Expert Articles

Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich  is one of the bestselling inspirational business books ever. A recent USA Today survey of business leaders named it one of the five most influential books in its field, more than 40 years after it was first published. It was a book that resonated with me at a young age and his principles have been a huge contributor to my own personal achievement.

WHAT?! Eating fat burns fat? That sounds contradictory to the fat phobic view that many have adopted. By taking fats out of your diet you're actually taking away a valuable tool for fat burning plus a great tool for vitamin transport and craving fighting. Let's have a look at how..

We talk a lot about goals here at Vision and indeed they are an integral part of helping clients get to where they want to be. The first goal session is often a very powerful experience - full of emotions , sometimes tears - often fears but ending in hope and optimism for the future. At Castle Hill we, as trainers, take our own goals very seriously. I'd like to share with you my experiences of my own personal goal.   We have a board inside the front door "Your trainers' goals." To be honest when it was my turn to write up my goal I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I was new at vision and just loving my new job that I hadn't really thought about what I wanted to do in the future. After some debate and a lot of arm twisting by my colleagues it was decided that my goal would be to run the Blackmore's Half Marathon. Before the ink had even dried I was already regretting it - How could I possibly run that far - 21 KM's - that's like running to the city!! My friends and family would have laughed at the prospect of me finishing - as would my soccer team mates - despite having played for 30 odd years I was never very  fit and nearly always the first to take an enforced break (put on the subs bench!!) Anyway I thought I could do one of two things - chicken out and come up with something easier or REALLY see how powerful goal setting can be. I'm so glad I chose the latter.   So armed with a training plan (thanks Amie) the journey had begun. Basically I had to do 2 shorter runs during the week and then a longer run on Saturday morning ( that got longer and longer as the weeks progressed ) Not wanting to suffer alone we persuaded a few brave clients to sign up too and Saturday morning Run Club became our long run. Now this is where the power of a GOAL comes into play. It wasn't a choice of whether or not I was going to go for a run - it had to happen. If I was going to finish the race the training had to be done - it was as simple as that. I had a client who's goal was to lose some weight for her upcoming wedding. A not uncommon goal of course - all eyes would be on her and the photos would last forever. In our goal session she said to me -"When I wake up on my wedding day I want to know that I did everything I could" This is something that I will always remember. I wanted to know that when I stood on the start line on Sunday 20th September that I had done everything that I could to finish the race - in fact as the date got closer and the runs longer I even added a time goal - sub 2 hours.   So if it was cold, if it was raining if I was just feeling tired or unmotivated I said to myself -- if I miss todays run could I look in the mirror and say to myself that I had done everything I could - The answer of course is NO - so I went for a run. Did I enjoy the run? Sometimes after a 100 metres I was wishing I was anywhere else, sometimes it got better and I felt good ... sometimes it got worse and I felt terrible. But every single time when I finished the run I would tick it off on my chart and every single time that felt really really good. Now for full disclosure I did miss a weeks training - I had a slight injury and decided that resting for a week would be the best option - but when I woke up on race day I felt I had done as much as I could.....

Before I start, I want to be clear about what I mean when I mention 'strength training'. I don't mean bodybuilding, powerlifting, Olympic lifting or any means of competitive sports. In the rawest form, strength training is a form of physical exercise using resistance to induce muscular contraction (exercise aiming to specifically work the muscles). You don't have to be a natural born athlete to reap the benefits of lifting weights, nor aspire to be. There are a whole list of benefits that go along with strength training that sometimes slip under the radar - benefits that will keep your body a well-oiled machine and improve the quality of your life and I thoroughly believe these benefits far outweigh any reason to not include it in your life; and that is what I will be discussing in this article.

There are 2 types of fats. There is the good fat, which we refer to as unsaturated fat, and there is bad fat, which is referred to as saturated fat.

AT THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II in the Pacific, Admiral Halsey was given a small, makeshift aircraft carrier task force with orders to halt the Japanese advance and buy precious time for the Allies. Losses were great, resulting in numerous on the spot field promotions. Upon one such occasion, a young man about to be promoted, tried to decline by saying, "It takes a great man to be a wing commander, leading men into battle and possible death. I am not a great man".

This for some people is quite a confronting statement. The truth is whether we acknowledge them as conscious or not, our life is made up of countless decisions that we make on a daily basis. Some choices we don’t even think about, we just do them out of conditioning such as getting dressed before leaving the house.

Why do we do the things we do? What is it that motivates us? What is it that pushes us and drives us?

Feeling fearful of lifting weights?  There are plenty of horror stories that lifting weights makes women bulky, it's bad for the joints or once you stop training, all your muscle will turn to fat.  All these different factors have kept women fearful from experiencing the amazing benefits produced through resistance training.