I was talking to a friend the other day and she was telling me about a woman she knew who was taking part in a triathlon after getting on a bike for the first time in her life just a few months before. She had never been fit, and had never taken part in anything like this in her life. Not being particularly competitive by nature nor having any belief that her body could do what she was now putting it through to prepare for this event she surprised herself, her family and friends. Even her harshest critics were murmuring their admiration.

She was so inspired after hearing about another woman who had overcome all sorts of obstacles to complete this challenge. She put down the remote control and got cracking on figuring out a way to what to her was seemingly impossible. She focussed whole heartedly on the desired our come a slim, svelte body that she could do all sorts of things with most especially have the energy to enjoy her young boys in.

She got her self a trainer who helped her work out a training schedule, she discovered about healthy eating, threw out everything from her kitchen that sabotaged her efforts. Her trainer helped her put together and training eating plan and she had her partner and kids cheering her on. When she first started it seemed like her muscles wouldn’t stop screaming at her but with the help of her trainer urging her on, in time they gave up their protest and she began to feel and energy and aliveness and a sense of satisfaction in her accomplishing about what she was asking of her body to do each day. She began to fee comfortableness in her own skin that she had scarcely experienced since childhood and she actually began looking forward to her daily workout.

On the day of the race she was so excited she could barely wait for the start gun to sound. Her elation when she crossed the finish line was a high water mark in her year, the spin offs have been immense she never misses a workout if she can help it even after reaching her target weight, the sheer pleasure of keeping her body, fit, strong and flexible keeps her motivated and she is so grateful.

Feeling like this is a choice. Its’ taking one step and then another step and then another step until you accomplish your goal and have the satisfaction that goes with it. We invite you to take a look at the products we’ve created from our experience, passion, knowledge about the benefits you can derive from fitness. To learn more go to www.flexibilityplus.com.

Yours in health,

Nancy

I heard this the other day from self transformation expert Anthony Robbins: “We don’t do half the things we want because of the way we chunk things.” What he ment was we put off doing stuff that would add value to our lives and that ultimatetly we really would enjoy, simply because of the detail we choose to focus on. Let me give you an example of what I mean. I was talking to a friend the other day I’d sent info to back in January. Stuff she really would have benefited from using in order to have better control over a health issue she’s been grappling with for years and is greatly impacting her quality of life. When I asked how she was going with it she said she really hadn’t done much with it all these months, why? Too hard!

She asked me how I was going with something she was helping me with and I had to admit to the same failing.

We laughed and as the conversation went on I observed that really what was missing was a conditioning of our selves to make us follow through. In other words strategies that would make doing what we want in order to achieve our goals automatic. Because when we get into healthy habits of doing we can reach our goals with much less effort. I went on to give an example of some of my own routines, like early morning meditation, followed by exercise, followed by making fresh carrot juice. She laughed out loud and said for her doing stuff like blog posts, which I was struggling with at the time, would be 100 times easier for her to do than juicing ever would. I stopped and said “yup sometimes we struggled with it too, when we made it to complicated”. Thinking about all the steps, from buying the twenty kg bag, to lugging it up the stairs, to storing it, to getting the carrots out, putting the juicer on the counter, washing the carrots, juicing, cleaning the juicer, drying and storing it again.  Wow! It’s enough to make you go” I don’t have time to make fresh juice I think I’ll have another coffee!”

It’s all because of the way we put it together. See once upon a time when you were learning to drive, it was overwhelming there were ten things you needed to simultaneously and it just about fried your brain trying to sort it all out, but when you got your licence and got some experience engine on, clutch in, gear change, break off, signal, look in rearview and side mirrors, steer, accelerate all became part of one thing, called driving. Now you drive, chow down on your big Mac, and talk on your cell all at the time without blinking an eyelid. Creating habits for healthy living can become just as easy if we focus on the outcome and not all the detail. Think about it if someone told you in advance all the grim detail of learning how to drive would you have. If you’d let the detail stop you learning think of all the freedom you’d hve thrown away.

Oh it was fun putting this blog post together, now I feel like some carrot juice.

Till next time
Chunk it right!

Nancy

Yesterday I talked about being flexible in your training, allowing yourself to change your exercise program to suit your changing circumstances.
In my twenties and thirties I was focused on increasing my strength through lifting heavier weights on a progressive basis. Right now, my focus is far more on cardio fitness, flexibility and core strength, incorporating exercises to specifically improve my surfing performance.
This doesn’t mean that a person can’t keep the same focus with their training, as each of us needs to train in a manner that they enjoy, whether that means sticking to the same program year after year, or regularly changing their routine.
Whatever exercise system works for you, the main ingredient is to keep doing it!
Having said that, don’t fall into the trap of giving yourself too much to achieve. You need to create routines that are simple and easy to achieve. As you get fitter, stronger, more agile and flexible, then you can look at adding more to your program.
You are far better off to start a jogging program that has you running for 30 seconds for 5 days a week, then adding another 30 seconds so you jog for 1 minute for the next 5 days, then 1 minute and 30 seconds for the next 5 days, and so on; allowing you to comfortably build up to running for 20 minutes within about 9 months.
This beats going hard out for 10 minutes in your first run, feeling really exhausted, having very sore muscles for three or four days, and then giving up.
Set goals that build a strong foundation, that allow you to sustain exercise for year after year, because you are seeing great results and you are thoroughly enjoying yourself.
All the best
Jonathan
www.flexibilityplus.com

This is a big subject, but I am only going to touch on one aspect of it for now.
What I want to focus on is how your goals will change as you get older.
BUT you do need to have goals of some sort to stay motivated and to train regularly.
Over the previous two years I lost my motivation for surfing after getting hit by my surfboard across the side of my head which perforated my eardrum and took about six weeks to heal. Then I got a painful ear infection which kept me out of the surf for another few weeks, so all in all I was pretty fed up.
This led me to focus more on my martial arts and so I got more into stretching to increase my flexibility for higher kicks.
In an earlier post I talked about getting back into surfing this year, so I won’t go into that again, except to say that right now I am very focused on my surfing as I am really enjoying it.
So, I have developed a new exercise program that focuses a lot on cardio fitness, upper body strength, and core strength, with stretches to maintain my flexibility.
So you can see how my changed circumstances have resulted in my goals being changed.
My overall goal to be fit and healthy hasn’t changed, but how I train has altered to meet my micro goals. This flexible approach to exercising is really important, and is an aspect of training that is often taken for granted.
It is, however, the secret to longevity for your health and fitness, because as you grow older you will find that your circumstances do change, and these changes will affect what you can do.
So, go with the flow, train in a manner that achieves your goals and don’t be stuck in a groove.
Check out www.flexibilityplus.com which provides training methods that allow you to create your own unique personalised exercise program.
Enjoy your training
Jonathan