GYM’LL FIX IT
Chances are you signed up for a gym in the dark days of January, worked-out like an amphetamined headless hen and come circa now your resolve has long gone. If you want to stick to a fitness routine and lose those moobs then you need to get your Nikes down to the Laguna Health & Spa. Part of Cardiff’s high-end Park Plaza Hotel, the reason this place works is because it feels more like a spa than a straight-up gym, somewhere you can go and convince your brain you’ve taken a city-break away from your familiar manor. As you’d expect all the regulation-issue equipment is present and correct, but the major attraction here is the pool. Low on chlorine because of a special filter system, you can either make like you’re Michael Phelps and lap it like an Olympian or, alternatively, indulge in a spot of post-workout R&R. And I’ve put my money where my mouth is because (smugly) I joined the gym last December and am still going now, which only goes to show how good the place is because if it can get a couch spud like me treadmilling then it can stiffen the steel of even the most workout-shy.
www.lagunahealthandspa.com

LIPO SERVICE
It must be stressed liposuction is not an avenue to troop down if you want to control weight. But with obesity levels rising, more serious size issues are becoming a much more prolific problem resulting in increasing numbers of people turning to plastic surgery to shift the pounds diet and exercise just can’t budge. And you may think it’s women who reach for the surgeon’s knife more readily, but the stats bear out the fact that it’s us blokes who are going down the nip/tuck route more often. The number of men turning to the looks sculpting industry rose by a staggering 17% in the past year alone, with liposuction coming in as the second most requested procedure. Liposuction is designed to get rid of stubborn fatty deposits located between the skin and muscle that are impossible to eradicate by any other means - for both men and women it’s typically around the stomach - thus improving the body's contour and its overall appearance. It’s become so mainstream even the re-christened BUPA Hospitals, Spire Healthcare, offers it as part of its extensive roster of cosmetic surgery treatments. So if you’ve been treating your body more like an amusement park than a temple, check out your nearest Spire clinic for a consultation to see if you’d make a suitable candidate.
www.spirehealthcare.com

10 WEIGHT-LOSS TIPS
1. Always eat breakfast. It might be the most repeated mantra of all nutritionists worth their recommended daily salt intake, but it works. Make sure you eat within an hour of getting up for maximum metabolic effect
2. Avoid faddy diets. Common sense, but sometimes all of us get seduced by a quick fix. Ultimately, though, they don’t work
3. Cut down on caffeine. Although caffeine revs up your metabolic rate, it also ups adrenaline levels that often con the body into believing it’s hungry
4. Eat more. Sounds like a contradiction if you want to ditch the inches, but the best way to coax your body to eat up its calories is to keep it fuelled up as it stops hunger spikes and makes you less tempted to reach for a Mars bar
5. Drink water. Few of us religiously drink the 2 litres of H20 a day our bodies require, but often when we think we’re starving we’re actually just thirsty so it’s worth hitting the watercooler
6. Cut back on beer. No booze is bad news because it’s too difficult to sustain, but even if you leave off last orders you’ll be doing yourself some good. Also, stick to clear spirits, like vodka or gin, as they’re less calorie-laced
7. Limit the damage. It’s inevitable the wheels will fall off the healthy living wagon, just don’t use one slip-up as an excuse to give up entirely. Simply get back on the horse
8. Learn to cook. If you don’t already, then why not? The advantage if you do is you’re more likely to limit the calorific crap content because you know exactly what goes into your meal
9. Treat yourself. Having a blow-out takeaway or treat out once a week will stop you feeling deprived and mutinous
10. Be realistic. There’s no point setting the bar so high it’s untouchable. Ultimately, the point of losing weight is not self-flagellation, but to look and, more importantly, feel better.

CALLING IT QUITS
If your New Year’s resolution is to pack in the fags, you’re not alone. Of the UK’s 12 million smokers, three million attempt to quit each year but the bad news is only 3% manage to stay on the wagon long-term. As an ex-smoker, I know how hard kicking the habit to the curb is, because I’ve been off the nicotine for three years and I still get the occasional craving. If you want to take the sting out of stopping then smoking cessation programmes are becoming increasingly popular, primarily because they’re more likely to work. The late anti-smoking tsar Allen Carr’s much-vaunted course is probably the most famous. Spread over five hours of one day in groups of about twenty, it uses a psychotherapy/hypnotherapy double whammy approach and focuses on why smokers continue despite the obvious disadvantages as opposed to concentrating on why they should quit. It’s successful because it’s about cognitive behavioural therapy: changing your behaviour to change the way you think. The course costs £220 - private sessions are a couple of grand - which sounds a lot but is a mere drop in the ocean compared to how smoking dents your wallet over a lifetime - and this will actually prolong it - and if it doesn’t do the trick then there’s a money back guarantee to boot. For details of your local Allen Carr therapist log onto the website: www.allencarreasyway.com 10 WAYS TO BEAT THE WINTER BLUES
1. Don’t sheep-flock to the gym with the masses this January, take up a team sport instead. Try not to barf, but the camaraderie can be a real mood elevator
2. Take up a new interest. I know this sounds Simon Says simplistic, but sometimes simple is best
3. Lay off the drowning-your-sorrows approach, as alcohol is a potent depressant. You may feel a temporary lift but the high is soon goodbyed
4. Eat spicy food. The substance that makes chillies hot, capsicum, stimulates the release of feel-good endorphins in the brain. Think about it: have you ever seen a depressed Mexican?
5. Drink green tea. It contains high levels of antioxidants that help fight mild depression as well as protect against cancer and heart disease
6. Take vitamins. Zinc is especially effective at upping the brain’s good mood medicine, serotonin
7. Do a negativity edit. If you’ve got a whinger mate who’s always on the moan, limit the amount of time you spend together. Or, harsher still, hit the delete button
8. Change your routine. Experiment by chopping and changing the ingredients of your life to keep things fresh
9. Have a Thai massage. This is much more energising and rigorous than other forms of massage, literally extracting stress from the body
10. Remember winter doesn’t go on forever so enjoy some of its perks, like long walks on crisp, frosty days or having a Sunday roast in front of a crackling country pub fire

I PREDICT A DIET

<<<BACK After the excess and sloth of winter, spring is the time to reboot our bodies and start getting beach body buff, urges Jason Jones