There’s no secret I’ve battled with my weight since my mid 20′s, the problem probably stemmed back to my childhood and school life, I was always a lanky desperately skinny child who got bullied quite badly, you know who you all were … shame on you!

As soon as I moved out of secondary school to sixth form I went to a sixth form that was away from the norm and nobody from my secondary school (Melbourn Village College) went to the same sixth form as me (Meridian in Royston), actually this was the best thing that ever happened to me, nobody knew me so it was a fresh start, I bought myself some “cool” clothes, got my haircut by a barber (rather than letting my Mum do it) and suddenly I was the new boy on the block and people wanted to know me … and so my confidence in myself began to grow, bear with me I am going to get to the point just wanted to lay down the foundations of why and where I got to where I have now!

So as I was becoming more confident in myself I began to tell myself I never wanted to be subject to the bullying again and in order to achieve that goal I needed to grow strong and put some meat on myself and so the training began!

I dabbled with weights in a shitty gym at the begining, not really with any direction, knowledge or the understanding I have these days, but also kind of knew that to get big you just have to eat loads, yes that’s right to grow you need to eat more calories than you use to sustain your body’s energy needs, the concept is actually quite simple really, the old saying calories in calories out rings very true (In reducing and growing a body).

Anyway to cut a really long laborious story short, I ate and ate and ate and ate some more (don’t get me wrong I was training pretty damned hard to go with it) … hmm maybe a little too much, I didn’t really notice it but over time I got big and reasonably strong and muscular but with a good layer of fat and I was in new territory for me, and so the battle began.

Since that time it’s been a real roller coaster ride of up and down in weight whilst getting stronger and stronger, the routine normally goes, realise I am fat (again) then work my arse off and get back in shape the relax a little, relax a lot more then back to square one grrr!!

SO you want to lose some weight, or should I say fat, how do you do it I here you ask … especially as you get older and your metabolism naturally slows down … my answer is by being stubborn, bear with me…

All too often people stop eating, go fo a little jog once in a while, and half heartedly go about things, nothing happens, then blame their genes, say they don’t have time, get fed up and how many other excuses I’ve heard.

Actually losing fat is a battle of the wits against your body that is going to do everything it can to retain it’s hard earned energy storage (fat), it’s a competition and we all like to win don’t we, so rather than looking at the scales every day to see they haven’t moved or they read more then giving up, you have to get stubborn about it and say to yourself “I’m not having that” and keep trying and learning about the ways you trick your body to get rid of its stores, your weight will plateau and not move for weeks, you will yo-yo in weight up and down, you will feel like giving up … just don’t, be a WINNER and keep fighting and learning … and eventually you will start dropping that fat weight again.

Set yourself a realistic target, I mean realistic, you can safely lose 3 pounds a week but it’s not realistic to say you will lose 3 pounds a week EVERY week, so don’t say I want to lose 12 pounds and that’s 4 weeks (3 pounds x 4 = 12), it’s likely your body (metabolism) will fight you on week 2/3 and you won’t move for 2/3 weeks or even go back up in weight but don’t despair that’s ok … remember losing stubborn fat is about being more STUBBORN than your body!!

I will probably write more blogs on this subject as I learn and adapt my fat burning techniques both in nutrition and training so keep watching for more.