light weight. I loved chasing my kids around all day, and I just didn’t think I had the capacity to put the time into physically fatiguing my body every night.

getting fit is exhilarating... getting big is exhausting.

4 of my 5 kids are too young for school and don’t go to daycare.

To get bigger, you have to train to complete exhaustion and rest/recovery is essential.

It’s said you’re meant to sleep for 9 hours a day to get the right conditions for size gains. I sleep a maximum of 6. I’d love more, but I have to get work done while the kids sleep, so I get up at 2AM to work.

Getting fit GIVES you energy. You can survive on less sleep, the endorphins turn you into a cocaine fairy. Always high, always ready for a challenge.

Getting big, on the other hand, requires full concentration and full use of your energy. It burns you out.

I train in the gym at night after the kids go to sleep. I tried to train in the morning, but I’d be asleep on the couch by 9am.

Sharny doesn't let me sleep during the day

​

So I’d get the kids to bed at 6PM, lie there with them for half an hour to make sure they actually were asleep. Most of the time I’d fall asleep, remember that this all happened in winter.

That delicious end of day exhausted sleep? I had to wake myself out of it every single night. While it was hard to get up, it worked out to be the best pre workout. By the time I had stumbled to the kitchen, I was ready to hit the iron.

​

Eating for size​

You can get big and fat quite easily, but if you want to maintain some sort of definition, whilst gaining solid muscle, you have to split your day into two phases. The diet phase and the growth phase.

For me, the diet phase starts when I wake up, until around 2PM. I find I can stay pretty lean on food for the first 12 hours of the day. But by 2PM, I’m not only hungry, but I’m actually pretty sore. The DOMS is already there.

A note on DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)

I find that DOMS is a great indicator of how well I trained. If I feel it the next day, I know I over reached. If I feel it in the workout of the next day, once the blood is flowing to the next body part to get pounded, I know I did a good job.

If I don’t feel DOMS, I know I’ve cheated myself.

If you want a body part to grow, train until you can guarantee you’ll be sore the next day. In the muscle belly. Not so much in the joints. If your joints are sore, but your muscles aren’t, then you lifted too heavy and put the strain in the joints. Drop the weight and do your reps slower. Keep tension in the muscle the entire movement.

So to achieve scoreless the next day, you have to forget about how heavy you’re lifting and instead make the focus on mentally isolating the muscle you’re working, and flexing the shit out of it across the entire rep range for the entire set.

Your set doesn’t finish when you burn.

This is one of the hardest things to do, because it’s like holding your hand in a fire, but the longer you can work while burning, the better your results will be. Often, the difference between shitty results and miraculous change is actually in the one or two reps you didn’t do, but could. This is the fun of the game, the mind of the lifter. It’s why you see posters saying “It’s you against you.”

Not doing the pain reps is like the mountain climber not climbing the final peak to the summit. He’s done so much work to get there, but balks at the pain. Push through the pain and find true failure. It fucking hurts, but it is better than staying the same.

​

Back to the eating...

​

Part 1: The Diet Phase

Until 2 O’clock, all that matters is that I have antioxidants (veggies), water and a steady stream of amino acids (protein). The protein came from eggs, left over chicken breast or BCAA, and sometimes a protein shake.

I am also very partial to Sharny's banana bread recipe, made with Banana flour (a really healthy resistant starch).​

Calories are kept quite low.  I wanted all the calories I ate to be put toward muscle growth.​

After 2, it was time to eat for the nights workout.

​

​Part 2: The Growth Phase

I think of everything analytically. It’s how I’m wired.  Here's something I think about all the time:

If you are doing a body part once a week, then that means you have only 4 opportunities to change that body part each month.

Click to Tweet

​

I really, really hated to waste any of those opportunities (still do).  I know all too well that one of the biggest killers of a good workout is not having enough fuel.

So I ate a good, solid meal at 2PM, with lots of sweet potato, but no sugars, starchy carbs or fat.  I would definitely include a lean protein source, for example chicken breast, tuna, beef round, barramundi.

By the time I worked out at 6pm, the meal would all be in my system, ready to be used.

If I was still hungry at around 4PM, I'd smash some oats or some more sweet potato.

With each of these meals, I’d have as little fat as possible, only what was in my meat and I cooked with coconut oil if I had to. Coconut oil is dynamite for fat loss.

Immediately after my workout, I'd have my post workout cocktail, then a massive feast of carbs and protein.  Basically I'd aim to eat at least half my day's calories after my workout, and then go straight to bed (around 8).

At 2AM, I'd wake up, take a big ol' shit, measure myself (weight, gut circumference, skin folds and body fat), then go for a 30 minute walk or do some intervals to wake me up so I could work.​

​

Supplements for muscle gain

I made the following pics for you to save to your phone.  It's my way of saving cash on some pretty heavy expenses.  You can get pre made stuff, which is fine, but just look at the ingredients list to see if it has the right amount of each key ingredient.  If not, you may need to buy a filler bottle of the missing ingredient.

This is a great way to get your pre workout to taste good, but still be effective.​

I buy all of my supplements from the guys at Nutrition Warehouse.  Their house brand is called Genetix Nutrition, and it's cheap.  If you email me, I'll give you a code that will give you a 25% discount on any genetix nutrition product, plus a free shaker bottle.

save these photos and post them to instagram/facebook so you have them handy.

The pictures are quite self explanatory, but in case, LMM means Lean Muscle Mass.  Dextrose is just  brewing sugar that you can buy from the supermarket for about $3 per kilo.

At first, it sucked. I wanted to quit. I did quit. On the basic lifts, by focussing on proper form, I could barely lift a child’s weight. On the bench press, I shook like a leaf on 40kg at around 6 reps. (The tempo I find best is a 3010 or 4010.)

But worst of all was that I just literally couldn’t get my arms to let my chest do any work. I was so pissed off. I would burn out in my triceps, and my chest was still flat and cold. Like it wasn’t even being used. Because it wasn’t.

Still now, 6 months on, I have to concentrate really, really hard to get my chest to do any work. I’m getting better at it, sure, but it takes SO MUCH concentration.

Another thing that I sucked at was squats. I could do body weight squats or burpees at speed infinitum, but put a weight on my shoulders and I’d buckle in the knees like a baby giraffe.

In the past 6 months though, legs have become my favourite workout. It’s still not easy, I have to hang off the chinup bar after every single set and cannot do more than about 20 squats total before my lower back flares up too much. But I can report that last week I did a 180kg squat with good clean form, and then tried a 200kg squat.

If you look at the photos, you can see the difference that working legs has made. My quads are not good yet, but they’re better. I’ve purposefully trained them every 3rd day to complete failure and beyond for the entire 6 months. My calves are actually my favourite muscle to train - I do them every second night (alternating with abs).

Irondad legs difference

I still hate doing abs. I don’t like the burn, but they feel harder, so that’s something. I know my abs have something to do with my back problems, so I’ve been working them quite hard.

This is how I do abs:

A video posted by Sharny and Julius (@sharnyandjulius) on Aug 13, 2015 at 9:17pm PDT

and this, when the kids are asleep:

A video posted by Sharny and Julius (@sharnyandjulius) on Sep 3, 2015 at 12:09pm PDT

While my body fat percentage has stayed about the same, it's a percentage.  This means that I have put on fat.  The illusion of being ripped is actually because my abs are just bigger, so poke through the fat better.

I'm hoping that by the end of my cut, I'll still have the bigger abs, but less fat - so they may some day look good.  Hopefully!​

I’m very fortunate that I didn’t get injured, but I know from years of training footy players that ego causes injury, so lucky for me in my home gym, I have nobody to impress. I also know that one of the limiters to size is the tightness of the sheath around the muscle, called the fascia.

Obligatory photo of a good looking woman

Rolling out the muscles really, really slowly on a foam roller has helped me to reduce the risk of injury, as well as stretching the fascia. Try it yourself. Lay one of your quads on the roller with your full weight like the photo above. Then try to relax the muscle. Keep relaxing until you feel the quads separate.

It's a weird 'slipping' feeling inside the muscle, and when you're done you’ll feel like you’re resting directly on the bone. Now inch ever so slowly up (or down) while trying to keep your muscle as relaxed as possible. The pain is intense, but it radiates away and you’ll feel a million dollars when you stand up.

​

What I enjoyed or didn't enjoy about muscle gain

I liked getting my testosterone levels back up

front delt looking like a walnut (chest still flat!)

FitDad is awesome, absolutely awesome.  I really think though, that IronDad is my best work yet. There are subtle nuances to the program that literally turn it into a masterclass on fat free muscle gain.

FitDad is all about exercising with your kids, and being a better dad. But with IronDad, I had a clean slate to create the perfect program, using everything I had learnt over nearly 2 decades. I literally picked the best parts of the best programs I had created or used in the past.

If this is something you might be interested in, then go here... everyone who signs up gets lifetime access (for less than you would pay a personal trainer), as well as that massive NW discount.

PS it's not just for dads.  While filming it and programming it, I thought about all the young guys that have asked me for help.  IronDad is for anyone wanting to learn how to gain muscle, without getting fat or taking steroids.​