Friday, 1st February

Cereals and breakfasts in general can be a difficult subject for most, ranging from people who miss breakfasts to those who fall for the cereals to the masses that often come in pretty boxes.

Let’s get the first one out of the way, if you miss breakfast you WILL NOT BE successful in your fat loss and performance targets FULL STOP!

If you think that by missing breakfast, you will lose weight because you’re not eating any food, then that’s totally wrong. You need to eat breakfast to get your metabolism going, the rate at which your body burns calories 24 hours a day. If you miss breakfast, you are giving your metabolism every reason NOT to get going, every reason TO hold on to body fat stores, and you’re creating no incentive for your bodily functions to get going in a normal and healthy way.

Missing breakfast is the VERY worst start to your day.

Then when you go down the supermarket aisles and come to the breakfast choices, you are often faced with seemingly hundreds of cereal boxes! They hve catchy names, some have actually the words “fitness” or playson that word in the title!!

It’s a shame then that this particular one and all of the ones with catchy names or have cool characters on the front, are the ones that are loaded wth sugar and often salt. At least 80% of the cereals on offer are exactly the sugary options you do not want to take up for breakfast.

The ones you want to take notice of and buy are still the all natural ones, the weetabix, the shredded wheat, porridge in particular is wonderful, and free range eggs are fine products too, full of goodness, full of nutrients and full of energy.

Wholemeal toast is fine, just avoid the spread and try chopping a banana and using that as a spread.

You get some people who say do not eat bread, but most people are unlikely to be off it longer term. The trick is to be sensible and have a couple of slices a day, avoid the butter and margarine and eating bread in moderation will be fine.

Eating right matters so keep up the good efforts!!

Thursday, 31st January

Mixing up your training is something we are always keen on talking about, and the benefits and freshness this can bring to your programme.

The same thing can and should be done to your eating efforts.

How boring can it be to eat the same thing all the time?

The trick is to use natural products in your food choices whenever you can.

The aisles in supermarkets sadly contain mostly processed, salty, pre cooked sometimes, and other choices of food that will definitely NOT help you one bit when it comes to supporting your training efforts.

If you stick to the aisles that contain mostly good natural produce, then this will give you more variety and give you different ideas.

You have the fruit and vegetables aisles, these are always going to be good for you. Simply picking different fruit and vegetables each time you go, or every other time you go shopping will give you different tastes and different choices when it comes to meal preparation and selection.

If you are a meat lover, how about changing all of that around and waking up to the delights that fish can offer.Whenever i tend to go in supermarkets, there tend always to be deals on fish.

You don’t have to eat the same fish all the time, as the deals will usually offer a different fish most weeks.

You don’t have to eat ALL of it the same time either, especially when you buy bulk purchase such as a whole salmon on half price for example. It’s easy to freeze it, and get several meals from the remains of the fish you froze.

Changing from meat to fish will not only freshen up your tastes but also give you the essential fats you really need in your diet that are vital for proper function in your body!

Fish is not as expensive as it can be earlier in the week, friday is always a good day in certain supermarkets.

Please don’t stick to the same thing all the time, the last thing you want to get is bored with your diet!!!

Thursday, 10th January

So moving along, assuming you have got your diet right, you are building up your exercise schedule at a nice steady rate, then its definitely time to start thinking about exercise targets.

Improving your exercise performance is the easiest way to improve everything about your health.

For example, if you are able to do 3 press ups when you first start off, then it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine you doing 20 press ups within 6-8 weeks. When you are able to do 20 press ups, then it should stand to reason that you are able to perform better and therefore be in a lot better physical condition!

If you are able to work for 10 mins on a stationery bike at a very low intensity to start with, then within that same 6-8 week period, you should be able to work for at least 20 mins on a much higher intensity.

These assumptions assume that you are still eating well, that you are not over-indulging in alcohol, and that you are sleeping well!!

These are simple assumptions, but as you may know, they are not always so easy to keep up, leave along do well, so you can be sure that im always going to preach the importance of doing the basics well.

The most successful individuals i train are always the ones who keep it simple, they eat simple but well, they exercise in a straightforward manner but always at a higher intensity, and they are pretty religious about getting a wonderful sleep, especially in the week!!!

So rather than trying to get you on some kind of complicated plan that you are unlikely to keep up, i like to introduce people to plans that they CAN KEEP UP!!!

The keep it simple principle has never been so important and results-orientated, so we’re going to concentrate hugely on this during the year!!!

Wednesday, 9th January

So we’re in the first proper week of the year regarding exercise, and its vital you keep doing the right thing at the right time.

So assuming you’re still full of enthusiasm and you’re still in the stage of “this time i’m really going to do it”, then you need to stop looking far ahead and go through your training sessions in a more methodical way.

One common mistake to start with is trying to over-complicate your workout, you try to do too much too soon and these factors often lead to injury and frustration.

If you haven’t exercised for some time, please remember that a professional athlete for example, every week they have off from training, it will take them 1-2 weeks to get back to normal. So if they have had 6 weeks off training, then it could possibly take them 12 weeks to get completely back to normal-and this is a pro athlete!!!

If you have had a year or two off for example, then it doesn’t take a genius to work out that it’s going to take you a good while before you approach anywhere near your former levels!

This is not a piece to put you off, its urging you to seek professional help when beginning a new exercise programme, and also urging you to proceed with caution, giving your body time to adjust to your new schedule is of paramount importance.

This is why you should take one step at a time, take one week of training at a time, and set your goals by the week.

It shouldn’t be too hard to improve BY THE WEEK if you have a good plan. If you allow your body to adjust slowly, then you are still capable of improving greatly in 6 weeks, and very impressively in 12 weeks!!!

Hopefully, you are now engaged in a solid plan, just focus on showing up for your workouts and executing them well. Then look forward to getting good results on a weekly basis, if you are not then please look again at the programme you are on and are you really getting good advice?

Monday, 17th December

Finally in the week before Christmas and how’s it going for you in terms of your exercising and eating?

It’s always a “finally” moment for all of those who have given up the ghost for their training in 2012. I must say i am lucky to train a relatively large number of individuals right up until christmas eve, as most people i am involved with now know the benefits of training all the way through.

If you expected some piece today about me agreeing with those of you who want to knock their training on the head right now, and pig out on mince pies and all the alcohol you can muster, then no, i’m really not going to do that.

I like to think i am very understanding but agreeing with people so they can feel out of breath, put lots of weight on, and feel nowhere NEAR as good as they normally do is a point of principle for me. I remember a lot of years ago that i had a couple of weeks off myself, and felt so bad that i said i WOULD never do that EVER again, the pain was really do much!!!

Those of you who are continuing to train (and there a many of you) have your monthly measurement come up. This is awfully brave of you late into december when everyone else seems to be losing their heads, but the feedback i get from most of you is that still doing your monthly measurement keeps you off the sugary and fatty foods, it keeps you exercising and in general keeps your standard very high.

If you’re involved in our way of doing things, then i take my hat off to you all who don’t want to be part of the crowd who are falling for all the christmas massive excess, and really want to fight it and stay in great shape ALL YEAR ROUND!!!

The choices are there for you, no excuses to get totally out of shape after working so hard all year!!!