Category: motivation

Feeling overwhelmed this time of year can be more normal than you think. 

Not enough time left to get everything done, that feeling of not enough money to “keep up with the jones’s”,  it could be a particularly sad time of year for many who think about the people not here this year, it can be a much tougher time than we think.

Lifting a weight, a heavy weight often, seems as if it couldn’t possibly help? There’s no way a good sweat could help on a bike? It seems easier to get “help” out of a bottle of tablets?

Those of you who know though love the feeling the heavy weights give you, you love a huge sweat on the bike, I know that for many of you, it has literally brought you back from the edge many times.

Working out hard is a sort of chemicals in the brain REBALANCING act. 

This not only works by the stories so many of you have told me, but it works scientifically too, and there are endless studies to prove it.

When you can get it done naturally, the bottle of tablets doesn’t sound half as attractive, but it means betting on yourself, it means not putting things off yet another day, it means backing yourself in times of adversity and using the only tried and tested way of elevating your mood every time to get you feeling balanced, and get you feeling you can put everything in perspective once again.

It’s the start of the week, time to get everything in order just as things balance too much to one side, and you won’t feel like doing a thing.

The 17 day hero and why I used to idolise them 35 years ago.

Most people are having 17 days off at Christmas but still complain they must work till friday. I’d imagine most workers who finish their last working day before Christmas as walking through their front door hands held high shouting those immortal lines “a full SEVENTEEN days off”!!!

I used to put them in the same category as the Roman legion’s after a 60 month deployment in Europe in the freezing cold taking over new territories by fighting a new war, I’d put them in the same realm as Allied forces liberating Paris from the Germans and sitting on top of a tank the whole time with a brown leather jacket full of medals knowing victory was finally theirs.

These people were genuine heroes to me.

Then I tried it myself one year in my teens. 17 days off, eating what I wanted, zero exercise and not moving too much (after all, I “deserved it”). 

I managed to get to 9 days. I started to wheeze heavily, develop a heavy cold, came out in spots, and had to wear more baggy jumpers, and started to feel VERY sorry for myself. 

This was NOT the promised land I’d been promised by those who had the famous 17 days off and those Christmas adverts and programmes. They said it was a much “better life” and I should do it.

Then natural instincts kicked in, I went for a run. “A run” was an exaggeration. First hill I had to walk, literally I couldn’t move much up the hill, struggling to breathe literally and had to walk home. I struggled to get into the shower and sat in the chair for the rest of the evening. I vowed never again would I let myself go like that and feel THAT BAD.

I sincerely wish all of you 17 day holiday workers the very best, you really DESERVE your time off but the 17 day off from everything and eating to excess doesn’t make you a true hero in my book and the monstrous side effects that brings.

 Have a bit of what you fancy to eat and drink, celebrate your time of still walking through the front door, have some much needed rest but use exercise/moving more as something that HEALS you, celebrate how fit you now are and keep your MIND RIGHT at a time of year that’s also a bit of a downer for many too and you will STILL be a hero to me.

When you exercise regularly, things likely to very well for your body every day. 

You process food better, you get way more water down you making you feel more alive, you have likely engaged with uplifting people, you have had a laugh and usually you are ready to put life’s troubles and challenges in a better perspective.

There’s 120 sleep disorders-80 are linked to alcohol, but when you workout and don’t drink in the week, your chances of having a great deep sleep go dramatically up. 

It all makes perfect sense.

So whether you love or hate Christmas, there can be big reasons on why you feel so good and big red flags that make you feel so low,

In a world that can give you great sympathy or crush you without any feeling, you have to realise you have to take some responsibility for the way you feel, and where you are right now compared to how you want to feel always takes plenty of effort, and you need to move daily and accept the grind required. 

Everyone has good days and bad days, which is why exercise is even more important on the down days, because it’s the best tried and tested booster of mood on the planet.

Be kind to yourself, and be prepared to get those trainers on and give yourself amazing medicine daily, leading up to the shortest day of the year, it’s going to be more needed than ever,

“Too busy” to train over Christmas is something

I have heard a lot of over the years-here’s something to think about it though.

You are too busy to feel better,You are too busy to keep your blood sugars under control.

You are too busy to stablise your blood pressure.You are WAY MORE FUN when you are fit and healthy, your mood is better and you have all the energy in the world to be the life and soul of the party.You are too busy to keep pain out of your joints.

You are too busy to keep your immune system strong in cold and flu season.You are too busy to work on your mental health.You have 24 hours in the day, the same as everyone else, lots of women with kids and a busy career are training right up to Christmas, they don’t complain they are too busy.If you can’t make the gym, we still put a new workout online every day like so many of you do.

Living with good/great health Christmas time is the best gift you can give to yourself and your family, and you can get it done in as little as 20 minutes.Seen way too many people have regrets over their health, it’s my duty to pass those regrets on so you have time on your side.

There are two options this Christmas.  

Complaining about the way things are and moaning your way through it, adding worsening health on top of it, or trying to make the important things in life better, being prepared to put a shift in, especially when it comes to your health because that’s the thing you’re going to need most when it comes to putting the things right you’re not happy with.

Living to survive, instead of trying to thrive by putting in the continuous work, can be an everyday choice. You can look at those trainers for hours sometimes, until you say “tomorrow”-maybe.

All of us have a point where we aren’t happy in life or we are fed up with a situation, and I urge you to take action at that desperation point, and do the things that are going to make you feel better-tried and tested. When you want to get out of hell, you have to face the devil himself and that’s the lifestyle that could be making you sick as we speak.

I love that moment when it’s cold coming into the gym, and then the saying “if you are cold in the gym, then you aren’t working hard enough” comes to mind.

Throw some weights around, get on the bike-JUST MOVE. You won’t only get warm, you will want to do a LOT MORE too, and it’s like pressing the reset button on your brain again that often threatens to let you down again-especially this time of year.

You have to decide that with 14 days to go, are you going to enter Christmas the New year in great shape physically AND mentally (not forgetting christmas is a very sad time for many), with your immune system stronger than ever, (the big reason there are more colds than ever this time of year is because people aren’t exercising and eating worse than ever), and really starting as you mean to go on.

It could only really be your best year next year if you FINISH OFF STRONG this year and you get real momentum which can make you unstoppable. These two weeks could change your future and make you really proud of the year you have just had.