Don’t you’re there to relax...

This will be quite a quick blog post about what you can do exercise wise on holiday.

The easiest way to exercise on holiday is walk - stop hiring a moped or buggy or getting a taxi to go 10 minutes down the road, walk everywhere, I always carry a pouch for valuables - with sun cream, coin change and notes, make sure you have as much water as you can carry and just bloody walk, it’s amazing when you just go exploring in a new city or place as long as it’s safe to do so, just go for a wonder, you find some amazing things too.

The second one is Swim! Chances are you are you getting to the sun because England doesn’t have it, let’s face it 5 days of summer doesn’t count as Sunny England, so you’ll stay somewhere with a pool or near beach or both - so take the opportunity to swim or learn to swim! I have retaught myself to swim and getting better and better each holiday and now look forward to getting away to swim! It’s a great all over workout that’s bloody hard on your cardio health too - if you have poor mobility it’s amazing at loosening you up and allowing you to move more freely.

Thirdly - Find a gym - this doesn’t need any explanation just do your own workout in a gym!

Finally - Do a ghetto workout in your room, this takes a bit of dismantling of beds, overfilling of suitcases and the like but once ready can be a gruelling task, you can do dips on the side of the bed, into press ups into weighted burpees in bent-over suitcase rows, into Kettlebell swings but with your bag, jumping lunges with a backpack, shoulder press with your suit case, squat and press with your bag, single leg Glute Bridges loads of stuff!

Do it to a time rather than rep range and just go for it!

Personally I don’t like the idea of training while you’re on holiday apart from relaxing exercises like swimming and walking, for me I’m there to get away from everything I normally do and everyone I’m normally with - I’m there to completely shut down, restart and reload my whole mindset, state of being and purpose and to just explore somewhere new and exciting!

Now as it's coming up to holiday session and people are well on there way to either booking or going on holiday I thought I’d right this little guide that means you can eat well on holiday and not come back like I have done a few times a few Kilos heavier.

One of the main things to do isn’t to do with eating but a tip that means you can be habit more lenient with your food, HIRE A BIKE!

Most cities now offer a Boris bike style system, so what better way to explore a new city than by cycling, you can’t ride a bike walk, My girlfriend probably hates me for it but I love just walking, and figuring it out as we go getting google maps when you need to, if you aim for at least 15k steps you should be able to do this very easily on a city break, if your on a beach chilling holiday then going down and swimming for 10 minutes every hour or 2, or if your by the beach just getting up walking, one of the things I do is get smaller bottles of water, so i have to get up and go and get another bottle of refill the one I have, it's a little thing but can help a lot with raising your NEAT(non exercise activity thermogenesis)

Don’t have the mentality of ‘fuck this I’m on holiday give me ALL the food’ think ‘fuck this I’m on holiday give me all the dinner’ - having this mentality and waking up having a glass of OJ or apple juice with your coffee, having a freshly made 4 egg omelette with leafy greens, some fresh fruit and maybe a few rashers of bacon - you A) have a good hit of protein to start your day, have a good amount of energy from carbs for when you go walking and a pretty decent amount of fats to keep you healthy and again give you energy for exploring the city or the sun loungers. not to meant all the vitamins and minerals from the eggs and leafy greens.

So, stick with that sort of breakfast, sort your protein source first! and then find something with a good balance of fats and carbs and don’t eat as much as you can!

Next up is lunch - if you’re on a city break, the chances are you’re too busy to get a proper lunch, grab a local style lunch, in Spain there's loads of little bars that serving chicken Paella, Budapest get a cinnamon chimney cake with and some kind of local meat based meal to be honest I normally stick with a chicken burger or something like that again don’t eat as much as you can, I sometimes just have a black coffee on a city break and wait to dinner but there's a castle to see or a secret building somewhere who knows! on a sun break I get starving from sitting in the sun an I’m normally all inclusive for the sun holidays, I’m not big time(yet) its just sooooo much better and less stressful (which is the whole point of going to the sun) so for lunch I’d normally grab an omelette if I didn’t have one for breakfast or if even if I did to be honest, or a burger or whatever you can get with the all inclusive, normally its something pretty ‘english’ we seem to get anywhere in the world and there is a ‘english fish and chips’ shop,

And then for dinner and drinks - YOU’RE on holiday do whatever you want! be controlled on breakfast and lunch, don’t snack and then do whatever you want for dinner, keep your activity as high as you can, swim, walk or cycle, don’t spend a penny on taxi’s!

A final word - RELAX! turn all my emails off, i mute all my work related Facebook/WhatsApp groups, this year I’m going to get a very basic Holiday phone and a little camera with social media upload ability, and leave my iPhone at home, so everyone can see what I’m doing but i get none of notifications if there's an emergency I’m still reachable! I implore you to do the same!

Diet hacks and smart food swaps

This will be a quick guide to give you little hint and tips to be a diet ninja and be able to know if you are going to binge smarter swaps.

With out beating around the bush dieting in really bloody hard, its hard to stick to, it's hard to maintain and it's hard to choose which approach to go down, I would recommend 2 differerent approaches, which I'll explain in another post.

Now when you are on your diet you get mad cravings, everyone has had them, everyone will get them, so can foods can you swap/add/take away to give you the best reults you can get...

The first are biscuits and crisps, Biscuits... there really isn't a good food swap, you cant get healthy biscuits however, you can change for better biscuit, so if you count calories pick biscuits with added protein. crisps you really have no hope, there are low calorie crisps but they are like eating flavoured dust, so before you know it your 15 packs down and still hungry.

Next is chocolate - now this is managable, when you have a chocolate craving, change for dark chocolate or chocolate coated nuts, a little advisory warning though, dark chocolate tends to have higher calories so if you do have dark chocolate then stick to one or 2 bars of 75% +
and thats the same for the nuts, buy the little snack pots they are more expensive and you get a lot less, so over feeding on those is very costly!

Fizzy Drinks - This is easy - if you drink coke, change for coke Zero, coke pay millions to make there stuff taste the same and those millions arent wasted, Coke and coke Zero honestly now taste the exact same, if you drink Lucazade, you can get... lucazade zero - Monster zero, relentless zero. Changing drinks is the easiest way to get rid of a sweet tooth and most at 0ish calories you really cant go wrong.

Butters and spreads - This is a tricky one, as you can live your life calorie watching, so smarter spread anf butter swaps are crucial, instead of margerine get some olive oil spread, things like low fat phillidephia, or spreading cheeses are amssively helpful, it kills your cheese craving and gives you a tasty low calorie alternative.

Next is choices of meats - you need the lowest calorie ones, so reduced fat everything!!! appart from fish, pick the oiliest mofos you can get, not only do you get the saturated fat from salmon you get a massive hit of omega 3.

Sandwhiches and wraps - this is hard, people have compared wheat to Herion on the addiction scale, but its a mental thing, people believe they genuinely need bread to survive, you really don't. im against bread but its a crap food, it has nothing to it. You can now actually get low Calorie bread but it tastes liek cardboard, this is one of the things you are just going to have to say goodbye to and replace for nutrient dense foods, make a Jacket sweet potato (Sweet jacket potato? which one? lol)

You have heard me talk mostly about calories here, this is because you will not lose weight unless you are in a calorie deficit, you can do endless amounts of cardio, putting stress onto your joints, Have you ever looked at someone who runs alot and thought 'wow I want her bum' or 'Yo look at that dudes guns!'? I'm going to throw this out and say no.

So make some changes to your diet, lift some weights and go hit your weight goals!

I hope this guide will give you a better understanding of personal training and what to expect and ask when you see a PT for the first time.
 
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There are a lot of things to consider when you are looking for a PT – least of all is actually - Price, as this is the main thing people look at I’ll start with that.
 
The main reason price is almost irrelevant is because many very well educated, respected PT’s severely under-price and undervalue themselves, as a PT we are meant to go on a lot of further education courses, read and listen to new information and stay in the loop to what is going on in the industry. During my 6 months in the industry I spent at least £400 on reading material – which leads me onto my first tip always ask what continued learning you’re PT has done?
 
Another major consideration is their personality type, crack a few cheesy jokes, a lot of PT have confidence issues so if you can make a few small jokes it will help to open them up and will make you feel more at ease, if they don’t respond with even a smile or another cheesy, then they are probably always going to be serious and boring, I know personally I struggle to open up and become at ease straight away so a little joke always helps massively. If you just want a straight to the point PT with a personality of a cardboard box then absolutely fine, but if you want to have a bit of a conversation, but of banter and generally a nicer time then you now know what to do.
 
Experience – this one is a really annoying one - as a PT who really struggled when starting out, to write., you are definitely looking for a trainer for 2 reasons – weight loss or muscle gain, this is closely related to the first point however, if you find a PT who like me passed there qualification and then started reading and reading a lot on fat loss strategies, female strength training etc then I suggest you go with them with is contradictory to this tip but they will most likely be so excited about having a client to try stuff out on them that you will be put on the best most safe to get results plan ever, because you are one of the first clients, they need to get results, you want/Need results so it’s perfect, that’s the reason continued learning is top! However, let’s say they have just passed the course and haven’t done much in terms of related learning, then you will be put on a crap diet plan that was ‘scientifically’ correct in 19never and to top that off they don’t have great knowledge of how the body moves and considerations when Training women especially. So, to summarise – unless they are very well read don’t go for an inexperienced PT, they will be more interested in your money than results, which leads on to the next point.
 
Money – this isn’t the amount they charge this is the way they get your money, now we all have to make a living, I have to get paid, however there isn’t a single PT that I know who, if they genuinely care about the person and their results wants to ask for money, the amount of people I speak to with critical health but can’t afford PT is heart breaking, any good respectable PT wants to help and change as many people’s lives as they can but no PT wants to be broke and homeless doing so, if it’s one of the last things that come up and they seem a bit wishy washy about price and ways to charge then they are probably a safe bet, unless someone is very experienced and very well established, but you will easily be able to tell the people who are and those who are faking.
 
Ask about the PTs ambitions, the more ambitions the PT generally means the more likely they are to keep you happy and get you good results, I want to be the next big name in the industry with elite level gyms, I can’t have that/Be that if I have a history of scamming people, not getting results and not being knowledgeable. Find an ambitious PT and they will have a personally attachment to getting you results you want.
 
I really hope this post helps you pick a PT that is suited to you and gets you good results!
There are too many money grabbing PTs in this industry so if I can help you pick one of the good ones then this has achieved what I wanted it to!
 
Have fun training!
Dan Grimes