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Making your mark in the sand

Making your mark right now is tough given the economic climate.

When things seem dark and depressing as I write this in the pouring rain, its easy to curl up in the corner and give in to everything and not even try.

This is what a lot of people will do this time of year especially when it comes to their health, even if they are not even active to begin with, so things continue going down the pan for them. This is a slippery slope that is desperately hard to get out.

Try this for an experiment though.

If you are inactive and don’t do anything really to move around much, this could change things around for you in an instant.

Promise yourself that tomorrow you will do some exercise. It may be a walk, a bike ride, or whatever but lets keep it simple as say a walk.

Plan on walking for 30 minutes and take a bottle of water with you.

Then, when you get back in the car or you get into the house, if you don’t feel 100% better in terms of wellbeing and increased energy, I owe you £50! Be honest about this as I don’t feel like selling the house to pay up!!

This is your first step.

Then, have your shower and promise yourself that you’re not going to spoil all of that good work and you’re going to put some good food to maximise that very good feeling you have.

This is your second step.

Then, after all of this, you promise to hit the sack earlier than normal that night and you have a good sleep. Then I promise you that you will wake up so much brighter the next day it won’t be true!

You add all of this up and you have had a great 24 hours and then you need to try it all over again the very next day, because IT IS possible to feel that good again.

Try this for one week and see if your mood changes, you are slightly more optimistic about your chances in life, you are more hopeful and you will be on the road to developing more self-confidence and self-esteem.

These are the early things you need to do ever so slowly to get you on the road to discovering how important your health and fitness is to your future success-IN EVERYTHING!!!

Let me know if I have to pay you £50 or not!!!!!!!!!!!!

Twitt
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Showing up IS success

Many or probably most of you have had real problems with your training on and off for many years.

The problems though tend to stem from you being “on and off” with your training.

How many of you have stories about how you “used” to be in shape, how you were always going to be in your best ever shape one last time, how you were going to rediscover your youth and feel like you did when you were 21 again?

These are familiar thoughts and while you may not have shouted it loud, you would be feeling those thoughts at certain times in your life with at first hope, and then maybe regret if you never did anything about it!

I see it all the time with people, they make romantic stories up on why they never really got into shape. They forget the one thing that will make them ultimately very successful. SIMPLY SHOWING UP!!

If i didnt show up and write this every day, i would soon make excuses until i never showed up, and this blog would collapse. Some days i feel like writing more than others, but once i get pushing the keyboard again, i realise i was trying to help people again, which is important to me and gives me great satisfaction.

If you dont show up for work when you’re supposed to, you dont get paid so its a must.

If you dont show up to the supermarket, you dont get food and you dont get fed, so this is a must if you want to eat!

If you dont wash every day, your personal hygiene will be a problem and people will stand a few feet away from you! Washing your body and brushing your teeth is a must!

So how about getting shape? How the heck are there all of these romantic stories you tell yourself? I hear many stories all the time. I quickly come to the point though these days as my patience is usually short with people who talk a good game.

Lets come straight to the point. If you show up all the time for your workouts and you eat well, then you WILL be in shape full stop and please lets not make it complicated. Please, please lets not do that!

Its quite hard to keep on thinking of more and more elaborate excuses, if you dont show up, you’re cheating yourself and you will not get into shape full stop!!!

Good luck and its about time you cut the mustard if you’re still not getting where you want to be!!

Twitt
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Fast food eating

Its always a battle to eat well in fast food establishments but here’s a few ways to make the most of it and still stay lean.

Bottom line is that if you spend most of your time eating in such places, the chances of you being in shape are usually nil.

However, the first thing you can learn is portion control. If you control the amount you eat of anything, you will be consuming less calories full stop. This can take some of the guess work when eating in restaurants.

When you have your food, the next thing you look at would be your drink. If you order a milkshake or full sugar drinks, you can consume 300-500 calories straight away, on top of your food depending on what you select. Water would be the best selection of course and although i don’t like diet drinks, they would be a better choice than the most popular drinks available, loaded with destructive calories.

When it comes to burgers, try and select one burger in a bun to cut down on the fat per serving, with a more wholemeal bun if possible rather than a white bun loaded with bleaching agents and sugar.  They do offer these selections in certain restaurants. Also, make sure you ask for the burger without the ketchup, the mayo or whatever other rubbish they decide to put into it.

When it comes to chicken burgers, always go for the grilled chicken burgers rather than the fried, crispy version. There is a substantial difference in calories. Also, the salad cream that comes with the chicken burgers can really take your saturated fat intake tenfold, so try and avoid that if you can or at least use sparingly!

If you’re having taco’s, try and avoid the big cheese element that is usually added. The added salsa is not much of problem usually as there are some good ingredients in there, unless it is a totally sugary/fatty version.

Salads you would think would be fine but you can have some high-calorie versions often worse than a burger and fries! If you must have the dressings, keep the servings to an absolute minimum. Other things to avoid can be bacon bits, croutons and noodles which are usually cooked the wrong way and loaded with calories.

Next time you’re out in such places, you can be healthy as long as you’re sensible.

Twitt
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Different approaches

Using different approaches in getting into shape is to be applauded, because there is always more than one way to get things done.

I do lose a bit of patience though when we hear all about the latest celebrity diets, the latest “cleansing” diets, the latest diet maple syrup diet for example for 14 days and you lose lots of weight promises, etc etc.

We all hear them all the time but the reality is that these diets will only take you further from your overall goal. Losing 14 pounds in two weeks makes your body all the more INEFFICIENT because you tend to lose valuable lean muscle tissue. This makes the longer term process of losing body fat very difficult as your metabolism will be undoubtedly slowed down.

The more lean muscle tissue you have on your body, the more calories your body burns 24 hours a day. Any time you lose some of the muscle tissue, you burn less calories and quite often, much of the shape you set out to get in the first place.

Most of us lose weight first in the areas we don’t really want to. I know many people who lose it first in the shoulders, so you get to look thin and shapeless straight away. The problem is that society puts so much emphasis on the weighing scale, and not enough on actual body fat loss and how you look in clothes, plus how your actual energy levels really are.

If you’ve been reading this since last October and you still try out faddy diets on a regular basis, either im not communicating with you at all or it could be a waste of time you reading this. If you like doing short term fixes, then great, go and do them.

The chances are though that you will be doing quite a lot of short term fixes over the rest of your life. If you want to relieve the stress of all of this, then you need to face facts and start eating food that was actually meant for your body. All those chemicals were not meant for consumption you see in lots of foods.

The way you live your life 24 hours a day in terms of food and drink will always reward you or come back to haunt you.

What you put into your fitness programme is always what you get out. If you eat in public all healthy and then behind closed doors, you eat rubbish, then its time to come clean and EAT CLEAN for a change.

The facts are all on here how to do it, the tick is clocking so the quicker you get on with it, the quicker you’re looking and feeling like the way you want to be!

Twitt
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Fresh bout of enthusiasm!

So how is all your progress looking right now?

Are you saying “god it’s cold outside and autumn is coming early”?

Are you saying “im fed up with all this rain, its making me down”!

Are you saying “its august, i’ll start back when the summer finished”?

If you fall victim to any of these, lets make a promise to yourself and cut the you know what, get a bit more aggressive about your health and training and really get your mojo back!!!

Being enthusiastic has to happen and you will achieve absolutely nothing if you don’t start adding some passion into your workouts and your health in general.

If you don’t feel you can, then who the heck is telling you can’t do it anymore, or even you can’t do it in the first place? Thats almost twice as bad!!

Just look at the person putting you off, are they a picture of health and coolness themselves? Are they an example you should follow?

Do you really believe that being inactive is really going to make your health somehow “better”? Good health doesnt happen by accident and sometimes you have to make radical decisions to change things around for the better? Surely you can do this and im backing you do it, in fact im offering all my support and advice.

Lets get to the facts, its getting darker in the nights, its getting colder and its certainly wetter. These ARE NOT MAJOR OBSTACLES though so dont think for one minute that this can possibly stop you all in your quest to become in the best possible shape you’ve ever been in. THESE WEATHER CONDITIONS CANNOT STOP YOU FULL STOP!!

So now that we are clear, this is 7pm on a thursday night and its still not too late to throw in a great workout, or is EASTENDERS somehow an obstacle to all of that!! You’ll be glad you fitted in and you will be well on your way to making your favourite clothes feeling heck of a lot better!

Lets get enthusicastic, lets get motivated, lets feel the drive inside of you again and lets get unbelievable performances out of yourself!!! Have you got the heart deep down or are you willing to throw the towel in again? Lets make it happen right now and make it to the weekend in much better heart and physical condition.

You will breathe better, feel in better shape and face everything with far greater confidence! Lets do it!

Twitt