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Tuesday, 4th December

If you followed my advice yesterday and made breakfast a priority, then you are less likely to snack in the morning on rubbish foods that will eventually destroy your dreams of finally getting into shape!

If you are focused on results, you had better look at the rest of your day and exactly what you are snacking on!!!

I see that mince pies are already entering people’s diets judging by the stories i am hearing.

The problem with mince pies are that once you start on them, you usually can’t stop.

The other funny story about mince pies is that not a lot of you like them!! Not only that but you feel you have to eat them because “its christmas”!!!

If there’s one thing guaranteed to blow your progress, its got to be starting on mince pies this early in december. When you eat them, not only are you going to put on weight, but your exercise performance will go straight down the toilet!!! If you want to really stay on track, then the toilet is probably the best place for the mince pies, as they are definitely not going to help you get into shape or help your health in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER!!!

We talked about this last week, eating foods that you think you should eat JUST BECAUSE its christmas is an old classic i used to tell myself too!!! Those stories i used to tell myself resulted in me being around 20 pounds heavier than i am right now!! It’s not hard for me to make the better choices now because i REALLY don’t want to go back to those old days when after eating foods such as those, i would frequently feel out of breath, my training sessions used to be so much harder and its was hell of a job after christmas getting the weight off!!!

Now is not the time for mince pies or anything else you think you SHOULD be eating. Keep making the right choices and you will keep on being in shape!!!

Twitt
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Monday, December 3rd

Breakfast is always the key to your big start on Monday.

Having a good healthy breakfast can make the big difference between setting yourself up for success or setting yourself up for failure.

A good breakfast will make the difference between feeling fired up and full of energy, or feeling like your day has already become a damp squib!

A good breakfast will satisfy your hunger levels totally, and make sure your blood sugar levels are steady for the next 3-4 hours.

Once you get your blood sugar levels steady, then you are far less likely to grab sugary snacks such as chocolate. The chocolate will be far more likely to be consumed when there is a void created by an insufficient breakfast meal that doesn’t hit the spot!

Have you noticed that on holiday, if you don’t get a healthy breakfast in, you will automatically feel like eating sugary and fatty stuff throughout the day, as you end up never being truly satisfied with any meal and you end up consuming empty calories throughout the day.

Always remember that I bang on about the fact that breakfast can only be considered “breakfast” IF it is consumed within one hour of getting up. This is the magic time when you can really boost your metabolism, and get your body burning calories at a much faster and accelerated rate all day wrong.

You should realize by now that its not all just about the workout you do, it’s the other 23 hours a day that is just as important, and will really dictate the way you look and feel!

How many people do you know who train like dogs, yet always look a little overweight. This is always diet related, this is completely why we are talking about breakfast today, and why a good healthy breakfast will always start your day off in the right way setting you up to be successful in your efforts to be in great shape!

Twitt
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Friday, 30th November

Don’t want to seem like some scrooge like character with Christmas coming up, and it’s the first of December tomorrow would you believe!

Anyway, the big question is what kind of Christmas do you think you’re going to have this year?

Apart from the presents and general giving and receiving, we’re talking how you’re going to feel throughout the Christmas period, and how you set yourself up for the new year.

Im all for enjoying myself, its great to have a couple of drinks over Christmas, and letting your hair down from time to time can be a great thing to do.

The big question is if it turns into an everyday affair, and when do you stop?

Do you buy lots of “party food” this year or not? Isn’t it true when we do, that nobody really wants it when they call round the house anyway? Isn’t it true that most people decline it (usually saying that they have eaten already) unless you have an organized party?

This is a great example then of buying rubbish, empty calories into the house that will eventually get eaten by one person usually, and that’s you! From what starts off as a “pick” here and there, will eventually end up in you consuming the whole lot!

Then you will get a taste for it all, and then you are bound to end up getting stuck into the rest of the food, you know the food that you initially bought for “other people”. This is a familiar process I think we have all gone through and it’s

REALLY hard then to get back to normal in eating terms!!!

How about saving yourself some money this year, get yourself a limited amount of treats in, stuff you may actually eat and you know you can control!

Let’s face it, if you need more food or run out, most shops are open right up until Christmas eve, and open sharply on boxing day!! It’s not as if you’re going to be holed up in some bunker for a couple of weeks with no way out, and you have to get as much food in as possible in case you end up “starving”!!!

In these times of austerity, it’s the perfect opportunity for you to buy less junk this year, buy less sugar-laden products, and those you get given to you, please give them away to someone else who hasn’t got the same high ambitions that you have, or give them away to someone who you know that these sweets will make happy!

Time for a fitter and healthier Christmas, and with wiser buying choices, you’re bound to feel and look a whole lot better for it, far better than a normal Christmas anyway and you will thank yourself a lot for it!!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 29th November

The run up to christmas is well and truly underway, and the big issue for me this week is how to get the best out of all the individuals i train in the smallest amount of time possible!!!

Most people are time-crunched these days, life is getting faster and faster, and when you throw the run up to christmas, you have a cocktail that can really stop you training, and at least stop your overall progress in its tracks!

I am used to this situation every single year and have been for years.

The solution? You have to think smart, and make every second of your workout count.

On your weights, if you do 3 sets of 8 reps for example on every exercise, that can come down to 1-2 sets. Do the first set normally, and then try the second set at your maximum capability. The normal 8 reps could easily become 12-15 if you really put a big effort in!!!

If you do your bodyweight exercises such as press ups, arm dips etc, and you usually do 3 lots of them, cut that down to just one lot. For example if you do 3 lots of 12 press ups, then try and aim for 20-25 press ups in one go.

If you go for a regular run, and say it usually lasts for 30 minutes on flat surfaces, then aim to cut that run down 12-15 minutes by either running a lot quicker, using lampposts for interval training (sprint for one post, rest the other, sprint the next post etc), or try incorporating steep hills, and turn your workout into a series of 10 sprints for 30 yards, and try 5 sprinting forwards and 5 backwards.

These are all examples of still getting a lot of quality in your workouts, still getting results and never giving up!!! Especially now its nearly december, where usually most good intentions go off the rails pretty quickly!

Time not to give up, and i challenge you to stay the course!!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 28th November

The individual that you see when you first start an exercise programme is always a reflection of that person’s patterns of action, in other words their habits, the things they do day in day out without even thinking about them.

In order to completely change and tranform yourself to a better you, to a leaner, stronger and fitter you, its obvious and indeed critical that those everyday habits absolutely need to change.

The bad habits are always going to be viewed as the things that hold you back, they stop you from moving forward and achieving long term success.

If you are looking for a higher quality of life, then you had better start adopting a lot better and higher quality habits in your daily life.

The first way to do this is to recognise your lowest level habit, i am talking about the habit that drags you down the most, the one that makes you put on weight or the habit that stops you training regularly, or the habit that makes you think negatively!!!

This bad and ultimately negative habit needs to be transformed into a much more positive pattern of action!!

You will find that as your standard gets higher and higher, it will be a case of continuously raising your standards.

For example, if you currently eat badly 7 days a week, then suddenly eating well 3 days a week would have a big difference to your body.

Once you made that change, you would find that you would want to improve again. The target may well go up to eating well 6 days a week, creating another massive difference. The goals would go higher and higher, depending on what standard of life you want to achieve!! The habits would need to change upwards accordingly.

Set your stall out and make that standard in life as high as you can!!!

Twitt