Online BootCamp Hub Jonathan Roche

Online BootCamp Hub

I share  an email address with my wife and she subscribed to Jonathan Roche and I saw this email this morning "6/11 Fit Mission How to spend your retirement". It had a  link to the Online Boot Camp Hub and from there there was a YouTube video about the Online BootCamp Hub. It says to be careful about sharing this, but for now I cannot see why this would be a problem. I am not an affiliate or associate of Jonathan Roche but am curious to find out more, from his emails, as his health and fitness content looks good!



I believe also, exercising and eating healthily should be easy and fun and so I support this message and idea!

On another topic, it has been a great summer of sport so far, even if the weather hasn't been great. Djokovic vs Murray at the French Open tennis with Djokovic winning after losing the first set. The Euro 2016 football competition started in France also and England drew their first game: England 1 Russia 1. The England Rugby Union side won the First test against the Aussies in Australia! England won the cricket against Sri Lanka (despite the rain!) and Lewis Hamilton won the Canadian Grand Prix F1 in somewhat damp overcast conditions!

Well done to all who are competing, both the hero's and the zeroes! Sport is a great way to keep fit and eat healthily. There is lots more to mention especially the prospect of the coming Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil (starts next month I think!).

So this is just a brief post to say I am still alive and kicking! I am still doing my daily exercises (physical and mental with my chess game play) and so far this summer I feel quite good! So I hope you are keeping well and healthy and if the sun ever comes out here in the East of England I look forward to plenty of ice cold refreshing water to drink! I can but but dream of the sun...if you see it, please send it to East Anglia UK! BFN :-)

Sitting comfortably?

Comfort and discomfort

I've just done my morning exercise (late as it is now midday!). I also missed out my skips!
I am wondering, as usual, between the dislike of doing my exercises and the benefit of doing the exercises. If I really don't feel like exercising, I have to push myself to do some exercising and to make sure I do enough, as I take the view that doing something is better than nothing!  However even when I do a reduced exercise load it still should give me some discomfort to be of value.

Well, last night I watched a TV program about an overweight couple, trying to reduce their weight with expert help from dietiticians and behavioural and fitness experts. They had to be seperated as together, they were just too comfortable. She weighed 21 stones and he was over 15 stones and both were classified obese. They had obvious diet and fitness issues and set about changing their habits to lose weight. The program was very interesting, and I need to research it some more ( I do not know it's title or if it is a series and what the outcome might be). Overall, the wife was sticking to the plan better than the husband (he had a night out with 10-15 pints and a curry!). If I find follow up details I will post about them here.

I was interested to see that there were similar issues to myself, in that they both liked food high in carbohydrates. I need to stop having the extra cheese sandwiches and eat fruit and vegetables instead!
Still I enjoyed my jog this morning and while the temperature for late May is quite cool, there is plenty of blossom around and flowers, trees and plants in general are blooming and putting on a good show!

My running route 26/05/16

Finally, on comfort and discomfort, I briefly mention that 2 nights ago I could not sleep due to headache and toothache! I will need to drink more water and less tea and coffeee to reduce my headaches and try to get good dental treatment and look after my mouth and teeth better! I should also train myself to eat more fruit and vegetables instead of cheese sandwiches. A bit of a challenge!
Bring it on!

So if you are sitting comfortably, don't stay there too long but get up and get exercising! :-)

The merry month of May!

May 2016

May is here! Today the weather is improving at home and many trees have leaves back now and many have blossom. The sun has also made a welcome appearance!

Here are my exercise stats today:
Press ups:60 Sit ups:41 Skips 70 approx Run 6 minute

Here is a picture of my local path run (steps & time recorded by my Fitbit with iphone app):

There is nothing extraordinary to blog about today, just a few random thoughts. Firstly I am trying to increase the reps of my daily warm up exercising. Secondly, I still am tending to eat too much! I need more inspiration and motivation to lose weight! Last week, I wrote a small eBook titled "Project Finish" and this I hope to release as a Kindle book with Amazon, soon. It briefly gave me some inspiration and motivation, as I find finishing projects hard and the eBook gives help on making it easier! I think I could easily adapt it to be an eBook to provide inspiration and motivation to lead a healthy and fit life.

Last week, I saw boxer Tyson Fury, proclaiming how fat he was and showing his fat belly to the world! He is an odd character! A world champion boxer, who is not in great shape and he has Vladimir Klitchko, as the deposed champion, desperate to beat him in their rematch. Tyson has admitted he is not a great role model of a world champion boxer, which is a bit of a shame, but I suppose he is trying to be true to his character!

Next, Suffolk have a new website to help lead a healthier life. A recent report recorded Suffolk as having the most obese people attending hospital!
Here is the link to the Suffolk "Healthy You" page with advice: Suffolk Healthy You
I haven't checked out the website fully yet but intend to take a closer look soon!

Finally, a reminder to say I keep my mind active with chess play and computer programming and general digital computer work.  I played my last over the board chess game badly and lost, because I did not spend enough time checking my position and made a wrong move that blundered the exchange. Never mind, I need to learn from it and play better next time! Even the great chess player Garry Kasparov has bad days! See this Video:


That is all for my post today! Goodluck with your exercising, physically and mentally and remember to eat healthily and get enough good rest! :-)

London Marathon

London Marathon

Today is the London Marathon. It was started by Tim Peake from the ISS (International Space Station). I watched some of the BBC coverage with Gabby Logan and Dennis Lewis and Colin Jackson presenting the show.

There were many amazing marathon stories, with many of the public runners, running to raise money for charity.
Ben Smith was there, doing 401 consecutive marathons!
Kelly Holmes finished the race in a great time too!

I just want to say well done to everyone running or taking part or just being there. For anyone to run a marathon takes heart and courage. In the East of England, we had the youngest runner, a runner from Manningtree, Essex and the oldest runner an 85 year old (both women!).
There were just so many inspiring stories and mad people running in mad costumes.
You must be mad to run 26 miles dressed as dinosaurs, Bears, Paddington Bear and in canoes etc etc!

 I salute you all! :-)

Cakes are like London buses!

Cakes are like London buses!

How so? Well, you may not get a glimpse of a cake for ages and then suddenly, several appear at once (just like the buses)!

My last blog post mentioned cake and cake eating and when I returned home after work, I found my daughter had made a cake. I had to have a small piece and it was great!

No, I did not have a large piece! I showed great restraint and had a small piece, but it is amazing how cake can disappear as if by magic!

Now on to an x rated selfie! Yesterday as I went to have my shower, I caught a glimpse of myself and stomach in the bathroom mirror and it was an x rated sight! I took a selfie of my fat stomach and post it here, as a spur to me to fix this and get back to my normal non overweight non fat stomach! Look away if you are sensitive...

Shocking isn't it! What is worse, is I know I am fat and overweight but I have become comfortable being this way! I will have to change. It has taken me some guts to post this my fat stomach selfie...LOL! :-)

I remember well nearly 30 years ago my father and mother visited my wife and I in Cyprus, where we were working and we both noticed that my 60 year old father had become fat! Apparently, he had taken to drinking more wine at weekends and that was contributing greatly to his paunch. For those days, it was only a few glasses over the weekend but it had an effect. He recognised it and decided to reduce his alcohol content and the next time we saw him around a year later, he was back to his trim normal weight and had lost his excess fat! Now as I start to near 60 years old myself (in a few years), I feel I need to apply some discipline myself to lose my fat stomach and as soon as possible!

I wonder how long it will take for me to lose the paunch and slim back down? I have done my daily exercise today and my fat stomach did 35 situps. I need to work at this daily!

I only did 60 skips though (I usually aim to do 100) so I will try and add some more later today.
I enjoyed my 10 minute run though. It was a nice spring morning.

 When I briefly paused to take this photo, it seemed to upset my iphone fitbit app as it didn't record the usual route properly, but it did count my steps!

OK...now back to work and I'm looking forward to lunch time..LOL! Have a great day all :-)

Challenges that can make or break (the cake!)

Just doing my daily exercise is a challenge for me at the moment! I used to be a good amateur athlete in my younger days and would play squash up to 6 days a week. Now, I really was never the fittest or quickest athlete around, but I used to do training sprints and squash court exercises to improve my endurance.

That was many years ago now, and after squash, I took up moderately competitive club tennis, but didn't really train for it. However since finishing my competitive squash days, I have tried to maintain a daily fitness routine, but I have not been strict about it at all. Now though, in a strange way, I am enjoying the challenge of trying to restart a daily basic fitness program for myself. While it does seem hard for me at the moment, I am feeling better and stronger, physically and mentally!

So, I feel it worthwhile to stick with trying to do my daily fitness plan and to try to eat and drink as healthily as possible. I do like cake though! However I do not eat much cake at the moment (the last cake was my wife's birthday cake). I have done this image "Make or Break (cake)" to highlight how challenges can test a person physically and mentally.

There are many ways to deal with challenges and I believe any life challenge should be tackled positively. There are various phrases which spring to my mind on this topic (eg "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!" and "Never give up!" and even "Have your cake and eat it!").

However, my final thought on this post is to:

RISE TO THE CHALLENGE

So my final word is goodluck with your daily exercise healthy living plan and try your best to meet your fitness and health challenge goals, in a way that they make you better and stronger and healthier and do not break you!

Also, if you have risen to the challenge, why not treat youreslf with a small piece of cake ;-)

Motiivation and progress

Motivation and progress

Today's post is a very short post, but on a very important topic, motivation.

What is your motivation to change any bad habits and replace them with better habits that lead to better health and fitness?

For me, I am overweight and not as fit as I should be. I know that losing some weight and getting physically and mentally fitter will make me feel better and allow me to work and play better. In general, I know this will give me more energy to improve my life in many aspects! That is quite a big motivational what and why for me!

My motivational what and why need to be big though. Today I did my morning exercises (push ups, sit ups, skips and 10 minute jog) and this felt hard! Some days exercising feels harder than others and I need motivation to push on through. The temptation was to do fewer exercises as it was feeling tough, but I resisted and did one or two more instead! This takes a bit of will power and I know it won't always be possible, but training myself to at least try my best is good!

So now, as a reward for digging in when the exercise felt tough, I can award myself a pat on the back!

Self belief is a very good thing. Whatever stage of life you are at, love yourself and believe in yourself. Remember we are all special!

So, I must keep pushing on with good exercise (physical & mental and by the way, I won a chess game for the chess club last night!), good diet and good rest.

How is your health and fitness progressing? If you have been trying to improve your fitness and health, then give yourself your own pat on the back award. Well done!

Onwards :-)

Cool blue skipping jump rope visits Champneys

Cool blue skipping jump rope at Champneys

I have just had a brief weekend away break at Champneys health resort, Harlow. It was a birthday present to my wife from our children. I took my cool blue skipping jump rope!

We arrived for 2pm and settled in to our room, and took our welcome drink..a shot of some healthy vegetable concoction!

We then had a guided tour of the place and we decided to do a walk of the grounds before our first treatment,which was a massage called "Head in the clouds". The walk was very pleasant and called the snowdrop walk. Of course most of the snowdrops had gone over, but there were plenty of daffodils and primroses.

On our return, we got ready for our treatment and robed up and put on our flip flops! I felt a little out of place, because the treatment area was very busy and 90% of the guests were women! Still, both Hilary & I had our massage and it was great!

Amazingly then, it was time to get changed for dinner. Hilary dressed very casually and I put a tie on.
I think some guests still had their robes on, but I might be wrong? We had a good 3 course meal, with water to drink! We were being healthy drinking water and no alcohol! Amazingly, dessert was sticky toffee pudding. That was very nice and very unexpected in this health conscious place!

Then we retired to our room and studied the timetable for tomorrow! There was no skipping class! LOL! There were plenty of other activities to choose from though, including Hula hooping and Pilates and much more.
Unfortunately, we were so tired, we watched a fascinating TV program about crocodiles in Indonesia and went to bed!

About 7am we were woken by the hotel fire alarm! It only went on for 1-2 minutes and stopped and we both decided it was a false alarm, as there were no sign or sounds of guests evacuating!

We booked breakfast for 0815hrs. Our army marches on it's stomach and my stomach is unfortunately too fat! I had a very healthy breakfast of cereal and fruit and Hilary had toast too.
Hilary booked an "Aqua Mit" session but I wasn't keen on that.

Then we went on to the gym introduction and were shown the proper use of the gym machines and Hilary went off to her aqua mit session and I decided to jog around the walk we had done yesterday. I really enjoyed that as there was noone else out walking and I took my cool blue skipping rope and skipped in a couple of places!

I returned to Champneys and went to the swimming changing rooms and changed into my trunks and met Hilary in the pool. She was tired from her pool "Aqua Mit" session, so I swam alone and did 5-10 lengths of the 25 metre pool. It was lovely! It is ages since I last swam! I got dressed back into my sportswear and went to the gym and did a good power session on the cycle machine! Hilary had just been relaxing at the pool and then changing and we then met up for lunch.

Lunch was really good! We had 3 courses with soup to start and a great selection for main course, and I had almost a little bit of everything (chicken, fish, and pasta!). A light fruit and almost joghurt pudding finished the meal. Hilary was booked for a Zumba class twenty five minutes later and we retired to the conservatory to read the paper meanwhile.

Hilary went to Zumba and I went back to the gym where I tried all the weights machines and the crossfit training and treadmill and rowing machine! I had a great time! I came back to see Hilary finish her Zumba class which she enjoyed, but she was bamboozled by many of the instructors moves as this was her first ever time with Zumba.

Our time was almost over! We had just another hour left, but decided to sign out at reception and drive home a little earlier. I found the drive home quite tiring and yet after a brief rest at home, I felt
good and my FitBit was over 14000! I can wholeheartedly recommend Champneys, but it was a lot sweeter knowing that we had the experience with a very affordable offer price that our children had paid! Thanks Chris & Lizzie.. :-)

Exercise, good diet and rest is a good combination for a healthy mind and body....

Fitbit

Fitbit

I recommend a Fitbit. There are several models to choose from and I have a Fb CHARGE.

This morning I recharged my Fitbit and then started my Fitbit iphone app to track my daily exercise.
I duly went for my ten minute jog and stopped the app. The app said "Are you testing me?". I looked at my wrist and there was no Fitbit! I had left it by the charger and forgotten to put it on when I went for my jog! Silly....

My minimum daily basic exercise is, press-ups, sit-ups and my ten minute jog. This takes me 15-20 minutes per day. Of course I often add more to it ie skipping and other walking.

When I do my exercises and jog, I also try and push myself, so I usually add at least one more situp and push-up and try to jog a bit quicker. I am currently on 35 pushups and 30 situps.

Fitbit is a great way to monitor my daily exercise (but I have to remember to wear it!). It is set to an arbitrary 10,000 step daily target which I reach some days but not others! Fitbit can also monitor weight and water intake and calories used.

This was just a brief introduction to Fitbit. There is more to come in later posts...

Mental fitness

Last night I played chess in a team chess club game. I won the game, which was good, and the basis of it, was that I had an overall plan, that by thinking ahead, I managed to follow through with and the plan was sound and it provided the platform for the win.

Unfortunately though, when I returned home late at night I was a little restless, as I mulled over my game play and the rest of the day. I sought some distraction by watching a little TV and succumbed to the worst outcome..I made myself 2 cheese sandwiches and ate them up!

Remember..whatever the problem:-
THE ANSWER DOES NOT RESIDE IN THE FRIDGE (OR BREAD BIN)!

I would have been better just drinking more water....After physical and mental exercise some relaxation is needed and not comfort eating or drinking. I must do better to break my bad habits!

Happy exercising (both physically and mentally) :-)

New brand:- j&jFIT

New brand launch: j&jFIT

Well, over the last few weeks I bought a new skipping rope from a Chinese manufacturer and was so impressed with it I have imported a significant quantity to sell. This has led me to start a new health and fitness brand:

jogandjumpFIT (j&jFIT)

 

I am literally about to send off my first batch of my cool blue skipping jump ropes to Amazon FBA:

Skipping is an excellent way to keep fit and healthy and this skipping rope is great to use. It is so light and easy to skip with, yet it has aluminium (very lightweight) handles and a tough nylon enclosed steel cable that is adjustable. I love exercising and skipping with it!
The only thing to note is that the length adjustable fixings should be checked for tightness before every use. When I first started using it I didn't check this and after about 10 days, a fixing came off while I was skipping. It was easy to find the fixing and add it back and tighten the 2 fixings but it was a surprise when it happened. Now I always check the fixings are tight before I skip with it. No problem! :-)

I want this skipping jump rope to be very affordable and I am just finalising my price and hoping it can work out around £9-99 which is great value for such a functional and durable product. With care it should last a long time and the cool blue metallic colour finish gives it a great look! Fit and fashion!

I hope this will be available on Amazon.co.uk soon (10 days or so, as it takes a while after Amazon receive it until it appears as a list item ready for sale). I am using Amazon FBA selling service which means Amazon will deal with orders and delivery for me. That is a good thing too, and I will be posting advice on how you can use Amazon FBA to list and sell your products. Of course, I will post an updated link here as soon as this is done and the cool blue j&jFit skipping jump rope is available on Amazon.

I now also need to promote this brand jogandjumpFIT and look for more great products that I can add to the brand and help with fitness and health.

Meanwhile if you want a great skipping rope at a great price, just hang on for about 10 days or so to take advantage of this great product and offer!

Goodluck jogging and jumping for fitness and health :-)

Health and Fitness and Time

Health and Fitness and Time

I find it hard to see that it is a week since the last blog post here!
Where has the time gone?!

Well it has disappeared and I just hope you have made good use of your time since the last post!

A point about this that springs to mind is that there are only 24 hours in every day and every moment of that is unique and special. Sometimes I do not appreciate that enough. Have you ever felt like I have at work, that I want to finish work and do something else? It is often just a small issue but if I did that often enough I would be in effect wishing my time away and so wishing my life away.

At times like that, it is better to think how you can reengage with your present work and try to do that and then before you realise it, time is over and you can go home and do whatever it was you wanted to do.

I hope anyway however, you have spent your time, that you have had as healthy and fit a week as possible. Personally I have managed to eat fairly healthily and exercise fairly regularly over this last week so I am content with that, while part of me says I can and must try to do better!

My next post (ie this post) was going to be on my daily health and fitness routine but I shall be doing that next post. For now, suffice to say I have been doing my daily exercises (including jogging and skipping and playing chess to extend my mind).

I also use a FitBit Charge (seen in the image above).

Unfortunately I have succumbed to a cold during the week, and I have tried to drink more water and orange juice and have taken Eccinachea tablets and some cold and flu medication. I have had the sore throat and runny nose and headaches with this, but I have tried to deal with it as described and keep going.
MAN FLU! I'll live :-)
Seriously I feel like I am getting better and I think the measures I have taken are helping me improve and get rid of this cold.

I am a firm believer that prevention is better than cure and it is definitely worthwhile to try to be fit and healthy in body and mind to prevent injury and illness.

So until next post, stay healthy and fit! :-)

The 4 pillars of fitness and health

There are 4 main pillars to fitness and health which are..Activity, Diet, Habits and Rest.
These are influenced by physical, mental and environmental issues.

 Key influences are a persons medical details including age, height and weight and also socioeconomic status and quality of lifestyle factors all affect fitness and health

These points will all be discussed in greater detail in my forthcoming posts. For now have a great day and stay or get fit and healthy! :-)

Digital danger to fitness and health..

I like my computer and I like to spend time using it to create digital product and content and to blog with and to take new courses to learn new things and also to keep in touch with friends and trying to check emails and make new virtual friends on and with social media. When I get time, I also play chess on the computer!

The trouble with this though, is that sitting for too long at the computer is bad for my physical health.
It can affect my eyes and my neck muscles get tired and all my muscles get little to no exercise.Often, my mind gets tired and I get slight headaches.

It is just too sedentary sitting for long periods working at a computer. I have to force myself to sit properly and not slouch and try to be productive and not be sidetracked (the internet is big, isn't it!).
I need to get up at regular intervals and do some stretches and walk a little way.

 

Often I stay up late at night at the computer and also drink too many cups of coffee, when I should drink water instead. Where does time go when I sit at the computer?

Well I need to figure out a way to work smarter at the computer. With that in mind, when the evenings get lighter and the weather better, I can do some gardening in the evenings and maybe go for a quick local walk with my wife and maybe even go out for a meal or to the cinema or theatre even! Anywhere a bit more active than spending hours at the computer!

I need to make sure the time I spend at the computer is balanced with active time, otherwise this gets unbalanced and that can lead to unfitness and ill health. I know prevention is better than cure, so I shall try and think what is a smarter way for me to  do my digital computing work that won't cause me to get unfit and unhealthy!

Is this an issue for you? How do you balance computer time and active time? Once I've recorded how long I spend at the computer on average per day I can start to decide ways to redress the balance back toward more activity. I will start by recording my daily active and inactive hours (that includes working on the computer).

Of course, rest is also important and it is a good idea not to work past midnight if possible!
As mentioned elsewhere, it is a good idea to go to bed earlier and to try getting up earlier and then doing some exercise before starting the working day.

Goodluck balancing your daily computer work and your daily exercise. Do let me know any special measures you take to ensure your digital work doesn't harm your fitness and health. I will post more on this after I have done more of my research :-)

Baseline measurements

Personal measurements

The basic measurements to start with are height and weight.
When you know your height and weight you can use them to calculate your Body Mass Index or BMI. The BMI will tell you if  you are the correct weight or over or under weight.

Get out a pen or paper or use your text editor (Notepad or Sublime or MS Word etc) and start your FITNESS and HEALTH LOG. Enter the date and your height and weight and calculate your BMI and write them down.


Here is a link to the NHS BMI calculator. Enter your details to calculate your BMI.

Once you have determined this for yourself you will know whether you need to change your weight (increase or decrease) to get to a normal and average BMI for your height and weight.

Now how are you doing with your exercising? Did you try the exercises from the first post? Write in your new FITNESS and HEALTH log what exercise you will do today.

The next issue to look at in the stages of getting our own better fitness and health will be considering what we eat and drink (our diet) and then consider our other habits (especially smoking and drinking alcohol).

If you get this result from the BMI calculator we can take steps to get our BMI back to normal healthy levels.

Being overweight is harmful to your health and the good news is, you can fix this easily and get back to good fitness and health levels, which will make your life MUCH BETTER! Keep following the regular blog posts here and sign up to the blog for regular blog posts for help and advise to become fitter and healthier.

My wife has been trying to lose weight over the last year and this morning she told me she was complimented yesterday by 2 people on how much weight she had lost!

Both of us will be following this blog's simple and effective long term plan to be fitter and healthier. So join me and my wife here. In your log write a brief note of what your fitness and health goals and let us know on Twitter and Facebook and I intend to make this journey with you as fun and as iinteractive as possible ...!
 :-)

Quick and easy workout challenge

Are you ready to take the exercise challenge?
Let's get fit and healthy by eating right, exercising right and sleeping right.

Watch the video below for a great speed exercise workout that you can do on your own or with a friend.

Remember to warmup before starting with stretches and jogging on the spot and  arm, trunk, leg and foot rotations and bends .Then do these exercises yourself on a regular daily basis and make this become a habit. Add a 5-10 minute jog afterwards and you have the perfect 20 minute exercise routine to get you in shape.

Take it easy to start with and then everyday push yourself a little more and you will soon feel the benefit of better movement, increased stamina and more vitality!

Go for it and goodluck!  :-)