A year of hard-hitting advice

CHRIS HUNT celebrates his column’s first birthday by looking back at some of his best advice for you, one week at a time

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! Yes it’s my one-year anniversary, sorry, our one-year anniversary for the best health and fitness column around the area and, in my opinion, in the UK.

Before we celebrate our last 12 months I have a few questions first for you:

Are you feeling accountable?

Are you feeling motivated to be the best that you can be?

Did you publicly state your goal and accountability ideas and share them with me or at least with people that know will hold you to them?

I hope so as last week’s article showed how important I value ACCOUNTABILITY and WORK ETHICS.

But now onto a celebration and that celebration is the fact we are now 52 weeks into the Every Step Counts column.

It’s been an amazing 12 months so I want to share with you today a take home point or quote from every single week since we started on September 9 last year that you can then either (a) remind you of something you should be doing or (b) give you a fresh idea for inspiration so here we go…

Why change tomorrow when you can change today?

Set daily, weekly, monthly and long term goals and dreams. Don’t ever be afraid to dream to big. Nothing is impossible. If you believe in yourself, you can achieve it. And remember…If it doesn’t challenge you then it won’t change you.

Own your environment and you will own your results – think of home, work and family.

Be yourself, be decisive and own your daily actions, the feeling will be much more satisfying than copying someone else’s.

First define what health and fitness means to you and then go about grabbing it with every breath you have. Your current conditions are echoes of your previous choices.

Think long term, not short term and adopt a habit focused lifestyle.

Being positive and embracing positivity should be one of your mandatory habits to adopt.

When your why is big enough then you will undoubtedly find your how.

What starts out as a health and fitness journey can soon become so much more and really it becomes a complete journey of selfdiscovery.

Every time you eat is an opportunity to nourish your body.

Get your body moving whether it’s a walk, workout or even a spot of gardening. Don’t be sedentary.

Set a schedule and go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time as much as possible.

Visualise your journey each week and plan ahead for obstacles and troublesome periods. Every morning is a CHANCE of a new day. When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.

The greatest Christmas gift of all is spending the time with someone you love.

Don’t let anything stop you from reaching your goal.

Enjoy being you this week everyone and just try and do things better. Do things in a way that will help you grow as a person.

Those who think they have no time for exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness.

Obstacles are put in your way to see if what you want is really worth fighting for.

The time to be HAPPY is now.

Workout the morning you are going out for a night out. The average workout burns between 300-600 calories so at least this will help with your energy balance.

The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn’t like to do.

If you don’t like your life or present situation, it’s about time to start making better choices.

If you drive or catch the bus or train to work then use that time to listen to audio recordings. I like to listen to podcasts and recordings of online courses that I have done. This is the perfect time to increase your knowledge in some area and will get your brain working also.

Don’t feel you have to eat clean all the time, schedule in some less healthy treats that you enjoy. This tactic will help you long term trust me.

OK, so I teased you… I’m not going to give you all the 52 hard-hitting points in this week’s article. I will give you the second half of the year’s column hard hitting points next week. I wouldn’t want to overload you too much. Take a photo of these points.

Write them down.

Create a word cloud.

Design a visualisation board.

Draw some pictures, write in your journal. Do what you have to do to get moving forward. You may just find that one or some of these points could not just change your year so far but your whole life moving forward.

Have a great Thursday and join me next week for the second half of the last year’s articles.