Tag Archives: health

Fitness Goals And The Important Little Things

When I enter the gym with a goal, it is a goal with many different aspects. I can’t pin it down. I want to maintain weight management, strength and mental wellbeing. That’s just the same as 30 years ago and will probably never change.

But if I get the little things right, then achieving the above can be fairly straightforward. So, about those little things…

I want to improve my grip. A better grip can lead to personal bests by lifting heavier or for longer. Same with my breathing. If I remain in control of my breathing then it undoubtedly helps with a tough set. I want to discover new exercises and therefore experience new challenges that will put my body under a different kind of stress. These are just a few examples of the little things that, put together over time and with consistency, will get me the big goals.

I want to get a message to anyone who set out a new year’s fitness goal, particularly those of you who have any ideas of quitting. Get the little things right.

Any grand resolution such as weight loss (by far the most requested goal in January) needs all the little things in place and working consistently if you are to reach your goal. And most people who don’t reach their goal don’t reach it because they give up, lose direction,  become demoralised and get bored.

So, with what I’m about to suggest, I didn’t mean to get too technical when I start blabbering on about grip improvement. That is a personal thing to me, and, well, I make it a priority to my clients. But there are lots of little things that can be undertaken in order to really tackle those new year’s fitness resolutions this year. So, whatever the goal, here’s a few little tricks to keep you focused.

Write your achievements down. I used to go into the gym with a pen and a notebook to write down new bests for all of my programmed routine. If I had curled for 15 with a pair of 12k instead of the 10’s, I would document it. It works the same for cardio based equipment too. If you have rowed your furthest on the rower in the given time then write it down so that you know your future targets on that exercise. Indeed, with your phone at hand you can write your notes on an app and also take a picture of a cardio machine screen.

Aim to try your best, but know that every gym routine will not be a day of new personal bests. Life just isn’t like that. But also know that every routine is very useful. Footballer Eric Cantona said,”I prefer to play and lose rather than win, because I know in advance I’m going to win.” If you turn up, you are winning, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.

Put healthy options at the forefront of your mind. The best way to do this is to create visual triggers. I have recently gone a few weeks without making a fruit smoothie. It has always been a staple for my wife and I every morning, but somehow with pallets of stuff still coming over from England, the Nutribullet smoothie machine had been pushed right to the back of the cupboard to make room for new stuff. Instantly it became out of site, out of mind. The box of Celebrations,  however, have lived on the kitchen table all over Christmas. You can try organising your kitchen so that healthier snacks are at hand. Also, don’t even give your gym kit time to get comfortable in a draw. Lay it out ready to pack into your sports bag or put straight on.

Think. Yes, think more. Meditate more. Pray more. Walk and observe nature. Whatever you prefer. Lay in a hot bath, lock the door with a good book (not a screen) and simply have some quiet time. As long as you give yourself time to think it doesn’t matter how you do it. This keeps your focus sharp, rather than the days bogging you down.

And lastly, enjoy it! Exercising towards a goal shouldn’t be a slog. Well, not always. It can be difficult to find the motivation in getting to the gym on a cold, dark morning or evening. And then there’s actually finding the time to get there. There’s no doubt, the gym has lots of equipment and it’s great when you find like-minded people in a class, but if life has got in the way and you don’t have the time or money, then there are some fantastic home routines that can take just 20 minutes without loads of space or equipment needed. If you start becoming frustrated by missed gym visits and feel down on yourself then it is the first sign of giving up on your fitness goals because you are not enjoying it.

I hope these ideas can really help you to stay focused on your fitness journey. Let me know how you get on!

A Year Of Answers

So, what was 2024 for you? Was it a year of questions or a year of answers?

For me, 2024 was most certainly a year of questions. Big questions.  How could I handle living in a new country? How could I deal with a house buy, a building project, a new business? Could I settle my kids in a new foreign school? Can my wife and I survive the stresses? Can I manage to put my ‘happy face’ on for the cameras.

But I’m hoping, goodness, I’m hoping (!) that 2025 gives me answers.

I’ve been thinking about the quote by Zora Neale Hurston over the past few days, in which she said,”There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

My thoughts on recent years took me as far as 2020. This was a year, for so many of us I would imagine, that asked tough questions. But I have noticed a trend because 2021 was one that cleared my head and started to deliver answers once again, if only in part anyway. The gyms reopened and my business could recommence. My wife had also started her own massage therapy business which quickly became very popular in the centre of Scarborough.

2022 flipped again to become a year of questions. Whilst my wife remained steady in her business, mine was stagnating. A few clients remained from pre-covid but the gym I was at never got their numbers back unfortunately.  It had also decided to give the members recorded fitness classes which obviously didn’t require a live instructor. This us something I’m seeing more and more in larger gyms in the UK and just can’t help but think that members are just a number to them. There’s no personal touch.  I know many of my class participants enjoyed the social aspect of classes. Having a chat with the instructor before or after and generally feeling a belonging. That is taken away with pre-recorded classes on a screen.

Prior to covid, our thoughts were very much fixed on moving out of the uk. Yes, there was a longing to be living back in the European Union but it had always been a dream for us as individuals before we met each other and then as a family. Covid had set us back financially so plans were put on hold, but 2023 we came up with the answers, swiftly putting our house up for sale and employing solicitors to assist in the visa applications and starting a business in the EU.

Oh yes, 2023 we had answers. We were so focused on this that we felt untouchable. We were asked many times,”What if your house doesn’t sell.” Or “What if your visa is rejected?”

Our answer was, “It won’t.” That’s how committed and confident we were in the process and our strength and abilities to carry this off. The reality was that our plans could’ve fallen off the edge of a cliff at any point that year, but we had answers that we told ourselves over and over that soothed our minds. “We can do it. We WILL do it.” Special mentions are required around now to thank those who gave me and my family somewhere to live in England while we were in limbo. And a great friend gave me some work working with kids in summer sports camp. I’ll be forever grateful.

But once we got to Portugal, 2024 became a year of questions once again. Mostly set by us. Just like our positive mindset helped us get through the previous year, the gremlins crept into our mindset a little during our Portuguese house purchase and business set up. We had the building work to the local accommodation house. A forest to clear. Children to settle into a new school and new lifestyle. Budget stress. And with a camera crew filming it all and a production team asking even more questions, last year was tough with some incredibly difficult questions to face.

But on the first night of the year, during a bout of man flu that had me awake most of it, I had time to think. Thinking is a luxury over Christmas with family visiting and two excited kids. It occurred to me that my year of questions were last year. This year, it is my year of answers. I don’t think that Zora Neale Hurston meant that it would be exclusively one year of questions and then one year of answers, but there has certainly been this pattern for me. At least I hope so.

There will be what looks like more filming to come. The production team are already in talks with us about their spin off ‘Revisited’ programme, where they film the progress we have made. But I feel a lot more head strong to deal with that now. I know the expectations of me. And likewise in other aspects of my life. I know what we have to do to our business to succeed. I am producing answers again. Answers that for many months I struggled to find, either due to the ‘out of my depth’ feeling or simply not knowing the expectations of, well, anything!

This time last year when asked what would be achieved by the end of the year I had to say ‘I haven’t a clue!’ And yet, if I were asked it right now I’d be able to give a more detailed account of how life might look like fir me and my family.

I’d have answers. Because it’s the year for it.

Here’s to 2025. And remember, even if you are faced with lots of questions this year, you will find the answers.

The Year In Review

The One With The Portugal House

The year began with us on the hunt for a house to buy in Sertã, Portugal. We had moved into rental properties in the area at the back end of October, so it was a difficult time to view properties with Christmas looming and two excited little boys. However,  in February this year, we bought our home and business property.

It wasn’t exactly the dream home. It was an old farm house with plenty of work to do on it. But it did tick many boxes. It had land so that the boys could play in the forest surrounds and we could create our picnic and meditation areas as lou and I had always wanted. It had outbuildings which we could create rented accommodation, a gym space and a massage treatment room. Our Portugal House was ready to be regenerated into our perfect home.

The One With The Family

The hardest part of the move was fretting over our children’s wellbeing. It had to work for them or it simply could not work for us. They started in a Portuguese school at the beginning of the year. Moving to a new school  as the new kid half through a school year is tough enough. But add to that a different language and new cultural expectations, it was massive for them. I’m so proud of them. Their language skills have overtaken mine, even though I’ve been learning Portuguese on an app for over two years and they have immersed themselves into their new lives.

The One With The TV Program

The filming of the English TV show A New Life In The Sun began in February to catch the beginning of the renovation to the ‘little house’ which would be our rental property. This will be aired in January next year. The added pressure of being filmed was difficult and the interviews and filming time frames did make the renovation tough to manage, but there are no regrets. I guess we will call it a tick off the bucket list now that we’ve been on telly!

The One With My Own Personal Mental And Physical Health

The move has come at a price in regards to our mental wellbeing. Physically I’ve remained very active but I’ve done very little formal exercise, which is the type that I really love. But, as I say, this process has been physically demanding so I still feel fit and strong.  Mentally, though, not having the time out or the equipment to pursue my favourite pastime has been difficult to accept. It has always enabled me to ‘fix’ problems and I can think much clearer. I know, though, that this situation was always going to be a possibility. After all, literally everything that I had in England was dropped, including my personal training business and gym membership. Starting from scratch was always inevitable and would take time.

The One With The Final Message Of The Year

We wanted an experience that we could look back on and say, “We did it! Look what we achieved!” And so far we are sure getting that experience.  It’s come with many laughs and proud moments, but also a good deal of stress and tears too. This experience simply would not be the full package without the lows too. One cannot look back on moments and be proud if there has been no challenge or adversity attached to it. Good things that happen in life, fulfilling dreams and hitting goals aren’t fun or worthwhile if they’re easy. So we chose not to keep things easy knowing that the pitfalls were huge, but the rewards were even bigger.

As we enter another year of working towards our personal, my only advice to my readers are that they take a moment to reflect on what they would like to achieve in 2025. It could be a career move, a financial situation, a relationship, a fitness goal or a trip to somewhere special. Whatever it might be, just remember that there will be tough moments in achieving your goals, but if they’re special enough, then the feeling that you will get once the pieces start fitting into place makes I all worth it in the end.

Have a happy, healthy and prosperous new year. See you all soon.xxx

Who Gives A Fig?

The community spirit in this very hidden part of central Portugal is remarkable. Although very rural, there are houses around us with some very lovely neighbours. Down the road is Jenny (it sounds like Jenny so we just call her Jenny) who often drops in early morning to give us bread before she goes to the market to sell what she has baked through the night.

Around the corner of our property is Ricardo, Isabella and their two children of similar age to our lads. They live in Lisbon but return to their Sertá home during the holidays. In the past week they have given our boys two bikes and invited them to watch Portugal V Croatia while having dinner.

And across the road is Antonio. An elderly gentleman who invited us to celebrate his 78th birthday with his family a couple of weeks ago.  He seems to have taken to us. A few weeks ago he said that he smelt the paella we were making wafting towards his house so he invited himself for dinner! He often visits for a chat throughout the day, although he only speaks Portuguese and we attempt our very sketchy version of the language. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Lately, he has been coming daily to get his blood pressure monitored. It’s a request from his doctor to get a daily reading and he chose us to help him with this. We are honoured to assist in any way we can. That’s the community way here.

In return he brings us a bag of something that he is growing in his garden. It’s usually tomatoes but yesterday it was figs. Hmm, what to do with figs!

Something we have tried to keep a constant in the mayhem of our lives during the past 12 months is to prepare a smoothie each morning to give us that healthy kick. It feels like, even if the rest of the day doesn’t go to plan regarding a healthy diet (and let’s face it, it doesn’t always) at least we have had a nutritious boost in the morning. Figs, so we found out, made a great addition!

Here’s what we put into the Nutribullet for our smoothie…

Two bananas, five figs (skin on), Greek yoghurt, two scoops of peanut butter and a bit of water.

The results were amazing! Even the kids loved it as it was just like a creamy banana milkshake.

Each day we keep learning about different nutritious elements that we can add to our lives, but the biggest addition to our lives is that of community. A togetherness that, no matter what colour, language or creed, we can all add something special to each other’s lives.

If only the rest of the world could add those ingredients. What a wonderful place we could have.

Keema Made In The Paella Pan

I make most of my sauces, especially those that demand a spicy bite, in the paella pan these days. I first made an arrabbiata sauce in the paella pan. I found that I could spread the ingredients much easier in the large area of the pan and mix the spices more evenly. I also like to cook and eat with my eyes. The different colours inspire me and I can see them better in a paella pan. It also means that I can batch cook and I am a big fan of batch cooking. It’s one of the changes that I recommended when a client came to me with dietary concerns.

Life can be super stressful at the best of times and after a busy day with work and other errands it is difficult to find time to prepare healthy meals. So I know from past experience that an oven pizza or a takeaway is a convenient way to eat. But if you’ve already got a selection of healthy sauces that you prepared in the freezer then it can be a box ticked off of the stress list. Just cook a bit of rice or pasta and wait for the microwave to ping!

Today I woke up wanting to make an Indian style curry. We don’t have an Indian or Chinese restaurant in Sertá so that itch needs to be scratched occasionally by cooking these meals at home. To be fully authentic and to give a nod to our previous life in England, I would like to put my curry sauce in a tub with a foil lid, place it in a brown paper bag, knock on our front door after an hour and a half and charge £30 for it. But thus far I have refrained from doing so.

Keema, or Qeema in Urdu, is a north Indian and Pakistani dish that literally means ground mince. Today I chose turkey (peru in Portuguese). It’s just what I had in my freezer and it is cheaper meat here, so we often have it available to us at home. It means that with a big jar of passata, a few onions, a couple of garlic cloves, chopped ginger, and a frozen bag of veg, it’s a cost effective meal for the family with the bonus of the batch factor!

My favourite curry is vindaloo or even hotter. I ordered a Phaal in a restaurant once and had the waiters and chefs sniggering by the kitchen door as they watched my head turn bright red as I took my first bite. It was painful and remained so for the next 24 hours, but it was also extremely enjoyable (the first hour, not so much the next 23). I always order vindaloo/phaal, three chapatis and a portion of chips in an Indian restaurant. No shares. Whoever I’m with can’t do any of that sharing half and half shenanigans. It’s mine. I ordered it. Want a chip? Then order some! Every one of my chips has a job to do, especially at the end of the meal when I need to ‘mop up’ the remaining deadly sauce.

But at home I’m a little bit more relaxed with my choices and my sharing habits. I’m fine with making a curry less spicy for my wife and kids and I’m ok with cooking rice. I usually leave out the chips too for a healthier meal, but I do provide wraps or chapatis. It’s still important to mop at the end, right?

So here’s the final result! All plated and ready to eat! Let me know your favourite meals to cook and, importantly, tell me if you’re a sharer in a restaurant or not in the comments.

A Subject That Always Sparks A Debate…

This week the UK government said that it wants to ban cigarette smoking in pub gardens, outside nightclubs and around children’s play parks. Now, it would be hard to find a reasonable argument for being allowed to smoke in or around a kids play park, but I’m not sure about elsewhere. Here’s what I think…

I am living in central Portugal. Cigarettes are still sold in cafe vending machines. Supermarkets have Tobacaria shops inside them and even cafe bars attached to them. Doing your weekly shop, stopping for a smoke while downing a beer or wine before loading your car and driving away is common.

I don’t smoke cigarettes anymore but do occasionally vape electronically in private. I haven’t openly smoked anything since becoming a dad and a Personal Trainer. Smoking while doing either of those jobs is not cool. But I don’t begrudge anybody else smoking. In fact, seeing people sitting around a table outside a cafe in Sertá, chatting and laughing in different languages makes me feel happy and truth be known, before I moved here, it was one of the images that I went to sleep imagining. The cafe music, the different languages and the server bringing out olives and wine on a sunny day, all under a cloud of Marlboro is all very European. That appeals to me.

Some of my best memories of holidays abroad haven’t necessarily been on a beach or doing karaoke at an all inclusive, but visiting an art gallery or castle in Europe. And it was always followed by sitting outside a cafe to talk about what I had discovered, either with my family or with complete strangers.

And although in the beer garden at Wetherspoons there was plenty of alcohol and smoking, I never did get onto the subject of how the Duomo bell tower was constructed with its customers.

Outside a cafe in Sertá

Ah yes. Wetherspoons. Where you can openly shout about hating foreigners while drinking Belgian beer. After that, you can go for a Turkish kebab, watch American TV or cheer on a few Africans in your favourite football team on your Japanese TV while sitting on a Swedish sofa. In the morning, you can drive your German car and if you have an accident you will be seen by a Spanish nurse. Once you are better again, you can go back to Wetherspoons and shout about those ‘bloody foreigners’ in a building most likely to be funded by the European Union. Just remember to wipe your feet on the way out.

And before you start criticising me for being down on Britishness, Wetherspoons is and continues to be a very big factor in what is the cause of a loss of Britishness on the high streets. The Wetherspoons franchise has slowly dismantled the great British pub. You can’t get your piss stained peanuts from a bowl at the bar while drinking a pint of Best at the local Fox and Hounds anymore because Tim Martin came along with his cheap drinks and all day breakfast.

Traditional pubs are ceasing to exist anymore and for all we can blame smoking bans and energy costs, the fact remains that Tim Martin will always be able to make his food and drink way cheaper than Sandra the landlady at The Fox And Hounds.

‘But what about this new smoking ban, Shay?!’ I hear you all ask. ‘Surely it is better for our health and will be less of a burden to the NHS?!’

Smoking is not the number one factor in what causes the two most deadly killers in the UK (heart disease and Alzheimer’s). In fact, everything else they sell in a pub or nightclub are by far the major reasons. That all day breakfast? The Belgian beer or the pint of Best?

In 2022 there were just over 10,000 alcohol related deaths. Obesity causes 30,000 deaths each year. Food and drink related deaths are on the rise and will soon be above smoking related deaths in the years to come. I’m not saying that smoking is better, but it does seem to be the scapegoat when the government talks about unburdening the NHS.

When I watch UK TV I am bombarded by adverts telling me to eat fast food and drink alcohol. Not only is fast food or alcohol not banned but perfectly celebrated as the stuff we should be doing, promoted on national TV!

So eating and drinking crap in a pub is fine, but dare to step into its garden and light up a cigarette and you’re a pariah. You see, it makes no sense.

When I became a PT I wanted to give a different message to what I was seeing and hearing from mainstream gyms and media. It is also how I’ve continued to work at our health and wellbeing centre in Portugal. The misunderstanding from gyms and the media is that health and wellbeing is all about physical health and wellbeing. But I think a little differently.

If society (or your PT) is constantly berating your lifestyle choices such as what you eat, drink or smoke, then this is not going to be a positive contribution to your mindset or your life. You don’t employ a PT for them to tell you that lettuce is better for you than a pizza, or water is better for you than a gin and tonic. Nor should you employ a PT to tell you that not smoking is better for you than smoking.

Balancing these better for you things and the not as good for you things, for me, is the much better position to be in regarding our mental health. This, in turn, can contribute to a more active lifestyle and produce better physical results.

Smoking ten cigarettes a day instead of 20 is a fantastic start. Having a fortnightly takeaway is better than a weekly takeaway and drinking a few beers three nights of the week instead of five is going to positively impact you further.

No bans. No stress. No guilt. Just small things that we call balance.

So, my conclusion and my two penn’orth in the smoking debate is this…

Keep cigarettes, takeaways and alcohol and get rid of Wetherspoons. Society in the UK will seem like a much brighter place.

It’s coca cola… promise

The Longest Five Minutes

Lou and I discussed which parasol to put up in the AL courtyard. It was an important day for us today. The builder was finishing off the bits and bobs that he needed to do, we were taking photos so that we could upload them onto a booking site and we were being filmed by the A New Life In The Sun camera man.

The parasol discussion was ideal for ANLITS. They like to film us deciding on the colour of bed sheets, where to put the solar lights, problem solving with the builders and which parasol would be suitable for the courtyard table.

But then an alert on Lou’s phone gave the camera man ANLITS gold. It was like a dream to a lifestyle reality TV camera man. It was a message from the local council (CAMARA) to inform us about our application to rent out our renovated house. Capturing this in real time was going to make perfect TV (for those interested in the programme). The moment of pure joy or a crushing setback was about to be filmed in real life!

But then came the longest five minutes. First of all, it required a wardrobe change. We had been in our building clothes all morning. A quick freshen up was needed. Oh, and then the email had to be translated into English. The five minute wait seemed to last a lifetime as we  processed the Portuguese words into the Deeple app to change it to English. I noticed Lou’s hand shaking. Our voices quivered as we addressed the camera and read out the email. All observed by the willing camera man.

After the formalities it finally read ‘we are pleased to inform you that there are no objections to your licence’. The relief was felt in Lou’s voice as she further read out our official registration number which is necessary to show the relevant booking sites that we are to use.

For some unknown reason I still had hold of the parasol looking like some deranged Mary Poppins as I gleefully high fived Lou and hurrahed towards the camera. My emotions, despite this, were kept conservative but inside it felt like scoring the winner in the final.

My brain wanted to fist pump the air and shout ‘get in!!’ but I knew I was being filmed so I just held the parasol tightly and tried to stay calm.

We have been asked many times about a plan B, but the reality is that we came to Portugal without one. Our business plan, which actually started out as glamping rather than a house, was our only plan. That, of course, and the added wellbeing centre that we have yet to complete. All of our hopes were pinned on this moment in receiving the go-ahead from the local council.

But that is how we have approached this whole move. We had taken our children out of school and shut down our existing businesses before our visa approval. Indeed, we were on the coach to Sertá when Lou was still negotiating a time in which our house sale in England would be finalised. The people on the coach will have learned some new colourful English words on that journey.

Nothing was going to stop us.

I’ve heard that you get more careful in decision making as you get older. Ours, in an attempt for a better quality of life for our children and a business idea itch that just needed to be scratched, has had an opposite effect. We simply couldn’t sit on our hands anymore. We had dreams. None of which, we felt, could be accomplished in the UK. And there is no guarantee of success in Portugal either. That is why the same focus needs to be applied. We need to continue chasing our dreams. Long into our lives.

As CS Lewis quite rightly put it,”You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.”

Rat Park

Despite an easier VISA process to live in Portugal from the UK there were many factors why Portugal began to be a very attractive country to live in.

There were hours and hours of research done by my wife and I to discover the cost of living, how good the education system was, we wanted to know more about the crime rates, the policing, the government structure and the tax system. We especially wanted to know what the quality of life could be expected for our young children. What is Portugal like to grow up in and to become young adults?

And yes, Rishi, we wanted to know if National Service existed in Portugal. It doesn’t. That was important to us. You see, my idea of a country expecting their young citizens to serve mandatory time in the armed forces strikes me as a country with a social problem often brought about by a lack of funding to those who need it the most and, crucially, who the wider society depends on. The youth. They are, after all, the ones who will be taking that particular country forward. Therefore we need to create well rounded young people with opportunities to develop.

Yes, the armed forces can get a great opportunity to learn many skills, but only if that person wishes to enrol in the first place.

So, after our conclusion that Portugal, albeit not perfect (which country is?!) gave us good vibes, we decided to move there.

One thing that caught my attention during my research was Portugal’s drug laws. Since 2001, drugs have been decriminalised. This includes cocaine and heroin. It was the first to do so in the EU. So although it is an offence to carry drugs it is not punishable by imprisonment, it does not result in a criminal record or lead to associated stigmas which may affect the ability to find work.

Instead, drug abusers are treated as patients instead of criminals. Those who remain clean from drug use are given incentives to reconnect with society. The government set up job creation schemes and loans for small businesses, directly intended for an individual to focus on getting their lives back on track and away from drug use.

Portugal had one of the highest number of drug related HIV cases in Europe prior to 2000.  It has seen a reduction in new HIV cases by 17%.

Portugal’s drug related death toll is 3 people per million compared to the EU average of almost 18 per million people.

The street value of these illicit drugs massively decreased. Courts and prisons became less crowded. The number of adolescents using drugs declined. All because the government at the time decided to invest in tackling the problem.

A series of experiments were conducted in the early 20th century where they would put a rat in a cage with two water bottles. One was water and the other was water laced with heroin. Almost every rat would keep going back to the water laced with heroin where it would eventually overdose and die.

Then came along a professor in psychology, Bruce Alexander who noticed that, if the rat had nothing to do other than choose from these two bottles then maybe it is an unfair experiment. So he set up a Rat Park. As well as the two bottles, he introduced several rats into a cage so that they could play together, have sex and interact. He placed tunnels into the cages, food and climbing frames.

Professor Alexander

Professor Alexander noticed that the rats hardly ever went to the drugged water. It didn’t interest them. It went from 100% overdose when they were isolated and 0% when they had happy and connected lives.

What if addiction isn’t about our chemical hooks but instead about our cage?

If we can surround ourselves with a supportive network of people, be excited by a safe and happy future, eat well, exercise, laugh, love and play, then surely our cage is worth staying around for. And the need for turning to the drugged water is less attractive.

And I can say with some experience that it is only when I found a purpose to my life did I stop routinely taking cocaine, ecstasy and steroids.

Much like the rats in the Rat Park I found friendship, pathways, exercise and reasons to live. I also found Blair’s New Deal which got me off of my arse to learn a trade. I gained NVQ level 2 qualifications in bricklaying and construction for £50 a week. Not bad at the time.

Maybe if we change our cage, we can all find happiness. And with upcoming elections in the UK looming, its citizens have an opportunity to vote for who will help them find their cage.

Run Your Own Race

When you want to begin a personal fitness journey it is a totally natural thought process to consider what the person next to you is doing.

For the past few months, you might have heard Janice in the office talk about how much weight she’s lost at Slimming World and, naturally, you become intrigued about what recipes she is using and you peek over her shoulder at lunch break to see what’s in her lunch box.

In the gym you notice that the guy who usually trains when you’re there has bulked up a bit and he is filling in his T with some decent looking pecs these days. You’re only on nodding terms so you don’t ask outright how he has managed it, but you keep glancing over to see what he is pushing on the bench press or see what protein shake he’s drinking.

It becomes a slight obsession. I’ve driven myself insane before by observing the Hulk Hogan of the gym bicep curl a couple of 8k dumbbells while I’m trying to squeeze out the 20k’s to look like him and I’ve seen a guy much slender than me deadlift 200k without breaking sweat.

That’s when it doesn’t become my race anymore. And, whilst running this race, in watching how everyone else is running I’m tripping up.

I begin to change my pace and my breathing technique. I’m not looking at my own path, instead I’m trying to keep up with somebody on their path. I am not running my own race.

It was a quote from a football manager that inspired me to write this article. Without boring those who do not follow the English Premier League, I will keep this background story short.

Ange Postecoglou is the manager of Spurs. He was employed by them to at least qualify for the Champions League this season. However, in the penultimate game of the season, a number of Spurs fans wanted to lose a game and celebrated once they had lost. This is because it meant that the winning team, Manchester City, could overtake Spurs’ bitter rival Arsenal to have a greater chance of winning the league, resulting in Arsenal missing out! City ended up as Champions, Arsenal came runners up and Spurs missed out on a Champions League place, meaning that they only qualify for the less attractive Europa League competition.

Postecoglou was pissed off as he saw pockets of supporters in the stadium celebrate their own team conceding goals. And he even eluded to Spurs staff members being desperate enough to see Spurs lose and Arsenal miss out on the title. How far down the chain did it go?! Did the players on the pitch really want to lose also?!

After the game an angry Postecoglou said,”…we have got to worry about ourselves. Don’t worry about anyone else. If you run your own race then when you get to the finish line, have a look around and see where you finish…. don’t be obsessed with what anyone else is doing…you want to stop another club winning the trophy? Then win it yourselves!”

As human beings we can often get distracted by ‘keeping up with the Jones’. With their neatly mowed lawn, new 4×4 that they take their exceptionally behaved children to school in and their exotic holidays that they go on a few times a year.

But maybe we’re not seeing the debts that they’re in, how Mr and Mrs Jones hardly speak to each other and how their son is about to get expelled from school for selling weed to his mates.

But people will rarely let you see that side to them. Do you think that Janice in the office will share her most vulnerable side on Facebook such as moments before a ‘weigh in’ or when she can’t enjoy a meal out with friends because it doesn’t fit in with her ‘points’ for the day?

And the Hulk Hogan of the gym wants to show Instagram his changing room flex after a workout, but he’ll never film himself injecting steroids or standing in front of the mirror feeling ‘bloated’.

My eldest boy, Jonas, is facing exams this year. He is understandably nervous about this but his teachers and my wife and I are telling him not to worry. It’s his first exams in Portugal and it will be in Portuguese. This in itself is a massive thing to overcome but also he didn’t face exams in England. Apart from a spelling test perhaps, this is his first experience of being graded on what he has learnt. His classmates are more advanced. Not only are most of them older, but their first language is Portuguese. He cannot allow himself to be compared to what they might achieve in their exam results. Jonas, simply, has to run his own race.

So ‘running your own race’ isn’t just something to remember when embarking on a fitness journey. It can be a good reminder of how to be in other aspects of our lives too. After all, it’s the difference between a glitzy Tuesday night at the Bernabeu or a drizzly Thursday night in Aberdeen.