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Wednesday, 9th October

The importance of strength training has long been emphasized on this blog.

The days of women in particular, thinking they would only get big and bulky from weight training and hopefully long gone.

There was a nice story yesterday in the media about the Victoria Secret girls working out with weights 4 times a week, just

to keep their shape and even enhance it.

Years ago, they used to use the unhealthy tactic of not eating much, smoking they thought would keep the weight off, and

drinking vodka when they drunk alcohol just to avoid the extra calories!

Thankfully, times have changed and the health message is getting through to all areas of society!

Not only is the idea of shaping one’s body more appealing, and proven to happen through strength training, both by weight training and bodyweight exercises, but the bonus effect of strengthening one’s bones can never be underestimated.

Most people think of osteoporosis as a disease and condition that affects only elderly people. This is far from the truth now and bone density weakening can happen to some people from the age of 25 to 30 years of age.

These are compelling reasons for you to put in strength training as a high priority for your workouts, you will feel far more toned, your skin will tighten up massively and you theres nothing like feeling stronger and fitter!

I would recommend 2-3 times a week whole body sessions with at least a two day gap in between each session. Use a weight that you can do for 8 repetitions, do 3 sets of each exercise. If you are new to strength training, do one set the first week, two sets second week and then the three sets on the third week, this allows your body to get used to your new programme gradually!

Pick 6 to 8 exercises and seek advice from a health and fitness professional on how to select and perform them.

Twitt
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Tuesday, 8th October

Welcome to the Nutrition section of Keri’s blog and thank you for browsing. Good nutrition and exercise go hand in hand.

Diet plays a huge part in any fitness programme and so every week I will give you some recipes, tips and ideas on how to eat healthily to fuel your active lifestyle.

As you will notice, the recipes I give you may not seem like the sort of things you should be eating on a diet. However as far as I’m concerned this is not a diet but a healthy way of life. In order for you to achieve good fitness and a healthy diet you have to find the food you eat enjoyable and look forward to preparing and eating it. Plain food such as a breast of chicken is nice sometimes but you wouldn’t want to eat it every day and soon enough you would return to your old ways of eating out of sheer boredom!

Another problem I have with diets is that they are always concentrated on counting calories. Not only does this lead to an obsession with the weighing scales but also there is a tendency to limit or avoid certain food groups, such as carbs, which is detrimental if you are following a fitness programme and training hard. Carbs, protein and fats are vital for optimum muscle repair and growth and should never be eliminated.

I believe that you can eat everything in moderation even butter and sugar! However there is a rule. 80% of your food should be whole foods and cooked from scratch. In our household the other 20% equates to a treat on a Friday night such as a scoop of ice cream or a couple of drinks. On a Saturday night possibly a take away or a meal in a restaurant. The rest of the week we eat to train. This ensures a constant supply of the right type of nutrients, vitamins and minerals required for the demands of training. I will show you how to cook simple and quick meals and snacks that the whole family can enjoy.

I want you to start thinking of food not in terms of calories but it’s nutrients and health giving properties. How it’s going to fuel your training, giving you increased energy and vitality. Thinking this way about food will also decrease considerably your risks of getting food related diseases such as diabetes and cancer. Above all I want you to enjoy the food you cook because without pleasure you will not succeed.

If there are any recipes you would like or tips on losing weight please contact me on here or at Ted’s Gym.
Nicola.

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