AS promised, today’s post follows on from yesterday and Helen’s incredibly inspiring fitness story.

As a little follow up to her story, I asked Helen to provide us with a few of her top tips for success and (you’re definitely going to thank me for this one) a couple of her favourite healthy recipes too.

Many thanks to everyone who commented or tweeted about Helen’s ‘Your Secret’ post yesterday. The response was absolutely fantastic and fear not, if you missed all the action, you can catch her feel good story here.

Also, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out Helen’s brilliant blog ‘And That’s Just The Warm Up’ which is not only breathtakingly honest but also funny and motivating.  x

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Helen’s tips for a happier, fitter and healthier you

• Don’t just concentrate on food or exercise: If you’re unhappy with your body and fitness, you need to work on all areas, not just concentrate on one. So you need to work on nutrition, exercise and mental health! I have learnt that you need to work on all three, in order to make and see changes.

• Fuel your body: with only the best, cleanest ingredients.

• Give it your all!: You need to exercise properly. I see a lot of people in the gym who just play at exercise, they walk out looking the same as they came in. If you aren’t sweating and beetroot faced you haven’t pushed yourself and you won’t improve your fitness. Exercise does make you feel uncomfortable but this is usually a sign you’re doing it right!

• You need to mentally look after yourself: Your brain will often tell you that ‘you can’t’ but you need to train yourself to believe that ‘you can”. For example if I am doing burps my legs will be hurting and my natural reaction is ‘stop, that hurts’ but you just have to push through it and realise that you need to push past it to make any progress.

• Give it time: I’d say that going to the gym or working out takes a good 10 – 12 weeks before it becomes a habit rather than a chore so you need to give it some time. Once you hit the three month mark though it becomes easy because you want to be there and are seeing the fruits of your efforts.

• If you can, invest in a personal trainer: I know not everyone can afford it, but if you can, my biggest tip would be to work with a personal trainer as you never push yourself as hard on your own. Your brain is always telling  you to hold back. If you find a good trainer they will work with you on how to push yourself further and how to get past that mental block.

Helen’s two favourite paleo dishes

Paleo Breakfast Lasagna

Click here for recipe

Helen says: Ingredients include sweet potato, onions, mushrooms, chorizo (which is permitted on paleo) and eggs. It sounds disgusting for breakfast but it is truly delicious! Plus you can freeze and reheat it and it works well as a breakfast or lunch.

Chilled double chocolate torte 

Click here for recipe

Helen says: I’m a massive chocolate fan and so it has been the hardest thing to cut down on. This is a perfect treat to have once in a while. The use of avocado and chocolate sounds truly awful BUT it is amazing.

It is rich, gooey, sweet and very indulgent. I’d never eaten avocados before but the health benefits from them are amazing. So what could be better than healthy avocados with a bit of naughty chocolate to satisfy a sweet tooth!

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Again, a huge thank you to the lovely Helen Stokes for sharing her story, advice and recipes. What a star!

I’m now off to go and buy some avocados because you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be making that delicious chocolate torte very, very soon. ;-)

See you Friday!

Katie