There are sports fanatics and there are extreme sports fanatics and once you’ve met Deborah and Wayne you’ll realise that neither will settle for anything less than being mental sports fanatics. So we thought we’d give them a little support to help them on their way at this weekend’s endurance race in the Yorkshire Dales. In addition we supplied their kit for the race – well when I say kit, I actually mean shorts and t-shirts emblazoned with the Foundation logo, website and pink fluorescent supportive hands strategically buttock-positioned. There was a nice little piece about them in the local press too, with them at the Cow and Calf Rocks in Ilkley,  Deborah not missing the opportunity to  position her bottom straight to camera. Bit of a sly one, that Deborah! As Marketing Manager for Yorkshire Agricultural Society we work with her on the Countryside Live and Fodder accounts, know her quite well and she’d be the first to say she doesn’t have time for girly frills and fancies. However, after seeing her sport a new blue-tint lippy last week and only 2 days later seeing the models on the Paul Smith catwalk do likewise, reckon she’s a bit of a dark horse!

Anyway very best wishes to both Deborah and Wayne this weekend as they rock climb, mountain bike, run and kayak – against the clock! Find out more about the event at  www.openadventure.com and more about their club, the York Mountaineering Club at www.yorkmc.org.uk

Subject: General by Liz

Firstly, apologies if you’re expecting week 2 of Foundation’s Plan for a beach ready body but in light of the World Cup Tournament I’ve had to abandon this featurette.  It’s estimated that the average male English fan will be consuming 5,567 EXTRA calories after each England match (in the form of copious pints, snacks and then delivered-in pizzas). This means that short of working on numerical simulations in the evolution of contail microphysics in the vortex phase, there’s little I can recommend that will give your brain a sufficiently intensive work-out to come close to working off a World Cup match blow-out!

I, in the meantime, will continue to boost my cognitive calorie workout by walking upstairs backwards, cleaning my teeth with my left hand and trying really, really hard to understand the infamous offside rule (as though I care!).

Subject: General by Liz

I’ve just learnt something interesting. It comes courtesy of Lauren Laverne (in ‘Grazia’ magazine, so it must be true) and basically: your brain burns 20% of your daily calorie requirement and that learning something new burns more calories than repeating something you already know. How good is that? 

So, I’ve devised a workable programme that over the next month will help you shake off unnecessary poundage WITHOUT altering what you eat or how you exercise. Over the next four weeks I’ll be bringing you a fact each week that you’re hopefully unaware of , or encouraging you to do a task that is a break from the norm all with the intention of achieving ‘brain burn’ and a more efficient calorific  burn-rate. The Foundation Plan doesn’t guarantee weight loss but by the end of June the science would suggest we’ll all be in much better shape, plus  we’ll possibly know 4 more things than we knew before!

Week 1. Hey Presto – as you’ve read and digested the above you’ve already learnt your new fact this week and your brain is in the zone. If you wanted to up the ante (or indeed if you already knew this fact), why not learn a language such as Croatian?

Check-in next week for the second session, after which you’ll already be half way through the programme. Bring on the holidays!

Subject: General by Liz