David @ DHPT

One of the hardest things to deal with when trying to get fit is feeling like you aren't making progress.  This is often a product of looking at the scales and not seeing them move very much day-to-day.  There's more than one way to judge progress, however.  I thought I'd give you a few of my other favourites to use. The first one that comes to mind after the scales is a tape measure.  It seems obvious but it isn't one that many people use - maybe because it's easier for someone else to measure you than it is to measure yourself.   However, if you have someone who can measure you then I would advise you to take advantage of this.  It doesn't have to be a thousand different measurements, you could just use a couple if you wanted to.  The main ones that I recommend are hips, waist and chest.  But you can go into more detail and take neck, calf, bicep, thigh and even more measurements based on your goal and how much time you want to spend gettin...

One of the best ways to make progress towards your health or fitness goals is to exercise with regularity.  I often tell my clients that consistency is king when it comes to moving the needle on their performance and health.  If you're struggling to get into a regular training rhythm, here are some tips that may help you out. 1: Schedule your day This one seems pretty obvious but it's surprising how many people don't do it.  Even I've been guilty of this at times.  One way to ensure that life doesn't get in the way of your workouts is to put them into your calendar (both your personal calendar and your work one if appropriate).  By blocking out the time it will both remind you that you have an appointment with the treadmill or squat rack and it will also prevent other people from requesting meetings or planning other events during that time.   2: Get your work in early This one follows on nicely from the first point.  If you can, schedule your wor...

Usually, you read about people needing to care for the environment rather than the other way around.  But in this case, I don't mean the environment as in the ozone layer and the ocean, rather the environment you live in and the people around you - your home, work, school, friends, family members, colleagues and so on. When we are trying to get fit, lose weight, put on some lean muscle, or reach almost any goal related to our health and wellbeing our environment plays a huge role.  What you surround yourself with really matters.  Let's start with the people around you.  You may have heard motivational gurus say that you are the sum total of the five people you spend the most time with.  I am not sure that is entirely true, but who you hang around with does have an impact on your health and fitness. Are the people you hang out with most always hitting the gym, choosing healthy places to eat when you all go out to dinner, getting to bed at a reasonable hour, do yo...

So the title of the blog might seem a little bit like clickbait but the truth of the matter is that we don't comfort eat 'just because', there is always a reason.  The simple reason is that we are addressing a need or emotional requirement with a coping strategy.  Is it the healthiest one in the world? Probably not, no.  Does it work in the short term to comfort us and reduce stress?  Most likely, yes. So, in a nutshell, comfort eating is a short term answer to a chronic issue - stress of one sort or  another.  This might be physical stress as a result of an injury, work stress resulting from a boss breathing down your neck about finishing that report, emotional stress following a fight with a friend or loved one or really any other form of stress you can think of. We don't have a healthy strategy to cope with the demanding situation we are put in, so as a result, we turn to an unhealthy coping mechanism - food, usually the saltier, fattier, sugarier the be...

The story of the tortoise and the hare, it's pretty much required reading for toddlers and young kids worldwide.  As we all know (if we can remember that far back), the tortoise wins the race due to its slow and steady pace and not giving up when things got tough.  While the hare essentially went hell for leather and blew out before getting to the finishing line. Does this sound familiar when it comes to your health and fitness?  Or the health and fitness of someone you know?  Massive push when summer rolls around and then back on the doughnuts and pies by February?  Great commitment to get into the suit or dress for a wedding and then let all of that good work go to waste after the photos have been taken? If it's sounding like you, don't stress.  It's a common issue facing people trying to reach fitness goals.  And if you reached your fitness goal and now hitting the gym every other day isn't something you particularly care about, cool, this blog isn'...

Health and fitness are often perceived, and even promoted as an all or nothing prospect.  We regularly get shown images of fitness models with captions underneath promoting a mindset of no pain no gain, or advising people that if they aren't all about the fitness lifestyle then they aren't going to get results. This is not true. You may not get results as quickly as other people, you may not get to the same level of fitness or body fat percentage as someone who is completely on point with their training and nutrition, but to say that if you aren't perfect all of the time you won't achieve anything is just incorrect. This blog post is about taking a different approach, a better approach.  No seriously, that's the approach - just try to do a little better.  Just a little bit. Instead of changing your usual breakfast of a bacon and egg pie and a coffee from the local bakery to a fruit salad with Greek yoghurt, or an egg-white omelette and a glass of celery juice, how a...

Last week I announced on my Facebook and Instagram pages that I was rebranding my personal and group fitness training business.  I thought, seeing as I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment with this lockdown, that I'd explain the reason why I decided to do this - in case anyone was interested. My new company branding 360 Degree Fitness was a company that I started from scratch.  I built it with the help and support of a great many people.  People who probably don't even know how much they supported me.  To those people - my clients, my suppliers, my friends and family, those random people who read my blog posts when I was writing terribly and wondered if I would ever find my own "voice" to write with, I want to say a huge thank you.  I truly appreciate every blog view, every time you liked a post on my social media accounts or share it with your friends and family.  You truly have no idea how much that has meant to me over the years.  ...

So, every day since this lockdown started (except when in the torrential rain) we have gone on a morning family walk.  It's something that I'd quite like to continue even after the lockdown ends as it's good quality family time and gets all of us out of the house as well.   We usually ask each other 4 questions on the walk as a sort of check-in to see how we're all doing.  First, what's one thing that makes you happy today? Second, what's one thing that makes you sad today? Third, what's one thing your worried/anxious about today? Fourthly, how can I help you today?   For us it works as a way to check in with each other, it's a time for us to feel free to talk about how we're feeling in a supportive way where the people we're with can use the time to see if there are ways to help each other.  But most of all it's a way we can air our feelings, frustrations, anxieties, and happiness and feel heard. Today on our walk, I had a proper anxie...

Right now every trainer, psychologist, life coach, herbalist and their uncle have been doing blogs, vlogs, articles, TV Interviews and short operatic musical dramas about how to make the best of this COVID-19 lockdown.  While I don't want to add to the noise out there, I figure if this helps one or two people get through it then it's worth writing. Being cooped up inside can be tough, even for introverts like me.  It brings a certain level of stress into life.  This is before we even get to the prospect of illness, job and financial insecurity, trying to manage kids and animals that are out of routine and stressed themselves, and trying to help other friends and family members who may not be able to manage in this situation as well as us. Here are some strategies that may help reduce the stress you could be feeling.  Firstly, breathe.  In particular, try square breathing.  It's a technique that I've used in the past when feeling anxious.  It's simp...

It's been a little while since I posted an update about my training for the Oxfam Trailwalk that myself and 3 mates are looking to complete in March, so I thought I should fill you in on my progress. Training has been going well recently.  There was a little period a few months ago where my motivation to train just wasn't there - I think it was a case of the walk being too far away to scare me into action!  But suddenly March doesn't seem too far off anymore, which has prompted me to get out there and get my kilometres done. Two big things that have made a difference for me are competition and permission. Let's talk about competition first.  I'm a competitive person by nature, anyone who's seen me on a football field will know this.  One thing our trailwalk team has done has been to institute a minimum step count for each week of 100,000 steps with a penalty for falling short.  While this only averages out to about 14,000 per day which isn't a huge am...