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Day 83

We are nearly there! Day 83 sounds pretty incredible to me, and what a weekend to finish.

Great down burry port harbour today, and the best day of the year by some margin!

Another way of looking at this challenge is to say it has been 83 days since you had the opportunity to change your life, your body and your mind.

So what has it been? Has it been throw in the towel early, has it been meander along with up and down efforts? Or has it been one amazing effort all the way through and you have achieved an amazing result?

Whatever it is has been, you will have done enormously well just to last the 84 days, those of you who have, will appreciate now what you can achieve and what good health really means to you.

Anyone i know who has had great health doesn’t let it go in a hurry. If they did, then how do you explain 70 and 80 year old men swimming in burry port harbour every day, come rain or shine and even snow!! How does that motivation remain? I see the same in langland and caswell beaches each morning!

I think the motivation remains because the overall ambition of great health remains paramount. None of us get out of bed every morning super-charged, that simply wouldn’t be human! Some of us sometimes have problems even getting out of bed! But when we do, we are always glad we got out and did our stuff, be it swimming in the harbour, going for a run, going for a walk, doing an inside workout, whatever it is, its going to be highly valued and treasured by those of us who really desire great and vibrant health on a daily basis.

Once you start adopting these priniples that we have developed and looked at over the last 84 days, then you should and will be very successful at getting the kind of health and fitness plan that will see you nicely into your old age. There is a lot of science behind this, as well as old-school tried and tested methods that will work for you every time.

This is why i tend to get emotinal about all this, and i know a lot of you do too.

If you are doing well and making big changes in your life, then i get excited and proud too. If you slip back and the wheels come off the wagon, i want to correct that and do something big about it immediately. I know if we don’t try to fix it every time, the problem becomes bigger and biggger and harder to fix.

Being in the private world of business, things have to happen right now or you lose ground. That attitude works very well for your fitness plan and ambitions, if its working fine then great, if its not flying along, we need to talk about it and come up with a strategy that works big time!

24 hours left of the 84 days, make it your best workout!!

Twitt
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Day 77 80% is enough for me!!

Another great sunday morning run done today, and the sun was out loud and proud this morning again!

This great harbour scene was overshadowed a bit by the presence of church goer’s in cloaks at burry port lighthouse having a sermon, or chanting or something really weird, they could have been devil worshippers?!! Who knows, but what i do know is half those people pretending to be christians are usually the biggest sinners in our community, you know them so i say no more!

Anyway, how’s your sunday morning going? Has there been a workout in already before you get on with easter sunday? Have you had a great breakfast packed with vitality, or is it your weekly great british breakfast? Is this a day of rest for you or is it a day when you hit several beers, as easter sunday has come to mean this for a large part of the community.

Whatever your choice, i’m cool with it as long as you keep hitting your 80% target.

80% in school used to mean you were really intelligent, were very at good exams and likely to go on to college and have a very good career.

80% as a goal kicker in rugby is phenomenal in terms of coverting penalty kicks. Johnny Wilkinson and Neil Jenkins are the best of all time, and i would doubt even these great kickers ever achieved this success record!

If you were successful in something, it could be assumed that you were doing things right most of the time, not all of the time as that is impossible, but 80% or more would be classed as being a master in your chosen field.

This 80% i keep going on about is your target with your eating and training. If you can do this, you can see by comparison with everything else, you will be highly successful without a shadow of a doubt!!

I think the problem sometimes is that people often have to go 100% or nothing! You will see some on this site at either remarkable highs, or depressing lows (for a short time only i hasten to add!!). You can see that being perfect is not only impossible, its stupid to beat yourself up for not achieving it or even close to it!

EVEN the so-called masters are not perfect, and don’t achieve perfection, or anything close to it. Their magical number is closer to 80% rather than 100%.

Johnny Wilkinson often said that his pursuit of perfection nearly destroyed him mentally. He has since become a buddhist and now has a different view on life, which he says, has helped his rugby as now he doesn’t put so much pressure on himself. He still has hugely high standards, but doing his best and what comes from that is now enough for him.

Being yourself is often frowned upon but shouldn’t it be encouraged? Your best should and always be enough in my book, and whatever the result, then so be it. You willl be happy, i will be happy and when everyone’s happy, results nearly always go up and up!

Twitt
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Day 67 Never give up/ride out the storms!

The confirmation when someone improves so much that it takes your breath away always makes this job all the more satisfying. I have had many times when individuals have come down 5-6 dress sizes and the funny thing is, you are less surprised right at the end at the amazing progress for a very good reason.

The hardest thing in any programme is getting people over the biggest challenges along the way.

An individual will always improve at the start, as exercising, eating well and sleeping better will always create a positive result. When the challenges come up, some bigger than others, its at that exact time that you need to hold firm and stick to your principles.

For example, if someone had started off well, it is a shock when their eating come off their rails and they think it is the end of the world. There are many people who post on here who that has happened to, but have come back so strong the next week it is truly inspiring!! This has been fantastic and even inspiring for myself!

The doubt is in the mind and people often doubt their ability to carry on at times. The ability to stick at it and come through the other side is invaluable, and adds so much to self-belief it can be incredible.

We all want to take the easy way out, the quick fix, the faddy diet that ultimately doesn’t work and screws your metabolism up. We have all been through that, and thats why i do my best to encourage all of you not to taker that route that many take.

The facts are that less people travel the path we  are treading because it’s a little bit harder to follow to begin with. The rewarding part though is that for the long term and the rest of your life, it is the most viable and most productive.

Of course, none of us are perfect and all of our weight’s will go up and down. However, if we adopt the approach as i have said around ten million times already on here, eating well 80% of the time, allowing ourselves a treat here and there, we will be making substantial gains over the short and longer term.

It is heartbreaking to see people like Chris who did amazingly well to start with doubt his progress after getting a job away. Hope his programme is back on course and he’s overcome the challenges he had. It’s heartening to see jean reach former glories despite having many headwinds against her at times. She has now overcome them, and all credit to her for making a diary of her ups and downs, i have found that truly valuable for my experience and increased ability to help others in the future.

 We are all learning, and that includes me, and if we don’t we get left behind. It heartens me that people are still as enthusiastic to train at 5am, everyone asks me if its a hardship to get up at 4am every day, really its not when you consider you have some people enthusiastic to see me at 5am, that means a lot to me and keeps me fired up to reach new standards of service in my business.

In fact, i have never called it work (what i do), its something i really enjoy every day and read about every day in my spare time even. One of the best sayings i ever heard was that if you love what you do for a living, you never work another day in your life. What a statement, but very true!!

Will get a new recipe posted later!

Twitt
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Day 66 Exposing the fakes and the charlatans!

As we went through some essentials yesterday, we all know my opinion of faddy diets, but what really happens to your body and what is the “cost” to your body? Please consult with a respected doctor if you doubt any of this!

Most “diets” are low in calories so WHAT do they say that they are going to do for you?

These faddy diets encourage you to eat a diet entirely based on calories, and if you eat fewer calories than you use, you will somehow use fat as energy and that’s how you lose weight. Your body is a bit more clever than that according to scientists, and doesn’t just respond to counting calories. How many of you out there have been on kind of a starvation mode and still couldn’t lose weight, it does happen to many after a few weeks of eating like this you tell me!

The nasty effects of eating this way!

You avoid the essential fats that we talk about a lot on here that are vital for great health. Faddy diets encourage you to avoid these foods as they are somehow “fattening”! How wrong can you get! This advice should be banned!

You measure food just as a calorie, and therefore healthy food doesn’t really matter. Poor food choices which are harmful to your health in the long term count the same as far more healthy choices, very poor education again by the faddy diet “experts”.

When you keep denying yourself food, your rate of calorie burning (metabolism) slows down, and that’s what makes your diet eventually crash and burn. And when you return to eating your normal food, your body is still in starvation mode so will not only put your weight back on, but will more on more than when you first started, a nightmare scenario!

What about the very high protein diet?

This diet that severely limits your carbs always encourages you to eat all fat and all protein for a while. Then, a little carbs come in later. Let me say that weight loss can be very big in the first couple of weeks of this programme, which encourages people to stay in the all protein all fat stage!

The nasty side effects and negatives!

If you stay on this diet for the long term, you will be avoiding fibre, which leads to constipation and increased the risk of colon cancer.

If you don’t take in your fruit and veg, the risk of cancer, heart disease and arthritis goes up significantly.

When you take in all fats, and in particular saturated fats, you can develop cholesterol problems and heart disease.

Limiting carbs also discourages you eating your five a day of fruit and veg, always a bad idea!

An eating for life plan that discourages starvation methods, going without food for long periods, and counting calories works every time. You don’t cut out whole food groups and you have a healthy balance of foods in your life. Common sense actually works, so don’t be fooled by the charlatans ripping you off with the latest faddy diets that are all around us each day!

The benefits!!

You will be developing great health because you have balanced nutrition.

Eating little and often every 3-4 hours keeps your metabolism revved and stops you from going hungry, and stops willpower becoming the all important factor!

Eating enough fruit and veg makes sure you are in great health, fibre and energy to live the life you want to.

This is a simple plan for life  that works, there is no deadline and it doesn’t encourage you to avoid your treats completely, a bit of what you fancy is good for you now and again and keeps you sane!

Eating healthy and essential fats is actually GOOD for you, fish, nuts etc work for you every time if you let them!

I keep giving you choices every day, mine are actually based on science. The rest you hear are often “heresay” or “made up” to take your money and sound different or just plain dangerous.

Let’s have a great day and make the most of your body this week!

Twitt
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Day 62

Day 62 and it’s a saturday, maybe a day off for you like me, or it may be a valuable chance for you to get a great workout in!

The next question maybe is am i nuts?!! Its raining so heavy outside, and its windy and cold, i will never get a workout in today, and i won’t tomorrow unless it dries up!

This is a statement you know i don’t agree with and here’s why!

The facts are that in this country, it rains around 9 months of the year and thats if we are lucky! It’s cold most of the time too, and sometimes even in the summer so you had better get used to it! If you don’t like it or hate it that much, maybe another country is your solution but that can bring its own problems too, if you moved to spain or florida in particular, it would be too humid to train most of the time outside!

So you can see there are problems to train anywhere at times, unless you stop making excuses to yourself, get over yourself being a baby and realise that workouts in the great outdoors can actually be your best ones!!!

It can be exhillerating getting out  there in the wind and rain and indeed, i have had some of my best workouts out there in the most foul of days!

Face the fact that you will need to shower after a workout anyway, unless you like being a smelly pig, and whatever the weather out there, it really doesn’t matter and after the first 5 minutes, it can feel pretty good knowing deep inside that you are one of the few doing a great workout in such weather, and you will soon warm up if you show some purpose in your workout and really show yourself how good you have become!!

It’s easy to be on the coastal path in bright sunshine, you see lots of people out on such days! The funny thing is, when it starts getting cloudy and cold, those people disappear for some reason. This is why their workout programmes are not as successful as they should be!

You always have the chance to workout indoors too, and see my home workouts posts for that. These can be highly rewarding too, whether you just want to get through a good workout and even set a new personal best, its within you right now to make such a choice and your body will reach levels that your ambitions allow!

Ambition is a huge thing when deciding how far you go. Dylan Thomas the poet used to say that ambition was everything! We tend to get shot down in this country when showing such ambition, but you can’t follow the crowd all the time if you want ultimate success, hopefully you are started to realise that, and make your own line in the sand on where your standards are now in your life. Hopefully, they have been raised by this programme, and the doubts you may have had over your abilities are disappearing every day, you know im here supporting you every day on that!

Pictures and videos will be coming to this blog, but as it stands, it is just that, a blog trying to help many people. Its not an advertising feature for me as i really don’t need more work. I am here to help you as much as i can though, so ask away anything you are unsure of or plain don’t know!!

Enjoy your saturday whatever you decide to do!

Twitt