Reignite with Dan
Practical, evidence-informed ideas to help you improve your health and wellbeing. From exercise, nutrition and behaviour change to relationships, purpose and positive psychology, you'll receive practical strategies to help you build healthier habits, live well, and flourish.
Personal Training & Coaching This September
Hello and happy Saturday! I hope the week has gone well for you and you have a restful and fulfilling weekend ahead. September is here, and after a bit of a break over the summer, I’m getting ready to get back into the swing of things from Monday. I’m sure many of you are too! I’ve had a bit of a shift in my thinking over the last couple of months, especially whilst doing my 6-week health reset, and I wanted to share it with you. After finishing my Masters, I leant quite heavily into coaching...
20 Biggest Lessons from My 6 Week Health Reset...
I started my 6-week health reset after a pretty simple NHS Health Check. My blood pressure was elevated, my “good” HDL cholesterol was lower than ideal (which was the first time I’d ever actually had my cholesterol checked) and I’d put on a bit of weight. More than anything, I just wasn’t feeling as healthy as I normally do. And I knew why. For about six months I’d done next to no proper exercise, my nutrition had gradually slipped, and if I’m being truthful, I’d allowed work to take over and...
My 6-Week Health Reset Results Are In…
So, the six weeks are up. If you've been following along, you'll know I've been doing my 6-week health reset, and I've finally got all the results together. I've repeated my body composition scan, checked my blood pressure and resting heart rate and had a proper fasting blood test. And overall, I'm really pleased with what's changed. I've actually surprised myself with just how much can change in six weeks. Here are the results side by side: There's quite a lot on there, but a few things...
Week 6: The Finish Line Approaches
I’m in the final week of my 6-week health reset now, and I’ve got full bloods booked for tomorrow. Weirdly, I’ve wanted to get full bloods done for a couple of years but have always put it off. Perhaps there’s a bit of ignorance is bliss in there somewhere! But the truth is, as we get older, it’s probably better to know what’s going on sooner rather than later. Then we can actually be proactive and hopefully prevent things rather than waiting until there’s a problem. I’ve got no reason to...
Week 5: Learning to Adjust (Stress Load)
Hello, Let’s start with the positives from this week. Week 5 of my health reset has gone to plan nutritionally. I’m still following the principles I set myself and, by this point, I genuinely feel like they have become a habit. Apart from when I had to use a bit of willpower when I was slightly hungover the other day, sticking to my principles now feels almost automatic. The habit, as a reminder, was simple: before I eat a food, I run it past my principles and decide whether to eat it or not....
7 Lessons from Week 4
Hello, Week 4 is done, and this week has given me some useful lessons about training, recovery and what happens when my normal routine gets disrupted. I’ve started properly tracking my strength training, recording the weights and reps to give myself a baseline. If I want real results, I need progressive overload: gradually increasing the demands I place on my muscles over time through more weight, reps or training volume. Up until now, turning up consistently has been enough. Now I want to...
Week 4: What gets measured gets managed
For exercise during this health reset, I’ve kept things pretty simple: strength training three times a week and cardio twice a week. Originally, I planned to do three cardio sessions a week, but one thing I’ve learned over the last week is that it was simply too much alongside my current workload and other responsibilities. So I’ve scaled it back to two. For me, that’s part of making this sustainable. Behaviour change isn’t about creating the perfect plan on paper and forcing yourself to...
Week 4: Making Progress Visible (I'm back)
I’m back, and it’s Week 4 of my 6-week health reset. Last week was an unexpected one. An insect bite turned into cellulitis, which meant a course of strong antibiotics that, to be honest, made me feel pretty nauseous for most of the week. Thankfully, it’s all cleared up now. The lesson was pretty simple: things don’t always go to plan. You can’t control everything that happens, but you can focus on what you can control. Exercise was off the table, but nutrition wasn’t, and I managed to stay...
Week 3: An insect bite gave me cellulitis...
Hello, Well, this week definitely hasn’t gone to plan. At the weekend I went to the Tarr Steps in Dulverton. When I sat down for lunch (choosing something inline with my principles), I got bit by an insect on my thigh. What seemed like nothing at the time developed into cellulitis by Monday morning. My thigh became swollen, hot, red and painful, the redness started spreading up my leg, and I’ve ended up on strong antibiotics and feeling pretty run down. So exercise has basically been off the...
11 Lessons from Week 2 of My Health Reset
Hello, Week 2 is done, and nutritionally, it’s been a really successful one. I created a set of simple principles and, surprisingly, I’ve stuck to them 100%: protein with every meal, plenty of colourful vegetables, whole-food carbohydrates, healthy fats, no ultra-processed foods or gluten, 2–3 litres of water a day, and three balanced meals with minimal snacking. And it hasn’t actually felt that hard. I think these principles have almost outsourced my decision-making. Rather than constantly...
Practical, evidence-informed ideas to help you improve your health and wellbeing. From exercise, nutrition and behaviour change to relationships, purpose and positive psychology, you'll receive practical strategies to help you build healthier habits, live well, and flourish.