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Food trouble

Spent yesterday on my back believe it or not. I cooked some salmon friday night and ended up with countless visists to the bathroom saturday! Felt weak all day but glad to report that now (sunday morning) my strength has come back quickly and have got a good walk in this morning. I usually do a run on sunday but thought it best not to push myself.

This is an example of reacting to your body when it breaks down and doing the right thing.

We have all tried to fight against illness, but sometimes it is better to go with the flow and surrender for a while.

The great thing is that my immune system is usually under a lot of exercise stress, so the idea of me laying down on the settee all day and night is a strange one.

What this allowed me to do though is recover far quicker than normal. All my body had to do was fix itself and not do anything physically stressful. All i did is lie down and watch sports all day, and couldn’t even raise my voice, that was even too much of an effort! I felt awful yesterday but the good news is today i am nearly back to my old self.

I encourage anyone not to exercise if they feel unwell, as all you are doing is putting off your recovery, sometimes putting it off quite a lot. Your immune system is hugely important of course and you have to manage the stresses on your body at all times.

This is why i always recommend at least one dayoff a week, if you don’t, your immune system will struggle with this and eventually break down, causing colds and many types of illness.

Fortunately, if you eat properly and include a wide array of nutrients in your diet, your chances of falling sick go down dramatically.

Your imune system is always protected best when you exercise regularly with at least one day off a week, your diet is packed full of nutrients with a variety of healthy food, and the most forgotten element-sleep! If you don’t sleep properly, you won’t recover and won’t feel like doing much full stop.

All of these three elements must be in place to achieve a good strong immune system!

Twitt
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Fruit doesn’t make you put on weight

A common myth used to be that you shouldn’t eat fruit because “it put weight on”.

Too much of anything will put on weight of course, but in reality, fruit is the least of your problems.

Of course fruit is regarded as a simple sugar, and people always think that all simple sugars cause rapid rises in blood sugar. This usually means weight gain and problems possibly with diabetes in the future if you keep consuming simple blood sugars.

We now have a scale though that shows the impact of sugar of all foods.

In the scale called the glycemic index, the funny think is that white rice and white potatoes come out a lot more sugary, and raise sugar far quicker than fruit!! Not saying that rice and potatoes are desperately bad foods for you, they’re not! It’s just important to consume them in smaller portions, and use brown rice if possible, sweet potatoes or new potatoes instead of white potatoes, you need to make the switch here for all sorts of good reasons.

This is why on here we always talk about balance and combining protein, good carbs and good fats, along with some vegetables and the problem of rapid blood sugar rises will not arise for you full stop!

Fibre and fats help slow digestion, improve absorbtion of vital nutrients, an even when you’re trying to lose body fat, the nutrients in fruit are vital in helping you do so!!!

So unless you eat around 5 bananas a day, a huge bunch of grapes, 10 pears, a box of cherries and a box of strawberries (not only will you start putting weight on but you will start to visit the toilet an awful lot), you will NOT put on weight with a moderate 5 a day on your fruit, it simply cannot happen. Time to stop blaming the fruit and analyse the chocolate bars/biscuits that may still be in your diet!

Moderation in food and a wide a variety of nutrients as possible are golden rules, you know this is common sense and you should not be scared of any natural food out there.

Twitt
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Faster, stronger, better!

Faster, stronger, better are words to describe ultimate progress in your programme, your development and all possible in 2010.

All of this will/would have been possible if you just did one VERY IMPORTANT/VITAL thing so far in 2010. If you have been truly consistent with your training and eating through every month of 2010, you WILL be celebrating great health by now and feeling as strong as a bull, and a great eagerness to get better and better.

This is not fantasy land and if you look back at your progress over the last few months, you will understand where you went wrong and where you went wrong.

Chances are that you’re truly honest with yourself, you will sit down and have a plan of attack. You will look back at the very good months, and be dismayed at the mediocre months, wondering “if only”.

Its not time to look back though and feel sorry for yourself, as this becomes a very dangerous habit. Being down and looking at the most negative possible outcome often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Its time to break this once and for all, and look at the brighter side of things and life in general.

Chances are that if you think things are not going to work out, then they won’t. If you’re bright and optimistic, you have every chance of getting into seriously good shape.

Back to the opening sentence, yes you will have become faster if you’re lighter, you have less body fat and your fitness is good, which is should be by now.

You should be stronger by now, a lot stronger as I always encourage you to do strength  work a minimum of twice a week.

For all this effort this year in 2010, the 12 week challenge, everything really, you should be considerably BETTER than the start of 2010.

If you’re not, re-examine why everything fell off the rails and realise you can DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!! Sorry for shouting but I’m serious, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW AND STOP FEELING SORRY FOR YOURSELF!!

Its only august, you have 4 months left to become faster, stronger and better, time to get a move on!!!

Twitt
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Motivation can’t last

Jean makes an interesting point today, she says she has forgotten how to diet, how to train, and definitely forgotten about how to get motivated!

I remember jean when she was doing very well and it wasnt that long ago.

She now makes reference to the asthma pump back in her life, when she was training regular and eating better, the asthma pump amazingly disappeared, in fact everything seemed a lot better.

I take the point on  board about enjoying your lie, one life you have and all that, but here’s another approach.

Say you want a few drinks whenever you want and say its tonight. What is wrong with that? You can make the decision yourself and all you have to do is be ready to do something the very next morning.

I hate it when people say “no point in exercising the day after a few drinks, it doesn’t do you any good”! WHAT RUBBISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Everyone i know who trains after a few drinks the night before feels much better afterwards, and are sure in their minds that most of the sugar/alcohol they put in the night before is being worked out.

I have done this for years, without fail i have either cycled or ran the day after, and always felt great the day after.

I remember i did not do it one week the day after and felt lousy all day long, and felt really bloated and i felt horrible, so working out after the night before is now a way of life for me.

Back to the motivation cant last statement. NOBODY stays motivated 52 weeks a year, nobody!

So how does someone workout 52 weeks a year? Structure and making exercise and eating well a part of your life forever and no, its not boring!!!!

You can still eat your favourite food in moderation, you can still drink alcohol but it doesnt have to be every single night of course, drink when it means having some fun and you dont feel you’re missing out, but like i said, you need to train the morning after to get all the weight-gaining chemicals/sugar out of your body.

Motivation doesnt always last, it will come and go but its vital you keep some structure in your life of moving around more, when you shop for food your trolley is not full of rubbish, have some treats but the majority should be wholesome.

This one life you have slogan is great, but surely the best way to achieve that is making sure you are healthy too to enjoy it to the full.

Have your treats, have a drink, have plenty of fun, but make sure your workouts and wholesome food are in there too!

Lets do it and whether you’re motivated or not, lets make it happen until it comes around again, and it will for sure!

Twitt
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Schedule it in

Making the effort to get your programme going seems the biggest “effort” to most of you right now.

There are lots of different ways to get around this.

Why don’t you call an old friend, and ask them if they want to get fit, and you can support each other. Both of you will have times when you don’t feel like exercising or eating well, or both. This is when your friend becomes important, picking you up off the floor when your morale is also “on the floor”.

Many of us appear super-confident, super-motivated and super go getters. The realities are that i train many such people, but really are the pussy cats, the worriers, the self-doubters just like the rest of us. We are all worrying about the future, regretting sometimes about the past but we have to put it into context and condition ourselves to not worry about the things which are likely to drag us down every time.

That’s why i feel that scheduling in your workouts is hugely important and is far more important than your dental appointments, your doctors appointments, your appointment with your solicitor-YES IT REALLY IS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do these people promise you great health or do they just fix something that has gone wrong?

When you workout, are you investing in your future big time? Of course you are and you know it, i just don’t think you realise HOW IMPORTANT YOUR WORKOUTS REALLY ARE TO YOUR WELLBEING. I really believe this!

Shrugging your shoulders is not good enough when it comes to assessing your weekly performances and trying to hide the fact that physically, you havent made the most of your obvious attributes!

Making the leap from where you are now to where you really could be is all about scheduling it in, and you know it and taking care of business. Taking care of business means getting the job done, making those workouts count, getting in those extra couple of reps in when you feel like you can’t do any more.

Getting up that hill on the bike when it would be eaiser to walk the bike up is crucial to your development, you won’t get to this standard UNLESS you schedule in regular workouts and you know it.

Its the workouts you do when NOBODY is looking really counts and you know it. This is no programme for show offs with all the best gear, its about fighting to get to your personal best, and not talking a good game that gets you absolutely nowhere. This is the time for action, the time to scheduled workouts that you never miss and getting serious about your health and fitness, once and for all so lets do it!!!

Twitt