🎄 O H Y E S I D I D 🎄
It’s not work related & funnily enough, I know “it’s not even December yet” 😝 but I am also NOT.EVEN.SORRY. 😂😂 My mum has had her tree up for a couple of weeks already and my dad keeps messaging me to say “I believe!” 🎅🏽🤣 We are a family of overexcitables when it comes to Christmas. This is our 4th Christmas together in 17 years and I couldn’t be more excited! Though, it’s bittersweet as we are without my golden girl firstborn this year. I don’t get overly emosh about that though because I know she has a great time with her dad’s family and we still celebrate with her! Us “Jingle” Bells (my maiden name) are all about the build up to the big day. By 5pm, we’re done! My Christmas tree comes down before Jan 1st. Over it, moving on, let’s start the new year afresh! 😂 Anyone else take theirs down before the New Year or even have theirs up now? Come on... you know you wanna! #novemberisthenewdecember #ibelieve #santaiknowhim #tistheseason
🚩 F L A G G I N G 🚩
@asda window and glass cleaner is bloody good but don’t scrimp on kitchen roll, kids! I got this roll from Savers and have to use about 4 sheets at the same time! In future, I’ll stick to @plenty_uk where, as Juan says, you only need “one sheet!” #notanad in case you were wondering guys! 🤣 I am absolutely spanked right now. The youngest has had a bout of hand, foot & mouth this week and the hubs has been away most of the week - overall Willow has been fine but she’s slept next to me every night and refused to sleep before 9.30pm but is still waking at 5.45am! I’ve moved my clients closer together (usually allow 15 mins between each sesh) to enable me to finish earlier but it means I’ve literally had zero down time! It’s been tough and I’m lucky I’ve got @livvv.rk to give me a helping hand in the evenings. What’s really kept me going are my fantastic clients - 2 new starters this week who did brilliantly and then the usual suspects who trained hard but never fail to make me laugh. Then there’s my Mama & Baby Fit crew and their little ones giving me (and my ovaries) all the feels! 😍 I am so SO lucky to do what I do. If I’d still been in corporate and had a week like this, I’d be on the floor right now (or drunk 🥴) but I look forward to every single session and to seeing every single client! Lucky me! As for this pic, I’m just really bloody happy to have mirrors in the gym and the final one went in last night!! Whoop! You wouldn’t believe how hard it has been to take a photo of the gym without seeing a hole in the wall where a mirror should be. 😂 Training content will be coming your way very soon! BON WEEKEND TOUT LE MONDE! 💪🏼
🥘 F O O D 🥘
Last week, two of my clients asked me the same question. What do I do, with regards to food & booze, in social situations. I told them that I just completely enjoy those situations. I have what I want and never feel guilty about that. Back in my early 20s, I would either turn down invitations for dinner or cancel at the last minute because I was worried about what I would eat or rather, worried about eating altogether. If only I knew then what I knew now. Not only is life too short, but also, a few big (or what you may define as “naughty”) meals are not going to make an ounce of difference to either your weight or your progress in the gym. I do eat mindfully, for example, if I know I’ve got a big weekend ahead, then I may reduce my overall portions in the days running up to it and/or the couple of days after. If I know I’m planning to have a big dinner one night, then I may skip breakfast – in a sense, fast until mid afternoon. I’m not invincible, I can’t just eat what I want, when I want, all of the time, so I look ahead to what’s coming up and try to eat mindfully. Food… We are so lucky to have it at our fingertips… It is there to be enjoyed and we love to plan our weekends around what we’re eating - be it just us or with friends! I am literally about to put our M&S Christmas Day food order in. We are hosting for the first time in years and there will be 11 of us in total – I can’t wait to play hostess with the mostest! 😂 Please don’t have anxiety about eating in social situations or on holiday. Your life is worth so much more than that. ❤️ As the saying goes, “count memories, not calories.” ❤️❤️ #countmemoriesnotcalories #lovefood
🕺🏼 S T R I K E A P O S E 🕺🏼 There are a few key things that you need to know about this photo. 1) I’ve found the mirror in the gym that is the most flattering - almost too flattering to be honest.. if you know me personally, you will know that my legs are not this lithe! 😂 My arms are, in fact, this spindly. I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass and my goal is to get these guns loaded again. 💪🏼💪🏼 2) Posing like this actually hurts. It is not a natural pose at all but having had posing lessons, when I used to compete in physique competitions, I learnt a lot about angles & how to make the most of mine. 3) I am drawing up my TVA & activating my core - I am NOT relaxed so please don’t think my postpartum tummy always looks like this - it most definitely does not. 4) I look better in selfies then if anyone else takes a photo of me. Anyone else? 🤣 It’s funny because when I have a photo taken with the girls or James or friends, I am absolutely shit at posing. Having a photo taken on my own is the worst scenario for me. I like photos natural and preferably with me not looking directly at the camera – I’m more Chandler then Rachel. This photo was taken right before @alexandra_sinclair turned up for our first training session together. She’s my new training partner and I anticipate we are both going to be in all manner of pain by tomorrow, definitely by Saturday. We did a bit of a squat/lunge combo: Squat to press, curtesy lunges, goblet squats, walking lunges, squat with front raise (with a plate), side lunges, glute ham raise on the back extension machine, shoulder press, chest press & bent over rows. We got a lot done! 💪🏼 I promise I will pull my finger out and start filming content for you soon, with an emphasis on form and breathing. Anyone can tell you what workout they did, but what matters is how you PERFORM an individual exercise and that’s the content that I intend to give to you. Watch this space! 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼
🛁 R E S T 🛁
If you’re training hard, it is IMPERATIVE that you have rest days. Every time you workout, you create microscopic tears in your muscles. This promotes muscle growth & essentially enables your body to adapt, become stronger and more resilient to training stimulus. Small microscopic tears aren’t a problem; they’re actually the whole point of working out. But when you overdo your training & don’t rest, those intentional micro-injuries can easily become real injuries that prevent you from training or worse. There’s an actual condition known as Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) which refers primarily to the stress to your body’s central nervous system (CNU) brought on by overtraining and not resting. If OTS gets too severe, not only will your strength and conditioning goals be impacted but more importantly, your immune system will suffer, your moods will be erratic and your body will let you know in a variety of ways, that something is very wrong. Instead of taking a rest day, you may find that you have to skip the gym for weeks, if not months, depending on how severely you've over-trained. Rest is the stage in the cycle where you break down your muscle tissue so that it can adapt to the newly introduced strain and grow back stronger. For it to actually do the growing stronger part, it needs to be allowed sufficient rest and nutrition for the recovery to take place. A major part of this recovery and growth happens during sleep, as confirmed by studies which have shown growth hormone to spike dramatically during deep sleep. As a rule of thumb, whichever body part you have worked out that day, let it rest the following day. When I was competing and training five days a week, I always had 2 rest days. In between competitions, I would have a whole two weeks off from the gym completely to allow my CNS recovery time. If you’re training all the time and feel like you’re getting sick a lot, it may be time to give yourself a couple of weeks off from the gym. HEALTH.FIRST.ALWAYS! ❤️💪🏼
Not a work related photo but a post about wellbeing nonetheless. Last weekend, I flew to Luxembourg for just one night to have a night out with 3 of my best mates. I didn't realise, until I was with them, just how much I needed that time with them. Nothing beats the ease of familiarity - not having to explain yourself or worry about being judged and being totally comfortable with admitting to each other that LIFE.IS.HARD. Saying to each other, "Why didn't you call me when you were going through that?" and then saying to each other, "Well, I could handle it and didn't want you to worry - we hadn't spoken in a while and you've got your own shit going on." Isn't it so true that behind closed doors, we ALL have our own shit going on? It's so easy to forget that sometimes because people, even your besties, just smile, crack on and deal with it - especially my besties who are the strongest women I know. Wellbeing isn't just about being physically healthy, it's also about being mentally and emotionally healthy - a feat arguably harder than being physically healthy. So the lesson it's taught me is to make sure I get in touch with my friends more and ask them if they're ok but also to know that I can message them and say, "I'm not ok" because it's ok not to be ok. Thank you @emilystonehill @tbsinka & Lou Lou for the BEST weekend and for being the bestest friends a girl could wish for. #bestfriends #itsokaynottobeokay
