How to get Summer fit with Claire McGrath...

With summer just around the corner we thought it would be a good idea to ask fitness expert Claire McGrath for her top five best fitness and lifestyle tips to help get us all ready for a long hot summer! Here’s what she recommends...

Get up, get out, get active!

Now is the perfect time to kickstart into a new health and fitness routine. When the sun is shining and the days are longer it feels so much easier to get up early and get outdoors to move your body in a way that helps make you feel better. The beautiful thing is when you  begin to take action and get fit, this may naturally influence your choices and daily habits around food, nutrition and lifestyle, which may in turn make you feel happier and have a more peaceful outlook on life. Sometimes just starting out on a new health and fitness routine is the biggest hurdle, so here’s my advice to help you take those first steps towards a healthier happier you…

1: Start NOW not Monday!

Stop telling yourself that “the diet starts on Monday” or that you will start your new fitness routine when you have new gym gear or when you have X,Y & Z in place. The conditions may never be perfect to start, the important thing is to just take that first step. Don’t give yourself a chance to talk yourself out of training. I find when I delay getting up in the morning or getting up off the couch that it’s useful to count down from three and then go. So no more excuses. 3,2,1…GO…

If you are finding you are lacking energy first thing in the morning in might be a good idea to supplement your diet with a liposomal form of B-vitamin complex since these vitamins may contribute to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue. I also find it useful to lay my gym clothes out before I go to bed and have everything organised and ready to go so it all feels easier when my alarm clock goes off.

2: Set realistic goals

When we set very specific goals and really emotionally connect to WHY we want to achieve them, we feel so strongly about achieving our goals that motivation becomes almost automatic. So be specific when writing down your goals. For example, instead of saying “I want to lose weight and tone up” swap this for “I want to lose 10lbs or drop a dress size so that I feel amazing in my bikini on holiday in 12 weeks time.” Then visualise how you would feel standing on that beach in the bikini having achieved this goal, keep this feeling and vision in the front of your mind when you need reminding WHY you are doing what you are doing.

Another example is, instead of saying “I want to be fitter and look and feel healthier” swap this to “I want to be fitter so that I can run a 10k race in under 1hr and I want to be able to keep up with my kids and be a good example for them”. The more specific you can be and the more tangible the goals are, the more likely you are to achieve them. Set deadlines and mark off milestones so that you are always working towards a date.

3: Create a morning routine

Getting your training done first thing in the morning is a great way to help set yourself up for a more successful day. Sometimes if you leave your workout to the evening time you may find excuses throughout the day to not do it. Creating a habit of just getting it done first thing helps take the thinking out of the equation. The morning is also a good time to take care of your nutrition. Warm water with lemon or lime helps hydration and get the digestive system going. This is also a good time to take your daily Altrient C to help support the immune system and support energy and recovery during your morning training. If you are considering training before breakfast then it might be a good idea to take liposomal Acetyl L-Carnitine beforehand as this is best known amongst sports and fitness enthusiasts for helping support the process of utilising fats for energy production. 

4: Make time for recovery and relaxation

Self-talk is super important when it comes to implementing changes to your daily routine. If you “fall off the wagon” and eat foods that are not on your plan, don’t beat yourself up over it. What if I told you it’s ok to have a little of what you fancy every so often as part of a healthy balanced lifestyle. Recovery is also important and making sure you incorporate some downtime and relaxation to help with recovery from the new levels of training. During exercise the body burns oxygen which promotes the release of free radicals and this contributes to oxidative stress and may lead to muscle discomfort. The body’s antioxidant system is sometimes unable to produce sufficient antioxidants to neutralise the effects of free radicals. Taking Altrient R-Alpha Lipoic Acid may help provide additional nutritional support for the body to deal with this stress. 

5: Make small changes over time

In order to form new, long-lasting habits it’s important that they are manageable. If you make small changes gradually over a long time frame you are more likely to succeed. It’s possibly taken years to create your current habits so it could take time and consistent effort to create new ones. Make sure your approach isn’t too drastic and don’t change everything all at once so avoid the crash diet and training for hours everyday approach. This tends to just shock and overload the system too much and you could end up stuck in the crash and burn then binge and repeat the cycle. This makes for a very unstable and unbalanced approach and may often create an unhappy mental state. So instead, make one small change at a time. 

For example....

Week 1 - you could start off with a healthy habit such as an Altrient C shot a day. 

Week 2 - add in some cardio in the morning

Week 3 - add in more green vegetables with each meal. 

Bit by bit you start to make changes to your diet and lifestyle with ease so you hopefully wont even notice any stress or resistance and soon you’ll start to see and feel the results. 

Most importantly is to enjoy the process. Don’t put your happiness on hold until you achieve you goals. Start to love and enjoy who you are in the world today, whilst also working hard to create an even better version of yourself for tomorrow. It’s important to enjoy your training and food otherwise your good efforts may not be sustainable in the long-term. So find healthy foods that you enjoy, create new recipes and do the type of training that you connect with the most. 

Wishing you all a fabulously fit and healthy summer,

Claire McGrath