Posted on

Monday 10th October

Saturated fat is always the bad boy when it comes to having a bad rap in the press, and with good reason. If too much of that stuff blocks your arteries, you can have a heart attack anytime unfortunately, and is always a danger when consumed at regular intervals.

The other bad twin of the food family is refined sugar and its existence in a lot of foods, this is why i always try to encourage you to eat well! If you consume a lot of products packaged up too much, you can bet your life it has regined sugar in it.

Most cereal boxes are loaded with refined sugar, this is a fact and far from being your best start to the day, it can end up your most sugary start to the day and really trip up your day before its even started. Fruit and fibre for instance is loaded with refined sugar when examined in tests, but tries to mention “your healthiest start to the day” all over the box. Porridge is always a better choice, giving you an excellent slow release of energy and avoiding the temptations of yet more sugar!!!

Anyone who has had to do a diabetes test and carried that thing around when you prick your finger and continually test your blood sugar levels after food, will definitely know what im talking about!!!! Refined sugar is in a lot of foods, too numerous to mention here and the usual suspects contain the most, white bread, biscuits of all kinds, sweets and most man made food, if not all!!! That test is very valuable and any chance you get to take it, the eye opener you get will be extremely revealing and educational for sure!!!

There are refined sugars in fruit of course, and this is why even fruit should be eaten in moderation.

This is also why i always recommend you dillute your organge juice, instead of having a big glass, this brings your refined sugars down substantially while still containing the benefits of the juice.

So its saturated fat and REFINED SUGARS, they are the real bad boys of your food intake, guaranteed to stop fat loss in its tracks and deprive you of any sustained energy!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, October 7th

As we go toward a great weekend of rugby, Wales versus Ireland, England versus France, its important to manage your body’s performance throughout this weekend.

A lot of people will use this weekend to complete trash their body, and forget all about eating healthy habits and say that somehow on monday morning or evening, they will fix it and they will be back to normal on tuesday!!!

Life or fitness doesn’t work like that somehow, and you always need some guidelines and tried and tested strategies to get through a weekend like this.

If friday night is your night, and you’re having “a few” no matter what!!! You had better make sure you do a workout tomorrow m0rning. If you do, your booze leaves your body to a large degree and you feel better.

If you don’t, your spare tyre gets bigger and you feel sorry for yourself all of saturday.

Then if you drink again saturday, you will write off another few drinks, and you usually wont have ANY idea how many extra calories you consumed in food thats usually too high in saturated fat, salt and sugars, THATS THE WAY IT IS when you let it all hang out  the weekend.

Then there’s sunday. Sunday lunch can be preceeded by a fried breakfast, a sleep on sunday afternoon (i miss those days!), and then something that could be called “comfort food” at the end of sunday.

To fix this calorie avalanche, stick to the tried and tested.

If you are out tonight, make sure you get out for a run, hard walk, cycle, inside workout WITHOUT FAIL!!!

Have a good breakfast, nothing fried and nothing greasy!

If you are out saturday, do the same workout sunday (usually outside) and really get a sweat on.

You can STILL enjoy your weekend, you just do not need to end up like a stuffed pig on monday morning, and take until thursday next week until you feel back to normal!!!!! SORT IT OUT SATURDAY AND SUNDAY and there wont be tears on monday morning, and you will be in a much better mood for it!!!

Good luck Wales!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday 6th October

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple, died last night after a courageous battle with cancer, at the relatively young age of 56.

Jobs today has been called an innovator, a genius, a leader in the technology field, someone who created a legacy that will last generations, a true visionary, and just about everything in between.

Never has someone been regarded so high in the technology field, and his legacy will continue in just about everything we use today.

From ipod’s to ipad’s, to apple mac’s to his relationship with Microsoft some years ago when Microsoft actually kept the company going because Microsoft itself didn’t want the company to fold because it would have been broken up itself.

Jobs used to say in many of his speeches, “never let anyone else stop you following your dreams”, “never let negative people put you off you pursuing what you know what to be right”, he often encouraged entrepreneurs of all kinds to have a go at what they thought could work, what they thought the public wanted and what they thought deep down in their hearts to be true.

With your exercise programme and your food intake, you secretly know what is right and true.

You don’t need to read another diet in the paper that you know is faddy, you don’t need to fall for yet another faddy exercise machine, you don’t need to be put off by some of your negative friends who don’t even work out at all  yet are overweight, you don’t need to believe anyone who makes claims you know are too good to be true etc etc.

So whatever the situation you are in, focus on yourself and what you know to be right. There will be times when you feel like giving up on your workouts, on your food, on your alcohol levels, but actually following through every time you doubt yourself instead of giving up will take you a long, long way!!!

Steve Jobs RIP

Twitt
Posted on

Friday 30th September

Seems a few of you are finding the food information helpful, and thats what im here for, for YOU to be successful and firing on cylinders and i sincerely mean that.

Okay, where were we? Dinner, evening meal or whatever you want to call it!!

If you have followed the advice so far, and eaten every 3-4 hours, then you shouldn’t be absolutely starving by 6-7pm and your hunger should at least be controllable!

The great news is that the patterns you have got used to previously in the day conclude nicely with your evening meal.

I’m talking about keeping your portion sizes moderate, and this means in particular your carb selection. I’m talking about pasta, potatoes, rice, bread etc. If you overeat these foods you WILL struggle with your weight especially if they are the white refined varieties of these foods.

These foods can be fantastic for you in their more natural state, and in the right quantities!!

Whoever said remove them from your diet is usually not qualified in nutrition or anything else. More like a fly by night character who knows nothing about the whole picture when it comes to balanced diets.

Besides, the group i have just mentioned is a good group on  its own, and to remove food groups entirely is complete madness!!!

SO what are we talking about here for a typical evening meal?

A piece of healthy protein such as white meats or fish, baked or cooked with olive oil, no normal cooking oils please!

Then we have the carbs such as brown rice, wholegrain/wholewheat pasta/new or sweet potatoes etc, in a portion size the same as your fist.

Then vegetables have to be in there, and the greater the variety the better so lets make sure we make it happen every evening meal. We all know the benefits of vegetables and theres many we don’t even know about yet!!!

So there we have it, if you finish off with a meal of this quality, you’re going to get and stay lean and healthy. Accept no substitutes and tryly look after your body!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday 29th September

We talked about about the unmissable meal of the day yesterday, and its importance in every area of your life, and especially for being in shape and staying there.

I have talked about this so much over the years that many of you may be sick of it by now, but if you did pick this habit up and now consume breakfast every day without fail,  maybe all of that keeping on was worth it in the end!!!

Another meal i like to talk about and force the point home is lunch. Compliance on this one is not so popular, and is the major reason why the individuals i see at 3pm onwards don’t perform as well as they could, IF they have missed lunch or had a very low nutrient, low energy lunch!

Since i like to get the best out everyone i train, its either going to be your eating or sleeping that explains a bad workout!

Its great to see in llanelli for instance, that even the cafe’s now are making fresh nutritious food for lunch.

Of course they still do the “all day breakfasts” but the healthy eating generation is slowly overcoming the fried bread boys!

You should be able to have fresh cooked chicken in any good cafe these days, if not find somewhere else!

You should be able to have fresh fish and vegetables too, there’s no excuse for it.

If you’re having a sandwich even, ask for it to be freshly made without butter, margarine or mayo and of course NO WHITE BREAD, trust me this is NOT too much to ask and will show you are committed to healthy eating. If they refuse, then they dont have a very good business as they are ignoring your repeat custom.

I wouldn’t have thought you would be reading this if you werent committed to healthy eating, so please consider your lunch time options if you are working out tea time, i see a massive difference in the same individual all the time depending on they have had lunch.

Your choice of course but you are interested in getting into shape?!!!!!!

Twitt