It’s ‘that’ time again! Leaves are falling and the dark evenings are closing in; not to mention the clocks going back this week. Yuk! But the changing of the seasons can be a real opportunity to clear out some of the ‘clutter’ in our lives and make space for change and personal growth; and autumn in particular is an important time to take stock of how we are taking care of ourselves.

For those of you who haven’t yet truly taken to heart the truth that you need to look after yourself FIRST, in order to adequately look after the myriad people and things we try to look after on a daily basis I hope that at least one of the following tips and suggestions will help you to maintain some balance between you and all those things. Enjoy the bumper edition!

If you’ve been struggling to burn off some excess weight or suffer from energy dips throughout the day, now might be a good time to kick-start your metabolism. Here are some good guidelines to follow:

• Eat little and often. Prepare meals and snacks in advance to ensure that you don’t wait until you are starving hungry and reaching for the junk.
• Include protein with each meal or snack whenever possible. A handful of nuts for example can make the energy in a piece of fruit last a whole lot longer.
• Eat mindfully. Focus on your food as you eat it. And keep a food diary for a week or 2 to help you see where you could make useful changes. Ask for professional help if you’re not sure.
• Listen to your body and stop eating BEFORE you feel stuffed!
• Drink plenty of water throughout the day – at least 2 litres; more if you are working out as well! – but don’t drink too much during meals.

As a Personal Trainer I would never put you on a ‘diet’ but I do offer nutritional consultations to help you get on track and can refer you on to a nutritional specialist, if necessary. Also ask yourself if you ever eat emotionally. That’s to say, not because you are hungry but to cheer yourself up or to help distract yourself from unwanted emotions. Many of us do this to some extent, but if you feel this is a real barrier to achieving your goals and getting down to or staying at your desired weight there may be a solution.

I recently teamed up with a local Reference Point Therapy practitioner called Nicholas Hall to host a great series of small group workshops to help participants bring more success and abundance into their lives. RPT is a great new talking/healing therapy that helps you get to the root of a problem without reliving past traumatic events or going into gory details. We hope to run further workshop series, specifically tailored for those who want to get out of negative thinking and eating patterns. You can arrange 1-1 appointments with Nicholas (www.hallistic.net) or contact me ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) to express your interest in joining an upcoming workshop.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that in order to burn calories, you’ve just got to do loads of cardio (aka aerobic) exercise...hours of tedium on the cross-trainer, bike or treadmill. Yawn! No wonder so many people give up so often after starting a new exercise routine centred on purely cardio gym workouts. In fact, if you stop worrying about the number of calories you actually burn while you’re in the gym and think more about training in a way that builds and tones major muscle groups, so that they in turn become more calorie-hungry and therefore burn more calories when you are ‘resting’ (by raising your basal metabolic rate) your workouts become more productive and more interesting too.

• One of the best and most fundamental of exercises that can work towards this principle inside or outside of the gym is the squat*. It works the major muscle groups of the quads, hamstrings and glutes (legs and bum!), not to mention the core and you can add upper body work to increase intensity and make it a whole-body exercise.
• •Start with the feet hip-width apart. Bend the knees and push your bum back as if you were sitting down into a chair behind you. Keep the heels down and the knees in line with the hips and ankles. Keep the chest lifted and look ahead (or slightly down as the squats become deeper).
• Start to include the upper body by holding light (1-3kg) dumbbells and raising your arms up to shoulder height, palms facing down as you squat down. Try 3 sets of 15-20.
• When you have mastered these, make them more aerobic by adding a jump. This time reach down and touch the ground as you squat and reach up to the sky/ceiling as you jump as high as you can. Be sure to keep the chest lifted, look ahead and land back into the squat.

*Do consult your doctor or ask a fitness specialist, before trying this exercise if you have any injuries or medical conditions or if you are new to exercise.

For more advice and ideas on how to make your squats and indeed your entire workout more varied and enjoyable, as well as effective, give me a call (07908 397 222) or grab me in the gym. Why not treat yourself to a 1:1 session (30 mins for £25 or an hour for £40) or ask to be buddied up and split the cost of a training session (one hour for £15-£20 per person for 2-3 ‘buddies’).

When the sun is shining and the days are longer it seems we don’t have to pay so much attention to our sense of well-being and ‘feel-good’. This time of year can bring into sharp focus just how important it is to deal with stress in a positive way and so maintain a healthy balanced lifestyle and outlook on life.

To take weight loss again as an example, you can be doing all the right things nutritionally and in terms of exercise; but if you are stressed or unhappy, you will hold onto that unwanted fat, especially around the middle!

Ideas to increase your sense of ‘feel-good’ include:

• Find a little time each day (even just 10-15 mins) to simply sit and ‘be’. No kids/friends/partners/TV (pets are ok!).
• Get out into the fresh air! Connecting with nature even at this time of the year can have a very positive effect on our sense of well-being. It ‘grounds’ us and helps us to bring our life into better perspective.
• Breathe well! If you’re feeling stressed and need to calm down or even while you are doing one of the above, eyes open or closed breathe in deeply and feel like you are sending that breath deep down into your belly and wide into your ribcage so you feel a real expansion of your body. As you exhale, release physical tension from your body and let go of emotional or mental strain. If you really struggle with it, get help. Join a yoga, chi gung, tai chi or meditation group.
• Make time and space for YOU every day! Treat yourself to a massage or holistic healing treatment such as reiki or reflexology, when you can. Even just a hot bubble bath if funds are low. Know which music to listen to or books to read that will give you a lift. DON’T WAIT until you get sick or feel miserable! Bring more of those joys into your life EVERY DAY.

I’m offering a special 3 for 2 discount on relaxing Reiki treatments (75 mins) and Relaxation or Sports Massages (50 mins) purchased throughout November and December, to help you get some quality ‘me time’ booked into your pre-Christmas diary. Alternatively, why not start making some subtle (or not!) hints to your nearest and dearest or call yourself to find out about the gift voucher options for these feel-good solutions? Regular feel-good available at my weekly Yoga Fusion classes suitable for beginners onwards if you are looking to soothe body and mind.

It was Saturday 8th May and I was 5 days into my coast to coast walk, which I had drunkenly offered to do for charity. Let me explain. My granddaughter had been born a year before, 3 ½ months early weighing in at a tiny 1Ib 9oz, the hospital unit which she was taken to, the Buscot Ward at the Royal Berkshire in Reading had saved her life and looked after her for 4 months, it was when she came home, still only weighing 3Ib that I decided to do “something” to show my gratitude to those wonderful doctors and nurses at the Buscot ward. My something was to walk from the west coast to east coast of England crossing some of the country’s most scenic countryside.

So now fast forward to Saturday 8th May, I was halfway up Helvellyn and my mind started to wander to Kirsty Bartlett, there I was aching legs, out of breath, cold, hungry and no sign of the top when I sat down for a rest and thought of Kirsty.

So now I’ve got your attention I’ll explain. It quickly became apparent in the run-up to my task that if I was going to undertake it, and as somebody said, “At your age” I needed help, a considerable amount of it. I already attended Kirsty’s yoga classes, trying to ease a back abused by a misspent youth (and middle age) and I asked her if she could help get me to a level of fitness that would enable me to at least get from one side of the country to the other without making a complete fool of myself. She said yes and that was the start of an exercise regime I never thought possible. She very cleverly and quickly ascertained what was needed, in my case a lot, and gradually got me to a level of fitness I could only wish for and one which I had left behind all those years ago in The Parachute Regiment.

And so as my mind wandered to Kirsty on that cold steep climb up to the peak of Helvellyn, it was with eternal thanks that without her efforts I probably wouldn’t have got this far.

The rest as they say is history, the walk finished on time without any calamities or injuries and more importantly I raised very close to £10,000, money that the Buscot Ward probably wouldn’t have now if it wasn’t for the gallant efforts of Kirsty, knocking me into shape.

If you are interested in the walk or would like to contribute to the Babies in Buscot appeal please look at my website www.walkformolly.com where a daily blog and photos of my escapade are as they say, just a click away.

But try as you might you will not see me sitting on Helvellyn thinking of Kirsty.

Last season’s winner, James Higson won a FREE program design session.

Congratulations James!

NOVEMBER PRIZE DRAW

Sign up for this month’s prize draw by emailing me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you’d like to be in with a chance to win a 60 minute Personal Training or 1:1 Yoga session with me, either in the Beacon Centre gym at Holtspur or in or near your home or workplace if you are within 20 mins radius of High Wycombe.