Posted on

Sunday, 22nd June

Most women carry at least 10% less muscle than they should for all sorts of health reasons due to modern lifestyles, meaning lack of exercise and lack of proper nutrition.

This is why our programme concentrates so much on you getting stronger, making you build lean muscle tissue just to get you to recommended levels, and help you burn calories much faster 24 hours a day than you probably are now.

Your body needs lean muscle to become leaner, and the strength training will have a big added benefit of strengthening your bone density. Osteoporosis is a very real threat to all of us, in particular for women, so a large part of our training focuses on countering that, along with balance and coordination.

You need to forget about the scale too. Please do it. This is the most distracting way of making you doubt your progress when the pounds are not dropping dramatically. If you build lean muscle, you will actually become smaller and more shapely, your clothes will fit much better and according to every single female we train, you are very likely to drop a couple of dress sizes, or several dress sizes even in many cases.

The new health and fitness indicator is your CLOTHES, and it has always been so with me and all the people I train. The sooner everyone changes their benchmark of true success in changing their body the better!

Most weight loss and media focus purely on weight-this is madness and leads to false expectations and can lead to women going on crazy diets that focus on dangerously low levels of calories. This is why large parts of the weight loss industry is extremely dangerous and always lead to misery in the end for the person who buys their “products”.

Would you rather having a lean, strong athletic body that looks great on holiday too, with great internal health and look unbelievable in clothes, often fitting into a clothes size you previously thought impossible and you can go into any shop and pick anything, even if you didn’t have a massive loss on the scales?

OR

Become obsessed with the weighing scales, hardly eating anything just to please the scales, doubting yourself all the time, being miserable and if you don’t train the weight loss will do nothing for “bingo wings”, and a soft, unfit body in general.

Losing weight is great but if you still have the loose skin afterwards, you are still not going to be happy displaying that body without clothes?

Focus on your health, use your clothes as your barometer of success, and focus on increasing your physical performance rather than starving yourself on faddy dangerous diets.

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 17th June

Most people will support you in your efforts to become fitter and healthier. You will have likely have had great results, and with this comes great momentum and you will automatically be feeling much better.

Now and again though, you will have the odd person that tries to put you off and bring you down, usually down to their own unhappiness and lack of direction in their own life.

A rude comment here and there can ruin a good mood. Don’t take it personally though as rude comments usually say more about the person making them than you.

Here are some of the comments I hear off people I train that were said to them over the years.

“Why do you have to train so seriously”

“You are so lucky to be in good shape”

“I don’t know how you stay so disciplined”

“Why can’t you just enjoy life more and forget about your training”

“You have lost too much weight, isn’t it time now you gave it up?”

“If you train that hard all the time, you will end up looking like a man”

“It’s not healthy to eat well all the time!”

“I can’t wait for you to stop training and eating healthy so you’re “normal” again!”

“Once you stop training, all the muscle will turn to fat”!

“You lost all your boobs when you lost weight””

“Why don’t you just walk a dog like most people do”

“You are obsessed, all this exercising can’t be good!

“A week or two from the gym isn’t going to kill you!”

How many of these statements from so called friends or work colleagues are supportive and positive? None of them of course!!

If you let negative people get under your skin like this, then you won’t keep on being successful like you are.

Use negativity and harsh comments as the fuel that’s going to drive you on further and further to new heights! Appreciate the progress you have made, and think of the positivity that has brought into your life.

You aren’t striving to meet the standards that others set for you, it’s all about you creating your OWN standards, and never allowing others stop you achieving what you have set out to do!!

Eat and drink a bit of what you fancy now and again, it’s never going to hurt and keeps you mentally fresh, as long as most of what you eat and drink is good normally.

Have a day off here and there from the gym when you feel you need it, this will freshen you up at times too.

Only do this though when YOU feel like it, and never feel the need to conform to others’ expectations just to fit in!!

Expect the odd bit of negativity now and again, but always look at the person saying it in the first place and their motives, and appreciate where YOU are right now and how far you have come.

Twitt
Posted on

Sunday, 15th June

One of the best results you can hope for with your training is to actually change your body, and not just lose weight and get smaller.

Most people who train with us getting a different sort of question asked to them once they make dramatic improvements.

People don’t just ask if they have lost weight, they ask IF THEY HAVE BEEN WORKING OUT! Looking as if you train means that you have put a lot of hard work in, have eaten right and you have kept on improving over a long period of time.

This is a very pleasing question because you will know at that precise moment that you are looking healthy and fit!

Looking athletic for the first time is not only a great achievement, actually “feeling fantastic” usually goes hand in hand with being in this kind of great shape.

Another great benefit is your favourite clothes will become “wearable” once again.

Everyone has their favourite jeans or their favourite dress or suit, that most of you may have given up on wearing ever again.

That feeling of being able to wear that special item again is a big confirmation of your progress, and a very strong sign that you are back to your best shape once again.

Your new found shape and fitness will always transform into daily life too. Developing “real fitness” means that the way you move every day will become better. Anything physical will become no problem, you will have unbelievable energy levels meaning you will want to do much more with your day, you will sleep much better and you will have a far more positive outlook on life.

This is why its always better to train to improve your performance, and not simply go through the motions.

It will be a lot of work, but follow through on your plan and you will find out that anyone can do it with enough support and sustained effort.

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 2nd June

This is bananas!!

Everybody and their mother knows by now that sugar and saturated fat is bad for us and can make you pile on the weight quickly. Sometimes it’s hard to visualise and accept just how bad they are for us. And worse of all, those little biscuits and cakes are so damn tasty, sometimes it’s just too hard to resist. How many times have we been in the office or an auntie’s house and someone has offered you a biscuit with your coffee. One or two won’t hurt right? I mean you can always work extra hard and burn them off in the gym tomorrow. Think again. Answer this quiz to get you
back down to earth with a bang!

How many bananas can you eat which are equivalent fat wise to 2 chocolate Hobnobs?

26 bananas!!!

Yes, at 0.3g fat, bananas are virtually fat free. Whereas the Hobnobs are 4g of fat each!

Those two little biscuits don’t seem so tasty now, best pass me the fruit bowl…

Eat to train.

Twitt
Posted on

Sunday, 1st June

Watching the person you are training in how they move is often far more important than what they have to say.

Anyone I train will know I often ask excessively “how they are feeling” and how was that movement they just did.

Did it work for them? Was there any pain? Was it too much?

When anyone I train doesn’t know me too well, they will often tend to agree with everything I say. Then when they get to know me, they will tend to answer me back and question a lot of what I say-THIS IS A GREAT SITUATION!

Take a movement that’s causing you pain for instance.

When I get someone doing a new movement for the first time, there is a small chance that this new movement may cause them some discomfort.

The person I am teaching may say they found it “fine” but may walk away rubbing their shoulder. This is a clear sign that everything wasn’t fine and that movement we tried was a problem for them.

This is when observation of the person I am training is vital. The person I am training for years will always tell me straight if something was causing them discomfort, and they know I would stop right there.

When new people come to the gym, I always explain how your body works and is supposed to move, and avoiding pain is key for us. Their past experiences of exercise though have often not included this philosophy.

PAIN DURING EXERCISE AND NOT BEING ABLE TO WALK AFTERWARDS ON A REGULAR BASIS IS WRONG, DAMAGING AND IS GOING TO CAUSE LONG TERM PROBLEMS FULL STOP.

There is said it!

This is why how people move often gives more tell-tale signs than what they say.

The potential for new members to make mistakes in their training early on is huge, this is why I need to spend so much time developing them and not leave them after just one session left to their own devices.

Twitt