Waist Danger Zone - Is Your Waist Over 35 inches?

A recent study by Tufts University in Boston shows that not only is the 'muffin top' or 'beer gut' aesthetically displeasing, but it also poses significant health risks.  This has long been suggested but now there is growing research (no pun intended...) that once our waists creep up to the 'magic' number 35 (men get 2 more inches than us ladies - their major danger zone is above 37in) we are at an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and perhaps even Alzheimers and dementia.  

If your waist measurement reaches 40 ins then you should definitely be taking action to get this situation under control.

Bear in mind that if you are particularly small of stature then a lower number will represent your danger zone - for extremes of height you are better off dividing your height by 2.  That is your personal danger zone - so if you are 5 foot 2 inches, or 62 inches, you are in the danger zone if your waist is 31in or more.

So why is belly fat more dangerous than fatty deposits elsewhere?  Well, it indicates that you are likely to be carrying much more visceral fat - this is fat around the organs including the heart.  So even if you are to all casual observers 'slim' you really do need to know this number - and if you are in the danger zone you need to take action.

My personal fat loss crusade is more health related than aesthetic - I realised this when I bought a pair of (a bit weird looking) Fit Flops today instead of replacing my trusty (and very good looking) Reef Mick Fannings with yet another pair!  I don't care what I look like in them, but I know they will do me good. The same applies to eating healthily and exercising - for me the benefit of looking better is actually just an added bonus. I care a lot more about feeling good, about feeling energetic and healthy.

Anyway, back to the visceral, or 'organ covering internal fat'.  There are a host of hormonal responses that increase the level of harmful fat in the blood as well as disrupting insulin balance, meaning that sugar levels are less well controlled, which is how it can lead to diabetes.

I don't want to spread doom and gloom, though!  The risk is reversible and studies have shown that when you lose weight it will come from the visceral fat at the same time - in fact the layer around the heart reduced by a third when obese patients lost 20% of their body weight, so this 'danger fat' is lost in preference to external fat. Perhaps not what you want to hear when you're panicking to get into a slinky dress and the fat seems to be staying put, but this is really a lot more important in the long run.

So what can I do?

Nutrition and exercise, of course!  

Essentially, you need to burn 500 cals more a day than you take in to lose a pound a week - and it really is this simple.  

To do this as painlessly as possible (it may be simple, but it's not easy!) you want to focus on the most 'efficient' foods - that are going to fuel the body whilst providing maximum nutrition and fullness - so lean proteins, lots and lots of vegetables, good fats (Omega 3 - ideally krill oil), good carbs (sweet potatoes, brown rice, quinoa, sourdough rye breads NOT refined sugar or sugary foods like pastries and cakes or starchy white carbs such as pasta and white bread).  Low fat dairy is also a good thing to include - there is some evidence that calcium may help with fat loss, and that food sources rather than supplements have a much greater effect.

As for exercise, interval and resistance training has been proven to increase belly-fat burning due to the hormones that are produced when you exercise at a high intensity. Given the fact that intervals and resistance also increase fat burning after you have finished exercising, in a way that steady state cardio does not, you are onto a winner.  You should do a combination of resistance training and intervals 3 times a week for optimal results.

You absolutely cannot spot reduce the belly fat with sit ups! Contrary to infuriatingly popular 'wisdom' crunches do not equal flat abs or a six pack!  The only way you get that is to reduce body fat and you only do that by referring to my earlier point of consuming less than you expend, consistently.

For a killer abs programme check out Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training for Abs - not a crunch in sight and as a bonus you get the best nutrition info out there, from natural health expert, Isabel De Los Rios (or you can check her programme out directly: HERE).

If you're wondering about how you can drink alcohol on a fat loss programme, Tom Venuto has some hard hitting advice, and compares the calorie content of most alcoholic beverages (I say 'most' - if you want to spend your free time drinking blue WKD then you're reading the wrong blog!).  If you're looking to lose the beer belly, though, a clue to what you may need to get rid of to get rid of it is in the title!

Get Your Head in the RIght Place for Fat Loss

I am absolutely loving the audios Scott Tousignant has got together for his 21 Day Unstoppable Fat Loss challenge.

I've saved them all to my Ipod and I've only actually listened to a couple, but the information is so powerful that I've learnt loads already!  Sometimes it's just the one or two key points that can cause us to reach a 'tipping point' to take action where before there was inaction, or a tip that makes the difference between renewed success and continuing aimlessly down the same path.

The great thing about these audios are that they don't focus on the specifics of exercise or nutrition at all!  Apart from Tom Venuto's brilliant nutrition guideline of 'Lean, Green and Marine' the focus is on how to get the mindset in place.

Until we have the right thinking going on, any changes we make are going to be hard work and usually temporary,  If we see exercise as something we don't enjoy, we will stick with it while our focus and willpower are there, but the first obstacle or disruption will mean the new programme gets left behind.

Kevin Gianni had a fab way of helping you to change your mindset, as of course it's not that easy to change your way of thinking!   Saying to yourself; 'I am the type of person who....'.  It seems simple, and it is, but it's very powerful.  If you are struggling to lose weight or eat well, you are probably subconsciously telling yourself that you're the type of person who can't lose weight, or who will always be fat, or who hates exercise.

If you simply start adding more positive phrases, such as  'I am the type of person who likes being active' or 'I am the type of person who feels better when I eat healthy food' you can create the right internal environment in your head, that will allow the required actions to follow naturally.

There are so many little tips and tricks, so I won't bombard you with them all now.  But give this one a try.  Catch any negative self talk when you notice it (we are so good at this we often don't even realise we're doing it!) and switch it round to something more positive, and notice the amazing effects!

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

I had a slightly major disaster befall me last week, as I managed to spill water over my laptop and kill the whole thing, hard drive included!

Lesson No 1:  back up data more often... I have an external hard drive but it's a bit bulky and a bit of a pain so I don't do it as often as I should - the last back up was 2 months ago, before a major overhaul of all my client's programmes with this really cool Excel tool that took me bloody ages to create...  I also spent the whole of the day before doing my accounts which I have now lost - luckily the last lot were pre-back-up!

Lesson No 2: Don't leave water bottles unopened near laptops.  In fact, there's one right by my lap top as I write this, I clearly have my work cut out for me on this one...

As soon as it happened I took it to the Tech Guys at PC World and at first they thought they could salvage the data so I was a little encouraged - as I was desperate to replace my annoying, slow lap top anyway!  As much as it was an expense I could do without so soon after spending £600 on my van and just before spending £500 on kitesurfing equipment, it was nonetheless a cost I would need to incur at some point, and in fact, the time spent wasted on my slow lap top would mean it was kinda saving money to spend it sooner!

It turned out that they couldn't save it, however, so my precious data was lost forever!  More stressful was the amount of precious time I had lost, due to wasted effort and the effort now needed to re-do everything I had lost!

But then I wandered over to the Mac section - it is in fact one of my Magic Hundred goals to get a Mac, so this incident had actually made this dream a closer reality!  If I had not killed my old lap top I would have not been able to justify the expense of a new one, especially as my 30th is coming up and it would have probably been a present from a few of my family.  But my birthday is AFTER the Magic Hundred is over!   So if I waited to receive one as a gift I'd be failing on that goal!

When I saw that they were selling a £1200 Mac Book Pro for £850 I just couldn't keep my eyes off it!  Although I couldn't really afford it, I realised this was too good to miss, so after some discussion with my boyfriend I went ahead and got it.  And suddenly the loss of time, data and money was immaterial!  The Mac takes a bit of getting used to, and I have to fork out for the Mac version of Office, but I love it so much!  It works and can handle the work I am doing on it, doesn't go into meltdown when I have multiple tabs open and has a load of cool creative stuff, meaning the YouTube vids I need to get round to creating will be all the better (and easier).

You will think I am really sad now, but the worst thing was that I lost all my Fit Day data! I've been logging my food intake since Jan and for some reason even though I had backed up 2 months ago it seemed to lose everything from Feb!  Really annoying - but even more annoying is that Fit Day is not Mac compatible!  

However, I discovered CalorieKing.com which costs a bit more (which is probably why I didn't get it first time round as I didn't know if the logging would stick) but as I know how lost I felt without FitDay I realised I'll be logging my food for a long time to come so it was worth it - and again, it has been a blessing in disguise as I love it even more!  It allows you to copy entire days easily and as I tend to eat similar things on a regular basis this will save me a lot of time. The look and feel is nicer too, and fits with the Mac better, whereas FitDay feels more Excel-ly.

So why have I told you all about this?  Well, really just to say that the obstacles in our path are only obstacles if we perceive them to be.  We have the choice to deal with situations in any way - I chose in this case to make it as productive as possible and not dwell on what I had lost.  

In fact, I've treated it like a fresh start - there was a lot of junk on my old lap top and it really felt like a forced 'de-clutter' and it has made me feel lighter and less bogged down!  

Sometimes we need to let go of things, especially the past, and take steps forward into the relative unknown.  Just because we have always had cereal and toast for breakfast, it feels safe. The idea of 'losing' that safety net and moving forward can actually be a lot more scary to us on a subconscious level than we might appreciate.  

If we look at life as a series of opportunities, rather than of obstacles, we will achieve so much more and enjoy life so much more!

Are You Getting Enough (Broccoli)?

Here's the science bit: "Activation of NF-E2-related factor-2 reverses biochemical dysfunction of endothelial cells induced by hyperglycemia linked to vascular disease." [Diabetes (Journal), 4th Aug 2008].

This means nothing to me either, so don't despair! It took translation by the BBC on 5th Aug for me to realise that my addiction to broccoli may be even more beneficial than I had realised (I get concerned looks in the supermarket as I could single-handedly cause a local shortage!): "Broccoli may undo diabetes damage."

This fascinating study looked at the phytochemical, sulforaphane. It appears to help produce enzymes that protect blood vessels by reducing tissue damaging substances triggered by high blood sugar. It also appears to activate genes that regulate protective antioxidant and detoxifying enzymes in the body.

Vascular disease is a major complication of diabetes, leading to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, damage to small vessels of the eye (resulting in blindness) and reduced circulation to extremities (sometimes requiring amputation).

Of course we're heard loads about the benefits of broccoli and for good reason. In 2006, another broccoli compound was found to help boost genes that prevent damaged genetic information from being passed on to future generations of cells, thereby offering potential reduction in cancer risk. In 2007, a nutrition study of men who had prostate cancer showed that a weekly serving of broccoli cut risk for the aggressive form of the disease by 45 percent. In 2008, researchers found in an animal study that sulforaphane in broccoli protects the heart from damage when it is deprived of oxygen (such as what occurs when a coronary artery is blocked by a clot).

What makes the diabetes study so compelling is that it seems to actually identify mechanisms triggered by sulforaphane in broccoli that may allow an actual reversal of high blood sugar damage.

All of the studies point out the need for generous servings of vegetables and fruit on a daily basis - the general mantra is '5 a day' but aim to double that! You really can't go wrong with veggies so get chopping and load up those plates!

Even if you're not as enthusiastic about the appeal of broccoli as I am you can get similar benefits by including 'related' veg - Broc (my affectionate term, we're pretty close now...) is a member of the Brassica group in the mustard family - here's a few alternatives you can start to include in your 10 a day habit:

Root vegetables -- swede, turnips, kohlrabi
Leafy vegetables -- cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, rapini, collard greens, bok choy, napa (Chinese cabbage), mustard greens
Flowers -- cauliflower, broccoli, broccoflower
Seeds -- mustard seed and sprouts

We really are what we eat - the question is, do you rate yourself highly enough to feed your body with vibrant goodness, or are you happy to chuck in any old junk and get by?

I know what I'm doing! Broccoli all the way... (Plus lots of other lovely veggies, plenty of lean protein, eggs, fish oils, nuts, oats, sweet potatoes, berries and other fruits and the odd glass of vin rouge and super-dark chocolate of course...).

Lightning Bolt

I just couldn't resist it - such a perfect surname for the fastest person in the world!

If you haven't seen Usain Bolt's world record winning Olympic sprint from the weekend then you really must check it out - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/athletics/7565572.stm

He annihilated the field, broke the world record, and jogged the last few metres in 'celebration' mode!

The thing that relly hit me about Usain is that he is not 'built' to be a sprinter! Sprinters are classically relatively short - under 5'10". Usain is a staggering 6'5" which would usually prevent 100m success - the long limbs are usually less able to co-ordinate and build up the required pace over such a short distance. Taller sprinters are usually diverted to the longer distances such as 400m.

But Usain and his coach decided to defy 'convention'. Against all odds they made it possible to get max speed out of his long limbs over the 100m, and as a result he has surpassed his shorter rivals.

He could have used his height as an excuse - I'm too tall for the 100m....

But instead, the challenge and adversity is what made his amazing success all the sweeter...

The same applies to you in your fat loss and fitness quest. You are busy and have forces pulling against you all the time - but rather than letting these forces take you down you can win despite this disadvantage. And when you reach your goals it is your challenging circumstances that will make success all the sweeter!

We all look at celebrities who are whipped into shape a week after a baby or a 'fat' movie and we don't usually have that much admiration for their achievement as we know they have had it all 'on a plate': an on-call Personal Trainer, perfectly proportioned and delicious 'rations' delivered to them daily and the extreme motivational push of worldwide press coverage to keep them on track.

When we see 'real' people with real challenges we have much more respect and admiration, and when people achieve 'against the odds' we rate their achievements far higher.

It is our response to our unique challenges that determines our success, and usually it is the challenge that makes success more likely.

You may think that others who have the results you would like may 'have it easy' but usually this is not the case! I personally struggle with weight but because of that I have made fitness and good nutrition into a way of life - and I am glad about that! If I had always been naturally slim and athletic I would not be as fit and healthy as I am now, and would in all liklihood probably not be a trainer doing a job I adore.

So let's relish the challenges! And don't let anyone tell you you're just 'not meant to be' anything. We can all be slim and fit and healthy - and we all deserve to be!

Wanna Be Unstoppable?

For those of you on my mailing list you'll know I've just entered Scott Tousignant's Unstoppable Fat Loss Contest.

This is truly unlike any other transformation contest out there - all of which deal with the external. Scott, meanwhile, has created the Unstoppable Mindset approach - providing you with the tools to create internal change that will enable you to take action towards your goals with more inspired clarity and will mean you effortlessly shift from achieving to maintaining results as the habits have been permanently created and part of the fabric of your life.

The mind is so powerful - if you believe you can acheive, but most of us hold lingering self doubts: Can we acheive? Can we maintain that success or will it be a permanent uphill struggle? These thoughts hinder our progress as we subconsciously self-sabotage: a sneaky snack here, a missed workout there, it won't matter?

To enter you simply download the audios (and you get loads of bonuses, such as workouts for a year!) and will recieve more instructions from there. It's currently at a bargain half price and most of the bonuses are only available until midnight tonight, so if you are keen to make the most of the last few weeks of summer then get to Scott's site ASAP - CLICK HERE FOR UNSTOPPABLE FAT LOSS!

I do also know it's a perfect time to be doing something like this - I'm sure you're as inspired as I am by the focus and determination of the Olympic athletes in Bejing! But rather than looking at them as exceptions to the 'average Joe / Jane' rule we should use that inspiration to make positive changes in our own lives - we don't need to be going for gold in China to acheive excellence and continual improvement in our own lives.

Anyway, you can find out more about the challenge through Scott's site: UNSTOPPABLE FAT LOSS TRANSFORMATION CONTEST. I've signed up and looking forward to hearing more about what's going on tomorrow!

If you're interested, the plan I'm following, nutrition and training wise, is one I only discovered over the weekend - Nick Nilsson's Metabolic Surge. It's not for the fainthearted and not something I would recommend for beginners at all as it involves strict manipulation of macronutrients and specific (and intense) training protocols on set days, but I like testing these kinds of things out! Of course I've modified the programme (under Nick's guidance) as I'm using kettlebells and his programme is more gym-based. It promises amazing results so we shall see - I'm committed to it for the next 48 or so days and going to be strict with it so I'll be able to blame the programme if it doesn't work! Will post here with updates every now and then...

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Fat Loss

I've been listening to the audio of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in the van recently, as part of my Magic Hundred goal to learn stuff and make the most of otherwise wasted time spent driving between clients.

There is a lot of useful stuff in there and pretty much all of it can be applied to fitness and fat loss:

1. Be Proactive

We have to build our own momentum, so it is essential to take the initiative to get of the sofa and TAKE ACTION! No-one will do it for us, so if we want to achieve anything in life, professional or personal, we have to accept responsibility and get moving!

2. Begin With The End in Mind

We can start a fitness or fat loss journey randomly, but my taking time to really consider our goals and get a real understanding of how we will look and feel and behave when we get there, we make the journey more focussed, and also ensure we are going in the right direction! In the book, Covey uses the example of a businessman who single-mindedly climbs to the top of his career ladder, only to realise upon looking back down, that is was up against the wrong wall!

Make sure your programme fits your goals and you maximise your time and effort by having a clear goal in the first place!

3. Put First Things First

Don't run before you can walk and don't buy a fat-burning, metabolism boosting pill until your diet and training are sorted (if at all!). If you are not training at all you may want to run into things head first with two feet (not sure that's physically possible, but you get my point..) but you will end up burning out or causing injury. Work up at a sensible rate and ensure you are setting a good foundation for more advanced exercise.

With nutrition, this is why fad diets will fail - the actual diet will cause you to lose weight but in the long run it is the daily lifelong habits that need addressing.

Adding exercise into an already hectic schedule may also be a challenge and then exercise is the first thing to go when something takes the schedule into overdrive. Instead, look at time-management first - you may have some dead time or time spent micro-managing that with a little alteration could be delegated more effectively.

4. Think Win-Win

'Win-Lose' is the mentality that to win in your fat loss mission, those around you must 'lose' your time or output. 'Lose-Win' would mean that for your family to 'win' or get time spent on them as they require, you have to 'lose', martyring your workout time to the good of the family.

A 'win-win' mentality is the only one that we should strive for (or a 'win-win or 'no deal' as Covey discusses in more detail!). And it very much applies to getting healthy and fit in many ways. For example, if you are fit and happy within yourself, you have more energy and more positivity to share with your family.

You may spend time on your health (but who would deny you that? Certainly no-one who loves you..) but that will be repaid many times over in the quality of the time you do spend with your family. It is well known that offspring of unhealthy parents usually end up overweight themselves - if the cupboards are ful of healthier foods and it's the norm to eat more healthily your whole family will benefit in the short and long term.

And fitness and activity can so easily be integrated into family life. Most kids love moving and have more energy than us adults can usually handle! If you play with them or take them biking or whatever you are getting quality time together while both getting fit and feeling great!

We need to alter our mindsets to truly get a handle on the fact that just because we 'win' doesn't mean someone else has to lose - and that we should always strive to make any situation 'win-win'.

5. Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood

The way I have related this one to fat loss and fitness is more from my own perspective as a trainer. Many trainers will 'prescribe' the same training programme or nutritional approach to all their clients, regardless of who they are and what their unique needs are.

I laughed when Covey used the illustration of a guy who goes to the optician to get some glasses. When he explains that his sight is failing the optician pauses, hands him his own glasses, and says 'here, try these, they've worked for me for years'!

When the guy protests 'but these make things worse!' the optician dismisses his concerns, telling him to 'try harder' and 'think positively' as they must work - after all they worked fine for him.

This is all to often seen in the fitness industry! I screen my clients for postural issues and weaknesses etc before starting with the training. I spend the hour long consulation finding out about their history in exercise and about them as a person. All this feeds into the approach I take which is different for every client - what works for one will make another worse!

Nutritionally this is really important too. I thrive on what most people consider a low carb diet (it's really a moderate carb one though!) but I will not make my clients follow it because it works for me. Some people need to make big drastic changes in order to stay motivated and fired up whereas others need to take it step by step so they don't freak out over all the change and revert back to where they started.

Listening to yourself and understanding how your own mind works is just as useful, then you can more easily identify the approaches that will work for you and the ones that don't.

6. Synergise

Diets don't work? Or do they? Diets essentially do work but they have to be implemented correctly by the dieter. And this involves the steps above - making sure you have a goal, ensuring you are choosing the right programme for you in the first place etc.

Plus it is the synergy of mindset, training, nutrition, rest and recovery that get results - the total is definitely very much more than the sum of its parts. Exercise for a while, give that up, try a diet for a while, give that up - nothing is going to work on its own. Implement all in a steady, progressive way and you will get results, and keep them!

7. Sharpen The Saw

Well, I'm not onto this chapter yet! Will see how I interpret it with regards fitness and fat loss and update you all soon!

Shhh... Don't Tell Anyone What's In This Healthy, Delicious, Low Calorie / Fat / Carb Dessert!

I haven't posted any recipes on here for a while, my intent to post a weekly recipe has certainly slipped! Partly because I tend to buy healthy ingredients and throw them together most of the time - keeping things simple can actually be a godsend when you are watching what you are eating and the added extras in many ingredients often lead to added calories.

However, I have had a huge tub of vanilla protein powder that I just haven't really been using for a while, as I prefer my Promax Diet shake, blended with ice, coconut milk and some hemp protein powder at the mo. I also started buying Fat Free Quark instead of cottage cheese as I have been overdoing the cottage cheese and it does contain a fair amount of sodium that I wanted to cut down on, and the Quark is similar protein and carb content just with virtually no fat.

So, after a particularly enjoyable and hard kettlebell workout I realised time had flown and I was in a bit of a rush so couldn't really have lunch as I had planned, but I didn't really fancy a shake on its own. So I randomly decided to try blending 20g of the vanilla protein powder in with 125g Quark and a few frozen blueberries and raspberries in my Magic Bullet blender (the best blender in the world - thanks to John Berardi for bringing my attention to it!).

The Quark is thick so it took some shaking and mixing up with a spoon (the design of the Magic Bullet makes this pretty easy though) but the result was incredible!

I tasted some straight from the blender (in fact the bit that gets stuck in the actual sharp bit but it was worth the risk) and it was truly divine. The vanilla protein powder added sweetness and vanilla flavour to the Quark without tasting remotely of protein powder (this will depend on your chosen brand to some extent as some are gross regardless...) and the frozen berries made it fruity and chilled.

I served this with a few more frozen berries and enjoyed every mouthful! Plus it worked out at under 200 cals! Bargain... You could add some chopped walnuts or other nuts if you wanted and had calories to spare, or you could make it into a cheesecake-type dessert using chopped almonds to make a biscuit-style base!

That's what I love about healthy food - it doesn't have to be hard work following recipes and buying ingredients! You can just see what you have and throw it together and see what happens...

Would love to hear from any of you who try this and let me know if you like it. Will post a photo next time I make it - if I can delay eating it for long enough to get a shot that is...

Mission Slim-Possible Update

Mission Slim-Possible is still going strong - but is evolving so here's an update for you. There are 4 of us involved and one of them is me, so if you join us the chances of getting a prize are pretty high!

In case you think you've missed the boat, it is designed to be a rolling thing - you can start your Mission at any point - the key thing is to focus on staying committed to your mission, however big or small, for the whole time.

And in fact, small is better! The concept has evolved since I had the idea and I realised that I had been too strict with myself - so I took the executive decision to re-plan and update my mission. This may seem like a cop-out but the kilos I had added during my holiday (and the post-holiday blues I came back with) dropped within a couple of days (obviously just water / fluid retention) so I decided that action did not need to be so drastic.

It is more important to focus on a few key changes for the entire period (or even just one), then repeat the process adding more changes each time. This means you can create new, healthful habits without having to be too strict!

I have also decided to make it a 4 week process! As it is a rolling process this means you can layer more healthy habits each month, meaning you're constantly evolving and improving.

I was planning to fast twice a week, as per Eat Stop Eat, but although I really enjoyed the first fast, the following four were a real struggle. So I made the call to stop doing that - it is always important to be able to identify when something isn't quite right for you at a certain time. It was a hard decision as I had made my 'pledge' but it would have been counterproductive to keep going regardless.

This decision to change tack did come at the same time as I read Vince Del Monte's incredible new programme though, and I think it was reading his programme that made me want to jump ship. It's called Your 6 Pack Ab Quest and I was so overwhelmed with the amount of info he's included - such as 12 hours of DVD footage where he shows you exactly what to do on the training front - that I couldn't believe it didn't cost way more than it did (it's on half price at the mo too!). The story behind it is he basically got this guy, Peter Carvell (who 6 months ago was told by his doctor that he was clinically obese & on the verge of developing type 2 diabetes) to lose 276 lbs and gain a 6 pack!

Now I'm not interested in any of his workout advice as I am far too hooked on my kettlebells, but the whole package was worth it for me just for the nutritional advice. He has a real no-nonsense, no-excuses approach and it was just what I needed to hear! Of course I know the nutritional approaches that work, and he wasn't teaching my anything I didn't already know, but what it did do was focus my attention on the important things and make me realise that a few of my food choices mean I am 'sitting on the fence' with regards to my final couple of kilos and not making the absolute best choices.

He's got a half price offer on at the moment but if you want to make the most of it you had better be quick as it runs out at midnight Thursday (and I'm never quite sure when midnight is when we're all on different time zones - better to be safe than sorry!).

You can get more info here: Your 6 Pack Ab Quest

Magic Hundred Update: Day 27!

In case you thought I'd given up on my Magic Hundred Programme I thought I'd give you a bit of an update!

I'm gradually checking things off my list - although some of the more boring 'housekeeping' goals have taken a bit of a backburner to be honest! I set a goal to 'do my accounts' but really I should've set a goal to 'always do my accounts on the last day of the month' as having 100 days to get it done has actually helped me to put it off till nearer the deadline!

That is one of the things I have noticed about having 100 days - there is some law that states that 'a task expands to fit the time allocated to it' that explains why most of us leave things to the last minute, and although I am regularly reading my list (not as much as I should) I find that as there are so many goals it's easy to neglect the boring ones in favour of the fun stuff!

Which aint no bad thing, is it? The Magic Hundred is meant to be about the fun stuff anyway! So last weekend we finally learnt to kitesurf*! It is a classic case of something that has been put off because of silly excuses (it costs too much, we don't have time, they wear stupid shorts over their wetsuits) but that we really should take up - we're windsurfers but windsurfing doesn't get interesting until its about force 6, so we are often sat at the beach feeling a bit miserable in the summer when all the kitesurfers are cruising around in a force 3 and glorious sunshine!

It was the Magic Hundred that got us taking action, and while the financial excuse is still there - we can't really afford to buy the kit - once we've bought it we will just have to cut back on other things for a while...

(*The pic is me on day 1 by the way...)

Yoga of Eating - Free Report From Peggy Hall

Peggy Hall is an avid surfer and a certified yoga instructor, personal trainer and nutritional consultant, who has written dozens of articles on surfing, fitness and nutrition for publications such as Oxygen and Cooler.

Peggy was actually my motivation for giving up the 'day job' and persuing my dream of becoming a trainer! I regularly practice the fantastic Yoga for Surfers DVDs she created and it was during the blissful relaxation at the end that Peggy's soothing but motivating words really hit the spot - my decision was made. She then became a role model for me, providing me with a real source of inspiration and motivation - I still want to make my own Yoga (and Kettlebell) DVDs and write for the major fitness magazines!

The Yoga for Surfers DVDs are brilliant for everyone - you really don't have to be a surfer. Great for you guys who think yoga is for girls too, as surfing legend Tom Carroll (see pic) is there showing you how it's done (on the yoga mat as well as on the water!).

Peggy has offered you, my lucky readers, the chance to receive a free report on the 'Yoga of Eating'. In this crazy world of nutrition rules and fad diets this is something we can all learn from and bring into our daily lives (me included...). You can sign up directly here:

Yes, I'd like instant access to my FREE copy of "The Yoga of Eating" article and video clip.
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