Setting Your Mind Towards a Healthy Lifestyle

07/04/2022 Leave a comment

Good health begins in our mind.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy asserts that our actions and behaviors are a product of our thoughts and feelings. Therefore, if we want to change our actions and behavior, we must change our thoughts and feelings. 

Does that make sense?  

Indeed, it does, especially in the health and fitness field — for the road to health, fitness, and well-being begins in the mind.

It starts as a feeling.

We often feel dissatisfied by our body shape – especially when we reach a certain age when what used to be lean and mean becomes rounded and saggy. 

We often feel dissatisfied with our energy level or the decreasing amount of work we can do before we feel tired. We begin to ask ourselves what happened and why.

Sometimes, we don’t notice the subtle yet dangerous changes in our body and our physiological responses to stimuli until we end up in the emergency room or the doctor’s office. Then, when the blood chemistry or scan reveals what is wrong, we get scared and anxious.

People try to ignore these feelings of discontent, frustration, fear, and anxiety about the state of their health. Some deny that they have these feelings.  

But, these feelings are essential.  

They can bog us down with self-pity and paralyze us in hopelessness, or they can be the stimuli for positive action. These can be feelings we don’t want to feel ever again. So, we do all that is in our power to get back into shape and live a healthier lifestyle to prolong the days of our enjoyment of life and all it offers.

If you are concerned about your health and lifespan, are thinking about chronic illnesses, and are at risk for such, you are not alone.

Maybe you have been diagnosed with a lifestyle-related medical condition or know someone who has, causing you to re-examine your health status.

At some point, all of us begin to consider such issues seriously, and good for you! It can motivate you to take action. Once you’re on the edge of action, go further and set your mind and behaviors to a healthy lifestyle.

Step 1: Let your fingers do the walking! 

Get on your smartphone or tablet PC and start browsing the internet for information. Be careful, though; many sites out there can scare you with disinformation and leave your pockets bleeding.  

Go to trusted sites and get relevant and accurate information about healthy diet and fitness. Read all you can to find out what that looks like, and then take action. 

Step 2: Make a choice! 

Armed with your education from step one, you can now examine all unhealthy aspects of your life and make a list of goals with specific action steps to reach them. 

Step 3: Get moving! 

Join a gym, follow a healthy eating plan, hire a personal trainer, or attend an aerobics class at a nearby community center. Ask your doctor for advice. 

Make small changes that will result in significant changes in time.  

Want to lose 100 pounds? Begin with losing 100 ounces. Begin by shaving off 100 calories from your diet by skipping your usual glass of soda, candy bar, or bag of chips.  

If you drink 3 cups of coffee daily, try cutting it to two. If you take sugar and cream with your coffee, cut the cream and sugar in half or strive for black.  

Skip the cake, choose an apple or an orange for dessert three times a week, and build up from there.

The power of visualization.

If and when you are trying to lose weight, it helps if you visualize your goals. By visualizing yourself reaching a goal, you’re actually training your brain to interpret that imagery as reality—and creates new neural pathways to support that reality.

  • Create an image of what healthy looks and feels like in your mind. Find short phrases, written words, or find a picture.
  • Visualize yourself succeeding at your goal. You might picture yourself crossing the finish line of your first 5k, or stepping on the scale 20 lbs lighter.
  • Create a vision board of images of your goal body, and put it somewhere so you can see it daily.
  • What is your favorite thing to do in the world?  Is it carrying your kids? Is it playing basketball or football with them? Is it driving your car? Is it going camping or traveling? Imagine how you are going to do those things (if you can still do those things) if you’ve lost the use of half of your body because you’ve had a stroke.  Sobering visions, aren’t they? And they work. They stop your cravings! They distract your mind from unhealthy desires and sway you towards a healthy mindset.

The battle is in the mind.

The mind is a powerful thing. It can make you do certain things that you would otherwise not do. A man diagnosed to be in the initial stages of coronary artery disease – his arteries were narrowing because of arterial plaque, which motivated him to go on a diet and exercise.  

He took pictures of his kids and put them in front of him every time he ate. Each mouthful of vegetable and fruit meant that much more time that he would be around to watch them grow.   

Whenever he felt like skipping his morning walk, he would imagine his kids living without his support and love. Immediately, he’d get up and walk like his life depended upon it – and it did. Happily, he was able to reverse the coronary artery disease through small lifestyle changes – his kids are now in college.

Use your mind to be informed. Use your mind to choose what is good for your health. Use your mind’s eye to motivate you toward your health and fitness goals. It all begins in the mind.

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Restorative Yoga Benefits for Mothers

05/06/2022 Leave a comment

Yoga can provide mothers with obvious and unexpected benefits for the mind, body, and spirit. One of the main reasons every mom should do yoga is that it offers them emotional and physical balance and self-acceptance. There are several different types of yoga, but today, we will focus on restorative yoga.

What is restorative yoga? It’s a therapeutic style of yoga that revolves around using props in order to get into certain poses in an easier way, thus enabling you to completely surrender to the pose. This practice is not physically challenging and doesn’t require you to switch from one position to another quickly, but rather encourages you to stay in a certain pose for an extended time period.

This form of yoga will encourage busy moms to slow down, heal, and reflect. Instead of focusing on physically challenging poses, restorative yoga emphasizes simple stretches. You will learn to practice stillness, center your breath and body, and hold certain poses for extended periods. Staying in a certain pose for as long as you are comfortable will help you achieve a state of relaxation.

Like any type of yoga, you can choose to work either your entire body or a specific area. You can achieve restorative yoga poses by using many different props, such as pillows, blankets, chairs, straps, blocks, and bolsters. By using these props, you’ll allow your body to relax and stretch with support.

Restorative yoga isn’t as popular as other yoga techniques since most people opt for something more physically challenging. Nevertheless, restorative yoga is far from easy (even though it might not look that way) and offers many different health benefits.

Aids Weight Loss

You might be thinking that there’s no way restorative yoga could help you lose weight since it isn’t an aerobic style of yoga, such as the fast-paced vinyasa flow. Or maybe you’ve learned that you can lose weight only by taking part in strenuous exercise and keeping a healthy diet. Although this is true, there are other ways to lose weight effectively. By practicing one of the calmest forms of yoga, you can lose significant weight by reducing the stress hormone cortisol, which is associated with too much stress and excess belly fat. The National Institutes of Health study, led by researcher Maria G. Araneta, PhD, MPH, of the University of California, San Diego, found that it also helps people get rid of subcutaneous fat.

Restorative Yoga for Menopause

Restorative yoga will help reduce the effect of hormonal changes associated with menopause by balancing your endocrine system. Your poses in a therapeutic yoga class will stimulate all your body’s organs, glands, tissues, and cells, significantly affecting your neuroendocrine system. As a result, it will also increase oxygenated blood flow to the glands in your head and neck.

Calm the Nervous System

Stress and anxiety cause our nervous system to move into fight or flight mode. On the other hand, restorative yoga can help bring back balance and calm to the nervous system. Practicing simple yoga stretches for just an hour a day will trigger the parasympathetic nervous system and get your body into a more balanced rest and digest state. You should feel a sense of calmness and rejuvenation when finished.

Increase Flexibility

Yoga is probably best known for increasing flexibility. However, restorative yoga isn’t about how bendy you can get, like some of the other more popular forms of yoga. Instead, it focuses on simply teaching you how to release tension in your body, especially in tight areas. Because of this, restorative yoga may be the fastest way for you to learn how to increase your flexibility.

Injury and Illness Recovery

Restorative yoga is excellent for all people recovering from a particular illness or who are partially immobile and unable to take part in more strenuous workouts. This form of yoga allows people with depleted strength and low energy levels to enjoy some exercise. Engaging in this form of exercise will help you become more active. You’ll also experience a faster recovery, seeing how restorative yoga will help you rest, relax, and fight stress.

Restorative Yoga for Women with Breast or Ovarian Cancer

According to a study published by the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, restorative yoga may help slow down the development of breast and ovarian cancer in patients suffering from these conditions.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18544284

Strengthen Mind and Body

By strengthening your mind-body connection, you’ll deepen your self-awareness and introspection and experience a heightened body awareness. With a solid mind-body connection, you’ll be able to access certain parts of your body and relieve those areas of tension very quickly.

Try these 7 easy-to-follow poses to relax the mind and body:

Restorative Yoga Sequence to Relax the Mind and Body – Yoga Rove

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Try These Nutritious Snacks to Stay Full Between Meals

11/06/2019 1 Comment

Whether you are trying to drop a few pounds or simply eat healthfully for longevity, you’ll love these nutritious and filling snack ideas.

Fatty Acids Get You Going

Not all fat is bad. Healthy fats, the monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids found in foods such as nuts, olives, fish, eggs, avocados and dark chocolate have several powerful health benefits. These healthy fats are especially beneficial for overall brain health and memory, according to livescience.com.

Monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids can also lower bad cholesterol and increase good cholesterol. As a result, they reduce the risk of vascular disease, heart disease and stroke.

Healthy-fat snacks to try:

Olives 

Black, green and Kalamata olives are all high in monounsaturated fats. Add them to salads or use on whole wheat crackers with low fat cream cheese.

Avocados 

Because avocados are high in healthy, monounsaturated fats, you can feel good about that guacamole!

For a healthy, filling breakfast high in monounsaturated fats, try spreading avocado on wholegrain bread or having a few slices of the fruit alongside a fried egg.

Trail Mix

Trail mix that has a high nut and seed content can be a healthy choice. If your trail mix contains candy, try to choose one with dark chocolate. The nuts and seeds found in many trail mixes are high in monounsaturated fats as well as other nutrients like fiber and protein.

Nuts 

Walnuts, pistachios, almonds, cashews and pecans are great choices for monounsaturated fats. Add them to salads, or toss a few into your morning oatmeal or yogurt.

Fiber Fills You Up for Longer

Fiber is a nutrient that aids in digestion, but it also helps you feel full longer when you are trying to lose weight. Foods that are naturally high in fiber include: whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables.

A small or medium banana is only 80-110 calories and can both satisfy your sweet tooth and fill you up. Another high fiber snack that’s healthy and low in calories is a piece of wholegrain crisp bread or whole wheat toast spread with one tablespoon of peanut butter or hummus.

High water content foods, such as fruit and soup, are also likely to fill you up. The double impact of having a large volume and low-calorie content, as well as being high in fiber makes fruits and veggies the ideal solution for a snack attack.

Protein Keeps You Moving

Protein is important to maintaining general health, but more than that, you need complete proteins to keep your muscles strong and your brain functioning at high capacity.

Meat, dairy products and other animal products, such as grilled chicken, string cheese and eggs, are complete proteins that will keep you full and alert.

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, you’ll need to create complete protein meals by combining wholegrain with nuts or pulses. For instance, you can combine whole-wheat bread with peanut butter or eat chick pea curry served over brown rice.

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3 Hormones That Can Make or Break Your Weight Loss Efforts

02/18/2019 Leave a comment

 

Photo Credit: Public Domain

Do you find yourself eating less, exercising more, and not losing a pound or an inch? If so, hormones may be to blame. Hormones are chemical messengers that are responsible for triggering or regulating bodily functions. When hormones are out of balance, negative effects within the body can result, including weight gain. Cortisol, insulin, and serotonin are just a few of the hormones that can and do play a significant role in making or breaking your weight loss efforts.

Insulin

Insulin can play a vital role in making or breaking your weight loss efforts. No matter how many calories you remove from your diet and no matter how many exercises you incorporate into your daily routine, if insulin is not stable, you may feel the need to eat more. In fact, according to Dr. Mercola, on his web site Mercola.com, explained that insulin is the central part of the weight loss equation and the reason 200 million Americans are overweight is because they have impaired insulin receptor sensitivity. An overabundance of insulin can prevent your fat-burning hormone, lipase, from releasing fat into your bloodstream to be used as fuel. So, instead of using fat for fuel, your body will use carbohydrates and amino acids from your muscles. The key to weight loss success, according to Mercola.com, is to have LOW levels of insulin so your body can produce large amounts of hormone-sensitive lipase and burn fat all day so you can look thin and slim. People with high insulin levels should also avoid overeating, especially refined carbohydrates and processed foods, and get regular exercise.

Serotonin

Serotonin is a naturally occurring neurotransmitter in the brain, which plays a vital role in whether or not your dieting efforts will succeed. Serotonin can also affect your appetite, mood, sexual arousal, perception of pain and body temperature. Consuming high carbohydrate foods will increase serotonin levels in the brain, whereas low serotonin levels will cause your body to crave carbohydrates. Furthermore, researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Research Center (BIDRC) found that decreased serotonin is linked to increased appetite. Therefore, weight loss can occur when you increase your serotonin levels either through diet, supplementation or both. SAM-e and 5-HTP are supplements that may be of assistance in weight loss, and it has also been used for depression. Consult with your doctor before taking these supplements, especially if you are already taking medication for depression.

Cortisol

Cortisol is known as the stress hormone, which is responsible for the flight or fight syndrome. This hormone plays a key role in metabolism, helping to determine the best source of energy – protein, carbohydrate, fat – for your body to use.  Chronic or long-term stress can increase cortisol levels and cause metabolic and hormonal imbalances that lead to weight gain. Too much cortisol not only increases your appetite and craving for unhealthy foods, but also lowers testosterone levels in women and men. Lower testosterone can mean the loss of lean muscle, causing your body to burn calories less efficiently. Remember that muscle burns more calories than body fat. To keep your cortisol levels in check and lose weight, you need to incorporate stress reduction techniques, such as meditation, yoga, and tai chi; and get regular exercise such as cycling, hiking or walking; and get at least 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. In fact, according to Shawn Talbott, Ph.D., author of the book called “The Cortisol Connection,” says that getting just two nights of restful, sound sleep can be more effective at reducing cortisol than a lifetime of stress-management classes. And, lastly, taking certain supplements, such as DHEA, may also be helpful for lowering cortisol levels in men and women, according to a University of Pittsburgh study published in the “Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology” in February 2003.

So, as you can see, it is important to watch calories and include exercise; however, it is equally important to be aware of your hormonal balances, as well.

 

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4 Great Reasons Why You Should Be Using Coconut Oil

06/15/2015 Leave a comment

Photo credit: Tom Woodward CC BY-SA 2.0

There is a widespread misconception that coconut oil is bad for you because it contains saturated fat. However, people all over the world are reaping the health benefits of coconut oil, and it’s truly one of the healthiest oils you can consume. Here are 4 reasons why you should use coconut oil as an alternative to other traditional cooking oils.

1.  Coconut oil boosts your metabolism.

Not only is coconut oil easily converted to energy by your body, it also increases your metabolism and promotes weight loss. Because it boosts your metabolism, it helps your body burn fat more effectively.

Coconut oil may triple your calorie burn. Since coconut oil is a medium-chain triglyceride (MCT), it is converted to energy so quickly that it creates a lot of heat. In a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, MCT’s burn three times more calories for six hours after a meal than LCT’s.

The February 15, 2005 issue of Woman’s World magazine stated that coconut oil is the “underground high-metabolism secret.”

This is great news for people who have thyroid problems, since coconut oil improves sluggish thyroids by stimulating the production of extra thyroid hormones. Most other common oils, like vegetable (soy) and corn have been shown to inhibit thyroid function.

2.  Coconut oil can improve skin and hair health

Coconut oil one of the best things you can apply directly on your skin and hair, as it helps to alleviate skin problems such as rashes, dry skin and eczema. You can also use this oil to help heal and restore skin to a younger appearance, or even use it as a makeup remover.

Not only does it soften and smooth your skin, coconut oil has antioxidant properties that protect the skin from free radical damage. Coconut oil makes excellent massage oil, too.

3.  Coconut oil vs. other oils

Coconut oil has anti-fungal, anti-viral and anti-bacterial effects when both consumed and used topically on the skin.

Most oils oxidize and turn rancid very quickly causing free radical damage in our bodies. Coconut oil is not easily oxidized and does not cause harmful free radical damage like polyunsaturated vegetable oils. Free radical damage is thought to be responsible for many ailments in our body from arthritis to increased susceptibility to cancers.

Coconut oil also helps our bodies absorb other nutrients more effectively, such as the fat-soluble vitamins A, E, D and K.

4.  Coconut oil is one of the best oils you can use for cooking.

Coconut oil has a higher smoke point than olive oil, which means it can take higher temperatures better. There are several healthy omega-3 oils we can choose to consume, such as flax and olive oil, but they don’t do well under the high heat we use for cooking. Therefore, coconut oil is really the best choice when cooking at higher temperatures.

It’s harder for coconut oil to go rancid, unlike other cooking oils, which are usually rancid long before you even bring them home. Coconut oil, on the other hand, is stable for over a year at room temperature.

I’ve only mentioned four reasons why you should be using coconut oil, but there are many additional uses and health benefits. So, go ahead and blend a little coconut oil into your favorite smoothie, or add it to bitter greens like kale. It also makes a nutritious addition to oatmeal or your favorite baked veggie recipes. Be as creative as you want and enjoy the incredible health benefits of this tropical oil.

 

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How You Can Use Group Exercises to Lose Weight and Stay Motivated

04/15/2014 Leave a comment

One of the toughest things about exercising is staying motivated. Motivation isn’t just about getting yourself to the gym – it’s also about pushing yourself further and further, even when you think you’ve hit your limits.

Group exercises are a great way to get over the motivation barrier. Not only can they help you show up more often, but they can also help you push yourself a lot further.

 How Group Classes Can Help Push Your Limits

When you’re on your own, it’s very easy to call it quits once the pain or burn starts. In reality, your body could be pushed a lot further.

When you’re in a group environment and you see everyone else around you pushing harder, it’s very hard to give up.

In addition, you have the energy of the teacher to help spur you on. Generally in any group class you’ll have a fit, energetic, encouraging teacher at the head of the class.

The Power of Committing to Classmates

Once you’ve been going to a class for a certain period of time, people will start to expect to see you at that class. You’ll become a regular.

Once other people start to expect you to show up, it’s very hard to just stop going to class.

Essentially what you’re doing is using peer pressure to force yourself into doing the exercises you wanted to do anyway.

Sticking to a Class Schedule

One way people talk themselves out of going to the gym is by telling themselves that they’ll come back on another day. That other day then gets postponed or changed and eventually they slide off their gym schedule altogether.

Changing your gym schedule is an easy first step to losing your schedule completely.

That’s why having fixed workout times in the form of gym classes can be extremely helpful. Instead of being able to work out whenever you want, you have to show up to the gym at a certain time.

The Many Different Classes You Can Take

Are you worried that you won’t like taking group classes? With so many different class options available, there’s truly a class for just about anyone.

If you’re into cardiovascular exercise, there are treadmill and cycling classes.

If you need to blow off some steam, kickboxing classes are a great way to do it. In fact, if you really wanted to learn boxing, many gyms offer real boxing classes as well.

If you want something more mellow or spiritual, yoga is a popular option. For a more intense version, try heated Yoga instead.Want something that’s just a plain fun workout? Try a hip-hop or dance class. These classes will have you sweating like no tomorrow, while you’re listening to great music.

Group classes can be a phenomenal way to both get your workout and get motivated. If you’ve never tried a group class, today might be the day to start.

 

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