So here I am in beautiful Goa on an adventure to discover how the East approaches health and wellbeing, in particular, how they manage stress and stay so calm and happy.

I must admit that, although I am fairly fit and healthy in many ways, a peaceful mind has still eluded me. Recently, I became exhausted, adrenal fatigue they told me, which would also explain why I gained a stone in weight when i had changed nothing.

My diet was healthy, and I did more exercise in a day than most people did in a week. It just didn’t seem to make sense. Ok, I knew a little about the cortisol connection to weight gain, however, it is something hadn’t experienced first hand.

As I started to study more about this stress response, and research the people who had come on Fit Farms, it became more and more evident that the body’s biochemical reactions to our lifestyles was a huge factor in many weight problems.

Most of the men and women I speak to with weight issues, it’s not as simple as that they just started eating more, or stopped exercising. It’s a much more complex issue, and the weight is just a symptom of something being out of balance. This may be a lifestyle factor, a demanding job, or one the road all the time. It may be an emotional issue, we are dissatisfied with our lives, and as we have been brought up to reward with food, we are using food to give us pleasure. It may be the type of food itself that is causing the problem, as so many people rely on stimulants, most notably sugar to get them through the day.

Stress and other factors throw the body out of balance. This now seems to have reached epidemic proportions in Westrn society.

Through my own experiences, being let down and disillusioned by Western medicine, I have over the years looked outside of the norm for the answers. I healed my fractured spine with The Alexander Technique, and I believe that our health is in our own hands.

This time I wanted to find a cure, an antidote for stress, and what better way to learn that discovering it for yourself.

I had a feeling that yoga and meditation are a crucial element of this, and where better to learn than in India. So here I am, taking this journey, ironically after one of the most stressful weeks I have had at work in a long time.

By keeping this diary, and just sharing my experiences, I hope that my learning will help others take responsibility for their stress, and their health, and do something about it.

Without our health, we have nothing.

There is an interesting article written by Tina Haupert in Health.com entitled “3 Ways to Eat Slowly (and Lose Weight!)”.

Eating slowly is quite a classic advice for those who want to shed extra pounds though oftentimes we do the contrary. We rush for breakfast meal to catch the bus or take a quick lunch to be on time for the next meeting. We live in a fast pace and demanding world which most of the time leads us to ignoring a scrumptious meal.

Then in return we are hungry later in the afternoon or in the evening. Hence, it is quite common that we storm our fridge the moment we reach home to satisfy our hungry stomach. Read more…

November was the busiest month of the year for FitFarms. We ran three fitness and weight loss camps on 13th, 20th and 27th November. We are closed for the month of December and we’re back in action on 22nd January.

Julie and Stephen have started to plan the Advanced FitFarms programme. We will be running two in 2010 one in March and the other in September. FitFarms will send a newsletter to everyone with full details of the course.

We will also send a newsletter informing you of which parks FitParks will be opening in next. It will probably be Battersea in London followed by the other London parks.

We wish everyone a Happy Christmas and Julie (health manager) has a special Christmas message.

“Remember the 80% - 20% rule over the festive season and don’t forget to carry on exercising Happy Christmas to you all” - Julie

Visit our Weight Loss Programme websites:
UK Fat Camp | UK Fitness Boot Camp | UK Children Weight Loss

FitFarms is running its 7 day weight loss camps on 13th, 20th and 27th November.

We are running a special offer on these weeks of a £300 discounted rate. The courses will fill quickly so call on 0800 634 3070 or email info@fitfarms.co.uk if you wish to attend.

Julie Brealy the health manager and one of the major driving forces behind the success of FitFarms is is having a special fitness year starting on Thursday. Julie has been with FitFarms from day 1 and has developed the course into an award winning weight loss camp.

You will be able to follow Julie’s special fitness year on Twitter and Facebook. She will also have a section on the FitFarms blog where you will also be able to be updated.

FitFarms has had a major change around this year to keep up with the growth of the company. We moved into larger offices in July to create space for a larger team that is now helping us bring our new product FitParks to the market. On 27th of November we’re moving are Exmoor site to a luxurious victorian manor house with views over the national park. Even though this is a lavish upgrade to the accommodation side of the course we have decided to keep our prices the same to help our clients in the recession.

Remember to keep an eye on the www.fitparks.co.uk website as we’re rapidly moving into all major parks around UK and Ireland. Once we have opened in all the major parks we will be looking at the more rural areas.

Michelle and I met at our anternal class in October 2005, our babies were both due in December. Each week we would meet for a coffee and biscuits and be 3lbs heavier! Eventually I’d put on 3 stone and Michelle 3 and half stone. Once we’d had our babies, we sat back and waited for the wait to fall off!! - Strangely, contrary to belief very little happened.

We started an 18 month cycle of diets. Weight watchers, slimming world, south beach, atkins, cabbage soup, detox, fasting, blood type, personal trainers (3 x per week). We gradually lost some of the weight, although 18 months later we were both still two stone overweight. In desperation one afternoon we scanned the internet for fasting retreats and stumbled across the FitFarms website….. After piling on a few more pounds over Christmas and a depressing (couldn’t fit into any clothes) New Years Eve we couldn’t procrastinate any longer. We booked to go to FitFarms in February 2008 and not wanting to be totally useless on arrival we started exercising in the 6 weeks leading up to our departure.

Read more…

FitFarms stands alone in the residential weight loss boot camp market by doing the opposite of the celebrity-backed military boot camp and carefully working with people to achieve sustainable weight loss and personal health goals.

Dee Kelly from Cornwall who went through the fitness and weight loss camp week long programme in November 2008 said ‘FitFarms has made me look at my health in a different, healthier way. As a teenager, I suffered from Bulimia so I have always had a bad attitude to food, whether for comfort or celebration, food was always my partner in life. Through sensitive support from FitFarms on nutrition, exercise and behaviour change I have now re-evaluated my relationship with food and my body. I now know that the way to sustainable weight loss and good health is about a new way of life - exercise and the 80/20 rule is the way forward.

Read more…