Hi Everyone!
This is a quick post to say that I’m on holiday, so posts will be few and far between for the next couple of weeks, and I apologise for not keeping up on your blogs, for those readers who have them!
My husband and I are having a fantastic time in California so far, and our road trip will take us to a few more states yet.
I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to try out an official Olympic event venue earlier this year. It was on the Olympic whitewater course in Lee Valley Park. This was fortunately before the professional Olympic athletes took over!
Well, here it is: the opening ceremony day of the London Olympics, 2012. For Londoners, this has been a long anticipated (or dreaded) day. For years now, talk has been running high about Olympic bids, Olympic facilities, Olympic legacies, Olympic heat-seeking ground to air missiles on your tower block, and Olympic displacement of travelling residents. Oh, and the topic of Olympic tickets!
Sorry for the doozy blog title! I guess my point was that in order to reap the rewards of a great exercise session- you have to push yourself and work hard. For you, this may mean a sweaty spinning class, or it may be a walk around the block. It’s all relative- but you know whether you’re pushing yourself when you’re being honest with yourself. My job as a trainer is to know when clients are cheating- and to help them effectively push their limits.
There was a heart wrenching story on the Today Programme* yesterday morning about undernourished families and their approaches to food purchasing. One mother of two, who was struggling with costs, said that she was on her fifth day without eating anything at all. She said that all the food she could afford to buy was going directly to her children. She couldn’t afford to buy food for herself. I find it profoundly sad that a mother should have to forgo food anywhere in the world- and I find it particularly devastating that it happens in a country with the means to keep everyone well-fed.
I woke up this morning to the Today Programme heralding a study that has proven: a lack of exercise is responsible for nearly 10% of global deaths (5.3 million of the 57 million deaths worldwide). According to the research, which was published in the medical journal, The Lancet, inactivity causes roughly the same number of deaths as smoking does.
I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up, we didn’t have superfoods. Don’t get me wrong- I grew up in a fortunate household with responsible and loving parents, where food was thankfully not a source of worry. But we didn’t have superfoods. So for me, the term conjures up images of blueberries with capes or bananas dressed up in leotards.
If you’ve ever set foot in a gym, you’ll have heard of the fat burning zone. Posters on gym walls detail how you calculate your personal fat burning zone, and heart rate monitors are built into machines, telling you whether you’re in the magical fat burning zone. It sounds enticing, doesn’t it? Who doesn’t want to burn fat? But is the fat burning zone effective? Is it the most effective way to lose fat? And should you focus on the fat burning zone for your cardio, aerobic and fitness routine?
Planning ahead is absolutely crucial to achieving your fitness and health goals. Without forward planning, initial good intentions can very easily take a backseat to practicality and dealing with a busy life.
