Setting goals and running a full marathon in Canada?!

So from my past experiences of talking to people about them wanting to workout or go to the gym or even just work on eating healthier, the main conclusion I can make is. EXCUSES.
I feel that 101%, ( added that 1% to emphasise my feeling for this point, hello drama queen!) excuses are one of the top reasons as to why goals that people set don't get smashed.

If I ask someone to come to the gym or on a run with me or if they even ask for some advice on health, fitness and lifestyle, I watch the cogs start turning in their head and almost straight away a lot of them reel out all the things that could stop them and use an excuse as to why they "CAN'T".

So this led me to thinking that a major part of setting goals isn't just about the positives of the journey but also how you will overcome the factors that could prevent you from achieving the goal. One of the major flaws is people putting their work, social or personal life in front of their health and fitness life. You should make the swap and make your work, social and personal life fit around your health and fitness life. 

'The only bad workout is the one that didn't happen' - Unknown. 
Eliminate the excuses one by one to progress with your goal setting! Willpower
I think willpower, goes hand in hand with motivation especially when it comes to working towards goals. The willpower you build up will help to prevent yourself from skipping that workout or not running that extra mile and it will result in a massive push in the right direction of your goals. Our brains can be the biggest competitor to try and destruct your goals, we've all been there...

KEEP THOSE LEGS MOVING AND YOUR WILLPOWER WILL GET STRONGER
The achievement from having the will power to fight back to all the distraction and preventions can boost your motivation. The fact that your will be able to prove your negative thoughts wrong will make you even more determined to push the negative thoughts to the back burner. 
I'm not saying anyone is perfect and everyone gets off track once in a while (definitely including me!)but by adding will power to the 'goal achieving' equation It will be a whole lot more enjoyable seeing your progression.

When people say keep your goals small and reachable, In my opinion I feel like they are selling people short a bit, why not have a couple of bigger goals that can get smashed by the smaller goals you set? Im not saying set unrealistic goals and it'll be rainbows and unicorns, but keeping to small goals can sometimes get repetitive. I think you need a bigger goal to set the bigger picture.
These past couple of weeks ive kind of gone running crazy and although I didn't enjoy it as much before and used to see it as a 'chore' in my workout routine, I am finally really starting to get into it since I have worked on my pace, timings and distance. This has lead me to set some new goals for me. One long term big goal that will be achieved by smashing some smaller goals along the way.

Long Term Goal:
By the time I finish my degree in 2017, I want to be able to run a full Marathon either in England or in Canada (Where I want to go as soon as I have bagged this degree)

So I wrote this goal down and then thought of all the things that can boost me towards smashing that goal. Below are the events I want to take part in to propel me into being ready for a full Marathon and of course with other frequent training in order to build up my mileage background and training tolerance.

Smaller Goals:
Tough Mudder- Mud Run 2016
Race for Life - 2016
London Royal Parks Half Marathon - 2016

Wolf Run - 2017
Full Marathon- London or Canada 2017

I know to reach these goals I am going to have to build up some more willpower to prevent myself from slacking during training.
Seeing the goals I have set myself helps me tons to keep focused on what I want to achieve.

There are loads of ways to keep yourself focused on your goals,

• Set daily/weekly reminders on your phone, computer, tablet of what you're heading for and why
• Keep a journal of the journey towards your goal! when you get to the end of the journey being able to read back over everything your achieved and overcame will boost your confidence!
• If you start to slightly slip off task, sit down and remind yourself of what you want to achieve and revamp the motivational willpower

Don't let the negatives, preventions, distractions beat you!

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This is a superrrrr way to re gain your energy after a workout as a post workout snack or just a small snack in-between meals. It takes 5 ingredients to create these balls of energy and goodness.

Below are the ingredients you will need with a jolly simple and easy method. 

• You can use any nut butter, I just prefer almond butter to peanut butter.

• You could also use agave nectar instead of honey. 

• I used double chocolate whey protein powder from My Protein 

• Put all the ingredients into one bowl and mix together until the mixture starts to stick together.
• Grab some mixture and roll into small balls, they don't need to be super big because they're just little snacks, but you can roll them whichever size you would like.
•  This mixture made about 15 balls that were quite small. 

• I like to put the protein balls in the fridge or freezer after just to keep them cool and less sticky. I have heard they can last months if you keep them in the freezer, I haven't tried that yet but mine normally last 1-2 weeks in a fridge for post workout energy or snacks.

Happy Energy Snacking!

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So It is August 1st 2015 and last night whilst watching Pretty Little Liars (My reward from me to me as long as I have worked out during the day. It works.) I was listing ideas that I could incorporate into my blog as permanent fixtures throughout this journey to a healthier lifestyle and a fitter future and to make this blog a little more 'alive'. 

The first idea that I came up with is 'Monthly Motives' ( some fine alliteration there, Shan.) the whole idea around this is to get back into setting regular reachable goals at the beginning of every month. Since being home from uni I have admittedly slacked on the mentality side of my journey. At uni I used to set reachable goals each week whilst in the gym of what I wanted that week. Some of the goals included things such as not allowing myself to leave the gym unless I have worked out for at least an hour each day or No snacking between meals, substitute with water, making sure I am asleep by 10:30pm to get the most out of a sleep ready for a workout in the morning...you get the idea. These are the kind of goals I set myself every week when I first started this journey to force myself and push me into a strict routine (I needed to do be this strict for it to work).

Since being home although I haven't given up on eating clean or working out everyday ( I never will, I love it too much). I feel I have really lacked in keeping my mentality in shape. My motto is 'Mentality Over Physicality' because I believe your body will do anything you push it to do, its the mentality you have that will make or break your dreams (cheesy but true).

So this is where Monthly Motives come in. At the beginning of each month I will be setting 3 new goals for myself one for fitness one for health and one for lifestyle. Then at the end of every month I will be looking at how I did, focusing on whether I carried it out for a month, if I didn't, WHY? and if I did, what I did well and what the next steps/goals are.

So here goes...

AUGUST FITNESS:

The motive I want to set for this month is to work on my running pace to improve my running time and distance. Running outside and not on  treadmill is a lot harder because your legs have to do more work to keep pushing you along whereas on a treadmill the floor moves and your legs just go with it. I find when I run I rush, I become very impatient and try and power through the run all the way although this can be a plus because it makes me do a high intensity interval run, I want to work on my running distance and time to improve my long distance running. I was reading an article the other day on About Health on '13 Tips for Running Farther' and one of them stood out to me which is: Run at a Conversational Pace. I d never heard this before and thought it was such a good way to put it. So this is how I am going to judge my pace, if I can talk and hold a conversation easily without being out of breath my pace is good, even if it is at slightly slow pace I will be building up over 4 weeks. 

AUGUST HEALTH:

For my health motive I am going to make sure I have at least 1 glass of water as soon as I wake up. Before I have a morning coffee, my breakfast or anything else. I am following the well loved saying 'Hydrate before you caffienate' 

AUGUST LIFESTYLE:

This is a kind of big one, cutting the alcohol. Now I'm not a massive drinker I don't go on a 'mad one' every weekend but lately ive been drinking almost every weekend due to going to festivals and going out for birthdays so ive decided im going August with absolutely no alcohol intake. This is also mainly because I will be moving back up to uni at the beginning of Septmeber and although I have pretty good will power and self control, trying to go through freshers week without some alcohol induced nights out just wouldn't be the same( the excuses of a student everybody).

So... the 3 goals above will be my monthly motives... the laws of august...the great goals! that I will be working towards,at and with throughout the month of august. On August 31st I will be doing a follow up blog post to update on how I did and continue through to September 1st to set 3 new goals!

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How To: The Glorious Green Smoothie

Check out the video below on how to make my Glorious Green Smoothie!

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Healthy Ice Cream For Breakfast?!

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This is a suuuuper easy recipe to change up your normal breakfast especially as it is summer now (yes, English weather it's summer, do what you gotta do!) so ice cream for breakfast sounds pretty fab if you like ice cream!
This is not my original recipe but it's just ideas pulled from other recipes and made into a quick and easy recipe I use for breakfast

 You'll need: 

•  2 chopped bananas (or 1 depending on how much ice cream you want)
•  A choice of your own ingredient, I have used frozen raspberries but you can use anything to add flavour like cinnamon, Cacao powder or another type of fruit, anything! 
• Some toppings (nuts, dried fruit) 

 How to: 

• Chop the bananas before you go to bed and put in a freezer bag in the freezer for the night
•  In the morning whack out the food blender, and put your frozen bananas in with the other flavouring ( I used frozen raspberries)
•  Blend it all up, it takes a while to go into an ice cream like consistency, just leave it blending while your sort out your topping
• Once it's in a smooth consistency put it into a bowl and chuck your toppings on, and yes mine is ever so slightly 'Instagram ready' ( slight perfectionist) but it's just as good to chuck them on top
• Finally, grab a spoon, a glass of water and dig in!

Granola Galore!

Recently I have become a very big fan of having granola for breakfast because of the energy that the nuts and fruit give. So I thought I would give a home-made granola recipe a go that has a lot less refined sugar and other nasty's in, that some of the shop bought brands have in them.

If you want to try out this recipe its super easy to make and will normally last for about 1 week/2 weeks if put it into a airtight sealed container. 

Ingredients:

2.5 Cups of Rolled Oats

3/4 Cup of Honey

1/4 Cup of Vegetable Oil or Coconut Oil

1/2 Teaspoon of ground Cinnamon

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract 

45g Brown sugar

Mixed dried Fruit and Nut - however much you prefer to put in

1.Preheat oven to 180ºC (356ºF)

2. Mix the rolled oats and Brown sugar in a mixing bowl and add the Honey, Vegetable/Coconut Oil, Vanilla extract and Cinnamon into the mix and stir all the ingredient together.

3.Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and spread the oat mix evenly over the baking tray.

4. Put in the oven for 15 mins

5. Chop the dried fruit and nuts into your required size and mix together in a bowl

6. Take the oats out the oven and mix the fruit into the oats on the tray

7.Put back into the oven for another 20-25 mins but stir occasionally to prevent the top burning.

8.When the oats are golden brown take out the oven and allow to cool for an hour, they may still feel soft when you first take them out but when they cool they will harden into a granola type texture. 

9.Seal the granola into an airtight container.

The fruit and nuts I put into my Granola were:

Raisins 

Currants

Apricots

Chopped walnuts

flaked almonds

My 4 Top Tips on Eliminating the Excuses.

There are so many positives to working out not only in terms of fitness and health but it can also just generally help you as a person.
The Number 1 positive I love about exercising is:

• It releases endorphins 

So learning about the good old endorphins in my old Health A-level class I found really interesting how they can be our 'natural feel good' hormones that are often released during exercise resulting in putting you in a fabulous mood after a workout! ( I know, what more could you want?!) 

• Stress Reliever

So you're near exams or a project due in date and you are last minute having the ultimate stress out? Well get those running shoes on and run it off or get to the gym! exercise has also been proven to help improve and control your mind set in stressful or anger fuelled situations. Whilst exercising your body releases 3 main chemicals (adreneline, serototin and dopamine)  that work together to relieve stress and enable to you take a better control over your negative emotions and ultimately bring you mood up from a low to a natural high. Even just 10-15 minutes of vigorous exercise can eliminate negative feelings, so I am sure revision could hold for 10 minutes while you run out the stress and create a revision ready mind set for you next session in front of your books/laptop.

So, so far I have briefly explained that exercise can have a pretty positive change on you generally i.e your moods, on your mind set, emotional control and of course your fitness and health so why are you still reading this and not outside exercising yourself into a good mood?!

okay wait before you go and do that take a look at the next 4 points to eliminating the excuses...

NUMBER 1
Setting yourself goals:
Now with this one alot of people set goals that are slightly out there and don't carry them out because "Its not working and its taking to long to reach the goal" and im not an expection to this because my goals used to be ridiculous ( I mean 'looking like Michelle Keegan in a matter of weeks' at 16 my goals were a bit excessive) and I always ended up giving in because I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere near to my (slightly ridiculous) goal. SHORT AND SWEET, these are the best goals in my opinion. 
Of course everyone that sets out on a journey of creating a better lifestyle and to get fitter will have the long term goal of a better body image, health and fitness but I mean REAL short and sweet.(and no I don't mean doing a 10 minute run with the goal of reaching Express Diner to get some fried chicken.)

Achievable goals are key. If I am in the gym I will set a specific goal for that gym session keeping them short and sweet. For example: I wont allow myself to leave the gym until I have done at least 60 minutes of working out no matter how long it takes or how much my mind keeps telling me to turn around and walk out the door ( burst into song, I know you want to) I will not leave (being strict and having a lot of mental strength really helps). Its just the same if I am outside going on a run, I wont allow myself to go home until I have done a HIIT run for at least 40 minutes. Achieving a goal is honestly the best feeling and will definitely motivate you to go out and smash another goal during your next workout!
So keep them short and sweet on a daily/weekly basis and it will all add up to achieving a long term goal!

NUMBER 2
Compete with yourself: (or the oblivious person on the next treadmill along)
Now anyone that knows me knows I am not a competitive person...HA who am I kidding I am UBER competitive! If you get on the treadmills or any other machine next to me in the gym you have just entered yourself into a competition without knowing, that's all I'm going to say...
I love being competitive with others especially in sports but also competing with my own personal bests. I am constantly trying out new workouts or new levels of workouts to beat my usual ones which, can make a workout so much more fun and interesting.
So what are you waiting for?! your personal bests wont come to you! GO GET THEM!

NUMBER 3
Reward System:
As childish as this point may sound it can really work. 
Yes, you can totally have that glass of wine or the Jaeger bomb while you're going out on a 'mad night out' tonight IF you've done your workout for the day! Simple as that folks, you get that workout in during the day, you can get the double vodkas in during the night!

NUMBER 4:
Nullify The Negatives:
"Its just who I am" 
This quote above is the one that I have heard the most when it comes to excuses of not exercising, and yes I always used to think this too but not one word of that is true when it comes to body image or your fitness levels. YOU can change that.
Way too many people influence your own thoughts and will ultimately lead to you believing you cant just because someone else says so, this then results in your attitude being the main negative that is stopping you from saying you can or you did. Take matters into your own hands, its easy enough saying that 'you can' but until you do you wont gain anything from it. So because 'YOU DID' read to the end of this blog post ( thank you for bearing with)  now 'YOU CAN' go and put it all into practise so you can say 'YOU DID' and 'YOU ACHIEVED'. (An awful lot of cheesiness in that last sentence)