Hi my name is Brian and I am the Weight Loss Path resident trainer for at least the next three months. This is a new experience for me as I am used to working with whoever I am training in person, which makes it much easier for me to assess their fitness and ability levels. Today I am going to cover some of the serious problems that can occur if you don’t follow any sort of fitness program.

 When I ask the people I train what are the most important things that keep us healthy, I usually get very similar answers and mostly in the same order. Top of the list are nearly always diet and exercise, but not always in that order. Keeping your alcohol consumption to a minimum often comes next, followed closely by not smoking, but with all the information available today, not smoking is a no brainer. When you thing it’s only about fifty years ago that doctors recommended a cigarette to relieve stress, these days it’s only the tobacco companies who think it’s good for you, but I wonder if they actually still smoke themselves. Sorry getting a bit off track, but smoking is one of my biggest hates, I have seen quite a few lives destroyed because of it. OK back on track, one subject that virtually never crops up when talking about our health, is one of the most important, and that is sleep.

 The following information is probably going to surprise a lot of you, but 20% of people living in the United States suffer from sleep disorders, and here in the UK the figure is even higher according to the NHS, it’s nearer 30%. These are frightening figures especially as you get older, as it can lead to a lot of serious problems. In the United States survey of 2012, they found that the leading causes of sleep disorders where, lack of any exercise, poor diets, and irregular meals. Although here in the UK the causes of the sleep disorders were not printed, there is no reason not to assume they are not similar to the United States.

 One interesting fact that the American survey showed, was that women had a higher risk of insomnia than men. According to a separate report, up to 65% of Americans have a problem getting to sleep at night, although they don’t classify as sleep disorders, 40% of the 65% are women. Records show that in America, women who don’t get a proper night’s sleep, are more prone to, high blood pressure, heart disease, depression, obesity, and it can also affect the menstrual cycle, and there is no reason why the pattern isn’t similar here in the UK.

 I don’t believe in using scare tactics to get someone to want to start training, I believe when dealing with adults, you should make the facts available, and then you can make up your own mind. So what do you need to do now, as I said earlier this is difficult for me as I don’t know your individual fitness levels, so we will start with very basic training.

 You need to get out walking for 30 minutes every day, if you can’t walk for 30 minutes do two 15 minute sessions, or even one 20 minute session, but if you start on 20 minutes try to add one extra minute every day until you are up to 30 minutes. This walking fitness is not an amble round your local park, this is walking with a purpose, and you need to push yourself to improve your fitness level. The easiest way to improve is walk normally for 4 minutes, then as hard as you can for 1 minute, but don’t strain yourself but you do need to get your heart rate up. Repeat this six times for your 30 minutes, and for those doing different time adjust accordingly, but after a week you should find you can do the 1 minute easily, increase it to 2 minutes, and recover in the 3 minutes, and again repeat it six times.

 Two things before I go, the weather is getting warmer, so don’t go walking without at least a 500ml bottle of water, and make sure you always have comfortable foot ware, as there is nothing going to stop you faster than sore feet. If you follow this program, you will lose weight, your fitness level will rise really quickly, and you will find that you get a good night’s sleep, even if you weren’t before, and if you are having real sleep problems, try walking in the evening as late as is practical, that should help. Until next time get out there and enjoy yourself, it’s doing you good. If you have any questions you can contact me at theweightlosspath@gmail.com and just mark the subject line Ask Brian, and I will get back to you as quickly as possible. Until next time take care.