Posted on

May 5th 2011

So from yesterday, you should have identified the damaging habits that are putting weight on you, making your tired all the time, giving you bad skin, making you have poor sleep, and in general, not helping you at all get in the shape you know you really want to be.

It may be quite a statement to say that sugary and fatty food can cause all of those things to happen but it happens to be a fact.

Once you substitute all the rubbish in your life, or most of it for fresher more natural food, then your life becomes of a much higher quality across the board.

So if you have changed a least one potentially damaging habit for a good habit that will benefit you, give it a couple of weeks and then you will have momentum to change another one, in fact you will WANT to change another bad habit because you will be so encouraged by the success of the last change.

So if this week’s habit was to change the cake/biscuit with the coffee or tea, then how about making an even greater change. You’re not going to get a bigger change than swapping terrible breakfast choices with far more beneficial choices.

For example, if breakfast at the moment is something like a piece of white toast full of butter or margarine, then you can easily change that to wholemeal toast, VERY LITTLE butter on it (butter is a far more natural product than margarine), and maybe a bananas mashed on it, this is an easy choice you make right now and will instantly benefit you.

What about if you are having one of the typical cereals, usually sugar laden and full of additives and chemicals that are going to be destructive for your body?

Its time to change to a natural product such as porridge, which will be full of 100% rolled oats and nothing else! Chop some dried fruit up for flavourings, and a natural flavour at that, no need to add sugar at all!

 This will give you up to 4 hours of steady energy that won’t crash your blood sugar levels at any time, you couldn’t wish for a more solid start to the day!!!

These are simple tried and tested choices that are going to benefit you in the short and long term. Don’t overcomplicate things, its all about making easy but life-changing choices so lets give it a go today!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

May 4th

Bad habits have become so normal in our lives, they are exactly that-normal everyday life and tough to break.

To break them, we have to realise why they have become “normal” in the first place!

If a behaviour makes us feel good, then its natural that we are going to want to do it an awful lot, even if its not for our own good in the short term or long term. We all know of such habits, and its a question of how many times we do them.

Pleasure from everyday habits means your brain wants more and more, and if that habit is destructive, such as over eating, over drinking or smoking, then its not going to be a pretty path! The more you repeat these habits, the more they become ingrained and deep rooted in your brain, therefore significantly harder to break!

There is a very close link to these types of habit forming and full blown addiction, an addiction is of course the extreme version but addiction in over eating and over drinking alcohol are not uncommon at all.

To get rid of these habits, you have to replace the old destructive habit with a good one, and then keep on replacing it until it becomes permanent, this can take 2-3 months research says but it does work. If you usually have a coffee and always have a cake with it, then trying one day to just have the coffee without the cake will be hard, a week without a cake will be very hard, but i will bet you that the longer it goes on, the likelyhood is that you will never go back to that every day poor choice, and get rid of your sugar addiction in one go!!

Keep sugar in your life and you will never lose your sweet tooth, the sooner you get used to real food the better, that means food more in its natural state. Bad habits are there to be broken so lets have a good go today!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

April 14th 2011

Not recording your progress is a sure fire way to get complacent and end up go through the motions with you exercise. Even going through the motions will give you a level of health that is far superior to being idle and sitting on the settee every day and not being active.

The question is though are you happy with not being your best, or at least being in a good range. Most people I know don’t want to be “average or below”, most people aspire to be better and it’s a human need to want the best for yourself and your family.

It turns out to be true that the “best” you hope for always starts with a good level of health, otherwise its hard to muster up the energy and enthusiasm to simply get things done.

A lot of us would like to be able to come home from work, call in the chip shop, eat whatever we want, have a couple of beers or glasses of wine, not have to get up in the morning and somehow be in fantastic shape!!!!

In real life, that is some kind of fantasy that really is impossible to come true on any level. More likely that kind of lifestyle is going to make you struggle with your health and lead to health problems unfortunately later down the road.

So if you want to be better than mediocre, you had better start recording your progress! We talk about it all the time, if you can do 5 press ups in week one, and 30 press ups in week 6, then that is substantial progress and you are doing at least most things very well indeed!!

This focus that most people give for the first month to six weeks should be carried on throughout your journey in health and fitness, it really make all the difference and stop you from slipping back too much. Keeping a workouts journal will also give you the road map that you have undertaken from being perhaps overweight and out of shape, to becoming much leaner and well toned. Your workout history will show you this and all you have to do is keep following it and you will get to the same impressive destination!!!

Twitt
Posted on

March 7th 2011

When you ask someone how many meals they eat a day, their idea of a meal is more of a feast, and sometimes a henry the 8th type feast in some cases!

If you mention to someone when they first start off that they should eat 5-6 times a day, they find that disgusting and how could they possibly eat all of that food in one day!!! Wasn’t the goal to lose weight after all, and just eating more will put weight ON surely?

That myth can be easily smashed!!!

If you eat healthier foods in those 5-6 meals per day, then automatically you are going to consuming less saturated fat and less calories. Also, when you realise that your meals in terms of size will get smaller, this leads to a further reduction in daily calories.

When you actually go through the process of 5-6 meal a day, you will realise that you feel more full than ever on this type of eating plan, and are less likey to go on the henry the 8th type eating binges!!!

The increase in meals and snacks will kickstart your metabolism too, this word is often misunderstood so lets explain it again.

Your metabolism is something that needs to be constantly stoked, to make sure your body burns calories and fat at an accelerated rate. Your metabolism is the rate you burn  calories throughout every day, the more smaller meals and snacks you eat within reason such as 5-6, the faster that metabolism will become and you do become that old cliche, “a lean mean fat burning machine”!!!

If you go back to the days of huge but infrequent meals, your metabolism will slow right down again, and that fire burning deep inside of you will go out, the rate you burn fat will go down and everything will become a struggle for you all over again. This is why 5-6 meals a day works, and you want to be aware of every strategy that can get you into great shape!!!

Lets start the day off right and give yourself a great chance of success!!!

Twitt
Posted on

February 23rd

The issue with calories intake associated with diet and weight loss/weight gain has been around for a long time.

There have been 2000, 3000 and all the way down to 800 calorie a day diets.

Most people think, especially when they are in the mood to diet, that less is always best.

They are right partly but only to a degree. A calorie is not always a calorie.

Look at the difference between an apple which is approximately 50 calories and a doughnut which is a good couple of hundred calories.

If you used the logic of a calorie is a calorie, then you could class an apple the same as a quarter of an apple? A lot of people would consider this a fair trade off and take the doughnut every single time.

So what should you do?

If you take the doughnut every time, you will get the following.

An increased sugar rush, followed by a sugar low, leading to a craving for you guessed it, yet more sugar!!!!

If done regularly, you will heighten your chances of becoming diabetic, which can lead to a change in your life that you definitely wont enjoy!!

Your skin wont have a glow, in fact increased refined sugar like this is likely to lead to skin problems such as acne, rashes, redness and speeds up the ageing process.

Like we said at the start, there is absolutely no way you will be able to stop at one doughnut, especially a quarter of a doughnut!!! Once you have a craving for sugar, its very difficult to stop and will lead to a diet rich in sugary and fatty snacks, studies have shown this time after time.

If you consumer the apple every day and focus on natural, nutrient giving foods, you are likely to stabilise your blood sugar levels, which means more regular and constant energy levels.

You are likely to fend off serious disease, as most fruit and vegetables contain cancer fighter anti-oxidants, as well as a host of other vitamins and minerals vital for good health.

Any time your diet is healthy, your skin in healthy and you WILL have a glow about you, try it and see if im right.

Once you get used to good healthy food, you wont want to go back to the sugary foods, not only for their downside but because you simply wont feel good when you eat them.

Time to change your life!

Twitt