Posted on

March 2nd

Your progress doesn’t mean much unless it impacts your life in a positive way.

It also doesn’t matter much if you feel that nobody cares about your progress. Having someone interested in what you do is a very underrated factor in your progress and confidence.

This is why people join diet clubs and gyms, its nice for people to talk about their progress with like minded people.

The weekly weigh in’s with diet clubs are a ritual for some people, and the pat on the backs or lets pull your socks up attitude seems to work for some people.

I’m definitely in that line of work too, a serious part of my job is not only constantly analysing an individuals performance and pushing them onto new highs, its also about motivating the individual and pushing the right buttons, especially when things are not going their way.

You can do it another way. You could ask a friend to help you out and witness your progress. That could be from measuring your waist with a tape measure once a month, to witnessing your weigh in’s every week, or just once a month.

Having a friend you can trust to help you can be very valuable with your training too. If you have someone who will become a training partner of yours, then you can keep pushing each other to new heights. Perhaps on one day, you will not feel great and your training partner will be able to push you to get through the workout, then on another day you will feel top of the world, and you will be able to get the best out of your friend.

This is why its always good to share your progress, it matters heck of a lot more when you share success, unless you are a very private person and like the rewards of purely individual pursuits, and don’t need to share it with anyone else.

Whatever works for you, then use it and keep using it time after time. The only thing that matters is sustainable progress and you being in great health. You always have to think about your health and fitness programme and change your approach from time to time. Life never stays still and you have to change to keep up with it, but as long as you train a minimum of 3 times a week and eat well 80% of the time, you’re going to be doing well!

Twitt
Posted on

March 1st-start of the year for many!!

March 1st is a big boost to all of us, January and February are traditionally the darkest months and when our motivation is lowest. It is usually quite high in early January after the new year resolutions, but by February, everything slips back into the status quo and a gloom seems to set over everyone.

March 1st signifies new possibility with spring coming and everything seeming fresher.

So now that perhaps unrealistic expectations made on January 1st are seemingly over, its time to get some real plans together and stop kidding yourself you can eat all those weight watchers biscuits and still stay lean, you really can’t.

The sooner you realise that most diet organisations have got their own greedy agendas for selling you their products and versions of food, then the quicker you progress, start eating good proper food and actually start saving some cash on all those empty promises.

From the weight watchers biscuits and ready meals, to the slimmers world green and red days, to the lighter life £75 a week you will need to spend buying all their shakes and snacks. Of course you’re going to lose some weight, sometimes a lot, but as the media has shown this week, most if not all of those examples they use have put all the weight on and usually 5% more on your body that you never had even in the first place.

Here’s a challenge for you this week, visit the supermarket and try to only go down the aisles that will help you out big time physically and in terms of health.

Go down the fruit and vegetables section, in fact spend most time here, and start learning how to cook again using good fresh ingredients and GET USED TO IT, its not a fad, ITS GOING TO WORK FULL STOP.

Also get some lean meats in there, chicken, turkey, lean beef and get some fish in too, mackerel, tuna, salmon etc, lets make this a staple of your diet.

Make sure there’s some good carbs in there too, wholegrain and wholewheat pasta, brown rice, jacket, new and sweet potatoes, porridge etc, if the quality is good, then you’re going to look and feel good so lets give it your best!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday Feb 28th 2011

This is an interesting email from one of our serving soldiers in Iraq, and a female friend he has over there, i will not broadcast his name but would like to say we are all proud of our fighting forces out in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here it is Soldier-“this is for my female friend who isnt really fat she just has a wide bum and big thighs.
Area wise, nope no hills, all flat-the compound that is.

I/we usually train every other day
Diet wise, ive tried to get her to cut down on the size of meals and eat when she feels “full” rather than finish the plate.
She has a weight goal but again ive stressed its not about weight loss but how well your clothes fit/tightness of jeans etc.
Keri-too right, the weighing scales can spoil many people’s progress, the way your clothes feel is ultra important!!

For myself im carrying a gut its not huge but its big enough to be annoying, my goal is 2 fold, one is to get my fitness levels improved and two to gain muscle size again.

Keri-this can totally be done, and you need to incorporate resistance work in your programme 3 times a week, but a minimum twice, the more lean muscle tissue you build, the more your metabolism burns calories 24 hours a day.
Soldier-For me losing weight is pretty straight forward my metabolic rate is very quick and once i start training im constantly hungry(which probably means eating more often but eating the same quantities through the day), but diet wise, I either have cereal for brekkie with 2 pieces of toast or scrambled eggs and bacon and hash browns, dinner and tea its mainly chicken and salad depending on how I feel, my diet is pretty good it aint great but good enough for what I want.

Keri-The evening sounds great and try to keep it to great protein choices such as the chicken, fish, lean beef etc with plenty of veggies if possible. The bacon needs to go for breakfast, keep it once a week only as well as the hash browns, they are not going to help you one bit, and carry enough salt and saturated fat to sink a battleship, pardon the pun!!!

Soldier-Going back to my friend, all i really require is a little bit of advice on whether this regime will work for her to drop a few sizes and build fitness levels up, Im thinking ive probably overdone the weight side of things for her, but thats no problem as I could lose 2 exercises from that. The exercises for her will obviously be light weight high rep as its for toning and for fat burning.

The basketball court routine i will be doing as well as I know that will get me fit.

   cheers for the reply, heres the routine I was on about, I dont think its too bad, it would certainly test me if I was doing it.

20 mins Elliptical machine: consisting of:-
5 mins warm up
2 mins going hard
2 mins cool off
2 mins hard
2 mins cool
2 mins hard
5 mins warm down.

Stretching

Squats 2-3 sets 15-20 reps
Bi cep curl to shoulder press 2-3 sets 15-20 reps
Lunges sets and reps as above
Bench press/flat flys sets and reps as above
Clean and jerks sets and reps as above
ab work

20 mins of rowing following the same pattern as elliptical machine-keri try and cut the rower work down from 20 mins to around 10 to start, in fact set her a target of 2500 metres and see how quick she can go, this is a lung capacity buster and will test the best of us. Also, give her a 15 minute target, see how many metres can she do? let me know where she is on these and i will tell you how good she is.

For circuit work on the basketball court
gonna make that about 30-45 mins long 
3 laps of court
stretching
3 laps of court steady pace
the next few laps Im not sure how much is too much in terms of sprinting/jogging/running/walking as its been a few years since i did fitness work like this?
followed by some high speed work with press ups and sit ups at the end of each sprint:-
sprint one 10 press ups 10 sit ups
sprint two 9 press ups 9 sit ups etc etc to 
sprint ten 1 press up 1 sit up.

Keri-build the basketball court stuff up, and aim to do sprints rather than just running around it, so up and down the court once then the press ups, then you go and she rests, then she goes you rest until you’re both tired, you will improve each week for sure!

For myself I used to use a routine which i call the “2 set routine” which involves a series of weight lifting exercises on which you lift to about 90% maximum lifting capacity for 10 reps and aim for 10 reps second set. with this one once you find 2 sets of ten easy you increase the weight for your second set so you feel that your going to fail at rep 8 maybe 9. I did this and because of my body I found i grew in size really quick and had some of my biggest gains doing it. I can send you this one if you want to run your professional eye over it Smile this usually takes no more than 45 mins but leaves you shattered at the end of it and hurting, but in a good way.

Keri-this sounds like a great workout and you have been working hard. The only concern i have is the last paragraph for your friend, she is not going to benefit from the 90% of max method, but you will. I would stick to all the stuff you did before that, and the key is to work up gently?

So she doesnt really get into it too quickly, and needs to build herself up week by week or two things could happen. She could either get injured and lose motivation, and the schedule will initially be too tough? Everyone needs to start off lighter and build their way up, no matter how fit they are, and your friends sounds a little out of shape, so i would set up more realistic goals, and aim to improve by the week, rather than by the workout, small gains can end up huge gains in just 6 weeks, and especially 12 weeks!!!

Let me know how you get on and please look in the diet/food section for plenty of meal ideas as well as snacks!!

Keri

Twitt
Posted on

February 25th 2011

You have around 5 weeks until the clocks go forward and the already lighter nights become even longer and  the weather becomes warmer hopefully. You then have around 11 weeks until its may, when it definitely should be warmer and light until at least 8pm.

This all means that its the best time of year to be in shape. You cannot hide in big jumpers at this time of year. You cant wear big coats and the colour black can make anyone look slimmer, but it can’t make miracles!!!!

Being in shape by may will be a great challenge for you, and having the confidence to wear anything you want will and should be a huge incentive for you. If you’re in shape, then anything will look good on you, you don’t have to be so fussy because you’re in shape, your body fat is low and all of that strength work, resistance work has paid off throughout the winter!!!

May will also be a good time for you to get compliments too. Your hard work in the rain right now may seem unrewarded right now, but another 11 weeks of effort will bring a raft of compliments for sure, especially from those people who don’t see you so often. Theres nothing better than that feeling of being told you’re in shape, you’re looking so much younger because you’ve lost the weight, you’re looking in so much better shape because you’ve been workout out with weights etc etc!!!!!

Every day now you should be telling yourself that you’re getting better and better, your food is getting even better in terms of quality and you are setting new records in your training. Theres no alcohol in the week any more and health may have gone from bottom to top in your life!!!

Once your priorities involve health, being fit and energetic, and looking and feeling your best, then good things should be about to happen in your life!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

February 24th 2011

We have discovered that a calorie is not a calorie certainly. We know there is a difference between a doughnut and an apple, at least i think we do and we have really ditched the 1000 calorie a day workouts haven’t we? Those days of beverley callard in the paper advising people to do her exercise videos and eat cardboard all day are surely at an end arent they?

The difference between now and then is we have even more knowledge than we did back then, perhaps 15-20 years ago, but somehow the obesity levels are still going up, alarmingly so in fact!! So how does that happen?!!

It happens most of the time because we eat too much refined sugar and too much saturated fat.

Then we go on a diet, and then severely restrict our calories, lose some weight, get fed up with it all and pile the weight back on again, and we miss the point every single time.

We talked about it yesterday, not once do we care about the quality of our food, its all about calories, calories, calories, calories and thats why a lot of us become unstuck and lose the plot………….once again.

I have said it a million times, how about concentrating on what we actually put in our mouths, rather than the calories. The food can be full of chemicals designed to destroy your insides over time, give you high blood pressure, put strain on your heart, clog your arteries up, yet we still eat those foods because they are ONLY 100 CALORIES!!!!! This is absolutely no reason to eat rubbish, because its always going to be destined to fail.

Lets get this one straight, PROCESSED FOOD IS NO GOOD FOR YOUR BODY AND NO GOOD FOR YOUR LONG TERM WEIGHT LOSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So this wonder theory i have about asking yourself every time you eat food, “is this food really going to do my insides good?”, isnt this a valid question to ask? If you can answer yes very much most of the time, THEN YOU WILL LOOK AND FEEL GOOD!!!

Hows that for a straight answer, simplifying everything and getting fired up for your fat loss efforts, keep it simple and you get very simple but powerful results!!!!!!

Twitt