Getting the Body You Always Dreamed Of: Part III, Removing Obstacles

I have decided to make the third instalment of my Dream Body Guide a how to guide - how to avoid those things and chronic behaviours that prevent you from reaching your personal fitness, health and appearance goals. I will run you through the seven deadly sins of the slob:

1. Smoking

Everyone but everyone in the English speaking world knows the dangers, toxicity and ultimately the suicidal nature of smoking cigarettes. One can no longer point to an official PR cover up or tobacco industry funded propaganda - the facts, the ugly truth has long since been exposed. Why then does it remain so difficult for millions of otherwise intelligent people to stop - for their own good? Well the addictive component of cigarette smoking - namely, the stimulant, nicotine is amongst the most addictive substances known to mankind. Withdrawal can be highly uncomfortable and cravings can verge on being debilitating.

My advice? Go cold turkey? Grin and bare on? No thanks! I say CHEAT. That's right. Nicotine in and of itself is about as harmful as say caffeine (a double edged plastic knife). The solution - the middle ground if you will - is simply consuming as much if not more nicotine view a less harmful consumption mechanism. I personally find the chewing gum version to my liking - although going the way of a patch or mouth spray may be to yours. Remember, the nicotine may be what baits you but its the 4,000 other toxic chemicals you are chronically exposed to from the act of smoking that are doing the very real damage to your cardio-vascular system; lungs and general health. If you have to - chew two at the same time - just avoid smoking at all costs.

2. Drinking

Ethyl alcohol is a state of the art drug. For the 1700's. Never has one commercial punted substance which enjoys official sanction and support reeked more unnecessary societal harm and long term disruption of personal development. Need further proof - witness the consequences of fetal alcohol syndrome. That is what exposure does to a dynamically evolving human being; the process in adults may be more progressive, but the similarities - the thrust towards idiocy for one - is unmistakable. My advice? Join AA, take up ten pin bowling, learn self confidence through constructive means - just leave alcohol where it belongs - as a relic of Tsarist Russia.

3. Poor Dietary Habits

What you put in is what you get out. Might be a cliché - though you'll agree most overused phraseology has a tendency to contain more than a strand of unrelenting truth. I will delve far deeper into the matter of optimal nutritional habits in due course but from the outset I would like to to highlight the necessity to avoid like the plague they are: fried foods, overly processed foods, nutritionally empty food stuffs and any form of food that does not contribute one or more of the following:

*complex carbohydrate for sustained energy needs.

*protein for maintenance and building of muscle.

*good fats.

4. The Television

The television is too often used as a means of escape from reality - the reality of the your mental and physical experience of life.

I veer away from rules of thumb; but for an employed adult I would opine that anything beyond an hour of television during the work week constitutes an over-indu

lgence that will have negative consequences upon your long term health. Remember that any time spent glued to the television is an inferior usage of your mind and body. Of course there are exceptions - world class cinema; documentaries on serious topics that inform your ideology and so forth. These remain isolated cases - and television viewing is surely something that should fit around your commitments to employers and to your own physical well being (of which exercise should be a major component) and not vice versa. Words of wisdom, "Don't be a spectator" - millions watch football, golf, tennis each week - whilst very many fewer actually walk the walk.

5. Inferiority Complex

You feel like nothing because you are out of shape and you're out of shape because you feel like nothing. It's a vicious cycle - so break it. Swallow your pride and make like Nike - Just Do It. Don't live with regrets - Rome was not built in a day; and anything worthwhile in this life will take time, love and tenderness. Before others can believe in you you have to visualize what your body is capable of achieving and then simply connect the dots.

6. "I just wasn't born the genes"

So that's it, huh? Biology is destiny....? I could roll off a Hall of Fame's worth of names who could have said the same thing and just sat back and been omitted by assumption. Want an example? Ok, Michael Jordan. If he'd have stuck to that kind of thinking the first time he didn't make the cut for his High School's varsity basketball team perhaps he'd have been flipping burgers and not grown into the worldwide phenomenon he became. That's right, "The greatest" could have pulled that trick - but he didn't; and neither should you.

7. "I can't afford a gym membership"

My immediate retort would be, "you can't afford not to". Either way, the gym is not the Holy Grail of personal health and fitness - you are. Unless you find yourself in a POW camp (and even then) no one is preventing you from doing push ups, sit ups, jogging, swimming in the ocean - it is your's to be missed. So.... Make It Happen! Life isn't a dress rehearsal.