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Fat Loss, Health, Nutrition, palate

“Healthier biscuits”, Fat Kids and McDonalds Calorie Counting!

I am truly passionate about what I do. I know in my very soul that I want to help people achieve greatness. Now “Greatness” can mean a whole host of different things to different people. But whether it is to lose weight, get fit, feel better, what ever it is I know I can play a part on their road to achieving just that.

Because I am so passionate I let emotion bubble over and things really really get to me and ranting ensures….cue ranting!

Yesterday I was in a supermarket and as i was meandering along the isles looking for what I was after (don’t you just hate it when supermarkets move all their products around, whilst strategically putting their new lines where the product you were after was for example. I get the whole marketing thing, but it is a ball ache).

Anyway I digress, Looking up an isle I was reading the product signs. In this particular isle a sign read biscuits, then further along another sign read healthier biscuits??? I mean wtf??? “healthier biscuits”!! like there is such a thing in a super market. I was half expecting to see “healthiest biscuits” at the end! I mean come on, I shudder to think that this marketing actually works. We all know that everyone looks for a quick fix to their long term health issues, but it really winds me up when time after time the food industry seeks to cash in on peoples insecurities to make another fast buck.

I know this isn’t new, the food industry are only interested in how much money can be made, beleive me, they don’t give a shit about your health, they really don’t. If they did they wouldn’t disguise food additives as other things so as to make you think it is free of the crap they say it is. I mean, for example saying a packet of hula hoops have no MSG in them then stating yeast extract as one of the ingredients on the back!!

I could rant on for ages about the food industry, but i am not, I wanted to turn my attention to the second part of my rant and that is “Fat Kids”.

I am not going to be politically correct about this and this needs saying. Parents of this world need to buck their ideas up and stop making their kids FAT!!! If I have one pet hate it is this one.

I was recently on a break with my family and we were at Chessington World of Adventure in London and i saw a boy of I am guessing 10. He was the fattest kid I had ever seen, I couldn’t beleive what I was seeing. His head was so big you could hardly see his eyes and had man boobs that would make any glamour model jealous!! My anger was directed straight to the parents for letting this lad get into this state, I had to move away before my mouth got me into trouble. Emotions can have a habit of doing that before your reasoning kicks in! I also saw an even younger lad in the supermarket as recently as yesterday, who was well on the way to the same fate.

I had to actually stop myself from speaking my disgust in the metrocentre not long ago when i saw a parent force feeding a cap full of coke to a 6 month old baby, the baby didn’t even want it and was trying to turn away! I literally had to bite my tongue as the urge was so strong to tell this person how stupid she was being!

I am sure I am not the only one who notices this on a daily basis, I just got to a point where I had to get it off my chest.

There is just no need for this at all, The parents are at fault. There is just no excuse to let you kids get so big, there just isn’t. I mean who are the adults here? since when do we allow ourselves to be dictated to by kids? We as parents have a job to do and a responsibility look after our children and so if parents are going to give into kids demands over and over and let them have bags of sweets and fizzy pop, what are we teaching them?? Tough love people, we need to cut that shit out and start looking after the future of our world. If parents truly love their kids and I am sure the majority really do, then they need to MTFU and help them be the best they can be.

I couldn’t end this rant without commenting on the news story about McDonalds putting calory values on their food.

Do we really need to know that a Big Mac is 500 calories REALLY??? I cannot beleive that everyone thought that this food was ok until they said how many calories were in it. As I was watching the news i watched someone being interviewed for this story saying it was a good idea because now we will know what we are eating!!! SERIOUSLY??? you mean you didn’t know before that mcdonalds was crap?? and now you know you are gonna stop eating it?? I don’t think so. Humans have the uncanny knack of thinking that nothing can harm them, thats what happens to other people. Well I am sorry, we may be genetically different, but if you put garbage in, then garbage comes out and in this case, that can be all manner of ailments!

Everbody, no matter who they are needs to start dealing with the consequences of their actions, whilst they say ignorance is bliss, it really isn’t, it is a road to an unhealthy life, which can result in depression, anxiety, being overweight and a list of potential fatal diseases such as cancer.

The time is now to start getting healthy and looking after ourselves and our familys. Start taking responsibility for our actions, that means looking closer to home before looking to blame anything and every thing else. Only you can make the changes to lead a better, healthier life, why not start today!

Take Care

Dean

Fat Loss, Nutrition

Weight Loss v Fat Loss

Ok, I am going on a rant, I am getting so bored with all the school playground talk these days.

And before you think “hey how old is this guy?”

I will explain… I love what I do, helping and educating and serving people to lead a fitter, healthier life and as part of that lifestyle I have the privilage of taking my son to school every day and I love it!

However, What I am getting bored with is the constant drone of mothers spouting the same old crap about losing weight and counting points and “I lost 3 pounds this week, so I went and treated myself to a chocolate bar!” or “I haven’t eaten all day because i am saving up my points/sins for a chinese takeaway tonight!” WTF!!!!

This is seriously screwed up and needs to be addressed!

When did we stop using our brains to think about what food actually is and start buying into this super market hype that must clearly state that ready meals are the best thing for you or buying pre peeled and chopped veg is the way forward!!

We need to get a grip people!!

I mean come on, when did this go so wrong?

As part of the same conversation I hear the same people complaining that their diet isn’t working or it is working but only because people are starving themselves and they look ill or so and so has pilled on loads of weight since they stopped going to their local slimming club…

NO SHIT!

Then I hear the same people telling everyone that they go to the gym 3-4 times a week and every one is giving congratulatory comments, but they have remained the same shape for months! Going to the gym and nattering to your mates or sitting on a stationery bike with your favourite gossip mag does not a great body make!

Ok, so listen up people.

You can have the body you want and the fitness you require to keep up with you kids and the energy to get through your day with a spring in your step. But you have got to want it, want it so bad you can taste it and be prepared to work to get it and that is possible!

So here it is….

1. Make a positive step by actually being honest with yourself and ask searching questions about yourself as to why you are doing the things you are doing and getting the same results over and over.

2. Ask your self what you actually want and why you want it. It is no good saying you want to lose weight and get fit, you need to say how much weight and how fit, and why you want it! So I want to lose 2 stone and get fit enough to do my first 1/2 marathon. Or I want to lost 1 stone and be a size 10 to rock my wedding dress on my big day. These are the goals you have to set. Have the BIG picture in your mind, the more accurate you make it and the more you see it, the greater chance you will achieve it.

3. When you come up with that answer (say you want to lost 2 stone in weight in the next 3 months), you have got to ask yourself again, why do I want to do this? The reason why you have to is because fat loss (notice I didn’t say weight loss) is hard work and you know that, because if it wasn’t you wouldn’t have been struggling with it for so long. If you find a strong enough “Why”, then you will be able to figure out how you are going to get there.

4. Weight loss isn’t necessarily fat loss!! with doing crazy points diets, when you lose weight, it isn’t just fat, it is muscle and even bone density. These types of Diets actually promote malnutrition, SERIOUSLY, is that what you really want? By eating properly and consuming good wholesome food whilst exercising correctly, you can actually drop FAT, and did you know by training CORRECTLY, you gain muscle tone, and more muscles burn more calories at rest!

5. Training, is massively important to your sense of well being, however, exercise and how to do it are not created equal. Exercise that is structured and designed to increase the rate in which fat is burned is much better than just doing the same thing over and over. Metabolic resistance training is a great way to increase your fitness and providing an awesome way to burn through your fat stores.

6. At this point you will hear the excuses pouring in in your mind, “I can’t fit this in”, “I can’t handle the nutrition plan”, (notice how I didn’t say diet?), “exercise is too hard”. But guess what? this is just your mind (that you have trained) just repeating all past failures up to this point, a habit that you have been reinforcing and so your mind believes that has to be the way it is! But guess what? habits can be changed and through hard work and motivation you can change this habit so that it actually works for you and helps you achieve. You have got to Believe in the process for you to achieve what you want.

7. TAKE Action!! find somebody who will motivate you, somebody who has a proven track record in health and fitness and somebody who guarantees the results you seek!! It is no good going back doing what you always did, because you will get what you always have done. NO EXCUSES, hold yourself accountable, don’t settle for second best, Find the BEST!! Cheap and best DO NOT go together.

My clients already know this and that is why they get amazing results month after month, by attending every session, acting on every piece of advice, not eating crap food and being motivated!

You have to put the work and effort in to reap the rewards…..over to you!

rant over!

Dean

Mental Strength, Motivation

What is your Motivation?

There are times when people ask me about motivation and what drives me on to achieve the things I want to do. The thing is, I could tell you, but it would probably not resonate with you. Everyone is different and what motivates me won’t necessarily motivate you, even if our goals are similar. So you have to ask yourself…..”what are my goals?, what do I want to achieve? and how can I realise them?”

However, many people have dreams but few realise them and there are a variety of reasons and I find a lot of them are to do with fear.

Fear

Fear of failure, fear of losing friends, fear of success (after all success might be an unknown to you and mean the people you know and care about may resent the fact) and even fear of fear! Fear is a big driver on holding people back and even though this is about motivation, fear can stifle you dreams if you let it.

But wait, many people don’t realise than fear is just an emotion, a feeling, just as happiness is and sadness and anger. My point is is that fear cannot hurt you! in fact motivation is a big factor in overcoming your fear! the bigger the motivation the bigger the chance that despite feeling fear, you will do it anyway.

Motivation

Another reason for a lack of motivation is the result of your individual programming and who you associate with! Surrounding yourself with the right people has a massive influence on success. If you want to do something and everyone around you is telling you that you can’t, what do you think you will want to do? On the flip side, if everyone around you is full of encouragement, where do you think that could lead??

Two Motivation Types?

The other point on motivation is that there are two types. Internal and external.

External motivation is provided by other people giving inspirational speeches or talks, or a training partner or coach encouraging you to push hard to achieve your desired results. This is great to give you a kick start, but I am sure you have experienced that once you finish training or come away from a motivational talk, your motivation and desire can fade. Now I am not saying that it is pointless, it is far from it but after a while your inner voice will then fall back into how it is programmed and will start finding every reason why not to do something and encourage you to do what you have always done.

This is why you have to reinforce your desires through Internal Motivation!

I have mentioned on here before about your inner voice, your subconscious, which takes in every bit of information from around you, what you say and how you say it , what you listen to and see on the tv, what other people are saying and even what you are reading. It is like food for the brain and like food you can consume good stuff that keeps you healthy and Junk that makes you feel crap.

Because of that it is very easily to fall into a habit of capitulation that your inner voice will reinforce, just as you have programmed it to do.

Change your habits

The good news is that you can change the way you think to help sustain your motivation and to get exactly where you want to go. Change they way you speak, use more positive words, “keep going” is way more positive than “don’t stop”. Even though they are taken as meaning the same thing, one is a negative sentence and one is positive and your brain will read it as such.

Use positive affirmations about yourself, tell yourself how great you feel, how great you are. You may not beleive it, but your inner voice doesn’t judge and just accepts it! Pretty soon you will be able to change you old habits to new good habits that with push your motivation through the roof!

Make sure you are hanging around and talking to more like minded people more often, than comes under external motivation, but both internal and external go hand in hand to get you where you want to be.

Visualisation

One final technique is through the use of visualisation. Thinking about what you want achieve isn’t enough, but by using visualisation you think about it, but to the point that you see every detail of where you want to be, how it sounds, smells, looks like and how it feels. The more information you can use the more believable it is, especially to your brain.

Motivation is a great thing, DO NOT let yourself keep your dreams as dreams, REALISE THEM. Make it happen, find like minded people, Bin the media (TV and newspapers), read inspiring books by inspiring people, think positively and talk to yourself in positive way regardless whether you believe it and just see what happens!

I have added some links to some books I recommend on motivation from amazon…..

Take your life and move it forwards.

Take care

Dean

Conditioning, Endurance, General Physical Preparedness, Mental Strength, Strength

The Dirty Dozen – Conditioning Program

I find strength and conditioning has no bounds other than the imagination of the person creating it. Yes it helps if you have experience in this field as I do, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

This session will help you increase your strength endurance or functional strength and conditioning. it will also improve your general physical preparedness, or the ability to recover quickly after periods of intense exercise, whether that be high intensity interval training or resistance training.

The premise of this training session is a simple one.

Select 12 exercises and perform each one for 12 reps… Simple

But when does simple equate to easy 🙂

You can perform this anywhere, if you haven’t got access to a gym then get creative and use body weight. there is always a way.

I have performed this outside in temperatures below freezing and in gyms. it doesn’t matter where.

This principles of this session were actually devised by somebody else, so I take no credit them other than the effort I used to perform it. It is always good to learn from others, whether it is another idea of how to apply what you know or something completely different.

My friend from across the pond, Joe Hashey knows a thing or two about designing programs and being a bit off the wall in his training methods, so when I saw his idea for the dirty dozen training protocol as I pondered on a training session a few weeks back I thought that I had to give it a go.

So pick 12 exercises and perform 12 reps of each exercise, sounds easy right?

Well you would be wrong, the first time I tried this it kicked my ass, I was completely gassed. Lucky for me my general physical preparedness (GPP) is at a level where I can recover quickly between rounds. After 4 though I had had enough.

The program is designed to alternate between strength and conditioning exercises. Of course it isn’t an out and out max strength program and lends itself more to conditioning and strength endurance, but it makes for one hell of a training session. As Joe says, “it is more a method of training and is designed to be short, flexible with the equipment available and what you want to get out of it”.

Which Level?

Your fitness level will define the amount of rest you take. By splitting it up into 3 levels of difficulty it allows you to have your rest defined in advance so you know when to grasp some extra air.

Beginner

Pick 12 exercises, perform 2, rest 20 seconds and move onto the next 2 until the 12 are complete

1) Strength

2) Conditioning

REST 20 seconds and repeat 6 more times

Intermediate

Pick 12 exercises, perform 4, rest 20 seconds and move onto the next 4 until the 12 are complete

1) Strength

2) Conditioning

3) Strength

4) Conditioning

REST 20 seconds and repeat 3 more times

Advanced

Pick 12 exercises, perform 6, rest 20 seconds and move onto the next 6 until the 12 are complete

1) Strength

2) Conditioning

3) Strength

4) Conditioning

5) Strength

6) Conditioning

REST 20 seconds and repeat 1 more time

At the end of the 12 exercises, Rest for 60-90 seconds and repeat for 3-6 rounds depending on your fitness level. Make sure you push hard!!

My Dirty Dozen

I fired in an intermediate session with the following exercises, I have got a shiny new weight vest and decided this was the day I was gonna christen it. I am not sure that was the brightest idea but there you go 🙂

All the exercises were done wearing the vest:

Alternating Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Squat
Inverted strap row
Lunge jumps

REST 20 seconds

Pushups
Burpees
Alternating Dumbbell Rows
Squat jumps

REST 20 Seconds

Dumbbell squat thrust to RDL
Med Ball Slam
Dumbbell Curls
Full Jack knife (V sits ) sit ups

REST 60-90 seconds and repeat for 4 rounds

Man that weight vest made a BIG difference, it totally pushed me to my limit. Remember you can make this method up with any 12 exercises that you want.

Give it a go, post up the exercises and rest and rounds, make it a challenge!

Be strong, stay healthy

Dean

Conditioning, Mental Strength

Conditioning Accumulator

Hey there everyone, hope you are all having a great day!

Just had a great conditioning session and I thought I would share it with you.

I always like to challenge myself with new routines to keep things fresh, Sometimes you have just got to think out side the box and change things up every now and then. The principle for this conditioning session being an interval accumulator.

What the hell are you on about I hear you cry? well it is simple. Pick an exercise that you want to focus on (in this case I used the heavy bag, but it could just as well be any exercise), but to break it up add or “accumulate” more exercises in between. So after every round keep adding another exercise to it to make it harder and to push you that bit further. It is too easy to pick easy exercises and not push yourself. Remember the harder you go the more rewards you will reap.

This is the conditioning circuit I did, The heavy bag conditioning accumulator. Not everyone has access to a heavy bag, so it could easily have been push ups or squats or burpees. But please remember that it is this exercise that you will do the most of. For me I wanted the session to move fast with big body movements and get plenty bag work in.

Lets get on with it, here it is…..

Heavy Bag Accumulator:

30 seconds per exercise with 10 seconds between exercises (this is really to just get into position so it doesn’t cut into your interval time for the next exercise).

Start with Heavy bag, you could keep the bag work the same or mix it up to keep it interesting. I like to add speed work and power punching, basic movements but are still gruelling and then do an “all in” round where anything goes. Then add an exercise after it and so on.

i.e.

Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, (Rest 30 secs)
Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, Bag, Rope, (Rest 30 secs)
Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, Bag, Rope, Bag, Squat, (Rest 30 secs)
Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, Bag, Rope, Bag, Squat, Bag, Med Ball Burpee, (Rest 30 secs)
Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, Bag, Rope, Bag, Squat, Bag, Med Ball Burpee, Bag, MB Squat jumps, (Rest 30 secs)

As you can see the intensity of the session increases as you go on and it requires you to push through your fatigue to keep on track.

The whole thing can be completed it 20-25 minutes, so there are NO excuses for lack of time!

Stay strong

Dean

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