Episode 5 on my podcast channel is now available to listen to called Spirit Guide.
Whether you are spiritual or not, the power of energy can always help you in finding solutions to your future plans.
Check out my podcast, NGU Guided Meditation , on Spotify for Podcasters: https://anchor.fm/shay-durant-duckworth
Here in the UK it is tennis season. The time where people who have never held a tennis racket before put on their white cap and head off to their local council tennis courts.
Many of them are surprisingly well kept. As a kid there were many courts on East End Park and they were generally in good working order. A few torn nets and a bit of broken glass in places but it made for an interesting game. And they were in much better condition than where we all played football, seeing as we would use the old discarded glue bags and the dog turd as goal posts.
It might have helped that the tennis courts were close to the caretaker’s house, so any vandalism would have been heard by him. I say ‘him’, but we never saw anybody coming from the caretaker’s house. A big house that resembled the one out of the amativille movie. I would quicken up my walk as I walked past.
I was one of these people who would pick up a racket for a couple of weeks during July. It is, of course, the Wimbledon tennis tournament. I would be sure to be wearing my long white shorts and t-shirt in an attempt to look like my favourite player, Andre Agassi. He was the first player to wear long shorts while his opponents were still in very tight 1980’s short shorts. I wanted room for my tennis balls to move about, so I thought baggy shorts were sensible. Agassi had a bit of a rock n roll attitude about him on court too. I had a rock n roll attitude, but I was crap at tennis.
One thing you can be sure of in England is that as soon as Wimbledon starts, the rain starts. It remains warm and muggy in the evening but the weather likes to postpone tennis matches for a couple of weeks with its incessant rain. Problematic for an outdoor tournament played on grass.
And to think, just last week I put the tent up in the garden for the boys to sleep out and it was cracking the flags for a full week. Hopefully the sunshine will come back but if we want to be entertained by Cliff Richard singing in the stands then the rain is bound to stick around for a couple of weeks yet.
So where does this leave me? A sports lover for sure but I’ve not watched a tennis match since Tiger Tim got a semi.
My only option then is cricket, where England and Australia play a game for about a year for a tiny trophy.
Yes, I’m missing the football season, which is odd seeing as I spent the beginning of this year wanting the season to end. There wasn’t much to cheer about being a Liverpool fan. A right back moving into midfield was as exciting as it got for me.
And you can bet that Wimbledon will take over the whole of the BBC. So when the continuity announcer tells us that EastEnders will be shown at a later date, I’ll be screaming ‘You cannot be serious!’ at the TV screen.
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.
My youngest is a fussy eater. He’s always been the same. Even as a baby we were concerned about his milk intake and then, when it came to solids, his fussiness continued into eating very little and with only a couple of things that he would entertain. And none of them with great nutritional value.
At almost 7, he has improved and will try the odd bit of different food that the rest of us have on our plates, but only for 50p. Yes, we have to bribe him to eat anything remotely healthy.
Tea times are awkward. Whatever the boys want for tea it will always come with a good portion of veg. They enjoy fish fingers and we will be happy to prepare these as long as they eat the veg as a non-negotiable. But our eldest has a varied diet as well as wanting the usual processed stuff that most kids like. So my wife and I are often making two or three different meals over tea time.
And then there’s the peas. A big bag of frozen veg to last the week is a good investment for the boys. Or so we thought. Now our youngest will only eat the peas from his serving of veg. And if there’s any evidence that another veg has touched a pea he will not eat it. Which means that I am left picking out the peas before preparing them to serve. With a hundred things to do at any given time, picking out the peas out of a mixed bag of frozen veg is never up there as a priority.
We’ve tried keeping him seated until has eaten his full meal, but this has led to tears and I don’t think that him having negative memories around food and meal times is productive either. So his mum and I will continue to cater for this fussiness.
So, while he is counting his columns of 50p’s, you’ll find me in the kitchen counting frozen peas.
I have just launched my podcast channel which is found in the link below. Just like any great series, perhaps the first few episodes might come across as raw. Even Friends had a great big pillar in the way for the first series in Monica’s apartment!
So once I get over the nerves of talking and recording myself for everyone to hear I think I can nail it and make it a useful tool. Hope you enjoy!
Check out my podcast, NGU Guided Meditation , on Spotify for Podcasters: https://anchor.fm/shay-durant-duckworth
I don’t know about you, but if I have any sort of drink just before bed I can guarantee that I’ll be tip toeing to the bathroom at 3 in the morning.
However, some drinks are worth having on an evening as long as you leave enough peeing time before bed.
As many of you know, I am a fan of the fruit smoothie in the morning. It ensures that I get lots of great nutrients in me ready for a busy day. But the nutribullet blender isn’t just for breakfast. I also enjoy an evening drink that promotes sleep if my recent sleep has suffered or if it’s a particularly hectic or stressful time.
This is what goes in!
Banana. Bananas are high in magnesium and potassium which are known to relax the muscles.
Handful of oats. Also contains similar relaxing properties as banana along with calcium and phosphorus.
A handful of nuts such as almonds and walnuts. Nuts contain melatonin. Melatonin is a hormone that is produced in response to sleep patterns and your circadian rhythms (internal clock) and is often used as a supplement for jet lag or insomnia.
Teaspoon of cinnamon. Cinnamon controls your blood sugar levels as it nourishes the nervous system.
Milk filled to the max line. Milk has a great source of an amino acid called tryptophan. This is another useful sleep promoter as it helps create melatonin and serotonin in the body.
I find that investing in a blender such as a nutribullet enables us to conveniently get the good stuff into our system with little fuss. So give this recipe a go and let me know how you get on!
Cheers!
I always seem to arrive late to a trend. Although I’ve made up for it since, I never watched Friends when it first aired in the UK. At school I would wonder what a ‘Rachel hairstyle’ was and why everyone was debating whether ‘they were on a break’ or not.
And it was the same for music and fashion. Oasis were selling albums in Poundland by the time I liked their music and I even bought a parka jacket in 2003 to put on and show off my britpop swagger. I was a good 5 years too late though and my hair wouldn’t live forever. I was a bald Liam Gallagher. I had the shades and a rollie cigarette hanging from the mouth.
Could I look any cooler?!
Ah, but that parka jacket. It has 20 years of memories. If you were to dig deep inside the pockets you could probably still make a rollie out of the grains of tobacco that remain.
So when it came to packing up our house, we had to be ruthless. For our move to Portugal, we have decided to be more ‘minimalist’. Not everything in our home can make the cut to be transported over to Portugal. DVD’s took a hit. All I could salvage was my collection of Friday The 13th DVD’s. Labyrinth made its way to the charity shop. A decision I could later regret.
And lots of clothes had to go. I had a phase of buying Penguin shirts from TK Max. I must have been in a slimmer phase when I bought them. They’ve gone. Jeans that I can’t get past my calves when I try to squeeze into them. They’ve gone. There were a pair of undies in the bottom of my drawer too that looked as old as the parka. Fear not, they didn’t get sent to the charity shop. They’ll be recycled into a polishing rag. They’ll be making many a knob shiny in our new house.
But it’s actually getting rid of the parka that was the hardest of all. It was quite a symbolic moment as I made the decision to let it go.
I feel sad that I will never put that big coat on again. And I feel a bit guilty that it will never be worn by me again. Maybe I could go back to the charity shop to buy it back.
I’d just tell it that we were on a break.
If someone were to give me a choice in having abs or not, then I would gratefully receive them.
If they then explained what I had to do to maintain and keep the abs I would decline the offer.
One of the most difficult things for a personal trainer to coach is a client wanting abs, AKA a six pack.
So here’s the thing. We all have them, it’s just some are more covered than others. And it is fat that covers them.
It is said that a man needs to be below 12% body fat to actually see a six pack and around 18% for a female. And, although this is achievable for people in general, maintaining this is very difficult indeed.
I regularly go from 12% to 18% depending on the time of year and at my lowest body fat there is a decent amount of definition in the six pack area. However, due to my diet it is impossible for me to edge past down to the 10% mark, where the definition would be very impressive.
And yet my diet is not poor. My calories per day average around 2800 (taken from an annual calculation) and most of my meals are nutritional. But it is nowhere near the strict regime that would be necessary for more definition on my abs or anywhere else!
It was a long time ago that I ditched the idea of going to the gym to get a six pack and it’s around the same time I decided that I liked going for a pint with colleagues after work. Now, I enjoy sneaking in an extra fish finger in the air fryer while I’m making the kids tea.
Abs are made in the kitchen. Indeed, muscle definition anywhere on the body is made in the kitchen. However, that doesn’t mean that having a physically fit physique means a life of chicken, broccoli and rice, washed down with a protein shake every meal time.
An 80/20 rule might not be the clean diet that is necessary for abs of steel, but it is sensible for the majority of people. 80% of your diet is nutritional and balanced while 20% is the other stuff that might not help towards a six pack but it tastes bloody nice!
A popular gym quote goes something like this…”People need to understand the difference between wants and needs. Like I want abs, but I need tacos.”
I could replace tacos with the leftover fish finger, that bit of mayo on the spoon before it goes in the dishwasher, brie cheese with cream crackers, my wife’s homemade ice cream, crumpets with too much butter and pringles and this quote would apply to me. But I make sure that it remains within that 20% of food that I have accounted for. Therefore, even though my abs aren’t defined, I keep a physique that I am happy with. After all, a six pack isn’t the definition of fit and healthy.
So, maybe considering your eating habits a little more and trying to achieve the 80/20 could be a good way for you to progress in your fitness goals. This way, you get to enjoy your workouts and you don’t have to ban your favourite foods.
Whilst living on my current street in Scarborough I have had three street parties to celebrate The Monarchy and The Royal British Legion (VE Day, Jubilee and the Kings Coronation).
That’s quite a record for a guy who doesn’t consider himself a Royalist. However, I do appreciate the ability for a street or a community to be able to get together and celebrate stuff. I think that it is important in today’s society. Perhaps some people on the street wished to toast The King during yesterday’s Coronation, I chose to acknowledge my privilege.
Since this was my third attempt at a street party I thought that I would be a bit more prepared this time. I bought 4 cartons of Sangria which has a lowly 4% volume of alcohol to share with my wife and neighbours. On previous occasions, I have peaked too early. The parties usually start at 1pm and by 3pm I’m trying to collect enough people for a conga while chanting “Mo Salah, Mo Salah, running down the wing.”
So what could go wrong with a few glasses of low alcoholic Sangria? Eugh. Lots!
Ok, I didn’t get drunk. Far from it. I remained fairly sober with just a mild tipsiness by the evening, but the sugar content of these little cartons was outrageous!
This has left me today with a massive sugar hangover. According to self.com, sugar hangovers can be just as bad as the alcohol type with very similar symptoms. Shaking, sweating, fuzzy headed. Oh great. And here’s me trying to be sensible by not downing the merlot too quickly!
Fortunately these parties don’t come around too often so the damage isn’t too bad. But for the next street party (or indeed the festa de rua), I might just stick to water.
I often wonder how I am able to live within the law and the norms of society and be able to be myself, to express myself and pursue what is valuable to me. The journey I am on is investigating this lifestyle which has led us to central Portugal.
Recently I watched a program on UK TV documenting the lives of a couple called Miriam and Peter who, in previous careers, were city workers. They had travelled the world and eventually settled in the remote mountains of Rhodope in Bulgaria where they lived off grid. They invited people to learn survival techniques with them which paid, but the majority of their time was spent hunting for their food and surviving the vast forests.
As much as I admire them, their nomadic lifestyle wouldn’t be right for me and my family. They didn’t have two children for a start and we still very much want us and them to be integrated into society and live in a community that lends itself to helping each other out and working together to provide a healthy, sustainable existence. So we haven’t just closed our eyes and put a pin in the map. Central Portugal was chosen very carefully.
However, getting away from the rat race, from the ‘big smoke’ and the stress that comes with it is appealing. I want a good life. According to planetofsuccess.com the meaning of The Good Life is “living a life that sets you free. A life that satisfies and fulfills you. That adds happiness, joy and a sense of purpose. But it also means to live a life that is worthwhile, that makes a contribution, instead of being solely self centered.”
In a nutshell, that is what I want. And I would urge everyone who wants their definition of The Good Life to go and grab it now. It won’t come easy. Nothing so powerful ever does, but you can make plans.
One reason why the majority of us never do try to find their own personal good life is down to living in fear. We are told to fear God, political regimes, pandemics and war. Sure, they might all exist (depending on your own personal beliefs), but it is drip fed to us daily from media outlets with their own agendas often led by political bias.
In the UK, we are also told to fear small dinghies with people with brown skin on them, Eastern Europeans, those who live in poverty, European laws and unions, green activists and Jeremy Corbyn. Anybody but those in charge of the country and our lives, it seems.
A man on a dinghy crossing the English channel will never impact my life the way the man standing outside 10 Downing Street will. And yet the media are outraged by this man on the dinghy. It injects fear into us. Is he a rapist? Will he go for my job? Will he live off of the state? Is he a terrorist?
The Italian diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli wrote,”Since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”
This might mean different things to the reader, but my interpretation of this is that the people need to be kept in line. Allow them to fear certain outcomes and allow them to be angry at each other. Whilst the people of the UK still argue the toss over Brexit, those in a position of power are making more profit than ever. And for those arguing the toss, energy bills get higher and grocery costs go through the roof faster than any other country within the European Union due to goods entering from the EU to the UK and the red tape involved. And leaving the Internal Energy Market has left uncertainty in the UK energy supply meaning rocketing prices.
And that leaves me in this position. Wondering where I can possibly live my life with my family with as much of this ‘good life’ as possible. It is no longer in the UK.
And I am no way blinkered to the trials and tribulations that await in the next part of my journey. There is no fantasy island. Perfection isn’t what I’m expecting.
Just as the shepherd protects his sheep, media outlets will claim that we are being protected from the external attacks and the internal disorder. And even if the grains of truth that are fed to us do protect its people, I’ll always remember that the Shepherd only protects his sheep for his own interests. And when the time comes he will sheer and slaughter them as his interests dictate.
Your boss, your political party leader or any other higher power won’t give you the good life.
YOU will.
YOU will give you and your family the good life. So start planning.
Never Give Up PT