Henry - Karl Henrys healthy living handbook: Irelands favourite trainer helps you to lose weight, get fit and stay well

1lb = 0.45kg; 1kg = 2.2lbs; 1 stone (14lbs) = 6.3kg

Glycaemia literally means sugar in the blood, from the words glyco (sugar) and aemia (a word for anything to do with the blood.

Department of Healths Healthy Ireland Survey 2016

Since completing the book Woody left in the picture arrived to join his half-sister Sophie. And the cats are brothers Hamish (front) and Harry.

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First published 2018

Copyright Karl Henry, 2018

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-241-98186-3

To anyone who is willing to take that
first step to leading a healthier life

Just like in the rest of the Western world, in Ireland there is a growing divide in the population between the fit and unfit, the healthy and unhealthy, the average and overweight. At one extreme, there is a category of health-conscious people who are very focused on eating nutritiously and exercising regularly. And at the other, there are a lot of people making poor choices, who eat high-sugar, highly processed foods and take little exercise. And in the middle? Those who muddle through on a diet of the good and not-so-great, who try to fit a bit of regular movement into their lives but occasionally succumb to their couch-potato tendencies, who go through phases of being good and phases of life making it difficult to stick with the healthier-living intentions.

In nearly 20 years as a personal trainer, I have seen it all. Apart from those who are already health-conscious, I have worked extensively with the other two groups people who thought there was no hope of changing their lives and also those who doubted their ability to make the best choices on an ongoing basis. I hope this book will be of particular benefit to these two groups those who have woken up to the importance of taking their lifestyle in hand, and those who already know a lot of the things they need to do to be healthier, but somehow struggle with putting it all together and sustaining long-term change.

So, I imagine that you have picked up this book because you want to make lasting changes in your lifestyle. Perhaps you want to lose weight and there is a particular focus on losing and managing weight in this book. But, as most of us know by now, while being wise about our food choices is central to health, keeping moving and living a balanced life is also vitally important, and I cover these in lots of detail too.

I am tired of reading faddy health books that will only be followed by those who are obsessed with restrictive eating plans or complicated fitness routines. Of course, there is useful information in some of these books, but I know that most people with busy lives dont have the time or inclination to follow these as long-term strategies for maintaining their weight, fitness and well-being. And its the long term that interests me: if you can develop the right habits you can do a lot to prevent lifestyle health issues from your teens right up to your nineties!

From experience, I know that my approach to diet, fitness and wellbeing is effective. When I say from experience Im not just talking about the work Ive done with clients. Im talking about my life. As many people know, I grew up in a gym environment, as my dad, Pat Henry, opened his gym in 1986 when I was four years old. I was there before school, after school and basically any time I wasnt in school. And yet I was a child and teen who was last around the pitch when playing sports. I was not naturally fit and had to work really hard on controlling my weight and staying active. And when I got to college, my eating habits were typical of a young guy living away from home for the first time I lived on takeaways! My wake-up call will be familiar to many people: I saw a photograph of myself and was a bit horrified by the bloated face staring out at me. More about this .

I am not a naturally thin person. While Im tall, my natural build is stocky and prone to gaining weight. So I have to work hard to stay at a healthy weight. Luckily, my job keeps me very active, but I take nothing for granted and I know that if I was sitting at a desk or driving a car all day, it would be an ongoing challenge to remain at a healthy weight and be fit (a challenge that would be doable, though, as I know from working with clients this book is all about helping you to meet the challenge, whatever your natural make-up and circumstances).

Having just been negative about people getting obsessed with their diet and fitness programmes, I have to admit to getting obsessed myself sometimes for instance, training for an Ironman challenge and getting so in the zone that I start to irritate everyone around me. In other words, I am not perfect and I know that finding the right balance doesnt come easily to anyone. So even though Im seen as being very fit and the expert with all the answers, I have had to get to grips with lots of issues myself over the years, and I continue to work on them.

I have my good days and my bad days. I know just how hard it is to live in a balanced way, and apart from lots of information on diet, fitness and general wellbeing, I am sharing all the tips and tricks that I have discovered to make healthier living as easy as possible.

I started personal training when I was a 19-year-old student, travelling to clients homes to do personal-training sessions. I have done over 25,000 sessions with clients since! (Thats an average of 30 to 40 personal training sessions weekly over 17 years.) The work has expanded over the years into newspaper columns, books, radio and TV with over a decade of Operation Transformation on RT and into work with businesses, developing health and fitness programmes for their staff. It has been an incredible journey, one where I am learning every day, trying new campaigns and new ways of motivating people.

The thing about all this experience is this: I have learned from every mistake that there is. I have seen diet and fitness trends come and go. Sometimes the trends bring useful new insights into how the body works or have a lasting effect. But parts of the health and fitness business have become so over the top, so obsessive and, frankly, so bound up in a fake idea of attractiveness and what it means to be healthy that its a turn-off for those who actually need to get healthy the most.

When I hear about some revolutionary new diet, just like you, I have to cut through all the noise to figure out whats credible. Through everything Ive experienced, both personally and in my work with clients, and through everything Ive read about nutrition and learned from the experts Ive worked with, I have concluded that when it comes to fixing a weight issue, there are no shortcuts. But that does not mean that eating healthily is not straightforward.