Posted on

Friday night is blow your diet night……………

Or not?

What time exactly do your good intentions go down the pan?

Is it straight after work, lunch time in the pub today, are you going to have a massive takeaway tonight?, are you going to a restaurant tonight and have pudding for the first time this week (dont you hate it when the waitress says “have you any roon for dessert in a sickening voice”?) Can’t they come up with an original line? or are you simply going to go down the pub tonight and have your fill of beer and wine? Or is it the petrol station on the way home with the bottle of wine and all the chocolate and ice cream you can handle?

Whatever it is you decide, you have to think about exactly when your good intentions disappear and how much weight you will put on the weekend. Then some may blame their workouts not working when they weigh in next, not the weekend’s avalanche of calories!!! You simply cant get away with a whole weekend of excess eating and expect to be somehow in shape on the monday morning.

I always recommend having a bit of what you fancy definitely, it keeps us sane and it stops us from totally giving up our favourite treats. The danger becomes when you start off on the friday with a cheat of your choice and then it becomes EVERY meal until sunday night! Somehow justifying it by saying you have worked hard in the week!! This is the easiest way to spoil all that hard work in the week and put on the weight you worked so hard to get rid of all week long.

This is why its always better to pick your cheat day, when you have treats that you don’t normally have.

When the subject of cheat day came up, a LOT of people took it as you could get up as early as possible and then force feed yourself ice cream, chips, chocolate ALL day long and night, and then you were totally justified in doing this. Nothing was off limits and it was compulsory to have lots of spare chocolate in the glove department when you were driving. Eating until you are sick is never acceptable AND THIS IS NOT cheat day i can assure you as it was meant to be in terms of helping your diet!!!!

Cheat day is a day of having a bit of what you fancy in MODERATION and not an eating competition like many believe!!

This also assumes you EAT VERY CLEAN in the week. If this is not the case and you have treats most days, then cheat days are really not recommended for fat loss.

Enjoy your friday and all weekend, and try to work out whether you’re training for an eating competition, or you’re really just having a well-deserved break from eating very healthy all the time!

Twitt
Posted on

Secrets to burning more fat

The real deal with healthy eating is not often explained properly. Most people are repelled from healthy eating sometimes because they are TOLD what to do! Nobody likes being told what to do like they are little kids, and will rebel often and do the complete opposite of what they are supposed to do.

There are government campaigns on food all the time it seems, but most people i know havent taken much notice about them.

There has to be a reason deep down for that person to change, and it has to be a strong one, or the self-discipline and determination to get a programme started will soon go by the wayside.

When you eventually change to the healthy way of eating, its important to keep your protein in most meals and of a healthy nature, your carbohydrates in limited amounts (about the size of your fist per serving) and of slower release in terms of energy, keep your healthy fats coming in through fish and a small handful of nuts, and keeping a variety of fruit and vegetables coming in is ultra-important in the winter months to come, keeping your immune system strong and your body functioning well.

Another overlooked point when it comes to eating is how many calories you burn simply by digesting your food.

To cut a very long story short, you will burn a lot more calories for instance eating wholemeal bread than white bread. It takes longer for your body to break down the wholemeal and wholegrains than it does the rubbish you often get in white bread.

I always recommend protein in most meals, and there is good reason too. It takes a lot more calories to break down the protein you consumer in meals than just eating carbs. Protein takes longer to go through your system, creating a nice long calorie burn without you working too hard!

The process of eating and the way your stomach breaks down your food is often forgotten, and its heck of a bonus that the healthy way of living is the most calorie and fat burning too.

Next time you do your shopping, make sure you pick the foods that will help your metabolism burn calories at a fierce rate. This is an easy to follow secret to burning fat and you dont have to do any work for it so keep it up and have a great start to the week!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Your list of priorities

How high you put your workouts up your list of priorities will usually be a very good indicator of how good shape you’re in.

Someone who says “I train when I get time”, or “I do my best when I’m not busy” or “I have to be in the mood” or “I’m waiting for my ‘training partner’ to call me” are destined to get zero results and be guilty of being the pub “bore”.

Someone who says “I have to train a few days a week to feel good” or “I have to train a few days a week to be in shape” or “I have to train a few days a week because its so important for my health” or “I have to train a few days a week to create all the energy I need in my life” or “I have to train a few days a week to perform the way I need to in my life” is likely to be in great health and good physical condition full stop.

Attitude is always paramount, you are either going to be putting your head in the sand and hope for the best with your health, or you will always be honest with yourself, care about your health and the way you can help your friends and family out because you will have outstanding health and an abundance of energy to be productive every day.

You don’t have to be perfect either like these airbrushed pictures in media magazines. Carrying a couple of extra pounds is no problem, as long as your lifestyle is health most of the time, then your health across the board should look really good.

I have found if you take the pressure off someone and encourage them to be healthy, you will tend to get amazing results. If you tell people to abstain from everything, then its not realistic at all and they are likely to go the other way and have massive binges from time to time, totally unhealthy behaviour of course.

If you can accept someone can have a couple of drinks, eat a bit of what they fancy from time to time, not always have their best ever workouts, then I think the scene is set for an individual to blossom and show their real talent with all the pressure OFF!

This is when this whole thing becomes a lifestyle choice, your way of life forever in a non-threatening way. This is the best way I’ve found for most people, unless of course they have to be in absolute prime condition for a particular reason (actress landing a role for example or a lady having to lose weight for an operation or that person wanting to be in amazing condition JUST BECAUSE they want to be and it feels fantastic!!).

This is the whole message today and the great thing about is that every single one of you are capable of achieving it!!!

Twitt
Posted on

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
Posted on

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