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Monday, 15th November

This is supposed to be a dark time of year in terms of weather and light, but exactly the time of year to put in the hard yards and make the gains ready for christmas! I personally get excited by making so many gains this time of the year because of the lack of distractions. It’s monday and start of another week, but im very excited to see how i can get the best out of myself and of course, other people. When you get into a culture of trying to motivate and improve others, it rubs off on myself too and im fired up even in my own workouts.

The summer months are full of distractions and options on how to spend your time and a big contrast to right now. It stays light until 10pm at its best and brightens up early in the morning sometimes at 4.30am. The weather is usually up and down but mostly much warmer and sunnier than right now. For many, summer is the favourite time of year and with obvious good reasons. 

Personally i love the seasons and although lots of people hate this time if year, im serious when i say that right now IS EXACTLY the right time to put all your serious workouts in and really make some amazing progress. As ive been banging on for some time, we have this period up to christmas to really transform ourselves and reach a new standard that will propel us into a brand new body into christmas!!!

We talked about 12 weeks to christmas some time ago and now believe it or not, it is only 5 weeks saturday!!! This period has allowed me to get my focus and 100% and i can honestly say that my performance levels are at their best levels for a long, long time. This is true for most of the individuals i train too, never has so much scrutiny come into my training in terms of analysis and making sure people reach their goals. It really is that exciting!

I urge you right now to make the very most out of every day, the weather is very cold today but DRY, and thats more than enough encouragement for me to get going, get excited, get fired up, get energised and start the week with some absolute blasters of workouts!!!!

One thing you need to watch out for when the temperature drops is that you will gasp for breath more in cold weather. It’s very important to you to keep your workouts up to allow you to get used to colder and colder temperatures. This allows your body to adjust gradually and still keep your standards up. Get used to it because we have around 4 months of cold weather. There’s no reason to complain or put anything off, see it as a challenge and a chance to show how great condition you’re really in!!!

Twitt
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Tuesday, 9th November

We go over the ways to get into shape and how to stay there all the time on this blog. We develop plans and discuss when things go wrong as well as things go right. It doesn’t matter how many times we go over the correct way to do things, it still seems as if many of you “get lost” on your quest to get active, stay active and create long lasting good health and fitness.

When we do most things from DIY to fitness, we tend to do things “our own way” or our own version of the right way to do things.

Cyril this week has commented he needs to get back to eating properly, or finally settle into a sustainable healthy eating plan because he knows the great value of this. He says he needs to be drinking more water, something he knows that has clear benefits but is not as consistent as he should be.

He also knows that he should be doing his resistance work at least a couple of times a week, and is eager to get it back in to his schedule. Riding the bike is no problem for him, and long may that continue!!

So you can see it is so easy not to do the simple things that will get you into shape time after time. People get good at things when they practice a lot. Most of you i should imagine are pretty good at brushing your teeth, simply because you’ve done it a lot (although the dentist will sometimes put you right on the correct way). Most of you will know how to wash your clothes and dry them, because again you’ve done it an awful lot and most of you like smelling good and personal hygiene is important to you and your family.

 Most of you will know how to get up on time for work, because it has become routine and you won’t get paid if you don’t  show up for work!! Getting up on time also gives you a purpose for your day and your life in general, human beings respond well to routines and having targets and challenges in their lives.

The secret really is to make your exercise plan firmly a part of your week without fail. Shopping for good food should be the norm and not something you do in january only to get rid of the excess christmas pounds. With a concerted effort, living a healthy lifestyle will become the norm and the way you live your life.

Those of you who don’t do anything right now, i urge you to try it and i guarantee you will feel SO much better for it almost immediately. Getting on a programme that will increase your health can be started anytime, anywhere without any cost. It’s never too late to start and how about today?!!! Don’t wait for the new year as you can and will make substantial progress right up until christmas as long as you put your mind to it and commit to a healthier life.

The time is now, lets make it happen!!!

Twitt
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November 5th 2010

Guy fawkes night comes with a weather warning this year with many fireworks shows already called off. Everyone imagines these to be some kind of “cosy” night out, everyone hugging each other with sheepskin coats on and eating hot dogs. I can’t quite remember any of that going on myself in my past and perhaps it only exists in those corny american family films, are they corny or sickly? Whichever word is appropriate i think!!!

Anyway, how’s your week gone? Have you showed up this week for your workouts and done well? If you have, you should be proud of yourself that you are battling through the dark, wet nights and are literally changing your body for the better.

The economic climate dictates that there are less christmas parties going on this year, and in past years, some of you would have given december up completely when it comes to your health and fitness. You would have said “that’s enough for this year” and you were going to give it a good go in january!!!

Then you would feel absolutely dreadful in january and decide there and then that you wouldn’t let the same thing happen next year!!

Well here we are again, and the decision is again, are you going to have a good 7 weeks up to christmas or are you going to throw the towel in as soon as you see those sickening marks and spencer adverts for christmas, usually by Take That and Twiggy (i know some of you love take that so sorry but i find them sickening!!).

So by my reckoning and the lack of christmas parties around, you have less distraction this year and you should be really motivated to power into  december like you’ve never done before! Don’t forget one of the posts i made this week, for every week off you have, it takes 1-2 weeks to get back where you were so i can’t emphasise enough it really is to keep to your commitments most of you will have made at the beginning of 2010!!! January seems a long way off doesn’t it?

After all, wasn’t this the year you were REALLY going to keep it up all year long?!!! To those of you who have, you have my greatest respect and well done to you. Feeling good should feel pretty natural to you right now!!

Have a great weekend and get fired up to get outside the weekend, it can liberating to do workouts in the rain and you will feel great after you’ve had your bath or shower. Guy fawkes night and the last interruption before christmas, lets get on a mission and start upping your workouts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Twitt
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November 4th 2010

How many of you could fill in the calendar this year every week, every month and claim to have trained every week without fail? At least three times that is a week?

Not many I would guess and here’s how lack of activity affects your progress and momentum in your health and fitness.

For every week you DON’T train, it usually takes 1-2 weeks to get back to the level before you stopped. If you take 4 weeks off, it will take 4-8 weeks to get back where you were, if you take 12 weeks off or 3 months, then it takes 3-6 months to get back where you were.

You can see from this that having lay off’s from your training are very hurtful indeed to your progress, in fact they can write off long periods of time for all of us.

The only situation when a lay off IS beneficial is when you are ill or when you go on holiday, when a week or two off is actually going to refresh you and help you build up your reserves again.

If you’re still have these lay off’s, you need to look at yourself in the mirror and re-discover how important your health and fitness IS to you.

If you say to yourself that you have OTHER things to do, and health is something you will get round to at a “later date”, then you could be accused of being delusional and not honest with yourself.

Once you do become honest with yourself, you have to tell yourself that unless you do three workouts a week, then you WON’T get good results out of this.

You have to realise that you have to give at least a TWELVE WEEK commitment to this if you want to achieve noticeable and excellent results out of this that you can be proud of. I’m talking about the kind of results that your clothes don’t fit you anymore, the kind of results when people stop you on the street and ask you what the heck have you been doing because you look so unbelievably good, the kind of results when you feel so good, so self-confident and so energetic that you can’t wait to wake up the next day because EVERY day becomes exciting because of the endless possibilities!!!

This can happen and it DOES happen every day a lot of people’s world because they have believed in themselves and used a tried and tested programme.

What are you waiting for!!!

Twitt
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Day 33 Friday-sunday weekend improvements

The subject of eating properly, and training properly may be a bit tiresome for many of you, but its something we all need to do, or life becomes less on quality and in vitality, and here’s why.

I never had a problem myself reading about, and searching for more training knowledge, in fact i had a hunger for it, and my house has a lot of it in terms of books, internet sources, and just about anything else.

 The more i learn now, the more it encourages me to learn some more. I always try to look for real training knowledge, and get distressed when i see some of the stuff in some of the “fashionable” fitness magazines. That knowledge and tried and tested experience, i try to pass on to you, and if you get to know how to do things the right way, chances are that you’re going to get to your target body fat, health and fitness levels that much quicker.

The same with the eating side, how come there are endless diets out there? Do all of them really work? Are some of them playing on our insecurities? If you strip it all down and work on the principle that most of what you put in your body should be natural in its content and origin, how can you go wrong? If something has been packaged 12,000 miles away, been loaded with salt just to keep it edible, and god knows that else preservatives, is it really good for you when you eat it perhaps a couple of months later?

I personally enjoy the allure of blueberries and strawberries, nuts, and natural yoghurt, over some “low-fat” biscuits or low-fat desserts that are really loaded with sugar and chemicals your science teacher in school would have had a hard job saying! It wasn’t always that way, and i discovered this “better life” too. I do actually like ice cream and could easily eat a tub if asked, i just choose a better path now that works for me fantastically well, plus i know i would put a ton of weight on too!

Here’s a fact that i go on about a million times, what you put into your body over the next 6 months will have a direct effect on the way your body looks and feels. That is down to your teeth and fingernails even. Check it out in your medical book if you want.

Now would you really want to look like this “made over” person in 6 months time, as if you have had some transformation into the best possible version of you right now? Yes it is possible  and i’ve seen so many people go through it. Is that truly exciting for you right now or not?!

It always makes me laugh when i hear the people who say it is “boring” somehow? Is it more boring moaning about life in a pub and bitching about how life has passed you by, or is it boring having a new life to look forward to, full of optimism and drive because of the way you have transformed your life in the previous 6 months?!! That is a question you have to remind yourself of from time to time.

Most people i know would get excited by looking amazingly well, being complemented on their appearance regularly, feeling full of energy all the time, and generally feeling good inside.

Confession time again, i know for a fact that i feel like garbage after i eat pizza, about an hour after actually! It tastes great while eating it, but the price of feeling bloated and horrible inside afterwards isn’t really worth it. Of course its fine to do once a week, and i always encourage that, to break to monotony sometimes, and the same with ice cream etc, having a treat is a break for the mind too, and can help you relax after a tough week. Everyone here would be a liar if they said they never had treats, or liked treats. Everyone loves a blowout from time to time, me included so i’m far from a saint myself!

I just know if i lived that life of drinking 3-4 times per week, settled for eating ready meals, processed food every day, drank pop instead of water, didn’t exercise, cooked with salt and put salt on my food, had 2-3 takeaways per week, etc etc., that life wouldn’t work out for me the way it does now.

The fact’s are that i truly owe this lifestyle heck of a lot, and i have seen the “promised land”! Like many of you, as i say, life tastes so much better when you’re living it to the full and you have a lot of great health to call on exactly when you want it. The only ones who say that this life is not possible are the ones who don’t live it themselves, and haven’t experienced how good it feels because they never had the “Stick” in them to get there, unlike many of you who are doing so well and are well on course for that place.

Let’s work hard and keep your structure and shape going, every day you’re getting  better and every day is a day closer to an amazing place!

Twitt