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February 8th

Now your basic level of conditioning is in, its time you thought about raising your performance!

Before getting into different ways of doing so on a traning basis, i would look at your diet before you do anything at all. If you keep eating rubbish foods full of fat, sugar and salt, you will be HIGHLY unlikely TO GET INTO GOOD SHAPE FULL STOP!!! This is the first thing you need to do before you move forward, or everything becomes a real struggle for you and things will not be easy for you, no matter how hard you work on your training. Its time to be honest, realistic and blunt if it means you getting to your goals quicker, if at all!!!

The old saying that you can eat anything you want as long as you train hard is totally false, and perhaps one of the most misleading claims you have heard for years but was foolishly wrong! You lose nutrients out of your body when you train hard, so it becomes vitally important to replace them as soon as possible.

Good food is good for your body in so many ways, in fact don’t see it as good, see it as vital in your goal to become the best you can be.

It makes sense to say that if you are 15 stone to start, and begin training hard, life will become a lot easier when you are down to 14 stone. Simply being lighter allows you to move more free, you will have less strain on your joints, you will have more energy and you will be far more positive because you have already lost a stone. You will develop the required momentum to easily come down from there.

The key to this remains your eating, without repeating myself too much, this has to be in place before you waste too much effort. Approach your eating and training with equal effort, and this way you get double results!!!

More on training improvements tomorrow!!

Twitt
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Wednesday 8th December

The biggest mistake over Christmas I try to avoid is letting all the condiments come into my life again, which give me a shortness of breath, a lack of energy, make me irritable and get my sweet tooth back, plus the inevitable weight gain of course. Making myself and you aware of it is half the battle when we all start buying the “party” food etc in for Christmas.

Tomato sauce, mayonnaise (full, half or reduced fat versions), salt, salad “seasoning” products, salad cream, brown sauce, branston pickle, full sugar pasta sauces, anything under party food banner’s wreck my breathing, anything with added sugar in their product (corn syrup etc).

Also the chickens in indian sauces or ”hot  and spicy” chickens get me breathing heavy.

I also find if I have too many days of drinking alcohol, my discipline with food goes out the window and my choices become far more questionable! A familiar pattern  for you maybe?

So when does the point come when you say “that’s it I’m starting back after Christmas”! The sooner that point is reached, the more weight you are likely to put on over Christmas for sure, and the harder it is to come back strong after Christmas.

Party food for the most part has nothing to do with quality and more to do packaging of low or NO nutrient food up as something you would be “boring” not to go for! Unless you had a trolley full of “party food”, then you are the biggest stick in the mud there’s ever been and you’re not “enjoying” Christmas! The Ken Barlow of Christmas shoppers maybe!!

Personally I would say that there’s nothing more boring that gorging yourself all of December and drinking nearly every day, then complaining about your heartburn, your clothes never fit you anymore and after Christmas, going on YET another diet. This may be the most boring version of Christmas ever? The time everyone rolls their eyes at you because its like Groundhog Day all over again!

Wouldn’t it be far more refreshing and less predictable this year to keep on buying good food this year right up until new year. Don’t buy all that rubbish and “party food” that you throw out anyway after Christmas. A fresher and more energetic version of you is far more appealing to everyone than the complaining, irritable, boring version of you come January? Is that the case or am I over-exaggerating?!!

Keep having your treats over Christmas, you deserve to enjoy of course you do, but you don’t have to totally destroy yourself from now on in and make the start to 2011 totally miserable!

Moderation works as long as you have your basic foundation in place.

Twitt
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Two women on a charge!!!

Different levels of fitness requires different levels of effort.

Achieving those different levels though is a gradual process as member Annette is finding out, and she sent me this message last night.

“My first week of training went quite well.

  I am definitely feeling more alert and my diet is much better although I could probably still improve on it.  Drinking loads of water which is making me feel less tired.  I have stuck to my workouts, even when I went camping because I don’t need to use any gym equipment.

 I can do them anywhere plus they are pretty short which is always a bonus for me!! 

 Cardio workouts are the ones I look forward to most but feel absolutely lousy while doing them ( I am soooo unfit).

  Never mind, I’m sticking with it no matter what!

Annette”

Annette is clearly on a path to where she wants to get back achieving big things once again. She knows she has to work through different levels before she is anywhere near where she was before. She knows she will get there though as long as she sticks with it!

She also knows that she can do her workouts literally anywhere, and shes not tied to a gym and the limitations that can bring.

Debbie is clearly back in the swing this week, and enjoying something new that has done a lot to stimulate her interest and reawaken her passion for health and fitness again.

She also has great experience with injuries, and has the know how on how to avoid any pain in her workouts.

These are people who have done it all before, who have been at their peak and for various reasons, have slid back a bit in terms of their fitness and maybe body fat, and want to experience the big high’s they had from being at their best.

They both know though that they have to experience those different levels on the way before being ready to make the jump up, one level at a time.

The good news is though that because of muscle memory, their bodies remember where they’ve been before, and the rate of progress this time is likely to be far more rapid than first time around.

Once your body has experienced big highs of low body fat, a leaner harder body, more energy, more self-esteem, more self-confidence, looking great in clothes, having more enthusiasm for everything in life, an all time level of health and vitality etc etc, you really want to get there again and once you start believing again, you know you will want to get there as soon as you can, and to me that’s a great thing!

So what are you waiting for? Let’s finish the week on a high, and get ever closer to your best condition and the way you feel. No slowing down now, lets go and get it!

Twitt
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More energy to moan than just do it!

Most of us spend more time and energy protesting about doing exercise than actually doing it.

Most of us work up a sweat in finding ways not to eat foods that are going to seriously help our health.

If there was ever one great thing Nike gave to use, it was their marketing team’s slogan “just do it”!!!

For example, i saw two different kids similar in ages this morning. One was a pleasure to work with, looking for hard work and wanted to do his best with his workouts and eating, and may be on the verge of becoming a professional sportman, make that a near certainty.

The other one had maybe as much talent, but was a couple of years younger, but the attitudes couldn’t be more different. Everything was questioned, everything was moaned at, and everything was done with the wrong kind of attitude. This is when attitude is everything when it comes to getting results. This boy will learn the hard way, but in one month’s time, he will know the value of hard work and hopefully develop more respect for others and himself.

This is what we talk about on here. Isn’t the process of thinking up your next excuse an effort in itself, but does it really deep down make you feel any better. Surely the feeling of self-satisfaction you get from sticking to a programme for at least months, giving it everything you’ve got, is going to be so much better than dodging the searching questions you’ve asked yourself about your health.

GETTING REAL and being honest is vital.

If you’re in your 30’s, 40’s or 50’s, are you really saying that you can never be like you were when you were 25?!!! I certainly don’t believe that one bit because i have many examples of people achieving amazing fitness well into their 50’s and 60’s, and people doing well in their 70’s and 80’s too, and guess what? NONE OF THEM MOAN ABOUT LIFE’S LITTLE OBSTACLES!!

Once you decide NOT to moan about all the little things in life, THINGS WILL IMPROVE RAPIDLY for you. If you don’t believe me, PLEASE TRY IT, I MEAN PLEASE TRY it and take a chance in your life again.

Simply being more active is a huge start for you, simply shopping for food that is actually going to do you good is going to be an awesome start for you. BELIEVING IN YOURSELF IS GOING TO BE A MASSIVE, HUGE, FANTASTIC TURNING POINT IN YOUR LIFE AND IT CAN START RIGHT NOW!!!

It all starts here and now, no more moaning, let’s do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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