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Saturday, 18th January

Everyone wants to feel better about themselves, and most people I have dealt with at the beginning think that they have to change how they LOOK so that they can feel good about themselves.

This is the biggest mistake they make because they never actually get the whole story and concentrate too much on looks.

If you change your attitude towards your body-not changing your body-is one key element to feeling a lot better about yourself. When you feel good about yourself, you can do what it takes to get more out of yourself in terms of your body fat levels and your health as a whole.

The next question is how can you go about doing that?

How can you change your body image?

How can you stop feeling so bad about the way you look?

The first thing to realize is that your body image is influenced by many areas of your life.

For example, how about the negative comments and teasing from school, work colleagues or your family even? These can seriously hurt your body image and make you feel terrible about your appearance.

What about the media? How about all those bodies that are too thin and make you believe that THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG with you just because you are not that small when it’s probably not even possible to be that small without getting ill!

What about the way you talk to yourself about your body. Talking internally to yourself and constantly putting yourself down will take its toll over the short and long term and set yourself up for failure.

If you have parents who think negatively about their own bodies, then their influence tends to rub off on you creating yet another damaging role model on the way you think you should treat your body and health.

If you can realize right now that all these examples may be working against you, then this is the first step. Now you HAVE to do something about it!

More Monday.

Twitt
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Wednesday, 8th January

I have already got through an awful lot of measurements with individuals in 2014, and the range of emotions has been dramatic.

My easiest measurements were the ones who trained all the way through Christmas, some even hit personal bests through the holiday period, and to actually improve substantially during Christmas is staggering!

My toughest measurements were the ones who stopped training perhaps 3-4 weeks before Christmas, and ate much more than usual, didn’t train, and some drank too much alcohol a few times a week.

When you are measuring someone all year long and they get used to dramatic results every four weeks, then to undo a chunk of that progress can floor someone who has become to regular victories in their training challenges.

The psychological let down usually makes people go one of two ways.

Either they stand up and fight, and really promise themselves that they are going to eat well again, get right back into regular training, cut right down on alcohol, and although there is a tough month to get through, that they are going to stick with it and make big inroads on the excess body fat they have gained.

Most people can’t stand feeling all the extra weight on them again anyway, especially after feeling so fit and well at their peak only weeks before Christmas, so its usually a matter of simply wanting to feel their best again anyway!

However, some people take it really badly, and a lot of the hard won confidence levels they developed through successive positive physical improvement can be damaged.

This is when the individual concerned needs a mixture of big emotional support from friends and family, from myself and regular exercise to get their body remembering how good it felt to be at their best.

The support system for the individual is all important, and will make the difference between long term sustainable success, or becoming someone who once did well, but loses self-esteem and hits a long slippery slope when body fat gain becomes the norm, and one’s self-worth hitting an all time low.

This is exactly the time of year to stand up and fight, really accept you do not want to feel overweight, unfit and lacking in ambition.

Really, whatever your situation, this is exactly the time to stop talking about it and get on and change yourself right now, because all of you have the resources and power to change and reach your absolute potential once again!

Twitt
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Friday, 3rd January

A recurring question I seem to have all the time would be the one “which diet should I go on?! Especially this time of year!

We talked about lifestyle changes yesterday, and how important it was to exercise regularly, however simple a programme.

YOU ARE NOT changing your lifestyle if you are going on the “faddy diets” that are trying to rip you off at this time of year! You are trying a short term fix that may lose weight initially, but is very likely to cause you long term misery!!

This is not just my opinion, this is the opinion of the vast majority of individuals I have met over the years who have been through it, and come out the other side with all the weight back on and their long term confidence and self-belief in tatters! It is also the opinion of doctors who have studied this scientifically and done numerous in depth studies on these so called diets.

Most people know by now what I think of these so called “wonder diets”!

Studies over the last few years show and confirm that 97 PER CENT, yes 97 per cent of people who embark on these diets put ALL the weight back on, and 5% MORE than when they first started.

Then there’s the powder and bars diets, which seem to cost a fortune, and again promise you the earth, and yes you lose weight to start with, but inevitably the weight comes back on extremely quickly in most cases.

Again, this is not a lifestyle change!!! You are not educating yourself about eating healthy, natural food and you are not caring what’s going on inside your body and the destructive habits you are adopting.

Fortunately, people selling you these destructive diets are not in the health business very long, and often go on to another scam selling more rubbish.

Unfortunately though, there is often a queue of people waiting to take their place and so the process continues!

There is a solution and you need to get back to shopping for healthy, natural food and making that food as attractive as possible so it becomes an everyday event.

More on this to come.

Twitt
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Thursday, 2nd January

Making a lifestyle change right now is obviously very much in the news at this time of year, but many people get confused with what a lifestyle change REALLY is. I have been through this time of year in a professional capacity many times of course, and its heartbreaking to see many people fall for the same false promises year after year.

In exercise terms, a lifestyle change can be defined as simply moving more, having some sort of exercise plan, however simple. Showing up regular for exercise can be the most powerful thing you do this year.

Even exercising three times a week can change your life this year, and affect positively all of your medical key indicators such as blood pressure, heart rate, body fat levels etc.

If you try just to jump in and get into exercise without knowing what you are getting into, then the chances of injuring yourself are high, and the dangers to your health can be very real. Nothing can crush your morale quicker.

Getting evaluated by a health and fitness professional is critical to you knowing where your starting point is, and how you are going to improve and at what rate. If you show up to exercise not knowing a thing about it (like most people), and then typically just get shown around once and forgotten about, then you are already in a dangerous position.

Not doing things properly is the chief reason why a large percentage of the population will give up on exercise by the end of the month. This is heartbreaking after usually signing a 12 month contract. The sad thing is that many gyms spend all their efforts trying to get you signed up, and very little effort in helping you navigate the first few months of transforming your body and mind.

If you don’t train right, then you’re not going to get any results.
Without results, your incentive to carry on will vanish.

January 2nd 2014 and surely it’s time to spend time researching the best way to do it this time.

Twitt
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Monday, 30th December

So this time of year in the holidays is about making sure your exercise sessions go in, and then making them productive.

First of all, you will probably know by now that I like to avoid doing mindless cardio that doesn’t really make the most of your time at the gym.

That type of training should have disappeared in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but unfortunately I do hear of it happening still today. This is usually due to a lack of direction being shown in one’s exercise programme, or a “tell them to go on there for half an hour and forget about them” type of attitude.

Getting individuals to stay on a treadmill for long, slow periods, staying on the bike at a low intensity for long boring experiences, are what I would consider an insult to the person’s intelligence I was training. Doing “a bit of weights now and again” is not acceptable either, you should exercise with purpose and look for constant improvements every 1-2 weeks.

There’s far more productive ways to train and this is why we will never become a “go through the motions” type of gym, and definitely not a gym who concentrates on getting a direct debit out of you and hoping you never show up! This is why too that every bit of exercise we do in the gym is going to directly benefit you, rely on the latest science of training, and directly show on your body, and your heart strength when you get your regular in detail measurements.

This is why we retain most people who join too, and therefore don’t rely on the typical January rush, training should be a lifestyle change that is achievable, and not ripping you off on a 6-18 month contract where the only pounds disappearing will be from your pocket.

So if you’re looking for your cardio in a quick period of time, you need to focus and concentrate on targets that will regularly change for the better.

A simple way of looking at it is to look at these two examples.

Lets say in week one you can manage 5 minutes on the rowing machine in a particular training interval, and you’re really tired after that so you need plenty of rest before moving on to other things.

Then after week three, you’re up to 10 minutes on the rower, and you can do some boxing with me with no rest.

Then after week eight maybe, you’re into set specific metre challenges on the rower, you are doing walking or even running up on the railway bridge right next to the gym, and you hit the ropes hard, and THEN finish off with a flurry of punches with a boxing session with me.

This is only an example, and all different scenarios are possible, of course only working within that individual’s capability and I never overwork anyone past their boundaries in that particular session. Some people will be more capable than others of course, but every single person should be capable of SIGNIFICANT improvement at
regular intervals.

Now THIS IS PROGRESS and you’re starting to feel alive again! This is achievable at ANY AGE.

This is why the results are coming in thick and fast and this is why you should never accept mindless “programmes” that never consider you as an individual, and if you’re going to improve or not!!!

Trust in results.

Twitt