Here are some of the educational, interesting and trivial things I've learnt this year.
1. Write shit down!!! Writing things down helps remove all the clutter from your head allowing you to focus and make sense of what’s important and to get stuck in with the tasks at hand. 2. Naps promote health and longevity, research has shown those who take a 30-minute siesta had 37% less chance of developing cardiovascular diseases. 3. Lack of sleep leads to dementia, muscle loss, and fat gain. Being awake places accuse stress on the brain which can lead to dementia. When you’re sleeping your body is repairing and building muscle, not getting enough causes you to lose muscle. A lack of sleep comes with a lack of energy and lowers your hormone responsible for feeling full (leptin), and increases your hunger hormone (ghrelin) causing you to seek food. 4. Avoiding foods you like lowers blood glucose (low blood glucose makes you hungry). 5. The biggest recorded salamander is from Japan and is over 5ft long (salamanders are typically the same size as a gecko). 6. Eating more carbs than your body can store causes insulin resistance. This then causes only some of the glycogen from carbs to be stored whilst the remainder floats around in the bloodstream causing higher levels of hunger. This leads to you always being hungry and causing you to overeat. 7. That a Starbucks hazelnut latte may rival Costas Carmel latte. I’ve always been loyal to costa and their caramel latte but a Starbucks hazelnut latte has caused me to occasionally have wandering tastebuds. 8. That counselling is incredibly beneficial, I enjoy it and it helped me grow as a person. Earlier this year I went through a rough stage in my personal life which was exacerbated by my business and working alone. Counselling helped me get back to myself and help me grow and make me a better version of me and I believe everyone can benefit from it. 9. Spending money (on the right things) makes money. This year I have pumped the most money I ever have into my business, education and mental health. This has been my most profitable year by far despite spending more money and has been the year I’ve grown the most. 9. No one else is going to do the work for you. You can buy all the information you need, the gear you need and professional help you need but unless you work your ass off yourself you won’t achieve anything. This massively applies to fat loss and your fitness journey, you can buy the gear, the books, and the PT but unless you put the work in yourself, you won’t achieve the results. 10. Habits stacking makes new habits much easier to adhere to. The best way to make a habit stick is by stacking it on top of something you already do. When you wake up have a glass of water or perform 5 minutes of stretching. When you leave work on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday go straight to the gym, when you usually sit down and eat chocolate in the evening switch it for a healthier lower calorie alternative. The way habits work is through a contextual cue that triggers your habit, here are some examples. Trigger: Sitting in front of the tv - Habit: Eating chocolate. Trigger: Having a cup of tea - Habit: Eating 3 biscuits with it. Trigger: Get stressed at work - Habit reward yourself with calorific foods. Find your triggers and stack new healthier habits on top. 11. Changing words in your vocabulary shift your mindset for a more positive outcome. By using certain words you could be preventing yourself from achieving things. “I can’t stop eating cake”, “I can’t get fit and healthy”, “ I have no will power”, “I’m so weak”, “I can’t do that”. This mindset sets you up for failure if you keep saying things like this you convince yourself it's true. I dunno about you but the number of times I've convinced myself I have a bad illness due to reading google is uncanny. I’d keep telling myself something is wrong, I’m not well, this isn’t normal that I believed it, every time I've turned out fine, so far touch wood. 12. That the bluezones have the healthiest and longest-living humans. People who live in the bluezones live longer than anyone else these places are: Icaria (Greece), Ogliastra (Italy), Okinawa (Japan) Nicoya Peninsula (Costa Rica) and Loma Linda in California. Why do they live so long with good health? Because they eat a diet full of whole plant foods rich in fibre and nutrients as well as plenty of healthy fats like oily fish and olive oil. They keep active every day of their lives, they get enough sleep and nap in the days, they have tight nit communities and are sociable. We can learn a lot from these zones if we want a longer happier life. 13. That dreaming is your brain making up stories to fill in missing gaps. The two lobes in the front of your brain are around an inch apart and signals travel 250mph between them scanning and taking in information. Due to taking in information so quickly it can only remember certain snapshots of the event. When you’re sleeping and dreaming your brain is technically filing the information away, because it only has these freeze frames of information it fills the gaps between each snapshot by making up a story that fits between them, and that's how your weird random dreams are born. 14. That beer Kellers are amazing. When I went to Manchester for my mate's stag we went to a beer Keller on the night out and it was the most fun I’ve had on a night out. Standing on tables dancing with strangers and some German folk type music, hitting beer steins together and being surrounded by fun, friendly upbeat people. If you ever get the chance go. 15. That I am a lot more confident I thought. I use to tell myself I wasn’t a confident person all the time and believed I was a shy person, and like I already discussed, you are what you tell yourself you are. This year I changed that more than ever, I went to the beach for the day with complete strangers, I drove all the way to Manchester and spent the night there alone to attend a course the next day with strangers, I went for a night our after another course I attended alone with all strangers, I was the only one who didn’t know anyone. Every single experience was awesome and I’m so glad I have done it. Learning is a huge part of my life whether it’s for business, to help me help my clients or just trivial stuff, I love it. - Never stop learning because life never stops teaching. If you want to keep growing as an individual and learn some awesome tips that will help you along your journey then here are 3 ways you can learn from me, for free.Download and listen to my podcast for free- I discuss ways in which you can improve your results by applying the simple tools I layout for you in each episode. Click Here to listen Free personal training - Come along for a week's free personal training in my fully private training facility and learn how to exercise and eat effectively for your goals. Click Here to book in your free week. Download my complete beginners' guide to fat loss - This free guide will teach you what you need to know on how to lose fat and comes with a free training plan. Click Here to download.
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