Dedicated To Cheryl Julie Matthews

Thank you for being my ‘Mum in a Million’

“Don't worry, about a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be all right.”

Contents

Foreword 1 Introduction 2 The Why 3 Fundamentals 4 The Balancing Act – Hormones 5 Striving For Stereotypical Perfection 6 Mindset 7 Movement 8 Macros 9 Madness 10 Marriage 11 Money 12 Moving Mountains – Everest Obsession 13 Putting It All Together 14 Small Stuff, Big Results 15 It Was All Just A Myth 16 The Three Phases 17 What Is It Really Like To Lose 100lbs? 18 I Was Having A Heart Attack About The Author Thank You

Foreword By Laura Matthews

After another day of hearing my colleagues go on about various ailments and how there’s “nothing they can do about it” (with me biting my tongue and shouting in my head ‘THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO!!) I finally set aside some time to start writing this blog. You see, I’m on a journey to improve my health but like a lot of people, I ignored the signs my health was on the brink of some black hole until it had gotten really bad. I want to take you through what caused me to question traditional ways of thinking about health. And who knows, maybe you could benefit from some of the stuff I’ve learned too.

So many times I hear about people eating a cube of cheese followed by umpteen cups of green tea as they’ve heard Ruth at slimming world lost 10 inches from her thighs. Or others merely saying “I really need to get back into yoga/running/swimming” when we all know full-well when the weekend comes, that goes out the window and it’s off to the pub for a ‘quick one’ (which turns into 10) or a takeaway which invariably means you feel like death the next day and don’t do the very thing you keep meaning to do, which is be HEALTHIER. Inevitably procrastination follows, (I mean it’s so hard to get back on the straight and narrow once that happens) then you realise it’s been 3 weeks since you did any exercise or ate anything vaguely nutritious.

And you start to get little niggles.

That headache which won’t go away, the itchy skin, the tiredness. But it’s not all the time so you must just have a bug that’s going round or you’ve not been getting enough sleep. Or it’s that new moisturiser you’ve been using, right? So you go to bed a bit earlier for a week, dose up on vitamin C and chuck that expensive moisturiser in the bin. (It was over- priced anyway).

Then you feel a bit better and resume the lifestyle you had before. And so the cycle continues. And that’s exactly what the majority of people do. Jeez, I was one of those people.

The Beginning

If I cast my mind back I was at University when I started to feel things weren’t quite right. I would get stomach pain ranging from mildly annoying to severely debilitating (like doubled over and couldn’t stand up straight) and terrible bloating. I couldn’t understand what it was. It felt like a build up of gas in my stomach and the only thing I could link it to was my lack of food on those days. So I tried to eat more regularly but it still kept happening. The ‘cure’ was laying down and taking one of those tablets which helped with trapped wind. Sure enough my stomach would duly deflate after an hour or so (after a lot of gas had, er ‘escaped’) but it

wasn’t ever dealing with the issue. At this time I was getting the symptoms occasionally so I just took the pills and got on with things. Back then – we’re talking 18 years ago – food allergies were hardly talked about unless it was that one person on board the plane which meant you couldn’t open your packet of nuts, then everyone talked about it. (Usually in hushed tones so as not to look like the unsympathetic type.)

Anyway, I digress.

During this time I also started to get knee pain, usually when I was running or sitting with my knees bent for long periods. I was studying Sport Science (which is a real degree I’ll have you know!) so I had access to journals containing a wealth of information on different kinds of knee pain and how it may come about. Lack of collagen, kneecap not tracking properly, flappy cartilage etc. So there began my countless trips to various health professionals to try and figure out what was going on. I recall the first hospital referral I had was in the town in which I was studying. I had an x-ray then 2 weeks later I had an appointment with a doctor. Without even touching my knee, the doctor asked if I wanted an arthroscopy (camera inserted through a small opening in the joint) to see what the issue was! Suffice to say I declined and got the hell out of there sharpish. So again, without much hope of getting an answer, I just treated the symptoms and reduced my road running, rubbed inordinate amounts of ibuprofen gel onto my knee when it was painful and always sat with my legs straight.

Diagnosis 1 – We Aren’t Sure

Once I had finished university I was back in my home town and eventually found a job at a Sports Centre. This was great, I got a job in my chosen field and chatted to people – happy days! I could train there for free before/after my shift so it was ideal. However, my knees started to deteriorate and make these weird clicky noises. I decided to go my GP and explain what had been happening over the past few years. He did some basic testing on the knee to check the stability and suggested some physiotherapy. I met a particularly abrasive, physio in the initial consult. She did similar tests to the GP and asked me what were the issues I was experiencing. Genuine disgust crossed her face when i explained its hurts when i run or sit with my legs crossed. Her answer was ‘well, can you just not run then?”. I sat there and thought “Er, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt you to consider running a bit yourself you overweight old bag”. But rather than piss her off, I maintained it wasn’t right that I was having knee pain this severe at a young age. After 6 sessions of physiotherapy and some painful manipulations later (with a different physio, thankfully) I was no better off and was told it was likely my kneecap wasn’t tracking properly due to one of my thigh muscles being too weak to keep it in a straight line. I was given some exercises to try and isolate and strengthen that muscle and rock tape was also suggested. Suffice to say they made a very small amount of difference.

“Better than nothing though” I thought.

Diagnosis 2 – Weird Feet

Fast forward a few years and I get referred to the biomechanics department at the hospital. I have my feet manipulated, watched as I walk up and down barefoot then an impression of my feet are taken. The guy in charge states I have ‘downwards pointing feet” which apparently is common in women. In conjunction with stiff joints in all parts of my feet/lower leg, these issues are contributing to excessive force going through my knee as the joints lower down aren’t absorbing the impact. The end result is custom made orthotics to go in my shoes. They raised the heel about ¼ inch, which should help with knee pain. And guess what, they made…little difference! By this point, as you can imagine, I’m debating whether to cut my legs off above the knee and be done with it. What the heck is happening in there?

I continued in this slow downward spiral until about 3 years later. It was winter and my knees always played up in the cold but this was different. I was struggling to get up and down stairs or straighten my legs fully. I was having to get the bus to work when I lived 20 minutes walk away. I went back to the GP and had some blood tests done. I got a pretty quick referral to the hospital (compared to how long it takes now in 2018 anyway) where they took an MRI scan of my knee.

Diagnosis 3 – The Game Changer

A few weeks later I got the results and it came back as sero- negative arthritis. Which basically means there’s no markers in the blood to confirm it but based on my MRI and description of symptoms that’s what it was. I actually cried in the doctor’s surgery. I was 31 and had this disease which (as far as I was concerned) only old people got.

At this particular time, I felt REALLY sorry for myself, like I was doomed to have a life of shuffling about with a stick and missing out on ‘stuff’. Yes, a bit dramatic but at this point my whole world was crashing down around me. I was sent back to the hospital for an initial appointment in the rheumatology department, which was to become my 2nd home for the next year or so. I was surprised to see quite a lot of patients under 40 in the waiting room. I had a chat with a consultant then told I would be put on medication which was originally for cancer patients (?!). I was given a special card to carry with me which stated ‘This patient is on methotrexate’ and a list of drugs that I shouldn’t be given as I would react to them. I assumed this was in case I was unconscious and taken in to hospital. ”Well, that’s comforting” I thought.

I then had an initial steroid injection in my butt (why didn’t I think to put my best thong on that day?) and told the tablets would start working in about 6 weeks. On the plus side, I

woke up the next day and the steroid injection had worked wonders. It was like I had a new pair of knees and I was overjoyed at being able to move about as I once had. Obviously this was short lived and a week later I was nearly back to square one, while I built up the levels of methotrexate. You would think this is a good ending, right? After 6 weeks I was walking pretty normally, minimal pain. And it was great, for a while. Arthritis is an auto-immune disease (i.e your body attacks itself). Methotrexate works by reducing the immune system function to prevent further damage. The only obvious downside is that you then have to constantly fend off other ailments as your body doesn’t have the capability to do that itself anymore.

So that was my life for about 18 months. Feeling a bit under the weather generally but able to walk. Meh, you can’t have everything.

Then I met my husband and it all changed…

1. Introduction

“Just try new things. Don't be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar, alright?”

-Michelle Obama

Quite fitting we start this book with someone so influential in the current time, but it won’t always be the case. Give it 100 years and Michelle Obama probably won’t be as well known just from her name. But her legacy and impact on this very moment in time is solid and there in black and white.

I ask you this: When was the last time you were truly in your comfort zone? Like, truly comfortable with the reflection in the mirror. Or comfortable with the first picture you take and post on social media without either having to retake it because it’s not your ‘good side’ or needing to put a filter and tint on it?

This is the second version of the book that I am writing. Not because the first didn’t do well - it did - it went to number 1 in the Men’s Health section in multiple countries. It’s been massively well received which is kind of cool for someone who failed English twice then embarked on a journey through music college to then find his feet in fitness (we can get into that later). There’s a reason I am writing this. It’s been triggered over the years because of my own mother - amongst

others - but mainly because there’s massive confusion around health. Not just with us guys but women also. And you ladies, are amazing so I feel it is time we took this confusion out of what can be such a crazy subject.

Some of the content will be practically the same as my previous book (no need to fix what isn’t broken) but there is a lot of extra, specific content which I feel has not been put out there yet. Or at least it’s not out there in a format which takes away all that geeky science jargon and lays it all out in simple, black and white terms. Let’s be honest, you’re busy enough already without having to read something ten times because Billy Big Bollocks decided he wanted to put all the big words in one paragraph, adding to the stress you’re already under from being the amazing woman you are, while reading through a chapter on how to lower stress. That in itself is crazy.

And that’s where we will be starting this book. I feel there’s a need for this to be written from a male’s perspective, an honest approach which may not be the most politically correct at the time. Not because I am sexist or believe I am ‘better’ than you but purely because if I was to keep up with what is offending the next special snowflake and his melted brother today, I wouldn’t have time to write it all down. Therefore if you are a special snowflake and want to complain that’s ok, please do so. But if you want to improve your health, balance your hormones and begin to create an inner power which

melts all the snowflakes in the world then you’re in the right place. It’s up to you if you want to implement the advice I give, I really hope you do, it will work but I won’t push it on you if you don’t wish to use it.

Now what happened to that woman who was slaving over a hot stove to let her douche of a man come home expecting his dinner to be plated up at 5:30pm every night? I tell you where she went, she grew into a thriving woman, a modern human being that deserves the same rights as this male but in doing so there has been an excruciating amount of stress. I will get to that later in the book but in short if you’re sitting next to your husband, boyfriend, partner or another male in your life you probably want to give him a slap right now. Because a lot of the stress is due to us guys needing to step up our level of teamwork and grow a bit ourselves to help reduce the stress and cook our own fucking dinner, (apologies).

But I get it, looking on social media the pressure is dramatically increased compared to even ten years ago let alone 30-40 years ago. We are living in a society where it’s the norm to look like you have perfect-skin and a hollywood-level filter from Instagram. Let’s start at the beginning: why should we improve ourselves?

Not for likes Not for follows

And certainly not to become the latest brand ambassador for trout-pout leggings and receive a 5% discount.

In the male edition I started with this and I am going to continue from where I left off. We have all let things slip, not prioritising the stuff that most loving individuals pride themselves on. At least, I had certainly done so…

Family. Business. Friends. Life.

I knew I wasn’t alone:

27% OF FEMALES IN THE UK ARE OBESE 30% OF FEMALES IN THE UK ARE OVERWEIGHT (Statistics on Obesity, Physical Activity and Diet – NHS 4thApril 2018)

In fact, 26% of the entire adult population in the UK are obese, that’s up from 15% in 1993.

That is a shocking fact and honestly, when I was searching for the stats knowing they would be high, I never even thought it would be that high.

Even more shocking.

YOU COULD MATCH THE ENTIRE POPULATION OF THE UK WITH THE NO. OF OBESE PEOPLE IN AMERICA AND STILL HAVE OVER 10MILLION PEOPLE SPARE.

That is why I wrote this book.

I’m giving you the simplest plan to work out how to make the change. One day at a time. Upgrade your body by taking one step after another after all…

‘A journey of a thousand miles starts with just one step’ – Lao Tzu

There are so many books out there that go into ridiculous depth, giving you every technical term under the sun so you need to spend countless hours on Wikipedia in order to understand half the content. It is time that there was something that you can not just reference, not just pick up and put down easily but also have with you ready to upgrade your body and your life. It will also provide the easiest ways to implement everything we go through whilst understanding WHY you have been doing the things you’ve been doing, getting where you have arrived at now and make those feelings simply memories.

Now as mentioned before this book is going to give you a full plan and by the end you will have the answers to:

- Why you do the things you do and how to overcome blockages - Why you self-sabotage your progress and how it is just an excuse - Why your family are your biggest excuse - How to fit everything in, even if you work 25 hours, 8 days a week - The perfect day based around all the fundamentals of The One Day Body Upgrade

This will be provided in simple, easy to understand terminology. So if you aren’t one of these people I mentioned earlier that wants to know the entire history of science from Einstein to Hawking, don’t worry. You aren’t going to get a list of the entire functions of the body in so much depth that you need a degree to even be able to pronounce anything. That is what I have spent years researching and implementing while working with hundreds of clients all around the world so I can bring you the basics of what works. Because after all, life should be simple so you can live it to the fullest right?

This book won’t give you an in depth plan specifically tailored for you as that is how I work together with my clients on a daily basis. But it will allow you to form your own day. It will give you the tools to totally upgrade yourself with the only

side effects being that you thrive each and every day with your family, friends, and business.

You might be thinking “is this book really for me”?

Let me ask you this.

Did any of that ring true at the start?

Are you that person?

Do you find yourself tired in the morning but wide-awake at night?

Do you have time to give your children all the attention that they deserve?

Do you have the time/energy to please your partner?

Do you have the time to even please yourself more importantly?

Let’s fix your oxygen mask first shall we…

Are you someone who has tried all the diets around? Fads sold by Sandra down the road or Diane round the corner in the office. Or maybe the latest celeb exercise dvds, boot camps, 7 day detoxes and slim teas. Are you the person sweating

because they are out of shape in the staff meeting, who can’t even walk up the stairs at work in the morning without getting out of breath. Do you really want to take the lift?

Are you the person who gets that new membership contract at the gym January 1st but next time you go to the gym you turn away because you can’t get the parking space that is closest to the door?

This is for you if you are one of the busy women who don’t just want to feel ‘a bit better’ but want to thrive. Right now you are part of #TeamNoSleep and working all the hours under the sun but can’t take that family holiday you need so much. Hell, you can’t even have your anniversary off. You’ve hit the limit as to what you can achieve. You’re successful in your career but in doing so your health has dropped you live on a diet of snacks along with a side of extra strong coffee to ensure your productivity is up. Is that really what you want to be living like for the rest of your working career? No? Then this is for you.

Imagine this:

You’re 40 years old and what should be the ‘prime’ of your life, but you’re not. You aren’t even reaching 50% of your potential, you’ve put on around 10kg in these past 12 months. It’s either the ‘hormones’ or just your age.

You do nothing.

You hide away.

You continue getting heavier.

Your fitness keeps dropping.

Eventually comes a heart attack.

You survive, just.

What then?

What do you need in order to change?

Imagine looking back, you’re 50 years old and right now at 40 you didn’t change ANYTHING. What would your 50-year- old self tell you?

Think about that for a minute.

What if you only had to focus on one day at a time?

It will hurt to truly admit it to yourself that you need to change.

But honestly, I cannot force you. You can keep lying, you can keep hiding it but it’s your life. If you are truly 100% happy with your health, if you have truly got everything you want out of your life, if you are happy with not being able to see your children grow old because you are slacking on your health right now, that’s totally cool.

I understand.

Put this book down IMMEDIATELY.

Still with me?

So why now and why not 5 years ago?

Well here’s something I learnt a long while back and its the secret of changing for the better.

PAIN

You have to be in enough pain, or in the words of Tony Robbins:

“Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change”. So you have to really be in pain. And by that I don’t mean you’ve broken a leg, been shot in the knee and had to sit through every episode of Made In Chelsea back to back, no. I

mean you have to be really pissed off by the position you have got yourself into. Yes YOU have gotten YOURSELF into, nobody else has done it. This is what we are going to delve into in the coming chapters. And the great thing is that I am going to also show you how to build your perfect day and overcome those blockages. We will go through the fundamentals – The 5 M’s (Mindset, Movement, Madness, Marriage and Money) - in order to show you how to build your perfect day. The small things which make the biggest impact on your life and in turn your family’s too. You’ve heard the analogy ‘fix your own oxygen mask first’ when you are in an airplane and they go through the safety procedures. Life jacket, wings, exits here, here and here then the gas mask dropping down. You need to fix your gas mask before you help your family. If not, YOU won’t be able to breathe and YOU won’t be able to survive so YOU won’t be able to help anyone around you unless YOU have that focus on YOU first. So in short, I am going to be showing you how to fix your gas mask first. Why me? I’m that dude that you may have seen on social media that has been in shape and has it easy right? Wrong, I have been ridiculously out of shape I am talking to the point I had to drop over 80lbs. To the point I would need my inhaler not just going up the stairs but by the time I got to my car at the end of the driveway. Actually I lied, that’s an understatement. It

wasn’t even at the end of the driveway it was parked right by the door. Tying my shoes was an issue, just by bending over my gut would get in the way. It was not pleasant but what really rubbed it in and caused me to shove a hypothetical firework up my arse was when I had a big reality check. Reality check time: I was due for a meeting, the lifts were broken and I had to go up 4 flights of stairs. I drove in that morning and it wasn’t hot - it was November - and I parked as close as possible. Got my morning coffee, two sugars with chocolate dust on top and walked to the meeting. I had to stop halfway for a breather then when I got to the meeting it was embarrassing and I kind of hate it still to this day. There was a ridiculous sweat patch like my shirt had just melted onto me. It was bloody freezing outside like to the point people were wearing coats and scarves to walk in from their cars! This wasn’t nice. To top it off it was a meeting with the big guys about a promotion. Yes I once had that 9-5 corporate job that some people live on a daily basis and I wanted to progress. Safe to say the first impression I gave sucked arse as much as sucking arse can actually get. This was one of the most uncomfortable and horrible moments in my life and I had to change. That night I went home and looked seriously at myself. I invested in help, my own personal trainer but not only that I read every single book I could get my hands on. Losing weight

was hard, gym work was hard, getting my life in check was hard. NO – these were all predisposed beliefs I had told myself, this was all bullshit. Why? Because being embarrassed to the point you want to walk out of the room and quit your job was even harder. To the point everyone was talking about you and no one wanted to sit next to you due to the risk of getting sweat flicked onto them as it dripped down your back. Not to mention the sweaty arse print on the plastic chair. This was the reality, this was my pain, this was when it became a lot harder than the pain of change and I had to do something about it. I haven’t looked back since and dropped the weight I needed and as a result I was able to inspire others to do the same. I also built my business up with what had become my passion and sport was no longer just a game that was played on the PlayStation in the evenings. It was something I was able to get my hand in and since then I’ve worked with athletes all around the world, passing on what I have learned to both my day to day clients and my online clients. I have transferred what I have learned into understandable information which now helps people just like you. You don’t have to be a marathon runner, a triathlete, a power lifter, a boxer or a bodybuilder. You just have to be willing to put in the effort because you are seriously pissed off with where you are right now. This has been why my One Day Body Upgrade methods have been so successful in helping business owners just like you to change

their lives to the point where they are proud. And not just proud but healthy. My only question to you is this: Are you honestly happy with not just how you look but how you feel right now? Ok, let’s get things moving.

2. The Why

“When I'm feeling weak, And my pain walks down a one way street. I look above, And I know I'll always be blessed with love”

– Robbie Williams

Why?

We all have a ‘why’. That small thing we don’t realise is there until we dive deep into our subconscious and realise it’s actually a massive thing, driving us in the direction we are passionate about in life. Do you know your ‘why’?

This may be the most important chapter of this book but it’s nestled right at the end, why? Well, I am going to tell you my ‘why’ and I didn’t want to be judged by you while going through the book. I know I said for you not to worry about judgement but I kind of wanted you to believe I was just in this position because I had gone from fat to thin and now just love working with busy people because you know, more money.

That is not my why.

Let me ask you this.

When was the last time you spoke to your dad?

I was 15, actually it was 21st July 2001 to be exact, when I physically spoke to him on the phone. I text him on 23rd July 2001 if you want an exact contact date.

I never knew a life where my mum and dad were together, they split when I was about 5 years old. I remember my dad dropping me off at home and I would sprint from the back door to the window banging on it and crying my eyes out waving goodbye to him as he drove off in his then blue Ford Capri (he loved that car!). He was going off to work as a caravan salesman a little further away than the city we lived in, about 30 minutes drive. I remember that we would have to wait and maybe see him some weekends. On a Sunday night he would give us £3 in 10 pence pieces to play on the amusement park on the seafront. Then I would go to school and see both parents picking their children up, my friends would be there with their parents on their birthday every year as I grew up. I only wanted the same – my dad to be with me on my birthday as I opened presents, my dad to be with me on Christmas morning when I opened presents, surely it wasn’t much to ask? But my dad was out there living a stressful life not bowing down to targets but rather making sure he hit them month after month in order to provide for his children, that made him proud. After a few years he went from the position of salesman to sales manager to the point he actually took over a park near

Colchester named ‘Weeley Bridge’. This was about 90 minutes away at least (but we got to stop off at Burger King so that was cool!). But now we would only see Dad during school holidays, maybe a week at a time and it was getting further and further apart as he worked harder and harder to provide for his family. The stress was hitting him hard and migraines were happening regularly but it didn’t stop him. He turned the park around and got moved to one on Mersea Island, even closer to Colchester. I know I took so much energy from my dad and his determination to succeed was unrivalled. Coopers Beach on Mersea Island was the last park Dad worked at. He went on a training course in July 2001 in Grantham near Nottingham. It was here that he was messing around playing volleyball after the day’s learning had finished and got a paralysing migraine. He was taken into hospital on the Wednesday, something we were apparently being ‘protected’ from knowing by our aunt and uncles. It was how the family was brought up I suppose but then on Thursday 26th July 2001 my dad suffered a stroke where over half of his brain essentially died, oxygen was starved for 13 minutes. To this day I want to blame someone but everyone was just doing their best, doing their job, trying to help my dad but they couldn’t . We got there on Friday 27th July about 11am with all my family gathered in a waiting room. No words needed to be said, we all knew what was going to happen, it was just a matter of time. I remember even to this day what I was wearing: black trousers made of a shell suit kind of material, a

wu-tang top with the ‘W’ in red and a red NY Yankees cap. I remember where everyone was sitting, I remember the smell, the sound of the machines and the look on the nurses faces every time they came in to see how we were doing. No words were being exchanged, it was just what I thought was ‘a blur’ but in reality it was 100% focus. This 15 year old boy was losing his hero, his father, the guy he adored and I remember the feeling when we knew it was all over. I was invited to say my goodbyes. Walking into that ward seeing my hero, pipes in him, not moving, being kept alive by the machines buzzing, beeping, motionless, time was standing still, this was it. I slowly walked up to the side of the bed, the far side. All this time I was wishing inside my head ‘someone wake me up now, wake me up’. I held my dad’s hand, slowly bent towards his ear and whispered: ‘You’re my hero dad, thank you, I will make you proud’. July 28th we had to make the decision whether the life support machine should be turned off. At 21:50 my dad, Trevor Brian Matthews passed away.

Stress killed my dad.

Stress killed my hero.

Because of stress my dad never saw his children finish school. Because of stress my dad never saw my sister and I drive our first cars.

Because of stress I never got to take my dad out for a pint at 18. My dad never got to see his children graduate from university. My dad never got to walk his daughter down the aisle. My dad never got to share the top table at my wedding. And, because of stress my dad never got to hold my niece, Eden Sofia Grubb in his arms when she was born on 5th November 2016.

So when people ask why do you work with business guys, busy, stressed out entrepreneurs, people who have so much on their plate they need a second side dish and an extra doggie bag just to cope.

Why?

Because if I can stop ONE child going through what I had to go through at 15 years old then I am complete.

I won’t lie, it has brought me to tears typing this but as you will know from the previous chapters, emotions make us strong, hiding them is what stops us from moving forward.

Thank you for reading.

3. Fundamentals

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done”

– Bruce Lee

So you’re still with me right? Good.

Let’s go through the fundamentals, get you really ready for what is going to be happening as you go through this blueprint, show you where the changes will be implemented and the real progression of fulfilling your potential.

We will briefly touch on the 5 M’s here and start to really find your reason why but not just that also the reason why the media has been failing you by putting out bullshit article after bullshit article just to sell stories and scare people into different tactics. After all, life is for living right, not for reading the damn newspaper day in day out or scrolling through Facebook finding the latest viral blog post that everyone is cringing over.

Mindset –

Where else would we start?

Let’s try something here, I want you to think back, like way back, to when you were a baby.

Remember it? No?

Because you were thinking and living in the moment, no memories to stop you from doing things, nothing that was scaring you, just you, an innocent young soul in a body ready to learn so many different beliefs that other people had been taught years ago, that moulded them into who they were which were ingrained into their parents and mentors years before. Nice to be told what to think, what to say, what to do and how to live isn’t it. Well that is essentially what we learn growing up and now I want to look and see why this is stopping you from reaching your full potential.

The mind is a wonderful thing, it can scare you, it can make you happy, it can make you sad. But it is just that, a mind, inside a head, inside a brain that inevitably you should be able to reason with and not control as such but have some sort of influence over.

What is a tree? It is a big piece of wood made up of a trunk with branches coming out, leaves and potentially fruit, maybe some blossom from those branches but we are going to look a little deeper and see the beauty in learning to control the roots day in day out.

But what actually is it? Is it a tree, or is it the opinion of someone who chose to call it a ‘tree’ many generations ago and has done all the thinking for us? Sounds a bit far fetched hippy crap but stick with me on this one we will go a little deeper into the mind when we reach the mindset chapter. The mind is a wonderful thing, that is, when we are able to use it for positive and progression. When you understand what you are actually doing you can become aware when you are in a mode of ‘self sabotage’ or ‘self love’ (don’t think what most people think there, please) I’m not here to give you all the answers but I am going to give you the ability to find them for yourself , no one can give you the answers, in fact, you already have all the answers deep down as to why you aren’t in the shape you want to be or at the level you want to be.

We are going through the fundamentals right now so I will hold back on depth and detail but when you master the mind you will easily get your head around the main three parts I work with when I delve into client reasons for wanting to get where they want to get:

• Motivation • Determination • Realisation

Those are three powerful words. Without the first two you won’t ever get the last one.

If you aren’t motivated you won’t have the drive and determination to see it through. If you don’t believe you can get the realisation you won’t have the motivation and determination to see if through, we could go on.

We are brought up on beliefs, again this will be delved into further but here’s an example that I have personally had to deal with.

My Mum doesn’t believe I can earn good money helping people transform their lives, she says she does and she supports me (which I have no problem in believing at all) but she was brought up in a world where you were cautious, my Nan was very hard-up, in her words she was brought up ‘in a slum house with 12 brothers and sisters’ (she had the strongest Norfolk accent I have ever heard) she had to share a bath and her parents got the water last, 12 people to share a toilet, there wasn’t much wealth in the family so it is understandable to have some caution. However when I decided to jump ship and stick the middle finger up at the corporate way of living and working where I had to book my holiday 2 years in advance and work a shift pattern that meant I missed the most important days of my families lives, my Mum was dubious – that life was safe – the life I had been close to redundancy twice because of budget cuts and off-shoring NOT down to my own performance – that life was safe – I had a contract but that life I reiterate WAS SAFE, that was the belief here. When you are with a company your future isn’t in your own

hands but you are safe. I really feel this is how 90% of the population think down to my own interactions and experience. Going self employed and living the life I dreamt and envisaged I could. Every time I see my Mum now she is worried ‘are you doing ok?’. In reality I am earning a lot more than I did at this corporate company while working less and even when I am ‘working’ it feels like fun. But that is the belief – you HAVE to live how others live because it is safe.

I guarantee when we dig deep down you are not where you want to be because you have told yourself you don’t deserve to be there, and you tell yourself it is ok, you are happy.

But, in reality, you aren’t happy.

Movement (and Macros)–

This sounds obvious but to burn those wonderful things we call calories we have to do this special thing called moving. Moving burns energy, but what do we mean when we are talking about movement?

Movement isn’t just what we do when we are exercising it is built into our day left, right and centre. It is a matter of developing habits and again, being present and aware (awareness is going to come up a hell of a lot in all of the chapters we go through here) of the decisions we are making.

Choices are everywhere, it just so happens we get a little lazy in those choices.

I am not just talking about walking to work instead of driving. Let’s go a little deeper here into the different choices you can make related to walking instead of driving to work:

• Walk instead of drive • Park further away • Stairs not lifts • Use the bin furthest away • Use the printer furthest away

Simple things but just being aware throughout will add to this movement. Again we will go into depth of how to utilise the movement potential of your body.

As with the mind we have three movement parameters to cover – Strength, Speed, Stamina and every movement we go through in life will involve a certain aspect of each one just at differing levels throughout. Every goal you have whether it is to run a 5k park run to running the London marathon, squatting your own bodyweight to competing in a power lifting competition, beating that bloody old person who makes swimming look so damn easy and effortless at 6:30am every morning or swimming the first discipline in an Ironman triathlon. You will require a certain amount of strength, speed and stamina and to be honest it won’t just be in movement we

require some of these, you still will need a certain level of strength and stamina in order to hit your goals elsewhere including in the kitchen, let’s not forget the strength when out with friends for the Friday drink.

But how should we move?

Everyone is different as we know and everyone will want a different outcome, I will go into an analogy when we get to the macros but let’s put it in your mind already.

Not everyone wants to build a massive castle with thick walls, some people will want a lean functional sky scraper, some will want a small facility that is hassle free and doesn’t require much maintenance. We will go through your goals and how to go about achieving them, the first steps and consistency.

How do you get those houses built?

The Macros

I’ve heard this in different terms over the past few years and macros in short make up most of our food choices.

Now whether you have heard it in a term such as ‘If It Fits Your Macros’ or just as a pointer in the different food types that are going to make up your nutrition. Macros make up a

vital part of your body upgrade and are the final one of the ‘Three M’s’

Carbohydrates, proteins and fats are the three macronutrients and eating too much of one and not enough of the others won’t get you where you want to be. Eating too many of all of them won’t get you where you want to be. We will workout based on your goals and movement amounts exactly where we need your focus to be and the balance we need to have between each macronutrient.

As important as macros are there isn’t much to say in regards to the fundamentals as we will cover so much when it comes to the actual chapter further on in the book, that’s is where we really get into the nitty gritty.

What if you don’t want to do it?

Well, simply don’t. Again I invite you to put this book down if you feel you are exactly where you want to be, stay there and don’t progress. That’s cool. But if you are ready to do the most important thing you can ever do then I am excited to be part of that. Are you ready for the biggest step of your life?

TIME TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.

We can blame our ancestors, we can blame our parents, the ex boyfriend, children, friends, media. But with all due respect,

you are where you are right now because of no one else but yourself, that is the harsh reality unfortunately. No one held a gun to your head and said to sit down with that takeaway and eat it whilst drinking a bottle of wine. No one did that but you. It is simply a choice you make to have junk food or have good food that will help you on your way. It is simply your choice to skip the gym because you are tired due to eating crap, sleeping late and having that long day at work eating chocolate raisins at your desk all day long. It is simply up to you to take responsibility and I am not going to try and sugar coat it in this book. I am going to take all the science out of it and explain it in plain English just how to take responsibility and get to where you want to be. Well, where you SAY you want to be anyway.

Media Myths

Unfortunately some of the things we have been bred into thinking aren’t always down to our pure ignorance, they are down to the crap we are fed left, right and centre in the media. Now, some people may have different views on this but I am going to be straight up, I have nothing to hide here in telling you what I believe.

Carbs are bad –

No, that is incorrect. Over the years we have been made to think that carbohydrates are the devil out of the three food

groups, I won’t go into the depth that some books have but basically carbohydrates are used in our bodies to provide us with energy. They provide practically instant energy for us to use and unfortunately some people eat too many carbs. Carbs are nice and very VERY easy to eat so it is understandable. When some carbs get processed by the body it won’t like them as much (such as grains) but again as long as you are getting about 80-85% of your carbohydrates from good single ingredient whole foods (we will go into food quality and food types during the macros section) then you won’t go far wrong, providing you aren’t allergic or intolerant to what you are eating.

Sugar is the devil –

Again like carbs we are taught sugar is bad but in essence no, it isn’t. The trouble we get is that some foods are again very processed as mentioned previously. These processed foods won’t do the body as good as getting good whole foods and if you do want to eat a few sweets it is totally ok however if sweets are a bit of a trigger then I would steer clear of them for a bit.

Cholesterol is bad –

We have two types of cholesterol in our body – LDL (Low density lipoprotein) and HDL (High density lipoproteins),

LDL being what is known as ‘bad’ and HDL being known as ‘good’.

First off when a doctor does a cholesterol test unless he or she requests a detailed one it is usually just a total cholesterol marker. This means the total of both of HDL and LDL put together. Now this sounds ok but let me ask you this.

If a tennis match had 6 sets is it a close match? Maybe, but it could be 3-3 or 5-1. One is tie, one is a white wash.

This is the problem with having a total cholesterol test. You may have loads of HDL and a little LDL. I would always request a full cholesterol test if you consult your GP.

Also 90% of the time dietary cholesterol (that age-old thing that eating too many eggs will be bad for you. Yes, that is another myth) will not raise your LDL levels. It will be down to lifestyle, genetics, loads of alcohol, smoking and junk food. Let’s just get that clear now.

Fad Diets –

I’m pretty passionate on this subject so I will just keep it simple and that way it doesn’t have to last about 50 pages. Diets based on shakes as meal replacements won’t work long term. I am talking about those diet plans that Jenny down the road sells to you who didn’t know about them last weekend

and is now an expert because she is part of a pyramid scheme. She gets paid to sell so has put money in front of the lives of her friends and family and will destroy their health with low quality, low nutrient shit that quite frankly has not even got a ‘plus’ to any ‘life’ at all. I don’t care who that ‘body is by’. Nutrition and health should be a lifestyle. It should be something you don’t have as a fad but something you can live with day in, day out. 9 times out of 10 these fad diets will be mean you drop weight ridiculously quickly but most of that weight will be water, meaning you feel horrendous with bags under your eyes and looking like you’re about to audition for the next Resident Evil film. What happens when you start eating ‘normally’ again? You put on more weight than you had when you started, potentially doing long-term damage in the process – I think I made my point there.

Cleanses and Detoxing –

Unless you are munching on loads of factory waste products, have a side of AA batteries and a cocktail of petrol, oil and gas mixed together then your kidneys and liver will easily be able to detoxify your body without having to go see Jenny and her latest pyramid scheme, which apparently is packed with so many ‘superfoods’ it can turn you into Wonder Woman within 7 days. (Let’s not start on ‘superfoods’). Unless you have predisposed medical conditions then detoxing will always happen as long as you’re doing a couple

of other things: a good balanced diet, doing a little bit of exercise regularly and drinking that magic liquid we can source from turning a tap – water. I think this goes with the fad diet part – there are no quick fixes.

As we continue I will go through some more media myths in the book and tell you the truth about going down the ‘free from’ route which may just drain your bank account.

Money –

Yeah, you got the money thing sorted right?

Surprisingly we all have money problems. I have said it multiple times recently to people. That guy sitting outside of city hall in his sleeping bag selling The Big Issue – he has money problems right? Well, let me tell you this. Bill Gates, Richard Branson even Mark Zuckerberg they all have money problems! Welcome to the real world. EVERYONE has money problems we just need to find out what is holding us back from getting more money and honestly, 9 times out of 10 it is NOT your business that is the reason your your bank balance isn’t increasing. This book will provide you with some steps to help you push through your money issues in order to create complete balance all round in your life.

Madness –

Are you mad? No I don’t mean like mad as in have you turned into the Joker mad ‘Why So Serious?’. I mean are you having fun, yes, fun. A little….madness. Madness is about fun right, madness is putting that little bit extra into your life that gives you excitement, that gives you pleasure and gives an overall balance and Revitalization throughout.

Marriage –

But Why? Why now? Why me? Everyone needs a reason if not there is no drive or motivation to make that reason a realisation. (See what I did there?)

We need to look deep down and dig, remember in the intro about the mirror and walking past seeing those muffin tops jumping out laughing at you like something off Sesame Street? Did that hit you where it hurts?

Marriage isn’t just about two people joining together at a ceremony which leaves them being next to bankrupt (why the hell does everything cost 5 times as much when you mention ‘wedding’?!) it is about relationships. Relationships with yourself and the reflection in the mirror, relationships with your friends, relationships with your family and relationships with your better half, we will dive into this in a lot more detail

here and you can see what we really mean by relationship - is it really where you want it to be right now?

Read this as an example and see what relationships you can spot in this story about a client.

I am going to tell you about a client I worked with. I know it sounds harsh but I am glad we went into his office and had a chat where I made him cry. This guy was overweight - he worked hard don’t get me wrong - in his mid 30s and since he turned 30 had put on nearly 100lbs. He was already severely overweight but now he was 320+ lbs. We chatted about why he wanted to lose weight and the obvious reasons came up but he knew that health was an issue and he was weak. He couldn’t do one push up, he was addicted to a life of fast food and Chinese takeaways, the addiction which he had to feed. He was knackered in the morning and having sugary energy drinks just to get through the day and it was not a nice life he was leading. He had recently got married and his son had just been born too. This was the kick he needed. We said how he hadn’t got where he wanted to be and let it slide when he was 30, now it’s 5 years later and he had put on nearly 100lbs in that time. Another 5 years down the lines (if nothing changes) chances are he will put on another 100lbs too. We discussed what it will feel like to get to see his son starting school, stepping onto the football pitch for the first time, graduate from university, get married and even become a Dad himself to which he

replied it would be an amazing feeling and he can not imagine the joy. Then we discussed in 5 years time with another 100lbs added to the already ridiculous stress the body was under the chances of him even seeing his son go to his first day at school were slim. He broke down.

This was the main reason why he needed to change and from that day forth he wanted to change but it took a lot of digging in order to get him to that point.

I want you to think deeply - what are the reasons you want to change? We will go through these a bit more in the mindset section but think about it now and be honest with yourself.

Are you single? Are you attractive to the opposite sex? Are you married? Can you still please your other half? Are you that girl dripping in sweat at the business meeting you lead, needing to give that presentation for YOUR company and garner the respect of others but you look like a wet sponge to start with?

These examples do sound pretty extreme but ladies seem to pride themselves on things like this, if it hurts it is probably something pretty close to home.

I know this from first hand experience because I was that guy who took too much interest in his job and the opposite sex

would just laugh me away to the point I had to make that change, and did.

Now this change isn’t something that will happen overnight but the secret is simple and will be given to you in this book. The title is a bit of a giveaway ‘The One Day Body Upgrade’ but this isn’t something that you can get done overnight. You don’t wake up a different person like Tom Hanks in Big because you’ve put a dime in the Zoltar fortune teller machine. It is simply breaking your goals down into individual days which are so easy to follow it will be harder to get it wrong than get it right.

So one day at a time right? After all, you only ever have ONE DAY. Stop all that ‘Someday I am going to be fit’ nonsense. ‘Someday’ is the equivalent to dreaming and you’re not sleeping you are awake, in the present moment and ready to LIVE. And to add to that, what if you did only have ONE DAY to live? Wouldn’t it be better to live it to the maximum rather than hit a brick wall because you are running on empty at 3pm?

We have been through a good amount here covering the fundamentals of the process and touching on some hard to take points. We have covered ‘The 5 M’s – Mindset, Movement, Money, Madness and Marriage’ and shown you what you will be able to create when you have finished this book.

The basics have been touched on and whilst these are the fundamentals they are also the foundation to success. You should now have an idea of what your ‘why’ is and we will now continue on this route in order to fulfil that ‘why’. One word I have used throughout my life and continue to use is ‘honesty’, something I pride myself on. Everything in this book is true, if I tell you I’ve done something, it happened. It is the only way to show you how you will get to the truth in your own mind and really upgrade your life, feel great and thrive.

4. The Balancing Act - Hormones

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

-Albert Einstein.

When it comes to health we could get into so much detail here regarding your hormones and this is standard even for guys. We need to get the correct balance if not it can feel like you’re fighting fire with fire.

This book isn’t meant to be a science book but I do feel there is a low level of understanding needed of certain hormones, especially for you ladies and I am going to go through five of those which stand out in order to get success with your health journey. Until you learn how important these are and take the steps in this book then you will feel like you’re just fighting a losing battle when it comes to not only being healthy but also your weight loss journey too.

Remember though, this is a guide and not a prescription or a medical journal. I will always advise you get a medical professional to give you their opinion or prescribe tests to find out your current levels, rather than just assuming you have high or low markers in certain hormonal areas.

Your hormones aren’t just going to impact your mood but also your weight and your energy levels. The bloody frustrating thing is that they will fluctuate depending where you are in your cycle and even the time of year based on the environment you’re in. Add that to the increase or decrease of certain hormones based on your age from puberty into adulthood and then onwards in the menopause you can see why it gets confusing. Don’t ever let a guy tell you it’s hard for him (I’m sure you don’t!) because in a straight up comparison I apologise for how easy us guys get it when it comes to hormones. Add this to the fact there’s so much confusion around hormones within the media, so much so in fact that most publications will print very little on the subject which can just add to the frustration. Then what they do publish is simply ‘eat in a calorie deficit to lose weight’ or ‘do this 6 minute ab session to get a flat stomach’. Helpful.

Oestrogen

This is the main hormone which will help you become a more amazing woman than you are today and give you curves where you want them. This is the one where people might say you have high oestrogen levels causing you to gain weight but in reality it needs to be put into perspective, by including another hormone called progesterone. Just like the main hormones they won’t do all the work on their own, you want to have the right balance between oestrogen and progesterone in order to be on the right track with your healthy body.

Oestrogen levels can be impacted by higher cortisol and more recently there has been a lot of research around how much our exposure to environmental oestrogens can impact our health. Things like pesticides, additives in food, plastics and even hormones which have been put into some animal products (more dominant throughout the U.S in the past, this may be about to change hopefully) can affect the levels.

You can get a good balance with your oestrogen levels by first managing your stress. To be honest most of the hormones are going to be helped by stress management. Get a good amount of fibre in your diet from vegetables and good quality sources of carbohydrates (i.e minimise the white potatoes and pasta!). Make sure that you are eating high quality and free range organic meat where possible and eliminate high levels of sugar. (Eliminate is an extreme word, to me this is going to mean just remove it from your diet most of the time). Also, get a good amount of movement in throughout the day which will consequently help the body with it’s detoxification process (you do this naturally, not by being marketed to buy that detox tea from Sandra down the road).

Cortisol

Despite what many people think, we actually need cortisol in the body in order to be healthy. It’s good to have it at higher levels in the morning and then slowly lowering as we get

closer to our natural bedtime. The problem is that this hormone which regulates your body’s response to stress is usually at extreme levels given both this modern world we live in and the stress that the modern woman is usually under.

The problem with this being high, apart from immediate health implications and a high chance of burning out, is that it can also be linked heavily to your body storing excess visceral fat (which is the fat around your organs) and usually in high levels around the belly - not ideal!

In this world we thrive off caffeine, or at least think we do but lowering the amounts we intake by switching coffee to tea will help reduce the stress response, alongside practicing that buzzword of the moment ‘mindfulness’ which basically means slowing down and taking a breath. If you don’t know how to meditate or believe you simply can’t then I would highly recommend the app ‘Headspace’. It is not something I am affiliated with but I do use it regularly when I am on the go and not able to meditate within my normal surroundings or for when it’s a little noisier than usual.

Other methods of lowering cortisol are taking a magnesium supplement or getting good amounts of high quality sleep. Both of these work hand in hand with the other.

Leptin

This is produced by the body’s fat cells and essentially is that inner parent in you saying ‘you’ve had enough, you don’t need any more ice cream’. It does this by sending signals to a part of the brain called ‘the hypothalamus’. This is seemingly a good thing but when we consume such a high percentage of processed foods and a high level of fructose (the sugar found in fruit) we get higher fat stores throughout the body which then leads to too much leptin being released by these fat cells. From there we develop something called ‘leptin resistance’ meaning that your inner parent is bored and now can’t be arsed to shout to the inner child to ‘stop with the ice cream right now’ meaning you keep eating and keep gaining weight. High stress can lead to lowered leptin levels meaning you don’t feel as full once you’ve eaten, as does sleep deprivation. And one thing we skimp on in the 21st century is sleep. When you are lacking sleep your body will actually desire more fatty or high carbohydrate foods meaning the first thing I recommend people to do (and there is a pattern here) is to get a good level of sleep and some mindfulness in their life regularly.

Other methods will be to get increase the level of omega 3 foods in your diet or a good supplement, lowering your processed food and added sugar intake alongside a good exercise plan.

Insulin

Insulin is created within your pancreas and essentially helps your body to deal with high levels of blood sugar. As our body fat level increases (this also applies to those people who aren’t seemingly overweight but are high in bodyfat percentage, they will store theirs inside the body as visceral fat) your insulin levels get thrown out of whack meaning that it’s a little harder for you to lose fat. Another thing to be noted here is that if you’re constantly eating high sugar and processed foods through the day you will be making your insulin work extra shifts and not get paid, we all know what happens when we overwork and underpay workers – they bloody hate it and often become lazy - therefore this extra sugar gets stored as fat.

There are those that suggest apple cider vinegar in the morning will help regulate your blood sugar levels and some people believe it will work. However I honestly feel the best way is to keep your movement levels up through the day with regular exercise and make sure you have a healthy diet as much as possible. That will have much more of an impact than any little tweak you make elsewhere. First thing in the morning I do squeeze half a lime into some room-temperature water, then add some Himalayan rock salt as a sort of flushing out for the body. I like it and I know a lot of people that do it but again, food will be a better place to start.

Other ways you can aim to manage your insulin levels are to get a good baseline of protein in all your meals and also make

sure you mix meals. So if you do want to have something which is high on the glycemic index (i.e sugary), have protein or fats with them to slow down their release into the blood.

Let’s not forget your periods…

I am literally feeling bad us guys don’t get periods. As if women don’t have it hard enough already! Not only do you have to deal with the stress that all the hormones cause each month but because they kind of ‘gang up’ on you they can be a total douche on both your health and feelings at the same time. Meaning you end up craving all the bad stuff which tastes so good.

I feel it’s important to note that around 80% of any studies I have seen on weight loss have not taken into account gender, let alone menstruation. It’s no wonder there’s a lot of confusion around this subject when it comes to not just your health but the things which are slowing your results in a One Day Body Upgrade.

Your menstrual cycle is split up into 2 different phases (this is about as deep into science as I will go in this book but it’s important you understand the difference). The first phase being the follicular phase and the second the luteal phase.

At the start of the follicular phase there’s not much need for hormones to be at high levels due to menstruation. Therefore

oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone will register as being lower if you have a blood test at this point in the cycle. Following this is the second half of the follicular phase, usually the 8-14th days of the cycle where menstruation stops and blood sugars level out. The technical term is that insulin sensitivity rises - all down to higher oestrogen levels.

Then there’s the luteal phase, the second half of the cycle. Oestrogen and testosterone will start to lower in this phase and progesterone will increase which is also why you may potentially feel hotter in this phase as progesterone is a hormone which raises your core temperature. At the same time all this is happening progesterone will take a swing at your insulin sensitivity and make your blood sugars easily imbalanced. This is along with water weight fluctuations meaning more cravings leading to weight gain, bloating, tiredness and add to this the oestrogen dropping which can bring down your levels of serotonin and your . mood is then affected. This is the time us guys usually get things taken out on us and in my wife’s words ‘because there’s no one else to take it out on!’. (Thank you…).

Now there is a kind of plan you can do but it isn’t easy to manage unless you track your cycle and work closely with a practitioner to help take some of the stress out of it. But given that a lot of coaches seem to shy away from the word beginning with ‘P‘ make sure you find someone who isn’t afraid to talk about this openly with you.

During the crossover from the luteal to follicular phase I would recommend lower impact exercise and maybe rest weeks, or active rest weeks in the gym. If you’re an athlete try not to enter any events or races during this time. The second week when testosterone and oestrogen are higher, hitting the weights would be a good plan as the body can actually consume a little more carbohydrate at this time. It could be a good idea to lower your fat intake or protein slightly as well, so ideal time to make this your big date night of the month (still 2nd week of the cycle). The 3rd week will be the time to make sure you are pretty on-point with your nutrition but psychologically it is going to be harder in the 4th week as high salt and falling off the wagon can mean you get even more bloating or water retention than you should. You should also be mindful of your sugar intake along with caffeine and alcohol, even though you may crave this more because your body wants to boost your serotonin levels. Stress is a total and utter prick right now and anything you can do to lower it will benefit you Meditation, Epsom salt baths, sleep, massages and spa days will be such a good treat at the end of your cycle.

Then it repeats.

Hopefully you can start to see how important it is to get a handle on stress levels and the impact burnout has, not just on your body fat but your overall health.

If you want to talk in further detail on this subject drop me an email.

Then there’s the menopause…

I am not going to go into too much detail right now but I will explain some of the reasons you may be noticing menopausal weight gain. Most of this will simply be down to the hormones doing their mid-life thing and yes guys do have issues here too, even though there isn’t as much of a ‘big deal’ surrounding it. This subject is something I have covered a lot and I believe males should have access to more medicinal products to help their hormone levels but that’s a story for another time and not for this book.

When you go through the menopause you will get inevitable changes in your hormone levels, especially if you aren’t aware of the impact day to day living has on your body and it’s hormonal make up. The big thing to remember is your oestrogen levels will lower which can deposit fat to the middle section of the body. Then there is the weight gain which is on average around 5-7lbs (according to the North American Menopause Society) however what usually happens is you put on much more weight simply because you’re using menopause as a factor. I want to say excuse but I don’t believe 100% that that’s the case. It’s more down to not knowing the impact and role these hormones have on your body, which isn’t spoken

about a lot by medical professionals especially here in the UK. Most people just eat and accept defeat against the weight gain.

There are some things that will contribute to your weight gain in relation to day to day living and lifestyle choices. I have been touched on these before however I will go through them now once again.

Sleep

Going through the menopause will impact your sleep with differing levels of negativity, meaning the duration of sleep is a lot less and really poor quality too. It will in turn impact your hunger hormones (the leptin we spoke about and also ghrelin) throwing them out of whack causing you to crave more food to keep you full, usually not that good a food choices either.

I talk about sleep elsewhere in the book but you can look to develop better sleeping habits such as; leaving your phone outside the bedroom (and don’t say it’s your alarm clock, they aren’t expensive so buy an analogue one if this is your excuse!) and keeping blue light to a minimum meaning also keep other screens out of the room too such as an iPad or kindle. Use a real book (they still exist and if you’re reading this on a kindle, go grab the paper copy it is much better for your health!)

Get lined curtains for the bedroom and even better a blackout blind to make sure it is completely dark. Another thing to try

is to turn the room’s heating down. As much as my wife will probably read this book and tell me I have mentioned it because she always has the room too hot (in my opinion), it is actually something that has been studied multiple times and the national sleep foundation recommend around 18-19 degrees Celsius which is around 64-66 Fahrenheit. The body reacts to the drop in temperature by sending you to into a better quality of sleep.

Lastly, to help you with sleep you should really look to keep highly processed foods, alcohol and caffeine away from the latter half of the day. In fact, caffeine has a half-life of around 5-6 hours, meaning after drinking 1 cup of coffee you still have half of the caffeine amount in your system 5-6 hours later, (this is for pre-menopausal women, post is higher). When you are on some contraceptive pills you can double this half life basically meaning that coffee will still be heavily in your system if you have drunk it anytime in the afternoon and go to sleep before 10pm. Sorry I had to put this in but I hate it as much as you). What happens with high sugar intake is that your insulin levels in the blood will spike. You may get to sleep quickly but you will wake later on and probably feel hungry too - midnight munchies anyone?

Low Activity Levels

As we age it is inevitable you will move less regardless of your sex, you won’t go out clubbing and dance the night away as much, lowered levels of sport, maybe you feel a little colder now and don’t walk as much, as your children grow up you aren’t chasing around after them as much (maybe driving and being the taxi though!) as you age your movement will decrease and it will decrease even more unless you are aware of it.

Getting regular exercise is going to help you so much right now, not just with your mental health but also physical health at the same time.

Weight Training

As we get older both women and men will lose muscle tissue, which is frustrating because most of the time this doesn’t result in lowered body weight but actually more fat on our body. The problem here is that muscle will burn more calories than fat, not loads but a little bit more. There is a way to keep hold of some of this muscle - maybe even try to gain a little bit more - and that is to do some weight training. It won’t make you bulky like a lot of women seem to think and honestly I find it amazing that so many women are getting this message now and there’s more of a 50/50 split in the gym. I’ve always said ladies have just as much right as us guys to be in the weights room and if you see a guy grunting or not putting his

weights away do me a favour and tell him what a douche he is please! By getting your muscles working with strength training you will find your dress sizes start to drop nicely and you not only look better but you will feel more energetic too. If you don’t know what to do then simply drop me an email ([email protected]) as I have created multiple programs and I can make sure I recommend the one which is right for you, taking into consideration your current health and goals.

Stress

I am nearly 33 and find myself I have ridiculously high stress levels compared to when I was in my mid-20s, especially if I let things spiral out of control and forget to take care of my own mind - it quickly has a massive impact on my health.

Not for one second do I think it will be easy for anyone going through the menopause, there are so many things that can happen. Older generations passing on, children leaving home, grandchildren being born, jobs changing and political unrest, people you know may have contracted severe illness and yet more stress will be round the corner. They say that God will never put you through something you can’t deal with but that doesn’t help if you aren’t particularly religious, like me.

All this stress can increase your cortisol levels as mentioned earlier, therefore we really want to do all we can to get the cortisol down and prioritising yourself will be key here. They tell you in pre-flight safety checks to fix your oxygen mask first and there is a reason here - it is simply because you can’t help anyone else if you can’t breathe. And while it may feel both selfish and wrong that you are looking after yourself when all these people need your help, it is actually you being selfless by taking care of yourself in order to then prioritise those around you.

There are going to be more ways to get your health back in check throughout the book - that’s kind of the whole point of a health book - and thinking of upgrading your body one day at a time. The points in this chapter will help you hormonally more than anything else and even though some are repeated it demonstrates how important they are. I cannot reiterate it enough, your hormones are what make up the defining characteristics of you health and getting them balanced is going to change your life for the better.

Lastly, before we bring the chapter to a close, I want to remind you what this book is about. It is a guide, a general set of rules and not a prescription. I would highly recommend getting full testing if you want to have a better understanding of your own starting point and I can recommend people if required. Or if you would like to contact me to discuss your individual case then get in touch via email.

5. Striving For Perfection

“There would be no need for love if perfection were possible. Love arises from our imperfection, from our being different and always in need of the forgiveness, encouragement and that missing half of ourselves that we are searching for, as the Greek myth tells us, in order to complete ourselves.”

– Eugene Kennedy

This is being collated all based on my own opinion, is it the correct one? Maybe not but it is my own version of what I see day to day as the ‘truth’, what I have experienced as an adult male within the world we live in and my personal experience of aiming to strive for perfection in a world which the very meaning of the word differs from person to person and culture to culture.

Perfection has driven me down some very dark roads but also led me to the brightest areas on this planet, sometimes both happen on the same day just minutes apart. Striving for this ten letter word has caused me to self harm, it has caused me previously to develop eating disorders and lose some of the people closest to me who I wasn’t able to bring along. It was a selfish pursuit in some respects by linking it so strongly to how I looked. Not just the reflection which stared back at me from the mirror but also the concern with how many likes and follows I was receiving on social media.

This didn’t seem to be the case in the past. Being born in 1986 I do remember a world without social media, just. But even then the way you looked was judged by the children in the school playground. And when you were in the football changing room where the team could only afford one size of shirt (which never seemed to fit me). But I am a guy, a male in this world and finally we are getting a little more of a grip on equal rights and gender equality (which I am not going to go into depth about as this is not supposed to be political but rather my own personal account of how I have seen the pursuit of perfection develop over time). Being male seemed to mean we had it easy based on when I used to read magazines on pop culture as a youngster. It was always the ladies who had it hardest, the women who were put on the front covers of magazines and shown in a certain way, told to dress like this or act like that, imperfections all edited out.

It is this method of thinking which has grown catastrophically. It has blown up in the last decade to such a degree I sometimes wonder if there is a perfection pandemic on our hands - we get stressed about taking that perfect picture, posting it on Instagram and worrying that we won’t get enough likes. (Which, by the way are usually happening automatically because a business has set up their account to flag when someone uses a certain hashtag). Can you actually remember a time when you took a photo? NOT a selfie but a photo and had to wait two weeks in order to find out if you had chopped off someone’s head? No retakes but simply

having to accept it ‘as is’ from what you were given. My guess is it was years if not decades ago.

I can’t get into the head of a woman but what I can do is tell you how it has been viewed from a guy’s perspective. Someone who has been in the fitness industry for over a decade and dealt first hand with body dysmorphia, exercise bulimia, anxiety and self harm over not looking a certain way - which took me to the lowest point ever. If I say something which may seem offensive, it isn’t personal. I don’t mean it to be, it’s simply because I am writing from my heart. However, I haven’t been known as a politically correct individual on the best of days and as much as I strongly believe in equal rights maybe the world was a better place before social media allowed everyone and their second cousin to become special snowflakes, who would protest about the colour of the sky on a bright summer afternoon or whether it is offensive to say ‘bring home the bacon’.

My issue when I was overweight was low confidence, I knew it. My father passing away suddenly when I was 15 hit me hard and there was bullying in my last year at school. I was bullied for being fat, being a massive fan of hip-hop music, bullied for the way I dressed, for being great at doing yo-yoing and playing the Playstation. I even got ‘silently’ bullied for my dad dying. And not forgetting getting bullied from one teacher named Mr. Atkinson for not being like my sister Ellie, to the point he told me nearly 3 months to the day that my dad

passing away ‘you will never be anything, you need to be like your sister.’ Cheers dude!

I finally picked up the courage to ask a girl out. In fact it was only through watching 8 Mile (the Eminem film which I have seen around umpteen times since) and she said yes but it took me around 3 months to even give her a kiss because my confidence was low and I didnt want to get it wrong side note - young Ollie pretty much everyone will suck at kissing first try! Then it was a few months later losing my virginity that I wouldn’t take my t-shirt off. In fact it wasn’t until I was around 21 and had started losing some weight that a girlfriend actually saw me topless. The first action before sex was always ‘turn the light off please’, what a fucking turn off! Since then I put myself out there to be judged, dropping nearly 100lbs to get on stage in budgie smugglers and wearing fake tan for bodybuilding shows - seven of them in fact - but that made the issue with confidence even worse. I was proud to be lean and have muscles however it was all I seemed to have in my life. No social life, no girlfriend at the time and certainly no parties or getting drunk. This wasn’t healthy and my obsession with looking a certain way was made worse when I would only put pictures on social media which were taken within a 2 week period of looking ‘good’ before each competition, adding extra pressure when people actually met me in the flesh.

It is this kind of behaviour in relation to social media which isn’t healthy. Social media has been a blessing for me, I have

built my business in helping people across the world get healthy. I have met some amazing individuals and gained some priceless memories but social media has a dark side and can cause high levels of stress. I actually read a guide on how to get a large following on Instagram which talked about not putting a picture up unless you’ve added certain filters and whitened your teeth through your smartphone, making sure your imperfections are non-existent. This is a woman with a massive following who’s preaching this, someone with a successful podcast and who has a very well known fitness business aimed at giving people more confidence in how they look. Is this really the way to build confidence long term?

How hard must it be to see so many women liking pictures of ‘fitness influencers’ and those have seemingly unattainable physiques, with Beverley Hills backdrops and Malibu beachfront properties where their selfie mirror allows them to take a picture looking like a contortionist! In reality I have been the guy doing this and it was for my own attention, my own fulfilment and at the time it did make a slight difference. I would post pictures with a full 6-pack and the caption would read ‘feeling fat today’. It wasn’t until I did a lot of work on my own mind that things started to change and the realisation that the unsustainable lifestyle I was chasing wasn’t just about my body but also my thoughts. Over the time spent in the fitness industry I am still working on my self confidence but have come to a place where I can truly say I am thankful of

that previous version of Oliver Jordan Matthews and the path he had to walk in order to become the man I am today.

And I want to mention there ladies, I may have had a slight hint of sarcasm in how I described that method of taking selfies (surely there is a technical term there) but as a guy in this modern age I know I speak for many of us who really don’t find that the most attractive way of holding yourself day after day. However I do understand why women are doing it. From wanting to push my body further and further with how it looked I had to sacrifice a lot of mental energy, that is why this book is called ‘The One Day Body Upgrade’. But it isn’t just focused on you dropping pounds or reaching a number on the scales, those are the side effects of improving your energy, focus, health and confidence. For what it’s worth attraction will vary from time to time but a confident woman is massively attractive not just to myself but a lot of men out there and confidence isn’t defined by taking selfies where you look too ‘perfect’.

And that leads onto something else. While I strive to make sure there is an impact on people to get healthy, or a step closer to being healthy with the content I create, that is not defined simply by a number on the scales. Is it great to lose weight if that’s your goal? Yes but there is a lot more to it than just the loss itself which is what frustrates me with certain group coaching schemes which focus primarily on this as a marker for success in your health journey. For starters, we can

manipulate this number very quickly by using certain protocols - fasting, laxatives, low carb diets - but it doesn’t mean that the fat is being dropped. A lot of these schemes are based around pyramid marketing but not only that, they are an unsustainable method of dieting where you follow a very low calorie diet usually consisting of a ‘detox’ supplement then two shakes a day with a low calorie meal to follow. This number of calories simply wouldn’t fuel you over the course of a few days. Yes by the end of the first week you may have dropped 10lbs and the second another 5lbs but that’s simply a combination of water weight, the small amount of food in your system and lowered stores of fuel within the muscles known as glycogen. The effect is actually doubled by the fact that every gram of carbohydrate we eat brings approximately three to four grams of water with it, therefore glycogen is essentially sugar stores in the muscle so when you do eat some carbohydrates you will get the ‘water weight’ back. Hence the common complaint ‘I ate a potato and gained so much weight’ after following a low carbohydrate or low calorie diet for a while.

As mentioned previously, the way it used to work for me with my obsession with staying ‘in shape’ (and by in shape I reiterate not a sustainable level of body fat or the mentality towards it) and striving for perfection was by only having pictures on social media within that two week ‘nearly perfect’ window. I would weigh myself every single morning and it would dictate not just my mood but my workout and the

levels of cardiovascular exercise I would undertake that day, so clearly, it wasn’t good. I would be feeling OK, ready to take on the world after waking up, going to the toilet and weighing myself. Then when I had put on a pound and my mood would drop, I would take it out on those closest to me and head to the treadmill to perform more morning cardio than I had previously decided I would. My breakfast would consist of taking out the oats and just having egg whites with some vegetables. My workout would be followed by another 30 minutes cardio, hoping and praying the following day there would be a reduction in weight. It wasn’t healthy and I would never have told a client it was healthy to act like this but I would try and rationalise it to myself knowing there were so many things that would impact the weight, such as how much I drank the day before, the stress levels I was under, sleep duration and sleep quality along with the types of food I ate. Not to mention the calories and even the quality of the workouts I had completed or whether I was feeling a little bit of a cold coming on. It was horrible and I was a total bastard to myself.

And that brings me to something else for this chapter which I feel is misunderstood by a lot of people. Unless something changes dramatically I am never going to get a full first-person understanding of this subject, only from what I have found by working with a lot of women, being in several relationships and that other thing that I geek out on called science. And that subject is ‘the time of the month’ or whatever thing your

partner decides to call it because it seems awkward to them to just say menstrual cycle or ‘on your period’. Not only is this a subject I want to tread real cautiously on but I know there is so much confusion out there surrounding this and weight loss. I have seen some women put on seven or eight pounds in certain parts of their cycle, some only a couple and those annoying ones who put on zero (you can say it…bitches!). Along with all this the body will be using more sugar due to working harder therefore it is normal yes actually NORMAL to be craving a little more carbs at this time. It’s not an excuse but I would actually program something like a small packet of Haribo into their plan near a meal. This can stop a client thinking they’ve been breaking their plan by having them and also prevent that ‘all or nothing’ mentality where they total fall off the wagon.

What actually is perfection and can we put it down to psychologically how you are feeling depending on the time of the month? I don’t think we can. I also feel there is a lot of pressure put on women by themselves. I may get a lot of stick by saying that part and it’s risky bearing in mind this publication is written for women but before I say it, I love that equal rights are improving and strive to make sure there is equal rights throughout everything I’m involved in. We live in a world where women feel the need to do more and more, take more control and in turn receive more power. That is absolutely amazing to see but in order to thrive when doing this there has to be something that gives. I am apologising for

the entire male population when I state that we, as guys, need to do more to support you and take on some of the other tasks that the more old school individual may state is a ‘female’ one. Things like raising the children in a more caring way, taking ownership when it comes to the household chores, looking after the parents when they’re getting older. Until we grow up and take ownership of these things plus a lot more I haven’t listed, I feel women are always going to get pushed into dealing with more and more stress in this modern world we live in. I love seeing women thrive and prosper, I really want it to happen for you. It’s an exciting time to live in, you are amazing so let’s make it happen.

6. Mindset

“Life has three rules: Paradox, Humor, and Change. - Paradox: Life is a mystery; don't waste your time trying to figure it out. - Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure. - Change: Know that nothing ever stays the same.”

- Dan Millman – The Peaceful Warrior

Wow, Mindset.

I bet you’ve heard this so many times and may have even taken on board a hell of a lot of mindset strategies but ‘mindset’ is the first of ‘The 4 M’s’ and I personally believe the most important. If you havent got this one then the other 3 are just set up to fail and I would almost certainly put money on it. In this chapter I believe that you may finish it with a completely different outlook on life as a whole. Powerful words I know and you’re probably thinking “what the fuck is Ollie talking about right now” but let me explain. We are going to work through some BIG things: focus, motivation, beliefs and why they are stopping you being everything you want to be. Why your drive sucks and how to reverse this, how to develop powerful habits, how to find a moment of realisation when you are aware you are just feeding your mind bullshit excuses. Honestly when I went through

this the first time I had to take a walk with myself and just be at one. Since then my life has literally changed 100%, but EVERYTHING was already there. I just had to reveal it and believe. Finally we look into the biggest thing that changed my life - Motivation vs Inspiration: Goal setting 101. It should have it’s own chapter but it’s my book so I will just make this the longest chapter due to it’s importance and then touch on mindset again when I show you how to move a mountain by yourself.

So let’s start now.

Focus:

What is your WHY? Why do you need focus? What is focus?

If you aren’t focused then how can you progress?

Here’s the deal, the road we want to travel has a start and a finish right? We are so focused on that finish line we lose focus on the journey, the most exciting part. And here’s a secret, that road will NEVER be straight. It may lead you the wrong way one time or more, you may have to make a decision as there’s some some road works and a crossroads in the mix but that is the best thing about the journey. Focus is what we need to make sure that journey leads us closer and closer to our goal.

What is your goal then? Is it related to business? Health? Family? Your goals may develop and change as you change and your journey progresses but imagine having the single goal of finding this present moment, NOTHING else matters. Right here, right now, this is all we actually have. If you can focus on this present moment that is an amazing feeling, that is power. Now no-one can add anything to this moment, NOBODY can take anything away from this moment. Focus on one thing and I am so grateful right now that one thing you choose to put your focus on is the text in this book, for that I am thankful.

Let’s look at where this focus adds up. I am going to use the Tour De France as an example. Multiple stages over multiple weeks with the best cyclists in the world doing crazy ascents and descents at ridiculous altitudes to be the one wearing the yellow jersey at the end when the tour concludes in Paris. This is the focus in short term over three weeks but imagine how it will be if you take this focus and use it to adjust the way you live your life. Keeping with the Tour de France. There’s different stages over these three weeks, so if someone wants to win they need to focus on each of these stages. Now they may not be a specialist in this particular stage, they may need to be a sprinter or a climbing expert that is great in the mountains but they need to be the best rider overall with the most consistent focus throughout the three weeks of the tour.

Now these guys have a big overall goal and need to remain focused on this overall goal as the times are added up throughout the tour but breaking this focus down into stages ONE day at a time allows the bigger goal, the bigger focus to take care of itself. That is ultimately what we want to get to at the end of this book. I will walk you through everything you need. We all have long term goals and need to be focused on those but breaking that focus down into each part of the journey, each day allows this puzzle to become so much easier to complete.

MOTIVATION>REALISATION>DETERMINATION GRAPHIC

Motivation:

What is it? Honestly, so many people get motivated by so many different things. When I was 20 I was motivated by a different thing to when I was 30. In truth even right now different things motivate me and bringing my own focus into the picture allows me to keep this motivation up each day. Let’s not beat around the bush here EVERYONE will have days they feel like total shit, when things don’t work out the way you want it to, that’s natural. If people tell you otherwise they are just bullshitting you I can guarantee. But the good thing is when you know what your mind is doing, where your motivation lies and where your focus is, you can EASILY become aware (we will go into this later in

this chapter) and snap out of it, getting back on track and staying 100% motivated (well, about 99% of the time).

Even nutrition is seemingly hard to get motivated with because we see quick fix diets and people don’t want to be drawn into the long term, hard work. Now imagine this: you have your nutrition sorted specifically for every day, this is so much easier to do than just eating the same boring stuff every month for 6 months just to get rid of those muffin tops. And training, you don’t need to do 60 sessions (5 times a week for 12 weeks) you just need the motivation for one session which is based around your schedule. You’re in business I get that, your schedule only allows 30 minutes to do some form of movement for 4 days per week. That’s cool, we are only going to be doing it once a day and there is only one day we need to focus on. As we build upon this knowledge you will learn that one day is all you need to be focused for and nothing else matters. It’s like groundhog day but only bloody amazing, living the perfect day every day.

Beliefs:

Wow, this is one where I literally took so much on board I didn’t know where I was or what I believed. You don’t have to go that deep but let me put things into perspective.

We go to school – from the age of 4-5 years old until 16 we are taught 5 days a week then 2 days where no doubt we do

homework. We then move on to college and university and some people will be learning from other people’s OPINIONS for the first 24-25 years of their lives. Then they go to work to do tasks which have been created by another person’s opinions and beliefs for the rest of their lives until they retire around 65 years old.

We are taught opinion, from people who have been taught someone else’s opinions who learned it from the opinion of the generation before. I could continue but you see where I am going with this right?

Why are you scared? I have been asked this so many times and I had a discussion with someone recently about this subject. This guy previously held a massive role in the army and had to jump out of planes at like 20,000ft. He mentioned he was scared the first time it happened. But what if you had no doubt the parachute would open, you would land in the correct place, you didn’t get fired upon by the enemy and got picked up and returned home safely. You had NO idea these things could happen as you had been fed the myth since you were a toddler that jumping out of a plane is only fine as long as your parachute opens with no mechanical failure. I mean, you’ve never actually had a mechanical failure anyway, right? Fear gone because you have followed a different set of beliefs.

Let’s look at another example of a belief with fear as an underlying theme. You walk out the door, lock it, open the

gate, get in your car, reverse off your driveway and go off to work, normal day. You aren’t scared at all here right? But what if you had been taught to believe that by just walking out of the door you are potentially going to get massive lumps of hail drop on you from the sky, trip up on the driveway and your car rolls on top of you because the handbrake is crap meaning you suffer career-ending injuries paralysing you for the rest of your life (extreme example I know). In all honesty this is actually just as possible as a mechanical failure happening with the parachute opening but you aren’t taught to believe this could happen but it could. You just don’t believe it could happen. That is a belief based around fear.

A belief I have dealt with time after time is one my Mum ingrained into me as a youngster – I need to be in a ‘safe’ job. You know, one with a contract and a boss type thing to tell you what to do. I used to be in a ‘safe’ job in the corporate world. My day would be as follows:

Wake Go to work Follow rules and orders along with systems someone else BELIEVED would work best Go home Sleep Repeat

But this was ‘safe’ because it was the belief in society that you had a ‘cap’ on your earnings based around someone else’s opinion and couldn’t get any further.

Now this safe job may I add I lost me two management positions, not down to performance but because someone else had their beliefs and believed they needed to cut the budgets drastically and send a whole department offshore. See what living by someone else’s beliefs and rules leads to a lot of the time?

Now back to what happens years down the line after I have carved my life seemingly out of my own beliefs. Nearly every time I see my Mum she asks with a certain degree of worry if the business is doing well. In reality it’s bloody thriving and I love every day where I get to help people. It feels so much better than being the top selling person in the insurance department but I have managed to live by my own beliefs. And we will develop your own set of beliefs, carving out your ‘perfect day’ by the end of the book too.

It is awareness which will let us see these beliefs and you will soon be aware as to which are your own and which are other people’s beliefs. The greatest thing about knowing these ‘false’ beliefs is that you will stop them becoming self-limiting and be able to thrive off your daily routine, loving every second.

I’m going to tell you about another belief I heard when listening to an audio-book and being honest, this has stuck but the title hasn’t:

A guy was having sausages for dinner on ‘sausage night’ (i.e he had sausages the same night each week) and his wife used to chop the sausages in half all the time. He thought nothing of it as this was normal then one day he asked her: “Why do you chop the sausages in half?” Bemused, the wife looked at her husband and replied: “Because my mother used to do it”. “Why does your mother do it?”. “I’m not sure you will have to call her”. The guy called his mother-in-law and asked the question again. “Why do you chop the sausages in half?”. “Well it is because my mother couldn’t afford a large frying pan and my father liked the sausages all cooked at once. So to fit them all in she had to chop them in half, and I just continued as it was a normal thing to me”.

Makes you wonder how many other things we do mindlessly because it is ‘normal’.

Determination and drive is a big thing (I suppose it is all big!) and similar can be said when it comes to motivation which links in closely with realisation too. But it is so much easier to have the determination to finish one day than it is to finish one month. If you look at a marathon as 26.2 miles it’s hard

but if you look at it at one mile x 26 and a bit, the mind can comprehend that a hell of a lot easier. That’s the same as life itself. Well, I find it a lot easier to focus that way. The same with working out, even with determination at its fullest I still focus on clients and their ability to ‘trick’ the mind. It isn’t 12 reps it is 1 rep 12 times, counting down from 1-6 and then 6-1 it seems such a shorter set and gets completed near enough 100% of the time.

Determination is defined as ‘the process of establishing something exactly by calculation or research.’ Now if you calculate what you want to do with your life it is one of the hardest things to muster up the energy for and stick to. For starters how long are you going to be alive? 10 more years? 20, 30, 40? Even longer? How long until you ‘retire’ if you are able to retire? 20, 30, 40 years? Now if we can only ‘calculate’ enough determination to be able to live ONE DAY at a time, this is where life really gets an upgrade.

Think of it like this.

Motivation is what gets you going. Determination is what keeps you going. Realisation is what you get when you are well on your way, every day, one day at a time.

We will get to realisation in a minute but first off I want to let you into the biggest development secret that won’t just help

you with your health but also your life, your business, your family and upgrade your entire body overall.

Habit.

Habit development is crucial here and so many people base their entire ‘program’ on 21 days but why? Because that is how long it takes to do something in order for it to become a habit. I believe this is incorrect. It doesn’t have to be 21 days, there are 24 hours in a day, why can’t you develop habits in 21 hours? Imagine developing a new positive habit every day of your life, a step ONE DAY at a time in the direction you want to be going. This is simple. Screw 21 days, that is too long. It tells my mind I have time to waste, time to wait and time to burn. No, I don’t and I know this for a fact. People fail with their habits because they take far too long to develop and because we are taught that it takes 21 days in order to create a habit. Again, someone’s belief.

The habit is already there, the behaviours are already there, the only time you have to develop your habit is now, this present moment. It is why I am a massive believer in habits being in the present. Habits cannot be developed in the past and they damn sure can’t be developed in the future. They can ONLY be developed NOW. This present day is where you will develop your habits, so in that sense it is NEVER possible to develop your habit in 21 days.

But what is a habit?

Again we can look at the dictionary definition and we find it is a noun: ‘a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up’.

Imagine creating your ideal life through your own body upgrade and daily habits. After all how great will it be that means it’s actually going to be HARD TO GIVE UP? Once we get our brain trained into knowing and believing it has something to do each day, it locks in on that habit. We are going to create your perfect day but in all honesty we should call it ‘your perfect habit’.

Realisation

Imagine realising every day you wake up that the day ahead of you is pushing you forward both mentally and physically, not just in your life but in your business too? You have learnt how to believe, set goals, achieve them and now upgrade your body so NOTHING will be able to stop you, I guarantee. One person described realisation to me as the conversion of assets, goods or services into cash or receivables through sale – I think they probably got that from the dictionary too but imagine that. If you know why and how you are motivated and have the determination to do that then you will get to realisation by obtaining a hell of a lot more money. But not

just that you will gain the ability to use the world’s biggest commodity which we cannot buy more of – time.

Realisation is exactly what it says but just being present allows you to feel it and take it in over and over, this is the beauty of it all. The experience is realisation. And when it all clicks, as it has done for clients all around the world already, you will notice that motivation, determination and realisation just blend into one, a kind of ‘zen’.

Don’t worry, I won’t get too hippy lovey dovey on you.

So why can’t you do it?

Go on, ask yourself that.

Why?

Why can’t you get in shape? Why can’t your business thrive? Why can’t you have so much time with your family you have to take them to Disneyland multiple times a year and take selfies with Mickey?

Let it settle for a minute.

Ok, do you know why?

Really?

Because you are full of excuses and mental blocks which deep down are just you feeling guilty about other things.

That sounds so harsh but I know it is true and I mean it in the nicest possible way. After all I did say I wouldn’t sugar coat anything. When we tie our excuses down we can almost certainly link them to when someone else fed us a belief.

You can’t earn money doing the job you love – feed that back to my Mum’s belief as mentioned earlier.

You can’t lose weight – the person who told you that can’t lose weight very well, and doesn’t have the ability to focus (show her this book please!)

Some of them we tell ourselves because of a lie.

“I HAD to have a Chinese”. No you didn’t you had forgotten to do a food shop and couldn’t be arsed to get decent food out of the freezer and plan a meal. It’s not an issue having a Chinese meal at all as long as you put in the work all those other days and know it will potentially have a ‘step backward’ effect. But if you’re upgrading your body each day then that’s cool because you will be more than two steps ahead beforehand.

“I HAD to have that drink”. No you didn’t, your friends peer- pressured you into thinking you can’t have fun without some alcohol. This isn’t your belief, it is theirs. They THINK you will be boring without alcohol but in truth you won’t. They won’t remember anyway and you will have more money in your purse plus actually enjoy that fry up the next day. That rather than puking up immediately after eating when you wake at 2pm, which will then mean you’re hung over and struggling to get up creating that ‘Monday morning feeling’.

These are just two excuses or ‘blocks’ people believe because of not wanting to be ‘man’ (or ‘woman’ enough should I say), to stand up for themselves to the people they call ‘mates’ or stand up to their own laziness. I’m not being harsh it’s true, I know this because I was that person and it took a massive amount of realisation to get to the point I’m at now.

The truth is we will all have times where we eventually lack a little motivation and determination but if you know you have had the realisation at one point then it is so much easier to get back into that way of thinking, providing you are also upgrading your life ONE DAY at a time. If you know what motivation is it is easier to see when motivation is slacking, if you know what determination is it is easier to see when determination is slacking, it really is that simple. It is all a matter of ‘awareness’ and whether you like it or not, present moment living allows you to be in a constant state of

awareness. No I don’t mean you’ve popped 50 stimulants and chucked loads of LSD into the mix on a night out (Don’t do that, I never have. I was trying to be funny and majorly OTT there but I can imagine you will be pretty aware of being 100% unaware!)

I will go through awareness a few times and link it to each chapter. Awareness is a big thing to be able to control. If you are aware when you are doing things, you can change that, if you are aware when you aren’t doing things, you can change that too. You can create a positive awareness and change to achieve the ‘present moment’ lifestyle which will give you the ability to automatically ‘upgrade’. I want you to try this little exercise and be 100% honest with yourself. It may ‘hurt‘ - I am not going to lie on this one (to be honest I can’t remember the last time I lied apart from when my wife asked ‘are you listening?’).

Write down 10 excuses you have had – actually let’s not use the word ‘excuse’ here. Write down 10 reasons you aren’t where you want to be. These may not be down to your conscious choices or any fault of your own – notice the important word there being ‘may’. I won’t be able to see them but if you want me to check over your reasons, send them to [email protected] and we can go through them in a bit more detail if you like.

Let’s go into this a little deeper now. One way that works well with my clients time after time, is a kind of ‘Goal Setting 101’. A tried and tested method which actually has had multiple people break down into tears when they imagine they don’t hit their goals. It’s so powerful it affects more than just your health, trust me.

We’ve looked at why you want to do things, right? Well, let’s change the wording there. When we tell the brain different ideas our subconscious will latch onto certain wording, even with a weight loss goal. For example ‘I want to be 90kg’. It’s very specific and makes the brain start to think ‘oh that’s so specific I can’t stay at this for very long’ or even ‘ok, I am 90kg now I am stuck’ and you don’t improve from there. However, if you set yourself a goal range the brain kind of gets tricked ‘I’m not going to get stuck at a weight, watch me move forwards and get within this window, less stress for me for certain!’ Visualisation techniques are being used here for a weight loss goal but the most powerful time I use them with clients is asking why and why not, and what if and what if not, regarding certain outcomes. In these scenarios we always ask ourselves this:

‘What happens if it doesn’t work?’

But have you ever asked yourself this:

‘What happens if it DOES work?’

So you have your specific goal, let’s use weight loss as an example.

What happens if you hit your goal?

You will feel great, have more confidence, increased sex drive, earn more, be more focused, your health markers have improved and you will be feeling so much more comfortable in your clothing.

OK, so flip it.

What happens if you DON’T hit your goal in the time given?

You will feel deflated, lacking in confidence, still uncomfortable in clothes, still not able to please your husband in the bedroom, you will still be having to dive into the disabled toilet at the top of the stairs at work to pinch the hand dryer to get rid of the wet patches from your top after walking 50m from the car to the door (in the middle of winter WHEN IT’S NOT RAINING). Oh and your child will still be saying ‘I love Mummy’s rolls on her sides”. As well as all this, you will still not be able to run around for 30 minutes with your children without making an excuse to sit down or ‘I’ll carry the coats’ just to get your heart rate back down to ‘nearly about to have a heart attack’ level.

What’s the WORST that could happen if you DO hit your goal?

This is a big one and hard to answer unless you look deeper into it. So for weight loss it will be something along the lines of – I won’t be able to fit in the clothes now (as they’re too big) and your children will be so proud of you saying ‘look at my mummy’s abs’ not flabs. You will get looked at twice by those hot guys at the cafe or whilst driving round in the centre of town on a summer’s day. You may even get mistaken for being Cindy Crawford or Rihanna. But now for the flip side.

What’s the WORST that could happen if you DON’T hit your goal?

You have a heart attack or a stroke, your children grow up not wanting to spend any time with you, your confidence drops lower, you lose your financial strength, the business falls apart, you put on MORE weight from stressing about it, your sex drive gets even lower and your husband leaves you and even, death. Yep, I said it and the truth hurts.

So as you can see, you have one massive eye-opener there. I remembered some pretty big things myself just going through it with you and that is what I love about this sort of stuff. You already have everything you need to be really successful, you already are that successful, upgraded businesswoman but you

just need to reveal it. First to yourself, then to the rest of the world. You are aware of what motivation, determination and realisation is and you know to be aware of potential blockages and examples of excuses. You even know why most of the things you believe now are not your ‘fault’ they may not even be your parent’s fault, or your grandparents but a result of generations before them having projected certain thoughts into their children’s mind. It really is time to start thinking for yourself and as the guy did in the example I gave earlier, JUMP THE FUCK OUT OF THAT PLANE!

7. Movement

“Take action! An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention.”

― Steve Maraboli

I believe that sums it up. We have nailed the mindset, we now know what your goal is so there is only one way to get there, movement.

So many people have the intent to move, the intent to hit their goals but action speaks a hell of a lot louder than words.

So what do I mean by movement? I mean LIVE, BREATHE, THRIVE, PROSPER. Some of the things in life that really upgrade you are all achieved through movement. Movement is exercise but we don’t have to see it at exercise in itself, more habits that seamlessly flow in and out of your daily routine. By the end of this chapter you will see how you can implement EASY little habits that will make so much difference in your life and get you closer to those goals.

What do you want to get out of movement?

That’s a big question, we could answer in a glossy magazine style and say “I want to have buns of steel by doing a 10 minute squat routine each day while drinking matcha green

tea” or we could answer in real person terms. “I want to be able to thrive in my business and live to see my daughter graduate”.

I prefer the second one personally as I know so many seemingly healthy people (not clients!) that have had to miss important family events because their health declined. And that’s not even taking into account their inability to fulfil their business potential too, which is something I want to change wherever possible. I hope this book has a positive impact not just on your life but the family that you support each and every day.

So, let’s start off with something basic. You more than likely have an iPhone or an Android device. Now these things will easily track your steps and if you want to get even more specific you can get apple watches, fitbits and many other fitness trackers which you wear on your wrist. Keep the phone in your pocket and check on an app like My Fitness Pal roughly how many steps you walk each day.

There seems to be a magic number but as we know, everyone is different so I would start by consistently aiming for 10,000 steps per day just for health benefits. Then find things you can change in order to increase this output. Even 500 steps a day extra will help and before you know it you’re on 11,000 steps, then 12,000 and so on. You won’t even notice it I guarantee.

How do you increase these steps? Simple ideas such as walking to work if possible rather than driving or riding a bike instead. Ok, you may not have loads of time spare so here’s some other ideas. Most of the ‘high-flyers’ at the office have a special car parking space near the door. From now on, screw taking your allocated space, take the one furthest away then you will get a good few hundred extra steps in easily. Also take the stairs instead of the lift, even if it is just one floor, its well worth it. If there are toilets available which are further away than your usual ones, choose those. If you make a drink and have the option of using a kitchen a couple of hundred steps further away, again go for that kitchen. The same goes when out shopping. Pick the car park space furthest from the door and trolley park. Pick the cinema parking space on top of the multi storey instead of the one by the door, and use the stairs. OK, maybe not from the 10th floor!

See what I am getting at here?

Get some goals, develop the habits and the steps soon add up.

You are a bodybuilder. (Stay with me now).

‘Every sport is bodybuilding in it’s very essence. You are building your body for a specific purpose, for a specific sport. We can all learn from the details as long as we know the end goal’.

This is a true statement in all aspects of life and for every single sport on the planet, but why? Because you are building your body for a purpose, a goal. If you are a businesswoman you want to ‘build’ your body with the aim of thriving and building your business to the top position. You want to be at number 1 in the standings, you want to get on the Forbes list and you can build your body to cope with the stress you have to deal with on a day to day basis. Building this body will also have to be done in short chunks of time. Maybe hotel workouts as you are on the road or attending meetings, maybe short 15 minute full-body sessions first thing in the morning each day. We want to build that body with as little negative impact to your business and lifestyle as possible and the maximum positive impact you can get.

We have three focuses with movement.

Strength, speed and stamina, ‘The Three S’s’ and each of these needs a certain amount of technique in order to really thrive.

Now this isn’t a textbook where I will go through lifting techniques or how to program your training for strength if you are a powerlifter or your stamina if you are a long distance runner. I have worked with 100s of athletes in 1 on 1 setting and I write programs so get in touch if you are interested in this. Right now we are focusing on keeping it simple, there is

no way you will find any of this complicated if you focus on it one day at a time.

Strength –

What is strength?

Some people would define strength as the amount of weight you can move between 2 points. Some people would define strength as a mental aspect Some people may define strength as something entirely different but for now let’s look at the day to day life of you as the successful business woman you are. Oh and that mother, remember that time you got tired swinging your child round and round and they were shouting ‘Mummy, do it again, again, again’.

Your arms were burning and now your child has grown a little you struggle to even lift them up. Ok, not many of you will be lifting your 21 year old son, but if you have a daughter you may want be helping them up the stairs after a heavy night out!

This is strength in its basic form, used day to day. Here’s some other examples –

• Lifting your handbag when it’s full • Taking the shopping out of the boot

• Moving furniture (the umpteenth rearrangement of the living room) • Picking up the labrador when it’s no longer that tiny puppy • Lifting up your children • Even opening the front door can be a struggle for some people.

This is what we need to do, the basics. Not lifting 50kg over and over again, and that is what I focus on with clients.

Try the following each day, it’s so simple but it will allow us to see your starting point.

Day 1: Do press ups until you can’t do any more (you can start on your knees if you aren’t used to full body ones), then straight into bodyweight squats, all the way down for 2 minutes.

Day 2: Do press ups again but 5 less than day 1 and repeat this 5 times, with the same number of squats immediately after each set. (So if you achieved 20 press ups on day 1 you will now do 15 press ups then 15 squats, 5 times.)

Day 3-9: Repeat day 2

Day 10: Repeat day 1 and see the improvements

I guarantee you will improve. Simple yet so effective.

Speed

This is the second ‘S’ and just as important as strength.

What is speed? Most people will define it as the time it takes to get from A to B.

I suppose it is the simplest definition. But let’s put it into real terms.

• You’re late for your meeting, you need to get there quickly but not be a stinking sweaty mess by the time you arrive. • You are pretty close to missing the train and have to run to the next platform. • Your car park ticket is running out and the traffic warden is right there about to write a penalty ticket . • Your children have done a runner at the beach and you have to catch them up. • You are playing football with the kids and you have to tear down the wing.

These are just some true to life examples of where you need speed.

Speed will come with building up your strength and I do have tips on how to link this will building your stamina too which won’t break the bank or destroy your daily time-keeping.

Here’s a little session you can do where you will just need some trainers.

Lamp post sprints

You can get one of your children to time this too if you want.

On the pavement find one lamp post. You will be able to see in the distance not the next one along but the one afterwards. SPRINT to it and get your child to time you. Or time it yourself if you don’t have a child available! Wait 20 seconds then sprint back (you must always beat the previous time, even by a small amount). Wait 20 seconds and repeat again 15 times.

This will help you develop your speed and we will look to increase this after a couple weeks. Doing the sprints 3 times a week at first and when increasing the effort level I would go to the third lamp post rather than second.

Stamina – The Final S

This one is just as important as the other two so it isn’t a case of ‘leaving the best until last’ here, each links into the other. If

you haven’t got stamina you won’t recover quickly with your strength or speed and vice versa.

What is stamina?

It depends who you ask but most women will say that you need more of it as a man. That’s a big kick in the balls trust me!

Stamina, if we looked at it in a real life situation like the other two, will be things like:

• Simply walking and your calves not starting to hurt, let alone your lower back giving up. • Getting up and down without having to lean on anything or grab the nearest chair. • Stamina could be how long you are able to concentrate in the latest meeting . • It is how long you are able to play with your children - you don’t want to get knackered before they do, imagine how they would feel. • It is being able to walk the dog at the weekends for more than 20 minutes.

We could continue but I think you get the picture, stamina isn’t just about running the London Marathon it’s about taking the kids to school, doing real life things. I mean, it’s cool to

have a Formula 1 car but you still need something sensible to go to the shops in right?

Stamina is something we build up daily and as you increase your steps you will increase your stamina. As you increase your strength your stamina will increase and if you increase your speed your stamina will also increase.

With all of the ‘Three S’s’ we have something that crosses over and really separates the good from the great, really setting you apart from the rest when upgrading your body. It’s the development of a specific habit which enables you to increase your skills in each S technique.

Technique is developed by your body learning motor patterns. I coach technique in both the physical and mental form. Technique isn’t just something we look at physically but in developing physical technique your mind will become primed to develop mental technique and this will crossover to the habits you develop without even realising.

Remember when we were talking about mindset we went over awareness? Well, awareness is a pretty big thing we need to look at here combined with movement too. If you aren’t aware of what you’re doing then how can you change it?

We had the step-counting as one of the first steps to becoming aware. One thing that helps so much with

awareness, which my clients have told me, is that they invested in my help with 1-1 coaching to become accountable. Being accountable will work wonders for your awareness trust me. Let me put this into language you will be able to understand straight away. Remember when you were like 12 years old and you used to leave your television, radio and light on and the tap running and your Mum would shout ‘wait until you have to pay the bills’ ? Well, that day came right? Not a care in the world about how much electricity or water you were wasting until you got a bill and then you were like ‘shit, I need to stop wasting all this energy’.

That’s accountability and awareness, you are now acutely aware that the outcome is money is wasted because you now have to pay for the bills. Find something that allows you to achieve that level of awareness and you are on to a winner.

Easy Lifestyle Swaps

Just implementing a few small swaps in to your day to day life can increase your activity a hell of a lot, immediately. Simple things such as:

• We’ve mentioned these first 2 before. Take the stairs over the lift – even if you’re only going up and down a couple flights it can add a few hundred steps on to your daily total which will then add thousands over the year, they all count.

• Park further from the door – When we achieve higher positions in companies and even in our own companies we reward ourselves with closer parking spaces. Is this really a reward, damaging our health? If you park further away even if it is only 100 metres or maybe on the next floor up in the car park you will rack up so many more steps per day and it will only take a few more seconds to get to the office door. • Don’t order online. This is convenience at its best, we are spoilt but years ago there was nothing like online shopping, there wasn’t ‘one click checkout’ and stores didn’t deliver your weekly shopping to your door in a convenient 1 hour slot. We have become lazy and it suits us because we have allowed it to. We always used to have the time but now we say we don’t have the time anymore. Actually doing your shopping, pushing the trolley around the store, going to buy your clothes rather than mail order. All of these things don’t exactly cost any more, in fact they may cost less with no postage fees to pay but they all allow you to increase your day to day step total, this is what we want. • Adjustable desk – this is a good one but not something many people do. Get one that’s not too expensive but will allow you to stand whilst working for a couple hours a day, all the time burning more calories and getting healthier. • Do away with your chair – a little like the adjustable desk but actually having some time off your chair and

using an exercise ball will allow you to activate vital core muscles. These not only help with your posture but burn calories throughout the day without you even realising. • Walk to work. So many people (and I have been guilty of this a lot in the past I will admit), will walk to work when in reality they live only around 25-30 minutes away. Yes in winter time it may be dangerous if it is icy, or freezing rain but in summertime the weather will be pretty much guaranteed spot on for you to walk to work so there really isn’t an excuse!

There are so many fitness trackers around but you can also do this on mobile phones and watches so there really is no excuse not to be able to track how much you are moving. A good target is at least 10,000 steps on top of any gym session you may be doing - it sounds a lot but it really isn’t.

We have the basics to follow and know that movement isn’t just getting from A to B but rather The Three S’. We have Speed, Strength and Stamina and depending on your goals the amount of each of these you require will differ from person to person. In an ideal world we will all have a similar amount of all three.

So there we have it, the simplest things can get you the farthest in health and we have developed your One Day Body

Upgrade. Focus on moving as much as possible, add these tips into your daily routine and you will be well on your way.

8. Macros

“The proportion of ingredients is important, but the final result is also a matter of how you put them together. Equilibrium is key”.

– Alain Ducasse

The Third M: Macros.

Otherwise known as ‘macronutrients’ they are basically the bulk of what we eat, made up of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. (Alcohol is technically a macronutrient but the body can’t really do too much with it!). We need these in full and I will briefly go through this chapter in order to explain why you need each one and provide examples of some good sources. I won’t be going into great detail about what your specific calorie intake should be or the structure of your diet as that is something I discuss in the plans I create for my clients. What I want to make sure you leave this chapter with is a basic guideline of what is and isn’t optimal for your nutrition and how to totally implement your One Day Body Upgrade.

The simple rule – when picking your food sources the quality of food will make so much difference rather than just the individual macros in the food you have chosen. Picking ‘single-ingredient’ foods means they aren’t processed and have kept all the quality and goodness in them. This will ensure

your body is able to thrive with the best nutrition each and every day in your body upgrade.

It is also important to note that if your overall calories are too high it won’t matter how much you follow these individual macronutrient guidelines, your body won’t be in a calorie deficit so you won’t lose weight.

Protein:

This macronutrient is usually associated with muscle-bound chumps that live in the weights area of the gym, posing in the mirror all day long whilst taking a selfie for their instagram account. Now protein is vital for everyday life, every living cell in your body requires protein and without this we wouldn’t be able to survive very long as our bodies won’t be able to recover and repair. Protein is made up of individual amino acids, some of which are created naturally in the body and some are required from our diet. This is why it is vital to make sure you get enough dietary protein in order to meet these needs. Now, it is quite common for anyone to over-estimate their daily protein needs and if you eat too much that’s cool no need to worry (despite what the media would have us believe) as providing you have no other health issues your kidneys will just help the body deal with it. You just may create a little

more body ‘gas’ during the day, not a bad way to clear the lift at the office!

Protein is commonly found in any animal products: meat, fish, eggs, dairy and also in high amounts from nuts, soy and tofu which all contain different amino acids. Some of these sources will include all of the amino acids. What I advise my clients to do is make sure they get a good amount of protein from a variety of sources throughout the day, to make sure you get plenty of these amino acids and don’t get a deficiency.

I would always recommend a client to eat just under 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight but also use their target bodyweight. So if you are 170lbs and you want to be 140lbs then you should set your protein around 140 grams per day roughly. In each gram of protein there are 4 calories so this will mean you would get around 560 calories per day from protein.

Carbohydrates:

I love carbs! No, seriously they are the meaning of life, I swear. I know so many people that have demonised carbohydrates but essentially carbs are a source of energy for everyday life and will be the centrepiece in your body upgrade.

Carbohydrates are what go into your muscles and also increase the ability of the muscle to take on water. These allow the

muscles to function and give you the energy not just to perform basic tasks but allow your brain to function optimally too.

There is a myth that eating carbohydrates after 6pm will make you gain weight. This is false. Overeating calories at any time will make you gain weight. People also find they drop weight quickly when they go on a low carbohydrate diet and there is a specific reason for this. For every gram of carbohydrate in the muscle the body will also draw in 3 grams of water. That means when you lose carbohydrates from your diet you will also take out 3 times the weight in water. The trouble here is that the body needs to be hydrated and by taking that water out your brain function will drastically decrease, which I don’t need to tell you is bad for business! And once the body is lacking water and your performance hits rock bottom, your weight loss will halt too.

Carbohydrate sources can easily be found in foods such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, pasta, bread, rice, couscous and oats amongst other things. Don’t forget some sources are fibrous carbohydrates, which are also essential for our body. These are mainly vegetables such as broccoli and root veg. We will go into these a bit more in the next chapter when we cover the ‘small big things’.

When structuring your diet I like to go for about 2-3g of carbohydrates per lb of target body weight when you are

training. Some athletes I will suggest up to 4 or 5g. So that means if you are around 170 lbs and you want to be 140 lbs you would look to get about 300 grams of carbohydrates on a training day minimum. In each gram of carbohydrates there are 4 calories (just like protein) so therefore you would get around 1,200 calories from carbohydrates.

I also advise clients to eat their carbohydrates around the periods in the day that they are the most active. Whilst the body won’t really store carbohydrates as fat (if it needs the calories) it is always good to plan your nutrition around parts of the day when you will need increased energy.

Fats:

Fats have been demonised just as much as carbohydrates over the years but we need fats to survive, that again is a fact. Fats are great, they help with hormone production and they are also required for joint health too.

There are different types of fat such as saturated, unsaturated and trans fats. The media has given saturated fat a very bad rep over the years and links it with high cholesterol levels. However if you are a healthy individual with no predisposed health conditions, eating dietary cholesterol will not increase your blood cholesterol levels. Things that will increase cholesterol are keeping a sedentary lifestyle, heavy smoking and drinking along with a diet full of junk foods. So if you fit

into most of those categories then you should really start taking the advice I give you in this book.

Fats will be found in abundance in items such as nuts, eggs, fatty meats, oils, butter, oily fish and avocados too.

Unsaturated fats are those which are usually liquid at room temperature like olive oil and they come in two types: polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. It is wise to get a good source of fats into the diet as it will help you to provide the body with things called ‘omegas’ which are numbered 3, 6 and 9 and are essential for overall health in the body.

When you have worked out your required protein and carbohydrate amounts the way to calculate how much fat you need is to find your overall calorie need. Take the calories out for protein (4 calories per gram) and for carbohydrates (4 calories per gram) and then divide the remaining calories by the calories found in fats per gram (which is 9 calories). Also make sure that this isn’t less than 10% of your total calories and ideally at least 15% minimum.

Here’s something that really helped me get across the need for having the right amount of each macronutrient in your daily nutrition to some of my clients.

Think of it like this: protein is the bricks, carbohydrates are the workers and fats are the cement. If you don’t have enough

bricks the workers aren’t able to build anything. If you don’t have enough work force you won’t get the bricks into position quickly and if you don’t have enough cement you can’t build the solid foundation and ensure the bricks stay together. Now this also applies with too much of a particular nutrient – too many bricks will mean just a mess on the front garden, too many workers and they will just hang around looking bored and cause trouble and too much cement will mean that it will just set, becoming solid and hard to move. How Do You Fit This With YOUR Lifestyle?

You are a busy woman, I get that I really do but we all have the same 24 hours in One Day of our body upgrades. And we always want to make the most of those 24 hours. After all, time is the one commodity we can’t ever buy any more of so we need to be prepared. Whether that means you prepare your food once a day or in bulk, get someone to prepare it for you (or even get it delivered to you!), preparation is key.

When selecting your foods it is important to take into account the facilities you have at your disposal throughout the day and choose foods which will still allow you to enjoy your food as well as being able to get the maximum nutrition. What I mean by this is if you really can’t stomach cold chicken and you don’t have access to a microwave then don’t put cold chicken in your lunch box, put something you can stomach in there. If you know you’re going to be in and out of meetings then having snacks like little pots of nuts/seeds/fruit and protein

shakes will be a lot easier to have on the go. You can always have a drink in the meeting. If you spend a lot of time on the road then finding good snacks at service stations is a must. You can prepare food for 3-4 days in advance but any more and it may potentially go bad.

Set yourself up for success, this is key. You don’t have much time so getting your head around food preparation will help no end. You can even get companies which deliver fresh food to your door for the week. These are great if you aren’t sure what to cook but I personally prefer clients knowing exactly what is in their food and learning how to make it themselves. Here are some great ideas to maximise the use of your time when preparing food, eating out and getting through the work day.

• If you have a grilling machine such as a George Foreman grill then use tin foil under the food then you won’t have to clean it very often. Just throw the foil away afterwards. • On the subject of grills if you are going to cook one chicken portion for that day then cook multiple portions of chicken, as many as you can fit on your grill. I wrap a portion in tin foil and can get 4-5 servings on one grill, meaning I have prepared 5 meals from one use of the grill. • Batch cook other things in tin foil such as potatoes and sweet potatoes. Again you won’t need to prepare the

food more than once simply chuck them in the oven for a reasonable amount of time (usually 45 minutes to an hour. Then wait to cool and chuck them in Tupperware tubs to keep them in the fridge. They will last a good 3 days. • Cook vegetables in bulk too. I literally fill my steamer with vegetables enough for at least a couple of days, I get mine frozen but fresh works just as well. Same for rice. If you have 75g of rice prepared for one meal (uncooked weight) then boil 300g and simply spoon it into 4 different Tupperware boxes, you don’t even really need to worry about weighing it out, just put roughly the same amount in each box. • Plan ahead – If you are going to be travelling then buy some fruit and protein shakes and the same applies with meetings. Just grab a serving of nuts and a protein shake, you will be instantly upgrading your body by doing so. Then you can’t be tempted by the biscuits and sweets that inevitably get thrown in the middle of the meeting room table. • When you are due to eat out, decide what you want to have beforehand and do not ever hesitate to request your food is served a certain way. So many people have allergies and intolerances nowadays that asking for your steak to be grilled plain is not a problem at all. Asking for potatoes without any oil or butter on them should not be an issue either - you are paying for the food you like so it is your choice how it is prepared.

You can see from the information I’ve provided that if you pick whole foods which haven’t been ‘tampered with’ very much you can’t go far wrong in all honesty. In this chapter we have gone through a lot of information around what kinds of foods are ideal and at the end of the book there will be guidelines on how to structure your day (food-wise). Please make full use of this. It isn’t tailored to your preferences and daily routine but if you’d like to a plan that’s more specific to you get in contact then we can discuss the possibility of working together. ([email protected]).

9. Madness

“See what I mean? You gotta be crazy. Ain't no time to be sane”

– Robin Williams

Madness is something that gets driven into us as a youngster, the only problem is that 90% of the time we are taught being ‘mad’ is a bad thing. When you look at the actual definition of madness in the dictionary, 2 of them are described as:

‘Extremely foolish behaviour’ ‘A state of wild or chaotic activity’

But is this not a good thing? Like, is this not the thing we call ‘fun’? Well, it’s my method and this is what I class ‘madness’ as – FUN.

Fun or ‘behaviour or an activity that is intended purely for amusement and should not be interpreted as having any serious or malicious purpose’ does not seem that different to the definition of madness.

When I dive in with clients it is apparent they are lacking time to themselves, time to unplug and having some ‘mad time’ in their lives. I used to be exactly the same but the funny thing is at that time I was seen as being in such amazing shape and my body was what a lot of guys would actually love to have. Abs

all year round with veins popping out of my biceps - I looked like one of those guys from the film 300 but without the sprayed on six pack. Let me tell you about the amount of madness that really went on in my life back then after my daily routine and I’ll let you decide if it’s ‘fun’ or not.

6am – wake – black coffee – no sweetener – 30 minutes cardio on treadmill in garage (even when it was mid-winter and below freezing) 7am – breakfast – oats, egg whites, veg 9am – work: desk job 11am – eat a meal (and make an excuse to leave a meeting if necessary) but I would eat regardless – rice, chicken, veg, all plain 1pm – eat same meal again 3pm – oats, protein powder, banana 5pm – leave work for the gym 5:30pm – train for 2 hours 8pm – eat 8:30pm – prepare all my food for the next day 9:30pm – 20 minutes power walk on treadmill 10:00pm – shake and then bed

How much fun do you notice was in there?

Tell you what though, I was shredded but living with my mum and step-dad. I had all the girls looking at me but no time for them. Let me tell you this for free – there is NO way I would

want to be that person again when I know how much I have grown now. If it was a non-work day I would be training in the morning and then taking my Tupperware to family get-togethers and if I wasn’t able to take my Tupperware then I wouldn’t go. There would be an excuse and it would not be an option to stray away from my diet.

I have a task for you to do.

For the next week – and yes a whole week, not two or three days – write down everything that you’re doing every 15 minutes in an excel spreadsheet (I am happy to send mine if you want, just drop me an email). Do this from the moment you wake until the moment you go to bed, everything, even if you spend 15 minutes taking a crap write ‘toilet’. Write down when you eat food, how long it takes to prepare it, the time it takes to drive to work, everything you can imagine goes on there (including the time you take scrolling and trolling on Facebook, don’t forget to pop that on there). When it comes to the end I want you to go through each day (you can do this daily if it’s easier) and highlight all the 15 minute blocks which you would consider ‘fun’ or been time for you.

The first time I did this it was an eye-opener and it was the same for clients too. I’ve done it twice actually and the second time was to see how much time I spent on specific money- making activities when I was struggling to get the funds I

needed to pay all the bills, when leaving the corporate ‘world’. I only had 60 minutes of fun over an entire 2 week period. I actually noted ‘training’ down as fun but in reality it wasn’t, so I took that out and there was only a 60 minute fun period. It was watching a football match which was pre-recorded so I skipped over a lot of the ‘boring’ part. Another thing that jumped out at me after doing this was that I took a long while to get to sleep, like literally sitting in bed for an hour before I drifted off (or so it seemed), and waking for a piss 5 times a night every night (no, that is not normal no matter how much you justify it to yourself, even once is too much).

So what did I do and how did I change?

I committed to myself what I was going to do. This was before I was married but I was already with the future Mrs Matthews and I made sure I was accountable. During the week I would commit to one ‘date night’ and this was not something I would ever be able to skip. On Wednesday nights we did something we both wanted to do – Cinema, food, bowling, trampolining (we were the oldest in the venue by miles but fuck it), trips to the beach. The thing I committed to that I found the hardest was to leave my phone at home or in the glove box. That was scary but I figured that anyone who needed me in an emergency had my wife’s number so could contact her if I was needed in an emergency. Everything else could wait, that goes for you too. NOBODY or nothing is

that important, I don’t care if you have multiple businesses, multiple staff members or even multiple countries relying on you, that you can’t take an evening off without dedicating yourself to the person you love most (after yourself). If you can’t do that then your life is actually in a pretty fucked up state, sorry to say it but you are not that important and the world will not blow up if you turn your phone off for an hour, yes really!

I also turned off my phone again at the weekend. Yes one WHOLE DAY, a whole 24 hours where I couldn’t be contacted and the way I did this was setting the boundaries with clients. Each time one was set up and onboard - even the clients paying me £5k/month - I state that I respond to messages within 12 hours on working days. The important word being ‘working’ and that includes UK public holidays too and sometimes includes weekends. I state when we start working together than most of the time I will respond at weekends but not Sundays, most of the time I will respond in the evenings but not Wednesdays. Set the boundaries and stick to them. I know what you’re thinking here, I work a 9-5 then I have to get home and sort the children out, do the housework, plus I am preparing to launch a business in the evenings, I haven’t got time to have fun in my life! Oh shut up. Gary Vee mentioned something which is 100% true and whilst you know me and that I like to believe in health before everything else, there is a time we have to hypothetically ‘hustle’ and

there’s a time we need to be ‘mad’. All that this requires is a little planning.

24 hours in a day Working 9 to 5 = 16 hours left Travel to and from work 2 hours max = 14 hours left Sleep 6 hours minimum = 8 hours left Play with children (this can be fun time too) 2 hours = 6 hours left Time with your partner 2 hours = 4 hours left Work on new business for 4 hours = 0 hours left

If you are organised you can have 4 hours of fun, that is around 17% of your day. Those who really need the kick up the arse will be hurt the most by this and I say it with love, but why can’t you be more organised? Because when I got told I needed to grow a pair of balls and be more organised in order to have more fun, more ‘madness’ in my life what was my response? ‘Fuck off, you don’t know me’”. I had to learn the hard way and now I am proud to say I am pretty close – OK some weeks it does slip but guess what, it’s just being human.

10. Marriage

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

– Maya Angelou

People often get confused with the term ‘marriage’ and it’s in here because it is much more than just a relationship between two human beings, brought together through love then charged a ridiculous amount for a ring and some bubbly with friends and family. Yeah I may have simplified it a little but you get the picture, so here’s some free advice for anyone getting married – set a budget at the start.

Marriage is about relationships, the relationships we encounter every day from the moment that we wake up to the moment we go to bed. The relationship with yourself, how do you want to be, how you actually are now and what can we do to bridge that gap. Relationships with your friends - which link into the madness chapter - are you seeing your friends as much as you want and are they really your true friends. Remember what Jim Rohn famously said:

‘You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with’.

It couldn’t be more to the point, so much truth within that. When you look at the five people around you, the people you spend the most time with how do they make you feel when you are with them? But more importantly, how do you feel in the couple of hours before you meet? Are you getting anxious? Are you feeling stressed? Are you feeling like you are going to be compromised in any particular way?

Let me tell you a story and you will probably resonate with this, actually I guarantee it. You’re reading this book because you’re someone who wants to make a difference so you will likely behave exactly the same as I did with this type of person. I had a friend who I’d known for a while and we used to train together. He actually helped me through one of the build ups for a previous show and it was helpful to have someone to spot me and get me through the session (especially when you feel like death warmed up). Now, it was all good for the first couple of years and then he would miss sessions. It isn’t an issue if someone doesn’t want to train but he’d say he would be there and not turn up. I’d get a text saying he got held up at work or something and this happened regularly. It turned out he had some money issues and was trying to hide it. The friendship became sour when we did meet up as he went from being a good guy to hang around to becoming a stress for me to see him. Not because I didn’t want to but I just knew that I would have to listen to every excuse under the sun as to the reason why 1. He wasn’t going to the gym (to be honest I couldn’t care less if he trained or

not, it’s his choice) and 2. Why he couldn’t get the money together that he needed to survive and even get to a job interview. I ended up loaning him a few hundred pounds to get a new suit for a job interview and then he made another excuse as to why he didn’t get to the interview. I wasn’t expecting to see that money again to be honest. I suddenly stopped hearing from him then a month after all this happened he called, asking if I wanted to grab a coffee. I got to the shop and I could tell he was expecting the coffees to be on me, not too much of an issue apart from the last 10 coffees had been on me! Driving to this catch up I was getting a bit stressed and I knew I had to cut this person off. I lost sleep the night before we were due to meet because I was getting worried about what excuse he was going to come up with. And me (being me) would want to help him as that is what I do. He used to be one of the five closest people to me. This was 5 years ago and in the 5 years since I cut him out I have grown ridiculously both in my personal capacity but also my business. Although this was not the sole contributor, it was certainly no coincidence.

So write down a list of the five closest people to you and then write down 3 positives and 3 negatives that each person adds to your life. Then the people you should have close to you and who serve you as much as you serve them will stand out. Why? Because you will find it easy to list the positives and really bloody hard to list the negatives for these guys. The ones who you should cut off (or at least reduce the amount of

time you spend with them) they will also jump out. Again you will see why.

Here’s the hard bit – I had to find a way to cut off some family members to personally grow and even begin to reach my potential. That was hard at first but it didn’t mean physically cutting them off all, it just meant owning my mind within these relationships and it’s something I dive into with clients more and more as time goes on. What do I mean here? Well, don’t take anything personally and make sure you are mindful of what you’re saying to them. I even had to do this with my own Mum (she will be one of the people reading it so “Hi Mum! Love You! You better have bought your own copy!”) but here’s what happened.

When I was working in the insurance sector, it was always classed as ‘safe’ - even when you hear of redundancies left, right and centre the average joe will always deem this particular contract to be ‘safe as houses’. You rock up, do your work, log out and unplug from whatever it is at the end of the day, easy. Well when I left this world (after losing two management positions, first due to offshoring the work and second time due to budget cuts) I was going into the unknown in my mum’s eyes. For her it didn’t seem like I had a real job (wtf is a ‘real’ job anyway?!) and every time I saw her she would always ask ‘are you ok? Are you busy?’ and the answer I gave was always yes. I never got those questions when I had a regular job, even when I was working in fitness they would

never be asked and this used to frustrate me. I did some work on myself and realised I could cut off her beliefs, they aren’t mine and I have no business in taking on board someone else’s beliefs. I can’t control them, I can only control my own so for this relationship to thrive I would have to do just that: know I am successful and make sure I believed it 100%. In actual fact it wasn’t until mid-way through 2017, after being in this industry for years, that my mum said ‘you’re like one of those entrepreneur things’ aren’t you. She doesn’t ask how I am doing that much now, she knows how well I am doing.

So this is where we get to the nitty gritty of relationships we have friends, family and our partners. The latter is what people really think of when the word ‘relationship’ is mentioned and when we say ‘marriage’ it’s usually what people associate with being there for someone. I made this mistake in the year I got married. It wasn’t that long ago and I honestly wasn’t sure I should talk about it in this book but I promised to be 100% authentic and not hide anything. That is the biggest reason why my program ‘The Revitalized Man’ has had so much success, because I am REVITALIZED. In the run up to the wedding I noticed a change in my wife to be: stress, illness and generally losing awareness in multiple areas. It is what happens when people become overwhelmed and I noticed it because I had a bout of anxiety a few years back so I wanted to support my fiancee, so I took my foot off the gas with my health and with my business. I was allowed, right? I was getting married, it was the most important day of my life. But it was the worst

decision I could ever make at that moment in time and the repercussions of taking my foot off the gas took a long while to fix. The big day came and we made it! That was until the proofs came back for our photos - I had the biggest football face (soccer for you crazy Americans) I could ever imagine. I had let my health and my weight slide, well, climb more than slide shall we say! I found I had 20 kilograms to lose and this was the kick up the arse I really needed but the problem was that wasn’t the only thing I let slide. I lost focus in my business and the money I made in the first few years of growing was great but the money I made in the year of getting married had dropped by around 40%, that wasn’t good. In the year I needed to make more money than in previous years I had actually ‘lost’ a massive amount. I had the firework up my arse right then and I am happy to say that now I have the correct things in place and I advise everybody to have a coach (I have three right at this moment) and I will never ever forget to invest in myself again. Even for the lady who means the most to me in the entire world. Remember when you last went on an airplane? Well, they go through the safety briefing and tell you if shit hits the fan then fix your air mask first, otherwise you aren’t in a position to help anyone around you. I forgot to fix my own mask first and as a result I couldn’t even undo my seatbelt, let alone help the people around me I wanted to help. Don’t make this mistake, invest in yourself for the good of the relationships with those closest to you.

That ties in nicely to the last relationship I want to briefly touch on - the relationship with that person staring right back at you when you look into the mirror. How can you serve this person better than any other person on this planet?

It takes a lot of courage to look at why you want to change and sometimes we want a six pack for the wrong reasons. If you recall I did that in my ‘madness’ chapter and it wasn’t a nice thing. I had visible abs all year round and it wasn’t mentally good for me to be in this situation. I mean, yes I went completely to the other extreme and it made me embarrassed but it was different, I wasn’t embarrassed because other people thought I had got a bit cuddly, no. I was embarrassed because I had let myself down, I had ruined the most important relationship I had in my life, the relationship with myself. It was like I had done the worst form of cheating in my opinion and cheated on ‘me’ with multiple hookers (and I don’t mean the expensive ones who play it off as escorts either!).

So in wrapping up here I want you to really look into these points:

Do the relationships in your life serve you? Does the relationship you have with yourself serve you right now? How would you change these relationships?

Within the next 12 months who have you got to cut off or at least down, in order to grow and start reaching your full potential?

This may hurt, it did with me.

11. Money “Too many people spend money they earn...to buy things they don't want...to impress people that they don't like.” -Will Rogers Money is the root of all evil, apparently. But money is cool, we like money and we love working out ways to get more of it. This is one of the shortest chapters but it will still make you think nonetheless. A lot of the thinking surrounding money comes from when you have either a ‘scarcity’ or ‘abundance’ mindset and it usually determines what you attract into your life. Not just money but other things: love, happiness, health and so forth. But what does this actually mean?

Well, let’s start off with ‘scarcity’ – the state of being scarce or in short supply.

I was actually brought up in this world with my mum being unaware of what she was ingraining into me. Why is this a problem? Because it was about being safe – don’t push your luck and make sure you prepare because there can sometimes be a short supply of things around the world. This was a limiting belief I used to live my life by and it was actually ingrained into my mum by her own mum, who was brought up in the early 1920s in an area which could only politely be described now as ‘developing’. In fact, before my nan passed she was asked to share her memories of her time growing up

in Norwich and I wanted to let you read how this world of scarcity was developed and how easily its passed down the generations but its purely because of love and protection:

“We lived in a slum house, up Nicholls Yard in Barrack Street. There was about a dozen of us all had to use the same toilet. We had about one tap in the yard and we had an old wash house in the yard with a big old copper where my mother used to do the washing. Up the corner there was a big old copper and my father used to have to light that copper with a lot of newspapers to get the copper to boil, you know, and all that... ….Well, anyhow, after I came out I went back to the house and my brother had got diptheria, Billy, so he had to go back in where I had come out because that was infectious. Well anyhow they said, because we lived in these slums in Barrack Street, they would have to find us a better house because we only had one room downstairs, one big living room downstairs and one bedroom upstairs. In the bedroom my mother and father’s bed used to be this side, Billy used to sleep at the foot of the bed at the top of the stairs. Elsie and Ethel used to sleep in a three quarter bed that side of the room and I used to be up that corner in this here crib affair thing. Well anyway after a little while when Billy came out of the hospital they give us a new council house and it was like living in paradise because we got a toilet of our own, a bathroom with a bath in it and a copper where you used to have to boil the water to have a bath. We used to have to boil the water to have a bath, you know.” – Gladys Courtnell (Norwich Memories).

You can see where the scarcity mindset came from in my family now right? Well, as we have talked about you will have

to choose how you want to live your life: By other people’s beliefs or your own beliefs? That is the biggest question you will ever have to answer but it will also empower you when you do answer it.

Abundance – is this where you want to be?

‘The situation in which there is more than enough of something’.

This really is the ideal place to be, don’t you think? If you have a mindset which is set to abundance you know you will be able to grow and always get more wealth, health and happiness because there is more than enough in the universe to go around. Cool right?

Well, it works with money trust me but in order for it to have the same effect on other parts of your life it’s not always money you need to focus on. Get the balance right on the 4 other M’s and you will be well on the way to improving your financial situation. Hell, I have had multiple people more than double their income within the first month of being part of The Revitalized Man program and using the Revitalization Blueprint.

Do you know where your money is going?

I was on the phone to someone the other day, talking about the Revitalization Blueprint and how they can start to implement some of the things I talk about before actually working with me. Why would I do that? Because they weren’t in a position there and then to invest the correct amount in themselves to get started on the process. We said that in order to know what amount needs to be saved we need to know both what is going out and what is coming in in the first place. So just like I do with clients when they sign up for help with their nutrition and complete a food diary for a week, I also suggest to clients on the full revitalization program that they need to complete a money diary. This way they know what they are spending every single penny on. By doing this as well you be more aware of what you’re spending but you will also notice where you can gain money. Patterns open up and you are able to notice them before they become a problem. But even better, these patterns sometimes provide opportunities to develop a world of abundance when it comes to money too.

So find out if are you living in a world of scarcity or abundance and decide if it’s because of your current beliefs or the beliefs linked with your childhood. Finally, if you need to, treat your bank account like your diet and get on board with doing a money diary so you can see exactly what is going in (and out!) day to day even hour to hour.

See, I said it’s not a long chapter but it doesn’t have to be because increased money is a result of achieving balance in the other 4 M’s, simple.

12. Moving Mountains – The Everest Obsession

“Accidents on big mountains happen when people’s ambitions cloud their good judgment. Good climbing is about climbing with heart and with instinct, not ambition and pride.”

– Bear Grylls

Why does this have it’s own chapter and not just thrown in with the mindset stuff?

Well, it is more important to look at your journey, at what you have already faced head on, overcome and conquered and what you may face in the future rather than just looking into the mindset of why, and what you are doing.

Everest, or Sagarmãthã as it is known in Nepal and Chomolungma in China, is the highest mountain on planet Earth. It may seem a bit off topic to be talking about this obsession of mine in a book aimed at YOUR body upgrade which we are doing one day at a time, however this may be the most important chapter I write in this book. It is certainly more important to me than what my clients eat, how they exercise and how they go about their daily routine, I guarantee.

Reaching the top of Everest is a dream to many climbers, the highest point that many won’t reach and the highest point on

earth that many have tried to climb but their lives were taken by the mountain. This mountain which is a grave to the bodies of the people she has claimed, holding them in her arms as other climbers walk past or over, one-step-at-a-time. At 29,035 feet high no man-made machine can put you there, you have to reach the summit under your own steam. The first documented attempt was under the leadership of Charles Howard-Bury in 1921 but the first person to reach the peak with his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, was Sir Edmund Hillary exactly 64 years ago to the day of me writing this chapter (29th May 1953). Since then many more have tried and over 290 people have lost their lives in the process. Brits which have summited Everest include legends and idols of mine such as Bear Grylls and Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the latter of which was ‘allowed’ by the mountain to conquer her at 65 years old. There is a certain way people have to go about climbing this mountain, this gargantuan task ahead of them and this is what it has to do with your health.

[Bear Grylls & Ranulph Fiennes pictures]

Everest is made up of 5 camps sitting at different altitudes all of which the body needs to adapt to in order to survive:-

• Base camp 17,500ft • Camp 1 19,685ft • Camp 2 21,000ft • Camp 3 23,625ft

• Camp 4 26,085ft When a climber embarks on the task of climbing Everest they have to go to base camp, spend time there to acclimatise before then climbing to camp 1. At camp 1 they will spend a night or two to acclimatise before returning to base camp again as the body isn’t designed to be at these heights for a long time and if it isn’t acclimatised slowly to it, it needs to adapt. Then they go up to camp 1, then to camp 2 depending on the time, acclimatise and drop down to base camp. Climbers repeat the process, up to camp 1, through to 2 and up to 3, acclimatise and back down. Finally they do the same up to camp 4 (some climbers have been known to miss the acclimatisation at camp 4 which is a risky process, camp 4 and above being named ‘The Death Zone’ for that very reason). Finally they drop to base camp, recover for a couple of weeks before climbing through all the camps and up to the summit.

What does this have to do with your own journey, your own health?

It is never linear when you are starting a journey of this type but you do have to start. It all begins with the idea of ‘I want to get healthy’ and this idea has motivation ‘I hate how I look’, ‘I want to provide more for my family’, ‘I want more money’ and so on. The idea for these climbers was to get to the summit AND return down safely. That is actually the idea when we have our own health to think about too. We have to first climb up to base camp, at 17,500 feet. This is typically an

8 day trek just to reach (4 to return down to ‘civilisation’). This is usually the hardest step but everyone needs to take it, one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. The problem is, that even people who want quick fixes need to take this step but they try to get up the mountain in one go. They trek the 8 days to base camp and then proceed to climb the mountain without stopping at any camp on the way, without acclimatising and usually without any food OR oxygen. Strangely enough they don’t make it, they fall into a crevasse or get taken out by an avalanche and if they do somehow survive they will quit. And that will be the end of the attempt on health, until the next quick fix is handed their way.

So my moving mountains analogy is this – you will have to come down to go back up but consistency is where you will get your results. Consistency will allow you to reach the summit and keeping that consistency will allow you to get back to base camp without losing health. All this while actually performing at a level where you’re able to thrive and build upon each day, one day at a time in your body upgrade.

Many people forget about the up and down process. I don’t mean yo-yo dieting here, I mean the true process or journey that we call ‘life’ it happens whether we like it or not. Let me describe my own journey here from leaving the corporate world to now.

When I lost my second secondment due to the work being offshored I was at rock bottom but I knew I had to make a move for anything to happen. This was the hardest step. I would literally wake up in the middle of the night screaming, get loads of sleep paralysis and have dreams about running away but getting stuck in mud in the process. Although having worked in the fitness industry previously, I was still scared of returning and earning as little money as before, even though it was - and still is - my passion. I had to believe, envision (remember those visualisation techniques, they are so powerful) and make a plan to get out of the world I was in and trek to ‘base camp’ (in my mind this was a place where I was no longer depressed and earning enough to support both my wife and I without the demands of a 9 to 5 role). I actually remember a morning where it all changed. I was going to a seminar with two good friends, John Chapman and Leon Bustin, but I had no money so these guys allowed me to grab a lift to London for the seminar (they are two amazing YouTube stars now ‘The Lean Machines’). At the event in London I was given a ticket by the hosts Cliff and Marta Wilde and little did I know the inspiration would start right then for my biggest journey ever. This was the first step to leaving the corporate world and essentially, my trek to base camp was underway.

That’s what I mean by getting the kick in the arse that gets you trekking to base camp but when you get there being prepared

to climb a camp and more importantly, descend back to the previous camp again. Here’s the example: Someone, yourself even, may look to get in shape for their holiday. That requires them travelling to base camp (the first step) then going hard up to camp 1. They stay there (first few days of the holiday) then climb back down (last part of the holiday when they may have lost a little shape BUT they’ve loved it so much it doesn’t matter). The mistake people make here is that they end up descending and trekking back home from base camp now, yet they’ve already acclimatised and their body knows what it’s like to be where they wanted to be a week or two ago. If they stayed at base camp (much further than where they started) then they would be able to get in better shape both physically and mentally by staying acclimatised, ready to climb to camp 2. Rather than next year having to make that same 8 day trip to base camp AGAIN then climb to the first camp only to end up where they were previously had they not fallen off the wagon. Consistency is so key here.

What I try and get clients to understand with this theory is that you cannot continue on the same path forever, sometimes we need to back-track before we can progress further. Here’s another example: You’re doing well, you’ve gotten into a habit and have your training on track using your One Day Body Upgrade for 28 days. You feel amazing, stronger and have more energy all round. Not only this you have actually increased your earnings

in this time by 10% so you’re at camp 2. Then you get ill with a bout of the flu and you have to leave camp 2, and where do you go? Base camp. Now it’s important to remember that descending will make you better as your body will acclimatise and recover on the way down plus staying at base camp is enough to keep you ‘ticking over’ whilst you’re ill. What happens to some people though? They use the illness to go completely backwards and trek back home, 17,500 feet lower than base camp altitude which essentially means that their nutrition takes a nose dive along with their training. Their meditation also stops and basically you’re left with a very limited version of the person they need to be and were a couple days ago when they were all acclimatised on camp 2. It’s a long way back now, if someone even wanted to get back to base camp they now have to trek 8 days before acclimatising at camp 1, coming down to base camp, then up to camp 2. All because the flu hit them, then felt sorry for themselves and binged out. And that stopped doing them from doing what they know they could do - yep, consistency could have saved them.

So know that life will happen - people say they don’t get ill - I know people who haven’t been ill for years and a lot of that is due to when their body is under stress they never fall past basecamp, they never drop past the point they were at before the last push in their journey. Their mind is so powerful in these situations.

What all good climbers have in common is that they will know when to turn back, they will know then the camp is a little out of reach and to reach the summit needs a bit more consistency. It could be the gap in the weather isn’t long enough, but these people stay consistent, they keep moving forwards. Whether it’s going up or going down they still move forward. And that’s exactly what you need to be aware of. A goal may not be able to be reached today so you may need to turn back, check the sat nav, add a diversion and attempt again tomorrow or the next day. Whatever you do, consistency will keep you where you need to be and ensure you are able to achieve that goal in the long term.

This is where people fall off the hypothetical mountain, they don’t plan for setbacks, they don’t plan for life to happen. Psychologically we absolutely hate it when we set a goal and fail, this is where the goal setting comes into play that we spoke about earlier in the mindset chapter. Realise what you are aiming for, why you’re aiming for it and what will happen if you don’t make it happen but also if you do make it happen. The truth can sometimes hurt but be needed so damn much sometimes.

So to recap, don’t expect your journey to be linear, there will be ups and downs but always realise how far you have come and when you do go back down, make sure you don’t leave base camp. This is the place way ahead of where you started

the journey, so keep focused unless you want to start from scratch once again.

13. Putting It All Together

“You see something, then it clicks with something else, and it will make a story. But you never know when it's going to happen.”

- Stephen King

We have the plan, you are ready to put it all together and really upgrade, by implementing your One Day Body Upgrade. I keep mentioning the title and there is a reason: we get it into our heads that something will be hard but in reality if we think about it as one day at a time, one step, one movement then you really do create epic shifts with ease. You can flow from one state into another without any stress.

Here we will go through the basics, again keeping it simple enough so you could even outsource the preparation to someone else, just get them to read this book.

The Perfect Day

Now everybody will be different but I am going to outline what I envisaged to be my perfect day before I started as a fitness entrepreneur. Yours may be different and the timings may change too but what is important is that you write down what your perfect day looks like and when you want to get there by. This will be crucial when looking at accountability

and it is so much easier to know what ‘perfect’ looks like if you have imagined it in your head. Goals are everything.

6:30am Wake up and grab a lemon then squeeze into fresh room- temperature water. It’s a great way to start the day and great for kidney and liver function which in turn will set your body up right to kick out the toxins which have built up from the day before.

Meditate and spend some time writing in my journal.

8:00am Cardio session, nothing too intense but just to get the blood flowing. Increase the heart rate, maybe on the spin bike or a steady jog outside, then walk the dogs.

9:00am Breakfast This would consist of something like oatmeal with almond milk and peanut butter. Again some fresh lemon in water along with a bit of protein from a shake.

10:00am Client meeting I like to, if possible, meet up with my clients face to face. This may mean I will have to travel but it is something I take very seriously as by meeting face to face you get a certain level of

interaction you cannot achieve via email. If we cannot meet up every week I will make sure that it’s a Skype conversation with the camera on in order to see facial expressions and gestures throughout the call.

12:00 midday Get back and give the dogs a short walk and follow this with lunch. Lunch will be a salad of some sort, a meat source and carbohydrate as my main training session will come in the afternoon after another meeting.

2:00pm Client meeting As mentioned above this will ideally be face to face and if not again I will do this on Skype with the camera on. I find that regardless of whether you work from home (and not just because of the interaction you get with the video call functions), Skype allows you to take a bit more pride in your appearance which is something I feel is very important in the line of work we are in.

3:00pm Snack Something like some nuts, fruit and a protein shake – nothing that will take a long while to prepare but something which will fuel me for a workout.

4:00pm Admin work – when I say admin work I am talking about doing my social media posts, any videos I need to record and emails I may need to send. My VA will take care of a lot of the administration items that come into my inbox.

5:00pm Training session – this will involve weight training and some high intensity work, but a short period of time. Even someone like myself who is renowned for working out and makes a living from fitness I don’t want to be in the gym all evening, I want to get home to my family and chill out.

7:00pm Evening meal with family I will always aim to have something pretty similar to my wife and family even if it means having something without the sauce it may come with. I pride myself in being able to have this time with my family where we don’t talk about business all night but we will appreciate each other’s time and company.

8:00pm Chill with my wife (and dogs!) – date night or watch a film

9:30pm Read for a little while in bed after completing my journal and lights out around 10:00pm roughly.

This routine is something I pride myself on, I wrote it when I had a full time job in the corporate world and visualised every part of it until the perfect day become more and more real and it wasn’t a dream but actual reality.

The Perfect Day OUT

Life gets in the way sometimes right? You have meetings and as I mentioned above, I like to have face to face meeting with clients. So it is vital I include some things in this book to make sure you stick to good habits (including eating) when travelling.

First things first (and it’s an obvious one) leave plenty of time. If it takes 3 hours to get somewhere then allow 4 hours. Sounds a bit excessive, a whole 60 minutes extra but we will be stopping to get some steps in and of course the toilet break. Here’s a couple habits I make sure I always do when going out for the whole day.

I always make sure I have at least 3 good meals ready in a cool bag/box. I may not end up having them but I damn sure know that if shit hits the fan and I got stuck at a services with little to no healthy options then I would be covered.

I will make sure that I stop every 60-90 minutes for 15 minutes break and walk around. I make sure I rack up more steps by continuing the habit we learnt earlier in the book and

park the furthest away from the entrance to any services. When I come back I will walk the long way round back to the car too.

Inevitably you’re going to have a coffee or a drink with a client and if you aren’t able to deal with yet more water then the occasional diet soda will be ok but make sure you hydrate when you get back on the journey home, that is so important. When you are at the meeting if you are in a place that serves food then look at healthier options on the menu, salads without the dressings, vegetables instead of fries and simple whole food ingredients if possible. It is easy to stick to, just be strong. Remember you don’t always need those nachos coated in cheese and pulled beef strips.

We’re All Going On A Summer Holiday (Or Winter Vacation)

We have these times in our lives where we have to let it all hang out and vacations are just that. Chill time, time for spending with loved ones and you know what? Screw it, I will enjoy my vacation as I have earned every minute of it! You do not need to go out and binge but I can guarantee you paid a good amount of money for the trip so why not enjoy it. Chances are you have 2-4 weeks of holiday a year if you are in a 9-5 job so if you look at it simply it’s 2-3% of the year you’re away. Maybe add another week for national holiday time and birthday (kill two birds with one stone, just be born on Christmas day, simple!) now that 3-5 weeks. Let’s say 5% of

the year maximum so it’s not going to be the end of the world if you go ‘off piste’. However, you don’t need to binge out every night on cakes, you are not so stressed you need to down a bottle of vodka every hour of the day because it is an all inclusive hotel. Yes you have paid for the privilege, but you are a reasonably (I hope!) sensible adult. Therefore if the goal of having an amazing life, amazing health and being able to provide for your family means a hell of a lot to you then you will be able to follow the guidelines in this book, trust me. And if you can’t, you really aren’t ready to be upgraded.

Family time

This is different from your vacation and national holidays, this is time dedicated to your family. Inevitably you’re going to be offered the bits of food your 5 year old doesn’t want, I get that but you can easily help this by ordering a little less yourself. Enjoy the family time, this is time to be cherished and the reason you work so hard. Not just in the boardroom but also in the gym, on the field, running the streets and in the kitchen. If you are sensible about life when it is time to be an ‘adult’ then the family time will be an opportunity for you to chill, let your hair down (what’s left of it!) and have some fun. Add this to the holiday periods and you’re looking at about 10% of the time where you’re off your diet. This leaves the rest of the time to make sure everything is on point. I aim for 80% compliance with clients in order to get results, see how it’s relatively easy when you think of it like that?

14. The Small Stuff For Big Results

“Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the everyday things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.”

– Booker T. Washington

So we have been through the things you should eat but it isn’t always the three macros (protein, carbohydrate and fat) that make the most difference to your health. Here we will go through some of the small things, things that add up and are not just in our food but also lifestyle which can make the biggest impact.

You will learn the parts that make the most difference to each of your One Day Body upgrades. Things like how you digest your food and why this is so important not just in relation to being upgraded but feeling upgraded too. Plus how stress can impact your upgrade and what to do in order to ensure it doesn’t stop you in your tracks. And lastly the hormonal parts of our bodies which can be affected by what we eat and drink on a daily basis.

Let’s begin…

Gut Health & Digestion

This is one of the biggest secrets of having a carefree feel good lifestyle right now, a healthy gut. After all, what is the point in putting so much amazing food into your body if you can’t get the goodness from it?

After you stomach your gut breaks down the nutrients from the food to make use of the carbohydrates, proteins and fats. It is here that something called ‘serotonin’ is mainly produced in the body. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter and it is responsible for things we take for granted. It provides feel- good factors such as your mood but also affects sleep and appetite. Basically it is produced in the gut but needs to get to the brain and when it reaches here you get a massive injection of ‘energy’ and positivity will just seep out of you. If you don’t eat good food and you go down the processed route with junk food most of the time then you are risking having digestive issues, putting the gut under unnecessary stress and basically stopping it from doing it’s job producing that serotonin. Not only this but if you don’t produce enough serotonin then you risk having some dodgy toilet issues (we’re talking from one extreme to the other).

Stress

We live in a world of stress from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed we don’t get away from it. You have stress everywhere, addictions left, right and centre. Throw social media in there and it means that you don’t just

have your own stress but you see everyone else’s problems too and that equals more stress. You wake up tired and stressed then you have to go to work and you’re late. You get to work and your employees haven’t done the quality of work you expect of them, more stress. You finish work and your partner complains that you have done something wrong, more stress. So you need to take it out on something. You go to the gym, do some sprints, lift some weights, hit the bag but you are then fighting your stress with - you guessed it - more stress. Then the cycle continues and it is a vicious one.

Add stress to the serotonin production in the gut and because we are designed to survive that age old fight or flight syndrome kicks in. When we stress ourselves out the body fires off signals wanting to fight so adrenaline is released. Then your body diverts blood away from the gut (it thinks ‘we don’t need to digest we’re about to fight’), and your digestion quality drops dramatically, purely because of that big S word ‘Stress’.

But as I said we live in a world of stress and as long as you’re aware of it there are things you are able to do to manage it. We can’t go into much detail as it will add loads of pages to this book but certain things such as taking ‘me time’ regularly, meditating, reading physical books to get away from things and better quality sleep will all make a difference. We will get to the sleep bit next.

All these things will allow you to handle stress and if we simplify it, there is no such thing as a ‘bad’ or stressful situation it is simply how we perceive it. Stress will tire you out I can guarantee. Why? Because you won’t digest food properly, meaning you won’t get the energy from your food. You won’t recover from the training you are doing and that will just add insult to injury when it comes to sleeping.

Sleep

This sounds pretty easy to do right? You lay down, close your eyes and off you go into dream world. But there is more to it than that. When we sleep we have 5 different stages that we go in and out of during the night: 1,2,3,4 and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. We go in and out of cycles from 1 through to REM throughout the night, beginning with shorter periods in REM and gradually increasing. Here are the stages in a bit more detail.

Stage 1 – Can be woken pretty easily and sometimes you may experience that falling sensation which wakes you up.

Stage 2 – This is where you don’t move your eyes too much and your brain waves slow down too.

Stage 3 – Really slow brain waves and not much physical movement.

Stage 4 – Slow waves called delta waves are produced here. 3 and 4 are commonly referred to as ‘deep sleep’.

Stage 5 – REM – Breathing rate increases, eyelids move rapidly, limb muscles get kind of paralysed, increased heart rate and increased blood pressure. You dream mostly in this stage of sleep and if you get woken up here then you will more than likely remember your dreams.

Your body will go through multiple cycles of these phases in the night and getting deep sleep will help you recover and feel refreshed the next morning.

There is a problem though, to get into a good sleep pattern this doesn’t just start when your head hits the pillow but rather a good hour or so beforehand. Certain habits are good to take on board such as:

• Turn off electronic items (especially in the bedroom) even from standby mode – these produce a blue light same as the sun does and can signal the brain to wake up. This does include turning phones and laptops off before bed. • Read a good book which isn’t business-focused and really switch yourself off.

• And probably my favourite – sex. This will help, not sure if any studies say so but I like it before bed and it’s my book so it is going in here.

If we don’t get adequate sleep then you are setting yourself up to really need those coffees the next day so the above is one of the most important ‘small things’ in this chapter.

Hydration

Our bodies are made up of around 55-65% water, demonstrating how important it is to make sure you get enough per day to replenish what you use everyday both in sweat and respiration. Even a 5% drop in hydration can result in massive performance decreases and I don’t just mean in the gym or on the sports field but in the boardroom too. Your brain function will dramatically decrease, your attention span will that akin to a gnat, your focus will be next to zero and you basically will not be able to upgrade your body the way you really want to. So, how do we aim to sort this? Well, in the food you eat inevitably you will be getting some level of hydration and this will help but you need to be drinking fluids throughout the day to make sure you are fully hydrated. Getting about 3 litres of water into you (this can vary from person to person) is ideal. Start building it up by having water with meals (some people will say this isn’t great for digestion but I believe it is a

good way to be mindful of how much fluid you are drinking) and having a bottle of water with you when you’re working. Sip on it as much as you can, if this is an issue then just simply set an alarm at 30 minute intervals or something roughly the same in your mind to remind you to have a glass of water. If you are working out then have an additional 500ml for every hour at least and more if possible, you can’t really overdo it unless you are drinking copious amounts (like 10+ litres per day without sweating). If you did this you could potentially be setting yourself up to develop something called hypaneutremia which is when you severely dilute your blood sodium levels and this could become fatal, so probably best you don’t do that.

Remember, you will also get water from drinking coffee and tea and if you drink those as well they will be a little bonus. If people tell you they don’t count due to the caffeine in them being a diuretic then they are right but the ratio of caffeine to water will make this effect on the body pretty much zero.

Vitamins and Minerals. (pics need to be from stock images royalty free)

We hear something new every day about having a balanced diet filled with essential ‘nutrient dense’ foods. But what about our micronutrient profile i.e the Vitamins and Minerals essential for our body to work and perform the way it

does! This section will give you the low-down on what these are and how they help your body function.

What are Vitamins and Minerals? In simple terms they are essential nutrients that the body requires in small amounts to work efficiently and can be

obtained from a varied and balanced diet. The body requires recommended daily allowances (see tables) to allow it to perform sufficiently. Because every body works the same, whether you are an athlete or a non-athlete, the micronutrient profile remains the same. Later in the chapter I will discuss when the recommended allowances may need to increase.

Vitamins There are 2 types of vitamins we require and I am going to spend some time explaining them and how they work within the body…

• Fat soluble vitamins These vitamins are found in obviously fatty foods eg, animal fats, oils, dairy products and oily fish. They can be stored within the body in the liver and fatty tissues for future use; therefore it is not necessary to eat foods containing them every day. The following table will show you the different fat soluble vitamins and their involvement within the body:

NAME FUNCTION SOURCE RDA* Vitamin strengthens cheese, eggs, 0.7mg men A immunity; fortified low 0.6mg women help vision; fat spreads, keep skin healthy yogurt

Vitamin helps regulate sunlight, Body takes what D calcium and oily fish, it needs mainly phosphate in the fortified fat from primary body spreads, source of breakfast sunlight cereal, powdered milk Vitamin helps maintain plant oils, 4mg men E cell structure by nuts, seeds, 3mg women protecting cell wheat germ membranes Vitamin needed for green leafy 0.0001mg/kg of K wounds to heal veg, veg oils, body weight (clots blood) cereals *RDA – recommended daily amount to be taken daily

• Water soluble vitamins These vitamins are found within fruits, vegetables and grains. They cannot be stored within the body and are therefore required on a daily basis. If you have more than your body requires then you will expel the extra when you go to the toilet. These vitamins can be destroyed by heat or exposure to the air so it is worth noting that many vitamins are lost in the surrounding water when cooking, e.g boiling. It’s better to steam or grill food to keep the vitamins within the source of food you are preparing.

The following table shows you the water soluble vitamins and their involvement in the body:

NAME FUNCTION SOURCE RDA Vitamin C protects cells; oranges, 40mg per maintains red/green day for connective peppers, adults tissue; strawberries, heals wounds blackcurrants, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, potatoes Vitamin B1 releases energy vegetables, 1mg men - Thiamin from food by peas, fresh & 0.8mg helping break it dried fruit, women down; eggs, breads, keeps nerves cereals, liver and muscle tissue healthy Vitamin B2 keeps skin, milk, eggs, 1.3mg men - Riboflavin eyes & nervous fortified 1.1mg system healthy; cereals, rice women helps release (note – UV can energy from destroy this carbohydrates vitamin so keep food sources out of direct

sunlight) Vitamin B3 produces meat, fish, 17mg men - Niacin energy from wheat flour, 13mg foods; maize flour, women keeps nervous eggs, milk and digestive systems healthy Pantothenic helps release all meat and amounts Acid energy from veg, cereals, needed will the food we eat whole grains, be obtained porridge, eggs from the diet Vitamin B6 allows body to variety of 1.4mg men - Pyridoxine use and store foods; pork, 1.2mg protein and poultry, fish, women carbohydrates; bread, whole helps cereals, eggs, haemoglobin ( vegetables, the substance soya beans, that carries o2 peanuts, milk, around the potatoes body) Folic Acid works with broccoli, Adults B12 to form Brussel require healthy blood sprouts, liver, 0.2mg cells; spinach, reduces risks of asparagus, peas, central nervous chickpeas,

system defects brown rice, in unborn cereals babies Vitamin makes red meat, salmon, 0.0015mg B12 blood cells; cod, milk, per day for releases energy cheese, eggs, adults from food cereals (note- vegan would need supplement)

Minerals

So now we have covered vitamins it seems only fair to cover minerals in the same way, as they are equally important! Minerals are needed by our body to help us build strong teeth and bones, among other things. They also control body fluids inside and outside of cells. Another main function is that they turn the food you eat into energy.

There are 2 main essential minerals required by our body and the following table will explain their functions in more detail:

NAME FUNCTION SOURCE RDA Calcium helps to build milk, cheese, dairy, Adults strong teeth and green leafy, veg, soya require bones; beans, tofu, soya 700mg

regulates muscle drinks, nuts, bread, per day contraction, fish where you eat including the the bones (sardines) heartbeat; ensures blood clots Iron helps make red liver, meat, beans, 8.7mg blood cells, which nuts, dried fruit, men carry o2 around wholegrains, cereals, 14.8mg the body soybean flour, dark- women green leafy veg (note – liver not to be eaten if pregnant as rich in vitamin A which can damage an unborn baby)

So we have covered some of the more common vitamins and minerals that make up your requirements for a healthy micronutrient profile. There are many other substances that are also required to make up a healthy diet but all are found in your daily diet.

Here is a simple picture of a food guide pyramid that shows you the amounts of food you should be eating per day. [need to insert section about how this is not technically accurate and what it should look like these days] This is to ensure nutrient dense foods are met:

Now that I have discussed how vitamins and minerals function in the body, I just want to touch on the difference in the amount that elite and performance athletes may require due to the demands on their body:

As we know, exercise stresses many of the pathways in the human body. When an athlete exercises, the demands for micronutrients also increases due to muscle biochemical adaptation; essentially exercise increases turnover and loss of

micronutrients. The energy intake for an athlete is also far greater than that of an average human, sometimes their daily menu being 2 to 3 times greater than that of a sedentary individual. So in turn the RDA of a performance athlete would need to be increased, not to mention the need for muscle building, repair and maintenance of lean body mass. It should also be noted that if an athlete trains indoors, ie gymnasts, figure skaters etc, then Vitamin D supplementation may be required as they will have minimal contact with direct sunlight and as a result poor vitamin D status.

Who is at risk from not reaching their recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals?

In the majority of cases we can easily hit our targets by just eating a good nutrient dense diet each day but there are a few groups who may be required to take supplementation: • Those who restrict calorie intake, ie a bodybuilder ‘cutting’ for a contest • Those who have severe weight loss practices • Those who eliminate one or more food group, ie vegans, vegetarians etc • Those who consume unbalanced diets If you feel you are possibly in one of the above categories then I would advise to seek out further guidance as to whether you should be supplementing your diet.

Cholesterol

‘I have high cholesterol’. This is something we have heard pretty regularly from one person or another but the problem that a lot of doctors create is they first test for what is called ‘total cholesterol’ which is the sum of both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol.

Not knowing the total LDL (bad) and total HDL (good) is like knowing that there were six goals in a football match but you don’t know if it was 5-1 or 3-3, two very different outcomes.

So what I recommend for people to do is that if they’re getting their cholesterol levels checked is to make sure that they get a full test done and find out their total LDL and total HDL so that you can get a good look at the bigger picture. Cholesterol is seemingly looked at as a bad thing but in reality we need cholesterol to survive and we need it in our diet from sources such as good fats and red meat along with egg yolks. I will put a large amount of money on the fact you will not get high BAD cholesterol levels by eating good healthy food. It is a sedentary lifestyle, high stress levels (when not managed), poor diet filled with junk food and processed food, alcohol and smoking that will make the biggest impact on increasing your LDL levels.

Supplements

Lastly in this chapter I want to go through what I like to call the cherry on the top, supplements. Here are 4 supplements I recommend to clients to make sure they’re at the top of their health and ensure they have a day of awesomeness ahead of them.

1. Multivitamins

As well as getting your vitamins through the food you eat a multivitamin supplement is a major boost to your diet. By eating the correct amount of protein, carbs and fats each meal you will get plenty of vitamins each day. With that said, the reality is we are all getting busier every day. There are a lot more distractions and time can be limited. So if the odd meal is missed or you have a day which is not quite up to your usual standards, a multivitamin supplement will help you avoid vitamin deficiencies. This is vitally important if you are serious about increasing your endurance and strength.

How much do you need? Usually you will only need to take one per day, preferably with a meal.

Other benefits include.. Better sleep - Zinc helps you get better quality sleep. Less illness - Vitamin C helps your immune system. Faster recovery - Calcium and iron help faster recovery from strength training.

2. Fish oil

Taking an omega-3 supplement is a huge boost to your diet and will help you achieve better results. This supplement has been popular amongst those wanting to increase endurance and strength for a long time now. There are a lot of other benefits too including:

Reduced inflammation - less injuries etc Decreased body fat - fish oil helps to burn fat. Reduced soreness from strength training Increased muscle and heart health.

Ideally you want to be eating fish containing good amounts of omega-3 several times a week. By taking the supplement as well it will keep you topped up and help avoid deficiencies.

How much do you need? Usually one capsule per day or 1 tsp per day of the liquid version. Everyone has a different preference for when to take it but I find it can work well soon after your workout to help reduce muscle soreness.

3. Creatine

If you're wanting to build your mental clarity and focus, creatine is another essential supplement for you. It works well

for explosive and high intensity exercise so perfect to sprint past someone when on your run or bike. Exactly what is required from your workouts if you want to build endurance and strength! However you want to make sure you take a good quality supplement and I recommend using one without needing what’s called a ‘loading’ phase. A poor quality creatine supplement can leave you feeling bloated and often not providing any effect on your workout.

Creatine monohydrate in powder form works best.

How much do you need? Again this varies person to person but usually taking one scooped dose up to an hour before you train works very well. (This is if you're using the monohydrate powder form). It can have a major impact on your performance if you take it pre- workout and sets you up nicely especially in your effort sessions. Some people take it post-workout and claim this helps their recovery too.

4. Whey protein powder

Here it is, the most common and well-known supplement in the entire fitness industry. The protein shake. I tend to avoid protein bars as they are mostly sugar and other chemicals. A good quality whey protein powder can be a very beneficial addition to your training for endurance and strength and perfect to enhance recovery for your next hard session.

Protein should of course be consumed evenly throughout the day via your meals. You need it to repair and maintain your muscles especially when you're training at a higher intensity. But realistically a protein shake offers many other benefits.

It's quick and easy, you can carry it about with you and have one before or after your workout. Some people have one before AND after. It also means you can get the protein as soon as you want/need it. That’s a big bonus there. One scoop is usually around 25 grams of protein so that's right up there with other high protein foods. It can also be found at a great price if you shop around. Look on the Internet for good deals but make sure it's 100% safe.

How much do you need? Some people like to have 1-2 scoops per day depending on their goals. Others have 3-4. As long as you are getting protein from the foods you eat you should be able to integrate the shakes into your day to suit your lifestyle. Commonly they work well in the morning, before or after a workout and before bed. Take one scoop (25g) each shake and that should help you get the benefits.

The small stuff is ironically some of the most important parts of this book but don’t worry, although there is a bit of science in here I will take the more complex stuff out in the final

chapters and show you how to put it all together in an easy One Day Upgrade style. So now you know what supplements to take, when to take them, why to take them, what nutrients are needed both micro and macro and overall how to be totally awesome with your upgrade.

15. It Was All Just A Myth

‘A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence’

- Rollo May

There are things people say which sound pretty ridiculous, some too good to be true, some are just straight out wacky and we know won’t work, some we fall for and some we don’t. I have tried a hell of a lot of them over the years and I will admit to thinking some would work when looking back, I can see they are pretty silly. However if I have fallen for them even though I have developed a bank of knowledge over the years, I feel it is right to put a chapter into this book to discuss which are myths and which are facts.

1. Lifting weights makes you bulky

This is something which we have discussed briefly but it’s going right at the top of this list purely because I want you to understand just how important resistance training is for pretty much everyone’s goals when it comes to their health and body. The problem is that a lot of women I have spoken with think ‘toning up’ is high reps but essentially toning up is burning fat to reveal your muscles and probably building a tiny amount at the same time. Your body will burn calories when recovering from the weight training and also then by adding

muscle it will mean you have a higher resting metabolic rate (calories you burn simply to survive during the day).

Linking in with when we spoke about hormones earlier in the book it also means you will be in a healthier position and have much better energy and focus because of your body fat being lower.

If you want to build a good amount of muscle then it is possible but you have to be trying really hard to do this. It will require your body to be in a calorie surplus and completing specific training designed to actually build muscle. It doesn’t happen by mistake therefore if you do feel you are getting a little bigger and want to slow it down you can maintain. You don’t simply put a nickel into the Zoltar machine and wake up a transformed human being like Tom Hanks in the film ‘Big’ (please don’t make me feel old and tell me you remember that film!).

2. No pain no gain

If you’ve followed me for a while you will know how much I despise all this ‘beast mode’ crap, it’s not needed and those personal trainers who take pride in pushing their clients so hard they can’t even sit on the toilet for the next week need a good slap (let’s also note I was one of those years ago and I would slap the younger Ollie too). While you will need to push hard and feel uncomfortable it does not have to be really

painful. Push yourself out of the comfort zone, know you’ve done some good and then make sure you’re feeling ready for the next session.

What is important to note here is that when you start a new exercise regime it will more than likely hurt the first couple of sessions, that is normal but should still not be excessive. Post workout stretching, a good Epsom salt bath and light cardio work can help reduce the effect sof post exercise ‘DOMS’ (delayed onset of muscle soreness).

3. You can spot reduce your fat

One thing I find when people start the gym or when people want to drop fat is some feeling that if they do hundreds of sit ups they will drop the fat around their abs, this is false. In fact, the body does not spot reduce fat from anywhere, you have to burn more calories than you consume to lose fat over time. This isn’t instant and unfortunately it’s usually those hard to get rid of places where we want it gone the most that take the longest. This is down to the body looking to keep your vital organs safe along with the amount of stress we seem to find ourselves under in this day and age.

To put things into perspective, one pound of fat is around 3,500 calories. In order to burn a pound per week in theory means a deficit of around 500 calories per day. This is a either. The problem is when people try to go too hard and push for a

1-2,000 calorie deficit for multiple days in a row they end up then giving in to the large cravings which sets them back further than when they started their journey.

P.S I am just as annoyed at this as you are, trust me. I would love all the fat to come off my abs and lower back first.

4. Doing cardio is the best way to drop fat

The thing people seem to look at when wanting to drop fat or ‘lose weight’ is training on the treadmill or elliptical. While this is a good method and will burn calories it is actually weight training which will help you MORE when it comes to burning fat.

The problem with cardio training is that although it will burn calories, if you aren’t doing much resistance training the body wants to become efficient and sees that hard earned muscle you have as excess weight. It will look to get rid of this muscle rather than just fat meaning you do drop weight but you don’t end up more toned, just a smaller version of who you were before. And that’s the opposite of what you want.

5. Brown rice is better than white rice

This one will be debated for years and the people who say brown is better will continue to turn a blind eye to a lot of the studies. So here goes: There really isn’t much difference

between these two grains. Both are pretty close on the calories per gram and also with their specific nutritional value. So thinking about how they will help you with health and also with fat loss if that is your specific goal, just eat whichever you prefer.

What people point out is the fact that the white rice has had the bran and germ removed which is basically fibre, therefore white rice has a lot less fibre compared to brown. It is this fibre that needs to be looked at a little deeper to really see why people think it’s healthier. The fibre can help slow down the release of sugar into the blood meaning it is lower on the Glycaemic Index than white rice. This is good but we should also remember the GI of foods isn’t very accurate when eaten within a meal which include proteins and fats therefore we can’t state brown rice is better than white at all. Also the bran in brown rice contains things called phytates which are said to be ‘anti-nutrients’ because of the way they bind to some minerals within the body, preventing them being fully absorbed. Which is a reason some people say white rice is better.

In all honesty I would just go with the rice you actually prefer, personally I love white rice over brown and when I used to compete in bodybuilding I would eat it 2-3 times a day, it didn’t slow down fat loss then and it doesn’t slow it down now.

6. Carbohydrates will make you fat

Carbohydrates have a bad reputation and I feel sorry for them really, they haven’t done anything to harm people yet they are considered the devil when it comes to weight loss. There is a misconception here and it is due to the way carbohydrates actually help your muscles hydrate, which in turn gets you thinking they’re making you fat.

When you eat 1 gram of carbs your body will usually take in around 3-4 grams of water at the same time as storing these carbohydrates in the muscles in the form of glycogen (if you’re eating the correct amounts). Therefore if you eat carbohydrates, at first you may put on a little weight NOT ‘fat’. It also works in reverse, if you drop carbohydrates from your diet you will usually drop a good amount of weight at first and then it stagnates. With carbs being a good source of energy within the body this is also going to mean your energy levels will most likely plummet and you will start to feel pretty rubbish - fun!

7. Alcohol will stop your fat loss

Alcohol is just the same as carbohydrates, fats and protein to a degree. Ok it won’t give you the energy that the others will and the body isn’t going to like it but it comes down to calories in versus calories out and alcohol will provide calories. The problem comes afterwards where the body essentially has

to burn the calories from the alcohol before the rest, which it cannot do efficiently. When working with a client and they like a drink I am not going to cut it out entirely unless they’re binge drinking and we have to find out the reason they’re sedating themselves regularly with alcohol. We do want to make sure other things are taken into account which happen when people drink which I call ‘drunk calories’. These are the cheesy fries, burgers and pizzas you gorge on when you aren’t in as much control as usual then end up falling off the diet. This is followed by the dehydration and cravings for salty foods the following day, a vicious circle but as with everything, moderation is key. 8. You should not exercise if you’re ill

Some people’s opinions will differ on this one but I do exercise if I am ill because it helps me get my movement up, depending on the illness. The general rules I follow are that if it is above the neck i.e a head cold then it’s ok but chest and below I need to get extra rest. Therefore if I am suffering badly and about to die from man-flu, the most deadly thing known to the human race (ladies, you will never understand :- P) I will still train. This session may not be the best in comparison to when I’m well - if I am keeping a log - but it will still be better than not doing anything. If I am suffering from a stomach bug or something similar then there won’t be

any training until I am better and I have had a day feeling good after the illness has passed.

What I will say though, the gym is one of the dirtiest places you can be and whilst I will train throughout having a cold, I have only recently realised how two-faced I have been when I moan if people train with a cold themselves! This is me putting it out there to the universe that I am sorry for this, please forgive me - just wear a face mask please.

9. Eating after 6pm makes you put on fat

We have been fed this myth a lot over the years and this is usually in one of two ways. Either you just don’t eat at all after 6pm because you will gain weight or it is packaged to demonise carbohydrates and not to eat these after 6pm or you will gain weight.

Both of these are incorrect. With the first one the big take away is that calories do matter and eating the type of calories which keep you fuller for longer will mean you are more likely to be successful in keeping a caloric deficit and be successful with your weight loss goals.

By tracking how much you’re eating you will be able to know if you’re in a calorie deficit throughout the day. The body doesn’t just suddenly stop burning them when the clock

strikes 6pm. Stay under your calorie allowance and you will be fine.

10. You need to weigh yourself multiple times a week The scales themselves can take up their own chapter and more just to explain why there is a love-hate relationship with them but as with number 3 and the carbohydrate situation your weight will fluctuate depending on a zillion factors. Therefore weighing yourself daily can put you into a negative frame of mind if you’ve followed everything but not lost weight or maybe even put on weight, but there are reasons behind this. You could have eaten your last meal later the day before, been more stressed, got less sleep, less hydrated, lower exercise, suffering from a cold or even down to being on your period and where you are in the cycle will determine how much water you are holding. Therefore weighing yourself daily can be a negative thing for you to do and usually results in self sabotaging habits like starvation or overtraining, all things which will make your long term health goals harder to achieve let alone your weight loss goals. Take pictures, take measurements and weigh yourself every now and again at the same time in the morning and note the results over time. 11. All calories are equal This is a common thing I find with a lot of people, we want to track calories and to a degree this is a sensible thing to do.

After all, being in a caloric deficit is the way we lose weight. The problem comes with being able to sustain this caloric deficit and therefore its best to choose the calories which keep you fuller for longer rather than the ones which could actually lead to you eating more food.

These ‘bad’ calories are those from very highly processed sugary snacks or soft drinks which essentially do add the same amount of calories as some of the others but will not keep you feeling full up and in some instances they can even make you crave more food afterwards. Adding calories from something high in fat such as nuts or high in protein such as lean meat, jerky or Greek yogurt will keep you full for longer meaning you’re less likely to overeat by snacking.

These are just 11 of the biggest myths I have seen recently, there are a lot more so if you would like a second opinion on anything you have heard please just message me on Twitter or Instagram, I will happily give you my views: @OJayPT.

16. The Three Phases

“The path to success is to take massive, determined action”

– Anthony Robbins

This should be at the start right? Wrong, if I had put the three phases of how to complete you One Day Body Upgrade at the start chances are most people would have skipped and just started going in full speed essentially blind, here is where is should be, it’s correct place, near to the end just before you put it all together.

The One Day Body Upgrade is broken down into three phases, each one vital in your journey towards success and what is so important is that you don’t look at it as 3 phases and you’re done but rather 3 phases and you can continue to cycle and grow each and every time you complete your Upgrade.

Phase 1 – Align Phase 2 – Design Phase 3 – Refine

Each one will take a different amount of time depending on the person’s goal but I am going to go through each phase individually and show you why each is needed and why you

should really deep dive into the short term goals you decide upon within each phase.

Phase 1 – Align

Alignment is crucial, if you aren’t aligned to what you want to achieve it can seem a chore rather than a journey towards fulfilment and 100% Revitalization. Alignment shows us what you are not just able to achieve but more what you are willing to achieve throughout the time you are working on yourself. When I take a client on board we have initial talks and after that we agree they are the client who I want to work with along with me being the coach that they want to have help them. Then we will look at their goals with something I like to call my ‘Triple H Method’ (I was a wrestling fan!)

How Long – have you got to achieve it How Much – do you have to change/lose/gain/earn How Come – you want to change/lose/gain/earn

If these are in line you are already looking towards a successful journey here. If you set yourself too short a time frame then you set yourself up for failure, if you set yourself too little or too much of the ‘how much’ you are setting yourself up for failure and the ‘how come’ is when you know you are doing it for YOU and nobody else.

The align phase will get these goals on paper for the short, medium and long term and we will set the path. Usually if someone is wanting to gain muscle before revealing their physique then the align phase is the building phase but it is not just about building muscle it is also about setting the agreement with the inner self in order to build habits, commitment and routine which you are then able to implement in the following two phases. I would say 8-12 weeks is a good marker here for the first ‘align’ phase.

After the end of the 12 weeks there is a full evaluation of the wins along with the lessons learned. What has gone well, what has gone poorly and we make sure that we take this learning on board for the following phases.

Phase 2 – Design

We have already got this, right? Wrong, let’s look at what is really involved when we design.

We have the foundations built from the first ‘align’ phase and now it is time to lay the supporting walls followed by the watertight roofing at the end. What does this mean for you exactly? Well, in the example used in the first align phase we said about building muscle, so it is now time to reveal that muscle to yourself when looking in the mirror. Fitness will be stepped up - you have been laying these foundations now it is time to increase and get even fitter - focus will be stepped up

too, remember I had people double their earnings in the first month? Well, this is now going to be 3-4 months in, I will let you do the math.

Time moves on and sometimes our goals change too so we will set more short term goals in this phase using the ‘Triple H’ method. Once again we know we will be achieving those goals, guaranteed. It is here we use the discipline built up in the ‘align’ phase to really design the life you want. We will look deeper into relationships you have with the people around you, relationships with yourself, how is your money situation? How much fun are you actually having? How strong is your mind right now along with how much has it developed?

This phase again could be another 8-12 weeks, maybe more. Every person is an individual and has individual goals, I don’t do ‘cookie cutter’ programs.

Following this phase we evaluate once again and define the successes you’ve had, the hurdles you’ve managed to overcome and the overall journey you have been on plus how it has matched up with the Blueprint of your life.

Phase 3 – Refine

Ever done a diet, dropped a hell of a lot of weight only to stop and have it pile on again? This is where that stops, I will not

have a client go through this because I don’t believe in ‘diets’ I believe in sustainability by changing habits and building lives.

Phase 3 is where we kind of ‘reset’ the body. You see, over time the body gets set in a state of homeostasis, and it likes being there. This is why you can usually drop holiday weight pretty quickly. You go on holiday at 80kg, return at 84kg and 2 weeks later without dieting you’re back to 80kg because this is the place the body can sit without a lot of stress, it likes that. Now we need to aim to reset the body’s point of homeostasis and in doing this we kind of balance at the position we are at now. So if you’ve dropped 10kg (22lb) you will then aim to stay at this for 6-8 weeks. Yes I know, you want to keep pushing but this is long term, let’s set a new start point and enjoy life for a bit, yeah? It’s not about the addiction to progression it is the conviction in your progression (ooh I like that). By keeping the body in this position for this duration of time you can almost guarantee the body will see this as it’s new norm and as a result you will be able to push on again after this period of reset in order to reach further goals on your journey.

What happens when you do fall off? This is speaking from experience here and I want to dive into the reality of my mindset when I fell off the biggest journey I had ever been on when I started dropping fat.

I was a lot younger but it messed with my head at unexplainable levels and led to the start of a full-on eating disorder. It was around 10 years ago now where I dropped nearly 100lbs and got onto the bodybuilding stage for the first time. I had dropped most of the weight and then I had the final 42lb to lose in order to get stage ready. I gave myself 3 months in order to do this which was doable if you like crash- dieting. My exercise routine at this particular time was 60-90 minutes cardio every morning during the week and 45 minutes every evening whilst weight training 5 times per week without fail. Every single item of food was weighed out to the gram and in the final 4-5 weeks I had literally no carbohydrates (you know, those yummy things which give you energy). In fact it was at this point I was working in a gym and remember walking up the stairs I would get a head rush and even getting out of a chair too quickly would cause the same thing to happen. I would have to stand still for about 10 seconds to get my bearings before moving on. One shift in particular I was working with a colleague who was the duty manager at the time so the gym was her responsibility. It also happens she was about 7 months pregnant. I remember going up the stairs ready to do the cleaning after the gym had shut, then I remember getting woken up. I had actually fallen asleep at the top of the stairs and made the woman who was heavily pregnant put all the weights away and clean everything. Yeah, I felt like a dick.

I competed in my first bodybuilding show in August that year, where I managed to proudly win a plastic trophy for coming in second place. That was cool but what wasn’t cool was qualifying for the British finals. It meant another 8 weeks of dieting and was the turning point for me when I started to develop an eating disorder. I had over-dieted and I remember my squats actually being a struggle at 60kg then falling over (for reference this morning I squatted 200kg for 3 reps around 80% effort). I was dropping weight but my body fat seemed to be increasing at the same time. The last straw was when I knew my mind was going due to the over-dieting situation I was in. I woke up about 4am one morning and drove to my dad’s grave to actually ask him for permission to stop dieting and quit the road to the finals. Funny thing was I asked permission but nobody in the world had forced me to do it, it was all my own doing. After this time – it was around the end of September when I finally called it quits on competing again that year – I fell off the wagon due to the large amount of restriction I had put myself through and binged for around a week. But then got back onto a plan, loosely may I add. By Christmas I had nearly put on all of the weight I had lost and in fact, was actually in a worse condition than I started before the competition diet as I had lost muscle. Add to this, I had just competed in the juniors that year and right then I couldn’t get my dick to play ball no matter what I tried doing plus I was depressed and hated even taking my top off in front of the mirror, let alone with anyone else present. It

took a long while to get my metabolism back on track from that point, around 8 months to put a number on it, and because of this screw up I thought I was creating balance which definitely wasn’t the case. After realising how badly I rebounded and had gone through the yo-yo dieting process I never wanted to get into that position again. I dieted down over a longer period of time but it was still not healthy, balanced, or sustainable to someone who has a life. I got shredded at the end of that year and kind of stayed like that for the next 6-7 years missing more social events than I can count on my fingers, cutting weddings short due to not being able to take my Tupperware, losing contact with friends and even nearly losing a job because of it. You know what I laugh most at now but at the time it seemed a good thing to do? I took a girl on a first date to the cinema (yeah, how creative of me I know!) but I also took a Tupperware tub of broccoli and chicken all boiled up. It stunk, we didn’t have a second date…

This is where the ‘refine’ phase is essential. Well, the whole three phases are actually. If I had used my own methods (which I developed after this and these examples being some of the big reasons why they were necessary) I wouldn’t have fallen off. I would have kept the shape I had obtained (near show-prep condition) and been a bit healthier in the process. Being in show condition all year round isn’t healthy in my opinion. I mean, is it really that nice to need an extra cushion

in your car because you have no fat on your arse or back so it actually hurts to drive without one?!

This is why we need a ‘refine’ phase, so we stop the yo-yoing and make sure that your results are consistent and guaranteed.

So now you have the reasons for each phase, it is a case of just going all-in making sure you Align, Design and Refine. To recap:

Align yourself to dive into your goals, why you want them, what happens when you get them, what happens if you don’t get them. Design your ideal life through your body, your health and your fitness, your SELF. Refine the reality, don’t fall into that crevasse. Cycle your success and make sure it’s a continuum of the journey you want to be on.

17. What Is It Really Like To Lose 100lbs?

“If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.”

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

You have my guidelines, now let me tell you a little about my personal journey when I lost around 100lbs, what it really feels like, I think it will be a little bit of an eye opener.

Then I will leave you to decide what you will do with the information in this book, whether you action it or decide to just throw it back on your shelf, hard drive, kindle, whatever method you’ve read it by.

If you want to contact me you’ve been given my email multiple times, if you want to implement the actions but just need a little help, I am here for you [email protected].

So what does losing 100lb actually feel like?

Is it as good as it sounds?

Let me go back to the beginning and describe my lifestyle, where I was and how I felt once I actually realised I had a problem.

Back when I was 15 my father passed away suddenly, he had a migraine the Wednesday and the Saturday he died from a stroke, it was a hard time for the whole family but it impacted me more than I knew it.

I was already a shy kid and when I went back for my final year at school things were different, there was a grown sense within me but I was getting bullied a lot for being who I was, the shy guy who loved hip hop and now my father had passed away, I am not sure the people in school were aware but it actually hit me very hard when they took digs and I heard someone say ‘that’s the geeky boy who’s dad died’ I had a name around the school it seemed, that hurt.

I didn’t realize it at the time but I slowly turned to food as my emotional release, I was eating a lot, hiding wrappers in the trash and even just skipping lessons sometimes, going to the local store and filling up on sausage rolls and pastries, it was my safe place, all while listening to hip hop and going home to play video games for hours on end.

By the time I was around 19 years old I was morbidly obese, I was finding it hard to be confident with women and even though I had a couple of girlfriends before, it was hard, I would be so ashamed of letting them see me naked I would even have sex with the lights off and top on, I would even keep my top on in bed during the summer months when it was ridiculously hot outside.

Things had to change.

I remember walking to music college and getting out of breath, not a harsh walk, around 20 minutes from the car park, flat, no reason to be tired but I got there and it really hit me how much I had been hiding behind the food rather than facing up to the bereavement of losing a parent at a young age had put on me.

I started counselling.

It wasn’t until a few session down the line and I was around 21 that my best friend at the time was into training asked if I wanted to go to the gym. When I say gym I mean local country club which was stuck in the 1980s and literally a small place to train, I went.

When I walking into the building I remember seeing what I thought were massive guys over at the free weight section (which went up to around 75lbs tops), people who ‘knew what they were doing’ in the smith machine and using the machines. I let Ash go do his thing and went on a treadmill, it all started then.

After a few sessions I asked for a program and still to this day, my first trainer is a friend of mine and coincidently he now comes to me for advice and he actually had to force me to

accept money the last time as I feel he was vital for me to begin on this journey, Millsy, I will be forever greatful for the kick.

I sorted my nutrition, I thought, invested in some Slim Fast along with ready meals (you know the ones which everyone says give you bitch tits…they couldn’t get any worse, what the heck!)

As things progressed I think I purchased a protein shake and god forbid

SOME CREATINE

But after a while things were moving nicely and I dropped a hell of a lot before jumping on a bodybuilding stage 10th August 2008.

OK I missed a lot out here but the point has only just begun.

Losing the weight was only the start of it, I was shredded.

I was at the goal I had always wanted to be, abs and I thought I loved it.

That was until a social event came and I had to eat off of my plan things were noticeably harder right now and psychologically my mind was fucked. I would find myself

staring at the menu for days beforehand like a child watching Baywatch for the first time and wondering why the producers put Pamela Anderson in slow motion, or The Hoff, whatever imagery you want there take your pick. I would change my mind so much and still never decide until the time actually came to order as I was torn between having the nachos which have actually been proven that they are the food of gods or settling for the 8oz rump with a side of vegetables which have been proven it is errr well, just, steak really.

Then there was the fear creeping in my mind –

If I have the nachos will I just go back to where I started, the fat guy with more spare tires than a Nascar pit garage?

That was a horrible thought, the guilt, the fear, the emotions were beyond what I would even wish on my worst enemy. What if I had them and then I couldn’t fit into my clothes, had to go back to a 42inch waist for my work wear?

What, what if I lost my partner because of eating nachos?

You may find it funny to believe but these were actual thoughts, thoughts that happened regularly when meals off the plan became a thing.

I remember one time I took a girl out on a date, first time trying to impress her I wouldn’t even have a diet coke (they

didn’t have zero back then), I took my chicken and broccoli meal into the movie theatre and proceeded to munch away stinking the whole place out, she looked at me with disgust, we didn’t have a second date.

Another relationship I started but wouldn’t go out and drink, a nice lady who I really liked but after about 6 weeks things weren’t great and she couldn’t handle the fact of how restrained I was, these things all led to binging out because of the strict diet I was trying to follow.

Every once in around 3-4 weeks I would let loose and really go for it, my mum and step dad would moan as I would clear out most of the cupboard from cookies to ice cream and everything else I could literally get my hands on. The next 4-5 days I would add in extra cardio as all I could see in the mirror was that fat kid getting bullied, I would starve myself, oh, sorry…FAST for a 24 hour period to reset everything whilst taking a laxative to make sure I was shitting as much out as possible.

This is the way it went on for a few years, I had to get professional help in the end about the control I had around my relationship with food.

This is what my mind became because of one reason when I lost all that weight, I didn’t have a mentor, I didn’t have a

coach or anyone to tell me the really simple way and what would happen when and if I done something.

It was nasty, I hated every second but made out like I was it was a happy ever after Monica and Chandler story starting out like you’ve never expect it to happen then BOOM – I’ll be there for you, it was at the forefront of my mind, my life, my existence (wait, did Monica and Chandler stay together?).

It took time to get over this and I find it is something I relate to with so many people, so many clients come to me because they know how I ‘get it’ they may have the weight to lose but know how I made the mistake in the past, they may have lost the weight and want to get to that next level and find the knowledge I have had from going through this stuff to be priceless.

What is it you need to do in order to get through your weight loss journey stronger and in the place you want to be?

What is it you need in ore to really upgrade yourself?

What is it you need to accomplish to be able to walk through your One Day Body Upgrade?

Who do you need to become? Ask yourself these questions.

When you need to talk further about it then please don’t hesitate about getting in touch, I am here www.revitalizationblueprint.com/letstalk

18. I Felt Like I Was Having A Heart Attack

“My anxiety is silent. You wouldn't even notice a change on the outside but I'm honestly so stressed I can't even manage simple tasks. People call me lazy when, in reality, I'm just overwhelmed.”

- Unknown

It was a Wednesday, I remember it well…. I was on the way to a job interview and I had all hopes of getting it. I was employed at a large insurance firm and for the second time my temporary management role got pulled, I had to go back to square one, again, this time was down to off shoring, the whole department getting cut.

I pulled up at the office, it was just around the corner from the spot I was due to go back to work at the following week, a failure, I hadn’t been made permanent, no one was to know it was down to the offshoring, they’d be staring at me, what a loser, he tried twice to be a great leader and failed.

No, I was going to show this new company who I really was, go into the interview and get this job, find out by Monday and quit the old one, walk in, quit, walk out.

I had it all planned in my head.

It was pretty cold that day, middle of October 2013. I’d been with my girlfriend (now wife) for about 3 months, we’d moved in after a month, she was supporting me here and even though she didn’t think I was a failure, that’s what she said anyway, I thought I was to her.

I turn the ignition off and instantly I knew something was wrong so I parked my car up.

My heart started pounding.

Now, I had done my fair share of stimulants over the course of my life, some very strong ones, alongside hard sprints and exercise where your heart was reaching pretty close to it’s max. This was different.

I was confused as to what was happening, my vision was a little blurry. Water, grab some water I thought, you’re just a little dehydrated you trained legs this morning maybe you pushed those squats harder than you thought.

Then I started heating up, it was weird, I had suffered from migraines and that was what my dad went into hospital with before he had a stroke and passed away when I was 15, we took them seriously, this wasn’t a migraine, it was worse.

Maybe I went and panicked a bit but I was confused what was happening.

Heart beating hard. Breathlessness. Heating up. Blurred vision. I took a second and switched to an app on my phone to control my breathing.

NOTHING.

It was horrible and I was not liking it one bit.

I always get to appointments early, one thing I am proud of, my time keeping skills, I HATE being late. I had 15 minutes to calm down, maybe I was just nervous about the interview, maybe?

No, wasn’t that. I had interviews in the passed and rocked them, I was prepared, I had researched the role, the company, I done my homework (for once).

I was losing more and more focus, heart was literally beating so hard it was like I would be able to play it down the phone if I rang the emergency line.

I was starting to get very worried, I tried to call Laura, my girlfriend. I bailed, she wasn’t going to hear of me being like this.

Maybe I should call my mum? No, she didn’t need to have this stress.

I was there, Broadland Business Park in Norwich, looking over a small pond and cafe really not sure what was happening.

It felt like a heart attack. It felt like the beginning of a migraine. It felt like I was boiling from the inside out.

I couldn’t feel my fingers too well, kind of pins and needles. My shirt had basically gone see through now, in all of 5 minutes I had sweated so much I would be able to wring the cotton out and fill a good sized water bottle (I never played that prank when I was little, honest).

Was I having a stroke?

Then something weird happened.

It was like I could hear my dad talking to me. ‘Oliver, Oliver’ ‘Dad?’ ‘You’re OK, just breath, breath’

I closed my eyes and next thing I knew my phone was ringing, it was the company I was supposed to be inside speaking with 15 minutes ago, I didn’t answer.

I just cried. I wanted to ask for help from someone, but no-one was around.

I didn’t want to let my girlfriend see me like this but I needed her.

I didn’t want to tell my mum about this but I didn’t know what to do.

I waited, 30 minutes passed and I was ready to move on.

I went to my dad’s grave, I spoke some words to him and then everything was OK.

On the way home I made an appointment with the doctor, they took it pretty serious and said to come into the walk-in rather than wait for a scheduled appointment.

After a full check out they let me go.

It was a severe panic attack.

It was the scariest moment of my life apart from when I knew I would never have my dad around after I left him in that hospital ward.

To this day I haven’t told anyone about this. In fact, if my wife reads this she will now, only now realise I never got turned down for that job, I simply didn’t go and spent a good 3 hours contemplating.

I have had a couple of panic attacks since then. None as severe.

In fact, it was right after this event that I made the commitment of getting back to health & fitness, making a positive impact into the lives of others.

If you ever need to talk to someone about this, message me. I am here.

Thank you for reading.

About The Author

In the beginning Ollie lost his father, a traumatic time led to extensive emotional eating making the weight shoot up to 250lbs and more, it was then where Ollie was working in a corporate job and when being a ‘successful guy’ was mentioned this was the furthest anyone could possibly be – low confidence, high body fat, no sales skills, no morale.

When having sex and not wanting to take his top off it finally hit him, he needed to do something about it and got a membership at the gym, invested in his own personal trainer (who coincidently Ollie now mentors himself), this was the start of a massive chapter.

Ollie left the corporate world to add fitness as his job and swiftly dropped nearly 100lbs in 12 months to step onto a bodybuilding stage, it was here that learning about nutrition became vital, everything that could be taken on board was taken on board, every hack, every secret, every method was tried to find out what was best to drop weight and put on muscle. This had a dramatic impact on Ollie’s life after 4 years doing this full time he was offered a position back in his previous job and how times had changed.

Within 6 months of accepting the job Ollie was the top sales guy in the company, this self-confident, powerful and driven individual could not be recognised when compared to his former self, fitness had literally laid the path to be the successful guy everyone was talking about within the company, this was great and it led to Ollie becoming a manager leading over 30 people at any one time.

This wasn’t enough, Ollie had found his passion with his time in the fitness industry and this made him hungry, he was Revitalized and had unfinished business after helping multiple people online he decided to take the leap and go back full time with this new attitude.

Ollie has now worked with people all over the world and having been brought up in a family full of endurance athletes actually became ‘that guy’ for nutrition in endurance working with Olympic athletes, world champion triathletes and even Tour De France riders whilst training personally in both strength and endurance himself knowing the importance of constant self development in all areas.

It was when looking back on the story of his father passing away before his time that he realized his calling. You see, his father was only trying to provide for his family, working his

ass off and financial he was definitely providing but what was missing was the focus on his health, at 47 years old Trevor Matthews passed away suffering a stroke which, with a little more focus on both stress management and health from the inside out could potentially have been prevented.

Not focusing on health stopped Ollie’s father from seeing massive events in his life – both Ollie and his sister’s wedding days, granddaughter being born, graduations and even just literally going for a drive on a Sunday afternoon to watch the game.

The Revitalization Blueprint is who Ollie is, it is who Ollie’s clients are and the development of The Revitalized Blueprint: Intensive has literally changed the game, there is nothing else more important than yourself, this is why, as mentioned at the start, Ollie is the guy who practices what he preaches.

Thank You

This isn’t a thank you just for releasing a book, this is much more, this is a thank you for allowing me to be where I am today, if you feel you deserve to be on this list but I have missed you, sorry and thank you anyway too.

Dad – The guy who I look up to every single day and wish that I could have just one more second with you.

Mum – Thanks for being you, I may lose patience but you’re always there.

Gav – My step dad, you didn’t have to step in the way you did but thank you, it takes a lot to show the love you have to both Ellie and myself.

Laura – We may have been through some struggles but thank you for being there when I need.

Ellie – Big sis, just keep running, just…keep…running

Dexter & Snowy – It’s not a thank you without thanking your dogs is it?

DJ – My best mate since god knows how young we were, cheers for being there.

Nick Wilson – You were my first paying PT client when I wasn’t allowed to charge at Wensum, now you’re one of my best friends.

Wayne Crowe – It’s great to know another likeminded individual locally, we are never alone, work Christmas party is happening this year.

Mark Claxton – I wouldn’t have got on stage back in 2008 if it wasn’t for your help, you moody fuck.

Rob Cox – Beast mode activated! Those Brum trips were legendary.

Lee Shorten – Thanks for being there man.

Mark Bone & Shaun Tester – Thank you both for managing Bodyrush and now Phoenix Gym

Lindsey Anderson – The support you gave me to leave my role at Aviva was amazing, one of the best bosses I have ever had.

Iain Mills – My first trainer, it’s great to be able to give back to you now.

Barbs Murray – From my first personal training case study it’s been an amazing journey, even if we don’t see each other as

much as we say we should.

Matt Fever – Helping me through my level 3 personal training course.

Lisa Atthowe – Yes, I am going to thank and ex, it’s my book and Lisa if you read this, thanks for supporting me through my first big weight loss and competition, I was pretty fucked most of that prep!

Dan Meredith – My bearded brother from another mother, still proud to this day to have been one of your first online coaching clients, anytime you need me just call.

Ron Reich – You’re getting a special mention as my A-Player client, friend and also a mentor, thanks.

Flavia Powell – Thanks for being my crazy friend and hypnotherapist.

Roger Wood – You’ve been keeping me held together for nearly 10 years, hard job but someone has to do it.

John Romaniello – After looking up to you for so long it’s great to have been mentored by you.

John Cusick – I would 100% never have believed I could do an MSc without your crazy chats, you are one of the most

genuine and caring people I know.

Shari Teigman – Crazy New Jersey lady! Love you and thanks for being so fucking epic!

Mark Whitehand – LORD! You and your stories have got me into places I found it hard to get out of!

Joe Gregory – This wouldn’t have been created without you, thanks.

Billy Hopkins – You’re an amazing guy, always remember that and not matter what I will always have time for you my scouse brother!

Alex Viada – One of the best things I asked was to be coached by you and ended up becoming a Complete Human Performance coach! Thanks for being a great mentor.

Alex Harris – You believed when I said there was 12 weeks to a bodybuilding show, and even travelled 100s of miles to get there, you will always be a great friend bro.

Steve Gibbons – Amazing to see someone doing so well in Norwich, some great chats already between us.

Neil Fetherby – Love popping in to catch up even if it lasts about 2 hours each time, thanks for the support.

John Chapman & Leon Bustin – You guys are beyond inspirational and still thank you for taking me to Cliff & Marta’s seminar.

Stephen Aish – Socrates, I am here, now.

Cliff & Marta Wilde – Just thank you DOODES! AWESOME!

Adil Amarsi – You’re one of the good guys, glad to call you a friend.

Hollis Carter – Thanks for believing in me to be the trainer at Baby Bathwater

Emil Goliath – Epic to know someone doing similar things which we know is just going to help millions of people.

Steven Eugene Kuhn – Brother, it’s not been long but the love is so strong.

Sam Shaw – You were the partner in rhyme allowing me to start to build my confidence up, maybe we shouldn’t have had to many UK Pizza though!

Ahmed Abdelmutti – We have some stories and thanks for being my boy back in the day.

Thando Murwira – Whats Good? Whats Realllllly Good? What’s really really really really good? You know!

Ashley Scott – You helped me get to Wensum that first time.

Robby Copsey – One of my best mates in school, those English lessons writing rhymes are paying off!

Lee Guyton – RZ for life.

To some amazing clients I have been able to work wth:

Doberman Dan

Ron Reich - yeah second mention!

Ryan McKenzie - Some of our WhatsApp conversations are pretty ‘different’ coaching topics!

Adam Lundquist – Thanks for being a friend and great client too.

Rick Barker – I have learned so much just from being able to coach you and call you a friend.

Hannah Pennington – One of the first people to ever sign up to my online coaching and proud to have you as my official

photographer and videographer.

Tracey Aldous – Some great conversations since you became a client and I am glad you don’t curl in the squat rack, just saying…

Steven Thompson – BigDaddy PR, started the same time as me online, it’s been a ride we are still loving.

And many more

As I said, apologies if I missed anyone. Thank you all.