Posted on

Tuesday, 26th July

The issue of post workout nutrition has never been so important.

If you are currently going through a tough pre-season for sport for example, what you put back into your body is going to be of extreme importance.

If you train very hard and then don’t care what you eat, then you’re not making things very easy for yourself at all.

There used to be a saying in the 80’s, 90’s and still sometimes today, that “as long as you train hard, then it doesn’t matter WHAT you eat afterwards”!!! What rubbish but what’s even sadder is that some people believe this!

Let’s look at it logically.

When you train hard, you break down your body.

You will lose a lot of nutrients out of your body.

You will break down muscle tissue down.

You will disrupt the chemical balance of your body and lose vital nutrients that need to be replaced.

So does a takeaway really cut it as an after workout meal?

Does the chip shop meet all your needs?

Is a bottle of wine really going to help you replace what you have taken out?

Is a couple of pints of lager going to repair your immune system or help destroy it?

So let’s get one thing completely straight. YOU CANNOT EAT EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT AFTER A TOUGH WORKOUT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO GET IN SHAPE!!!

Okay, i’m glad i have got all of that off my chest.

So what should you eat?

White meats, lean red meat once a week, any fish as long as it hasn’t got batter, eggs, cottage cheese are all EXCELLENT protein sources!!!!! These are vital!

You don’t need a bucketload of carbs after either.

A moderate amount, the size of your fist will do and avoid white bread, white pasta and you will be fine.

Vegetables will provide a lot of the nutrients you need to replace in your body, you will be so much better off by having a good variety of veg in your meal after training for all sorts of reasons. This along with proper hydration will be vital in your athletic goals.

I have tried to make it plain and simple, lets just do it!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 21st July

Knowledge is power and stops us wasting endless hours, days weeks and even years in trying to get in shape.

If we try to go too fast too soon, we sometimes get injured and more often than not, lose all the enthusiasm we had at the start.

This is because we don’t stop to learn the basics, we try to go through a programme that someone far more experienced is doing, such as some athlete in the magazines or something very advanced we see online, both are likely to be unsuitable.

Many magazines are filled with information, but a lot of it unfortunately is targeted at those who have been training for many years, and not those who are beginners or need a helping hand.

The best way to start off or pick up where you left off is to simplify matters.

Select a whole body programme where you work just one exercise for each body part, work up to doing 3 sets of each exercise over a couple of weeks, and aim to do this programme 3 times a week. That’s it, nothing complicated, nothing that will confuse you or your body, just plain old solid routines that will work each every time.

As i keep saying, unless you’re a professional athlete, please, please, please DO NOT waste your time by working one or two body parts each time you go to the gym.

There are two things going on with that last statement.

Are you really up for having fantastic results? Or are you listening too much to your friends and following their programme that’s usually very poorly designed with the no end goal in sight?!!!!

So back to the point, knowledge really is power IF applied properly and its time to start applying it properly. Think what programme is going to WORK FOR YOU!!!!! Its about YOUR progress and YOUR body and keeping it simple is the way to go, just show some effort with your training and the sky’s the limit!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday 18th July

Good news on a Monday always settles you on a steady course for the rest of this week. Start with effort and you get a whole lot of confidence straight away and your results are likely to be very good indeed.

What helps me sometimes is going through the lists of food I give out to new clients, so they are always worth a visit in the diet section. The lists on breakfast ideas, lunch and evening choices and snack ideas reinforce my thinking on what I should be shopping for on a weekly basis.

I know if I REALLY want to be performing and feeling my best, then these foods HAVE to be a big part of my week.

I talked about the stress of moving home last week, but these foods have helped me an awful lot when it comes to re-energising me and getting me fired up to get through my working week.

“You are what you eat” has never been more true.

If you want to look like something really soft and spongy, then please go ahead and eat the ready meals, the cakes and biscuits, the chips, the greasy options in most café’s, these are the foods that will make you feel like you have NO energy and no enthusiasm for life!

If you are reading this, then it shouldn’t be a wild guess that you are looking for excellent results when it comes to looking amazing and feeling fantastic.

This is why I am banging on about diet today, because you can train ALL YOU WANT, but you can NEVER make up for a poor diet and deep down you know there are no short cuts to long term success with your health and fitness.

If you do click on the diet section on the right hand side today, you will refresh your mind and sometimes open your mind again to the extreme good value of changing your diet for the better.

Monday is a day to rebalance your body and put it on sustainable and energetic path for the week. It all starts with good nutrition, no excuses and lets get it right starting today!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday 14th July

Apologies about the wait again but BT broadband required a 10 day stabilisation period when it comes to moving house, that this would explain all the delay in me posting my daily message!

The technical difficulties though are outweighed by the joy of moving to a bigger house, make that bungalow.

A move or fresh change in anything can be very valuable to one’s training.

Now I have different walks and runs for the dogs, and this spices up my  weekend running no end, anything fresh and different should inspire us to reach greater heights.

Fresh and different also brings greater enthusiasm. When you do the same thing all the time, boredom can set in plus your body can get used to exercise.

This means that you are far more likely to plateau sooner in your training.

For example, if im going for a run at the weekend, then the total change of terrain and more importantly, the new challenge of a new terrain will ask new and more challenging questions from my body. This means I should be getting a fresh and new set of results when it comes to muscle hardness and body fat loss.

You don’t have to move home to achieve this of course.

You can drive to different venue’s just to run.

You can run in woodland, 2 days later you could run on the beach, a few days later you can try hills with a great view, next time after that there could be a great run in a park involved etc etc.

Its this chopping and changing that can be very good for you, both for body and mind of course.

If you like everything much more fresh and exciting, change things around as much as possible and all it needs is a little bit of thought.

Twitt
Posted on

April 4th 2011

Good weeks and fresh starts are often kick started by weekends or weeks away sampling richer foods that we don’t normally eat.

If you consume mainly fresh nutritious food nearly every day, then when you experience foods much richer and more full of saturated fat, then your body is not going to react too well. Having been away the weekend, i now feel far less energetic than when i went away on friday. I did go a run on sunday morning, but this was a far more painful run than normal, and i must admit i struggled around far more than my normal early morning runs.

 It was all down to richer food, more salty food and far inferior food in terms of nutritional content than normal, performance is always affected by the quality of nutrients we put into our bodies, and i have to admit, i didnt do too well over the weekend. I wasn’t putting any chips in, or eating every cake in sight, but it was a far less impressive version of my normal weekend’s eating and im still paying now!

To say i need a great start to the week is a huge understatement, and i know my workouts today, as its a monday, will always shape the rest of the week. If i go in half-hearted, i will have a half-hearted week, or definitely medicore in terms of results, exactly what i don’t want to happen!

This type of thinking can also become a negative spiral. Let’s say i didnt train today, or tomorrow and wrote the rest of the week off. This would mean i would really need to start next week off well, but what if something came up? I couldnt get to train and the next week was gone too!! Sound familiar? If it does, then you need to realise that these mondays are highly important to get your week off to a great start, and it will also stop you getting into sloppy habits!!!

Lets give it a huge start this monday and do our best!!!! I’m out to break out of this myself today so i will be going through the pain too!!

Twitt