I have to declare from the outset that this is one of my most disliked shows on TV (yes I have watched half an episode of the USA version but had to turn it off in disgust after that) but I am very aware that opinions are completely polarised – you either love everything about it or, like me, dislike it intensely and all it stands for.

So, given my hostility I was very surprised when doing some research to come across Charlotte Ord as one the trainers on the UK version (which I must hasten to add I have NEVER watched, the combination of the premise behind the show and Davina McColl presenting are just too much for my taste!). Charlotte was one of the first female fitness presenters on TV that I watched especially as the programmes she presented were based around the stuff I was doing in the early days including  TRX, Kettlebell and another couple about rest and recovery using foam rollers. I admired her training style and it was so useful to see normal people doing the Kettlebell exercises that I couldn’t get my head round.  It inspired me and helped with tweaks to my technique, making it all that little bit easier.

Judging by some of the comments on her blog other people were surprised too that she agreed to train on the show; I can see what the show gets out of  it, after all she was Personal Trainer of the Year 2010, and her style is very different to Jillian Michaels but apart from the exposure does the association with things like this damage a trainers brand or? Or, at the end of the day does that really matter as long as more people know about fitness, training and what you can offer?

Looking at her posts recently she does seem to be aware of how the show is portrayed and there is definitely a hint of disappointment that the hard work, training, stretching and rolling don’t make the final edit – all of which go to perpetuate the myth that weight loss is easy and all that matters is pounds lost.  There is just so much more to it than that and it would have been good to have a trainer like Charlotte lead from the front and try to change some of the appalling myths that hamper people from healthier lifestyle changes.

This really isn’t meant to be a criticism of Charlotte Ord who I actually think is really good but rather my dislike of such an exploitative show and my disappointment, I guess, that someone I kind of admire is associated with something I dislike so intensely.

By way of a bit of balance, check our her blog above there are some really interesting articles on fitness trends for 2012 as well as bodyweight exercises at home.

I was lucky enough to attend the ‘Get the life you want’ seminar last year presented by Paul McKenna and Richard Bandler and to see the inspirational quality of their work was amazing.  Paul knows how to hold a room but the experience of c1000 people being put into a trance at the same time was incredible. The positive messages he installed then have stayed with me and I cannot recommend him enough.

Check out the short BBC clip and if you have the chance try either of his books/CDs “I can make you confident” or “I can make you thin” even if you don’t follow all the exercises they give you some useful tools to start to think about

BBC – Five minutes with Paul McKenna 

Reblogged from NoTimeToW8:

If you are one of the millions of Americans who drink diet soda because you think it is a healthier alternative to regular soda, you may want to reconsider opening that next can of diet pop. A new study which has been published by the Journal of General Internal Medicine has shown that drinking diet soda on a daily basis increases your chances of having a stroke or heart attack significantly. …

Another thought provoking post from Brett; personally I can’t stand soda (diet or otherwise) but I think I will be sending this onto my teenage children!

• Pass my L2 PT accreditation exams
• Pass my L3 PT exams
• Complete my NLP Practitioner course
• Complete marketing and branding for new business
• Develop website with on-line library or resources for clients
• Start actually seeing clients
• Develop NLP therapy business as a complement to PT
• Complete NLP Master Practitioner course
• Develop my own coaching and training materials for NLP courses

So, given that I already have my hands full why on earth do I need to give myself the added pressure of developing another set of goals as well? Well, as a self-confessed introvert (see my post entitled Are you an introvert or and extrovert?) I am results driven and goal oriented – what makes me happy is seeing results, achieving things and given the level of dissatisfaction I have despite how much I have achieved this year, being clearer on what I really want can only a good thing!

In that case, what do I REALLY REALLY want to have achieved in fitness and/or weight loss in 12 months time – what is the real honest answer to that one?  What would make me happy? What would make me proud and satisfied at my accomplishments?

If I looked like Belinda Benn I would be quite happy! In all seriousness I know that isn’t going happen for a whole load of reasons including I think I have too much on my plate to devote the time and attention needed to do it but I do know now that age isn’t a barrier it’s what goes on in our minds that holds us all back!

So, goals, hmm a few suggestions;

• I would LIKE to lose at least the last 7lbs (OK KP I know its not 7lbs any more and no I wasn’t moving the goalpost again! I would be happy if I lost the last bit – if I lost more than that I would be very proud. I know its no big deal really but the plateau I have stuck at bothers me more than the weight to be really honest.
• I want to get my BFP at least into the healthy zone, and preferably into the athletic area. I would like at least one external measure to reflect how hard I work
• I want to be wearing a UK size 10 (with a little flexibility, I do have curves you know?!) so, realistically thats hips, thighs and waist,
• I want to be able to do at least 10 proper pull ups or chin ups or whatever you want to call them, unassisted.
• I want to be able to bench press significantly more than I can do now. I have no idea of what I am capable of ; I can do 12kg normally as part of a programme  but I have no idea how much MORE I am capable of (think that one is for you KP!)
• I want to be able to do 20 or more press ups, easily, without complaining , without stopping and without it hurting or losing my form.  I want to feel happy and confident about doing them and not freaked out!
• I want some abs – not some amazing fitness model abs just the kind that means I can train in a bra or crop top and feel happy and confident.
• I want to be able to wear short shorts to the gym, not the teeny tiny obscene kind but normal off the shelf short Reebok shorts without feeling like a heffalump in them!
• In short, and I know this isn’t measurable in any way, I want my body to be an inspiration to the people that I train

OMG I have a suspicion that I  may have just given myself a crazy amount of work to do and although I know it’s all do-able  easily achievable within a year, part of me still thinks I must be mad to actually come and say what I want and to do it so publicly!

So, there you go, my first attempt at goal setting for fitness for 2012 – one set of seemingly BIG, HUGE one-year goals; the next thing is to break them down into bite size chunks to decide what I can do each month or three months to deliver my overall goal.  And for that I think I will need some input from my trusty (and really quite amazing!) trainer! Over to you KP!

At the beginning of my diet, health and fitness search I wouldn’t eat breakfast at all thinking that I was saving calories and convinced that I ate less overall by not eating first thing.  The days when I did actually manage to eat breakfast were when I had been awake for hours and breakfast would usually consist of yet another cup of coffee accompanied by (on a good day porridge with butter and sugar) or on a bad day white toast, crumpets or something similar. Always followed up a couple of hours later by something sweet and hoping I could just get through until lunch!

A very early change to my diet was getting my head around the concept of eating breakfast (a) at all and (b) within an hour of waking up both of which were a real challenge to the way I thought about food. I have been slowly changing my diet over the last year and trying to get better at eating clean – I never ate lots of processed food or ready meals but the culprits for me were flour (in anything from bread to pasta), white rice, potatoes and obviously sugary stuff.

As the year has gone on I have made small changes which really affected my diet; I drastically cut down the coffee, I don’t eat anything with wheat flour in anymore, I started to eat more meals throughout the day and to cut down or cut out all the stuff which either made me feel bad or was bad for my diet or health.

To begin with breakfast was the choice of whole grain porridge with organic whole peanut butter (now I have the same but also have this with berries as well) or Greek yoghurt (10% fat) with fresh berries and a seed mix and I sort of alternated between those two with possibly eggs as a weekend option.

Anyway, as a result of reviewing my diet a couple of weeks ago and realising how little protein I was eating (40g per day) I started to realise that James Duigan’s (The Clean and Lean Cookbook) idea of a high protein breakfast of meat wasn’t such a bad idea – even if it seemed a completely alien concept! Who would have thought that within a couple of weeks my breakfast’s for the week would include;

• Steak, spinach and mushrooms
• Salmon and broccoli
• Gammon steak and scrambled eggs
• Chicken and spinach
• Scrambled eggs with salmon and spinach

Not many people around me know I am eating a higher protein diet and most people wouldn’t understand how or why I am eating like this but I cannot believe how different I feel for it.  Quite simply protein fills you up, a reasonable size portion of protein and vegetables will fill you until the next meal with no need or desire to snack and despite feeling so full the calorie count is really low.

And, training as hard as I have been I know that I need to make sure I am fuelling my body with the substances it needs to build strong healthy muscles – good, clean, lean protein. Increasing my protein and reducing my starchy carbs seemed like such a simple change and I am now such a convert that I really enjoy my breakfasts and really look forward to my steak (this from the person who probably only ate read meat about 2-3 times A YEAR!) and I have managed to get my protein intake up from a quite pathetic 40g per day to somewhere around 100g most days.

If there is one thing I have learnt from all of this it is to be open minded, to be receptive to new ideas and to be prepared to challenge and change your old habits, routines and perceptions – there may just be a better way of doing things that will get you to your goals just that bit faster and help you live a healthier life.

So, I thought, why don’t I try and capture all the changes to my body that sum up what I have done, all the seemingly insignificant things that make me smile, that no one else notices or comments on.

• I have collar bones – not seen them for I dont know how many years but I can see them now quite clearly
• My arms are firm, they don’t wobble. I actually have biceps!
• I can feel my hip bones, when I was bigger they were hidden under layers of clothes and fat but now I reassure myself by seeing how much more I can feel
• I can see my ribs – not all of them and not in some OMG look at you kind of way but yep they are beginning to peek through
• My legs have some shape to them; my thighs seem to be firm (still find that kind of amazing!) not perfect but they certainly don’t wobble they way they used to!
• I have more shape, muscle and definition across my shoulders; when I wear a strappy top that shows my shoulders and arms my shape definitely says that I go the gym; that was what I always wanted.
• My shoulders look wider and my waist looks narrower – I was always quite curvy but its become more noticeable lately and I do like going in and out in all the right places!
• My butt is without doubt higher and firmer than it was – aside from just being smaller (Yeay!) it feels fab, if I say so myself!
• I love the way I can look in clothes now, give me a pair of heels and the right outfit and the confidence is sky high. Age is soo just a number!
• My least favourite part was always and still is my stomach but even I have to admit its so much better than it was.
• Oh and my upper abdomen -the bit in-between my boobs and my stomach is kind of amazing. Its tiny now.
• I love not having back fat – women, you know what I mean!
• I have shape and definition in my calves – they look fab when I wear heels and as my legs have got better its got easier to wear skirts just that little bit shorter!

Just read that back and I have to say I am amazing! I am a 40+ year old woman with two grown up children I have largely raised myself, a full time job, a house and a burgeoning new career – why the heck do I doubt myself?! I made these changes happen, I stuck with it and all the good stuff there are the things I achieved.

I should read that back every time I doubt myself or question my ability or my achievements - feel free to remind me of my blessings now and then!

This week has been a really tough training week, incredibly intense, emotional and hopefully worthwhile.

Having changed my training days last week my first training day was Monday, which just felt kind of weird, I mean, I never train on a Monday, it completely threw my week out! Anyway, Monday night was my first night doing the metabolic stuff on my own and I hated it. Its one thing to push yourself to the gasping-for-air-cant-do-anymore-stage and quite another to keep yourself at the same level for the whole programme; by half way I was struggling to even lift the weights above my head and as for push-ups, well they were a complete disaster.  Felt as if I had gone back several months and could barely even lower myself an inch!  Finished the programme somewhat grudgingly and headed off home.

Wednesday was PT and although I had a few aches and stiff muscles from training and more likely, from being sat at a desk all day I was sort of looking forward to it.  Well that was a mistake if ever I saw one – one of the toughest workouts I have ever done, it pushed me completely to the point of failure, my muscles were burning and I was gasping for air. I know my recovery rate is pretty good now and it only takes a few minutes to get my breath back and the heart rate down but boy, was it tough. Really silly thing is they are all exercises I have been doing for months and in my head I expected it to be within my capabilities; lunges, TRX squat and pull, squat and upright row – nothing complicated and no really heavy weights but the combination of 30 seconds on and 10 seconds rest is a real killer.

Thursday is my programme day and having experienced Monday and Wednesday I sort of knew what I was letting myself in for – or so I thought.  Kieran had written me a new programme taking into account the stuff I had said after the previous two sessions (no weighted lunges as they seem to hurt my knee and no barbell squats as the timing is all off) so I knew it would simple exercises and as Jeremy Clarkson et al says “how hard can it be?”

OMG OMG OMG – if I thought the two previous sessions were hard, they were a walk in the park compared with this one.  From the very beginning I had to really push myself to finish the 30 seconds and 10 seconds is nowhere near enough time to get enough air into your lungs.  The first few were ok, started with squat and upright row with a kettlebell and moved onto lunges and then TRX squat and pull, so far so good.  Hard but do-able. The killer started with kettlebell swings with a 16kg bell – I used to love doing this and how effective it is as a whole body exercise but doing it Tabata-style is horrendous. By the last set I could barely lift it let alone swing and trying to get enough air into my lungs in 10 seconds was simply impossible.

By the time I finished both parts of the programme I was exhausted, completely wiped out. Started to stretch and suddenly I burst into tears, feeling very silly I drove home sobbing all the way! A hot bath later I simply didnt even have enough energy to make any food or drink and had to rely on my wonderful son to wait on me.  I cannot believe how totally and utterly exhausted I was, I fell asleep at 9.30 (very rock n roll!) and stayed there until I woke up on Friday for work.

Friday was a rest day and to be honest, that’s pretty much all I did – oh that and eat! Muscles are stiff  and need a good stretch tonight but not sure how the energy levels will be tomorrow for my double session.

Not sure whether I actually enjoyed this week or whether I should view it as a form of torture – I guess if I get the results I wont really care!

When I started this journey (oh that phrase is really beginning to grate!) I had only the vaguest, sketchiest idea of what I wanted to achieve or why; I wanted to be fitter, healthier and if I lost weight that would be a bonus because underneath it all, in hindsight, I think that was what I wanted.

But I never gave a thought to what I actually wanted to achieve; how much fitter, to do what? Stronger in what way? And as for the weight I never even gave it a conscious thought just a vague idea that I wanted to lose a couple of stone but no idea or understanding of how long that would take, what my idea weight would be or why.

I sit here looking back at the year and at what I have achieved and attempting to understand my dissatisfaction with my achievements, its obvious that the lack of clear goals and an understanding of why they were important has hampered my progress. I tell people all the time  both at work and in my personal life, if we don’t know where we are going how do we know when we get there – and here I am having done exactly what I tell others not to do! How can I judge whether the year has been a success or not when the measures by which I am judging myself are ones which I didn’t even know existed 12 months ago? How can I complain that I am dissatisfied with my progress when I didn’t even know what I wanted to get out of training in the first place?

For those of you who have started on the weight loss or fitness journey or who are about to embark, ask yourself the following questions, which incidentally I didn’t ask myself:

• What specifically do you want to achieve and why?
• How much weight do you want to lose, why and by when?
• What happens if you get to the target date and you havent reached your goal, how will that make you feel?
• What is the measure of success, how do you define it?

So completely back to basics with goal setting – definitions and explanations.  Goals provide a sense of direction and a purpose or reason for doing it so if we have a goal, when things are getting tough it helps to understand why we are doing what we are doing.  A goal is, quite simply, an objective or an aim – it provides a focus and may assist in developing strategies to reach the outcome.

OK, that’s the theory but how much of it have I actually done?  Very little if I am honest.  I had a vague idea of what I wanted (very general and any specifics were things I hadn’t even admitted to myself) which changed again and again as the year went on and I began to think of what might be possible.  Every time I had a sense of the direction I was going I didn’t stop and define the actual destination, time-scale or route by which I would get there with the end result of not being satisfied at any progress, always feeling that there should have been more.

Why didn’t I set myself goals even ones I kept to myself?  People don’t set goals through a lack of understanding why they are important, being unsure of how to set them, fear of failing to reach a goal or not being sure of what they want to achieve. As for me I think, with the wonderful benefit of perfect hindsight that I didn’t understand why it was important to be clear, I didn’t know what I wanted to achieve and worst of all, a fear of failing.  Not a good start was it?!

The really weird thing though is for all the woollyness in goal setting as far as weight loss and exercise is concerned I have been really clear over what I wanted to achieve both in my career and in studying – I set myself a really clear one year plan and then broke it down into smaller mini goals all of which when put together will deliver the overall plan.  As I reached each milestone there has been a real sense of satisfaction knowing I am on the right path and can see how what I do today helps me to reach my goal and when things have gone slightly astray (something gets delayed or I dont quite get the result I want) I understand and know how to readjust my approach and my plan to get back on track.

How can I be so focused and aware of goal setting and planning in other areas of my life and fail to spot that I wasnt doing the same thing in an area that means so much to me?  Definitely a bit of a D’oh moment!

When I started this, my intention was to document the good and the bad as part of my health and fitness journey, to include the challenges which trip me up (such as my wobble over the BFP) as well as the good days (like Wednesday) as well as to include some bits and pieces from respected contributors found as part of my on-going education (such as the stuff from Charles Poliquin). It is only now that I have stated to think I should be using my newly acquired skills to motivate, inform, educate and inspire – despite the pretentiousness of that statement it really is something I WANT to do.

I decided last year that I was so inspired and motivated by everything that was happening to me that I wanted to be able to share that with others, hence my decision to study to be a PT and to develop my own personal training and NLP therapy business. I want to be able to share my experiences in losing weight and getting fit and to try and help other people, I want to motivate people to get the results I have seen both in my fitness levels as well as the emotional highs I have experienced. I want to help people find what has been holding them back in their lives and to reach their real potential  - life is SOO amazing and we should all try to be the best we can be.

Nobody can choose to be perfect but all of us can choose to be better

So in the spirit of that I choose to be better, better at sharing, better at informing and better at blogging! I will endeavour to try and post some good informative articles written by me and based on all the good stuff  I have read, learnt, researched. No idea how good, how successful a writer I am but all I can do is try my best. Fingers crossed!

I have achieved so much this year – which is coincidentally my one year gym anniversary, go me! – that I cannot believe I am the same person. I started this journey overweight, unfit, unhappy and feeling, above anything else, old and fat, as if life was passing me by.

I was lucky enough to join the Gym and have been given so much help, advice, support and encouragement that I sit here today feeling as if I can conquer the world. Not only have I lost most of the weight (OK there is still about 7lbs to go – or not depending if I have my practical head on!) but I feel as if I have been given another life. There is just so much out there to do, to achieve, to see, to conquer, that there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all the things I want.

I am studying hard for my PT exams and looking forward to my NLP course with Richard Bandler in May and every day I think of new business ideas, opportunities, directions I want to go in. Spending time with my daughter is always liberating, its fascinating to get a  21-year-old perspective on things and I really must schedule a complete wardrobe revamp with her, I need to update my look to better reflect the person I am becoming not the person I was.

Life just feels amazing today and I love every bit of it.  Yes there are challenges and set backs but if we didn’t experience the dark how would we see the stars?!

I love who I am becoming and rather than fear the future I am embracing it wholeheartedly.  If this is what good diet, exercise, friends and challenges can feel like someone should bottle it, they would make a fortune and the gyms would all be packed ALL the time!

If I could give one piece of advice to the me last year (or to anyone struggling with that first step) just go for it.  Yes its scary and yes its hard but each one of the tiny steps you take along the way will build into a complete journey that will take you, truly, to infinity and beyond…..!