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Wednesday, 21st December

We talked about the benefits of eating well the last couple of days, but don’t beat yourself up if you are not eating “perfectly” from day one, because that perfect world doesn’t exist in the first place.

You have to develop your own personal standards, nobody else’s, just your own when you measure how much progress you get.

For example, if you have a 44 inch waist and you have lost 1-2 inches over the first month of january, then you have been very successful.

If you continued at that rate of progress for the first 6 months of the year, and it is totally possible, that could be 6-12 inches off your waist!!!

This would turn you from a 44 inch waist to at best a 32 inch waist!!! This is an incredible transformation, and the great news is that not only your waist will see the difference.

If you are using weights or some kind of resistance training, your arms are likely to be much more toned and more shapely, all that fat that was hanging on your back will disappear and tighten considerably, your legs and calves will become much more defined, you will get more energy and your “mojo” will be back for the first time in a long time!!!!

So to achieve all of this, you need to start following the advice on here all week and click on the diet section immediately.

Lets take breakfast, you may be having a bash at porridge and fruit juice, trying to be “healthy” for the first time!

Ideally, you will get used to porridge with water and you will find no need for sugar or honey. You will dilute your orange juice with some water, cutting back on the natural sugars. This will get you burning body fat.

A lot of people cannot to do this first time, or for the first few weeks, so how about having porridge with milk, having a LITTLE sugar or honey or dried fruit to start, to get you into it all, and so it still tastes sweet enough? You can have your normal orange juice too, if dillution is too hard for you at this stage with water.

The point im trying to make is you CAN get into things gently and you can’t go from point A to point Z in a week, getting used to more natural plain foods definitely takes time. This will still bring you excellent results, especially if your diet was very poor before.

Its about your own personal standards and how you constantly rise them over a period of time, theres no rush, as you have the rest of your life to get used to it!!!!

Twitt
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Tuesday, 20th November

Following on from yesterday, its no secret that today we are going to talk about turning a bad situation into a good healthy situation.

If you don’t prepare to eat well, then you’re going to always struggle.

Perhaps you had a packed lunch when you went to school, and that usually meant you ate well during school. You should start following these methods again.

A chicken sandwich or tuna salad will work well, a handful of nuts, pieces of fruit are always handy. You will have satisfaction also from preparing your own food, and it will feel 100 times better than hitting that fast food joint for an overpriced pizza full of salt and saturated fat!!!! So good preparation is everything and number one.

Then, how about planning some of these meals in advance?

You should be looking at a healthy amount of carbohydrates and good quality energy sources such as wholemeal bread or pitta bread, wholegrain pasta, brown rice, sweet, new or jacket potatoes.

With these carbs you need a good protein source such as fish, white meats, cottage cheese etc, this will make sure you are filled up and not tempted to snack on rubbish.

We already talked about fruit, try and mix it up and try a different fruit every day to keep it fresh. Apples, oranges, kiwi fruit, bananas, pears etc are great energy sources and will keep your sweet tooth at bay!!!

With your carbs and protein, you need a good mix of vegetables too, not only for health reasons but to keep your meal fresh and tasty. Again, try and pick a couple of different pieces of veg each day to keep some good variety in your diet. Without vegetables and fruit in your diet, you will be missing out on vital nutrients your body needs each day.

Portion control makes all of this happen for you!

You can have all the good food in the world, but if you are eating too much of it, then some of it is going to be deposited as fat. Wr talk all the time on here about making your carb portions the size of your fist, the same with protein portions, and veg can be pretty much unlimited, its going to be very good for you and very low in calories.

So its time to ditch snacking in fast food places, and actually know what goes into your food every day, your body will thank you for it!!!!

Twitt
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Monday, 19th December

One of the first things a busy person thinks when they feel hunger pangs is “where can i find food that comes fast and is cheap”, especially in the current economic climate!!

If you are working and in the middle of a town or city, you are likely to be bombarded with fast food offers, with no shortage of places to choose. The problem is that most of the choices are going to loaded with saturated fat, sugar and salt, exactly what you don’t want when you’re trying to get in shape!!

As i said, its going to be cheap and fast so the problem is solved straight away? Not really because these habits if practiced enough will bring health problems like you never imagined!

Absolutely nothing wrong with grabbing fast food once a week, a burger here or a slice of pizza there, but when it  becomes an everyday occurrence, its then your health is likely to suffer from issues around obesity. With obesity rising still in this country very quickly (most of the uk’s population is already classed as overweight) , the chances will be that these fast food places will be full of busy people looking to get a quick fix just to fill up on empty calories.

The chances are that most if not all people in that store will know that the food they are eating is not going to be good for them. Unfortunately, its not until their health suffers that they do something about it, and that is sometimes too late. Putting off eating healthy until tomorrow has a familiar ring to it for all of us at some stage in our lives.

Heart disease and diabetes for starters, follow that with terribly low energy levels and bad digestion and you have a nasty combination of health issues that are really going to spoil your quality of life.

The good news is that it really doesn’t have to be this way at all, there is ANOTHER way and i’m here to help. Just as destructive a lifestyle this can be with fast food in your life every day, the opposite can be achieved with some small changes made in your everyday life, plus you will SAVE money!!! After all, all of that fast food was never that cheap in the first place was it? And did it ever really satisfy you?

My ideas to change your eating and life around start tomorrow on here, so see you then!!

In the meantime, click on the diet section on the right hand side for plenty of ideas to get you into all of this.

Twitt
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Friday, 16th December

Using anger and stress as a viable workout tool can make a hopeless situation turn into your best performing workouts!

How many of us have hit a workout in no mood to train, only feeling stress and anger at whatever situation presented itself that particular day?

Those of you who decided to carry on with your workout will usually feel ten times better at the end of the workout. All that anger and negative feelings can usually be absorbed into the workout, and sometimes your best performances are achieved.

I have seen people in gyms who work shifts, and after some night shifts have approached the gym with little or no sleep, and really hit the workout hard, and you can visibly see the anger subsiding after a few tough sets of high intensity weight training. They always leave the gym a different person, and they use the workout as the ultimate de-stresser!!!

I sometimes dont wake up in the best of moods after a night of little sleep with the kids,  but after my first run, i always feel 200% better, and its usually the same with the person i am running with.

If you want to categorise stress into different sections, think positive and negative.

Negative stress would be work pressures, money worries, relationship problems, family problems, job security, personality clashes, etc etc.

Positive ways to deal with it would be exercising, eating well, avoiding alcohol, avoiding negative people, sleeping better and more regular etc etc.

If you follow these rules, then the anger and negativity is likely to subside. We all have these feelings, lets not pretend otherwise, but if some sort of exercise is a daily part of our lives, we have the ultimate natural medicine for it!!!

Have a great weekend, the weather is clear and snow free so lets get out there in the fresh air and enjoy the benefits!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 15th December

We talked about interval training last week, and how to develop it from a simple treadmill exercise, or outside running exercise of walking for one minute, running for the next minute, then walking one minute etc, all the way through to non stop training in all sorts of ways.

This week I have already taken a number of individuals through to the next stage of training, that can be brutally hard but extremely effective in terms of benefits.

It’s a simple concept but again, you really need to be very conditioned to do this.

All it involves is light running and press ups and arm dips at various intervals in your run.

For example, a lot of paths such as the one in mumbles or parks in Llanelli, burry port and surrounding area have park benches.

So the concept is to run for say 30-50 yards before you come to a park bench, then you do 10 arm dips (lowering yourself down on bench working arms/shoulders).

Then run again for another 30-50 yards and get down for 10 press ups, or 5 press ups or whatever your capability is?

Then its 50 yards and hit the next bench with 10 arm dips and so on.

The first time you do it, you will probably only be able to hit 3 benches and you have to stop. Then you will need a rest. Start up again when you get your breath back and go for it again.

To give you an example of progress with individuals who have been of average/to good fitness levels, they sometimes started of being capable of doing a total of 50 press ups/arm dips on one run, that typically went up to 1000 and the record was 2500, and this was a 58 year old!!! I am totally serious and the numbers although seemingly unbelievable, can be achieved by a lot of people as long as they eat very well, rest well and are very consistent with their training.

This type of progress could take 6-12 months and would apply to someone of a high standard of fitness and capability.

The results as I said are phenomenal but this workout should only be done under supervision by an exercise professional.

Twitt