Luckily there are also times when it’s a little easier to focus on getting in shape and right now we’re coming up to one of them: Lent. From a purely weight-loss point of view it’s an ideal opportunity to get your health and nutrition in order as it has been a tradition in Ireland for many years to “give up” something for Lent. The usual suspects are alcohol, cigarettes, sweets and chocolate.

Although the original purpose is spiritual and is based on self-sacrifice and repentance, there’s nobody saying that you can’t lose body fat while you’re saving your soul. So that’s why we can use a season like Lent to either start a new health campaign or resurrect the one that died somewhere around the middle of January.

Regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs about Lent there’s no denying that it’s easier to avoid junk food when so many other people are doing likewise. And that brings us to one of the more important aspects of staying on a fitness or nutrition programme: Social Support.

If your family, friends and colleagues are encouraging you or even joining you as you train more often and eat healthier options, then you are going to find it far less challenging than if you have to do it all alone.

Therefore it makes sense to use the positive aspects of social support/peer pressure to your full advantage. Unless they’ve got some sort of psychological issues, everybody that has your best interest at heart will be only too happy to help you in any way they can.

But in order to make use of their help, you have to do something very important: Go public with your Goal and commit to it. By letting people know what your health/fitness goals are and how you’re going to achieve them you are really making a commitment to yourself. It doesn’t have to be a legal document but it does need to be something that you will stick with.

Although quitting before achieving the goal is very common, an even more common lack of commitment is where you don’t actually start. This is often justified by excuses like “I haven’t time”, “The weather’s too bad at the moment” or “I’ll start next week/ next month/ when the economy picks up.”

The Japanese have a saying that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago but the second best time is now. The best time to start to look after your health and fitness is years ago but the second best time is now. So don’t allow yourself any more excuses and commit yourself to taking action immediately. But what action should you take? Well that depends entirely on what your goals are.

We’ll take it as a given that you know that your goal should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Based but you’ll need to put a plan in place to make sure you reach that goal.

That requires some thinking and it can be done very simply. All you have to do is work backwards your goal and continuously ask yourself one simple question.

Let me give you an example: Your goal is to drop a dress size. So working backwards you ask yourself “What do I have to do for that to happen?” The obvious answer is to start training and eat more healthily. So again you ask yourself “What do I have to do for THAT to happen?” The answer then becomes to stop eating junk food and go to the gym or start walking, running or cycling.

If you keep asking that question, you’ll eventually get to the point where you can take some immediate action. The training side might come up with steps which include signing up to a gym, getting a training programme or even just buying training gear. The nutrition aspect might be as simple as making a shopping list.

By breaking any goal down into a series of small, manageable steps and taking immediate action on at least one of them on a regular basis, you’ll find that your success rate will soar. Although we’re talking here about nutrition and training programmes, this method of planning can be applied successfully to almost any area of your life.

I accept that many people find the whole process of starting a fitness programme a bit scary but it doesn’t have to be. Success breeds success and by taking just one small step at a time you’ll find that you develop the confidence to stick with it and become more ambitious with your goals.

So, depending on your fitness level, you might start with a 10 minute walk or a 20 minute gym session and build it from there. With your food you can deal with one issue at a time rather than torment yourself by trying to stick with “The Perfect Diet”. It’s all about developing some good habits and then being consistent with them.

Waiting for the ideal conditions to be in place before you start your health programme is seriously misguided thinking. The only time you’ve got is right now and it’s usually good enough to achieve some level of success.

Remember that reaching the goal is a great achievement but what is even better is who you have to become in order to reach that goal. In order for you to succeed you will have to become more disciplined, more focussed, more confident and more determined and all the while you’ll become fitter, healthier and stronger.

That sounds like a good return for a small amount of time spent on thinking about your goal and planning what steps will take you there. So don’t delay any longer: plan, commit and then get Fit For Easter.

Get Fit For Easter is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis

The old attitude of “more is better” dominates as they attack their training with superhuman enthusiasm, only to find that they become burned-out, both physically and mentally. They then park their training gear in the back of the cupboard until the next outbreak of motivation.

However, if your recovery programme is managed and monitored as carefully as your exercise and nutrition, you’ll find that you’ll reach your goals far more effectively and enjoy the process at the same time.

The most important thing to understand is that training makes you weaker. This usually comes as a shock to most people and then they tend to ask “So what’s the point of training?” The point of training is to give your body a reason to get stronger.

And this will only happen in the period between exercise sessions, if your body is allowed to adapt to the demands placed upon it. And that means adequate rest and nutrition.

It’s been said that the most successful athletes are not the ones who train the hardest but those who recover from training the most effectively. Likewise, I’ve found that my most successful clients are those who regularly use effective recovery strategies.

When you train hard, you deliberately break down muscle fibres and impose a stress on all the systems of the body.

So, your body interprets exercise as just another stress that needs to be managed or else it will have negative consequences. The following items will help you manage that stress and ensure that you recover physically, and mentally , from training:

1. Cool down for 5-10 minutes at the end of your workout
A gradual reduction of intensity allows the heart rate to return to normal in a controlled manner and helps flush waste products from the muscles.

2. Eat within 20 minutes of your workout
Immediately after intense exercise, your muscles are screaming for nutrients to replace the fuel that was used in your workout. The sooner you feed the muscles, the quicker they will repair and re-build, and then you will be able to train harder next session.

The meal should be a combination of carbs and protein, but if you don’t have access to good quality solid food, a meal replacement drink or protein supplement will do the job. This meal is a vital part of your training programme, and you should include it in your gear bag when you go to the gym or training field

3. Leave 48 hours between weight-training sessions on the same muscle group
Please be clear that I’m not saying that you have to leave 48 hours between every training session, just that you’ll perform much better if you leave that time between doing the same resistance exercises.

One way that you can achieve this is by using split routines. For example, you could train your legs on Monday and then train your upper body on Tuesday. Another option would be to do a whole-body weights programme on Monday followed by a High Intensity Interval Training session on Tuesday.

4. Avoid training when sick or injured
Many people find it difficult to ease off training when they’re not feeling well. This is a hard one to call because it is very much dependent on the individual, but a good rule of thumb is the saying “Don’t Train if You Can’t Gain”.

What this means is that if illness or injury prevents you from a 2% improvement in performance on your last workout, then it’s time to take a rest. If you continue to train, you will further delay your recovery and slow down your progress in the long term

5. Have Regular Massage
For those people who are exercising on a regular basis, massage is essential. While stretching can be very effective, most athletes don’t use the right techniques to get the full recovery and flexibility benefits.

I’ve found that very few individual stretching/flexibility programmes are as effective as massage when it comes to restoring full range of motion and reducing muscle soreness on a long-term basis. Massage has also been shown to have huge psychological and stress-reducing benefits.

All of the above items will ensure that you get the most from your training programme and will allow you to reach your fitness goals as quickly as possible.

5 Ways To Get Fit In The Recovery Ward is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis

But don’t despair if you’re one of those people who’ve fallen off the fitness wagon – or didn’t manage to get on it in the first place. Today we’ll look at some of the reasons why New Year’s Resolutions don’t make it into February and what you can do to ensure that a healthy lifestyle becomes a natural way of life for you.

It’s been said that Life is a series of habits, and the best way to enjoy it is to maximize your good habits while minimizing your bad habits.

Experts maintain that it takes anywhere between 20 and 30 days to form a habit. So, whether you want to start exercising regularly or start a new eating plan, it’s very important that you give yourself the time to allow this change to become a natural and regular part of your life.

A lack of patience seems to be one of the main reasons why people quit on their good intentions. There’s no doubt that change can be challenging. But if you stick with it and allow the habit to form, you’ll find that you no longer have to force yourself to go training or to eat healthy food because it will become second nature to you.

This brings us to reason number 2 when it comes to abandoning the New You: Lack of Motivation. Obviously if you aren’t properly motivated you won’t have any reason to persevere. Too many people say that they want to lose weight or get fit and yet they also say that they can’t get motivated.

There are numerous ways to increase motivation but one of the most effective is a well-formed goal. So, a simple tactic to increase self-motivation would be to take the time to write out your S.M.A.R.T goal.

You could also use the power of nature: Instinctively we are all able to motivate ourselves to do things that really interest us or give us pleasure. We‘re also motivated to move away from things that cause us pain.

Now, let’s use that pleasure and pain instinct to keep you interested enough to achieve the goal.

You can reward yourself for reaching your goal, add a penalty clause for not hitting the target, or use a combination of both. Your reward for reaching this target can be a non-food treat; your penalty could be a chore that you really dislike.

By using this very simple tactic, you’ll find that you take a much longer-term view of your new regime and increase the chances of sticking with it and succeeding.

But even with the best motivation in the world, you’ll find it very difficult to succeed without a plan that actually works. Many people feel confused and overwhelmed with the seemingly contradictory information that’s out there. To overcome this issue I would advise one of two approaches.

You probably won’t be shocked when I recommend that you seek the advice of a qualified professional trainer or coach who is experienced in dealing with the issues that you want to tackle.

In the case of a fitness regime, your trainer should be able to design a programme that takes into account your current lifestyle, nutrition, level of fitness and also your goals.

The programme needs to be progressive so that you continue to improve and get stronger, fitter and leaner. Doing the same workout over and over leads to boredom, stagnation and limited results.

The other way of getting outside help will work if used with caution: imitate or model somebody who has succeeded in doing what you’re looking to achieve.

The reason I say that it should be used with caution is that many people can lose weight very quickly, but put it all back on just as fast. Quick weight loss can be achieved by pills, crash diets, excessive exercise and, of course, liposuction. However they are not long term solutions and their effects on your overall health are questionable at best.

If you want to copy the methods of somebody who has succeeded in losing weight, make sure that they’ve managed to do it on a long-term basis, using healthy nutrition and safe training principles.

So if you find that your New Year’s Resolutions have stalled, or haven’t even started, give yourself a break and use the following methods to achieve success: Get a Goal, Get a Plan, Be Patient and Reward Yourself when you hit the target!

Get Your Weight Loss Back On Track is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis

Although there is a positive side to these types of programme, I feel that there is one major drawback.

The above mentioned TV shows tend to create unrealistic expectations of what constitutes “normal” weekly weight loss and, by extension, create an unhelpful reliance on the weighing scales as the main indicator of body composition.

Without a doubt, I find that one of the biggest problems for clients starting a new training regime is unrealistic expectations. Some people seem to think that the very act of signing up to a gym or hiring a Personal Trainer automatically entitles them to the body of their dreams.

And it’s not really their fault. Apart from weight loss tv shows, we’re also bombarded with images of lean, healthy, and attractive women who’ve achieved that perfect body with a machine that they only have to use for 6 minutes a day. And the best part is that the machine does all the work!

And then there’s the latest “Killer” programme from Men’s Total Body Fitness Muscle Health Magazine that guarantees that lads will be fitter, stronger and leaner than ever before.

Of course, the lads will also automatically have six-pack abs and be irresistible to women. Trouble is these magazines have said that about every training programme in every issue for the last 10 years.

So let’s come back to the real world for a moment. Training to gain muscle or to lose body fat is simple. But it’s not easy. If it was easy everybody would be doing it and gyms would have much better membership retention rates.

As a general rule the average amount of Fat Loss on a sound nutrition and exercise programme will be 1-2 pounds per week. Clients with more body fat and greater fluid retention will tend to drop more weight initially, before the weight loss tapers.

Although contestants on tv shows are seen to lose 7-14 pounds per week for the first few episodes, this is definitely not the norm for the general population. Spectacular weight loss can often be due to losing water and/or muscle. Lost water will be replaced and it’s rarely ever a good idea to lose muscle.

When it comes to those lads looking to bulk up, gaining a pound of lean muscle per week is about as good as it gets. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was known to put a bit of time and effort into his workouts, was more than happy to gain 25 pounds total weight in a year.

So whether you’re looking to gain muscle or lose fat, please be prepared to maintain a healthy diet and put in the effort for about 4-6 training sessions per week. Concentrating on clothes size and/or tape measurements and ignoring the scales will also work much better.

If at that point you’re not achieving your realistic targets, then it will simply be a case of adjusting your training or nutrition plans until you’re back on track.

It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you stay realistic, focused and patient, it will happen.

The Perfect Body & Great Expectations is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis

It seems obvious that in order to lose weight, the first area that needs to be addressed is our daily food intake. And yet, so many people seem reluctant to tackle this aspect of their lives in a meaningful way.

The fact is that healthy weight-loss is quite simple and yet, it can appear very complicated. The simple part is the type of food our body needs to survive and allow us to live energetic and healthy lives. The complicated side is why we don’t do it, and this brings up factors like stress, motivation, as well as emotional and hormonal issues. We’ll cover the hard part another time but today let’s keep it simple.

There is much confusion surrounding what constitutes “The Best Diet”. Shops devote acres of shelf-space to books offering seemingly contradictory advice : Low-Fat, Low-Carb, High-Protein, Atkins, South Beach, and Metabolic are examples of eating plans that leave some people more confused than motivated.

The problem is that although each of these diets has worked for somebody, not every plan will work for everybody. Another problem is that people tend to take the parts of a certain programme that they like and then discard the less appealing bits.

So what should you do if you want to lose weight? The following are general guidelines that will work for MOST people. But please be aware of the concept of Biochemical Individuality. This is a fancy way of saying “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

1. Reduce Calories: A calorie is a unit of measurement of energy. We take in calories when we eat and drink, and we burn calories when we move. If we take in more than we burn, the excess is stored as body-fat. The following example shows why exercise alone will not achieve results.According to McDonald’s Nutrition Spotlight website, a Big Mac, Large Fries and Regular Coke contain 1250 calories. Walking briskly at 4mph burns between 235 and 345 calories per hour depending on your body weight. If walking is your only regular form of exercise, you’re going to have to spend a long time on your feet in order to cancel out a meal of that size. As a very rough guide you can take your target weight in pounds, multiply it by 10 and that’s the amount of calories per day you should be eating. So if you want to be 10 stone (140 lbs) you eat approx 1400 calories. However, a gradual reduction of calories is safer and more sustainable for long term weight control.
2. Eat Fresh, Whole Food: Fresh, locally grown organic food is the best option. Unfortunately it’s not within everybody’s budget but even non-organic meat, fruit and vegetables, once properly cleaned and prepared, are far better options than processed, micro-waved and fast-food meals.
3. Eat every 2.5-3 hours: If you eat small portions of healthy food you never put your body into starvation/ fat-storing mode and also avoid feeling famished and obliged to demolish that packet of biscuits with your cup of tea at 7.30pm.

The area of nutrition is too large and individualised to cover in one article and I will return to it’s many aspects over the coming months, but by following today’s 3 very simple tips you will make huge improvements to both your health and your waistline.

3 Simple Steps to Weight Loss is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis

That fresh start is often motivated by the battle scars of the party season: a few extra pounds on the weighing scales and clothes that suddenly seem to have shrunk. The usual response is either mild panic or a ridiculous sense of confidence that you can fix your entire life – waistline included – in the first couple of weeks in January.

This approach results in gyms packed with motivated, teetotal, non-smoking, diet-conscious, fitness freaks. And it usually lasts for about 3 weeks.

If this scenario sounds depressingly familiar to you, let’s look at why it’s not a great strategy for success and how you can improve on it.

As a species we tend not to like too much change: familiarity may breed contempt but change can stimulate fear and discomfort. Therefore if you try to introduce too many changes in lifestyle all at the same time, the chances are that you will experience a sense of loss or overwhelm that will make them extremely difficult to maintain.

A much more sensible approach would be to focus on one change at a time. It’s been estimated that habits can be formed in approximately 21-30 days, so if you can pick just 1 aspect of your life that you want to improve, and focus on that until it becomes a habit, you will be far more successful in sticking to it.

When it comes to weight loss, there are lots of areas that will help you to reach your goal:

• Eating smaller meals
• Eating more vegetables and protein
• Exercising more regularly
• Getting better quality sleep

…..to name but a few.

It will also help if it involves doing something positive (training 4 times per week) rather than giving up something negative ( eating sweets/drinking alcohol).

Decide on just 1 of these areas to improve and give it 100% commitment. When you start to feel and look better – and the new behaviour becomes second-nature – it will give you the confidence and motivation to introduce a new habit.

This method is less spectacular than the All-Or-Nothing Approach, but if you can be patient enough to try it, you’ll find that in the long term you will achieve far better results. And you’ll still be training, eating well or using that new gym membership in February, March and April!

New Year’s Resolutions – One Thing at a Time is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis

Lifestyle factors like sleep and stress play a huge role in how your body will react to any training regime. Simply put: if you appear to be doing “everything right” but aren’t getting the expected results from your exercise and nutrition programme, the chances are that your sleep or stress patterns are working against you.

Today we’ll look at the importance of a good night’s sleep and what you can do to ensure that you get as much quality rest as possible.

Numerous studies have shown that those people who don’t get a good night’s sleep on a regular basis, are more inclined to put on weight (1, 2). And it’s a hormonal issue.

During a good night’s sleep, your body will repair itself both physically and mentally. But only under the right conditions. Physical repair typically occurs between 10pm and 2am, with mental recovery kicking in after 2am. So, If you continually go to bed around midnight, then you’re depriving yourself of 2 hours of sleep which can build and repair muscle, and increase your resting metabolism.

You’re also more likely to have food/sugar cravings, because a lack of quality sleep tends to disturb the hormones that regulate appetite. It sounds contradictory, but you will carry less fat by sleeping more!

Other factors that can prevent restorative sleep include excess noise (outside traffic, street noise, partners snoring) excess light and too much electro-magnetic energy in the bedroom.

Try the following tips to make sure you get the most recovery from your night’s sleep:

1. Avoid going to bed on a full stomach but don’t starve yourself either. A light meal about two hours before bed time should do the trick. Make sure that you steer clear of sugary snacks and high G.I. foods as they can elevate your blood sugar levels rapidly, and then cause them to crash within a couple of hours. This dip in blood sugar levels is one reason why some clients wake around 1am and find it difficult to get back asleep.

2. Aim to be in bed before 10pm and asleep by 10.30pm.

3. Avoid stimulants like caffeine, sports drinks or alcohol prior to bed time: try night-time/relaxing herbal teas instead of regular tea or coffee. Make sure you’re properly hydrated but not to the extent that you’ll need to get up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet.

4. Make sure your bedroom is pitch-black. Use black-out blinds and avoid having landing lights or night-lights on.

5. Unplug any TVs, laptops, DVD players etc that are in your bedroom. Ideally mobile phones should be out of the room but if you must have them, make sure they’re not charging and that they’re as far away from your bed as possible. Get a battery operated alarm clock instead of a mains-operated clock.

The bottom line is: lack of quality sleep can undermine all your efforts, even if you’ve improved your exercise and training habits. So, if you make the effort to get more sleep, you’ll find you have more energy to train harder and make better food choices.

 1. Insufficient Sleep Undermines Dietary Efforts to Reduce Adiposity

Arlet V. Nedeltcheva, MD;

Jennifer M. Kilkus, MS;

Jacqueline Imperial, RN;

Dale A. Schoeller, PhD; and

Plamen D. Penev, MD, PhD

2. Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. Taheri S, Lin L, Austin D, Young T, Mignot E.

Source

Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA.

Lessons From a Diary 6: Sleep Your Way to Success is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis

I’m not sure if it’s because we’re surrounded by the stuff or because it seems too good to be true, but clients’ Food/Lifestyle diaries consistently show me that most of them do not drink enough of it. I find this frustrating, because of all the nutrition, exercise and lifestyle changes I recommend, this has to be the easiest to implement.

So let’s have a quick re-cap on why water is so important and how it can help you to get leaner and fitter.

Our bodies are made up of about 60% water and among it’s many functions, it is responsible for growth, body temperature regulation and it helps transport nutrients throughout the body.

However it’s the lack of adequate water levels that tends to sabotage our efforts to lose weight. When we are de-hydrated by as little as 1-5% our energy levels, mental focus and athletic performance are seriously hampered.

I find that when this happens, many people will crave sweet snacks/drinks or caffeine to give them an instant energy buzz, and although it may seem to work in the very short term, it does not fix the problem. What it usually does is create more sugar cravings and an expanded waistline.

As mentioned above, de-hydration also adversely affects athletic performance. That means that even if you do manage to motivate yourself to go training, your workout is likely to be far less effective than if you’d taken enough water on board ,and you’ll miss an opportunity to burn off even more body fat.

So let’s deal with some of the common reasons/excuses for not drinking enough water:

Excuse 1: I forget to drink it

Solution: Keep a glass or container within sight and arms reach at all times. Out of sight is out of mind.

Excuse 2: I don’t like the taste.

Solution: Put a slice of lemon/lime/orange etc in your container to flavour it. Note that this should be a slice of fresh fruit and not a processed/concentrated fruit juice

Excuse 3: It’s too cold.

Solution: Leave it at room temperature before you drink it.

Excuse 4: I end up going to the toilet too much.

Solution: Count it as part of your daily 60 minutes exercise.

I often tell clients that water is the cheapest weight loss supplement in the world – it’s certainly the most under-rated. Guidelines for optimum hydration levels vary, but a very simple guideline would be to drink 2 litres of good quality water over the course of the day. Drink more when you train and during warm weather.

Following this simple suggestion will ensure that your energy levels rise and your body fat levels start going in the opposite direction. Drink Up!

Lessons From a Diary 5: Drink Up is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis

This is the equivalent of setting off on a journey in a foreign country without a map or Sat Nav: you MIGHT get to your destination eventually, but the chances are that it will take longer and will be a very frustrating journey. Likewise without a goal to act as your Fitness Sat Nav, you will not reach your potential as quickly as possible.

When they have their first consultation with me, most female clients tell me that they want to “lose weight” or “tone up” and the lads usually want to “bulk up” the upper body. While there’s nothing wrong with either of these as general guidelines, they are just a bit vague to be really effective. In order to keep focussed on a goal we want to keep it S.M.A.R.T. This means that it will be:

Specific: Decide EXACTLY what you want. The more specific the goal, the easier it is to concentrate on and therefore to achieve.

Measurable: Whatever your goal is, you want to be able to measure your progress towards it and also know when you’ve arrived.

Achievable: Make it something that is within your control and does not depend on other people or circumstances.

Realistic: While we don’t want to make your goal too easy, there’s no point aiming to do something that is practically impossible. Simply aim for something that challenges your abilities and will-power.

Time-Based: If you don’t set a date by which time you will have achieved your target, it has no urgency and it will be put on the long finger.

In terms of a weight-loss programme this would look like the following: “Drop a dress size (Specific and Measurable) by training 4 times a week and reducing the amount of processed food in my diet (Specific, Achievable and Realistic) by 1st January 2012 (Realistic, Time-Based). This formula can be applied successfully to all aspects of health and fitness and indeed to other areas of your life.

By writing your goals down and reading them first thing in the morning and last thing at night and also vividly imagining what you need to do to achieve them, you will greatly improve your chances of success as you “programme” your mind to be self-motivating.

Lessons From A Diary 4: Get S.M.A.R.T is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis

You may have heard of the F.I.T.T. Principle in relation to training: it stands for Frequency, Intensity, Type and Time and is basically a set of rules, or guidelines, which allow you to get the most from your training routine. Let’s have a look at each of these components and we’ll discuss some areas where I’ve found that a lot of new trainees need to up their game.

Frequency: Anybody who is serious about changing their body shape will need to train between 4 and 6 times per week, and I find it works best if you train at least every 2nd day. Most people tend to manage a few sessions during the week and then “recover” at the weekend. A great way of staying on track is to avoid 2 consecutive non-training days.

Intensity: On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being half-asleep from boredom and 10 being half-dead from exhaustion, we’re aiming for an effort of 8 plus per session. If it’s anything less than that you’re either having a recovery day, which is allowed, or else you’re wasting your time.

Time: Too many new trainees spend too long “training”, yet don’t work hard enough. Rather than going for a 90 minute leisurely walk, a 20 minute interval sprint session will achieve far better results for you in terms of fitness and body composition. And also save you a lot of time.

Type: A combination of weight-training and High Intensity Interval Training (H.I.I.T) works best when the goal is fat-loss. However, I find that it’s more important to find an activity that you actually enjoy (or, at least, don’t detest).

As long as you’re training often enough, for long enough and at the right intensity, pretty much all training programmes will help you reach your weight-loss goal.

Lessons From A Diary 3: Rev It Up! is a post from: Body and Mind Fitness - Personal Training Ennis