Monthly Archives: June 2011
What You Put Into Your Body
Ever wonder about the foods that you put into your body? I mean ever actually sit and think about what’s in them in their entirety? From natural ingredients to chemicals and other preservatives, don’t you think we should pay closer attention to what they are? Most would say who cares right, it tastes good, it filled me up, that’s all that’s important in my busy life. Most “Americans” would say that, wouldn’t they? Besides you don’t have time to check the label or look up online what’s in a whopping whopper, or a big mac, or whatever.
The point I’m trying to make in terms of your health is that you should care ten times more than you already do now. Unless of course you already are a dieting and fitness fanatic. To be healthy, you don’t have to an obsessive compulsive or anything crazed like that. Just be thorough, detail oriented and you’ll be fine. It eventually won’t bother you that everyone is eating cake around you at some lame at work birthday or something like that. And even when you give it time, watching 20 people in a room shovel cake into their face will actually make you cringe.
There are certain chemicals or preservatives in foods today that just don’t belong in our bodies. For example, I heard once supposedly Mountain Dew soda has a chemical that can drastically reduce the sperm count in someone overtime if they continually drink it. Now I know I don’t want that. I want keep all my troops and so should you if your a guy. If one aspect of the body is set off kilter like this because of an unnatural chemical has already entered the body, it could set something else off, and so forth.
So think twice about everything and proceed to eat things with a little caution. If your in a restaurant, examine your meal before you find a hair in it. Check the milks date a lot. Smell perishables, and of course the big one, check those labels before you buy. The more you make a habit out of these things, the more easier and more second nature they will become. Dieting followed by nutritional awareness play two big roles that are connected at the hip. It’s really pointless trying to execute one without the other.
The Right Way, The Wrong Way, The Smart Way
There are three ways to go about taking care of yourself. Now you might think that because you’ve done a bit of research and identified the general rules of health that your in the clear. Now it’s just up to you to follow through with these rules of guidelines that you’ve discovered. Wrong. There are three ways to take care of your body, the right way, the wrong way, and the smart way.
I’ll start with the right way. Basically as I just described, you’ve done your homework or research and know or at least have a general idea on what road you should take. There’s just one small problem with that. The “right” way isn’t always applicable because general rules and guidelines of health don’t always work and apply to the individual. It would be like saying every human being alive has an identical body with an identical physique, metabolic rate, caloric intake ratio, etc etc etc… Just remember, we are all different so yeah take some general advice here and there from your doctor or your mother. But ultimately, you know whats best for yourself out of everyone because its your body, and yours alone.
The wrong way is obvious and I won’t have to go into great detail here. Procrastination is a big killer in this department and can lead you down a road disappointment. Putting off exercise or starting a new diet I’ve seen one too many times in my life and its frustrating just to watch the person pathologically deceive themselves time and time again. For now, I’ll leave you with procrastination as one example of a road block to be weary about, and maybe in a future post I’ll talk more about this.
Now onto the coup de grâce. The smart way. Listen carefully now. Simply put, in a nutshell, its about factoring in two variables. The first being your individual health, what you excel at physically, what you love to eat that’s healthy, and what you could see yourself in the future excelling at and what you could come to love eating by experimentation with new dishes and recipes. The second piece is taking what you’ve absorbed from others with a grain of salt. Getting as much feedback as you can from friends and family. Take note of what’s working for how others are doing things. Then try these things out and see for yourself. Get a bunch of recommendations from people you know and trust, and take note of them for the future.
And there you have it. The right, the wrong, and the alpha of the group, the smart. As long as you remind yourself that these three exist, you’ll eventually gravitate towards one way of doing things. Hmm, I wonder which one?
Scratching That Itch
There’s two distinct styles of getting into shape and losing weight I think. Or two ways that getting fit can be broken down. Both can work, but both are polar opposites. Now I’m not going to bash the first method because it does in fact work quite well. Some of you that want immediate results tend to amp up your diet or workout routine to a point where its so intense your body can barely keep up with what your instructing it to do. And when it demands more nourishment/replenishment than what you’ve given it, the acids in your stomach will begin turning and it will start to hurt. An extreme or intense dieting program coupled with hard strenuous exercise does give you an end result though. That end result is everything you desire and more.
Now lets be realistic. We all have jobs and busy lives and don’t have all the time in the world to be devoting a lot of our energy into this stuff. So killing and starving ourselves while trying to manage everything else that goes along in life for most seems nearly impossible and just a bad idea. You’d collapse. Or you’d cause unwanted stress by manifesting new self created anxieties. At the end of the day, if you think you can handle this “work” load, then go for it. Just remember we all have breaking points, and flirting with your own isn’t always the best option to choose.
So then option 2? Well its pretty self explanatory and I won’t even elaborate on the thing because you already know what I’m going to say, don’t you? Pace yourself. Pace yourself. And yes, pace yourself. There, now its there for you to keep and hold onto. Hold onto this concept tight and don’t let go. Now, don’t confuse option two with thinking taking it easy all the time a lot of the time is going to get you anywhere either. Find your rhythm. You know your body better than anyone else. Your doctor might think he knows better just because he carries around a rectal thermometer in his front pocket, but he doesn’t!
Lastly, and for your own sake, don’t think you can find a way to cheat the system (your bodily system) just to get better/quicker results. So many people take steroids, including women, yes women, and so many people starve themselves nearly to death. That’s no way to live. You can eat and drink and be happy while losing weight. Think about it, you only get one body and if you screw it up because you took some diet pill or some other drug, then you have to live with that complication that it may cause you for the rest of your life. Trust me, I know because I’ve seen it and have met people who didn’t exactly read the label if you know what I’m saying.
So be careful before you buy a product and do your homework on it before you buy. Even on the products that I put up here; check them out, do your research, and then make a collective decision on whether or not it is something that could work for you. I’ll put up one today that I’ve seen growing in popularity. Now it may or may not be for you. If it is, find out everything there is to know about it, and if it all measures up to you’re expectations, BUY IT! And if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Good luck guys.
Exploring New Avenues
Hey guys. Today I just want to bring up a simple and relatively quick point/post. It’s funny how a lot of the same habits that we have develop into almost rituals in our lives. I mean most of the time with long term habits we don’t even notice them in action. Same goes for diet and exercising. You keep the good ones (or ones you like and are comfortable doing) and you toss the bad ones. But, there’s a nice little secret that I want to share with you guys today that I think I’ve seen develop and grow in maturing people. Or people that are still finding there groove in there fitness and dieting patterns.
So what’s this hidden little gem? Well it’s difficult to say because there’s no straight forward answer. Don’t worry I won’t leave you hanging, but take this one with a grain of salt. Venturing off and exploring some new exercise technique or food or meal plan or whatever does in fact hold some substantial value. It all goes back to the human psyche I think. It’s all about learning your level of involvement in all this.
The main point I want to get across is that I do encourage you to go out and take a stab at trying something new. Even if it’s something completely off your radar that you’d never expect yourself to try. Who knows, maybe you’ve never tried sushi because you think raw fish is gross. So something comes over your adventurous side one day, or you’ve been peer pressured by friends and you go for it. Turns out, you love it! That little story right there was just an example. The first example that popped up into my mind. Do you know why? Because its about yours truly! Turns out, sushi is tasty, fresh, filling, and most importantly not too shabby in the healthy department.
So take my little example and think about you. Is there something you haven’t been willing to try but now realize that maybe you should? My second main point is that it’s about getting lost in it all. Let it consume you. Not every facet of your life to the point where your life revolves around being healthy and dieting and fitness and on and on and on… No, don’t do that. But the more new you try in this aspect of your life, the more familiar and comfortable you become with the idea of being healthy. Boom, plain and simple.
Left Brain, Right Brain
Hey what’s up guys. Now I want everyone to pay attention closely today as I personally feel like this is an important post that everyone should hear. I want to talk about the human brain and how it is the ultimate controller of certain aspects of our lives. That’s right, your brain can be the cause of predetermined patterns of behavior that you subconsciously are unaware in making. How? Um, I don’t know I’m not a scientist, but I’ve come to realize something hugely significant over the years. This is just a weight loss and exercise blog that helps people find ways to stay in shape and lose weight. But somewhere down the road an emotion was triggered for me in telling my logic that this would be a good idea and that it would be the logical thing to do as I have extensive knowledge in this area. Now, a few years prior, never in a million years did I think I would have actually done something like this. Eventually it made sense by my triggered emotion, and being accompanied by the influencing reasons behind it.
So whats the big secret that I found out? Emotions. They play a powerful role in all our lives as we are very charismatic creatives by nature. So what about you? Just think, there’s a reason why your here, looking for any help you can get in being healthy. Your emotions pushed you to websites and products and personal trainers and whatnot. It could be something that deeply is troubling you, or is something that is like a thorn in your side that simply frustrates you.
Now back to our brains. Many believe that the mind or the external projection of thought throughout space and time is what dictates what we do entirely. That is not the case realistically. The brain relays thousands if not millions of bits of data and information to the mind every day. Then the rest is left up to your mind’s thoughts to do what ever it is, well, what you do in life. Some of the information is more important than others while some bits of data are either stored for later use, or completely thrown away and forgotten being the lesser of importance. Everything we do and how we behave depends on this process of the brain to mind relationship.
However I’m not done yet. Bare with me as I know today I’m not focusing entirely on exercise tips and weight loss strategies but I want everyone to really hear this because it is important. This relates to everything including being the best physical version of ourselves.
Many tend to assume that the one side of their brain is the stronger or more naturally brighter than the other. Our brain is divided into the left and right sides being connected by a thick network of nerve fibers called the Corpus Callosum. The left controls and assumes responsibility for analytic thought, language, logic, sciences and mathematical comprehension. While the right tends to control and weigh holistic thought, intuition, art and music, figurative imaginative and irregular thoughts, and creativity. In mammals, many times one side tends to hold more power or value than the other. If you had to guess, think for a minute as to what side could you consider to be the stronger of the two, if you had too.
Hey you might know what kind of person you are and know that there is no definitive answer and that you have a strong balance between both. The point of me bringing this all up is to give you a little insight into what kind of person you might be. Now use that persona or skill set that naturally accompanies you and use it to your advantage. Where you ask? This is a health site so where do you think I’m going to say? Two places, In the kitchen, and in your exercise realm. You could be really good at math. Then a calorie counting tactic would come easy breezy to you. You might be someone who often thinks outside the box and finds an outdoor activity that you absolutely love that is a crazy calorie burner.
All in all, your brain is very big and has a lot of power and juice in it. Don’t forget that you have a lot there at your disposal. Its funny because many biological scientists say that we only use a small percentage of our brain. Just think, what kind of person would you be if you we exponentially smarter than present self now? How fit and healthy would that version of you be? Just some motivation there for you. See because it isn’t about finding shortcuts or secrets to issues we have in life. Its about how smart we are at going about solving them. Which in turn could lead to discovering secrets and tricks all on our own.
