Posted on

Monday, 1st July

July brings a fresh batch of challenges in terms of training improvements.

You will be usually be in one of two camps.

The first one is the attitude of taking it easy just because it’s july and july is a month of holidays, finishing school for example, stop fortnight for factories, and the weather is usually much warmer and sunnier too (sometimes!). This camp will usually miss a lot of workouts, start drinking alcohol in the week, generally eat much more poorly than normal, and justify all the weight gain on “the time of year”.

The other camp is the one where you have people either who are about to go on holidays, or have just been away. They are now dead keen to get back into their training, they are hitting their workouts hard, never miss a session and maybe about to start pre-season rugby or football. This camp associates july with hard work, tough workouts, and have got accustomed to working out in warmer temperatures, and have got to the stage they actually relish it.

The first camp end up piling on the weight, and often take a long time to get back into their training after their holiday. These are the inconsistent ones who never achieve anywhere like their potential.

The second camp are the more serious trainer, who are used to seeing results and are prepared to keep putting the results in.

July is a critical month for you to change your attitude and mindset to set yourself up for a month of great results, and the months to follow after that. Don’t settle for a lazy july, instead change the course for the rest of the year right now by showing up all the time this month and making every workout count!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 27th June

An instant solution to sort your eating problems out is writing down everything you eat and drink.

If for instance, you had a cooked breakfast, then you had a roll for mid-morning bought in a garage, then you grabbed something out for lunch in a shop, then mid-afternoon you had a bar of chocolate and packet of crisps, then to finish off you picked up a takeaway on the way home, just because you had a busy day and you couldn’t be bothered to make your own food when you got home.

If you did this most days, then it wouldn’t take a genius to work out that you will not get in any kind of decent
shape!

Most people though do not realize what they eat, and never have any kind of plan for their day ahead. Its this type of approach that will lead to longer term weight gain, longer term health problems, and a feeling of hopelessness when it comes to how you feel about your health.

To change all of this, I strongly encourage individuals to keep a 7 day eating diary, writing down exactly what they eat for a week and how much too. They will also write down what they drink, again how much is important too.

What this does is immediately recognizes how well you are actually eating, it shows if you are overeating in each meal or not, how much of your calories are coming from drink (studies have shown that obese individuals can consume 40% of their total calories through fizzy drinks, alcohol etc).

Once your awareness goes up, and it definitely will doing this, then you are likely to get a plan developed, have a good healthy shopping list for the first time in a while, and you will be likely to start cooking many meals yourself, as the takeaway, grab something at lunch time option, grab something in the garage option, soon becomes a thing of the past, as long as you prepare more before you leave the house in the morning.

This simple 7 day eating diary will make all the difference!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 24th June

Good news will come from your training efforts if you remember what it was like to start in the first place.

Remember the times when you thought of beginning an exercise programme, you seemed to have plenty of enthusiasm, an urge to do well, and to take onboard a new approach on how to get fit and healthy. You rigorously followed the advice given, were proud of your much healthier supermarket trolley and knew how much those foods would do you good.

You took pride in drinking more water, and you noticed how much more alert you became throughout the day, and how much better you seemed to perform in your exercise sessions.

Then as you started to progress, you took even more of an interest, and you started to question on why you did certain movements, why you did certain exercises on certain days, and why you started to perform better on some days than others.

Then you started to take an even greater interest in your body fat improvements, how your resting heart rate was coming down, how your blood pressure was coming into a healthy range, how your waist was continuing to come down, and in general how much of an incredible difference you were making to yourself!!!

If you are currently stuck in a rut, you should remember how all of this felt, and with some effort you can easily get back there look and feeling your best!!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday 21st June

Finishing off your week is a big task for you today in terms of making sure finish it in the way you really want. There’s a million reasons to put off your workout today, you can’t be bothered as you have trained well enough all week, you are thinking of going out for a meal or drink early, you are too tired, you have had a stressful week in work and can’t face training, friday IS the weekend for you and you’re not going to train as its “relaxing time” and that’s that!!!

Finishing off the week well sends a message that you are a serious trainer, and not the type to make the kind of excuses like i just mentioned above. Those type of excuses hold people back from reaching their true potential, and shut off something in their brain that doesn’t allow them to reach the higher levels of human performance that would bring superior results.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with going away the weekend, having a great night out etc, but making sure you train before you go sets up your body in terms of pure conditioning.

When you train regular, eat regular good food full of nutreients, when you sleep well regularly, when you don’t eat too much fast food, don’t drink too much alcohol etc, you’re GOING TO IMPROVE FULL STOP!!!

Consistency is king.

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 20th June

The greatest satisfaction for me is seeing individuals do things they never thought possible.

For example, there is nothing better than seeing people overcoming the odds, and i have seen it happen time after time.

I have seen people who have never run due to certain disabilities, develop their own way of running and be successful at it.

I have seen people who haven’t run since school, then at 50 years of age run a marathon with 12 months of training.

I have seen people go from never shopping for clothes because they were a size 24-26, to shopping most weekends for clothes in “mainstream shops”, and have now become highly fashion conscious and can now literally choose any figure hugging clothes they want!

I have seen people who needed to lose 4 stone for certain operations, becoming triathletes after losing much of their weight through cycling, and developing unbelievable enthusiasm for their new found love of the bike!!

Good things happen to those who are willing to put plenty of hard work in during their exercise programme.

Good things happen to those who are willing to fill their grocery basket with good food, instead of the trash that many people choose.

Great things happen to those who stay the course, no matter what the obstacles along the way!!!

Twitt