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Tuesday, 23rd October

Unless you fully appreciate each stage off your development, and try to go from A-Z in record time, you are unlikely to achieve sustainable progress.

For example, we talked about some basic but very handy tips on your eating again.

The big question is do you practice all of these habits on a daily basis? If not, then perhaps you need to visit these again before moving on. How many of us have told ourselves that we know it all anyway, and we do not need to be reminded?

I have heard plenty of people use this attitude and guess what? They are always the ones who continually show LEAST progress!!

The ability to be a “sponge” and absorb every scrap of information you possibly can is always undervalued.

I often see the people with the least individual athletic ability over-achieve and better the results of so called more gifted athletes purely because they have applied themselves a lot more, and the same goes for every area in life.

The people who don’t take advice from a post such as yesterday are also the ones looking for some “magic” supplement that will somehow strip fat at a massively fast pace and somehow get you into your best shape, even without eating really well somehow!!!

Those of you who have been down such a route (and most of us have let’s admit it!), will relish the fact now that we don’t need to use such a complex and usually such an expensive route that is ultimately futile!!!

The tips yesterday will offer you stratagies that cost you absolutely nothing, but you will be able to keep up for a lifetime!

They offer you easy ways to get into shape, to speed your metabolism up, to help you make the right choices, and definitely put you on the road to feeling healthy and getting into the kind of shape you always wanted!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 11th October

The subject of goal setting is often underestimated. In the workplace you have often over zealous managers doing their often boring, non-effective management speak telling you on your annual report that you need “to set goals” for the year ahead.

The result in practice is often that those so called goals never get reviewed until the next year, every 3 months at best. This is very inefficient at best!

I try to get everyone to set new goals every week at the most.

This sounds a bit over the top to many, but those who go through it always see the huge benefits of doing so.

Real meaningful goals that matter to individuals are always important to write down!!

I have found too that through my own research, that people often lose their focus on their original goals very quickly indeed.

Either that or they reach their initial goals quickly, and often just go through the motions after that, not raising their game because they do not know the next level that they want to get to!

When you think of life, most people’s lives change on a weekly basis, a daily basis and an hourly basis when you think how quickly events can change, so if you really want to improve you had better get used to reviewing your progress and changing it to suit how fast you are progressing!

Also, the reason why I get everyone writing their goals down is that automatically become more meaningful when you write them down!

A study by Harvard university showed that goals are 80% more likely to happen when you write them down, rather than just “talk about them”.

We have a white board in the gym for this very process, and its already very productive, helping everyone who want big changes for the better in their lives!!

Time to stop talking about it all, write it down and you will get there quicker!!

Twitt
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Tuesday, 9th October

Lots of little colds and annoying little illnesses around lately, and some of them taking at least a couple of weeks to finally go!!!

So it’s a probably a great time to discuss how you should play this situation from a training perspective?

The rule of thumb should be the following.

If you are feel a little bit off above the neck, then its still okay to train as long as you are sensible, and i’m talking about little sniffle’s and not heavy cold’s!!!  If you have a heavy cold or really bad headache, then you should not train definitely!

If you are aching below your shoulders, then you should not train as you are probably going down with something. Aching from a cold or flu perpective means you should rest your body right now, and try and still keep drinking water to keep you hydrated, this will help in the recovery process for sure.

You must realise that exercise can be a massive positive for your immune system, and protect you against future colds and illnesses.

However, IF your immune system is already compromised, and i mean run down and not feeling well, then it definitely is not a good time to exercise, as exercise can put extra stress on your immune system and can mean a 2-3 day recovery from a cold turning into a 2-3 week recovery from a much heavier cold. This is why you must treat your body with care and respect your immune system.

You know how to boost your immune system by now? Eat a wide variety of nutrients, eat plenty of vegetables and fruit, eat nuts in sensible portions, get plenty of sleep, avoid alcohol, certainly avoid cigarettes, which could be considered as the worst thing in creation for your body!!

Autumn is a delicate time for all sorts of colds, so make sure you eat well, eat natural when you can and respect your body by doing all the right things you know that will work very well for you!!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 4th October

It’s metabolism all the way this week, and here’s some more ways to get it fired up!!

If you eat 5-6 times a day, then you are raising your metabolism nicely, as the act of eating alone will make you burn more calories.

Its vital these meals though are not over-sized, and are smaller in general as you will be eating every 3-4 hours. The idea is to eat breakfast, lunch and evening meal, with mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks keeping you full and energised in between.

So if you eat three meals a day, you will be raising your metabolism 3 times a day, instead of 5-6 times a day with the smaller meals and snacking method.

Another benefit of eating multiple times a day is that you never get hungry, your body will expect food regularly and this will make sure you are not tempted to binge!

Another great way to raise your metabolism is to eat real foods. That may sound strange but eating real vegetabls, real fruit and most importantly, AVOIDING PROCESSED FOOD whenever you can.

Most of the processed food you get in the supermarket these days doesn’t take much digestion, therefore burning less calories and also playing havoc with your digestive system.

If you eat fruit, real vegetables, real oatmeal for example, your body’s whole digestive system is working at its full capacity to break down the food, then use it as an energy source.

This process will not go on when you eat processed rubbish, that seems to fill most of the aisles in supermarkets!! Ready meals are the most guilty example, but anything that takes a minute or so to heat up and eat is usually going to be very poor for your internal digestive system.

Eating natural isn’t always possible, so try to use processed foods before your training session. This way you can at least use the food as energy and get it out of your system as soon as possible!!

Twitt
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Wednesday, 3rd October

We talked about the value of trying to raise your metabolism yesterday, here are some key ways on how to do it!

Number one is to lift weights. If you just do normal cardio that most people do (treadmill, bike etc), then your metabolism will be raised but only for the duration of your workout.

The difference with weights/resistance training is the effect will last a lot longer!

Scientific studies show the elevated metabolism you will experience can last up to 39 hours!!! This is why weight training is so important! Weight training breaks down muscle tissue and usually needs that amount of time to recover.

We have always talked on here about the benefits of weight training, and obviously this another big reason to lift!!

Number two is to train intensely. Whatever workout you do, make sure you train with purpose and if you put a good intensity into it, your metabolism will be raised that much more again, meaning you burn more calories and burn more fat.

Number three is embracing the process of building lean muscle tissue. Experts suggest that for every pound of muscle gained, your body will burn an extra 35-50 calories a day!! Compare that with just 2 pounds for every pound of fat. This is why people who are lean and muscular find it easier to stay like that, whilst people who carry a lot of fat struggle more to get it off.

Number four is eating more  protein, not too much but a sensible amount. With all of this good training, you should also a healthy amount of protein such as the size of your fist in each meal. Not only does it fill you up that much longer than carbs and fat, it also takes 25% more calories for the body to break down protein.  These 25% of the calories in protein are broken down through the digestion process, compare this to 5% of carbs and just 2% effort to burn fat when ingested!!

More tomorrow!!

Twitt