Posted on

Tuesday, 21st February

Eating on a budget is one of the topical subjects that needs to be addressed, and just about everyone has thought of, or probably already taken action on, given the very harsh economic climate.

There is good news though, and there are many options. Being careful with your money usually means that you cut out the little treats in your diet, the things loaded with sugar and fat, guaranteed to wreck your energy levels and pile on the body fat over time.

So if you are cutting back financially, the junk snacks need to go right now.

I always encourage everyone to eat plain and more natural, if you’re cutting back, then this needs to happen and again, your biggest beneficiary will be your waistline and hips.

So start off the day with plain oats, which are very cheap if you go for the big bag the supermarket sell, around 75p a kilo. Add water or milk to taste, and this will give you up to 4 hours energy!

Try getting your fruit and vegetables from like likes of Aldis and lidl’s to save money, but they are actually nicer in my experience., and you save a fortune!

If you’re looking at pasta, try the big bag of wholegrain pasta, which keeps it slow release energy, again eat in moderation and you will lose body fat, try making your own tomato sauce for flavouring. Throw a tin of fish in there, mix it up and you have a great meal, and very low in cost compared to the first class nutrition you are getting.

Stir fries are great to make with all that veg, and with a piece of chicken, lean beef or any fish.

The cans of fish are still really cheap, and I consume them a lot. Mackerel, tuna, salmon will fit well into any meal and are a first class protein source you need in main meals.

Drinks are often a source of needless calories and things like diet drinks need to be avoided too, they cost money and not good for you internally. Plain old fashioned water will be zero calories for you, help you actively lose body fat, and give you up to a third more energy, a win win situation.

Don’t bother with supermarket sandwiches, high in fat, salt and sugar, expensive for what you get. Try making your own filled pitta bread wholemeal options. Vegetables and a protein source of your choice will work brilliantly and work perfectly for lunch.

 With a bit of thought, you can eat very well and economically!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday, 20th February

Losing can often teach you more than winning, or so the saying goes in sports.

The same goes for your health and fitness programme.

How many diets have you crashed and burned on?

How many times have you tried to exercise and thrown the towel in?

How many times have you said “this time i’m going to do it no matter what” and still failed?

If you have been through all of these, and most of us have if we are honest, then they can become very valuable experiences believe it or not!!!

As long as we remember where we went wrong, then perhaps next time we will learn and not do it again?

If someone suggest we join them in a weight loss class, that we know that didnt work last time, and probably never well, isn’t it madness to go through the same useless process again?

The programme we did in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s may not have worked out too well, because some of us didnt train too smart, and got obsessed with doing cardio all the time maybe for example. We know that doesn’t really work and we need to mix it up with weights/resistance work.

So we have all the knowledge now on how to train effectively, so you would think that most of us would do it right, having failed so many times before? It is madness to go through the same process time and time again and expect a different result!!! But still some peope do it believe it or not.

Would you attempt an exam in school or college and say you only had 40%, then the next time you had 41%, the time after 35%, wouldn’t it be time to change your approach and work in a far more effective manner? Unfortunately a lot of people don’t get this and never get the very most out of their training, when sometimes all the solutions thhat they need to achieve their goals are right in front of them!!!

Learn from your past mistakes, and as long as you do, you will find the right approach and achieve great results faster than you ever thought possible!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 17th February

You are eating well most of the time, you are training okay and you think a lot about how you perform and look, but you may still not be sure that you are improving any more?!!

It may be tedious at times to check your progress, and maybe its time to look at things in a different light?

Every time you run, walk hard, swim hard, cycle hard, you have to realise that with every step forward, you ARE improving because things will be getting easier. You are bringing fresh oxygen into your cells, and your body will be functioning internally far better than it did first thing this morning, and a million times better than if you didn’t do any cardio at all, thats a fact!!!

Every time you eat well , you ARE improving and feeding your body like it derserves to be fed.

You didnt stop off in any one of the fast food places that a lot of people do these days. You did take the trouble to make food from scratch, instead of buying in ready made meals which are full of salt and every preservative under the sun!!! You are fulfilling your body’s potential to be much better and you’re not being one of the crowd that doesn’t care what they eat.

You drink water everyday to  IMPROVE, just think of it like that, if you don’t take enough water onboard, your body won’t function as well as you know it can, keeping hydrated is the single most important thing you can do for your body.

Every time you make your workout happen, you have reached your commitment for that day in terms of exercise.

Whether its struggling to get through traffic, struggling to juggle your time with everyday demands, whether its getting the focus together again to hit the numbers you know you’re capable in your big productive exercises, you finally got there and you will sleep with confidence that you can still improve, whatever your age!!!

EVERY DAY can be regarded as improvement if you look at this differently and keep things in prospective!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Thursday, 16th February, 2012

This week we have talked about not making excuses about lacking time to train, how we can really make the most of ten minutes when that’s all we have, and to make quality come first in assessment of our workouts, rather than “just working out for an hour” and that’s our benchmark and that’s it!!

Another not very time consuming tool that’s very powerful for the effort put in is self measurement.

How long does it take to measure your own waist and hips, or get someone else to do it for you?

I have talked about it many times before, if you measure yourself around once a month and see if you have come down a little bit in terms of inches, then you know you’re doing something right!

If an individual comes down 1-2 inches a month, then you would consider that great progress.

Inches off your waist are nearly always a better indication on how you’re doing than weight on the scales, which are often inaccurate due to a variety of reasons.

If you lose weight off your waist, then your clothes will feel much better, another tried and tested way to show progress.

Losing inches off your waist is one of the best ways to tell if you are fit and healthy, and to avoid serious disease.

Your waist size should always be a maximum of half your height in inches.

In other words and using simple maths, say you were 6 foot tall, that would be 72 inches since there are 12 inches in a foot of course.

So your waist should not be more than 36 inches and ideally a little smaller.

Medical science has proven that this is a very good formula for showing true health.

You secretly know too that if you are carrying too much weight on your stomach and hips, that you are not as healthy as you could be, that you will not be as confident as you could be for the summer, when you are likely to be wearing less clothes, that you are not as confident in visiting the doctor for a health check up and you won’t have as much energy as once had when you are in peak condition.

Do the waist test on yourself or get someone else to do it, and in general, you will be able to tell how much work you have to do!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 14th February

Valentine’s day is a big day for some of you, and its a day of vast 0ver-commercialism for others. You may either be preparing to go off your diet tonight, and you may be out of pocket after paying double money for your flowers, whatever you do, have a great evening and enjoy yourselves.

Valentine’s day is no excuse though to quit on your training, and please do not use that “lack of time” excuse, because its definitely not going to “wash” here!

No time for a run?

Not even 10 minutes?

If you swap your steady jog you were planning, then how about doing some interval running instead. You know the one, we have talked on here a lot about it, do a couple of minutes warm up run, then use lampposts as a guide for the intervals you need to train in.

You jog for one post, then sprint the next, jog one post, sprints the next and so on until you can’t do anymore. 10 minutes of this will be MORE than enough!!!

How about hitting a punch bag?

If you can manage 10 minutes on this great training tool, then you will be doing very well indeed. Even three times one minute rounds will be enough to get your heart pumping like never before, scratch the ten minutes, think THREE minutes!!! No excuses!

If you work in an office in a town or city, there must be a group of steps around the place. Just 5 minutes up and down steps can be like a 20 minute steady jog, and give your body a workout to remember, this is tough but over in a flash with a big bunch of benefits thrown in!

Bottom line is if you don’t train before you go out tonight, you won’t feel so energised, you will have to work harder tomorrow night, and you will be letting your commitment levels slide. Use time to your advantage by working out smart, instead of mindless boring long workouts control you!!

Twitt