It being “Blue Monday”, I decided to google it and found some interesting facts, such as;

– The term was first used by Dr Cliff Arnall in and it was used in a Sky Travel press release

– Apparently Tuesday is the saddest day of the week, so we have that to look forward to tomorrow!

– July 14th is apparently the happiest day of the year

Dr Cliff used called it Blue Monday due to a combination of bad weather, long nights and the lingering aftermath of the festive glut.

It is also a time that a lot of new years resolutions and health and fitness goals for the year tend to fall by the wayside. Often because people bite off more than they can chew at the start of the year.

This is a shame considering the fact that we have a whole year to opening up ahead of us, and so much can be achieved over the next 11 months or so.

The Progressive Overload principle in fitness means gradually increasing the weights, frequency or repititions in your training plan, thus challenging and making you stronger.

It’s not “load up all the weights you can on New Year’s Day/whenever you start”, bust your ass in the gym as hard as you can and then give up in a few weeks because you’ve broken your spirit with this training thing.

If you’re struggling with adherence around your health habits or getting yourself to exercise how about you practice winning each day as it comes. So maybe today a win for you is something as simple as drinking 8 glasses of water. Or it could be getting 10 press ups done. Measuring over the course of a week it could be doing 2 workouts, instead of 4.

Practice getting that win under your belt consistently. Then you Progressively Overload with creating your next win.

And so on.

To bring it up a level you could practice A, B, C Days. An A day is one you absolutely nail (food, exercise, meditation etc all on point), B is slightly down a level and C is slightly down a level from B. The key is to make sure that you are turning the dial slightly forward every day by at least getting a C. The more B’s the better and A’s are the icing on the cake.

We tend to overestimate what we can get done in the course of a day, but under estimate what we can do in a year.

Take one of the above ideas on board really run with it and by the time the 14th of July you’ll be surprised at the results you can get.

Start today and do it until the end of the year and with the results you get you’ll be able to look back and call this your “Happy Monday” (couldn’t help myself!!).