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End of week assessment

How’s your  end of week looking just before halloween?

Is it full of hope and progress or is it full of a lack of action and disappointment?

The great thing about it is  that this ship never leaves the port completely and leaves you stranded. We are always here to help you, even if you have bad week, if you have made a pig of yourself on food and drink, or if you just “down in the dumps” again, thats the way things are sometimes!

So if we plan for no longer than a week, i am going to be encouraging you at the start and end of every week. This is because not only am i an eternal optimist, but literally ANYONE can change their lives around ANY week of ANY year!! It’s that easy to get going, all you need is to make that first vital step. I may have the odd rant in the week sometimes because im frustrated at something, but in the main, everything on here will be positive to get you going again, and to give you that vital leg up when hopelessness takes over sometimes.

So how’s your strength work going and inside workouts? Don’t forget one pound of muscle burns up to 50 calories per day and one pound of fat burns a pathetic 2 pounds a day! The leaner you are carrying a healthy degree of lean muscle tissue, the quicker your metabolism is 24 hours a day, that’s the true secret to fat loss and being in the shape YOU really want!!!

Have you experienced the joys of being outside this week? From the low’s of the freezing conditions at the beginning of the week to the wilder winds of today, this ever-changing climate will often give you four seasons in one day but one thing’s for sure, it’s NEVER boring!! You have every chance to get out there the weekend too, no excuses for saturday and sunday as you should have enough daylight hours to get some quality work in. There are numerous routes to train on all the way throughout the area as previously discussed, all of them different and a lot of fun!! 

NOW is the time to do it, not everyone has the attitude to get out there in all weathers but now is when you really progress and make the big gains. That’s why you don’t see many people training in this weather, and they will never make sustained progress either. If you want to be different and make a tremendous difference to yourself you can be proud of, get your trainers on tomorrow and lets have a big weekend outside!!!

Twitt
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Stop pretending and let’s do this thing!!!!

How many times do you hear in the media that they don’t know anything about exercise, they don’t really know what diet to be on, which exercise equipment to use, how long to exercise for, what the “best” exercise is for their stomach’s etc etc!

I’ve pretty much had a gutful of all that rubbish. Did these people have a good formal education to get on air, or were they just picked up from the street one day? Which one was it? Some are very good of course and im talking about the airheads who occupy some radio and TV stations. There’s so much trashy information out there these days, perhaps thats they they are really getting confused by all these false promises by so called “guru’s” or charlatans as they should be called!! Its time to stop falling for all that rubbish so lets call an end to it right now!!!

Well lets fix this thing once and for all because im not putting up with that rubbish any longer!!!

You have to do your resistance training!! Whats that mean? It means working against resistance and includes press ups, squats, arm dips, weight training etc and you need to be putting in this type of workout THREE times a week, just like coronation street, monday, wednesday and friday!! Pick 6-8 exercises and you need to do around 3 circuits of this. See the workout section of examples. These will tighten up your body no end, make your body VERY efficient at burning fat, exactly what you want to be doing. Running and walking will never re-shape your body, working against resistance DEFINITELY will!!!

You need to GET OUT at least twice a week and YES, EVEN IN THIS WEATHER!!! You WILL feel better afterwards!!! Getting out in the fresh air i meant!!

You need to walk up hills if you can, you need to run shorter distances but with more purpose, you can cycle in daylight hours and enjoy the many cycle paths around here, YOU NEED TO DO THIS!!! This is ALL about making you FEEL BETTER!!!

You need to eat every 3-4 hours, breakfast, lunch, evening meals and snack twice mid-morning and mid-afternoon healthily on fruit and nuts etc. Plenty of ideas in the diet/food section. This is not being a pig, this is keeping your energy levels constant and this will help you to avoid hunger pangs which can often blow your diet!

You need to give sleep some attention too, try and get your head down early in the week and get a good nights sleep. Dont use wine to send you to sleep, its the worst kind of sleep you can get, its not cool or trendy in the week to get trashed on wine, plus it will ONLY make you put on body fat and make you hold water/get bloated, not very good side effects!!!!

There are some basics there and sorry for the rant, because after all this time, its time to let you know that anyone can do this, and if you’re not achieving what you want in life right now, its time to do it and right now, no excuses, no trendy talk, quit all the “‘i’ll do it tomorrow” rubbish, its never going to work with that attitude.

Its a dull rainy tuesday, but still a great day to change your life around!!!!

Twitt
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60 days left to Christmas!

There are literally 60 days left to christmas to make the transformation you made in 2010 complete. Eight weeks left and although it may not sound a like a long time, its long enough to make deep inroads into your overall wellbeing and feel as strong and as fit as possible before christmas.

With the possibility that 2011 will be bleak for many people in economic terms, its vital you approach the new year as healthy and as energetic as possible. When this physical condition is reached, the chances are that you are going to be much more optimistic too, just as the right time of year when most people could be described as on “a bit of a downer”!!

You are also competing with the onset of a different season right now. Autumn is well and truly here, and we had the first proper frost of the autumn today. My first run of the day also meant my hands were stinging with the cold, so it was my first shock to the system of winter, and i’m glad i’ve got it behind me now!!!

Dont be put off at al either by the colder air this time of year. Expect to feel a bit short of breath especially doing outdoor exercise at the moment, the new sharper and decidely lower temperatures may take a couple of weeks to get used to, but once you have got used to them, there will be no looking back for you!!!

Working outdoors is always desirable. Any exercise is good but you tend to get exposed to lots of germs and colds etc in gyms up and down the land, almost a breeding ground for all types of viruses etc.

The time really is here to keep your outside workouts going in, and this will make the transition of the winter temperatures that much easier to take and get used to.

You will probably save of fortune in electricity too, once you have been outside training, you will know exactly what i mean. The difference this time of year between the outside and inside is at its most noticeable. Going from sometimes sub-zero temperatures first thing in the morning back to the 70 degree temperatures often experienced inside can be dramatic and an eye-opener!!!

With most place quiet from now until christmas, this is a great opportunity to keep your eating consistently good, and focus on the raw foods that serve your body so well. Im talking lots of fruit and veggies which really give your body the foundation it deserves going into our colder, wetter winters.

I’ve always tried to stress that if you concentrate on getting your insides right and healthy, then the outside your body will look after itself. Your body and your appearance are always a reflection on how you live your life, how much good food you put in, if you’re getting enough fluids in, if you’re sleeping enough and if you are putting some good quality training in.

8 weeks left to the big day, lets pick up the pace and make sure we end 2010 on a massive high!!!

Twitt
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Never short of workouts

You really do have several workouts available this weekend.

All these posts are designed to get rid of any excuses you may have left in your cupboard!

So we have gone over inside workouts this week, you can do them in ANY weather, there are no snow storms in your living room or spare room? It is not too cold or wet either in your living room and you can even have music on in the background! This is a workout you can do ANY time, so if you have an excuse, you know its not possible for me to believe you!!!

What about your outside workouts?

Are you going to get out there and do them? Or are you going to put on your dressing gown at 6pm in the evening and drink a bottle of wine a night, a takeway most nights or the biggest bar of chocolate its humanly possibly to eat? Lots of people really do live their lives like this, and need rescuing from themselves and need to be introduced to an active lifestyle, it really will change your life and make you far more optimistic for the future!!!

If its cold inside, get out there and do your workouts outside, you will soon get warm, you will soon get some adrenalin through your vains and pretty soon you will be invigorated to go and do something!!! I bet you when you get back inside, you will switch the heating off and wonder how you felt it cold in the first place!!! Staying indoors all weekend and complaining its “cold” doesnt wash either, it really doesnt, and sometimes you need to shake yourself to get out of this vicious circle of feeling sorry for yourself.

Theres a million things you can do this weekend, and getting out there and being active is guaranteed to make you feel better, give you more self-confidence in your abilities and really set the tone for all weekends coming up to christmas!!!

For starters i would look at it this weekend for walking up and down some very challenging terrain but with great scenery. These place include pembrey country park, burry port beach, burry port harbour, sandy water park, mumbles promenade, mumbles mountain, beaches-langland, caswell, llangennith, rhosilli, swiss valley reservoir, millennium coastal path, any cycle path!, burry port park, and there are about a million other places i could list right now for you to try out but i think the above list is enough to get you started!!!!

I know many of you will know more “secret” places so please try them all out, it makes life far more interested if you try different and fresher venues!!

No time to waste in shops the weekend, get out and there and do something that will get your blood going again!!!

Twitt
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Having a go is the number one thing!

We touched on the fact that we need to be more performance orientated in our training and hopefully, im not trying to say here that half hearted exercise is a waste of time because its not.

We all have times when we are not really in the mood to exercise. For example, some of us may go out on a Friday or Saturday night, have a few drinks and wake up with a bad head. The first thought on our minds may not be going for a run or any workout of any kind!

However, I have said on here countless times how important it is to train the morning after  the night before. Anyone who has done this will tell you that “performance” is definitely not as important on that Sunday morning!!

Simply the process of getting through a workout is the big achievement, and it will make you feel incredibly better. This whole attitude makes you realise that nobody’s perfect, not one single person and we all like a laugh from time to time.

Jean I think is doing so well now because she still has a drink at the weekend and the odd treat, because she has been so good in the week. I don’t think its sustainable for ANYONE to go without a treat for too long.

Remember this workout plan and eating regime is not really just that, it’s the lifestyle change that’s the important thing!

Simon from Chicago has been e-mailing me about his progress and about the fact that he likes the short intense workouts inside. He loves them too because of chicago’s notoriously freezing winters, when outside workouts are almost impossible, especially with his asthma.

Simon asked the other day should he do 5 inside workouts per week instead of 3? I said not to and include 2 other cardio workouts instead. This will keep him fresh, still keep his performance high and avoid injury.

Its natural to want to do something a lot if you’re getting big results from it, but in this case more is definitely not better.

You need to let your muscles rest and recover ready for your next workout. Remember I keep on saying, this is a lifestyle change and it means that. For the rest of your life you need to have an achievable workout schedule and a good eating plan.

As I said, nobody’s expecting you to be perfect, but as long as you keep having a go week in week out, you will be very satisfied with a lifetime of good health!!

Twitt