It is your fault that you dug into a box of biscuits and equally shovelled down 12 pints of beer at the weekend.

Equally so it is your choice that you watch mind-numbing (and at times rather depressing TV) rather than head out for a brisk walk.

Obesity is rife and climbing. Every day millions are lost through absenteeism and sickness in industry through people not looking after their greatest asset – themselves.

I often laugh as one of my clients drives up in the latest offerings from the local sports car dealership, only to grumble at the prospect of having to buy organic meat. This is the same person who raises an eyebrow ‘at the cost of food’ nowadays.

“That’s ok then” as I point to the car.
“Perhaps you can drive that car with you into the grave, then?”

Your body is designed for optimum performance – nothing less. How we have come to be devoid of a clean diet and lack of movement is beyond me. We function at well below par.

Our society is riddled with illness, disease, ailments that take an eternity to shift and metabolic disorders such as high blood pressure and diabetes are all to prevalent.

I have one client who won’t mind me saying this but he is a diabetic, type 2. This means he can manage the potentially fatal relationship between glucose (sugars) and the hormone insulin. I often raised an eyebrow at how he settled his sugar fix with a Mars Bar.

“The nurse told me to take onboard some sugars, if I ever felt like this”

“Maybe some fruit juice may do the job?” I remarked

Needless to say he is now enjoying managing his diabetes with exercise and herbs (alongside the odd dose of insulin managing drugs). But it was hard at the start. Here was a man ingrained in the ‘quick-fix’ mentality avoiding taking all responsibility for his health until it took control of him.

Here was a man resigned to putting his health in someone else’s hands for life. He was unwilling to see the alternatives. He was unwilling to go back to the basics – diet and exercise.

His ‘why’ however was strong enough to elicit a change. Eventually his sugars were getting hard to manage without taking 9 pills a-day. Alongside this the side-effects were shocking to live with. His grandson was born which drove him to ensure that he was round long enough to enjoy bringing him up.

What is your ‘why’?

I often use the example of an ‘Onion’ with my clients. Asking probing questions that you can do yourself is the first step. At all times you must remain honest to yourself.

Why do people primarily go to the gym? Answer – to look good naked. However, if you keep telling yourself that you want to feel good and just want to ‘tone up’ then you are in for a struggle.

I asked an executive the same question. He answered me with the platitudes of “I want to get rid of my belly”, “I want to tighten up”.

“What’s your real reason?” I asked
“What do you mean?” He replied

“Well, what do you mean by ‘getting rid of my belly’ – why is this important to you?”

A moment passed before a startling dose of honesty set in.

“Well I am sick and tired of looking across the table and seeing guys older than me, ten times fitter. It makes me angry. They must think I am weak”

“That’s more like it – hold onto that thought”

Being responsible for your actions means peeling the layers of the onion until you get to your real answer, not some woolly platitude to make life easy.

This is your ‘why’ and something strong enough so that you will be motivated to keep on track whilst others fall away. It will allow you to get out of bed when the wind and rain is pouring. It will allow you to choose a swim over EastEnders. It will allow you to choose nutrient dense foods over packaged rubbish.

John Lark is a personal trainer in maynooth and owner of the Sphere Health and Fitness Centre

I opened the paper there the other day to see Gwyneth Paltrow sprawling over the paper saying that organic foods should be available for everyone because they are tasty and good for you.

It was great to see. For years the organic food movement has coughed and spluttered its way into our supermarkets. I am pleased to say that it is growing and growing to the extent that it now covers 1% of the aisles of the your local supermarket, up 1% from 5 years ago.

If there is one habit you can get into it is ensuring that 90% of your food is fresh, seasonal, organic and whole (meaning that it is from its source and not 5 stages of processing later). It is probably the easiest habit to get to grips with in the quest for a leaner, healthier and overall Ferrari-like you.

The benefits are subtle yet enormous. It is enjoyable too. Simply cleaning up your diet by focusing the quality of your food will make huge inroads into your goals. It will remove the toxic load on your body. Organic produce for example has a remarkable difference in the number of herbicides and pesticides that it is exposed to. And, according to several studies, are making you fat.

After all, where do these toxins go in the body considering that the majority of them are FAT soluble.

That’s right your fat is actually doing you a favor by parking all that rubbish you put in your mouth on your hips and love handles rather than let them wreak havoc around your organs and in your blood stream.

When you switch to predominantly cleaner diet then you are literally cleaning out your stores.

Genetically modified foods are also creeping into our food chains. We are simply not designed to handle these foods. How does our body respond? With subtle alterations in our body chemistry – normally in a negative way. So instead of thriving and flourishing as we used to we are riddled with nasty ‘bite you on the backside’ type diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

It is not soemthing you are likely to feel overnight (like being bitten by a bug containing malaria for example – you will feel pretty stink very quickly if that happens). No, these creep up on you. Overtime you feel progressively worse.

Your mood begins to deteriorate, suddenly life is sooooooo tough, you eat more of the stuff that has directed you down this dark road and all of a sudden you are sitting across from your Doctor who is equally scratching his head with the 4th pill he has prescribed because the other 3 have give you headaches, tummy complaints and sore joints.

Take a step back from this scenario. Think – where did it all begin? You will see very clearly that it is equally easy to fix. Clean up your diet and stop treating your body like a dustbin.

Eating clean is actually easy. Source your local farmers markets and get in the habit of visiting them. You will come away with a smile. Why? Because it is cheaper for a start. The colours, textures and connection with the foods for another. Suddenly a tomato begins to taste like one. An orange is bursting with all its natural sugars. Fruits in season actually give you a ‘kick’.

Moreover, Where else can you pick up homemade organic treats conjured up by someone who has an equal passion and zest for life injected into their foods?

What about meats, fish and poultry? Your local butcher is a godsend. I always recommend organic chickens though due to the high levels of estrogen hormones found in them. We don’t want our fellas wearing bras or enjoying re-runs of Dallas do we?

All organic or grass fed meat is higher in natural fats that give our hormones timely injection of naturally produced testosterone. Testosterone is not only a ‘drive’ like hormone it is also fundamental to the functioning of the heart leaving you susceptible to heart attacks if your testosterone levels are in the gutter. Male AND females take note.

What good old Gwyneth is also missing though is the bigger picture as no doubt her personal shopper and chef remove the connection with the actual local suppliers.

With organic foods and famers markets, butchers you are doing your bit to sustain local communal produce. Where would you like your food from? Brazil or Ireland? Which do you think will have better consequences when it reaches your plate.

Staying close to home may a secret tool in your tool box.
John Lark is a personal trainer in maynooth and owner of the Sphere Health and Fitness Centre

“Never give in. Never. Never. Never. Never.” – Winston Churchill

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.” – Samuel Johnson

These quotes all say the same thing. No matter how many obstacles you run into, what matters is that you’re able to overcome each of them, one at a time.

“Two steps forward, one step back” is usually a negative term to describe someone who is having trouble making progress. But switched around, “1 Step Back, 2 Steps Forward” means that instead of feeling guilty about a misstep, you can still come out ahead if you put your head down and push forward.

Steps back can take many forms: a family vacation, breaks in your routine, personal tragedies, injuries, or that lost weekend in front of the tube.

A big mistake people make when trying to get healthier is that when they fall off a bit or something happens, they think they “have to start over”.

Wrong! When missteps do happen, a better strategy is to simply take two steps forward. You’re still ahead of where you were before, far beyond the starting line.

In tennis, losing one point isn’t the end of the world. It happens to the best of them. In fact, if you can consistently win a few more points that you lose, you may end up in the hall of fame.

With healthy eating and exercising, as long as you’re consistently out-stepping your steps back, you’re ahead of the game. If you expect perfection (and many of us do), you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and guilt.

That is why trying to chase 100 per cent compliance is futile. We have found that 90 per cent is enough. Is that taking a step backwards? No. It is setting yourself up to take a step back allowing you to recharge your batteries and go at the diet train again the following week.

Guilt can be debilitating to your healthy habits. When you mess up (or even when things are messed up for you), it’s natural to feel guilty. At that point, you have a choice: to let that guilt plummet you into a cycle that could spit you out worse off than before, or to accept the step back and say “where do I go from here?”

Of course, consistent success is still something to strive for. You don’t want to roller-coaster up and down. That’s an “old” habit, remember? And the 1Step/2Step strategy doesn’t lessen the need to do your best. You should still work hard to keep those steps back from happening. But it helps to be prepared with a plan and a positive attitude for when they do happen.

Many times, this means a rededication, a refocusing, and a recommitment. You might want to look at your program and see why it’s allowing those landmines to stick around. Use it as a learning process. Ask how you can keep that misstep from happening again.

* Take a walk in the woods to clear your head and regroup.

* Have a personal “bounce back” motto that will re-energize you. Put it everywhere.

* Take a break if you think you’re trying too hard.

* Return to the basics. Are you making it too complicated and tough on yourself?

* Plan ahead for irregularities in your schedule, call ahead to healthy restaurants, pack healthy snacks.

* Stay aware of what you’re doing. One meal mess up can turn into a one day mess up, a one week mess up if you’re not careful.

* Remind yourself of your success so far when you need a boost.

Unlike people who run 10 miles today because they should have run two yesterday, “2 Steps Forward” doesn’t necessarily mean doing a lot more to make up for a blunder. Just make a commitment to do things as right as possible as much as you can.

Flip it – out of everything there is a positive. Like anything though just takes a bit of effort to see it.

John Lark is a personal trainer in maynooth and owner of the Sphere Health and Fitness Centre

Stress in itself is good and bad in the right amounts. Too much physical stress from sunlight will get burn you. However, just enough and your mood and Vitamin D production will be lifted. It is the same with exercise. Get enough and get fitter and stronger. Too much, however, and you will be full of nagging ailments and illness.
Stress in itself is hard enough to quantify. How can we measure it? How do we know that we are under a lot of stress and ready to break? They are tough and individual questions.
This is easier said than done. Like any plan the desire to reduce your stress, get fit and lose weight comes from a burning desire to change what you consider to be your norm. Your goals must be then coupled with suitable behaviours.
An example of this would be someone who wanted to reduce stress in their lives and be confrontational with their kids. However, their behaviours work against this. They are out late, do not get much sleep, eat poor foods and never exercise.

A better example would be to identify 5 behaviours that will reduce stress. Outlined below are 5 behaviours that if you attempted to focus on one a week over the course of 5 weeks you will have become more organised, be able to prioritise effectively, know how to relax, exercise regularly and be able to zip through your to-do lists.
What a result!
Here are 5 stress busting tips to help you cope and relieve stressful situations.
1. GET ORGANISED
You got up late and now have five minutes to leave the house. Being organised will cut morning stress in half. Get into the habit of preparing for the morning the night before. Whilst you are cooking your meal at night, put on extra meat and or prepare a large salad to take to work with you. Even better would be to pre-chop your veggies on a Sunday. Spend 15 minutes chopping your veggies and putting them in zip-lock bags. A small effort for a really effective time-saver.

2. BE REALISTIC
Much of stress is self-induced from setting ridiculously tight deadlines or by procrastinating. Take one thing at a time. Learn to prioritise urgent tasks and allow yourself enough time to complete.

3. LEARN HOW TO RELAX
Practise deep- breathing techniques such as slowly inhaling while counting to five; Stretch the muscles of your neck and shoulders by keeping your shoulders level and trying to touch each shoulder with your ear. Look right up at the ceiling, down at the floor and then rotate each shoulder in a wide circle. In addition, take time out. For five minutes every hour, try to ‘shut down’ and think of nothing but your perfect situation. You will be surprised at how effectively this can lower stress levels.

4. EXERCISE REGULARLY
You do not have to be a gym freak to get the stress- beating benefits of exercise. Even 20 minutes of brisk walking, swimming or cycling in the open air three times a week will help to reduce stress as well as promoting restful sleep.
It is amazing what a lift this can bring you with small chunks of exercise scattered through the day.

5. BREAK IT DOWN
When faced with mammoth tasks, avoid stress by breaking them down into smaller chunks. Make ‘To Do’ lists and tick off your accomplishments. Making a list the night before allows our subconscious to go about attempting to solve these tasks whilst you sleep!
Much of the stress in our lives can be controlled, changed and eliminated. With proper planning, support and coping mechanisms we can create a relatively stress free environment for ourselves.
It is essential that in addressing the new you that fitness and health are in close relationship. Getting fit without addressing your health and stress levels will gear you to failure.
By combining the two and making a conscious effort to match your behaviours with your goals and you will be the individual who is rewarded with the results.
Download Your Free Fat Loss Report at www.spherefitnessstudio.com (exercise and nutrition plan included)

John Lark is a personal trainer in maynooth

I kept asking him if he wanted to play on the swings but he said ‘no’. Too busy.

He would spend ages lining up the ball and really zoning in on the ball. Just like his two footed old man had told him to do.

Sometimes he got frustrated, threw a paddy and lost his cool. Other times he nailed it.

Getting healthy and fit takes practice. More so than you think.

Did you know that bit of grey matter between your ears is the mother ship guiding your decisions, rationale, subconscious, will-power? You name – it steers it.

Each time you succumb to temptation and a lack of will power you condition your brain to repeat this pattern. It is something that brain specialist Daniel Amen alludes to in his book Change Your Brain, Change your Body.

On the flip side, each time you say ‘no’ or ‘I have had plenty thank you’ you reinforce this pattern. Sooner or later the brain knows exactly what to do.

This habitual practice can extend in so many ways and something you should be aware of as you take a step towards a healthier and fitter you.

It is one of the reasons why I don’t recommend moderation. Each time you give yourself an excuse to shy away from that promise you made to yourself and succumb you practice failure.

Do something whole hog for 12 weeks and assess where you are then. I guarantee you will be in a much better place.

In our centre we align individual’s weak links with a set of new habits to head away and practice with. Day in day out you practice health.

Sure, practice one thing at a time but do it 100%. If you set the rule that you are eliminating grains and refined cereal from now on, that’s it. Each time you are swayed and a difficult decision comes along you need to practice will-power.

It takes practice.

If you set the rule that you will exercise 3 times and week again, you don’t shy away from training if it is raining or you forgot your clothes. You dig in and find a way.

Each time you stick to the rules you make it infinitely easier to draw upon this little bit of inner strength in the future.

It carries over too. That bit of work you said you would complete suddenly gets done. Or that business you thought about starting suddenly starts rolling. Or that letter you were going to write to your long lost Aunt is written. All of the deadwood circulating in the mind gets done as your self-control and level of  will-power heightens.

Of course there are some strategies that you can deploy to heighten your will-power and ability to practice effortlessly and without much strain.

These include getting in the habit of exercising. Even a simple walk will heighten the activity in certain areas of the brain leading to more rational decisions being made.

Staying hydrated will ensure that water, the brain’s most precious nutrient, is found in abundance leading to optimum functioning.

Taking an Omega 3 supplement in the form of pharmacy grade fish oil will ensure that the brain also receives its crucial form of good fats. If you were to wring out the brain, its dry weight would consist of 60% fat. So for all of you fat-phobes out there, listen up! Stop it! You are starving your brain!

Cut the bad fats and up your good fats in the form of fish oil, avocados, olive oil, nuts and seeds.

The brain robbers, sugar and caffeine all do a great job at placing a burden on the brain by acting as a stimulant.

Adenosine is a chemical in the brain. It tricks the brain into feeling drowsy  and stimulates sleep so that we can recharge our brains.

Caffeine blocks the effects of adenosine by occupying the adenosine receptor sites and preventing the brain from seeing it. So even if you are tired and are in need of sleep to rejuvenate your brain chemistry, caffeine tricks the brain into thinking it is wide awake.

Respect your brain and the mother ship will steer you into good health.

It can mean the difference between frustration and elation with your results.

In Chinese philosophy life exists in balance with a ‘yin’ and the ‘yang’. The Chinese apply various characteristics to

Yang including Fire, Sun, Male, Excess Active, Energy and Function. In contrast Yin includes the characteristics of Water Moon, Female, Deficient, Inactive, Matter and Form.

What’s interesting is we can apply this time honoured philiosphy to human movement.

Yang being our more intense forms of exercise such as weight training, sprinting, interval training and aggressive team sports.

In contrast yin would include more balanced forms of exercise such as yoga, stretching, walking, swimming, deep breathing, massage.

We all need balance. Most of us in all honesty leave pretty ‘yang’ or ‘fire’ lives. Our stress buttons are constantly ‘on’ and then participating in some intense form of conditioning may not be the best way to start a healthy lifestyle or a fat loss programme.

Don’t get me wrong, training with intensity is the best method to get the best results. When you train with focus and purpose and push your limits instead of sitting within them all the time you inevitably adapt and grow stronger.

In physical terms we change our body shape by becoming more toned and frm with a drop in body fat.

To begin with if you wish to ‘train’ you need to be able to handle the stress of it.
The foundation for you train must be in place. How good is your nutrition? Will it support it or hinder it? Will it give you the energy for you to make progress or will it throw a spanner in the works?

How about your sleep patterns? Are you getting enough sleep to actually recover from training?

What about your hydration levels? Are you drinking enough water?

How about your stress levels for the day? Can they handle even more stress that you will be putting onto it?

Training is intense, uncomfortable at times and a stressor to the body. You need to make sure your fiundations are in place before you push the throttle down.

Before you think about posting your backside to the couch to avoid ‘training’ up steps exercise to the plate and this requires minimal effort.

To begin with any helath programme from cancer patients to eleite level athletes will include some form of exercise.

Why? Because it creates balance.If you are training all the time then exercise comes as a balancer. If your foundations can not tolerate training due to yoru current nutritional habits, stress levels or other concerns then exercise is prescribed.

It is not uncommon for athletes to have an easy day of a light jog and some stretching. Some might exercise by hitting the sauna or a yoga class. Some might go for a walk or add in a cat-nap.

I prescribe exercise to all those beginning a health programme if I know (through testing) that they can’t tolerate an intense training schedule. This transition to a healthier state, which normally involves an increase in energy levels required via cleaning up of their diet, lasts 3-4 weeks – not long!

I recently trained a divorcee and as you can imagine he was keen to get in shape. He lost 14lbs of fat and gained 8 lbs of muscle in 8 weeks of which only 4 of that was spent ‘training’ (his photo is up on the site)

The rest of it was spent in the kitchen preparing and nourishing the body and hitting the gym, park and sauna/pool for ‘yin’ activities.

There is a place for both. Exercise for too long and not push the body and little will change. Yet the same is for training too. A good coach will know based on results and experience how far to push you and how to plan your training for optimal results. My 5 week yourhealtcamp.com in May is an excellent start to knowing the difference.

Find the balance between yang and yin and your body will reward you with health and vitality.

To make this easy I want to make this as simple as possible.

Here is a list of what I believe to be the best steps you can take this year to improve your health and fitness levels.

Take one action item from this list. Do it. Do it hard for a week or however long it takes you embed.

So without further a due.

Write down your goal. You are far more likely to achieve it.

Match your behaviours to your goals. If your goal is to run a marathon this year then you need to get running. Likewise the same goal wont be met if you are constantly in the behaviour pattern of sitting on your arse every day. Equally if you want to lose weight then pick five behaviours that you know will help you lose weight and do them every day.

Find your ‘why’. Why are you doing this? This has to be strong.

Focus on improving your health rather than shrinking your waistline. With health comes fat loss. With health comes abundant energy and balanced moods. With health comes performance in life, sport and work. Living should be fun and easy not a chore.

Keep a grateful journal. Each day spend 2-3 minutes and wrote down what you are grateful for. Turn off the news and do this. You will sleep better and wake up looking forward to the day rather than thinking about the next ‘drama’ that you have to tackle.

Improve your sleep by investing in blackout blinds. Your hormones and immune system will thank you for giving them a good night’s sleep. If you struggle to nod off hop into an Epsom Salts bath. They work brilliantly.

Eat raw foods with every meal. Stick a salad or lightly cooked vegetable soup next to your meal and eat it first.

Drink more good FILTERED water. The best thing you can do for you and your family’s health is to use reverse osmosis or water ionisers. 3-4 litres every day.

Replace your paraben-laden cosmetics with organic versions. Likewise stop spraying aluminium next to your armpits. These are carcinogenic and the health shop have excellent replacements that are in most cases cheaper. No brainer.

Get your mercury fillings removed and then follow up with a good nutritional chelation protocol (like the one we can offer). This is another no brainer. Mercury is poisoning you 24-7. If your dentist says that this is not worth doing then thank him for his/ her opinion and find another one. He/she does not have your health at heart.

Stick to exercise at first (if you are new to this) that you will enjoy and keep at. Sweating and using oxygen  is at the heart of most beginners to exercise Nutritional and lifestyle changes will make the biggest difference so just get sweating and moving!

Use an Infra red sauna. These are great for your health. Sweat removes toxins and again makes strides to build your health.

Want power is more powerful than will power.

Learn how to weight train.

Eat les animal and diary protein. It is making you sick and tired.

Eat more fruits and vegetables. Simple. Effective. Cheap.

Buy a vegetarian cookbook and learn how to ‘dress up’ these once boring and tasteless items.

Start supplementing your diet with Sodium Bicarbonate, Lugol’s Iodine, Magnesium and Vitamin D. These are power houses and will not fail to improve everyone’s health. A year’s supply of all of these items will set you back about 100 quid. What a bargain. In fact – let’s start an experiment. Use them and see how many visits to the Doctor you need this year. Let me know in December.

I hate ‘detox’. It is far more complicated than that. Our bodies are well adjusted to deal with it. However, it needs help. Especially in this day and age. We have not quire evolved to deal with the environment that burdens us day in day out.

Do you think our caveman ancestors worried about what skin care product to use?

There is plenty here to get you going. Health comes from in to out. Stress, poor nutrition, toxic overload and lack of exercise will all be reflected on the outside. You are your own canvas.

Where do you begin and more importantly what are you aiming for or looking to achieve?

Like training and any fat loss goal, it pays to have the end result in mind.

Nutrition is goal dependent and habit based. Fat loss nutritional strategies will differ to health specific strategies. Sports nutrition will differ to aiding ladies through the menopause.

There are, however, common threads that can be applied in any strategies.

Habits underpin good nutrition. How many of us undergo a diet programme and attempt to change everything over-night? We hope to mystically transform our entire approach to nutrition over-night and follow a ‘eat this don’t eat this’ approach.

Here’s the thing – It doesn’t work.

Instead of ‘going on a diet’ think of ‘building your health’.

Why would you do this?

Well a) immediately you have taken the pressure of yourself to always be ‘losing weight’ and therefore creating unnecessary pressures and stress b) you get hooked on the feeling rather than inches, pounds and stones and c) the stick rate is much higher whilst delivering the same result.

Here’s how it works in the real world. Firstly you have to throw away the scales. These are for the pros. They are about as much use as a chocolate fire guard. Secondly, you have to use the mirror, clothes and your energy levels as a guide.

The first week you may set yourself the goal of 1. Drinking a glass of lemon water 15 minutes before each meal alongside 2.Taking time out 10 minutes every day to reflect and relax. Now do it. Each day write it down that you achieved these actions.

Here are a few more habits that should be deployed with most nutritional programmes. In an ideal world, you should consult a professional to find a nutritional programme tailored to your needs.

1. Eating vegetable and oil based breakfast with a small amount of protein on some mornings.

2. Following a Caveman approach to nutrition. Keep your foods as close to nature as possible. The further you move away the closer you move to disease.

3. Keep a journal. We all tell a few white lies to ourselves you know the ones that start with the words ‘This wont hurt’. Well it does. It all adds up particularly if you are looking to get healthy. Keep a food journal and you are 80% more likely to hit your targets. Not a bad little habit to keep.

4. Preparing your food in advance. Develop a little ritual the night before where you bring some foods with you to work or in the car. Trying to eat healthy snacks in this country is like asking finding a needle in a haystack.

5. Drinking water as your source of fluids. Consider that most of your body is made up of water and you can see how important it is to stay hydrated. Coffee, Tea and other hot drinks tend to be water-robbers. Water – pure and filtered is the best. There really is no comparism. As a guideline, consume your bodyweight in kg x 0.033 to find your ideal amount in litres. The only real exception is green tea. Shoot for 3 cups a day of this mighty beverage. As a personal trainer this is the biggest mistake I see people make.

7. Consuming veggies with each meal. Everytime you feed there should be a source of vegetables. Spinach in omelettes, salads, chopped veggies, grilled (a really great way to sweeten veggies) and stir-fry and ‘Greens Drinks’ are all great ways of getting more veggies in to your nutrition.

8. Get the skinny on fat – fat can make you thin. Fact. Did you know that supplementing your diet with fish oil is a sure fire way to get those fat furnaces burning fast. Coconut oil, rich in SATURATED FAT, can also help you get leaner. Fats are your friends. Now I am not talking about those artery-clogging fat found in fried foods, cakes, biscuits and take-aways. You would be best to avoid anything on the packet that has ‘hydrogenated’ on it like the plague.
Instead shoot for fats that are rich in Omega-3. These include fish oil (pharmaceutical grade only), flax seeds, hemp oil, nuts

and olive oil. Cook with coconut oil.
9. Take your energy from vegetables and dietary fats rather than bread, pastas and starches. Have them as a treat. However, if they are appearing in every meal you may be setting yourself up for ill-health.

John Lark is a Fat Loss Specialist providing tools to help you get healthier and leaner – faster. He can be contacted at 01-5052131. Download your free fat loss report at www.spherefitnessstudio.com
**

As pioneering health and medicinal Doctor Antoine Bechamp once wrote, it is the ‘terrain’ rather than the ‘germ’ that makes us ill.

Meaning, we are surrounded by germs, moulds, bugs and nasty creepy crawlies that make us ill. If the inner terrain i.e. our body is sick then these critters will be sure to take hold and wreak havoc. If we are healthy they don’t.

Think of it like this – if you were to leave food in the fridge, turn it off and leave it for weeks then I am sure you will all know what you would be faced with if you dared to open the door!

Your food was ok going in but it somehow degenerated into a rotten mess without any help from the outside. The inner environment essentially changed the way it looked, tasted and appeared!

This philosophy allows us to take control of our health rather than be a victim of circumstances.

So take back your health with these really simple health boosters. Enough to give you a wee booster coming into the silly season

Keep hydrated with a minimum of 3-4 litres of quality mineral water every day, male and female. Pee yourself healthy! Keeping hydrated keeps us in full working order. We are 70-80 per cent water. Bear this in mind before you care about how many vegetables you are getting in at meal time or how much protein sits on your plate.

It is like driving around the car with little or no oil. Would you let that run dry? Yet it seems strange to me that we would happily let ourselves run dry. Do you care more about your car?

Choose Alkaline Foods over acidic foods. We are alkaline by design meaning that the body will do anything to retain the neutral status of our tissues and the fluid that we are made up of. So give it what it needs!

Too much acid foods and drinks in the form of animal and dairy proteins, sugar, coffee, tea and fizzy drinks will drain the life and the health reserves from you.

You are robbing Peter to pay Paul. To buffer this excess acidity that you are consuming the body will draw on its alkaline mineral reserves to neutralise this. Ladies and Gentlemen I introduce you to fatigue, brittle bones, dry skin and disease!
To help the body give it the alkaline environment that it needs. Commit yourself to salads at lunch and dinner with your meal.

The more life in your food, the more life in you.

Take Vitamin D. Vitamin D is a powerhouse vitamin that helps with everything going on in the body from uptake of calcium to driving its way into the cells of your body allowing them to unlock the key to your true health potential. Over 63 studies have shown its ability to prevent all forms of cancer too.

The two viable options are artificial UVB and supplements. If visiting an indoor tanning salon, be sure to ask for the booth with the highest UVB to UVA ratio since only UVB produces vitamin D. UVA is useful in producing a browner tan.

Dietary sources of vitamin D are generally insufficient to produce optimal levels of this vitamin. Milk contains only 400 I.U. of vitamin D3 and at a basic levels 800 to 1000 I.U. per day are probably required. You may need more depending on a blood test.

However, using a supplement is the best option for those with lack of daily sun particularly from October to March.

Taking regular daily exercise as a means of getting oxygen into the body and the heart rate up is a sure fire way to give your body a real kick start in the health game.

Disease thrives in low oxygen acidic environments. Otto Warburg, discoverer of cancer, said this in the 1930s.  So get outside! Take a walk in the parks, cycle, swim or play sport. Do something most days of the week.

The point is exercise is different to training. Do something in these winter months. Training requires intense effort and a goal. Exercise should not be intimidating. There is a difference.

You will fight and be flu-free if your mind-set is set to become as healthy as possible over the months rather than ‘fall victim’. Stack the above suggestions and you will fast be on your way to a nice-cosy winter devoid of Kleenex and cough bottle.

John Lark is a personal trainer in dublin.

I believe we are. And seeing through this will mean a) less stress in trying to get to your target weight and b) LIVING rather than worrying about the scales say minute by minute.

The time is to focus on getting healthier. I mean ask yourself this – are healthy people overweight? No. Do they leave themselves open to degenerative disease? No.

Get healthy, and your problems will melt away. I guarantee it. And guess what? The journey is a lot smoother and more enjoyable. The pressure to ‘lose’, ‘tone’, firm-up’, ‘tighten’ is gone. The focus moves to drink more water, eat better quality foods, get some sleep etc etc. All of which are a lot easier to achieve.

One of the most enjoyable by-products apart is weight loss (if you are overweight), energy levels, lowered stress levels and a positive outlook on life.

Compare this to your quick fix fat loss programme. Weight loss – yes. However, with this will come the stress and negativity of the ‘will I or wont I make it?’.

Experts in body composition changes (losing fat and firming up muscles to create that lean and slender look) are experts in health and call upon allied health professionals to get results.

I mean if you are eating like a Spartan, drinking more water than a dolphin, training with the effort of a Olympian but sleeping 4 hours a night and going through a messy relationship break-up we all know that results will be hard to come by.
Sometimes it is not a case of pushing down harder on the accelerator, more a case of releasing the hand brake. A personal trainer will be able to find your handbrake.

Have you ever wondered why you find it hard to exercise or at least find it hard to muster the motivation to exercise?

The answer lies in the status of your health. In essence it is not your fault. Address your health and suddenly the clouds part and the will power appears in abundance. Brain chemicals and neurotransmitters are working against you rather than with you.

Low levels of dopamine and serotonin will scupper any well-intentioned plans.

Now that is not to say that you start blaming your malaise and lack of energy on good ole dopamine. Far from it. After all, it wasn’t an accident that that biscuit ended up in your mouth (and another one and another) or you chose to do nothing about the ever expanding waist line.

Get up, have a good breakfast, drink more water, take your fish oil and vitamin D and you will feel better almost immediately. Then the excuses will truly fly out the window.

Try training with any intensity dehydrated, devoid of sleep, pounded with stress on top of a lunch comprising of what your local service station’s a-la-carte of ribs and chips.

Yet 99 per cent of gym goers do this. End result – you drag yourself to ‘train’, workout with the intensity (what is needed to actually get a result) of a damp squib and get frustrated with your lack of results.

Get healthy THEN get fit. Don’t try and do this the other way round.

The beauty is that you will feel immediate gains in your health if begin with the big guns – drink more water, drop the animal and dairy proteins from every meal, consume more veggies, sleep and take time to release your stress boilers.

There is so much more to ‘getting fit’ than just ‘doing the work in the gym’. The bases need to be covered first before most of us even set foot in the gym.

Get my free report by signing up on my web site. Then take the few pointers in there and implement one-by-one.

Train as hard as you can on your nutrition as you do your body and you will find the new you very quickly.

Next week I will address some of these in more detail including a handy tip sheet that you can use to address your health immediately. The journey is far more important than the destination.

John Lark is a personal trainer in dublin.

www.spherefitnessstudio.com