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

Fat loss is no different. The task is not impossible. It just requires all out war. It requires 100% effort, focus, determination and clear road map. Particularly if you want to get lean quickly. Not 80%, not being flaky at the drop of a hat.

You are either in or out.

What about this? What about if I were to tell you that to win a million euros you would have to strip naked and walk up your town high street.

I am sure that would drive you to become body conscious, enough to actually take it seriously.

So if fat loss is your goal and ‘getting in shape’ or ‘toning flabby bits’ is what you are after you had better be prepared for the fight.

Cover models, celebs have it easy. The sheer burden of having to look good in the public eye seemingly drives them work their back-sides off to stay in shape.

So where does it all begin?

First step – ditch the excuses. I couldn’t care less how many kids you have, what hours you work or how much stress you are under at work. I really couldn’t.

Some of the above is not your fault. Some of it is. But you have to take responsibility for your own actions. You didn’t slip into that biscuit tin and accidentally fall in that bowl of ice-cream.

If you want it enough you will move heaven and earth to  do it. One of my clients sets their alarm to get up before the children to cook and prepare meals for the day. That is why she is very lean. Others just do it.

So what do you need to do to get lean in say 4 weeks? This would equate to dropping a serious amount of body fat.

Notice a say body fat, not weight. You see the crucial difference here is we are looking to preserve what muscle we have. Muscle is crucial to our metabolism, tone, health and well-being. Starving yourself will lead to a loss of muscle.

It really takes a three-pronged approach focusing on training, nutrition and supplementation.

Training requires hard word. Plain and simple. Ideally, training twice a day with two days on, one day off with weight training and sprint intervals is key. Performing an exercise for the upper body and pairing this with an exercise for the lower body works best. As does High Intensity Intervals with bouts of hard work (sprints, jogs, runs – whatever you deem high intensity) followed by easy period of recovery. This is repeated for 20 minutes.

Note I say ideal. You have to build up to this. Even getting some exercise in is enough.

Your nutrition will lean towards taking in vegetables,  organics meats and fish and Omega 3 Fats in the form of Fish Oil, Nuts, Seeds and healthy oils.

Before you say, ‘Where are the breads, pastas, rice or spuds’ or ‘this isn’t balanced’ then please this isn’t for you.

I liken wheat and other refined cereals to sugar. “Wheat influences blood sugar levels the same way as plain table sugar”.

Results come fast as result if coupled with a good training programme and sound nutrition as a tailored supplement programme can be modulated depending on your own body fat distribution.

For example carrying fat around your mid-rift – the dreaded love handles – would signify a low tolerance to sugars and poor insulin management. Fish Oil, Magnesium, Greens Powders and a special blend of Fenugreek and other herbs would work wonders here.

Does this require hard-work? Yes. But it also requires a road-map tailored to your needs, a sound understanding of your physiology and hormonal activity all topped off with the grit between your teeth.

John Lark is a Fat Loss Specialist providing tools to help you get healthier and leaner – faster. He can be contacted at 01-505213. Download your free fat loss report at www.spherefitnessstudio.com

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.

The K Word or the forbidden dietary conundrum.

Yes it shouldn’t be used by uncontrolled type 1 diabetics, pregnant women or those with an existing kidney condition. But for the vast majority of us it is perfectly safe.

Ketosis is as Lyle MacDonald states “the shifting of carbohydrate to fat as the body’s preferred use of fuel”

What actually happens?

We produce ketones all the time as a byproduct of the metabolism of fat. So there are a level of ketones within the blood all the time. They are not as some journalists have described as ‘poisonous’. IN fact the body uses them as fuel within the skeletal and cardiac muscle.

We metabolise fat into glycerol and fatty acids which is then converted into Acetyl CoA. The same effect happens when carbohydrate is metabolized into Glucose and Pyruvic Acid. The next pathway is towards Acetyl CoA.

IN the presence of Oxaloacetic Acid the Acetyl CoA will enter the Krebs Cycle for metabolism as energy

However, here comes the clever bit. Low carb diets will not induce the production of Oxoloacetic Acid in sufficient enough quantities to send it into the Krebs Cycle.

Instead it accumulates in the Liver and is converted into Ketones. These are then transported to the skeletal and cardiac muscle.

So what does the science say?

Well key studies have had positive effects on blood chemistry, childhood epilepsy and healthy weight loss (burning fat!)

Studies by Sharman (2003) and Westman in (2002) both concluded in The Journal of Nutrition that Low Carb intake generated an increase in HDL (good cholesterol), an increase in triglycerides and a change in patter of LDL from B to A (also good).

A controlled study at the University of Cincinnati in 2003 took 53 obese women and fed them 1300 kcal. One group took a high fat approach, the other a low carb approach. Interestingly the low carb approach won out with more subjects losing fat.

A final interesting note is that for 70 years, 78 medical centres in the US have used low carb diets to treat childhood epilepsy.

Science out of the way and now for the application. I know that the art really is a) what your individual goals are and b) the quality and timing of your carbohydrates.

If you are after general health than you would be best to keep your carbohydrate intake to good quality sources such as quinoa and brown rice.

Here is another tip too. Master the use of herbs and spices otherwise they will taste like your armpit.

Any of the other carbs tend to be processed and alien to the function of your body causing imflamation and other systemic overload.  The bets way of knowing this is to literally remove any sign of things like gluten for up to 6 weeks and then retest by introducing them back again and monitoring your response.

For the clients who have actually been able to stuck to this they have been so use to feeling friggin awesome without the breads, pastas and starches that they are scared of feeling crap by eating what they know is one of the main offenders of lethargy, brain fog, inflammation and other chronic based ailments.

The next issue is timing. For overall health and vitality I would recommend consuming your good quality carbs in your first meal of the day and after you train. You don’t need a lot. Just enough to ensure a good trickle to glucose to that important bit of grey matter between your ears. One serving is enough.

Do you know that your brain consumes around 20% of all the glucose in your body?

A very low carb approach will mean you becoming depressed and irritable – you may even start to detest people if they mention the word ‘biscuit’ or ‘cake’. Not a good place to be. In that respect if you have trouble falling asleep you would be wise to consume some gluten free porridge made with rice milk an hour before bed or even add in some carbohydrate in your last meal (dinner) before you hit the pillow.

That will help in winding you down making you sleepy.

So the art is always in the application. Don’t fear carbs that is just dumb. They don’t make you fat. You sitting on your arse all day and eating poor quality foods does that. Just use them wisely.

It seems everywhere I look the word‘resolution’ is staring me in the face.

Billboards, articles, magazines, the latestweight loss success story from a celebrity who will inevitably pile it all backon in within months and all the other avenues.

Here it is – never set a resolution. Youwill fail. All they are are lofty dreams without any plan of action.

I hate to be a kill-joy but this is whathappens.

“This year I will watch my weight”

Great – how, what, when, where?

“This year I will definitely start abusiness”

Great – how , what, when, where?

“This year I will watch what I eat and losea stone”

Great – how, what, when, where?

You can see where this is heading.

With a little dissection you have a loftyambition or a dream, a vision that you have created in your mind. Perhaps ithas been moulded by what you have seen, done or previously felt or achieved.

This year will be the year. This is themoment that it all happens and suddenly Rocky steps out of the picture to thesound of Eye of the Tiger.

But there is where the good bit starts andends.

Get your resolution and swap that word to a‘goal with a specific plan of action matched clearly with specific behavioursthat will align you with success.

And then write it down. Behavioural studieshave demonstrated that this simple act will increase your likelihood ofachieving them dramatically.

You can see what I use and how I teach thisover at my free community (healthcamp.ning.com).

I like this act of writing them down as ago to when the going gets tough. Every day check in on this list of goals toremind yourself what you need to DO to get it right.

Health and fitness doesn’t come easy. If itdid all of us would be walking round with six packs. And no there isn’t a magicbullet.

What you MUST do is align your purpose or‘why’ with your goal. Why are you doing this? Why are you going to give upsugar, alcohol or processed foods. It is because they make you feel like crapand the last time that you felt crap you snapped at your kids as a result?

Most of us do not align what we eat withour resultant behaviours. Well folks start seeing the patterns and it will makecompliance a lot easier. If you want to feel depressed, angry, upset,vulnerable and for some suicidal keep eating the junk and lo and behold youwill begin to tick the boxes.

Easier to find a why now – isn’t it?

So if your resolution is to lose weight forthe New Year firstly set a goal.

“I will lose 14 lbs by the end of Januarycome what May”

Then find your why.

This is important to me because I want tofeel better (too woolly – be more specific), I feel lousy all the timer (warmer– dig deeper), I was laughed at as a kid (now we sucking diesel), I love thefeeling of bouncing out of bed in the morning as it will give me the energy,drive and focus to excel at my job leading to more money for us as a family –what’s more I will have more than enough energy to deal with my children andeven remove my wild hormonal swings that I get at least twice a week. I amfrightened of the cancer that inflicted my mother at such an early age.(bingo).

Then list what you need to do in terms ofspecific behaviours.

For example -  I will hit up the gym 3 times per week, Iwill ditch coffee, wheat, processed foods, dairy and sugar for the first 30days. I will walk every morning for 30 minutes. I will have a breakfast everymorning.

These actions are the doing bit and are alot more specific to the nitty gritty of getting stuff done rather than stayingin the background of your consciousness.

I am by no means a behavioural scientistbut I know what it takes to get stuff done and make resounding change inpeople’s health and fitness. What is to say you can’t apply this technique toanything else in your life.

Dream about it by all means. And dream big– so big that it scares you. But then actually do something about it.

Downloadyour free T2H Nutrition Plan at http://www.spherefitnessstudio.com

JohnLark is owner of Sphere Fitness Group and a personal trainer in Dublin

I use to think that too. But the more I worked with people on this, the more I concluded that there is far more to this than meets the eye.

You see before the creeping on of fat and decline of health there is always a decline in mental health first.

It is why so many of us really struggle with motivation and sticking to the plan. It is why so many of us find simple changes so fundamentally impossible to keep at.
Life gets in the way. The kids are running riot. The stress of life, job and bills all keep coming and coming. The mountain never seems to move.

Optimal brain chemistry in health and fitness programmes is key to success.

How?

Well you can have someone bark at you, drag you out of bed in the morning and kick you up and down a car park or you can take control of your moods from what you eat, drink and think.

You do this and rest assured you will never need to worry about lacking the motivation to do it because you can subtlety manipulate the way you respond to life and what it throws at you.

A lot has to do with the role of a brain chemical called serotonin. Get it normal and you have a winning formula on your hands. You will feel happy, motivated, lifted and life ‘ain’t so tough all the time’.

I was standing there after a camp session there the other day and we were noting that people are so angry all the time. You know it wasn’t so long ago that we used to whistle, hum, skip and smile our way around the place.

Nowadays you would be lucky not to be ploughed out the way by ‘mother-of-three-in-jeep-at-the-car-park-trying-to-find-the-space-closest-to-the-door’.

Anger, stress and in the inability to cope with life are all markers of poor mental health. Ok – point accepted – it is not ‘prozac’ time or dehabilitating levels of depression. But it is certainly a sliding scale.

So what to do? Well there are few things but this is what you can do NOW.

Get hydrated. Your brain is dependant on you to give it its ‘oil’ and that oil is water. 3-4 litres every day – male and female.

You know we wouldn’t dream of letting our car run dry of oil yet we do it everyday to our brain.

Clean up your diet next. Focus on lots of green veggies and green drinks and add

in seeds and some vegetable based proteins. Limit your cooked meat to one meal per day and make it really good quality. Since you will be buying less you can really focus in ‘where it came from’.

Get the junk out. Most of us wouldn’t dream of feeding our kids before bed a good dose of sweets washed down with a cocktail of sunny delight. We know that it would bring about Hurricane Katrina in the living room.

The reason being is that you (yes, you – they didn’t know) have altered their brain chemistry. Since they are smaller it is faster acting too.

And since our mind and gut are inextricably linked via the valgus nerve plugging them up with piles of bread and constipating them also has a direct effect on their mental status.

Did you know that MSG actually does a pretty good job in killing off brain cells?
And that Alzheimer’s has been linked directly to diets high in sugar?

Green drinks and alkalising salts are a great addition to your daily plan. They work in maintaining and promoting an oxygenated and pH balanced body (for more on this go to my website). You need this for optimal health.

You can also supplement with tryptophan or 5-HTP, amino acids that are used in the production of serotonin. Most people sleep better with this too as increasing
serotonin will have a direct affect on the production of melatonin that will help
you sleep.

The main aim of these four simple steps (and there are so many more beyond the scope of here) is to boost our natural serotonin levels and, unlike anti-depressants that encourage you to draw on what little serotonin you have, they will give you a good boost hopefully empowering you to make the route to health
and fitness a little easier.

As is always the case, work with your health and medical practitioner if you intend on implementing some of these strategies. You never know you might teach them a thing or two .

John Lark is a Personal Trainer and Nutritional Consultant. Download your ‘5 Top Tips for Fat Loss’ at www.spherefitnessstudio.com. He can be reached at 01-5052131

http://www.yourhealthcamp.com

Let me list perhaps the 7 most effective and easiest ways of gaining fat like it was suddenly an Olympic sport. This is what the masses would be practicising at the moment.

1. Eat a Diet Rich in Sugars, Hydrogenated Vegetable Fats and ‘Acid’ Foods

Ensure that you take a restricted approach to your diet by consuming foods rich in hydrogenated vegetable oils and fats and sugar.
One trick of convincing yourself that you avoided this pitfall is to consume low-fat cereal bars.
“It’s OK – these are low in fat!”
Taking in these between meals are a sure fire way to keep you on the road to gaining fat in a sensible and progressive way by allowing us to shut down the activity of our fat burning enzymes and increasing the activity of fat storage enzymes.
Forget calories and think ‘nutrients’. How many vitamins, enzymes, minerals, phytonutrients and antioxidants in this orange compared to this 1 point choco-orange brownie.

2. Sit on Your Backside
This is a great approach to take to again ensure steady fat gain. All the excuses under the sun will be strong enough to overcome the urge to exercise and get out of breath through lifting weights, circuit training and a brisk walk, jog, run, swim or bike.
Oscar Wilde once wrote that whenever he felt like exercise he sat down until the feeling passed.Sound advice.

3. Avoid Fruits and Vegetables like the plague

Avoiding these little bundles of goodness will help me no end in my quest to put on fat over the holidays. They will allow you extra time in bed as you catch every cold going. They will even make you eat more of the sugary stuff as you will never, unbelievably, feel full after eating.
RESULT!

4. Taking No Responsibility for Your Actions
This is a great little accelerator in the fat gaining stakes.
It can’t be your fault that you cram the cookies into your mouth or sit on your backside all day watching the clock ticking.
It is your dog’s fault that he kept you up all night barking stopping you from going out for your morning walk.
It is your children’s fault that they can’t do their homework and have a play that you have to attend that stops you from attending your class.
It is your husband’s fault that he argued with you and you responded by eating a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.
Equally it is not your fault when you see the scales rise after doing nothing all weak. But that’s OK at the end of the day it is not your problem.

5. Choose to Drink 3 litres of Alcohol a Day rather than water A bottle of wine is a far better choice than a glass.10 pints seems to have far more rational logic to it that 3-4 bottles.
5 chasers seem to have a much better effect than just leaving at the lovely dinner that you ate.
But that’s OK – see point 4.

6. Stress, Stress and More Stress
This will help you lose weight but still gain fat as frequent boozing, late nights, no exercise lowers your testosterone to levels akin to the alcoholic on the corner of Grafton Street. Keep working the hours you work, neglect taking proper time off and stress the body until it cries at you to stop.
Equally stress will be available in volume alongside the more obvious times you can feel it.

7. Letting it all go!
Let it all go!
Ignore your body and the potential it has to provide you with boundless energy, strength and vitality.
Develop the will to just say no to exercise, sound food choices and a comfortable stress free lifestyle.
That is, after all the easiest way isn’t it?

John Lark is a Personal Trainer and Nutritional Consultant. Download your ’5 Top Tips for Fat Loss’ at www.spherefitnessstudio.com. He can be reached at 01-5052131.