5 things to do to kick start your personal fitness program

The most common challenge that people I talk to face is how to incorporate fitness into their lives. They know they have to do something to get in shape but they really don’t know how. It can be quite off-putting because of the abundance of information out there. So much so that you may not know where to begin.

Our society has so many food choices that it is easy to pack on the extra pounds. Also our day to day jobs are far less physical as they where 100 years ago so we have more sedentary life styles. We know there are benefits involved when we exercise and clean up our diet, however, most of us don’t know how or where to start.

So where do we begin? Or is the question: How do we begin?

If you feel you are out of shape you should consider going to your doctor and get their approval to start exercising. Your doctor may also provide some helpful tips as well.

After you get the OK from your doctor, try these 5 things to help you get started:

1. Make the choice to start exercising and eating right: Making the decision to do something provides a form of commitment you make to yourself. Deciding that you need to change your behaviour creates new possibilities. When you say to your self “I need to get in shape”, it means something. You should be answering these questions in your mind: When can I work out? What exercises do I need to do? What foods should I be eating? Make yourself think about the commitment you just made. Only then you can let go of the past and take steps to move forward.

2. Write down what you do: You need a reference that is realistic towards your weekly activity. Write down everything you do during the week. This should include work hours, commuting hours, nights spent with your spouse, your child’s activities and anything else you can think of that you do. You should also include what you do on weekends. You should make a list for each day of the week, as some people set lofty goals like working out for 2 hours a day. This can be due to an old saying, “More is better”. However, this is not the case. Knowing your schedule will help you set realistic goals and help you find a few hours a week to start exercising. You’ll have a visual perspective on what you can and can’t do with your routine.

3. Research and get information: Most people do not have enough information before they start a work out program. So how do we get the information we need? The good news is we live in the information age. Take advantage of your favourite search engine and learn a little bit about fitness and nutrition. However, do not go overboard and lose focus. Find a source of information you like and take notes. Find the simplest and easiest workouts and nutrition tips. Don’t overload yourself with information. If you prefer you can hire a personal trainer for a few sessions to help you get started. Hiring a personal trainer is a great way to get started because you have made a commitment to meet someone to workout. Your goal is to have the trainer show you the basics on exercise and eating healthier. It may also be safer to learn how to perform the exercises (especially if you have not exercised for a while).

4. Create a simple plan and set realistic goals: Keep it simple! Following a simple plan while on a hectic schedule is much easier than following an convoluted plan. You should have a plan of which days you want to work out and a goal to change your eating habits for the next few weeks. For example, “I will work out for a half an hour for 3 days this week. I will eat a little less each meal.” Keeping it simple is a major key to success.

5. Execute your plan: Now that you have a plan, all you need to do is follow it. Sounds easy! However, this is another big step. You should look at your plan every day. You need be mentally prepared for the great day ahead of you. Having your daily schedule in hand will help you achieve your goals for the day. When you complete your workout for the day, highlight it or cross it off your list. It will show you that you accomplished something for yourself.

I hope these things help you get started on a new life of physical fitness. Life is filled with making decisions, knowing your commitments, getting information, planning and execution. Try these approaches for yourself and you will see that having your own workout and nutrition program is not as far fetched or complicated as you think. Good luck!

300 bodyweight challenge

The 300 bodyweight challenge:
Here's a quick 300 rep bodyweight circuit to start the day for you, here goes, enjoy!

Prisoner squats x20
Press ups x20
Alternate lunge x20 (x10 each leg)
Close grip press ups x20
Burpees x20
Rest 2mins
Repeat (3 rounds in total)

7 tops tips for healthier and fitter living

More and more people these days are getting sedentary instead of physical jobs. Sitting in the office chairs all day long has become the norm for many of us. The stress, busyness and rush make us forget about regular food and stuff our stomachs with convenient pre-packaged fast food and sugary drinks, which don't do anything good for our bodies.

As a result of such crazy life rhythm, we rarely find time for exercises, gyms or balanced nutrition. As a matter of fact, it's one of the reasons why there are now more that 60% of U.S citizens that are overweight. However, it is possible to change your lifestyle and lose your weight if you are willing to.

These 7 day-to-day life tips provided below will help you to drop your extra pounds, become more energetic and healthier.

1. Drink More Water
Our bodies need a lot of water. Water removes waste from our organisms and carries various nutrients into all our organs and cells. Your body also loses water by using it for various processes within the body. For this reason you have to replace it and drink water more often than you are used to. Start your day with a glass of water in the morning. Drink a glass of water before any meal. Take a bottle of water with you when you go to work. Your body needs approximately 3-5 liters of water during one day. So don't hesitate to drink plenty of water wherever and whenever you can.

2. Eat Fruits and Drink Fruit Juices
Eating fruits and juices helps you eliminate toxins from your body. Eating a variety of fruits also helps you get enough fibre, vitamins and antioxidants, which is one of the main reasons why you should eat fresh fruits and drink natural fruit juices as often as possible. Fruit juices from supermarkets are often sweetened (with a LOT of sugar!). If you want to drink juices, try to make fresh juices yourself. If you think it takes too much of the time, then look for juices with labels that say 100% fruit juice, these are much healthier for your body as they contain many more vitamins.

3. Eat Lots of Vegetables and Vegetable Salads
When it comes to losing extra pounds, vegetables are a great choice. They are natural and contain different vitamins, minerals and tons of other useful chemicals known to provide benefits for your body. Vegetables are low in fat and calories, they help control blood glucose levels, reduce blood cholesterol and reduce the risk of colon and other cancers. All these features also help control your weight effectively. If you feel that eating vegetables alone isn't great choice for you, then make some salads. Mixing vegetables together gives you even more different vitamins and health benefits. There are tons of tasty, healthy salad recipes on the internet. You can also use you imagination to make some great salads.

4. Eat Only When You Are Hungry
How many times you've been to a party where you saw lots of different and tasty looking meals, which you were offered to try. Don't just eat it because you are offered to. Eat only when you want to. Many people also like snacking. In between meals or when have nothing to do. Quit snacking. Most snacks contain a lot of fat and calories. Replace your usual snacks with vegetables or fruits. These are healthy to your body and you'll never get fatter, only thinner.

5. Carry Healthy Food with You
Many of us work busy office jobs and don't have time to eat regularly. In this case, bring your own made food with you. Instead of bringing sandwiches with meat, take vegetable salads, carrots or chicken or turkey salads. Any low fat food will do. This way, you won't have to wait for a break to fill your stomach. It's also quite important to try to eat about 5 times a day, rather than 3 or 2. Eat in smaller quantities, but more often. This helps you to increase your metabolism.

6. Work Out When You Can
Working out in a gym is not only a great way to grow some muscles, but also to drop a few pounds. Exercising helps you burn your calories instead of storing them in your body as fat. Our bodies were made to be active, so exercising slowly and easily can actually help you get more energy and make you feel much better. At the end of the week, try to lose all the stress and burn your calories in a gym or having some kind of physical activity at home. If you have time, then try to do easy exercises everyday.

7. Don't Lie Down or Sit When You Can Move
Many of us like to watch TV lying on a couch or sitting in a comfortable chair. Of course, when you come home after hard working day, you're tired, and all you can think of, is a couch and a remote in your hand. But such laziness won't help you lose weight. Contrarily, it will make you grow some more pounds. So don't lie or sit, when you can walk and move. Instead of staring at TV, go ahead and work out in your garden for example, clean your garage, fix your car, go to walk in the local park or beach. Breathe fresh air and move more often. Not only does it help to reduce stress after work, but also ups your mood and makes you more energetic.


Remember that all these tips will help you to lose weight, but only if you are determined and are ready to devote some of your time. Don't expect to slim down 4 sizes after eating 5 carrots and drinking orange juice. 

Your body, just like many things in this world, needs time. So be patient. And if you will honestly use at least some of these tips, you are going to change your lifestyle, which in the end will lead you to a thinner and healthier body.

Vale Sports Therapy have been busy!

The boys at Vale Sports Therapy have had a very busy weekend this weekend! 

Delme was racing the Neath Valley triathlon on Sunday morning, whilst Mark took part in the Swansea Bay 10K road running race in the afternoon. Full race reports are to follow, but need-less-to-say the weather was atrocious for the both of them! 

If you need any advice about fitness training, sports massage, triathlon & running coaching, check out our website. 

Cardiff half marathon training plan

The Cardiff half marathon is only 6 weeks away, how is your running training going? Your training should be starting to build towards a peak very soon, with your longer runs starting to increase to build your race specific endurance. But what else should you be doing? How many times a week should you be running? How fast should you be running?

This and all other questions can be answered by our running coach, Mark Whittle. Mark is able to design a bespoke half marathon training plan, one that is designed specifically for you, nothing just copied from the internet! Mark will look at your previous running experience, your current fitness level, the amount of time you have to train and also take into account all the stresses and commitments of your daily life (family, work, social, etc).

So if you're doing the Cardiff half marathon and need someone to take the stress out of planning your training schedule, give Mark a call on 07947010276 or check out the website at Vale Sports Therapy.

Breakfast before your early morning run?

A few of my runners have asked if missing breakfast before going for a run is a big deal, well, here’s my response.

Some people feel they can get away with not eating anything before their morning run, but I guarantee that unless they are fuelling during their run, then they’re not getting in an optimal training session. Studies show that people who train without eating anything run at a slower pace AND it feels much harder than it should.

In saying that, it doesn’t have to be a full English breakfast. Something simple and light will suffice, perhaps some toast (with peanut butter), some Greek yoghurt, a small bowl of porridge or cereal, some fruit, a smoothie or even a few small bites of an energy bar; all washed down with a glass of water. Simple. 

Remember, by fuelling your run correctly you’ll feel better during your run, you’ll be getting in a much better workout and you’ll recover much quicker. Eating something is much better than eating nothing!

London marathon 2012

Congratulations to all our friends, family and clients who ran the London marathon yesterday!

The London marathon is an awesome event and those who completed the whole 26.2 miles should be very proud of themselves.

We had a few of our athletes running and they all did a great job! Here's to 2013 and you never know, you might find one of us towing the line next year!

Herbalife sports nutrition

Herbalife 24 is the new range of sports nutrition from Herbalife, now being used by Barcelona FC, LA Galaxy FC, Reading FC and the new Worlds Strongest Man!

For more information or to order, contact Delme at www.completehealthandwealth.co.uk

Question: what do you do?

So, I had this question today from a member of the public. It was phrased something like, "I know you do sports massage, but what else?".

And this got me thinking, what do we do? If I had to catalogue our services and the locations where our clients come from, could I do it easily? It sounds a strange answer, but I'm not sure. You see, we've grown our services massively over the last few years and our clients come from all over the Vale of Glamorgan and beyond.

So to summarise, our services include:

Sports Massage
Sports Therapy
Nutritional Advice & Products
Running Coaching
Triathlon Coaching
Nordic Walking
Fitness Coaching

With clients from Newport, Cardiff, Penarth, Barry, Bridgend, Cowbridge, Porthcawl and Pontypridd (I'm sure I've missed a few!), including the Ulster rugby team (when they are in Wales playing the Cardiff Blues, the Ospreys or the Newport Gwent Dragons) and Cardiff City Football Club.

I think that about covers it!

Herbalife 24 is the new range of sports nutrition from Herbalife, now being used by Barcelona FC, LA Galaxy FC, Reading FC and the new Worlds Strongest Man!

For more information or to order, contact Delme at www.completehealthandwealth.co.uk

Herbalife 24

Herbalife 24 is the new range of sports nutrition from Herbalife, now being used by Barcelona FC, LA Galaxy FC, Reading FC and the new Worlds Strongest Man!

For more information or to order, contact Delme at www.completehealthandwealth.co.uk

Learn To Run course

How would you like to run faster, with less effort? Well, with our Learn To Run workshops we’ll teach you efficient and effective run technique to allow you to run more efficiently, with no injuries and best of all, faster! With these new running skills you’ll enjoy a more active lifestyle and gain great health benefits whilst enjoying the wonderful sport of running.

Running well and running fast is a skill and as such, it can be taught. Why not try our Learn To Run workshop, you'll be amazed how easy running can be!

The workshop will be held on the 30th January 2011 at the John Bruno Total Training studio, Penarth starting at 9:30am for approximately 3 hours. For more information contact Mark Whittle on 07947010276 or check out the John Bruno website athttp://www.personal-trainer-cardiff.com/

Delme's new skills!

Delme has just completed the Active Health Group Level 5 Advanced Diploma in Sports Therapy. He is now able to offer treatments such as ultrasound, cryotherapy, thermal therapy and taping & strapping to offer the client a new holistic approach to client care. As a qualified Sports Therapist, Delme can advise clients on prevention of injuries and can examine, assess and treat those that do occur, as well as helping with the rehabilitation process.

For more information, contact Delme on 07887924901 or email ValeSportsTherapy@ntlworld.com.