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Tuesday, March 5th

Hitting the right checklist every day will make or break your day.

Its an old cliché but nothing IS as important as the right breakfast!!! Have you got your porridge in on time, have you diluted your orange juice, have you had a glass of water to clean your system out when you first got up? Tedious to some maybe but vitally important to those of you who want the fantastic results we always talk about!

If you are going to work, have you got your healthy snacks worked out, and more importantly have you PREPARED THEM?!!!

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not rely on little corner shops or spar’s convenience stores to satisfy your nutritional needs because it AIN’T GOING TO HAPPEN!

Preparation is everything and you really need to lock in as many nutrients as possible into your foods, processed rubbish you find in these shops will not give you that any day of the week!

Hows your lunch looking? Supermarket prepared sandwiches are full of salt and often full of mayo, prepare your own and allocate 5 minutes of your day to doing that? You can do that surely?

How about evening meal? I hope its full of vegetables with a lean protein choice such as white meat or any fish cooked nicely without any horrible sauce that’s going to pile salt and saturated fat into your body?!!!!

You can eat well to nourish your body as it needs to perform well and recover after your workouts!!

Hows your water intake? If its under 1.5-2 litres a day then you are likely dehydrated and not reaching your performance potential.

If you hit all of this checklist well, then you are likely to be in very good condition health wise. Up to you how well you do!!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 27th February

I train a lot of people who sit around for 8 hours a day. I don’t mean they do not work hard, what I do mean is that this sitting around lifestyle in the work environment can have a harmful long term effect on one’s health.

Apart from our exercise sessions together, here’s some tips I have offered them to increase their healthy experience at work.

a. Instead of sitting on a normal office chair, some of my clients will sit on an exercise ball at their desk for 30 mins at a time. This will engage their core far more, strengthening key areas and can be great to break the monotony of life in an office.

b. To start their day, I tell them to make sure they have a bottle of water right by them. Living on coffee, tea and diet coke is no way to spend those 8 hours by the desk. Not drinking enough water will decrease performance in the office and your workouts, it will ruin your concentration and in general your body wont work so well. This is a fundamental area you may need to improve.

c. Try and get a small fridge in work. This helps you keep your foods fresh, and gives you more variety in your food choices at work. Eating foods that are fresh is far more appealing and keeps you firmly on track in your healthy eating. Water also tastes better and fresher cooler, especially on the summer days to come. A small fridge is an excellent investments between a few of your work colleagues.

d. Keep your training shoes under the desk. Everyone needs a break, and going for a 10-15 minute brisk walk will do you far more good than a diet drink or coffee! It will refresh you, make you feel better and you will come back to your desk with renewed energy and concentration.

Working in an office is no excuse to put weight on, most jobs are sedentary these days, so this makes your workouts even more important!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 22nd February

One of the most popular questions I get asked is “which exercise is best, or my friend just goes to spinning classes and she has lost a stone, or my friends just runs and he feels and looks amazing now, or my friends just do yoga and they swear by it”! You get the picture but here’s the answer!

They are all partly right but entirely miss the point when it comes to constructing a valid programme that will serve you well for the short and long term, and keep you getting sustainable results.

Spinning is great for example, but to say it should be 100% of your programme is misguided, delusional and you will be missing out on much better results if you put more variety in your programme.

Spinning should be 10% of your programme.

The running should be 10% of your programme (assuming you have good knees and a sound back or you could run into problems).

Yoga is great, but again should be incorporated into your programme, rather than become ALL of your programme.

Weight training and body weight training should be a fundamental part of your programme, but doesn’t need to be the overwhelming part. You should work your entire body every workout, therefore needing just 2-3 workouts a week maximum.

You also do not need the 4-5 sets per exercise, and you don’t need the 3-4 exercises per body part like some do.

Choosing one exercise per body fat for 2-3 sets of 8 reps will work very well for you, IF done with real intensity and progress keeps happening for you, which it WILL if you are doing it properly!!

Bosu ball, balance work, fitball work should also be a big part of your workout plan, and done a minimum of 2-3 times a week, but doesn’t by any means need to be the whole of your workout.

Same with boxing, a big part of everyone’s training I teach, but done at the end of most workouts but very valuable all the same.

We work hard with ropes in the gym that will bring amazing results, and so do sandbags and tyres, as well as sledgehammers.

My job is making people’s workouts brutally efficient, saving lots of time meaning you can concentrate on the exercises that REALLY count, and you can get much variety than you every imagined!!

So a little bit of a long answer, but that’s the truth when it comes to which exercises you should/could be doing for amazing results!!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 15th February

We are hitting a weekend already and while all of us will look forward to it, the dangers for body fat gain are always the highest for the next three days.

Most people associate the weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday with eating basically anything they want, and more than their fair share of alcohol consumption.

If you do this for three days over the weekend, then NO MATTER WHAT and this is a certainty, you will not lose body fat and it doesn’t matter what you have in the week in terms of exercise or how well you have eaten!

If you take this as a rule, you will start eating and drinking a little smarter.

Make it one day, rather than three days. Make it one day a week you drink alcohol, and when you do drink, the very next morning before breakfast, try and get some sort of exercise session in that gets you a little hot and sweaty, and a bit out of puff, in other words put some effort in!

No need to overdo it, but always try and exercise with purpose rather than going through the motions.

If you’re having your treats, and most people at some time DO during the weekend, try and make them less full of saturated fat and less full of sugar!

If you’re having indian food, try and select the dry dishes, rather than the ones smothered with cream and sauce. Select boiled rice rather than fried. This will help you a lot.

Chinese food is usually fried but you can select boiled versions like the indian examples I gave.

When you have fast food, you don’t need chips on top of it too! You don’t need the 1000 calorie milk shakes, you don’t need all the extra trimmings on ANY fast food.

Try making pizza yourself, have far less cheese, put on healthy tomatoes and vegetables, have a healthier thin base.

There’s a million ways to get your treats down in all those harmful fats, and dangerous sugars that if taken for long enough, will sure make you diabetic.

Making the right choices have never been more important!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 8th February

A funny thing happens when you start exercising.

For example, if you went for a bike ride, a run, a weights session or just a tough hilly walk, then a funny thing happens just as you end your exercise session.

You should know by now that you feel better straight away after exercise. You have a feeling of wellbeing like never before, and this is one of the reasons why you exercise in the first place.

The funny thing that happens is when you eat or drink after exercise.

You may well feel like a big plate of fish and chips afterwards, or alcoholic drink afterwards. Have you actually tried doing this in practice?

Most people i speak to feel like absolute rubbish afterwards, due to the stodge, fat and chemicals in those products i just mentioned.

So you have just done something REALLY GOOD for you in the exercise session, and your body will soon notice that the chips or alcohol, or both rally do not agree with it! Your body is really craving GOOD food, in order to repair itself from all of your hard work!!!

You must realise by now that all of that hot and sweaty work done in your workout deserves good food afterwards, or a lot of that hard work WILL be wasted. Most of us want a good reward for our efforts so try listening to your body, don’t fight your natural instincts and really look after your body interally.

The time for having any alcohol is usually once a week and usually the weekend.

The time for having the fish and chips is a one off and again, most people choose to do it as a treat at the weekend.

This is not a piece about telling you what to do, its about allowing you to make the best choices to complement your workouts, and enable you ultimately to get your best results!!!

Twitt