“I just can’t quite…”

How many times do you start a sentence off with that?!

I know I do – when you’re almost there but can’t quite finish the job.

You feel like everything’s weighing down on you and you just can’t move forward!

What are we even talking about here?

Your squat depth?

Losing that last half a stone?

Finishing all those little jobs?

Getting your business where you want it to be?

We all hit the wall sometimes and wonder which way to turn so here’s my top 10 ways to break 10 annoying sticking points in life.

NUTRITION

1) I can’t get fat loss STARTED even though I diet.

If you struggle to lose weight it is 100% a problem with your hormones and / or digestion. It’s all one and the same eventually but we’ll think of it as two separate issues

Do the following:

Realise that if you are stressed by finances, work, money, permanent low calorie dieting and crap food, your digestive system won’t work properly.

Stress affects the adrenal glands which produce testosterone for essential muscle growth, adrenaline for hard exercise and produce cortisol which when chronically high or low will stop you losing body fat.

Chill out. Stop killing yourself. Stop berating yourself for killing yourself. The stress of stressing about stress is stressful.

Stop eating so much and so often. You’ll become leptin resistant making you permanently hungry and slowing your thyroid gland down. Slow thyroid = slow metabolic rate.

Also realise that stress reduces the effectiveness of your stomach and liver as digestive and fat burning machines. This makes calorie counting, ‘points plans’ and all diets not based on health inaccurate and can just make things worse because you worry about them!

Focus on satisfying your bodies cries for MICRONUTRIENTS (vitamins and minerals from natural foods) rather than focussing on amounts of MACRONUTRIENTS (carbs, fat and protein) and watch your energy levels and body change!

I’ll be talking about all these factors, how to recognise them and what to do at the Fat Loss Revolution Seminar in Guernsey on 31st March 2011

2) I find healthy eating so stressful and I can never keep it going.

It’s because you haven’t thought it through.

Take 2-3 hours to write out a nutrition plan for the week based on what you DO like in terms of fruit, vegetables and lean, organic, free range animal produce. Focus on being able to eat lots of those things that you DO love rather than seeing it as deprivation.

As you go on, your body will start to appreciate natural flavours again and you’ll start liking new things. Give it time.

Often when people diet they think it’s just about vegetables and end up starving!!!

Eat more avocado, almond butter, coconut oil, coconut milk and small doses of nuts.

If you get hungry at first, have a rice and pea protein shake.

3) I don’t have time to prepare food even though I really want to eat healthy. Every time I try it only lasts a few days.

You do have time it’s just currently wasted on pointless activities.

Write out a 24 hours diary then every day for 7 days write down what you did with your time.

Ensure the following and see what time is freed up either end of the day:

- Only check your emails twice per day and Facebook once per day

- Don’t watch TV unless you want to watch a sports event, inspiring film or comedy show that will make you smile

- Keep phone calls to 3 minutes long. If you know the caller is going to talk mindless drivel down the phone or moan about life, don’t answer.

- Go to bed 15 minutes earlier and get up 15 minutes earlier.

- Instead of reading the newspaper which will just depress you, spend that 15 minutes, steaming, chopping and washing vegetables and grilling some organic fish or meat.

- Boil organic, free range eggs whilst you shower. Enough for a couple of days.

TRAINING

4) I can’t get stronger on a particular exercise

First, you need to appreciate that strength training and ‘doing weights’ are not always the same thing.

Doing 3 sets of 10 every week but just trying harder to do more reps or lift more weight won’t do much for training the nervous patterns required to lift more weight!

Each week do a different rep range that add up to 15-20 reps with no set being more than 5 reps for instance:

Week 1 – 5 x 4 reps

Week 2 – 8 x 1 reps

Week 3 – 6 x 3 reps

The first 3-5 sets are ‘building sets’ as an extended warm up with the last 3 being the heavy , hard sets which REALLY challenge you to complete them.

This applies to ladies as much as men!

Alternatively, rather than flogging a dead horse, ride a different, but similar horse for a while.

This is me training with band resistance to help improve my squats. Looks weird – works a treat!

Take a different angle at the same problem and watch your body respond.

5) Injuries keep plaguing my training

Again stop flogging a dead horse.

If you live in Guernsey, come and see me for an Integrated Movement Therapy session.

This will improve your mobility and movement, nearly always resulting in reduced joint and muscle pain enabling you to get more out of your training.

Check this out to see what I mean.

6) I’ve stopped enjoying the gym so I stopped and have slipped back again – I never seem to really get anywhere.

Take a new approach.

The chances are you’re doing what you’re doing because you read it somewhere which said it was popular.

Don’t do things just because it’s the norm. Stick your head out and have a look around.

You don’t HAVE to ‘burn fat and build muscle’. You don’t HAVE to ‘pump iron’. You don’t HAVE to do aerobics.

Do what you enjoy because of the results it brings mentally and physically.

Alternatively, take time out from the gym. Learn a new sport or learn to move in a different way. I want to improve my own movement so committed to a workshop with the guy in the video below.

Remember that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Time out from what you used to love which has gone stale will help you come back meaner ready to surge on!

BUSINESS AND LIFE

7) My business is so stressful and I feel like jacking it in – I’m just getting nowhere.

I’m a business man as well as a trainer and coach so I understand.

Owning a business is like having a kid!

Sometimes it hurts you, sometimes you don’t know where to turn, but you love it.

Remember that this is your life.

Take time out to understand what your life looks like right now.

If you don’t like something change it – no-one else will.

Do you want an empty feeling in your stomach when you’re sat on your veranda at 75 having lost the people who loved you and having not done those things your young self saw and promised you?

Life is short.

If it’s not working for you, re-establish what you really want from life. If your business trajectory has veered off, recoil. Start again if you need to but don’t keep trudging on.

I feel so alone at times like no-one else cares about my skills and services

Look at the people around you.

Your job is not to build a business but to find the people to do it for you. One man (or woman) can only do so much on their own.

Look at who surrounds you – they are the ones carrying your dreams on their shoulders.

Stop over analyzing and let go sometimes. Find the right people and let them create something for you.

I’m rubbish at this, but when I do I feel 100kg’s lighter.

You can’t carry the world and you can’t change it on your own.

But you are an important cog in the machine so never give up. Someone somewhere needs you!

9) I always feel like I’m spinning my wheels and drifting

Spend money on yourself.

ON yourself.

This means it should give you the ability to make yourself and others wealthier, happier or healthier multiple times over. Not just once.

This goes for food quality, self-development courses and material things. Everything gets boring except feeling great!

And don’t wait until you have enough money to do it comfortably.

Doing things you love and things which develop you personally ALWAYS open doors. It’s how the world works.

At some point you’ll have to trust me on that one because it’s a big leap of faith. But once you’ve done it once, you’ll find yourself constantly jumping and watching everyone else below!

10) Nothing excites me anymore

You probably work in a glorified cage, with low oxygen air pumping around it, staring at a screen, surrounded by people who are more miserable than you.

This energy sapping environment combined with a likely dose of adrenal fatigue if your stress levels are high can leave you feeling like you just don’t give a @*%± about anything anymore. If your hormones are so out of line that your thyroid isn’t firing on all cylinders you are likely to experience those feelings of ‘just do what you want to me – I don’t care”.

BE the change you want to see.

And see the changes! Their are MILLIONS of opportunities around you but you need to open your mind to them and stop finding every reason why they don’t apply to you.

They’re waiting for someone – it might as well be you.

Always ask yourself what you have to lose – most of the time it’s not as much as you first thought and the likelihood of failure is usually WAY less likely than we think!

Ask the next person you see what their passion is – what excites them? They are probably wondering, like you, why no one else shares their passion.

Even if you have no interest in their hobbies, seeing someone excited and happy will get you going again.

And stop watching TV – it will make you miserable!

Come and surround yourself with other people who want to change their lives whilst they still can at the Guernsey Fitness Camp and the Fat Loss Revolution Seminar in Guernsey on 31st March 2011

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