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Wednesday, 22nd January

People always ask me always “what do I do AFTER I get fit?”.

However long it takes you to get fit and healthy again, you will find it’s very unlikely you will ever even WANT to go back to your old ways. When individuals become fit and healthy, often from a low base, they become changed people.

You will have developed a higher quality of life, you will have higher ambitions, you won’t have the same old cravings for sugary foods, and you will start having a lot more pleasure about being active.

If you are in a sound programme, then your new lifestyle will have become part of you, so you develop fresh enthusiasm for everything in life. You will become much more optimistic and you suddenly have a brand new body to enjoy too, and you’re going to want to use it as often as possible.

Training properly and smart, eating healthily is like discovering you have done something in your life for years the wrong way, and suddenly everything feels a LOT EASIER in your life.

Why would you ever go back from here and feeling great? This is what many of you tell me.

The best thing to do after you have reached your INITIAL goals is to immediately set NEW ones, this way you are always trying to improve and progress becomes a natural process for you.

Soon this will become your way of life and you won’t have to think about it anymore, it will be second nature.

Twitt
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Saturday, 18th January

Everyone wants to feel better about themselves, and most people I have dealt with at the beginning think that they have to change how they LOOK so that they can feel good about themselves.

This is the biggest mistake they make because they never actually get the whole story and concentrate too much on looks.

If you change your attitude towards your body-not changing your body-is one key element to feeling a lot better about yourself. When you feel good about yourself, you can do what it takes to get more out of yourself in terms of your body fat levels and your health as a whole.

The next question is how can you go about doing that?

How can you change your body image?

How can you stop feeling so bad about the way you look?

The first thing to realize is that your body image is influenced by many areas of your life.

For example, how about the negative comments and teasing from school, work colleagues or your family even? These can seriously hurt your body image and make you feel terrible about your appearance.

What about the media? How about all those bodies that are too thin and make you believe that THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG with you just because you are not that small when it’s probably not even possible to be that small without getting ill!

What about the way you talk to yourself about your body. Talking internally to yourself and constantly putting yourself down will take its toll over the short and long term and set yourself up for failure.

If you have parents who think negatively about their own bodies, then their influence tends to rub off on you creating yet another damaging role model on the way you think you should treat your body and health.

If you can realize right now that all these examples may be working against you, then this is the first step. Now you HAVE to do something about it!

More Monday.

Twitt
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Wednesday, 8th January

I have already got through an awful lot of measurements with individuals in 2014, and the range of emotions has been dramatic.

My easiest measurements were the ones who trained all the way through Christmas, some even hit personal bests through the holiday period, and to actually improve substantially during Christmas is staggering!

My toughest measurements were the ones who stopped training perhaps 3-4 weeks before Christmas, and ate much more than usual, didn’t train, and some drank too much alcohol a few times a week.

When you are measuring someone all year long and they get used to dramatic results every four weeks, then to undo a chunk of that progress can floor someone who has become to regular victories in their training challenges.

The psychological let down usually makes people go one of two ways.

Either they stand up and fight, and really promise themselves that they are going to eat well again, get right back into regular training, cut right down on alcohol, and although there is a tough month to get through, that they are going to stick with it and make big inroads on the excess body fat they have gained.

Most people can’t stand feeling all the extra weight on them again anyway, especially after feeling so fit and well at their peak only weeks before Christmas, so its usually a matter of simply wanting to feel their best again anyway!

However, some people take it really badly, and a lot of the hard won confidence levels they developed through successive positive physical improvement can be damaged.

This is when the individual concerned needs a mixture of big emotional support from friends and family, from myself and regular exercise to get their body remembering how good it felt to be at their best.

The support system for the individual is all important, and will make the difference between long term sustainable success, or becoming someone who once did well, but loses self-esteem and hits a long slippery slope when body fat gain becomes the norm, and one’s self-worth hitting an all time low.

This is exactly the time of year to stand up and fight, really accept you do not want to feel overweight, unfit and lacking in ambition.

Really, whatever your situation, this is exactly the time to stop talking about it and get on and change yourself right now, because all of you have the resources and power to change and reach your absolute potential once again!

Twitt
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Thursday, 2nd January

Making a lifestyle change right now is obviously very much in the news at this time of year, but many people get confused with what a lifestyle change REALLY is. I have been through this time of year in a professional capacity many times of course, and its heartbreaking to see many people fall for the same false promises year after year.

In exercise terms, a lifestyle change can be defined as simply moving more, having some sort of exercise plan, however simple. Showing up regular for exercise can be the most powerful thing you do this year.

Even exercising three times a week can change your life this year, and affect positively all of your medical key indicators such as blood pressure, heart rate, body fat levels etc.

If you try just to jump in and get into exercise without knowing what you are getting into, then the chances of injuring yourself are high, and the dangers to your health can be very real. Nothing can crush your morale quicker.

Getting evaluated by a health and fitness professional is critical to you knowing where your starting point is, and how you are going to improve and at what rate. If you show up to exercise not knowing a thing about it (like most people), and then typically just get shown around once and forgotten about, then you are already in a dangerous position.

Not doing things properly is the chief reason why a large percentage of the population will give up on exercise by the end of the month. This is heartbreaking after usually signing a 12 month contract. The sad thing is that many gyms spend all their efforts trying to get you signed up, and very little effort in helping you navigate the first few months of transforming your body and mind.

If you don’t train right, then you’re not going to get any results.
Without results, your incentive to carry on will vanish.

January 2nd 2014 and surely it’s time to spend time researching the best way to do it this time.

Twitt
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New Years Day

It’s time to explode some “myths” of training, and answer a range of questions I seem to get at regular intervals from a surprising amount of you.

MYTH NO1 “The best sign of a great workout is how exhausted I am, and how sore I am the next couple of days!”

Many people I meet regard a great workout with being totally exhausted and sore.

When people come down the gym for the first time, they assume that because they didn’t feel “sick”, that they weren’t training hard enough!

I always have to put them right on this straight away because “feeling sick and exhausted totally” is the exact opposite of what we are about.

I always tell clients that making them sick all over the car park would be easy.

I am FAR MORE interested in getting them stronger, more flexible, being more agile and balanced, and dramatically increasing their speed and endurance.

Being sick from training is one of the worst things you can do for your body, causing great internal distress that your body takes a long time to get over.

If you’re measuring your training progress on being exhausted, and you are doing a speed and agility session with me, then you’re quickly forgetting why you are doing the session in the first place.

Teaching people to run properly and move in multi-directions requires the individual to use their brain power, their reaction time, as well as physical effort.

Last of all, there isn’t one scientific paper out there that says you have to be dramatically sore after a workout to get maximum gains from it, not one! You may get sore now and again from changing your training around and using different muscles, and who wants to be sore all the time anyway!

Always remember that anyone can get you tired, but it requires a far more professional approach to get you much faster, stronger and much better conditioned for absolutely anything you want to do.

Twitt