Stevie's rules.

Section

Turn up.

That is eighty per cent of it. The programme, the plan, the kit: none of it works from the couch. Three sessions a week, every week, beats a perfect fortnight and a missing month.

Protein first.

Every meal starts with the protein and the rest fits round it. Chicken, eggs, fish, yoghurt, mince, beans. Get that right and half the nutrition plan writes itself.

Walk every day.

Steps are free, need no kit and burn more over a week than any finisher. The clients who lose the most are the ones who walk the most. Every time.

Measure it.

If it was not measured it did not happen. Week one and week eight, one tape, the spots never move, first thing in the morning both times. The scales lie; the tape does not.

Sore for a day is training.

Sore for a week is a message. Tell me. We change the session, not the plan.

A bit more than last week.

One more rep, one more kilo, one more round. You do not need a new programme every Monday.

No crash diets.

Nothing you cannot keep doing for eight weeks. If the plan has a finish line you fall off at, it was not a plan.

Nobody is watching you.

They are too busy with their own set. The fear of the gym goes in a week. Everyone in it once stood at the door.

Sleep is a session.

Under six hours and the weights feel heavier, the hunger is louder and the mood is worse. Bed by half ten does more than any supplement.

Do not restart. Continue.

Missed a week? Come back on the next class, not the next Monday. There is no clean slate and you do not need one.