Posted on

Friday, 29th March

Good friday is here again early, and although a lot of people have time off today, i can tell you right now that 90% of people i train are ready to work hard again today, just as if it is another normal day. This shows great dedication and a willingness to improve no matter what the holidays, and its a great sign that everyone is involved in an ever-evolving programme that brings progress no matter what!

This is because of the flexibility of our programmes, most if not everyone i train know that they can get great session in a 45 minute time frame, 30 minutes or even 15 minutes, as long as they tell me in advance their limitations on time, and the need “to get it done” in record time!!

This is what life is about, and the super-fast nature of it all. Why cancel or put off a workout when if you had just spared that 20 minutes, you could have had a great workout that would have further contributed heavily to your overall progress.

ONCE you adopt this attitude, that anything can be done anytime of day, and WON’T take you the time that others seem to take over exercise, then the rate of cancellations you have in you exercise schedule will greatly reduce, and guess what? So will you overall progress jumpy to levels you never thought possible!!!

Its all about taking action, instead of “talking a good game” so let’s get it done this Easter!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 28th March

If you think you can do something, then you are right.

If you think you cannot do something, then ou are also right!

If this does not make sense, then you may not have got the meaning of this statement.

What it means that your mind is the all powerful factor in the decisions you make, especially when you decide to take no or no take on a challenge, however beneficial that challenge may be for every area in your life.

How many times have you not taken something on because it may have been too scary, too uncertain, too hard, too uncomfortable or you were worried about what “other people” would say?

I’m sure all of us have done this despite us knowing the end result would so beneficial to us. That decision not to even try has held most of us back many times.

When we do decide to take a challenge and we actually go through with it, we still live through the uncertainty, we get through the hard times and we definitely feel uncomfortable a lot of the way through it, so you can see a pattern of feelings here that either stop us doing things or make us/allow us to reach our goals.

So it all starts with that first quote again, its up to us whether we take it on because its US after all that decided whether we can do it or not, its US that decided to go through with it or duck the challenge for a “quite life”!

If we think we can do something then, we switch something ON in the brain that allows us to use all our resources to get the job done, and we are very likely to see it through and actually achieve this big thing in our lives.

It sounds simple, but it really comes down to that decision we make right at the beginning of the thought process. Your exercise programme and your health depend on you believing and being positive throughout.

If you think you can, then you probably CAN do it!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 25th March

The biggest thing you can change this week would be getting salt out of your diet. You get enough sodium in most foods, and overdoing it with salt can be a really bad idea.

Adding salt to your foods is a cardinal sin, and this one will hold water and fluid in your body like nothing else! Fluid retention is unpleasant and I know a lot of people get it, getting rid of salt will get rid of it for you.

Cooking with salt is something that many people consider “natural”, the same factors apply here too. Adding salt to your foods is strongly linked to high blood pressure problems, water retention and other serious health problems. Salt added to foods that make them highly processed are causing big problems around the world, and nows the chance to turn back from that road and fire on all cylinders and reach new levels of performance and health!

In fact, there was a big story in the press at the weekend about salt being linked to more deaths than sugary drinks, this is a serious charge when you consider all the terrible press that sugary drinks have had lately!!!

When you get salt out of your diet, straight away you may notice your food doesn’t taste as nice, but these feelings will go soon enough, and when you get used to cooking without salt, you will never go back to your old ways!! It would be like going from having two sugars in your tea to no sugar overnight. Tough to start with but you will never go back to adding the sugar would you?!!!

Refreshing that salt is getting exposed in the press, after getting away with it to a degree compared to sugar and saturated fat!!

Time to change right now!

The benefits of no salt go all the way across the range, and from a health standpoint, as well as looking and feeling a lot leaner, salt has to go and it needs to go now.

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 21st March

An interesting question from someone I train today.

When I give out home workouts for individuals to do, many here will already know its usually 6-8 exercises, done for a total of 3 times. Most people tend to thrive and get serious results from this type of training, and then by the week we tend to increase the numbers for each exercises.

For example, if you can do 5 press ups in week one, and with gradual improvement you can do 25 press ups in week 6 or week 8 even, then you have made serious improvements. If you apply this to each exercises, and theres no reason to doubt that, then the across the board results can be staggering!

This has often been the case over the years, and this type of training forms the foundation of my home training.

The question I had was “could I do all of the exercises numbers in one go?”, what was meant by that statement was if the person was asked to do 3 sets of 10 press ups, then could they do 30 in one go? I have talked about the one set theory before, and one all out effort can work very well indeed, but it is very tough to do.

This is why I tend to spread the effort over 3 sets. This is also why I don’t do MORE than 3 sets, I want to spread the effort out over 3 sets, but I don’t want to lose intensity of the workout by spreading it out TOO much.

So the answer is that most people 3 sets of an exercise is just about right, but if you have the inclination and want to get your workout over much quicker, and are willing to put a huge effort in, then doing one set of everything can work incredibly well!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 20th March

Eating breakfast is something you should have done today without even thinking about it too much.

Eating breakfast is regarded as something you do within one hour of getting up.

Drinking water when you rise is a really great idea because it will help clean your system straight away, and set your body on a good path for the rest of the day. Drinking more water throughout the day will help you burn more fat, help a lot with digestion, and boost concentration levels as well as energy.

Eating a healthy breakfast will rev up your metabolism from first thing in the morning and greatly accelerate the rate your body burns calories.

Eating a good breakfast such as porridge, Weetabix, shredded wheat which are all natural products, will give you long lasting energy meaning you are less likely to snack on sugary foods to satisfy the cravings you will get from not eating breakfast or eating a very poor breakfast.

Starting the day right means you set the tone for the rest of the day. The slow and steady release of energy means that you stay in control of your food intake, less likely to make rash choices and your energy and concentration levels will remain much higher for the rest of the day.

Poached, scrambled, boiled eggs are all fine with dry wholemeal toast. This is again a slow steady release of energy and will fill you up for a much longer period of time (and more satisfying) than a sugary start to the day, or even worse missing breakfast. Natural yoghurt and fruit will help too and set your day up nicely.

Those of you who have fallen for the trap of telling yourself that its good to miss breakfast just to “save calories” are misguided and totally wrong. This is the biggest mistake you can make, and sabotage your fat loss plans. Get your body used to burning calories within an hour of getting up, and you will change the way you feel, look and perform full stop!

Twitt