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March 1st-start of the year for many!!

March 1st is a big boost to all of us, January and February are traditionally the darkest months and when our motivation is lowest. It is usually quite high in early January after the new year resolutions, but by February, everything slips back into the status quo and a gloom seems to set over everyone.

March 1st signifies new possibility with spring coming and everything seeming fresher.

So now that perhaps unrealistic expectations made on January 1st are seemingly over, its time to get some real plans together and stop kidding yourself you can eat all those weight watchers biscuits and still stay lean, you really can’t.

The sooner you realise that most diet organisations have got their own greedy agendas for selling you their products and versions of food, then the quicker you progress, start eating good proper food and actually start saving some cash on all those empty promises.

From the weight watchers biscuits and ready meals, to the slimmers world green and red days, to the lighter life £75 a week you will need to spend buying all their shakes and snacks. Of course you’re going to lose some weight, sometimes a lot, but as the media has shown this week, most if not all of those examples they use have put all the weight on and usually 5% more on your body that you never had even in the first place.

Here’s a challenge for you this week, visit the supermarket and try to only go down the aisles that will help you out big time physically and in terms of health.

Go down the fruit and vegetables section, in fact spend most time here, and start learning how to cook again using good fresh ingredients and GET USED TO IT, its not a fad, ITS GOING TO WORK FULL STOP.

Also get some lean meats in there, chicken, turkey, lean beef and get some fish in too, mackerel, tuna, salmon etc, lets make this a staple of your diet.

Make sure there’s some good carbs in there too, wholegrain and wholewheat pasta, brown rice, jacket, new and sweet potatoes, porridge etc, if the quality is good, then you’re going to look and feel good so lets give it your best!!!

Twitt
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February 21st 2011

I dont know about you but i find myself at my heaviest weight on monday morning. I try to relax more the weekend and although i do slam in a run every sunday morning, i tend to allow myself a treat on saturday and eat a bit of what i fancy. Also, nothing wrong with having an odd beer or two the weekend either, and everyone needs to unwind at least once a week.

That process of the weekend undwinding brings me back to monday, and makes me determined to get the week off with a bang.

There is a tremendous amount of drive within myself and most people i train to get the week off to a flying start. My idea of a flying start involves some running, sometimes cycling, some weight training and plenty of good food and water throughout the day. Making my mark early on in the week is hugely important for my mind too, and resets my thoughts to huge positivity for the rest of the week.

Have you noticed sometimes if you drink more than once a week, your thoughts become a little more cloudy. Your training is nowhere near so good and the “i will sweat it out” mentality doesn’t really work does it? Nothing can make up for messy eating and drinking habits, you need a structure in place and implement it right now!!!

The conditions of a successful healthy week don’t often change. Please don’t waste your money by going in some health shop, spending a fortune coming out with two big bags of supplements, and expecting to look great in a couple of weeks, thats the most ineffective route you could ever take.

 Most people are looking for the easy way out, and there’s a whole range of people looking to take your money and run, because they know they can’t really back up their promises. Most of them make me want to throw up, and most of them have holes in their programme so big that you could dry a bus through them.

Its monday, its back to work time, lets put it in and kick it off in a big way!!!!

Twitt
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January 27th, 2011

Following on from yesterday’s conversation about too much fruit and not enough vegetables, let’s defend fruit a little bit more before it gets too much of a bad rap!!!

I went over yesterday on how fruit is often blamed for putting weight on, and often mistakenly unless someone consumes vast quantities of fruit, and you would know you were eating too much because you would be on the toilet most of the time!!!

One big thing to back up why you should consider fruit a good thing is the benefits it gives you. The obvious one to think about is boosting your immune system, vital at this time of year with all the colds around. Then you have the energy fruit gives you and as i always tell everyone, you should be eating fruit because of all the untold things it does for us internally that we don’t even know about, but will become public knowledge in the next few years as we make new discoveries!! You should be eating fruit as a preventative measure against future illness, scientific studies tell us this continually!!!

The big thing for you though in practical terms should be the fact that your sweet tooth is never going to get worse should you choose fruit over chocolate for example. If you eat sweet things as snacks, then you will tend to eat more and more sweet things, and this will be very destructive for your body, this spiral can never end as we all know!!!

So despite the fact that sugar is contained in fruit, it is natural sugar your body can use and DOES NOT create sugar addiction like processed foods like cakes, chocolates and biscuits will do EVERY TIME. If you are currently in this spiral of wanting more and more sugar all the time, you have to switch to fruit immediately IF you want to reach your potential full stop, AND vegetables as this combination is especially powerful so you need to start putting your mind to this straight away, depending if you want great things to happen for your body and health of course!!!

Almost the end of january and this is the tried and tested way to go forward, to make sure your results are long lasting and health is your number one on your list of priorities!!!!

Twitt
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Day 53 Take pressure off yourself!

Many people started this challenge with a bang, and achieved great things in the first month, and some have started well, then fallen off a bit, and now are bang on course to achieve big things of course. Whatever your situation, I don’t think it is realistic at all to expect you to be perfect all the time, that simply isn’t possible!

It’s always good to take the pressure off at times, and you will realise by now that 12 weeks is quite a long period of time to give your very best effort.

This is why I give everyone a 80% target on eating good natural food. I gave you a target of 8 out of 10 in each workout you do, because 10 out of 10 is highly unlikely each time.

If you manage to get these kinds of averages in, you’re going to be classed as working amongst the top percentage, and pretty much guaranteed to reach your goals in your programme in a relatively quick period of time.

Putting undue pressure on individuals to do well has never been a tactic I’ve considered successful. I remember in my teens, we had a captain in our cricket team who would berate you if you bowled slightly off the mark, or it wasn’t your day when you batted you would have a verbal outburst directed at you.

 Hammering someone because they weren’t performing at their best proved to be a potentially damaging tactic to myself and destroyed my confidence.

I remember another captain years later who would always give me a reassuring pat on the back if I was having a bad day, and told me that he was sticking with me no matter what. The result? My game and confidence came back sooner than I thought, and that meant my performance was up to its normal standard very quickly and that reassuring pat on the back helped me an enormous amount, and put a spring back in my step.

All of us need someone to show confidence in us from time to time, and you have seen it on this site with some members seemingly be at all time low’s recovering to be at all time high’s in just over a week sometimes!

 I tend to use the tried and tested method of showing great encouragement when someone is a bit down, and having a harder time than usual. I’m in the business of getting the very best out of people, and less is more sometimes!

So when you are looking to assess your progress so far, try and look at the big picture.

If you are getting it right most of the time, then there’s no problem and your condition will be improving naturally.

If your food and training is all over the place, and you’ve gone back to your old ways, then you need to reassess your priorities, and ask yourself if you really want to be in the best shape of your life, or not?

Answering this question honestly will help motivate you to take immediate action, and make you realise if you have put too much pressure on yourself, or too little even?

The focus should not only be on this 12 weeks, but creating the trends and patterns that will serve you well for the rest of your life.

Nobody’s perfect all the time, so if your lifestyle is healthier now than when you started, you are still making steady progress, then that’s perfectly acceptable to me and keep having confidence in your abilities, that is the vital element you always need!

Twitt
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Walking versus running

A good question has come through from Chris, someone who like many others, has been viewing the site and has finally posted! Question is

Which exercise is better, walking or running?

There is no straight answer to this one Chris as I like to look at the big picture. The easiest to answer is this. If someone is new to training or wants to get started running, it can be intimidating and downright hard to say the least, anyone who has done it can testify to this!

Also, you may have a problem with your knee/ankle/back, and if this is the case, then I would advise walking to start with, make sure you get a good set of running shoes (although you won’t be running) as all the best technology and support goes into running shoes, they don’t have to expensive either, there’s always pairs on sale at any sports shop and sometimes you can get an excellent pair for around £40. What you want to spend is up to you, but bear in mind they mostly last for around 500 miles so you need to change them regularly, that is the true secret.

They used to say I would be a cripple by the time I was 35, however I change my shoes every 8 weeks now through picton sports in Llanelli, and im feeling better than ever at recently turning 41. I change them so often because my running would be considered excessive by many, but it is a big part of my job! So having proper training shoes is absolutely vital, or you will invite injuries.

Back to the question of walking versus running. I would say that an average person usually finds running for any length of time to begin with too difficult, so walking quickly is achievable and will soon get most people out of breath. Then, I would move them on to hills to drive up the intensity of the workout and this again, can be very tough!

Then, I find as long as there are no prior injuries or knee complaints etc, a lot of individuals want to step it up and achieve some running targets. I start with maybe running for 20 yards, walking for 50 yards, running for 20, walking for 50 and son on. Over a 6 week period, it could easily become running for 150 yards, walking for 50 yards, running for 150 and so on. People progress at different rates depending on ability, motivation, dietary habits etc, but with some well thought out and progressive training, the results will be very good.

I would only attempt to run a maximum of twice a week to start, to get your joints used to the extra load (the pressure can be 3 times your body weight). When you get up to around 20 minutes of constant running on the flat, I would suggest trying to bring in interval training (see my recent post on that), sprints on flat and sprints up hills over shorter distances (see previous posts on training for sports). These forms of training not only relieve boredom, but they cam bring you some tremendous results.

I have some individuals who are very good walkers too and just love walking. They start off on flat of course, then they work on rolling hills, and then they work up to some very demanding hills and even mountains. I have had a couple of people walk/climb up some very  famous peaks in the world, so the sky’s the limit.

So back to the question which is better, I would say both are very good depending on personal preference. I would say that most have a desire to run, but I have some who hate running and love to cycle. I have some who love to swim. I have some who hate an audience and love to work inside with weights and body weight exercises. I am fully aware that many people have ailments that make running not very attractive. It is up to me to make sure they have a programme that they can still get into amazing shape with. Anyone who has trained with me will know after a good period of conditioning, I seek out the highest hills and some of the most demanding terrains. There’s plenty of them around the Llanelli, burry port and gower area’s so take your pick and see what you can do.

Another point, I would use the level of intensity as your guide to your workout. Think 1 as very easy, and 10 as working at your max. If you can get a 8 or 9 out of a walking workout, then that’s fantastic, and the same with running. It’s the effort you put in that counts and not necessarily if its walking or running. If you have an issue with your knees, choose non weight bearing such as cycling and swimming, walking may be okay too but running may be inviting trouble.

Up to you and let me know how you get on and good luck on the challenge next week!

Keri

Twitt