The Optimise Health Blog

 Here in the UK many still practise the Christian tradition of Lent: the discipline of giving something up to consider living simply, frequently a food item and for health benefit. The idea is to mimic the 40 day fast undertaken by Jesus in the wilderness, when he was tested by the devil and tempted to prove he was ready to start his mission. In England we start by making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday - to use up the sweet stuff in the larder so we are not tempted to eat it again for the duration of lent and to fuel the fast. Today the focus may be more about the challenge of reining in appetite or curbing bad habits like smoking or eating treats to excess and less about Christs' 40 days and nights in the desert being stalked by satan. Interestingly most ancient traditions held in them the concept of feasts: I.E. celebrating a particular event or time of year with a party and food. This meant eating special luxuries or taking pleasure in rarer foods or harvest time...

© Topnews In I saw Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff on the BBC breakfast this morning ( I never watch TV over breakfast) but I am between jobs, doing some temporary work from home and enjoying my baby girl growing up. Flintoff revealed that even star sportsmen and hardmen like Vinnie Jones suffer from depression and mental health problems and around 1 in 10 admit to this. See his recent Sun article here In reality around 1 in 4 of the general population - myself included - suffer from some form of mental problems, ranging from mild seasonal depression to anxiety or more extreme psychoses and psychological phobias which can seriously affect performance. My family has a long history of bipolar disorder or manic depression/mania which is inherited through my Grandfathers line on my fathers side.  Everyone in subsequent generations after him have been affected to a greater or lesser extent and have both highs and lows but also moments of brilliance. In every generation since m...

Image © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited Physical preparation for sustainable exercise activity is key to maintaining and improving your physical health. True fitness is a good balance combining stability, power, stamina/cardio, flexibility and strength. Your exercise goals should include elements of all these areas to keep you on track. If you miss out on one key area its not long before you come unstuck or injured. See the rest of the Guardian article  on physical prep and take a look at my previous post on how to make a start with achievable steps in physical goals. Dr Ben Sinclair Linked In Profile http://www.twitter.com/#!/search/menshealthtips About Sinclair Health Ltd

Most of us will have made some health related New Years Resolutions, but how many will flop come the end of the month? I have resolved to start training for my first Triathlon which I will enter this July at Castle Howard. I have been preparing mentally and practically for some time and now I can bite the bullet.  Last year I started running for the first time in 15 years (I gave up after a knee injury skiing) and have been slowly pushing the distance - now around 3 miles. This year I need to concentrate on getting up to 10k and add in swimming. When the clocks go forward I will start more cycling in the evenings as well as to work in the daytime.  I have told my friends about my resolution to increase my likelihood of success. I have written my goal and broken it down into smaller steps. I have chosen small achievable milestones over a reasonable time period to increase reward. My ultimate goals is well suited as I love strenuous exercise in beautiful nat...

So far I have updated this blog daily in the week and sometimes at the weekend. I am now finding it is a challenge to do this and still perform my important role as a dad. Instead of a laptop on my knees I have a beautiful baby girl to look at and care for. To keep this up I am going to reduce the frequency of blog posts to alternate days in order to keep sustainable. I may still reference and post the odd interest story or relevant article in-between posts. I hope you continue to enjoy the posts, please comment with other topics you might like covered here. Dr Ben Sinclair Twitter: @menshealthtips Sinclair Health Limited

How did you get to the weight you are now? We all have a back story. My story? I used to be active at school; I was short and "stocky" and had a taste for sweets. As a child I had taken steroid tablets for asthma which tended to delay growth and cause weight gain through appetite - but maybe I was just small and greedy. I was the second shortest guy in the class at 14. I was a good sprinter on the rugby field and rarely fell over as I was so close to the ground. Then I grew, I stretched out and became a skinny 6 ft 11 stone bean pole - my sisters teased me for being a "L" shape as I had big feet and wore DM boots to complete the picture. I liked rock climbing and began to get into cycling mainly to get around. Outdoors exercise became a touchstone. When I went to university I joined the territorial army and spent weekends running around with with my weapon, heavy webbing full of ammo and a back pack full of 15 Kg of kit - I began to "Fill out...