Change is uncomfortable and unfortunately not many people are able to actually relish challenges and unless they have total control over everything and know exactly what life is going to be like tomorrow, they get anxious, fearing the worst.

As a result we often end up repeating actions even if deep down we know they are about as useful as a inflatable dartboard.

Worse, we know they’re messing us up but we just can’t stop doing them.

This happens because we allow our lives to ‘get busy’. Our society now seems to value and congratulate those who are busy and have lots going on.

The problem is that when we have no time to think and reflect we become more spontaneous.

In itself spontaneity isn’t a bad thing and in the days of sabre tooth tigers was quite useful, but the more spontaneous our actions the more they tend to reflect our habits and deep rooted beliefs.

Depending what those beliefs are we then become moronic and end up doing the same stuff day-in, day-out because we don’t have time to think and realise that what we are doing is any of the following:

- Useless

- Destructive

- Misdirected

In the fitness world this is why we see people doing the same things day after day in the gym and getting nowhere, yet they continue to pay gym membership and continue to keep doing the same things.

I don’t believe anyone is so stupid that they can’t see when things aren’t working but because they have made themselves so busy that they don’t have time to think about alternatives or another direction, they just keep trudging the same path, hoping one day that path will magically lead to the end of the rainbow.

The path becomes comfortable and because we have such low standards and expectations of what we are capable of, we stick with it.

Well I hope you’re reading this because you want more and you know you can be better!

So I’m going to give your life some structure by showing you my beliefs on what you should be doing, how often and for how long.

If this is going to work for you, you need to do all you can to release existing beliefs and just trust me. When you see this working, your deep-rooted beliefs that have been shaped by the media, friends, family and childhood ‘education’ will begin to change but ONLY if you do this day-after-day for weeks on end to re-program yourself.

Every Minute

1) Be aware of your reactions to situations. You create any stress you see through your reaction. Whenever you feel anger, retaliation, jealousy, lust or greed emerging, pull back and just let it go. You’ll be happier and attract the people you need in your life.

2) Be ready to walk away. You don’t have to eat, say, do, buy or listen to ANYTHING or ANYONE.

3) Be aware of the kick ass people and things that happen to you. Ignore the negative ones. Be thankful for it and you’ll get more.

4) Be aware how shallow your breathing is. Take 20 deep breaths and that shit storm you just saw will look more like a fart in a bottle.

Every Hour

5) Stretch your neck, chest and hips flexors.

6) Extend your spine fully 10 times.

7) Rotate fully to both sides 10 times.

Every Day

Spend 20-60 minutes reading fiction or comedy.

9) Read your goals out loud morning and evening then go do something that requires full concentration. Write down the answers that pop in your head soon after. Your subconscious will keep working will your conscious brain is occupied.

10) Lie in bed for 5 minutes and write down the answers you formed overnight whilst sleeping.

11) Get to bed by 2230

12) Take 5-10g of fish oils

13) Take one step towards each of your goals no matter how small it is.

14) Eat 70-120g of lean protein.

15) Drink 2-3 litres of filtered water.

16) Spend 30-60 minutes outside

17) Get 15-30 minutes of direct sunshine or take a Vitamin D supplement if you live under a cloud!

18) Do something active. Either train hard or if it’s a rest day perform active recovery such as swimming, skipping, shadow boxing, running in knee-high water, foam rolling or stretching.

19) Think who you need to be in contact with to move closer to your goals. Contact them, making sure you are trying your hardest to do something for THEM.

20) Do 20 full depth squats – you’ll thank me when you’re 80 and your best friends at Bridge Club need someone to help them take a sh*t.

21) Drink a greens drink

22) Can’t sleep? Take a magnesium supplement.

23) Listen to your body after eating food. If you get irritable bowels, mucus reactions or suddenly feel tired, make a note not to eat that food any more.

24) Turn the TV off and read – protect your mind and time more. Time is limited and you can’t change that, but your mind has a lot more it can do beyond watching stories about other people’s false lives.

25) Eat more fats and vegetables and less carbs.

26) Delete some ‘friends’ off Facebook who’s attitudes just annoy you.

Every Training Session

25) Mobilise your ankles, hips, thoracic spine and shoulders.

27) Activate your glutes.

28) Leave everything in your locker except clothing, water, your training log and your iPod. You do not need your phone and if you can read whilst exercising, you need someone to kick your ass a looooong way out of your comfort zone if you want to see changes.

29) Perform a dynamic warm up. This must prepare every muscle and should include light versions of the movements in your training session.

30) Know your objectives and how you are progressing from last time.

31) Connect your mind to your muscle on every exercise – don’t just go through the motions. TRAIN your body, don’t just abuse it.

32) Be willing to walk away. If you have overdone it or you are severely stressed walk away. If you can’t gain, don’t train. If this happens more than once in a week, you need to chill out, take a step back and re-evaluate life then come back stronger.

33) Give it everything you have.

34) Stop chasing stuff. Realise when you are taking an Do to Have To Be mentality and switch to Be to Do to Have.

In other words, stop thinking you have to do certain things because you must have stuff in order to define who you are at who you want to be.

Instead start thinking about what makes you happy. This will make you BE the person you are and DO the things that define you. This will attract what you need in your life so you HAVE the people, money and stuff n your life if that’s what you want.

Every Week

35) Do a 24 hour fast unless you’re a skinny man trying to bulk up.

36) Meet with friends – this does not include ‘Facebooking’ them.

37) Review if you’re any better than last week in all areas. If not, adjust next week’s plan.

38) Do something silly and fun. Have a laugh. Do something childish. Getting wasted to take your mind off how sh*t you think your life is does not count and is misdirected.

39) Spend an hour at the weekend researching cool stuff you want to do in your life, what money you need to do it and how you are going to make it happen.

40) Lift weights 3-4 times combining strength, power and conditioning work. Make your heart work hard as well.

Every Month

41) Review your training and performance results. If it didn’t work, check all the things to do in each training session first. If you did all that, find someone in the know to write your program because your way of doing things sucks.

42) Change your training program even if you did really well this month. If you want to build muscle do the Turbo Muscle program.

43) If you’re training hard but didn’t lose any fat, your nutrition sucks. Go do the Turbo Transformation program.

Every Year

44) Do a 7 day fast of nothing but water, greens drink, vegetable protein, psyllium husk and bentonite clay. This will reset your entire physical system and build mental strength.

45) Update your Bucket List. Dying just got one step closer and the clock is still ticking. Don’t live with regrets.

46) Write down all the GOOD stuff that happened, don’t be glad the year is over.

47) Don’t treat January any differently, it’s just another step like all the other months.

48) Review your personal relationships. If someone does nothing but drag you down, stop spending time with them. You are not obliged to suffer in the name of ‘friendship’.

49) Take a holiday and use it to REWARD your body and mind. Don’t punish yourself with boat loads of alcohol, drugs and sitting around a chlorine pit. Try new stuff, get some sun, go hiking, spend time in nature, ride up and down mountains, swim in the sea, pet some monkeys, fly over cool stuff, watch animals in their natural habit, build a snowman, ski down a mountain but appreciate the view at the top, sleep under the stars, do some yoga, meet new people and rediscover why you fell in love with your partner.

50) Set your heart on a challenge that scares the living daylights out of you. Go get it.

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Unfortunately, it makes you fat and gives you insulin problems.

However, there is a way around this and given that we are entering the week of chocolate coated sin, here are two AMAZING smoothie recipes to keep you off the sugary fat-filled stuff.

Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream Smoothie – Post workout version

300ml of rice milk
Handful of crushed ice
30-40g of Kinetic Chocolate Whey protein
1 tsp of peppermint extract
1 scoop of Green Life
1 tbs of cacao nibs (for crunch – you can leave this out)

Pour in blender and blend!

Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream Smoothie – Breakfast on the run version

200ml of coconut milk
Handful of crushed ice
30-40g of Kinetic Chocolate Whey protein
1 tsp of peppermint extract
1 scoop of Green Life
1 tbs of cacao nibs (for crunch – you can leave this out)

Pour in blended and blend until thick and creamy!

You can play with the fluids to get the thickness you like.

Alterations:

Alternatively, you can use Kinetica Vanilla Whey Protein, just make sure you add the cacao nibs for the chocolatey flavour.

Or, you can use Kinetic Mint Choc Chip Whey Protein and leave out the peppermint extract.

CHOCCY DEALIO OF THE DAY!

Get yourself a tub of Kinetica Chocolate or Mint Choc Chip Protein from the Storm Force Fitness Health Shelf at the Indoor Cricket Centre and make yourself one of these to help you stay away from the Easter Chocolate.

Get 10% off until Wednesday 11th April.

Out with the eggs, in with a tasty smoothie!

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You want stuff that will change your body in DAYS and your appearance dramatically in weeks?

Listen up then go do this stuff TODAY.

1) Drink between 2 and 3 litres of water per day. If you can get an quality filtration system that’s perfect, if not, buy bottled.

This does NOT include extra water required during training.

You may urinate like an incontinent racehorse at first. Don’t worry – it will soon pass.

2) Eat more green stuff, then eat some more green stuff, then when you think you’ve eaten enough green stuff for today, eat some more green stuff.

If you can’t eat any more green stuff, drink some green stuff in the form of an alkalising, energy giving, blood cleansing, greens drink.

3) If someone else made it, let someone else eat it. Stay natural.

Farm, sea, tree, ground. If it didn’t come from there or came from there and underwent processing or preserving, don’t eat it more than once per week.

4) Eat protein at every meal but rotate it to avoid developing allergies.

Eggs, fish, chicken, turkey, steak, shell fish, game – there’s lots of choice so don’t be boring.

5) Add good fats to every meal.

Avocado, coconut oil, coconut milk, olive oil, flax oil, seeds, nuts occasionally. Get them in if you want to create a fat burning metabolism, boost your immune system, improve your brain function and make your skin look and feel better.

6) If you can eat it raw, eat it raw. This will increase the level of digestive enzymes in your body and the fibre required to keep a healthy digestive system.

Don’t eat raw meat you freak.

7) Avoid gluten – it messes you up and makes most people bloated. You don’t want to look fatter than you really are do you?

Keep your carb intake to after training. Some fruit in a post-workout protein shake also times antioxidant intake when you most need it. If you aren’t in need of losing loads of fat, you can adds some complex carbs to your post-training meal.

9) Choose sweet potatoes, wholegrain rice and quinoa as the best sources of complex carbs and the ones least likely to cause insulin issues or allergic responses.

10) Stay fresh – add a shopping trip to your week in place of watching Geordie Shores so you have more fresh tasty veg in your fat loss arsenal.

11) Reduce the plastics in your life – reduce the oestrogen in your life.

If you need to take food in a plastic tub, line it with grease proof paper or similar.

12) Have a caffeine strategy.

Go cold turkey for 4 weeks, then use it occasionally before training to potentially aid fat loss. If you drink it all the time, this won’t work.

13) Use intermittent fasting.

20-24 hours without solid food will do wonders for food addictions and snacking habits, body fat and digestion.

And reduce your food bill.

14) If you can buy local do it. Meat and veg especially. Farmer Jones down the road won’t have pumped your meat full of antibiotics.

15) Take a probiotic – don’t eat probiotic yoghurt – the levels of good bacteria are pathetic.

16) Supplement with fish oil. 4-6g a day will make a big difference to loads of stuff.

17) Go organic whenever you can.

18) SLOOOOOOOOW DOWN. Learn to cook and enjoy your food. Chew it until your jaw hurts.

19) Don’t eat starchy carbs unless you want to add some muscle. You don’t need them – you’re just stressed.

20) Deal with your stress and your nutritional ‘requirements’ change VERY quickly!

21) Turn down sugar whenever you can. Don’t add it to stuff.

22) Cut out dairy. You might be okay with raw, unpasteurized goats milk and cheese.

23) Use a post-workout protein shake. If you tolerate it, use whey protein, if not use a vegetarian based protein such as rice, pea and hemp.

24) Don’t take part in the office cake run. You do not need to celebrate the fact that it is Tuesday by eating a chocolate croissant.

25) Having a bevvie? Choose vodka, lime and tonic water. Too much beer gives you man boobs.

26) Cook with coconut oil over other oils. The fats are awesome and the heating point higher.

27) If you train in the morning, taking some Branch Chain Amino Acids may be a good idea.

28) Don’t blame your work schedule for being fat. A Warrior Diet style of eating can be used where you snack in the day on veg, fruit and some light protein with a larger meal in the evening once your done.

29) There is more than one way to skin a cat. Learn about different approaches to nutrition from people with REAL results not made up studies. Don’t skin a cat, it’s not nice.

30) Replace sauces with cider vinegar and olive oil. Cider vinegar is great for breaking down food, improving digestion.

31) Eat less frequently. Cook more.

32) Try stuff out. I created a Mint Choc Chip post-workout smoothie.

Plain rice milk, Green Life, Cacao nibs, Peppermint extract, Vanilla or chic whey protein, crushed ice.

Blend. Drool

33) When you’re hungry drink some water first, then have a raw salad. Chances are you won’t be so hungry soon.

34) Don’t eat plane food. Long flight? See Point 13. Saves you money and body fat.

35) Try out new stuff. I like Aubergine. The words pretty cool as well. Say it out loud holding the syllables for 3 seconds each. Go on.

36) If you did what I said in 35, the person next to you thinks you’re weird.

37) You can train on an empty stomach – it’s all mental. Fasted cardio works pretty well for fat loss.

38) Treat your food with respect. Don’t boil it, fry it or roast it into submission. You do however, have permission to put veg in a blender and savage it into a pureed nutrient bomb. Even if it looks like a willy.

39) Don’t eat too much fruit if you want to lose body fat. Post-workout is good – it will go straight into  your muscles as part of refuelling.

40) Don’t focus on fat loss nutrition. Focus on getting excellent digestion, blood quality, energy, and training performances.

Do all of these and you won’t have much fat.

41) Rotate carbohydrate intake to trick your hormones and body into roasting body fat.

42) Join the Turbo Transformation to see how all of this is done EASILY in 21 days

43) Click on the photo above

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Apparently.

You’ve tried all the major diet plans, some of them kinda worked but in the long-run you weren’t noticeably different in terms of shape, body fat and muscular definition.

If I were you, I’d be pretty pissed off.

You probably spent a lot of time counting points and money on magic meal replacement drinks which promised you’d look like the dolled up model on the front of the box.

So what can you do to get a great body? What ARE the secrets?

Well before we get into the stuff I’ve discovered and played around with over the last 6-7 years, there’s a few things you should know.

I’m a firm believer in rotation, cycling, waves – whatever you want to call it, I don’t think ANYONE benefits from doing the same thing all the time no matter how well it works at first.

Everything in life comes in waves – it’s just how it works.

Granted there are certainly methods which could be followed forever with good results.

But I believe mentally and physically we benefit from mixing things up so long as we commit to ONE way at a time.

No matter how good something is we always need refreshing challenges which challenge our routines and ways of thinking or we become stagnant.

Mixing methodologies together as we wade through the wealth of information and confusion on the internet is a recipe for failure and frustration.

You will find supporters of any diet on the planet who will claim it did wonders for them.

You can get great muscle building results on a high carb diet but long-term it will probably leave you with insulin issues and potentially the beginnings of cardiovascular complications.

The amount of carbohydrates I ate each day to do this was insane!

You can greatly increase your energy levels and improve digestion on a largely vegan diet, but long-term it will leave you pretty weak and unlikely to have an impressive physique for the beach.

Follow a permanently low carb diet and you will lose lots of weight but in the long run you will lose muscle leaving you looking lifeless with an unimpressive body and a stunted metabolism and screwed up thyroid.

Fasting for 24 hours once or twice per week is very effective for improving hormone balance and reducing body fat. Even a 7 day fast once per year can do wonders.

However, there are certain things that should go with fasting from solid food to maintain protein levels, energy as much as possible and digestive function.

Don’t just dive in based on internet gossip because you may be missing key components.

You can build muscle eating in a way similar to the Warrior Diet method of one big meal per day, whereas if you’re a ‘hard gainer’ you are likely to do best on 5-6 meals per day.

Experimentation over your life is exciting, satisfying and will help you find what works best FOR YOU.

What I’m going to tell you about now should also be used wisely.

It is highly effective in bursts of 3-12 weeks depending on your goals and requirements.

However, because of the reduced (not eliminated) carb intake, you should pay close attention to fibre intake and your digestion.

My advice to you generally is to look to the long-term and don’t get carried away by short-term results or becoming obsessed with one way of doing things.

Many crash diets will ruin your hormones so badly that you end up WORSE off a few weeks or months later.

String together 15-20 years of these diets and the chances are your body is in a right mess inside and out with flab hanging off every part of you.

If an individual consumes no carbohydrates for several weeks, there is a down regulation of enzymes in the liver and muscle which store and burn carbohydrates.

The end result is an inability to use carbs for fuel for a short period of time after they are reintroduced.

Combine this with that carb binge EVERYBODY eventually has when they can’t take the bad moods and depression of permanently low carb diets, and you end up storing a lot more fat than you had in the first place.

Now you’re fatter AND feeling awful.

So let’s have a look at ‘ketogenic diets’ which can come in various forms, all of which can rapidly shed body fat.

Ketogenic diets involve consuming less than 100g of carbohydrates per day (including those in vegetables) with the aim of reducing blood sugar, the resulting insulin release and ultimately the release of Free Fatty Acids from your fat (adipose) tissue for energy – you burn fat.

Different Fuels

The primary determinant of which fuel is used for energy in humans is carb availability and how much glucose is stored in your liver.

Essentially, the more carbs you eat, the more carbs will be used for fuel because it’s easy for your body to break them down for energy.

Depending also on your metabolic status due to hormones and the type of exercise you choose, the less carb in take for enough time, and your body will switch to fat burning.

So it’s important that we consider what exercise you’re doing if you want the best results from all this: Weight training v intervals v aerobic exercise.

So far you might be coming to the theory that you should cut carbs out completely.

Wrong.

Carbohydrates play an important part in sparing and building muscle.

This is where we see our first clue in how to piece this jigsaw together.

You build muscle primarily in the period after resistance training, so it makes sense that any carb intake should occur after weight training to help you build or at least maintain muscle.

This is a period when you can eat a certain amount or carbs without worrying about it being converted to body fat.

A post-workout shake containing carbs may be all you need.

Others can also add some carbohydrates in the ‘proper’ meal after training.

What you DON’T want to do is combine fats with a high carb meal. Because carb intake stimulates insulin which is a ‘storage’ hormone, not only will sugars get pushed into your muscles (and converted to fat if there’s enough of them) but the fat that comes with the meal will also get stored.

So have a think next time you eat a high carb, high fat meal washed down with alcohol which makes matters even worse!

Carb intake or alcohol intake = NO fat oxidation / burning

What Are Ketones?

Ketones are produced by the incomplete breakdown of free fatty acids and replace glucose as a fuel for the brain when glucose from carbohydrates is limted.

After 12-16 hours, depending on activity, liver glycogen is almost completely depleted. At this time, ketogenesis increases rapidly.

The liver is producing ketones at a maximal rate by the third day of carb restriction.

This is one of many principles we combine together in the Turbo Transformation program to shift challengers from a sugar burning, carb craving metabolism to a fat burning one.

The transition period which seems to last anything from 1-7 days can be tough but the rewards are well worth it!

MEDICAL NOTE: Type 1 diabetics are unable to use ketones for fuel therefore are not advised to follow low carb diets without medical supervision.

Phase Shifts – How It Happens

Here’s what happens on the Turbo Transformation after each of your carb based meals…

Hours 1-8:

Body still absorbing fuel from previous meals

Within 10 hours of last carb meal:

Roughly 50% of the body’s total energy requirements are being met by free fatty acids

First 1-2 days of carb depletion:

Body will begin to rely on free fatty acids and the breakdown of liver glycogen for its energy requirements.

By Day 3:

Approx 90% of the body’s total fuel requirements are being met by free fatty acids and ketones

This can amount to 2/3 lb of fat per day.

Important notes for those who want to ‘kind of do it’

During the first few days the brain is incapable of using ketones for fuel – once you get past these first few days of feeling a bit fuzzy you will normally see fast improvements so stick with it!

It has been suggested that low carb diets which don’t fully induce ketosis, may actually prevent the body from maximizing the use of fat for fuel, and may increase the breakdown of protein.

Thyroid hormone production drops with sustained carb restriction which is why we use ‘re-carb’ days to keep the thyroid ticking and your metabolic rate high for sustained fat burning.

This is one of the key differences between permanently low carb ‘crash’ diets and clever cycling of carbohydrates.

Water and Weight Loss

Not all weight lost on such nutrition plans as the Turbo Transformation is fat – I wish it was but it’s not.

Around 3g of water is stored for every 1g of carbohydrates so as carbs are restricted, water will be shed.

This is good in that it reduces bloating and gives you a great start to the experience.

In terms of reducing dress sizes and belt holes, this is an important element but highlights why going by scale weight alone is misleading.

This is made even more inaccurate when you consider that when you consume carbs again you will retain some water for a day or so before going low carb again.

These ups and downs make going by daily scale weight completely pointless.

You should look to track your look in photos and your measurements.

If you can get body fat tested accurately that’s the best way but many electric scales are inaccurate and misleading and you need a qualified trainer to take your body fat measurements properly.

Further Considerations

You can further improve results by:

- Timing weight training and cardio workouts to make the most of your nutrition and metabolic state

- Strategically using 24 hour fasts to further utilize hormone changes around food intake

- Increase intake of certain nutrients to improve digestion, reduce inflammation and make other areas of such plans much easier to cope with.

Or you could not worry about all the science and just let me do all the planning for you!

I’ll tell you what to do, when, if you choose to follow the Turbo Transformation for 21 days.

What About….

The Basic Storm Force Nutrition Plan

This is just an alternative way to carb cycle based purely around training.

Perform heavy weights or metabolic conditioning then eat your carbs!

Paleo Diet

I like the principles but don’t necessarily think permanently high levels of meat are a good thing for the digestive tract and if you engage in high levels of lactate based exercise such as bootcamps or metabolic conditioning sessions or intense sport, eating no carbs other than fruit can leave you flat.

The book Paleo Diets for athletes recognized this and brought in more carbohydrates at certain times.

Sound familiar?

However, you can’t argue with setting up your nutrition plan based on what nature provides.

Another one for the toolbox for sure.

Warrior Diet

Eat one big meal at the end of the day with snacking on vegetables, some light proteins and maybe a little fruit and nuts in the day.

Again this works very well for some people – I like it.

However, in terms of discussing how it relates to carb cycling, most proponents still recommend only including carbohydrates in your dinner if you trained that evening.

Sound familiar?

Fibre

One potential problem of periods of low carbohydrate intake is the corresponding fall in fibre in take and a potential slow down in digestive processes and ‘keeping things moving’.

Whilst a decent amount of carbohydrates from fibrous vegetables will go a long way, you should consider adding psyllium husk during a period of more intense carbohydrate cycling as this helps add bulk to stools and keep them moving through!

****************

Carb cycling works without a doubt.

There are various ways to play with it either in a day, around training or for certain days in a week.

As you truly learn about nutrition you begin to notice not the differences between the nutrition plans that work for both health and fat loss, but the similarities.

- Lean proteins
- Vegetables
- Good fats
- Carbs at the right times
- Lots of water
- Variety within guidelines

Don’t make it more complex than it needs to be.

Stick with natural foods, then use some sneaky trickery when you need to see your body fat disappear fast!

You can see the kind of results people get on the 21 day Turbo Transformation and registering for the next challenge (run every 4-5 weeks)

Many ‘Transformers’ also report:

- Not realizing it’s so easy to do
- Appreciating disappearance of cravings
- Greater energy levels
- Feeling more in control of their life but less stressed by food and dieting
- Having to spend loads on new clothes – sorry!

I wish you the very best in your quest for health, fitness and happiness!

Start it by eating right – you’ll be surprised what happens!

Check out the Turbo Transformation

References and Thank You’s

First, thanks to my friend Emile Jarreau of M2 Fitness Pro’s in Long Beach California for his help in teaching me the methods he used to get fitness models in phenomenal shape!

Daniel Duchaine, Body Recomposition

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Every one of them promises something life changing.

“Rapid fat loss”

“Metabolic Meltdown in 4 minutes”

“Explosive muscle gain”

“Workout destruction”

Like many things in fitness beyond hard work, consistency, great coaching and progressive overload few of them seem to ever actually deliver much.

Like many serious trainees and athletes, I’ve spent more than my fair share on products I’ve been led to believe may well be the one thing that was stopping me getting my “best results ever”.

I would say 80% of the stuff I’ve tried didn’t make much difference, but there are a very small, select list which have successfully been inducted into the Storm Force Fitness daily routine.

Others we have found to be effective, but not necessary on a daily basis.

Before getting into the what’s and why’s, let me state a few key things.

1) Unless 95% of your nutrition consists of lean protein, vegetables, good fats and well-timed carbohydrate consumption, forget the supplements. You’re trying to put out a forest fire with a watering can.

2) Sleep is the best thing most people don’t get enough of. Not a powder.

3) If you’re not drinking 2-3 litres of good quality water each day, you don’t need to spend money on extra’s

4) I am aware that cavemen were much healthier than us and had never even heard of Maximuscularfatburnextreme.

I too would like nothing better than to live in a world free of chemical pollution, where we could drink from rivers, eat game meat we had just caught which feeds on nothing but the land, get lots of sunlight, eat fruit and vegetables with extremely high vitamin and mineral content and not be exposed to the stresses of modern life.

Whilst there is much we can do to move back to this way of life, the brutal fact of life is that for most, it is virtually impossible.

So I personally feel, supplementation (NOT REPLACEMENT) of great food, is a necessary and productive way to live – just ensure you have done all you can to fulfil the first 3 points before relying on man-made products to make you look and feel better.

The next question is always, what can you AFFORD to use as supplementation.

First, you can afford more than you think once you eradicate:

- The two coffees from Starbucks. Other destructive coffee houses are available.

- The biscuit you got up-sold at the Starbucks counter.

- The £50 you spend on alcohol each weekend to get over the job you hate.

- The glass of wine you drink each night to help you relax.

- A variety of other crap you eat and drink to help get over stresses and strains which can be eliminated through simple lifestyle changes.

These can easily total £300-400 per month.

The supplements we recommend will total approximately £50-60 per month.

So yes, you can afford to get healthy!

It then becomes a question of priorities and this is the order I would suggest for ‘Average Joe’.

Combining all four as we do on the Turbo Transformation is VERY powerful and fast working!

Average Joe wants to feel better and drop loads of body fat.

Remember I am assuming Joe is now following the Storm Force Fitness nutrition plan at least 90-95% of the time before recommending these supplements.

Greens Drink

We recommend Green Life from Phil Richards Performance but other good versions are available depending where you live.

A good greens drink is a natural, high potency multi-vitamin giving you a complete range of vitamins and minerals, generally in the ratios in which they occur in nature – not randomly selected amounts put together in a ‘proprietary complex’ in a pill.

They are basically made up of highly nutritious grasses often blended with green vegetables such as spinach, celery and spirulina.

Many often come with a good prebiotic built in to aid digestion – another serious problem for most people.

Result: More energy, a better digestive system and reduced inflammation throughout the body. Also helps oxygenate the blood in people who spend too much time indoors. Most people begin to feel healthier and more energetic within days, having a snowball effect on their training which breeds better results, more commitment to the plan etc.

Remember – if you don’t get healthy, don’t expect to lose body fat fast or feel energetic enough to complete a tough training program to change your body composition.

Fish Oil

In the past, we would have eaten enough good quality fish to make such a product unnecessary.

Unfortunately, like most food, this isn’t the case any more.

Also, many people don’t realise that the essential fatty acids EPA and DHA which we take fish oils for, are ‘manufactured’ by the fish when they eat the algae found along river beds and in the sea. With the increase in farm-grown fish this doesn’t happen to nearly the same degree as the fish are often pipe fed with foods not typical of their natural diet.

Essential Fatty Acids do many wondrous things for the body including (but not limited to):

- Increased fat burning

- Reduced inflammation (aiding recovery from hard training)

- Improved brain and heart function

- Healthy joints

- Stronger immune system

4-6g of fish oil per day seems to be the effective range.

Result: All of the above are essential when embarking on a new lifestyle aimed at making you look, feel and move better.

We recommend Heart and Brain Oil from Phil Richards Performance because it contains high levels of EPA and DHA but also because of additional ingredients which provide antioxidants and support for the brain and cardiovascular system.

Again, note that we are still promoting the establishment of health before really delving into  specific body composition supplements.

Probiotics

Recently, there have been more and more studies indicating that probiotics can increase the shedding of body fat from the abdominal area which is high on most people’s wish list.

The interesting thing is that this process actually involves the brain.

See, what you may not realise is that much of the ‘pot belly’ you see on many people is actually due to intra-abdominal fat deep within your body – not just that paunchy bit around your belly-button or your love handles.

Development of fat in this area has been found to be largely down to chronically elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol which reduces insulin sensitivity, known to lead to increased fat storage, particularly in the abdominal area.

You may also not be aware that there is a very close link between gut health and brain function due to a nerve which links the two.

So if your gut is in tatters due to abuse through poor nutritional habits, you can expect more stress and anxiety and the resultant hormone imbalances described above.

And this is why we recommend introducing a probiotic into your nutrition plan as part of your detox and restoration of your digestive system.

Don’t expect eating a ‘probiotic yoghurt’ to provide nearly the levels of the ‘good bacteria’ they promote. You need a good quality, high potency probiotic to restore your digestive system after years of abuse and stress!

Result: Improved digestion and assimilation of nutrients leading to better energy levels as well as reduced fat in the abdominal area due to hormone rebalancing.

NB Addressing your stress levels will also do wonders so take time to chill out!

Protein

A subject often debated and never really solved.

Some say we don’t need extra, some say we should not eat whey protein, some say we need protein 6-8 times per day, some say we can only utilise up to 120g per day anyway so what’s the point.

Honestly, I don’t think anyone really knows for sure and there are many individual circumstances and body type considerations to think about.

What I do know, is that those who take a post-workout protein supplement report much faster and full recovery without so much muscle soreness and those with great looking and performing bodies nearly always use protein supplementation so deduce what you will what from that.

I don’t intend to delve into the whey protein argument here other than to say, there are vegan sources of protein out there which can work well and you should not use a whey protein supplement if you are lactose intolerant.

Vegan sources do however tend to be much more expensive so that’s something else you need to factor in to your decision.

I believe the best ‘happy medium’ decision is to use a high quality, grass-fed, organic (if you can afford it) whey protein supplement.

30-40g post-workout mixed with some fruits high in antioxidants such as frozen blueberries will provide a great post-workout recovery drink and help accelerate your results by promoting muscle building faster after a tough session and ensuring your metabolic rate stays high for some time, aiding the fat loss process.

Look to find a protein supplement that doesn’t contain lots of sweeteners if you can (however this can result in truly rank tasting powders!).

DEFINITELY avoid any containing aspartame or acesulfame – these are damaging neurotoxins which nobody wants in their body!

Result: Increased lean muscle, higher metabolic rate, reduced body fat.

Other supplements

At Storm Force Fitness, we also recommend other supplements when deemed necessary.

Magnesium compounds and amino acids which promote relaxation and serotonin production – a great combination when sleep is a problem.

Certain amino acids are also great pre-workout to reduce muscle breakdown and increase intensity.

Iodine complexes can be a great way to reignite a sluggish thyroid.

Creatine is a great supplement for those engaging in intense weight training or sprint based sports.

Caffeine has its uses WHEN USED CORRECTLY.

But the four mentioned above are those we 100% believe in for restoring health fast and igniting the fat burning process all of our clients crave.

If it makes you feel better, look better and move better it can only be a good thing!

Just don’t get obsessed with new, exciting supplements which promise the world and come wrapped in lots of bright, fluorescent colours.

Stick with those which just get the job done safely and effectively.

And if you want to learn how to utilise these products as part of a complete training and nutrition package, register for the next Turbo Transformation 21 day program.

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In fact you may NOT have noticed the changes themselves, but noticed how much faster results are coming for both members of Storm Force Fitness and of the Guernsey Fitness Camp.

So what’s the secret?

As usual there is no secret.

We’ve not found that magic ingredient to ADD to the repertoire of workouts.

There’s no new piece of kit that magically transforms people.

What we’ve been focussing on at Storm Force is not adding to things but CUTTING THINGS OUT.

Focussing not just on improving what we do, but realizing what we DON’T need to do.

There are hundreds of thousands of examples of successful people who say and do the same thing.

Don’t do the things that just eat up your time when you could get someone else to do it allowing you time to focus on what….

…you’re passionate about

…you’re talented at

…changes your life/business/body the most

I’ll admit I always think I can do things the best and find it hard to hand stuff over.

But I committed to finding people better at organising things, better with computer systems and better at relating to certain types of people than me.

I now have a great team around me all keen to improve other peoples’ lives as well as their own.

Russ Smith, Lou Dunn, Clive Bateman, Aivis Kelgaris, Andy Rigden and Anna Rivers – I SALUTE YOU!

Now I’ve had more time to focus on what I’m good at – designing programs and writing so that even more people can benefit.

WHAT ABOUT MY BODY THOUGH JON?

So what does all this mean for fat loss?

Well rather than trying to make fat loss more complicated than it is, try cutting out the following.

It requires no extras but will bring a wealth of physical and mental benefits!

Here are 8 things to boost your fat loss results by chopping out the pointless crap in your life:

1) Cut out people.

Not all of them just the ones who drain your energy, take up your time with mindless conversations about utter drivel and spend more time trying to derail your fitness plan than doing anything else with their life.

Note: 99% of TV programs can be classed as these people. Mindless shit that gets you nowhere.

2) Cut out food.

No don’t starve yourself by cutting out food completely!

Calorie restriction beyond 3-4 days will lead to a REDUCTION in your metabolism and LESS fat being lost.

Rather than trying to micromanage and count calories or points, eat a clean diet 6 days a week then fast for 24 hours at one point.

This makes for an easy day of not worrying about food prep, improves your digestive system and aids with calorie reduction with no effort required.

Why put in more effort than you need – that’s just stupid.

3) Cut out 80% of the stuff you do in the gym.

Seriously. Most of it is doing nothing for you except eating in to family and friends’ time.

Unless you are already superlean and have a good level of visible muscle cut out:

- Bicep curls

- Tricep pushdowns

- Exercises on machines

- Aerobics classes

- Checking your iPhone

- Talking to the person next to you about what they’re doing

- 500 sit ups

In fact most of those you don’t need EVER unless you’re a bodybuilder.

Do more squats, deadlifts, bodyweight work such as push ups, chin ups and jumping and press heavy weights over your head. That stuff alone, done well, will transform your body.

4) Cut out long circuits

20 minutes of a well-designed circuit may well be all you need today.

Rather than seeing how many exercises you can do in a row, put three non-competing exercises together and give them everything.

If I have taken my heart rate to 90% of its maximum and maintained it at around 70% during a session I will burn a LOT of calories without having to destroy my joints pounding pavements everyday.

I can do this whilst building stamina, pain tolerance and a great body and it doesn’t require 60-90 minutes.

Some of my personal conditioning sessions involve no more than a total of 18-20 minutes work time with recovery breaks. Yet my heart rate averages that I would on a 60 minute run and maxes at about 90%.

So my heart is still being trained to cope with high levels of stress.

Each round should last 2-4 minutes.

Example which ANYONE can do…

Run 200m, 15 BW squats or Goblet squat, 15 push ups. Do 4-6 rounds resting 60-90 seconds inbetween.

Then do 5 rounds of boxing on a bag or pads – then go home.

You can do all of the above in 30 minutes including warm up.

There are many variations to this depending on fitness and skill level.

5) Cut out your addiction to shiny new kit.

There are some wicked training tools out there.

Don’t design your training around kit.

Get the kit that helps make training better once you know what you’re trying to do.

If it makes sprinting or moving your body weight more challenging when you reach a certain level, get it.

If it makes lifting stuff to your shoulders over your head harder or more varied, get it.

If it makes you move faster or makes you more powerful, get it.

If a ‘tool’ promises to shed body fat on its own CUT IT OUT YOUR LIFE.

IF IT ADDS A CHALLENGE TO NATURAL LOOKING MOVEMENTS, GET IT.

6) Cut out processed sugar, gluten, dairy, caffeine, drinks containing more than zero calories and as much non-organic stuff as you can afford.

Cut out carbs when you don’t need them.

This is generally directly after exercise unless you are trying to gain size. Even then, prioritize more fats rather than more carbs.

7) Cut out stuff that doesn’t make you happier!

More money is cool if you have a use for it which raises your happiness like travelling to new places.

More people in your life is cool only if they make you a better person, look after you or make you laugh.

Bigger guns are great if it helps you attract a girl you actually want to be with.

If it just impresses the other boys and you’re still single because you spend your Friday night in front of the mirror watching that vein in your shoulder grow as you do more curls on a Friday night have a word with yourself.

Cut out choice.

Take decisions which cut choice out of your life.

If you have a choice you’ll always take it.

Make bold moves which mean you HAVE to succeed.

Don’t leave an escape hatch.

Risk some money.

Commit to a goal even if it scares the crap out of your right now.

Tell the world what you’re doing – then you have more friendly pressure to succeed and people to right you when you drift.

Take a chance.

See what happens….!

Now What?

I didn’t believe this stuff at first as it seemed that complicated was best.

So we trialled it on a few people with the Turbo Transformation program.

We cut out:

- Any advice beyond ‘eat this, lift that, do this much cardio’.

- Half the shopping list

- Choice of when to do stuff

- Start date

- Cheat meals

- Choice of who to listen to!

- Feeling alone – you have an entire support team!

- Deeply engrained beliefs about food

It pulls together EVERYTHING you just read but you don’t have to work out how to do it – we’ve done that for you.

Remember…if you don’t like reading hundreds of nutrition books and journals and trialling training programs for 10 years, don’t bother.

WE’VE DONE IT FOR YOU SO YOU CUT IT OUT (Advised – it’s quite boring at times)

Basically the idea was to experiment and see what happened when we REMOVED THE STRESS OF THOUGHT AND DECISION from peoples’ lives.

People who have ‘tried everything’.

The results were ridiculous and just keep rolling in and it has shocked me.

Thank you to the Guinea Pigs who signed up not knowing they were part of an evil experiment on mind control….!

I watched people battle at times but they COULDN’T FAIL because of all the support and because they had a clean road map to follow.

A map where there are no cross-roads.

You either get great results or you have to decide to jump off the train early which is a very hard decision to make when it’s moving so fast!

I would LOVE to have the chance to show you what this kind of mentality does for you.

I know you may not believe it can work for you even having seen everyone’s results.

That’s cool for now.

Remember just CUT OUT and suspend your current beliefs.

The Turbo program goes well beyond any diet you’ve tried because your entire mindset will change.

The next challenge starts on Monday 13th February – I’d love to see you there.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE TURBO TRANSFORMATION CHALLENGE

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After Russ Roberts revealed he had lost 16lbs after the FIRST WEEK of the 3rd round of the Turbo Transformation, I got thinking.

Why is it that some people are willing to pay £600 per year (some a bit less, many much more) to a gym even though for the last 12 months they got NO WHERE.

Don’t get me wrong, if you know what you’re doing and have the right gym, it can be life-changing.

But the harsh reality is most gym members don’t get the results they want. In fact when I worked in the biggest gym in Nottingham we were told as many as 80% of gym members don’t get the results they want.

I believe it’s actually higher than this because a lot of people don’t actually know what they want because they don’t know what’s possible.

Now that you know you can lose 16lbs in 7 days (some fat, some reduction of bloating – both are important), your view of possible has changed.

If you go to the gym for weight loss and in 12 months you’ve paid £600 and got nowhere, how are you going to feel?

Pretty shitty and upset with your service provider I hope.

That’s perhaps the difference. Whereas at Storm Force Fitness we base our progress and growth on results, gyms don’t sell you that. They sell you some half-arsed dream of a great body coupled with the latest greatest shiny kit.

So my challenge for you is to answer the following 7 questions – like a Fitness Lifestyle MOT.

Unless you can answer ‘Yes!’ to all 7, you are currently wasting time and money in getting fit, looking and feeling great and being happy!

You could do much better, much faster!

1) Are the 5 people you spend most time with better, stronger, fitter, healthier or leaner than you? (You can also apply this to making more money).

If not, you won’t achieve any of the above to the level you want.

Don’t get me wrong friends who just make you laugh are CRITICAL but when it comes to transforming your body and lifestyle, you need to have at least 5 people in your life who can pull you up to their level!

2) If you put £600 into an investment fund for a year and saw no return and no promise of ANYTHING changing in the next 12 months, would you have the balls to say to the fund manager, “This is poor, I’m pulling out”?

If you answered ‘Yes!” then why don’t you do it at the gym!?

3) Do all your beliefs about fat loss, muscle building etc come from people with REAL LIFE proof from people in the same situation as yourself, or are your beliefs shaped by photo-shopped models who have 5 hours per day to train and a large personal training budget?

Maybe the truth is you listen to people just because they talk lots – everyone knows THAT guy at the gym….

4) Do you know the rest of the story behind the success of those people you look up to? Do you know what they REALLY do day-to-day or have you been given a small, insignificant part of the story and been led to believe plugging in that ‘easy win’ into your life will change everything because that’s all there is to it?

I could tell you that Russ (the one who has lost 16lbs in 7 days) plays rugby every weekend.

Does this mean playing rugby once per week makes you lose 16lbs?

Judging by most amateur rugby teams, clearly not.

But this is how ‘fitness magazines’ work – they tell you part of the story, one angle of a study or a bit about what really happened then sell you stuff off the back of it which on its own, is useless.

5) Do you have at least draft plans for the next 6 and 12 months?

If not, you’re drifting and will be washed away wherever someone else’s tide wants to take you. This is also known as fad diets, giving in to drunken Saturday nights, choosing TV over the gym, chopping 10 minutes off your workout because your friend is a bit tired and numerous other self-sabotaging behaviours.

If you want to find people riding someone else’s highly lucrative tide, go into any Zumba class. Most of these people are just riding the current bandwagon until someone thinks of something else.

6) Do you laugh in the face of moderation?

The Turbo Transformation has proved that people who have been ‘kind of trying’ for AGES but not really seen much change can get amazing results in just 21 days because we don’t give them any chance of part doing things!

Moderate effort – mediocre results at best!

The Turbo gives you the EXACT blueprint to get clear results in a short time. ‘Kind of’ doing it would be a waste of time.

If you believe in moderation, you’ll never get far.

7) Can you admit to being wrong?

I struggled with this for a while. Then I had something of an epiphany and realised that actually the more your bank of knowledge increases, the more you realise you don’t know.

Most people think they know how to lose body fat on their own because the fat journalist has written 3 ‘informed’ articles on subjects they’ve never actually tried and tested.

When you can admit that you’ve been getting it wrong because you’re STILL overweight, unfit and most importantly, unhappy, you will start to see new paths which have GUARANTEED results.

So if you can change your approach and life to be able to answer all 7 of the questions above with a resounding ‘Yes!’ you’ll have unlocked the prime MENTAL keys to losing body fat fast.

If you want us to give you the physical keys for less than most people spend on coffee and cake in a month, join the Turbo Transformation 4.0 starting Monday 13th February.

Spaces are limited because of the coaching involved so get in fast.

Seriously, do you believe in moderation?

This is what Rich D did in 21 days on the Turbo Transformation:

CLICK HERE —–> JOIN THE TURBO TRANSFORMATION

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There always tends to be an over-reaction in the short-term when something is discovered and an under-reaction in the long-term.

In other words, those who are just into fitness for entertainment and something to do, tend to get excited by anything new, shiny and different.

These people rarely get anywhere because of their ‘Fitness ADD’ because they never stick with anything long enough to make their body adapt and improve.

They over-react in the short-term and think EVERYTHING needs to involve their shiny new toy or training method.

Think BOSU’s and anything wobbly.

Think kettlebells.

Think power plates.

In the long-term however, because new shiny stuff comes along, these methods get dismissed completely and the person loses out on any benefits offered.

I believe the same thing has happened to heart rate training.

I have recently embarked on a journey into Muay Thai training and am now carefully monitoring my conditioning, body composition looking to optimize:

-       Power to body weight ratio

-       Body composition

-       Recovery potential

-       Anaerobic and aerobic conditioning

The more improvements in these I see, combined with improving technical ability, the better I will perform in Muay Thai fights.

Now we could be here all day discussing the ins and outs of cardiovascular training but I want to cover the main arguments for and against using your heart rate as a training tool. Something which I made the mistake of ‘under-rating’ until studying with world-renowned fight conditioning expert, Martin Rooney.

The aim of the article is to consider the science but also take a common sense approach and point out what I think is pretty obvious but often ignored!

YOU NEED TO GET IN THE ‘FAT BURNING’ ZONE

The argument goes that at a certain percentage of your predetermined maximum heart rate you switch from utilizing fat as an energy source to burning glucose from your muscle stores which get there from the digestion of sugars in your diet.

Going above this percentage means you are no longer burning fat, therefore you should stay in a heart rate zone of somewhere between 70-80% of your maximum heart rate.

This is often referred to as the aerobic zone. Because oxygen is required in the process that breaks down and uses fat for fuel, the argument says you should stay in that ‘work rate’ zone in which your body is able to process the oxygen and keep fat burning going.

Going any harder means your body can’t get enough oxygen in and switches to the ‘anaerobic’ system (without oxygen).

Therefore, if we use heart rate training to stay in the right zone we will burn more fat.

Unfortunately it is not that simple.

First, when we train in the anaerobic zone and increase lactic acid production in our muscles, we deny the body of oxygen for periods of time (which can be very stressful!).

Between these intense bursts or ‘intervals’ our heart rate settles somewhat and is still in the ‘fat burning’ zone. However, this is largely irrelevant compared to what happens AFTER and BETWEEN sessions when the body is forced to increased the metabolic processes going on in your body in order to recover and restore your body to the state it was before complete with adaptation – the very point of ‘training’.

This is known as Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC).

It’s necessary to focus on how we can maximize your metabolic rate and fat burning BETWEEN sessions more than DURING them.

To do this, we require hard training sessions and extra lean muscle.

If working too hard didn’t help burn fat we would have to ask the question, “Why are sprinters and people engaged in interval-based sport not fat?”

These people have much better bodies in general than stick-thin, gaunt looking marathon runners who spend most of their time in the ‘fat burning’ zone.

This is not to say that I don’t believe in aerobic exercise or ‘cardio’

Everyone needs a good dose of oxygen and to work their heart and stay healthy, especially in these days of spending most of the day in buildings, but there is a lot of misunderstanding around ‘cardio’.

The whole heart rate zone thing led to the dawn of ‘jogging’.

However, as you will know if you do a circuit such as pushing or pulling a sled, carrying some heavy objects and sprinting up some stairs, you will know that there are many ways to work your heart muscle without mindlessly ambling along trying desperately to not go over 75% for fear of not burning fat.

MAXIMUM HEART RATES

The other problem with using ‘zones’ is that:

1)   I have seen people who can get near their supposed maximum heart rate but stay there for much longer than others without blowing up as most do after 2-3 minutes of being around 90% of their max.

2)   Conversely depending on your fitness levels, you may blow up much earlier at a lower percentage of your maximum no matter how hard you try to force yourself. This may be because your muscles are sufficiently strong or conditioned to cope with even being at 70% of your maximum heart rate.

For me, this is where zones can be a good rough guide for a beginner but the benefits and help it provides don’t really outweigh the possible inaccuracies.

That said, a very well-trained athlete who really knows their body might find it beneficial and useful for holding them back when, as most athletes do, you just want to ‘go for it’ because you feel good one day!

Too many of these sessions can leave you overtrained, so the heart rate zones may be of benefit there.

HEART RATE MONITORS ALSO HELP YOU COUNT CALORIES

Again this is a bit misleading.

It might work in a carefully controlled scientific experiment, but there are so many things affecting your metabolic rate and calorie burning that it can be more damaging than it is useful.

This includes hormone imbalances, digestive issues, energy conversion, thyroid function, stress levels.

Also, it’s based on weight and height calculations. Like BMI, how does this differentiate between the 110kg mountain of muscle with a metabolic rate through the roof, and the sluggish, hormonally challenged obese lady of the same weight?

MONITORING RECOVERY

At this point, you’re probably thinking I am actually a heart rate training opponent.

Actually I have developed a love for it as part of my Muay Thai training for measuring recovery.

When in competition with all the added stress and adrenaline, the more you can stay out of the higher heart rate zones the better, helping you avoid those moments when your body forces you to stop because it can’t handle the stress.

Being able to slow everything down faster to a level at which you function aerobically rather than anaerobically is very useful and will enable you to perform a greater number of intense bouts of activity.

Think about a boxer who has a 1 minute rest between 3 minutes of stressful fighting.

During that minute, if he can slow his heart rate down to a level at which he can process oxygen and remove carbon dioxide and lactate build up from his body, he is in a better position to step out for the next round.

This is where I have been using heart rate monitoring to measure my recovery improvements.

Twice per week I complete 3-4 rounds of a fast-paced 2.5-3 minute conditioning circuit in which my heart rate reaches 80-85% of my ‘Max HR’ with 1 minute recovery in between.

The % (as discussed above) is not what I’m interested in but consider the last three weeks times and heart rates at the end of the recovery period.

The circuit is exactly the same each week.

WEEK 1

Time to complete circuit:          3.12 – 3.29 – 3.37

Heart rate at 55 seconds rest   145 – 142 – 146

WEEK 2

Time to complete circuit:          2.48 – 2.57 – 2.54

Heart rate at 55 seconds rest   142 – 140 – 145

WEEK 3

Time to complete circuit:          2.25 – 2.33 – 2.41

Heart rate at 55 seconds rest   136 – 134 – 139

My heart rate has been consistent at the end of each round indicating that it’s not just the fact that the work time is reduced which enables my body to reach a lower heart rate within the minute.

This gives me valuable data on my recovery ability between intense rounds.

It also highlights another argument about training variables.

Most people will say you MUST increase weight or reps or reduce rest time each week in order to ensure ‘progressive overload’ and adaptation.

Whilst I agree almost completely, this gives us another variable to track even though the circuits remained exactly the same.

I believe this has particular use for people with indications of heart dysfunction.

Now we can see if a person’s heart is better able to cope with stress and recover faster.

After a tough flight of stairs for a beginner, this could be the difference between life and death as most heart attacks occur after short periods of abnormal stress.

For some people this is a sudden massive trauma but for very unfit, obese people it can be something as simple as a quick push to reach the bus in time.

For this reason I don’t believe heart rate training can be completely ignored.

WHY NOT USE RATE OF PERCEIVED EXERTION INSTEAD?

Another argument goes that you can use a scale of perceived exertion.

So if I am at 9/10 I am pretty much at my limit and about to collapse – I might be able to do another 20 seconds!!

This also has value but if I ask a beginner where they are on the scale after a hard 3 minutes they are likely to tell me 8 or 9 when in reality they just aren’t use to it and with a gun to their head they could on for another few minutes.

In this case asking a person to rate themselves is not going to help us accurately record their recovery potential and how well their heart function is improving.

Also the week before the results you see above, I was badly jet-lagged.

In training my heart rate was down at 130 at the end of the rest breaks.

However, the times were slower because I just couldn’t get going and everything felt difficult.

I felt just as tired after 50 seconds recovery (if not more so) than when my heart rate was at 145 in the subsequent weeks.

On the face of things, I was recovering better in Week 1 because my heart rate was slower.

However, in reality it was because I couldn’t force my body and heart to work any harder because I was jet-lagged!

If I had tracked my heart rate DURING the bouts as well, it would have been even clearer that there was a problem.

My rate of perceived exertion would have been 8 or 9 because I really did struggle to make myself strain but it just wouldn’t happen.

So I think rate of perceived exertion is useful in certain circumstances but when someone is stressed out, jet-lagged etc, it can again be a little misleading.

Which brings up back full circle to where we started.

Don’t dismiss anything out of hand but don’t get obsessed with it either!

So long as you keep an eye on different training variables and monitor them, you can keep track of how well you’re progressing.

Some people argue “I know when I’m working hard” but if I put them in a more competitive situation they would improve their performance.

Don’t assume you’re working as hard as you think just because there’s some sweat!

The body and mind are more complex than you think so it’s important to look at the effects of different stimuli, different stress levels and different measurements RELEVANT TO THE TRAINING OBJECTIVE.

If you are in it for muscle growth and nothing else, I wouldn’t bother measuring your heart rate.

In the same way as if you want to improve your conditioning and recovery ability, I wouldn’t bother measuring your biceps!

Keep your eye on the RIGHT ball and don’t get be too polar in your thinking about fitness training.

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As you may have noticed, I am getting deeper and deeper into how the mind works and what it takes to be different.

What is required to not become part of the rat race which serves no-one in long-run yet is such an enticing prospect for 99% of people?

How does this way of thinking affect your health, fitness and lifestyle?

All of that will unfold over the coming months and years and there is SOOOO much I and you need to learn about it if we’re going to discover what it takes to be happy and achieve all the things we want.

Recently my journey brought me to study on Tribal Leadership. The objective for me is to discover how to lead those who have been magnetised towards Storm Force Fitness.

We are already at a stage where I alone cannot physically teach all of those who want training.

I have also realised that actually they don’t want training at all. They think they do but actually the river runs much deeper.

So I’ve been searching for teaching to help me build the ‘tribe’ that is the GFC and Storm Force as a whole.

I’ve just finished a great book ‘Tribal Leadership’ which, when summarised, is the perfect place to start for all of us – finding out where we are now as a base for knowing what the next stage is!

Essentially, the authors suggest there are five stages people either stay at or progress through in life and they really do hit home.

I personally can strongly identify with times in my life when I have been at Stages 2-5. I don’t think I’ve ever dropped into Stage 1 fortunately but I’m sure there have been moments when I haven’t been far off.

So the beginning for this Life Of Free Thinking is for you to identify where you sit right now.

From there, we will look at what needs to be done to move up the levels.

You will also start to see the thought process behind what is going to happen at Storm Force Fitness in the coming months and years.

Stage 1

This is the stage at which a person feels alone, outcast and alienated and if asked will tell you something along the lines of ‘Life is s**t’.

There is no doubt in their mind that all time spent on this planet is a time of misery and unhappiness.

They believe that for EVERYONE life is just one long, drawn out experience of despair!

Example: Gang lands. People in this mindset huddle together – not in meaningful groups, but in gangs hell-bent on taking out their frustrations on others. They may appear as a group but at any time would be happy to act against others in the group.

Stage 2

I believe most people you will come across live in Stage 2 or at least drop into it regularly.

These people are similar to Stage 1 except that they perceive that everyone around them in fact has a good life and that they are just permanently dealt a bad hand by the gods.

“My life sucks”

These people don’t have or at least don’t PERCEIVE themselves to have many meaningful relationships. If they do perceive some meaningful relationships, they tend to forget these and focus on all the negative stuff they can possibly find in their lives so they can have a good moan at anyone willing to put up with their whining!

Such people will often use phrases like…

“You’re so lucky” (to people who work hard – this really p*sses me off by the way!)

“It’s always so….”

“Why is always cold/raining etc (when it’s rained twice in a month!)”

“I never win anything”

You will often find people like this are drawn to each other to compare ‘war wounds’, complain about life, gossip nastily about others, and…

POST NEGATIVE STUFF ALL THE TIME ON FACEBOOK!

Stage 3

This stage is the point at which happiness starts to poke it’s head up, teasing you that actually there is some fun to be had out of life!

These people have lots of relationships and connections but they are largely ‘me and you’ relationships. Two people playing table tennis with information and dialogue.

I cycled across the USA in 2010 and the roads in Kansas would be Stage 3 if they were people. They get you from A to B in a straight line. Sometimes 100 miles in a straight line with no other connections to be seen!

Stage 3 is seen characterised by the idea that “I am great” and attempts to not just keep up with the Jones’s but to be better than them.

Everything is an attempt to be better than the other Stage 3 people.

This is EVERYWHERE, particularly in professional environments where lawyers, investment managers, doctors and prima donna sports stars spend their lives comparing their personal achievements to everyone else.

Imagine four young, well qualified investment managers on the golf course on a Saturday morning joking about who’s fund has experienced the most growth over the last quarter.

“Well yours may have grown by 7.5% but mine has outperformed the industry average by 5% consistently for 12 months in a row so beat that!”

This is Stage 3 bullshit. It’s all about me.

Now until around 12 months ago, that’s exactly where I was.

“I’m a great personal trainer, I’ve got these results, I’m going to build some fitness camps where it’s all about me”

I felt like a cowboy at times, riding across the wide open plains of…Guernsey…putting out individual fires one at a time and having to jump between people when they needed me.

Then I realised…

a) I was being an arrogant tw*t.

b) There is only so much time in a week so if I was to keep increasing my personal wealth and help more people, I had to keep working more and more, eventually resenting the very job I had come to love.

c) There are other people out there who can help me grow personally thus helping me help more people and extend the reach I have to many, many more people. Helping someone in a give and take relationship is great, but again it has its limits.

d) Mini-tribes were beginning to form between people who I had a relationship with at the camps.

The best example of this being the guys who pulled together from the Guernsey Fitness Camp to form a group to climb Kilimanjaro.

Helping someone in a give and take relationship is great, but again it has its limits.

I realised that other people could strengthen that relationship and make it much more productive for all involved if I enabled a network of relationships to be plugged into the same hub.

And hence the birth of the ever growing Storm Force Fitness tribe.

A Stage 3 approach to life is severely limited and whilst it can make you very successful, you will always have this sense that something is missing.

Stage 4

I took time out to look very closely at what values I wanted the SFF tribe to be based on and guided by.

The next stage was to go and find others who shared these values both to become members of the Guernsey Fitness Camp and to help me lead the tribe!

Enter Russ, Lou, Clive, Aivis and Anna to the team!

Apart from Lou, all of the staff were first members of the camp (or still are!) so I knew they shared the values of the company. Lou was recommended to me by Russ who understood what we needed to grow as a team so I was happy to go with his recommendations – and I have been delighted at the results!

Decisions become much easier for you at Stage 4 because you’re guided by a set of values or  principles. When you don’t know what to do, you can just look at your list of values, and the answer usually becomes clear very quickly.

People often ask how I get so much done.

The answer lies in the Stage 4 attitude of leveraging my team and deciding what to do based on whether it fits with the core values we have as a team. Complex decisions then become a matter of yes or no!

You’ll know if you’re in Stage 4 because your life is more of a spiders web of a network rather than lots of 121 relationships and you have a sense of being part of a TEAM that you refer to as great – rather than simply thinking all the time about how well YOU are doing.

You have pride in being part of big tribes and mini-tribes all over the place such as….

- The Guernsey Fitness Camp

- Your cycling group that goes out on Sunday morning come rain or shine

- Your religion

If you can’t see many relationships in your life that involve 3 or more people, then you’re not a firm Stage 4 yet.

People in Stage 4 also look at how they can connect others and will find themselves often saying things like “You should speak to my friend xxxxx, you’d work/play well together!”

You’ll also find yourself sniffing out challenges set by other people and saying “Yeah I’m up for that!”

Stage 5

I spend periods of time here, but not enough as I’d like, and I don’t feel nearly enough of the SFF tribe do yet which is what we’re working on!

Realistically, it’s hard to be in Stage 5 all the time, but the journeys that take you there should become more and more frequent!

At Stage 5, you’ll find yourself saying, “Life’s awesome” on a daily basis.

To be at Stage 5 you need to get involved in life-changing, history-making projects which get you so focussed that you almost forget everything else that’s going on.

Note though that this differs from short, intense bursts of pleasure which distract you from everything else in your life that you hate.

Hedonistic people often mistake these bursts for happiness and it’s not very sustainable and won’t make much difference to your life in the long-run.

In fact one day, these people often suddenly stop and go “What the hell have I been doing?!”

So Stage 5 should always be the aim, just don’t expect it to be a permanent hang-out!

It’s the Stage at which you feel part of something much, much bigger than getting paid, feeling successful or even serving customers!

Stage 5 is where you start dedicating your life to a cause.

Where Are You?

So the question is where are you right now?

You may find you are firmly rooted in one stage but more likely you bounce between different stages.

We’ll look at what to do about it soon and how you can move up a stage.

For now, if you find yourself swinging between say Stage 2 and 3, identify whether there are situations or people who drag you back to Stage 2 making you think “I hate my life”.

Your boss can do this.

Your negative friends can do this.

Spending less time with these people can VERY quickly make you happy and take you to Stage 3 which is a great place to be.

But Stage 4 and Stage 5 are MUCH more rewarding!

Stay tuned….

————-> Read The Book – Tribal Leadership

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Before reading this article, please understand that this is not a personal attack on anyone, more a venting of frustration after an offer of help to to the island. I don’t wish to try to bring down any one or group of individuals more to show Joe Public how closed-minded and stuck in the past public health services can be.

Please note that the responses were not personally from Mr Cooke who I am sure (and have been told) is a very respectable professional, but from one of his staff.

If you live in Guernsey, you may have heard that like many governmental departments in recent times, the Health and Social Services Department in the island have been struggling recently in reaction to increasingly common budget cuts.

Now please do not reply about what you believe is right or wrong about Guernsey’s budget cuts, the fact is HSSD has been told to make changes whether they, you or I like it or not.

I also appreciate there is more to HSSD than just health and fitness but this is the corner I have chosen to fight in my life, so in my perceived wisdom I thought it  would be the ideal solution for HSSD to link up with Storm Force Fitness in some capacity in order to…

…reduce the pressure on the HSSD from poor-health related diseases

…get our methods which clearly work, out to a larger audience in the island

…educate the Guernsey public in order to address the causes rather than the effects as is typical with modern health care and medicine.

This is the exact letter sent to Mr Cooke, head of the HSSD

***********

5 December 2012
“Dear Mr Cooke,

I am writing to you in the capacity of Head Coach at Storm Force Fitness.

I hope you have heard of our growing reputation for changing a lot of lives in the island through our training and nutrition services.

At present we have 200 members on our Guernsey Fitness Camp, a steadily growing personal training base and coach the Guernsey Rugby, Cricket and Squash teams.

Given the results we are achieving now both in the short and long terms, it is clear we have developed our exercise and nutrition plans to a stage where we can significantly decrease the pressure on Guernsey’s health services.

Our testimonials detailing fast and lasting fat loss as well as improved energy, health and vitality are so numerous now we are compiling a ‘story book’ to help encourage others who are in desperate need of help.

I must admit to being in the dark as to how the HSSD views links with private companies but I have reached a point where I feel it morally wrong for us to not offer our services in a wider capacity to the island’s public, having seen the effects it is having on so many people already.

We are currently planning a free nutrition seminar for early 2012 and I would like to discuss the potential for setting up a more regular, structured education program in conjunction with the HSSD.

Obviously we are happy to do all the ground work on this, we just require some input from HSSD as to what you feel is lacking, required or hard to fulfil without support from the private sector at this time in Guernsey.

We truly hope you will take this opportunity to become part of the growing Storm Force Fitness movement in Guernsey and we’re happy to answer any questions.

I can be contacted on ***** ****** or jon@stormforcefitness.com and look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Jon Le Tocq (Head Coach)”

*******************

You will notice that no remuneration is requested in my letter as I am open to community projects running alongside private initiatives.

The response?

Below are the important extracts from the return letter received.

*******************

“We are unable to promote any particular company when talking about physical activity or weight management – there are so many fitness instructors that we are unable to promote one business over another.”

“However, if clients ask if we could recommend any weight management companies we do direct them to those that adhere to the NICE (National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence) clinical guideline 43, see attached extract. Therefore this may be something you would like to consider when promoting your programmes.”

“With reference to your nutrition seminar, if the content was based on the Eat Well plate model, we might be able to help with the supply of appropriate resources. Perhaps you could contact me at the above address to discuss further”

*******************

So we looked up the mythical Eat Well plate….

So rather than write an essay here’s my beef with the reply in short:

- Anyone who has even taken a few minutes to research milk should know by now the detrimental effects it can have on blood sugar, the likelihood of contaminants from the animals food supply, the negative effects of pasteurisation and the more obvious problems of nearly EVERYBODY being lactose intolerant in some form. Some with severe reactions, others with less obvious symptoms such as temporary increase mucous production. Every single fitness coach I know that gets great results for both fat loss AND health, recommends eradicating or massively restricting dairy intake bar perhaps some raw goat’s cheese or milk.

- A third of your plate apparently should be filled with starchy carbs such as rice and potatoes. Why does some overweight, sedentary person who lies down in bed, gets up to reach the car which they sit in to drive to work where they sit down all day before reversing the process, need a constant stream of carbohydrates into their body. Carbs are the easiest source of fuel to burn for energy, so such a diet prioritises carbohydrate as the option of choice leaving fat cells untouched. Isolating one source, we now know that potatoes have a high glycemic load, in other words, potentially making blood sugar problems even worse.

You will also see a nice white bagel in the photo and corn flakes.

When native americans moved to a diet based mainly on corn they experienced increased rates of….

• Anemia
• Dental cavities
• Osteoarthritis
• Bone infections and other bone problems

Good for you then….?

- They want me to do a presentation saying that it’s okay to have foods such as cake and coke at every meal? Are these guys for real?

- You see NO mention of healthy fats such as olive oil, coconut oil or fish oil (other than indirectly getting a little if you choose to eat fish as part of your minute protein intake) These are indisputably critical to human life from strengthening the immune system to building cell structure and ensuring basic brain function. Oh and they are also a critical piece of the fat loss jigsaw.

- YOU HONESTLY WHAT TO GIVE ME ADVICE / SUPPLY RESOURCES WHEN YOUR METHODS PLACE A BOWL OF BAKED BEANS IN THE SAME CATEGORY AS EGGS, FISH AND MEAT?

- You said in one sentence that you don’t recommend individual companies. You then said straight after that you DO, if they follow this bullshit on the Eat Well plate.

- Storm Force Fitness has an established and rapidly growing reputation in Guernsey and have offered you a helping hand in reaching OUR local community. Instead you have chosen to firmly route your principles in those of the NHS which has proven itself incapable of managing or changing the UK’s health requirements.

- Based on that plate, I could have a meal made up of a white bread bagel with cheese, some tinned sweetcorn, baked beans and a can of coke.

Any authority recommending this should be shot in the head, never mind encouraged to speak to those of us who have actually figured out what works.

What About The Extract Mentioned?

There are some valid points in the extract enclosed with the letter regarding addressing both diet and activity, including behaviour-change techniques and ongoing support.

However, the first two points are:

1) Endorse such programmes only if they meet ‘best-practice’ standards by helping people decide on a realistic healthy weight target weight (usually to lose 5-10% of their weight)

2) Endorse such programmes only if they meet ‘best-practice’ standards by aiming for a maximum weekly weight loss of 0.5-1.0kg.

First, where the hell does 5-10% come from?

I helped a lady go from 20 stone 10 to around 10 stone 9. Her health issues such as IBD cleared up, her energy soared and she went on to cycle from London to Paris. Had she only lost 10% she would have still weight 18 stone.

There are many, many women and men out there like this so she is not a rare exception in modern times.

Second what is realistic? Most people are so down-beat on themselves that realism to them is a dreary, depressing world in which the gods shit on them every day and deal them a bad hand every time they step out of the door. Their view of reality is based on false impressions of life because they have been misled and likely surrounded by other fat, negative, sick people.

In reality, there is NO reality – just what you create.

Finally this maximum weekly weight loss of 1-2lbs (0.5-10kg approximately), has long been shown to be utter rubbish.

Again I can provide mountains of testimonials from people who have done much more than this and felt more energetic, happier and reduced or eliminated diseases within their bodies.

So why are we restricting Joe Public to a slow, mediocre journey to health and fitness.

I agree that there are many stupid crash diets out there which deliver a fast weight loss initially followed by a return to old weight after the diet causes and inevitable binge in conjunction with a slower metabolic rate after hitting a mild form of starvation.

However, careful management of nutrition can deliver safe and lasting fat loss much faster.

What Now?

Clearly entire books could be written on all the topics above but I am simply trying to illustrate at this point the battles that are faced by Joe Public and the kind of archaic thinking which is guiding YOUR health care.

I don’t question the moral principles or intentions of those in charge, just the knowledge and research that has been done IN THE REAL WORLD, and the willingness to listen to fresh ideas which clearly work and are doing so right under your noses – by Storm Force Fitness and other fitness companies as well.

In my humble opinion when people are getting sicker, fatter and suffering more mental health problems strangely in conjunction with changes to modern nutrition practices, it is time to at least give these companies a chance ESPECIALLY when they are offering it as part of community education program for free.

I have no intention of changing my methods to anything like the Eat Well plate and unfortunately will have to continue with organically growing our reach into the Guernsey community one person at a time without the help from the powers that be who could help us to help many more people, much faster.

Funnily enough this is one of the core values of Storm Force Fitness “Seeking and sharing of knowledge”.

If only more public and private enterprises thought like this, we could make change happen much faster before it’s too late for another generation.

I don’t claim to know everything, in fact I am aware of glaring holes in my knowledge which need filling.

My point is that this is already a desperate situation and if the health authorities are unwilling to even listen, the future looks bleak for the masses in Guernsey.

Visit Storm Force Fitness for more information on our services in Guernsey.

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