Thursday, 23rd May

Great things happen when you actually “get it”!

Once you REALISE that there are no side-stepping issues, there is no ducking out of the fact that you will need to eat good natural foods, you will need to exercise 3-4 times a week, you will not be able to lose body fat at a good rate if you are not willing to give up drinking alcohol most nights (alcohol needs to come back down to one night a week only).

You have to be prepared to use up your energy stores every day through exercise,creating an calorie or energy deficit so you are actually burning body fat, instead of steadily putting it on.

You need to forget the saying that you can eat “whatever you want” just because you’re training! Its more important than ever to eat well when you train hard because you body needs all the good nutrients even more. Your body needs to recover quickly from the last session, and i take it you actually want to improve in the way you look and feel, rather than go through the motions?!!

You need to commit yourself and develop a mindset that you need to exercise for a lifetime, and not do it a month here, a month there! This will be a sure fire way to swim in mediocrity, and constantly disappoint yourself.

These are the things you need to do if you are serious about the way you want to look and feel, to have outstanding health, and to finally achieve the big goals you promised yourself probably a very long time ago.

Time is precious so do not waste it!

March 16th 2011

The ability to get out there on such a beautiful day and exercise should never be taken for granted.

Most people will tell you that if you have spent any time at all in hospital, then being out in the fresh air and actually being able to exercise is a very powerful statement indeed.

Most people will also tell you that if you have spent any time in a cemetery, it will definitely make you realise how important your opportunity to exercise and live life in the fresh air actually is.

Most people if not all, would swap with you every time if they had the chance, and that’s a fact!!!

To brighten the conversation up a bit, isn’t it time you got much more active than you may be currently, perhaps you are but if you’re not, then you really need to start putting things into perspective and creating as short and long term plan for your health.

The short term plan could involve making a massive difference to yourself in the next 12 weeks or so, it is entirely possible to make such a short term difference to yourself if you’re willing to change your everyday habits for a better existence.

If you have a fried breakfast, snack on chocolate and crisps, fry everything and eat a lot of processed food, and then wash it all down a few times a week with some wine and/or a few beers, then its highly likely you’re going to be on a one way road to ill health and problems down the road sooner rather than later, its all a matter of time.

If you changed that to some porridge for breakfast, snacking on fruit and natural nuts, drink plenty of water throughout the day, and keep making lean proteins such as chicken, turkey, fish etc the foundation of your week , then avoid alcohol 6 days a week only drinking in moderation a maximum of once a week, then you’re going to transforming your life in a bigger and better way than you ever though possible. High energy levels, a lean harder body and very positive levels of general health will become the norm in your life.

Time to do it and what are you waiting for!

March 15th 2011

The little decisions we have to make every day with food and exercise are put into context by our one big decision.

That one big decision is the one when you first started to workout and eat much better.

It could have been down to you being fed up with the way you looked and felt, it could have been because you were always teased about your weight, if you are a man, you may have been teased about being so skinny and weak, you may have always wanted to take part in a sporting event such as a 10k run or maybe a marathon.

Whatever it may have been, its time to remember that feeling all over again when it comes to your workouts and the way you shop for food.

If you’re buying chicken for example for you weekly eating at home, it really is not acceptable to have processed chicken with lots of additives all over it.

There was one such example this week when I saw that gentleman Levi Roots of reggae reggae sauce fame promoting frozen chicken. He was promoting the most pitiful small piece of chicken you have ever seen, and it was filled with additives and sauces you would never recognise the ingredients of!!! This was £2.20-2.50, and could maybe last one serving and that’s it.

Not only was it not any good for you, it wouldn’t even fill you up properly!!!

Compare that with buying a whole chicken to cook for around £3-4 or even a ready cooked one for up to £5 and you have many different meal options, as well as being very healthy as long as you strip off the skin of course.

These are the decisions that need to be made time after time to make sure you’re going to be in great shape. If you put in rubbish, then , you’re not going to look or feel good full stop. Its time to have a good hard think next time you’re buying all these examples of food, I call them examples because they are not proper food and they are not going to serve you well!!!

Eat natural, eat fresh where possible and keep filling your body with high nutrient, high energy food that is going to take you where you want to go!!!

March 14th

Another nice week of weather to get you into it, and make your summer promises you made to yourself happen.

Fat burning workouts need to keep happening, and forget staying on stepper’s in the gym for 2 hours to enable you to make that happen. It may say “fat burning” on the machine but it really doesn’t mean thats going to happen at all.

The myth that you need to do cardio to burn fat and use weights to build needs to exploded and kicked into touch for good. That way of thinking in unacceptable and will lead to mediocre results, even after a lot of time spent in the gym. Using resistance/weights in your programme is essential, vital, hugely important, whatever important term you want to use, you can use it so i can’t over estimate it!!!!

Everyone who wants to get into a programme always thinks bike, treadmill and stepper, and sometimes rower, and then settle on whatever they feel most comfortable on, and that usually means what they put the least amount of work into. Its common to walk into some gyms and see the same old people hogging the same old machines, nothing different ever gets tried!!! A sweat may be achieved but doing something different may be a swear word for some!!!

You know by now im a big advocate of working in a circuit style, and i don’t mean drop the weight so low that the workout becomes some kind of pathetic pandsy type of workout that you never get out of breath, this type of cop out is really no acceptable.

You need to work with weights that cause you discomfort especially when it comes to the  7th or 8th rep, so you are actually working hard, and not going through the motions, which is the worst way to train and guarantee mediocrity of the highest order!!!!

You need a good circuit in your life, think 6-8 exercises done for 3 sets and 8 reps per exercise, follow this and you’re going to be getting the results you really dreamed of!!

example-press ups or bench presses

arm dips using bench or chair

alternate squat thrusts

lateral raises

lat pulldowns

curls with dumbbells

plank-aim for one minute eventually

See how you get on and WORK HARD!!!

Keri