Wednesday, 27th February

I train a lot of people who sit around for 8 hours a day. I don’t mean they do not work hard, what I do mean is that this sitting around lifestyle in the work environment can have a harmful long term effect on one’s health.

Apart from our exercise sessions together, here’s some tips I have offered them to increase their healthy experience at work.

a. Instead of sitting on a normal office chair, some of my clients will sit on an exercise ball at their desk for 30 mins at a time. This will engage their core far more, strengthening key areas and can be great to break the monotony of life in an office.

b. To start their day, I tell them to make sure they have a bottle of water right by them. Living on coffee, tea and diet coke is no way to spend those 8 hours by the desk. Not drinking enough water will decrease performance in the office and your workouts, it will ruin your concentration and in general your body wont work so well. This is a fundamental area you may need to improve.

c. Try and get a small fridge in work. This helps you keep your foods fresh, and gives you more variety in your food choices at work. Eating foods that are fresh is far more appealing and keeps you firmly on track in your healthy eating. Water also tastes better and fresher cooler, especially on the summer days to come. A small fridge is an excellent investments between a few of your work colleagues.

d. Keep your training shoes under the desk. Everyone needs a break, and going for a 10-15 minute brisk walk will do you far more good than a diet drink or coffee! It will refresh you, make you feel better and you will come back to your desk with renewed energy and concentration.

Working in an office is no excuse to put weight on, most jobs are sedentary these days, so this makes your workouts even more important!

Tuesday, 26th February

Listening to your own internal voice is critical to moving forward in terms of you health and fitnes.

I see two sides of people which leads to two types of results.

The internal little voice we all have a times allows us to duck out of things easily, making us believe that we really cannot do things. The same voice allows us keep progress as a distant dream, instead of what could easily be reality.

Then, there is the other voice that is much more assertive and honest in a way.

This assertive voice makes us ATTEMPT and ACTUALLY DO things. When we get to this stage, we usually find that we CAN do the things that seem a distant dream, and we usually end up proud of our achievements.

The timid first voice will make us end up cancelling workout appointments, giving up on our eating commitments, and generally make us go back to wondering what might have been.

The second more positive voice will give us the butterflies in our stomachs, that feeling of we don’t really know if our attempts will work out, but we are willing to stick to it no matter what and we will still be proud of our efforts.

It makes perfect sense then our second most assertive voice is something we should be listening to, especially if we want to reach our goals. Anything worth achieving is only possible by that positive inner voice urging you to go for it in the first place, and sustaining you especially in your moments of doubt!

So the two choices you have every day, AND WE ALL HAVE THEM, are critical in determining your future.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out that listening to your positve, more assertive voice will pay big dividends.

Monday, 25th February

We always like to talk about hitting it hard on monday, and setting the right tone for the rest of the week, but you should also have made it easier on yourself by not going crazy on junk food and alcohol for the entire weekend!

One night when you have a drink within reason is no problem, and one day when you have bit of what you fancy in terms of your favourite foods is no problem either. The problems start though is when you make it an ALL weekender, meaning that you “go for it” on friday, saturday and sunday.

When you do this, no matter how hard you hit it on monday, you’re going to be playing catch up for the rest of the week!!

So there is a couple of rules you have to follow if you want to make the weekend work FOR you, instead of working against you.

Make the alcohol one day a week only, make the foods you consider a treat one day a week only, or if its two make them relatively small portions, or certainly much smaller than you would normally do.

When you do have that day when you relax on food and alcohol, the very next morning you exercise first thing NO MATTER WHAT before breakfast!! This tends to burn fat straight away and THIS HABIT will get you back on track saving the effort you put in all week before the weekend.

The weekend is definitely there to have fun, but if you binge ALL weekend, then no monday superhuman effort is going to make up for it.

So let’s say your big day/big night out is saturday, then that could be your rest day too. So the sunday morning becomes your big early morning workout, a true “recovery” workout if there ever was one!

Then by the time monday comes along, you will have already got the rubbish out of your system, and monday’s workout will have a much greater value for you, and TRULY set you on the right path for the rest of the week!!

Thursday, 21st February

With the food industry seemingly at an all time low, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that there is much more to come. With the current investigations likely to take months to sort out this mess, I believe they will then move on to other food areas.

Milk and the production of milk has long been controversial, and seeking the freshest and most natural produced milk has to be a priority for you.

You know I always advise wholemeal bread, which although still contains a little sugar and other not so good ingredients, is a million times better than white bread. The sugar, salt and bleaching agents in this awful product would scare most people, yet some are still not willing to change! Eat white bread daily and you will never get in shape full stop, plus its going to be a negative for your health.

Changing to wholegrains is a massive step you can take right now, to improve your health, improve your bodily functions and reach your target body fat levels A LOT sooner and stay in that good zone for life!

So when I have talked about shopping in supermarkets before, I have always advised to IGNORE most of the aisles. You should ignore the ready meal and pizza aisles, the frozen vegetables etc are fine because they are non-processed.

Avoid the full fat cheeses, avoid the frozen chip ailes, avoid most of the cereal boxes aisles but please select porridge, shredded wheat, Weetabix which are known 100% natural products.

Select wholegrain pasta which is going to be good for you and a nice slow release of energy, brown rice better than white rice, spend a LOT more time in the fruit and vegetable section, this will be a good investment in your health right there!

The fish section is always good, plus the tinned fish can be a much cheaper option and more sustainable option. All fish options are good, apart from the ones which have heavy sauces included in the product.

So in shopping terms, only trust the fresher, most natural products because you cannot go wrong with them. Avoid chemically enhanced and pumped up products because you know they are not going to help you on bit, plus you know by now you’re going to have to worry about their long term effects.

Eat natural and feel and look good full stop!

Monday,18th February

Great results simply do not “just happen”, they are well earned and always come from a lot of blood, sweat and tears!

When i hear results happening for people, it really brightens up my day,whether that would be first thing on a monday morning or sunday evening, results are happening everywhere for people at the moment and nothing pleases me more.

This is why new people coming into the programme always wonder whether it can happen for them? Absolutely i always tell them! The reason is that i have seen an awful lot of people travel down this great path and succeed, often against the odds!!!

What i am here for is to give you the right path, the right exercises and the correct way to do them, but there’s a lot, lot more!

I am here to direct you on the right eating path, to steer you away from faddy diets and slimming clubs, to steer you away from shakes and bars diets, to encourage you to eat naturally and fresh when possible.

There has never been a better time to eat well, especially with the current supermakret horsemeat scandal. I’m betting that there is plenty more to come in this story, and i am also betting that other chemically enhanced foods are going to be dragged into this scandal of our generation!! You can eat well simply by avoiding this cheap rubbish, i have been on a million times about ready meals, this if your final chance to get away from them!!!

I am also here to listen to the problems when things never go to plan. This may be the right path, but the path is never completely smooth! There will be ups and downs, but i am here to get you through them, to pick you up sometimes when all you are thinking about is giving up.

It’s monday, the perfect time to change your life and make sure you start the week off on a hugely positive note!