Waking up forgotten muscles

With exercise, as with all routines, it's easy to get into a rut. You find yourself going through the motions but not really pushing yourself; lacing up your trainers or rolling out your yoga mat, but not fully engaging in the activity you are doing. When this happens, it's easy to plateau, or worse, to [...]

Salad days

After last week's proclamation of a health kick, and with a few good salads under my belt, the healthy eating started in earnest this week. I'm working towards little targets, the first being our holiday in September, which gives me seven weeks (and counting!) of being good to my body. I'm not reviewing improvement in [...]

Bringing you up to speed

Regular readers may have noticed that over the last couple of weeks I've not been writing as much as usual. This isn't as a result of a dip in enthusiasm, a dearth of inspiration, or a lull in my running - far from it. Instead, I lay the blame for my lack of output at [...]

Has green become the new black?

Anyone who has glimpsed the book charts recently, picked up a lifestyle magazine, ventured into the healthy-living area of the blogosphere or encountered an Instagram account using the hashtag 'eatclean', will probably have noticed that 'wellness' is the movement of the moment. Whether it's channelled through yoga retreats, or regular trips to juice bars, detox [...]

‘Eating chocolate makes you thinner’, and other facts based on bad data

As regular readers will know, I do like a health-and-fitness-based scientific study with some good, solid statistics to cite. However, among the rigorously tested experiments, based on results collected over an extended period and conducted using a large number of subjects, there are plenty of more questionable papers floating around. The latter are frequently founded [...]

Let’s play ball

I was introduced to the charity Tackle Africa around this time last year, when my friend Ruth volunteered as a medic at one of their fundraising events. I had gone to meet her with some lunch supplies as she was helping out at a 12-hour 'football marathon' at the common near Wormwood Scrubs, treating players [...]

Wellbeing at work

So it may (or may not) have been on your radar, but last Friday was 'wellbeing at work day'. Most of us spend more time at work than at any other place. For this reason, it's so important that we not only feel satisfied and fulfilled by the jobs we do, but that we can [...]

Heads or tails? The flipside of health

While I write a lot about health and conditioning, as well as fuelling the body to optimise vitality, I rarely touch on the flipside of the health coin: the issue of illness. When trying to keep your body fit and healthy forms an integral part of your being, and when you like to be able [...]

Trailblazer

This weekend I ran in my first trail race. The event was part of the Rat Race Trailblazer series, in association with Runner's World; held in Bedgebury Forest, just outside of Tunbridge Wells, it was the perfect setting on the most beautiful, sunny day. I entered the race with my Tough Mudder pals, Lucy and [...]

Don’t sweat the small stuff, but don’t miss out on it either

It is all too easy find yourself caught up in a whole host of trivial worries and irritations, or preoccupied with concerns that are outside of your control. Whether it's feeling rubbish on a run, grumpy having been caught in an over-full train carriage on your commute, stressed or overwhelmed by a hectic work schedule, rotten after a [...]