Posted on

Thursday, 5th December

To those of you who have “over-achieved” in 2013, and there have been many of you, its time to re-assess what your programme looks like, what your eating programme looks like, and how much your goals have shifted during all of this process.

Many of you in 2013 will have realized that you CAN lose 8, 10, 12, 14 even 20 inches off your waist if you put your mind to it. I have detailed evidence of that as you will know.

Losing 5 to 10 stone sounded unbelievable, but many of you have achieved this and are rightly proud of yourself (although weight is not the only thing).

Its easy to coast for a bit after all of this transformation in your life, but now is the time to pat yourself on the back one last time, and finally draw a line under a magical, extremely difficult time and rewarding in your life.

To get to where you once only imagined, and finally get to your new goal of looking fantastic compared to anyone, you have to re-assess and aggressively break down the limitations you may previously had on your training.

Here’s the three things you must do/keep doing;

a. You MUST weight train or do bodyweight exercises. This is an extremely powerful way to rev up your metabolism to the max, and totally reshape your body once again! 3 times a week is my recommendation.

b. You must keep eating natural healthy food and in its natural state where possible. Drink 1-5-2 litres of water a day. Think of how your insides will benefit, and the way you look and feel will be upgraded several levels again. Don’t fall for faddy diets, shakes and bars diets, everyone knows they bring long term misery. The sooner these products were banned the better full stop!

c. Lift your expectiations! Whilst you are having all sorts of complements from everyone, you need to target a new version of yourself that’s going to be even more rewarding for you, an even more athletic version that is capable of much more again. Some of you have already gone onto 10k’s, triathlon’s and marathon’s over the last couple of years. It doesn’t have to be an athletic achievement, all it has to be is something personal to you that really drives you first thing in the morning when its freezing, dark and wet!

No time to waste so writing down your future goals right now would be a great start!
Keri

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 29th November

Part two of the list we started yesterday

m. Exercise helps enormously with depression, which is a huge problem in society but rarely people admit. People need help and support and exercise and eating healthy plays a significant role in treatment now, after all nobody wants to be on pills all their life, and they want an escape route from this common condition if possible.

n. Exercise gives your social life a boost. When you workout or play sports, you tend to do it with other people, and you sometimes meet like-minded people that enhance your social experience.

o. Exercise proves that females are at least as fit as men, and in my personal experience of training a lot of individuals, most women I train now train harder than men-fact!

p. Exercise before the age of 20, along with good healthy eating limits the number of fat cells you can produce. This is biological fact and this is why exercising when you are younger determines a lot of conditions for your future. No exercise and fatty/sugary foods in your teens is a ticking time bomb that is already costing the NHS billions!

q. Exercises changes lives! Every single one of the transformations I have taken individuals through has changed them mentally and physically and all for the better! Every area of their lives improves!

r. Exercise gets you pregnant! I have trained women in the past who were told by their doctor in the past that they couldn’t/or were unlikely to get pregnant due to their weight and health, but once they made big changes to their lifestyle and health, quite often they fell pregnant straight away!

s. Exercise helps you help others. When you get healthier and feel much stronger and fitter, you tend to stop relying on others and want to help others achieve things in their life they may not have thought possible.

t. Exercise saves lives. Anyone who cant have an operation because they are too overweight will testify to this. Once the doctor tells you THAT YOU MUST LOSE WEIGHT just to have an operation, you take note and you get it done. Exercise benefits your health in all sorts of life-enhancing ways.

u. If you’re a parent, exercising will inspire your kids get healthy too. Sit on the settee, eat rubbish and be negative all the time and they will follow whatever you do. Setting a great example works.

v. Exercise helps you sleep better research shows in every study. Those who exercise will know this. There are 120 sleep disorders, 80 are linked to alcohol.

w. Exercise and weight bearing exercise gives you stronger bones and protects you into old age. Weight training/body weight exercises are the number one recommendation.

x. Exercise gives you natural highs! You don’t need drugs, just try to progress your programme so that your intensity
of exercise goes up, and then you will get the natural highs that many of you get anyway most days when you exercise.

y. Exercise teaches you discipline. The regime of eating healthy and working out regularly teaches you proper routines, and keeping them up can be a challenge. It’s the success of keeping it up that teaches you discipline that transcends into every area of your life.

z. Exercise and healthy eating gets you into shape without the aid of drugs or anything unnatural like weight loss powders which provide long term misery, which teaches you self-respect and respect for others. You know that this process can be very challenging, and overcoming all the self-doubts is hugely rewarding, this process is one of the most important of all.

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday, 20th November

Post-workout snacks

Whether you are hungry or not, the quicker you eat food or drink after a workout, the quicker your body will recover. The enzymes responsible for making glycogen are most active immediately after your workout, leaving you with a 2-hour window to reload your muscle glycogen. Carbs are converted into glycogen one and a half times faster than normal during this post-exercise period.

Begin refueling with a high carb snack preferably with a high GI which will pass into your muscles much quicker than a low GI food.

You will have to watch portion sizes as eating too much carbohydrate will be stored as fat and not turned into glycogen. To help with recovery it’s a good idea to combine protein with carbohydrate for the post workout snack.

1. A couple of pieces of fresh fruit eg bananas, with milk.

2. 1 or 2 cartons of fruit yogurt such as Yeo Valley or Rachel’s.

3. A smoothie made with crushed fresh fruit whizzed in the blender with small handful of nuts.

4. A homemade milkshake. Use milk, yogurt and fruit such as bananas and strawberries for an excellent mixture of protein, carbs and antioxidants.

5. Tuna or cottage cheese sandwich. Choose wholemeal rolls, bagels, pitta or wraps.

6. A couple of rice cakes with jam and cottage cheese.

7. A handful of dried fruit and nuts.

Twitt
Posted on

Tuesday, 19th November

Heading into Christmas is a sign to switch off for most people. This is the biggest mistake you can make for many reasons.

If you sink into this slumber before Christmas, imagine how hard it’s going to be getting rid of the Christmas excess?!!

One big attitude difference can be to work extra hard on your training before Christmas. If you’re going to be taking in extra calories, why not use them as a positive and see them as extra energy for more training, or more energy for more intense training.

Set higher targets and goals, aim to get out there more and be more active. Just don’t fall into the trap of doing less and less exercise coming up to Christmas and eating more food! This is a sure way of putting more weight on, and then compounding it by all the Christmas excesses. This is what MANY people do and it’s always painful to watch!

Motivation can seem to be better too if you have a plan. You know you’re going to have to train more in the next few weeks so plan for it, and don’t let it take you by surprise.

You know that its hard to train hard straight after Christmas, so don’t get into that horrible situation and simply be much more consistent from now on in the run in.

Your body fat will be better and you will fit into your clothes much better, your performances will be better in the gym and you’ll have the great feeling over being in control over everything before, during and after Christmas.

Remember that 80% of your success is simply showing up for your workouts, so getting your kit on in the first place will be the hardest thing you need to do, and the rest will be easy!

Keri

Twitt
Posted on

Friday, 15th November

Hitting a Friday for many people means hitting the alcohol, hitting a takeaway and totally NOT hitting any kind of workout. This can apply to those who exercise or those who never exercise at all.

The weekend for many last from Friday tea time all the way until sunday evening and there’s nothing that’s going to stop that!!!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a drink once a week, but when it comes to more than that, I have seen many, many people put on weight and not progress much at all. It can and will make that kind of a huge difference to you, and your performances usually, and when I do my usual monthly measurement, the results are usually not that impressive.

So once a week drinking alcohol should be your maximum IF you are committed to improving and progressing with your body full stop, no if’s and but’s!

If you are not eating well 80% of the time, as discussed in the past, then you are not going to be able to fuel your performances at the level required for fresh improvements. You need to change right now, and this is why eating badly all weekend (from Friday tea time until sunday night flat out) is NOT going to help you reduce body fat, build lean muscle tissue like you really wanted.

Always make a promise to yourself, if you drink and eat badly on Saturday night, then exercise first thing in the morning the very next day, this case a sunday morning. This will help enormously in getting the rubbish out of your body, and make you realize that eating badly ALL weekend won’t do anything good in terms of future results.

By all means have a bit of what you fancy, but there’s no need to trash it all weekend!!!

Twitt