Friday, 7th December

Following on from yesterday, you need to determine the rut you may find yourself in, or at least realise that you may have hit a plateau that you HAVE to get over!!

Determine how serious the situation is, what you can do about it and what goals you may have once you get over this temporary hump in the road!!

Has it been a few days you have been stuck in your training plateau?

Has it been months even since you can remember serious progress?

If it has only been a few days, then you shouldn’t worry anymore because all of us can have the odd bad week here and there!

Getting back on track after one bad week could be as easy as getting a few nights of good quality sleep, this can fix a lot of problems and get you fired up on all levels!!!

If it has been a few months, it is serious and you need to make dramatic change right now!

If you havent had progress for a while, then there’s always a reason, and probably several reasons!!!

Go over your diet, go over your training, and go over your sleeping habits. Three simple things right there but three massive subjects!!! Get all three and you reach all time highs in your physical conditioning, get all three wrong and you end up in poor shape!!

This time of year offers a stark choice on how you should eat, drink and sleep.

If you make the poorest choices full of sugar, saturated fat and alcohol, then prepare to be wearing baggy jumpers all winter to try and avoid all that weight you’re going to put on.

Make consistently good choices even when those around you are eating and drinking all sorts of rubbish, and you will get the body and overall health you really want!!!

Tuesday, 4th December

If you followed my advice yesterday and made breakfast a priority, then you are less likely to snack in the morning on rubbish foods that will eventually destroy your dreams of finally getting into shape!

If you are focused on results, you had better look at the rest of your day and exactly what you are snacking on!!!

I see that mince pies are already entering people’s diets judging by the stories i am hearing.

The problem with mince pies are that once you start on them, you usually can’t stop.

The other funny story about mince pies is that not a lot of you like them!! Not only that but you feel you have to eat them because “its christmas”!!!

If there’s one thing guaranteed to blow your progress, its got to be starting on mince pies this early in december. When you eat them, not only are you going to put on weight, but your exercise performance will go straight down the toilet!!! If you want to really stay on track, then the toilet is probably the best place for the mince pies, as they are definitely not going to help you get into shape or help your health in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER!!!

We talked about this last week, eating foods that you think you should eat JUST BECAUSE its christmas is an old classic i used to tell myself too!!! Those stories i used to tell myself resulted in me being around 20 pounds heavier than i am right now!! It’s not hard for me to make the better choices now because i REALLY don’t want to go back to those old days when after eating foods such as those, i would frequently feel out of breath, my training sessions used to be so much harder and its was hell of a job after christmas getting the weight off!!!

Now is not the time for mince pies or anything else you think you SHOULD be eating. Keep making the right choices and you will keep on being in shape!!!

Friday, 30th November

Don’t want to seem like some scrooge like character with Christmas coming up, and it’s the first of December tomorrow would you believe!

Anyway, the big question is what kind of Christmas do you think you’re going to have this year?

Apart from the presents and general giving and receiving, we’re talking how you’re going to feel throughout the Christmas period, and how you set yourself up for the new year.

Im all for enjoying myself, its great to have a couple of drinks over Christmas, and letting your hair down from time to time can be a great thing to do.

The big question is if it turns into an everyday affair, and when do you stop?

Do you buy lots of “party food” this year or not? Isn’t it true when we do, that nobody really wants it when they call round the house anyway? Isn’t it true that most people decline it (usually saying that they have eaten already) unless you have an organized party?

This is a great example then of buying rubbish, empty calories into the house that will eventually get eaten by one person usually, and that’s you! From what starts off as a “pick” here and there, will eventually end up in you consuming the whole lot!

Then you will get a taste for it all, and then you are bound to end up getting stuck into the rest of the food, you know the food that you initially bought for “other people”. This is a familiar process I think we have all gone through and it’s

REALLY hard then to get back to normal in eating terms!!!

How about saving yourself some money this year, get yourself a limited amount of treats in, stuff you may actually eat and you know you can control!

Let’s face it, if you need more food or run out, most shops are open right up until Christmas eve, and open sharply on boxing day!! It’s not as if you’re going to be holed up in some bunker for a couple of weeks with no way out, and you have to get as much food in as possible in case you end up “starving”!!!

In these times of austerity, it’s the perfect opportunity for you to buy less junk this year, buy less sugar-laden products, and those you get given to you, please give them away to someone else who hasn’t got the same high ambitions that you have, or give them away to someone who you know that these sweets will make happy!

Time for a fitter and healthier Christmas, and with wiser buying choices, you’re bound to feel and look a whole lot better for it, far better than a normal Christmas anyway and you will thank yourself a lot for it!!!

Wednesday, 28th November

The individual that you see when you first start an exercise programme is always a reflection of that person’s patterns of action, in other words their habits, the things they do day in day out without even thinking about them.

In order to completely change and tranform yourself to a better you, to a leaner, stronger and fitter you, its obvious and indeed critical that those everyday habits absolutely need to change.

The bad habits are always going to be viewed as the things that hold you back, they stop you from moving forward and achieving long term success.

If you are looking for a higher quality of life, then you had better start adopting a lot better and higher quality habits in your daily life.

The first way to do this is to recognise your lowest level habit, i am talking about the habit that drags you down the most, the one that makes you put on weight or the habit that stops you training regularly, or the habit that makes you think negatively!!!

This bad and ultimately negative habit needs to be transformed into a much more positive pattern of action!!

You will find that as your standard gets higher and higher, it will be a case of continuously raising your standards.

For example, if you currently eat badly 7 days a week, then suddenly eating well 3 days a week would have a big difference to your body.

Once you made that change, you would find that you would want to improve again. The target may well go up to eating well 6 days a week, creating another massive difference. The goals would go higher and higher, depending on what standard of life you want to achieve!! The habits would need to change upwards accordingly.

Set your stall out and make that standard in life as high as you can!!!

Tuesday, 27th November

We spoke yesterday about the important of pushing on this month, and never settling for where you are, and the negatives and dangers of that attitude!

This is why measuring is so important for your mind and body.

I have had feedback time and time again that measuring does so much good for your physche!

If you can back up your efforts in black and white with inches off your waist, then this HAS to lift morale!!

If you can show on a blood pressure machine that your physical efforts have been that worthwhile that it has significantly strengthened your heart strength and health, then is always an instant tonic and will back up your training methods to the hilt!

If you can possibly lose 1-2% body fat in the toughest month of december, surely this says that you are indeed mentally strong, that you are working on a good programme and your clothes are fitting you better and better, probably to the point where some may be hanging off you, proving your overall shape is far better and the excess body fat you once had is quickly disappearing!!!

Doing things the scientific way will take the guess work out of your training and eating plan. I learned a long time ago not to leave your improvements to chance, to stay on top of all your training, and to nip any temporary slipping in progress well and truly in the bud!!!

Any process that is deemed to be successful has to be transparent, and i guarantee you that as long as you do 2-3 strength workouts every week, and you do 2-3 workouts that your hit your cardio in the right way, you are going to surprise yourself on how quickly you come on!!

Measuring every four weeks is complete transparency and is a proven system to achieve ultimate success.