Fear is a restrictive emotion. It can keep you safe yet it can hold you back from your goals. If you let fear lead your life you are certain to miss numerous opportunities.

Today, do something that scares you! Ask the girl in sales out for a coffee. Jump out of a plane (preferably with a parachute). Visit that martial art school you’ve been considering. Watch a romantic comedy (they sure scare the hell out of me).

Perhaps, you need a little more excitement in your life. Facing your fears will get your adrenaline flowing.

It’s quite possible that your trainer is an idiot if:

• you are told to not squat past a 90 degree knee angle
• you are watched on the treadmill/cross-trainer/recumbent bike for more than 3 minutes
• you are following a program that treats the human body as a bunch of separate parts not an integrated unit
• you never sweat during a training session
• your program look like it comes from a fitness magazine

It’s also quite possible that I am an idiot.

So, I’m doing a lot of research for my book about the three pillars of health and fitness – sleep (and rest), diet and exercise – and their connectedness and I come across the term Ultradian Rhythm. Now, I’ve heard all about Circadian Rhythm before but this term was new to me. Yet, it turns out I’ve known about the concept but not the terminology for quite some time. I think you might have inherently known about this too.

This description of ultradian rhythm sums it up pretty well: “Ultradian rhythms are biological rhythms with durations shorter than circadian rhythms (i.e., shorter than approximately 19 hours). They include cardiac, respiratory, neuroendocrine, gastrointestinal, tidal, and other rhythms.” (source)

No doubt most of you have probably experienced the frustration where your body tells you to go to bed but you decide that you’ll watch more TV and then when you retire to bed a bit later you can’t get to sleep for love nor money. Guess what? That’s an ultradian rhythm at work. Your body is cycling every 60-90 minutes and if you miss or ignore that “go to bed, fool” signal then you have to wait for the next one to come along.

The thing is that ultradian rhythms aren’t related only to sleep patterns but many other patterns that occur during the day too. I guess the description above indicates that, eh?

If you aren’t getting a regular break from work then this could be why you are burning out with excessive stress levels. Some research suggests that we need a break every 60-90 minutes our output becomes sub-par and our stress level rise. Not good for you or your boss.

So, what does this mean? Well, it could give you a damn simple way to relieve your stress levels, get a better night’s sleep, perform better at work and did I mention sex? Yeah that’s right if your understand these rhythms a little more you just might become a superstar in the sack too.

There are many blocks that pop up and prevent us from achieving what we once were so very keen to accomplish. If you think hard enough, no doubt you can think of 3-5 reasons why you didn’t get to the gym today or why you got take away last night instead of cooking a healthy meal.

These blocks – no matter how insignificant they seem at the time – can derail your best laid plans if you don’t pay attention to them and remedy them as a matter of some urgency.

What’s stopping you from reaching your goals?

Setting goals is the easy part; achieving them is much harder. We all live hectic lives these days and any number of events can divert us from our intended path. The important thing is to notice the distractions and not allow them to completely block the path that leads you to where you want to go.

Here are a bunch of lines that fitness trainers hear all the time regarding the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle outside training sessions:

“I’m too busy.”
“I didn’t have the time.”
“I was too tired after work.”
“I couldn’t be bothered.”
“It’s too hard.”
“I don’t normally do that but…”

Do any of these sound familiar?

Let’s for a moment assume that you have set yourself some goals relating to your health and fitness (you have haven’t you?). Whether you want to drop a dress size by January or stack on more muscle by Christmas, excuses like those listed above will stop you from getting there.

So, what can you do about it? Read more »

On Monday, July 9, 2007, Robert Lustig – Professor of Pediatric Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco – was featured on Norman Swan’s ABC Radio show. The topic of discussion was obesity and associated factors.

Prof. Lustig clearly identified a number of important areas when considering the prevalence and development of obesity in adults and children.

For many years I have been explaining the need for more exercise in the community and have discussed that exercise is not about burning calories. Here is what Prof. Lustig had to say on that front:

“The question is why does exercise work in obesity? Because it burns calories? That’s ridiculous. Twenty minutes of jogging is one chocolate chip cookie, I mean you can’t do it. One Big Mac requires three hours of vigorous exercise to work that off, that’s not the reason that exercise is important, exercise is important for three reasons exclusive of the fact that it burns calories. Read more »