Physical Fitness & Nutrition

A few years ago I was training twice a day seven days a week, I was on a great nutritional plan designed by a professional nutritionist, seeing a sports therapist on a regular basis for massage therapy and had a physical therapist on standby for any injuries. I was playing Australian Rules Football (AFL) at a professional level and was a team member of one of the best counter terrorist units in the world. I was is in peak physical condition and feeling great.

When I discharged from the military and arrived in the U.S, I tried to maintain this training regime and eating plan. During the first year I was able to keep up the fitness with regular visits to the 'gun shop' and plenty of pounding pavement. The one thing that I was struggling with was the nutrition! I was bombarded with fast food, eating out, too much processed foods and way too much saturated fat.

The one thing that I noted was how difficult it was to buy everything that I wanted from one supermarket! I had to drive to sometimes three different supermarkets just to buy what I needed. One didn't have very good fresh produce, the other didn't have very good fresh lean beef. This was very frustrating and made shopping days difficult.

Being a civilian, managing a business and balancing a family, I find that time is my worst enemy. It's hard to eat clean every day because of such a busy lifestyle. I have fallen fowl to a cheese burger and nacho cheese on a far too regular basis.

I don't think that I am on my own here, so I thought that I'd write some notes on some good PT workouts that gets results and for the most part are low impact, so joints will be preserved. I will also cover some good clean eating tips that will help the waistline!

Most of what I will write is either common sense or proven methods that I have not designed. I find that he biggest problem with fitness and clean eating is US! We make too many excuses for why we can't do it rather than reasons why we should do it. Then we look in the mirror and say "I should go on a diet!" or "I really need to work out!"

Eating 101

The first thing you need to do is clean out the pantry! Get rid of anything that will contribute to your physical demise! If you don't have it, you won't eat it! Keep the kids healthy too, they don't need ten different types of high fat cereals or snacks either. Keep plenty of yogurt, bananas, berries, and juice. No soda! I will cover what supplements are worth investing money on later also.

PT 101

Start to plan now for your PT sessions. Keep it at the same time everyday, make it part of your day and treat it like a business meeting and you have to attend! Log it into you electronic diary so that you don't forget about it. Have your PT gear ready and any other equipment for your training. Most of us have bits and pieces of home gym type equipment at the house and that's what you will need for the training that I will outline. If you have a gym membership and go, you can do all of these workouts also.

There will be more to follow!

JF