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Eating together

This may be one of the most important ways to stay lean and healthy, all sorts of research shows.

When we eat as a family, a couple or even on our own at set times, we are likely to be eating in a controlled manner, and are not as likely to overeat as we would be if we just grabbed some food on our own in no particular order and just “got on with it”. This can be especially true in stressful situations.

How many of us have just grabbed some food and eaten far more than planned, as we got in from rushing from somehere and just “went for it”! I KNOW I HAVE, more than once!

This is when a structure matters in our day, breakfast with kids is always great (i only get to do it on the weekend due to my very early starts), lunch is not often a possibility for most of you in the week but tea time certainly is.

The practice of eating together works on so many levels and these two important feeding times should be part of life.

It’s like drinking in the local pub, most of you will be drinking at a decent pace and not throwing those pints back in too much of a hurry. It’s anti-social to be falling around in any public place these days and being in control of yourself is something we are all looking to do.

If you compare that to drinking at home, you have no reason to control yourself at all, you can fall around the place and nobody’s going to know about it. Plus you can drink bottles of wine and cans of beer very cheaply too, at a fraction of the price in fact so “control” is not a word often used when drinking at home.

 I’m not saying that most people drink wildly every night at home, but hopefully you get my point that eating and drinking in more controlled atmsophere’s tend to make us think a bit more about what we’re eating and drinking, therefore leading to less calories and less potential to blow all the good work we are doing with our workouts?

Back to the eating at the table part as a family, its also a great time to introduce new foods to kids, new vegetables and new fruits, if they see you eating all good foods, they are likely to follow given time and if the new foods are introduced in a slightly more imaginative way.

Have a great weekend and hope everyone has put in some great workouts this week?!!!!!

Twitt
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Warm weather training

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the last few days have been energy sapping to say the least.

Saturday and sunday in particular was very testing, and not the most motivating weather to get out there and train which means you need to adjust your training accordingly.

When its this warm, your recommended 8 out of 10 effort will naturally be a little less. Don’t expect to do the same things and try and cut back on your training duration too. Its not much fun being out there for hours on days like these.

It’s no excuse either to miss sessions either, all im saying is reduce your intensity in warm weather and take plenty of water onboard, this is the most important factor of the lot and dehydration and exercising too hard in the sun can literally kill you!

Its easy to miss sessions on account of the weather, its too warm, its too wet, its too cold, all of these are likely to happen in this country so dont fall for all of these excuses, all you have to do is adjust your training accordingly which really should not be too much of a problem.

The summer and warm weather is great for your eating too. Nobody likes to be eating big heavy dinners in weather like this, and salads seem to be making a welcome appearance at this time of year too! Automatically, you suddenly want to become lighter because you know in this weather, you will be wearing less clothes and you will be wanting to show off all the hard work some of you have put in during this long, cold winter!

The bottom line is still consistency for you, no need to miss workouts, no need for your fitness to drop and this keeps your motivation high too. Once you stop training, your enthusiasm to stay in shape will drop sharply so lets keep slamming in the workouts, just make sure you’re careful on the very warm days and take proper precautions!

Twitt
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Filling in the gaps

Here is the true secret of training and being healthy and a few of you go through it from time to time, EVERY single year!

Cyril is going through it right now!

On the challenge of 84 days, he was cycling in the snow and ice, pulling out the stops at every opportunity and being a true example to everyone.

Now he is going through a harder time now just to get going. The weather is a lot nicer, everyone wants to get into shape for the summer, and there is far more opportunity to go out and do things. There is more light and its sociable this time of year to get out there and do it!

So what’s the problem would you say?

What i mean by filling in the gaps is this, there are significant gaps usually in the year in most people’s health and fitness programmes, and this is the biggest reason why most people don’t get the kind of success that they think they deserve.

If you have had an impressive 84 days already this year, then that’s fantastic.

What happens though if your next 42 days are mediocre, and you start to miss workouts.

What happens when the next 7 weeks are seen as “a rest” by you.

Then it gets VERY hard to get going again, and it can take all kinds of motivation simply to get to do ONE workout again, leave alone make the impressive progress that you’re used to.

THESE GAPS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN!!!!!!!!

If you have a few gaps each year, its going to be like a game of snakes and ladders. You will climb one ladder, then slide down a snake pretty soon, then you have to start again which is so frustrating isn’t it?!!!!

What would happen to your teeth if you didn’t brush them every day? Would you let them rot? Then start cleaning them again for a couple of months, then stop for another couple of months?

Of course not and you know it!!

So why do you let your body go backwards so much in these “gaps” each year? Why does that happen?

You clean your teeth every day as if its second nature, in fact it is!!

If you can get to this stage with exercise, doing it without thinking about it, then your plan will work amazingly well for you and you will look and feel fantastic for 12 months, EVERY year!

So what are you waiting for, let’s get out of this rut and do what you know is very possible in your life, being in great health is a choice for you all, let’s fix it and get back to basics right now and start monday with a bang!!!

No gaps this week, no gaps next month and no gaps for the rest of the year! This is my challenge to you!

Twitt
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Bank holiday weekend

So what are your activities going to be the bank holiday weekend?

Are you going to cycling down mumbles promenade, are you going to be walking down pembrey country park, are you going to be mountain walking up in brecon, are you going to be doing a yoga session on your own in the house, are you going to the national pool to swim????

Whatever of these you choose, you know these are going to make you feel better, and will not let you slob the entire weekend!

Bank holiday weekends are always weekends when you can take your foot off the gas, and really kick back and enjoy yourself a little more than usual.

Personally, with two small children, the weekends look pretty much the same to me and the idea of a lie in is something from a distant past! However, i am very likely to go for a run on sunday and monday, i like the routine of that. It really is no struggle as its actually enjoyable to me. Most people would feel the same way if they get endless benefits out of it. If you really find this a hardship, then perhaps you need to re-look at your programme and see what you’re enjoying and what’s a problem to you. Its important to find activities you really enjoy, as thats half the battle!!

What about your food? Is it going to be a blow-out weekend? Or is it going to be a weekend having a bit of what you fancy?

Having a bit of what you fancy is great and doesn’t destroy the next week. What i mean by that is that if you do have a blow out weekend, and really go for it drinking and eating to excess right through until monday evening, the rest of next week will be made up of feeling awful and lacking in energy, an outcome none of us wants. So the odd meal or snack here and there that is not always on your eating plan is a nice treat, and keeps your mind fresh too. Also, eating sugary or fatty food sometimes reminds you how bad you actually feel afterwards, which will give you fresh momentum to avoid this food on a regular basis in the immediate future!

Whatever you get up to, enjoy it and enjoy all that fresh air!!

Twitt
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Seeing the light

Looking at things in a different light can make the difference between doing positive things, or feeling your are collapsing under the strain of life.

Some of us have terrifying schedules to some, and some of us moan about our jobs, our lives, our responsibilities. If you look at these factors in a different way, and feel lucky that you have such a busy schedule, feel lucky that people make us responsible for others and take pride in that, and that our jobs are actually meaningful, we can soon feel pretty lucky indeed, and look at things in a different way.

I feel lucky that some of you communicate after i’ve shared my thoughts with you every day. This helps me learn and understand what’s really going on out there, and i learn more about the highs and lows of human emotions.

You will hopefully benefit from me sharing all the things i know, and its great to have some positive feedback on what we do on here.

I am on the verge of putting my house up for sale, having a young family makes you grow out of houses very quickly, and so im about to see things in a different light in a different address! I feel lucky i have the opportunity to move house and are able to finance it. Life’s about different experiences and im sure a ton of them are about to come!!

Seeing the light for many of you came through our recent 84 day challenge, you may have been on the verge of giving up, the verge of throwing in the towel many, many times, but some of you came through and actually demonstrated to yourselves that if you employed the right strategies, you could really improve yourself and make a major contribution to your wellbeing and health in general. You overcame feelings of hopelessness at times and were brave enough to get off the floor aqnd come back fighting.

Look at the way Cyril picks himself up every single day, good or bad and somehow manages to work it out for himself, and shares all those ups and downs.

I have said many times that one of the biggest secrets of success is simply showing up 80% of the time. if you expect good things to happen, and you take positive action each day in the hope they will, chances are that some good things will happen.

Gary Player, the famous golfer once said when asked by the media on how he was so “lucky” he replied, “the funny thing is, the more i practice, the luckier i get!

Hope your week is going well and keep practicing!

Twitt