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The right path

It’s never to late to take the right path. We have all chosen certain ways of doing things, approaching challenges etc, and many of us are too stubborn to change course, even if the ship is at times heading firmly for the rocks.

It stands to reason that we fall for the best marketing technique when choosing a way to be healthy. Actually, that was wrong, most marketing techniques are aimed at those who want to lose weight, whatever the consequences! Being “healthy” doesn’t seem to matter to most people as you would think. Associating losing weight with being totally healthy is misguided at best.

Living the healthy lifestyle involves a number of factors, and losing some weight can be beneficial of course if you have to lose in the first place.

Choosing what food and drink goes into your body matters greatly.

Exercising regularly matters heck of a lot.

Sleeping properly is hugely important.

Living life in a positive manner supports your immune system, being negative often brings on stress which attacks your immune system, you can see how important this is.

I find that most people go through all the marketing techniques before they get to me usually. I can be the last resort to some, but bringing people back to doing the right thing is always the answer.

Doing the “right thing” again after going through so many faddy ways of doing things may not work immediately believe it or not. Because you will have confused your body so much by constant dieting, and different methods of dieting, your body can be resistant to new ways of losing the weight.

I will concentrate on doing the right thing and your body has to get used to finally getting used to consuming all the important nutrients again. You have to get used to working out properly, doing the right exercises on the right amount of days, with enough rest in between. This will help you sleep better, which is massively important to your ultimate success.

So once you’re on a solid plan, regular improvements should come almost on a weekly basis to start with. These improvements will constantly increase your belief in the programme, and with that will come self-confidence.

After you’ve had some experience doing the right thing continuously, you will wonder how on earth you ever fell for all the faddy marketing techniques in the first place. Don’t feel like a fool, there are people out there making a lot of money in “selling” you this imaginary result that is never likely to happen, or at least last for an extended period or a lifetime.

So whatever your position, its never too late to get on the programme and put your body on a firmer course. All I know is that this way works, there may be some ups and downs, but ultimately you’re going to arrive in a better place, and you will be able to keep it up for life without too much trouble.

Its always the right time to do the right thing!

Twitt
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Seeing the light

Looking at things in a different light can make the difference between doing positive things, or feeling your are collapsing under the strain of life.

Some of us have terrifying schedules to some, and some of us moan about our jobs, our lives, our responsibilities. If you look at these factors in a different way, and feel lucky that you have such a busy schedule, feel lucky that people make us responsible for others and take pride in that, and that our jobs are actually meaningful, we can soon feel pretty lucky indeed, and look at things in a different way.

I feel lucky that some of you communicate after i’ve shared my thoughts with you every day. This helps me learn and understand what’s really going on out there, and i learn more about the highs and lows of human emotions.

You will hopefully benefit from me sharing all the things i know, and its great to have some positive feedback on what we do on here.

I am on the verge of putting my house up for sale, having a young family makes you grow out of houses very quickly, and so im about to see things in a different light in a different address! I feel lucky i have the opportunity to move house and are able to finance it. Life’s about different experiences and im sure a ton of them are about to come!!

Seeing the light for many of you came through our recent 84 day challenge, you may have been on the verge of giving up, the verge of throwing in the towel many, many times, but some of you came through and actually demonstrated to yourselves that if you employed the right strategies, you could really improve yourself and make a major contribution to your wellbeing and health in general. You overcame feelings of hopelessness at times and were brave enough to get off the floor aqnd come back fighting.

Look at the way Cyril picks himself up every single day, good or bad and somehow manages to work it out for himself, and shares all those ups and downs.

I have said many times that one of the biggest secrets of success is simply showing up 80% of the time. if you expect good things to happen, and you take positive action each day in the hope they will, chances are that some good things will happen.

Gary Player, the famous golfer once said when asked by the media on how he was so “lucky” he replied, “the funny thing is, the more i practice, the luckier i get!

Hope your week is going well and keep practicing!

Twitt
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With a purpose

If something is worth doing, then its worth doing well.

If you’re planning a workout, make sure you put some effort into it, and you’re not guilty of going through the motions.

If you struggle to get going some days, then get going anyway. I find if i get a day like this, i feel a whole lot better 5-10 minutes into the workout. After the workout, i am really so glad i got going in the first place, and everything feels better after the event!

We all would like to act on some of the takeaway leaflets that come through the door sometimes, wondering in fact if we are really missing something? When we fall for it again, the reverse is true of how we feel after a workout. We feel all groggy, sluggish and generally terrible, exactly how we didn’t want to feel!

Doing things for a purpose works on a time basis too. We all have constraints on our time from time to time, and if we train with a purpose, we usually have to train LESS than most people do, because we have a purpose in mind and simply we want “to get the job done”!

Making changes in our body fat, and energy levels can be done with eating with a purpose too. I gave you the pizza example earlier, or just about any takeaway, when we feel terrible after junk. The opposite can be done with “good” and “clean” eating, we automatically feel better when we do this, but we have to shop with a purpose too, this means pre-written shopping lists with intent on being healthy and being well-nourished. This is easily done and you don’t have to think about it too much.

Good planning is often imperitive if we are aiming for some impressive results. When this planning becomes second nature, then good results and a good standard of health and fitness becomes natural, and almost like being no effort at all.

Most people are impatient and unwilling to give it time. This is a common reason for failure. If you give anything enough time, you will do well as long as you’re sure what you are doing contains common sense and has every chance of working.

One of the secrets of success is simply showing up time after time, remember the 80% rule about doing everything right. Then 20% of the time, do whatever you want and enjoy the treats in life on all sorts of levels.

Twitt
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The next day and start with q and a

just goit back from hospital, everything okay thank god, so posting here at 10pm!

Tom writes in asking why his chest doesn’t seem to grow, he does a lot of exercises which include bench press, incline bench press, cross-overs and dumbbell flyes, four exercises he says and his chest won’t grow?

He says he eats well ,lots of protein and no fat and it still doesn’t work out for him.

I hear this all the time and let’s break the problem down.

The biggest problem I think is people are (especially when they are not advanced exercisers or pro bodybuilders), is that they TOO MANY exercises per body part, and concentrate on one or two body parts, when they could be working their whole body two to three times per week.

Some people go down the gym and train just chest, or just chest and back, or just shoulders etc. That’s fine if you are willing to hit the weights 6 times per week, without fail for months on end with dedication never missing a workout, unless ill of course. If you can give that commitment, then carry on but I would guess most of you are not willing to commit that much to your exercise programme.

The list of exercises Tom gives is fine but too much for one session (unless you are an advanced exerciser of course, even then I would just pick 3).

So I would just look at doing an all over programme for your stage of development, and 2-3 times per week. If your goals is fat loss, muscle gain and some good fitness levels, I would do the following.

Monday and Thursday

Pick one exercise per body part, and aim to make improvements each week in that exercise. Aim to work hard on every exercise, we are looking to add small amounts of weight every 1-2 weeks, so your focus and attitude is hugely important.

For example 3 sets of 8 reps of the following

Bench press-chest

Flyes (as you’re looking to improve your chest)-chest

Upright rows-shoulders

One arm dumbbell rowing

Leg press

Tricep dips or dips (triceps)

Dumbbell curls

Sit ups

This looks simple but can take you a long way if you really give it some commitment.

For example, if you start off using 70 pound bench press, and 6 months later you are using 150 pounds, then the improvements will be impressive, and naturally your chest will look significantly better.

The same goes with each and every exercise, and they will all contribute to your overall progress, so give it your best.

Your eating is very important to support your success, and see my ideas in the diet/food section. All these are sound and tried and tested to get you into serious shape.

The key is to give it 3-6 months, for example if you did the recent 12 weeks, you would have made significant changes to yourself by now. Consistency of training and eating is the true secret, no way around it no matter what anyone tells you!

Good luck,

Keri

Twitt
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Day 84 The end of the 12 weeks

Here we are, the last day, day 84 which means 12 weeks since the start and hasn’t it gone quickly for some, or very long for others!

We have all learned from this of course. I have discovered how hard it is for most of you, to create the foundations needed to be successful in the future and right now. Some of you have done very well, such as ever-present Cyril, who seems to be enjoying the programme much more now, and is starting to show confidence in his abilities.

 From cycling in the snow and ice, he is thoroughly enjoying his time cycling now that the weather is getting warmer and the track is not actually dangerous anymore!!

Whatever your progress over the last 12 weeks, its important to recognise how much you have improved and where exactly you are now.

If you pin-point the areas where you need to improve, then progress should automatically follow because you now know the areas where you can make gains on by making simple changes in your life. It’s easier when you have this kind of awareness. The hardest part is of course when you don’t have this kind of awareness. If you don’t know where you are going wrong, then how are you supposed to fix it?

This site is all about making progress, spotting how you can improve and spotting trouble sometimes before it happens. If trouble and struggle does come (most of the time it does), then not allowing it to get out of control is the difference between keeping your progress and programme on track, and the difference between going off the rails and not doing any exercise plan for years sometimes.

The confidence to carry on with a health and fitness programme can make all the difference to you. When we have little or no confidence in ourselves and our abilities, our likelyhood of carrying on doing something and doing it well are going to be greatly reduced.

The great news is that i will continue posting each day starting from tomorrow, and use this site as kind of a research and development site to health others. We are all learning and we are all here to learn off each other. We are all after the whole truth on how to get into shape, and live a better quality of life.

See you tomorrow and thanks for the last 12 weeks. Be interesting to know some of your results, even if they are up and down a bit, the rest of the year awaits!

Thanks for supporting the site and we still have at least 100 people here daily, more of you actually posting would be great!

Twitt