When learning to perform an exercise or to hold a position for an extended time, many people are taught to count through them or to count for a period of holding time.  When you are counting seconds, your attention is drawn to the time remaining and you tend to focus on the pain you feel as your muscles ache and start to shake, instead of the performance of the exercise itself.  This causes you to 'suffer'.  When you learn how to relax in and through the positions, you will reap the far reaching benefits of which the exercise is meant to create.

In order to relax, one must breathe deeply.  It is best to practice through a demonstration in order for you to realize the experience of this deep breathing technique.

Sitting at rest, with your back straight in a chair.

Breathing through solely the nostrils, inhale completely, hold for a count, then exhale and hold for a count.  Take the air into the bottom of the lungs first, allowing it to travel upwards, expanding the ribcage and lastly your chest.  If doing it correctly, you will notice your belly expanding first, then you'll feel the air pushing out the ribcage and your back.  You may likely yawn sometimes.  That's a good sign.  It means that you are expanding your lung capacity. Continue to breath this way and as you start to get your rhythm, each time you take another breath, you will naturally start to breath a little slower.  With this relaxed mindset, you will be able to go a little further or hold a little longer with ease.

Please apply this deep breathing technique to one or more of the following exercises and stretches and notice how your body responds. You will feel it relax 'through' the discomfort and pain your muscles may be experiencing.

1. Hamstring stretch: Simply sit on the floor with feet open in a V.  Inhale reach up, exhale bend forward reaching toward the toes.  Stay low and ease up just a bit as you inhale, then on the exhalations allow yourself to move forward.
2. Chair: Stand, Bend the knees into sitting position, stay in this imaginary chair and extend your hands above your head, straighten out the arms and reach for the sky, look up. HOLD, the position and KEEP BREATHING.
3. Floor Bridge: Lying on the floor with knees bent, slowly lift your hips and torso off the ground and get as much height as you can by inching your shoulders underneath you and slightly squeezing the glutes. HOLD, the position and KEEP BREATHING.
4. Plié: Stand with the legs widened about 4 feet apart. Inhale as you lower, Exhale as you rise.

Please apply this technique to all your exercises always.  You will notice that your muscle memory and strength and mind clarity will improve.  If you simply apply this deep breathing technique anytime, anyplace you feel stress, it will dissipate. 

Fat is probably the most maligned, misjudged, and misunderstood of all the macronutrients. In truth, the body needs healthy fats, called essential fatty acids, in very small amounts to maintain many life-sustaining physiological functions. Good fats are the building blocks for hormones and cell membranes, and are responsible for healthy nerve conduction.  Essential fatty acids eaten in small amounts help us to control our weight by slowing down and regulating the rate at which sugar (glucose) enters the blood stream. This controlled release of glucose enhances good blood sugar control.

Essential fatty acids are commonly found in fish, seeds, nuts, and plants. Olive oil, canola oil, flaxseed oil, almonds, and avocados are examples of healthy sources of fats. Omega-3 oils from fish (salmon and sardines) or fish oil supplements are also healthy essential fats. Be aware, however, that there are fats that are potentially harmful to the body. Some margarines and other hydrogenated oils are potentially harmful, for example, because they are trans-fatty acids.  Fats that have been artificially altered to preserve their shelf life-a process that is harmful to your cells may be Trans-Fatty Acids. Trans-fatty acids resemble essential fatty acids, making it difficult for cell membranes to distinguish between the two kinds of fat. However, when trans-fatty acids do enter a cell, they cannot perform the normal functions that essential fatty acids do. They trick your body and do damage because the body doesn't know how to distinguish between the good and the bad, thus opening the door for significant health problems.

Saturated fats are also potentially harmful to the body. For the most part, they are found in animal proteins such as red meats and dairy products.  Saturated fats should be eaten less frequently than essential fatty acids. Trans-fats should be altogether avoided whenever possible. READ YOUR FOOD LABELS!!  Foods that are high in fats, "mono-and polyunsaturated", but low in 'saturated fat', are generally GOOD foods that should be eaten in moderate amounts.

The rules are simple. Changing your behavior is not. Accept that. It is natural that you may ‘fall off the wagon’ sometimes. That’s normal and expected. Just make sure that you commit yourself to getting back on the wagon, before you fall off. Believe that you can ride the bicycle and you will ride it. If you don’t believe you can ride the bike, then you’ll always fall and probably decide that you’re not going to try again since you’ve already made up your mind that you don’t believe you can ride the bike. I’ll tell you a trick to believing in anything…feelings. Feel that you are already riding. If you feel it, you believe it. Following below are what I call the HEALTHY WEIGHT RULES. If you abide by these rules, you will:

• lose weight if you are too heavy

• maintain your weight if and when you are in healthy range

• gain weight if you are too skinny

RULE #1. The amount of calories you consume must equal the amount of calories your body burns.

These are based upon normal body mechanics. In basic terms, metabolism, is a series of process by which food is converted into energy and products needed to sustain life. When the body converts food into energy, we call it digestion. The body creates heat during this conversion process. In laymen’s terms we say the body is burning calories.

During your quest for good health, you may have heard about calories, more specifically counting calories, but perhaps have not taken the time to understand exactly what a calorie is or the reason why all this attention is given to calories. A calorie is a unit of energy-producing potential in food. The potential of energy production from food, otherwise known as its calories, have been measured and that information is readily available and usually found right on the packaging.

Perhaps you have learned about it, but haven’t been able to stay true to a diet because it’s too difficult to be practical about how to count calories in everyday life. Well, I’m here to slap you in the face. Guess what. In order to make a change in your lifestyle habits, you must make a change in your lifestyle habit. This does not have to be difficult. It just has to be something you really, I mean really, want to do. But it’s SIMPLE! Initially, you will need some tools:

• small notebook (so you can write down what you eat)

• a small calorie counter pocketbook (the source from which you’ll write down your consumption into your notebook)

• a kitchen scale, in grams preferably (to measure your food-in order to look up a food in a calorie book, you need to know how much of the food you have.)

• measuring cups and measuring spoons

RULE #2. Eat mostly unprocessed foods. The more raw foods, the more organic foods you consume the more nutrition you give your body. The more nutrition you give your body, the better the body functions. Nutrition is the nourishment that we obtain from food. Since food that is processed or grown with chemicals or in depleted soil or poisoned by toxic substances or infused with artificial ingredients, the nutritious elements become reduced or even non existent. The more food (calories) that we consume that are without nutritious value (empty), the less positive energy is created within the body. This leads to disease.

RULE #3. Exercise. The human body is meant to move. It is made for the purpose of being active. If you do not activate its muscles regularly in a fashion to keep them limber and strong, then they will lose their purpose. It’s best if you start with small increments that you can incorporate into your everyday routine. View (daily exercise tips) for some examples.

RULE #4. Eat in proper portions. Listen to your body as to when to eat, which will in most cases be about 6 meals per day. Please pay attention to what is meant by the word meals. Meals are simply a serving of food. This could be classified as a snack, dinner, breakfast, lunch; it can be a liquid or solid.

THE GOLDEN RULE: The more you practice the first four rules, the more you will find that it gets easier to accommodate this way of living. They become natural habits. You’ll start to feel more energy each day you’ll notice an increase in lean muscle mass while you’re shedding off excess fat mass. In fact, as you become more attuned to your body, you’ll notice that if you don’t practice these rules regularly, you’ll be more sensitive to feeling ill at ease. Your body will be telling you what it needs and this time you’ll be listening!!

Now let’s do a mind exercise. Imagine yourself exactly as you would be in your ideal universe. If you could transform your body to exactly what you want it to be, what would you envision it to look like? Your body, your vision of your body. Not some celebrity’s body, because that’s not your body, that’s theirs. Envision your body. Go ahead, close your eyes.

Open your eyes. Print these pages and GET STARTED!!!! Right now.

          Finding balance in your life is not always an easy task.  It's like juggling an apple, a firestick, a flower, and a razor.  Time waits for no man and you never know what awaits the next corner.  In this day and age, due to overwhelming world circumstances that hit us in the face daily with sensory overload, learning to find peace within, is essential. In the face of economic and financial ruin of the nation, many of us have been slapped in the face and are dealing with the same plights in our immediate everyday struggles of survival and existence in this society.  We are trying to just figure out how to get work to put gas in the car, to pay for the car, to get to a job we don’t have, to get food to put on the table, to have a table to put the food onto, to keep a roof over our head, and circling back to put shoes on our feet and clothes on our back to find the job that pays for the roof, and to get the education that leads to the job that doesn’t pay enough to pay for the car or the roof or the table or the shoes or the education that we need to get the job that leaves us no time to get the education to get a better job than the job we have just trying to survive.

          In this circle of chaos, one of my dearest friends has declared what he deems a 'mental health day' to be a part of their lifestyle.  This is defined as a day where when he or his wife, make a conscious decision to stop 'fighting the stress' and give in to a day of mental rest.  This means that they do nothing that puts pressure of productivity on themselves and they do not allow feelings of guilt enter their emotions for doing so.  It could be for example: staying home and cuddling in front of a movie, reading a book, going for a bike ride, exploring a local park with a 3 hour walk, sleeping, going to lunch with a friend, cooking,  whatever it is, to rest the brain of the extremely stressful situations of regular everyday life.  This is a day whereby one may wake up 'on the wrong side of the bed' and is in an immediate funk that one just can’t seem to shake off.  Symptoms are feelings of: Depression, Irritability, Grumpiness, being Moody, Angry, Temperamental, Impatient, Belligerant, Gloomy.  Instead of wallowing in these feelings, they have decided to make lemonade out of their lemons.  I like their adopted lifestyle incorporation. I’ve adopted these days too from time to time.  You see, we all need to find ways to cope with life’s anxieties. We must learn to not drown in stress and hold on to moments of clarity.  When our life force is in a positive vibration, we begin to sing in harmony with the universe and we gain fruitful wisdom.  We sync ourselves to that music by simply participating in activities that make us ‘feel good’.  A healthy habit to form is to allow yourself ‘mental health moments’.  If you are not able to give yourself a full day…give yourself these mental health moments.  They are bits of meditation.  Meditation is good for your soul, body, and mind.  It can help you get out of your funk.  These mediation bits will help you restore balance in your life.  Make room for them in your lifestyle.  Make an effort to share these moments with people you know… bring them into your meditative moments… positive energy grows exponentially quick.

          This has been demonstrated in the fact that they have been more productive lately than they have when they were focused on the stress.  They are physically healthier now too.  They’ve been tapping into their passions and making progress by applying their abilities.  They surround themselves with friends and family on a regular basis and communicate their feelings which helps motivate them to stay focused on their strengths. Although, they still face the chaos of life’s unexpected turns, they’ve learned to place their focus on the positive moments and they deal with struggles in smaller increments instead of by letting a big picture of doom crowd their life.  Remember the law of attraction is always at work!

TIP OF THE DAY: go put on a fun song and DANCE!!!!

DO IT………….. DANCE

When you are in harmony, the universe around you vibrates harmoniously…live in tandem!

2. Do exercises that get you winded. Having to 'catch your breath' increases GH. All of the exercises listed above do this, but there are many others I teach in my Inner Circle.

3. After you train, do not eat anything sweet or sugary for two hours. When you train hard your body naturally releases GH. When you eat sweets, this causes an insulin spike which interferes with the release of GH.

4. Do not eat for 2 hours before going to bed. Sleep time is when your body wants to repair itself via the release of GH. If you eat at midnight, then go right to bed, you won't get the full fat-burning, muscle-building benefits. Well, my friend, that's all for now. Have a great day.   

    What are you waiting for? !¬@#$%^*()!!!  Death? You can’t quit when you’re dead and everyday we get closer to death…some on a quicker path than others.  The ones who smoke always win the race. I know that I want to be able to enjoy health and fitness during my life and from all that I know, so does every other living person on this earth.  Nobody wants to live in perpetual uncomfortable health circumstances, especially, if they have the power to not live in them.  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that a lot of you are saying: well, smoking is one of the things that makes me feel happy.  BULL****!. Okay…perhaps temporarily, it may provide a false sense of comfort.  But REALLY? For those few minutes of ‘contentment’ , a life of perpetual ill-health is traded.  If you change your perspective…and you can, just change the ‘excuses’ you make up, to excuses that you make up to choose health instead of starvation.  Starvation here, meaning, starving every one of your cells of essential clean oxygen and good nutrition.  Every time you puff, you steal nutrition and oxygen from your cells, which lead to their breakdown, which lead to disease.

    It’s not too late. Ever. NOW is the time. Not tomorrow or the next day, or when you go on vacation or when you join the gym or blah, blah, blah.  NOW. Right now, Go look at yourself in the mirror…literally. Speak aloud and say: “I quit smoking.  I choose health. I choose to allow my lungs and my body to heal.”  Throw out those remaining cigarettes you have in your purse or pocket.  That’s it. Now, create new habits.  Each time the thought pops in your head, replace it with a new behavior.  i.e.: drink water.  Take a short walk. Do some breathing exercises. Chew gum. Sing a song-out loud. Write a poem.  Draw.  Read something engaging. …etc…fill in the blanks here….

Some tips to keep you on track:

A)    Scotch tape signs that you write to yourself onto your bathroom mirror..and other places that you will see repeatedly during the day…maybe your office desk, or inside a refrigerator.  i.e.:
“I Love Myself more than I enjoy cigarettes.”
“I deserve to be healthy”
“Cigarettes are evil”
“I’m so happy to be a nonsmoker”
“I am stronger than these cancer sticks”
“I’m a winner”
…

B)    Tell your loved ones-with conviction- that you quit smoking and that you would appreciate their support through this process. Tell them that you may need tough love and to now give you’re your whiles if fall off the train.  They will help you stay on track.

C)    Take on a new project.  Be it an exercise program, writing, learning a new language…etc. This will give you a focus.  Something to look forward to-occupying your ‘downtime’.  This will lead to your being more fulfilled in life since you’ll be replacing a bad habit with a productive one.

D)    Eat Healthy. Many people fear that they may gain weight if they quit smoking.  If you eat healthy foods and maintain activity and drink lots of water (your body will be flushing out the built up toxins during your quiting phase), have faith that you are not going to put pounds on.  Instead of feeding that cancer stick craving with a donut, feed it with a few jumping jacks and an apple.

Don’t Give Up.  Believe In Yourself. You, And Only You, Have The Power Inside And You Can Quit. YOU BECOME WHAT YOU BELIEVE AND YOU ARE ALWAYS RIGHT.

If You Tell Yourself You Quit, Then, You Quit!

Yes, it is that easy.

Moderation, moderation, moderation…. Balance, balance, balance. 

It can be done. It will be done.