Sunday, 22nd December

There is a huge increase in most people’s eating and drinking this time of year, this is what most of you are experiencing right now with a couple of days left to christmas. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying yourself either, as most of us are going to do it anyway!

As you get further into the holidays, the vast majority of people who train will always train less, most likely not at all, and train with less intensity when they do make it to training that is, and in general lose the enthusiasm they have had to be active all year. There is a direct link between stopping training and your enthusiasm to be active again almost disappearing.

This is why most people never get around to starting exercising again.

This “pause” usually turns into a 2-4 week slump that many never come out of. The start back becomes 100 times harder seemingly, and the new year resolution you are likely to make is 97% of the time never going to happen in reality (according to recent surveys).

In terms of exercising, surveys showed in 2013 that most people who promise to get fit in their new year resolution, actually saw that dream collapse on January 28th. So 3-4 weeks seems the average life-span of many people’s get fit plan each year.

Keeping your exercise plan, however short you want to make it, will often make the difference between you carrying on exercising, or becoming one of the statistics that often has a stab at exercise, but never carries it on due to the hammering their body takes over the Christmas holiday period.

Condensing your workouts into much shorter workout intervals always makes sense, it saves you time, you get to feel better because you have exercised, and it never crosses your mind to quit exercising completely!

More tomorrow on this.

Friday, 21st December

It looks as if the world didn’t in fact end today, although there are still a few hours to go!

It hasn’t been the end of the world for most people i train this year if they have made a lot of mistakes in their diet and exercising either!

Through explaining to everyone i train that they don’t have to totally blow their diet if they go off the rails now and again, this has resulted in my largest number of people training right up to the last friday before christmas. Not only that but we have record numbers scheduled to train christmas eve, the gym in burry port will see a surprising number on christmas day and especially boxing day!

The message really seemed to have worked better than ever before this year, and i would like to thank everyone for continuing to show so much dedication right up until the end of the year. The encouraging fact is that these are the people who would normally throw the towel in during early december.

So after persuading everyone to train all the way up to christmas or more or less, its heartening now to already have people tell me already how much better they are feeling in themselves, how much money they are saving by not buying all of the junk food that they normally do, how much they are saving by not buying sometimes vast quantities of alcohol etc etc, and how great its going to be NOT to wear the baggy jumpers at this time of year, because most are keen to show their new found bodies!!

I am hearing better sleeping experiences, and a wide variety of people are reporting one of their best measurements THIS WEEK!! We all try not to put on much in december, but to actually lose quite a lot of body fat and shave off 3 inches off your waist is sensational. Again, i have to say that this a big benefit of being measured regularly!

Thanks again for the huge effort, and let’s see what happens next week!!!!!!!

Thursday, 20th December

In an ideal world, the body of your choice would just happen, good food would be just put in front of you and getting into shape would be the easiest thing in the world!

There would be no problem getting to the gym, and all the chores in life would be done for you.

This is an imaginary world of course, especially in the week before christmas, so we had better get back in the real world!!!

We are in a world where we make mistakes and we make them often.

So what we have to do is DO what we can do!

Life shouldn’t revolve around your diet or some kind of totally strict never have a treat regime either! This will not work. Frequently i hear from individuals that they have some big party and trying to be perfect somehow, they say that for some reason that they need to avoid the party!

This is nonsense of course and there is no need to avoid ANY social occasion or bring your own food just because there’s not a healthy meal already prepared there for you! Using common sense in these situations always works and as long as you don’t pig out too much, or don’t drink the bar dry, then put it down to a one off and make sure you get a workout done the very next day!!!

I have always said that you need to just concentrate on eating healthy at least 80% of the time, this should be enough to keep you healthy and energised for your workouts. If you constantly try to be at 100%, then you will be heading for failure and such plans never work for any length of time!!

If you allow yourself treats on one day a week for example, or two maximum, then you always have something to look forward to, and your diet will never become over-bearing. Common sense will always work for you, especially right now in the festive season.

Moderation always works, and keeps your mind very fresh and positive for your upcoming workouts that should always be at least a small part over the next two weeks.

Wednesday, 12th December

While we were talking about different alternatives for exercises yesterday, the number one thing you must do is just concentrate on doing SOMETHING!!!

The time it takes you to think about doing it, the facts are that you could have done something in your time.

If you have a dog for example, and typically walk the dog for 20-30 minutes a day, then what is wrong with running your usual course so it only takes you 10-15 minutes?!! This will qualify as a big workout for you.

If you constantly pass your training shoes in the hall way every day feeling quilty about not putting them on, then how about JUST DOING IT and putting them on and just get out there and run, even if its for ten minutes! Chances are that if you plan on going just for ten minutes, that will then turn into 20 minutes!! You willl enjoy yourself much more when you get going!!

Instead of waiting for the famous christmas jumper or whatever new clothes you get for christmas that you usually start wearing on boxing day for that famous “walk”, how about doing it now!!!

Now is the time and time waits for no man or woman as the saying goes, stop wishing your life away and stop making excuses for piling on body fat. You know those excuses are not going to wash on here!!!

The power of DOING far outweighs any talking about how you need to get fit, how you could have been a good runner if you only had tried, how you could have been a good cyclist only if you had the right bike etc etc!!!

If you always talk about how good things “could have been”, then you become one of those people who forever live in the past and you can be termed as a “couldhave wouldhave shouldhave” type of person.

Christmas is a week tuesday, please do not make the big mistake of giving up right now because its going to be twice as hard after christmas!!!

Thursday, 22nd November

The famous christmas “let’s settle for no improvements, let’s just hold what we have” is alive and well this year again, perhaps even more so. This is your most dangerous mindset to avoid if you possibly can because its bound to end up in you putting ON weight, in my experience.

“Settling” for mediocrity shuts off something in the brain that usually makes you strive for success.

Once your mind isn’t in the right gear, then your workouts will soon become “go through the motions” events that will give us little in terms of benefits.

The next stage after settling for medicore returns is giving up your programme for december, another disasterous decision.

The next stage after that means “i will start back after christmas”! Many people actually do this!! Then they find out that they should never have stopped training in the first place because training after christmas after a break is EXTREMELY TOUGH!!!

When things are tough, the prospects of following through on a programme diminish dramatically, as not everyone has got the right in them to see it through!

This is why most people who start a programme after christmas tend to quit by Valentine’s day at the latest!! Please do not end up as one of those sad statistics!!

This is why i come back to saying that you need to aim to improve from RIGHT NOW again and maybe for the first time, december can really become one of your BEST month’s, instead of becoming one when you end up piling on the weight, you end up becoming breathless just climbing a flight of stairs, and your friends and family start asking you that dreaded question “have you put weight on?!!!”.

I have seen all of these stages work out different ways, but taking my advice and actually acting on it will mean a great deal for your overall christmas happiness and success starting off in 2013!!!!