adaptation, ageing, awareness, Beliefs, body, courage, Energy, game of life, hope, life, long-term perspective, perspective, time

In THAT better place.

I lost my biological mother just over four years ago.

I buried her.

It would have been her birthday only two days ago if she was still alive. Made me want to share a little part of that chapter in my life in this blog with you.

Cancer came and took her within four months. It was very aggressive. There wasn’t much more the doctors could have done given the circumstances.

I’m sure if you have lost a loved one, there are times when you miss them and this is one such moment for me. We had an interesting relationship her and I, one much more akin to a brother-sister relationship.

I had never called her ‘mum’ all my life. I called her by her first name. A beautiful name it was – Margaret.

Like most if not all cancer sufferers, she suffered a great deal in the months leading up to her death and all I wanted God to do was to end the suffering she was going through. I spent a bit of time beside her in her last days and asked her quite a few questions about her, about life and about the life she was heading to – in THAT better place.

I asked her if she was afraid of dying and she said ‘no’. She fell back on her spiritual philosophy and believed that all ‘was meant to be’. She was prepared for this life after death where she will be in THAT better place, perhaps with Jesus by her side.

If you’ve ever lost a close loved one, it is a difficult time. It was difficult time for me to say the least but nothing compared to the difficulty she was facing. Her life was coming to an end sooner than she anticipated.

She had a lot of support from extended family who could be with her and the religious denomination she belonged to. They were lovely. God bless them.

You’re never prepared to bury anyone. Anyone, let alone your mother.

The one thing that comforted me was the belief – no, the hope – bright hope for tomorrow – her tomorrow, for her future when she will be sitting beside Jesus in THAT better place. I had the belief that his death and his blood on the cross gave me – gave all of us hope that all things are made new and death is no more, nor grief nor crying. No more suffering and pain.

In my mind, she may have lived a relatively short life on this earth but in my life, she made that one unselfish decision all those years ago to give birth to me. To give me life.

The same for you too – a priceless gift from your mum: life!

I was not at my mum’s side when she died. I was overseas. On the day she died, an aunty of mine who was by her side sent a message to my wife who contacted me to call my mother. She wanted to speak to me.

When my aunty put my mum on the phone, for what seemed like a long while all I could hear was her breathing. Very deep painful breathing. But she could not speak. She was in pain and I could feel her pain through the phone.

She didn’t say anything and yet I felt she said so much. This was the first time in my life that I listened to someone who didn’t say anything and yet seemed to fill my ears up with so much. I couldn’t hold back my tears, they just kept streaming out of my eyes. I was a mess. Fortunately, there was no one in the gym at that moment to witness me balling my eyes out.

There was something very different about this phone call, I could sense there was. I called her ‘mum’ for the first time and I thanked her for giving me life when she chose to have the baby – me, all those years ago. That unselfish decision was the catalyst to allowing me to live the life I live today and to help as many people as I can every day. To save lives.

She never met my son Zachary but I believe she is with him in spirit and she is still alive in them through the genes. She is my childrens’ guardian angel.

In that last phone call I called her ‘mum’ for the first time and told her that I loved her.

I said “mum, I love you. Don’t worry, I will see you again … one day I will join you …. In THAT better place … Just wait a little longer”.

She just wanted to hear my voice one last time and that was the last time I heard hers too.

I was told she died only a few minutes after she put the phone down.

Her spirit is at home with Jesus now.

So, I hope that in her life after death, there is a glorious, endless future for her of which her adventure has only just begun.

I’m sure her happiness and joy has wiped away any recollection of pain and suffering in her time on earth and death.

So, If your mum is still alive, cherish it.

Go right now and give her the biggest hug and kiss and tell her you love her. If she is overseas, make that call NOW – call her up and tell her how much she means to you and that you love her very, very much even if it is in another time zone and you’re waking her up.

Tell her it cannot wait for the morning.

As for me, well I speak to my mum in my daily prayers but I would just like to end this blog by saying …

“Mum, I love you.”

Until next time,

ageing, body, body weight, diet, eating, Energy, game of life, habits, life, risk, time, you

Eating Right actually takes less time than you think: Tip # 3.

Relaxed.

Tip # 3: If its green and not a frog – eat it!

And what class of foods would fall in this group – yep, you’re not wrong: vegetables.

This includes all the green vegetables, all shades of green. Some good examples include – broccoli, spinach, asparagus, cabbage, long beans.

Obviously, the darker green it is, generally, the better for you. I should also include fruits that are in the shades of yellow to orange in this tip also.

Total estimated time so far (previous top 2 tips) = approx. 8 minutes.

Add: green vegetables (this tip) = approx. 2 minutes.

Estimated time taken out of your day = approx. 10 minutes!

Why is eating greens (or yellow or orange fruits) important to your life? What value could it possibly pass on to you?

Well, besides being natural sources of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other nutrients, they tend to keep you fuller – for longer. This helps you curb your appetite throughout the day and from snacking on ‘junk food’. Yellow, orange and green fruit and vegetables offers your body and mind multiple nutritional benefits.

Educating a top national sprinter of the importance of proper nutrition for recovery & optimal performance

Lets have a look at a few of these fruits – bananas and oranges for example. Their yellowish-orange pigmentation have been shown to slow down the ageing process and also reduce risks of some types of cancers. Bananas are loaded with potassium and magnesium which reduce the risk of muscle cramping.

This is especially important for anyone who trains with weights in the gym. Potassium and magnesium assist in the muscles extending and contracting properly and are essential for maximising muscle performance.

Obviously, not all yellow-orange fruits and vegetables have the same sugar content and don’t all have the same impact on your insulin levels. Lets keep it simple, if your body transformation goal is to lose unwanted fat around the butt and belly then:

** stay away from high – sugar or High Glycemic Index (GI) fruits and vegetables.

Some examples include: pineapples, yams, corn and carrots.

Instead choose options which include low to moderate GI, that is foods that have more complex carbohydrates and does not ‘spike’ your sugar levels and keeps your insulin steady. Some examples include: grapefruits, mangoes, oranges, paw-paws, peaches, pumpkin, capsicum and tomatoes.

A good teacher is hard to find but finding a good student is even harder.
Plan the work – to work the plan.
Photo: discussing fine points of one of my programs with retired legend of rugby – Phil Waugh.

We need to work with our bodies, not against it.

Eating in a way that does not encourage fluctuations in sugar and insulin levels is critical to body transformation and weight management. Like I have mentioned before, the key to body transformation is hormonal management – specifically, insulin management.

Make time to eat properly

When insulin is under control, your body’s drive to store fat is minimized and under control too.

So, there you have it! Tip # 3 of my series of Top Ten Tips to being in Tip-Top Shape come summer. The awareness of these top 3 tips is one thing.

Application is the other pillar. Adaptation is yet another. The philosophy of my blog.

So, as you can see, to implement these top 3 tips, it should not take you any more than 10 minutes out of your day. Now, of course you can spare 10 minutes.

My goal is to not only inform you but also to show you how Eating Right actually takes less time than you think. Matter of fact, one of my goals is to show you how the application of my Top Ten Tips should not take more than 30 minutes or 1800 seconds out of your busy day.

Make the time to eat properly.

It might not only add years to your life, but along with consistent weight training and regular cardiovascular training, may just add more life and zest in to your years.

Its your choice. Your life, after all.

Good luck in your decision.

Until next time,

Cheers & ahoy!

The old Cap’n Viking Pirate Muscled Prophet … & eating well and time

Planning my meals and cooking meals in advance (in bulk( allowed me to build a Physique worthy of standing against the best in the world.
Efficiency in the preparation and timely consumption of meals is critical to achieving the physique your aim to create.

World Natural Bodybuilding Championships.
Side Chest pose. Managing your meals allows you to build the best physique you can. Attention to detail and time, matters. Placing: 4th.

adaptation, ageing, body, Energy, game of life, habits, life, long-term perspective, long-term strategy, mind, needs, perspective, respect, self-image, time, truths, Vitality, you

The Fire Within.

Life is short. We all agree on this.

Life is also complex. One of the skills is to make this complexity a little less complex. Simplify the complex. De-clutter. Simplify life. Most of us would agree on this too.

Life is also an exercise in Risk Management. Anyone that thinks otherwise needs to put their thinking hat on for a few minutes. Look back at your life. Look at your life so far to this point. Look at all the decisions you have made either consciously or subconsciously to minimise your life risks. How many?

Many.

I believe one category with high risk to a growing number of human beings today, partly because of the increasing levels of obesity is cardiovascular disease and other stress-related disorders.

As I see it, it is not enough to just eat the right foods and keep cholesterol levels low. It is also not enough to exercise regularly, not enough still, to take regular holidays to ‘get away from it all’.

Nope, not enough.

How can we lower that moderate to high risk of cardiovascular and stress-related diseases? As I see it, to protect ourselves and lower these real Life Risks, we must learn to ‘switch-off’. Like I tell most of my apprentices in the gym and in life, we need to learn to “quiet the mind”.

Easier said than done.

We need to learn how to ‘turn off our engines’ in order to lengthen the effective useful life of our time on this planet. What I mean by this is that we need to switch off our production of the “Fire within”. What Fire Within, you may be asking?

You see, we are many things. One thing I know is that we are not in control of ourselves as much as we think we are. We are hormonal creatures. Because of this, the Fire Within is a term I use for the production of the hormone – “adrenaline”. I also refer to this as the “Energy Hormone”. The hormone that gives you that sense of Vitality. The hormone that is triggered whenever we a faced with a ‘flight or fight’ response to a threat. That fire within needs to be turned off, when no longer needed.

This hormone, this Fire Within needs to be tamed. To be controlled. Better. Many people need to learn to become less dependent on this energy hormone for their everyday living. As a keen observer of human behaviour, I believe that like many other things people struggle with managing, in life – their diets, their money, their insatiable desire for ‘newness’, their constant dis-satisfaction with the old etc, many people do not know how to ‘switch off’ this vital hormone – the giver of vitality or life and also – THE TAKER!

Not turning the Fire Within OFF, allows emotions such as anger, frustration, irritation, challenge and excitement trigger this energy hormone: adrenaline. I see many people incapable of managing these psychological triggers of this deadly hormone. Incapable of bringing this hormone under control. They let these emotions get the better of them.

Effective stress management is what is needed. Some rules of the brain to consider –

Step 1: Quiet the Mind.

Step 2: Repeat to Remember.

Step 3: Remember to Repeat.

Effective stress management requires that we be healthy in mind and spirit, not just in our physical bodies. What I am talking about here when I refer to effective stress management, it is to “quiet the mind …. And spirit”. This is what will truly allow you to manage one of your life’s greatest risks: adrenalin mis-management.

Eating well and exercising is not enough.

Many individuals seek adrenalin ‘highs’ and seek increasing levels of excitement and joy to enjoy the thrill of challenge. They never seem to get enough. Constantly seeking more and more different ways to experience the adrenalin rush. I believe these people may find it much more difficult to manage adrenalin which could likely increase their life risks.

Ask yourself: are you one of these types of people?

Like any surfer would know, you cannot keep riding the peak of the wave forever as there will always be a trough. A low point. Adrenaline “junkies” need to train and re-train themselves to experience life without the constant novel stimulation. They need to come down from the “mountain-tops” and enjoy the peace and calmness of the valley. This is where true rest and recuperation/re-charging and healing can occur.

Please do.

Your life depends on it more than you think. Turn off the Fire Within.

The hustle and bustle and frantic pace of modern living does not allow us the luxury of natural recovery. We are robbed of it. This comes at a cost: an ever-increasing state of mental diseases or stress-related diseases. A costly price to pay for not managing the energy hormone, better.

Because of this theft brought on us by modern-day living, we find ourselves planning these ‘vacations or holidays’ in to our lives, through deliberate design. But, you cannot escape YOU – you cannot run away from your mind.

Even Jesus Christ, the greatest psychologist that ever lived, thought it was very important, too. Rest, that is. There is a passage in the bible where he did request of his disciples to follow him to a quiet place and get some rest (somewhere in Mark gospel, I think).

Think about it: Jesus Christ thought it was necessary all those years ago.

Now, from a Christian – religious point-of-view, if Jesus Christ thought it was necessary for him and his disciples to periodically get some rest, then, who are we to think we can exist without it?

Practice switching off the Fire Within before the flames burn out your life before your time.

Pour some water to put out those flames. From time to time.

Don’t just treat the symptom (vacations/holidays). Focus on treating the cause: Quietening your mind. And spirit.

Longer, better quality life to you.

Until next time,

Beliefs, dreams, faith, game of life, hope, Imagination, life, long-term perspective, needs, perspective, time, truths, you

Reach out for your potential.

Relaxed.

Have you reached your potential – in your field of expertise?

Yes? Well, congratulations!

However, if you said “no” then you would probably make up the majority of people reading this blog and in the world (me included). That’s ok, too.

My question is: “Why Not?”.

What do you think are some of the factors that most often prevent the anyone from reaching his or her greatest potential – in whatever field? In my experience as a coach helping people of all ages and skill levels over the last two decades I’ve heard many barriers or excuses that people have told me regarding why they don’t or cannot make the time to go to the gym. Many, believe me.

What I have learned is that when you funnel out all the cr#p and lies people tell themselves, there appears to be two common barriers that often prevent most people from performing to their fullest. A barrier to ‘giving their all’. A barrier to ‘never giving up on themselves’. What do you think it is? Yep, some of you may have guessed it.

The first, as I see it, is a pattern of failures and past mistakes. When each of us look back honestly on our lives so far, we would all notice that we have made countless mistakes. Had a thousand failures. The second related barrier that appears to be holding people back is fear of failure. Yes, that other ‘F’ word: FAILURE.

Someone once said that “Failure is success deferred”. Very true. The key is patience. Most very successful people in all fields of life, most people that have reached the top of their professions or field of expertise, have all failed. Not once, but multiple times in the process of achieving success, of reaching out for their true potential. If you are going to fail, you might as well, fail big, someone once said. So, don’t be afraid to fail, if you’re going to do it in the pursuit of reaching success, then go ahead: Fail big.

Fail big – learn big!

If you’re a Christian, you, like me, may view these barriers through a different set of lenses or perspective. What I mean to say is that from a Christian perspective, the basic tenets of Christianity addresses these challenges most of us face throughout our lives and helps us remove these two major barriers.

As I recall from my early teachings in Catholic classes, being a Christian, we are taught that our past is forgiven; we are taught from a young age that we can start over with a ‘clean slate’. That making mistakes is a very natural part of life. And because of this, it gives Christians the resolve to trust that the mistakes of the past need not hold them back. It need not hold anyone back, even if you are not a Christian (and you are aware of possibilities). Everyone makes mistakes. Accept that. It reminds us that we are ‘human’ and ‘not perfect’.

So, it follows, according to the belief instilled in Christianity, we are taught and encouraged to never fear the “F” word – failure, that modern society looks upon as a taboo subject to talk about. That other “F’ word that everyone is afraid to open up and admit: Failure. As a Christian, because of our faith, we accept that we are not in total control of our lives, that ultimately, God (or whatever God you worship) is in control of your life.

Don’t mis-interpret me, please.

It does not mean that you start thinking that you will always get what you want or always win every competition you enter or always have things go your way or never get fired or never fail in an endeavour. No, it does not mean any of this at all. It does mean, however, that through your faith, and belief – that God can bring good out of every experience for those who trust in him.

The stronger your trust. The stronger your faith. The stronger your belief in God, you do not need to worry about failing. So, go ahead, people, pursue your dreams. Start the projects you’ve always intended to do but procrastinated because you were reminded of your past failures and you fear failing AGAIN.

If the burden, chains and memories of past mistakes or anxiety about failing in the future is removed, you would be FREE to FOCUS, wouldn’t you? To focus on doing your very BEST in the PRESENT. Makes sense doesn’t it? Yes, it does, if you are a Christian. Even if you are not and don’t belong to a religion, you could still see the gift that Christians have.

This is fundamentally how a real, personal Christian faith can liberate souls in need around the world. Around your world, maybe? It is the awareness of these basic Christian tenets and faith that can make it a little easier for anyone – yes, just like you, to reach out for his or her highest potential.

Having said that, I realize a lot of people think the idea of a ‘personal relationship’ with God (or a higher force – your God) sounds disturbingly exclusive, somehow presumptive, and more than a little pious. I do respect these peoples’ perspective. They just have not allowed themselves to be made aware of such consciousness. I thought the same thing when I was a young Catholic, questioning my belief, my faith … many, many years ago. But, life taught me otherwise.

According to the Bible, this idea of having a personal relationship with God isn’t at all presumptive. It was God’s idea in the first place. And it is not exclusive. It is available to anyone who accepts God’s offer. It is not too late for anyone to make that relationship and agreeing to the consideration on offer: your trust, your faith, your belief in him/her.

Then …. reach out (with both hands and with all your might) to your true potential through belief. In you. With God.

So, there you have it. Bring out all those little projects you have had in the ‘back burners’ and BEGIN IT. Maybe, that idea for a business that you were afraid to start. Or, it could be that change of career that you were afraid to make – to do what you love to do. There is power in beginning, starting NOW. Begin your walk to the gym. Begin your weight-loss program – AGAIN (even if you have failed many times before and tried everything but failed). Try again. Begin eating better again. Have faith in you, don’t give up on yourself. Especially now, with increased awareness of your faith, that you have God on your side.

Have that difficult discussion with yourself and with God to guide you on your journey to your goals … towards your imaginary self. But this time, with the belief that all your past mistakes, all your past failures is forgiven.

Create your new foundation for what you are building (on a clean slate) and begin putting the building blocks towards your highest potential.

Don’t look at life as a gamble. Instead look at life as a giant, very real game so become a better player of the ultimate game (with the belief that God is in your corner), like a great coach is in a Champion Boxer’s corner, in his ears, in the ring during battle. Have no doubt in you, no doubt in your God.

Remember: doubters don’t win or succeed. Winners don’t doubt, especially with your higher force on your side. Your God.

Reach out. Don’t delay. There is not time to lose.

Reach out for your potential. Today!

Until next time,

adaptation, Beliefs, courage, dreams, Energy, faith, Goals, hope, Imagination, life, long-term perspective, mind, perseverance, respect, time, you

Why Not?

Relaxed.

I love my children.

I love spending as much time as I can with each of them – Olivia and Zachary. I am very fortunate that in this phase of my life I am able to do just that.

Give them my time – my life. Just like other dads do, too.

Olivia, Zachary and I love doing many activities together. Building things using leggos is one such activity. My son teams up with me and we construct, bust down, re-build and re-construct the best castles we can dream up with the limited pieces of leggo pieces we have. Olivia is a champion builder now. Better than me already. They both are. She’s so good, that her constructions are very elaborate and above all – ‘stable’. That’s her thing – it has to be stable.

“Dad, she says, a castle is better to be stable than just pretty, aye dad?”

“Uhumm … yep, to some extent, that is true. You don’t want strong winds to blow it away now, do we? Like most important things in life, we need strong foundations. We all need to have our rocks in life.”

I try my best to encourage them to use their imagination and play ‘pretend’ games. Even though there is a limit to how many leggos they have, each time we build, they create something new. No creation is ever the same.

And when run out of leggo pieces, my daughter asks what else. I say lets pretend even more. Olivia gets so excited and so does Zachary. I start it off by saying ..

“Just pretend … that your castle has wings …. Large wings and it can fly …. Fly up in the sky and the wings are so large that the castle can take us all in it .. and …

My daughter interrupts me and then asks “But dad, castles can’t have wings, can they?”

I thought about what she said and I wanted to tell her the truth but I thought that a little un-truth, a little lie would be the best thing for her and her brother right now. I wanted them to continue their ‘make-belief’ world. Heck, if I had one wish I would want their ‘pretend world’ to not come to an end.

Let them run wild and far with their imagination. Keep dreaming. See what they come up with. Encourage them to ‘see’ what others cannot, what I can’t.

With no restraints. No rules. Their world where anything is possible. Where castles have wings … large wings. Enough to carry mum and dad and them away in to the skies. Forever.

I told her that her castle can have wings. Anything she wanted would be given to her. Any power she wanted. Anything she imagined, no matter how ridiculous it may be, would be granted. There were no rules. No one to tell her what could and could not be done. She was the boss. The creator.

Olivia stopped me again and said: “but dad, castles can’t have wings?”

I told her “why not, Olivia. Why can’t Castle’s have wings? I told her not to just ask “Why?” but also consider “Why not?” and then her story-telling of her make-belief world started flying. She imagined all sorts of things. All sorts of possibilities. I was in heaven just listening. Listening to their debates. Their possibilities.

Wow, I enjoy the storytelling my kids share with me!

She didn’t argue with my lie. Only I knew, that I lied. A lie that castles had wings.

But that lie was enough for her to continue her dreaming, her storytelling. Her ‘pretend-world’. I thought telling her a little lie was better than telling her the truth. She will eventually find out the truth but in her time. In her time.

They can find out other little small lies society tells them as they journey through their lives. But, in their time. Things like Santa Clause. Like the Tooth Fairy. Like the Easter Bunny.

These little lies (and there are many in life) are important to every child. Every person who was once a child. It encourages their imagination to run wild. It gets them to question possibilities. It gets them to not just ask “why?” but instead to also ask “why not?”.

Why not? Why not create a castle with wings? Why not travel to the moon? Why not be a better you? Why not make a more fuel-efficient car? Why not choose to eat a healthier meal option just because you respect and love yourself a little bit more today than you did yesterday? Why not go to sleep early tonight and say no to a ‘big night out”? Why not strive to be a better person from this hour forth? Why not make time to go to the gym at least twice a week? Why not take care of your beautiful self better?

Why not, not why?

Look back at your life. The way I see it, it seems that up until six years old, we get lots of encouragement. But by the time we reach our teens, we get discouragement from everyone and everything we experience in life. By the time most of us kids get to working life, young adults appear to have been drained of courage and have lost most of their enthusiasm – that sparkle that allows a person to choose to adopt positive thinking everyday.

Why?

I believe one of the reasons is that not enough of us humans are asking ourselves “why not?”. A lot of people have lost belief in striving for a better life. A better self. They have lost belief in themselves. Enthusiasm and courage has been sucked out of them.

Also, partly because they’ve stopped asking themselves “why not?”

Its not too late people. Its not too late to do something about it. Its not too late to try to lose ten or so kilos. Why not? Its never too late to start dreaming again. Its never too late to start believing in yourself again. Why not try harder? Why not keep going? I’ve seen it with the very old and the young alike. That is the only thing that gives you hope:

Believing in a dream … make it your dream … to believe in the question of telling you and asking yourself the question of “why not” …. Be your BEST you can be – for yourself and … while you’re on a roll, why not be the BEST YOU CAN BE for others too!”.

Don’t wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured. It may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed. Walking on the moon may never have happened. Don’t allow fear to make you quit. Never quit on life. You’ve got to win over yourself. Never settle for defeat. Never stop striving to being the best you can be, in every sense of the word.

Have you hitched your wagon to a star? Why not?

It seems that there is a philosophical movement that exists that associates drive and initiative solely with materialistic power and gain. There appears to be an ever-growing obsession focused on the accumulation of non-essential personal possessions.

This should not be confused, I think, with personal achievement and the pursuit of individual excellence. Disregarding all material gain, I believe there is a pure personal pleasure which comes from achieving the difficult or the unusual. Whatever it is that it is.

The magic rests in everyone of us. Yes, it rests in you too. The enduring power that has moved you and will move you, again, comes from inside. Yes, inside you.

Success is not just reserved for the talented. It is not in the high I.Q. Not in the gifted birth. Not in the best equipment and technology. Not even in ability.

Success in anything, I believe is hugely dependent upon drive, focus and persistence. The extra energy required to make an extra effort – to go the ‘extra mile’ – to try another approach – to ask ‘why not” do something a little bit different, a little bit smarter – to concentrate on the desired outcome – is, I believe, the secret to achievement. To win, in your unique journey through life.

The magic is this: ATTITUDE.

A wise man once said: “Its your attitude, not your aptitude that determines your altitude in life”.

Apply. Adapt accordingly.

See how the next four decades pan out for you. Choose well.

And when you start dreaming again, you might as well dream BIG. It takes the same amount of focus!

As another wise person once said: “Make no little plans: they have no magic to stir your blood to action – instead make big plans, aim high in work and hope.”

Ask yourself – “Why not?”

Until next time,

Beliefs, Energy, hope, life, long-term perspective, perseverance, respect, time, you

The right to be happy is not always right.

The right to be happy is a growing trend in today’s society and I believe it will continue to grow to unprecedented levels.

Its everywhere, lack of commitment, that is – in marriage, business, politics and even in sport. Marriages fall apart at the first sign of trouble and conflict. Business partners end relationships when they can’t see eye-to-eye on a particular deal. In business, companies seem to be only too keen to make people redundant and employees are not afraid to move on to ‘greener pastures’ if it is convenient for them. Existing contracts and commitments made null and void. Fair enough.

Contracts are put in the bin and not honored. Politics – well just see the endless mockery of the leaders of this country playing their roles they had been elected to.

You see lack of commitment played out in the public arena in sports: rugby players ending their contract early or clubs ending the coaching contract for coaches because of short-term lack-lustre on-field performances of their teams. Examples are everywhere around us.

Commitment seems to be very cheap these days.

You hear a professional sports star signing a multi-million dollar multiple year contract and then want to pull out of the team in year 3 say, because clubs won’t renegotiate his contract. Why does he want to renegotiate? Because some other person has signed a new contract a little more than his? He wants to renegotiate because his contract is no longer personally convenient? So, he refuses to keep his commitment until he gets his way. Players won’t be able to give 100 percent on the field if he doesn’t get his contract renegotiated. They are getting $500,000 a year, can you really blame them?

There is a commitment phobia endemic in our societies. People are afraid to commit to anything. People are quick to break promises without remorse; functions are attended but not experienced; hopes are dreamed but not put in to action; words of support are voiced but no support is rendered when needed in time of action.

There is no commitment to gym memberships, no commitment to friendships, no commitment to sporting clubs, no commitment to political parties, no commitment to the community, no commitment to a cause, no commitment to the country they live in and no commitment to the human race.

Well, I have news for everyone – commitment matters! This is the way to success in almost all areas in life. Whether it be your goal of body transformation, or completion of a qualification or a football player’s success or your career longevity in you place of employment or your relationships with family and friends.

Commitment matters. Commitment matters with everything, with every goal that is worthwhile achieving.

What about marriage? If ever a person says after celebrating his/her 50^th anniversary, that he and his wife never had a serious fight or argument, then either they are just blatantly lying or they had a very boring relationship! You will experience what I call a ‘flat tire’ in your relationship more than once in your marriage. This would likely apply to most long-term relationships. Just like travelling with a flat tire is uncomfortable and bumpy experience for everyone in the vehicle, so will the marriage be during this period.

The ‘flat tire’ represents periods of conflict and disagreement. These periods test your resolve to commitment. Periods of genuine unhappiness. These will be periods of emotional blandness when you cannot generate anything but a yawn for one another. That’s life, as they say!

Do you think that commitment matters then? You bet it does!

What will you do when unexpected hurricanes blow through your home or you’re your sails on your ship in life has holes in them? Will you give up on your marriage, pack it in and go home to mama and dada? Will you give up and throw in the towel because you’re inconvenienced? Or will your commitment hold you steady? Hold your ship steady?

Here’s what you should do: set your jaw and clench your fists for a fight. Nothing short of death must ever be permitted to come between you and your partner. Nothing! That can be said for your commitment in any long-term contract. Your word is your commitment. You fight to keep your word, even if sometimes, fulfilling it makes you a little unhappy.

Don’t give up on your commitment just because it becomes a little inconvenient. Someone wise once said “ there is a mighty big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons that sound good”. Don’t follow what our society teaches us at the moment, that only one commitment sounds good: the right to be happy …

Children that see adults committed in their relationships – friendships, marriages etc, will have a special advantage when they are older. They will have an intuitive understanding that his/her commitment, for example, in marriage is NOT a right to be happy. It is the right to play a role of husband/wife to the best of their ability. It is a right to demonstrate willingness to be responsible.

Even when it is inconvenient and makes you feel uneasy. Even when it means he or she sacrifices his personal happiness.

Commitment matters. Stick to yours. Value loyalty. Play all your roles in life to the best of your ability, especially during periods of extreme discomfort.

This is when you grow the most and truly succeed in the art of life.

Until next time,

adaptation, Energy, life, long-term strategy, mind, needs, planning, respect, risk, time, Vitality, you

Camel or donkey travel anyone?

A little entertainment posing for family and friends at a party.
No tan. No contest colour.

Few days before Australian Titles.
Tanned. Coloured. Getting ready for battle.
Result: 2nd in Australia.

How busy are you? Busier than your brother, sister, best friend, work colleagues, neighbours. Everyone else? I don’t know, only you would.

Everyone rushes around from one task to another, one meeting after another, one seminar after another and so on. Never having enough time to do all the things you want to do in any given day. You know what I mean. It’s the life we live in the 21^st century.

We have many varieties of transportation too. You name it: fast cars, fast ferries, fast trains, fast planes. Fast everything. To get you from point A to point B, C, D …. all the way to Z. Doesn’t it make your head spin a little, just thinking about the ‘rush’ everyone is going through in their daily lives.

Such hectic “rush about” activities. All this constant energy-sapping activities takes a heavy stress toll on one’s body. Your body. Ever wonder why people come down with severe illnesses so suddenly? Respiratory illnesses like influenza, asthma attacks, anxiety attacks and so on, on perfectly healthy people?

Why?

Well, I believe it could well be connected to the over-extension of one’s self. Just like going above and beyond what you’re capable of lifting in the gym, every day. It is only a matter of time when it will lead to a serious injury.

The never-ending over-extension of one’s self leads to over-stress which leads to the lowering of your immune system. Basically, your immune system gives up!

Maybe, just maybe, our bodies were not designed for all these technologically faster modes of transportation (including advancement of communication mediums). Don’t get me wrong, these modern modes of transportation are essential to living in today’s modern cities. However, I just get the feeling that our bodies were not designed for constant “rush about” activities, adding increasing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual stresses.

Maybe our bodies was always designed for camel or donkey travelling and we keep putting it in faster and faster machines and using faster and faster devices.

You see, out in the deserts, camel or donkey travelling allows plenty of time for rest. Faster and faster modern day vehicles keeps or adds to people’s tension and stress.

We need to all slow down. A little. Try walking a little slower sometime.

Now, I am not saying we should give up driving modern cars, catching faster trains or getting on even faster planes or not using your i-phones and the internet. No, they are essential. What I am saying is that we need to recognize and accept that we are not super-humans and that the human-frame has its limits, just like everything else in life.

Unfortunately, a lot of people do not know how to recognize their limits until it is too late. Until there is a health disaster.

Recognizing your limits is one thing but then you need to build in adequate rest and recovery time so as to allow healing and re-charging/restoration to take place. You need to take ‘time-out’ in your daily life to re-charge. You need a ‘re-charge point’.

This is the problem: Busy people, people in a constant hurry, performing never-ending “rush-about” activities, never have time or choose to not make the time for recovery and re-charge. Their lives are so busy. Their minds are always in over-drive and so they have little time to meditate or ‘quiet’ their minds so that they can put all their problems in perspective.

Just because technology is changing at super-sonic speed, does not mean that everything else in life is. Relationships take time. Cultural learning takes time. Crops take time to mature and ready for eating. Knowledge acquisition takes time. The human body also takes time in its evolution. Not everything changes as fast as technology. Don’t translate the speed of technological change to everything else in life.

Quicker. Faster. More, more, more isn’t always better. Life is not meant to work that way. Protect your mind, protect your body.

Slow down. Know your limits. Before it is too late. Embrace your camel or donkey travel regularly, the way our bodies are meant to be travelling through life: with frequent, periodic rest and restoration breaks. This is akin to muscle-building and growth. Time away from the gym allows well-earned rest and recovery which leads to muscle development.

There are many ways to camel or donkey travel. Some ideas include – yoga, weight training, pilates, praying, meditation etc. Find your re-charge activity. Find your quiet time. Keep this time regular. Make it routine. Regain control of your restless mind. Regain control of your life.

In short, the people of today’s modern world – modern living have been increasingly showing signs of physiological and psychological disintegration on many levels. Why? Because we are living at a pace that is too fast for our bodies.

This is the essence of today’s mounting stress problem.

Until next time,

Beliefs, Energy, hope, life, needs, perspective, time

To Matter or Not To Matter.

I sometimes think of the human body as a community, and every part of the body playing an intricate role in it to function, and function optimally. All the way down to its cellular level, such as the white cell. As basic human anatomy classes have taught us, the cell is the basic unit of an organism. However, one of the great things about the cell is that it can live for itself, or it can help build and sustain the larger being – the human being.

So, the body can be seen as one unit, but it is made up of many, many parts – namely, cells. Though there are many cells, they form and make up ONE – one body. The cells cannot escape even if they wanted to. For example if a cell making up your biceps should say to the optic nerve cell, “hey, I am not an optic nerve cell, so I won’t be part of this human body”, it would still belong to the body, whether it likes it or not. You see, the cell is an individual and an integral part of the ‘whole’.

Every cell has a life and a purpose of its own. Every cell is arranged by God or whoever you believe in, just the way the universal, super-energy wanted it to be. If all the cells were the same, humans would not be able to do the things we do. We simply would not exist as we are. There would be no eye, no nose, no hand, no foot – no body. There would be no mind. There would be no – YOU!

So, we are billions of cells. But, one body, mind and spirit.

One, but many.

It follows from my analogy above, that even though a hand or a foot or an ear cannot have a life separate from the body, the microscopic little cell, can. It can be loyal to the body or just cling to and exist on its own, and only worry about its own life.

We’ve all got to be careful though, as some cells do choose to infiltrate and live in the body, with the other cells, other organs, sharing all that it has to give. Getting all its benefits and giving nothing in return. Taking, taking, and more taking, whilst maintaining complete independence, pilfering what the whole body, the whole community has worked for: the preservation of life. Giving nothing. This works against the whole being, better using the limited resources to the betterment and survival of YOU.

In time, these minority cells gain more strength, more power and more leverage as they have access to more resources.

These become parasites and cancer cells.

They wear you down and eventually kill. The human, unknowingly allows the minority cancer cells to repeatedly torcher, pilfer, exploit and weaken the majority. The majority that is the good white cells. You have the power to stop the spread of these cancer cells. How?

Become part of something bigger. Bigger than you. Bigger than the individual.

Become part of a group, a club, a community, a movement, a passion, a religion – like the tiny little microscopic cell in your body is. A part of you. Don’t be afraid of commitment. No, commit to yourself. Sign up for life membership with this group. Share your voice. Let your voice be heard. Don’t be afraid. Share your speciality. Give your time, your energy. Share your knowledge and contribute to that something that is bigger than you.

Help! That group. That team. That movement. That religion.

The greatest need for each and every one of us is not only the basic needs as outlined by Abraham Maslow in Maslow’s hierarchy. No, the greatest need is to have significance. To matter!

A man’s ultimate desire is immortality.

We want “something” to survive us. Have you ever wondered why monuments, buildings, stadiums, roads churchs and many days in the calendar is named after someone? To be remembered. To be remembered that your life had mattered.

Search your soul. Search your heart. Do you in some small way (or big way) wonder and hope that one day someone will remember your time when you were alive (now). That your life, above all else – MATTERED? Was it a life that had significance? Was it a life with purpose? I don’t know. Only you can answer that question.

And you will probably need to answer two other questions:

Who am I?
Why do I exist?

How we decide to answer these two questions is a choice between two timelines: One that is about eighty years old and one that lasts forever. To eternity.

What I do know is that you still have a chance to have one. You first need to look at finding your purpose in life, your little contribution to the bigger world of human beings is critical. Critical to your uniqueness of individuality and loyalty to man-kind as the cell is to the human body. One cannot live without the other.

Every thought you think. Every action you take will have an impact on some other human being, whether you intended to or not. Try to add value to rather than subtract value from another human being’s life through the way you think and act.

Nothing happens in isolation in your body just like nothing happens in isolation in the universe. There is a ‘flow-on’ effect. An imprint in the history of your life. An imprint on human-kind’s history. Of our universe’s entire life.

You. Me. Each and everyone of us form part of the whole – the whole human race. Just like the cell is an integral part of the human body. You have a part to play in your life – while you are alive. Find this role. Search high and low. Never-ever give up looking. Just like most things we look for, remember to look for it in the place you least expect to look. Sometimes, it could be right in front of your nose and you don’t ‘see it’ at first.

Sometimes, you may need to stop looking. You may just be too close to the problem. In this case, seek appropriate and relevant help.

Understand your role in your loyalty to the human-race to the best of your ability and play it. Find your purpose. Find your significance. How do you do this? Well, one vital step is to work on increasing your awareness of YOU. Look in to your belief systems, your principles. Your values.

Question them. Challenge them. Turn them upside down, inside-out. Shake them up and sieve all the bullSh#t out. What remains is the essence. Your essence of your life. This is a possible starting point.

The answer is uniquely yours. Your individuality. But remember, your independence, your uniqueness needs to also be balanced with your loyalty to the human race.

Here’s a little formula: Life purpose => Significance (positive contribution to a higher purpose) => Mattered (when you’re six feet under).

Just like the little cell in your body, doing its job for a higher purpose – doing its job to help you be YOU, you may just be surprised with how your unselfish contribution towards some higher purpose, may change your world.

It may change the world. The human race. For the better.

So make your life, a life that matters. Now and when you’re gone. Find your significance. Find your immortality.

Living a life without significance is close to not living a life at all.

Think. Do.

Until next time,

Body shape, diet, eating, Energy, habits, muscles, self-image, time, you

Snacks – the more, the better.

Two days before Australian Championships

Placing: 2nd in Australia.

When my children were born, I was fascinated with their eating behaviour. They ate every 2 to 3 hours without fail, around the clock. As most of you would know (especially parents), the first few years of a child’s life can cause huge sleep deprivation on parents (especially mums).

I asked the question why society teaches us that the main times for food intake should be breakfast, lunch and dinner. Why don’t we just follow what we have all gone through in our first years. It seemed like we were biologically born to consume food every 2 to 3 hours. It seems that society’s expectation is forcefully applied to us as ‘normal’ eating behaviour because that’s just how it has been for centuries. Probably helps us all become better employees when we are older – less time eating, or for breaks and more time devoted to working.

Apparently, great for productivity and the “bottom-line”.

The thing is that the body works more efficiently and effectively with energy pumped in to it regularly and this is where snacks come in.

If you’re like most people and being ‘busy’ and busier than everyone you know, then you would probably only make time to eat three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Whether your goal is fat loss, muscle gain or a combination of the two, the smarter way to get your daily energy intake is to spread them throughout the whole day. It’s the way our bodies are made to work.

We need to work with our body, not against it.

I’ve always told people that body re-engineering or transformation is mainly about hormonal management, through management of raw materials going in ( your body and your mind). Frequency of meals is a key factor to success in your body transformation.

You see, anytime you eat, blood is rushed in to your stomach for digestive aid. If you eat huge meals (as most people do three times per day), your energy and vitality levels get affected and fluctuate. Many people feel intense sleepiness in the office after a big lunch. The more food your body has to process, the more blood it steals from other areas of your body to aid in stomach digestion. The same can be said for digestive enzymes.

Losing blood from other areas of your body could affect your metabolic state and so slow down the distribution of energy within your system (hence the sleepiness feeling after a hearty lunch). This leaves you feeling less sharp and tired you struggle to focus.

Having large meals also triggers a higher insulin response which inhibits fat burning as it alerts the body to desperately store unwanted body fat. So, an answer to reducing your meal sizes is to go back to eating with more frequency just like you did when you were a baby, being luckily breastfed or bottle-fed every 2 hours. You need to eat more often and so increase your meals from 3 to 6.

How do you do this? Simple: eat more smaller, well-compositioned meals.

Try preparing or having at least three snacks ready to eat between your three main meals, spreading your calories throughout the day. On the face of it, it may sound like you will be eating more but spreading out what you eat can actually cause you to eat less. This is what I tell most if not all my clients – “I’ll show you how to eat more to change your body shape … and lose weight”. They then say, “but shouldn’t I be eating less?”

Another mis-perception propagated by the weight-loss industry.

You see eating six to eight smaller, well-compositioned meals instead of three large meals, keeps you blood sugar levels in a good range and does not encourage sudden fluctuations. For your body, this equates to a constant flow of readily available energy which reduces your tendency to eat more.

Eating smaller meals more frequently also allows you to feel fuller, longer and does not encourage you to over-eat in your main meals. More importantly, keeping your blood sugar levels in a good range, does not trigger the hormone – insulin, which when triggered forces your body in to ‘starvation’ mode that encourage fat retention and storage.

The key to body re-engineering and transformation is fundamentally hormonal management.

So, snacks are necessary but when people talk about snacks they think of ‘junk food’. It does not have to be. When possible choose snacks that are a combination of the three macro-nutrient groups: protein, carbohydrates and fats.

Some good examples of:

Protein sources: lean meats including chicken, beef/kangaroo, ham and fish, tofu.
Carbohydrate (low GI) sources include: fruits and/or vegetables like beans, broccoli, spinach, celery.
Fat sources: most nuts like almonds, cashews, peanuts and avocado, ricotta cheese

Each snack can combine all three, for example, two pieces of chicken breast (120g) + avocado (30g) + long beans (120g). Keep nuts to 30g or less per snack intake.

So pack your snacks in lunch boxes just as you or your parents did when you were a kid and have it ready to eat at work. It will save you time (waiting in line to get a sandwich) and will help improve your overall sense of vitality throughout the day.

Adding snacks to your life should help you take one step closer to the body you want. Little habits like this, when practised deliberately – daily, over time is where the real miracle is.

A little change within has a greater change – without.

Try this one change in your day. See how you look in two months.

All the best,

Until next time,

body, body weight, Energy, Fitness, habits, mind, muscles, planning, time, truths, workout

A “Democratic Workout” may just be the thing for you.

Great sets make great workouts. The more shapely, smooth and safe one’s sets are, the more structurally sound they will be, like good engineering foundation to a building – the better one’s workout will be. Simple right?

Not so fast. Lets break it down.

A great workout needs to transcend ego training. It needs to rise above fear but stay within the safety umbrella. It needs to progressively take you beyond your tolerance levels. Your self-imposed limitations. It must, within the limits of personal experience in the gym and domain knowledge, allow the person to feel what I call the ‘essence’ of each exercise. The aim of a good workout is to gain as much as possible as economically as possible, within a specified time-frame.

A set could be short, right and nice. Some people prefer that.

A set is a little miracle and a critical link to a successful workout. A miracle because of the way it makes you feel, when you do it right and nice. A number of repetitions make up a set. A set in weight training refers to the way we move a weight from somewhere to somewhere else. It metaphorically tells a short story – of what is, of what happens, of who did what and of what is done, when it is done.

All sets have a definite finishing point. It carries a trainee from calmness to acstacy, from being dry to sweaty and pulsating. From nothing to something.

A set in bodybuilding is as critical to a workout as a river is to a whole catchment. Namely, everything. The part serves the whole, it is what the whole comes down to. You see, sets alone or sets of exercises laid out in no particular order may get you sweating and burn calories but does not fit in to an organized pre-designed plan: 2 sets of 10 reps of squats. 45 reps of dead-lifts. Huh? Why? For what purpose? What goal?

Oh, I get it. Sets are part of a story.

I like to think of a workout that a person carries out is a short-story. His/her story through physical expression. Meaning needs to arise. How does meaning arise? It may happen because a suitably experienced personal trainer puts the sets and exercises into an order that allows meaning and purpose. Why do we need meaning/purpose (refer to my previous blog: don’t be a rudderless ship for some insight).

There is in each and every one of us humans, an innate need for story, for storytelling, for relationships between disparate things. For causality. We all like to make sense of and recognise patterns in everything in life, including the performance of sets of exercises in the gym. A set in a workout needs to be structured with the correct number of repetitions, weight, tempo to allow the gym trainee to see and allows us to discover meaning to patterns – and for storing and repeating them in body, mind and spirit for the future.

When you see the interrelationship, when you observe and feel the connection between the set and the workout – it is like pure art. It is like beautiful music. Like sex. What you get is sets performed – simple, compound, complex and compound-complex. Interspersed with rest periods and water/liquid breaks/chat breaks/toilet breaks.

Like sex. Orgasmic, really.

Even when you think you understand the interrelationship between the set and the workout. You don’t. You realize you don’t understand the chemistry and mystery behind it that give meaning because every time you perform each set, keeping all variables constant, the feeling and result is different.

How is that so? One can learn patterns by which this simple-complex system, the set, works. But how you get different results, different effects from the same cause is as mysterious as the soul of a man or woman or the origins of the universe. It comes down to the different mental states people are in at any point in time. A mystery at the best of times.

A set as I like to define it is a “15 to 45 second focused moments”.

People can understand a whole workout program without ever knowing the ‘essence of the exercise’ when performing a set. I have seen this in people who have trained with weights for many, many years. When you perform sets of exercises in the proper manner, you have rhythm and when you do it well enough you not only get meaning but you make music. It is music in motion! Great sets make great workouts.

Great workouts include long and short sets. Long and short ‘focused moments’. Complex and simple and complex-simple.

Workouts of the rich and famous have gotten ridiculously short and everyone seems to be after the shortest workout in our every-increasingly busy, instant gratifying western societies. Workouts that include only short sets for an even shorter workout is to say the least, hypocrisy personified. People want to get all the health benefits of working out but don’t want to put in the work. Everyone wants to know how much less and less they can get away with fewer exercises when the are in the gym.

“Here it is”, an newspaper article or tv broadcaster would say “get the body you want by only spending 5 minutes in the gym once a week”. How ridiculous is this? Do you think Michael Phelps got the results he desired by spending only 5 minutes in the pool? Do you think Tiger Woods got the results he got by spending only 10 minutes out on the golf course? There are many more examples in every field in life. They got that way because they spent countless hours deliberately practicing certain habits within a structured and planned program over many years. Not 5 or 10 minutes!

Well I have news for you. There are many ways to perform a set, and a serious gym enthusiast should employ most of them, if relevant. Just as a golfer would use different golf clubs for different strokes, a gym trainer would use different sets. Some of your sets should be short – yes; some should be long; some may even be what I call a ‘midget-set’ – a sub-set of a set. Each set has a unique tempo to it depending on where they fall in the workout and purpose.

The point is to mix them up.

Mix them up within an overall workout goal and plan. You need meaning and purpose in your workouts to get the most out of them. Mix them up, like an ecosystem or local community, a workout thrives on diversity and mastery of execution. Just like a democratic society.

You see, I have had many, many workouts and have done many, many sets and spent many, many hours in the gym with deliberate practise over the last 23 years or so. One thing struck me as odd and interesting – some workouts took less than twenty minutes and were very short, some took almost all morning. Usually, these long workouts happened because I did not have any particular time set in mind to do them. Instead, I made a conscious choice to take the time. In the shorter workouts, I didn’t take the time. I got lost in the workout, enjoying the highs and lows of each set, sculpturing away.

Each workout still done with pleasure.

Each set and workout had no fixed intrinsic amount of interest. Instead each set and workout were interesting and pleasurable as long as I chose to focus and give my attention to them. Its similar to a surfer being out in the surf or a golfer out on the golf course for hours trying to hit a small ball in little holes. Or a swimmer doing laps in the pool or a person knitting a patterned jumper or a man spending hours servicing his car. Or a tennis player playing tennis. Why do they do it? How long?

Same answer as each of these activities would give – as much time as you care to give it. Not an infinite amount of time, but more time than you first imagined.

So, put away the clock and time-piece and lose yourself in your sets – your workout. “Feel” each repetition of each set of each workout. Make the last rep as good as the first. Give more meaning and purpose to your workouts.

Make music. Allow yourself to make music with motion. Find your rhythm.

Give each type of set a chance – a voice, sometimes without the constraint of time. Give your least favourite exercises a try – an avenue to be heard.

You may just like what you see and feel (and hear).

This is what I call a democratic workout. Try it sometime.

Until next time,

Changing lives. Empowering people. One life at a time.

Triple A to Life: Awareness. Action. Adaptation.

Category Archives: time

In THAT better place.

Eating Right actually takes less time than you think: Tip # 3.

The Fire Within.

Reach out for your potential.

Why Not?

The right to be happy is not always right.

Camel or donkey travel anyone?

To Matter or Not To Matter.

Snacks – the more, the better.

A “Democratic Workout” may just be the thing for you.