Tag: Health

AND IN THIS CORNER…🥊

I always enjoyed the beginning of a boxing match when the Master of Ceremonies introduces the fighters. “And in this corner….” It has such a feel of pomp and circumstance. Wouldn’t it be fun to be introduced like that everywhere you go? Imagine walking into work and you hear over the intercom, “Now entering the office…number one in sales…it is Jane!” This example only works if your name is Jane, but I think you can get the idea. This sounds great until you hear the next line, “Weighing in at….” Not many of us would want our weight broadcast to every room we enter.

Today marks the end of a four-week journey of health and fitness that Margie and I were on. It came from a local gym called Peak Physique. The owner was named ‘Trainer of the Year’ in our city. He is also a good friend. It included a meal plan and fitness classes. This will be our second time we took part. The difference between the two experiences was night and day. The first time, we followed everything by the book. We were focused on the result. We wanted to lose some weight and win the challenge. It felt like we were constantly in the kitchen or grocery store shopping for ingredients. In short, it felt like a sacrafice.

Fast forward to four weeks ago. We came into this challenge better prepared and informed. We also brought something more important with us – a better attitude. We gave ourselves a little more freedom with the menu. We stuck to the dishes recommended, but did the ones we learned that we liked from the previous time. Our focus was not on ‘winning a challenge’ or even so much on ‘losing a certain amount of weight, but more so on becoming more healthy. Instead of sacrifice, it felt like an adventure. Were there times it was a challenge to bring our sore bodies to workout? Sure. When that happened, we focused not on winning a challenge, but on how much healthier our bodies were becoming. We were falling in love with the process.

The truth is that we already feel like winners before we even get on the scale. Taking control of your health and what you put in your body can be a challenge, but like we discussed with emotions, if you eat solely for pleasure, you are constantly chasing that ‘high’. Not only will it take more of the food, but sweeter and more decadent food to achiever the same amount of pleasure. Then, the food controls you. In your head you know that it is making you unhealthy, but you are at the mercy of your emotions and your cravings, you become a slave. When you learn to eat to fuel your body, your strength, your health and your immune system, you take back control. You use food and not the other way around.

This is a very difficult struggle for many. It is okay to indulge on occasion. Just make that the exception and not the rule. Once you begin to turn it around, you will be amazed at the positive changes taking place in your life. Tony Robbins once said, “Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.” Eating that sugar and deep-fried food may sound fun and pleasurable, but at what cost? A body full of inflammation and sickness? Is that worth it? Becoming healthy is a process. You must be patient with yourself and your body. Those cravings will stick with you. After all, they have had their way for years. Everyday you get a little bit stronger. Everyday you get a little healthier. Be proud of yourself for every accomplishment you experience on your journey toward a healthier you. If you want guaranteed success, do what Margie and I did – fall in love with the process.

MID-WEEK MAKEOVER 🥕🍅🫑🥒

Here we are, mid-week. Your energy might be starting to slip. I know that happens to me. It is time to ask ourselves some tough questions. Are we relying too much on stimulants to keep us going? Are we using a 5 hour energy for our salad dressing? Are we even having salad? Maybe we are choosing convenience over quality for our food choices? Who has time to make a meal at home when you can just swing by and pick up a burger? Are the foods we are eating robbing us of energy and more importantly, our health?

Our diet is one of the things that can affect every area of our life. The wrong foods can make us feel sluggish and bloated. They can cause inflammation in the body and give us aches and pains. The wrong food can lower our immune system and make us more vulnerable to a whole host of different illnesses. I understand that choosing healthy options can be more expensive, both on the wallet and on the clock. Ask yourself what they alternative is. Are we trading our time and money for health and true energy?

It is not all doom and gloom. Food can be some of the most helpful tools to live an amazing life. You do not have to be on a strict diet, or even the latest fad diet. If you find your energy starting to slip mind week, or you are starting to feel run down, it might be what you are feeding yourself. An important question to ask yourself when choosing what to eat is, “Am I eating this for fuel or for entertainment?” In other words, are you eating something because you love the texture, the taste or even the fun packaging and the little cartoon characters that do the commercials? Perhaps thinking what would fuel your body and provide the nutrition it needs to run the best it can would be better? Being healthy make take some thought, and some prep, but it pays off in the long run.

Like all of the areas in life you are trying to improve, it is better to start by adding something healthy than sacrificing something bad. From a psychological standpoint, you feel less like you are depriving yourself, or having to ‘give something up’. From a scientific standpoint, your stomach is only so big. This means, the more you fill it with healthier meals, the less room you will have for the entertaining foods. Soon, you will find yourself making the entertaining foods the exception and not the rule.

Look up some healthy recipes today. Start with one meal. Replace the junk you are putting in your body, with something that will nourish it and help it serve you the best. Make sure you are getting enough fiber and water. Try to pick some foods that are gently detoxifying. That way you will help your body help itself. When you are pouring stimulants in a body that is full of a terrible diet, it is like putting premium gas in a car that has no oil. Eventually, you are going to break down. Remember to ask yourself if you are eating for pleasure or for health and fuel. It is ok to eat some things for pleasure. Just make sure they are the exception and not the rule. Feel free to share any healthy dishes you enjoy. Especially ones that give you a little boost of energy.

GET STARTED… KEEP GOING!🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️

Coming up on the first full weekend of the new year. How are those resolutions going? Hopefully you made it a full 2 weeks. One of the reasons resolutions, or goals, fail is that we rely too much on motivation. Once motivation starts to fade, we are often unable to stay committed to our end result.

A great way to make sure that we stay on the path to our goals is to set up habits that serve us. Think of your goal for the new year. Is there a small habit you could set up to keep you moving in the right direction? Simple examples are swapping your coffee for green tea if you want to cut down on caffeine. Parking future away at stores if your goal is to increase your steps. Pick a time to tell your spouse one thing you are grateful for if your goal is to increase the appreciation in your relationship.

What is your goal? Is there a simple habit you can start before the motivation begins to fade? Let’s make the new year a success!

ONE THING TO ENJOY ALL WELL LONG

Just a reminder what a crucial role that water plays in so many functions. This week do your best to have at least 6 glasses of water every day. When you are drinking take a look at this chart and picture all the good you are doing for your body. Take a look online to see more benefits of drinking water. I would love to hear your favorite!

LEARNING WHAT YOU NEVER KNEW

Last post we discussed addressing some issues we may not have known we had inherited from our family, neighborhood or other influences. It may make some people uncomfortable to think they are changing or God forbid, improving something about themselves. I get it. In today’s world it can be hard to admit we are anything less than perfect, even if it is through no fault of our own. Nobody likes to admit they have something to work on. Do you know what nearly everyone likes? Realizing they are getting better at something. It can be close to downright exciting to think you may be working on mastering something. Here is some great news, there are plenty of areas in which we can do this!

If we stop and think of the very important issues in life, how many were we taught or have we stopped to research? What do you think is important in your life? Where did you learn how to do it well? Did you ever stop to learn how to do it well? Relating to others is one of the most important skills a human can have. How well did you do in your ‘relating to others’ class in school? Do you recall when your parents sat you down and explained some of the many aspects that go into a healthy and sustainable relationship? Me neither. How about communication? The ability to both convey your thoughts, feelings and emotions to others as well as hear and understand theirs is skill that is as rare as it is valuable. How many years did you study that in school? If your education was anything like mine, that answer would be less than one. . What good is learning our alphabet and how to spell words if we are never taught how to effectively convey and use those very words.

It would seem a great deal of important subjects are left for us to learn by chance, or for far too many of us, by trail and error or not at all. The problem with this is that the stakes are far too high for most of us to learn that way. One mistake in how we relate to others can not only cost us a job, it can ruin relationships and cause emotional trauma to others, including those we truly care about. We occasionally get some instruction on interviewing to get the job we are seeking, although even that is limited. Did ever seem odd that nobody ever told us how to ask the right questions to discover if someone would be the right life partner for us? The same holds true with maintaining a healthy mental and emotional state. As far as I know, there exists very little, if any, instruction in public education on this subject. Is it any wonder, as the stresses in life continue to rise, we are seeing a host of people with mental health challenges. We were never even told how to deal with the stress that is all too prevalent in our lives.

We repeat here the axiom from the last post that fault does not equal responsibility. It is certainly not our fault we were never taught how to succeed in some of the most important areas in life. This is not a knock on our teachers and parents. They were never taught these things either. It is, however, our responsibility to educate ourselves on these very subjects. If a healthy relationship is important to us we need to learn what the components of one are and how to get them. If being able to communicate to others and have them understand you may be valuable, don’t you think it might be worth a few hours of research? How much effort is living a life with less stress and more joy worth to you? What other areas are important? Do you think being a great parent to your child is important? Do you think you may have received some bias or incomplete information on that subject growing up? Would you like to give your children the best possibility of success as they grow up?

When I share this information I hear a lot of groaning about having to dedicate additional time learning. “I spent enough time studying in school.” is a refrain I hear all too often. If that is your mindset you must then become comfortable at the thought you will not develop past the person you were when you left school. “I don’t have time.” is another answer I hear. To that I say this – it is not that you don’t have time, it is that it is not a priority for you. If I told you that you could have ten million dollars but I would need 2 days worth of your time starting tomorrow at 6am, where would you be at 5:59?

Dedicating time for study in these subjects is worth more than that ten million dollar price tag mentioned earlier, it is priceless. Being able to better understand, and even more importantly meet, the needs of your spouse? How much would you pay for that? Not feeling so stressed out at the end of every work week, or even every work day, how much would that be worth to you? You see, studying the main topics in life is like digging in a vain of solid gold. The knowledge you get can not only positively transform your life, it can do the same for lives of those you care about. Can you imagine sitting down to share topics like these with your children while at the same time listening to what concerns they may have? How valuable would that be? How about learning how to help people feel good about themselves? Would that be skill that might come in handy with the boss at the office or the one you love at home?

Here is the grand upside to all of this. The knowledge on all of these subjects is readily available and it is free. All it takes is some time and effort on our part. There are literally millions of books available in the public library system at no charge to us. There are forums, articles and experts available online with a click of a mouse. There are audiobooks we could listen to in the car, seminars we can attend, videos on YouTube we could watch while we are in line at the grocery store. There is so much information out there, in so many different forms that there is no excuse not to become an expert in any area of life that is important to us. Learning one new thing a month, which is painless to do, can give us 12 tips to a healthier lifestyle. Can you imagine incorporating 12 new things this year to improve your health? How much of an impact do you think that would have? What if we learned one new way to improve our intimate relationship a week? This is still insanely easy to do. Do you think adding 52 improvements to your relationship in a year would positively impact your love life?

There is no excuse not to begin to become an expert on the important areas of our life starting today! How important is the success of your children? How important is the happiness of the love of your life? How valuable would having extra energy and health be? Decide what is important to you and begin to study today! Your life is far too valuable not to.

LANGUAGE IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS

Throughout our time together in these posts, I am often reminding you of how much impact the language you use (especially in conversations with yourself) has on the outcomes of your life. It is a subtle, yet powerful influence people often overlook. Sometimes, however, the actual layout of a word can answer some very deep and difficult questions we have. Today’s post is one such example. If you keep this post in mind it will help you improve your repour with others. It will help take your health and fitness to the next level and will do the same for your business or career. How to we go from being just like everyone else to having a life that is full of passion, excitement, good health and abundance. In other words, what is the secret to an amazing life?

Let’s take a look at the word ordinary. As you can see it is an adjective meaning not unusual or special. The part that really hits home is the second definition, “Neither very good nor very bad: not very impressive” There are certainly worse things than you can be than ordinary. As the definition reads, you would not be very bad. Such as if you receive ordinary service. It is certainly better than bad service. Of course, as the definition continues, it is not very impressive either. If someone asked to describe any facet of our lives, I do not think we would want someone to say we were not very impressive. How is this employee’s work ethic? “It is neither very good, nor very bad: not very impressive.” Maybe you don’t really care what your boss thinks of you? Try this one. Perhaps that special someone is getting together with their friends and they are asked, “How is your relationship?” or even a little more of a personal subject, “How is your spouse at making love to you?” Hey, I don’t know how personal you and your friends get. In either case how would you feel if your spouse answered either of those questions by saying, “It is neither very good, nor very bad: not very impressive.” Yeah, that might sting a little.

I think we have established that fact that we do not want to be ordinary. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with that. If you are reading a website called Secret2anamazinglife.com, you are not looking to be ordinary. We do not want our careers, our health or certainly our relationships to be defined as “Neither very good nor very bad: not very impressive” No. We want to be….

We want to be extraordinary! It is defined here as 1. very unusual or remarkable. 2. unusually great. If someone asked a customer about the service they received at your business, how happy would you be to hear that it was “remarkable”? If your spouse was asked about your love-making or relationship acumen, how would it make you feel to hear that they told your friends you were “unusually great”? That certainly would be better than hearing that you were “Not very impressive”. What about our physical health? Our stress levels? Our financial health? How about our ability to get along with others? What if your boss was asked about your work ethic? What if your spouse was asked about your work ethic in the relationship? Would you be not very impressive or would you be remarkable and unusually great? Would you settle for ordinary or would you want to be extraordinary?

How do we get from not very impressive to unusually great? How do we take our level from ordinary to extraordinary? The answer is in the very word itself. To go from one to the other, just add a little extra. In your relationship instead of giving flowers for birthdays and anniversaries, give them because your spouse is beautiful and they deserve it. Even better yet, give them for no reason at all. In your job, do not just do your job. Do your job to the best of your ability and with a great attitude. This is not so your boss is pleased, but so you will go from being a person and worker who is described as “remarkable and unusually great” and not one who is “Not very impressive” When it comes to our health, let us put in that little extra. You got your 10,000 steps today? Great. How about adding a healthy meal to go with that. We certainly want our health to be remarkable. How do you think it would impact your life if your mental and physical health were neither very good or very bad and not very impressive? Would you have more or less energy and vitality as someone whose health is remarkable and unusually great? The answer is obvious.

One word can help to remind us how we can take every area of our lives to the next level. How we can transform our lives from the blah state of “Neither very good or very bad: not very impressive” to one that can be described as “remarkable, unusually great”. We can stop living an ordinary life and start living an extraordinary life. All we have to do is add a little extra.

WILL YOU ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE?

Today I share with you a video from my YouTube channel. It contains a challenge those of us at secret2anamazinglife.com are undertaking. We invite you to join us and share your experiences as we share ours.

This challenge will last 30 days. It will improve many areas of your life including, but not limited to; fatigue, headaches, stiff joints, insomnia, digestive issues, skin appearance and may even help you drop a few pounds during the holidays!

This challenge, although very helpful, is safe and simple. All you will need is some water and some will power. Click the link below to watch the 2 minute video and find out how you can join the challenge too!😀

CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT THE CHALLENGE IS AND HOW YOU CAN JOIN!!

1 ANTIDOTE FOR FEAR

As you can see I got this picture from a website I follow called Metal Motivation. I highly recommend you check them out. A lot of good material there. This photo brings to mind a good counter to fear – hard work. When I find myself in a situation that brings a fair deal of uncertainty to my life, I immediately get to work. Not in a crazy random fashion, but by taking steps to either address the fear, or at least improve myself and my situation. Tony Robbins once said “Progress equals happiness.” Not only is that true, but it does a hell of a number on fear too. Let us take a look at a few examples.

Today people have a great deal of fear about the coronavirus. While most of us cannot get to work on finding a cure or vaccine, we can get to work on improving our situation and ourselves. One of the best things we can do is work on our health and strengthening our immune system. Ways we can tackle this are making sure we do our best to maintain our physical fitness, eat healthy and make sure we are getting the proper nutrients. Although this will not make certain that we do not contract COVID-19, it will provide us with a better chance of making it through. Combine this with the recommended safety measures and you will take a great deal of fear out of the situation. After all, fear compromises your immune system.

Another situation many of us are rightfully concerned about is employment. Will our job be eliminated? Maybe it already has been and we are worried what happens when the unemployment runs out. As we wait for the world to reopen, and the economy to get back to fully operational there are many things we can do to put ourselves in a prime situation to thrive once it does. There are plenty of places offering free courses to help expand our knowledge base. If logging in to an online university is not your style there are plenty of free videos on YouTube to aid us in learning a new skill. Perhaps brushing up our resume and applying for new jobs is something we can put our time to use. Networking, making connections, exploring employment sites. Working hard on all of these things can give us a little more feeling of control.

Lastly, after spending some time in quarantine with our significant other, we may worry they might become disenfranchised with us. If this time together has you concerned about your relationship in any way, there is one solution. GET. TO. WORK. Yes, relationships are work, but that work pays some of the highest wages. Keeping the one you love happy will ensure that your castle remains a sanctuary and not a battlefield. There are many books, cds and even DVDs you can pick up to give you some pointers to improve your relationship. Still, with all of the media and online tools available, relationships are not ‘one size fits all’. That is why my main suggestion to anyone looking to help their spouse fall in love with them all over again, or even just to strengthen the love they already have is to listen. This may not sound glamorous, but it is a golden ticket when it comes to love. You can learn so much when you listen from a position of seeking to understand and learn. Perhaps you wife mentions loving fresh cut flowers, pick a fun and cheery bunch up on your way home. Maybe your husband mentions his favorite kind of beer…you are getting the idea. People will generally share their likes, dislike, wants and don’t wants if we just listen closely. Then there is the ultimate, the gift of truly being heard. Just pausing to listen without any other purpose than to let your partner be heard and understood.

Whatever element of your life you may be feeling fear in, combat it with a lot of hard work. It will offer you a feeling of control and you will end up a better person at the end of the day.

DIET VS. HEALTH

This is a great comparison in different thinking. Although this is obviously written for physical health and weight-loss, the same can be said for going on a mental diet. Changing from a life filled with stress and pleasing others to one of inner peace and spreading love can be just like the diet verses health comparison.

The circled part of the two words is an important element to think about as well. When you go on a diet, what you are doing to both your body and your mind is stressful. You focus on things like ‘cheating’ on your diet. You think of all the food you are restricted and forbidden from eating. It becomes about suffering through this period so you can go back to eating the terrible way that got you this way in the first place. Focused on more healthy eating is entirely different. You don’t restrict yourself as much, you just think, “would this help my body or hurt my body?” If you have a day where you do not eat as healthy as you should, you focus on reducing them while increasing the amount of healthy meals. This in turn lowers your stress which can help you lose weight anyway.

When embarking on any lifestyle change, whether that is diet, exercise, attitude, gratitude or a host of others there is one thing you should keep in mind. It is not so much about a specific process as it is about progress. Working on being a little better than you were the day before. Print this picture out if you like or even just print out the two words circled as they are for a powerful reminder.