Did you see the eclipse?
We went out to the garden to have a look through my homemade pin projector, it was' as good as the views on the TV though so we went back in. The footage was stunning.
So, we went back out to have another go. All week on the TV and radio the experts have been warning about looking directly at the sun. I've never been great at following instructions and thought I'd be okay
with squinty eyes.
It worked, when I then closed my eyes I had a perfect image of the eclipse on the back of my eyes. Not clever but then I realised that Colin and Fran had done exactly the same.
Three reasonably intelligent people had ignored the advice of experts and risked damaging our eyes out of human curiosity.
We see the same all of the time in health and fitness. Fran and I could be classed as
experts in the field, we have both studied the subject since the early 90's, yet people will ignore our advice for what they want to do anyway.
Or alternatively find the 'expert' that tells them what they want to hear. The internet is full of conflicting information and you can always find what you are looking for.
If you want to find a diet that means you have to eat a bag of quavers at 37 minutes past the hour every hour of the day
I'm sure you could.
Some experts change their opinion so regularly that you can become confused without even looking around. Our opinions do change and we experiment with different methods but always within our main principles of eating a predominantly natural food based diet.
We have been making changes to the way we run our programmes recently but based around how we coach and the psychology of eating rather than the food itself.
Ultimately, you have to take some responsibility for your own health and ignore what the 'experts' are telling you and go with instinct and what you feel is right as a human. We all know that real food is better than processed, we just have to choose to commit to that way of eating.
Quick fixes generally give short term results and a bounce back effect we've all experienced when trying a 'new' diet for the first
time.
If you choose to follow an expert, make sure that they are actually an expert. Look at the information they publish through blogs and their website. Make sure that their message is consistent and what they say can fit in to how you want your life to be.
I write a blog post most days to help you with health and fitness, I do this because I genuinely want to help as many people as possible. I have really good feedback from
readers who have never worked with us and are not in a position to do so, I'm really proud of that. It's what I set out to do.
However, we are running a business and the selfish reason for writing so prolifically is that you will see that we are experts and want to work with us or recommend us to a friend.
We look forward to working with you in the future, hopefully before the next eclipse :)
Darren 'I can see clearly now the moon has gone' Checkley
P.S. Today's Daily Lent Challenge - As many rounds as possible
again in 8 minutes; 8 Frog Jumps, 8 Up Dog Down Dogs. This may seem easy but it will be tough.
P.P.S. Thank you for the support offered for Headway yesterday, I'll let you know more details about how you can help over the coming months. One of our Team Achieve sent in some feedback for the charity and the help they provide.
In 1999, I was told my 5 year old son had 15 minutes left to live. He had meningococcal septicaemia and meningitis. He was on life support. Thankfully, he pulled through but acquired a brain injury.
In 2002, I received a telephone call to say that my other son had had
his skull stoved in by a golf club in a garden accident and was unconscious. He was on life support and required 5 hours of brain surgery and a skull reconstruction.
I have two brain-injured sons. Thankfully, they are both doing very well and with thanks to the emergency services and the charities and volunteer groups, like Headway, that helped us through.
