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Thursday, 17th October

The importance of food is a message that never gets forgotten on here, as you may have noticed. The thing that keeps this message going, is the feedback that comes from the people who read this every day, the ones who receive emails from me through their normal everyday training, and the questions I have almost every day from people who haven’t trained with me yet, or have and are in another part of the country or continent even!

So the questions and conversations I have daily are what shape this blog in the first place, and this is why the conversation always goes from topic to topic very quickly indeed.

Its great to hear that a huge number of you are taking advantage of our new emphasis on recipes, and how to make food from scratch that will fill you up, be really good for your body, is easy to make and perhaps is the solution to the helplessness that many of you feel when it comes to making good quality healthy food on a regular basis.

The journey that many of you have taken when it comes to re-discovering food again, and how good it can ACTUALLY taste has been inspiring, and inspired us to comes up with regular new recipes that we use in our everyday life, and especially the challenging times when it comes to juggling the responsibilities of raising a family, running a full time business and all of the other stress of modern day life.

So this blog is shaped by you, and please keep the ever-increasing comments coming to fitness@kerimckibbin.co.uk. Register on this site if you want and ask a question directly so everyone can see it, or simply call me on 07968 980 808.

Look forward to the ever increasing variety of questions too, however simple or complicated you may think they are!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 16th October

Since the weather is turning obviously, its time to talk about any potential restrictions the weather may put on your training.

I know lots of individuals who rely on the weather to dictate what they do on a particular day. I have tried getting the people I train away from making excuses solely on the weather affecting their participation in training.

1. Some people won’t go out of their house for instance just because its raining (like today as it happens!).

Remedy-it rains pretty much 9 months of the year in this country, if you didn’t train the days it was raining, you would never get fit and healthy!

2. Some people won’t go out of their house because its too cold, and like to stay “in the warm”!

Remedy-you get warm through exercising, you feel a lot better and you won’t have to have the heating on when you get back in the house, because your body’s temperature will be much more comfortable after you have exercised!

3. Some people won’t want to train when its too hot! Another excuse to stay in the house and do absolutely nothing!

Remedy would be to train first thing in morning or in the evening when it is a lot cooler. Drink plenty of water throughout the day, and regularly throughout your workout. Don’t work quite as hard on the really hot days.

4. Some people won’t go out because its snowing, and you can totally understand that because it is plainly dangerous to drive in particular in such dangerous weather!

Remedy-the only reason that I cancel workouts in the snow if I cannot drive to a client, but if I can get to them we can workout inside, or if people can get to me in the gym, we always have a great workout again inside!

You can see the weather really doesn’t have to cause you to stop training, its only a case of adapting to the different situations and working the weather to suit you!

Twitt
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Monday, 7th October

Formulating your workout plan should have began yesterday, and you should be approaching this Monday with great enthusiasm, hitting your Monday hard and setting yourself up very nicely for the week!

Planning a week of workouts is imperative, rather than making it up as you go along and ending up missing workouts often.

You have 168 hours a week to deal with to make at least 3 workouts a week happen.

Take 37 hours a week off for an average working week and you are down to 121 hours.

Let’s say you have 8 hours a night sleep, and you need to subtract another 56 hours a week off.

So we are now down to 65 hours a week left to fit in a minimum of 3 workouts.

A lot of individuals I train have 1,2, 3, 4 even 5 children, so that takes a lot of time up.

Many I train work over 37 hours a week, those in business and those who have high responsibility jobs.

The funny thing is that those who have the kids AND the business or high pressure jobs, are exactly the ones who never miss a workout!! THEY ARE ACUTELY AWARE that they need to perform at their best, they need greater energy levels than most, and the self-confidence and self-esteem that being in shape brings, gives them so much in whatever they do in life, and being in shape goes hand in hand with being who they are, how they perform and the results and happiness they now have in their lives!

So if we say on average we have a maximum of 65 hours to do 3 workouts a week, and bear in mind we can do an awful lot in just 30 minutes, then committing one and a half hours to keep yourself in shape really isn’t a lot at all!

All depends where your priorities are, are you going to get in shape now and keep it up for life, or perhaps you have had a break from training because you haven’t got time, but you can see from this illustration that you DEFINITELY CAN fit it in, all you have to do is manage your time A LOT BETTER and you will very soon be enjoying the vast benefits that exercising brings!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 3rd October

Just under 12 weeks to go to Christmas, and some people are already describing it as the Christmas run in!

In terms of your body and health, 12 weeks is an ideal time to make a monumental change for the better with your body and mind.

If you improve the way your body looks, feels and performs, then mentally you are going to feel a whole lot better!

I know of many people who say they feel lousy, and it usually coincides with them never exercising or given up exercising, they don’t often eat well and sometimes drink too much alcohol.

So you can see that living a much healthier lifestyle is a whole 180 degrees from that lifestyle of eating and drinking too much, and never ever working out.

The mental side to training is not discussed anywhere near as often as it should be. There is a strong connection between exercising, eating healthy and feeling at your best.

When you feel at your best, you tend to be at your best emotionally too. This always goes into every area of your life too, making everything seem much more positive, and leads to a whole new level of optimism in your life!

The best part about making a big lifestyle change is that it is relatively easy to keep up, and you really wont want to go back to feeling that you haven’t got any energy in your life, you wont want to go back to feeling that you cant fit into your clothes any more, you wont want to go back to feeling sluggish all day, you wont want all of that negativity in your life again.

This is why its vital that the emotional side of things comes with your physical improvements, they have to go hand in hand.

This will make your overall chances of feeling happy much higher, and when you are happy you tend to make much better everyday decisions, cutting the risk of falling back into your old ways when your lifestyle was making you really unhappy.

When you are happy, you tend to want more out of life, you will tend to want to improve all the time, and this is why its much easier to stay healthy and in shape for the rest of your life.

All it takes is exercising sensibly and using common sense with your food, it’s a great time to start right now!!!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 2nd October

The courage to commit to an exercise programme can never be underestimated.

The courage to walk through that gym door, or make that first telephone call setting up your first appointment is always going to be painful.

The first session is a worry to start with, but with the right guidance you can develop quickly.

I start every individual slowly and steadily, no matter how fit that person is to begin with. It’s a case of building things up at a steady level and not trying to run before you can walk. Doing it any other way, or overworking someone is downright irresponsible and dangerous!

Everyone has worries, doubts, negative thoughts going through their minds before they start an exercise programme, but the very best way to get rid of all those emotions is to actually go through with the sessions, and begin your journey to developing into a much healthier, fitter and more active version of perhaps the current version of you.

Everyone has moments of indecision, but its in those moments that your destiny is shaped. Those crucial decisions will dictate if you improve, how quick you improve and how enjoyable the process becomes.

For example, with the colder, darker, wetter nights to come, the easiest thing in the world to do is sit at home, say its too cold and wet to go training, and sit on the settee all night.

This is why I tell people all the time that those sessions are the most important to make. If you get to the gym, then at least you know you are going to do something highly positive at the time. If you stay in the house, then you will be doing absolutely nothing to improve your health and wellbeing.

In life, we have big decisions to make every day, the decision to get healthier starts right now with you, and you should be in control of how to do it. Manage your time better and schedule in your sessions, making time for yourself has never been more important!

Twitt