Back to Archives
Back to AdrenalineFitnessNY Home
Fit & The City - Julia's All about Fitness Newsletter!
November 2008
 In case you wondered, this is me. |
Five Food Myths Exposed!
Every day we get bombarded with more and more ways how to get in shape, lose weight, and be healthy. One expert claims a glass of red wine is good for you while another preaches total abstinence. One year milk is good for you, the next only soy milk is. Some claim a diet high in carbs and low in fat and protein will make you fat, others say it doesn't matter because it's all about calories in vs. calories out. No wonder you are all confused now! No need to worry, I will straighten it all out for you right here.
1. "Soy Products Are Very Healthy"
The widely held belief regarding soy products as a health food is a great example of how multi-million dollar figures spent on advertising and intense lobbying to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have succeeded in making about three out of every four Americans believe that soy products are good for you. Originally, only a few cultures consumed soy - in conservative quantities with specific techniques for preparation! But now it's being pushed as the "next best thing."
Research has shown that sprouted forms of soy such as tempeh, miso, natto and soybean sprouts are the only forms that can be consumed with some health benefits. All other, processed forms like soy milk, soy burgers, soy ice cream, soy cheese, trendy junk foods etc. should be avoid at all times as it has been strongly linked to thyroid disorders, kidney stones, weakened immune systems and powerful food allergies. Soy has been found to contain phytates and enzyme inhibitors, such as those found in unsprouted grains, as well as haemagglutin which causes red blood cells to clump together and inhibits oxygen up-take and growth. But perhaps the most dangerous of soy's downfalls is its high levels of phytoestrogens (the plant form of estrogen) that can indeed mimic the effects of actual human female estrogen! This has been linked to increased risk of breast cancer. Research has shown just two glasses of soy milk a day for one month are enough of this chemical to change a woman's menstrual cycle! Feeding soy to infants is even more devastating. It has been found that infants fed exclusively on soy formula are ingesting FIVE birth control pills worth of estrogen daily!
2. "Salt Is Bad for You"
The truth is, only refined salt is bad for you. Sea salt, or unprocessed salt, is a vital nutrient containing 14% of nearly 80 trace minerals vital to life, as well as naturally occurring iodine. Our bodies need this in order to function optimally. In addition to stripping salt of its nutrients, refined salt has been bleached to appear more "pure" and potassium iodide added - a potentially toxic form of iodine. Salt's bad rep comes from a plethora of studies suggesting that over-consumption leads to high blood pressure and increased chances of heart disease. However, most of the research has been done on refined salt, not on natural, unprocessed sea salts. Conclusion: use sea salt, but, like with everything else, too much of a good thing can be potentially harmful.
3. "Milk Is Good for You"
Unfortunately, milk is something you should try to learn to live without, unless it's raw milk (but I doubt you'll get a chance to pour freshly milked milk on your morning cereal if you live in the city...) or certified organic milk. We were simply not designed to drink milk other than the milk coming from our mothers. And the milk you find in any regular grocery store is so processed it will lead to more problems than benefits. The dairy industry maintains that pasteurization is necessary to prevent disease. We now know that the naturally occurring lactic acid-producing bacteria in raw milk protects it from pathogens - until it's killed by pasteurization, that is! In fact, all outbreaks of salmonella from contaminated milk in recent decades (there have been many) occurred in pasteurized milk. The high temperatures used during the process kill important enzymes and renders the milk's amino acids, vitamins, calcium and many other minerals/trace minerals virtually useless and unavailable to the body. This is the reason why you can drink all the processed milk you want and not only still develop osteoporosis but perhaps encourage it! There is now also evidence that the heating process alters the milk sugar (lactose) making it more available to the body, suggesting the strong link between avid processed milk drinkers and diabetes. Homogenization is not good either. Finally, growth hormones commonly injected to cows have been associated with breast cancer, human colorectal tumors, and colon cancer growth.
I don't care how many celebrities let themselves be photographed with that silly white "milk" mustache, know that there are healthier ways to increase your calcium intake. For example, you can eat spinach, sesame seeds, collard greens, oranges, brazil nuts, broccoli to name a few great non-dairy sources. The only truly acceptable source of dairy and therefore calcium is high-quality certified organic yogurts.
4. "Tap Water Is Safe to Drink"
Many people believe that tap water in most parts of the United States - and particularly in New York City! - is perfectly safe to drink. This is not true. Depending on where you live, your tap water will contain up to 700 pollutants (and possibly many more undetected ones). Two of the worst pollutants are fluoride and chlorine.
Research shows that fluoridized water have led to record-high fluoride poisoning, resulting in all kinds of problems in the human body. Initially, fluoride was added to tap water in an attempt to strengthen teeths. We now know that the supposed benefits of fluoride are too few to warrant its many destructive qualities. Fluoride accumulates in bones, making them more susceptible to fracture, as well as accumulating in the pineal gland, which could lower the production of melatonin. Recent research has discovered a possible link between fluoride and arthritis as well as hypothyroidism. Fluoride has also been found to increase the uptake of aluminum into the brain as well as inhibiting antibodies from forming in the blood. This essentially confuses the immune system and can lead to tumor development. To top it all off, this chemical has also been found to damage the dental enamel of children!
Like the dairy industry pasteurize milk in an attempt to kill unwanted organisms, chlorine is added to tap water for the same noble reasons. The problem is that, like pasteurization, chlorinating water kills all its organisms, good as well as bad. This leads to an imbalanced gut, impeding many important functions of a properly functioning organ. As it that wasn't enough, chlorine has been linked to various cancers as well as to serious birth defects.
If you want to drink tap water, make sure you filter it with a reverse osmosis filter first to get rid of all the pollutants. You can also choose to only drink high quality bottled water such as Fiji, Vitell, and Evian. Glass bottles are best.
5. "Eggs Are Bad for Your Heart and Lead to High Cholesterol"
Nothing could be further from the truth!
With the big cholesterol scare of the 1970s, eggs took an unfortunate downhill slide. But after decades of research, it has now been proven that eating up to three eggs per day is perfectly acceptable and even recommended for healthy adults. Eggs, the yolk included, are not only an excellent source of protein but they are also a great source of dietary fats - as long as it is an egg that came from a chicken that lived an organic, free-range life. Eggs from commercially raised chickens are low quality and should be avoided. So please, feel free to enjoy your eggs from now, but make sure you eat the entire egg, not just the egg whites.
When It Comes to Fitness, You Are What You Do
By Alex and Sherri McMillan, Special to The Oregonian Friday December 26, 2008, 10:48 PM
From all-time great runner Emil Zatopek: "When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical.
Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem."
So as you outline your health and fitness plan for 2009, what will you do to challenge yourself?
Consider how much discipline it takes to work out three to five days a week. Think about how hard it is to keep stretching beyond comfort zones and how challenging it is to exercise at high intensities. Consider the self-resolve required to eat healthy foods and drink lots of water when temptations surround us everywhere we go.
But if you have the courage to respect your body -- the temple that houses your mind and spirit -- achieving your goals will not be far away.
It says a lot about who you are when you invest the time to take care of yourself. It says you respect and love yourself enough to do the things necessary to be at your personal best.
Each time you get into the gym for a workout on a day when you just don't feel like exercising, you grow a little stronger as a human being. Each time you go for a run or walk on a cold winter's day when you just feel like staying under the warm, cozy covers, you strengthen your character. When you endure a tough workout, it enables you to persevere through other challenges in your life.
Working on improving your physical conditioning will not only enrich your life and make you a better person, you'll also become a better parent, a better spouse, a better and more productive worker, and a better friend.
Exercising regularly, eating well and taking the time to relax and nourish your body will make you feel happier. It will provide you with more energy than you have ever known. It will give you greater stamina, mental toughness and make you a clearer, stronger thinker. It will make you more patient and loving.
There are 168 hours in a week. Surely each and every one of us regardless of our hectic schedules can carve out four or five of them to care for our bodies and work on mastering our physical state.
And remember that a missed workout is much more than just a missed workout.
When you miss a workout, you don't just stay at the same level you were at -- you actually take a few steps back. Every time you miss a workout, you have done something to strengthen the habit of not working out. When you've made the promise to yourself to exercise so many times per week and then you break that promise, you start to lose trust in yourself.
A missed workout fuels self-doubt and makes that negative habit stronger. Miss enough workouts, and eventually that negative habit of not working out will replace the positive habit of exercising that you have worked so hard to cultivate.
Every time you fail to do the right thing, you fuel the habit of doing the wrong thing. So the next time you're trying to justify pressing the snooze button and skipping your workout, or working through lunch instead of taking a walk break or heading right home after work instead of stopping at the gym, don't do it. Don't even think about it.
Remember results are not guaranteed, they are earned.
Some of what you can do to combat cellulite, you are already doing it seems like: exercise regularly to increase circulation and minmize fat storage, eat a healthy diet of mainly unprocessed, organic, fresh foods (vegetables, fruit, lean protein, and good fats on top of that list), drink good-quality water and minimize intake of alcohol. It's also important to lower your stress in life (as stress leads to more cortisol which leads to more fat storage) and sleep adequately. However, if you, in addition to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, can lower the subcutaneous body fat on your legs, your chances of a cellulite free life increase dramatically.
The reason just about every man, fat as well as skinny, have such smooth, cellulite-free legs is because they accumulate very little fat on top of their thighs and butt. This means that women who have little fat on their legs also have a cellulite-free lower body - despite their tendency for more irregular connective tissue. I have come to this conclusion based on years of measuring the subcutaneous body fat on hundreds of men and women. The only women with completely smooth legs are the women who store their fat more like men (around their stomach as opposed to on their butts and thighs) or women with an extremely low body fat percentage (12-15%).
Lowering your body fat percentage to such a low percentage is hard to do and not particularly healthy. But what you can do if you want to improve your cellulite is to try to get it down to, say 17-18%. Unless you are very muscular weighing 138 and measuring 5'6, I'm guessing your body fat isn't close to this number but a lot higher, especially since you say your cellulite started appearing in your early thirties. This is a time most women notice changes in their bodies because they lose more and more muscle mass. Are you doing a full body workout when you weight train or are you just working out certain areas? Are you changing your workout routine regularly, including cardio workouts? Was it only recently that you started working out? If you don't know how to properly train yourself, I suggest seeing a good trainer for at least a few sessions to learn more about what you should do to lower your body fat. Lastly, some experts claim foam rolling your trouble areas every day may improve cellulite. But stay away from creams as these only temporarily relieve your problems.
Finger Lengths Linked to Voluntary Exercise
October 30, 2008
NEW YORK (AP) --Turning your clock back on Sunday may be good for your heart.
Swedish researchers looked at 20 years of records and discovered that the number of heart attacks dipped on the Monday after clocks were set back an hour, possibly because people got an extra hour of sleep.
But moving clocks forward in the spring appeared to have the opposite effect. There were more heart attacks during the week after the start of daylight saving time, particularly on the first three days of the week.
"Sleep -- through a variety of mechanisms -- affects our cardiovascular health," said Dr. Lori Mosca, director of preventive cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, who was not involved in the research. The findings show that "sleep not only impacts how we feel, but it may also affect whether we develop heart disease or not."
The study was described in a letter published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Imre Janszky of the Karolinska Institute and Dr. Rickard Ljung of Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare.
Janszky said he came up with the idea for the study after last spring's time change, when he was having problems adjusting.
"I was on the bus, quite sleepy, and I thought of this," said Janszky, who has done other research on sleep and health.
They took advantage of Sweden's comprehensive registry of heart attacks to see if the disruptions to sleep and the body's internal clock caused by a time change had any effect on heart attacks from 1987 to 2006. They compared the number of heart attacks on each of the seven days after the time shift with the corresponding day two weeks earlier and two weeks later.
Overall, in the week after "spring forward," there was a 5 percent increase in heart attacks, with a 6 percent bump on Monday and Wednesday and a 10 percent increase on Tuesday. In the week after "fall back," the number of heart attacks was about the same, except on Monday, which had a 5 percent decrease.
"The finding that the possibility of additional sleep seems to be protective on the first workday after the autumn shift is intriguing," the authors wrote.
Doctors have long known that Monday in general is the worst day for heart attacks, and they usually blame the stress of a new work week and increased activity. The Swedish researchers said their findings suggest that the minor loss of sleep that occurs at the end of ordinary weekends -- with people going to bed later on Sunday and getting up early on Monday -- might also be a contributing factor.
Last year, a study by American researchers found there were more pedestrian deaths during the evening rush hour in November than October as drivers and pedestrians adjust to the earlier darkness. They said the risk for pedestrians drops in the spring when clocks are set back and daylight comes earlier.
Daylight saving time in the United States ends this year at 2 a.m. Sunday. All states except Arizona and Hawaii will make the switch. Sweden and the rest of Europe turned back their clocks last weekend. More than 1.5 billion people worldwide live in countries that use daylight saving time, the researchers said.
Sweden has a moderate rate of heart attacks and is at a high latitude, but Janszky said he would expect roughly the same results elsewhere.
Sleep can affect the heart through changes in blood pressure, inflammation, blood clotting, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood vessels, Mosca said. She suggested that anxiety from changes in routine may also be a factor, in addition to loss of sleep.
Dr. Ronald Chervin, director of the University of Michigan's Sleep Disorders Center, said this is a "sleep-deprived society," and he advises taking advantage of Sunday's time change and getting an extra hour of sleep.
In the spring, he suggests gradually adjusting to the one-hour loss by going to bed and getting up 15 minutes earlier for a few days before the time change.
Martha the Nutritionist says - What's the Deal with Vitamin Water?
How many of you drink "enhanced" waters, such as VitaminWater, on a regular basis? If so, you may be wondering how healthy or unhealthy they really are. Afterall, the rapper 50 Cent, as well as Kelly Clarkson and Shaquille O'Neal, promote them. 50 Cent even has his own flavor called Formula 50! (See pic) I recently received an email from a CGB reader asking my opinion of VitaminWater.
Question from Kelly: Martha, what is your opinion of VitaminWater? I really don't like plain water and have been drinking Vitamin water in an attempt to increase my fluid intake. I usually drink the B-Relaxed VitaminWater as my job is quite stressful. Do you think this water will help decrease stress levels?
Answer from Martha: "Enhanced" waters have become very popular. Sales of these beverages have increased by over 30% in the past year. They are so popular the Coca Cola bought VitaminWater and PepsiCo bought Sobe. These beverages are promoted as a healthy alternative to soda, other energy type drinks and even water. They can contain vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, herbs, etc. They can also contain 2 heaping Tablespons of sugar (125 calories)!
So to answer your two questions:
1. I do not recommend these beverages as they contain large amounts of sugar. You are much better off drinking plain water. This will save you 125 calories and 32 grams of sugar. If you don't like the taste of plain water, you could squeeze a little lemon or lime into it. While I don't see a problem with drinking VitaminWater (or any "enhanced" water containing sugar) on occasion, it shouldn't be part of your diet on a regular basis.
2. The average American does not need the extra vitamins found in these products. If you do need a supplement, you are much better off taking a general multivitamin/mineral supplement as it will provide you with a much wider array of vitamins and minerals.
3. Lastly, there is no evidence that the B vitamins and other ingredients found in B-Relaxed will actually decrease stress levels!
One more thing, when reading the nutrition label of these beverages (or any food product for that matter), keep in mind that you are usually consuming more than the standard serving size listed on the label. For example, "a serving" of VitaminWater is 8 ounces. Most people would drink the whole bottle which is 20 ounces - so you are really getting 2.5 servings!
Check out Martha's useful nutrition blog at CityGirlBites
Use the Twelve-Step Approach to Achieve Sanity in Tough Times.
By Serge Prengel from the web site: ProactiveChange.com.
"I seek the serenity to accept what I cannot change; the courage to change what I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."
Step One:
I realize I'm stuck. It makes no sense to keep trying to solve my problems with "solutions" that aren't working.
Someone once said: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you'll try to solve everything by hammering."Well, if the hammer isn't solving the problem, it may very well be time to try something else.
The problem is, you may feel the hammer really should be working...that it will actually work if you try a little longer. There is nothing wrong with persistence. But STEP ONE introduces another component: Accountability.
It's not enough to just say: I believe it will be working one day if I just keep trying. You have to set goals and deadlines. Not for the sake of putting pressure on yourself...But in order to face the reality of what is happening. STEP ONE is looking squarely at reality. If what you're doing is not working, you acknowledge that. When you do, you're left with a feeling of emptiness - you don't know what to do, or even if there is a solution. It can be really scary.
Step Two:
I'm willing to let go of my usual ways in hopes that this will make me see things from a broader perspective.
In STEP ONE, you realized the absurdity of clinging to "solutions" that don't work. Why then do you still cling to them? Because it feels safer to have some kind of solution (even one that doesn't work) than not having one at all. STEP TWO is about letting go of this uselessl "Solutions" to make room for new ones. Now, of course, there is absolutely no guarantee that you will find a solution that will work. There's a big difference between hoping that things will work out, vs. demanding and expecting that they will. It is quite possible that your fears will turn out to be realized. But, even then, you can keep the hope that there's still potential for happiness, even after your fears are realized.
Step Three:
I shift my focus on being focused on my problems to seeking a sense of wholeness and contentment in my life. The THIRD STEP is a leap of faith, but not necessarily religious faith. What is it about?
You decide to put your efforts into increasing your sense of wholeness and contentment in your life. This is harder to do than it seems. It feels really scary of letting go of the "SOlution" you think you have. It feels like, instead of dealing with the problem, you're giving up. The more stuck you are, the more you feel the only way out is to try harder doing what you're already doing. What enables you to let go, is the hope that it will work out. As you feel more whole and satisfied with your life, you will be in a better position to deal with what now seems impossible to change.
Step Four:
I honestly look at the effects on my actions on others and myself.
When things aren't working well, the temptation is to hunker down, become defensive, and try to prove why what you are doing should work. Of course, this won't magically make things work.
STEP FOUR is about stepping away from the heat of battles, and taking a non-partisan look at your actions. Does it mean you were bad, and that you now have to become good? No, you're certainly not becoming an angel (or trying to convince yourself that you are one). If you try to go that route, your life will become even more unmanageable. All you have to do is try not to be so defensive. That is, try to face the reality of what you do without jumping to justify it in the same breath.
Step Five:
I take responsibility for my actions.
STEP FIVE is not about saying "I hurt this people, but that's because they hurt me first." Blaming someone else - no matter how richly they deserve it - is a way of not fully feeling these feelings of hurt and anger, of toning them down. Because, when you blame others, you are putting your attention of what others are doing. You're saying: "If it weren't for what you did, it wouldn't have happened." This step is about admitting what may be difficult to admit. If you think we're being coerced into "taking responsibility", the image that comes to mind is that of the stern interrogator - the cop who's badgering the suspect to confess. In that sense, you'll tend to see things as a battle of wills against the tough cop. Your goal will then be to avoid admitting anything incriminating. Taking responsibility for what you do is a way of realizing that you are an active agent in the world. In other words, you aren't powerless, even if you're not yet aware of the ways in which your power manifests, or if you don't like these ways. As you get more of a sense of your power, you will be able to redirect it to focus on what you really want out of life.
Step Six:
I see that my knee-jerk reactions have to do with being in the grip of more or less conscious fears.
We all have a whole range of character defenses. Some are pretty innocuous and others are more problematic. For instance, take a greedy character. You could say greed is a major defect. On the other hand, being greedy can also be seen as a defense against the fear of starvation. What's a character defense? Something we're accustomed to doing automatically, in order to consciously or unconsciously avoid dealing with something difficult. Talking about "defense" does not condone the questionable behavior. It just makes it more understandable why people hang on to these behaviors.You don't use your character defenses because you want to be laughed at. Or because you revel in being evil. At some level, you believe this behavior is a protection against something you fear a lot. If you pay attention, you'll notice that you go into a defense behavior when you feel threatened. So when you are in a very stressful situation, you'll tend to fall back onto your defenses a lot more than usual. Step Six is about getting ready to let go of your character defenses. Which means it's about realizing how much more important they are to you than you had thought. After all, if they weren't, it wouldn't be so hard to change! So you decide to explore your fears in order to eventually be less governed by your fear and defenses...in order to be more willing to go with the flow instead of automatically resisting.
Step Seven:
I strive to find my motivation in a deeper meaning of who I really am, rather than fear and defensiveness.
In STEP SIX you noticed that your actions are oftne motivated by your character defenses. So you are now paying attention to your impulses. Before you did that it felt like you had no choice over what you did. Now, as you're becoming more aware of what is behind your actions, you gain the possibility of making different choices. The wager you're making, as you get more of a sense of wholeness and contentment in your life, the choices you make will be less influenced by fear and the kneejerk reactions they induce. It is humbling to realize that you have conflicting emotions, and that the most powerful ones aren't necessarily the ones you're the proudest of. Little by little, you learn that lasting transformation doesn't occur through sheer force of will. Rather, it's a result of slowly observing your inner conflicts and fears, and progressively shifting from fear-based reactions to ones grounded in a deeper, safer sense of self. As you through this process, you'll develop a sense of awe - something akin to what religious people may describe a prayer, in the sense that praying is about being open rather than placing an order.
Step Eight:
I stop blaming and feeling blamed, with a willingness to heal my wounds.
There is a great satisfaction in getting revenge for what others did to you. If you can hurt them, at least you'll stop, in turn, being a punching bag, you'll show them! It's understandable that there are people you'd love to hurt even more than you've done so far. STEP EIGHT is about realizing how much revenge and blame are ingrained in all of us...and starting to walk away from these tendencies. Why is that? As long as you keep blaming others (or feeling susceptible to blame), you cast yourself in the role of the powerless victim, You say you have no power over you actions. You pretend that you're such a powerless puppy that even the harmful things you do are other people's responsibility!
Step Nine:
I swallow my pride and sincerely apologize to people I've hurt, unless doing such a thing would be counterproductive.
There's a big difference between STEP EIGHT and NINE because the latter is asctually about apologizing. INstead of being essentially in conversation with yourself, you're now facing another person. You've hurt this person which means he or she won't be favorably disposed toward you. There's the possibility that the person just doesn't get it, is still resentful, makes fun of your attempts...Just the thought of it makes it harder to apologize. It's tempting to think: "What really counts is that I've resolved it inside. I figured out what I've done wrong, I've become ready and willing to make apologizes. So why bother actually confronting another person, and submit myself to reactions beyond my control?" A big change happens, inside you, after you apologize to people you've hurt. It may be difficult to figure out when it's appropriate to apologize and when it's not. Welcome to the real world. You can only learn this by trial and error.
Step Ten:
I live mindfully, paying attention to the motives and effects of my actions.
STEP TEN means staying conscious of what you do in life as opposed to living in a cloud of denial. Taking responsibility for you actions. STEP TEN has you ask: Did this move help me move toward where I want to go? Or, to put it in a more colorful way: HOw can you expect to soar with eagles when you behave like a turkey? Ultimately, STEP TEN is about keeping in mind who you are and what you want out of life. Admitting being wrong is not about staying in a childlike role - the bad little kid who gets punished for being wrong. It's about noticing where you went off course, and gently putting yourself back on the right track. This is a good time to revisit earlier times, about being defensive, about shoulds...
Step Eleven:
I stay tuned inside, in touch with a broader sense of who I really am, and a deeper sense of what I really want.
This step is about continuing doing the right thing. It's about going beyond the tight boundaries of your habits and knee-jerk reactions. "The right thing" is not just that what takes you out of a tight spot. Doing the right thing gives you the sense that what you're doing is in harmony with the order of all things. Suppose you're getting angry at somebody and laying a lot of blame on them at a time when you can get away with it. It may feel good at the moment - it lets you get of steam. But it certainly isn't something that makes you feel especially in harmony with your higher sense of self. Nor is it an action you feel especially proud of. This is not a water tight definition of "doing the right thing" - it has a lot of holes. There are ways to improve on it. On the other hand, there's merit to this lack of precision. This step is about intuitively feeling what's right, as opposed to analyzing it with your logical mind. What's implicit in this step - and in the entire 12-Step Approach - is that we're inherently good. All we have to do is let ourselves connect with what is good within ourselves - whether you call it God, a Higher Power, or anything else.
Step Twelve:
As I feel better about myself, I reach out to others who feel stuck.
In the original wording of the Step, the expression "Spiritual Awakening" suggests that something very powerful is happening. It implies that you're asleep until you have this awakening. When you're asleep, you may not notice what's happening around you. But you certainly notice the alarm clock that's waking you. The world outside doesn't change. What changes is the way you experience it. From feeling powerless and victimized, you now feel more at peace with the world. This is a different perspective, a much broader one. There are still many things you'll feel powerless about. But you'll take fewer of the things that you are powerless about as a personal insult. You'll tend to get less mired into what frustrates you. And you'll direct more of your energy where you have power to get what you want. In other words, you feel better about yourself. This process is not about acquiring anything other than habits. It's about practicing these habits, one day at a time.
Exercise of the Month - Squat with Overhead Dumbell Press!
This month's exercise is a full body exercise good for intermediate to advanced exercisers with no shoulder problems. (Beginners - focus on becoming proficient doing squats and overhead presses as separate exercises first, then put them together using very light weights.) Full body strength exercises - or compound exercises - are a great, time-efficient way to build muscle while burning the maximum amount of calories. Because you are using your entire body, your heart rate will go up high. If this doesn't make sense to you now, don't worry: after you have performed the exercise, it will. Make sure you move your belly button toward your spine throughout the exercise so that your core is activated. In doing this, you'll get a great abs workout too while protecting your lower back.
The following three photos from ptonthenet.com, an educational Web site for fitness professionals, show you exactly how to perform a squat with overhead dumbell presses. Make sure your feet are shoulder width apart with feet pointing straight ahead and knees over 2nd & 3rd toes. Hold dumbbells at chest level with palms facing body. Start with a weight which is lower than you think you can handle and do 20 to 30 repetitions with this weight. When you feel certain you are mastering the exercise, you can begin challenging yourself with a heavier weight and fewer reps (three sets of 12-15 should be your range for general strength training). Good luck!
 Beginning |
 Middle |
 End |