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Wednesday 8th December

The biggest mistake over Christmas I try to avoid is letting all the condiments come into my life again, which give me a shortness of breath, a lack of energy, make me irritable and get my sweet tooth back, plus the inevitable weight gain of course. Making myself and you aware of it is half the battle when we all start buying the “party” food etc in for Christmas.

Tomato sauce, mayonnaise (full, half or reduced fat versions), salt, salad “seasoning” products, salad cream, brown sauce, branston pickle, full sugar pasta sauces, anything under party food banner’s wreck my breathing, anything with added sugar in their product (corn syrup etc).

Also the chickens in indian sauces or ”hot  and spicy” chickens get me breathing heavy.

I also find if I have too many days of drinking alcohol, my discipline with food goes out the window and my choices become far more questionable! A familiar pattern  for you maybe?

So when does the point come when you say “that’s it I’m starting back after Christmas”! The sooner that point is reached, the more weight you are likely to put on over Christmas for sure, and the harder it is to come back strong after Christmas.

Party food for the most part has nothing to do with quality and more to do packaging of low or NO nutrient food up as something you would be “boring” not to go for! Unless you had a trolley full of “party food”, then you are the biggest stick in the mud there’s ever been and you’re not “enjoying” Christmas! The Ken Barlow of Christmas shoppers maybe!!

Personally I would say that there’s nothing more boring that gorging yourself all of December and drinking nearly every day, then complaining about your heartburn, your clothes never fit you anymore and after Christmas, going on YET another diet. This may be the most boring version of Christmas ever? The time everyone rolls their eyes at you because its like Groundhog Day all over again!

Wouldn’t it be far more refreshing and less predictable this year to keep on buying good food this year right up until new year. Don’t buy all that rubbish and “party food” that you throw out anyway after Christmas. A fresher and more energetic version of you is far more appealing to everyone than the complaining, irritable, boring version of you come January? Is that the case or am I over-exaggerating?!!

Keep having your treats over Christmas, you deserve to enjoy of course you do, but you don’t have to totally destroy yourself from now on in and make the start to 2011 totally miserable!

Moderation works as long as you have your basic foundation in place.

Twitt
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Tuesday, 7th December

As the cold continues, my running sessions have all dried up and we are stuck inside. It shouldnt and it doesnt stop the quality of workouts though, and the attitude remains.

Hitting a workout hard is almost as all about mindset as its about physical ability. I know people with the best attitudes are far more likely to over-achieve than those who may have all the tools in place to look great, but somehow don’t make the grade when it comes to getting in shape. Your mind will take you a lot further than just your body and resting on all your laurels ever could.

This weather also allows you to concentrate on areas that you may have ignored the last few months when the weather was a lot better?

How about your stomach, have you been avoiding this area for a while? Instead doing things maybe that are in your “comfort zone”?!!

I now enjoy the process of attacking my weaker areas. There was a time when i only wanted to concentrate on my stronger areas, but now i realise what i have to show more attention to, and a lot of self-honesty did me a world of good i can tell you! It always takes somone to pick out your weak points to make you realise that action needs to be taken and the sooner the better!!

The hardest part when training someone is telling them that they need to change from a certain way of training, to a more productive way. Most people think that the more exercises they do in a workout, the better it is. The truth is that making your workouts more simple and with more basic exercises really IS the best way to go.

It all comes to intensity and effort and mark yourself out of ten. If you can honestly say you always hit at least an 8, sometimes a 9 and once in a while a 10. you should be in your best condition and have a great balance in your life. Nobody’s perfect as you know but as long as we keep on working on the imbalances, then the closer we become to the way we really want to look and feel. It starts with self-honesty and give yourself a truthful assessement on the way you look and feel, or get someone you trust to give you an honest and accurate opinion.

Then you step forward!

Twitt
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Monday, 6th December

We are currently in the coldest weather i can remember, bearing in mind it was the coldest winter for 30 years last year, this statement is a very strong one. The perfect excuse then not to do any exercise you would think? Absolutely wrong!!

Yesterday morning is my usual run with the dogs and early yesterday you would have been barely able to walk on the pavement, running was a total impossibility. I could have done a workout inside but i like some fresh air on a sunday morning, so i made sure i got a workout in through a tried and tested method  which turned out to be a lot of fun.

I hit the steep cemetery hill for sprints and obviously the normal road would have been impossible of course. The GRASS next to the road though, while covered in frost, is actually very receptive to running believe it or not, and reacts favourably to sprints up and down the hill.

This is the ONLY workout i could do yesterday but not the only choice had i thought about it a bit more. If i had waited a couple of hours and driven down the beach, i could have run as far as i liked on the sand, which is never a problem and is perfect in any weather, even though there were icy patches on the beach this morning!!

So two things i was looking at yesterday and they were accomplished very easily. A lot of fresh air which cleared my head, and a very decent sprint workout which i havent done for a long time, and my thighs are still a little stiff this morning which is great!! 

We always go on about the power of the mind here, and here it was again, just sit back sometimes and ask yourself is there a better way, or even is there a way at all?!!! More often than not, you’ll find that there’s ALWAYS  a way so lets continue to battle through this harsh winter and get some great workouts in!!!!

Twitt
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Friday, 3rd December

We are all learning or we get passed by and no longer become relevant it is said.

That is why its so important to keep on learning and re-tuning our bodies and minds.

For example, how many of us on here have found we have either forgotten how to eat properly or never knew in the first place how to eat properly. The need to school ourselves in the fundamentals of proper nutrition have never been more important.

It’s funny how people are willing always to go on courses to improve their work situation, or enhance the way they do their job. Yet when it comes to taking some advice on how to eat properly, there is often nodding of heads but there seems to be a complete lack of action. People will often worry too late about their health, instead of taking preventative action in their early years. I’m going to change that actually, its never really too late so i stand corrected there and i have encountered many, many so called lost causes with deep problems in health terms, but they can and have been fixed in the past!!

If someone tells you that all day every day they eat porridge and chicken salads, and then they end up 2 stone overweight, they may be a little economical with the truth! We all bend the truth slightly from time to time to suit ourselves but owning up to going wrong is the best thing you will ever do. Its at that exact point that you move forward in the right direction and that means you’re ten times closer to your original goal. The old saying that an inch in the right direction is better than a mile in wrong direction has never been more right! Let’s focus on hitting the right trail and forgetting about past mistakes, its time to be flexible and forget about being stubborn because of your ego!

So instead of bragging up all those one day courses on how to become a better worker, let’s start re-schooling yourself on food and training properly. Don’t over-complicate things and lets try and get the fundamentals right from yesterday’s post. I have really tried to simplify it all and im not expecting you to be perfect, but i am certainly expecting you to give it a good go, thats for sure!!!

There are many things i, and many others have realised are perhaps the wrong way to do things over the years. The best response to that is to accumulate all that information and make it so valuable so that we never make the same mistake again. I am proud to say i am a life-long learner because i know i won’t develop if i don’t, and i simly get left behind.

Commit to learning and realise there is a right and wrond way to doing things, and its never too late to change. From eating right to doing exercises the right way, its never too late to make the kind of progress you always imagined!!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 1st December 2010

We are finally here!! 1st December 2010 is a sign that we are nearly at the end of the year and most people seem to be happier and emptying their bank accounts!!

Christmas lunches or evening meals are being served across the land and from a health perpective, its a good chance to see how much you’ve changed in the past year. For example, if you go out and have your first christmas meal and you feel great after it, then you’re probably used to eating all that rich food, which is a sign that you’re not really physically at your best unfortunately.

If you eat the same christmas meal and you feel stodgy and tired afterwards, then thats a good thing believe it or not!! If you eat mince pies and they go through you quickly and you have to go to the toilet sooner than normal, that shows that your body is really not used to rich food, sugary and fatty food and you’re very used to putting very good food into your system normally.

What about your training if you eat rich food throughout december? That will surely go down a couple of levels and your energy levels are likely to be on the floor. You will realise how much good, clean food has on your system and your energy levels, and how really incredible it makes you feel!

You will know this all to be true if you have changed the way you live your life for the better, at least in food and exercise terms anyway!! 2010 SHOULD have been a great year for you, and even if it hasn’t, then you would have started to learn a lot about yourself and how you can improve in 2011 and hopefully reach where you really want to be!

This is me not being a spoilsport either, but i have been through eating all the rubbish all of december in years gone by, and my asthma coming back, putting an extra stone on, feeling as if i don’t want to get up in the morning etc etc are usually at the bottom of my list of priorities these days!! It’s good to eat these foods on occasions throughout christmas, but making the whole month one big excuse is going to make your body into the opposite of what you really want to be.

Most people i train and people i don’t train would/do give a lot to look amazing again, and reclaim their youthful body that they thought was lost forever. The great news AND THE TRUTH IS that you CAN do it if you keep on applying the principles we talk about on here EVERY DAY. There’s heck of a lot of difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it as i keep saying!!

1st december, let’s make it a month when you really enjoy and still feel fantastic all the way through right up until 2011!!

Twitt