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Showing posts from December, 2016

No place for shame in self-improvement

When I began this blog I wrote a post that outlines my ethos in health and fitness . I want to take those ideas and expand upon them. Today I want to look at this bit "Positive results are achieved through positive means." And more specifically I want to take a quick look at the culture of shame and guilt that sometimes creeps into fitness, and why I believe it is detrimental, to individuals and "Fitness" as a concept, and an industry. There's a theory that says that we have to hit rock bottom (or some variant therof) before we can truly commit to a major lifestyle change. That people need to feel dreadful about their current situation before they can properly invest in the change. I'm not sure whether I buy into that or not. I think that it is definitely possible to make small, manageable changes to our lifestyle, by choice, from a positive place. A complete change in lifestyle does take a serious trigger - but I would question whether, as a per

My top apps for supporting a healthy lifestyle.

The hardest part of making healthy choices and lifestyle changes is making it a habit. It's easy to make a decision to "eat better", "exercise more" or whatever your current plan is. It's a lot harder to stick to it on the rough days, for long enough that it becomes a habit and part of your life that you can't imagine being without. I love a bit of tech. I am a super geeky science nerd and finding ways to use technology to support my health and fitness makes me very happy. So with this in mind I thought I'd give a quick run down of my favourite smartphone apps for developing and maintaining healthy habits. Habitica I'm starting with this one because it's mad and I love it. Habitica is basically a to-do list app, but it's specially for the gamers among us. If you are familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, and all the games that grew out of that system and fantasy world, you will recognise Habitica. The app allows you to create 3 t

You can have this one on me - Resolutions for a more healthy new year

Happy festive winter season Free Living Fitness Fans! Wondering what to do to make your new year even more awesome and healthy? Start here! I want to begin by looking at my countdown of the most important things we all need to be doing for good health and wellbeing - then we'll look at how you can fit this into your daily life for a better new year, and how to form lasting habits. 1. Sleep Sleep is so unbelievably underrated in its importance for our wellbeing . If you aren't getting enough sleep you are chipping away at your life expectancy, intellect, and your ability to get through the day in a vaguely competent manner. Sleep is your body's time to rest, heal and process your day. How much you need depends on a lot of factors, but it's worth using about 7 1/2 hours as a guide. So, decide when you need to get up, count the clock back 8 hours and make sure you are in bed, ready to settle down about that time. No phones or work in the bedroom, no procrastinati