Training Machines

THE RIGHT FUEL FOR THE JOB

Diet plays a key role in everything we do. Fact. Put the wrong fuel in our bodies and we hamper our performance. 

Skipping meals or taking in poor nutrition too much of the time, will effect our overall mood and energy levels. Whereas, eating unprocessed food, such as fresh fruit & vegetables, coupled with lean protein-rich nutrients taken from premium sources such as nuts & beans, wild fish, grass-fed beef, other lean organic meats and poultry, we can transform our bodies, heal injuries, improve physical/mental wellbeing - enhancing memory function, mood, sleep quality and generate increased vitality to do all the things we enjoy in life. 

Combine this nutrititious diet with a consistent exercise programme of weights, along with an active 20-30 minutes of running, swimming, cycling or walking - and we have a greater chance of making a ripe old age.

Acting On Knowledge

Jack Lalanne was a man way ahead of his time. He was widely recognised as one of the early pioneers for the fitness industry and a real inspiration for anyone at any age, to transform their lives through diet and exercise.

Jack was a real showman. He acompished some amazing physical feats in his 70 year career and was a major advocate of regular exercise combined with a healthy diet. One without the other was never good enough. His interviews, sharimg knowledge about how to stay fit and healthy, are really easy to follow. It's all pretty simple. Eat fresh, un-processed foods including fruit, veg and fish (he was mostly a vegetarian but ate fish and eggs). Exercise every day with a routine of strength training including 30 minutes of blood pumping activity - either a swim or a walk. And that's it! This life-enhancing advice was being shared through his TV show and with everyone else who would listen from 50-60 years ago. And he was still advocating his advice for a healthier life, by doing his daily routine right up until the day he died at 95 years of age. If someone so obviously clued-up and living proof of the valuable information he shared with us, still couldn't get through to enough of the sick and overweight population, then there must be something wrong?

Unfortunately, there is something fundamentally wrong. We all have the potential. Many already have the knowledge. We know what needs to be done - and yet, many of us don't do it! According to one of my favourite modern day thinkers, Alain de Botton, (in his own words), 'We suffer from what ancient Greek philosophers termed 'akrasia', a perplexing tendency to know what we should do combined with a persistent reluctance actually to do it, whether through weakness of will or absent-mindedness. We all possess wisdom that we lack the strength properly to enact in our lives.'

Turn Up The Volume

Frequency is the key. Consistent, daily exercises - no matter if it's light - is better than no exercise at all. Plan to do something every day. You don't even need to belong to a gym. There's many activities that count as exercise, which can easily be increased in intensity to give a better work out. Some of these include walking, doing housework, travelling to/from work and picking up the groceries. 

Gym's offer more scope for the many types of muscle training - plus it's already a psychological advantage to be in a place already primed for fitness. The hardest thing about the gym though, is stepping foot in one. However, once we are in a training environment, the motivation required to do the work - if it can't come from ourselves - can easily be attained through a group class or via a personal trainer. 

But it's no use hitting the gym hard one day a week/fortnight and breaking yourself or thinking that's going to be enough work. It's far better to do something more manageable every day and better still, carried out first thing in the morning. There's fewer excuses for skipping it. Also, if we've eaten well the night before, the body is already primed to work hard. If there's space, then do a little routine at home or on the way to work. Otherwise, make the gym easy to get to on the way to work/home or choose one close by so you can go in lunchtimes. Once there, don't ever worry about the other people's output - focus on your own training and keep the output as high as possible without breaking yourself. If you can add 1 hour per day in total for moderate exercise (including walking, taking the stairs two at a time instead of lifts/escalators etc.), then potentially, there's an extra 100-200 calories being burned off. 

If we keep the regular daily exercises at a moderate intensity, plus monitor the diet/calorie intake to be the same, it will mean a steady weight loss, improved overall fitness, lower cholesterol, toned muscles, greater energy, better sleep and new lifestyle change that becomes the 'norm' over time. And if we can do this every day for the rest of our lives....the rest of our lives will be potentially a lot longer than they would have been without becoming a training machine.