A bit of a whirlwind day today. This morning, unexpectedly, we were told that we could have the keys to our new property in Portugal!
The deal is to be finalised by the end of January but the current owners have kindly allowed us to have the keys to be able to begin making it our own.
And there’s no doubt, this will be a long process. We’ve been there today and it’s been tiring, so I’m a bit too knackered now to describe the work we need to do on the property but I did take a few pictures so I can put some bullet points attached to let you get an idea of what will be our home and our new wellbeing centre at Pinheiros Tranquilos.
As you approach the property you are met by sprawling fields. This particular piece of land will be used by us, mainly for the boys to be able to play sports.A part of the property, beyond the field is forests of pine trees which will be ideal for several meditation sites and future glamping projects.Back towards the buildings there are two houses with habitation licences. This enables us to live in one, which is already habitable, and the smaller building which will need renovation to become a rental accommodation.The back of the rental accommodation shows some of the work needed to be carried out. The road nearby is very quiet and is mainly used by visitors to Trizio River beach and agricultural vehicles.The patio area and the largest outbuilding will become the massage treatment room and also there’s potential for a bar and shop as a future project. Seating will be provided and also group exercise sessions can be done from here.The smaller outbuilding is where my personal training equipment will be kept. It is possible to train inside as it will be equipped with weights, bench, pulleys and cables but I also imagine that much of the training will be done outdoors.There are many fruit trees on the property to be picked at your leisure.
We went at around 6pm and it is late December so it doesn’t look as bright and sunny as we have seen it previously! Plus it’s all a bit untidy and overgrown after being left for a couple of months. But the hard work starts now regarding our new home and business. I’ll keep you updated on how we get on, plus our experiences on filming A New Life In The Sun!
Since Jonas was five he has played football for Scarborough Athletic. He was only able to train with the under 7’s team as he was too young, but once the new season started, he was able to play official matches.
Now ten, he has a new challenge coming up. Soon he will begin training with his new team, Sertanense, a club based in Sertá, central Portugal, ready for the new season in September.
Both Jonas and his younger brother Finlay will be starting a new school in Portugal in the new year and this is the biggest challenge of all seeing as it will include learning a new language (it is a local school and not an international school). It also means that they’ll not be with us every hour of every day which has been the case for the past few months as we made the permanent move.
Things are happening quickly for them. Lou and I don’t know how they will react on the morning of the 3rd of January when we take them to their new school. So far, when we talk about it, the signs are good. But to them it’s still Christmas. January might seem a distance yet. In reality it is a week today as I write this.
Finlay seems to want to take up a martial art as his extra curricular activity. He plays football, but it seems a bit more forced because he just joins in what Jonas is doing. But he doesn’t seem to have that passion for it. He doesn’t like watching it, whereas Jonas will analyse a period of play and talk about positioning during a game on TV. I’ve had play fights with Finlay. I think Karate or Judo will be a good choice for him. He’ll be a black belt in no time.
I’m trying not to transfer my fears onto the boys. What I mean by that is maybe I’m more scared than they are. They might just walk into school without any issues. Jonas might run onto the training pitch with 20 other kids with no problems. Maybe it’s me who has the nerves.
I hated new beginnings. The start of a new school term and definitely a new school still makes me shudder. And I never really pursued any extra curricular stuff as a kid because it meant meeting new people. I just stayed in the safe zone as much as possible.
But there’s a little bit of our move which is exactly for this purpose. We wanted to take ourselves and our kids out of the safe zone. A couple of years ago I never expected to be speaking Portuguese to a postal worker in a sorting office with no knowledge of English about my missing post. But I did that today. It’s a little achievement, but a massive confidence boost that he actually understood me.
I’ve been driving along cliff edges on an unfamiliar side of the road in rural Portugal. We bought an old farm house that we intend to make into a well being centre and guest house. Individually, each one of us has a zone which becomes out of their comfort. Mine might not seem like much to some people, but I’m enjoying finding my zone and continuing to challenge it.
And that’s the ultimate goal for my kids. That they can feel the discomfort in walking into a new class room, karate group or football pitch, thrive and grow from it and enjoy their achievements. Overcoming new and different experiences can make us more rounded, happier people.
I always told my new clients this whenever they felt like entering the gym became too much for them. Gyms can be an intimidating place. That’s why just stepping into the gym as a new member is the first goal. Not a deadlift or 20 minute treadmill run, but just entering the gym. From then on, with consistency, each visit gets easier to do.
Perhaps you have a new challenge that you want to focus on in the new year? My advice is to take that first step. It might mean leaving your comfort zone, but it’ll feel all the more sweeter when you overcome it.
I’ll keep you informed on mine and my family’s achievements in the coming weeks. Be sure to tell me yours.
As a child I would watch my sporting heroes who would inspire me and enable me to dream of one day following them in their achievements.
Just to name a few, sportspeople like Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne, Jimmy ‘The Whirlwind’ White and Andre Agassi excited me as they performed in their professional sport. They excited me because, although they were never considered the very best, they had an abundance of character to compete with those who were. A part of their edge is perhaps also down to the fact that they have each had their own mental health struggles.
Gazza
And it appeared to me as I watched a recent Netflix documentary about Robbie Williams that most of the ‘famous’ people that I like or admire have mental health problems.
For some reason I’ve always followed William’s career. I don’t even like his type of music. But I could see, from afar, that he was desperately unhappy. The cheeky chappy who always wanted to play the clown and say something controversial, act differently and seem to go out of his way to be disliked. That was me as a teenager and young man. And seeing as we’re of similar age, he connected with me.
Similarly with Gazza. As a young footballer I wanted to be him. I watched World Cup Italia ’90 as a 12 year old in absolute awe of what Gazza could do with a football. I’m sure many kids did. He played for Spurs, I supported Liverpool and my mates supported Manchester United or Leeds. But it didn’t matter. That summer, we all had Gazza T-shirts on under our England shell suits.
None of my idols admitted to any sort of mental health issues, though. Yes, there had been drugs and alcohol issues, getting into trouble with the law and well documented domestic issues, but they never actually came out and said ‘I am depressed’ or ‘I need help’. Certainly not publicly.
This week, England and Saracens rugby captain Owen Farrell has made a statement saying that ‘in order to prioritise his and his family’s wellbeing’, he will be taking a break from International duties. This coming from a man who has lived and breathed the sport in an extremely masculine environment is highly commendable. Yes, winning World Cups and Six Nations trophies are important. They train incredibly hard for that moment. But it is not as important as an individual or their family’s mental health. Being an elite athlete is about recognising that. He did and he has acted on it.
Owen Farrell
Another of my idols, albeit a bit before my time, is Bill Shankly. He once said, “Some people believe that football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that. I can assure you it is much more important than that.”
With the world that we live in I am sure many people will qualify in justifiably being able to disagree with him. Sport is sport. Life is life. However, as a coach myself I can understand exactly what he means. During a training session of mine or a client’s, I expect that to be the only thing that matters in that moment. Whatever is going on outside of the gym must be parked there. That is how we achieve fitness results and how elite sportspeople achieve medals and trophies. But inevitably we have a life away from that, even the professionals who are making a living from their sport. They have families. They have feelings. They are fallible. No matter what their earnings are, where they live or what car they drive, mental health does not care. It can take a hold of anybody.
Perhaps mental health is, at last, being talked about much more openly than it used to be. I knew, even as a kid, that these sportspeople that I idolised were different from their counterparts. Their behaviours didn’t always fit the acceptable requirements of their team, professional body that they represented or the media. But did they even know that they had mental health concerns? Even if they did, what options did they have?
The UK in the 80’s and 90’s was a very different place to be an upcoming sports superstar to what it is now. For the likes of Gazza, he had to perform in front of terraces known for chanting fans abusing the footballers for anything they could. Any sort of ‘weakness’ or admittance to needing help would have been disastrous for him and his career. And this baying mob mentality was led by the written press at the time. They loved his antics, but I often wondered if they were laughing with him or at him.
In my opinion, social media has nothing on the British tabloids of the 90’s. Social media has, for every bad, a cause for good too. The tabloids, however, could ruin you in an instant if you didn’t stick to its narrative. It’s hard to imagine a rugby player talking about mental health back then. So, though saddening to hear that Owen Farrell feels that he needs to step down from his England duties, it is encouraging to know that he can without being abused for it. At least from the majority of us decent folk.
Heroes aren’t just the ones who lift the trophy at the end of a game.
For those of you who read my blogs from afar you might not see my family’s move to Portugal as anything too big. But for those who have followed my journey and who know me personally will know that it is absolutely massive.
The fact is that my decision to move from the UK to Portugal came from me (or my wife and I) hitting a brick wall.
This brick wall was making us unhappy. We felt that, month upon month, we could not pay mortgage bills, rent bills on our businesses, council tax and food and energy bills. There was no way of planning a holiday for the kids. Our savings since COVID was depleted. Our brick wall was getting thicker and higher.
You too might feel that you have a brick wall. Let me tell you now that you can climb it, dig under it, hell you can kick your way through it, but never let a brick wall break you. You can come through the other side.
Your brick wall might be totally different to mine, but if it is making you unhappy and restricting your happiness then it is there.
I always had a need to travel, yet career moves and kids meant that I had to stabilise my life at that time. It was only in 2016, after the referendum for the UK to leave the EU did I know that I would leave my home. But at the time my career was just taking off as a Personal Trainer and my kids were babies. It was, we felt, not the right time.
And as much as I always threatened to leave the UK it only became a reality when I felt that I could no longer afford to live there. I hit the brick wall. And to put that into perspective, my mortgage had doubled in the UK from October and council tax was almost £300 a year. In Portugal, we are mortgage free and council tax is 20€ a year. A 5 litre box of quaffable wine is under 5€ too. Bonus.
I’m not here saying, hey, look at me! Look at how well we’re doing! Blimey. There’s a long way to go for us yet. We’re still renting from one place to the next until our house purchase goes through. We’ve been living like this since September and expect to be until late January as we still await a reply from a school for our kids.
Also, there is a whole lot of work to do on the property that we have bought to become liveable and profitable for our business. Something that you will be able to see on our Road To Tranquility Facebook and YouTube pages plus Channel 4’s A New Life In The Sun in series 10.
The Brick wall is still palpable. But we still keep climbing, digging, bulldozing and beating down this bloody wall. It won’t get in our way.
Never let a brick wall get in your way. Whatever you want, overcome it and reach the other side. Don’t let it beat you.
Eating the frog first is a phrase I heard some years ago to describe how training, doing an exercise class or a long walk/jog first thing in the morning can enable you to develop a healthy daily routine.
This saying, I believe, was made by Mark Twain to prioritize difficult tasks. He went on to say that if there are two frogs, eat the biggest one first.
It certainly helped me. I preferred a morning workout. It helped me complete other daily tasks throughout the day as I felt more motivated, more confident in my skin and it made me make better meal choices for that day.
And I am finding that this rule can assist in creating a productive routine for my kids at the moment. As those familiar with my blogs will know, my wife and I are currently buying a home in Portugal. Our boys haven’t yet got a school so we are homeschooling them. As each minute of the day passes we find that we are losing their interest to open up a text book as the lure of the pool, football in the garden and iPads take over.
And they are important too, of course, but as parents it is also our duty to keep up with their learning, especially as learning Portuguese is at the core of it.
But it isn’t just them who lets the day slip away without any schooling. If my wife and I don’t hit the ground running in the morning it is very easy to fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to consider this moment to be a vacation. There are many things that keep reminding us that it is not, however, such as ongoing contract negotiations between us and the house vendors and the unfinished business we are tying up in the UK. But these are yet more reasons to postpone the schoolwork.
Simply put, if we are to proceed with a healthy, stress free day we need to get all of the crappy stuff done early. We need to eat the frog first so that we can enjoy the yummy tasty things on the plate without worry.
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?
Since arriving in Portugal I’ve ticked off a few necessary jobs that had to be done. Driving my (potentially) new car yesterday was a nerve-wracking task that I had to get over as I had never driven outside of the UK before. Another ‘biggie’ today will be to view a house that we are looking to buy.
But before that, another essential task will be to begin a fitness routine. Regular readers of my blog will recall me saying that I was prepared to put any regular training regime on hold while I focused fully on moving my family out of the UK.
I had left the gym that I worked and trained from in the summer and my own bits of gym equipment had been gradually palletised over the past few months so access to heavy resistance was difficult. Time was also an issue as I have been putting every ounce of energy into the move every second of each day.
Stopping a daily training program can be dangerous. Excuses can always be found and, whether they may be good enough reasons or not, a plan to begin a training program in the near future must be a priority if we are serious about our fitness goals. My passion for mental and physical health (and aesthetics) has never waned. I’ve kept my calories in check throughout so that I haven’t spiralled too much. I’ve been desperate to begin training again. But other than a calisthenics routine, I have felt restricted.
Now, just to be clear. Calisthenics is a great way to train. This is by exercising using bodyweight only. So push ups, press ups, squats, Burpees etc are good examples. But it has never excited me in the same way as resistance training. And I like to feel excited by a new challenge such as a different weight or a new piece of gym kit.
Oh, and talking of new bits of gym kit, I decided to start my daily routine again by lifting breeze blocks and bottles filled with sand!
I do appreciate an unconventional method. I sometimes feel that the polished arrangement of a commercial gym can be off putting. Lifting heavy stuff in a Portuguese field with the view of the mountains, however, is something that can’t be bought with a gym membership. I just had to take advantage. Today was a day to start a new routine.
And I have little excuse not to. For a short time now this land and its gym is what I call home. Until we can find our new permanent home and create our new business, this is my life. I have energy and lots of thinking and meditating time in abundance. Sure the kids will keep me busy, and home schooling will be important to us until we find a permanent school. But that’s all part of finding this new routine.
I just know that my workouts will become an important part of it.
In a small bistro in the centre of Darlington, big ideas were being refined by its two managers.
Louise and I were to open this new dining establishment back in 2008. I know the date well. As we opened the doors, the news came out that a worldwide economic crash had begun.
It seemed like we were going to be up against it straight away!
It is true that we had no experience in managing such a big project within this industry. And we certainly had no experience of the massive impact the economic crash would have on an industry such as a restaurant. But we created something special for our loyal customers.
Lou would create the menu and design the serving styles of each dish whilst managing the kitchen. I became the wine and coffee ‘specialist’ while managing front of house.
Saturdays were especially busy and people would often be queuing out of the door to get a seat where, regrettably, once I had to turn down ex England manager Steve McClaren and his family as the waiting time for a table went well into extra time.
But in those down times, where people would call in for a cuppa, we made sure that we had time for a chat.
I love cafe culture. Some of my most memorable moments on my travels were just sitting outside the cafe at places like Piazza Della Signora in Florence and the quaint cimbalimo in Tomar drinking an americano.
Somehow, it allows the world to stand still for a moment. Sure, I see the people mulling about and going about their business, but it all seems calm. Peaceful.
So that’s what I wanted to create a little bit of for the customers of Houndgate Cafe.
Fast forward fifteen years and it is still what I want to create for my customers. And since Houndgate I’ve added to my people skills with working in the fitness industry.
Roll my experience up into a ball and you kind of get what we will create in Portugal. A wellbeing centre and glamping site. Or Centro de bem estar é glamping, as it will be known.
For the past twelve months I’ve been dreaming of seeing our visitors sitting outside their accommodation, cooking BBQ food and enjoying the Portuguese summer evenings. Well, that and dreaming of Liverpool winning the Premier League, but you get what I mean.
I can only create what I know that I would want in a service. That’s what I’ve always done. As a support worker, I wanted to treat people like I would want to be supported. At Houndgate, I wanted to give the customer the experience that I look for in a bistro. And as a personal trainer, I wanted to make the client feel positive about themselves both mentally and physically.
Our youthful optimism from when we began our journey at Houndgate has since taken some beatings. After all, we need to experience the lows for us to know where to improve and embrace the highs! It’s just a part of the process.
But our ideas are now ready to be rolled out onto new beginnings. We’re ready to create something new again.
In light of the UK government’s recent announcement that they want to phase out the selling of cigarettes I thought that it would be remiss of me, as a fitness and wellbeing coach, to avoid the subject.
The problem is that when I proceed in talking about the UK’s current government on various platforms I can sense the ‘ban button’ being pressed.
However, I’m a fitness coach about to talk about smoking. I’m going to wholeheartedly agree with the government, right?
Well, no. In fact I find it a blatant attempt to gain votes in the next general election. The conservative government heavily relies on the older generation’s votes. And seeing as the over 65’s only make up around 8% of the smoking population it is bound to be a credible announcement to many of its potential voters. Especially when we are given the statistics on health related issues due to cigarette smoking and the burden this has on the National Health Service.
But hang on. Where do we draw the line here? According to NHS England the cost of smoking related costs to the NHS is £2.5 billion a year. Yet alcohol related illness costs £3.5 billion a year. And according to gov.uk, obesity costs the NHS a whopping £6.5 billion a year.
I think that we would all agree, these are serious issues in most western countries. Smoking, heavy drinking and obesity can contribute to ill health and therefore become a burden on the NHS in the UK.
As a fitness coach and as a father to two young boys, I would very much like smoking to be banned.
But as a realist I am going to aim for something different. I realise that there is a chance that my kids will try a ciggie with their mates and they probably drink alcohol before legal age. I don’t want them to, but if I manage the probabilities and potential outcomes then I think that I can navigate their moments of being pressured by their peers into exactly that, a kid trying to ‘fit in’ with their mates.
And when I consider all of the other stuff that kids can do to show off then trying a cigarette is the least of my concerns. Sex, class A drugs, bullying, dares along a rail track.
Blimey. If they just manage to throw a whity after trying a B&H then I’ll relieved!
I stopped smoking when I found out that Lou was pregnant with Jonas, so ten years ago. I regret smoking now and often think of the damage that I might have caused and how much money it will have cost. But I also remember sharing a cig with a friend who had just lost their dad. I remember the Cuban cigar on honeymoon as Lou and I lay on the Carribbean sand together. I remember making a few rollies for my bricky mates as we shared a banter over a lunch break. And I remember talking to total strangers in the rain outside a nightclub as we huddled together to try to stay dry before going back inside.
Now, I’m not condoning smoking, but I’m not going to condemn it either.
I grew up at a time when smoking was not just legal, but very much widely accepted. The adverts on TV, the daily newspapers and the magazines were ones which told us that smoking would give us a better social standing, greater health and a better life.
Although we now know this to be untrue, for those who have smoked cigarettes in the past we can perhaps see the benefits at the time. Whether to calm our nerves, to enjoy a moment with a cig and a cuppa, or as a social norm.
And if the media and the companies with their billions of pounds advertising campaigns are telling us that it is something that we should be doing, then it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that the pleasures of smoking cigarettes has been worming into our behaviour for centuries.
Indeed, the first cigarette ad campaign was in 1789 in America. How, then, are we supposed to just ban something that is so ingrained into our western society?
During PT consultations, clients would sometimes sheepishly tell me that they smoked. People seem to see me as a preacher for all things healthy. I’m really not. Like I say, I’m a realist. Rather than vilify them and tell them that they should quit, I ask them what steps THEY want to make to feel fitter, happier, healthier. Pizzas aren’t banned, wine isn’t banned, smoking isn’t banned. Not on my shift. My clients will make their own judgements on what they need to do in their own time.
If I were to start banning things from their life, they would do what many of us would do. Rebel. Us humans hate to be told what to do. We like to realise it for ourselves.
The bottom line is this…
I don’t think that banning cigarettes will make us or our children happier or healthier. I agree that certain products that we can legally buy should come with advisories, but allow us to make our own choices free of manipulating ad campaigns and I am confident that we can make good choices.
And if the parties that we vote for can be honest, then perhaps we can make better choices on voting day.
Early on in my Personal Training career I decided to stop certain weight loss claims to grab a potential client’s attention.
Things like ‘lose a guaranteed 5 pounds a week on my new weight loss plan!’ seemed tacky and tabloid. It’s also misleading.
I also felt that the magic pills and fad diet ads that cluttered my social media feed were damaging to our health and fitness goals. But if they make money from you, they will sell it. They will claim any benefit they can in order for you to buy that product. The regulations on such claims are virtually none existent.
Social media allows us as individuals and the companies that are selling a service, to say whatever we like. Ok. We might be fact checked or receive a three day ban for going against certain guidelines, but how many people are we able to reach before it is flagged as inappropriate or false information?
And giving out falsehoods can be profitable if your face fits. A TOWIE turned influencer can successfully promote the latest diet fad. An extra from Home Alone can encourage an attack on the US Capitol. Heck! Even Katie Hopkins and Billie Piper’s ex can get the British voting public to leave the EU and destroy the economy. All by using buzzwords, soundbites and propaganda.
It has happened long before social media of course. The written press has lied to not only sell questionable products, but fund German fascist regimes ( 1933,The Mail, Lord Rothermere) and criminalise the victims of a football stadium disaster (1988, Rupert Murdoch, The Sun).
And here’s a story that proves the lack of investigative journalism in the UK for the sake of a headline. A story was put out about an England football fan who was so worried about the risk of England failing in the 2006 World Cup that he had paid £100 to insure himself against emotional trauma. The story continued that, if he could provide medical evidence that he had suffered trauma, he would receive a payout of £1 million by a particular online insurance company.
UK tabloids ran with this story, of course, but it didn’t stop there. The Guardian newspaper and the Telegraph too! It even made TV and radio news from no other than ITV, Sky and the BBC. Yes! The BBC! So it must be true, right.
No.
With a quick Google check it was discovered that this guy had been involved in insurance stories before using the same company. One involving insurance on his mortgage and, remarkably, he was the same England football fan who had insured his mental well-being at the previous World Cup in Japan in 2002.
As it turned out, this guy was a marketing director who specialised in promoting web based companies. He had successfully promoted the online insurance company whilst proving that the media, including the UK’s national broadcaster, were lazy in their attempts to bring us factual news.
The health and fitness industry relies heavily on the media running these kinds of remarkable stories in order to get the word out that their product really works!
‘Gemma lost 6 stone by drinking apple cider vinegar!’
‘Bryan gained a six pack by eating fish and chips every day!’
‘Gaynor looks drop dead gorgeous in figure hugging dress after this six week nutrition plan!’
And even I’m a part of that. I appreciate you reading my articles, I really do, but don’t just take my word for it! If there’s something that resonates with you in a health and fitness blog then do a bit of research and find out if it is right for you. Are there any other experts out there that are backing up what I’m saying?
The bottom line is that you have to do your own research when it comes to stuff that you read and hear. You’ll get to know credible sources. You’ll be more confident getting your information from certain people or publications. Ask people that you trust in your own life. Once you have gathered the evidence then you can make more informed choices. And if it is anything to do with your health and wellbeing, then being armed with informed choices is super important to you.
Never Give Up PT 