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Workouts that mean something

Another key basic is doing your workouts that mean something, not merely going through the motions!

How many of you have gone through the same old workout over a period of months, then wondered why you weren’t getting any results?

How many of you may have been the same workout for years even, not making any noticeable improvement in your numbers, and everything has become too much like routine for you?

If this is the case, you are likely to be totally uninspired, and your chances of making meaningful progress are limited to say the least.

If your workouts are lame, you can be sure your eating is too. The same old stuff on the same old days can lead to a complete halt in your progress, and really make you wonder if its worth all the effort in the first place.

So enough of all this please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lets fix it right now, rip up your current workout routine, throw it in the bin and start again.

Throw out those boring walks on the flat ground, aim for hills instead. You will be far more satisfied climbing something substantial, you can measure your progress better, plus you will usually get a gret view at the top of the hill. See my running workouts section for ideas.

Throw out your normal weigh training exercises for a while. Substitute your old exercises with new ones working the same body parts, you will feel refreshed after feeling a bit uncomfortable the first week or so. You will feel stiff again, with the different angle of the exercise working your muscles in a different way, thats always good.

What about your bike rides? Are they the same routes? There’s a million and one routes around here to challenge yourself on, and who knows, you may actually find them more enjoyable!!!

Back to the subject, so you’re going to change everything around to allow you to freshen everything up, then you have to think about how much effort you’re putting into each exercise.

As discussed previously, think of 1-10 in terms of effort, 1 being sitting down, 10 working at your very max. If you aim for a 8-9 on each exercise, you will be guaranteed success because you will be getting so much more out of yourself. This will freshen you up and you actually feel alive again.

So in terms of your workouts every week, think 5 minutes before you start “let’s make it really mean something today”, and you’re not going to take medicore progress any more!!!

Twitt
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Your weekly shop

One of the key basics is your weekly shop of course.

I have banged on about this for a long time. As long as 80% of your shopping is good nutritious food, then you are in a good situation. After all, how many tmes have you bought sugary/fatty foods and promised yourself you’re only going to eat them on “special occasions”?!!

Those special occasions happen quite a lot in my book and its always surprising how quickly all those extra treats are gulped down in record time!

I keep telling everyone, if you are REALLY shopping for healthy food and get used to the supermarket layout, chances are you wont visit many of the aisles, as most of them are full of you know what! It shows the supermarket really bets on most of its visitors filling up on junk, and how many times have you looked at someone’s basket and how many clues does that give to the owner’s appearance and body in general.

If a shopping basket/trolley is full of white bread, biscuits, multi-pack chocolate bars, value packs of crisps (around 10 packs in one big bag), bottles of wine and lager, full fat milk, not much veg or fruit, lots of orange squash, lots of ready meals and other processed versions of real food, you get the picture!! If this is indeed the case, you can be sure the owner of this trolley and most likely their family is suffering from obesity issues, which include diabetes, blood pressure problems, cardiovascular problems, bad circulation and a whole host of life-changing problems.

Compare this to someone who has a trolley full of porridge, low fat low sugar beans, fish of all kinds (no batter), chicken, turkey, lean beef, cottage cheese, lots of fruit and vegetables, wholegrain pasta, brown rice, sweet, jacket and new potatoes,  all the good stuff guaranteed to make you look and feel fantastic.

Put your treats in if you must, but 80% plus of the trolley needs to be good nutritious food, hugely important to get in the habit of this and not to be sidetracked into the aisles full of junk!

You all have worked hard for your money, spend it on food thats actually going to make you feel good and help you reach all your goals!

Twitt
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Rafa gets even better!

Congratulations to Rafael Nadal, the man gets even better and is he going to be beaten in the next 10o years?!!!! Well, 5 years at least!

There was a nice story behind the scenes on how hard he has worked to overcome his knee problems, and come back faster, stronger and even more durable as he claimed his second title at wimbledon, and moved his major titles to eight, joining the ranks of the great fred perry, andre agassi and rod laver.

This determination to succeed even when he seemingly couldnt go further is sometimes alien to us in this country.

When we get someone who gets to the top in a sport, we cant wait to knock him/her down again.

Nadal is on his own personal pursuit to achieve greatness maybe on a par with roger federer. When you saw the Wimbledon winners list the last few years engraved in the trophy, you saw plenty of federer and it seems as if nadal will be writing his own chapter/chapters in history, he has done that already but much more to come surely?!!!

Jean was bang on throughout the tournament, nadal is already at the top of everest looking down at the rest of them, at this rate he will join the space race!!

Twitt
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Getting leaner means eating smaller

 To answer some of your questions i have had this week, there is one theme running throughout.

Its vital for you now not to get too downhearted about your lack of weight loss if you’re having a bit of an up and down time. If you have been signing in most days, you have made significant improvements lately and for a long time now so its no time to quit and go off track, you’ve come too far.

If you have put an enormous amount of effort in your training and eating, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that you are burning more calories, burning more body fat in the vigorous nature of your workouts. You have complete confidence that you are getting fitter and healthier, now we have to fix the area which is dragging some of you down by your texts and emails

Portions size and inconsistency of eating is the area you need to look at, and getting some very stable habits into your life. Lighter lunches one day, then heavier lunches the next will not let you get used to the same desirable quantity of foods. Your body will like regular, smaller portions and will make you lose weight if done on a regular basis. Your body likes stability.

This one area is making a lot of you deeply unhappy when it comes to measuring and weighing times, and all that unhappiness is not worth going through if it makes you feel like that. If you change your eating habits that much more again, YOU WILL DO IT AND YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!!

Some of you said you don’t eat the chocolate, the chips, the crisps, all the stuff everyone else is eating around you, as your priorities are being fit and healthy, and you should be proud of yourself showing such control, when in the past you would have caved in and joined everyone else so you have moved forwards significantly further than even you previously thought.

Many of you show guts and determination EVERY TIME you workout in adverse conditions (snow, ice and extreme heat), and the times you don’t really feel like it in the first place, some of this dedication has to go in now during the private moments when you’re struggling to control your eating binges, when some damage can be done.

Even if you eat smaller portions, and often you will still have much bigger portions, you’re not really teaching your body that you want to get smaller. You won’t be teaching your stomach to get smaller and smaller because you will still keep your overall long term capacity for food quite high. If you eliminate these bigger portions for good, you will be saying to your body that the old days are over, and that you want to get down to your desired weight/body fat levels very quickly indeed.

Smaller portions cannot support higher weight, remember that and if you 100% begin eating like much smaller and leaner people, you will struggle to start with but your body will get used to it, YOUR NEW BODY THAT IS SO LET’S MAKE IT HAPPEN AND BE PROUD OF YOURSELF AGAIN, you should be proud of your workouts and athletic ability, but imagine how good you will be if you didn’t carry all the excess weight you don’t need in your life anymore!

Its time to make it happen and that time is now! The fittest people aren’t always the leanest, so workouts don’t do it all, healthy structured eating counts big time when it comes to being in shape and at your very best so let’s do it!

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