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Tuesday, 3rd July

We looked at the importance of getting your eating right, and how it doesn’t have to cost the earth to do it either!

Cost is a barrier for most people at some stage in their lives, but due to competition, this cost issue has been helped a lot.

Another way of stressing how important eating is would be to remember why you are doing this thing after all!

When you first started, you must have had a vision of how you really wanted to be? The goal you really wanted in life, whether it was just good health, or fitting in clothes you haven’t done for five years for example!

Most of us will put on weight at certain stages in our lives, but all of us can come back from that stage if we really put our minds to it.

Carrying that vision of how we eventually want to look is vitally important in my view.

That vision should be an ever-present in our minds or we will frequently lose sight of why we are training hard, why we are eating so well all week long, why we are going out for a run in the pouring rain for example!

You have to keep your ambition high and whether its ten inches off your waist or two inches you need to lose, the focus has to be retained.

I have plenty of individuals who want to look their all time best for this year’s summer holiday. Looking good in your swimsuit has been an age old goal for most of us, but few of us really make it happen.

If we retain our best vision of ourselves, this means our workouts will become more intense, our foods  more natural and less sugary and fatty, we drink less alcohol and the whole process become much more inspiring and exciting!!

Twitt
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Friday, 29th June

The end of the week already and hopefully, you have have found it one of your most productive ones!

This summer so far has resulted in the lowest number of running sessions i have ever had-purely because of the weather!

This has made me much more inventive though, and by developing more and more programmes indoors to create fresh excitement and enthusiasm!

Anytime you create new programmes, you had better make sure that the new exercises had better work!!

There is a million gadgets and faddy exercise products on the market, and i have hopefully managed to navigate these choppy waters and come out the other side with some solid programmes that are guaranteed to bring some good results.

When measuring a good programme, i have to consider two very important factors.

The first will always be safety, if a programme doesn’t have caution at its heart, and the emphasis of proper form as its cornerstone, then the programme will fall flat on its face, because either injury to the exerciser or a lack of results will be certain to be the outcome!

The next vital element is intensity and “energy value” to the individual who is training.

If you have a scale of 1-10, 1 is sitting down and 10 is going absolutely flat out, then i tend to encourage people to work at least to a 7 or 8, and sometimes even a 9. This is a sensible and productive way to manage exercise programmes, where results are important but safety and long term development are always key considerations for me.

So you shouldn’t be put off by this weather one bit, you should open yourself up to new programmes, new ideas, and new ways of doing things full stop.

Time moves on and so does the way we exercise!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 27th June

Heart strength has got to be your most vital reading whether you exercise regularly or not.

If you do not exercise in any way, your heart rate and strength is likely to be weaker than it could be and this is a negative factor when it comes to assessing overall health.

If you DO exercise, then you should know all about the massive benefits of having a strong and healthy heart.

Your heart is a muscle that needs to be trained and conditioned like every other muscle on your body.

If you do exercises that require larger amounts of oxygen, this is called “aerobic” types of exercise, or “cardio” as is often mentioned by people who go to the gym.

Aerobic by definition is defined as “with oxygen”, which shows how important this type of work is.

Running, power walking, swimming, cycling just to name a few could be described as the best examples of aerobic training or cardio as is much more trendy a term to use these days.

These types of exercises should be included prominently in anyone’s programme, and are highly beneficial.

Most people are unaware that you can achieve this state of training that requires high amounts of oxygen by weight training/strength training.

The trick is to keep the tempo of the workout quite high and this will get you working harder and you will need to take in deep gulps of oxygen throughout.

This is achieved usually through cutting your rest periods in between sets right down. For example, if you usually rest 3-5 minutes in between everything you do, then cutting it down to one minute would be a start and immediately get you working harder.

When you get to a decent level of fitness, try getting to a stage of picking 6-8 exercises in a row, and having NO rest in between. You will need to cut your weights down in terms of kilos/poundage, but the effect will be dramatic and terms of heart benefits.

I train most people using this philosophy now, and have done for  many, many years. The benefits across the board are huge, and will make sure your heart will be very strong and in tremendous health ready for anything!

Twitt
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Tuesday, 26th June

We talked about the value of using the height/waist relation in measurement terms yesterday.

The value though gets magnified several times when you start making yourself accountable every four weeks.

Every four weeks is certainly enough time to make some good progress with your body, and your health in general.

If you have this four week timeframe permanently ingrained in your mind, then you will always think that little bit more about what you eat and drink.

You will become a little more guilty about missing workouts, and the effect of not exercising regularly.

Let’s face it, most of  us hate going to the doctor or nurse for a variety of reasons, but if we can get in the habit of self-testing, then this will alleviate some of the nervousness and embarrassment factors for sure.

Your monthly measurement can help you change your programme more regularly too.

If you do a measurement and you do not improve in any area, then either your training programme or eating regime needs to change, or more like both!

By making yourself accountable, the change will likely come a lot sooner and you will be on the road to progress that much sooner.

When you measure regular, you also become more enthusiastic. You will perform better and look for more little ways to improve yourself.

You will end up buing new clothes or at least fitting into your best clothes again because your dress size/waist size will come down considerably if you are on the right mix of good exercise form and excellent eating habits.

This is all about being repititive in a GOOD way!

The more your habits are consistent, the better your results full stop!

Keep measuring or get someone to do it for you, you will not look back trust me!!!

Twitt
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Monday, 25th June

One of the biggest self-measurements I recommend, and have talked about on here for a long time now, is measuring your waist in relation to your height.

If you measure your height in inches, for instance a 6 foot tall person would be 72 inches.

This means that a healthy waist should be 36 inches or less.

Another example would be if you were 5 foot tall, and this would be 60 inches.

So your waist would need to be 30 inches or less.

These guidelines are important because medical studies show that if your waist is a maximum of half your weight in inches, then you are more likely to avoid serious disease.

Heart disease, diabetes, certain cancers are all statistically higher likely to happen if your waist is higher than the examples we talked about earlier.

The size of your waist comes down to your exercise and nutritional programme.

If you exercise regularly AND you eat sensibly and in moderate portion sizes, then your waist is definitely likely to stay in the recommended healthy range.

Lifestyle is the important word and how accountable you make yourself.

I like to measure individuals once a month for this very reason.

So if you cant make handle the accountability yourself, then I suggest you put someone else in charge of it, it could be a close friend or a fitness professional, whoever it is, make yourself accountable and you suddenly will show the urgency required to get yourself into good shape.

We have talked today about the height waist relation, and in terms of your health and avoidance of ill health. As long as you concentrate on your internal health first, then your waist size should look after itself.

If you concentrate on putting good nutritious natural additive-free food and drink into your body, then good things are bound to happen.

Put all of this together with a sound exercise programme, and your waist and health will have never been better!

Twitt