It's been an exciting week. Yesterday I spent the afternoon with a TV film crew and while I cannot wait to tell all, I am not allowed... yet! What I will say is that after an hour blow drying my hair, I spent 2 hours in a windy field and really need not have bothered! Tonight, I am off up the M1 to a Fitness convention. I cannot wait for this too! I love the presenters and getting new ideas and creative juices flowing as well as mixing with fellow teachers but if you want some revenge for how hard I work you, please know I will be in back to back classes all day. To be fair, it is my idea of fabulous but it will be full on! Just you wait until I bring it all back home with me! I do realise that exercise and fitness is my world. It always has been since school and I truly realise that it is not for everyone, at least not to the extent that it is for me. However.. I was teaching last week and, at the end of the class, someone came up and said, “I won’t see you for two weeks as I’m going on holiday. I’ll miss my classes.” Quick as a flash, I suggested she join us online so that she could continue with her exercise, to which she replied, “Er, hello? It’s a HOLIDAY!” And there it is. Right there! Now, I have to jump in here and say that the vast majority of my online clients keep things ticking over no matter what. You join in from holiday or use the library, if you’re not taking advantage of other exercise options available to you. I think being so used to the convenience and easy access online means it has become part of life and like me, you really miss it if you have to miss it! Most of you would honestly never really consider going more than a few days without exercise, and I LOVE you for that. OF COURSE we all need a holiday and a break from the norml, but I ask you this: when you go on holiday, do you stop cleaning your teeth? If you take medication, do you leave it at home? Do you lie in the sun with no SPF and spend a fortnight without moisturising your skin? I bet you don’t, because these are all things we do to look after ourselves and keep ourselves well. So why stop exercising? When I’m asked about my habits, when I say that I’m teetotal (3 years and counting), try to eat well using an 80/20 approach, lift weights, get my steps in, practise Pilates and get several early nights every week, Oh! the number of people who have told me how boring I am! It used to bother me, but I honestly don’t mind anymore. A) these are my life choices to help me be where I want to be mentally and physically. Plus b) if being healthy, sleeping well, feeling strong and maintaining a sensible weight is boring, then yup, that is me! I don’t want whatever “interesting” might be! I have been on the other side and so I know the effort it takes initially to make change but for me, these choices work better by a country mile which is why I am so passionate about the benefits that I want to share with you. (Please note. I drink coffee by the gallon, LOVE curry and deep filled cheesy pizza and if I even get a hint of anything that combines peanut butter with chocolate, I can't be held responsible for my actions as I will climb over anyone to get to it - the Nigella peanut butter chocolate cheesecake can almost reduce me to tears of joy and I cannot have peanut butter in the house as I will literally eat the whole jar in one sitting until my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. There have been many times that I have been climbing the stairs to my home gym to a training session I have committed to, using words that are not appropriate to share here but but have been known to turn Bertie's hair curly so no. I am no saint) The defining moment is when exercise becomes part of life . It is as much a part of our week as cleaning our teeth. I will never forget visiting someone who had spent a FORTUNE on her new kitchen. It was indeed something to behold. However, it had been such a huge project that she had chosen to skip her classes in order to prioritise it. She explained that she was just too busy (aren't we all?)....While her kitchen was indeed shiny and beautiful, she meanwhile had put on a stone, her niggly knee had returned and she felt really awful about herself. She is not alone by any stretch. How many of us can identify with this? I cannot tell you how many people "explain to me" why they don’t have time to exercise or have to miss classes. And I get it. I really do. When it comes to excuses, I consider myself something of an expert but… Being poorly is REALLY time-consuming, and then everything else has to stop. Remember that quote I have used before: “ We never think about our health until we don’t have it, and then we think of nothing else.” If you are someone who tends to go through feast-or-famine phases with exercise, then perhaps it is time to change your thinking. No one needs you to go to the gym six days a week. You don’t need to buy equipment and new clothing. It does not need to be hours and hours and ruin your lovely holiday plans. Just getting out of the door to walk, going up and down the stairs, skipping or dancing — there are SO MANY ways to move, raise your heart rate and get exercise into your life. Stuck at home with the kids? Put on some music and dance with them, or take them into the garden to kick a ball. Visiting family and restricted on time? Do you have time to boil an egg? Good! While it cooks, five minutes of stepping up and down the bottom step of the staircase will get your ticker beating and your circulation going. Want a relaxing holiday? Fab. Me too. Want to come home half a stone heavier and have that “starting all over again” feeling when you return to your regular class? No, me neither. Maybe it is time to change your thinking. Rather than exercising for that special event or to slim into a favourite outfit, consider this: exercise is for life, not just for Christmas. Make it a regular daily feature, and over time it will become part of life, as second nature as cleaning your teeth and sticking on the washing. If you are someone who takes longer to come up with excuses than it actually takes to do the class, why not set yourself a challenge for October? How many different ways can you exercise and move, stretch, lift, push, pull and more? Dog walking, gardening, dance classes — these all count. Start now, and by Christmas (dare I? Dare I?!) you could already have a routine that feels like part of your daily schedule. Instead of that “OMG, New Year, back to it” feeling, you could start 2027 already doing something that has become so much a habit that you don't even think about it. Diarise it just as you would a meeting or a hair appointment . (well obviously more often than a hair appointment but you get my point). Put it in the diary and make an appointment between you and your mat, gym or studio. I don’t want to preach. Truly, I don’t. But I do want to share with you just how much you can do for yourself by simply prioritising exercise. If you are one of those people — and there are a lot of you — who are always saying, “Oh, I know I must do something,” “I should start,” or “I know it’s good for me,” I ask you: what is stopping you? Go on! Buy a shiny new diary and start today. Journal your fitness journey and, at the end of each week, look back at how much you have achieved. It really helps to write it down. If you diarise it in advance, you will be more likely to stick to it. Just being accountable to yourself can be an incredibly effective tool, but why not rope in a friend or family member? For the record, I have a whiteboard in my office that I call "My board of accountability" and despite having Garmin and Strava and Peloton clocking up my data, it is writing it down with a black sharpie on that board that focuses me. I do a month at a time and for me, seeing it written downreally works and if I have skipped a day that I was due to train (because I too can come up with excuses ) that gap on the board is a very powerful nudge. Find that wonderful lightbulb moment when prioritising exercise becomes a fact of life, rather than just another class you need to book. Lasting changes take time. Quick results can easily lead to a quick slip back into the old ways. The day you accept that fitness is for life is the day you can settle in and enjoy the ride.

It was lovely to see lots of you yesterday for our “Coffee and catch up” . It is always so good to see each other in person and I love our socials and getting together. I know those of you further afield are a bit left out of this and I really hope that lots of you have the Christmas lunch in your diary to come on down (or up) but I am also working on a London day out before then as a central meet up for everyone scattered around this country as least. Those abroad are a bit harder to reach. Perhaps we should hire a coach and go driving around Europe and find you all! Either which way, it is always a joy to see you “in civvies” and off your mat. We have been working really hard on the fundamentals over the last couple of weeks, covering breath, understanding imprint versus neutral, better control and precision and I have had some great feedback on this so thank you too! Working more slowly is, for some of us still a work in progress. I do know that a lot of you will be very glad to see me slightly further away and back on my mat.. although I am very much enjoying being right up at the screen so don’t hold your breath! I am getting a lot from observing you closely and seeing what you are getting from me and what adjustments I also need to make. I have been talking weights quite a lot recently and fear not - I will move on but I am on my soapbox so let’s see this one through, not least because in October the British Heart Foundation are doing the “Strong woman challenge” so if you find them on your socials or go to their website and want to join, you will be well prepared (and if you do, please post and tag me too and thank you Lou for drawing my attention to thi s). Ok, so we know why. The many, many benefits. We know how frequently and hopefully last week helped explain what a heavy weight will be to each individual. Now let’s talk about the different styles of lifting. If you are doing your own thing at home or in the gym, you will very probably keep it simple. I usually do. Select 8 - 12 exercises. Repeat each one 8 - 12 times. Repeat this 3 times.

As the schools go back and the weather takes a dramatic turn, there is no doubt that Autumn has invited herself along. If you need any more convincing, apparently Tesco has got Christmas foods on display. Bonkers! SUE SUE SUE - I'm sorry for those who thought I had finally lost the plot (and GREAT to see two of you laughing as much as me) as I managed to squeeze that into a class online yesterday. Still making me laugh out loud. If you havent yet seen Ann Droid on Iplayer, do yourself a favour and settle in. It has got to be one of the daftest, funniest things I have seen in a very long time, and having started to use Chat Gbt a lot more, it is uncannily accurate. I met one of our fabulous online friends for coffee this week and every time we drifted into more serious subjects, we just kept coming back to quoting lines from the series like a couple of daft kids. A great tonic if you need a bit of a lift. And so to weights... It can be really overwhelming. I saw a post recently online that said "I feel more peer pressure in my 50's to eat protein and lift weights than I ever did in my teens to take drugs"! You can't go too far without being bombarded with podcasts, documentaries, magazine articles and radio interviews all promoting the need for a healthier lifestyle and how to achieve it but it can seem too much and very confusing. We recognise that Pilates is excellent but on its own, is not enough. The ideal blend is to practise Pilates, lift weights and then also bring in your walking or running or cycling or tennis. A bit of everything really. We have already discussed the "WHY" element of lifting weights and if you are still unsure, scroll back a few weeks as I have written a few posts on this but there is no denying the many ways it helps us and I regularly get comments on where in your day to day lives you see the benefits. I LOVE this! However, we are still not sure about how heavy to go so let's try and break this down and make it easier to understand . “Heavy” is personal—it means a weight that challenges you, not a particular number on a dumbbell. As a beginner, start light enough to learn the movement and stay in control. If you’re aiming for 8–12 repetitions, the final few should feel noticeably harder, but you should still be able to complete them without swinging, rushing or changing your posture. Aim to finish feeling you could manage another two good repetitions if you had to. If you reach 12 and feel you could easily do several more, try the next small increase in weight. If you can’t reach eight without losing technique, choose something lighter. Different exercises will need different weights, so one pair of dumbbells won’t suit everything. Take time to find your starting point—there’s no rush to lift heavier, and muscle effort should never mean pushing through pain. When you are more experienced and feel more confident, you are aiming to really dig deep to finish the last couple of reps. Typically we use 8 - 12 as a guide. If you are swinging the weights about, rushing the movement or feel you could do more, you are not lifting heavy enough. If you can't maintain an appropriate posture, are holding your breath or using momentum to lift the weight, it is too heavy.

What to expect as we head into the Autumn Series

As I go all things NF show for a week, I thought I would share some of the memories with you.

It's all about balance.

Slow down.... which is what I did on a fabulous day at Wimbledon!

WHAT a week it's been...

Firstly and most importantly, what a wonderful group we are! While several of you very sensibly chose not to travel on the hottest day ever recorded, and some of you are just too far and even overseas, we had a really great turnout for our first Summer Picnic on Wednesday. Ironically I had been searching for somewhere with shelter incase of rain - how could I have possibly known that we would need it for shade. We met in a beautiful venue, with a very welcomed sea breeze and had a great catch up over some amazing picnic offerings. It is always such a joy to bring us together and our social events are something that (as you know), I value enormously. While we continue to grow and reach ever further online, the funny thing is that we are so sociable and the more we meet up for things like this, the better connected we feel when we have a pre class chat online. The photos don't really do it justice and I apologise to those I haven't included but I chose not to use my phone too much and to just capture a few snaps of a really happy lunch. Thank you to those who came. It is always such a pleasure to see you.