Progress and scare stories

The scale of your efforts are always measured by what you did the week before.

There is always a good standard being set and if that dips, your health dips a little bit and your fitness dips too of course.

Fortunately to remain on an upward curve in your training, certain standards have to be met.

It used to be thought years ago that working at high intensity would put strain on the heart and increase blood pressure. The scientific evidence right now and the last few years says a lot different. The heart is a muscle and you are strengthening it every day by exercising hard, your blood pressure is actually being regulated and remains in a healthy range due to exercising hard. There have been numerous scientific studies to say that this is true and i myself have plenty of case studies to say this is true.

The stories about over doing it were mostly false, and simply down to people having a pre-existing heart condition before they started exercising or it was people who lived a very unhealthy lifestyle who did a run now and again, once a month or something like that and were not conditioned to do so, therefore putting their health at risk. I encourage everyone to start off slowly and make gradual improvements, this is always the way to go and safety and doing things right is always my number one goal.

There is nothing better than being very well conditioned and this is only achieved by exercising well and regularly. Also, eating the right foods and keeping your arteries as clear as possible. If you all the wrong foods, your arteries are likely to thicken inside (becoming “furry” is sometimes a term used) and also likely to minimise your blood flow, which is the worst thing to do especially when exercising.

Your heart likes a steady flow of blood to make sure it operates efficiently and exercising regularly and making sure you eat a wide array of healthy, natural foods will helps this enormously too.

It’s all about balance, its about doing the right things and not over-doing it. You will find though that if you workout regularly, you should be able to make constant improvements which can lead to you getting to an impressive level if you give it enough time. The one thing that spoils many people’s programme is that they have no patience and want results “yesterday”.

Give it some time and wonderful things will happen to you if you take the pressure off yourself and not set ridiculously short time limits on you achieving unrealistic targets. Remember 1-2 pounds a week off is recommended and don’t panic if you don’t lose every week, weight is not the only thing and not the most accurate measure of progress. Look more at how your clothes feel and how your fitness standards are coming along, as well as the way you feel of course.

Let’s keep it up and do all the right things to make sure you’re firing on all cylinders, inside and out!

Keri