Tag Archives: habits

Without the Noise

What did people do without having the constant buzz in their ears about how to live life? Have you ever thought to think about the constant barrage of how to’s or 25 Habits to…  we have in our lives?

Without TV who stole our time? Without bloggers, who told us what we needed? Self help? Rate my teacher? Twitter? Cell phones? How did we know a good picture before Flickr published the 25 greatest photographs? How did we go for runs without our Nike FuelBands?

Without the noise, what are we left with? Can we survive?

Perhaps we’re going backwards in our spiritual connectedness after all.

Effort & Attention

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Effort is something that a lot of people tend to take for granted.

Let me start by defining what I mean by effort: effort is the amount of personal interest, thought, and attention that a person puts into a movement, idea, plan, and/or activity.

Basically what it is, is your commitment. Often times you will hear somebody say: “Everything happens wrong for me,” or you will see carelessness, or slacking. These are all by-products of little effort. When you train yourself to put forth an effort with every ounce of energy in your body, you will find that every activity is performed right, efficiently, effectively, and with the expected results you had when you began the activity in the first place.

You always hear of somebody pulling a muscle lifting a box, or shoveling the snow, but what you don’t hear is how they were attempting to do the effort. Have you ever had this happen to you? I know I have run into situations where I have reached around something to grab an item, but because I was lazy, I didn’t want to get out of my chair to put forth a proper effort to get that item, so I end up straining to reach that item, and tweak my shoulder or my back leaving me with a slight strain for a week.

This is a by-products of lack of effort. Sure you did actually get it, but the effort you put into it was a small portion of what you have inside of you.

Aside from getting hurt, you can also hurt other people. Think of the last time you had a conversation with somebody and only gave them 1/2 of your attention. They can always feel that you are giving them that lack of attention, which is lack of effort, and you hurt their feelings.
Some people, if they receive that kind of attention for long enough, will eventually stop giving you their effort and attention and move onto somebody or something that gives them full effort.
I also find with myself that I feel better after I have done something with all my heart; giving a 100% effort. I feel like I couldn’t have done any better because I couldn’t have put any more effort into the thing that I was doing. Its one of those kind of things that you can be just doing whatever your doing and catch yourself taking short-cuts and forgetting things because you are not really giving it your full attention.
Sometimes, I know I have parked my car at home and suddenly realized I cannot remember the last 10 minutes I just did driving. Have you ever done this? This is because I’m either in a zone, or I’mfocused on something else taking away from my driving.
Repetitive habits like this can easily bypassed with very little effort which can in turn, turn into something extremely hazardous for not only yourself but the people around you.
So next time that you are cleaning your car, or washing your dishes, chatting with friends or even driving home after work, make sure that you give it your full effort and just wait and see the kind of rewards you can get out of giving it your 100% effort.
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Fighting the Flu

A study in the Journal for Infectious Diseases in Nov 2009 has tested mice with infecting them with H1N1 and seeing how they fared based on their exercise habits before and during the infection. They proved that the ones that were exercising prior to being infected showed far less symptoms and were able to fight it better.thermometer

They also proved that the ones that were exercising for a long time before they were infected showed even stronger signs of recovery and fighting the disease.

These results are a good excuse for staying healthy for the long term, So get at it!

What I’m trying to get out here, is to exercise friends! Your health will thank you, and it’ll increase your chances of fighting the flu this year, and every year to come. Start these good habits and you’re life will thank you later.

Consult some of our eating right choices for staying on top of the health game.

Eating Right

To stay healthy you DO NOT need to have vaccinations and drugs. A body is an amazing thing, and fed with the proper food, you can fight off nearly anything.

We’ll list some of the healthiest foods that if eaten, will provide your body with the necessary nutrients to fight off most colds, and keep the immune system alert and strong.

Garlic: Garlic is one of the healthiest foods you can eat. If you’re feeling a slight sore throat or cough, eat about 3 or 4 cloves of garlic. Warning: don’t do this on an empty stomach, you’ll get major heart burn, do it with a meal, after or just before a meal to allow other food to get digested with it.

garlic

Onion: Onion is also a magic food where it helps fighting off all sorts of sickness and disease.

Broccoli: Broccoli is one of the most nutritious vegetable there is. Try sticking some into most of your dishes, if you break it up small enough, it’s hard to even notice its introduction into your meal.

Fruits: Having fruits will give you your vitamin C requirements, as well as many other nutrients. They don’t say an apple a day will keep the doctor away for no reason.

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Meat: If you are exercising regularly, to gain that muscle mass you’re looking for, you need to give it the proteins it needs. A can of tuna is always a very good choice, but a steak or a chicken breast will also do the trick properly.

Rice: Rice is a marvelous addition to any meal. My secret is for any amount of rice, is the amount of water you put in, bring it to a boil, then turn heat as low as it can get and wait 20 minutes for it to be done. I use basmati rice most often.

I feel it very important to stay away from the following foods: sugars, chocolate, potato chips, canned foods, pre-packaged dinners, and dairy products. Just by staying off of these foods you will notice a difference in body weight, energy levels, and skin complexion. Just simply removing dairy products will reduce body fat, clear complexion and eliminate upset stomachs in many cases.

Remember, you are seeking to better yourself, and stuffing yourself silly will not better yourself. It will give you a bloated stomach and a lack of motivation for a very long time, but nothing more.

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This is not just a change of a few little foods that you eat, this is a major shift in your thinking habits. You want to be stronger, you want to be thinner, you want to grow your mind and body into a force to be reckoned with, so don’t kid yourself with over eating or being lazy.

Eat Right!

Good Posture

Posture

Posture is very often overlooked by so many people and left uncared for, it can cause severe long term health problems, which are no good.

Bad posture happens in the form of bent back, improperly holding arms at the computer desk, slouches, or movement that isn’t normal.

It can even come in the form of how you walk down the street.

Like all habits, any can be broken. When people wear braces, it’s not because if they don’t their body will fall apart at the seams, but it’s because if they don’t they will revert back to the old posture and essentially eliminate any corrections that they did undergo.

So, to take this further, you can change your posture with some long term attention to your habits.

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When your sitting down, remember to check if your back is straight. Is your head always looking down?

I was just talking the other day with my father about this, and he mentioned how he had read a study on kids, young kids aged around 12 years old, who were going into the Dr. complaining about upper back pain, and the result was that they were looking down all the time at their phone because they were txt’ing all the time.

It is important to remember proper posture at all times. This includes sitting at your desk, walking down the street, and any exercise of any shape and type.

Are there other times when you should be conscious of this?

Anti-Aging

There is no doubt that keeping an active lifestyle helps keep you healthy and young. I’ve gone over a few great studies here on how it has been proven that sitting still can actually harm your body even if you are going to the gym for an hour a day, eating all the right protein shakes and lifting the heaviest weights.

Also, some people feel that anti aging skin products or treatments, face lifts, or laser treatment is the answer. I hope none of you educated readers out there believe that these external ‘supplements’ are the answer to the holy grail…. because they’re not.

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Aging happens from the heart and bones outwards. If your external core (thats your skin) starts showing signs, you know that your innards are also showing the signs of decay. If you cannot see it, it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

The other benefit to following anti-aging tactics is that you also fight different conditions like cancer and diabetes (to name a few) .

My friend over at Bodies4Life Training, Beki, has put together a warning list of exercising dos and don’ts to look out for in your exercising, which is a great read if you get a chance, but I’ll summarize it quickly here.

Don’ts

A quick list of things not to do, for their known contribution to aging:

  • over training
  • under training
  • insufficient recovery time
  • imbalanced workouts
  • too much too soon
  • fad diets
  • drugs
  • under or over sleep

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Dos

A quick list of great ideas to help keep those wrinkles away:

The key is to start getting yourself into good habits so that you can start young, and continue into your old age, which with a good effort, will be wrinkle free!

Do any of you have other ideas on how to stay healthy longer and stop the aging cycle, save from turning ourselves into robots?!