Eat For Energy

Looking for more energy?  Small changes in your diet may produce the results you are looking for.  Don’t eat too much and perhaps break your meals down into smaller-multiple meals.  Overloading your digestive system is a big energy sink.  Follow these tips for best results.

Are you at your wit’s end with diets that haven’t produced results worth talking about? You might find one that lets you lose a couple of pounds, but then they come right back. So where has that gotten you? Unfortunately, right back where you started.

The good news is you can very easily make some changes that will let you get off that diet roller coaster for good!

Try these four small diet changes that pack a lot of punch:

1. Make H2O your beverage of choice. Even the beverages that claim to have zero sugar are often loaded with calories or unhealthy chemicals! Replace those beverages with pure water and you’ll start to notice changes in how you feel and look almost instantly!

* Give your water a kick by squeezing some fresh lime juice into each glass you drink.

* Try not to quit sugared drinks cold turkey or you may end up feeling deprived. Instead, treat yourself to a soda or fruit beverage at the end of each week if you met your daily water consumption targets.

* Drinking a glass of water before meals also helps you to feel full quicker so you don’t eat as much food.

2. Cut down your portions. It’s possible to cut portion sizes without leaving the table feeling hungry. Sometimes, timing makes all the difference:

* A plan that may work well for you is to eat five times a day – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks in between. Have small portions so your total daily consumption still falls within your recommended caloric intake.

* When you eat so often, your body never has a chance to feel really hungry, so you’re not as tempted to eat large portions.

3. Switch snacks. While it’s important to indulge in comfort from time to time, you may want to assess whether the snacks you’re eating are the healthiest options.

* For example, if you like candy bars, try replacing them with cereal bars, fruit or fruit salad, yogurt, Jell-O with fruit, frozen fruit bars, and other snacks with less sugar and fat. Fruit is nature’s candy – you’ll still get to satisfy your craving for sweets, but in a healthier way.

* If you prefer crunchy snacks like chips, opt for crunchy raw veggies or nuts.

* One trick that works is to prepare snacks ahead of time so they’re ready whenever you’re hungry for a quick snack. Cut up celery, carrots, and broccoli into easy “grab and eat” portions. Cut up several kinds of fruits, make tasty fruit salads with melons, grapes, berries and more, and store in portion-sized sealed containers.

4. Skip the sides. Sides like potato salad, macaroni and cheese and stuffing could be your downfall. While you’re allowed to indulge a little, remember that these have the highest caloric values. Eat only small amounts of these sides while you fill up on the meats, vegetables, and fruits for dessert.

If you adapt these simple diet changes, it will just be a matter of time before you see remarkable changes in your fitness. Your body will respond automatically because you’ll be treating it to the things it loves – healthy alternatives!

So instead of jumping from one fad diet to the other in search of the best fitness and weight loss results, try making some simple changes to how and what you eat. Not only will you look better and get the results you’re looking for, but you’ll also feel better throughout the course of each day. Give it a try and see for yourself!

Learn to eat to boost your energy.  Click here to find out more.

Chronic back pain is one of the most vexing problems that you can have.  Not being able to find comfort in any position and the resulting problems.

You can work on back pain by helping your back get stronger and healthier.  Remember pain pills are ok to take if you really need them but they don’t solve the underlying problem.

You can begin to address the problem by noticing your posture and beginning to correct it when it is poor.  Massage is good.  Getting your back more flexible can also help, check out: Kundalini Yoga.  There are also more traditional exercises – there is a good video at the end of this post that you should watch.  These are just a couple of ideas to help resolve your back problems.

Don’t Let Chronic Back Pain Limit Your Brain Power

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The best way to build a stronger body is with the use of weights.
This can be with free weights such as dumbbells and barbells, weight machines, or a combination of the two.

Many purists believe that the only way to do weight training correctly is with free weights as they bring into play all the other muscles required to control and balance the movement of the weights.

It is correct that more muscles are required to lift free weights due to the fact that more control is required but the development of weight machines in recent years has been such that they can also offer benefits that free weights can’t give.

By eliminating the factor of control from specific movements it is possible to lift heavier weights and this in turn can stimulate more growth in the muscle.

In addition to this is the fact that many machines are designed to maintain pressure on the muscles throughout the full range of the movement.
Free weights, on the other hand, generally have the least effect on muscle growth at the top and bottom of any movement.

To explain this better we will use the example of the arm curl where a barbell is curled up from a position resting against the thighs to the chest using the bicep muscles.

When the barbell is at the top or the bottom of the movement there is no resistance on the muscle where as with a machine with the correct design elements there can be maximum tension even at those parts of the movement.

Cables and weight stacks will allow this to happen and due to this, you can expect to get additional benefits that aren’t possible with free weights.

Obviously a combination of both free weights and weight machines will deliver the optimum results in the least time.

In our expert article Craig Ballantyne creator of “Turbulence Training,” our offer to the right, discusses how the right exercise can be a “fountain of youth.” We have seen amazing results with a vigorous program involving both aerobics and weight training. Improved stamina and performance in all areas, even to the point of reversing the effects of type II diabetes. Give it a try, you have everything to gain.

The Anti-Aging Effects of Exercise

By Craig Ballantyne

Growth hormone is known as a “fountain of youth” in the anti-aging community because it helps build muscle and burn body fat. But research has shown that people who are overweight tend to have lower growth hormone levels.

Exercise is a proven way to boost those levels. However, most overweight individuals can’t do the 30 minutes of continuous exercise that it takes. So researchers from the University of Virginia wanted to see what would happen if they split their subjects’ workouts into shorter sessions.

The researchers had their subjects do either 30 minutes of continuous exercise or three 10-minute sessions, at the same intensity, spread out over the course of the day. Both groups achieved similar growth hormone levels, which led the researchers to conclude that the “split workout” would work just as well as continuous exercise.

These results aren’t just good news for obese folks who can’t handle 30 minutes of exercise at a time. They also offer relief to busy men and women who have a better chance of finding time for three short exercise sessions instead of one long one.

For maximum body-transformation results, I recommend one 10-minute session each of strength training, interval training, and bodyweight exercises. This will help you build muscle, burn fat, and improve your mobility.

[Ed. Note: Building muscle and burning fat doesn't have to take hours of work. Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne has put together a Turbulence Training program that can help you get fit in three 45-minute workouts a week.

For simple ideas that can help you find more energy, better health, less pain, and a dramatic boost in overall vitality, sign up for ETR's free natural health newsletter.]

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, an e-zine dedicated to making money, improving your health and quality of life. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

Governor Mike Huckabee took action when he received a diagnosis of Diabetes and changed his life and his whole state.

If you have a diagnosis of type-II diabetes take it as a challenge. Type II Diabetes is brought on by a combination of lifestyle and genetics – with lifestyle being the bigger part. That’s right, it’s your fault. You don’t get a pass for bad genes you must take responsibility for your lifestyle and for changing it. Watch Governor Huckabee’s story and how he took responsibility and used the diagnosis to change his life, the lives of those around him, and his whole state. We’ll pick up the discussion below:

And don’t believe for a minute that just taking the pill is the right approach. Diabetes and the habits that helped it form also put you at risk for other maladies. The changes you make by lowering your blood sugar and loosing weight will also relieve or prevent a spectrum of other health problems including:

1. High blood pressure
2. Heart disease
3. Stroke
4. Gallbladder disease
5. Joint pain
6. Sleep apnea
7. Arthritis
8. Breast cancer
9. Prostate cancer
10. Kidney cancer

You can read more about Governor Huckabee’s story at USA Today and CBN.

Affirmations are an aid to healing, getting fit, becoming successful, in fact they will aid you in any area of your life.

This post describes how you can record your own affirmations to play in the background or full up as you go through the day or just when you need a refresher. But I also want to state here and now that it is not necessary that they be recorded at all. Write them on an index card and bring it out and read them to yourself or aloud several times a day. It still works – I like them recorded and I let them play in the background on a loop as I work at the computer. Do it the way you’d like – just do it for yourself – do it to build yourself up to be the best person that you can be. That’s the most unselfish thing you can do – build a better you. You will, by becoming better, lift those around you. Even if you don’t intend to record affirmations stick with us for the background and a couple of ideas about writing affirmations.

Émile Coué is credited with popularizing affirmations with his famous ‘everyday in every way I’m getting better and better.’ Coué was a pharmacist who found that when he dispensed medicine with a good word that the medicine was more effective. From this he developed his daily affirmataions.

If you are trying to improve any area of your life from health to sports performance to how you do in school affirmations can help. Many people grew up being told various things both good and bad about themselves. A parents voice may ring in your head to this day and it affects your actions, what you believe you are capable of, what you believe the truth to be. The truth is, “what one man can accomplish, so can another.” The truth also is the mind has a powerful affect on the body and by putting your message in you can improve your lot. Put your message of the desired result and build yourself up.

Music is not required for affirmations but studies have been done suggesting that affirmations (and any form of learning) can be facilitated by playing Baroque music at the same time. Baroque music is at 60 beats/minute and that seems to be the key. Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” is one piece with suitable music (largo tempo).

Affirmations or self-talk have long been recognized as a way to affect the way you look at and interact with the world. Affirmations affect both the conscious and unconscious mind allowing you to plan and sink ideas and actions into your life almost unnoticed.

In reality affirmations have been around almost forever. Consider these verses from Proverbs 4:

20 My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. 21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. 22 For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep them in the midst of thine heart! Proverbs is promoting the idea of scripture as affirmations and keeping them in your heart.

Here is the whole idea Behind Affirmations:

1. State desired thought/action in a positive way.
2. Repeat.
3. Keep it in your heart, in other words keep it in mind all the time.
4. Keep to a single theme in your affermations for a few days or a week. Keep it short and repeat.

If you suffer from negative thoughts, create or find a good affirmation to replace it. Some people use Bible Quotes: Norman Vincent Peale in “The Power Of Positve Thinking” gave several scriptures for this purpose. Notably Philipians 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” He was also fond of Romans 8:31, “If God be for me, who can be against me.” There are many in both testaments of the Bible that can be used if you are so inclined. Peale, a minister also made clear that even if you were not a believer that the techniques would still work.

Your affirmation should be positive and reflect a desired condition: “I see a picture of myself as having already reached my goal. The picture becomes clearer day-by-day as I work toward and achieve my goal.” This affirmation includes instruction to visualize your goal, to see it as already completed. This is a huge success factor in anything you want to do. “I do the things I need to do to keep myself healthy, fit and feeling good.” “Life is a wonderful dance, I enjoy my life and experiences, I attract the very best into my life and I am grateful.” Use words like: “I have” or “I Am,” say it in the present tense. Just a few ideas to get you started in creating your own and remember, your thoughts create your life.

I like to record about a minutes worth on a common theme and then loop the playback with Real Player or ITunes. You can read more about it and download free affirmations on this blog. There are lots of resources on the web and many want to charge money for affirmation recordings but there is no need to pay. The formulas are very simple and you can do it for yourself.

If you don’t have audio recording software, try Audacity – it’s open source and free. It should be able to do anything you need. Here’s where to find Audacity and the basics of how to install it:

1. Download Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/latest/audacity-win/audacity-win-1.2.6.exe
2. Execute and follow the prompts
3. Download lame: http://www.rarewares.org/dancer/dancer.php?f=226
4. Unzip it and save the file lame_enc.dll to C:\Program Files\Audacity. Ignore the rest of the zip contents.
5. The first time you use the “Export as MP3″ command, Audacity will ask you where lame_enc.dll is saved. Point it to: C:\Program Files\Audacity

That should do it.

Remember keep your affirmations short (1 to 2 minutes). Keep it positive. Repeat.

Here are some books that can help you tune yourself mentally.
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Obesity and the Brain: The Exercise Connection

By Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., CNS

For years, conventional wisdom has been that exercise helps control weight by simply burning calories. But it appears that it does much more than that.

Last year, Arthur Kramer, Ph.D., did some groundbreaking studies at the University of Illinois. His research found that merely 30 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise three to five times a week could increase the size of the brain. The mechanism? A powerful chemical called Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor (BDNF). Harvard Professor of Psychiatry John Ratey, M.D., has called this substance “Miracle-Gro for the brain.”

According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, BDNF may help regulate calorie intake. People with low levels of the chemical have a considerably greater risk of being overweight.

This new study isn’t the first time a connection between obesity and BDNF has been noted. In a 2007 study in Neuroscience, researchers removed the BDNF gene in two of the appetite-regulating areas of the brains of mice. They promptly became fat!

But genes aren’t destiny. Researchers were able to get the mice back to normal weight by restricting their food intake.

It’s always easier to eat less food if you aren’t too hungry. So why not boost levels of a natural compound – BDNF – that could help control your appetite in the first place? Especially when you can increase your BDNF levels so easily… with basic, everyday exercise.

[Ed. Note: Natural methods - including plain old exercise - can have a powerful effect on your health. For more natural ways to feel better and live longer, check out nutrition expert Jonny Bowden's book The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth.

To read more articles on healthy living in ETR's natural health e-letter, click here.]

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, an e-zine dedicated to making money, improving your health and quality of life. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com.

Be My Friend – http://www.myspace.com/psychtruth

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11 simple changes you can make to your diet and life style to loss weight and improve your Health. Some simply nutrition changes can make a big difference.

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