March 11th Supermarket shop

Hope you are having a stronger end to the week and if you are in the majority, you will be doing your weekly shop in the supermarket either today, yesterday or tomorrow.

Are you improving in this area or not? Do u visit only the healthy aisles of the supermarket or are you doing down every aisle such as the chocolate and crisps part, the ready meals part, the alcohol part, and savoury part etc?

The important parts of the supermarket remain the fruit and vegetables to start, depending on how it is laid out.

Here you can get your apples, oranges, blueberries, pears, bananas, broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, jacket potatoes, new potatoes, tomatoes, etc etc. These are the foods that need to be in your diet every single day to look after your body inside and out, fight disease and give you plenty of energy.

Next you probably come to the lean meats such as chicken, turkey, lean beef, lean steaks, lean mince etc, its important to make the right choices here. You can have some red meat, but don’t plan on eating it more than once a week, the health dangers have been well documented in the press lately again so a bit mof moderation is called for here. The lean meats though can form an excellent foundation for your diet.

You may next see some fish, im talking tuna, mackerel, haddock, trout, salmon is always a favourite of mine and you can get all of these either fresh or in a tin, nothing wrong with either in my book and depends on how much you have to spend.

How about some carbs? We mentioned potatoes earlier, but next we have brown rice, wild rice, wholegrain and wholewheat pasta, there are all types of spaghetti and variations (keep it to wholegrain if possible). While we are talking about wholegrain and wholewheat, you can and should apply this to everything and you know i mentioned wholewheat pancakes earlier in the week.

Bread is a big subject for many of you so lets keep it wholemeal if possible, the slower release of energy the better and you want to avoid white bread like the plague, full of bleach, sugar and other cooking agents that you really don’t want to be putting in your body.

Then there’s nuts such as brazils, almonds, cashews, walnuts, hazlenuts etc which are excellent along with dried fruit such as dates, apricots, raisins, figs, prunes which can work as excellent snacks or food sweeteners in a natural way!!

Hows that for a start and making your week go along without too many hiccups, more like plenty of energy and making sure you stay lean and energetic!!!

Feb 3rd 2011

Nice to see some of you making a real effort with your training and looking to improve yourselves, even after the faddy january rush has come and gone. Just as many people will be giving up on another year, you will be only starting yours and i know your efforts will last most if not all of the year.

Going through year on year may seem like a drag, but its only a drag if you have let yourself fall far further than you ought to have. Letting yourself go is something we have all been through, and its how we come back from this that shows how much character we really have. Its easy to be bullish when everything is going well for us, but when things dont, our confidence can drop greatly and in turn our performances. Once our performances go south, our progress comes to a screeching halt and we can end up going backwards at a rate of kn0ts sometimes!!!

So we have bright mornings, lighter evenings and we even have milder weather to feel good about and this weather allows us to do pretty much anything we want.

This is the month to make spring really happen for us. That first week of april when its warmer will be too late to start training to be in shape for may. Its now all the hard work counts and can really make a difference to your appearance and the way you feel!!!!

If you get stuck in now, life will not be hard as you think and you wont have to go through the dragging yourself up from the bottom all over again. Please make the effort now and make the leap between being mediocre and being impressive. You become impressive by showing self-sacrifice at crucial moments, ON A REGULAR BASIS.

Nobody is asking for perfection from you, what i am asking from you is sustained effort that is a reflection on your ability. As long as you do your best, nobody can ask for me, but my guess is that your best will indeed be enough!!!!