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Annette goes on a journey

Annette James of Picton Sports has just got back into her training, after a break of around ten years or so!

 It’s always important to see how different people react to exercise, and in this case, after a very long lay off, with the responsibilities of two children, and a busy business to look after.

Annette got her first session under her belt last night, so i thought you’d like to hear in her own words, how she found it.

“Hi Keri

My first proper workout for at least 10 years with you yesterday and it was hell!!!.  Mixture of feelings before, during and after.  A bit anxious before we met up because I haven’t done anything for a good while apart from walk the dog which I thought would have kept me pretty fit.

  Boy was I wrong!!!!.  During the workout I felt awful.  Thought I was going to be sick and was completely defeatist the whole time.  I couldn’t wait for the workout to end and all the way through I was thinking there was no way I was putting myself through this again!

  Afterwards though on my drive home I felt pretty good and went straight to do my food shop before I changed my mind (bought loads of healthy things for me and my family). I felt a  bit disappointed with myself for having such a negative mental attitude throughout the workout.  I think if I had been more positive I could have done alot better (being weighed and measured for the first time in years didn’t help)

 Woke up this morning not aching much but feeling very tired.  There is no way I am giving up and having to go through that first workout all over again in a few months time. I am taking my eating and exercising one day at a time.  The only way is up!

Annette

This is a highly encouraging start and the most important thing now is to keep going after a tough start.

Annette realises that food is key too and she hs already set out to get a good shopping list in.

She has every chance of getting back to where she was 10 years ago, and a whole lot more in my view.

All she needs is to be consistent, start believing in herself again and focus on making slow but gradual improvements.

This is her big chance to do it again, feel better, look her best and achieve big things once again.

Annette will post regularly, so it will be fun to keep up with her progress!

Twitt
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Your type of start to the week

So how do you face this monday? Is it in good shape or bad shape? Lots of energy or no energy? Full of enthusiasm or down and out? Intent on having a big week or don’t care either way? Proud of your achievements or given up on yourself?

Whatever your situation, you can change it for the better right now.

How many of you have had a heavy drinking session on friday, saturday or sunday or all three? If you have, perhaps you are in not the greatest moods to have a big week for your exercise. Scaling back your weekend drinking will help a lot, and im someone who likes a few drinks from time to time at the weekend, so i know how it feels to struggle through the day after, it hurts!!!

We always like to talk about how important monday is, how pivotal it is to us to getting momentum for a big week, so its vital we set the conditions in place to get you all off to a flier!

If eating healthily on the weekend goes against the grain a bit for you, lets try and fix that on monday. The most simple thing you can do right now is drink just water the rest of the day. This will clean your system out and the toxins built up on the weekend will leave and create a great base for the rest of the week.

Now that your system is primed for improvement, its time to flood your system with nutrients, im talking fruit and vegetables, im talking good carbs and protein, all designed to give your body the best possible chance of having a highly energetic week, not only that but giving your body the best chance of repairing its broken down muscle tissue, from all those workouts.

This is a highly underrated process and if you want this whole thing to work very well without any unnecessay pain, you have to get  with the programme and lets do it rght now!!

Give yourself that chance today, come on lets do it right now and get active, give your body all the nutrients it deserves and lets have a bet right now.

I bet you right now that if you are willing to give this programme everything right now, and im talking today MONDAY, you will feel significantly better in yourself by the end of the week, leading to even more expectations next week. Its that easy and its that rewarding!!

Let’s make it happen!!!

Twitt
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Big end to the week-let’s make it happen!!!

For some of you, the end of the week is the chance to get one more workout in before the weekend. You may then take the weekend off, or just do a low key workout and be glad to enjoy the time off.

For others though, and there are plenty of you, the weekend really is the time when you get your BEST workouts in.

I know some of you go on very long and demanding walks, enjoying the countryside and scenery which can be breathtaking.

Some of you enjoy long bike rides, and the weekend represents the only time when you have such an opportunity.

Whatever your way of staying in shape, i applaud your efforts and your courage to do so. We go on all the time about people who talk a good game, or are simply reluctant to take the plunge to get fit and healthy, so make sure you know you are one of the few who take their health and fitness seriously. You should know that if you are regular reader of this site.

This is also a time of year when events are popular too. From certain bike rides like the gower bike ride which has been and gone, the mumbles childline triathlon which we organise every year at the end of april, to the swansea 10k run at the end of september, these are all events anyone can take part in, and all of which are more enjoyable if you’ve put in a bit of preparation for. We have plenty of ideas on here for those sort of events, and how to measure your progress and combine your training.

I realised the other day also that we’ve already posted hundreds of times on here, so that means we are developing a library of information on here for you to use to reach new heights, to figure out what’s going wrong and what’s going right with your programme. If you’re struggling for motivation, then there’s absolutely tons of ways on here to get fired up about your training, your eating and ways on how to get your desire to improve to amazingly highly levels.

There’s also the 12 week challenge we had earlier this year. If you click on this on the right hand side of page, you can go back from day 84 all the way back to day 1, which charts a lot of history on how your mental state can be challenged over 12 weeks, and strategies that need to be used to counter the obstacles and challenges that always come along when you’re talking about a period as long as 12 weeks.

Some people stuck it out, some didn’t and hopefully we all did actually learn a bit about ourselves throughout that time.

The good news is that we will repeat that process in january 2011, and you’re all welcome to get in your best shape all over again!

Have a great weekend!

Twitt
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More energy to moan than just do it!

Most of us spend more time and energy protesting about doing exercise than actually doing it.

Most of us work up a sweat in finding ways not to eat foods that are going to seriously help our health.

If there was ever one great thing Nike gave to use, it was their marketing team’s slogan “just do it”!!!

For example, i saw two different kids similar in ages this morning. One was a pleasure to work with, looking for hard work and wanted to do his best with his workouts and eating, and may be on the verge of becoming a professional sportman, make that a near certainty.

The other one had maybe as much talent, but was a couple of years younger, but the attitudes couldn’t be more different. Everything was questioned, everything was moaned at, and everything was done with the wrong kind of attitude. This is when attitude is everything when it comes to getting results. This boy will learn the hard way, but in one month’s time, he will know the value of hard work and hopefully develop more respect for others and himself.

This is what we talk about on here. Isn’t the process of thinking up your next excuse an effort in itself, but does it really deep down make you feel any better. Surely the feeling of self-satisfaction you get from sticking to a programme for at least months, giving it everything you’ve got, is going to be so much better than dodging the searching questions you’ve asked yourself about your health.

GETTING REAL and being honest is vital.

If you’re in your 30’s, 40’s or 50’s, are you really saying that you can never be like you were when you were 25?!!! I certainly don’t believe that one bit because i have many examples of people achieving amazing fitness well into their 50’s and 60’s, and people doing well in their 70’s and 80’s too, and guess what? NONE OF THEM MOAN ABOUT LIFE’S LITTLE OBSTACLES!!

Once you decide NOT to moan about all the little things in life, THINGS WILL IMPROVE RAPIDLY for you. If you don’t believe me, PLEASE TRY IT, I MEAN PLEASE TRY it and take a chance in your life again.

Simply being more active is a huge start for you, simply shopping for food that is actually going to do you good is going to be an awesome start for you. BELIEVING IN YOURSELF IS GOING TO BE A MASSIVE, HUGE, FANTASTIC TURNING POINT IN YOUR LIFE AND IT CAN START RIGHT NOW!!!

It all starts here and now, no more moaning, let’s do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Twitt
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Graveyard of ambition?

Was it DylanThomas who said that Swansea was the graveyard of ambition?

This may or may not be true depending on your point of view of course, but here’s my experience with the surrounding area, and probably goes for all of the country.

You will always get someon with ambition, it probably starts with being a child in primary school and being asked what you want to become when you grow up.

Most people give examples of jobs/professions that have some status in society and roles that usually do the community some good.

Then we get into secondary school, and depending on the crowd we hang out with, we either get more ambitious and get more excited, get less ambitious and more cynical, or we feel a sense of hopelessness, not knowing the direction our lives are going to take when we leave school.

Then when we leave school, we either go to college, we get a job which is hard to do in the current harsh economic climate, or we simply “sign on”, or go on a course.

You can see by taking any of those paths, our ambitions are going to vary greatly. If you hang out with those who have no jobs, the ambitions discussed every day are likely to be minimal, and standards are going to be fairly low to begin with. A lot of people are in this situation, because of the jobs leaving the ecomony seemingly all the tie, this is truly tragic and i feel sorry for al those put in that situation, working your way out of it is incredibly difficult, but can be done. I’ve seen many do it, and achieve great respect from it.

When it comes to exercise, the facts in the UK are that most people DO NOT exercise regularly 3 times per week. This means that when most people have conversations about exercise, the likely tone is bound to be negative.

If you speak regularly to people who want the best for themselves, their health, their fitness, just about everythig, the tone is likely to be very upbeat, and the tone is likely to be about possibility, not negativity.

So you can see that swansea could indeed be the graveyard of ambition, but it could also  this amazing place of possibility too, and to be honest, i see this a whole lot more than the negative side. I also see negativity from time to time, but choose not do dwell on it and try to see the possibilities out there, and with people’s health. Those of you who know that being fit and healthy is an absolutely fantastic place to be, and im here to help you get there!

Forget the downsides and the doomsayers you hear each and every day, lets prove them wrong, even in these very difficult fiscal times!!

Twitt