Instructor Newsletter 3rd December 2015

Time To Reflect

December is always a great time to reflect and take stock.

What worked really well?

What did you love doing and want to do more of?

What was difficult but worth it in the end?

What do you need to change?

As we start to gear down and look forward to well
earned breaks with friends, family and loved ones
its such a fab time to take stock.

It’s a great time to celebrate all of your victories &
savour all of your great memories

So what about 2016 where do you
want your journey to take you……….

This weeks newsletter has great articles from
Jenny Burrell, Yvonne Radley
& Andrew all thought provoking reads!

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And in other news
this week the IFS Timetable came out YEAH 16/17/18 March
Click here to read

and

the new FITPRO Live Convention on 8/9th April where I’ll be
doing a presentation with Jenny Burrell PLUS
a new Social Media presentation

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Pilates Training

Whatever the global group exercise trends  trends are PILATES is ALWAYS
a high demand class.

Community classes, leisure centres and health clubs all boast packed classes
with waiting lists all year round.

Is it something you have been thinking about training in?

If you want to get on one of my Level 3 courses before they go up
CLICK here  the first one is in Bristol on

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Kick Start Fat Loss – The Revolution Book

The Smart Women’s Guide to losing fat, feeling sharp and transforming health

It’s been 2 years in the writing and finally I pick up the first copy TODAY.

We’ve been agonising over the cover pictures & graphics..what do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Have you read the Kick Start Motivation Magazine?

Click here for your 5 minute motivational

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Are We Making The Post Natal Moms We Serve Miserable???
By Jenny Burrell

So, are we making the Post Natal moms we serve miserable???

I’ve started to write this blog so many times in my head whilst laying in bed in those moments between ‘I’m away and I need to get up’ and then suddenly, I had a moment of clarity which meant I was then able to just write it virtually in one go….you gotta love that  So here goes….

Recently, I’ve been aware of a huge issue for the modern woman/mom and if you are a guy reading this, please ‘bear with’ because if you’re serving women, these points are big for many of your clients.

I’ve been lucky enough to be asked to return to lecture at FitPro Live in 2016 and I really wanted to topic that was more challenging that the typical physical issues of Post Natal life

(if I have to talk about Mummy Tummy once more I will poke myself in the eye!o) and so took it to my trusty colleagues in my Facebook Group Metabolic Mommy…..

the question was basically, what should I suggest as a compelling and not-the-norm session title at Fitpro next year? Well, I wasn’t prepared for the outpouring that happened….post after post, suggestion after suggestion related to the pressures (self-imposed and otherwise) that women are under to both ‘to do and have it all’ and the toll that that takes on their mental and physical health on a daily basis. The toll it takes on their relationship with their partners, their families, their kids and most importantly, themselves and as I read more and more of the posts, I had a horrible feeling as I wondered whether we as fitness and wellbeing professionals are MORE PART OF THE PROBLEM RATHER THAN THE SOLUTION!?

Are we selling a mythical and unnecessary level of health, fat loss, fitness and butt-size to these sometimes tired, pissed off, disorientated, got-more-important-things-to-do-with-their-lives women than they actually NEED in order to be ‘successful’ in the most basic of health terms???

Uh oh…….

Many of you who know me well, know that I have a love-hate relationship with technology….it allows me to reach you and to run a successful business for which I am beyond grateful but as we all know….if we use without consiciousness, these machines can suck the soul out of you and drag you into a pit of self-comparison which for many, can unleash the Hounds of Hell between your ears as described by Jennifer Louden.

The internet has allowed you to have a window in the lives/thoughts/opinions of millions of people in the palm of your hand and this is causing huge problems for many women.

With hours of the day spent ingesting the lives/dreams/thoughts and sometimes fakery of others instead of getting clear and working on what’s important in our own personal lives, we eventually start to abdicate our role as the captain of our own ship and leader in our own lives and our yardsticks regarding many vital elements of our lives is driven by what we see in front of us on our various screens.

BAD NEWS!

This begs the question then, when this Post Natal woman stands in front of us seeking our help in her recovery and return to fitness and general de-chubbing post birth….what/who exactly is driving her demands and desires?

And what/who is driving our prescription for her as part of our ‘tried and trusted strategy’?

Found in the C-Section Recovery Boards on Pintrest…..Post C-Section Workout!!!!

Because my working day is now seriously time-managed…..my dipping into any other social media platform apart from Facebook where my student groups are located is very time limited….

I quite literally start a stop watch that alarms to remind me to STOP LOOKING because, again, I think you know that you go down into a massive hole and return 2 hours later feeling icky and disorientated at best….anyway,

so I took a look on Pintrest and Instagram and search for Post Natal…..holy crap…..well, if that’s how a new mom is supposed to look, in a professional and personal capacity, I might as well shut up shop right now….some of these women, were off the scale in terms of thinness, muscularity, levels of fitness and their orthorexic ‘nutrition’….I’m made of strong stuff….but even for a moment,

I had a feeling that compared to what I see in my mirror, I might be viewed as ‘failing’….I don’t look like these moms (mostly because I’m 45 and most of them seem to be at least 2 decades younger), I don’t jump around like these moms (I’ve had a Hysterectomy, I mind my Pelvic Floor!), I don’t eat like these women (I can always manage a good glass of red wine a few chips), I’m fairly muscular but in now way could be described as BUFF and for sure, not one person since I was around 10 has ever described me as ‘the thin one over there’.

But, I don’t give a rats ass, NO! Because I am the boss of me…..and I long ago, under duress, learned to truly define success for myself. But many of our clients, esp in the early PN period are very much not the ‘boss of themselves’ and the change in their identity, the activities of their daily lives, their place in the world, the size of their boobs, belly and bum….these women are disorientated. Then……we as women, we go and do it to ourselves…….we manufacture and perpetuate these Pintrest lives which are then held as the gold-standard to which we must all aspire.

IMPORTANT POINT ALERT!

Now if these ‘falsehoods’ are the benchmark and you’re looking at them daily as your guide to success then for sure ON A DAILY BASIS, MOST OF US ARE FALLING SHORT OF THE MARK AND TECHNICALLY FAILING BIG TIME! Everyday when you go to bed or as you are consuming this crap through your eyes and ears and then you look at your own body and your own life and the failed crafting session with your little Tabitha….you’re getting this perpetual feeling that you and your life is simply not measuring up to the generally fake, perfect for the camera, exhaustingly unattainable standard that you’ve unconsciously allowed to be set for your life by people you don’t even bloody know or even care about!

Urghhhhh!

When I really sit and think about this, I get really, really worried because we have, apparently come so far as women, we can drive, vote, own property, earn the same as a man, we have choices that our grandmothers never did………but on this thing…..the CURSE OF COMPARISON…..we’re still deep in a pit of a) ignorance that it’s even happening b) if we do have awareness, we’re still not dedicating time and willpower to removing ourselves from ‘the loop’. The loop is spending hours on Social Media looking for clues how to be and what matters and how to feel….The loop is comparing other people’s outside to your insides…..the loop is not being CLEAR on what matters to YOU….DEEPLY.

What brings you real joy and meaning in your life and dedicating your time and energies to those things as much as humanly possible. The loop is being a ‘sheeple’…..naively following the masses blindly without questioning the relevance of the information to you and who is providing the information….the loop is anything with ‘celebrity’ in the title…..I could go on. Ultimately many women (and this was me too at a certain point in my life) are not RUNNING THEIR OWN SHOW! They are not making the rules for their own lives and their bodies and when your hand isn’t firmly on your own tiller, your boat is going to be going off in all directions and is more likely to crash into those rocks!
BIG THOUGHT!

If you just existed in the world all by yourself, without any outside influence…..when would you reach your own personal ‘good enough’ point  regarding your hair, weight, body-shape, levels of fitness, nutrition choices or whatever you constantly ‘bag’ yourself about on a daily basis?

I bet for many people, the answer is a struggle to arrive at simply because are and allow ourselves to be continually influenced about what’s good enough for US by outside agents.

As fitness and wellness professionals serving, informing and inspiring women, are the principles on which we build our businesses and the information and strategies we present to our female clients during this challenging lifephase, are they a healing or a hindrance to stability, satisfaction, autonomous decision-making and overall…..a quiet bloody mind (because as we get older we really do come to learn to that hell can very much be between one’s ears)…..or are we too perpetuating the myth of perfection? Are our directions adding yet another load to the lives of frazzled, time-poor women? Are we supporting the reality of their lives as they are or are we adding more load for them to carry in terms of unrealistic fitness levels, self-care rituals, clean-eating mantras or ass sizes?

Again, where on the continuum are we in terms of healing or harming these women that we serve?

As always, I wind myself down in the month of December, so I have time to reflect, dream and plan and one of the things I will be MASSIVELY focussed on, is the message of my own business because I think I too have been guilty of presenting a ‘it needs to be done like this for success’ but in truth we all know that it is the client’s ability to truly define success for herself with ‘distraction’ that ultimately mean that her chances of attaining her bespoke idea of success is greater. And guess what, that success might not look like our idea of success but that’s irrelevant because all the smart cookies know that in this business of human change….you’ve got to a) meet the client right where they are and b) give them time and space to truly define what success means to them THEN, together we make the plan to get there, which will also involve continual adjustment until destination. Just one small issue……that’s not how any of us were taught to do our jobs at PT school and I think that that’s very much the problem…..

I truly feel that it’s time for many of us who have ‘spent time in the trenches of life’ to truly start bringing the truth of our experiences with us to work…and to stop applying ‘non-nurturing’ principles re: getting stuff done, fitness and fat loss to these women and truly start ‘seeing’ and pointing our business offerings directly to the deeper needs of our female clients. With every fibre in my body, I truly know that for our businesses to flourish, go deeper and become more meaningful to both us as practitioners and our clients we must start to create a massive space for a heartfelt discussion and some uncomfortable but huge information to be revealed during our consultations to truly help the client work out WHAT SHE WANTS AND WHEN SHE’LL FEEL SUCCESSFUL ON HER OWN TERMS.  Because a goal that is set that isn’t actually YOUR GOAL is just another burdensome and a pain in the ass that leads women to feeling that they are failures and they ‘can’t even just do this simple’ thing…..and it’s just not true….the arrow was simply mis-aligned to the target!

Find YOUR TARGET, YOUR GOOD ENOUGH…..watch your bullseye hit-rate improve!

I would love to hear your thoughts about this blog and what I’ve written, I deeply feel that I personally and the world of women’s fitness and wellness needs a good dose of ‘course correction’ but of course, it’s a joint effort, what do you think??  Join the conversation in my FB Group……Metabolic Mommy!

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HOW TO GET IN THE NEWSPAPER OR ON RADIO THIS CHRISTMAS
by Yvonne Radley

When I was a journalist Christmas was a crazy time!!!

We would start organising a Christmas file of potential stories on the 1st December and anything remotely festive would get put in there.

Then from around the 16th December we would start mapping out the Xmas stories on a big white board in the office.

In fact when I say Christmas that included New Year too.

It was crazy busy, especially at the radio station with so many bulletins to cover throughout the holiday period because basically we had to WRITE 2 WEEKS of content in ONE WEEK.

I loved it though, it was a real buzz and we were always amazed when we pulled it off.

Radio stations and Newsrooms run with skeleton staff over the festive period as a lot of people are on holiday.

Why am I telling you this?

Well I want to give you the heads-up because if you start thinking of story ideas NOW you can have them ready to send in to your local newspaper and radio stations in time for that Christmas rush.

I would get something ready to send around the 16th  which is mid-week this year.

So what kind of stories could you write?

They are always after the latest fitness trends for New Year so you could give your Top 10 List of classes you think will be popular next year. Qualify your decisions by talking about the fitness events up and down the country this year and the trends you saw emerging.

Newspapers (and local online magazines) love a recipe so if you’ve got a healthy boxing day recipe to get rid of all the left-over turkey send it in, or maybe a detox plan ready for January.

Offer to go into your local radio station and talk about the dangers of detoxing in the New Year unless you follow a proper plan.

Or how about in the run up to Christmas you can offer advice for listeners doing a Santa Run this year or how the whole family get enjoy FREE workouts in your neighbourhood by drawing up a list of Top 10 attractions like Nature Trails – bike rides – maybe the local council is offering free classes or swimming.

Now remember you are not doing this to push your own agenda or classes – you are doing this to be a helpful expert when it comes to health, fitness and wellness in your town. Go in with that attitude and they will invite you back time and time again.

Depression is always a big story at Christmas time and loneliness – just look at the John Lewis advert. If you are doing any fundraising activities I highly recommend you tap into the Age UK storyline as it is topical right now and there’s a higher chance you will get coverage.

Stress is another big issue you can talk about and serve up some top ways to avoid getting anxious with the in-laws – hubby or kids.

There are so many possibilities and trust me, the radio stations and the newspapers would love to hear from you because they have a mountain of work to do and you could help them out.

Send a Press Release to the News Editor – you can find out who they are by phoning the reception and asking for their email address.

If you want a free press release template and guide I have one available in my free 30 Day Challenge which is at the top of my website http://bigmeupmedia.com

Tweet me if you get on the radio or get in the paper – I’d love to hear about it.

Yvonne Radley
Big Me Up Media
Tweet @yvonneradley

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How Convenient…1, 2 Many Egos..In Fact 397 of Them…!!

By Andrew Crawford

“…..A man is not yet dead while his name is still spoken….”

Bomb scare in London on the eve of the vote to bomb Syria…………..How Convenient..!!!

Cast your mind back some years ago….

Thousands descend upon London from all parts of the UK. In one voice that ecohed thousands of times across the nation……” No war in Iraq please..!!”

Their pleading chants fell upon deaf ears..!! The result? The UK was drawn into a war which resulted in many casualties, including innocent mothers, children, babies and family pets.

The reason? WMD – Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Yet days or even weeks before a Dr who had travelled extensively throughout Iraq came back and made a statement saying…” There are NO WMD’s” Days later, he was found dead. Apparent suicide. ………..How convenient…!!

Looking from an outside perspective, this is not the result of a democratic society….Rather …’The Chosen Few’..!

Last night the results came through……397 vs 223….Lord Have Mercy..!!

Yet those bloodthirsty eager ‘I’ voters were quick to throw the UK into another unwanted war across the other side of the world. It’s UK citizens who do not want any further wars, totally ignored. (look how the veterans who returned from the last wars were treated..!)

My passing thoughts would be…

Would they be so eager to vote YES if they had to then put themselves and their immediate family (wives, children & close relatives) on the front line..??

I’ll wait for your answer..!

Lady C quits the jungle. Now we will never know and be entertained by her continual feud against the 2 ‘Alpha Males’ of the camp. It was getting very interesting the battle between them all. Her ‘Put Downs’ were epic…!

However, one has to detach themselves from what  you think is reality and know that clever editing & a great production team brings  us the 1 hour ‘TV Entertainment Show’. They are filmed around the clock

Now we will NEVER know exactly what further verbal abuse would be dished out amongst them…………How convenient…!
So Andrew,

What has ‘How Convenient’ got to do with Accountancy & Tax?

Well……How convenient it is that amongst ALL these recent cuts, austerity savings and tax adjustments that not even a week after the budget statement we find ourselves in a position to FIND extra budget to fight a war…yet we can’t feed the poor…we can’t home the homeless….we can’t close the deficit..!!!

So I need to remind you how important it is to have a budget.

Budgets are there to keep control of your business so you would monitor your actuals against your set budget.

That’s what you have got to be prepared for. You might have an income budget, an amount you need to achieve for the year. In this instance you have to take into considerations variations throughout the year and the unpredictability of external factors.

You’ve ALL heard of PEST?

Political, Environmental, Social,  Technical.

You can for instance:

Prepare a budget for a whole year (January to December)

Break it down into suitable intervals (Quarters)

At the end of the first interval, compare actual results with the budget

Update budget if necessary for the remaining periods (June, September, December)

Repeat in June, September,….

This all comes under the heading Budgetary Control. Other budgets that you may be familiar with are:

Zero-base budgeting.

A zero-base budget involves determining what outcomes you wants, and developing a package of expenditures that will support each outcome

Flexible budgeting.

A flexible budget model allows you to enter different sales levels in the model, whch will then adjust planned expense levels to match the sales levels that have been entered.

Flexible budgets are more realistic as they are revised on a continuous basis

Incremental budgeting.

Incremental budgeting is an easy way to update a budget model, since it assumes that what has happened in the past can be rolled forward into the future.

The rolling budget.

A rolling budget requires that a new budget period be added as soon as the most recent period has been completed. By doing so, the budget always extends a uniform distance into the future

There are many other variations of budgets you may of heard of which can help you to manage your business and personal financial affairs. Such as:

Master Budget
Cashflow Budget
Family Budget

You will find a Workshop Budget form, if you are ever thinking of putting a live workshop together and a Family budget spreadsheet at the following link:

http://www.fitnessindustryaccountants.com/ard/documents.asp?AID=1987&SID=11&FID=37617

How convenient…!!

Finally…………

Apparently the UK had already started to bomb Syria before yesterdays vote.

So…Let your light shine brightly amongst the darkness of this world, so others can see your good deeds. – AJC

Andrew James Crawford

www.zlogg.co.uk
www.fitnessindustryaccountants.com
www.twitter.com/tax4fitness