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Friday 10th April 2011

Friday used to be the day I would measure myself in terms of physical performance, and Friday can be a great day to get the very best out of yourself.

I used to do a 20 minute time trial on the bike from my house in burry port to sandy water park and back. If I went much over 20 minutes, I would take it that I had slipped back with my fitness and I needed to pick up the pace with my training the following week.

If I broke 20 minutes, I knew my form and fitness was close to its maximum and I took a lot of satisfaction in recording this data on the computer not only in terms of time, but in terms of the average heart rate recorded over the course. If my heart rate was slowly coming down over the weeks, yet I was getting quicker, then everything was definitely going to plan and my performance and body was becoming a lot more efficient.

There’s not only the training element to this of course. What I would be eating every day would have a direct effect on my overall performance. If I ate badly, my Friday time trial would be mediocre no matter how hard I tried, if I ate well I would be primed to record an excellent time.

Measurements like this can offer key indicators on your overall progress.

If you have your own similar measurement, let me know and lets see how we can set about improving it.

If you have no kind of standard, then you have no barometer on how you are doing, and some kind of “hope for the best” attitude is not going to do you or your long term results and aspirations any good.

Lets make a difference this weekend and implement this very successful strategy that will give you maximum results every time!!!

Twitt
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Thursday 9th June

Okay, its Thursday and we are approaching the end of another week! Have you become one of the “victims” in life, the ones who sincerely think they cant get into shape no matter what they do?!!!

Or are you one of the people who actually DO good things for their health, they show up for the training session no matter what, having a healthy supermarket basket is a PRIORITY for them, and treats are few and far between, and pretty non-existent in the week in particular!!!

DOING is a very powerful mindset to get into.

You can “think positive” however much you want, but until you actually “do”, then nothing’s going to change in your life.

Listen to the next conversation you get in a hairdresser, or in a dentist or a doctor, when people start talking about health and fitness, it is often amusing to hear such stories going on about their versions of why the cannot train.

The ironic part is that doctors regularly recommend and prescribe exercise these days for all sorts of ailments, just about everything under the sun in fact, so what a time and place to be making excuses why they do not exercise.

So from all of that, you would assume I only want to concentrate on those who “do” rather than those who just talk about, but you would be wrong.

I have proven an awful lot of people wrong in their pre-conceived ideas about their own limitations.

ANYBODY AND ANYONE can get fit and health and I have a massively wide variety of people to prove it!!! All you need is an open mind and to replace negativity in your life with optimism and ambition, which are forgotten words in most peoples vocabulary, sometimes even after the age of 21!!!!

There has never been a better day to commit to yourself and create the best version of you today, Thursday 9th june!!!

Twitt
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Tuesday 7th June

We talked about yesterday the ability to work around injuries, instead of working through them which tends to make the injuries worse of course. Being flexible and being able to change your programme is very important.

The other issue is recovery and how important sleep and eating well is.

If you eat a variety of fresh natural foods, this usually means you will be ingesting a lot of vital nutrients that your body needs and when your body is down, such as when you are injured, these nutrients are even more important not only to make you feel better but to heal the damage that has already been done by the injury.

The process of an injury usually starts with your twisting or pulling something quite badly, then usually depending on the severity of the injury, your point of injury will bleed internally and the damage still goes on.

This is why ice is applied as soon as possible to injuries so the healing process can begin immediately, and you don’t waste time.

The ice will also bring inflammation down quickly of course, further speeding up the healing journey.

Then when you injury has stabilised, its important to keep bringing in, as I keep saying all the time, fresh natural food when possible to enable food to have its true healing power. People may scoff at this but your cells really appreciate good food coming in all the time because then it can go about fixing the injury, and much quicker than if you went on some kind of junk food diet which will only delay the process!!!

So if you can follow these rules, sleep then becomes paramount. If you get as much uninterrupted sleep as possible, your body will be in full recovery mode and will do its very best to fix itself in record time!

Its also paramount NOT to antagonise the injury again by working through it, you need to work AROUND it and train smart not to upset the incredible healing process your body is now on.

For the record, alcohol is the worst thing you can consume, as your body has to get rid of this foreign substance before it can heal again!

Some injuries are worse than others but these principles will help A LOT every time you have the misfortune of injury!!

Twitt
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Friday 3rd June

A brutally hot day today, but not hot enough to put you off your training hopefully!!!

Famously on days like these, you have the hideous sight of tops off at the local pub and beer drinkers pretending as if its christmas!

Nothing wrong at all with having a drink on days or nights like these, but it shouldn’t be your sole reason or only goal on days like these, lets get down the pub at all costs because they’re not going to be serving beer ever again!!!!

Its up to 25 degrees today, but that could be classed as a normal day in australia or california, and it actually ENCOURAGES people to exercise because its a great day to get out and about. I dont recommend you get out there and do marathon runs in this weather, but like yesterday, i do recommend you get out there again in the morning early or in the evening when its somewhat cooler.

The old saying that only englishmen and mad dogs go out in the midday sun is true! Lunch time for us IS a nightmare time to be out there and exercising on days like these thats for sure!! The alternative is though as i said exercising at different times of the day.

If you feel you cannot resist any longer and have to go to the pub, then fair enough. You HAVE to make up for it though!!! THIS MEANS GETTING UP EARLY TOMORROW MORNING AND CYCLING, SWIMMING, WALKING HARD, RUNNING WHATEVER!!!! You have to take responsibility for your actions and act like a grown up!!

If you pile all of those calories in today, you have to pay the price by getting a lot of them out of you tomorrow morning, or you have no kind of commitment to a health and fitness lifestyle whatsoever, and you have commitment to big results in your life.

Your life, your choices and that means your results!!! Lets do it!!!

Twitt
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1st June 2011

The start of the hottest of months if you believe the weather forecasters, and it could be a very hot month for you in terms of overall progress if you’re prepared to fire on all cylinders. You don’t have to be an olympic athlete either to fire on all cylinders, but you do need a very positive attitude to make the kind of changes to your body deep down you really want to happen.

We always talk about fresh natural food, but as we do this, there is a very tedious debate going on in france about the “Dukan diet”. One french government nutritionist calls it a sham, the authors are trying to debate that in court. An interesting case coming up.

This diet has been compared to the famous or infamous (depending on the way you look at it) Atkins diet. Most people know it concentrated on high protein foods, with litte consideration given to the saturated fat running through a person’s arteries.

I know  most people went on the Atkins diet did lost a lot of weight, and most people who go on the Dukan diet are having similar results. Eating mostly protein will lose you weight, but the difficulty remains in  keeping it up long term.

Carbs are always seen as the enemy, but the reality is that if they are consumed in moderation, such as the size of your fist, AND they are of a more natural source, such as wholewheat or wholegrain, in terms of pasta and brown rice for example, they WILL be good for you.

New potatoes, wholemeal bread with little or no spread, wholemeal pitta breads for example will all be good for you in moderation.

The problem comes when they are consumed in much bigger quantities than you need. THEY ARE NOT BAD FOODS FOR YOU, and will offer seriously good energy levels.

The likes of the dukan diet will come and go, and make their author a fortune but where will they be in 3-5 years?

The bottom line is that there are lots of people looking to create the next big thing, the question is will you let them fool you time and time again, when a well balanced diet of more natural foods is always the answer and will last you a lifetime!!

Twitt