Category: motivation

7 weeks to Christmas today. The very best present you can give your family and yourself is being fit and healthy to take on anything in life that comes your way. Everyone cares that you are well and live a high quality of life without movement limitations and have an abundance of energy. Never take it for granted.

Chances are that this present is the one EVERYONE cares the most about.

This question i get asked quite a bit this time of year, and as i get older here’s my answer from experience. “Should i even bother starting exercising before Christmas or wait until the New year?”.

I see people at the gym start with diabetes, and they ALL wish they started well before they actually did. When you suffer from diabetes, the impact from exercise and healthy eating can be dramatic and life changing, so the “let’s wait approach” only holds you back you feeling better and your body responding in a positive way.

There are masses of people every day in severe pain. Living with pain is no joke and exercise has been proven to be strong medicine for those with joint trouble, knee and hip replacements, as well as those after back surgery and severe back problems full stop. Don’t tell those people that an extra two months wait and pain would “benefit” them.

Exercise is one of the most powerful weapons for mental health. The change mentally when you exercise is dramatic and a much better long term strategy for life. Feeling better full stop is a right, and exercise and eating better takes you a long way in the direction you want to go. Waiting another couple of months when you suffer anxiety and depression for example, can prolong the feeling as if you are not getting out of this vicious circle.

Putting on weight and getting more unfit before christmas has almost become a national sport. “I’ll do it in the new year” when you think about it is one of the toughest things you can do. If you are already suffering with your health, struggling to be fit and healthy, then adding even more barriers such as the next few weeks and then starting some “miracle” plan in january is unlikely to work.

“Cowboys” are waiting to fleece you of your hard earned money by offering you some liquid diet that loses weight initially, but piles it back on and more once you start eating properly, causing more long term misery.

Starting slowly and gradually right now will protect you from the shock that a sudden lifestyle “reversal” could bring to your body in january. How many do you know who start some kind of radical diet in january, and give it up a couple of weeks later due it not being sustainable and trying to change too quick?

Don’t forget, as it feels more like winter today, we are more susceptible to colds and flus. Add on to that our human systems become weaker due to us being inactive, and being fed a diet that often contains a deficiency of the nutrients our bodies really need to be healthy.

Life teaches us to make every day count, every day is an opportunity to get better and if your health is not what it should be and holdback you back in life, then you need to say “no more” and actively do something about it right now.

Start with small steps, make your health plan this time a true healthy LIFESTYLE change, and you are capable of getting very positive results this side of christmas, and starting the new year with massive momentum that will make you unstoppable, and most of all FEELING BETTER.

A great thing happened to me in the Coop lunch time. I was served by Mike Harris, one of our members. My shopping came to £20.26p. I only had a £20 note. I told mike i had to put something back, the loaf of bread could wait maybe.

Before i finished the statement, a lady behind me said “i will pay for that”. I had never met this lady. She must have been at least 70 years old. She could hardly see and had dark glasses on. She had a walking two walking sticks and was wobbling constantly.

I initially turned it down, and was somewhat embarrassed at not having enough money. I assured her “i did have money in the car honestly!”. Then i decided to accept her generosity.

That 26p wasn’t much but meant heck of a lot to me.

Then i immediately offered her to come to the gym and said i would help her get back to health or help in some small way. She accepted even though she felt as if she wasn’t physically capable of doing much, i then explained to her that we had many members with balance problems and she would improve with us given time.

The kind lady promised to come down in one month after her holidays.

What a great lady that was still contributing in life, despite her obvious physical limitations, and i look forward to seeing her and introducing you all to her.

When you contribute (most of the time) others want to give back to you and give you back in any way your generosity and good deeds. We are lucky to have so many of you at the gym helping others each and everyday.

I’m a firm believer in the more you help people, the more you get back. I don’t mean money, i mean in goodwill, self-fulfilment, the rewarding feeling you are helping someone in a non-patronising way, and maybe you are meant to bump into someone at that stage in your life, so you get help at exactly the right time, or you are meant to give help to that person at that particular time.

Giving is good as long as you don’t expect anything back. Help one person a day and over time you change many people’s lives.

We talk about change all the time, and how we need to react to change.

Let’s just think of change with some of you, many of you have just had a baby, and fighting to get back into shape and the pressure of looking after a little one 24 hours a day. Self-confidence, self-esteem all take a knock and this is your time and you have to make it count because you have a babysitter looking after the little one, getting into shape again is vital but you need to get through these big changes in your life again to create massive progress, but it takes time but you need to see it through.

Let’s think of your first day exercising after a knee operation, all the change that needs to happen to get back to your best and beyond. You feel uncertain and change and challenges are coming your way, and you need to be strong to withstand all this change to see you through to full health.

Let’s think about some of you approaching retirement, massive change and feeling the need to get even fitter as you get older, and the need to enjoy retirement as a very active person who can make the most of it. This age makes you realise that health is everything, some of your friends may be suffering from ill health and you awareness is at an all time high. Your time is important and you need to embrace change which is tough.

Let’s think of the pain of back surgery, and the thought you would never exercise ever again, what did that change in your life feel like and what did it do to your mind? How did you create real change and get back off the floor and achieve so much and get through all those darkest moments? You had two choices, either you lay down and take it or you take the road of rarefied air that not many take, and you get back to full health through many battles, setbacks and overcome pain of the highest order.

Let’s think of having blows to your health, both your body and mental health, when it seems as if you can’t recover and the only thing that will change things is massive change in your habits, your everyday actions, and hoping your body will stand up to all of these positive changes and you will come out the other side a new person, and so many of you have, and be ready to take on the world again!!!

We as a business and gym go through change ALL the time, we have to react to all the challenges you face and rapidly learn on the job, through scientific research, and provide you with some of the challenging questions you keep asking, which makes our place a fascinating, challenging but ultimately highly rewarding environment to be every day.
Thanks for being a huge part of it, stretching us so much everyday and allowing us to learn so much everyday both at the gym and through worldwide masters of certain conditions, and giving us experience and on the job training that most places never get.

Thanks for making us better full stop, and helping you get to a whole new level if you keep giving us the opportunity! Change is inevitable as you go through many stages in life but it’s good if you react positively and grow as an individual through each unique experience!!

Great weekend in cardiff apart from Ioan our youngest boy developing chicken pox , but here’s one big thing i took out of our trip to St Fagans which is a famous welsh museum/village re-living what it was like to live in the past.

The part where you walk into various old style welsh cottages, but then one cottage in particular stood out.

There was a very enthusiastic older gentleman ready to tell a story. He said to look into the fire, it’s the focal point and especially during a time when there was no electricity or anything we take for granted like today.

He told us that welsh families always, and i mean ALWAYS kept the fire going, in the morning, at night, ALL of the time or they believed it would be 12 years of bad luck.

The fire at home signified a lot good of things in welsh families and displayed their values, just like many religions and families across the world do.

You hear the old saying “keep the fire burning” many times today.

What are you doing to keep your fire burning? Have you let it go out? Have you let it go out so many times you don’t know how to light it up again?

In my book, exercise gets the spark to light your own internal fire every time. It doesn’t spark first time, maybe not second time but gives it a few goes in a row and that spark definitely happens to get your first fire.

Start eating healthy a few days in a row and you start adding wood to your fire.

To keep the fire from going out, you must read and listen to positive influences and books. This must be a daily experience or that fire will get put out pretty quick by negative influences.

These three things keep the fire roaring, the warmth coming out and the enthusiasm at an all time high. Nothing feels as good as this.

One thing on the way out of St Fagans, we caught the red cottage, painted red because it keeps out evil spirits. Our club is famously red, that felt pretty good too! Protect our house!