Before we start, let’s get a few things absolutely clear.

• I am not a doctor.
• I have no health qualifications.
• I don’t have all the answers.
• I often struggle with my own weight.
• I don’t know why many of the ideas in this chapter work – they just do.

I’ve never felt better, fitter and healthier than I do right now because of a very simple philosophy shared with me by Dr Fiona Ellis:

The world of health and health care is the largest and most complex field known to mankind. Trillions of pounds are provided for the health care of the sick. Billions are spent on the development of new drugs and treatments. Millions are invested in finding out why we become sick. And thousands are spent on preventing us becoming ill in the first place.

I can’t help thinking if someone did some Flip It thinking with those numbers we might have a healthier society.

In this chapter I’d like to challenge a few common beliefs about health and share with you some of my discoveries in my quest for abundant vitality.

How do you feel?

Right now, as you are reading this line of Flip It, how would you describe how you are feeling? Imagine yourself standing in front of a mirror looking at your whole self. Now how do you feel? Next imagine yourself standing on a set of scales. Now how do you feel? Unfortunately the last two feelings are how most people relate to how they feel about their health. How they look and what they weigh.

Enough has been written about why we measure our beliefs about health this way, so I’m going to let you be the judge of how you feel about that. Instead I want this chapter to be about finding wonderful ways to feel brilliant about you, your health and your well-being all the time.

Time to get healthy

OK fitness fanatics, are you ready? I said, ARE YOU READY? Then it’s time to . . .

STOP, slow down, take a deep breath and relax. Did you really think I was going to suggest a programme to get you ready for a marathon in a month? This is Flip It! We do things differently around here.

I passionately believe that if you want to have a healthy body you have to start with a healthy mind. Flip It and start on the inside.

To learn how to relax properly takes the same dedication as it would to train for a marathon, it’s just you will use different muscles. Many people associate relaxation with sitting in front of the TV, vegging out and generally being a bit of a slob. While there is a place for that type of recreation, you don’t need to read a book to find out how to perfect it!

I’m challenging you to learn how to relax properly and, while you are in that wonderful relaxed state, to use this amazing place to programme yourself for fantastic health and vitality. That way you’ll be far more inclined to do what you know you need to do, you’ll find the time to do it and feel happy about the process.

Here’s how to relax properly

1. Find 15 minutes. Yes you can; don’t watch the news, get up 15 minutes earlier, skip a meeting. If you want to, you’ll find 15 minutes.
2. Find a place where you won’t be disturbed. Switch off your phone, gag your kids, etc.
3. If you are uncomfortable with silence, play a relaxation CD. Could I recommend ‘White Island’ by Michael Heppell? It’s very good.
4. Sit up. If you lie down, your brain may think you are intending to have a nap, which would be nice but not what you’re looking for here.
5. Take a couple of deep breaths and close your eyes.
6. Focus on making your breathing relaxed and slow.
7. As you start to relax, focus your mind on relaxing thoughts, sounds and images.
8. As you become more and more relaxed, focus your mind on the wonderful feeling of deep relaxation.
9. When your mind wanders, accept its creativity then move it back to focusing on your relaxation.
10. When you feel relaxed, take the opportunity to see yourself becoming fit and healthy. See yourself making good choices, being active and having vibrant health and energy.
11. When you feel the time is right, gently count from one to five and, with each number, feel yourself becoming more alert.
12. When you reach five, open your eyes, have a stretch and appreciate the feeling of being completely relaxed that you have created.

Relaxing properly takes discipline and practice. However, the rewards are brilliant. It’s one of those things that we know we should do but for which we often just don’t find the time. Well what if you skipped watching the news or one of those soaps?

Time to go for that run then? Well no, not quite. Yes, getting your heart rate up is a vital part of Flip It for health, but you knew that. However, I wonder if you know how important stretching is to fabulous health?

Did you know that by stretching just a few times a week you will:

• enhance your muscles;
• develop your coordination;
• increase your range of movement;
• improve your circulation;
• lubricate your joints;
• amplify your energy levels.

You can do a bit of stretching almost anywhere and, boy, is it economical! Also the brilliant thing about stretching is anything helps. You could go to a yoga class and learn how to be a pro stretcher or you could do what feels right (gently) on your bedroom floor and feel the benefits.

So no running, joining a gym or spending a small fortune yet, and already you’re feeling healthier and happier.

How to feel fab about flab

Disempowering beliefs about body image cause worry, anxiety and depression for many people. I too have read the articles about body image and I know perfectly well (at an intellectual level) that the guys on the front of Men’s Health magazine are part of a tiny minority of people who have the right physiology to look like that. And yet, I could still find plenty to beat myself up about when viewing my own reflection. The challenge is when you look at yourself in a mirror, what do you focus on? Exactly. You focus on what’s wrong with your body.

Here’s a big Flip It challenge. The next time you find yourself in your birthday suit looking at your reflection, I challenge you to Flip It and find three things you like about yourself. Yes it is a challenge, but a very important one.

So now is it time for a run?

Well it could be – if you have the energy.

How to avoid the first week being the last week

I bet you know someone who has that uncanny (and terribly frustrating) ability to get up early and go for a five-mile run before breakfast. Please stop telling the rest of us that you do it and instead share how you do it.

Here’s what most people do when starting a ‘fitness regime’. They decide to get fit – this time it’s going to be different. They start on a weekend. They go for a run. They feel good. They join a gym. They have their assessment. This time it’s going to be different.

Tuesday comes. They have a hell of a day. They miss a run. There’s too much to do. Suddenly they haven’t been to the gym for a week. They must get started again. They feel bad about their lack of commitment. They quit.

There’s a key moment during that process that plots the start of the downfall and it’s usually around the ‘had a hell of a day’ stage. It’s almost like we are subconsciously preprogrammed to find an excuse not to keep going. When the excuse presents itself then, bingo, your subconscious was right and the downhill descent kicks in.

Next time it’s going to be different.

Here are seven Flip It ideas to make ‘this time’ different.

1. Have a written goal of what you want to achieve, look at it every morning and every night and visualise it clearly when you practise your relaxation.
2. Exercise your ‘true will’ muscle. Don’t say you’re going to go to the gym five days a week when the best you will manage is three. Only commit to what you know you can do and work on your ‘true will’ muscle alongside your others.
3. Make your commitment visual. Where’s the best place to keep your training shoes if you want to exercise? At the front door! Or even better – on your feet! Keep a copy of your written goal in your purse or wallet. Have your kit clean and ready to go.
4. Schedule your exercise sessions as you would any important appointments and put them in your diary. Write what you have achieved during each exercise session on a wall planner.
5. If you can afford to, get a trainer – a good one who gives a guarantee. Avoid a trainer who turns out to be a gym buddy to whom you pay good money so they can read health magazines and count your reps. Take a good look at the person who is offering to train you – if they don’t look great and vibrantly healthy then question why you should pay them for advice.
6. Create a reward system for yourself that intensely motivates you. And a punishment system that does the same.
7. Remove the word ‘tired’ from your vocabulary. Instead use something like, ‘I could do with more energy’ or ‘I need to find some oomph’.

The number-one reason that will stop you from exercising is believing that you are too tired, closely followed by a belief that you don’t have the time. That’s why it’s a must to schedule time in your diary for exercise.

Another reason is that people believe it takes hours of exercise to get fit and lose weight. Not so. When I met Paul Mort of Precision Fitness my mindset changed for ever. He asked me, ‘Michael, how much time do you have to train?’ I said it depended. If I was at home I’d have more time, but when I’m travelling, not much. Isn’t that an interesting limiting belief?

Paul showed me how to Flip It by demonstrating a five-minute, full body, ‘fat burning’ workout that could be done in a hotel room with no equipment. Then he asked, slightly sarcastically, if I could squeeze that into my ‘busy schedule’.

Tired is a mindset.

Better still, after the workout you’ll feel like you have an abundance of energy.

Quick check

You’ve started with the most important part – a healthy mind. You know how to relax and how to focus on the best bits to build confidence, you’re clear on what you have to do to get started and you know that tired is just a mindset.

Now what to do next?

Here’s the best, in my personal opinion, guide to burning fat and getting fit (based on very little medical research and shared here only because it works for me).

• Start with something: Anything, whatever – but start. Waiting for a gym membership, the perfect programme or a bespoke metabolic solution is just an excuse not to get active.
• Mix it up: I met an 80-year-old bloke who could do 200 press-ups. The problem was that was all he could do. You’ll meet ‘experts’ who claim that their way is the best or only way to get fit. I say test a load of stuff then find the things that you enjoy doing and work for you.
  In a typical week I might do one six-mile run and one two-mile run, a couple of Davina McCall workout DVDs (magic and my favourite) and two or three of Paul Mort’s home workout fat-burning routines. If I have lots of time I’ll do a 30–45-minute session; if I’m rushed I’ll do 5 minutes.
• Work with someone: I always train with my wife. I motivate her and she certainly motivates me. Who’s going to kick your butt if you decide to skip a day?
• Stretch: I didn’t like stretching as I thought it was a waste of time. As I became fitter and my muscles grew, I found myself picking up more and more injuries. Learning how to stretch properly changed that.
• Practise your posture: A good posture will improve every part of your life. See an osteopath or chiropractor and ask them why.
• Drink plenty of water: Start the day with a 1.5-litre bottle of water and make sure you’ve drunk it by tea time. Exercising when dehydrated puts unnecessary strain on your body.
• Food is 80 per cent: As much as I’ve rambled on about the benefit of exercise, remember that around 80 per cent of your weight gain or loss will be down to the food you eat and the liquid you drink. Damn that statistic!

Dealing with illness

Feeling fit? Feeling healthy? Brilliant, time once again to Flip It and consider what to do when you’re feeling unwell.

You really don’t appreciate how wonderful it is to feel well until you feel ill. Some people are well all the time; others seem to get ‘everything that’s going around’. Could this be a mindset? Might you actually attract some illness by thinking about it?

I know a hypochondriac or two. I’ve noticed they all seem to have one thing in common. They get a lot of sympathy when they’re unwell. In fact I noticed with one person that her kids became hypochondriacs too and, when they were unwell, like mum, they got more attention. Something to think about?

Would you agree that some people can attract sickness, while others react to disease in a more adverse way and can even create illness by thinking about it?

I’m a little embarrassed to tell you this story but, many years ago, a group of colleagues and I decided to test this theory on a fellow worker. We predicted we could make her feel ill just by convincing her she wasn’t well.

The set-up was simple. Everyone would comment on how poorly she looked and if she reacted we would share stories about bugs that were going around, etc. It started with the receptionist, who asked if she was ‘feeling any better’. This was a stroke of genius as she hadn’t even felt unwell! Over the next hour several people commented on her colour and asked if she was alright, dropping in words like sick, ill and unwell. One colleague even felt her brow and convinced her she had a temperature.

By lunchtime she was off home feeling genuinely sick, looking pale and with a temperature of 102.

If you (or others) can make you feel unwell, then if you are ill can you Flip It and make yourself well?

I once heard a brilliant reaction to a common statement when a friend of mine was obviously suffering from a heavy cold. Rather than agreeing with the diagnosis, she said, ‘Oh yes, I’m having a cleansing’. I don’t know if she meant to say something so brilliant but it’s true. When you have a cold and your nose is running, you’re coughing up goodness knows what and your body feels like it’s going through a medieval torture, then that’s exactly what you are doing. Your body is cleansing itself of the rubbish that’s messing it up.

I’m very fortunate as I’m always well. In fact whenever anyone starts to talk about ill health I always say that ‘I’m always well’, at least three times. It’s a message to my subconscious and immune system and it works.

But what if you do end up with an illness? Most people believe that if you’re ill there’s not much you can do about it other than letting time or drugs do the healing. I think you should Flip It and take on the responsibility for getting healthy again – or at least feeling better – as soon as you possibly can.

Here’s a list of things you can do if you’re unwell and want to be healthy faster.

• Trust yourself and listen to your body: If your body is telling you that you need something, then have it. If it’s saying you shouldn’t have something, then don’t! Sometimes your body may need a complete rest and will be telling you not to eat anything. Family and friends start to worry that ‘you’re not eating’ and will exacerbate the situation, when really you don’t need food, just water. Listen to your body and trust your intuition.
• Remove negative emotions and stop worrying: I appreciate this may be difficult when you’re poorly, but entertaining worry and negativity is a sure-fire way to hold on to your illness.
• Don’t anticipate side-effects or pain: Drug companies are legally obliged to inform you of any potential side-effects a medicine could have. But research has shown that if you are told something will have a side-effect, you are actually more likely to experience it than if you didn’t know. Amazing, isn’t it? That’s how powerful your brilliant mind is. So make it work for you and decide to Flip It. Tell yourself: ‘These side-effects won’t affect me!’
• Accept that change is possible: Some people believe that they will be stuck with pain or illness for the rest of their lives. If your body is renewing cells every minute of every day, can you accept that you can change your body and ultimately how you feel?
• Concentrate on getting better: It sounds very obvious but many people, when they are ill, focus on being ill and in doing so prolong the illness. When you change your focus to getting better, you get better faster.
• Believe in your treatments: Countless studies have shown that treatments work best when you believe they are going to work well. See your body responding well to any treatments you have to take and it will.
• Focus on things that give you energy: During times when you feel unwell, your body needs to channel its energy into getting you well again. You can help it to do this by focusing on the things that give you energy. While you are resting you can still see yourself playing sport, enjoying fresh air, being on holiday, feeling vibrant, etc.
• Put yourself in control: People who have experienced being very ill often comment on how they felt like ‘they weren’t in control’. The ‘professionals’ seemed to know more than they did, things happened which they didn’t understand and they felt too ashamed or confused to ask.
  But you are the most important person in the world. So don’t worry about feeling like a nuisance or silly. Ask all the questions you need to so you can be sure you understand what is happening. Then you can decide what is best for you. Yes, actually, you do know best! And if someone wants to change your mind they had better be very forthcoming and open with the information that will sway you.
• Don’t focus on the pain: Again this is a tough one, but if you have pain in a particular place then see if you can focus your mind on other parts of your body where you are pain-free. By moving your focus from the source of discomfort you can reduce the amount of pain you feel.
• Imagine you have a strong immune system: Visualise your body fending off infection, see it being bold and strong. Make your thinking micro and see dodgy cells being destroyed and sickness being wiped out. Then create a brilliant defence system to keep you well. Imagine yourself as a computer and load up some antivirus software.
• Don’t think of yourself as a sick person: This takes us back to my friend who was ‘having a cleansing’. By thinking about cleansing rather than having a cold she felt better and became healthy faster.
• Understand that sometimes it is all in the mind: Your mind is amazing, but sometimes it can play some terrible tricks. Some people translate the slightest twinge into full-blown illness. By ‘upgrading’ your ailments like this you can seriously reduce your rate of recovery.
• ‘Man flu’ is a classic example of how a bloke can milk a cold and turn it into a near-death experience. This is surpassed only by Premier League footballers who manage to display Oscar-winning pain reactions when they are tackled just inside the box. The point is, if you exaggerate how you feel you may just get what you imagined.
• Focus on the positive: OK, so what’s right? You’ve got a warm bed, people who care about you and a day off work to recover. Finding the positive – no matter how hard you have to look – will perk you up and help your recuperation. A word of warning: don’t focus on finding the positives in being unwell when you’re feeling well.
• Transform your self-talk: Right at the start of Flip It I talked about the power of language. If you keep telling others (and yourself) how unwell you are then you’ll get what you focus on. Saying, ‘I could be feeling better’ and ‘I’m working on being healthy’ will get you much better results.
• Give yourself compliments: ‘Aren’t I doing well?’ ‘Looking good!’ ‘Lucky I’m such a happy soul.’ ‘I’m feeling better and better every day.’ There are lots of good things you can say about yourself rather than looking in the mirror and saying how you ‘look like crap’.
• Expect the best: ‘The doctor said I could be in bed for a week,’ said Samantha after a home visit from her GP. A full week later she was better. I wonder how long she would have been confined to bed if her GP had said she’d have to stay in bed for a couple of days.
  My childhood friend Simon was told he would die before he was a teenager. This was revised to 20 after his 15th birthday. He recently celebrated his 40th. Simon expects the best.
• Smile: When you smile you give a very clear physiological message to your brain that things are good – very good. Then your brain releases the happy drugs (endorphins). These chemical neurotransmitters make it easier for you to smile and be happy. When you smile and are happy your brain releases the happy drugs, and so on. Don’t wait for a reason, just smile for the heck of it. Do it now!

Further Flip It for optimum health

My friend Mark Tough of Lifephorce says, ‘A headache is certainly not an aspirin deficiency.’ He’s right. Our current thinking is, ‘I feel unwell so I take something to fix it.’ The pharmaceutical industry is one of the biggest money-makers in the world because we all want to be fixed. But what if you were to Flip It and focus on not being broken?

The next time you feel a headache coming on just try drinking a large glass of water before you head for the medicine cupboard. If you find yourself getting headaches on a regular basis then dramatically reduce the amount of caffeine you consume and significantly increase the amount of water you drink.

One of my greatest discoveries as a brilliant health fix came when I found a new way to treat indigestion. I used to suffer almost every day and in an attempt to treat the pain scoffed all sorts of indigestion tablets. That was until I had a brilliant Flip It moment and discovered apple cider vinegar. The chances are that you will be thinking, as I did, that the last thing you would want to take while suffering from indigestion is apple cider vinegar.

Just in case you are reading this bit without reading the warning at the beginning, I am not a doctor; I have no health qualifications and my theory as to why this works is purely speculation. But if you suffer from indigestion, acid reflux, heartburn or whatever they are calling it at the moment then you may want to try this. As soon as you feel any pain just take one teaspoon of organic apple cider vinegar and – I find – in seconds all discomfort has gone.

My simple-minded theory as to why this works is that your body is trying to produce extra acid to compensate for whatever else you have put into it in the hours before. As soon as you take the apple cider vinegar your brilliant body says, ‘OK, we have enough acid now. No more acid is needed.’

I’ve since found out that good old apple cider vinegar has other health benefits too, but I’ll leave you to research those for yourself.

Healthy living

Flip It for health could be 90 per cent of this book, but I’m running out of pages to share everything I want to share with you. I’ve barely got the space to suggest you stop thinking about yourself getting old and frail, so instead Flip It and imagine yourself growing older and stronger.

Even some of the simple Flip It ideas, like moving your car’s rear-view mirror up a little so you have to sit up straight to use it and in the process improve your posture, may take too much explaining.

Flip It for health is designed to inspire you into action and to do some (or some more) of the simple things to have a vibrant healthy life. Here’s to being flippin’ healthy!

Given the choice of health or wealth, which would you choose? The Flip It answer is that you can have both! Time to dive in to . . .