Tag Archives: lifestyle

Balance

Life requires balance. No matter which way you look at it, too much of a good thing is bad.

To me, this translates to too much indulging and not enough committing is a bad thing. And vice versa: too much commitment and not enough indulging will make a person go crazy as well.

The secret is to balance life’s pleasures with its pains to gain the balance we all need to succeed, to stay positive, and enjoy oneself in this journey.

To create three pictures of these lifestyle choices, let’s start with the funner of the evils.

Take for example if you choose to spend all your time going to the club, socializing with friends, placing aside your bills and family for a life with total spontaneity; randomly taking trips to exotic destinations, and staying committed to no one in particular.

Yes, as a fairy tale; a sort of Alice in Wonderland luster-lust relationship, is very appealing at first glance. After all, a story that fills dreams of young children’s sleep is by no means a distasteful existence, but in reality, even Alice was getting a bit confused and muddled by the end of her journey.

Does this path provide sustainability?

It does require a lot of positive thinking , but it really doesn’t allow the journey’er to hold a balance in one’s life. However, who am I to say whether one way through life is better than another? For most of us, we do not come across larger than life creatures and queens with giant heads in our days; we are faced with grocery bills, the boss, and parents.

Then there is the overtly tight, narcissistic, OCD riddled humanoid that simply must have a strict regime and daily tasks in order to go about their day with the least amount of restraint on their mind as possible.

Although this does require a lot of focus,which nobody can argue, it does require a lot of restraint on the creative mind; what about letting the wind to run through your hair (what about the sunscreen, and a hat to protect the scalp, and are we going the right speed). Flash-backs of a recent picture I’ve seen of an office completely covered in tin foil appear vividly in my mind (yes it was a prank).

Can a happy balance be found, taking the good from both of these polar opposites?

Can a person find some serenity in having certain tasks that they perform every day methodically imprinted in exact order?

Some simple things like taking a shower every morning, coffee, the same blend for breakfast, and the same route to work are all methodically imprinted in ones routine that it’s hard to realize that they are an actual routine. They seem rather something that is more necessary than choice.

But then there are things that one does in their day like lunch-time. Where shall we go today? Somewhere new? How about a walk in the park? Or what about tackling the day’s work in the opposite order than usually taken? Does work offer such a luxury?

I think that it’s hard to get one’s mind out of sub-conscious programming of daily monotonous activities, and challenge the mind to think of new, creative ways to take each step forward; but I task it to you, the reader, and myself, the writer, to analyze these supposed standard routines and see what we can do to provide some excitement to them, but still hold a balance to the routines that we as humans crave.

Maybe this mere fact is what truly makes us individuals in the end: to become victims of monotony, but I like the challenge this norm. Every once and a while it is fun to add a little excitement to the day!

Do any of you have any tips on how you find balance in your life?

All In A Day

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Healthy eating is the place to start when you’re looking for a new lifestyle, a new you, or even exercising the best you into a daily routine. So ask yourself, what are staples that you eat every day, and how can you introduce a more healthy collection of foods into your eating habits. A lot of people find that the word ‘diet’ refers to you something that fat people need to do, or uber health conscience people do, but really, what you eat IS your diet. That’s just the plain truth. First thing to think about is the three meals of the day. What do eat? For me, it’s an easy choice.

Breakfast

My breakfasts consist of fruits, oats, flax seeds, and almond milk, all blended together and poured into a full beer mug, and gulped down in a few quick minutes.

Now, I’ve gone through quite the different milk selections, from dairy milk, to soy milk, to rice milk and finally on to almond milk. This is a choice I’ve made because of the calcium. Look on the boxes and you’ll see the content of each. Just take a few minutes at the grocer and look at the content and ingredients of each.

The rest is an easy, bananas, apples, oranges, cherries, melon, watermelon, and blueberries, fruits that are very healthy. For a few years now, I’ve eliminated dairy from the diet, so this means no eggs in the morning, or cheese on those scrambled eggs, or cereal with milk, or.. well, you get the point, this eliminates a lot of things from the menu.

On to lunch.

This is kind of a free for all. But, really think about the traditional meals. Sandwiches, wraps, tuna bowls, well really, put anything into the mix and you have a good lunch. But, what I think really matters, is that you are eating a dish that doesn’t consist of grease, fats, or salts. You most definitely want to avoid the fast food chains like McDonalds, Arby’s, etc. These kind of places will suck you into their fries, or their milkshakes, or their pop. Bad news.

Really good ideas are:

A cold cut sandwich with lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, meat, mayo and mustard is one of my faves.
A salad of many varieties.
Energy bars like Nature Valley, or Clif bars (which are my favorite) are a good choice for lunch, and quick.
Wraps with left over roast, or chicken salad stuffed in
A bowl of tuna (I eat it just the tuna, but mayo and lettuce is a good addition too)
Fry up a some chicken with yams

Dinner

A lot of rumors are out there that you need a lot of proteins to stay alive. These rumors come from the producers of protein shakes and supplements as a propaganda machine, in my honest opinion.

That being said, you still need to get yourself some healthy meat into your body for consumption. I recommend a ranch where they sell range roaming, grass and grain fed, hormone free, and healthy cattle for you to eat.

This ensures that you’re not eating meat that’s been brutalized and lives in a cubicle for its whole life, being fattened with hormones and steroids, and eating pesticide rich grass. It’s very important to purchase good meat.

To go with your meat, make sure you mix up your dishes. I find it really helpful to learn a few key recipes, that you can use frequently and fall back on when you’re in a rush or just want to get it done. This way it’s not such a daunting task to get out the cookbook, buy the spices and ingredients, and the carefully care and attend to the meal.

But if you do want to try something new, you can see some of our recipes.

I’m a cook that likes to be creative in the kitchen. A must have staple for me is to keep at least a dozen different spices to use that I instantly recognize the flavour of. It’s easy to experiment with this kind of stuff, so have fun!

The idea though, is that you are eating healthy dishes. I find that if I eat enough main dish, with maybe sticking an avocado or a carrot in there on the side, I get all the food in my belly to make me feel like I’ve eaten to much, and don’t want or require any junk food or rich desserts.

I always feel like I’m killing my body when I eat the kind of crap that comes in wrappers, so for me it’s always been easy to eat healthy. A policy that I’ve started is that I don’t buy things that come in plastic or metal wrapping. This means no .99c cans of soup, no chocolate bars, chips, gummy bears, etc. but, naturally, I am not an uncompromising human being, and I do have cravings for some chocolate once and a while, in which case I’ll go to the bulk section and stock up with some chocolate covered almonds! Yum.

I have also compromised on chips, I do occasionally buy myself some nachos and salsa and eat those. I usually find when that happens, I get to full to eat a dinner, so it’s a substitute, which isn’t a good thing.

I find it really helpful to buy snacks that are going to be healthy choices, and not even have the option between candy or healthy in the house. I buy snacks like apples, bananas, or bulk trail mix, instead of Lays BBQ chips, or Mr. Big chocolate bars. Hopefully this will give you some inspiration on how to start focusing on your diet.

Remember, water is key, and a glass of wine never hurt anyone!

Health

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Health is the single most important factor that keeps humans, and all animals, alive. Strong, healthy, long lives are what most humans strive for, if it’s not, hopefully these pages will help you make it a goal!

Health comes in many forms and ideals. Millions, if not billions of government dollars are spent a year creating and sustaining health systems that keep citizens living long and comfortably. Some people might relate health with health care facilities like the hospital, nurses and clinics for all intents and purposes, but it really comes down to a personal effort which sustains you in the long run. Going on drugs to help combat depression, stress and anxiety are not your answer. These drugs are just a temporary relief of a much much bigger problem that the sufferer needs to combat with all of their might to give themselves a sustainable, healthy life.

Pills are not the answer. Development of health comes from exercising, eating healthy, and always being conscious of what is around you and how it is affecting your whole body. Most health experts will tell you that if you listen to your own body it will tell you when it’s in bad health, alerting you that it is now the time to change for the better to give your body a sustainable level of healthy benefits!

Things like the ecosystem and environment, positivity of your thoughts, and eating properly grown and prepared food all counts towards the goal of seeking health. In these pages we will give you tips and tricks, and open your mind to new ways of achieving a healthy lifestyle some of you may have already known, or provide development to your current health conditions.

Some foods that we’ll focus on are blends, clif energy bars, and vitamin B5, and many recipes can be found in that section of the website, like the Chicken Balsetta.

Also, what does it mean to eat right, and what are proper eating habits that help ensure that a body is fed the right nutrients, and tricks to ensure it’s sustained!

We will discuss our opinion on dairy products, and stress the importance of water for the body, and explain the hazards of pesticides humans face in their every day eating.

Of course, like any healthy lifestyle, all of this needs to be absorbed into what we feel is all in a day, to sustain a healthy life, and live as long as possible!

Short Spurts

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There are many schools of thought about how to exercise. Depending on your lifestyle, various fun activities will fit in, others won’t feel as comfortable, but it’s up to you to decide which ones work best for you.

I’ve been trying to focus on the short, relatively frequent exercises. This works best if I’m trying to focus, and in one place for a long time, like on my computer for the evening.

NOTE: This does not mean immediately get up from 5hrs of sitting idle to do 75 pushups in a row and go back for another 5hrs of idle sitting. No. Don’t do that. We’ve all heard of the person who goes out to shovel their driveway and has a heart attack or breaks their back because of the immediate strain. No, this isn’t good.

What this means, is that every 30 min to 1.5hrs or so, the motivated one gets up, loosens limbs with a nice stretch, grabs some rubber bands for a routine, or sits on the Swiss ball (exercise ball) and does some sit-ups. Even lift the bar or dumbbells for a rep or two.

After you finish this, you will feel your heart rate up, maybe even break a little sweat. This is good. This is what you want. You do want this feeling more than less, but any is better than none.

Keep in mind it is important when you’re doing this type of workout, your body is not completely warmed up, so one shouldn’t attempt to push their body to the max it can do, straining every muscle in the body.

Since your body isn’t totally warm, the motivated one will quickly find that this causes uncomfortable strain on muscles, or even pull muscles.

Another way to avoid this is to add a little more time to the beginning of the routine to do a longer warm up, really getting the muscles loose.

Ideally, however, as well as doing these short spurts, the fit person should look to get their blood pumping for at least 20 min at a time, at least once a day. This really isn’t long: a walk around to the park, 2 routines in the gym or 1 routine of yoga will all give you 20 min of exercise to keep you strong. Now go get em!