Posted on

Tuesday, 14th January

Willpower is the first thing you lose when you try to lose body fat or try exercising for the first time or the hundredth time!

The “gritting your teeth and I’m going to fight through this” speech you give yourself doesn’t need to happen anymore. You’re probably fed up of it anyway.

You need to stop relying on willpower and create a permanent lifestyle change where you can’t help BUT change and stay in healthy shape.

To do this, you need to identify the strategies to manage your weight, take better care of yourself, and creating a lifestyle that supports being healthy and in shape.

Even when you feel like giving up and giving in, everything in your world, how you think, how you feel, how you act, will keep you strong and in control.

You don’t need willpower because you will set up your lifestyle in such a way that you can’t help but be successful.

More tomorrow on factors stopping you reach your full potential.

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 8th January

I have already got through an awful lot of measurements with individuals in 2014, and the range of emotions has been dramatic.

My easiest measurements were the ones who trained all the way through Christmas, some even hit personal bests through the holiday period, and to actually improve substantially during Christmas is staggering!

My toughest measurements were the ones who stopped training perhaps 3-4 weeks before Christmas, and ate much more than usual, didn’t train, and some drank too much alcohol a few times a week.

When you are measuring someone all year long and they get used to dramatic results every four weeks, then to undo a chunk of that progress can floor someone who has become to regular victories in their training challenges.

The psychological let down usually makes people go one of two ways.

Either they stand up and fight, and really promise themselves that they are going to eat well again, get right back into regular training, cut right down on alcohol, and although there is a tough month to get through, that they are going to stick with it and make big inroads on the excess body fat they have gained.

Most people can’t stand feeling all the extra weight on them again anyway, especially after feeling so fit and well at their peak only weeks before Christmas, so its usually a matter of simply wanting to feel their best again anyway!

However, some people take it really badly, and a lot of the hard won confidence levels they developed through successive positive physical improvement can be damaged.

This is when the individual concerned needs a mixture of big emotional support from friends and family, from myself and regular exercise to get their body remembering how good it felt to be at their best.

The support system for the individual is all important, and will make the difference between long term sustainable success, or becoming someone who once did well, but loses self-esteem and hits a long slippery slope when body fat gain becomes the norm, and one’s self-worth hitting an all time low.

This is exactly the time of year to stand up and fight, really accept you do not want to feel overweight, unfit and lacking in ambition.

Really, whatever your situation, this is exactly the time to stop talking about it and get on and change yourself right now, because all of you have the resources and power to change and reach your absolute potential once again!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 6th January

Introduction to fat loss:-

The five simple rules

I’ve put this list together because for a lot of people, fat loss is such a miserable struggle. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is a way to lose fat simply – without going on some awful diet or detox and losing your mind and enjoyment of life in the process.

Here are the five rules which will guarantee a big reduction in fat loss, alongside a three day a week training programme.

Rule 1 – to lose fat, you have to gradually decrease your calories. This means eating less and we will be giving some easy strategies for doing this in the coming weeks.

Rule 2 – to support muscle tissue, you have to gradually increase protein intake.

This means eating more lean meat, chicken, fish or beans, lentils and other vegetarian sources. These foods help to speed up your metabolism, help you feel full for longer and provide important amino acids.

Rule 3 – to create the right environment for fat loss, you need to gradually
decrease your carb intake. In other words , eat less sugar and starches like cakes, biscuits, pastries, pasties, chips and processed grains such as white bread. Eating too much of these can wreak havoc on your bloodstream, increasing hormones that lead to fat gain.

Rule 4 – to make sure you’re losing fat the healthy way, you need to gradually increase your vegetable intake. A good guide is to start replacing some carbs for greens such as spinach, broccoli, cabbage, salad etc. Your plate should be half covered with vegetables. A quarter carbs and a quarter protein.

Rule 5 – to support your metabolism, you need to gradually replace your bad fats with healthy fats. By adding things like olive oil, avocados, nuts, seeds and fish oils to your diet, you will speed your metabolism and lose more fat than ever before.

Nutritionally that’s it. Calories down, protein up. Replace some carbs with vegetables and replace bad fats with good fats.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be giving examples and recipes of the kind of foods you should be eating to really lose the fat.

Nicola.

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 3rd January

A recurring question I seem to have all the time would be the one “which diet should I go on?! Especially this time of year!

We talked about lifestyle changes yesterday, and how important it was to exercise regularly, however simple a programme.

YOU ARE NOT changing your lifestyle if you are going on the “faddy diets” that are trying to rip you off at this time of year! You are trying a short term fix that may lose weight initially, but is very likely to cause you long term misery!!

This is not just my opinion, this is the opinion of the vast majority of individuals I have met over the years who have been through it, and come out the other side with all the weight back on and their long term confidence and self-belief in tatters! It is also the opinion of doctors who have studied this scientifically and done numerous in depth studies on these so called diets.

Most people know by now what I think of these so called “wonder diets”!

Studies over the last few years show and confirm that 97 PER CENT, yes 97 per cent of people who embark on these diets put ALL the weight back on, and 5% MORE than when they first started.

Then there’s the powder and bars diets, which seem to cost a fortune, and again promise you the earth, and yes you lose weight to start with, but inevitably the weight comes back on extremely quickly in most cases.

Again, this is not a lifestyle change!!! You are not educating yourself about eating healthy, natural food and you are not caring what’s going on inside your body and the destructive habits you are adopting.

Fortunately, people selling you these destructive diets are not in the health business very long, and often go on to another scam selling more rubbish.

Unfortunately though, there is often a queue of people waiting to take their place and so the process continues!

There is a solution and you need to get back to shopping for healthy, natural food and making that food as attractive as possible so it becomes an everyday event.

More on this to come.

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 2nd January

Making a lifestyle change right now is obviously very much in the news at this time of year, but many people get confused with what a lifestyle change REALLY is. I have been through this time of year in a professional capacity many times of course, and its heartbreaking to see many people fall for the same false promises year after year.

In exercise terms, a lifestyle change can be defined as simply moving more, having some sort of exercise plan, however simple. Showing up regular for exercise can be the most powerful thing you do this year.

Even exercising three times a week can change your life this year, and affect positively all of your medical key indicators such as blood pressure, heart rate, body fat levels etc.

If you try just to jump in and get into exercise without knowing what you are getting into, then the chances of injuring yourself are high, and the dangers to your health can be very real. Nothing can crush your morale quicker.

Getting evaluated by a health and fitness professional is critical to you knowing where your starting point is, and how you are going to improve and at what rate. If you show up to exercise not knowing a thing about it (like most people), and then typically just get shown around once and forgotten about, then you are already in a dangerous position.

Not doing things properly is the chief reason why a large percentage of the population will give up on exercise by the end of the month. This is heartbreaking after usually signing a 12 month contract. The sad thing is that many gyms spend all their efforts trying to get you signed up, and very little effort in helping you navigate the first few months of transforming your body and mind.

If you don’t train right, then you’re not going to get any results.
Without results, your incentive to carry on will vanish.

January 2nd 2014 and surely it’s time to spend time researching the best way to do it this time.

Twitt