Health & Fitness Archives - Page 35 of 35

Action Health & Fitness Reframe your thoughts

You Did It!!

Posted on March 12, 2020

You never really believed you would do it. Some friends said it would never happen. Somehow you were able to plug away at it, in your spare time and you made it quite an achievement. A fantastic accomplishment.

Remember to give yourself a pat on the back and to stand tall for every little and large achievement in your life. It’s important to set goals and work towards them. However, you need to remember to celebrate often. Whatever that looks like these days (wine, meditation, favourite chocolate bar, gym time or a snooze button).

When you sign up to something, it is important to move it forward and to see it through. It makes you feel good that you accomplished something.

I recently mentioned that I was giving ? soon. Well, today was the day. It all went well, I am happy to report. I feel a little lighter and someone will have the benefit of my A+ blood to help them through whatever difficult time they are having. It was a nice feeling to donate. (Well, not the pin prick on the finger or the needle going in the arm, but those were overshadowed.)

I celebrated with some lemonade, some club bars and a lovely packet of salt & vinegar crisps. Perfect.

With what’s going on in the world, get out there and do something life changing. Let me know what it is!

Life saving activity in under an hour. No training required. Who is next?

Action Health & Fitness Progress Reframe your thoughts

Your Body Is A High Performance Machine

Posted on March 5, 2020

So treat it like one.

Make sure you eat well, and just enough. Not too little or too much.

Get enough good sleep, consistently. Seven to eight hours per day is ideal for most people.

Water it. Eight glasses per day (ish).

Exercise it. Get it to move around. Quickly. Slowly. Use all the different muscles, big and small. Use it or lose it.

Exercise your mind too. Stretch it with new ideas. Sit with thoughts that might be uncomfortable and understand why. Think good thoughts. Practice being grateful. For everything you have and are.

Your body is a high performance machine. Treat it like one.

Action Goals, Results & New Thinking Health & Fitness Weight loss

Discipline Or Regret – Which One Do You Have?

Posted on February 25, 2020

Building a discipline can be a wonderful feeling. That daily routine of getting up early for some quiet time before the day gets going. Or maybe you go for a run, like I do. Some people head to the gym.

There are other healthy and beneficial disciplines too, such as standing up straight, having good posture, drinking 8 glasses of water every day, eating appropriately, getting 7-8 hours of good sleep at night, reading something positive, having positive thoughts and self-talk, and journaling. ?✍️??‍♀️?‍♂️

There are even disciplines we completely take for granted such as breathing. Thankfully our body takes care of this one.

Having some positive disciplines, like those listed above, can keep you mentally and physically strong and healthy. These disciplines all take a little effort and they can be harder for some people. But you always have a choice of which pain you are willing to endure. Short term pain for long term gain? Or vice versa? You can push back on the discipline, and think you have cheated the system, for a little while. But the harmony in the universe will snap back into place at some point.

”We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.”
Jim Rohn

Without some good disciplines things can go in the wrong direction. We can see this with our physique and hear our minds’ challenges through the words we speak. This is when regret creeps in. It takes some time before we notice the changes, but by then, less helpful habits have joined us and impact our every day. We start to regret those little indiscretions, those one off moments where we let our discipline lapse. ?????

The good news is you can turn this around! You just need to apply your disciplines again – little and often – until you are back on track and seeing and hearing that better version of you again.

Take a few minutes today and commit to one of the actions above and do it every day this week. Next week try adding a second one. Continue with both disciplines for a couple of weeks before trying to add in the third and forth ones. Good luck! ?

Action Gratitude Health & Fitness Think About It

If You Could Save Someone’s Life Right Now, Would You?

Posted on February 21, 2020

Would you really? What if it took five minutes out of your busy day? Would you still make the effort? If you could save the life of someone’s daughter, brother or Nan, but to save their life would require you to redirect 60 minutes of your precious time on earth, would you do it?

If you’re still convinced you would do it, that you would step up and sacrifice 60 minutes of your life to help someone else keep their life, that’s pretty wonderful intent.

If so, then sometime today, google and call your local blood donor clinic and book yourself an appointment to give blood. Most people can do the whole process in less than an hour. It is free. You lay down for 20 minutes and then they usually give you cookies and drink afterward ???. Simple.

You don’t need to be a trained medical professional, like a doctor, nurse or paramedic, to help save someone’s life. But you do need to be able to execute on your amazing intent.

I’ve been donating since my early 20’s, despite not being a fan of needles at all. I figure, if someone else is in a life or death situation, possibly in pain I can’t imagine, then I can handle a tiny, little, needle wince for a second. I don’t know anyone who has received my blood, but it is pretty amazing to think that there are people who are alive today, because I keep showing up.

My next appointment is on the 12th of March. When is yours?

To book an appointment, and see other information, click Blood UK, Canadian Blood Services, American Red Cross, or google ‘blood donations’ for your area.

(I was inspired to write my thoughts on blood donation by a really interesting piece a friend of mine from secondary school did on, “What happens to blood after you donate it?”. You can see the work Neil and his team did here.)

Action Health & Fitness Observe

Smiling

Posted on February 10, 2020

Such an easy way to make your day better.

Smiling is great. Especially if you can add a lovely thought to it and it turns into one of those full face, fun smiles. It really lifts the spirits and has such an energising power.

Smiling is a good habit and a skill. Like any habit and skill, you can improve on it with practice. In time, you could conjure up a smile instantaneously. You will also be able to hold it longer than you can now. You should also be able to really feel it and enjoy it. That’s when you can use it to completely change your day. It’s a super power!

Like many super powers, it has the ability to help others. When you smile joyously at another person, you tend to bring them along with you. You can alter the course of someone’s life by simply smiling at them. You can magically bring them hope and joy with just a few captivating seconds.

Smiling is also free to practice and use and has a positive impact on the smiler and smilee. So we should all practice our own little super power daily; for ourselves and for others.

We all have this super power within us, and for some, it is dormant. Wake it up! Shake it up and get using it more!

7.7 billion people smiling throughout the day. The thought of that brings a big, grinny smile to my face.

Go on. Smile! And then share it with someone.

Action Health & Fitness Think About It Time Weight loss

Weigh Less, With One Simple Step Repeated Each Day

Posted on February 7, 2020

Eat less.

Weight loss, through to better health and fitness, is a series of steps.

Step one is eat less. Once a person has been doing this successfully for a few weeks, they can look into several more advanced steps such as starting to exercise or doing more of it, tracking calories, buying healthier foods and preparing better meals with a better range of nutrients.

Too often people will try to change everything at once. Since these more advanced steps all take up time, require some level of learning and must be integrated into your current lifestyle, it is very difficult to start all of them at one time and do them all on a sustained basis. Usually people haven’t allowed for all the extra time it takes to add these into their life.

Save yourself all that time required to read labels and count calories, read diet, exercise and recipe books or magazines, join groups, get to the gym or exercise more, learn new recipes and shop for new ingredients and foods. Remember, eating less saves you time!

According to media reports, a lack of time is a leading cause of stress and stress eating. So try this simple step that requires no time investment and even saves you time. You even get the results you want – weight loss. You can get toned, improve health and nutrition later in subsequent steps. Remember c.90% of weight loss is reducing your current food intake.

Even if your current diet consisted of eating six chocolate bars and drinking four colas every day, you could lose weight by simply cutting your intake down to four bars and three colas. You would still drop about 1.5 pounds per week. The mathematics support this, as does the science, and eating less worked in my experience years ago when I dropped 20 pounds in 8 weeks, beginning with step one.

Just eat less.

Try it today. Eat one less helping at a meal, drink one less cola, eat half or two thirds of your regular portion at each meal. In a week you’ll be noticing, and enjoying, the difference,