Vampire Turned Viking: How Charlie Bewley Gets in Shape

You may have lusted after Charlie Bewley in Twilight or Nashville, but it’s for his latest role in Viking blockbuster Hammer Of The Gods that he’s really pulled out all the fitness stops. ‘I did tons of rowing,’ he says. ‘Hours and hours of it. It was like, “How much rowing can I do in a day? The machine’s gonna break before I do”, that kind of thing.’ The sexy Leicester-born actor can now also handle a broadsword, so he’s definitely got that protective thing going. But let’s look at a few more reasons why Charlie Bewley should be your new wellness crush:

 

1. He Skips: ‘I’ve recently started skipping loads,’ says Charlie. ‘I’m getting addicted to skipping. I feel like my legs are actually getting younger as I skip and it absolutely shreds you down – I’ve lost something like a stone [6.3kg] just from skipping. Skipping is easier to do than running because you don’t need to find a route, you can just get out there, stick on some Armin van Buuren and get to it.’

 

2. He Runs, Endurance-Style: Charlie recalls, ‘I did an ultra – well, a half marathon before a full marathon – but that wasn’t too hard, it was kind of a race against myself. My toughest race was probably a half Ironman. It was my first ever triathlon, and I did it in Mexico. It was absolutely baking, my shoes were melting on to the Tarmac. It was such a horrible experience – I did it by myself and when I finished I was like, “There’s nobody here to see it!” I almost started crying.’ We’ll run the next one with you, Charlie!

 

3. He’s Loves Training: ‘I get in a really bad mood if I don’t exercise,’ Charlie asserts. ‘It’s not something I have any choice over, with the parts I’m playing, but I really do love exercise. I like Spartan races, I like feats of human endeavour, I used to love doing half marathons and things like that. There’s a point about 15 minutes into a good run in the hills when I feel awesome – it’s like having my own little adventure every day.’

 

4. He’s Motivated: Charlie enthuses, ‘You’ve got to generate the stakes in your own head. You’ve got to decide, why do you want this for yourself? What is there about this race that makes you want to do it? We’re all alone, we’re all born alone, we’re all going to die alone, but we might as well do something in the meantime. I’ve always said you should find out who you are, because you don’t know what’s coming – you should work it out in case the apocalypse happens or something. I think it’s important to find the warrior within you before you find the war.’

 

5. And, Just in Case We Haven’t Mentioned it, He’s a Viking: To get in shape for the role, Charlie notes, ‘I carried a sandbag everywhere I went and filled it up wherever I was. It was like, empty out the Argentine sand, add in the Venice Beach sand. I do a lot of rotational stuff with it, a lot of twisting and carrying. It’s a real a lifesaver because out in places like Morocco there’s nothing, no other way to train…I had a broadsword I’m supposed to have had all my life, so I spent a lot of time working on that with our stunt team and I hope that comes across. It was such a great learning experience. Richard Ryan is a great stunt director, he really knows his stuff.’

Categories: bewley, Celebrity Wellness, charlie, Charlie Bewley, fitness regime, nbsp, skipping, viking

Fitness in 30 Days: Are You Up to the Big Challenge?

The winter weather can play havoc with your weight loss and fitness regime, and yet it is at this busy time of year that you should work even harder to protect your wellness and wellbeing. It’s easy to lose sight of your fitness and nutrition goals when you are either bored or frantically busy, and it’s also very easy to give yourself lots of excuses for not sticking to your goals.

 

One of the best things that you can do is to set yourself a 30 day fitness challenge. The best thing about this is that you don’t need to be super-fit or even belong to a gym to sign up to take part in this challenge, and – best of all – the routine can be tailored for your interests and individual needs.

 

The point of the 30 Day Fitness Challenge is to help you do something different every day (fitness related of course) so that every muscle in your body gets a workout at some point and in some way, and you do not become bored with your fitness regime. The structured nature of this kind of plan helps you to follow it and stick to it, and the changing nature can be really beneficial if you are feeling a little bit of the January blues. The fact that the routine changes each day also gives your muscles a good amount of recovery time in between each exercise.

 

In order to make your own personal Fitness Challenge, you first have to draw up a chart with 30 spaces, and in each space you should allocate a different type of exercise. These exercises should be in the form of mini challenges.

 

There are all kinds of challenges you can set yourself, such as doing 100 push ups, doing 100 crunches, moving a mile in any way you like, doing plank exercises and so on.

Categories: big, bored, challenge, day fitness, fitness, fitness challenge, fitness regime, nbsp, Routine

When is Diet more Important than Exercise, and Vice Versa?

The biggest health question around has to be “Is a healthy diet or exercise better for your wellbeing?” While I’m not going to tell you that you should choose one over the other, the truth is that, depending on what you’re after specifically, sometimes you need to shift your focus. For the best and quickest results to lose weight, say, you need to emphasize diet, while your waning libido will benefit the most from a few tweaks to your fitness regime. We’ve rounded up the five main wellness goals, as well as the related research and expert opinions, so you can see which of the two you need to focus on:

 

1. Weight Loss: Although both are obviously the way forward, dieting definitely has the edge here. Tim Church, MD, the director of preventive medicine research at Louisiana State University, explains, ‘It’s clear that you need to restrict calories in your diet to lose weight—and exercise to keep it off. Most people who exercise to lose weight and don’t restrict calories shed only 2-3% of their weight over six to 12 months.’ It’s just easier to deny yourself 500 calories a day than burn that much through your fitness regime. If you consume a low-calorie dense diet of less fat, more produce and adding water to recipes, you can easily consume 230 to 396 fewer calories a day says a study published in the journal Appetite.

 

2. More Energy: Having enough energy is hugely important to your health and overall sense of wellbeing, as you need it to exercise and basically function. However, even though exercise can give you a good surge of energy  diet reigns supreme here as eating the right way throughout the day will give you a steadier supply of fuel. According to nutritional biochemist Shawn M. Talbott, PhD, author of The Secret of Vigour, ‘With proper nutrition and well-timed meals, you’ll keep your blood sugar balanced. This is important, since blood sugar spikes and drops are a leading cause of energy fluctuations.’

 

3. Heart Health: Although a lot of articles on heart health are diet-centric, you should actually focus on exercise. A study published in the journal Circulation, which was eight years in the making, found that being physically fit reduces your risk of dying from heart disease. Lead author Martha Gulati, MD, associate professor of medicine at Ohio State University, notes, ‘Being fit is more important than weight or body mass index for heart health.’ This is because exercise lowers your weight, alleviates your stress, reduces your cholesterol, and increases your blood flow – all of which are important for heart health.

 

4. Brain Power: Exercise is the method of choice for those who want to keep their mind sharp. Gary W. Small, MD, the director of the UCLA Longevity Centre and co-author of The Alzheimer’s Prevention Programme, comments, ‘When people exercise, the areas that control memory, thinking, and attention increase in the brain. Regular exercisers also have less of the abnormal protein deposits in the brain that have been linked to Alzheimer’s.’ Diet still has an impact on your mental wellness, Small adds, ‘It’s just that the effects of exercise are more pronounced based on the evidence we have now.’

 

5. Libido: When it comes to sex, exercise wins out every time. Heather Hausenblas, an associate professor of health sciences at Jacksonville University, argues, ‘Exercise is one of the best ways to improve body image, which affects libido.’ Your libido is affected by mood and self-esteem, both of which can be improved via exercise. For better sex, Lori Brotto, an associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of British Columbia, advises yoga and strength-training exercises.

Categories: associate professor, Blood Sugar, diet, exercise, fitness regime, Goals, heart health, Lose weight, restrict calories, state university, study published