Welcome the wine?

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With Christmas a distant but pleasant memory and the government currently looking at alcohol pricing an article in the Healthy Food Guide (I have a substitution) caught my attention this week.

The overall message of the article (Time to whittle your wine waist) was to drink less to help your health and weight loss. I'm not planning to reproduce the article here but to focus on one little bit in the bottom corner of one page that gave calories of a few common 'tipples'.

The first thing I looked at was my favourite drink choices if I'm imbibing which are red wine or strong lager (I also like cider which is pretty much expected when you live this far South and West but I've had to get details from www.drinkware.com where you will find lots of information about alcohol and it's effects for that).

Large glass of red please barman! That will be 170 calories, 3 units please madam!

Pint of lager then please? That's worse madam with 244 calories but only 2.8 units (only!)

What about a pint of cider then? Around 210 calories and 2.6 units that one!

For you white wine and spirits drinkers the statistics are: Large white wine, 185 calories, 3 units, single shot of spirits 1 unit at 55 calories.

So, there are a good deal of calories in your glass and nothing else of nutritional value. I'm not suggesting that you give up alcohol – unless you want to or have to, but a reduction could make a big difference to your calorie intake without many other changes.

For instance swap your large glass of red for a small (85 calories) or medium (119 calories), drinking half pints cuts your calories by half and if you drink lower strength lager that reduces the calories by around 50 per pint from the values above.

Practical ways to make the change (as well as reducing the size of the glass) include only drinking at the weekends, having a soft drink on alternate visits to the bar, drinking 'long drinks' made up of a spirit with a diet mixer. There is evidence that suggests a small amount of, red wine in particular, can be good for your heart and relaxing with a small drink can help you feel less stressed after all.

As a final note, remember that a little of what you fancy does you good but too much of anything can be very bad for you. For help with any alcohol related questions visit www.drinkaware. Speak to your GP if you feel professional help may be required.

Money too tight tomention?

Personal Training is very much a cash based business – whether you receive cheques, standing orders or real cash, you usually get it in advance, no credit for sessions in this game!

What do you do with that money though?

In essence, it's not really yours until the client has completed the sessions – you should really release the cash into your hands to use to pay bills, salary, dividends etc as the sessions are completed.

For instance: Client A books 6 sessions and pays, for arguments, sake £240 pounds. You now owe the client 6 sessions or £240. Session one takes place on the 6th of the month so £40 is now yours to keep and you owe 5 sessions or £200. Session two takes place on 13th of the month, another £40 earned and can be spent, you now owe £160 or 4 sessions. If the client continues to take their sessions up to 6 then you have earned the full £240.

This is usually the case but what happens if the client gets injured (outside of your sessions I'd hope) or has to go away to work for an extended period after the second session? I know a lot of personal trainer's who have contract with clients that state that they cannot receive any monies back once paid and if this is the case for client A then the money can be considered forfeit and the trainer can now keep all of it. Would you? Personally I would not, immediately, I would suggest that the client is owed the monies or sessions by me and would offer a refund. I can do this as I make sure that I have not simply spent all of the clients money at the outset. Can you?

What if instead of the client being injured, you, the trainer are injured so that you can't train the client. What happens then? Some of your clients may wait if they have a good relationship with you and do not have pressing goals but what about the others? Will you refund them? Do you have the cash?

Time for some practical ideas here;

• Firstly – get yourself insured against not being able to earn so that you can pay your bills. You may even be able to include repayment of clients funds in this insurance.
• Second – you may not be able to hold all funds for clients unused sessions in a bank account as you need the money to live on and to be honest most clients will use all of their paid for sessions. It can be a good idea however to hold one package worth of monies at any one time just in case a client cannot or will not continue with you.

Remember that you are only one bad review away from danger so look after your clients cash and it will pay you 'dividends'!