Posted on

12th April 2011

Great things happen in your body when you first start exercising. You body responds well to moving around more, and your body likes the feeling of doing things again, and you develop your confidence as you go.

Your body responds very well in particular when you adjust your food intake. Most people who go from eating processed food to more natural, fresh foods will experience increased energy levels, and an inner confidence that they are going to get healthier if you keep your habits up.

Most of the measurements i take on individuals who start an exercise programme look a lot better at the end of their first month. Progress is relatively quick and 4-6 weeks can make a good difference to anyone as long as they show commitment. Two inches off your waist will always look and feel great, and your clothes will feel a lot looser too. I always tell people if they are carrying a lot more weight than they should, that the biggest worry they will have is changing their wardrobe!!!

The trick is to keep these exciting feelings going well into the times when the novelty factor of keeping fit and healthy has gone, and make it part of your daily life and make it become routine.

This is why routines are important so you end up doing healthy things without even thinking about it, which is exactly where you want to be.

Your workout becomes “your” time when you relax, get rid of stress and you find yourself again after a long day, or even before you embark on your challenging day. If you can keep your workouts going in times of stress in your life, you know that you have fully integrated a healthy lifestyle into your life and you should already be relatively fit and healthy, and have some good ability in terms of exercise of all kinds.

A true athlete and i mean that in a broad term, should be able to do outside exercise such as running, cycling, hill walking as well as work inside with resistance workouts, and you should be able to combine them too. You should be versatile and open to new ideas, no need to spend all your time in the gym, there are endless and exciting ways to keep fit and the gym is just one angle you can use. You will learn more about your body in different environments so lets keep it varied and keep doing your best!!!

Twitt
Posted on

8th April

Definitely the warmest day of the year and definitely a day to get out there and do something constructive with your health and fitness. The term health and fitness doesnt mean just appear to be doing something, it means adopting a whole lifestyle and living it for the rest of your life. This is where its at!!!

It doesnt mean going to extremes, or it doesnt mean playing at it either, you dont have to be 100% perfect as nobody ever is, all it means is giving things a good go and doing your best 80% of the time.

The weekend is here now and you have two choices. Either you have worked extremely hard on your fitness  this week, eaten very well and you deserve a day off tomorrow, or you have been working hard in an office for example, havent been able to train like you know you should have all week, missed workouts and the weekend now actually offers you a wonderful opportunity to make up for all of that.

The weekend offers you a great opportunity to get up early tomorrow and train early before anyone else is around. The shopping can wait until later!!! There is no excuse to stay in bed on a scorching morning particularly after the winter we have just had. If you do, then you’re prone to making excuses all the time, which means you’re going to be prone to having mediocre results!!!!

I remember someone told me once that they had GIVEN UP their training because their training partner had temporarily stopped training!!!! This was as pathetic an excuse as i have ever heard and i knew right there that this person would never achieve anything worthwhile with that kind of weak attitude!! For the record we have all had weak attitudes, but its always a question if you can recover from a weak attitude or not?

This is why individuals with the weakest genetics can get into great shape quicker than those with great genetics, its all about attitude and desire, and whether you’re willing to do the things you need to do to get into shape for life!!!!!

Saturday morning is a great chance to show your character, i will be up at 6am walking the dogs, this is no time to laying in bed feeling sorry for yourself, lets do it!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

April 6th 2011

April is a great month for health and fitness full stop.

We all are complaining about the ridiculous prices on food at the moment, but with more local produce being available soon because of the better weather, there should be better and cheaper fruit and vegetables around, plus more fresh and tastier food full stop.

It really pays sometimes to visit your local farm shop once in a while. Theres lots of fresh everything and a lot of home made food even for you to get stuck into. For example, the difference in the price of eggs these days compared to even the supermarket can be phenomenal, plus you know where those local eggs are coming from in the farm shop.

The closer you can get to eating fresh food the better, in terms of the way you look and feel, after all what goes on internally in your body is critical to the way you’re going to look.

People are becoming more aware of health full stop now, as was illustrated in the report this week on our shopping habits. White bread for example is now on the decline for the first time ever in 30 years of shopping analysis. This is a clear sign that a lot of people are making small steps to make sure they live longer and have a better quality of life.

Small steps will always mount up into one massive big step if you stick by simple rules.

Refined sugars have no place in your diet, neither do ready meals or “low calorie” biscuits and cakes, nor does alcohol in the week or so called “low fat healthy” cereals such as frosties, perhaps the biggest false description of all time, of course it has little fat but it is absolutely LOADED with sugar, that will be detrimental to your health in the long term.

Surely it is better to take the plunge now and spring into summer with plainer, more natural foods that will give you a lift right now and for the rest of your life? The natural way has to be the only way so lets get ready to work hard in the good weather to come over the next week!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

April 5th 2011

Its tuesday already and the great news is i feel alive again. After a weekend of being away and eating not so good food, my energy levels have returned, simply by getting back to normal which is an amazing feeling!!!

Hopefully, some or most of you are going through exactly the same feeling and realise that your normal routines can be much more valuable than you ever thought!!! I know my porridge is very valuable to me in terms of energy and internal health, nothing to beat it.

I know my chicken, turkey, lean beef is going to serve me well, keeps me lean and feeling as hard as possible.

My fish is vital to me, to keep my joints in good working order and to keep those essential fatty acids working very well all the way throughout my body, life feels good when there is fish in my life, plus i get to stay lean too, its a win win situation for me!!!

Then theres the other good carbs apart from porridge, which is the wholegrain pasta  and sweet, new and jacket potatoes, all great vegetables that give me energy and keep me lean, provided i don’t slam lots of butter in the potatoes of course!!!

Then theres the rest of the veg, i feel instantly better outside and inside when i get my daily supply of vegetables. Same with fruit, lots of energy going in and lots of nutrients going in the whole time, if you consume fruit the way i do, the better you will feel and hopefully you will know the same great feeling.

What about water? When we are away, we tend to drink much more coffee and tea, plus alcohol!!! Having water back in my life makes my energy levels and awareness go through the roof, this is the time to be full of energy, full of vitality, full of enthusiasm and try to make things happen, despite what the economy is going!!!!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

31st march 2011

The reasons why we exercise, why we don’t give in to temptations in the week, why we drink water instead of pop, why we make time for a healthy lifestyle full stop are many.

When you are very young, its all about looks usually, when you get a bit older and perhaps have more responsibilities such as children, your reasons change pretty fast in terms of order of importance.

If you are a father or mother, you want to be in shape to look after your kids, while still looking good and proving you’re not ready for the knackers yard just yet!!!!!

Then when you become older again, you want to be in seriously good shape to be around to help your kids, and perhaps even your grandchildren, this is when a lifetime of keeping yourself in good shape is really going to be worth it. Like we always say though, its never too late to change your pre-conceived ideas about exercise, nobody is ever too old to get into good enough shape to totally transform their quality of life.

Its not all about six pack’s and rippling muscles either, this is just an extreme version of a healthy lifestyle. Most models you see of all kinds in magazines have been airbrushed to different degrees and digitally enhanced to make their bodies seem like the perfect version, in reality this level of conditioning doesnt exist for long because these low level of body fat are kept only for short periods of time, due to the extreme diets and mental discipline required. To get in this shape is to be admired because it is quite a feat, but it shouldn’t be considered the normal expection from working out and eating well and this is the point i’m trying to get across!!

I am away tomorrow on a family weekend break until monday, so thats enough reasons right there for me to be in shape, as i get older, i appreciate my health more and more and never take it for granted, like perhaps i did when i was 18!! Having enough energy to do everything is no longer a distant dream anymore for most people, it is essential in these busy times we live in and training smart and eating fresh and healthy foods are number one and number two in order to achieve these very important goals!!!

Twitt