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Monday, February 26th

To maximise your gains in fitness, i cannot stress enough how vital your eating is, and what eating CLEAN really means.
To me, eating clean means eating food as much as possible in its natural state, and keeping refined sugars to an absolute minimum.
 
All the foods we always talk about will always bear fruit for you if you pardon the pun!
 
Porridge is a natural food that gives you long term energy, and stops you snacking.
 
Any oat based products or porridge with added “apple pie” type flavourings, WILL NOT DO YOU ANY GOOD.
 
Wholemeal bread in moderation is a sign of good clean eating, White bread is the equivalent of a disaster zone, full of refined sugar, bleaching agents and lots of chemicals and rubbish designed to put weight on you, it will be really unhealthy on all sorts of level for your body, and you have to avoid this rubbish if you are to be successful in weight/fat loss.
 
The margarine and butter on top should be avoided, this is saturated fat and can never be any good. Saying that, butter is the natural product and helps your body more than margarine, which can be horrid for your body and contains needless calories.
 
White meats are very welcome, fish is fantastic (no batter or any fatty sauce on it), cottage cheese is great, lean cuts of red meat are fine once a week.
 
White pasta is not acceptable when you can eat “clean” and have wholegrain and wholewheat pasta.
 
New potatoes and sweet potatoes are great examples of potatoes with a nice low sugar release, and offer a lot of nutrition.
 
White potatoes wont work as well, more refined sugar.
 
Fruit is fine in moderation, although classed as refined sugar, is a food in its natural state and offers far more than any negatives.
 
Fruit juice should be dilluted, and this will will give you far less refined sugar per glass.
 
All vegetables are classed as eating clean, and offer an abundance of nutrients and is nature’s way of making you healthy and helping your body to function properly.
 
Eating clean means trying to be as natural as possible in your food choices, this will automatically cut down on your refined sugars, and give you dramatic changes in bringing your body fat down!!
Twitt
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Thursday, 23rd February

We talked about injuries yesterday, but the main aspect that needs considering the most is injury prevention. If you don’t develop and care for all of your supporting muscles, your tendons and ligaments, then something or other will catch up with you in time, and this is if you exercise or not.

Indeed those who do not exercise are likely to have worse circulation, more joints aching, bad backs and more colds, flu etc. Also not exercising is one of the major risk factors when assessing one’s health.

People go on about all the time about alcohol, smoking, various diseases, but inactivity is a real risk to everyone in terms of future health expectations.

We talked about running and walking injuries yesterday, but the one legged squat is an excellent exercise to fit into your health and fitness twice to three times a week.

The sooner you learn the importance of proper balance the better. I try to take it several steps further by using various pieces of cutting edge balance equipment that are purposely created to make you more balanced, help you develop very strong core strength, and in general help you prevent the normal wear and tear injuries that most people are likely to get.

There is a thing called gait analysis, which videos you the way you run, and in particular the way you land on the surface as you run or even walk. This can help you decide which training shoes would be best for you.

The facts are that most people over-pronate, which means you tilt over ever so slightly when you hit the floor. Over time, this will create minor niggles to bigger more worrying injuries.

Again this is exactly why I try to concentrate on you AVOIDING and PREVENTING injuries by strengthening your fundamental strength in your body.

If you research more into it yourself as well as reading here, it will confirm the steps you need to take to fulfil your physical potential and avoid the nuisance of needless injury!!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 16th February, 2012

This week we have talked about not making excuses about lacking time to train, how we can really make the most of ten minutes when that’s all we have, and to make quality come first in assessment of our workouts, rather than “just working out for an hour” and that’s our benchmark and that’s it!!

Another not very time consuming tool that’s very powerful for the effort put in is self measurement.

How long does it take to measure your own waist and hips, or get someone else to do it for you?

I have talked about it many times before, if you measure yourself around once a month and see if you have come down a little bit in terms of inches, then you know you’re doing something right!

If an individual comes down 1-2 inches a month, then you would consider that great progress.

Inches off your waist are nearly always a better indication on how you’re doing than weight on the scales, which are often inaccurate due to a variety of reasons.

If you lose weight off your waist, then your clothes will feel much better, another tried and tested way to show progress.

Losing inches off your waist is one of the best ways to tell if you are fit and healthy, and to avoid serious disease.

Your waist size should always be a maximum of half your height in inches.

In other words and using simple maths, say you were 6 foot tall, that would be 72 inches since there are 12 inches in a foot of course.

So your waist should not be more than 36 inches and ideally a little smaller.

Medical science has proven that this is a very good formula for showing true health.

You secretly know too that if you are carrying too much weight on your stomach and hips, that you are not as healthy as you could be, that you will not be as confident as you could be for the summer, when you are likely to be wearing less clothes, that you are not as confident in visiting the doctor for a health check up and you won’t have as much energy as once had when you are in peak condition.

Do the waist test on yourself or get someone else to do it, and in general, you will be able to tell how much work you have to do!!!

Twitt
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Tuesday, 14th February

Valentine’s day is a big day for some of you, and its a day of vast 0ver-commercialism for others. You may either be preparing to go off your diet tonight, and you may be out of pocket after paying double money for your flowers, whatever you do, have a great evening and enjoy yourselves.

Valentine’s day is no excuse though to quit on your training, and please do not use that “lack of time” excuse, because its definitely not going to “wash” here!

No time for a run?

Not even 10 minutes?

If you swap your steady jog you were planning, then how about doing some interval running instead. You know the one, we have talked on here a lot about it, do a couple of minutes warm up run, then use lampposts as a guide for the intervals you need to train in.

You jog for one post, then sprint the next, jog one post, sprints the next and so on until you can’t do anymore. 10 minutes of this will be MORE than enough!!!

How about hitting a punch bag?

If you can manage 10 minutes on this great training tool, then you will be doing very well indeed. Even three times one minute rounds will be enough to get your heart pumping like never before, scratch the ten minutes, think THREE minutes!!! No excuses!

If you work in an office in a town or city, there must be a group of steps around the place. Just 5 minutes up and down steps can be like a 20 minute steady jog, and give your body a workout to remember, this is tough but over in a flash with a big bunch of benefits thrown in!

Bottom line is if you don’t train before you go out tonight, you won’t feel so energised, you will have to work harder tomorrow night, and you will be letting your commitment levels slide. Use time to your advantage by working out smart, instead of mindless boring long workouts control you!!

Twitt
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Thursday, 9th February

To continue about the importance of a strong healthy heart, its vital you start with a proper foundation in order to create it in the first place.

Number one is you need to exercise regularly and in general stay active.

Number two is you need to eat healthy at regular intervals, and in sensible portions.

Number three is that you need to avoid excess alcohol. Drinking a few times a week will especially put great strain on your heart, as well as other vital organs.

Number four is to avoid smoking, if you smoke you are doing the single most destructive thing against your body. You are destroying cells, ageing your body throughout and putting amazing strain on your most important muscle.

Number five is to try and cut down on stress. If you have a lot of worry in your life, self-induced or otherwise, you are putting strain eventually on your heart. It is no coincidence that exercise and eating well are the best for combating this stress.

Number six is sleep well. Sleep deprivation can literally affect everything you do. Hate to be like a broken record but all of the above helps you sleep better!

Number seven is stay positive. Being positive about life can be one of your best habits to develop, negative people are usually full of stress and never actually do anything for the greater good. If you stay positive, then you tend to take action and approach life in an optimistic way, one of the secrets of quality of life especially in old age research has shown.

Number eight is to show consistency in all of these keys to having a successful strong and healthy heart, don’t be a “flash in the pan” when it comes to your health or let a doctor tell you all of this when its too late. If you practice these most of the time, then you will reap huge benefits!!

Twitt