Here’s a little tour of our alojamento local! We’ve been getting it all ready for our guests tomorrow and we will have the added pressure of welcoming our guests in front of the A New Life In The Sun TV cameras.
We have been busy trying to get our massage therapy room ready this week but have found that the electrics need a bit more attention, so stay tuned for updates on that!
I hope you enjoy the video!
I will never truly know the forest, but I get the feeling as I walk through it, that it knows me already.
I aim to wander through this dream every morning. I call it a dream because it reminds me of a quote by Turkish novelist Memet Murat Ildan when he stated that “You can walk in a dream while you are awake. Just walk in the misty morning of a forest.”
And also before I have two cups of coffee I am hardly classed as awake, so one could argue that I am still slumbering through my morning walk.
I see something different with every walk. Most of the time I’m not even walking. I stop, listen, look up at the tallest pine trees and breath. The deeper into the forest I go I can lose my mind and find my soul.
But I am mindful that I am entering nature’s home. I bought the land but I am only a guest. I’ve already had snakes slither across my path with no harm to them or me. I’m sure I can come up with a similar understanding with the wild boars. It might seem naive, but I’m learning to become a part of my new environment.
I carry with me a long stick. I was advised by the locals in my Portuguese village that if I walk in the woods I should do so with a long stick. Apparently the wild boars, which come out at dusk and can charge if they feel threatened, make their dens in the forest. I don’t know what to do with the stick if I were to be confronted with a wild boar. Duolingo never taught me how to say “What the fuck do I do with this?” in Portuguese.
My aim is to wake up willing to be a beginner every single morning. Like I say, I will never truly know the forest. But if I enter it with the wide eyed care and attention that it deserves then I can make new discoveries each day.
I’m just a beginner at everything. Even stuff I’m qualified in. I’m a personal trainer but every visit to the gym is another chance to learn. I can’t possibly know it all.
At the moment the forest is my gym. Another day to grow, learn and become a part of something special.
We haven’t spent many days indoors whilst we have been in Portugal. Since arriving in central Portugal 3 weeks ago the temperature has been a seductive 21° and the evening sky with it’s stars and the milky way has been far more interesting than Question Time.
But with the warmth comes the flies. Loads of flies. Bluebottle, midge, hover, drone, bristle and my nemesis, the mosquito.
The typical fly in the UK (I’ll call it the ‘house fly’) is like a fly on steroids here in Portugal. And it brings all of its mates to land on me at any opportunity to feed, crap and groom on my skin. Performing a bench press has a whole new difficulty. Controlling 100k of steel and breeze blocks above my head with flies crawling on my face was a test. More attractive to them was I, seemingly, by my salty, sweaty, warm chassis.
But still, these little blighters I can cope with. What the real problem is, however, are the mozzies. They love eating me. Through the night, as I slide a warm foot outside of the duvet, they feast on me. My head, always exposed, is a full English breakfast for them.
And once these bites settle, they itch and sting to the point where I want to scratch at my skin. I can refrain from this throughout the day, but when I’m half asleep I wake up finding myself scratching at the bites.
This is, of course, a small price to pay. We’re in the countryside of Portugal. We did enough research back in England to know that this was always going to happen. Especially as I only needed to watch Carry On Abroad and the mosquitoes would find me.
Our latest trip to the supermarket had made us equipped with repellent sprays, wrist bands, nets and incense sticks. We are getting prepared. And it sounds like we need to be. After all, this is winter. By the summertime I need to be fully tooled up for them!
Navigating our way through life is a complicated one. We do our best. Blimey, we try. But sometimes the anxiety of our past and what is in store for our future can be a constant buzzing around our head.
With it all swirling about, we miss our nearest targets. And they’re the most important ones. In resistance training terms, I use the ‘cycle’ of training programming to reach certain goals. I’ll explain…
We might have an ultimate fitness goal of losing 60 pounds in a year. This is called a macrocycle. Macrocycles are long term goals. Athletes, especially Olympians, can even have a macrocycle target set for 4 years time which is where they are expecting to be at their peak fitness for their main event.
But having this target of losing 60 pounds within a year is not enough. That is why, in the fitness industry, we implement mesocycles. This represents the different phases of training throughout a program and could depend on seasonal adjustments for example. Again, athletes will train for strength or endurance leading up to certain events depending on what is required of them to achieve winning a meet.
But we need to break it down even further. So we use microcycles. If we go back to the 60 pound weight loss in a year goal, a microcycle can be a weekly gym plan with a calorie or nutrition target. It can even be shorter than that. It can be a daily target. Shorter still? Every meal could be calorie controlled and every gym set can be weight and rep monitored.
Very often when I speak to weight loss clients, they have a very clear idea of their macro target (“I want to lose 60 pounds by this time next year”). Their mesocycle targets are usually a little less clear but can be managed (“I want to fit into this *insert item of clothing* by the summer”).
But their microcycle almost becomes none existent. And in 90% of my client base over the past ten years, I have found that it is the microcycle that is the most important bit for them and where the role of the PT has become essential. It has been their next gym visit or daily meal plan.
You see, some people might be able to book their place for next year’s Tough Mudder and break their training time down into cycles. For the rest of us, we need to just do the next right thing.
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once received a letter simply asking him ‘how to live’. Jung admitted in his reply that this was an almost impossible question to answer, but he did attempt an explanation. He said…
“If you always do the next thing that needs to be done, you will go most safely and sure footedly along the path prescribed by your subconscious. Then it is naturally no point at all to speculate about how you ought to live. And you know, too, that you cannot know it, but quietly do the next and most necessary thing.”
My interpretation of this is about doing ‘the next right thing’. This could be going for a walk, booking an exercise class, preparing a nutritious meal, calling on a relative you haven’t spoken to for a while or meeting up for a coffee with a friend. The next right thing is YOUR thing, nobody else’s.
I heard the quote ‘doing the next right thing’ on the soap opera Coranation Street the other day. Having studied Jung many years ago I recalled his reply after hearing the quote on TV.
In the soap opera, the character asked her friend how she coped with the tragic death of her young son. Her friend said that she didn’t cope and never will, but each day is just about doing the next right thing.
We all live with some sort of grief, regret, anxiety or doubt. But if you can manage the next right thing in your life then it is a step closer to some sort of comfort. It can, in many cases, lead to not just a strategy of coping, but to enlightenment and happiness.
Think now about your next right step. What are you going to do?
A week without too many work appointments has given me time to think. I am, of course, in the middle of the school summer holidays and with a house to pack, but nevertheless, there are moments presented to me to think.
I think about my younger self quite a lot. Leigh, as I was called from birth, was an angry young man at times. By 18 I was a member of the Socialist Workers Party standing in the middle of Leeds City centre with my friends talking to the public about the injustices of society looking like an extra from Citizen Smith.
Along with a tattoo of Che Guevara on my arm, I dressed like I was ready for guerrilla warfare. And that is where my name Shay came from. My English friends would pronounce Che’s name with a Sh, instead of Ch. So they called me Shay.
I don’t regret my involvement with the SWP. They were well meaning people who were perplexed by the world around them. And I would never discourage anybody from being more active in politics. But it dragged me down. It had just turned 2002. World politics was very charged. I had to take a step back.
I used to think that I could change the world. But I soon found out that I couldn’t. Those who know me, however, know that they will hear my views on current affairs within ten minutes of meeting up with me. I don’t hide them.
I’ve always watched news programmes and read history books. I soon swapped The Beano for Alan Bullock’s Parallel Lives: Hitler And Stalin. I’d forfeit computer game nights with my mates for Question Time.
But I couldn’t just read or watch about the world we live in without forming strong opinions. Opinions that then made me want to change the way the world was.
It became increasingly frustrating for me when I began to realise that I couldn’t. Not in the way I wanted to. In the way I thought I should. I felt some responsibility for that.
It took me a long time to work out that the best way to change anything is to change my own attitude. I took control of who I hung around with, ridding myself of toxic people. I became incredibly choosy about the news outlets that I would observe. I would go for long walks when I felt anxious which then led to a love affair with the gym. I met and married a wonderful, caring person and now teach our children to be compassionate and kind human beings.
I’m not fighting the enemy in Bolivia. I’m not glueing myself to buildings. I’m not campaigning in the city centre streets. But I am trying to be the best version of myself that I possibly can. That’s all that I can ask of myself. I’ll always keep my principles close to me. They’re so close that you’ll see them worn on my sleeve. But I decided to pick my fights very carefully. That way, I stay in control of me. I have the power.
But if I can change myself, then I am in a much better place to make changes to the world around me. The people I am in contact with. The environment I am in. The future of those I love. And together we can make the world a brighter place.
Did you know that we release powerful hormones such as dopamine and serotonin when we smile or are smiled at?
Mother Theresa said that ‘Peace begins with a smile.’
Wouldn’t that be lovely? Perhaps giving yourself a smile in the mirror on a morning and telling yourself how fantastic you are will start that ripple effect. First on your family, then your work colleagues and even strangers in the street.
Now that’s changing the world.
I’ll leave you with a quote from the poet Rumi, who said, “Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I decided to change myself.”
I guess lots of budding authors, film makers and vloggers create content on certain blog sites and social media platforms to monetize their skills. They hone in on their skills and target audience, pay great attention to their editing, hashtags and algorithms and eventually have a product worth reading, viewing and selling.
My wife and I, on the other hand, have just spent two hours trying to get my Instagram account as admin to the new Road To Tranquility page which was set up on my wife’s account. We still have no clue on how to do it.
You see, we’re finding that we are becoming the aforementioned content creators by circumstance, not by our talent.
As small business owners who need to promote our products through exposure and without a team of media people to manage our accounts, it’s up to us to navigate our way through the digital world like The Chuckle Brothers putting up a tent.
Ah, tents. That’s a more familiar world. And, even though we will still hit the snags of setting up a glamping site in Portugal such as VISA, licencing, cost, weather conditions and language, nothing can be more difficult than syncing a bloody Instagram account!
But it makes me think, ‘why do I do it?’
Why bother setting up an account to document our adventures in setting up our business in Portugal? Why create a meditation podcast? Why write this article right now?
Well, the reason is simple really. I’m able to reach out to people like you. It allows me to communicate to like-minded people who also might have an interest in health, fitness and wellbeing. Other people might also have an interest in reading about my journey. There might be somebody who can relax to the meditation podcast. I might be able to make someone laugh. Perhaps something I do or write about might strike a chord in somebody else’s life. And for this reason, the tinterweb is fantastic.
But I can promise you one thing. I won’t be signing up to Threads!
It’s not often we agree on a movie to watch on our house movie days.
For example, I will suggest something edgy like Indiana Jones or Men In Black. Ok, maybe it isn’t that edgy but for 9 and 7 year olds who run out of the room when the bird lady appears in Home Alone Lost In New York, then anything that is a 12 plus is edgy.
My wife usually suggests something with a talking bear or mouse befriending a middle class family.
Jonas, my 9 year old, would probably go for The Spy Next Door every time and Finlay loves The Bee Movie and Flushed Away. But I used to know every scene of Flushed Away after lockdown so I’d rather not sit and watch it again any time soon!
As a family though, we can all agree on one movie that we have been desperate to see. The Super Mario Bros movie has been much anticipated in our household. We didn’t get a chance to see it at the cinema so when it arrived on Amazon video to rent we declared a house movie day!
The usual house movie day goes like this…
We debate the movie that we will watch for an hour or two. The movies mentioned above are all in the mix every time.
My wife and I tip bags of crisps into bowls, get some popcorn on the go and allow the boys a can of pop each. I say ‘allow’ because fizzy pop isn’t something we would usually have in the house. So movie day is a real treat for the lads!
The curtains get drawn, the picnic blanket goes on the sitting room floor, cushions and soft teddies get strewn about for good measure and we all take our positions for the beginning of the movie.
A few years ago, house movie day would have been an invitation for me or my wife to fall asleep halfway through the film. Indeed, if it was Flushed Away for the twentieth time it would have been rude not to. But there was no chance that would happen for Super Mario Bros.
My wife and I have fond memories of Super Mario while growing up. The simple game play on the now very retro consoles that I had as a kid reminds me of good times. Tetris, Sensible Soccer, Donkey Kong and Pacman too just take me straight back to me in my bedroom as a kid.
So when the Mario Bros music started at the beginning of the movie it triggered the memories.
I want my kids to have similar memories that, when they’re adults, will just transport them to innocent times of being a kid.
The theme tune to a favourite cartoon, the smell of a book, the noises of the arcades at the seaside, the face you pull when you put a fizzy sour cola bottle sweet in your mouth, hearing mum and dad laugh.
It doesn’t need to be Disneyland or a trip to Lapland that makes memories. I can still smell the caravan that I stayed in at Skipsea like I was there yesterday. And the great experiences that I had there will stay with me forever.
I hope that our house movie days can do that for Jonas and Finlay.
I might not have millions of pounds, a yacht or a big house to pass on to my kids when I pass, but I do hope that I can teach them a few things.
One thing that I would like to achieve is for them to understand that doubt will only hold them back. Past mistakes can cripple future ambitions.
It’s easy to live in the past. And for the good and the bad, the past at least gives us a sense of comfort. Our brain will call upon previous experiences from our lives and it provides familiarity. The future, however, can be seen as a scary, uncertain time. We often choose not to go there or think about it too much. So, in an attempt to stay safe, we keep referring back to what we have lived before. Whether we like what we have lived before or not.
The problem though, is that you cannot become who you want to be because you are too attached to who you’ve been. And this can be a monkey on your back all through your adult life until it’s too late.
My kids might not appreciate the process of leaving their friends, school, home, town and country now, but I’m hoping that in the future they will thank me when they’re living in Portugal with the opportunities that can open up for them.
But, for now, they might feel a little bit of doubt. They know what they know. Even with the reassurance and promise of what me and their mum can give to them, it is still an unknown reality.
And adults do the same. Adults miss out on creating their own business or going for a new career opportunity because of the doubts that creep in. Adults miss out on friendship and finding love because they are scared of being rejected. Adults are becoming depressed about their health and lifestyle because they refuse to commit to positive change.
But not all adults. You’ll notice that the ones who are smiling and are happy within themselves have all removed the lingering doubts that stop them from living with a more positive outlook. They’ve stopped calling upon the previous negative experiences that they’ve had and instead invested in their future selves.
You can’t change what happened ten years ago, but you do have a say in what happens in ten years time.
I want to let my kids know that they will make mistakes, but it is how they can learn and move on which will enable them to have bright futures. If they dwell on their mistakes then that is where doubt will set in. They will be tethered to the past.
I have worked with thousands of people who initially came to me with help regarding their health, weight and aesthetics. And there isn’t a single client that has failed by planning their future. This could be by preparing meals for the week more carefully or planning gym visits and booking fitness classes. But we can go even further into our most inner needs and desires. Once we begin to focus on the person we would like to be, then it is so much easier to plan on being that person. And then, as a habit, continue to think about this person.
Let’s think of another daily habit that you might have. Say, putting the kettle on in the morning. The kettle takes two minutes to boil. This gives you two minutes to visualize your day, your week, your next five years of your life. Think of it as a trailer to the best movie ever with a fantastic cast and a great ending and you are the main character.
What would you look like? What friends and family would be around you? What activities would you be doing? What’s the plot? Where is it set?
My favourite time to do this visualisation is when I put the washing out. Some of my best made plans have come whilst pegging my undies to the washing line. Why? Because it is a mundane task that is usually done daily and I don’t have to cram in another habit within my already busy day. I have time to think. I can daydream. I have to put the washing out. Why not make it interesting and productive?
The movie I have created for my family has a happy ending but there are sad moments too. Just like any good story. But because I have planned this script so many times during putting out the washing or cleaning out the guinea pig hutch, I know how it ends. Therefore I have no doubt about it, I can live my happiest life.
What can you begin to focus on for your future? Start setting realistic targets, find a really boring job that needs doing almost daily and make your movie now!
When I think of being in the gym it reminds me of a happy place. It is where I have met friends, where I found my dream job as a PT and, quite frankly , where I found myself as a person. The gym helped mould me into becoming a more determined and disciplined person.
It has also been a place where I can forget my troubles for an hour or two or, in many cases, solved my troubles by talking to others. Indeed, I have heard many things being thrashed out in between sets of deadlifts from other members such as relationship troubles, work issues, politics, their team’s results from the weekend and health worries. All passionately expressed as much as the huff and puff of their heavy lift.
And of course as a person who is there quite a lot and who everyone knows, I seem to be the go-to person when it comes to news and gossip. I know where everyone goes on holiday. I know who has recently died. I know of everyone’s upcoming operations and I know what everyone eats each mealtime. Football is always a hot topic in the gym too, so whether it be Manchester City or The Nags Head, I know every score of every team in the country.
I love it, but that’s me. I don’t expect everyone to get this feeling when they enter the gym. In fact I know for some people it fills them with dread. And in this article I’m aiming to reach out to those who either don’t feel that they have the time to get to the gym, can’t afford a gym membership or just hate going.
This month I paid my final PT rent installment to the gym which means that in a few weeks time I won’t be associated with a gym, either as a member or a trainer, for the first time in 25 years. That thought would’ve scared me not so long ago. It’s played such a huge part of my life to the point that, during a time where I felt lost and without direction as a young man, the gym saved me. But my future plan doesn’t involve a gym. Not a commercial gym anyway. I’ll be creating my own space on my own property in Portugal. It won’t have the mod cons. I’ll be going back to basics.
In the coming months my wife and I will be developing a YouTube channel entitled The Road To Tranquility where it will document our lives creating our luxury wellbeing camping experience in Portugal. A part of our visitors experience will involve massage, yoga, meditation and personal training.
Whatever I create for my visitors will be what I have to work with too. I doubt the area or the funds will allow for treadmills, rowing machines, cables and attachments or a deadlifting platform. I’ll have to be inventive with a bench, a selection of dumbbell and kettlebell weights and a battle rope.
And this leads me onto my point of the article. You can absolutely develop a very successful workout routine at home, in the garden, in the park or just about anywhere you can find a bit of space. Also, you don’t even need weights. Body weight workouts are perfectly fine routines for most goals. But if, like me, you enjoy working with resistance and wish to maintain and increase your strength, then the ‘middle of Lidl’ will often sell relatively cheap weights, resistance bands and other useful equipment. Other places I’ve found to be handy for exercise equipment is TK-Max and online selling platforms such as Facebook market and eBay. It’s amazing what people are trying to sell since they no longer need it after lockdown!
I have said to many gym goers (to the despair of the gym manager) that exercise does not need to be restricted to the gym. And if you don’t enjoy formal exercise I would recommend taking up a new sport, joining a running group, taking up dance classes or just going for walks. The purpose here is to adopt a healthy lifestyle and remain motivated in reaching physical and mental health goals.
I’ll miss the gym banter, but my journey will still enable me to meet new and interesting people while achieving my fitness goals. Think about your own journey. Tailor it to meet your needs. Gym or no gym, you can become the healthier version of you.
A big motivation for me to write my blogs was always to dispel the myths surrounding our health and fitness so that we could safely enter a fitness program or nutritional journey without wading through the murky waters that are bogus articles, magic pill advertisements and other fitness professionals giving out misinformation.
A fitness goal should be fun to embark on without unnecessary jargon, untruths and charlatans making it stressful.
And so I feel it necessary to come to the defense of the humble cheese, grilled or not grilled, for my latest findings. As this week, a gym member approached me to ask if it was true that grilled cheese adds more calories to non grilled cheese.
This is a very valid question, especially when you consider that it was a fitness professional who told her. After all, they’re the ones in the know right?!
But after thinking about how this could possibly be, the gym member looked for a second opinion. I must admit, the logic and the simplicity of the answer that I wanted to give (a resounding no it doesn’t!) Couldn’t leave my mouth. It could be that the fitness professional had done their research into this and knew more than me on the subject. So I said that I doubt it, but I’ll do some digging and find out for sure!
Rule number one for any budding Personal Trainers out there…don’t be afraid to say that you aren’t sure but you’ll get back to them with an answer. And even if you do know the answer, say that you don’t know but you’ll get back to them. You want their contact details remember! But it also stops you from being a bit of a know-it-all and, as this post suggests, one day you’ll give a wrong answer without doing your research.
Ok, back to cheese.
My findings were clear and just as I had thought. The calories do not get any higher from grilling it.
However, and this is perhaps where the confusion lies, it becomes easier for the body to digest cooked food therefore the body works less than when digesting raw food resulting in the body burning less calories. But the numbers are small. It’s like having 8p in your piggy bank when you need to save £20,000. It won’t make a huge dent.
Still, this doesn’t apply to grilled cheese. But could there be another reason to believe that grilled cheese is higher in calories than non grilled cheese?
Hmm. There is a theory that we tend to over indulge when we eat cheese on toast or toasties. We might add butter or use oil before applying the cheese perhaps, or maybe choose white bread instead of wholemeal. Yet it doesn’t change the caloric make up of cheese. The issue here is on a person’s food prep habits, not the cheese. It’s like feeling bloated after eating a full strawberry cheesecake and blaming the strawberries.
I love cheese. I’ll eat it in some form almost daily. Although I wouldn’t advise following my addiction to cheese and eating too much of it too often, I would recommend eating a cheese toasty or a cheese on toast occasionally.
It’s even better on cheap white bread, but don’t tell anyone I told you so.
Never Give Up PT