March 2nd

Your progress doesn’t mean much unless it impacts your life in a positive way.

It also doesn’t matter much if you feel that nobody cares about your progress. Having someone interested in what you do is a very underrated factor in your progress and confidence.

This is why people join diet clubs and gyms, its nice for people to talk about their progress with like minded people.

The weekly weigh in’s with diet clubs are a ritual for some people, and the pat on the backs or lets pull your socks up attitude seems to work for some people.

I’m definitely in that line of work too, a serious part of my job is not only constantly analysing an individuals performance and pushing them onto new highs, its also about motivating the individual and pushing the right buttons, especially when things are not going their way.

You can do it another way. You could ask a friend to help you out and witness your progress. That could be from measuring your waist with a tape measure once a month, to witnessing your weigh in’s every week, or just once a month.

Having a friend you can trust to help you can be very valuable with your training too. If you have someone who will become a training partner of yours, then you can keep pushing each other to new heights. Perhaps on one day, you will not feel great and your training partner will be able to push you to get through the workout, then on another day you will feel top of the world, and you will be able to get the best out of your friend.

This is why its always good to share your progress, it matters heck of a lot more when you share success, unless you are a very private person and like the rewards of purely individual pursuits, and don’t need to share it with anyone else.

Whatever works for you, then use it and keep using it time after time. The only thing that matters is sustainable progress and you being in great health. You always have to think about your health and fitness programme and change your approach from time to time. Life never stays still and you have to change to keep up with it, but as long as you train a minimum of 3 times a week and eat well 80% of the time, you’re going to be doing well!

February 23rd

The issue with calories intake associated with diet and weight loss/weight gain has been around for a long time.

There have been 2000, 3000 and all the way down to 800 calorie a day diets.

Most people think, especially when they are in the mood to diet, that less is always best.

They are right partly but only to a degree. A calorie is not always a calorie.

Look at the difference between an apple which is approximately 50 calories and a doughnut which is a good couple of hundred calories.

If you used the logic of a calorie is a calorie, then you could class an apple the same as a quarter of an apple? A lot of people would consider this a fair trade off and take the doughnut every single time.

So what should you do?

If you take the doughnut every time, you will get the following.

An increased sugar rush, followed by a sugar low, leading to a craving for you guessed it, yet more sugar!!!!

If done regularly, you will heighten your chances of becoming diabetic, which can lead to a change in your life that you definitely wont enjoy!!

Your skin wont have a glow, in fact increased refined sugar like this is likely to lead to skin problems such as acne, rashes, redness and speeds up the ageing process.

Like we said at the start, there is absolutely no way you will be able to stop at one doughnut, especially a quarter of a doughnut!!! Once you have a craving for sugar, its very difficult to stop and will lead to a diet rich in sugary and fatty snacks, studies have shown this time after time.

If you consumer the apple every day and focus on natural, nutrient giving foods, you are likely to stabilise your blood sugar levels, which means more regular and constant energy levels.

You are likely to fend off serious disease, as most fruit and vegetables contain cancer fighter anti-oxidants, as well as a host of other vitamins and minerals vital for good health.

Any time your diet is healthy, your skin in healthy and you WILL have a glow about you, try it and see if im right.

Once you get used to good healthy food, you wont want to go back to the sugary foods, not only for their downside but because you simply wont feel good when you eat them.

Time to change your life!

February 9th 2011

Talking about improving your training efforts, here are some easy ways to achieve exactly that.

A very good start would be to keep a training record of what you do. For example, if you go for a run on monday for 20 minutes on a hilly course, write it down and try and state how you feel too, was it easy, hard, did you have to walk most of it, did you do more than planned for example?

Then the next week you can go into the same run fully aware of what it would take to improve on that. If the previous week you managed 20 consecutive minutes but had to then stop, the a run of even 21 minutes would be seen as an improvement, so set that as your goal if time exercising is your goal. A better goal would be run a little bit further, so even if that takes the same 20 minutes, its a very real improvement. Going more distance in the same amount of time is a major achievement and is much more meaningful in my book.

If your training diary says that that you only trained twice last week but planned 3 times, then work out why you didnt do it. Did you expect to do it in the evening around 5pm, but something kept coming up? The best solution for me would be to switch the workouts to first thing in the morning, you’re less likely to have so many things going on before work or even before breakfast.

Working out in the morning takes the excuses out of your life, and can set you up to have a great day. It works for many people i know and now that they have got into early morning training, they would never go back to evening training. Plus you tend to burn body fat quicker before breakfast so it can work on many levels.

The key to improving your training is your training diary, write your progress down and you will feel much more motivated to improve, putting good pressure on yourself is a great way to keep you moving forward, instead of being stuck in a rut!!!

Wednesday, 15th November

Use this opportunity to work even harder inside on your strength and resistance work. Some people buy a treadmill for indoors, what a waste of money when you get some cracking workouts inside.

If I want to keep it basic for myself and for everyone I train. I always think of working the whole body in one go to maximise the amount of energy and fat my body uses in the workout. If I wanted the easy option, I would isolate different body parts but I’ve discovered that’s the easy way out on so many different levels.

Right now, I’m all about discovering and proving which workout works best and it turns out those workouts tend to be like eating your greens as a kid. Those exercises that are best for you tend not be the easiest or even the ones you enjoy the most. They may be harder right now because they are very challenging and it may take your body getting to another level before you can do them without too much problem.

Anything that periodically takes you out of your comfort zone and drags you sometimes kicking and screaming to the next level is hugely positive for you. Don’t see it as a hardship though, see it as growth and an exciting time in your life.

If you’re one of these people who thinks your body declines after the age of 30, then im here right now to tell you that you’re wrong.

With a well-structured training and eating plan, you can literally improve each and every year, seriously I’ve seen that happen to everyone who takes their health seriously and takes action every week to look after their body.

The natural evolution for people who have such a great attitude is that so many good things happen when you attain very good health. Some people treat high energy levels, low levels of body fat and good levels of strength as NORMAL now. Most people however haven’t got that luxury so that’s why I’m urging your right now to take action and make health a huge priority in your life once again!!

38 days to Christmas so an excellent time to make it happen in a hurry starting today!!!