Category: motivation

It’s freezing outside, society tells you it’s the most fashionable thing to do and stuff yourself with “party food” and your mood will automatically goo up dramatically, and you will be the biggest “character” in any room you decide to go into.

Your Mastermind subject must the latest boxset and your time is taken up seeing the “gripping new episode”, after all what’s there to talk about tomorrow.I see all sorts of people every day, people who can hardly breathe because they haven’t exercised usually since school and medical issues have started to take over their life, so we become the emergency last saloon solution.

Some of you reading this have been in that awful situation.We had record breaking efforts in speed work tonight outside, and that very high bar has been raised yet again, we are very proud of our junior and youth athletes tongith striving to make themselves better in their chosen sports.Mental health is a massive subject right now and it’;s escalated a lot. My guess is “party food” and watching endless TV will only multiply the problems especially with the New year hangover coming up.The best natural high you will ever get is at the gym, the best immune system booster you will ever get is at the gym, the best way of measuring yourself getting better is at the gym, so take time out for yourself, so you can be even stronger to help those you care about most out too.

We all give thanks for the obvious things in life. Family and friends, loved ones, good fortune in work, a job we love maybe, good health hopefully, and being happy most of the time.

Then things happen in life that we don’t enjoy, we don’t particularly care for and get frustrated at a lot. We worry about them, we moan at them and get to say often “why me again”.

If you look back at many of those things that you hated at the time, they often turned out for the best.

I remember on lots of occasions I quit my job to do this full time, when we expanded the gym we met many deal ends and brick walls, many things never came off despite initial promise.

The more roadblocks that came up made me think of ways I could get around them by using a different approach maybe, and when that didn’t work another approach would work out finally for us.

Frustration, getting fed up, worry can be great tools for us to be grateful for too. 

Those tough situations make us more resourceful and resilient. If we can find a way to get something down especially when we have had maybe 3-4 doors slammed shut in our faces, I personally think we have become a much better for it overall.

Life happens to us good and bad and a fair bit of it could be classed as life sessions that we can often take some good out of, even if at the time it seems like a lousy pack of cards we have been dealt.

Use the frustration, bad luck, worry, anxiety to fuel fresh workouts at the gym, to flush out that negativity out of your brain and turn a bad situation into something you come back from stronger than ever-boys and mind.

Think back to your physical self back in school, you could run, often flat out in a sprint, you could jump and skip about the place. 

You didn’t often get tired, and probably back then you didn’t drink much water even like most kids do today.

You left school and you still maybe continued to run, but didn’t often sprint if ever. You almost never jumped, and you suddenly could eat what you wanted, not what your parents told you to eat, and you could do it without judgement. 

This was “freedom”. You didn’t have to much more anymore, no double PE, nobody shouting at you to get into your kit.

I’m a massive believer in our ability to make our own decisions, to think for ourselves, and accept the consequences along the way, good and bad.

Go back to your school years again, for most people the best physical condition you have ever been in, because of the way we used to move and the variety of that movement, we didn’t think about it or plan it, we just did it.

After school freedom means choosing to do exactly what we want, even if it means ordering fast food most nights, having a drink when we want and choosing not to move much, becoming more of an expert on the latest TV series is more important than thinking about moving our bodies.

The weight gradually comes on ever time, we can do two things. We either buy bigger clothes that intentionally aren’t meant to show our true shape and size, and kid ourselves that’s it’s ok not to move, feel low in energy and mood, and things will somehow become better by eating and drinking more.

Or we say enough.

We slowly get back to where we were as kids in school. We won’t get there overnight, but if we use progressively harder movements over time from a gentle start, getting a little better each week, then we will begin to recover our self-pride, self-esteem and even our self-confidence and ambition we often had as a kid in school.

Nothing is beyond you, and once you say “enough I’m not going to take this anymore”, you will be at the point where you are willing to turn your ship around, get a plan together to eat better and move more, and the wind begins to be at your back again.

You have all the freedom in the world again to make your own choices to get to feeling like a kid again and moving like one, give yourself time, it’s not going to be easy but patience and tried and tested plan on how to do it will literally change your life physically and mentally.

Thanks for a great morning at the gym and plenty of you showing great pride in your performances today. On a day of great international football whether it’s Wales or England you support today, it’s time to transfer your passion into your health and that means your workouts and raising your standards constantly.

You may not be playing for Wales today but you can do your best for your country. 

If you are healthy, then you will will never hopefully be as much of a burden on the NHS, exercise and eating right will always be the best medicine.

If you are healthy, fit and strong, you can help a LOT MORE people who may rely you in all sorts of ways in life, and you can set a great example to them too.

Showing passion for your country shouldn’t be a one off event like today, it can be an everyday event when you realise you have plenty to give yourself, you have everything to play for and not giving your best will not be only leaving your country down, you will be leaving yourself down, and be missing out on all the wonderful experiences you could have had if you were at the top of your game with your health.

Today is match day and you need to keep giving your best, and even if it doesn’t go perfectly today, tomorrow is another great opportunity to give it your best-nobody can ask for more of you.

Little things add up, good or bad.

More days consistently exercising, we feel better, and then we realise we can get even more out of it all if we eat well too. 

We recover quicker, we energise our days better, and we get more positive emotionally because we have the get up and go to want to try things we may have constantly put off for fat too long.

Missed workouts can be a habit too, and instead of hitting the gym, were become more a regular at the takeaway, and we start to get to know the menu off by heart.

 We convince ourselves “one life we have” but living it in poor health and when it becomes more painful to even move, we know we have to do something radical or the slide will only continue into something far more serious potentially. 

Kidding ourselves that a life of being unfit and low energy is somehow to be aspired to never lasts long.

The small things mater, keeping your promises to look after your health by showing up at the gym, actually putting good nutritious food into your basket at the food shop regularly, making takeaways a much more rare treat and not the norm, seeing eating processed food regularly as a short and long term real threat to your health and quality of life in your current form.

Lifestyle change means exactly that, respect what your body can give you and look after it, your wellbeing depends on it.