"We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training"  - Archilochus

Okay, so this is an information page for a... errr, I don't really know what to call it. Which, I acknowledge, is not the best start. It is also long but although I'll aim to keep it somewhat entertaining, this serves a purpose. Most obviously it ensures a good look at what separates this from more conventional 'solutions'. Secondly, it is self-qualifying. 'Long and sometimes boring' accurately describes the process of behaviour change and if this page is too much for you, so will the program be - I wish you every success with any alternative. Even then if you choose to stick around you'll definitely learn a thing or two on the way.

If you are still here - have you looked at the bar on the right-hand side signalling just how long it really is?  You have? Okay, let's crack on with it then.

If you haven't worked it out already, I am no copywriter. But specifying exactly what is on offer here is hard to pin down because, the fact is, you are special, and variables like lifestyle, age, commitments, career, dependents etc. etc. all help to make it, necessarily, unique to you. However, what I can do is share the first, and most important lesson of all, with you here. You might want to sit down...

You are also not special 

At all. Your skeleton, muscular, endocrine and nervous systems are run-of-the-mill, quite ordinarily, human. Given this, you have a set of rules to follow - basic instructions. It's safe to say you are not presently following most of them. Don’t worry, almost no one is. And so this is a matter of realising these generic, universal, inescapable truths, and then learning how to best reconcile them within YOUR unique lifestyle.

I also have to make a point of spelling out what this is all about because, how else would you know where you are - none of the usual signposts are here. For starters, we are well over a hundred words in, and you are yet to encounter a pic of me with my shirt off. I know that’s already jarring for a fitness info page, but this is not about me - it’s about you.

If I could have made this page with a mirror on it, I would have, but the internet is dragging the chain in that department so instead, please use your imagination. 

Imagine yourself...

Oh forget it, you better go and get a mirror. Got one? Good.

Look at it. Hold it up here. 

No. Turn it around. So you can...oh for the love of... 

Got it? Okaaay.

See that person. That person has next to no idea how their body and mind work.

I know!

Crazy.

"We can refuse to understand the mechanics behind a theory and instead accept the word of an authority figure. If we fail to do the math on our own, we lose agency and the ability to develop an even more nuanced understanding of how the world works"
- Seth Godin

Mr Godin is not talking specifically about the miserable state of modern-day fitness here, but he could hardly better describe it. There are two barriers, in particular, that stand between you enjoying a natural, relaxed relationship with food and exercise, and a body that moves, feels and functions as it should:

• the fitness industry

• the diet industry

Were you shipped off to a desert island, even one with a McDonalds, you would soon figure it all out. Your body is a self-governing organism, and it’s very good at getting what it needs, but only if you care to listen.

We are products of a far different environment where the signal - what you need and when - gets lost in all the noise. So much noise. When left to your own devices now, you are subject to twaddle like this:

For exercise, 'you should just do something you enjoy.'

That's the sort of sage wisdom invariably cited by a supermodel when asked how we too might achieve such an envious figure. That, and the ever-present glass of water with lemon in the morning. I leave you to decide how well this might address those rules I was talking about. If you want a hint, keep reading.

[You should, of course, no more follow a models advice on fitness than you should listen to my detailed tutorials on runway walking. And I've been walking for over forty years. And looking super-stylish for at least the last 30 of them.]

But this is a situation both created, and enabled, wholly through our ignorance, and the bewildering failure of our education system to equip each of us with even a basic understanding of HUMAN. Had we learned this none of this could happen and these industries as they stand now could not exist - we would all know enough not to be spouting, or believing such rubbish. More to the point, any advice would be largely irrelevant because you wouldn't be outsourcing it. And sure as hell not to those with a track record of total failure.

We would take care of these things ourselves. By which I mean, we would take care of ourselves.

I am not for a minute suggesting that you should, or that it is necessary to, devote yourself to becoming an expert in all things fitness and nutrition, but invite you to consider that, if not yourself, who else is to be the expert on you? 

You are your responsibility. A personal trainer, a nutritionist, or any other outside help, can be useful only as an adjunct to your understanding of you. 

Which may present a good time to broach the, ‘who the hell are you to be telling me that?' bit.

Which is a good point.

The reason 99.9% of my clients do this is not because they don’t know what is best for them. It’s because they think they do. 

How could they not?

They have been inundated with fitness and dietary ‘advice’ for as long as they can remember, and all of it screaming promises, miracles, and secrets, at them in ten different shades of bullshit. So, when it comes to all things fitness and diet, they have good reason to believe they are experts. 

So why is everything a struggle? Why would they come to see me at all?

I’m glad you rhetorically asked. The ledger of success and failure at Leftfield Training is crystal clear. The quicker you surrender to the process, the quicker you’ll see the change you desire. And this is far less a process of addition than it is subtraction. My job consists almost entirely of peeling away layer after layer of myth, and thereby revealing health, happiness and fitness. 

Frustration is a product of misplaced effort and following what amounts to marketing instead of a map. Repeatedly. With that addressed, most find there is considerably less work involved in being fit than to not be. 

This always means the killing of cows. Relax - only sacred ones. And the good news is that once you knock over one fervently held belief concerning fitness or diet, the rest start to look decidedly shaky. 

Again, the sole reason for all of this; IGNORANCE. A complete absence of the basic knowledge of how the body and mind work. 

Now, you're struggling to process the fact that some Kiwi guy living in Australia, on an info page - a sales page no less - just called you ignorant. It’s okay, be cool. I promise it gets better.  

[An empty promise - already we're on track to make it more like a fitness or diet sales page!]

Right, so where were we.... clients not listening, you have no idea… oh yeah...

Well, if you are the ignorant one here, I realise this might also sound as if I’m positioning myself as the font of all knowledge.

[Now, if you read that and decided that I made a typo and either I meant to use the word 'fountain' or I intended to describe myself as a graphical representation of text, in that instance I am at least the font of some knowledge. You're welcome]

But with regards to your ignorance, no, I am nothing of the sort. I am neither The Oracle, nor The Chosen One. And even if we sing it, c'mon let's sing it!

I am not the Dreamweaver. For were that the case, I would, for sure, have a photo of me with my shirt off, in all my internet-breaking glory, right about here. Instead, you just get this - 'trust me, I’m a coach’, looking deal, which is me, here to tell you that no, it’s not me that knows better, it’s you.

Which, coming off the back of the whole ignorance thing is, admittedly, confusing. So let me explain that it's only because, at some point, you stopped listening to your body and mind. And they are very clear about what you need at any given moment if you care to listen. 

Although it’s not only you that will be calling the shots, but also EVERYBODY else - otherwise known as, science. Because this framework, in an allergy-free receptacle, is about taking what we all know for sure, and massaging that into your daily life. 

So that you can start working WITH YOUR BODY FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE rather than against it. None of this science is up for debate or open to interpretation - it is the clear-cut consensus as to how your body and mind function and what they respond to.

These are the rules, and if you want to do anything other than muddle your way through the game of life, you want to learn them. To give a clearer picture, this is roughly how it plays out:

Then we both wait and see what happens. Actually, I wait and see, while you listen - what do your body and mind have to say about that? Then, we modify as necessary, and repeat. And that pretty much covers it. No illusion, no mystery.

Until you have a very good idea about exactly what makes YOU tick. Which in today's society makes you damn near superhuman.

The rules and principles are not mine, nor are they secret, miraculous, or anything else that sounds remotely sexy. Determining which of these principles best applies at any given moment and coaching you through it is my department. The rest, all you.

An online coaching program guiding you through whatever you need, in whatever dose, at whatever time: 

• exercise

• nutrition

• recovery

• meditation

• sleep

• mindset

• stress

• time-management

• productivity

Less a service of personal training than a process of lifestyle re-design. This is by necessity. A lifestyle overhaul is probably not what you have in mind but, while it’s not unheard of, this is rarely necessary either. Put into context best by inversion, this is the simple acknowledgement that if your lifestyle presently reflected your fitness hopes and dreams, you would have them already. 

How you live your life determines your overall health and fitness far more than any exercise program, tool or methodology. In fact, ‘fitness’, in any meaningful sense, can only ever exist on a solid foundation. Adding 'fitness', 'diet' or any other typical intervention in the absence of this foundation only serves to magnify the problem - fuelling the fire. These are two dots we humans seem unable to connect. 

The key to remember is that everything is training. And all the time is training. Just understanding this will move you closer to results, by which I mean the results you are looking for - because, it's also important to recognise that you have had no shortage of results. You are a result. Everything you do, or don’t do - regardless of whether you value it or not - produces a result, an outcome in your body and mind.

If you don’t know what your body responds to and why, then wherever you end up is either pure dumb luck or, more likely, readily avoidable misfortune.

If you want to improve the outcome that you are presently producing in your body and mind, it would probably pay to learn the rules. Your rules.

Given it's focus on far more than exercise and nutrition, for desperate want of better term, you could call it 'life-coaching' if you want. But then it just sounds so lame. And managed by somebody with a website full of pictures of people hugging at sunset, or wearing one of those Britney microphones, yelling at a vast audience all holding their hands in the air. 

Just don't go calling me a life coach, if you know what's good for you. Which, as we've already established, you don't. So let's go with 'exercise and nutrition-based coaching program' on the proviso that we all understand from the get-go that while it certainly does include both of these factors - they are likely to be the least important considerations. Certainly at first.

It would also be a mistake to view this as meaning it must correspondingly dominate or consume your life. Living for fitness is not the point, it is just the opposite. You’ll learn just how little effort is required when it’s applied in just the areas, in just the right order - and only at the right time.

This is lifestyle jujitsu

And you will soon discover this is less effort than you are likely currently expending in ignorance of these factors. In broad terms, the framework is the same for everyone - your body is calling the shots. Within this is a system of triage to identify and address the barriers between where you begin and where you want to get to, making the specifics of the process wholly unique to you.

Health first (and only then) > fitness > performance.

 Why? Because that's how your body works. And doing anything that runs contrary to that - like most of what is offered by the fitness and diet industries - can only lead to tears.

If you happen to be thinking that you never give any of this a second thought, all while enjoying a body that looks, feels and performs how you want it to, then, I apologise, but you have read a long way to learn that this is probably not for you. On the other hand:

• If you want to finally feel good about your body and what it can do.

• If you want to be fit and healthy enough to enjoy an extended quality of life - to run and play with your grandkids, whether you have them yet or not.

• If you want to know what's it like never to have to read another goddamn thing about diet or exercise again and know that you have got it all covered.

THIS IS FOR YOU

Eliminate the guesswork and confusion surrounding your fitness and nutrition - cutting through the fitness and weight-loss bullshit that saturates our lives. All too uncommon, these skills will have you miles ahead of the zoo-human curve and are for those who want to take control over how they look, feel and perform. Permanently.

Aside from the physical benefits this creates a series of additional advantages, a ripple effect that carries far beyond your training sessions. It might sound like fantasy but this arises quite naturally from the realisation, not intellectually but experientially, that you have been guided not be me, but by your body and mind through the entire process. 

It meets you where you are at and each of the methods and ideas are presented in a way that allows you to integrate them into your life as you see fit. I do not ask you to live a life of denial or fitness and dietary obsession - and nor is this necessary. My role begins and ends in helping you to align your intentions and behaviour - if this is what you want, this is how you do it.

All of it is for you to decide - to do, or not to do. Take what is useful to you, discard what isn't. In this way, you will come to learn the essential truths of exercise and nutrition. Truths always lost in layer after layer of hype, glitter, lycra, supplements, spray tans, and smiley people holding tape measures.
 

What you can expect

An evidence-based protocol incorporating the best practices of exercise science, nutrition, and behaviour change. Through learning and following the physiological principles that govern your body and mind, you'll discover that your goals are not something to be strived for or chased and that fitness, however you might define it, is not an endless pursuit to be grudgingly endured, it just happens. It can’t not.

Not without effort, to be clear, but effort that is assuredly rewarded. You will get all the help you need to help yourself. 

What you can’t expect

There is no detoxing, juicing, or any other 'modality' that might be deemed pseudoscience. There is no mindless exercise, and a clear distinction is made between 'tired and sweaty' and 'better' - not always the same thing. There is no restrictive dieting, calorie-counting or meal plans not only due to a lack of efficacy but because they only encourage further disconnection from the body. There is no supplement and/or equipment up-selling and all guidance comes uncompromised by any affiliation.

Priced from just 35 USD a week and with a 30-day money back guarantee this is a risk-free opportunity. And while you might well decide that any commitment to learn this belongs in the too-hard basket, the reality is that without this understanding, your whole life is in that basket.

Register for your free no obligation phone consult below noting that in some circumstances this coaching program may not be the best option for you. If that is the case I have the integrity to say so, and will advise you as to your next best step, as I see it.