Feb 3rd 2011

Nice to see some of you making a real effort with your training and looking to improve yourselves, even after the faddy january rush has come and gone. Just as many people will be giving up on another year, you will be only starting yours and i know your efforts will last most if not all of the year.

Going through year on year may seem like a drag, but its only a drag if you have let yourself fall far further than you ought to have. Letting yourself go is something we have all been through, and its how we come back from this that shows how much character we really have. Its easy to be bullish when everything is going well for us, but when things dont, our confidence can drop greatly and in turn our performances. Once our performances go south, our progress comes to a screeching halt and we can end up going backwards at a rate of kn0ts sometimes!!!

So we have bright mornings, lighter evenings and we even have milder weather to feel good about and this weather allows us to do pretty much anything we want.

This is the month to make spring really happen for us. That first week of april when its warmer will be too late to start training to be in shape for may. Its now all the hard work counts and can really make a difference to your appearance and the way you feel!!!!

If you get stuck in now, life will not be hard as you think and you wont have to go through the dragging yourself up from the bottom all over again. Please make the effort now and make the leap between being mediocre and being impressive. You become impressive by showing self-sacrifice at crucial moments, ON A REGULAR BASIS.

Nobody is asking for perfection from you, what i am asking from you is sustained effort that is a reflection on your ability. As long as you do your best, nobody can ask for me, but my guess is that your best will indeed be enough!!!!

January 27th, 2011

Following on from yesterday’s conversation about too much fruit and not enough vegetables, let’s defend fruit a little bit more before it gets too much of a bad rap!!!

I went over yesterday on how fruit is often blamed for putting weight on, and often mistakenly unless someone consumes vast quantities of fruit, and you would know you were eating too much because you would be on the toilet most of the time!!!

One big thing to back up why you should consider fruit a good thing is the benefits it gives you. The obvious one to think about is boosting your immune system, vital at this time of year with all the colds around. Then you have the energy fruit gives you and as i always tell everyone, you should be eating fruit because of all the untold things it does for us internally that we don’t even know about, but will become public knowledge in the next few years as we make new discoveries!! You should be eating fruit as a preventative measure against future illness, scientific studies tell us this continually!!!

The big thing for you though in practical terms should be the fact that your sweet tooth is never going to get worse should you choose fruit over chocolate for example. If you eat sweet things as snacks, then you will tend to eat more and more sweet things, and this will be very destructive for your body, this spiral can never end as we all know!!!

So despite the fact that sugar is contained in fruit, it is natural sugar your body can use and DOES NOT create sugar addiction like processed foods like cakes, chocolates and biscuits will do EVERY TIME. If you are currently in this spiral of wanting more and more sugar all the time, you have to switch to fruit immediately IF you want to reach your potential full stop, AND vegetables as this combination is especially powerful so you need to start putting your mind to this straight away, depending if you want great things to happen for your body and health of course!!!

Almost the end of january and this is the tried and tested way to go forward, to make sure your results are long lasting and health is your number one on your list of priorities!!!!

10th january 2011

The start of the first full week for many people this week and thats great news if you thrive on routines and being busy. Life is busier for most people these days and that means you need an ever increasing supply of energy. With the general population getting more and more overweight, something needs to give here and if you keep following the majority of this country, living a normal life is going to become increasingly tough. Your new refreshed attitude will be key in determining how successful you are this year.

Since this site is not about january gimmicks, january is a month either to get fit and healthy properly for the first time, or build on the success you had last year, or put right where you went wrong last year, and maybe many years before that.

Joining a fancy gym is NOT enough to get you into shape and their fancy salesmen techniques. You can get fit in the most modest of surroundings as long as you work hard and keep putting in that work all this year, in fact by the end of this year you could be in incredible shape if you really want to!! Most people think perfection is impossible and of course it is, but you CAN get pretty damn close if you apply yourself more than you have ever done, 2011 can be that exciting for you as long as you show constant self-belief and develop an action plan to make it happen!!! Its about being YOUR best and nobody else’s!!!

I have been with several people this morning who have already promised to give their best again. The habits that developed over christmas again, alcohol more often than usual, chocolate for the first time in a long time, more processed food, more party food, less exercise, less sleep, less time for exercise etc etc ALL have to be rectified if these individuals want to get back to their massively high standard!!!!

Im pretty fired up and its only monday, but creating an energetic monday for yourself sets the tone for the rest of the week. I always have a great week if i have a good monday, so lets make sure you get out there and have a great workout today, some fresh natural food too, plenty of water throughout the day and some good sleep. You won’t do better than that on a dark and gloomy january monday!!!!

Set the tone right now and make it happen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Explore the site and see how you can change it right now!!!!

Thursday, January 6th 2011

The efforts you may be now making with your diet ought not to be wasted, and you need to be adopting some simple strategies to make the most out of your new exercise and dietary habits.

The most important difference you can make right now is to give alcohol up for a while. The improvements your liver will see in the next month will be huge if you avoid drinking for the next four weeks and it’s a great month to do it, with not a lot going on.

Hopefully, after the four weeks, you will be feeling so good that you won’t want to go back to a lifestyle of excess alcohol and the dangers that come with it.

Absolutely nothing wrong with having a drink but moderation is the key. We all overdid as kids and some of us are learning now that perhaps its not such a great idea anymore to try and drink like an 18 year old into our old age!!!

Another huge disadvantage of alcohol consumption is the hunger it suddenly gives you. You start craving things you never thought possible, and those cravings are usually high fat and high sugar items, the very foods and drinks that are guaranteed to put a lot more weight on.

The statement that is perhaps factually correct more than any other is that ALCOHOL MAKES YOU FAT FULL STOP!! A bit harsh for some to take perhaps, but very true in my experience nonetheless!!

 If you give up alcohol for a month, you will notice the bloated feelings going almost straight away. Any problems you have with blood pressure will subside a bit and substantially over the longer term, any overeating problems will be helped no end, any irritable behaviour you may have developed will subside too hopefully.

There are only positives to giving up alcohol this month and your enthusiasm for exercise can literally go through the roof!!

What are you waiting for!!

January 3rd 2011

The people who trained over christmas are really finding now that their workouts are becoming much easier. I found that this morning on my early morning run. To be honest, i found it tough gettting out there to start with as the temperature has dropped quite a bit, but 10 minutes in, everything seemed to be getting much easier and my last hill even involved a sprint, or at least a faster run!!

These are signs to me that christmas habits of staying active bearing fruit. The ability to start the new year in good shape takes the whole “lets get back into shape in january” out of the equation. The focus should easily go away from january now, and you should be already looking at getting into shape into january. If you are a faddy dieter, then your sole concern is just january because life is all about short term fixes for you, and no strong foundations are ever laid.

So if you are already in the swing of things or nearly there anyway, the target now must be a couple of weeks of conditioning and easily by the end of january, the target should be to be at the very top of your game. This will give you a great satisfaction that by the end of january, you will be looking and feeling very good indeed. This will be just as most diet club members will be tearing their hair out and about to see their “diet programmes” collapse in front of their very eyes.

Anyone who doubts that last statement should look at the fact that i have rolled out before, about the numerous studies that diet clubs and faddy diets in general DO NOT WORK 97% OF THE TIME. That is not my statement, these are independent studies done over numerous years over numerous clubs and diets.

Let’s concentrate on getting some good foundations in, eating more natural foods 80% of the time, exercising regularly, drinking enough water and sleeping well.

No matter what stage you are at, if you want to make 2011 the start of something special, then you have the SAME opportunity as ANYONE else.

Let’s get it going even on this bank holiday monday!!